"It's a pleasure! Please enjoy - I must attend to other arrivals alas."

And Lucette can introduce him to other people, with slightly less formality, a trio of which will eagerly question him about how he arrived in London and whether it was a difficult journey.

"I found myself quite unaccountably transported into Lady Oakhill's residence all at once, and could not begin to tell you how it happened, but at least the voyage had the virtue of being brief."

"Is this a common occurence in Narnia?"

"Not at all."

"How curious, are there wi-"

"Oh let's not talk of such weighty topics so early in the evening, especially when we havn't even asked Lord Swan about the lighter parts of Narnia. I for one would like to know whether their own fashion is very different from our own."

"Exceedingly, yes, I've had to borrow clothes so as not to appear too outlandish here."

"Oh, what wouid you ordinarily wear to an event such as this?"

"The event also would be strange in Narnia but analogizing as closely as possible I'd have arrived in a finely knit shirt, and heavy woven blue trousers, both cotton."

"Just a shirt?" asks a scandalized young woman.

"For indoors, yes, Narnians favor a very little-layered approach. Getting there I might have had a jacket against the weather."

"And would women attend these same parties?"

"Typically, yes."

"And they'd have a similar lack of layers or no?"

"I've never tried to closely investigate," he demurs, because there is surely no way to decorously say 'they have bras', let alone explain what a bra is.

The asker giggles at his reply.

The group, which grows when people notice Haru's prescence, have quite a few quesitons about the social scene of Narnia. They'd like to know about the food, the entertainment, whether they dance, whether they have larger events - this one is quite small and intimate, he really must come to the proper courting season balls - and what Narnian events are his personal favorites.

He can talk about "Narnian" food - he might be able to recreate a few recipes if the ingredients available are similar enough, he's dabbled in the kitchen on occasion for enrichment though of course most of the time the chef, a Mister Kraft, handled it. Narnians are big on, uh, theater, sometimes long-running serial productions of theater where you need to attend dozens of times for the complete story. Narnians dance, but he's never been big on the dance scene himself and cannot demonstrate well. Big events include sporting events - he's not himself a fan but they attract sometimes upwards of a thousand people - but he's more of a reader.

He's got a crowd growing around him by the time dinner is served - they're shocked and fascinated by the concept of him cooking and several young woman attempt to convince him to oversee their cooks in preparation of Narnian dishes, each wanting to be responsible for the introduction of Narnian cuisine to London. There's also quite a bit of interest in what stories are told in the serial productions.

...he really should have consulted Lucette about how to render Cricket's name as an unremarkable human name. But, uh, sure, his best friend who he declines to name at this time loves the theater and tells him all about it, though again Duke Swan himself is more of a reader. He will summarize Game of Thrones, it seems easier to translate than most things.

"Oh dear, is your King typically decided upon by such a violent process?"

"No, not at all, this is fiction."

"Oh good."

"It doesn't sound so unlike our own history - perhaps more extreme but such internal wars were fairly common until the end of the Dark Ages, when we switched to electing our King rather than having them drawn from one famiily line." Not that the elections have all been bloodless, but it would impolite to point out the exceptions, of which there are in fact only a few.

"I think the series was inspired by a historical war but I have never looked into it that I would remember it now to tell you all."

"How unfortunate." Though it reminds Lucette that she still hasn't sat Haru down and learned everything she can about his future's past, which she would really like to do.