strangetrip | [EP] musketeers don't hide

The longer Constance was here, the less she could let herself believe it was all some fever dream. She was here, stuck in an inn in the Americas almost four hundred years in the future. As much as she wanted to be home, she didn't have the means to get there, and she wasn't going to sit around doing nothing. She hadn't done that while her husband was at the front; she wouldn't do it now.

She needed to learn about all the new technology – a new word, one she'd learned from River Song – and learn English, and she wasn't going to do either hiding away in her room or in the kitchens, although after a week watching the inn's unnerving cook and preparing things that didn't include chicken, for whoever was hungry, she thought she was starting to get a feel for the stove and ovens, and the rooms cooler than most cellars without being underground.

Today she'd made several meat pies and some with fruit, similar to the apple pie many had had the day they arrived, and taken them to the cafe. After setting them out for people to serve themselves, much as she would've at the garrison, if the cadets... or Porthos gave her the time to, she sat at a table nearby with needle and thread. A seam in her overbodice needed repair, and it with only the one outfit it was the only mending she was comfortable doing in public, regardless how little most of the women here wore.

She looked up as she heard someone come in, threading the needle by feel alone, and offered them a friendly grin. "'ello." It wasn't much, and she'd have to switch to French for anything else, but a simple greeting she'd heard often enough to offer in English. "Il y a de la nourriture, si vous la voulez," she added, gesturing toward the pies with a tip of her head.

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Phryne being Phryne had quite recovered her aplomb after an afternoon and several evening nightcaps with Jack. She set about to meet everyone in the hotel so she would know who to suspect if things or bodies went missing--and in the meantime to learn the extent of the social scene to which she was presently confined.

The lovely young woman busy with stitching and offering pies seemed an unlikely murderess, and equally unlikely companion for herself, but so had Dot on first acquaintance. Besides, the poor girl seemed quite unable to converse in English. "How delightful. Did you make them?" Phryne inquired in French accented with the flavor of Bohemian Montparnasse.

The woman spoke French more easily than most of the few Constance had met so far, and she was a little shocked how much a relief it was to hear. The relief showed in her eyes and the way her smile warmed as she confirmed, "Oui, madame. I thought people might like something that wasn't chicken. And I'm not used to sitting still.

"You're welcome to join me if you like."

Upon hearing more of it, Phryne noted that the woman's French didn't sound Parisian or familiar from any other region. Curious, but hardly criminal. She did smile and take up the invitation to join her, but not before serving herself a judicious sample of the pies.

"Please. You must call me Phryne," she said as she took the offered seat with a charmingly friendly smile. "And what ought I call my culinary benefactress?"

Phryne was a pretty name, Constance thought, although as unfamiliar to her as others she'd met here. If Aramis were here, he could've told her of the historical Phryne, although he probably would've been too busy charming Phryne to bother educating Constance on that bit of history.

"I'm called Constance, but I'm no one's benefactress. Just a woman with too much time on my hands, and not much I can do here except cook. After the garrison, a few pies for the people here is almost a break."

Edited 2017-01-20 20:45 (UTC)

"I beg to differ, Constance. You've spared me eating those horrid things called 'chicken fingers'." Phryne mock shuddered, but honestly, fingers? "I may be forever in your debt." She flashed the young woman a genuine, if slightly overbright smile, then sobered to ask gently, "Where were you stationed in the war?"

The war was such a part of their lives in Paris, Constance didn't think it strange Phryne – who carried herself like a noble, although it was harder for Constance to tell here in the future – would ask about it, although asking where Constance had been stationed, as though she were a soldier herself caused her to pause.

"I looked after the musketeer garrison, in Paris, but it was mostly cadets, since the musketeers were all at the front. Including my husband.

"Musketeers?" Startled by the revelation, Phryne needed a moment to compose her thoughts. Of course, she shouldn't have been startled. She had noticed the archaisms in Constance's French and her dress style was quite old-fashioned, but then so was Dot's. Still, the idea of time travel hadn't truly penetrated her thinking yet, in spite of Jack being from after and Dot from before and this hotel from well after all of them.

"It seems we served in different wars. You in the Thirty Years' War if I'm not mistaken, and me... well, it will be news to you, but the first World War, nearly three centuries later."

The time travel still made Constance's head spin, but struggling with the differences here and now mostly distracted her from the how and the particulars of all she'd missed. She'd been here long enough to assume most the people she met were from her future, and left it at that.

Thirty years. There had been fighting in one place or another most of Constance's life, although not always for the French. It was enough to give her hope the fighting might end soon. But any comfort she felt in that thought was followed by horror at the idea of a war that encompassed the whole world, and she crossed herself reflexively. "I would've hoped after centuries even men would learn to think and talk instead of fighting all the time trying to solve their difficulties. I guess that was too much to ask."

Edited 2017-01-23 22:52 (UTC)

Phryne noted the religious gesture without comment, but inwardly renewed her determination to make certain Constance and Dot became acquainted. "As much as I'd like to blame it on the men, women have been far from innocent in such matters."

And, honestly, blaming humanity's failings on men was one more way of deprecating women's capabilities. If a woman could drive as well as a man, likewise she could be pigheaded and cruel right along with them. Lydia Andrews had been only the tip of that particular iceberg.

Constance's thoughts went to Milady, and to the lady assassin who had for her own reasons freed Constance of Bonacieux. Both capable of dealing death without it touching their hearts, if they had hearts. But even when Milady warmed the king's bed, Constance hoped she would've been unable to instigate a war.

"In your time, then, have women risen to posts where the choice to go to war is theirs?"

"We are only just beginning to. Or beginning to again, I should say. Many positions of power were left vacant during the war. Women took them of necessity, as we always have." Queen Victoria had been rather the exception that proved the rule, but Phryne rued not having been alive during her reign.

But for the prim clothes and repressive manners, anyhow.

"As we always have," Constance echoed in agreement. Treville had made Athos captain, then put Constance in charge of the garrison while the musketeers were away at the fighting. Sylvie had taken charge of the refugee settlement after Red Guards killed her father. And Anne... "The queen has long hoped and worked for peace, perhaps now she's regent she'll be the one to end the fighting. Or she was – it's hard thinking of my world, my life as in the past."

"Were I better versed in history than I am, I could tell you precisely what did happen, although, one does wonder if such things are static or fluid, considering," Phryne mused aloud and then dismissed it with a somewhat languid wave of her arm. "In any event, it seems we may need to take matters in hand, here, as well. You've made a nice beginning, but there's much more to be done."

[EP] musketeers don't hide

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