RP:A Chance to Dance

Lita and Hudson complain about recent events in Larket and take a spin across the dance floor.

Following along the narrow trail, weaving its way this and that through the dense forest all around, one would come upon a clearing. A building, though perhaps slightly ramshackle, resides as silent vigil over the clearing and the forest which surrounds. Tendrils of smoke rise into the air via multiple chimneys, denoting the possibility someone is home -- though upon closer inspection, a sign hangs swinging with the wind which reads, ‘The Golden Sa‘vre’. The door is unlocked. Inside is a quaint serving area scattered with a few tables and chairs, many of which are already occupied by patrons. Along one wall resides a bar, racks of drinks hanging behind. Stairs on the opposite wall lead up to a loft with three doors -- rooms for rent, modest but accommodating. Back in the main room, a hip-high door is visible beneath the stairs; the entrance to the kitchen. The patrons gathered here or there don’t seem to pay much attention to any newcomers, and continue about their games or conversations with little curiosity. Many of them seem content to sit around just beneath the loft, where a roaring fire burns like a beacon of hope in the otherwise drab tavern. A myriad of decorations, in an earnest attempt to brighten up the place, are scattered along the walls. Their themes are hunting and planting and the woods, elven heritage through and through. The owner of the tavern does not make themselves known to you, nor would the barkeep lend aid to any query regarding that matter, but a drink and a meal is happily obliged. All are welcome.

Lita was waiting, mostly. Waiting for Sabrina to make another appearance and waiting for Krice to be well enough to make the trek back to Frostmaw and waiting for Leone to reappear because apparently she'd be traveling with them as well. Lita wasn't such a patient person. She was waiting for the dust to settle after the devastation that had recently befallen Larket, waiting for the ice to melt in the glass of whiskey that sat on the little carved bench beside her, waiting for the smoke from the cigarette tucked between her lips to fill her lungs as she inhaled slowly, relishing that familiar burn. She was always waiting these days. The little inn behind her was busy with people and noise trickled outside those walls, raucous laughter and music, the sound of glasses clinking and the occasional shout or two. She felt worlds away from it, leaning back against the wall of the inn, letting the cool air of the world settle around her as she sank into the bench beneath her. The cigarette wasn't a normal cigarette. She'd share one with Hudson once, outside Rynvale's tavern and with all the waiting, she'd felt like she'd needed another one. She was still wearing the clothes she'd gotten from the Academy after the earthquake: loose cotton pants and tunic that didn't quite fit her. Even though the clothes had been washed, there was still a dark stain across the left arm and pantleg. She wanted to head back to Rynvale, go home for a bit. But Frostmaw would do. She had clothes there at least.

Hudson is on his way out of Larket, has spent all day supervising the contractors working on the house in Larket he'd bought for his family. Just his luck, he'd closed on the place, and the earthquake had cleaved it nearly in two, or at least that's how it feels, to watch everyone work. Things are going better than elsewhere, though, money greases wheels as Hudson knows. Alvina's kitchen will still be Alvina's kitchen so help him gods. In a way the quake had been a blessing in disguise, that renovation is happening sooner than it would have otherwise. He's not ready to spend time with his daughters, though, their love is not unlike having one's heart squeezed like an orange. It takes a lot out of you. Better to unwind a little first. He stops at the Golden Sav're and his gaze snags on Lita, of course it does, maybe some habits, like looking at a beautiful woman in the way a compass always knows true north, will never die. Rather than head directly inside, he stops where she is, hovers over her. His clothes are dusty, his dark wool coat has flecks of plaster on it, his pants are speckled with paint. "Stranger," he addresses her, "Come in with me, get a drink? A quick one? Not staying long if you're waiting for people." Assuming she rises from her post, he loops an arm around her to pull her close for a quick hug and the perfunctory kiss on the cheek you give female friends. "Larket relief efforts, you too?" he asks, taking quick stock of her appearance.

