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It was not the grand, sweeping architecture of the hotel that disturbed him nor the apparent technological feats to which he would have to become accustomed. He had, after all, lived in Paris, where all the latest and most important inventions made their way. The bright lights, the motorized devices, the moving doors...Those were things that he could come to an understanding, regarding their use.

No, it was the stillness. The quiet way in which people gathered for meals but didn’t really talk and then wandered the gardens in the same quiet. No threat hung over them, no call to action. D’Artagnan sat useless, feeling as if he might fly apart from inaction and it was only his first days yet. If he was bound here as long as some people suggested, he thought he might go mad.

There was, at least, one distraction that had apparently--blessedly--not changed in the intervening centuries. It was how d’Artagnan found himself at the stables, befriending and saddling up an energetic gelding. He had regarded the young Musketeer imperiously until bribed with an apple and now d’Artagnan could lead the horse out to the surrounding hotel grounds.

D’Artagnan mounted and kicked the horse into a trot and then a canter. It didn’t take long before they gave into their spirits and moved up to a gallop, ranging about the grounds.

At last, if only for a moment, he felt himself again. Caught up in the energy, the sheer joy of riding, d’Artagnan no longer felt quite like he was about to explode out of his skin. Instead he felt alive, raising a fist and shouting his joy.

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It's hard to miss that glimpse, though d'Artagnan makes no comment on it. He's clever enough to know better, especially with unearthly women who seem to balance on fences like spiders on their own webs.

"Have you been here long."

"Too long," Chiana answers, taking a few steps along the fence, eyeing the man and his horse. She slices another bit off her apple and eats it. "Are you stuck here too, or do you get to go home?"

"I've been here a few days," he admits. "Not long enough to know."

"Like you say," she adds, stopping where she is and holding up the hand holding the knife, two of her gloved fingers crossed. "Fingers crossed."

D'Artagnan nods, uncertain of the gesture's precise meaning, but gamely replicating it and bowing again. "At least the breakfast is freely provided. I'll be short on coin otherwise."

Well, that's a response to the gesture she hadn't yet met, but Chiana just takes it in stride. This was all humans and their weird customs, of course she wouldn't know them all already. (She is pretty proud to have used the crossed fingers as she knew it.)

Now, the news that Dart (it's the only part of his name that stuck with her) is short on cred isn't exactly welcome, but it's not like she needs to steal much around here, like he's just pointed out. She drops from the fence, on his side of it, and comes closer to offer his horse a slice of apple and pet his head a little. "We're all thankful for that," she assures him, and looks up at him, gloved fingers still stroking the horse's muzzle. "So, Dart. If you've got nothing better to do, teach a girl how to ride?"

She can't help make that sound like an invitation to a lot more, because she'll always be who she is, but the request is genuine.

It's a dance of half-understood gestures on both parts then. At least Chiana's gentle approach to the horse is one d'Artagnan can fully parse and appreciate. People who treat animals well, he's found, tend to be better than those who do nothing but take them for granted.

The nickname chafes a little and the innuendo hits the raw part of him, still hurting from Constance's rejection, but he manages to keep the larger part of a grimace from his face.

"The stables aren't far from here. We can find a horse who suits you and take it out for the afternoon."

Chiana likes the people who come out with what they want a lot more than the ones who hide it, and no one will do something for nothing. So at his relatively easy acceptance, her eyes narrow slightly in suspicion. "Just like that?"

She'd been expected to have to offer something for it. She'd been ready to, in fact;

"Well no doors have opened up to home and I've nothing better to do," d'Artagnan says.

Unbidden, he remembers Maria Bonnaire.

"Are you planning to hold me at gunpoint or bite me?"

Chiana shifts her balance from one foot to the other, a sign of thoughtfulness. "Not this morning," she allows. Not because she needs to tell the truth - lying is one of her favourite skills - but because the truth, in this case, feels more relevant.

"Strangely, that's more reassuring than if you'd said no outright."

Clearly, he's been around Milady too much.

Chiana spreads her arms in another one of her strange bows, lips stretched into a smile and dark eyes glinting, as if to say, I live to serve. The horse takes that opportunity to bump his nose at her shoulder, and she breaks the act with a much softer smile and a chuckle, stroking his muzzle again.

At least the horse seems keen on her, so d'Artagnan thinks she can't be too bad. Maybe.

"The horses are free to take out for guests, I was told."

Chiana looks up at him, gauging him for a few seconds, her gloved hand still stroking the horse's head. "You really gonna help me out for nothing? Because I'd feel better if you helped me out for something."

"Such as? My lodging's provided and I have coin enough for food. My luck with the fairer sex has been cruel, so you'll forgive me not falling for your seductions," d'Artagnan says.

"But I'm a soldier for the King."

Ah, a soldier. Chiana's known more than her fair share, and she's met one or two who never did want anything from her. (They fell all the same, contrary to Dart here, even if she usually put more effort than she had so far.) "Which king?" she asks, more to make a point than because she really cares. She doesn't know any of the Earthen leaders, after all.

"Louis the thirteenth. Of France," he forgets himself, tone becoming slightly puzzled that this isn't something she knows. But then, she's a gray lady, her world must not be the same.

"He rules Earth, then, where you're from?" Chiana asks curiously. She's never before thought to ask any of them what their leaders were like.

"France, which is one of its most important countries." He turns a corner as they approach the stables.

"Right," Chiana acknowledges, although that matters less than, "What's he like?"

"He's younger, still, but ambitious. I am a citizen of France," d'Artagnan reminds her, walking into the stable. "It does not do to describe him too honestly."

"You're not in France now," Chiana retorts pointedly, with all the poise of one who was criticising the authoritarian regime of her homeworld even before she'd run off to the Uncharted Territories. She walks in after him, taking a second to get used to the smell before she follows behind him, looking at the horses in their stalls. Didn't seem right, locking them up.

"Yes, but kings have ears everywhere," d'Artagnan promises her, smiling wryly.

"And horses are right here for you to find one who suits you."

"And how should I go about that?" Chiana asks curiously, walking between the stalls and eyeing the different animals. Then she smiles, and looks back over at Dart, her smile sharp. "Your king sounds like a grolash."

She highly doubted that his ears reached here, and even if they did... Humans were a lot less frightening than the Establishments or the Peacekeepers, never mind the Skarrans.

"A what?" d'Artagnan asks, eyebrows raised, perplexed. He shakes his head and looks away, turning his attention to the horses.