We were born to be fighters ...

[averygoodshot]

"Just ... give me a moment," Aramis says over his shoulder. He is tired, his body aches, he still has glass in his hair, he is sure, and a cut on the back of his head that needs cleaning. His leg hurts and even the scratches on his face need tending. But he needs a moment. Just ... a moment to himself, to collect himself.


It could still send his heart racing to think of him not getting to the Queen in time, of what might have happened if he had not gotten into the window when he did. If something had happened to the Queen and the Dauphin -

But nothing did, it's true, thank God. And he just wishes to take a moment to himself back in his room at the Garrison.

So he opens the door, his hat under his arm, and steps ... into someplace else entirely, some place he's never seen before. Into a huge elaborate anteroom (lobby), even more grand than most rooms at the Louvre. What is this place? He turns and the door he had come through is gone. So, he turns back around, wary, pushing his hat onto his head (wincing some at the sting) but all the better to be ready, a hand on his sword, the other holding his pistol. Had he fallen again? Hit his head? Is this all a dream? If so, he would like his dreams to be a little more ... well, intimate, actually, not populated by people dressed entirely differently and looking at him like he is the stranger in a strange place. "Beg pardon," he asks (unless the one approaching is a Musketeer), "... where am I?"

Comments

[praiseandglory]

The one approaching is, in fact, a Musketeer, although one in a strange guise. He looks like a thin, athletic young brown-skinned woman, in a pair of breeches and boots that very clearly do not come from 17th century France, but the oversized jacket left open over a just as oversized shirt is easily recognisable as Porthos's, if one has an eye for such things. The Musketeer in question has had to forego wearing his pauldron while he remains in this form, much to his chagrin, the shoulder guard made for a shoulder much wider by far this his currently is. But he stubbornly keeps his broadsword at his side, despite how heavy it now feels and the fact that he could hardly make good use of it in his present state.

At least he's learned the trick of walking in this body by now.

As it was, he strides as quickly as he can (on shorter legs) towards his friend - his injured friend. "Aramis!" he calls out, eyebrows raised. His head is bare - his hat no longer fits him either - and his long hair pulled back into a braid. "Are you alright?"

Explanations about the hotel can wait, and in his concern for his friend, he doesn't even think that Aramis won't recognise him.

[averygoodshot]

Turning to see who calls his name, Aramis frowns. He does not recognize this woman, beautiful though she is (and really, he takes great pride in recognizing the women he has been with, after all).

She is, he sees as she nears, wearing a shirt much like Porthos's. A conquest of his, perhaps, who absconded with his clothes?

And his sword?

"Madamoiselle ... ? I am fine. Do you happen to - " he points to the weapon. "Where did you get that?"

[praiseandglory]

"I'm not a mademoiselle," Porthos replies in a gruff tone that would be impossible not to recognise as his if it weren't for the fact that his voice is much higher pitched than it ever could get, naturally. "But I take that to mean you are all right."

It's generally a bad idea to trust any of the Musketeers saying they're fine - Porthos would know - but Aramis has looked much worse and been fine, and he's noticed Porthos's sword. Both very encouraging signs.

"Come on, let's get out of here," he adds, clapping a hand on Aramis's back the way he normally would. Porthos sees no reason to change anything about himself just because he suddenly looks like a woman. "I'll explain everything over some wine." He's got some coin he won in a card game last night (no reason to change that, either), and this is definitely a story best told over wine.

Then again, most stories worth telling are.

[averygoodshot]

"I - " Really, she sounds so uncannily like Porthos, but in the guise of such an attractive woman; poor Aramis's mind is spinning. Porthos has no sister after all (which is just as well, because were she to look like this, it might have created some friction between the friends). "Who are you? Where are we? Where are we going?"

And yet, even as he asks, he's walking with this woman - where? He doesn't know.

[praiseandglory]

"Trust me," Porthos replies - and Aramis usually does, but these are fairly special circumstances, "you'll want wine for this."

But he can, at least, answer Aramis's last question before they get to what they call the Smoking Room. "There's a tavern here - they call it a 'bar'. Called the Smoking Room. Don't ask me," he adds with a shake of his head, because the name perplexes him, too. "They serve wine good enough for court, if you'll believe that."

[averygoodshot]

The more this woman talks, the more she sounds like Porthos. Aramis reaches up to pull off his hat with one hand, the other going to the back of his head to feel at the cuts there, even as they walk. Ow. "If it is expensive as it would be for court, I am going to be of little help in paying for it."

[praiseandglory]

"That's the best part," Porthos answers with a shake of his head. He almost adds something about Athos being in here all the time, but holds himself back at the last instant. It's probably best not to give Aramis more questions than he already has, and he can't be sure that Athos isn't back in Paris right now, anyway. "Very affordable, all things considered. Through here," he adds, gesturing at the tavern door with a bare hand. His gloves don't fit him anymore either.

[averygoodshot]

Looking around as they make their way inside, Aramis can at least feel a little more at home in this place than in that grand anteroom they'd just come from.

He lets himself be led to seat, cushioned and not wood - that's nice and he sits with a wince, hat tossed onto the seat next to him. Trust her, this woman had said. For the moment, he does as he has no choice. And he really can use a glass of wine. Or three.

