underlondon_npc | Outside of Muses: Camden Market, Christmas 2032

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Outside of Muses: Camden Market, Christmas 2032

At first glance, the busy street Nix ushers Reid out to looks like something out of a Charles Dickens book, although slightly more sanitised than that. The street is narrow and jammed with stalls selling a massive variety of food, clothing, small animals, tools, odd-looking electronics and virtually anything (and everything) else. Few people in the street look particularly well-off - or particularly clean - although there's a wild variation in outfits, ages, genders and races. There are even horses and carts, although the occasional electric flicker betrays the fact that the horses, at least, are some kind of hologram, and in the sky are pigeons, and odd flying shapes that look as if they might be some kind of motorcycle or quadbike. Far off, and high up, an odd-looking machine like a train or perhaps a tram whirrs and rattles along elevated rails into the distance as it snakes through the tallest buildings.

The overall impression is that of noise and ragged colour and smoky late-afternoon air, all highlighted by the rather incongruous-looking strands of fairylights and the lightly falling snow. London smells odd: not entirely unpleasant, but smoky and damp, with an odd note of petrol and oils, maybe even gunpowder, behind the smells of dozens of cultures' worth of cooking food.

Nix turns to Reid with a laughing, red-lipped grin, gesturing with her furled umbrella. The door she's holding open for him is now that of a pub, the George Cross, with people laughing, shouting and drinking behind them as they had been in Milliways, but unlike Milliways it's far pokier, darker and overheated: it's no surprise that she preferred to drink at the end of the universe, when the opportunity presented itself.

"Welcome to London!"

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Reid raises an eyebrow, but.... he doesn't ask.

"Once he starts askin' questions about somethin', he never, ever stops," Nix explains, more quietly. "Ever. And explainin' a bar at the end of the universe and someone from Las Vegas 2010 is beyond even my celebrated lying skills."

"It's possibly his least attractive character flaw," adds Threnody. "And I say this as his little sister. Don't you reckon you'd be better off playing the distraction, though, Gryff? What with bein' the boyfriend, and all."

Gryff rolls his eyes. "You just want an excuse to go to the bar again. Fine, but bring me back something to drink."

"Deal," she laughs, and high-fives her older sister.

"You can meet our last third some other time, maybe," Nix says to Reid. "If we ever manage to open a door while he's around, anyway."

"Sounds all right to me. Maybe I'll get a chance to introduce you to some of my friends sometime," he replies.

Nix smiles. "That'd be fun," she says, steadying herself as the train turns a corner. "We're in the bar quite a bit. What about your lot?"

"Not really, that I've seen," Reid replies. "But that doesn't mean that that can't change."

They flash past a station without slowing down, the grubbiness and poor lighting leaving only a blur.

"Sometimes doors don't open, that's the worst bit," observes Gryff. "We had a hell of a time roundin' our lot up for that one meeting in the bar."

Nix groans. "Don't remind me. The number of times Celia tried to bolt for home..."

"I consider myself very lucky that that hasn't ever happened to me," Reid replies, nodding.

"It does have its moments, though," Nix says thoughtfully. "Like the one time I got caught and wound up in the bar... with handcuffs on. Beats breakin' your thumb to get out of them, I'll give it that. Not that I've ever tried that one, come to think of it - does that even work, anyway?"

Gryff holds up his hands. "Don't all look at me..."

"Ah, no it doesn't," Reid says, somewhat glad of something to say to that. "Work, that is. It's more a matter of dislocating than breaking, and you need to be able to do it without making the cuffs tighten anyway..."

"Gosh, comics have lied to me. Who'd've thought it?"

Nix looks ever-so-slightly wicked, and might be debating enquiries as to exactly how much of Reid's knowledge on the subject comes from personal experience. (She'd be doing more than debating if she thought he'd get the joke.) "I'll bear that in mind in, ah, future, thanks. Also, Gryff, given that you're dating my brother... whatever you're about to say, don't."

Gryff has indeed gone silent. And possibly slightly pink around the ears.

"I would just like to point out, as the lone teenager in this conversation, that I am completely innocent in all this and have no idea what you're talking about." Threnody sounds cheerful. "And just this once I think I'm happier unenlightened, thanks."

She gives Reid a comical look. "I'm pretty sure that's the only time I've ever said that."

Reid blinks at her.

"Really?"

No, he doesn't get it.

Threnody gives him a bright-eyed, innocent sort of look that should fool approximately nobody. It certainly doesn't fool Nix or Gryff.

"Really what?"

Blink.

"....Never mind."

Yeah, he really doesn't get it.

"My sister's a terrible person, sorry." Nix tweaks one of the dreadlocks framing Threnody's face. "Quit teasing him, Firefly. That's my job."

She blinks suddenly. "...Did you get another piercing?"

Her sister has the good grace to look guilty. "...Just my tragus?"

Nix gives her a big-sisterly sort of look. "Mamma's going to kill you when she notices, you do realise."

"Just like she did the last six times?" the younger girl points out. "What's she gonna do, ground me? Anyway, she's gonna be way more pissed off that you got punched in the face. Again."

Nix shrugs. "She'll have to realise eventually that I'm a big girl, I can take it. It's not like I haven't had worse."

"Yeah, I'm sure she'll be dead chuffed when you remind her about that."

"Girls, girls!" Gryff breaks in on what looks like becoming a decent-sized family squabble, having apparently recovered. "You're both going to get into trouble, all right? Settle down." He shakes his head at Reid, sounding long-suffering. "It's true what they say, it is a bad idea to coop families up in tin cans like this. "

"....This is normal?" Reid asks.

"What's 'normal'?" Gryff grins crookedly. "But yeah, it's what passes for it. They squabble so much you don't notice they've had you beat five times over until they've already done it."

"...Really?"

o__o

Nix snorts. "Give all our secrets away, why don't you?" she says, steadying herself as the train turns another corner.

(They're going downwards: not very steeply, but it's noticeable.)

"Don't listen to him, Bright Spark - he's just jealous of our good looks and charm."

"And height," Threnody puts in, and gets a face pulled at her by Gryff.

"...Right." What else can he say? His mind has been building profiles of them all, almost automatically, but he likes these people, as strange as they are. "Are we going downhill?" he asks after a moment.

Nix nods. "Yeah. The tunnels we converted are the deeper ones - it makes 'em harder to get at."

Meda Bennett has fallen asleep on one of the seats behind them; her daughter, on the other hand, has woken up, and carefully wriggled out of her mother's grasp and toddled along to tug at Threnody's hand. "How much longer?" Ely demands before she stumbles and catches onto Reid's trouserleg to save herself, apparently quite happy to stay that way for the moment.

"Couple of minutes, I think," Threnody says. "Shouldn't you be with y'mam? She'll panic if she thinks she's lost you again."

"She's asleep!" Ely protests, and grins up at Reid fearlessly. "I'm fine here."

Reid blinks down at the little girl.

"Uhm. Hello?"

"Hello," says Ely. "Again. Are you gonna be coming back with us?"

Nix strokes her hair. "Not for forever, Ely. Me and Threnody are gonna take him home once we get back."

"Oh." For a very small girl with only one fully-functioning arm, Elodie's grip on Reid's leg is surprisingly strong. "We ever gonna see you again?"

"Well," Reid starts. "Maybe? I live very far away."

"What's that like?" Ely asks. "I never left London before."

Nix smiles down at her, gently twisting one of her curls between her fingers. "You okay with her, Bright Spark?"

"Yeah, I think so." He has three doctorate degrees. He can handle this. Right?

"Well, where I grew up, it's a lot hotter," he explains. "And drier. It almost never rains, so water's expensive."

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