RP:The Darkness and Mister Black

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The Darkness & Mister Black

  • Part I (below): The Darkness and Mister Black

Jolie learns the dangers of talking to strangers.



Ales and Elbows

Ales and elbows... the bar at the Fallen Star Inn had a surfeit of both, at this hour. Dawn had hardly bled its pallid light into the pitch black of the dead hours, and Jolie had caught the keep, by some miracle, as he wandered back from the outhouse in his long-johns, begging him for an early sup of liquor and last night's near-dead coals. He'd been reluctant to open the door at that hour, but the woman looked abject, her horse was stone-sore and besides, she'd offered him gold. The frost-mare was duly stabled by a terrified-looking lad roused from his straw bed and faced with the ill-tempered, carnivorous, silver-scaled mount.


Jolie was led to the bar and offered a drink, which she drank, clods of mud falling onto the keep's clean floor, smirching the smooth timber of the counter with that one elbow leant upon it. Her cloak was a shredded mess, her eyes like venom under glass, and all in all the necromancer was too weary to do more than drink her drink and stare at the glowering coals a while.


Jolie said, "Keep – another drink? If you would be so kind." The man, a tall, spidery individual, grumbled but did as she bid. "Thank you."


An evening of proper whoring did not an entertaining night make. The night air was crisp and thick with the urbane stench to which all cities prescribed. It was villainy personified, made palpable, by the heaving, struggling, teaming hordes boxed within looming visions of stone and wood. There existed, as far as Colton had seen, nothing of substance in country charm. He lived for this writhing desperation. It fed him like the fattening creations of an inn's kitchen and the frothy-dark beckon of lager. The girls had pined and doted, suitably, until he had taken his gold with him. - The Inn was a sleepy affair. He'd have rounded entirely had it not been for the prickly, harried vision slumped against the bar. Dark hair. A ruinous countenance by what promised to be otherwise fair standards; these were the foundation for a promising encounter. There was some tremendous appeal in the very worst that first impressions had to offer. People were, as ever, at their most intriguing when the layers of society's varnish momentarily chipped away.


He approached the girl like she was some garish knot in the counter's wood, drawn beside her until his rugged shape loomed in her light and laid a shadow across her. "Make it two." He said and the tender grumbled more, realizing that the girl had suddenly doubled his misfortune and that he would certainly not be free of it anytime soon. The girl was paid one long and unapologetic look of scrutiny. For all the wit that Colton possessed he found himself, as always, unable to transfer it to his tongue. What followed was with typical, unpolished brevity. "You look like shite."


There was no immediate reply made, no scrutiny in return. For the space of another long sip, the mouthful of rough spirit held for a moment before being swallowed, there would be only the keep's half-voiced displeasure to interrupt the soft pop and hiss of dying coals.

Eventually, in voice made hoarse by dry wasteland winds she said, "Well. I feel two measures of it." Lips curved into something like wry humour, and then Joliette finished her glass. "Inn-keep, the bottle. Leave it." She pushed a few more coins across the counter, the motion ending with a quick, disinterested, green glance at the stranger from under the wet cowl of her hood, which she'd push back slowly once she'd taken in his general shape and demeanour, her dark hair a flattened, damp parody of its usual silken splendour, bound into a simple braid that hung long over one shoulder. Jolie tugged her cloak closer about herself, her garb hardly fit for the travel she'd taken, the trouble she'd met, scarlet and brief enough to be cause for... assumptions. The sineater was in no mood for pleasantries.


There was no smile she could provoke. Not yet. Here, amidst a crowd of empty tables and vacant chairs, she played still to some imaginary audience. Still, he felt from her some spark beyond that of typical rabble. It lay beneath the troubles she wore so plainly and beneath others that she did not. The curiosity of it lay in that sudden, sharpness of his perceptions. He had never been particularly adept at this, at feeling out those about him. His life's story ran as a virtually endless dialogue of situations that he had failed to sniff out, stumbled across, and found some crude way through. Turning to face her, rounding as his boot ground on some grit a server's hasty sweeping did not catch, Colton paid sudden and intense attention to the weariness etched in the girl's face. The light of the tavern enough that even the shadow cast by his place beside her could not veil it. He found himself shaking his head and speaking. The coarse nature of his voice muted, naturally low amidst the absence of a crowd's din. "You want some advice, girl?"


He'd see it, if he was still levelling his brazen stare her way - the unsubtle, unimpressed arc of one black brow hitching up, the way her lips tightened to a purse of disapproval at his tone. He'd hear a long breath drawn and released, delicate nostrils distending for that quiet hiss of air.


"No," she croaked, and reached for the bottle, though she did deign to afford the man another quick look, a sidelong flash of pale, icy green. "I do not. What I do want, right now, is a goddamn drink." She added, curtly, "In peace."


Of course, Jolie would never admit to being glad of company in her present state and mood, not even to herself. The third glass was swallowed in a single draft, two gulps and a cough. And then another cough. And another, then a fit of them, one hand thrown across her mouth, her frigid perusal suddenly wide and upon the stranger, in mute appeal or apology or both as Joliette hacked like a lung-rotten coal miner, doubling over in the effort to catch her breath from a trickle of whiskey gone down the wrong way.


She could have been beautiful, he realized, as she sputtered and lifted one startlingly delicate hand to keep the fit from spraying his face with spittle and liquor. There was something charming in the filthier bits of humanity to which everyone was vulnerable. The impolite measures that equated all things stretched like some fragile cord beneath the layers of pomp and pageantry to which society had forcefully prescribed. Colton cracked a minute smile, softening for the slightest of moments the otherwise wolfish measure of his face. He had not shaven in a week's time and the coarse, dark whirls of hair that veiled his cheeks, jawline, and neck rasped audibly as he gave them a brisk scratching before pouring from the girl's bottle and helping himself. No, she did not want advice. And, truth be told, he loathed to give it. She looked at him with wide eyes, green and pretty and vulnerable, and he finally gave to her the key that he'd felt he'd been holding since he'd gotten that feel of her a few minutes ago. It was strange to have the compulsion to help someone. Foreign. The key, his advice, was dropped onto her as he flipped the tumbler upside down upon the counter and began to press himself from its side. "I'd wager you want a bit more than that, girl. My guess is the drink is all you'll allow yourself. My advice is that you should be afraid of mediocrity through self-restraint. It'll burn a hole in you much faster than that shite."


Jolie was, perhaps fortunately, too busy struggling between outbursts of hacking to offer his advice the reply she really wanted to give, that vulnerable look replaced by a cantankerous frown while her lungs continued to protest. What the hell was he saying? Was she supposed to care, right now? Her delicate hand, its nails broken and rimmed in dirt, groped to the bar for a jug of water provided the patrons for free, no glass, and she'd lift that to her lips for a cool, soothing swallow which took away some of the burn of coughed-up whiskey. In the process, the hem of her filthy over-garment slipped, so that a rough bandage showed on her bare arm, darkened in its center. Too, several long scratches ran diagonally across her upper chest, one crossing her collar bone to approach the long curve of her throat, finishing just shy of her visible pulse. At length, the jug was set down.


The look she gave him was flat as the deadlands, and as barren of humour. "Did... " she'd turn aside to clear her throat of its remaining burr. "Did you just.. " The cloak was once more gathered across herself, as if more a shield against his intrusion, while Jolie swivelled around to face the bar shelves. "Who do you think you are? You don't know me from soap." The bottle was stared at, warily, instead. "And let's keep it that way."


The wood sounded his boots, betraying with them the lazy cadence of his movements. A dawdler, he'd been called, and so it was as he made his departure from the Inn. There were whores waiting and he had gold in his pockets, scorching its way through them, burning holes as bottomless as that girl's soft bellied appetite for liquor and his restless desires for all things debauched. There could have been a comment. His mind churned a few over, twisted them up, but he did not speak them. Instead, he lifted a hand towards her back in lazy farewell before finding the darkness of the street.


-- Later--


Jolie emerged from the Falling Star some hours later, during which the spider-framed keep had kept her plied with drink for as long her purse had still had coin in it, while she drank herself into what she believed was a fit state to climb back on her horse. The keep’s extraction of an extra fee for stabling the frostmare had cleaned out Jolie's resources and so, still in his long johns, the tavern owner ushered her forth, wounded, exhausted and now quite drunk, into the by-now well burgeoned day, after yelling for that quaking stableboy to fetch the woman’s horse.


The sun hit her eyes like a pair of well-aimed knives. She was supposed, she realised, to be currently galloping off to rescue somebody or other from a... something. With Leo, and the others. Not drinking... hell, she'd better... Guh. Jolie was -really- drunk. Ah yes, the healer - that's who they were rescuing. Jolie was failing that mission dismally, right now. And if those.. creatures, the knife-limbed, undead pack of ... whatevers... she'd run into the night prior were indication of what else prowled around Chartsend, then every hand was needed. She staggered purposefully toward her fretting horse, the soaked bandage dripping blood down her arm to leave a spotted, scarlet trail across the yard, her every intention being a hasty search for the search party, if she wasn’t too late. Bonnie flickered her ears, huffed a hot breath down Jolie's neck in greeting. "Hold still, sweet.. just gotta... get myself into the..." Her words were punctuated by her attempts to do just that, and mount the saddle-pad she’d convinced the horse to tolerate. Which would end with her cloak open, her scarlet dress on display vividly anomalous to this time of day and situation, her steel-heeled boot stuck in the iron of the stirrup, and her half-wild mount taking a nervous half-step backward. Blind Freddy could have seen where this situation was headed.


He had slept some. The girls that had crowded his room in Venturil's only functioning brothel had been keen upon his arrival, intent upon ferreting some of his gold away with their lewd little promises and consort's smiles. Instead, he had slept amongst the pile of them. Soft-bodied pillows wrapped in bodices and raunchier things, draped across him, with cheaply-painted nails and imperfect perfumes thick on the sheets of his crowded bed. This was not particularly strange. What had been strange, even to his booze-addled mind, had been the way he had so dismissively addressed their attentions in the morning that followed. It concerned him that he was not entirely aware of what had drawn him to turn down a morning romp and he'd spent much of his bath considering it until, finally, one of the girls had brought him a snifter of hypocras and the dark liquor had served suitable in driving the prattle of the whores from his head. The light of the day hung high overhead and woe-be-gone citizens shuffled this way and that. It served well for his only honest trade. The twist of his long fingered hands, talented digits cupped, looking almost like cups before flames flickered to life within them. They filled with fire, sloshing at the rim of his fingers, liquid and hypnotic. A crowd slowly gathered and he saw them, saw through them, and finally saw the rumpled vision from the bar not more than a few yards beyond.


Jolie said, "Whoa!"


The mare wasn't in the frame of mind to listen, however. Whether the crowd was drawn by the necromancer's spectacle - she was upended on the yard's stony dirt, attached to the horse by her trapped heel - or by the mare, a spectacularly rare creature in this part of the world, Bonnie hated them all, as she hated being stabled, hated the stable-boy and the fat, stupid donkey who'd tried to eat her tail through the slats of the stall next door - but most of all the undomesticated mare loathed the feeling of a pack closing in on her. Her dappled, moon-silver frame shifted, taking Jolie with it on a steady path backward through the tunnel of onlookers, scaled shoulders and chest gleaming in the sun, fangs gnashing as Bonnie snaked her long neck out to snap at those who came too close in their attempts to help the unfortunate Jolie, or to drive the hard curve of horns into their bodies. Cloven hooves scattered gravel that otherwise would have taken more skin off her rider - or drag-ee, as it were - while several of the less well-behaved village children hooted and gathered handfuls of stones, intending to see what happened when they threw them at the monstrous, vaguely reptilian creature.


Jolie was meanwhile clawing that same ground for purchase, able to do nothing other than voice another plaintive, "Whoa!"


Colton looked on. Above them, looming almost angry in the otherwise crystalline blue sky, the sun beat down upon the stones and the threadbare-clothed vagabonds of Venturil. The girl's misfortunes seemed destined to compound themselves, snowballing wildly amidst the crowd as her malcontented mount pushed upon her a penance that karma or some sicker second-cousin thereof had determined her long, long overdue to pay. It was comical to all that gathered and horrifying to Colton, who watched with quiet apprehension as the moments between this and a certain, humiliating end, played themselves out in accordance with a script he had read several times before. The girl was sick in the soul. A lost, weary traveler on the dusty path of her own life. He had never been so certain of anything before and it was a troubling, albeit fascinating, scene to stand witness. - Of course, he was no idle spectator. His hands were busy. Those tremendously deft, strong fingers slipping into pockets and purses to filter coins and trinkets would be missed by almost all with the girl's misfortunes playing to hold their attention. The common tricks of a street panderer, a wild rover, could not compete with the true unraveling of another. The crowd fed on the girl's misery to stave off their own. It was that predatory, cannibalistic hum in the air that he loved about cities. This girl was a diamond in the rough.


Jolie was, though, more rough than diamond, at this particular juncture of time. It was clear to her that far from helping, the crowd was only quickening the mare's fragile temper, which was already well-frayed from the fright they'd had the night before. The sineater, soused as she may be, was not about to allow herself to end her long existence upside down on a road, flayed by hooves and small sharp stones. Bonnie came to a tremulous halt, wide eyes that kind of ice-blue shared by the sled-dogs of her homeland glaring and ringed in white as the mare sought and failed to find a clear avenue of escape.


It was in that moment that Jolie managed to get herself at least partially upright, slender frame buckling forward to seek reach enough to catch the lacings of her boot and fumble at them. "Quiet now, mare," she murmured, trying to keep the tremor from her voice. "Sh, now. Stand steady..." Some malicious urchin giggled, no doubt weighing its handful of stones, but other than that the onlookers too fell into a complete lull of sound, half of them hoping the woman in red would escape, half secretly hoping she would not - a fine tale to tell and tell again over ale consumed at the Falling Star's broad hearthside. "Steady..." Jolie tore at the fastenings, her fingers hooking, nails already torn tearing further, while Bonnie shivered and shifted restlessly, ready to make another terrified bolt for her life.


Colton watched the scene within the scene, the unsubtle heave of the crowd as it filled with the exciting promise of blood and misfortune. In a way the girl trapped beneath her mount leant her microcosmic struggles to them all. The way she tore at her own will to remain calm, fought the inebriation of the world's second-most formidable distraction, and struggled to salvage her freedom and health. It was a fight so many within the crowd were keen on fighting, and losing, that it had struck within them a ferociously wanton chord. To see another fail, to see another crushed as they were, was a victory in their broken hearts. Colton was not particularly inclined to help the girl. He believed firmly in allowing others the right to sink or swim amidst the filth and muck of life. He assured himself that it was the crowd's defeat he was inclined to inspire and so, stepped forward, until one strong hand could wrap vice-like fingers on the trapped animal's bridle. It meant to bolt. It could not.