Lita looked up as Hudson approached. He was a familiar sight for sore eyes and his comment of 'stranger' earned him a smile. She drew a last breath of that cigarette and snuffed it out between her fingers before flicking the butt to the ground a few feet away. The last time she'd seen Hudson she'd been worse for wear and she reached up for his hand, tugging herself to her feet. "Done." she agreed. His brief hug and little kiss garnered a quick blush across her cheeks but she'd blame that on the whiskey and the nicotine. She nodded at his question about Larket relief efforts as she squeezed his fingers and tugged him behind her into the tavern. She made a beeline for the bar and fell into a vacant seat, assuming he'd join her. Tables were overrated. "House of Ara is-" well, it wasn't gone but most of it was. She shrugged slightly. She felt bad for the healer, felt bad there wasn't more she could do for the woman. "Glad you made it out safely." She meant out of the fort, after the wedding. How long ago had that been? Hrm. She leaned sideways and bumped her shoulder against his in a gesture of commraderie and affection.

Hudson spares Lita a grin for her herbal cigarette, he'd had one earlier outside the nail salon. He doesn't have to ask twice, she drags him by the hand into the bar. A little something about that, women spontaneously taking you by the hand: it usually doesn't happen. It especially doesn't happen when you're known to be in a committed relationship. Hudson would be lying to say he didn't enjoy this type of flirty (and harmless) gesture from an attractive woman. He helps her with her coat (if she has one) and then shucks off his, seating himself beside her. "Yeah, it's a mess everywhere. Glad you made it out too," he tells her. The barkeep is approaching them, so he shifts gears for a second. "Whatever ale you have on tap, whatever she wants," he says, waiting for her to place her order before digging back into the subject of the wedding. "Putting aside the natural disaster, I saw you were there with Krice! So that's your man, eh? I have to say I'm surprised, I imagined you'd be with some... I don't know, scruffy pirate type with lots of tattoos and a beard. Must be pretty serious if you guys are attending weddings together."

Lita had never been one to shy away from harmless flirting. Hudson was in a committed relationship. She was in a mostly newly committing relationship. It wasn't as if she was taking him by the hand and dragging him upstairs into a spare room or a dark closet. That's an entirely different rp. But I digres... Lita nodded at Hudson's sentiment about making it out. What was there to say? A shitty thing happened and they didn't die and they were glad for it. Most of the time it still felt like a dream. Waking up in the Academy afterwards, stumbling to the healer Sabrina's house only to see it flooded days later and ending up trying- and failing- to out-swim a flood! Fun times all around. So by the bartender came around, she didn't hesitate. "Whiskey." She practically purred the word in a hazy smile, stretching her arms across the bar top as she stretched in completely unladylike fashion before sitting upright again. At mention of Krice, Lita bit at her lower lip, that blush in her cheeks deepening a bit. "I've done the scruffy pirate type- tattoos and beards and boats and all." That made her sound way easier than she meant it to. "Problem is they never stick around long enough. What's the term, 'married to the sea'?" She shrugged. "It's true. You either sign up all-in or you learn to let go. I only ever wanted the island and the ocean so I was willing to let go." Her marriage with Hanan had been an understanding in trust and love and strength and they'd somehow made it work. "But eventually it wasn't enough. I wasn't enough." And Hanan hadn't come back and she'd looked around one day and realized that all she had was the island and the ocean. The bartender brought their drinks and she wrapped slender fingers around the cool glass but didn't take a drink. Somehow she'd gotten off topic from his question. "Krice has always been there. It's never been easy but I love him." She shifted slightly in her seat. He didn't need to know that that wedding had been their first public appearance as a couple, right? And look how that turned out! "It was one wedding." She corrected him playfully. "And all I wanted was a dance!" She managed a playful pout, as she never had gotten that dance.

