(Untitled)

[likesthecoat]

Ianto has decided he has a theme. Stick with what you're good at. It seems to make people happy.

TONIGHT'S SPECIALS
MARTININS
for example
ABSINTHE
BLACK
CHOCOLATE
DIRTY
EMERALD
FUZZY
etc.

COFFEE
ANY WAY YOU LIKE IT

At the end of the bar, Stuart Dakin is smiling to himself as he enjoys a pint. Amazing things have happened today. The first is

Comments

[scots_wolf]

[[OOC: Dakin please -- assuming it's not too late to tag?]]

Urquhart wouldn't usually notice the boy or young man, but he wears clothes like Posner's.

A lot like Posner's, actually.

If Urquhart doesn't want to be seen observing something, the object of his curiosity will never notice him. But now, Dakin will probably notice, sooner or later, the wandering attention of a very tall, very broad-shouldered man with long striking blond hair and a medieval looking long black cloak casually wandering over him from time to time.

The man is leaning against a pillar and eating figs, biting into the fresh, velvety fruit with strong white teeth.

[scots_wolf]

"Or any sensible approach towards crime, actually," Urquhart says. "People were all too ready to believe in demons when their simple minds didn't provide simple answers."

[pushtheboatout]

"And you trust random strangers with this information?" says Dakin. "You tell everybody you're a criminal over a pint?"

[scots_wolf]

Urquhart grins brightly, showing strong white teeth aplenty.

"It's safe in this place," he says. "It's not against their rules. And I do find potential clients this way."

[pushtheboatout]

Dakin shrugs and sips. The only really important thing, as he sees it, is that this -- fellow -- is friends with Pos, gentle Pos, of whom Dakin is growing more protective with each passing day.

He's not totally self-absorbed, after all.

"So how'd you meet David?"

[scots_wolf]

"Here, of course," Urquhart says. "He's a clever and well-educated young man, after all, that I find a pleasure to talk to."

And other things.

"And then there was the question of him getting into university. In my time, those were much fewer and further between. Oxford and Cambridge didn't exist yet, nor did Saint Andrews, which would have been the natural choice for me a few generations later. So I went to Paris."

[pushtheboatout]

Dakin raises his eyebrows at that non-answer.

"Hm. Do go on."

[scots_wolf]

"Education is important," Urquhart says. "Normally, we are where we came from, in my time even more than in yours, as I understand it. But a good education opens barriers. It doesn't matter whether you're the son of a laird or the son of a shopkeeper when you're debating the finer points of Aristotle."

[pushtheboatout]

"Preaching to the choir," says Dakin. "I don't see what that has to do with going to Paris for Posner's sake."

[scots_wolf]

"Oh, you got me wrong," Urquhart says. "That was what I did when I was young. But it means that I can understand what Posner's doing and aiming for. Because my ambition was similar to his."

[pushtheboatout]

Again Dakin raises his eyebrow--he got it wrong because Urquart explained himself badly--but whatever.

"I doubt he'd use his education to become a killer-for-hire," he says. "Let's hope, anyway. They'd eat him alive in prison, if he got caught."

[scots_wolf]

"I didn't get the education with that profession in mind," Urquhart grins, "although it comes in very useful when least expected. You probably know, in theory, how the vagaries of life make you step sideways sometimes."

[pushtheboatout]

"I know it in practice, too," Dakin remarks.

[scots_wolf]

"So you probably realise that it's easy to wind up as something you never thought you'd be, after a series of more or less bizarre circumstances," Urquhart says.

[pushtheboatout]

"The subjunctive," Dakin says. "It changes history."

[scots_wolf]

"It's a verb mood," Urquhart says. "It can be conjunctive, or optative, if we're discussing Latin."

The basis of all learning, in Urquhart's time. And any later time, actually, in the West.

"But perhaps you'll tell me how one piece of grammar can change history more than any other."