All at once he was unaware of the people, the throngs surrounding him. The dexterous stretch of his fingers white-knuckled as he jerked suddenly, savagely down amidst a ripple of motion in his sinuously muscled arm. The animal gave a sound of panic, bunched its muscles, and stared into Colton's face with wide-eyed, arctic-blue visions of panic. Colton conjured. Summoned. He reached within the inept girl with invisible hands, closed his fingers on the inky blackness around her heart, and found what it was he had felt within the Inn but hours before. Now, even as light poured from a mid-day sun, he drew out darkness in spite of the hopes of those shifting nearby. He reached further into those nearby, past their superficial humanity, to the fears beyond and latched hold. Twisted. Ripped from them the very fabric of shadow that all living things lay bound within, layered in the tumultuous uncertainties and cruelties that so many were so certain would befall them. For one malicious boy with stones in hand he found a great fear of the dark, a phobia so potent that as Colton drew it from the child it pissed itself with a miserable, weeping moan of despair.


From them all, Colton conjured, but none more-so than the girl whose life and last shreds of dignity he was attempting to save. He drew from her visions of silvered, mercurial waters. A mad, skeletal grin. Of a pirate and bint thrusting bestially in the dark, exchanging whispered promises and secret laughter. He drew upon visions of the girl herself, bound in black-lace and leather, laying shriveled in an alleyway alone. He drew from her what the alcohol had left vulnerable, her focus on her boot laid bare, and he conjured it up like a pen drawing ink from a well. The mount was staring at him, watching as the harmless hazel of his eyes emptied of their color. The white seeped away rapidly once his irises were gone, melting into his sockets as flawless, oil-slick black took hold.


Colton conjured until he was ready, then he stole the mare's panicked stare and enveloped it in his own. Between them the conduit born, the trembling crowd suffering from the surfacing of their own torments and unable to witness the inky-blackness that Colton set loose from the hollowed sockets of his eyes. It poured itself into the horse's flaring nostrils, filled its lungs as panicked breathes grew more deep and certain. It was not long before the animal's fight left itself entirely, until it shat itself in pure terror and began to shiver horribly from nose to toes. A great, unending convulsion of fear that turned its menacing sounds into something pitiful. Terrible. Horrible. A few dozen fears of mortal, sentient hearts, poured into its own for a few short moments. Enough to still it entirely, to allow Colton to release the leather of its bridle and jerk the girl's drunken, lissome form from beneath it before the animal bolted, not down the street, but back into the hated confines of the stable before cowering against the very back of the stall. Shivering. Trembling. Unwilling to come out. Unable to help from pissing its torment in hot, panicked streams of urine amidst the straw.


"You nearly died." Colton said to the girl. Giving to her, with the words, the means to snap from the visions he had drawn from her. The hazel of his eyes having returned, muted, and certain. Those who said intentions were everything were fools. They'd never suffered his touch. He imagined they'd not have been so kind, had they done so.


Jolie doubled over and quietly vomited, having the sense left in her to at least turn her face away and thus avoid splashing her 'saviour' or herself with the dregs of recently imbibed liquor. Mortified, she dragged the back of her hand across her mouth and straightened once more. The crowd was a single, retreating animal, parts of it fleeing like rabbits, some of them retreating blindly, too frightened to turn their backs on the conjurer, a few as yet not quite able to move at all, despair and its sister sorrow stamped on their aghast features. "My horse.." she gasped, then, with her pale stare swivelling across the yard and its few remaining occupants, eyes rolling slightly as though the necromancer was weary of them, or pondering passing out. She turned again to fix that unsteady gaze on the stranger, her heart a black hammer wielded by a cruel, cold fist. "What." His eyes.. she could have sworn they were... "What did you do?" Jolie scrubbed at her mouth again, suddenly, horribly sober. What had she seen? "To her."


And to me, Jolie refused to add, that hand now instinctively pressing its palm across the flat of her upper chest, where scars-to-be were starting to fester, their ridges the kind of distempered red which portended infection. A tremor shuddered through her frame, and she clutched for her cloak, now torn almost beyond its purpose, for the comfort of the action rather than to indulge the sort of modesty she currently gave not one damn about.


The gangling, sour-faced keep erupted from his door, then, shooing at both of them, demanding they leave, having watched the entire spectacle through one of his dust-grimed windows. Jolie made to wrench herself away from Colton and take off after her terrified mount. Colton might observe a brief return of the imperiously haughty demeanour she'd worn in the tavern while she made this attempt, before her legs buckled under her and exhaustion, blood loss and shock took their toll. She once more went ground-ward, remaining motionless but for the barely perceptible, regular motion of ribs as the necromancer drew breath.


She crumpled like a lissome sack of fruit, buckled under the great many burdens rambling inside that pretty little head of hers and the inescapable weight of the whiskey. It was as inevitable and certain as gravity itself and still, in its utter lack of grace, surprised him. Reaching, Colton hooked the wisp of a girl beneath a lean arm and drew her sharply and suddenly to her feet where she dangled, a sloppy vision of what she could have been. It was no matter. There was only one place that he knew of where she could cool off and rest and belong properly. The stables. A great part of him enjoyed the plan as he'd conceptualized it. Drag her into the stall and close the door, leave her amidst the hay but a door from whatever it was that she was riding, retire to the brothel for a bit more debauchery and call it a successful afternoon. It was the plan until he saw her face, veiled in dark hair, with amber-stained lips and it filtered from his mind like grains of sand in a man's fist.


Instead, with an arm looped around her lean back and her legs dangling, Through the streets of Venturil, past onlookers of all kinds and the remnants of the crowd to which he would never find himself close enough to loose wallets from again, he carried his inebriated compatriot until the brothel's archway passed overhead. A few of the girls recognized her beauty, even amidst the ruin, calling out in their slummer's brogue at their fondness of new toys. Jesting, most of it. The innuendo serving as its medium a tired and suitably lewd expression of the debauched and carnal inclinations to which he had frequently given himself to. Instead, however, he paid them in gold, not silver, for the room and their lost wages. He paid them to let her sleep it off and bath if she wished, though he somehow doubted that she would, and mostly he paid to keep them from dolling her up in a corset while she was unconscious under the distinct and sneaking suspicion that despite her present ineptitudes none of the girls would survive the encounter.


More hours passed, then, hours during which the remainder of the ship's party would no doubt be travelling toward the brunt of the Corpse Tree's minions. In contrast to that arduous journey, Jolie lay amid silks and satins, perfumed pillows and brocade quilts, feverish but not entirely restless while her overheated flesh drew on its few reserves to affect what repair it could during her respite. The brothel's fulsome madam, blowsy and bleach-headed, rouged and frilled, fussed about the room briefly, with the kind of ruthlessly maternal care to the necromancer's wounds as she'd give one of her girls temporarily laid up with an unwanted foetus or some venereal complaint, almost military in her ministries to the bandaging and swabbing-off of the mud and grime that ruined the bedding of the whorehouse's second-best room, an expense to be tacked upon the charges before Jolie would be permitted leave. Perhaps, the woman smirked, she would have to work it off…


In any case, Jolie woke some hours later, groggy, alarmed, not quite so completely exhausted, but still weary enough that she could not immediately rise. A milk-complexioned lass, lured from a nearby farmhouse and a father who'd doted on her a little too much, was stationed on a skirted blue chair beside the bed. "Aye, Miss, ye be wakin'. I'll go fetch Madam up, then." Jolie stared at the barely-mature girl, questions forming and popping into oblivion again like bubbles rising on the surface of a swamp.


Of course, nothing would have been more desirable than to see the walking disaster wake amidst a whore's bed. That vision, for a moment drained of haughtiness, would have played itself within the confines of his indulgent mind whenever he desired, or required, a sarcastic slice of cheer. However, he did not take from her that particular pleasure. Wisdom had never been a particular draught to which he prescribed. He preferred whiskey and women and other words that began with "w" like whore, wonder, and whatever else came to mind beside them. Wisdom required knowledge and the pair together stole the wonder and surprise from life. So, as the word spread that she'd woken, Colton gently fisted the girl's hair in his long fingers and pulled her up from her knees. An almost disappointed pout appeared on those painted lips, glossy and wet with well-trained affections. The discomfort of their interruption would fade and while he had never been modest; he did not want to be caught with his proverbial pants down should the Queen of Calamity herself come rampaging down the stairs with a stiletto in hand. "Sorry, pet." He said before conjuring a coin to hand, palming it into her own. "But not that sorry, I'm afraid."


Jolie managed to pin down the attention of the former dairy queen who'd teetered away, and returned some indeterminate amount of time later , alone and carrying a covered tray from which wafted the scent of strong tea and ham. She ate the sandwiches and drank the tea, perhaps in a slightly more bestial manner than she'd have allowed in other circumstances. The girl stayed to watch, morbidly fascinated, until Jolie was done and was still hovering in the room when the tray was set aside. That was when the necromancer fixed upon the girl a cold, green stare bereft of rage but piercing enough to give the farmer's daughter a shiver. "Anythin' else, Miss? Madam'll be along soon..." This added, in an emphatic and querulous tone, just in case they were harbouring some sort of escaped and lunatic murderess, or somebody equally exciting.


Jolie sighed, laid her head back. Madam... she was in a whorehouse. Things began to make sense. "That man..." one pale eye cracked open, turned again upon the girl. ".. the one who brought me. Is he here?" The milkmaid nodded, from where she stood, close enough to the door to run screaming in the event their 'guest' barrelled out of bed to murder her in her tracks. "I think he's down th' stair, Miss." Jolie closed that eye again. "If he's your pimp, I'm afraid he's made a sorry choice in me, lass. And I've no coin left to me, I think, but I have an earring you'll treasure, if you'd only fetch me another cup of tea." She may as well enjoy that last comfort, for the short time she'd have it.


Whores were predators in their own right. It was a foolish man to think them harmless victims, unfortunate woe-be-gone souls. The girl would take the earring, pocket it with the appropriate "Thank you, miss!" and scurry along. Never mind that she'd first been paid on Colton's coin for the same courtesy to which she'd so opportunistically taken payment for twice. He'd never know of it. Never have any idea. In the end, it didn't matter. What mattered was that the movement upstairs brought with it the subtle spark of promise for what the evening would provide. He had a drink in hand soon after, hypocras, thick and warm in his mouth and he drank it quickly in the vain hope it would smother the lingering affect of the girl's lips and his own restless desires for all things carnal.


Jolie, left to her own devices - if lying in a welter of pillows and staring at an ornately-plastered ceiling could be at all termed a 'device' - simply breathed and allowed her mind to untangle the mad skein of events that had brought her here, almost casually assessing her pain and weariness for degree of seriousness. The thick, wholesome sandwiches and the tea had done much to quell her nausea and light-headedness, and so the necromancer slowly gathered herself for the moment when she'd feel fit enough to rise and leave this warm, frilly room for the long ride back to The Eternity. Rousing herself, at last, she checked over new bandages, nodding approval - somebody knew what they were doing.


And, as if summoned by the compliment, that somebody would herself appear in the doorway, almost filling it with rubenesque bulk, the efficient and matronly madam blustering in like the kind of heavy tropical wind which carried with it the scent of over-ripe fruit and salt-laced rain from afar. "Right," she said, drawing the curtains in an almost brutal swipe. "Up ye get, lazybones. That bed's not payin' fer itself while yer lumped in it, eh?" Her garish, doll-like lips twisted into a smirk. "Lessen' yer willin' te turn a day's profit while yer there?"


Jolie laughed, shook her head, liking the woman's brazen, motherly manner. "Best I'm on my way.. Unless I..." Owe you something, she almost said, and caught herself. "Yes, on my way." She'd make to clamber out of the fortress of goose-down, almost ending face-down on the floor when her head spun the room like a roulette wheel. There was a fat, firm hand on her arm a moment later, an ill-bred voice in her ear. "Lemme help ye down, lass. Ye look like ye were flattened by a fallin' barrel of shite." What was it, the necromancer idly wondered, once she'd her boots on and as she was led to the stairs for a careful descent, that made everyone associate her with that particular substance, today?


The girls were not paying him particular attention just now. There were whispers. Exchanges. The ever-present hunger for coin momentarily turned aside for an appetite fed on gossip. It was a rare thing when a customer, a well-paying customer, brought a woman back with him. It was virtually unheard of for a customer to oust the girls from their bed, deny them their trade, and pay them regardless in courtesy. The whispers slipped through the place like snakes, hissing against the quiet. It was rare to hear a brothel so still and he was glad when the stumbling calamity made her appearance.


Jolie was in the awkward position of not being sure, exactly, to whom she was indebted for the comforts she'd had. The Madam clomped down the stairs in front of her, offering the necromancer a view of the woman's incredibly coiffured and no doubt eternally-bleached hairdo, and she pondered its mazelike construction of pins and artificial curls during the whole of her descent rather than consider the available options. But, at the bottom of the staircase, she was led on to that roomful of eyes and whispers, and the people who owned them, suddenly and intensely aware of just how ragged she must look, what kind of contrast she made in a place like this.


So, as the Madam stood by, perhaps expecting the man who paid the girl's keep for the night to want something else of her, Jolie would speak, in a very small voice, "To whom shall I send the gold for my night's rest?" One of the girls, clearly almost past her prime to judge by the lines creasing her thick makeup, snorted a coarse laugh at the question, and there'd be tense moment in which the necromancer's weariness slipped away and will-o-wisp eyes flashed a predatory kind of danger toward the creature, something far above and beyond mere cattiness, more the very still and sharp perusal of a vicious dog pushed well to the end of its tether. Her mind full of torn throats, Jolie drew on her indomitable will, took a deep breath and waited for the answer.


Colton said to Jolie, "I'll take your money." Without pretension. The room's sudden quiet stretched on, grew heavy, as though the girl's miserable presence had reached out and strangled the life from the place. Colton did not rise but he continued to watch, to regard her posture and the hunch in that otherwise graceful spine. It reminded him of a pose some dogs would take before going mad. He envisioned her with shaggy fur and yellowed canines, eyes rolling with mad fever and her body leant up on curled toes. He had a certain admiration for whores. They were, after all, the very vision of man's indulgence embodied. The women that made it in the world's oldest profession were not merely bright and cunning, but lecherous as well. The art of selling yourself could make the soul ache unless there was pleasure in it. That said, he admired this one all the more and decided immediately that his rare tendency to play hero would not raise its face to the sky again soon. If they provoked this little thing into something foolish they'd have to deal with it. It seemed impossible they'd be able before she ripped at least two throats out. "But I'd prefer it in credit here."


