The Causeway, Then In Town, Wednesday Afternoon

[luckywithjacks]

One moment, Faraday was on his knees in the middle of a field.

The next...the next he was on his feet, considerably less bullet-riddled, and his horse was lipping at his hat. "Aw, buddy, not you, too," he said. Jack just snorted. Last thing he knew he'd been locked up at the livery stable back in Rose Creek, not that he, being a horse, knew what Rose Creek was. "Although I have to say," Faraday said slowly, looking around, "I expected hell to be a bit warmer than this."

Jack made another attempt at stealing his hat.

"Okay, buddy, okay. Let's figure this place out...see if hell has a livery stable, at least." Faraday took the reins in hand and led Jack onto the island.

((Open to anyone who'd like to encounter a cowboy leading a big bay stallion around the island!))

Comments

[intotheout]

Tip was bored, and thus was off on an idle walk around town. And paused to spend several moments watching the cowboy looking guy wander past with a giant horse.

"Huh."

Honestly, she probably wouldn't have even been totally surprised by this back in her own world. Maybe a little, after the invasion had ended. But, well. She'd seen weirder.

Bill drew a little bubbly question mark, and Tip just shrugged. "That's Fandom for you." Bill gave the tiny insect-robot version of a shrug back and settled back down into her hair.

[luckywithjacks]

"Excuse me, miss," Faraday said, touching the brim of his hat to her. "Would you happen to know where the livery is in this...fine town?" He sounded a little uncertain about that last.

[intotheout]

Well, at least he was a polite crazy man.

"You mean, like, a stable?" she asked. She'd never heard the term 'livery' used before, only read it. And usually then it mostly referred to uniforms. "I guess you could try the Gig. It's over that way." She pointed. "There's some up at the school, too, but those might just be for students."

[luckywithjacks]

"...right," Faraday said. "And, uh, you wouldn't happen to know the name of this town, would you?"

[intotheout]

"Fandom," Tip said. "Did you fall through a portal? I've heard that happens."

[luckywithjacks]

"Well, I'm not right sure," Faraday admitted. "I think maybe I died." It certainly seemed the most likely outcome, considering. "Expected to end up somewhere warmer when that happened, though."

[intotheout]

Tip was rather proud that the only reaction she had to that information was to blink a few times.

Thanks, Sparkle.

"Apparently that happens sometimes around here, too." Well, sometimes people apparently died around here and it didn't stick. But she figured that dying elsewhere and ending up here wasn't too large a logical leap from that. "It's cold because it's winter -- I'm pretty sure this isn't Hell, either. Or Purgatory." She probably wouldn't be able to call her family or visit them back home if Fandom was either of those.

"What's your horse's name?"

For everything else that Tip was, she was also a 14 year old girl. She totally wanted to say 'hi' to that horse.

[luckywithjacks]

"Winter, huh? It was summer where I came from..." Faraday remembered something from his admittedly abbreviated schooling days, and wondered if the dynamite had somehow blown him to the other side of the world. "Oh, this here's wild Jack," he said, tightening his grip on the reins. "You can say hi, but be careful of him. Jack, play nice." Jack, being a horse, didn't understand this, but he did understand the accompanying chastising tug on the reins.

[intotheout]

"Hi, Jack." Tip wasn't going to completely discount the idea that this particular horse might be able to understand English. She'd seen weirder. She took Faraday's warning to heart, though, and approached cautiously, one hand stretched out low, well away from biting range while she tried to work out if he'd be okay with a pat. "Good horse. My name's Gratuity." That last was to Faraday as much as Jack. "I'm a student here."

[luckywithjacks]

"You can touch his nose," Faraday told her. "My name's Faraday, Miss Gratuity. Is there one of those schools for colored folk here?"

His player was really sorry.

[intotheout]

Tip moved to pet Jack's nose, then froze, eyes going a little wide as she worked out exactly what he'd just said.

She hadn't actually heard such polite but blatant racism outside of a movie or tv show before. It took her a moment.

"Excuse me?" She snatched her hand back (sorry horse, maybe you weren't racist, but she wasn't taking any chances anymore) and backed up to stare at Faraday. "What century are you from?!"

In a moment, she would remember that that was actually a valid question on this island.

[luckywithjacks]

Jack startled and shied back, Faraday's firm grip on the reins reminding him not to do anything more dramatic.

"Uh," Faraday said, trying to work out why that seemed like a reasonable question for Tip to ask. "The nineteenth one?" That was the one they were still in, right? Although now that he thought about it, she was dressed rather unusually, but maybe that was just how people dressed in Australia or wherever this was.

[intotheout]

Tip pressed her hands to her eyes. Oh god. This was bad. This was so bad.

On the other hand, he didn't seem to be expecting her to be a slave? Or even a servant or something. He wasn't objecting to her going to school.

So . . . this was maybe ever so slightly less bad.

She took a breath and dropped her hands again, planting them firmly on her hips.

