(Untitled)

[blue_eyed_lord]

If one is looking for a bartending job, this is not the red-haired man in black to go to.

It is not like this one is truly easy to find. Unless one is looking for him, that is. He is in the bar room, tonight, in that corner booth that is never lit well enough to make it past shadowy and into merely dimHe blends into the shadows a little too

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[hands_unclean]

One must, of course, know what to look for.

A certain (darkening) lady passes nearby, and stops to pay her respects.

She smiles, and dips her head."Good morrow, Aphelise. How goes it with you?"

[blue_eyed_lord]

He sees her, but does not rise. Hardly moves. "With progress. We will take our leave of this bar a week from tonight. At Midwinter."

[hands_unclean]

The line of her neck straightens a little. Perhaps her breath hitches. "That is passing well. Have you then spoken with the man who brings us through?"

Uninvited, she joins him in the booth.

[blue_eyed_lord]

"I have. The man is an easily-played fool. He believes that we are two people, both bound here, who have fallen in love, and thinks this 'visit' to a world beyond the bar to be my Christmas gift to you." The Black Rider, for there is little of 'Aphelise' in him now, speaks with very little inflection. His blue eyes are flat, with no light to them.

"You must act the part." Or you will be left behind.

[hands_unclean]

The head tilts. The hands spread over the table. She leans forward on her elbows. "My lord, you are the knight of my heart in word and deed. I greet such an outing with all the joy my lips and body can pour forth. I only hope we will not embarrass him."

The thought amuses her, but if it shows, it's only in the slight twist of her lips.

"What is he called?"

[blue_eyed_lord]

He sips his drink, something tawny with ice, in a low glass.

"Truman Burbank," he says.

[hands_unclean]

"I hope indeed he is true. From the sound of it, he will serve."

[blue_eyed_lord]

"He will serve his purpose." And then be cast aside, as all tools are.

"We will go through the door. I shall remove his memories of us, and we shall be gone." He smiles, but it is a cold smile, without illumination. "Free in a world that is there for the taking."

[hands_unclean]

"O brave new world," she murmurs, and she can almost taste it, almost smell the air. "A city... my kingdom was never yet made of cities."

The thought excites her.

[blue_eyed_lord]

"This world is already covered in cities, filled with people. Buildings called skyscrapers, many times taller than any castle, are clustered at the center of cities, busy with commerce and all sorts of goings-on."

Useful goings-on.

[hands_unclean]

"And where among them shall we two walk first?"

Some women's hearts are set a-flutter by troubadours or poets. Hers leaps at the sound of dire plans.

[blue_eyed_lord]

"I believe we will be somewhere in the United States, a powerful country in North America."

He looks over towards the Bar. "We should have an atlas of the world, from when we shall be arriving. I shall return," he says as he gets up and steps towards the counter.

[hands_unclean]

The book is huge.

Once she saw an illuminated Bible, but set as much stock in it as she did in God -- a little more, perhaps, for its craft, but that was all.

Though contained, the hunger is flaring in her eyes. "Let me see."

[blue_eyed_lord]

It is a large atlas, showing maps of countries with cities, roads and railroads traversing mountain ranges and valleys.

He opens it, unhurriedly, to show her Great Britain as it has become.

[hands_unclean]

She frowns.

Towns that were little more than hovels in her time have become grand, sprawling settlements; the centers and capitols of her experience are nowhere marked.

"The differences are striking," she says at last, studying the still-empty stretch of land where she was born.

[blue_eyed_lord]

"Things change over the centuries, and we move with it, or we don't."

And perish.

"Across the ocean to the west are two other continents, North and South America. You should, perhaps, ask the Bar for books about them, so you might know what it is like, where and when we are going."

He turns to the pages for the United States and all its sprawl.