Gilead Homeplot: Part IX. Tough Old Mid-World.

[kingshit_lloyd]

"When I was just a baby, my mama told me, Son, always be a good boy, don't ever play with guns..."

The words were thick, trembling in the dusty air of the dungeon, and there was a note in there that wasn't usually present in Johnny Cash's famed tune.

Fear.

Lloyd was trying hard not to lose his shit (not that he had much left), but the stillness

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[guardog]

Abraham Justus had more or less always known that he was going to serve as a guard of the Affiliation, just as his father, Amos Justus, had done. Why, the Justuses went all the way back to the days of Eld, when they wore cloaks and answered to a King instead of a council-- his great-great-great grandfather Oren Justus was there when the last dragon was slain in Delain. Although Oren Justus had probably not had a role in subduing or otherwise contributing to the downfall of the great beast, Abraham was nevertheless sure that his grandfather had approved, for dragons by nature were not law-abiding beasts and he wouldn't have been able to fit one in the dungeon, anyway

[kingshit_lloyd]

Lloyd didn't acknowledge the question at first, on account of not hearing it over the sound of his impending doom and all. But eventually he turned to look at the guard, his expression shifting slightly from haunted to suspicious. He was expecting to be told to shut the fuck up, maybe to be called an asswipe, a scumbucket or some other charming term of endearment like that, to spice the conversation up

[guardog]

Ham stared at the prisoner. The answer took him by surprise-- one, because he thought he was telling the truth, and two, because he was a man naturally suspicious of wizards and he found wasn't surprised at all by the idea of Marten knowing such things as how to cross over worlds. He wondered why a man would need more than one. Did Marten have a food he preferred in another world? Would he leave at midnight to go find some

[kingshit_lloyd]

"No, I don't mind," Lloyd quickly replied, happy to grasp onto any conversational bone thrown his way, especially one that didn't involve hangings or electric chairs. "I don't mind at all." His expression was still a touch disbelieving, wondering why the guard was bothering with him, but a look of general puzzlement wasn't terribly out of place on Lloyd's face

[guardog]

It sounded to Ham like Lloyd was describing bits and pieces of a history which might've been taught to him at one point or another, but unfortunately, he couldn't rely upon his memory. What caught his attention was the mention of hamburgers-- the first really familiar word the prisoner had yet uttered.

"Mm-hm, mm-hm, I ken hamburger," he said. And of course he knew that some folk ate their hamburgers with cheese, but he had never heard of such a thing being called a cheeseburger. It made sense, he supposed, but brought to mind the image of a wedge of cheese sandwiched between two slices of bread. Or mayhap a wedge of cheese sandwiched between two slabs of ground beef. Oh, but it was a stupid thing to wonder about when this stranger was now talking about a plague, or what sounded like a plague, which had killed most of the people in his world. Ham thought immediately of a story he'd heard a few years back, about news of a plague spreading through Taunton. A'course, in the end it had been some kinda fancy poison and not a sickness at