"This is the 21st century now," she informed him in no uncertain terms. "We don't use the term 'colored' for people in polite society. I go to the same school as white people. All the different skin colors can go to the same schools and offices and -- and -- water fountains -- and everything else!"

There. She felt she'd handled that very well. And if he didn't . . . maybe she could stomp on his foot and run.

[luckywithjacks]

"Well, I'll be da--arned," Faraday said, not being one to swear unnecessarily in front of a girl child. "I...do not recall hitting my head really hard, although I suppose I wouldn't." Look, he was trying to process this, but it was, well, a process.

"So what am I supposed to call you? And what's a water fountain? Why wouldn't anyone be allowed to get water?" Typically where he was from they made do with wells and pumps, and it would have been absurdly impractical to prevent any one group of people from accessing the water source.

[intotheout]

"My name works just fine," Tip said with a huff. "But if you have to call someone with my skin color something, you can say 'black'. I am a black girl." Mixed race, but trying to explain being biracial was possibly a bit too advanced for this guy. "And I don't even know! Apparently a bunch of years ago white people were all convinced that black people carried, like, disease or something and said we weren't allowed to drink the same water they were." Touch a nerve there, Faraday, why doncha. "It's really stupid." She paused, catching up with the other question that had been stuck in the middle there. "A water fountain is -- kind of self-explanatory? It's a fountain you can drink water out of."

It probably needed more explanation than that.

[luckywithjacks]

"Huh," Faraday said. Yep, still processing. He was reasonably sure that if he'd called Sam 'black' the man would have looked at him like he'd lost his mind.

"So like, running water?" Yep, that was what he was focusing on. "Like in cities?"

[intotheout]

Just think of what expression he'd have if Faraday tried "African-American".

"Um. Yeah." Tip tilted her head. "Are you actually a cowboy?"

She was pretty sure for real cowboys had all been people of color. Tumblr told her so.

[luckywithjacks]

"I have not worked cattle a day in my life," Faraday said solemnly. "Although I have fleeced quite a few cowboys at cards in my day."

[intotheout]

"Oh." This was a very strange conversation. "You look like a cowboy." With the hat and the rugged beardedness and the horse and all. "So . . . what do you do?"

[luckywithjacks]

"I live by my wits," Faraday said. "I make most of my money at the card table, which is something a young lady like yourself ought not know anything about. And I'm a gun for hire." Which was much better than being a cowboy.

[intotheout]

Tip bristled at the 'young lady' comment. "I know how to play poker. I used to live in a casino." A casino converted into a shanty town for refugees of an alien invasion, but still. "I don't think anyone's hiring any guns on this island." Most people who were into that sort of thing seemed to have their own. "But I guess they'll probably be useful for you the next time this place gets attached by a chaos demon or sucked into space or whatever."

Did you think Tip was completely insane yet, Faraday? Because she kind of felt like she was, saying that.

[luckywithjacks]

Lived in a casino, huh? Well, Faraday's mama had been a whore, too, but it wasn't something he usually bragged about. Or maybe casinos were really different now?

As for the rest, "...are you sure this ain't Hell?"

[intotheout]

"Yup," Tip said. "We visited there a few weeks back. It had way more man-eating monsters that used to be your friends."

[luckywithjacks]

Faraday considered this. "...that does sound like something you would find in Hell." So he'd landed someplace at least on visiting terms with Hell. That seemed...reasonable, considering.

[intotheout]

"You'd think Dante would have covered it," Tip agreed.

Did this guy know The Inferno?

"You don't seem . . . really worried. About being in Hell. If you don't mind my noticing."

[luckywithjacks]

No, but Goody probably would!

Faraday shrugged. "Like I said, I think I probably died--it's about the only outcome that makes sense, considering the situation I was in before I was here--and I never lived the kind of life that'd see me bound for glory. So it's not worth gettin' fussed over. I just hate that Jack wound up here, too, whatever happened."

[intotheout]

"Well, I'm not dead," Tip said. "And most of the other people I've met aren't, as far as I know. So . . . maybe Jack didn't die, either. He just came along for the ride."

[luckywithjacks]

"Huh, maybe," Faraday said as Jack made another attempt to steal his hat. "Now, you quit it, now, I'd almost convinced Miss Gratuity that you were well-behaved."

[intotheout]

Tip smiled a little despite herself. "I've got a dog almost as big as him back home." That was an exaggeration. Lincoln was only maybe as big as a pony. "And a cat. He still looks pretty well behaved to me."

[luckywithjacks]

"Well, he's not always this decent," Faraday said, rueful and fond. He touched the brim of his hat once more and said, "I thank you for your assistance, Miss Gratuity, and uh, sorry my vocabulary isn't up to snuff." Shit, did they still say that? What if snuff was offensive too now?

[intotheout]

"You're forgiven," Tip said graciously. "At least you didn't think I as supposed to be on a plantation or something. Just, you know. Don't do it again."