scurlock | oom: milliways library

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oom: milliways library

There really isn't a specific layout to the place, but every time Doc's been up here, it's been a little different. He passes it off to Bar trying to keep things interesting. This time there are long rows of shelves, full of books. Some are sorted by date published. Others, by subject. Some shelves are mixed in all together. There are stacks around on end tables and next to chairs and desks. There is a comfortable couch or two, somewhere. Ladders to reach high. It always changes and there's a few too many corners and nooks to really make it work from a layout standpoint, but it's quiet and full of anything someone could want to look for to read.

Doc opens the door and steps in, then glances at Kate.

"I promise, I ain't never..." a chuckle, at himself. "I haven't ever," he corrects "Been lost in here."

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"Oh!" she exclaims, after flipping a few pages (forgive her, she's easily entranced). She turns to show Doc a passage and nearly bumps into him, dropping the book. And just after Doc had mentioned the good keep 'n care of the literature, too.

"Begging your pardon!" she breathes, hand to her chest and red-faced. "I didn't think you were that close. I found my favorite poem by Byron and... I suppose I got a little overzealous."

A pause.

"Did you say you know an acquaintance of Robin Hood?"

Doc reaches to steady her when she nearly bumps into him, a hand gently touching her arm, a smile on his face as he laughs quietly.

"It's quite alright," he promises, as he kneels down to fetch the book from the floor. "I've got it."

Once he's stood again, he nods.

"Will Scarlett. Young kid, 'bout eighteen. Flamin' red hair," he looks down at the book in his hands. "Which work of Byron's is your favorite?"

She reddens even more when he puts his hand on her arm. "I'm usually not this clumsy," she says sheepishly, avoiding eye contact. There's a timid little smile on her lips.

"Yes, I've heard of him I do believe! Well, at least, what I've seen in folklore and poem. But he's real? Here, in this bar, and real?" She beams. "First a member of Billy the Kid's posse, and now one of Robin Hood's merry men! I suppose next I'll be meeting Captain Ahab; or perhaps Hamlet?"

She redirects her attention to the book, now in Doc's hands, and reaches to find the page again. Her fingers lightly brush his knuckles as she does so, and she recoils shyly at the touch. "Forgive me. Ah... here." She points to the page.

"So we'll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a-roving
By the light of the moon."

"That's beautiful," Doc says, very quietly. "I admit I haven't read too much Byron but...I think that I'll have to take a gander at some of his works, now that I see the talent."

His own ears are blushing, just a bit.

"Found I learn a lot here," he admits. "Always meetin' new folk an' makin' new acquaintances and such. You can learn so much just from talkin' to people and they all got stories to tell. Fine tales, even if it's just their normal lives."

Doc looks down a moment at the book.

"Ain't ever too old to learn, always reckon."

"And I'm glad for that, Mr. Scurlock," Katherine responds with a smile. "No man should go without Byron in his life. His poems are beautiful, but often so sad. When We Two Parted always makes me cry."

Her eyes fall back to the book as well. "No, never too old to learn. I find I've learned quite a lot in just the short time I've been in your company. You have had some fine stories to tell indeed; I hope you'll tell me more."

Her smile could light a lamp, easily.

"It ain't often I get people into Milliways who find it interestin', if I must say so," Doc says. "Bein' that I'm not from some far off land with starships and flyin' coaches and the like. Guess that's just what happens."

He looks at her and nods.

"So I suppose what I'm sayin' is I'd love to, Miss Katherine," he adds, with a bit of a smile on his face. "It'd be my pleasure to chat with someone who's interested in what I've got to share."

A beat.

"And please, call me Josiah. Or Doc."

She admits, the idea of flying... coaches... is a bit hard to wrap her mind around, but nonetheless she shakes her head. "I find that hard to believe. You're a very engaging conversationalist... Josiah.

"Or do you prefer Doc?" Her cheeks flush slightly.

"Would you tell me more about what you mentioned earlier? About going to other worlds through different people's doors? Sherwood must have been a treat!"

"It was. I'm hopin' to go back, after Will gets back from a holiday with a ladyfriend of his," he says, as he glances around the library and spots some nearby chairs. "Actually went back with him to help him out in a bit of a fight against the sheriff."

Doc motions at the chairs.

"I...well I don't mind which you use, but most people 'round here know me by Doc, so they'd probably know who you were talkin' 'bout a bit easier if you used that," he admits. "If you'd like to sit, I can tell you about Sherwood?"

"Oh." She looks visibly concerned for a moment. It's strange to hear Doc talk about fighting. Of course, she knew that must be part of the job description, being part of Billy the Kid's gang, but she hadn't quite reconciled this image with that of the gentle poet she had been conversing with these past few hours.

"Yes, of course," she says, blinking herself back to the present topic, and she moves toward the chairs. She offers him a brief smile.

"Doc it is, then.

"Please, continue."

"Wasn't much of a fight, more of a...well I'm sure you've read the tales. Robbin' the rich and givin' to the poor. Seems the sheriff took more than he was supposed to take and Will needed some help gettin' it back to help the people who live in Sherwood 'fore the snow came."

Doc sets her book down on a nearby table.

"So he asked me t'help him, and some others from the bar. There were...probably eight of us? We all went back together. It was...the scuffle with the sheriff wasn't much at all," he says. "But the forest...I ain't never seen anythin' like it. Green as far as you could see, and it was almost like...like it was alive."

"It sounds lovely," she remarks, some of the concern leaving her features. "Still, not much of a vacation, considering. I don't know many who would go to such lengths for someone else. I can't even imagine what that must have been like."