[praiseandglory]

"I'll be right back," Porthos assures him, and walks away to the counter to order a bottle of red wine, and two glasses. His gait, at least, is nothing like it normally is; it looks slightly awkward, much like that of a youth not yet grown into their own body.

But he gets back to their table quickly enough, setting the two glasses down and immediately pouring wine from the bottle that was opened for them.

"Here," he tells his friend, sliding one of the two glasses his way, and lifts his in a typical Porthos toast before taking a generous drink. He sets it back down and, after Aramis has taken a drink of his own, forces himself to start with the beginning. What he wants to do is tell Aramis who he is, but that had better wait until his friend's accepted the truth of this place. "Let me guess. You've found yourself here suddenly, as you walked through a door?" He almost adds, 'back in Paris', but who knows where Aramis was when this happened.

Or, more frustratingly, when.

[temperamentalsteel]

It seemed ill-intention has made the spell last longer this time than the last, to d'Artagnan's frustration. There were only so many ways to skulk around and avoid Porthos' retribution as well as Athos' dry amusement. He'd had to tighten his breeches and jacket and even then he may as well be drowning in them.

"I was wondering when you'd come along as well," he said. Because where one Musketeer went, the others followed.

[averygoodshot]

"... beg pardon?" Aramis turns to see a woman ... seemingly very outweighed by familiar clothes. "Were I to guess, I would say you know ... d'Artagnan. Would he be here, madamoiselle? I would like to see him."

[temperamentalsteel]

"He stands before you," d'Artagnan said, sighing. He wouldn't quite admit to this mischief being largely his doing, but its result was plain.

"Has this place been explained yet?"

[averygoodshot]

Yes.

Aramis rubs at his head again. "So, Porthos told the truth, then. You are both women."

And beautiful women, too, which ... well, isn't as surprising as it could be.

[temperamentalsteel]

"I would avoid door number sixty-three," d'Artagnan deadpanned, sounding very much like Athos in that moment. "Unless you've always wondered."

[averygoodshot]

"Wondered what?" Aramis asks, smiling despite himself. "What it is to be a woman? I ... will bow to your superior experience. So ... here we are."

[temperamentalsteel]

D'Artagnan shrugs, gesture and posture strikingly similar, even in this form. "Or how you'd look. Now perhaps I'll push you through just to see," he teases.

[averygoodshot]

"If you do," Aramis tells him, raising a finger in a gesture that would be familiar to d'Artagnan, "I will be most displeased." A beat. "How do you find this place, d'Artagnan?"

[armedagainstlove]

Athos permits Aramis to speak to the stranger for a time, sitting in the shadows of a corner. He is still well within his ability to speak, think, and operate without casualty and so when he stands, he moves with ease across the room, coming to a slow stop at Aramis' side. He says little, but raises his brow to greet him, wondering what on earth he'd done to himself to cause such scrapes upon his face.

"If you've brought trouble with you, I hope you also thought to bring wine," is his conversational remark.

[averygoodshot]

"Athos."

Oh, Aramis is so glad to see him. "I feared I fell and hit my head." Again. "One moment, I was going into my room, then next ... I am here." His hair is probably notably longer, nearly grazing his chin.

But Athos is here, so he cannot be entirely lost.

[armedagainstlove]

"Unfortunately, I can assure you that whatever injury has accosted you has not made you imagine this place," Athos remarks, watching the flow of pedestrians in front of them. "You're actually here, in a place that you've never seen before, surrounded by things you may not recognize. Shall I continue or do you want time to process?"

Athos had gone straight to the wine to help him in understanding matters.

[averygoodshot]

Aramis can always rely on Athos not to condescend or pull his punches. Despite the situation, he has to smile a little. "And you are here, as well. You, I recognize." As well as that smell of wine that seems to come with Athos at certain times. "Please, do go on."

[armedagainstlove]

"It is a place outside of all normal law and reason," Athos says. "With doors that can either lead you home, to new worlds, or transform you." He does not speak of the icy plague that had accosted him until Porthos' leadership into the beached world had thawed him out. "And time does not move, but board is given. It is an unfortunately appealing place for when one wishes to hide from the world."

[averygoodshot]

But Aramis does not wish to hide from the world, not if the Queen is not here. He watches Athos's face as his friend speaks and knows there is more to the story than just that.

"What do you mean, time does not move?" he asks, brows drawn together. "Time must move."

[armedagainstlove]

Athos wonders if perhaps he had stuttered. "Precisely what I said," he replies once more, the edge of impatience lurking in his tone as if he will snap if Aramis asks him again, though he wouldn't (yet). "When we are here, time stands still at home. I pass through the door and it is as if no time has passed. If I were to return to Paris, I would be outside the garrison, trying to assure Porthos that we would not have abandoned him to the Court, despite knowing he is here and remembers more than that."

[averygoodshot]

"Abandoned him to the Court...?"

It takes a moment for Aramis to even remember what that means. "Athos - that's months ago."

He rubs at his head, wincing when he aggravates a cut, which reminds him that he should clean those. "Is ... that is the last thing you remember from Paris?"