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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"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.

"All right," Doc says. "Haveta admit the forest ain't much, just trees, so we can wander back through it. The gardens and the greenhouse are this way," he offers her his arm again before heading down the path that will lead them to the plots of various plants and the greenhouse.

There are quite the variety of species, it also seems.

Katherine nods. "I was advised by another patron to stay clear of the forest. Something about possessed rabbits?" She shakes her head, almost skeptically. "I trust with you leading the way I shouldn't have cause for worry, though."

She does see some interesting forms of flora and fauna though, remarking on each as they come upon them. "How did you ever adjust? There are so many different and strange things here."

She glances at some of the various bushes and trees and garden tracts, wondering how many are fruit bearing, and how edible the "fruit" is.

Doc doesn't mention that rumor he heard about demonic cookie dough. That can be for another story.

"Took some work," he says, as she glances at the different plants. "T'be honest I don't know what half this stuff is, and most of the food I get is straight from the bar and the kitchens."

It is another short walk, continuing along the lake, to reach the area where the stables and forge are.

"You just...you get used to it. Been comin' here awhile and it gets easier each time."

It's probably for the best Katherine does not, as of yet, know about the cookie dough incident. That will be an... interesting conversation, no doubt.

She is, however, appropriately impressed by the forest, the lake, the gardens... well, by everything, really. "I'm not sure I could ever get used to this place. Every time I read The Prince and the Pauper, or A Study in Scarlet, they always surprise and thrill me. I think there will always be something to surprise me here, too." She blushes self-consciously. "Strange, I suppose."

She smiles as they approach the stables. "Now we enter your territory," she smirks.

"Yes ma'am," Doc chuckles a little as he pulls the doors to the barn open. There are stalls on either side, and a large hayloft on either side as well. Natural light can enter from the skylights along the center of the roof, and there are a few bales of hay stacked up near the walls in a few spots. At the end of the row is a tack room and then a desk and chair, and a bulletin board.

Outside are several good sized paddocks, and an exercise ring as well.

"Wasn't always my territory, but the man who ran it before me moved on sometime last year, been runnin' it sense."

"And a fine job you're doing!" she remarks, picking up her skirts and walking through the open barn doors. She steps carefully as she walks, her heels not very conducive to the barn setting. "Do you do all this yourself? It's... well, it's immaculate!"

A sweet-looking Bay cranes its neck out towards Katherine, and she reaches her flat palm out to stroke it's muzzle. "Hi there, sweetie." She smiles warmly, a second hand reaching out to tenderly join the first.

"I got a staff of about four, five other people here who help out with the day-to-day work, but s'easy enough for me to do most of the time."

He approaches the stall as he reaches into a pocket on his vest.

"She's always hangin' around when she hears me comin', thinks I'm gonna give her somethin'," Doc teases quietly.

This of course, is not helped when he offers Katherine a sugar cube for said horse.

She smirks, picking the cube of sugar from his open palm. "I wonder why she would think that," she teases.

Katherine chuckles as the Bay eats from her palm, stroking her mane and mumbling quiet little things in her velvety ears. "She's a beauty," she remarks to Doc, then turns to the horse surreptitiously: "Don't let him make you fat, my dear."

Doc laughs at that remark.

"Hell," then a quick correction. "Heck, I mean. Heck, I think she likes you. Don't see why she wouldn't, though."

He might blush just a bit as he smiles at her.

Katherine chuckles, having the grace not to look at him as his cheeks redden.

"You think? I could do worse for friends," she smiles. "And I have a way with animals. Don't know why, but I always have. Horses are especially dear."

Pause.

"You don't have to do that, you know."

Doc shrugs a bit. "Don't think it's proper to be swearin' 'round a lady, that's all." He offers her his arm again after the horse decides that they don't have any more sugarcubes. "And then I suppose we'll have t'go out sometime and see the grounds a bit better with horses when you've got more time to spare."

And she's more properly outfitted, but that's what bar is for.

She smiles. "I appreciate it.

"I grew up on a farm, though. My father raised all sorts of livestock: chickens, pigs, goats..." She pauses, giving the Bay one last affectionate pet and taking Doc's arm again; "So I was a bit rough around the edges as a girl. ...I ain't always talked so purdy, m'self."

She blushes scarlet, and looks toward her feet as they walk. "But I would love the opportunity to come back sometime for a ride, when I don't have my children to worry about back home."

"Then when you get back, we'll do that, I promise."

He leads the way out of the barn and away from the stables, points out the forge as they pass it, and then as they continue on down the lake path, the air grows a bit cooler, the breeze a bit more fresh...the pines into palms.

"Y'might want to slip off those fine heels, Miss Katherine. Wouldn't do to ruin them walkin' in the sand," he says quietly.

A smile.

"I intend to hold you to that, Josiah."

Katherine is so preoccupied with the palms--the strange, tall trees that sway ever-so-gracefully in the wind--that she fails to notice the changing terrain.

"Oh. A-all right," she says, her cheeks a little rosy. She politely requests Doc's hand for support as she removes her shoes and stockings, and stands again barefoot in the soft sand.

Smile.

This is new and different.

Doc gives her that hand for support, than kneels to fetch her shoes and stockings and place them carefully on a large, flat rock for safekeeping once she's finished.

"Heard it's part of the tropics. We get a ship in," he says. "The Flying Dutchman, actually. Ain't seen it around in awhile, though."

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