The yellow-haired patroness beamed a yellowed smile at Colton, of whom she was not exactly fond, such emotion being a waste of energy in her esteem, but who she did value for his ongoing custom. And that he'd so voice his desire to frequent her house aloud, in front of new customers, did something to soften the slagheap of her eroded heart. "An’ I'll throw in an hour on the house, fer bein' such a gent as ye are," she cooed, and slid her red grin Jolie's way. "I 'spect ye'll be leavin' th' coin, then, lass?" A meaty palm was extended, painted-on brows raised.


"Uh, no..." Jolie shook her head. "I'll have to send it on, once I'm home. But..." this, to Colton, "I do intend to do so, I'm not that..." Kind of girl? She smiled wanly. "... ungrateful a creature." The vague worry that she'd be expected to work off her debt nagged at the back of her mind while she studied the man who'd both assisted her and shaken her to the core - a thing she would not consider here, in the opulent half-light, in a roomful of whores and libertines. She did not, she realised, have any clue what time of day or night it was, or how long she'd spent in that in that over-furnished bed. "Thank you," she added, ignoring the low talk of the crowd as best she might. "For your kindness. But I must be on my way."


Colton said to Jolie, "I'm uncertain it was a kindness." The brutal truth offered, in sympathy, to the shambling ruin of a girl. Here, in the brothel's distinct light, Colton saw more clearly what the Madam had seen. There was a potency to her beauty, lingering there. It sparked green in her eyes and travelled along elegant curves and sultry lines that the ratty nature of attire had otherwise, and entirely, concealed. Words between them, short and uncertain, betrayed what he had suspected would be the case. Her politesse bordered on insincere, weighed more solidly in the realm of uncertainty. "But you're welcome all the same."


Another pinched smile, to both the conjurer and Madam, and a nod to the milkmaid, who she spotted hovering by the upright pianoforte, and Jolie gushed into the late afternoon light, grateful to breathe unperfumed air. She had a long ride back, it occurred to her as she untethered her hungry, over-ridden mount, and one she’d ride alone through what had proven dangerous territory.




Colton Arrives

The Hanging Corpse Tavern, Vailkrin


Mahri stands in the middle of the Corpse just as the last of the workmen leave. Actually. They were the clean up crew. The stone bar had been restored to its shining glory and Mahri looked upon this with pride. She'd be back there again. It felt good to be..home. Resting a gloved hand on her protruding belly, her silvery eyes did a slow survey of the Tavern she had come to love. The tables and chairs were rebuilt and bolted to the floor. One single charred beam, on request from Redhale, made up the rail of the bar, on second look. It was the black baby-grand that dominated one side of the dining area that had the lycan's attention. Would the pianist know the difference? Gods only knew. But, for now it would have to do. Special ordered from Cenril, it gleamed gloriously just waiting to be played. With a sigh, the lycan turns, a note in hand, to the newly placed public notice board. Hers would be the first to be displayed. Brand-spankin' new parchment.


The door was open. A pair of green eyes first peered in the window, appeared at the next window... and again, in the face that suddenly peeked through that entryway. "Hello?"Jolie barged right on in, then, her white grin bearing a hint of canine fang brightening what had until then been something of a gloom-fest, as far as expressions went. The necromancer showed little sign of her recent travails, bathed and sleek, in her new red dress. "Mahri..." Then a long stare at that swollen belly. "You ought to lay off the cake, methinks," she quipped. "Or you'll be too fat to fit behind the bar."


Mahri presses a hand to the ache in her lower back before turning at the sound of her sister's voice. An answering grin is quick to touch her lips and a brow nearly as dark as Jolie's arches upwards at the..she hoped..tease. "Your nephew happens to like cake." Sweeping a look up and down the other woman, Mahri shuffles from board to said bar and reaches for two glasses. One to hold water the other.."Whiskey? To celebrate. We'll be open soon."


Sidonia had been taking a stroll through Vailkrin-- strange, that a place she'd once feared had come to be such a comfort-- when she saw the new sign swinging in the breeze: the Hanging Corpse. Eyes, pale blue in the pale face, rake the new front of the building, appreciating the progress that has been made. With bated breath, she pushes open the door, the hinges so recently oiled that they don't even creak, and lets out a happy sigh at the sight of her beloved Corpse-- her home-- restored to its rather distinct form of glory. "Mahri," she says, spotting the lycan. "It... it looks so much better-- Jolie!" she suddenly says out of surprise, brows shooting upward at the sight of the other raven-haired vampiress. "You're here! Where have you...? When...?" Lips clamp shut before they make an even bigger fool of the girl, and instead she drags a hand through dark curls as she turns about in disbelief, taking in the scene. Then her eyes fall upon the piano. The pianist goes very still, pausing before walking up to the instrument step by careful step, as if approaching a strange and unfamiliar animal. "I thought a new one would be needed," she whispers after a moment, her hands made to rest at her sides.


Jolie canted a brow. "Thanks for letting me know. And make it a double, yeah? I've had a hell of a week..." She paused then. "Picked a name yet?" But she turned around when that familiar voice spoke her sister's name.. "Sid!" Jolie jiggled a bit, because, well, wasn't this exciting? "Isn't this exciting?" she added, flapping her hand about to indicate it all.


Shishi was being led, along with Orange and Yellow down the central street of Vailkrin by a black bat fluttering wildly towards the Corpse site. Wakka would fly right into the door, indicating the family's destination, and Arius eventually pushes through the entrance of the newly rebuilt tavern, leading Black and Orange in, the family not willing to wait for opening day it seems. Their party was a bit larger than usual tonight, 'Miss Dezerae' having been asked to come along, by Yellow most likely, but she's been left to trail behind by the children so Blue waits outside the entrance for the feline woman to catch up before he'll enter.


Mahri pours Jolie a double and slides it to her. She was just about to have a refreshing, if much hated, sip of water when Sidonia comes waltzing into the Corpse. It was..a reunion. She'll smile at the musician while she goes to the baby grande, her curiosity rising. Would she like it? Damn..had she paid too much for the instrument? Mahri didn't play so..how the hell would she know? Snapping her attention back to Jolie, she shakes her head. "No names yet. Haven't even thought about it. Been too busy." She'd ask about that hellish week some other time. Like when they were alone. Now the door opens again and the wolf looks over automatically, her smile brightening, "Well, if it ain't the Colors themselves. C'mon in. Where's that father of yours?"


Shishi smiles faintly to himself when the excited calls of, "Mahri!" and "Miss Joliette" from Yellow and Orange respectively reach his ears outside the door.


Dezerae lagged behind the family, probably due to her confusion associated with her invitation. Hands remained in the pockets of her trousers, finally appearing a few feet behind the family. She was unable to ignore the child's sweet gesture; she didn't have it in her. After several footfalls, the feline catches up, meeting the vampire at the doorway. She paused, frowning in his direction before leading the way in. The feline adopted a spot against the wall, admiring the newly renovated establishment from there. She wasn't quite comfortable.


Shishi 's son snatches Wakka out of the air with his right hand while pointing with his left out the door. The indication of his father's location is mimicked by the boy's sister, the girl answering, "He's just outside."


Jolie would scoop Orange up like a sack of something or other and give the child a quick squeeze, setting her on her shoes again shortly after. Arius got the offer of a hug, if he'd take it. "Your bat is peculiar," she said. "And how's that monkey?"


Sidonia can't help but smile a bit. "Very exciting, Jolie," she murmurs in reply before returning her gaze to the piano, inspecting it. "The piano... is beautiful, Mahri," she says at length, though she still has not set hands to keys. "And... and perhaps it would be nice to play at something that wasn't my deathbed, once upon a time." She glances down; there are no bloodstains upon this new floor. So many changes... And yet, her lips curl into a smile all their own.


Mahri leans against the bar, arms folded. Slanting a glance towards the door and the slinking feline she recognized but had never caught the name. Shifting her attention to Sidonia, Mahri nods. "Whenever you want, it's yours. Don't know anyone else'd play it an' I sure as hell can't." Squinting down at the Colors, the lycan tilts her head and queries, "Water for you two? Ain't got milk in just yet." Of course, given their location, blood wine was in good supply. Not, that the children could have that..


Sidonia said, "Perhaps another time." She headed toward the door, stopping on the road to peek back inside with a wide smile. "It's so good to see you all again. I'll be back soon."


Shishi follows Dezerae in and finds himself being pointed at by Yellow, the vampiric assassin offering a nervous looking smile in greeting to those that let their gazes follow Arius's finger. Orange giggles a bit when she's lifted up and Yellow then allows the hug between he and Jolie to occur before he lazily tosses the bat in his hand into the air, letting Wakka to get accustomed to the layout of the rebuilt tavern. The boy grins to his sister's idol and answers, "Belulah? She's okay... Bad at playing cards though..." Blue remained by Dezerae's side his azure gaze stuck on the twins the pair had arrived with. To Mahri's offer of water the blonde eight year olds respond with a couple of simultaneous, "Aye!"s


Mahri watches Sid with a furrow to her brow. "Alright. Don't be a stranger, eh?"


Mahri laughs softly at the pair's enthusiasm for something so simple as water. Two glasses are produced. Sparkly crystal of course. Water poured and slid towards the twins and Mahri stretches her back once again with a wince.


Jolie grinned at the news of 'Lulah's capers, and would stop to wave a farewell to the pianist before taking a tour of inspection for the work she'd ordered. "It all looks.. just the same." Though her eyes drifted the blank space above the door..


Dezerae was done observing and slouched against the wall. Head tilted in Shi's direction and an inquiring gaze is sent. Before he could respond though, crimson hues transfer onto the children, specifically Arius.


Mahri can't help but feel a touch of pride at Jolie's pronouncement. "Of course it does. I fecking ordered it so, didn't I? An' ye bloody well better believe it was gonna get done that way else some one was gonna get hurt." With a brief sniff, the wolf shifts a silver-hued look towards Blue and his companion. "Ye two gonna stand there all damned night or ye gonna come have a seat an' a drink? Free tonight. We're celebratin'."


Mahri might even slip the twins a bit of a sweet.


Shishi casting Dezerae a sideways glance as he presses his back against the wall, straightens up abruptly when Mahri calls out to the pair, "Ah! ...Aye aye." he eventually says in response before looking the feline's way again, nodding towards the bar, inviting her to follow as he moves in that direction, "You want something?"


Jolie was still staring at that blank space above the door, a muscle in her cheek twitching faintly. She'd swallow her drink, wag the glass about as request for another, and then set the glass down, blinking softly. "I need a ladder...." If the broom cupboard was still under the stairs, that was where she'd find it, the step-ladder. But was this right? Was this just asking for trouble? The necromancer grinned, inwardly. No, it was a memory of a victory won hard, a symbol of her people and their strength when banded together. So when she fished in her pack for the white skull drawn out and set on the ladder's top step under the door, she was grinning outwardly, "Almost forgot our friend, here." She picked up the death's head, gave it a kiss, and ascended to fix it in place.


Dezerae followed, obediently, shaking her head while following, "No, nothing for me. I'm fine." Where ever he chose to sit, she'd settle in a seat beside him. Afterward she attempted to garner the twin's attention and lead them in her direction.


He paid no mind to the dark. There was nothing to pay. Gold, silver, copper. These were the currency of the deaf and blind. The mute. They were coins crafted by those unable to see the inevitable portents of the moment and drawn into the utterly human trap of time and all that it entitled. A thousand curse words came to mind as he rumbled through the establishment's door, all lean-bodied and sinuously-kept limbs, jambling and jangling his way on a drunkard's path through the shifting crowd and half-populated tables. It was not the comfort of a full bosom that he craved but the company of many tankards, many tumblers, an audience born of a thousand drinks and indulgences and the many distinctly humane elements of dissatisfaction to which everyone could apply. He reached the counter, battered wood and silver and iron, There was no attention paid to the crowd, familiar as it might be to one another. It was a small gift of ignorance and inebriation that bore him on, despite the great familial bond forged by those gathered, to provoke the keep. A drink. Two. Three. They mounted as quickly as one could count, ordered and drank in a cadence as staccato as a murderer's blade between soft ribs. He drank his gin with bold and furious intent. He flipped his empty tumblers upon the counter, slick with spilled drink and condensation, until they began to stack in stadium audience to those shifting about them. There was no word, no grand entrance upon their distinctively and notedly private party. Instead, with a flip of matted raven-hair and a twist of his wolfish features in a distinctively private grimace, he paid mind to his drink alone. The Death's Head, presently raised to heights, was paid no mind. The only inclination to his stoic indignity was a subtle, quiet rumble to the tender. "Too few brothels, too few girls, in this feckin' place."


Mahri tilts her head towards Jolie, following her sister's progress to the closet then to the door where a skull is so ..neatly placed. Blinking, she almost misses Blue and his companion settling in. Yellow and Orange, she hoped, were enjoying the fudge and getting smeared with sticky sweetness. It wasn't until Dezerae spoke she snapped her attention back to the task at hand. She was, for all intents and purposes, the bar tender until they could find Steadman. Damn it. She missed that one-eyed bastard. "Anything for you, Shishi?"


Jolie was still up that ladder. "Hey. You." She glanced over her shoulder, at the cussing patron. And froze. "Hey... keep your language clean. Kids." A nod to the children. Her cheeks were scarlet, soon hidden as she turned to continue on her task of fixing the skull above the door.


Mahri watched this stranger. And she can't help noting she herself had used the same language not long ago with out the chastisement. Oh. This was..interesting. Not missing a thing: the flush of her sister's cheeks and the studious attention to detail in afixing a skull above the door. Slanting a look towards the male, Mahri draws in a breath through her nose and lets it out slowly. She'll know his scent now. "Evenin'. Getcha anything else? Afraid the girls are all on vacation."


Shishi 's daughter says to her brother, "Here. Lemme have yours. You don't like fudge." "I don't?" the boy responds while handing over his treat without waiting for an answer. "Mmmmhmm." The Blonde Mimic responds through a full mouth. The twins split up after the exchange, Orange following Jolie and asking, "Who's that guy?" while pointing up towards the skull being put in it's place. Yellow is lured in by Dezerae, the boy giving Colton a confused glance as he passes the man by. To Mahri Shishi wrinkles his nose and, after a short silence, responds, "Blood Wine?" almost as if he was asking if that was what he should be ordering.


Mahri flashes a grin towards Shishi and, voila, a bottle of blood wine is produced, "Glass or no?" Without waiting for an answer, both are slid towards the vampire. Of course, she has to chortle a bit at the antics put on by the twins.


You frowned, tilted the skull one way, tilted it back. Nodded. Stood a moment, to gather herself, and then stepped down the ladder, in time for Leralynn's question, the child's father and his companion given an affable wave. "Well, you see, Orange... " How to even begin? "That was a very bad man. Very, very bad. So we killed him, and cut his head off." She stopped there - the story was told, in a nutshell. And where was that drink? No way was she walking to that bar while he... ":And so," she went on, "We hang his skull up, to remind us of our people and their strengths. And to remind other people not to f..mess with us." The necromancer patted the child's blonde head.


