Hello, There's Been An Error

[merryeccentricities]

Joly gets a few bursts of static, some mention of the Directory and Consulate, and "Fifth", and Courfeyrac, before the call goes definitely silent.

So...Bossuet and Courfeyrac are going to the Republic, of some point, and..Fifth? Or they're going to THE Fifth? Or, given how drunk they obviously are, they're going to GET a fifth, or had one, and then...

then "the Labyrinth", which might be taking them anywhere, never mind where they think they're going.

No, Joly isn't about to sit around waiting for them to get back. He sets the watch-hand for 2. "Combeferre? We had talked about exploring the Labyrinth? I think we might have to plan to do that right now."

Comments

[merryeccentricities]

Joly sees only a flash of color and then Combeferre doubled over. But the cats are fluffing up, arching their backs and drawing in closer to him. He reaches a hand out to Combeferre while looking around the woods.
"Are you all right? Did you see--oh!"

Another shape makes a quick dash at them, swerving when Meta leaps at it with claws. And while Joly's watching that, something THUMPS into the back of his legs, nearly knocking him over.

[wings_of_a_swan]

Combeferre pounces.

Well, that makes it sound more athletic than the reality. What he actually does is fall over with purpose, onto the thing that has attacked the back of Joly's legs.

Combeferre tackles the thing--the soft, silky, squishy, ferociously struggling thing--to the ground.

He pins it down by its four corners so that it can only twitch vigorously instead of hurling about. Once it's no longer a blur of motion, he can examine it properly, and see what it is.

"...a pillow?"

[merryeccentricities]

Joly, still barely standing, gapes. "A-- why? How? Does it even-- is it an automaton,is it some sort of animAAAUGHmmph!!"

The last is in reply to a sudden barrage of pillows, leaping from the woods directly at his head and shoulders. He guards his face with his arms, and tries to step away, and trips over Combeferre; and then he is being knocked over and smothered.

[wings_of_a_swan]

Combeferre wants to help Joly, but he doesn't want to let his imprisoned pillow fly free.

Tucking the pillow firmly (and with some difficulty) under his arm, he seizes Joly's dropped walking stick and thrusts it into the cloud of pillows battering at Joly.

He brandishes it this way and that. The pillows react in confusion--not confusion, Combeferre thinks sternly to himself, they're pillows. Some keep at Joly, but others simply fly away from the stick. A few hardy souls--pillows--launch a counterattack upon Combeferre.

"Joly," Combeferre shouts, "shall we run?"

[merryeccentricities]

There's no time for a clever answer. Joly makes a slightly strangled noise of agreement and stumbles up to his feet, collecting the cats.

Run to... he spots a sort of general trail leading to an narrow arch of trees and tilts his chin. "That way?"

If he sounds a bit stunned and out of breath, it's only because he is.

[wings_of_a_swan]

They run.

The pillows follow. Combeferre turns every so often and whacks them back with his stick.

"A softer version of computers, perhaps?" He pants the question at Joly as they run along the trail, through the arch of trees.

They run several steps before Combeferre realizes they're somewhere else entirely.

He looks around. It's a city. It's...almost Paris?

But there are large balloon-like things in the air? Powered by gas, evidently. They look somewhat like hot air balloons, but more more advanced; somewhat like airplanes, but less sleek.

Combeferre looks at Joly. "Euh...?"

[merryeccentricities]

Joly also stops to gape-- and then is knocked over again by another barrage of pillows at his knees.
"Oh really now--!" Nothing else has followed them from world to world. Of course that doesn't make it a rule, but still.

"But why ...pillows... how.." he manages to say as he staggers upright again, kicking at the Pillows a bit, breathless from running and also, honestly, from laughing.

They seem...a little less aggressive?

[wings_of_a_swan]

They do. The pillows still circle them and dive in, but with less force. One pillow is merrily slapping against Combeferre's shoulder, as if in friendly greeting.

Another pillow is skimming the top of Joly's head, ruffling his hair.

"I think they're trying to make friends," says Combeferre, feeling utterly ridiculous as he says it.

[merryeccentricities]

"They are eating your coat" says Joly, slightly dazed, trying to keep the pillows away from the cats and look around their new location at the same time.

...There is a great deal of sky. And brass.

[wings_of_a_swan]

It is true. The pillows are nibbling at his coat.

One of them is snuggling Meta.

Combeferre looks around and sees people driving in strange brassy vehicles that look neither like anything he saw in his lifetime nor anything he's read of in Milliways. Some people are walking. Their dress is strange. Their eyewear and walking sticks and other implements are stranger.

He sees a road sign and freezes.

Rue de la Chanvrerie, it says.

[merryeccentricities]

Joly's not sure if the pillows are being friendly or peckish. One of them is very definitely tugging at his sleeve; another has the edge of his pants-leg. The cats seem equally confused. He pushes away the pillows enough to gather the cats and stands up, looking around, not yet following Combeferre's gaze.

The buildings appear to be largely riveted. The street-lamps are in place, but look very different than the ones he knew. The street is smooth, paved with some odd flat green surface; a single beam runs along the air above it. Joly can guess, from some of his reading, that it's a sort of rail. But above that--

He reaches a hand out to Combeferre, trying to get him to look up. "Airships!"

