RP:Lesser Whiskey

Part of the What You Leave Behind Arc

Summary: A drunken, self-deceptive Lionel stays late in Cenril and plays cards with Lita. He's not what she remembers from their brief past encounters, and he doesn't remember her at all. The two strangers strike something of a chord with one-another despite his falsity -- or perhaps because of it.

The Whalers' Bar in Cenril

Lita realizes she's probably been spending too much time in Cenril when the bartender knows her drink order before she's found a vacant seat. Whiskey, neat. It's not the honeyed variety Simon cooks up in Rynvale but it'll do. She doesn't bother glancing around for familiar faces. She's not in much of a mood for small talk just yet. She mutters a thanks to the barkeep and downs the drink in unladylike fashion. He lofts a brow at her as if to ask, 'trouble in paradise?' to which she just shrugs and nudges the glass in his direction for round two. He pours another double and Lita falls into a seat, tugging the hem of her dress over her knees as she crosses her legs right over left in usual fashion. Slender fingers reach for the glass, letting it linger. A beat of contemplation and then she turns in her seat with glass in hand, her elbow perched on the bar behind her as she surveys the room with mild interest.

Ostensibly, Lionel’s latest trip to Cenril is a gesture of goodwill on behalf of Frostmaw. A delegation of workers and healers has been dispatched on his own order to lend much-needed hands to the restoration of the docks and aid to the many families affected by the massacre. Grains and oats and berries line his caravan by the bushel. It’s a noble enough thing, but any of his officers could have seen to it. And, if asked for their thoughts on his behavior since his return to Frostmaw, any of his officers would say that he’s been even more erratic than usual. They’d say that he’d been seen pacing from one end of the fort to the other, deep into the latest hours and the earliest, and that he seems to sprout fresh bruises every time they’ve turned around. They’d say that he looks scared, and between his half-primed timid smiles and the absurd popped collar of his crimson silk button-up, he’s overdone any efforts to appear otherwise. None of those men and women would be the least bit surprised to find him here, at a bar, drinking his life away between hands of cards, rounds of darts, and an ill-advised arm-wrestling match against a dwarf twice as thick and thrice as strong. The night marches on to the beat of Lionel’s true purpose; back in Frostmaw, Drargon had gone and told him to give it a rest, but now Drargon’s 300 leagues away. The games dwindle as the crowd dies down, but Lionel’s whiskey never fades. It’s not the fireball variety the recently-diseased Tratt cooked up at the recently-destroyed Síocháin -- only the beginning of the end of everything, Lionel glumly ponders -- but it’ll do. So there he stands, perched up against a wall for now, a cut above his left brow and a contusion down his jawline, his collar still popped and his half-grown blond beard nuzzled up against his sixth glass. Or maybe his seventh. Must be his lucky day.

Lita almost didn't recognize him. The few times she'd met him in passing he'd been, she wasn't sure of the word exactly. He'd carried himself with the notion of some higher purpose. Now he looked more like that rogue bastard, minus the scent of wet dog. Though that might have just been the blonde fur on his face. Either way, he seems both out of place and at home here, a bit like he's trying too hard in either direction and a bit like he doesn't much care either way. Lita narrows dark eyes at him, a bit playfully, like she's trying to maybe figure him out from across the room. She sips at her drink, turns a little to lean across the bar and snags a deck of cards. The barkeep gives her a look and she slides a few more coins across the bar, offers him a wink in quiet gratitiude. And then she looks back towards Lionel,- that was his name, wasn't it? She remembered it from Meri- whistels to get his attention. If she catches his gaze, she'll lift the cards in silent offer for a hand or two. They'd played cards when they'd first met, another lifetime ago back in Frostmaw. And then motion towards a vacant table, heading in that direction whether or not he'll choose to join her.

Lionel, for his part, does not recognize Lita in the least. It’s nothing personal, of course. His mind’s always been a maze, really, but it’s been a complete testament to the word ‘singular’ since the attack. He has simple goals: save the world and destroy himself. The trouble only arises when his two goals conflict, and if his shattered psyche were willing to acknowledge anything other than Kahran’s threats and alcohol he might realize there’s not a damned thing he can do for the world dead. But he’s stuck, trapped like the canary-in-a-cage on the mantle of this bar’s cozy fireplace. The bird tweets gently, head tilted at him inquisitively; Lionel, in his delusions, wonders if it’s waiting for him to reply to the woman with the deck of cards. Only then does it occur to him that he might be keeping his next opponent waiting. “Gladly,” he intones in his lilting Catalian drawl, but he’s drunk enough for some of that lilt to melt into an unforeseen growl. He takes a seat, folds his fingers together, sips his whiskey and waits.