Dezerae feels satisfied as robed arms surround the blonde boy and pull him into her lap. He's cradled, only slightly, given enough space to hold the water he'd ordered. She slipped her dainty fingers into his mane, stroking it as softly as she could. Nerves were eating her and the mindset of children about was the only thing keeping her there. She leaned into the new chairs, shifting the boy in her lap as she does so. With his father assimilating slowly and the daughter off socializing, the young boy was all that was left for the feline.


Mahri is a good bartender. In between feeding the kids sugar and being all suspicous of Colton (of course she doesn't know his name..), she's poured the necromancer a fresh double shot of whiskey and set it as far away from the new arrival as she possibly can. For her own sense of protectiveness. Not that she can do much with an advancing pregancy of course, but she'd give it a shot if need be.


The game was afoot. It ran hot, like blood, through the place's veins and along across the too-pretty faces of those that surrounded him. It was as though the entire place was kept on the same pulse, the same beat. It heaved, ebbed, and flowed against the portents of the moment. There was nobody to blame. There was nothing to spite. It was the natural means to band together and find community. It was a matter of survival to forge within the heart an illusion of understanding. It did not mean anything that the skull was mounted. It was one of a thousand coincidences but still, despite that cold fact, it was heralded as more so. There was nothing to differ. There was nothing to argue. Instead, amidst the speeches and hornswaggling, there was only the lift of one long-fingered hand to the girl to whom his only greeting could be accredited. "No," He said. The drink before him downed in an instant, a flick of the wrist that was echoed as he flipped the empty tankard over and set it amidst the fallen steadily gaining number before him. "The accommodations here will be suitable." It was a rumble. A crude exchange, thick in its accent, devoid of pleasantries or politesse. It were as though, despite his attire, any hints of elegance had been discarded long before his braod-shouldered form had muscled its way through the door. To Jolie he paid no mind. The girl familiar and yet not. He preferred the company of his drinks and the audience of those emptied.


Shishi 's little Mimic seems satisfied with the story of the skull as told by Jolie and with a grin the girl states, "I see!" Blue didn't bother with glasses as it would seem he's the only one drinking at his table. The vampire took a long gulp or two from the bottle before setting it on the tabletop and pushing it towards Dezerae a bit, an offering he didn't foresee being accepted.


Mahri stares hard at the stranger and nods shortly. She wasn't pretty. A scar across the bridge of her nose and slicing down the right side of her cheek took care of that. There wasn't a hint of friendliness in her silver-gray eyes for the male. Cold, hard, flinty. Those would be words to describe them at the moment. Although, there is a distinct and noticeable change when she glances towards any of the other four occupants she knows. Especially the Colors. Again, her expression loses warmth as she brings her gaze back to bear on the drinker. "If the ain't, ye come an' talk to me. Name's Mahri. I manage the Corpse."

Mahri has a drink of that damned water.


Dezerae had been scrutinizing the most recent arrival, head tilting in reaction to his antics. Attention is diverted when the bottle creates a scratching noise against the table top. She eyed the bottle, making a face. Her expression relaxes after sometime and she maneuvers around the child to grab the bottle between her fingers. It's swung to allow the contents to swish before she takes the smallest sip possible. The bottle is then offered back to Shishi.


Jolie flinched almost visibly on the stranger's (she didn't know his name either) announcement. He was... staying. In her pub. Oh joy. She wouldn't announce herself as owner (she really had to talk to Mahri about that too, but needed a drink first) as she stalked over to the counter, picked up her glass, swivelled on a heel to ostensibly study her skill at skull-hanging. The glass was cradled a moment, before she lifted it to the death's head. "Salut.." The door opened, again. A massive figure, orange of eye and long of arm, green-tinted of skin and wearing an expression that would've curdled the children's milk, if they had any, strode in and stopped, glancing about with a deeply suspicious expression. Jolie turned to Mahri and grinned. Turned back. "Urgh..."


Mahri blinks. Several times. Who knew she'd have missed the half-orc. Almost as much as she'd missed Steadman. Gods above, this whole caring bullshyte had to stop. "So it is.." she trails off.


Jolie said to Orange, "And you, young Miss. I have something to ask you." She glanced toward Shishi, and lowered her voice. "But you have to ask your father, before you answer me."


Mahri stifles a yawn then. Not because she's bored. Far from. Her energy just seemed to lag these days. Unfortunately, there was only the one room upstairs and it appeared to be claimed. So, she'd have to try and make it to Cenril to catch the ferry to Rynvale..before she simply decided a table looked comfortable.


Shishi grins a bit and shakes his head at Dezerae before taking the bottle back and taking a normal sized sip from it. Orange's attention had turned to Urghdak and remained on the bouncer until Jolie spoke to the girl, "Oh~!? What is it?" she asks before glancing Blue's way.


Colton ignored the temptation to comment, to point out the fact that a half-askew cranium would never serve a classy issue of décor or proper measure of foreboding make. These were dark times and he was amidst dark people, whether they recognized it or not, and there was nothing to be made in educating them. It was not his business to ensure they recognized the pure and potent silliness of the gesture. For all that he knew, and that was very little to begin with, they knew it. They could be celebrating, for point of fact, the simple joys that came with a man's life coming to an end. There were many of these little certainties to which he had chosen against subscription. His information was garnished in experience, nothing else, and amidst the tavern's clamor he demanded nothing other than the keep's attention to the drinks to which he was steadily draining. One ended. Another began. There was no request for a bottle to be left or a string to be made. He ordered them one after another, vocalizing each, as though the harsh rumble of his words were not measured under the heavy indulgence of liquor and its accompanying slur. "Another, please." He said. Over and over. Until the counter before him was stacked like a stadium with empty tankards and glasses, filled with the blind witnesses to his own debauchery. The stretch of his noble pants tightened under his body's carnal inclinations. His manner unapologetic. "A proper whore would serve perfectly." Came his words. An expression befitting of any so indulgent as he. The dark shadow in his hazel stare measured under the idle twist of his fingers against the counter. This place needed a trick. A spark. Something of life and dramatics and interest. That, mind you, and he felt suddenly possessed with the desire to steal.


Jolie half-knelt, taking the trouble --odd, she hardly ever bothered before -- to tug the skirt of her dress low over her knee. "Ask your father," she whispered in Orange's small ear, "If you can be my apprentice." She straightened, then, and steeled herself for an apparently casual wander over to the bar. "Mahri, pet - you look weary. I can manage here, if you need a rest. I have Urgh, in case there's trouble." She smiled faintly, as if almost hoping they would have trouble. Mahri made as if to tidy up before she left, but quit mopping at the bar at the owner's direction. "Go. Sleep." was the command. Mahri grumbled something about something or other, and went off to do what she damn well pleased. Which just happened to be.. sleeping.


Jolie said to Colton, "Evening. Get you another?"

Jolie said to Orange, "And you, young Miss. I have something to ask you." She glanced toward Shishi, and lowered her voice. "But you have to ask your father, before you answer me."


Colton said to Jolie, "A nice place." Was it sarcasm? There was nothing to define his measure in the veil of certainty. Instead, as his attention turned sidelong and he cut his amber-brown stare across the femme-fatale beside him, he managed only curt appraisal. There was something between the pair. It was similar to the tension between a willing hand and a sharp blade, the hesitation between a cocked arm and a deserving nose. He watched her while the others filtered here and there, in and out of conversation, like ghosts beneath an ebon veil and visions of something not quite real. He lingered, strong against the bar's cold stretch, while everything else claimed itself liquid beneath the green of her eyes. It was always the case, really, that he was to end up in these moments. It was not within him to fight it anymore. He'd lived too long under the cold, clammy grip of another. It was too familiar to feel stifled, bottled, and uncertain. Instead, in the tavern's dim light, he indulged in drink after drink. He'd yet to taken a slur, charming or sloppy, but his accent was thick. It was of the north. It was peasant-like, despite his manner. And it was as bold as the way his amber-brown stare shifted across Jolie's softly-curved frame and the bar's semi-indulgent decor. "And what of you, -girl," For he did not know her name, either. "Do you need a rest?"


Dezerae gathered the blonde child and settled him on his feet before her. She replaced herself with Arius, pushing her former chair closer to the father. A pat on the head is offered and a peck on the forehead is in order, the feline preparing for her departure. The feline travels out of the center, delivering a pat on the head to the father as well. The gesture was her attempt for reconciliation. She didn't wait for a response again and disappeared through the tavern doors.


Shishi turned his head when he heard his little girl say something like, "Whaaat~!?" the Blue Demon just in time to see a blonde blur zipping toward him, "Blue!" Orange called out. The vampiric father blinks once and asks, "What?" The blonde girl glances quickly towards her brother before whispering her question to Shishi. With a curious tilt of his head and a quick look towards Jolie Blue comes back to his daughter with an answer of "Aye." that is spoken through a series of "Please please please"s that erupts into a jubilant, "Gwah~!!" before Orange bolts back towards Joliette with some good news.


Jolie's lips were a thin line, for a second. "I'm not weary, no." Brisk, would be a good adjective, for the way she stepped behind the bar, slung a clean cloth over one scarlet-clad shoulder. It was a wonder he'd recognised her at all, from the shabby thing she'd been in Venturil, mud on her nose and her hair a dishivelled braid. Here, she was indeed sleek, clean, free of the vulnerability and the intensity he'd witnessed. Here, she was as as ruthlessly efficient as that Madam he knew so well. And here... well, she was used to being hit ohn a hundred times a day by libertine drunks. "So.. can I get you another. Or not?" She lifted her eyes to the small girl running toward her.


Colton said to Jolie, "Why do you bother asking?" There was no smile. This was not a clever turn of phrase. For all the charms of wit and portents - he had none. Instead, in the cold certainty that this sleek-bodied haunt demanded, he answered with the brisk and crisp sincerity of an honest question. Beauty had no place here, or so it felt. It was one of a dozen superficial things between intentions and aspirations. In the tavern's dim light he remained, hunched at the bar like a vision of the darkness itself. A stretch of rugged shoulders, stubbornly fit, with powerful arms and strong hands that reached only for tankards and glasses as they were deposited in place before him. He built his cathedral of empties, played to the certainty of this grim moment, without a tick of his stare to the lean-bodied predator behind the bar. There were no names. No need. They had never made an intent to become so familiar. Instead, amidst the horrors to which she prescribed, he existed only as another liquor-wanton patron. A gold coin struck the bar after he flipped it there, ringing off the battered counter and twisting once beneath the reflecting lamp-light. "Again. And one," he added. Without charm. "For yourself."


Shishi and Yellow blink a few times as they watch Dezerae take her leave. The Blue Demon and his son fall into a conversation about what was whispered between Shishi and Leralynn. Meanwhile Orange has placed herself close to Colton on the patron side of the bar in order to give Jolie the news, "He said it was okay!"


Jolie leaned an elbow on the timber between herself and the child, her opposite hand's forefinger slowly pushing that coin back in Colton's direction, without her gaze moving from Orange. "Wonderful," she said, "Then we can start tomorrow. You'll need a slingshot and a candle. Oh..." she added, turning to fetch a bottle from a niche secluded from the regular booze. "And a shovel. Be here in the morning, I'll take you home after the lesson." She poured two drinks, slid one to the 'stranger' as she addressed him in turn, her features composed in careful neutrality, "On the house."


Jolie glanced up at Shishi's table then. She mouthed a 'thank you' and added, "I'll bring icecream, for Arius."


Colton said to Jolie, "Obliged." Was the only answer, save the indulgence that the offer had invited. His long-fingered hand gathered up the tumbler, cheap glass, cloudy and suitable only for grain liquor and not the darker, sweeter treat to which she had abruptly deemed suitable for his consumption. He drank it quickly, without apology or hesitation. This was not a place that rewarded the meek. This was not a place where intentions and heartfelt conversations saw themselves assertion. Instead, amidst the dim light and beneath the lantern-green intensity of her stare, he managed only a curt dip of his chin. There were no expectations here. There were blind hopes. They surrounded her. He imagined that in her mind they took the shape, the form, of a thousand drowning souls. The paws of their four-fingered hands clawing for purchase on the red silks of her skirts and the pale porcelain of her skin. Instead, he remained rooted to his seat. There was no intention to meet her eyes. No need. "Have you a room in this place?"


Shishi grins to his boy, "And while Orange is gone we can work on our thing... Maybe a Dolphin next?" "Or a Whale!?" Yellow responds excitedly to which Blue whistles in approval. Meanwhile Orange nods to Jolie, listening to her instructions before curiously asking, "A Candle?" A kind of blank expression passes over the young girl's face as she casts a short glance to Colton and takes a single sideways step away from the man.


Jolie said to Orange, "Well you need one for summoning. It's important, because.. but that's for the lesson, tomorrow." Another smile, more genuine than she'd allow for almost anybody else, "I'll bring you one. Remember, a shovel and a slingshot." The child answered, her green gaze rested on Colton, as did her silence for two beats as she glanced up toward the rooms upstairs, then looking anywhere but at him. "I do. I also have one for rent, if you're interested. Twenty gold, for the night and cook will make you eggs in the morning for five more."


Colton said, "Eggs." He echoed. It was not in consideration. The words that rumbled from him were a low and simple acknowledgement, a testimony to that which they were all aware. Promises. They were often the most minute of matters. It had long been a point of contention in his life that words could take on such power, such incredible scope. A few syllables strung together properly and the world would open up like a cracked shell, leaking milky meat beneath greedy fingers. He imagined a thousand ugly crabs broken over a fire, shucked of their shells, slurped by gluttonous lips. Despite it all, Colton afforded the girl a sharp nod. The youth of her appearance betrayed, absolutely, by the keen glint fashioned in her green eyes. He met them for the first time with his own, looking past the elegant lines of her face as his fingers flipped the tumbler upside down atop the counter and it rattled about with the innumerable others before settling. "Show me to it. I'll have the eggs, too."


Shishi and Arius spoke together then, their thought processes coming together in that moment, culminating in, "Sharks!" The two may have already gotten themselves more excited about Orange's apprenticeship than the Mimic herself. "Shovel and Slingshot. Got it." Orange responds to Jolie before raising a brow towards her father and brother when they excitedly list fish.


Jolie drew the cloth from her shoulder to swipe it over the newly-built bar that was thus far on its first day in use free of old water-marks and scratches. Dropping this in a bucket below, she returned the stranger's nod, stepping around the the timbered enclave to have a quiet word with Urghdak regarding security and locking up for the night. Then approached Orange, her slender fingers tousling blond locks, "I must see to this... Early, Leralynn, remember." To Shishi and Arius she spoke a fond farewell, reinforcing the important promise of icecream. Her path to the foot of the stairs ended with a sidelong half-look to the conjurer by way of invitation to follow.


