Cora, of Beruna

It's only a few minutes before a man walks out of a different stand of trees.

Piotr is coming from much less far away, even if the casual observer would only have seen them both emerge from wooded paths. He was on the far side of the lake sketching studies for a painting; it's a lovely afternoon, full of warm light. But there are clouds starting to gather, and he's judged not getting his sketchbooks rained on to be the better part of valor.

Things Cora may notice include his height, his quantity of muscles, and the large portfolio slung over his shoulder. Also, a general air of amiability.

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Cora waves to him, but doesn't really mind whether or not he comes over. It would be nice to talk to someone, and see perhaps how long it has been since she was last here in Milliways time, but he could be doing some important business. Painters often are, at least to themselves.

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Piotr is usually up for meeting new people! Even when painting, in theory, although then he tends to accidentally ignore them for long stretches in favor of getting his brushstrokes just right.

However, that's unlikely to happen at the moment.

Instead, he smiles back, and turns his steps that way.

(Does he know her? He doesn't think he knows her. He's got a good memory for faces, and he's pretty sure that was just a hello-stranger-I-am-friendly kind of wave.

But one can never rule out bodyswaps, reincarnation, etc.)

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He looks familiar to Cora, but she doesn't think they ever met -- then again, all of that was a lifetime ago, for her.

"Hello!" she says, when he is close enough, putting away her food and dusting crumbs off her long skirt. "It's a lovely day, isn't it?"

She stands up, off the boulder, and dips a quick and shallow curtsy. "Cora, late of Narnia."

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"Da," Piotr says, smiling a little, "it is."

He'd be flustered by a proper, formal curtsy with any real deference in it, but this kind of quick politeness he can manage fine; he bobs his head in return, only a little awkwardly.

"I am Piotr Nikolaievitch -- or Peter, if that is easier. Of San Francisco, now." Russia still lies deep under his words, a light but constant accent, and Russia is still and always home to his heart. But he hasn't lived in the Rodinya in many years.

"It is good to meet you, Cora."

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"You as well, Piotr," she says, having encountered much more difficult names -- it's still foreign to her. "I've never been to San Francisco, but I've heard it is beautiful."

Maybe somewhere to travel next?

A quick smile. "Are you an artist?"

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Piotr shrugs a little, with a small and self-deprecating smile. It's the kind of shrug that means okay, yeah, I am -- humbleness, rather than uncertainy.

"I am."

A very muscle-y artist.

"The light here is very good. And I can keep paintings here, and my girlfriend does not complain about paint on the furniture." Much. "Is useful."

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Cora laughs, slightly. "Well, that's always helpful. I have friends who do actual art-- I just sketch plants to remember what they look like."

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There is a very young woman talking a walk by the lake, pensive. The skirts of her sea-green dress trail a little behind her. It is rather heavy for a sunny day, but she had dressed for late autumn, not spring. She is thinking that she'll probably need to see that everyone in the household is well provided with winter attire, so she doesn't notice the woman on the boulder until she is nearly upon it.

"Good day, " she greets her, with a friendly, if small, smile.

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Cora has put away her food, and currently has a book open on her knees, pen lying along its spine. She's watching her surroundings with a quiet contentment.

(In it, she's written Morning -- I seem to have found Milliways. Not the one in His country, but as it is among the living. It is lovely, and not much changed that I can see.)

She meets Lothíriel's gaze with a smile, and stands off the boulder -- setting the book aside.

"Good day, my lady," she says, though despite the appelation her curtsy -- while polite -- is shallow. All are equal before Aslan.

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Lothíriel curtsies slightly in return. She doesn't fail to notice the stylus and the book.

"I apologise for interrupting. I very nearly did not see you.", she explains. She too finds Milliways lovely, and feels compelled to comment on it. "It is a beautiful day, is it not?"

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"Yes," Cora smiles back, turning outwards and glancing away to the clear sky and the lake. "Yes, it's lovely. I'd forgotten, I think -- or I just hadn't remembered."

They're subtly different, to her.

She glances back. "Have you been here long, my lady?"

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It is lovely, though it doesn't surpass the clear sky and the sea with its distant horizon at home. Few things could.

"Not at all. This is, I believe, my fourth visit. It has not quite exhausted its surprises for me."

Lothíriel is too new to know who frequents Milliways, or how often (or how long ago), but she parses Cora's comment well enough, she thinks, and asks,

"Are you back after a long absence?"

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"It never does, at least in my stay," Cora says, quickly amused. "Long for me; it's always difficult to tell how time has passed here while I've been gone.

"Cora, late from Narnia," she introduces herself, after a moment, "though there's like as not very little chance you've heard of us."

Not now that all of the Narnians in Milliways she knew have moved on.

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"My visits have not been much separated by time - it makes it easier to get used to going through the right door into the wrong place." Lothíriel shakes her head, not quite seriously.

"My name is Lothíriel of Dol Amroth", she replies, and because she knows not of Narnia, adds, "in Gondor. You are right, of course: I have never heard of Narnia. Is it a country, or a city?"

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"A country," she says with a smile. "I was from Beruna, first, but most recently of Cair Paravel-- the capital. Is Dol Amroth large?"

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mogget_cat

Nothing and no one is craftily stealing her bread.

Not at all. Of course not.

Not even for the principles of the thing.

...The Mogget doesn't even like bread that much.

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Cora's not paying over-much attention, watching the forest and the clouds as she eats, but that doesn't mean the bread moving is going to escape her attention.

She glances down, mildly curious, and then her eyebrows raise near to her forehead. "Yrael," she says, and stops, not quite sure what to say, finally settling on: "if you want some bread, you can very well have some, there's no need to go sneaking it like a thief." There's no real admonishment to it.

She sounds, if anything, like she's going to laugh or cry. There's something to be said for friends you haven't seen in an impossible amount of time.

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mogget_cat

There is laughter in response, and a moment of brightness.

And an equally bright smile with laughing green eyes, a moment later.

"I was trying to settle upon some suitable fee to levy against one who has been absent far too long, you see," he says, perching upon the rock beside her. "But I was at a loss. Perhaps this will do better."

Because, even if you are a Bright Shiner and have your pride, some meetings call for hugs.

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Cora hugs back, and after a moment laughs against his shoulder quietly.

"I didn't expect to see you," she admits, when they draw apart a bit. "I'd have thought -- well, it's been a very long while, hasn't it? That you'd have moved to one of those worlds you play music in."

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mogget_cat

Yrael's hug possibly says more about how happy he is to see her again, unexpected after so long, than he'd say aloud.

"It's been years," he replies. "But I doubt I will ever fully move on. This is my home, and I cannot truly leave the Charter of the Old Kingdom behind."

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"Yes," she agrees, having not considered that strange magic. Creature of Wild Magic, untamed, she knows -- but only slightly, not as much as friend and mischief. "I am glad. Longer for me, perhaps?" she says, glancing up to him. It's hard to tell, with immortal friends. "I'm not sure how long, exactly, but it's been... oh, more than fifty years to me."

That she leans her shoulder against him still says something for how she's missed him. Fifty years and death have loosened Cora's careful proprietry some, but she is not one over-given to touch with friends not currently in cat-form.

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mogget_cat

The part of him that is more Mogget than he knows, that he so often indulges without thinking, tilts his head to rest it briefly against hers as she leans against his shoulder.

"Far too long." That about covers it, however many years have passed. "I hope they were kind years, despite Time's insistence upon keeping my friend away from me."

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