Other Verses

[clayforthedevil]

Bahorel wakes up on the floor in front of the fireplace, caught in a ridiculous multiplicity of blankets, pillows, and Jehan's elbows, which are, in Bahorel's considerable experience, far more omnipresent and wrathful than any God. It's all so far from unusual that he has a rare moment of confusion-- this could be Paris, and his old apartments. He shakes the confusion off, along with several pillows, one of which makes a reproachful yowl as it falls.

Bahorel grins at Marguerite, who blinks at him in offense. "Your pardon, Mademoiselle." He sits up, stretches and yawns in time with the kitten, and looks around to assess the damage of the night before. There's none especially evident; judging from the general scatter of overcoats and waistcoats, they both seem to have managed to get somewhere along the line of ready for bed before getting bored with consciousness. He looks for his coat and grins to see the poppy from the Labyrinth still vibrant in the lapel. That goes on a high shelf, away from curious kittens with unknown opium tolerances.

Jehan, at some point, apparently managed to turn his own shirt into something of a straightjacket, arms pinned to his own head and sleeves knotted. Bahorel untangles him, and lets Jehan thump back down into the pillows with the steady unconsciousness of a naturally deep sleeper who also notably overdid the mead last night.

Which leaves Bahorel free to go about his morning with his usual energy and lack of concern for quiet. By the time Jehan wakes up, Bahorel and the kitten have both eaten, stretched, and aggressively groomed themselves for the day. For the kitten, that means it's time for a nap; for his part, Bahorel is properly sprawled on the couch, reading.

Comments

[vive_lavenir]

"That strengthens all of our speculations, then. Either Hugo created our own world--living in a Paris of his own, of course, because a Hugo could only grow in a Paris, but he's created a separate world with its own Paris--or else his mind and soul connected with those of people in our world, somehow. Not just ours, but everyone you listed."

No matter which is true: Jehan is enraptured.

But he still scowls at the mention of the spy. "Yes--the spy's alive, in a material sense. How did that come to be?" Jehan can't imagine Enjolras or any of them allowing it, unless perhaps Combeferre urged mercy for some reason.

"And it would be good to meet Pontmercy's wife! She must be a sensitive soul, to be a match for him."

[clayforthedevil]

Bahorel laughs. "Oh, she's a bright young soul; a far brighter and bolder spark than him! It's well; she'll keep him living in the world. Give her a few years and she'll have a fine little circle in Society."

He frowns, mood shifting. "But that's in a few years. Right now, damn! She's a convent-school girl, and as innocent as any nun could want her to be. And her life's all laid out inthose pages-- hers, and her mother's. There's not a godforsaken thing wrong in either of them, nothing that should shame any honest soul. But for a young lady in Society, just starting up-- it's ruin enough to know that her mother was never Madame Fauchelevent, isn't it."

It's a bleak certainty, not a question. "Enjolras spoke to her father. She might at least be forewarned. But Monsieur Fauchelevent--" Bahorel shakes his head. "He helped at the barricades. He's the one who saved Marius. But he's also the one who saved the spy." Bahorel shrugs. Fauchelevent had taken no oaths of loyalty to the cause, after all. "I don't believe it was for any gain; he stood to lose by it more than anyone. Hah, he hardly had reason to expect any of us would be troubled by it later!"

But now: Milliways.

[vive_lavenir]

Jehan is, perhaps, more sensitive to the morbid young Pontmercy than Bahorel. But even he must acknowledge that it doesn't take much to be brighter and bolder than Marius Pontmercy.

"I hadn't considered that aspect--but you're quite right, yes, if Hugo wrote of any scandal attached to someone's name--that might do her no end of harm."

Jehan frowns. "Why would her father save the spy, then? If not for gain?"

Surely it wasn't for liking. The spy was repulsive.

[clayforthedevil]

Bahorel shakes his head. "Morals. The man's out to save lives at any cost, if his story there's at all accurate."

At any cost, even the risk of other lives. But Bahorel recognizes that that's not a sort of math that comes naturally to everyone. "He doesn't have any killing in him; some men just don't. If you asked him, I don't think he could give you any reasons beyond that. Let it be--the spy lives, we don't; we know about this story, and he, at least for now, doesn't. Hiy!"