Shishi 's little Mimic nods twice to Jolie. Eventually she heads back to Yellow and Blue, reiterating the 'early' instruction to her father. "Early~?" the Blue Demon whines in a teasing manner that earns him a kick in the shin from Leralynn.


Colton said to Shishi, "Evening." But the words were far to the stranger on his lonesome. He spoke to the children, as well, which took some tremendous feat of courage given the fact that of all things, he loathed children. They were small. Fast. Impulsive. That alone endeared them, truth be told, given his unsuitable means of living. It was there inability to grasp the freedom bestowed upon them in their youth that required loathing and he'd always been eager, all-too-able, to see it given. Despite this, though, he managed the faintest hints of a smile to the child lingering near Jolie. It was a ghostly thing. It scarcely softened his wolfish features before he turned his back on her, made his way to the stair. The tread of his boots heavy, purposefully, as he joined her at the stair. "Not a bad joint, at all."


Jolie spoke no rejoinder to that, but -briskly- made her way up the staircase with an attitude that spoke clearly of business in the process of being transacted.




A Stranger In Town

Kelay Tavern


Colton was outside, practicing carpentry. Or so it would appear. The mallet in hand lifted, glinted once in the pre-noon sun, before his sinuously-muscled arm brought it down. Over and over. The thunk of its impact audible. The man upon whom he was hammering had stopped crying out. His legs jerked spastically, twitching against every impact, and his head was steadily stoving in against the mallet's impact.


Ranok is about to stroll into the tavern when he halts. The sight of Colton apparently hammering in a man's head makes him pause. He, oh so casually, strolls over to the pair. A hand rests lightly on the hilt of his sword. He stops within striking distance of Colton. For him, at least. At 7 feet tall, the man generally could afford a lot more space for where he could reach. Just as casually, he asks Colton, "Owed hyu money, deed he?"


Jolie was seated by the window, drink in hand, inconspicuous as a woman in scarlet can be. She craned her neck at the rhythmic sound, interrupted from her reverie by it. Some man at work, something mundane to focus on, take the sundry worries from her mind. And, as Fate, that waspish doyenne, would have it - this was the very furthest thing from any kind of truth she could have perceived, in that space beyond the glass. Rose-hued lips fell open, an unverbalised 'o' of surprise.


Jolie would draw out of her seat, hastily, to make a quick retreat toward the door and the man... no, men now… beyond.


Colton loomed over the fallen man's crumple form with the mallet arced high overhead, arm-cocked. For a moment there was quiet and an uneasy stillness, that place between a murderer's rage and a rational man's calm. It hung like smoke in the air, thick and stinking, until the stricken figure gave a few spastic and hapless twitches. Harmless. The last vestiges of a mind that would never form a coherent thought again. Still, Colton brought the hammer down three more times. Each impact wet, mushy, as the man's skull crushed entirely and blood spread thickly across the roadside while the body's twitches went abruptly, and entirely, still. Satisfied, mallet in hand, it was a smaller matter to fleece the man's coat and trousers for coins. A shameless, almost lazy effort to which Colton managed to produce the handful of gold pieces he had been owed.


Jolie hung in the doorway like a cobweb, her fingers resting on its timbers. She did not intend to intervene.


Arghen feels one emotion and only one........ the desire not to gamble or cheat against the man with the mallet. Boy was he a creeper.


Ranok thins his eyes ever so slightly as the victim's life is snuffed out. Too late to do anything to save him. He decides that something more frank is required. Once again he addresses Colton, "Vy deed hyu kill dat man?"


Arghen said to Ranok, "Because he wanted the coin in the man's pockets. Don't play dumb, we all just watched him rifle the corpse!"


Colton looked up then to Ranok, far from surprised it would seem. It seemed an epidemic of every town, really. A man, or two, who had been graced by whatever wild inclinations of nature to possess a form as strong as it was skilled. They wielded swords and clubs and shields, they spoke in thick accents that sometimes were so heavy it was as though they were being chewed rather than spoken, and had the tireless entitlement to the goings on of every man about them.


Colton Black did not twist his unshaven features into a snarl or even manage an attempt at a witty retort. Instead, plunging the hammer's head into the splattered mess of the fallen's head so that it would sit handle-up for him, he adjusted his feral crouch with a shift of his corded thighs and so his back was not towards the hulking figure. He began working a small pouch of tobacco from the dead man's coat. "Hello."




The First Dance

Jolie - thank goodness- had a rather better selection of clothing to choose from now. She'd wander downstairs, therefore, without the hideous robe and slippers, attired in simple black, her hair damp, her lips pursed in a soft and tuneful whistle. A peek downstairs showed nobody looking her way, so she took the banister, perched on it for the rapid slide down new and highly polished timber not worn enough yet to offer any grip to leather pants. She neglected, for the sake of appearing mature, and not getting caught, to say, "Wheeeee!"


Mahri was already down stairs, dressed in her usual attire. She was in the middle of discussing something with Steadman when Jolie's landing, minus the obligatory 'wheeeee!' that should have been had when banister surfing, grabs the lycan's attention. A few more murmured words and the cyclopean bartender turns away with a nod and heads down to the cellar. Eying her sister, Mahri quirks a grin towards Jolie and sets about gather the necessities for a liquid breakfast..unless.."Want somethin' to eat?"


"Yeah..." Jolie couldn't quite look Mahri in the eye, yet. So she looked for somewhere to sit, instead. "I'm starved. Any response to the advertisements yet?" The bowl of salted snacks set out on the bar was pondered as a source of hunger-pang bandaid, but then she thought about all those drunken fingers poking through it for the cashews and decided to wait for better fare. "Told you, didn't I? About the big feller."


Mahri had her back to Jolie at that point so no eye contact would be needed or expected. Hell, even she refrained from meeting her sister's gaze when she set the whiskey and glass on the counter--just in case-- "Watcha want? And yeah. Got one but I don't know ...the scent that came with it..I'm gonna say no to this one." What Mahri was dying to ask was how the hell the 'interview' with that guy went..the guy who always seemed to be wherever Jolie was.


Jolie nodded, sipping... then halting, as she realised in some degree of horror that somehow the issue of the conjurer's employment had just.. never come up. Nor, now she came to think of it, had his name. She took a bigger slug of liquor, and hurried on, "I'll trust your judgment. Better to wait for the good ones than make do with worse."


Mahri makes one of those sounds that means, 'whatever', before she turns towards the door leading to the kitchen. Cook was already banging pots and pans about, "Steak! Rare! All the fixin's!" Order placed, since Jolie hadn't made her wishes known on what she wanted, Mahri rounds the end of the bar to take up residence in a stool nearby. Slanting a look towards the necromancer she says simply, "Well?" And that would be her bringing up the subject of the conjurer.


Jolie said to Mahri, "I've been better." She peered at the lycaness' expanded belly. "Yourself?"


Mahri snorts and shakes her head. "Not what I meant..but I'm fine."


Jolie pursed her lips and nodded. Her stomach growled, in anticipation of that steak. "Was that me?" Or has that pup of yours inherited your temper?"


There was a certain haste to him just now, a sharp purpose in his stride as he cut his way through the doors and made his way towards the bar. The coat, once battered and matted with the grit of the road and a few unsavory stains, was recently cleaned. In fact, within the tavern's light, he was revealed to have his beard cut down and groomed. There was no greeting to be made - only an order. Drinks. Whiskey was served and he did not complain. He had not specified.


Mahri chuckles, since she so rarely actually laughs. She got the hint. And her comes cook in all her flush-faced glory with a platter bearing the steak and 'all the trimmings'. This is dropped before Jolie since Mahri had already told Cook she wasn't hungry earlier, so it couldn't be for the manager. "He probably will."


Jolie took only one inhalation of the rich, meaty odour and dug in, more like some half-starved council worker fresh from a shift's worth of ditch-digging and leaning on his shovel than any kind of lady. At least until the door opened... The necromancer had half an onion ring hanging from her lips, this slurped hastily like a noodle, her mouth dabbed with a napkin, though her gaze had only flitted upon the conjurer fleetingly, with no overt interest.


Mahri leans back precariously on her stool, heels hooking into the bottom rung when it starts to wobble a bit. Watching the stranger with piqued interested, the decidedly impulsive woman blurts out, "Hey, Stranger. Ye got yeself a name?"


Colton answers, a week-long question answered without fanfare. "Colton. Colton Black."


"So," Jolie said, to Mahri blithely, "Will you have it he..." and halted, mid-chew, at her sister's question to study the remnant of her meal in silence.


Mahri darts a silver eyed glance to Jolie. "Imagine that. He's got a name.."


Jolie forcefully did not glare. "Fancy." She nodded to him. "Mister Black."


Colton gives a brusque lift of the bottle in answer, a roguish salute that ended with its glass pressed to his lips.


Colton lowers the bottle, only to turn. There is an absolutely deliberate notion to his movement, the way he rounds his amber-flecked stare onto the dark-haired woman's own. "You?"


"They call me Te.." No, they didn't. Not any more. "Joliette. Joliette Thorne. Jolie, if you like."


Mahri settles in to watch this. She doesn't, however volunteer her name.


Mahri said, "And Tenebrae and Darkness..bitch..take your pick I think she answers to all of them." And just how Mahri knew all this..she won't say. Sources y'know. "You can call me Rider."


Jolie leant over to him, just a tiny bit. "Her name's Mahri. She's just being dramatic." She lowered her tone a notch further, "Hormones."


Colton said, "Tenebrae is nice." Was all he answered to the pair of them, attention straying as he once again lifts the bottle to his lips. "So, the two of you, you operate this establishment?"


Mahri glares at Jolie. Hell.."bitch.." Then her attention snaps back to Colto. Whom she will not call 'Mr. Black.'. "So far. Yeah. Why, need a job?" She lofts a brow towards Jolie questioningly. Hadn't there been something said about an..interview?


Jolie was, in that particular moment, sadly too busy with a mouthful of steak to add to that particular topic. So did not.


Colton answered with a muted shake of his head. The bottle sloshed as it turned some in his hand, evidence of how quickly he was working his way through it. "I'm not much for working but thank you."


Jolie chewed, swallowed. Licked her lips. "Handy with a hammer, though."


Sidonia watches all this from where she sits on the step to the stage, not having yet set fingers to keys of the new piano. But she smiles, rather content all the same.


Colton answers Jolie with his routine, dry pander. The bottle is upended immediately after. "Only a hobby."


Jolie nodded, and got on with her meal, waving to Sid as she munched.


Steadman appears just in time to hear the slosh of booze in a bottle. A familiar sound that tells the keep a customer was in need of a fresh one. This the cyclops is quick to get and set before Colton. Quiet, the man goes about taking stock of the rails and making notes, if mentally, on what was needed. This saves Mahri from having to get up and try not to look like she's waddling. "Huh. I really don't care how you get your money s'long as you pay your bill here that's fine by me." Raising both brows at Jolie this time, the lycan won't ask how she knows this particular fact. Yet.

Colton turns to consider Mahri intently then. "It'd be a better establishment if you hired some whores."


Mahri said to Colton, "You want whores? Talk to the Boss." A nod towards Jolie. "You want a drink and some gambling..maybe even get into a fight or two for money? You come here. I don't deal in whores."


Colton said to Mahri, "Have you something against whores?"


Sidonia speaks up at this, a brow arched, "There are plenty of places for whores. The Corpse needs none."


Jolie would quit munching, and eye her sister narrowly. "Why would I know about whores...?"


Colton speaks to himself before ending the bottle in hand, provoked perhaps by the presence of another. "Some of the nicest women that I have known have been whores."


Sidonia said to Colton, "I have nothing against whores. I just have no desire to see the Corpse employ them."


Mahri said to Jolie, "Gosh. I don't know. What do you know about whores?"


Jolie glanced upstairs, reminded of something.. "No sign of Dia, yet..."


Colton steals the bottle's cork with a twist of his hand, flipping it onto the counter with absolutely lack of concern for where it landed. "Whores, typically, are extremely hard workers."


Mahri compresses her lips at that and huffs a breath through her nose. "None?" Because..they may not have whores but damn, they had some of the best dancers.


Jolie said to Colton, "If you say 'whores' one more time, I may borrow that hammer of yours."


Colton said to Jolie, "Whores."


Mahri said to Colton, "If you mean they work hard at faking it, sure."


Jolie said to Mahri, "None. I'm worried. And nobody runs the Den like Dia. It'll be a mess."


Jolie archly ignored Colton's retort.


Sidonia stands, lips pursed as she draws closer and takes a seat next to Jolie. She eyes Colton carefully, brows furrowed.


Sidonia whispered to Jolie, "I seem to recall you handling one male with a garrotte quite effectively once upon a time. Shall I find one for you?"


Jolie whispered to Sidonia, "Not yet."


Colton said to Mahri, "The pleasure of a whore is typically not the concern of a customer."


Jolie said to Sidonia, "How's the new piano, pet?"


Colton speaks with an almost expressionless manner, interrupting every so often to tip back the offered bottle and indulge. Sometimes, he pays no mind to anyone in particular as he speaks. The words simply come, drift into the air, and are lost as the conversation turns onward.


Sidonia said to Jolie, "We're warming to each other. I may play tonight."


Jolie would slowly, inconspicuously, deviously, drive the tip of her forefinger in between Colton's third and fourth rib. Even if she had to lean across to do so. Meanwhile, she carried on her conversation with the pianist, "Would you? Place seems like a.. well. A corpse, without you tinkling away in the background."


Colton betrayed a sudden, and pointedly rare, smile in reply.


Jolie blinked at Mahri. "You're slow." She added, mouthing to Sidonia, "Hormones."


Mahri huffs.


Luthentius casually strides forth through the archway of the entrance to this new establishment, news had spread far and wide, it appeared, attracting even the uncommon folk from their nooks to experience the current 'happenings' of the realm. With peculiar inaudible steps of extravagant boots carrying the aged scholar across this stone fortress, for such was the appearance the Wizard described it as, of which soon claimed a vacant seat of an high-chair. Whilst making himself comfortable he slice a scrutinizing glance throughout the void of the hall, claiming the surroundings in to his stern sight to take note of its new interior.


Colton said, "Oh, look. Someone important." The words were dry. "Just as I was beginning to get bored."


Sidonia shoots Mahri an appreciative glance at her comment before replying easily to Jolie. "I'd like to. Anything in particular you'd like to hear?"


Sidonia can't restrain a giggle, hiding it behind a slender hand before nodding subtly in agreement with Jolie.


Jolie glanced about, snorted softly, said, "Mahri, customer," and added, in reply to Sidonia, "You choose."