Lita finds Lionel's particular brand of darkness more intriguing than threatening. If she challenged him to a fight and kicked his arse, this could be a reenactment of how she's met the runner, or Deaglan. Apparently she had a type when it came to getting to know people. She slides the cards from their box and shuffles as Lionel takes his seat, watching the flurry of cards between her fingers. She'd done this once, in a past life. It's an easy thing to remember. "You look a little like hell warmed over." It might have been an almost friendly sentiment in another setting, maybe one laced with worry. Instead, here, it's simply an observation. Except she's still looking down at the cards, dealing out seven all around. She sips her whiskey, wrinkling her nose a little for the taste- even top shelf in most places doesn't compete with Simon's, in her opinion. She flips the deck's top card for his perusal and picks up her own hand. "Gin?" she asks then, looking at him over the fan of cards between her hands. It's a question of games, not drinks. She realizes poker is the usual route for most game tables but she's never been good at it. Not that in his current states she'll likely need any sort of upper hand but it doesn't seem like conversation in his forte these days and poker is just as much about the cards as it is about the people and she doesn't know much about the man- or what's left of him.

Lionel sniffs the lukewarm air and leans his right arm across the edge of his chair. “Gin,” he agrees, having procured a mild smirk in reception to the first thing Lita had said. With his left thumb, he twists across his seven picked-up cards in a smooth and gentle motion, picking up their slack across the length of his middle finger so that they’re fanned out midway for easy observation. It’s a dull little pack that will do dull little things for him, but he doesn’t mind losing so long as the game is played and the drinks are poured and he’s elsewhere, elsewhere, anywhere but there, anywhere but on that ship as it burned or amongst the smoldering ruins of his keep or further back, further along the track, to the day his whole realm turned to ashes, or the night his choice fated all of Vailkrin to death, or that all-defining moment when Elazul made him kill his own wife in cold blood. Lionel’s mind has already wandered. His brows have furrowed and he’s pursed his lips. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles. ‘I shouldn’t be here,’ he almost says. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing here,’ the words cling to his throat and remain unsaid. “I’m just thinking about better whiskey at different dives.” His smirk returns and he takes the top card and discards.

Lita is contemplating the contents of her hand with mild interest and a little disappointment. She rearranges them more than once, trying to make up her mind on a strategy and finally either gives up or moves on. Let the cards decide then. It's the apology that draws her attention back up to Lionel again and she narrows her eyes at him slightly, brows furrowed, as if he'd just grown a second head and instead of being terrified of it she's trying to figure out where it exists in the grand scheme of things. It's the apology, the word 'sorry'. Maybe he's just the type that throws it around the way some people do, saying they're sorry for every little thing. She'd never pegged him for the type, even in their brief run-ins but then, this was not the Lionel she'd met in previous settings. She tilts her head slightly, watches him draw his card and then discard. She knows he's lying when he mentions thinking about whiskey at other dives. But she understands what it means for words to be a difficult thing. For that darkness to be all consuming. So she'll let him have it. She glances down at his discard, a noncommittal sound passing her lips, a little smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. She draws a card, tucks it into her hand, takes her time about choosing a discard. "Nothing beats the honeyed whiskey out of Rynvale." she says finaly. "Though, I would have chalked you up to more of a fuzzy-navel type." Some fruity thing out of Larket or Enchantment. She's teasing him, mind you. "Little pink umbrella and everything."

Lionel matches the game’s rhythm easily enough; it’s a straightforward affair, good for conversation even if he isn’t. “I did drink in Enchantment just the once, but it was actually absinthe. Fruity shade of green, though, and there was an umbrella. But it was raining, and one of the gnomes thought to protect me from it like each drop was… acid, maybe, I don’t know; they’re a considerate bunch, if fleeting.” It’s the most he’s said in two days, and the only reason he’d said more two days ago was because seeing that assassin, Blut, carve across his own eyes with his sword triggered a string of expletives fit to make even Leoxander blush. A tall elven sailor in a leather coat enters the tavern, carrying a wooden crate with him. He sits down at a nearby table, waits for a barmaid to take his order, and then, once she’s gone, he opens up the crate. Lionel has kept his blue eyes on his cards the whole time, but they’ve twitched westward a few times with the almost-imperceptible suggestion that the elf has caused him some small panic. He’s remembering the artifact his companion Esche told him a woman named Niix recently espied back in Frostmaw -- an artifact which had been meant for Kahran, apparently, and so must surely be dangerous. He’s remembering all sorts of things, but the contents of the wooden crate are a stack of letters and a bag of fresh red apples. The sailor’s smiling as he reads the letters, which were likely sent by a loved one along with this sweet care package. Lionel feels like a fool. He plays his next card. “Can’t say I’ve ever sampled Rynvale’s honeyed whiskey. Don’t get out there much. Last time around the bend, I hit a bit of trouble and had to leave early.” The prospect of having to apologize to Ranok after helping to save that city from starving six-meter insects would be enough to make anyone leave without a glass for the road.