The last is in response to little Marguerite leaping from under the sofa to seize his coat-sleeve, and landing claws-out on his hand. He scoops her onto the sofa-cushion and grins as she attack the Terrifying Giant Hand again. "You found this one at the Temple of Bast?"

[vive_lavenir]

"He sounds like a saint," Jehan muses. "Exceptional purity of heart, which can't suffer any taint, regardless of the circumstance--" Saints aren't always helpful, but they are admirable.

He smiles at Bahorel playing with Marguerite. "Yes, the Temple of Bast--I believe she's a gift from the goddess herself. A good luck token, or perhaps a protector."

[clayforthedevil]

"Good luck telling him that--truly, I wish you the highest success if you try. The man is suffering from a crushing humility. I expect he'd hide from a thank-you." Bahorel knows that humility happens to some people. It seems horrible.

Marguerite, like all cats, knows nothing of such human frailties and has begun her attack on his entire arm, without regard for it being several times her length. Kitten claws won't get through a suit-coat; still, he appreciates the effort, and makes encouraging noises at her attacks. "--Joly does swear by cats as guardians in the Labyrinth." And in everything else. "Or is she meant to be your guardian here? She's rather permanent, if her work was meant only for that maze."

[vive_lavenir]

"Humility is a curse," Jehan says, dreamily. "It's ignorance of one's nature as part of the Infinite, that's all--such a sad thing."

"I rather think she's my guardian here, or else why would Bast have sent her with me from her Temple, and even from the Labyrinth? There were other kittens there. But none of them came with me. Just her." Jehan runs his finger over the top of Marguerite's fuzzy head.

[clayforthedevil]

"That's promising, then. It's been appallingly safe, so far. Police and cannibals regardless. "

Come on, kitten. Turn up an eldritch horror.

[vive_lavenir]

"Well, you're here," Jehan points out. Bahorel is almost an eldritch horror, after all. Especially now since he's dead. "And I'm here. So it can't be too safe."

Possibly Jehan overestimates his own dangerousness.

[clayforthedevil]

Bahorel laughs, in amusement and approval. "You may be right about yourself, at that. A writer, in a place visited by escapees from stories--oh, it's not just us, if bloody Father Christmas and fairies are running around, it's certainly not just us---who knows? Maybe Mlle. Marguerite is here to keep an eye on you for the gods' sake."

It's an amusing idea, and not an entirely idle one. Stories and poetry had weight back in their Paris; it might be a force on another level, here.

[vive_lavenir]

"Oh!" Jehan turns around and pushes himself up onto one knee. "I hadn't considered this--but what a thrilling, terrifying thought--do you think I might encounter the characters I've created here at Milliways?"

[clayforthedevil]

Bahorel props himself up on elbow and shrugs. "Why not? It would make as much sense as anything else here, surely."

[vive_lavenir]

Jehan bites his lip. "But what if they hate me?"

[clayforthedevil]

"A good question. I certainly would have disagreements with any creator who claimed responsibility for us--though your characters might at least feel you put a little more sense into their situation. But what if they do hate you?"

Maybe not an immediate problem; but in Milliways, not an impossible one.

[vive_lavenir]

Jehan regards Bahorel, startled. "And perhaps we might even meet our creator here," he murmurs.

"Well--I suppose you might say I feel a paternal interest in them. Or a godly one, if it isn't hubris to say so. Who wants to be hated by his creation?"

[clayforthedevil]

Bahorel props his chin up on one hand, opening his other for Marguerite's continued combat practice. "You should know, then; or else who would? You've lived with them. Have you given them reason to hate you? Are they the sort who would?"

He'd be glad to fight Hugo, with words or fists, if the man showed up in Milliways; but then he would have done the same in Paris, if the fellow had ever been willing to have a fair match. And whatever Hugo wrote their introductions had surely known that, unless he'd penned the whole thing in a trance.

[vive_lavenir]

Jehan frowns. "The villains, perhaps," he says. "But I'd like to think even they would understand and appreciate the rightness of their stories for their characters, for their very souls--even if their stories are sometimes tragic."

