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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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."

"The sea here is lovely," Doc agrees, before he stands carefully from the chair, her books in hand. "We can leave these with the bar and you can pick them up when you're ready for them, or before you go back to Green Lake?"

It will be a good opportunity to show her the fact that the bar is well, magic.

He offers her his free hand to assist her up.

Katherine nods. "All right."

She carefully takes his hand in one of her own, her other hand clutching her skirts, making sure they fall right as she stands. Her hand perhaps lingers in his a second too long before she shyly takes it away.

"Please, lead the way." She chuckles. "I'm afraid I'm a bit at your mercy here."

Doc nods his head and leads the short distance from the library to room # 25, where he reaches into his pockets for the key. "I'll just be a second," he opens the door and leaves it open as he steps inside.

From the doorway (if she chooses not to step inside) she will be able to see the bed (off to the far side of the room) with a small table beside it. There is also a chest of drawers with a mirror (two delicate folded paper cranes, one brown and one pink on the surface) and a writing desk.

There are books stacked in piles two and three high in several spots around the room, and in one corner, she will spot a very Sherwood-looking long bow.

He crosses quickly to the desk and rifles through a stack of journals, before he finds one and tucks it into his pocket, then turns to the books. He selects a volume and then adds that to her pile.

(It was something of Poe he didn't notice in her stack from before, that she should have in her collection at that schoolhouse.)

Then he returns and smiles.

"All right, we can just leave these and then we'll be on our way for your grand tour," he says.

Katherine is a proper lady, of course, so she chooses to remain in the hall.

However, even as a proper lady, she does have her curiosity to contend with. So she pivots forward slightly and takes a peek inside. Doc isn't long though, so she doesn't have time to explore everything before snapping back into place, hands clasped in front of her, looking as innocent as possible.

She smiles when he returns, nodding eagerly at the mention of a 'grand tour.' "You are a man of many diverse hobbies," she comments absently as they make their way down the hall, that smile on her lips quickly turning into a smirk.

"All stuff I learned here," Doc admits. "I wasn't very interesting back home," even though that's sort of a lie, being that he's been a medical student, an outlaw, a cattle rustler, wanted man, etc.

Once they reach the downstairs and the bar, Doc sets the books on the countertop but keeps his hands on them.

"Now there's one thing 'bout the Lady Bar, here, that's gonna strike you as strange, I reckon. But just watch an' I'll try an' explain after the fact."

Then he turns his attention to the books.

"Bar? Could you hold these for a second? Tryin' to show Miss Katherine just how things work 'round these parts..." He removes his hands and the books...vanish.

Katherine takes a moment to voice those facts aloud. "Not very interesting? As an outlaw, a student of medicine, a teacher, a farm hand, a law enforcer... am I forgetting anything?" she asks with a laugh. "My, any less interesting and I'd have to say you were bluffing just to impress me. And you're still so young."

Hearing Doc refer to the bar as 'the Lady Bar' already struck Katherine as strange, but given everything else she has encountered thus far she found it most advantageous to wait and watch and learn.

And what she sees is little different from a magic trick.

"Oh my heavens!" she declares, leaning forward, looking for seams or hidden doors in the bartop. "How did she... She's a she?"

Blink.

"From what I've heard."

Yes, I am. the writing appears on a napkin on the bartop.

Doc smiles a little bit.

"Ask her for anythin' and you'll git it, within reason. She don't give out weapons 'cept for practicin' and she don't give out live stuff, like plants or animals. Food, drinks, anythin' you can think of...go ahead and try it."

"Oh good gracious," Katherine exclaims, hand to her heart, as the napkin appears. "I'm sorry, I... didn't mean to offend?"

She looks at Doc unsurely, almost pleadingly, with eyes that ask, "am I doing this right?"

She nods her head and turns back to the bar. "Miss Bar?" She pauses to think. Anything I want? Well that opens a world of possibilities. "Miss Bar, may I have an apple, please?"

Okay, so it was a cliché, but this schoolteacher actually likes apples. Besides, she doesn't want to offend by asking for something too big.

A shiny, red apple suddenly appears in front of Katherine, which delights her to no end. "I almost can't believe it!" she breathes.

"It'll get easier, I promise," Doc assures her. "And she's not offended, trust me."

If the bar had been offended, that apple may not have been so shiny, after all.

"She'll be back t'get her texts before she heads back," Doc adds, to the bar. "And you got any mail for me?"

The writing on the napkin shifts. Nope.

He pats the counter affectionately. "People can leave messages and she'll deliver them the next time you're in." He offers her his arm, again, if she's ready to head outside?

Katherine's eyes are as big as saucers as she watches the lettering on the napkin shift and swirl. "That is simply amazing... You've quite the talent, Miss Bar."

A smiley face appears on the napkin. If a smiley face could look like a smug grin, this would be it. Katherine smiles back as she takes Doc's arm again, reluctant to take her eyes away from the Bar.

"Were you expecting anything important?" she asks, picking up the apple and handing it to Doc. "Here--" her smile spreads warmly across her face, "--an apple for the teacher."

"Was hopin' for a message from a friend of mine," Doc says. "But Jack's not in all that often, so just was checkin' to see if he'd been around yet since I last saw him."

He smiles when she offers him the apple and he accepts it.

The teacher.

Not the outlaw. Not the wanted man. Not the killer. Not the Regulator.

The teacher.

"Thank you," he says, honestly, and the smile is genuine on his features, and it even reaches his eyes as they head for the back door. He opens it, and leads them out.

"It must be hard keeping in touch with people worlds--and times--apart," she remarks sympathetically.

Katherine watches the smile mold his features, penetrating deep down and bringing to the surface his genuine happiness at the gesture. She hadn't known what his eyes were missing before. Now that she's seen it, she imagines how hard it must be to keep smiling in circumstances like Doc's, and is grateful she could impart at least momentary satisfaction.

"You're more than welcome. You've been a fine teacher thus far," she says as she steps through the back door, and suddenly her voice goes quiet as she takes everything in.

Blink.

Doc's quiet, for a moment as he nods.

"S'pretty impressive," he says. "Lake freezes over in the winter, too."

It's warmed up enough now for swimming, but he hasn't gone yet. He prefers the ocean. It's cleaner, anyway.

There is a lot to take in. And they can't even seen the ocean from here!

Katherine's eyes slowly dart to and fro over the landscape. She hasn't seen it's match in all of Texas.

After a time she turns her head to look up at her silent companion, eyes glinting with hardly contained excitement.

"Show me everything," she breathes.

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