[wings_of_a_swan]

"Yes," says Combeferre. "I saw the airships." He sounds excited, but less so than the idea of airships merits. "But did you see this?"

He points to the Rue de la Chanvrerie street sign.

"We're in Paris."

In a specific place in Paris, he does not add.

[merryeccentricities]

Combeferre doesn't have to say it. As Joly adjusts to the strangeness of the wider streets and gleaming metal fixtures, he can see it. "This is-- it's--"

There's a low, two-story building, newly painted and with the same sort of intricate brass and copper tubing around the walls as every other building on street, but unmistakeably older in its design-- and very familiar indeed in its outline. Smells of coffee and food come out ever time customers go in and out of the new glass doors, and the smells aren't bad.

Joly stumbles forward a little, still gaping. "We have to go in, we have to see-- oh, we have to, don't we?"

The pillows, in agreement or otherwise, choose that moment to knock him over. "And we can leave these outside" he grumbles, climbing out from their fluffy attack yet again.

[wings_of_a_swan]

"Yes," says Combeferre, breathing heavily. "Yes, we do."

He turns to the pillows. "Stay here," he says firmly. "Wait for us."

The pillows fly towards each other, into a small indignant constellation. They float upwards together and then settle down onto the ground, fluffing out like huffy cats.

Combeferre takes that as agreement.

They enter the café.

It is dark and gleaming inside, with all kinds of food on a kind of counter, under glass containers. Fresh, uncooked food, too--it looks like spinach and lettuce and tomatoes and some things Combeferre can't identify. Salads. Combeferre has read of them, and seen them on occasion in Milliways, but it's a different thing to see them in Paris.

Above the counter is a sign with a list of coffee-based beverages, none of which seem to actually be coffee itself.

He turns to Joly. "...do you have any francs on you?"

[merryeccentricities]

Joly reaches into his coat and pulls out a wallet. "I did pack, after all." And when else is he going to need the money he had on him when he reached Milliways?

The woman behind the counter looks very familiar, though with the odd fashions and lighting Joly can't quite place her. "Excuse me? Can we order some coffee, please?" Something about this new Corinthe inspires more careful manners than their old ramshackle café.

[wings_of_a_swan]

Thank heavens Joly is prepared.

The woman leans forward and squints at Joly.

"I beg your pardon--Monsieur Joly, is it?" She flushes. "I believe I knew your--well, perhaps he's your uncle--a Monsieur Jean-Gilbert Joly? He came here often, in his youth."

Combeferre blinks in the odd light as he recognizes Matelote.

[merryeccentricities]

Joly smiles, happy and surprised."Yes! I'm-- I'm closely related! You remember him? This is the Corinthe, then? And you're...forgive me, but you're Mlle. Matelore?" Mother Hucheloupe had been older-- would have been older than-- this woman even in Joly's youth, and she looks nothing like Gibelotte. But it could be Matelote, with some years of comfortable living behind her.

[wings_of_a_swan]

"Yes." The woman beams at Joly. "I'm Matelote, and this is the Corinthe. I've been here for years. Began here waiting tables and helping in the kitchen, and now I'm the proprietor."

She looks past Joly at Combeferre, and her eyes widen. "And you--oh, I think it's so nice that the next generation know each other. I know whose family you must be, it's written all over your face. The distinguished M. Combeferre himself, a scientist and a statesman, and he used to come here! You can see for yourself." She points to her right, where there is a row of pictures on the wall: the Corinthe's most famous patrons. The pictures are photographs, not portraits. Not the slick colored photographs he saw in the Milliways books, but sepia-toned and faded.

Combeferre leans forward and sees his own face. He looks much the same, maybe a bit thinner and more haggard, but grinning. Next to him is Enjolras, smiling faintly.

"Yes," says Matelote, grinning. "He came here often. Not anymore, he's a very busy man now! As you must know. Is he your--father, or...?"

"Er," says Combeferre. "He's my uncle."

He's staring distractedly at the wall. A busy man, a scientist, a statesman--a live man, with a live Enjolras and a live Joly, in a world with airships.

This is not the history of their world. In their world, Paris did not have airships in Matelote's lifetime, or within any time that could possibly have been his own lifetime. This is a wholly different world, a different universe, and that makes it hurt less.

Still.

His silence starts to grow heavy. He searches for a way to lighten the mood, thinking up a question his curious "nephew" might ask. "We've heard such stories about what our uncles got up to in their youth," Combeferre says, smiling. "I suppose you know Bossuet, too, then?"

[merryeccentricities]

She frowns and looks up, thinking. "Bossuet...? It's familiar...You don't mean Bahorel--? oh, I know that sounds rude, but he says he won't have any of us calling him Monsieur. But Bossuet,oh, it is familiar, who was it?"

"Legle." Joly says it in recognition, not in answer. He's staring at a photograph at a far end of the wall, older than some of the others, slightly spotted. Bossuet is there, not staring at the camera for a portrait but looking up at Joly and Musichetta, both of them sharply dressed and falling over each other into Bossuet's lap, all three of them laughing and looking impossibly happy.

