Keeping open weary eyes

[samuel-durand.livejournal.com]

Sunday, June 13
The Whitechapel, Front Desk

Sometimes it seems that I've spent half my life traveling under the open sky, sleeping under trees, in rocky overhangs, in clefts gouged from the rocky ground with the heel of a boot.  It's always an adjustment, coming back to civilization, and the lack of continuity from settlement to settlement doesn't help matters much.  Some places have running water and clean sheets.  Others... well, let's just say that dysentery might actually be the least of your worries. 

Still, I'm guardedly happy for the chance to sleep in an actual bed again.  Weakness of the flesh, I know.  Even the availability of luxury has a tendency to erode discipline, though I've generally found the benefits of the occasional indulgence to be worth the cost.

I deserve it.  I haven't lost my focus in a decade and a half.

When I tie Memory out front of the Whitechapel, I leave her mouth no more than three inches from the rail.  After a moment's thought, I hobble her as well.  I'd bloody blindfold her too, but she tends not to take it well.  "There, there, girl," I murmur, rubbing her ear.  She snorts and rolls her dark eyes at me, but it's all she can do.  "Be good."

I make my way into the building, adjusting my habit as I go.  "Hello?"

(Open)

Comments

[jaeresteade.livejournal.com]

Seemed like Ri didn't want me hanging around for all of her day off, so I came over a little early to open the bar. I come in the back way and find Alice with her head round the corner into the front room, carefully balancing a plate of cookies and milk behind her back.

"Is something burning?"

I sniff, not smelling anything but what she's baked. "I don't think so, sweetheart. Are those for me?" I don't really think they are, since I can hear Valmont at the desk talking to someone. Might be able to get her to give me one, though.

[shards-of-alice.livejournal.com]

"I don't think so, sweetheart," Jarmyn says, coming up behind me. I turn a little quicker than maybe I should, because I didn't know he was there. "Are those for me?"

"No!" And maybe that's too fast, too. Hmph. "I mean, um, not really. I made them- I made them for Valmont." My face wants to get red at that, even if I don't know why, and I pretend that everything's okay. "For a present."

[jaeresteade.livejournal.com]

Can see it must have taken her some doing to make the cookies. I'll just let her give them to Valmont and then I'll have one when he offers. "All right, sweetheart. Go on."

[shards-of-alice.livejournal.com]

I give Jarmyn a look, not a mean look I don't think but maybe not a nice one either, and pull the cookies a little bit closer to me. I like Jarmyn, he's my friend sometimes, but then he's mean to Micah so he's not. And he's definitely not Valmont.

"Maybe if there are some left," is what I come up with at the end, before peeking my head around the corner again (http://estdeus-innobis.livejournal.com/446516.html?thread=11242292#t11242292).