Hudson does a double take at Lita as she orders whiskey. It's not really a surprise. A theme these days, women out drinking him at the bar. Oh gods, there it is, dad-ness sneaking up on him. Again. The barkeep serves up their drinks as Lita goes about recounting her romantic exploits. No judgment emanating from him, he's got a bedpost that's seen its fair share of notches, that's life and he's proud of it. "The appeal of commitment and a life together can sneak up on you," he says, reaching for their drinks. He presses hers into her hand before clinking his against it in a toast. He drinks; she doesn't. He grins into his glass at the mention of a dance. "I would have asked you," he says off a mouthful of beer. That's rather satisfying after a long day of manual labor. "But Alvina was like wasted and super into me. You guys, when you get drunk ..." he leaves that thought unfinished. He's picking at the bowl of free peanuts that's sitting between them. His mouth stirs in a smile. "Anyway, yeah I hear you about things being hard sometimes. Relationships aren't easy. They seem easy at the start but that's because you're obsessed with the other person and don't see how they're a pain in the ass. But everybody is a pain in the ass in some way. Like, for example, nobody tells you when you start dating a woman that in a year you're going to be extracting fist-sized hair clogs out of her bathtub drain every month. I find long red hairs everywhere. In places where there shouldn't be red hairs, man." He chuckles into the well of his glass, drinks, his gaze sliding back to Lita once more. "You ever see one of those witches about that thing?"

Lita would have explained that she didn't drink whiskey for the purpose of getting drunk. As a vampire, it was usually more difficult to get drunk. Whiskey at least made the world a little dull at the edges. Definitely wasn't good to make decisions when drinking it though. More than anything, whiskey made her more comfortable, more loose, made it easier to exist outside of the safe little haven she'd found on the island. But Hudson wasn't likely interested in all of that. Instead they were raising glasses in an ironic toast about commitment. Go figure. And that whole 'sneaking up on you' thing? Hell to the definitely. She lofted a brow at him, about to question his use of the word "we" in reference to Alvina having been out of her mind drunk at the wedding. But Hudson was changing the subject again and Lita would let him do that because the whiskey was cold and good and not Simon's honeyed concoction but better than nothing. Lita didn't have the plumbing problems that seemed to plague Hudson's life but she could certainly understand the plight. "He eats in the bedroom." She whispered with a little grin between them. She hadn't meant that to sound suggestive or dirty. "I mean like, for no reason. 'Cause he wants to. It's a ruttin' beach house. It's supposed to smell like the ocean." The rim of her glass paused at her lower lip. "Not chicken." She managed before tilting her glass up for a drink. She shook her head lightly. Guess it wasn't so bad a trade off though. Gods knew she had her own issues that Krice was willing to put up with- and had, for whatever reason she had yet to understand. It's what you did for the people you loved, right? All that sacrifice stuff that sounded pretty in vows but was easier to ignore on a day-to-day basis. She shrugged a bare shoulder and Hudson was changing the subject again. Witches. "Never heard back." She'd met with Talyara but the girl never had found her. "Took care of it though." She didn't offer further details. Probably wasn't any sort of normal or safe to let a creature of questionable moral and magical background devour your memories. Not that she could remember what had been taken. Everything felt the same. Maybe nothing had happened, after all. She took another drink. "Can I give you a bit of advice?" She wasn't quite asking. She'd give it either way. She turned a little in her seat to face him fully. "That girl at the wedding-" Not Alvina, the other one. She would have said 'the pretty one' but didn't want it to sound offensive towards Alvina. Not that she knew Hudson's wife to be any sort of partial towards her but Lita could play nice. Anyway, "It's not as inconspicuous as you seem to think it is." Then again, netiher was Alvina's trists. Maybe she was just too good at her job- old job. Maybe they had an openly understanding relationship. She'd had that once, no matter how badly things had ended, she'd been happy there, once. Maybe she shouldn't judge and keep to her own business. Her glass was empty. Maybe she should order a new one. She turned her head towards the barkeep and lifted a hand to snag his attention, two fingers lifted before he was turning to fix refills for them both.

