Return of Titus Pullo and Arya Stark (AKA Vegas and a cheap buttery alternative to therapy. Open!)

[runaway-stark.livejournal.com]

She was safe, she was warm, and the whole situation was very much like being asleep. And then with an abrupt pop!, Arya Stark was salty and buttery and very much wide awake.

She was disoriented for several seconds, trying to mesh two distinct memories of where she had just been. The first set was of Braavos, and the House of Black and White, and going to sleep after drinking a cup of bitter milk. The other was of this place, this castle... Hogwarts, she thought, and faces flashed in her mind, at once familiar and alien. Memories of most of her family here, though they were more impressions than images. And memories of some time before, coming back into the school to check in with her temporary guardian Kal, only to find his name on the plaque. It had been the last in a chain of... something... and she had stopped fighting and gone to sleep.

"Welcome back," said a man's voice from somewhere above her. She wiped greasy butter out of her eyes and looked up, seeing a large, burly man in a garishly-colored button-up shirt left open over a white undershirt, a pair of short trousers cut right around the knee, and a pair of worn-looking leather sandals in a style that she'd never seen, not even in Braavos where travelers from all over came. "Nice little pigsticker you've got there, eh, girl?"

Arya looked around her and found a sword--her sword, Needle--next to her and covered in as much butter as she was. She grabbed for it and started to try and wipe it off on the leg of her own cut-off trousers, but it did absolutely no good. The man chuckled. "Here," he said, reaching into a bag that he carried slung over one shoulder and pulling out another brightly-colored shirt. "Good girl," he said approvingly. "You've a good sense of priorities. You know how to properly care for a sword."

"Of course I do," she said irritably, more at the situation than at the man. The shirt was getting soaked with grease, but Needle looked slightly better than before. "I'm going to be a water dancer."

"Is that so?" the man said with the genial blandness of someone who didn't know what she was talking about. "Good for you, then. Name's Titus Pullo."

Arya looked at him warily, considered that she was holding a sword and he wasn't, and remembered vaguely that she was safe at Hogwarts. "Arya Stark."

((Both Arya and Pullo are available in here. Come on in and say hi!))

Comments

[pullo-xiii.livejournal.com]

"Ah, the women." Pullo sighed happily. "Beer? Don't tell me you like that swill. Barbarian drink, it is." Even after two years here, Pullo hadn't acclimated to that particular aspect of life.

"Now, Vegas, there's a place. Hot and dry as Egypt on a bad day, but ah, Hermes, the people and gambling... I never thought I'd see a place more crowded than Rome, but there it is. Whores aplenty. Wine on the house as long as I kept gambling... tell me, Methos, have you ever heard of 'Texas Hold 'em'?"

[ancient-adam.livejournal.com]

He chuckled, the familiarity of their argument a welcome reminder of their time together as soldiers. “Then call me a happy barbarian because it’s only gotten better over the centuries.”

“Vegas is a hell of a place,” he agreed. “Women, booze and gambling, all a man really needs most days. You played poker, eh? Win anything?"

[pullo-xiii.livejournal.com]

((Apologies for the wait, it's been a busy week!))

Pullo pulled a face, laughing nonetheless. "German piss, that's what it is," he insisted.

"Oh yeah. I mean, mostly. Enough to stay for a long time, anyway. But," he said, adjusting his bag, "then I got the itch to come back again, you know how it is. Besides, I've got the young master to look after. Who knows what he's been up to without me?" he asked, eyes twinkling. Doubtless he'd been fine, clever young lad that he was, but Pullo couldn't help feeling a little protective sometimes.

[ancient-adam.livejournal.com]

"I'm sure the bar over in Ravenclaw has some wine for your more refined Roman taste," he said with a laugh.

"Yeah, I know how it is." Methos paused, searching his memory. "Hera's tits, Octavian is here too?" He had never met the young man, but he remembered the stories Pullo had told him of the man who would eventually rule all of Rome.

[pullo-xiii.livejournal.com]

"He is," Pullo said, nodding. "Younger than he was last I saw him before Hogwarts, though. Odd. Very odd. But it's about the course for this place, isn't it?"

[ancient-adam.livejournal.com]

“Just about. This place seems to call people from across different times. Damned if I can figure out the reason, but there you are.” Methos neglected to mention that he had been called to the school recently, as compared to Pullo being called to the school across more than a thousand years. Of course Pullo adapted well, he always did.

“What about Vorenus? Last time I saw him he was headed into Egypt with Antony.”

[pullo-xiii.livejournal.com]

"I've noticed," he said dryly. "Vorenus... he took a wound in Egypt." Pullo's face became much less jovial, almost guarded. "Made it back to Rome, though. Got to say his piece to his daughters."

[ancient-adam.livejournal.com]

His own smile faded. “Ah damn. I’m sorry, my friend. Vorenus was a good man, and a damn fine soldier.” A bit conflicted, but Methos had grown to respect the man when he was part of the Thirteenth.

“Look, why don’t you get settled and meet me over in the Ravenclaw bar? We’ll open a few good bottles of wine and drink to his memory.”

[pullo-xiii.livejournal.com]

"He was." Pullo cheered at the mention of the Ravenclaw bar. "Sounds a plan to me, friend."