Mahri is not going to sit here and have the level of her hormones discussed and snickered at! So, with an unlady like grunt and a puff of cheeks, the lycan half slides and half drops off her stool. "Damn woman..ain't got no understandin'..c'n go and f--" she winces and presses a fist into the small of her back before resuming her muttered cursing..quite aware Jolie could probably hear them, "..herself f' all I bloody well care." It's in one of those moments the lycan notices Luthentius and she barely restrains a sneer for the Larketian. "What you doin' here Wizard?"


Luthentius had, naturally, caught the swift but insignificant remark of his person whilst he had walked across the harsh surface of the floor beneath, uttered but a male not recognized by the elder. The high elf chose to ignore the comment, as the mercury attention shifted to the lycaness addressing him. A hasty scrutiny of her ample exterior was granted a moment before the elder leaned further back in to his, surprisingly, comfortable seat. A stoic expression met the view of Mahri as his soft vocals passed dry, speckled, lips, I'm taking in the scenery, Mahri. the Grey One began, I heard Vailkrin had re-established its watering hole, and thus curiosity caught the better of me. I see you are still quite... the gleam of his steely ovals obtained a strange shine, ..alive. A small, halfhearted smile was presented, a mere formality as it stands.


Jolie let her sister deal with the Larketian lackey, opting to slide from her seat and join Sidonia by the piano. Brand new, free of bottle-rings and liquor-stains, cigar burns and blood, the instrument was the finest the lands had to offer. Mahri had done well in its choosing, and Joliette was more than eager to hear it played.


Mahri lofted a dark brow at the mage and made her way over to his table. The smile was not returned. Not even halfheartedly. "Yeah. You know what they say about curiosity, and you don't have nine lives." Glancing over her shoulder at Sidonia, Mahri'll watch a moment to see if the girl plays before shifting attention once again to Luthentius. "Alive, aye. I can imagine there are a few folks disappointed in that fact."


Oh, he is not so glorious. There is no great posture or pomp to lend itself to the telling of tall tales. Tall. As is every man in his own mind. It is an adjective that loses meaning in a place amongst so many and held within a realm born to such a diverse, and immortal, legacy. Was it common debauchery or debauchery of purpose that defined his manner, that should have been a greater question. It was one to which he sometimes wavered, uncertain, particularly when in these inebriated moments the stink of peasants and stench of paragons seemed all the more overwhelming. Woe, tired cliché. The pull from his bottle's body was a lethal one, ending its unsettled existence amidst a cage of glass and damning it to the organic and natural completion of gullet. Colton cut his amber stare sidelong to consider the looming figure, take stock of it. It was unfortunate. The night was, to this moment, still entirely and distinctly boring.


Luthentius ' dull features remained quite still upon the remark of Mahri, as if carved from the very stone of the facility itself, he gazed calmly back, Hm, indeed. Nine lives are quite too many. Not even I desire to live that long if shared by some similar creatures that reside upon the realm to this day. The glistening sight of the scholar momentarily motion away from the lycaness, following her glance, to cast an icy stare toward the another female, also unknown to himself. Once addressed again, Luthentius issued a slight tilt to become his silver adorned cranium, I would not know of such a matter, Madame. Peoples preconception of who dislikes who is of little concern to me, fortunately. It would appear that it was quite obvious the ancient was hardly welcome in these parts of the realm, the warmth of the place was, per usual, lacking- yet such merely amused this aged scholar further, having a rather odd sight upon humor, if he had anything resembling the description. Are you working here these days? He then inquired, having not been in these parts for a long time, he truly didn't know any better.


Sidonia rises from the bar and sidles toward the piano, rather similar to the raven-haired vampire who took her life and gave her immortality. Unlike the King of the Roads, however, the Pianist approached the instrument slowly, cautiously, as if nearing an untamed animal. She slides her hands across its elegant, shining lid and lets her fingers linger above the keys as she takes her seat upon the bench. She glances up at those gathered, and the girl gives a respectful nod to Jolie before closing her eyes. Fingers settle onto keys, finding those she wants without thinking, despite how long it's been. And then the first chord announces the beginning, the return of the girl to the musical beast as if it's a fairy tale that no one yet understands. Her left hand summons the bass notes to swell like distant thunder before a her right hand trills out the rain, washing away curses and memories and ghosts and dark towers where futures were changed. It is a new start, rich in all its bloody darkness-- as is only fitting for the pub called the Corpse in Vailkrin town-- but it is just a beginning, and the girl continues to play.


Mahri blinks. Several times. "Huh." Obviously Luthentius was out of touch with many things that happens in the place of her birth. And..lets face it. Mahri was bloody bored anyway and didn't have the ambition to get a rise from the wizard. Not that she'd ever been able to. How vexing. "I manage the Corpse. Did before it burned down and I do now..." As Sidonia begins to play, Mahri shuts her trap and stares at the vampire. Gods Damnit. She'd missed hearing the woman play that thing. And hearing it now demanded nothing less than the audience's full attention. Which she gave.


The moment the pianist struck her first, perfectly pitched and played noted, the black-clad necromancer leaning upon the piano by virtue of a bare elbow closed her eyes and allowed her lips to smooth their line into something softer, all harshness and derision falling away like leaves unwanted from some tired tree, replaced by this fresh flush of expression at once more pleased and more innocent, as though innocence had any right at all to belong on the face of Joliette Thorne. As further notes followed and the melody was revealed, she opened them, lantern-green and filled with the same kind of dreamy pleasure as her mouth. She shifted from the timber, the sway of her steps in time to the music as she made the brief crossing of the room to the bar, where she stood before the conjurer, lifting one small hand to him in invitation; her gaze settled on Colton Black as though the question had been asked prior, and answered to her satisfaction.


This was an invitation. It were as though the crowd parted and the light dimmed, candles beset upon by a breezeless wind in the way they suddenly and significantly struggled to cast the yellow of their light throughout the room. Around them, around everyone, every flame trembled and shrank. The darkness rose up, swelled, spilling from the room's natural shadows beneath tables and in corners. It grew and reached, grew fingers that wrapped themselves about every source of light. Every flicker from every jewel. Every glint from every window. The Shadow manifested itself throughout the room, unrelenting, unerring. The shadow rose up and so did he, feeling the delicate stretch of Joliette Thorne's slender fingers gliding along his own. This was an invitation. It was a potent interruption of boredom, sudden and unbidden. The night seemed divided, as though by a blade, into all moments before this one and this particular instant. She was small, slight. The contrast between them was bold and he accented it by reaching, claiming the soft swell of her rounded hip and using it to steer her with him. As liquid, she moved with grace, and he was the foil. The rhythm kept, his feet inelegant but capable, as his eyes fell to the girl's. Their color had drained, spilled away. The whites had melted away until all that was left was shining, inky blackness. Inhuman. Cold. Unapologetic blackness.


Though she'd felt so from the very moment her boot-heels had trod upon the obsidian stone of the tavern's refurbished flooring, Joliette was, in that one razor-edge in time, completely and utterly at home. Shadows swelled, music swelled, the air itself seemed to absorb that marvellous gloom, melancholy and filled with peaceful promise of a deep, blue hour, never-ending. The song played was a storm that pulsed like the heart of the cosmos raining stars upon itself, a dance that enfolded all of creation, but existed here in microcosm, their two bodies its miniature in perfect study and unison. No calamity would befall the necromancer now, that harried woman of the days prior having been put to well-deserved rest. For here, in the darkness and the glowering struggle of light to find it place within it, she was reborn, a darkness herself, to the arms of a man named for it, his eyes the twin echo of it all, as future and past became one and Jolie was spun like silk and a story worth telling across that space before the stage where Sidonia wrought her magic in sound.


Sidonia watches as the Shadow Man and Jolie meet; beauty and the beast, indeed. With a small smile just for herself, she continues the tune in a cascade of soprano chords cracking like lightning across a sky, light for a Corpse that has no spark anymore. Magic and death have long been bound together for Sidonia, but none more so than in this moment. Death was not the end for her; it was like being born anew, and the monstrosities she has faced in this life were, perhaps, no worse than those of her old. This piano is like a child, she comes to realize. It is not stained with blood, with death. And so those lingering, haunting stories might finally fade from the Pianist's mind, and perhaps-- with a new love-- she might find new inspiration. The melody rolls onwards as the Pianist comes to this gradual realization, the notes seeping upward from her left hand to her right, until a birdsong heralds a dawn that she need not fear.


Mahri felt a touch out of place. So, while the two danced and Sid played, the lycan will quietly make her way out. No farewell to her sister or Colton. Sidonia was in a world all her own and Luthentius... she barely spared him a glance. It was all too reminiscent of the single dance she'd shared with someone. So long ago.


Moments, while being lived, were sometimes easy to misinterpret. Perception was often a tragic thing and he had found that part of the mortal condition was to be a victim to it. They were, in so many words, like fish in a bowl. The world existed through refracted light, skewed visions. He'd always saw it as a gift that they were incapable of seeing it for what it was. There was something to be said to knowing little and the many surprises it brought. But he saw what it seemed the others could not. This was not a union. This was a rebirth. The girl under his strong hands swayed, writhed. Her body forged arches of raw, sensual intensity. Content to be her foil, Colton indulged himself in the vision. Aware that something within this girl, this inept and soul-sick girl, was waking. The music transitioned, bridged, the player melted away until she was nothing but the music that she made. And there, as the darkness crept, the woman he'd call Tenebrae woke further with every chord. The transformation defined the evening; it filled it with promise.


Luthentius seemingly embraced the tender darkness shifting about the atmosphere with its lurking intent, thus the caress of shadow settle, lovingly, about the features of the elder magus, much to his delight. For where does one of his intellect not reside, if not within the dull shades of life; within the corner of a vast library with merely the illumination of a few candle flames to keep company. Aye, he enjoyed the solitude. Absently the Wizard gazed toward the brilliant melodies of the stranger commanding the ivories to her whim and delight; pleasant, if not even enjoyable, to the pointy ears of the elementalist. The display that followed, however, was not met with equal contentment, but even such, Luthentius was pleased. Mahri, having left the scenery, he gave not the effort of disgruntling vocabulary, but instead continued his night of peace in silence. Vampires, a peculiar sort, became a timid thought within absent mind.


Every darkness, in this small world - unlike that great and endless mother-void in which light is the anomaly, the small spark that fought and lost and clawed back into the womb that birthed it again and again only to die - in contrast to that vast and primal blackness, their own small night was doomed by the rise of each day, when the sun's glaring eye would vanquish shadow and reign supreme over half the world. Without light, there is no shadow - but what was born here was no mere lack of that close-by star's glow. This was a piece of the velvet night that preceded all stars and would be there when they had died to cold lumps of iron and dirt drifting pointless through eternity, drawn down to bleed significance into an insignificant corner of itself. And reborn, too - a name that had found no life in too long. And a heart that rang with music and magic.. The conjurer, the pivot around which the Darkness turned, she the fulcrum that moved him to break his apathy. And the elf, like a sour note politely overlooked, hanging in their midst.




Chicken Dinner

Mallory wandered into the tavern with a clueless expression. She was not exactly sure where she was and whether she enjoyed this area or not. Already the atmosphere ran chills down her spine but the girl took a seat nonetheless, looking around rather awkwardly. A female caught her eye and she half smiled, wondering whether this stranger was friendly or not.


Jolie... wasn't, really. Not in the conventional sense of the word, anyhow. But she -was- a businesswoman, and a coin is a coin, and she would offer the girl a brief smile. "Hello, pet. Get you something?" Distinctly a little bit off-human, though how exactly would be hard to tell, the petite female behind the bar carried an air of authority perhaps a little sharply for a mere barmaid.


Mallory looked over at the female again and asked slowly, "Um...what kind of drinks do you offer...?" The most horrid of things came to her mind, judging on the state of this tavern, and she shivered, "Just....just water, actually. If you don't mind." Her arms and legs were crossed, a sign of introvercy.


Jolie raised one black eyebrow over its green eye. "Nothing that'll kill you." She turned to fill a glass from a barrel, unhooking a shiny steel dipper to scoop the liquid up. "Probably." She'd stroll over to the tremulous girl's seat, a white cloth draped over one shoulder in case of need to wipe up sudden spills. The glass was set down. "No charge." A vaguely amused expression fleeted across thenecromancer's lips. "You look.. a little lost, pet. First visit to the Dark Lands?"


Mallory smiled and replied with a thank you before sipping her water cautiously. Once she had set her glass down did she reply, "Um, well...just a little...." With a sigh, she mumbled, "Okay, maybe a lot. I was on my to Cenril and then got side tracked, saw something shiny, then...ended up here. I'm relatively new to these lands still. Although..." Almost like a light switch, the bard perked up with a big smile, "I was hoping to meet a vampire as soon as I saw this city because it made me think of this one set in a play I did and one of my goals is to meet every race possible and--" She stopped, realizing that she was beginning to ramble then added, "Well...I'm sure you get the idea, yes?"


Jolie nodded, agreeably. "You're very likely going to be somebody's supper by the end of the day." She sighed, slid into a seat near Mallory's and did her best to catch the girl a square look in the eyes. "Few things you ought to know about the place, if you're going to be wandering about like a chicken dinner. First.." she glanced about. "You're fairly safe here. Well, most days. If you hear smashing or screaming, it's probably best to give it a miss. Second, you need to be able to defend yourself." The death-mage canted her head back a little, in order to get a better up-and-down-look at the waif. "I've learned not to underestimate anyone by looks alone. But, I have to tell you - if anyone's looks ever screamed 'chicken dinner', it's yours. What would you do, for example, if somebody were to pull a knife on you, right now?" In that acute, lantern-green stare, intense upon Mallory, there may be room for doubt as to whether the dark-haired tavern-keep may do just that very thing.


Jolie paused to shoot her Chief of Security a single dark glance. The usually stoic and plank-faced half-troll quit smirking and found sudden, far more serious things to look at, somewhere.. over.. there.


Jolie returned her perusal to the girl, then.


Mallory rested her chin on both hands, "Oh? Are they cannibals?" Her eyes widened in shock and silently pondered if there really WERE cannibals still. She should have paid attention in world studies back home. She cocked her head slightly and said, "Well, I do have my harp. Although, I suppose if they decided to choke me or something I wouldn't really be able to sing my way out of it," The girl had never been involved with violence except maybe with a rat or two...which involved her standing on a chair and screaming her head off. She continued, "Hm...I'd try to reason, really. If they asked for money, I'd just give in. I'm more of a paci...pacify.......uh.....peacekeeper. Yeah. That." That familiar, airy tone was back, fear and shock seemingly forgotten already.