But she had read the tales, even played make-believe in the tall grass as a child, wielding a makeshift "bow" and imaginary arrow, calling for justice to be done to the afflicted. Her blue-green eyes sparkled with the memory.

"I'm hoping to go back against soon, for more of a vacation than to help out," he says. "Hopefully within the next few weeks."

Doc smiles a bit at the sparkle in her eyes. It makes her look alive and that's something that he doesn't see a lot in Milliways, that happiness. Something his own eyes have been missing for awhile.

"I had to learn a bit of work with a sword," he admits. "I'm not very good, but it was fun, and is fun to practice with him when we get the chance. Oh! I nearly forgot. Out the back door, there is a lake, and mountains off in the distance, and a forest. I'd be careful about the forest, there are some...creatures...but the lake is rather nice this time of year. And if you go along the shore, at the far side...there is a bit of it turned into the sea, like the tropics."

Katherine feels heat creep back into her cheeks at the look Doc is giving her. She ducks her head away from him a little.

"Well, I do hope you make it back sometime--under better conditions. I'd love to see it someday myself. As well as your New York City." A smile. "And I'd love to see your swordsmanship," she chuckles at the thought.

"Oh my, it sounds like this place is surrounded by quite the paradise! Mountains and sea?" She looks duly impressed. She's never been to the sea before.

"There are gardens as well, some of the patrons tend to them. A forge for ironwork and such, a place to practice shootin' and swordwork an' the like, and I'm in charge of the stables here. We got a few pretty well broke horses here for people who want to borrow 'em, take 'em out for a ride 'round the grounds and the like. Sometimes we get people in on horses that need a place to stable 'em up and get 'em fed."

Doc looks down a bit when she does, as he's not trying to make her blush but she's just...well she's...

Yeah.

"It's got most anythin' you could want."

Katherine's mouth hangs a little ajar as he continues his rundown of the Bar. "My word," she breathes. "You do seem to have everything here; the property must be huge!" She shakes her head a little, trying to wrap her mind around everything. "How do you get outside? I would very much like to see it for myself sometime."

"You remember where you came in from? Well there's a door straight across which leads out back to the outdoors."

Doc nods.

"I've been here...just over a year, in the bar time, s'been longer outside though. Time's...a funny thing. Sometimes when you're outside back in your world, you'll walk back into the bar and it will have only been seconds since you left. Othertimes it'll be longer."

Katherine nods, absorbing this. "How do you find your way back in? Is it always so... sudden? Pulling you in, so to say? Or is there some way to find the entrance yourself?"

She should probably get back soon, but she'd hate to leave and not be able to find her way back inside. She has decided she likes this place. And the patrons... well, they're not so bad either.

"Sometimes it isn't where you expect, it, but some people have solid doors that will always lead them to the bar. I doubt your schoolhouse entrance will always lead you to Milliways...but you might be able to find a closet or somethin'."

Doc thinks on that a moment.

"I've also come in just walkin' between two rocks or the like. Once we came in ridin' down a slope, horse spooked when he hit the wooden floorin'," he admits.

"Such an interesting place," she remarks softly, eyes gazing about the room. The idea of finding a door to Milliways through her closet makes her smirk, images of getting tangled up in winter coats and feeling quite foolish drifting through her mind.

"I can imagine the stir that must have caused, coming through an eatery on horseback," she chuckles. "Quite an entrance, though."

"We were yellin' and dust went everywhere..." Doc laughs at himself. "It wasn't the most graceful entrance but it was a memorable one."

Being that he ended up thrown from the horse and on the floor in a heap before he picked himself up.

"It's...very interesting," he agrees. "But I hope you will find it enjoyable."

Her laughter is bright and gay as she pictures the scene. "'Ride, boldly ride, if you seek for Eldorado!'?" she quips good-naturedly.

"I've already found it quite enjoyable, Mr.--pardon, I mean Doc." She smiles demurely. "Due largely in part to you. I mean... you've been very helpful. In explaining things."

Blush.

Doc looks down when she mentions him, and he shakes his head just a little.

"Just tryin' to help out a bit, glad I could do that for you, Miss Katherine." He smiles a bit as he looks at the books. "And I'm glad t'here it's helped make a bit of sense, Milliways can be awful strange."

"That it can be," she agrees, again surveying the room. "It's not every day I stumble into a saloon with stars burning up outside the windows, rats for waiters, libraries the size of City Hall--and then some--and famous cowboys at the tables."

She smiles a bit, following his gaze to the books beside them. "You still haven't graced me with any of your poetry, though."

Doc blushes a bit (okay, a bit more than he already is) and chuckles. "It ain't that good...and I'd have t'get my journal out of my room. S'just down the hall, if you wanted I could grab it...and then show you the outdoors perhaps if you were interested in that, read you a poem or two?"

Inside he's trying to figure out which of his works are either mostly-his-own-work and stuff she won't recognized as twisted Poe and which things are...fit for proper company.

He's suddenly glad she won't be going in the men's restroom anytime soon, given what he wrote on the wall in there the first time he ever had rum.

"Nonsense!" she says, the teacher in her flaring up when he claims his work isn't that good. "That's for me to decide, is it not?" She smiles at him kindly.

But then his next words cause the breath to hitch in her throat, and she weighs the offer very carefully. She is trying to decide whether the invitation was meant to sound like a date or not. She is still young, and hasn't been left unchaperoned with a man in quite some time.

But she recalls what Doc told her about those in charge here not letting anything "unsavory" happen. Not that she thinks anything would; Doc is just being nice to a little lost lady. No harm in that. Silly, silly Katherine.

"That sounds lovely," she says finally, absently tucking another errant strand of hair behind her ear. "I admit, I would very much like to see the gardens. The stables, as well. And... well, I've never seen the sea before."

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