[wings_of_a_swan]

Combeferre follows Joly's gaze.

"Oh," is all he can say. He puts a hand on Joly's shoulder.

"Oh, yes, of course! L'aigle!" Matelote laughs. "He was a cheeky one, he was. Of course I remember him. He and M. Joly and M. Grantaire, they'd come in together all the time, and drink their weight in wine. It was Joly who paid, though. His friends never had much money on them, especially not that aigle."

[merryeccentricities]

Joly puts his hand over Combeferre's and squeezes. He can feel tears starting in the corner of his eyes. But the smile he gives Matelote is real and unforced. "It doesn't seem to have bothered them, either way. That was-- that was the wedding party?"

It occurs to him after he asks that perhaps it wasn't a wedding after all, it doesn't have to have been a wedding party-- but he knows it was, as much as he knew this building was the Corinthe. The soul of the thing, in both cases, is obvious.

[wings_of_a_swan]

"Why, yes," says Matelote brightly. She's bustling around the counter, putting away various things, and perhaps that's why she doesn't seem to notice the tears in Joly's eyes.

"They look very happy," Combeferre says gently. And in a way, isn't this good news? To know that there is a world where this happened? He searches for a way to convey this to Joly, without having Matelote think he's a madman. "It's good to see proof of such happiness--to know that it's real, at least for some people."

Against his will, Combeferre's eyes stray back to the picture of himself and Enjolras, a few years older. A scientist and a statesman, Matelote had said. Combeferre didn't want fame, but to know he'd made a contribution to science--that he would have made a contribution to science--no. Not would, did, in this world. In this world it's a thing that happened, and that is, in its own bizarre way, a happy thought.

[merryeccentricities]

Joly blinks at Combeferre in surprise and, yes, to keep back tears.

And then he starts giggling. It soon turns into full laughter, as it often does with him, and then he iscrying , too, and still laughing, and then that turns into hiccups, and he's having to hold himself up with one hand on the café counter and one arm over Combeferre's shoulders, trying to talk past giggles and his own treacherous hiccups.

"You-!- you make us sound so far gone-!"

...Well, they are dead, of course. But somehow thinking of that only makes Joly want to start in laughing again. He manages to fight it down to a smile. He lifts his hand off that count to wave at the Corinthe in general. "We made it-!- made it here, didn't we? " And their old Corinthe being this lovely little café is almost as much a testament to resurrection as their own presence. Though Joly has no idea how to say that in front of Matelote.

[wings_of_a_swan]

Combeferre smiles in response. He can't really help it, not with Joly giggling like that.

We are, he doesn't say. After all, is Milliways even a real place? An actual world? Or just--a holding cell, of sorts?

"Yes, we did," he says, with determined brightness. He turns back to Matelote, still bracing Joly up with one arm.

"I suppose this place must have changed a great deal! Our uncles described it...very differently." For one thing, Combeferre would eat the food here with no worries for his health.

[merryeccentricities]

...Which is good, as Matelote sets down a little fruit tartlet in front of each of them along with the coffee Joly asked for.

"Oh,yes-- of course it was very different before the Revolution. And even for a while after! I'm sure they've told you everything about that. We had to rebuild the whole place after that, and the street was so busy for a while, you know-- we were already becoming famous--that Mother Hucheloup decided we might as well try for a decent sort of memorial building, and we were still putting things all together when the first water lines came through, and don't think I don't know who made sure they came down our little street so soon--"

Matelote goes on,with increasing enthusiasm as she sees Joly and Combeferre truly listening. She's developed a café manager's feel for conversation, and is defintiely tailoring the news for what they might be interested in, news of their "uncles'" friends, political discussion-- but then, Matelote did always work in the Cornithe, and she helped build the barricade in their world, so maybe that's less for their benefit than it seems.

There's certainly enough on that score, anyway-- the memories of lights and running water being put in, the fights over the airship stations, the official recognition of the right of the people to assemble freely and speak freely, the invention of the freezers, politics and science as important to a café owner as to any citizen-- and on and on.

And running through all of it, familiar names, M. Enjolras leading this and Courfeyrac quarrleing with that delgation, M. Combeferre inventing that little filtration system, anyone who wondered what the government needed a Science department for would have to fight with the survivors of 32 over that,hah, and oh! that very public debate over women's suffrage that had run for over a year in the journals, why it had nearly looked like some of the old group were going to come to blows over that but then Bahorel always found that entertaining, didn't he, and oh!, that immigration group M.Feuilly had started right here almost before the new Republic was fully recognized, and the parties when M. Prouvaire's first few novels had been released--

It's almost thirty years of news, delivered in increasingly interrupted exchanges as the café becomes busier. When Joly finally tries to pay-- though who knows if their world's money is worth anything anymore-- Matelote waves a hand at him. "Oh, don't you dare. You just tell your uncles they need to stop by, it's been too long since their last visit."

Joly agrees, sincerely, that it has been much too long, and excuses himself to step outside for a moment on account of the increasingly restless cats.