Jolie didn't quite press her palm to her face, though she couldn't help rubbing her fingers over her chin, partly to stop herself breaking into a chuckle and earning a scorned glare from Trollson, and partly in thought. "Listen," she began, her tone taking a slightly kinder slant. "You seem like a nice kid. But let me tell you straight: unless you can shoot a bow, throw a knife or a bottle of holy water at ten paces and not miss, or maybe keep a few nasty spells up those.." her gaze dropped to the wispy white cloth covering the girl's arms, "... sleeves of yours, Vailkrin looks good to be the last place you ever visit. Alive, anyway. Vampires –eat- people. And then those people get up from their graves and eat more people. That's what they do. The regular kind of undead - well, you never know what they're going to do, but you can be sure they are very rarely full of cheer to encounter the living. And my own kind.. " Here she bared her teeth, suddenly, not so viciously as to terrify but enough to show that she, too, was of a predatory breed. "We'll chew you up like a squeak toy and leave your bones for the ghouls to gnaw on. So..." before Mallory could either speak or - quite potentially - run screaming, she added, "But I bet you're tougher than you look. Most people are, once they learn that fear is only Death giving you a goose on the rump on his way to visit somebody else. Hopefully. So, if you want to swan around the place, I can show you a trick or two." She grinned. "How's that sound.. Chicken Dinner?"


Mallory still had that smile pasted on her features with doe-eyes staring right back at the woman, "Oh, I'm suuuure they're not THAT terrible. Even though they say some vampires act like animals, I still see them as people, too. Just like centaurs, orcs, gnomes...the like," She adjusted her sleeves a little self conciously after catching the woman's gaze at them then continued, "I thought the stories were that vampires looked like people? You make them sound...like zombies......oh, well I guess they kind of ARE like zombies....but don't they just drink blood?" She was mentally storing this information from the other. It sounded like something good to twist into a tale, another hobby the bard enjoyed. Oddly, the girl barely flinched when the bartender revealed her teeth and asked almost TOO optimistically, "Oh, I already figured you were unhuman. It's just an assumption I made, considering everybody here is...well....odd. OH BUT I mean, I didn't mean to sound racist or anything, if you think I'm just throwing you into a category!! No, no nothing bad!!" She then halted, raised an eyebrow, and said quizzically, "Chicken....dinner.....? That's a new one." She laughed, "I've been given a few nicknames, but I'll say, chicken dinner is a new one! .........Are you calling me fat?" Her expression dropped, and she stared neutrally at Jolie.


Jolie .... blinked. "I'd say.. plump. Rather than fat.. listen. To me. Very carefully." She spoke slowly, now, as one might when trying to reason with persons wearing maniacally happy smiles and a tinfoil hat. "They are not people. They are predators. They drink your blood.. until you have no more to drink, and then you die. Now.. " she raised a hand in a gesture of partial surrender, "You'll meet some who try to live human. I was like that, in my day. But many don't, and you can't always tell which is which until you walk way. Or you don't." And there, she closed her lips, because if Chicken Dinner here was too many bats short of the belfry to understand her, well... some folks were born to be dinner, was her way of looking at it. "Can I get you something else, though, while you're here? We have some nice fudge, or a hot meal if you prefer." She grinned. "Special of the day - roast chicken."


Ranok sort of just appears with a small pop of displaced air. The man is about to take a step when he completely halts. A double take is done. He says, slowly, "Dis...hain't...Kenril. Vere de heck deed dat teleporter send me?" Several small bottles of what look like they could be perfume clink against his waist as he looks around. He tries to get his bearings, "Dey must hef mis marked de sign...vere de fook em Hy?" In reality, the man's grasp of reading common wasn't so nearly sharp as his speaking and understanding it verbally. He most likely mis read the sign marked above each portal, though Ranok would go to his deathbed insisting that the signs were poorly marked rather then the fault lying in his own mistake.


Jolie flinched visibly, half a second before Ranok appeared. She hated those ... popping in and out things. And wouldn't it figure, Muscles'd be the one popping. "Hey," she greeted him, with a wave.


Ranok has about the same reaction. Of all the places to be dumped by mistake, it would be the one place where Jolie was. He, just for a moment, looks heavenward, perhaps addressing the Gods that reside there with a 'what have I done to deserve this?' thought. Turning his gray eyed gaze towards Jolie, he wears a flat expression. Though he he doesn't say it, the words 'oh, it's YOU' can practically be felt in his tone, "Such a nize treat to meet hyu again, Jolie."


Mallory raised a hand to her mouth in shock, "I'll have you know I dieted!! I'm a gracious 109 pounds, which is perfect for my height of 5'5!! So rude...." She sighed, mentally calming herself down. If there was one thing she was OCD over, it was her appearence. Such is the life of an aspiring actress pressured by their looks. She went back to listening grudgingly with pursed lips before responding, "Y'know, I'm not THAT stupid...but if there's still humanity in them, I'm sure they could be reasoned with. Although..." She suddenly questioned silently how old Jolie was. The woman spoke with experience so there was probably truth in her words. Mallory opened her mouth to state so, but the arrival of a familiar face distracted her. She broke into all grins, "Ranok!!! Finally, somebody I KNOW in this area!!!!" All tension was forgotten like a goldfish after ten seconds.


Jolie snapped her gaze to Ranok after staring blankly at Chicken Dinner while spoke... whatever it was, Jolie had almost completely tuned out at 'dieted'. Wouldn't it just figure, this girl would be friends with the smith? "So you two know each other?" she said, sardonically, rising from her seat. Both of you being from Bloody-annoying-land, she didn't add. Her smile to Ranok was gracious. "Hungry? Fancy a drink?"


Mallory nodded. She felt more secure that Ranok was here...top reason being that the tavern creeped her out. She wasn't sure what to think of Jolie yet. The only word that came to mind was 'odd'. "Yup, I know Ranok. Seen him around frequently in Kelay. ...How do you know him, if you don't mind me asking?" It was a simple, innocent question.


Colton arrived. The freshly cleaned stretch of his coat was a ruin now, splashed thickly with the tell-tale copper stink of blood. There was little hesitation as he cut his way through the crowd and made a place for himself at the bar. Steadman, familiar with him by now, ferreted out a bottle and tumbler and left them.


Ranok looks at Mallory as his hands fly over his body, securing, tightening, and loosening what needed it, respectively. The perfume bottles clink gently once more. He says, in a more casual tone, "Oh, hyu know me. Friendly to a fault, Jolie. Hy'll hef to decline you uffer uf food or drink, tough." She'd probably sour it just to mess with him. Or something, he didn't know. He adds, just as conversationally, "Hyu know, Hy tink dis atmosphere doesn' suit hyu at hall. Hy vill gadder dat dis iz de infamous Hengink Korpse tavern, no? Frostmav matched hyu perfectly, Hy tink." He'll let her fill in her own reasons why. It wouldn't be hard.


Colton said, "Yes, they have flowers and puppies, I believe."


Colton filled and emptied a tumbler in short order after the words left him. His eyes strayed sidelong, briefly, to consider the pair before he made himself busy with another round.


Jolie replied to none of this, sort of skulking off on the pretense of some vitally important business behind the bar, just came up, of a sudden. But her retreat was arrested by the door's admittance of the stench of murder and a tall drink of water she glanced to and looked away from in a single fluid blink of time. "Mister Black," she spoke, softly, politely, coolly, and settled a second bottle on the counter for him. Then, being the lesser of two evils - depending on how one looked at it - she turned back to the smith and Chicken Dinner. "Oh, I met Ranok here through.. a mutual friend, you could say." A wink to Muscles. "And Frostmaw's too chilly for my tastes, on a permanent basis. Nice for a holiday. The tavern smells funny these days, there, though don't you think? And those weird noises. In the walls." Just like home, she thought fondly.


Colton answered Jolie, though by that name he would never call her, with a coldly appreciative salute with the opened bottle. Another round is poured. Another. The manner, and intensity, with which he drinks would inspire visions of ruin in most.


Ranok turns his attention to Colton. Two killings in as many days, it seems. Colton seems to be wearing the blood more then losing it, if Ranok is any judge of such things. His jaw works in agitation. Kelay was neutral turf, in every sense of the word. Where Ranok was now was, in essence, in Jolie's turf. To press for information this time may not work out as well. Grinding his teeth, the man rips his attention back to Jolie. As he forces himself to accept that he can do nothing here, he speaks in a tone of voice that doesn't reflect the inner fury and turmoil of his current mind state, "Really? Hy'd hef tought dat 'frosty' vould hef suited you kold heart chust fine. As for de noises, Hy got de hell out uf dere before too long. Hyu know how Hy feel about de kold."


Mallory didn't understand the situation between the barmaid and Ranok, so she just twirled her water with a finger, glancing at the stranger who had just entered. Was he like what Jolie mentioned? She was too stubborn to admit that the lady's words would probably haunt her but she would still hold to her own beliefs.


Jolie pointed to the front of the building, "And didn't you see the.." Oh, of course he hadn't seen the sign out front. "Yes, The Hanging Corpse."


Colton reaches into his coat briefly, with a sidelong glance to Ranok. He produces from within a heavy, black-iron filing rasp. The numerable teeth are clogged with chunks of flesh and meat, bloodied and fresh. Some of these gruesome remnants dislodge as he drops it casually on the bar, utterly unconcerned with the pool of blood that spreads from it and eventually envelops the bottom of a nearby bottle.


Jolie glanced to the mess. To Colton. To the mess. Back to Colton.

Jolie said, "Ahem."


Colton said nothing, even as he lifted the aforementioned bottle. The blood seeped in to capture the wood once spared by the glass, clung to the bottle a moment in scarlet tendrils, before he'd poured a round and set it back amidst the mess.


Jolie sighed, audibly, on purpose, and turned her attention again to Ranok. "You have no idea what my heart is, Muscles. Hot or cold.. " said a little tightly, before she stopped speaking, gathered herself. Shook her head to Urghdak who was giving her the 'you want I should see to this' look. "So, how's my flinger coming along?"


Mallory put a hand over her mouth, trying to hold back a cough. She had never seen such a gorey sight before. The girl couldn't help but stare in shock at the sight, wincing along with the sickening splat of the bits falling onto the ground. Using all of her will, she tore her gaze away from the stranger. Perhaps Jolie was somebody to listen to.


Jolie gave Mallory a sweet, somewhat knowing smile. "He's one of the good guys."


Ranok snorts in response to her comment on her heart. He's smarter then to press the barb, though. The bouncer looked like he could give him trouble if Jolie gave the word. He paces slightly, "Simply put, it hain't. Not beyond plannink schtages. Hyu hefn' even schown me vere hyu vanted it." A glance is give to both Mallory and Colton. Neither of them would probably have much of an idea of what he and Jolie were talking about, but Colton gave him pause. The quiet ones are the ones to watch indeed. Regardless, he carries on, "Hy seem to hef forgotten how Hy agreed to buildink it in de first place. Or vat hyu *really* vanted it for." He, somewhat understandably, feels that the reason Jolie gave him originally wasn't the true purpose of the device. He reaches a hand to the small of his back, like he was scratching it. Small clicks of what could be his gauntlets hitting the plate on his back emanate softly. The contraption hanging there could be making the noise as it jostles as well.


Colton said to Mallory, "So." As he turns suddenly towards her. "How much?"


Jolie gave Colton a rather more vicious poke in the ribs as she smoothed past him on her way back to Ranok.


Jolie said to Ranok, "It'll be much easier now you can speak common, I think. But here is not the place to discuss it. I'd rather we had an appointment in my office, for that particular talk."


Jolie inwardly cringed, that Colton had possibly heard her saying that. She added, hastily, "I don't trust that even my own walls don't have ears. My plans are nothing to be bandied about. And..." she smiled, very wanly, "If you pull that weapon in my pub, Urgh will make you a candidate for prosthetic limbs, so we're clear."


Colton betrayed a faint smile as Jolie's finger found his ribs, though it faded. His attention was fixed on Mallory and it was entirely possible that he had not heard or cared for any of Jolie and Ranok's exchange.


Mallory shivered and replied to Jolie, "...Oh. I...I see." She was turning a deaf ear to Ranok and the barmaid's conversation. The human startled when the bloody stranger spoke to her, went red, and squeeked, "H-How much f-for what....sir....?"


Colton said to Mallory, "Do you cost? Are you expensive?"


Jolie’s Chief of Security did not move or flex his tree-limbish arms. He just stared yellowly at Ranok, as stone-faced as the hearth.


Ranok gives Jolie a strange look, "Und vat makes hyu tink it's chust a veapon? Hyu don' even know vat it iz or does." He had not pulled it yet in the presence of Jolie. The makeshift holster that the contraption rested in obscured much, as well. Though he's confident he could take Urgh in a one on one fight, he had no intention of starting one. He can't resist smiling slightly at Jolie's scramble to smooth over the possibility that her comment could have been over heard. He says nothing in reply to it, though. When Jolie wanted a meeting, he'd no doubt be informed of it.


Jolie said, more quietly, "It's the way you move." She would not elaborate, then, but keep an eye on the potentially disastrous interaction between the conjurer and the girl she would evermore think of as 'Chicken Dinner'.


Mallory stared at Colton blankly. She was confused, trying to understand exactly what he meant. The girl scratched the side of her head, "....Um...if you're asking to buy me...the answer is no. That's just..weird...." She didn't want to say anything along the lines of 'god no, you scare the living daylights out of me!'. The human didn't know this man and wanted to keep it safe and simple.


Ranok speaks to Mallory, "Miss Mallory, it'd do hyu vell to kome here for a moment." To Colton he says, "Sorry, she's not for sale. She's a part uf my Actink Troupe. Chust schtarted de odder day, actually. Doink a nize komedic play. Kome down if hyu'd like to audition." Though he's fairly certain Colton wouldn't, though the man would get a fair shake like all the others at getting a part. Unless he sees fit to kill someone else on the way, as Colton seems increasingly prone to do.


Colton said, "No. Not you. Your mouth. Your (bleep). Your (bleep). How much?"


Jolie's lips were set in a line that Colton possibly didn't know the meaning of well enough yet. But there was a good chance he'd be getting more familiar with that portent, as things were going.


Colton turns to Ranok then, distracted from the girl. "What?"


Jolie's eyes closed, for the count of one to ten.


Mallory stopped in shock. She was utterly flabbergasted and made a few stuttery sounds. NEVER in her life had she heard such a perverse offering!!!! Eventually the girl found her voice and said uptightly, "AHEM. I am -absolutely- NOT for sale...." She added seethingly, "...Pervert."


Jolie was at around seven by now...


Colton looked back to Mallory, seemingly surprised that she'd take offense. For a moment he cuts his eyes from her own, down across her form, before his attention turns back to Ranok.