Lita is more surprised by the ease of the game than by Lionel's suddent input for conversation. She manages a disapproving sound at the mention of absinthe. She'd been human the last and only time she'd tried that stuff and it hadn't ended well. She was less interested in the gnomes of his story. She'd met few she'd liked in years past but that was true for most characters she met, race aside. She catches the shift in Lionel's demeanor as a sailor settles at a nearby table. Elf, fresh into town from the rank of fish and salt that lingers on him. The apples are an afterthought to notice. Whatever Lionel's thinking of the man, she can't know for sure but she shifts in her seat a little, drops her hand to her thigh for a moment where that dagger lay hidden beneath the hem of her dress. She hasn't worn it often these days but its presence is a sudden comfort. Lionel has moved back into their conversation and she refocuses her attention on her cards. That's right, that had been the last time she'd seen Lionel probably, running into him outside her shop when he'd saved Meri from those bugs. "I remember." she nods. Though she didn't know about whatever run-ins he'd had with Ranok, she wouldn't be surprised to learn of them. He was a prickly bastard if anyone was and that was the nice version. "So what has you stickin' 'round Cenril?" She was curious. "Humanitarian efforts seem a little," not quiet below his pay grade, she'd always heard Lionel was the chivalrous sort. "outside your caliber." Yeah, that was a better way to put it.

“Family,” Lionel answers after another quick swig. It’s true: the Tranquility does lay anchor here in Cenril, down by the wharf where her crew of near on a hundred comes and goes with shipping goods and recurring wenches. The Tranquility, that old Catalian ship with its old mysterious past that luck handed to Lionel and fate told him belonged instead to Brand. The Tranquility, ironically-named, for they’d fought an eldritch guardian together upon her deck and in the months since, Khitti von Schreier’s done a proud enough job being a tempest of her own. The Tranquility, where just days ago Lionel feigned excuses for his wounds and felt his friends’ coming deaths unfold in his heart between poorly-faked smiles and bites of food. Aye, Lionel’s family is in Cenril, but he’s here for the whiskey, subpar or not. “A woman, Khitti. Her, uh, companion, Brand. That’s my family.” He seems contemplative for a moment, staring off into the distance where Darius Steel is tidying up. It will be closing time, soon. The singers have gone home, their ballads completed. “And what’s got you here, then?”

Lita nods at his answer. It's a foreign notion to her anymore, this concept of family. She'd only ever chased it before finding a home in Rynvale and in having it and having lost it she'd given up on it entirely. But she'd seen it keep hearts whole in better people than herself. She knows the names Khitti and Brand, if only in vague passings. Friends of friends, maybe. She wasn't always so good with names anyway. Anything along the lines of 'that's a good reason to stay' sounds cheesy, even just in her head so she foregoes the notion altogether, picks up his most recend discard and lays her hand of cards spread across the table, discards face down. "Gin." She's a little proud. Card games are not her strong suit. She reaches for her glass, empties it and makes a face. Definitely not Simon's. "Trouble in paradise." It's close enough to the truth that she doesn't feel bad for saying it. She's promised Sam she'd stick to this honesty thing, after all. "Nothing a few drinks can't usually forgive." That was less honest. She'd apologize for it later.

Lionel watches the woman stretch her cards upon the table victoriously, scoffing lightly and then whistling even more lightly than that. “Aces,” he commends. “Guess this latest round’s on me, then.” He reaches into his pocket for three gold coins. No sooner does he have them out, though, than Darius comes over and fetches them with a few choice words. “This ‘last round’, you mean. We’re closed.” Lionel frowns. He could have sworn it was midnight not 30 minutes ago. Does Cenril have a curfew in effect now, given its ordeals? “It’s 10 after 3,” Darius adds, either a mindreader or rather accustomed to this back-and-forth and eager to be done with it. Lionel waits for the man to walk away before speaking further. Once Darius is back behind the bar, giving meaningful glances to him while the apple-toting elf pays his tab and leaves, Lionel stands up and holds his hand out for an amicable shake. “I hope paradise clears up for you soon.” It’s an impossible request as far as he’s concerned; what the Immortals almost did to Lithrydel 11 years ago, Kahran could now conclude. But what’s the harm in telling one more fable, when so far at sea in so many fables already? “Barring that, I hope you’ve had enough to drink for the evening.” There. The shallows called truth don’t seem so bad when the truth concerns mere liquor.

Lita might have argued about the payment of drinks if she were back in Rynvale. Cenril wasn't so much her territory, not yet. She gathers their cards, shuffles them a bit and returns them to the pack, pretending not to pay much attention to this exchange between Lionel and the barkeep. Despite the surly attitude, she wriggles her fingers in a wave at Darius and smiles up at him as he swipes her glass and the deck of cards off the table. "Appreciated," she manages as she stands to meet Lionel's handshake. It's an odd gesture, when she's not entirely familiar with and it makes her laugh a little, though that might have just been the liquor. "on all accounts." She'll wait for him to leave, because she has other questions for Darius that don't beg the attention of outside listeners. "Maybe next time I'll let you win." She says playfully as she offers him a wink.