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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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"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.

"A grolash, a greebol, a trasnik," Chiana elaborates, and walks to the stall of a grey horse - its colouring matches hers, pretty much, and that's a good sign, right? "A frellwit." She could keep going for a while, but she focuses on the horse instead, especially when it comes and investigates who's at the door.

D'Artgnan shakes his head, not understanding any of those words but doubting that they're complimentary.

"She seems to like you."

So she is a she. Chiana grins at the horse, reaching out to pet her head now she's close enough. "Yeah? I think she just likes my apple." She cuts off another slice and offers it up to the horse, who happily eats it.

"I've found that food is generally very effective in introductions," d'Artagnan agrees. Already, he's glancing between the horse's name and the saddle that's been shaped to fit her.

"Do you know how to tack a horse?"

"I'd never ever seen one before I came here," Chiana replies, meaning that he should assume she didn't know anything to do with horses.

"What world are you from that you speak such strange words and know nothing of horses?" d'Artagnan asks. Already, he's hefted up a saddle into his arms. "This is hers."

"The colouring didn't give me away?" Chiana asks with a sharp smile, and opens the door to the stall. "You Earthens like to call me an alien." She turns her attention back to the horse when she noses at her almost immediately, wanting more of the apple, and Chiana laughs and feeds her the rest of it, knife disappearing back into her boot.

"An alien?" Admittedly, he does not know what that entails, aside from obviously being foreign. Not, however, so foreign that the horse thought to reject her.

"And where do aliens come from, mademoiselle?"

Chiana isn't sure what that form of address means, but seeing how proper he's been all along, she doubts it's suddenly an insult. But he doesn't know about aliens - he seems even less advanced than most humans she's met, and that is saying a lot.

But she's not about to hold that against him. Instead, she's about to blow his mind - hopefully, if he had even a little imagination and wonder in him.

"From the stars," she answers, with a smile at him - a smile that says she's seen so much more than he could ever dream of. From the stars, or close enough, but some humans have put it that way before, so she figures it's a good way to make herself understood to him.

There's something of Milady de Winter in her smile, something knowing and altogether a bit intimate. It's a smile that sets him completely on edge, though he returns it politely all the same.

"And here I'd thought only angels lived among the stars," he says, meaning it as theology, not flattery. "But it would seem that there are aliens too?"

"Angels?" Chiana echoes curiously. Clearly, she doesn't get it. But she reaches for the piece of equipment he's holding. "This goes on her back, right?"

"Servants of God," he replies thinking this is far more Aramis' arena than his own.

"Yes, this part front, then buckle the girth under her stomach, like so."

"Your priests live in the stars?" Chiana asks, curious and confused, as she bends her knees to do as he's told her. No other human's mentioned that before, but maybe they're not as backwards as she's assumed so far.

D'Artagnan shakes his head, though he's preoccupied with tightening the girth until the horse gives in and stops holding her breath so that her girth will be looser once she exhales.

"Angels are God's heavenly servants, priests are his earthly ones," he explains. Then, focused on current matters, he holds up the bridle, "The bit goes between the teeth."

Well, that religion of theirs sounded a little too complicated for Chiana's passing interest in it, so she was glad to focus on the horse instead. "Alright," she agreed, reaching out to take the bridle from him. She eyed the bit, and the horse, unsure how to proceed. "How do I...?"

Alas, he does not make the rules.

D'Artagnan decides it's better to show her, for the first time. When horse teeth are involved, it's better to learn by viewing the first time. "I'll show you, to spare your fingers."

He takes the bit and slides it over the horse's tongue. She balks a little, but takes it with a soft mouth and a docile expression.