Hudson chuckles into his beer. "I eat in the bedroom, it pisses Alvina off too," he concedes before tossing back a swig of his beer. "Cereal, not chicken, though. Little crumbs get in the sheets, drives her crazy. Chicken seems weird though, don't you have to like heat it up?" He drinks again and reaches for some of the bar peanuts. He lifts his eyebrows as Lita explains that her memory problem has been resolved. "Weird you can remember having the problem," he remarks. "I was looking into a similar procedure once upon a time, wasn't sure how that would work." He lets her shift the subject to the advice she's willing to impart on him, and he turns toward her on his stool in his best show of attentiveness. His playful demeanor fades when she mentions 'that girl at the wedding.' He must have a glass face, or Valrae must, or Lita had seen them and put the puzzle together like any intelligent person might. Yep. It's not as inconspicuous as you think it is. There it is. "Yeah," he agrees, drinking from his beer and eyeing Lita like she's delivered unpleasant news that he'd been expecting. He watches her take the heat off her comment by ordering them another round. He pounds back the last of his beer, if he's going to be talking about Valrae... "It's done, whatever it was," he says, trading the empty bottle for a fresh one. He taps a short fingernail against the glass. "She's what I want to have erased sometimes. To keep from... you know, making old mistakes again. Alvina knows and won't let me, though, she's... well it's complicated. So." He drinks from his fresh beer, considers Lita. "Don't tell anyone, please. I don't want to embarrass Alvina any more, if that makes sense."

Lita wanted to reach out and hug him suddenly. She understood what he meant about wanting to forget and also wanting to remember. She glanced down at her left hand, the little silver wedding band she still wore, decorated in its pretty filigree wildflower pattern. She'd been able to take off the wedding ring itself but some memories were harder to destroy. "Don't erase it." The words were softly delivered. "You loved her. Part of you always will." She was still staring down at her hand. Maybe she wasn't talking about him at all. "Alvina might not like that but she understands that it's a part of you. That joy as much as that pain and she loves you." She blinked her attention back to Hudson and drew a little breath, refocusing her thoughts. "The only thing we can do is try and be better, I think. Alvina- and Krice-, I don't think they expect perfection. I don't think it's what any of us sign up for. I think some days are easy and some days are hard and I think trying is important. I think they know that too." Or she was starting to, after all these years. "I won't tell anyone." she reassured him. Wasn't her business to tell. "I don't think you would've stayed with Alvina if she didn't make you happy." She leaned sideways and bumped her shoulder against his in that familiar gesture of commraderie. Hudson had a way of surprising her. "Everyone has a past and demons to battle. At the end of the day you make a conscious choice and effort to go home to Alvina. No matter what she might worry about otherwise, that's what's important."

Hudson grunts into his drink. "She might not like it is an understatement," he says, the words reverberating in the glass. He thinks back to the unfortunate circumstances surrounding her discovery of his affair with Valrae and clears his throat. "Yeah, I think you're right about trying. I know you're right about Alvina, she's the best and I love her and we're making it work," he says, appreciative of her pep talk. A chuckle seeps into his gaze as her shoulder connects with his. "Wish she could hear you," he comments, lifting his eyebrows into a drink off from his beer. He studies Lita after that, the ghost of a smile turning his mouth up at one corner. "My kiddos love their cribs, by the way," he tells her. "Really into colorful stuff right now," he explains. Away from the bar counter, a bard's voice and the sound of a guitar has cut through the pub, having the effect of dimming conversations around them and enticing no small number of couples onto the floor. Hudson's smile resurfaces, and he gets off of his stool. He holds out a hand, palm up. "Let's do this."

