[Open Post] ..hell yes i mind..

[lanselos_du_lac]

It's been a long while since Lancelot felt this way: angry and adrift, too overwhelmed and in his own head to determine how best to manage it. (If Susan were here, it would be simple -- but the fact that his Susan is gone is part of the problem.) His anger is a hot stone at his center, a roiling mess, a weapon without a target. He still feels that he would like to smash something, start a fight, find some way to externalize everything all the things he could not bring himself to say to the Galahad who is far older than he ought to be, the quiet king of a quiet kingdom.

A fulfilled purpose. A completed quest. A long chain of manipulation and events that dragged Lancelot along in its wake, and that (in this other time, he has to acknowledge, not his time and not now) led only to the ruin of everything Lancelot had cared for. And for what? It makes him furious to think that the price of the Grail was Galahad's joy, Galahad's self, and that that price was somehow being paid long before Galahad was even born.

That's just the start of it; there is more, much more, and it feels like it will keep spooling out without ceasing.

His impulse, as ever, is to stalk off to his room and stay there until he feels he can manage himself. (He thinks, not for the first time, of himself ten years older and outwardly angry, angry enough that everyone sees it, fears him or dreads his company. A man who lashes out. He does not want that future, but this possibility has always been somewhere just under the surface; he's always known it. Sometimes it has worked for him, with him, but he knows that it is dangerous and there is no one in this place that he would want to bear witness to it.) If this were Camelot, that is what he would do.

Since he can't figure what to do, he settles for a middle ground. It's been a long while since he felt like getting very deliberately drunk, but that appeals just now, and so he heads for one of the smaller bars, just off the main corridor.

^{[Note: All are welcome! Those who care for Lancelot and/or those who also wish to fistfight God are particularly welcome.]}

Comments

[timebethine]

"For the three of us, since thou wilt be staying--certainly." Then, kissing Lancelot's temple, Laertes goes to examine his supplies. "We could make a stew," he says, "and bread to go with it. They can bake together in the oven."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot has a little pang at the realization that he had excluded himself from dinner, but he says gamely, "That would be well. I am good at chopping things as instructed."

[timebethine]

"Excellent. Let's see what there is to be had--ham and split pea, perhaps? We have some cured ham that would do well in a soup." Laertes starts taking out down ingredients from their shelves and hanging baskets: onions and celery and garlic, a big jar of split peas, what's left of the cured ham (still on the bone). "Wilt thou cut up the onions and celery very fine?" says Laertes, passing Lancelot one of the cutting boards. Unlike the furniture, the cutting boards have very clearly been liberated from one of the mansion's kitchens, along with two good kitchen knives. Laertes passes the bigger of the two over to Lancelot.

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I will," taking the knife and giving Laertes a grateful smile. He moves to set up his little station, and gets started, happy for something concrete to focus on.

[timebethine]

For a while, then, there's only the solid, repetitive thunk of knives on cutting boards, and the easiness of scooping vegetables and ham into mise-en-place bowls. "Sagramore and I made this sink," says Laertes, as he's putting his cutting board and knife into it. "We hammered it over a frame until it made a bowl, and then we cut a hole at the bottom and attached a drain to it. Sagramore's done all the plumbing in the house--it's very cunning work." Warmth and pride shine through in his voice.

[lanselos_du_lac]

"How is it thou dost know what to do? How to fashion it? We have nothing like this at court."

[timebethine]

"He has a book--hold a moment--" Laertes goes to the bookshelf in the living room (one of Susan's contributions) and fetches a much-bookmarked copy of Everything You Need to Know about Indoor Plumbing. "He's become a great reader, now that he has his spectacles."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot shakes his head as he flips through the book. "It is one thing for such magic to exist at the mansion, but to build it himself!"

[timebethine]

"Nay, it's science, not magic--pressure, and gravity, and sealants, and insulation." A pause. He can feel what Claudius calls an infodump coming on. "Hast thou the idea of gravity? It was new to me."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"No, I-- well, some? Perhaps? Thou canst explain."

[timebethine]

Laertes takes two of their mise-en-place bowls--the smaller one full of garlic, and the larger one full of ham--and places them centrally on the counter. "A man named Albert Einstein saith that space and time are like a great cloth, and like a cloth, they bend where there is a great weight upon them." He sets the plate of ham upon the otherwise empty tablecloth, then gestures Lancelot over. "Here, take thou the other corners; help me lift this from the table."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot moves to do as Laertes has indicated, his expression open, curious, smiling.

[timebethine]

"See thou," says Laertes as they lift the cloth; "the fabric of the universe bends around the ham. And thence, all smaller objects tend toward it." With one hand, he lets the bowl of garlic slide down from the corner of the tablecloth until it comes to nestle against the ham. "And what, thinkest thou, would happen if I rolled a great ball of lead onto the fabric? For though its girth be not as great as the ham bowl, it's very dense--small, but massy. What then would the ham and the garlic do?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

Carefully, thinking it through, he says, "I presume they would tend toward the lead."

[timebethine]

"Ay, so it would--and this is the force of attraction that we call gravity." He carefully lowers his end of the tablecloth. "Lesser things tend toward greater; their paths bend, circling the well of that which hath the greatest mass. So does the moon orbit the Earth, and the Earth, the sun; so, too, do we mortal men tend toward the Earth rather than drifting into the sky, for the Earth is greater than any of us." A little smile. "So do I tend toward thee."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot smiles, a real spot of brightness, though it is still a bit tentative. "I am not greater than thou art."

[timebethine]

"No? But as lesser tends toward greater, then thou must allow that equal masses tend equally toward each other."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Mm, there is sense in that."

[timebethine]

Abruptly, Laertes remembers that these bowls are for making stew, and not for physics demonstrations. "I cannot remember how we came to this subject," he confesses, and starts to fill a cast-iron pot with water. "Wilt thou help me carry everything out to the oven to cook?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"There was a need to explain how plumbing works," helpfully. "But aye. I shall do as thou dost bid me."

[timebethine]

"Ah! Yes. Gravity is the force that draweth water down toward the earth--be it rain, or waterfalls, or our humble plumbing system." Laertes takes the pot and tucks a couple of small bowls into the crook of his arm, then leads the way out to where he and Sagramore have started building a patio around the oven. There's a metal rack set over the top of the oven that serves roughly the same function as a heating coil on a stove; Laertes sets the pot atop it and puts his bowls down, then goes to carry over a few pieces of firewood and a twist of tinder. "I hope to lay wires soon, that we might have an electric stove," he says as he strikes a match and sets it to the tinder.

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Thou'rt a wonder."

[timebethine]

"... what?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"There is nothing that stops thee. Everything is possible."

[timebethine]

"For thee, as well."