pro_patria_mortuus | (no subject)

"Please keep an eye on your watch," Combeferre requested. "I'd like to try using the watches to communicate with you from the Labyrinth. I want to test it and see if it works."

Enjolras dutifully kept an ear out for the watch's speaking chime, and checked it occasionally as well, just in case he had failed to hear it. He received one message, fairly promptly, saying that Combeferre believed they were approaching the Labyrinth. Then, what seemed to be hours, at least insofar as one can tell at Milliways. (Despite his occasional absent-minded checking, Joly's watches are useless for timetelling purposes.) Then another message: this one brief, reassuringly calm and cheerful, and apparently from inside the Labyrinth, but with sound that came and went like a candle flickering in wind.

For the rest of the night, nothing more.

Time at Milliways is strange. Enjolras knows that. Time in the forest is even stranger; he knows that too. If there's no particular evidence they're safe, neither is there particular evidence they're in danger.

All the same. He doesn't sleep well; he wakes at every noise that might possibly be a chime. In the early morning, he goes to find Feuilly.

Feuilly is answers the door with a book in one hand and his hair standing on end, looking as if he's been awake for some time, which is either an indication that Milliways time is being peculiar again or merely an indication that it's an interesting book. When the situation at hand has been discussed in as much detail as possible, they spend a little while longer discussing the Soviet Union, with watches open on the table beside them.

The watches don't chime.

Their course of action is clear. The conversation lulls; Enjolras picks up his watch, moves the hands to 12, speaks into it to everyone who's listening. He waits for an answer from the Labyrinth too, and hears only from Bahorel, in his room down the hall and eager for the advenutre of a rescue mission.

Grantaire doesn't answer, but apparently he's listened to the little voice-message that's left behind, because when the others gather by Bar, he's there too. He blinks at them with his usual faint bleariness, but follows along readily as they start across the lawn, making for the trees. It's good to see. Grantaire cares about his friends, that's always been plain to see, but it's good to see him acting usefully on their behalf as well.

Bahorel has a large pack. Enjolras hasn't inquired into its contents.

Grantaire has a bottle. Enjolras hasn't inquired into its contents either, although in this case it's easy to guess.

He's never ventured through the Labyrinth's doors, but he does know more or less where it is. Bahorel likewise, it seems. It's some ways along, where the forest meets the mountains.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Feuilly has a pack as well, because why wouldn't you pack for this kind of trip, whatever kind of trip it's going to be? It seems reasonable to expect that they'll need food and water; and there's room for a few things like pencil and paper, matches, a ball of strong twine, one of those flash lights with the battery power...

"...but if you're sure the library doesn't come calling for its books back," he's saying, as they walk along, "I'll see about getting another set of shelves."

Bahorel's bag is clinking softly when it shifts. "They don't care how long you keep the books, but if there's one you really want the Bar will give you your own copy. She may do that anyway if you keep one out a while, in fact-- ah, that's our gate."

This time it's stone, very properly Labyrinthine, with the triangle-mark over it.

Grantaire does not have a bag. Nor does he have anything else that might be proper for an expedition, for the simple reason that he has not yet come into possession of the information that he is on one.

"For years," he remarks, "I sought wisdom through the good auspices of a bar; and how you all laughed at me! And here we are, the cafe's turned college after all. S'imbiber, that's to be soaked, from the Latin bibere, to drink, which then gave birth to the bibliotheque, otherwise known as a place where a man may get drunk on words."

And, suiting action to words, he takes a swig from his bottle, and regards the Labyrinth gate that it appears they are to voyage through with amiable placidity.

Edited 2015-01-28 04:54 (UTC)

Enjolras has his own small bag: bread, water, string (as anyone with sense ought to bring to a Labyrinth), a few other sundries. He also has his walking stick. But Bahorel's preparations seem to be rather more ambitious.

...And then in contrast, as so often, there is Grantaire. But at least he's come along, and if he's talking nonsense it's of the good-natured variety. Enjolras ignores this sally, and, with a glance at the others, goes to tie the end of his ball of string to a nearby sapling.

He'll open up his watch to speak to the others before they go in, just in case the watch-network's signals transmit more clearly from next to the Labyrinth's door than they did from within the building of Milliways. Enjolras has no idea how exactly this system of Joly's works or what parameters might affect its working, but it seems worth trying, since they do have this miraculous system for instant communication.

After that, there'll be nothing left to do but to enter.

Grantaire's etymology gets a laugh from Feuilly, though no particular answer comes to mind. Clearly they need to retrieve Bossuet and Joly, to help keep up with the wordplay.

He pauses with the hand on the gate, looking up at the carved triangle while Enjolras tries his watch. "Do you think the bar made this? Or was it here before...?" The question is directed more or less at Bahorel--or at any of them.

Enjolras lifts a hand to gesture ignorance of the answer to Feuilly's question. Into his watch, with the hands at 12, he says, "Combeferre, Joly, Courfeyrac, Bossuet -- it's been several hours. Are you well? We haven't received messages from you. The rest of us are coming in together. We'll try again to contact you when we're inside the Labyrinth."

The others' pockets chime once.

No further response, apparently, is forthcoming.

He glances around the group: shall they enter, then?

Bahorel's already heading in. Hey, if the watches chime on either side of the door that's useful to know, probably!

And on the other side of the door is...rock, lots of it. Rock walls, rock floor, all very properly mythic. There's some sort of vaguely sparkling, purple-green mold growing along the walls. Bahorel runs his thumb through a patch of it; it puffs little glittering spores all over him in return. They don't seem to do anything besides make him somewhat sparkly, which is more than all right, if not particularly productive.

Feuilly shrugs and follows; God knows what Bahorel might do left on his own in a magical cave even for a moment. (Honestly, Bahorel would be fine. But it's the sort of thing one feels the need to say around him.)

He raises his eyebrows briefly at the sparkles on the wall and on Bahorel. "Rococo. It's a new look for you."

Bahorel enters, and with a shrug Feuilly follows. Enjolras pockets his watch and follows, ball of string in hand.

He finds himself on a broad flat plain of sun-bleached grass, strewn about with huge stones as if a giant had scattered seeds upon it. The sky is just as bleached, a pale and disconcerting greenish shade, without a cloud upon it. The air's warm and moist as spring.

Bahorel and Feuilly are nowhere to be seen.

((Meanwhile...))

[And simultaneously...]