He sighs. "I'd like to think it, but I'm not sure. And even the ones I'm sure of--I can't even be truly sure of them, because if they've developed independent wills, then they can craft their own characters, and move beyond what I made of them. Perhaps even move beyond what I know. As we have. Even if we're Hugo's creations, I don't think he knows we're in Milliways!"

[clayforthedevil]

"Hah, no, if that reprobate knew about this place he'd be here himself." There's no judgement in that. Who wouldn't love to visit a library with an endless open supply of booze and very friendly patrons?

"Anyway, why should your characters bother with you, any more than they would some other man? If you'd get along with them, then you would; if you wouldn't, you won't. If you feel responsible for them--" he shrugs. "You gave them what you thought they needed. It's no less than any parent should do, and if you failed them it's because you didn't know better. The most devoted parents can't keep a man from his own bad choices." As Bahorel has reason to know. "If they want to claim their life is theirs to be upset about, and not yours to command, I don't see how they can blame you for its turnings."

Bahorel would quarrel with Hugo, if he met him here, just as he would have back in Paris; over politics, or questions of society. Over his own fate? Ridiculous. "And the world they live in-- hell, there's no way Hugo built our whole France; it exists in universes where we don't. So you're probably not at fault for the world in your stories, either-- no more than any man's to blame for the world he makes around him, anyway."

[vive_lavenir]

"I did write those turnings," signs Jehan. "But I hope you're right." He brightens. "I can read Hugo's work and see how we diverge from it, anyway. And do you mean to say you've encountered people from universes where we don't exist in any form, but France is still there? Does Hugo exist in those worlds? Is there anywhere we exist but no Hugo?"

[clayforthedevil]

"Ah, complicated question!" But the right sort of question.

"I know there are universes where neither of us exist; I 've seen some books from them, with nary a mention of us, or Hugo-- or in some cases, of the damn Bourbons and the Restoration at all."

Bahorel folds his hands under his chin and considers. "Not counting Milliways--? Hm, haven't run into anyone who knew of us and not of him. But that's a hard thing to look for-- who would remember us, outside that book? None of us lived to write our story. And few of the fighters of those days are remembered at all, in most histories.--And it's not as though everyone here is from our time, or later, either, so we might live in their world yet, and they wouldn't know it."

[vive_lavenir]

''I wonder if we might get to those universes via the Labyrinth," Jehan muses. "You went to another Paris- how different was it?"

[clayforthedevil]

Bahorel starts laughing. "Ah-- That one, yes, I do believe we would all have been strangers! Our hosts in that city were two talking worms, we all went to a costume party with people who looked more like animals from a medieval bestiary-- and that was without their masks! Ah, you'd have loved it. But you know, I think there was some version of us there, too-- those animal-people were not all so entirely strange. I found some very familiar conversations about the theater in their town, and of course I hadn't seen the plays, but the plot--! One doesn't forget some of our old Classical pap, however we try. Even if it is superficially about a Hen-faced woman."

[vive_lavenir]

Jehan props his chin on his hand. "Is that why Feuilly was wearing a cat mask?" He hadn't explained it, really.

[clayforthedevil]

"It is! I will not shame Feuilly for a lack of creativity in this case; the poor fellow had his first real taste of opium earlier, and seems to be one of those who take it far too seriously. Our hosts had much grander outfits, but of course they'd been preparing longer, and were still willing to make modifications. Lovely people, for giant worms."

"Paris...was Paris. Smaller, because the people were smaller, and with more sparkle. But I could recognize the turns of the streets, still.." bahorel reaches out to sketch a skyline in the air. "..the Corinthe was there-- and our old café, too, to give you some idea of how much smaller the place was. You remember Casquettes, near the theater, with the letters all fallen off the sign? That was there, I could see its orange lamp from the Corinthe's door."

[vive_lavenir]

"A smaller, sparklier Paris! How delightful!" Jehan frowns, suddenly melancholy. "Do you think our Paris was the worst Paris? You see, the Paris I encountered in the Labyrinth was a wonderland." He says it mournfully.