oneman_onevote | (no subject)

Havelock impatiently combs slightly tangled black hair back from his forehead with his fingers, eyes somewhat brighter than usual.

"Indeed, yes," he says, voice still level but somehow dreamy.

"People have ever feared death, and yet still it is glorified - soldiers are idolised, we assassins form a respected and powerful Guild. Fear and fascination."

He takes a meditatively unrestrained drink - the high alcohol content has long ceased to be a consideration.

"Is it strange to you?"

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Puck waves a hand vaguely. He's steered clear of the absinthe tonight-- that lesson needn't be learned a second time-- but there are assorted glasses and the odd bottle lying about, and he's currently halfway through something that looks suspiciously as if it might glow in the dark.

"Strange?" he says, as if he can't believe what he's hearing. "Strange? Strange would not be the half of it, dearest-to-my-heart. Est." He frowns. Something wasn't quite right about that. "At any rate, death is all ... very ..."

Another vague wave of his hand.

"I don't think on it."

Havelock shrugs over-elaborately, nearly spilling the dregs of his drink. He eyes his hand, and puts the glass down with exaggerated care.

"Well, I suppose there is little enough reason for you to - to do so. It is in my line of work to consider death. It is... occupational. Yes?"

Puck shrugs back, taking a swig of his fluorescent beverage.

"I don't think it can be healthy," he says. Havelock is eyed, somewhat dubiously, with eyes that shimmer erratically. "Mortals always wonder. I think that must be what kills them."

A considering pause.

"That or plagues. Or floods. Or you."

Havelock glances down at himself at the eyeing, in vague concern.

"All three, perhaps," he says seriously. "Although I believe I have only accounted for a very small percentage of the population."

A pause.

"Four."

Puck blinks, appearing quite seriously puzzled.

"That's all?" he says, words slurring together a bit as he finishes off the contents of his glass. "I thought it was ... more, somehow. You've the look of a man who's dispatched a goodly half-dozen. Or a baker's dozen. Possibly of bakers."

Where Puck attained the impression that Havelock has any especial vendetta against bakers is unknown.

"Hmm?"

Havelock frowns, puzzled, before his expression clear and he waves a hand languidly.

"Four methods for death, you mentioned? Plagues, floods, myself... and wonder, was it not?"

"Ahaaaa."

Now his world makes sense again. Puck nods sagely.

"Like the horsemen."

"Yes!"

Does this make Havelock the War or Death equivalent?

Assuming Puck isn't including Ronnie, of course.

"Four horsemen, to harvest the world..."

Oh, Havelock's Death. Definitely.

Puck frowns.

"They should have to be very large horsemen," he points out. "To harvest the entire world. Atlas, perhaps. Though he hasn't got a horse."

Maybe he has a giant thresher, however!

A combine harvester!

"I believe they have subordinates," Havelock replies thoughtfully. "To help... shoulder the burden of bodies, so to speak."

"Oh," Puck says, much enlightened. "Bodies. That should be a ... mmm. Much more wieldy harvest."

He glances down at his glass, swishing the dregs (of which there are hardly enough to make a mouthful) in some woe.

"Empty," he sighs.

Sad!

A couple of tables away, a patron, drops a empty spoon into a bowl that once contained curry, and stands.

I don't delegate, he informs the couple haughtily, before pulling his hood up over his polished head and stalking out of the bar.

...

Blink.

"My mistake," Havelock says to Puck, thoughtfully.

Puck blinks at the departing Death curiously.

And wrinkles up his nose.

"That leaves rather a lot of bodies unaccounted for," he drawls in distaste. "Quite explains the-- the state of sanitation, you know."

Historically, at least. Possibly his centuries are starting to blur together.

"Well, in Ankh-Morpork, the state of sanitation at least remains constant," Havelock replies thoughtfully.

"Constantly lacking therein of... it."

Oh, dear. Where has all the coherency gone?

And, for that matter, the rum?

Puck nods sagely.

"I suppose it's for the best. You, at least, you know where you stand." He points a slightly wavering finger in accusation.

"Always," Havelock nods emphatically, reaching out to tap his own fingertip against Puck's. It makes sense to him.

"Or indeed, sitting. Lying, too."

"Lying!"

Puck seems to seize upon this topic. "I always know where I'm lying. Whichever way you care to look at it, I imagine, I always know anyway."

He glances at Havelock's fingertip in a mixture of confusion and curiosity.

"So that's well enough, I suppose."

"Yes," he says, eyes gazing dreamily at the tabletop.

"Very useful locational device, I imagine. If you are lost, just lie down, and the world rights itself."

He rolls his eyes.

"Not what I meant, precisely," he says. "Were I lost, and I chanced to lie down, I'd know ... that I was lying down lost, perhaps, and little else."

A wave of his hand. "Though I'm seldom lost for very long. Move too fast."

"Ah, yes," he says after a moments consideration.

"Were you lost, fly a while until you found a place you know. Knew. It would make lost unusual."

He examines the few bottles nearby until he finds one with a little liquid left nside, and passes it over.

"The world," Puck informs him as he accepts the bottle with only minimal fumbling, "is very small."

"Yes."

So very tiny, when you look at the stars, and then when you look at the city and the people, and all they tiny worlds of people's lives, and your own is just one...

"Very small."

He pats Havelock consolingly. Sadly, this means that he momentarily loses track of his newly-acquired bottle.

"It seems an unfortunate downside."

Now where is it ... where is-- aha! By his elbow.

Cunning alcohol.

The bottle sloshes smugly in his hand.

It can ne'er be defeated!

Havelock, meanwhile, shrugs slowly, resting his chin in one hand.

"Yes. Small and yet so infinite. One story ends, and another... two others... Many."