Lita had little to no intention of ever befriending Hudson's wife. No offense meant to the girl, Lita just wasn't exactly the social-butterfly type. And she liked these happenstance encounters with Hudson, liked having a drinking buddy and someone she could complain to who understood the battle of trying to be the best parts of who you were and also the person you wanted to be. She picked a peanut from that bowl between them and flicked it at him playfully as he mentioned the cribs. A blush might have washed through her cheeks for a beat. She was surprised they looked at all like the pictures she'd seen in her head. She'd been pretty far gone, even before he'd supplied her more alcohol. She might have thanked him for the compliment but the sudden sound of music cut brilliantly through the usual noise of the little tavern and she was turning to glance over her shoulder towards the bard. And there Hudson went, surprising her again. Dark eyes flickered from his outstretched hand up towards his face and she licked her lips as she reached for his hand, letting him draw her from her seat and out onto the dance floor. Challenge accepted.

And so Hudson takes Lita by the hand and escorts her onto the dance floor. He's not exactly winning awards with his grace but he's got a strong lead and all the surefooted swagger of a guy who's done this a million times because he's grown up doing it. That private school education and top shelf upbringing funded by centaur porn books really pays off where social etiquette situations are concerned. He's a good date to have at weddings, he's gotten over that gunshy attitude some men have about leading women around a dance floor. The song here's a lively tune of the swing variety - he wouldn't have asked her to dance if it had been something maudlin - and they quickly establish a playful routine of him turning her and promenading out of the way of other couples, laughing when they inevitably nearly tread on each other. He hams it up, he sings the lyrics where he knows them, sometimes he's wrong and doesn't care, he makes it up. He dips her at the end of the song, it's a quick thing done tastefully, like a nearly inappropriate in its familiarity flourish on top of the whole experience. Wouldn't be Hudson if he didn't. He touches the small of her back to lead her back to where they were sitting. He fans his face, reaches for his beer, which is mercifully still cold. "I'd ask you for the next one but it's a slow song and.... I should probably get home," he is telling her. "Is the lady appeased?"

Lita wasn't a stranger to a dance floor but it had been a while. Some years now, more than likely. Krice wasn't such a fan of public displays of affection and she tended to mostly respect those wishes despite her usual flair for attitude. It was a rare treat to have Hudson twirling her around the dance floor, laughing, her head full of good music and whiskey. More than once she'd forgotten the steps and nearly had her toes stepped on, devolving into a fit of giggles as she'd double-step to match his pace again and find the rhythm. She didn't know the song but it was easy to get lost in and even more amusing to hear Hudson singing it. Part of her felt a little guilty having fun in the aftermath of the tragedies that had so recently befallen Larket but most of her was tired of feeling sad and lost and guilty and hell it just felt good to have fun again. And here Hudson was surprising her again. She was usually better at reading people. Before she knew it the song was ending and he was leading her back towards their seats. There might have been a little pout on her ilps but she leaned a hip against the back of her chair and didn't bother asking as she reached for his beer after he'd taken a drink. It was less numbing than the whiskey but still cold. "Probably." she managed as she took a drink. She handed the beer back to him after, mulling over an answer to his next question in a beat of silence. She glanced out across the dance floor, across the few people willing to brave a slow dance and a slow smile tugged across her features before she'd turn her attention back to him. "Sad to lose good company." she managed, well aware that she hadn't answered his question at all.

Hudson is briefly relieved of his beer. He lets it happen (not that he could have really prevented it). He kills the rest when it is returned to his possession, and pulls money out of his pockets for their tab. At her remark, his gaze follows hers to the dance floor and he simply lifts his eyebrows with enigmatic playfulness when he glances back at her. May be an unspoken question and answer, both left intentionally vague, exchanged there. May be that both of them have a mean flirty streak and old habits die hard even if they're on their best behavior. Or also, just as likely, there's some comfort in the knowledge that Lita's got someone too and therefore this exchange will amount to nothing but two flirty people being flirty, harmlessly. (In another world they'd be in trouble.) "Yeah, well, I gotta go be daddy. Good seeing you, Lita," is what he says, briskly kissing her on the cheek before picking up his coat and withdrawing to the door, hand up in a wave.