Ranok looks about as pleased as Jolie, and perhaps even for the same reasons. Again he gestures Mallory over. He hides his displeasure at Jolie apparently being knowledgeable about one of his tells, and so quickly too. The next time Mirabelle was readied 'just in case' he'd do it differently. Perhaps not so recognizably. as well, "Hy saeed dat de gurl belongs to me. By kontract." No such contract existed, though Colton couldn't prove that it didn't, "For de duration uf de preparation uf auditionink, rehearsink, und de eventual debut her time iz devoted to matters uf art. Not dat she'd be for sale hennyvays, but Hy kan' hef her time vasted vith schtupeed propositions such as yous."


Colton regards Ranok blankly for a moment. The next look is to Jolie, in obvious inquiry.


Ranok prays that Mallory plays along with his slight ruse. While the Acting Troupe didn't exist yet, the play did, albeit it was in its infancy. And he had approached Mallory with the idea, as well, though she wasn't in any official capacity quite yet.


Colton says again. "What?"


Jolie said, "He said she's his, by contract, not for sale."


Colton looks back to Ranok with an idle shrug. "That's all you had to say."


Jolie wandered back to the bar, fossicked around for a bottle. Opened it. Took a very long swig, not bothering with a glass.


Ranok looks at Colton like he was stupid, "Hy deed."


Colton said to Ranok, "You don't have to show me a deed. Your word is suitable enough."


Jolie perched half her backside on the bar and leaned one palm, bottle dandled in the other hand. "Acting troupe, he said. She's one of his performers. I've always liked a good show."


Mallory stood beside Ranok, nodding in agreement to what he said. "I pretty much belong to this man." She didn't intend for that to sound romantic whatsoever. "So...um....yeah. What Ranok said." A smile crept up on her face, but inwardly she was terrified of the stranger now.


Colton looks from the pair to his drink, pressing business. The time lost in conversation is made up for quickly. Amber fluid sloshing from his hastily poured tumbler to mix with the drying blood upon the counter.


Mallory couldn't help but ask,"...So...what's with the blood, anyways?" Why she wanted to ask this was beyond her own understanding; curiosity got the best of the girl sometimes.


Ranok shoots Jolie a side long look, "Vere hyu found dis guy Hy'll never know. De most vords he's ever saeed on hennyddink vas attemptink to hire every voman to screv or on de subjeck uf hirink vomen to screv." He lays a hand on Mallor's shoulder, patting it once and then releasing as she stands by. Technically, he was the patron, a better description, but he hadn't really had time to think the diversion through. He supposes he'll later rectify the mistake.


Colton glanced sidelong to Mallory, the cut of his amber gaze sudden and swift. For a moment, veiled in the stretch of his wolfish features, there is something akin to satisfaction. It flickers in his stare, lays harbored in the beginnings of a feral smile, before the shadow that otherwise harbors itself on his face reappears and all expression is smothered away to muted neutrality. "Curious, are you?"


Jolie sipped her own drink more delicately, the bottle neck let loose from her lips with a soft 'pop' when she'd done, and then she'd study Ranok a moment. "I didn't find him. He found me."


Ranok said to Jolie, "Hope you first meetink vith him vent betta den ven ve first met." He smiles slightly. He is somewhat amused by how that one turned out. More odd then embarrassing, and that was before he was kidnapped, essentially. "


Mallory was incredibly grateful to have Ranok for a friend. Perhaps nothing was said about them being friends to eachother but she considered him one. The human seemed to shrink a little underneath the stranger's gaze, "....Just...don't worry about my question, then." She will admit: that man scared the liviing daylights out of her. She subconciously stepped a little behind Ranok.


Colton seemed satisfied with the exchange's resolution and did not press. The point of fact, or rather of contention, appeared to be the rasp upon the counter. The mess of it, with shredded bits of skin and meat clinging to the many teeth, it was considered briefly before his attention returned to his drink. The tumbler was abandoned, upside down amidst the blood, so that he might take his pulls from the bottle directly.


Jolie was swinging the heel of one long boot, sipping, seemingly finding this atmosphere of excruciating embarrassment, potential violence and loose talk of debauchery fairly normal. She'd return the smith's smile, however faintly. "I'd really like you show me that book of yours properly one day. You had some.. interesting things in there."


Jolie tilted her slight weight back to support itself, lifting her palm from the counter - to find it sticky. And discoloured. She eyed it. "You -are- going to clean that up, Mister Black. I'm not your maid."


Colton said to Jolie, "Your hand?"

Colton lifts his eyes to Jolie, considering her. If there was mirth in his question it was almost impossible to hear.


Jolie's lips barely twitched at the corners. "And my counter."


Ranok crosses his arms, shifting his stance slightly, "Maybe vun day, if hyu ask nizely enough. Hy suppose dat seeink vat liddle hyu deed und onderstundink even less hes hyu qvite kurious."


Colton turns back to his drink. The slightest hints of a smile taking root. "Oh, piss on your counter."


Jolie said to Colton, "And I'd make you clean that up, too."


Colton laughs, suddenly and shortly. A very first since his arrival. With a sidelong look to Jolie, one that briefly holds the green of her eyes, he affords only a solitary inclination of his head. He goes back to his drink then. Not a word said. Nothing further offered.



Negotiations

Outside the night fell, thick and dark. A fog had rolled in through the streets like water, splashing coolly against battered brick and twisting thickly along until it had enveloped everything. Most had retreated from its grasp, unnerved by the way it had so easily swallowed them up and smothered the lights from lanterns and windows to hazy shadows. Beggars retreated into alleys and criminals to the warehouses and loading-yard slum tenants they called home. There was no danger, of course. Fog was harmless. It filled your lungs like a damp towel but it would not suffocate you. It, amongst many things, did its damage against the mind and while typically immune it was enough this night to provoke him from his usual haunts and his whorehouse bed to the Hanging Corpse. An absent thought came to mind, wondering whether or not the sleek-bodied owner had noticed the new addition to the wooden sign. A body half-impaled on the iron length that the sign hung by, nailed crudely to the wood itself. A tasteless accent. A tongue-in-cheek jest for the purpose of her dark humor and exasperation. Her presence, and his gentle testing of her patience, had become a small muse by which he fought boredom. The only way to find out, of course, was to see her. And so he entered, cut beneath the corpse and found that it had finally stopped bleeding onto the causeway below, and cut his usual path. Usual, of course, in that it made no mind of the crowd milling about. Usual, of course, in that he did claim a bottle from the bar. Unusual in that whether she was on the floor, or not, he went immediately upstairs. A telling purpose in his stride. No apology or appointment made.


Of course, his little joke had not escaped her, by notice or its intent. She could have had the thing removed as a likely deterrent to the less grim among her patrons, what with the place newly open and in need of flowing coin. But she had not the heart - it was a gift, of sorts, as a feline might leave on her doorstep, ruined and half-fleshed but a gesture nevertheless, and it amused her. The crowd was quiescent that evening, locals mulling over their thoughts and ale alone or involved in quiet conversations. It was the fog, she mused, having noted in the past what sort of mood it inspired in the population of Vailkrin, contemplative, secretive. The fog hid many a nefarious deed, and provided a common mask for a people who already enjoyed their darknesses. So, when Colton entered, grasped his bottle - she'd taken to leaving one on the far corner of the bar for him, a gesture of her own - and taken to the stairs, she'd instruct Steadman to keep an eye on the bar, find some menial task to occupy her the time it took to convince herself she needed to do some chores upstairs anyway, and followed. The room was, technically his; he'd rented it, and she did not barge in. The hall table needed dusting. Lamps needed rearranging. She'd be a faint clatter in the corridor outside his lodging, the soft thud of heels on that timbered space.


Heels. Oh, and how telling. There was something to be said about the cadence of her strides. It would have been easy, natural even, for her to be silent. There could not have been much beyond a hundred pounds of her and she was, in many ways, entirely feline in both her grace and liquid-slick sway of her hips and scissoring of her legs. Instead, either on purpose or unable to help herself from sounding her confidence, she gave a rhythm to her movements. Thud. Thud. Thud. Just outside. He waited, ground the bottle's battered cork into the meat of his palm for a moment to warm it. The transition from the whorehouse to the Corpse had been a quiet one. It was doubtful any of Tenebrae's companions had noticed and they both seemed grateful of it. Sid, or that wench Mahri, would have immediately assumed that he'd abandoned the whores for something sweeter. Something free. They'd have been wrong on all counts. Tenebrae was neither sweet. And no woman, in any facet, was ever free. He jerked the cork free and dropped it on the floor to drink from it. A heavy swallow, liquid fire arcing its way into his belly. Flames seemed unduly welcomed there, natural even. There was no grimace or wheeze, no discomfort at all. Instead, there was that silent invitation. An awareness that he hungered for more. Of many things.


The lamps were as straight as they were ever going to get. The paintings, too, and the table was spotless. She stood and stared at it all a while, so those ticking footsteps would cease while she simply paused, aware her reasons for being there were void now, and aware that Colton had been given plenty of notice of her presence outside his room. She heard no motion within, nothing, and she doubted he would surface. Not that she was waiting for him to do any such thing, but she had thought perhaps he might, and had pictured his large frame filling the open doorway, more than once as she carried out her barely necessary duties.


Now, a moment of conflict: she did not want to abandon the upper floor for a dull night's watching Steadman loafing, patrons drink themselves into a fit state to go home. She didn't know what she wanted, but that wasn't it. Her pride balked like a skittish horse, shying from the possibility of knocking. What reason had she for disturbing his rest? And in that silent state, the realisation crept out of its cage in her subconscious mind: she was the Darkness, and whatever it –was- that she did want, she would have - by one means or another. Her chin tilted up, her eyes narrowed on the blank timber, the brass handle gleaming. The number on the door, the number of paces between her and it. Colton would hear her steps resume, two, three.. He'd hear her knuckles rap, a very small sound.


Truth be told - he hadn't expected her to knock. Rented, or otherwise, the room felt more hers than his. It was not something that troubled him. He enjoyed it. There was something mysterious in feeling like an invader, like he was encroaching somehow on this woman's livelihood. Things were changing, though. Rapidly. As evening after evening slipped by the notions of her that had existed were fading, tearing apart as she grew out of the ridiculous girlish shell she had been wearing like a straight-jacket for their first few meetings. She had been silly then. A parody of herself. And, in the space of these few days, she had shed it all for something entirely different. Something attractive. Something mysterious.


When he answered the door it was sudden, without fanfare or greeting. He simply tugged it open, left it so, and walked further into the room. The bottle was upended, glugged some as his lips pulled from its neck before he extended it blindly towards her. She could, she had said, bury a knife within him. The first day they had met he would have been skeptical she could have held one properly. Now? He was almost sure that she would not only thrust it deep but thrust it true, find the place between his ribs where the tissue was soft and the blade could stroke cleanly into his lung or deeper still into his heart. The thought provoked his body's curious reaction. An acknowledgment of how strength, and the unknown, set parts of him alive beyond his own reckoning. Still, he let her make her mind. The broad stretch of his back and the ruin of his coat, bloodied and now freshly torn, the face that he offered her.


Jolie had a spiel on her tongue, regarding linens and washwater, and there it would remain, shrivelling to an unspoken death as his door flung open, he pivoted, the bottle appended to his outstretched arm in blatant offer. She was glad of his turning away, glad he wouldn't witness her standing there, stranded on the brink of his territory. Somehow, it made things a deal easier. Jolie crossed his threshold slowly, insulting neither of them with pretense. She took the bottle, she sipped. Swallowed. Silence hung like a criminal, from the spike of each passing second.


While she drank he moved, through the room. Past the tub, the desk to which he would never have use save to lay his empty bottles, and finally beyond the bed that so pointedly dominated this space. It was built to sate the passionate, or the perverse, and any conversation otherwise would have been false in pretense. But it wasn't them, really. The pair had not ever established themselves of either in their limited time together. And so it was strange that way, standing here together in the quiet, surrounded by sultry colors and lush surroundings. The room's true elegance was what threw him. At first, he'd thought it'd be the same faux sophistication of a brothel bedroom. He'd hoped, anticipated, that there'd be chips in the paint and threadbare patches in the covers. Everything, however, was new. And so he walked past it all like it was foreign to him, unsuitable. He rounded until he was behind her and her dark hair, the waspish narrow of her waist and soft round of her hips. The fabric hugged her, embraced her with feminine affection. Her hair swept down past her shoulders, shone in the dim light of the wall-lamps. Colton Black reached and closed a strong hand on her waist, bracing it in his palm. He gripped her for a moment, grounded himself to the darkness that swelled up inside her. There was a strange comfort in that, in this rough embrace of her, that swept the room aside. He'd not be able to stay here. A cot in the kitchen, or in the cellar, was more suitable. This felt too… inviting. He wasn't the kind of man anyone should feel comfortable extending an invitation to.


He stank of blood, fresh and rich, watering her mouth - that rare steak Mahri had thought to provide her was the last thing she'd remembered to eat. His hand was warm, not warm enough to be sensed as anything but a pressure on her waist, the black tailored cloth covering her skin's own volcanic heat. Her eyes made an autonomous motion to glance down, and were stopped, and were willed not meet those of Colton Black, and thus were at a loss as to where to look, so she stared at the dip of his throat. Her lips, moist with liquor from the bottle still dangled from her hand by its neck, parted but no word came from them yet. Everything, everything about their meetings was sensed somewhere in her as a knife's edge she was walking, barefoot and blindfolded.


Joliette Thorne had walked her entire life that way, but for this past, relative handful of years where she'd permitted herself ease, comfort, happiness. Had grown soft, a wild thing become too dependent on the handouts of civilisation. As much as he set off all of her inner alarums, this - in typical irony - was exactly what made her feel most at home, here, in her home.. It -was- her home, this dark place, these grubby stone streets, the danger, death lurking like a cruel warder stalking in the midst of his inmates. The liquor was licked away, and she spoke, her will-o-wisp eyes still set upon his carotid pulse, "I'm not for sale, either." She trusted - not knowing how or why she might do so, with him - that he would understand the implications of it, beyond her statement's face value.


His thumb dragged across the lace, ebon and smooth, beneath its calloused pad. The long stretch of his fingers served to trap her rounded hip, to pin it in his grasp so that his digits could sink into that feminine softness and continue its rough grip. Not for sale, she had said. No. There was no commodity here to be bought or traded. This was not a place for transactions. It was, in a way, a street fight. They were both most comfortable amidst the stones of flanking buildings and the streets between them. Puddles of fetid water, slumped beggars and drunks, and working girls with painted faces were a company akin to home. If anything these two were in the midst of some cold fight. It was nothing of the heart. It was nothing of the wallet. Her softness was superficial and feminine. The rest was feral and growing more steadily so. She radiated heat, inhuman and dangerous. It enticed him to step closer - he did not. Instead, he remained and reached with his other hand until his fingers brushed the laces of her corset and further, tugging not to spread the knots open but to withdraw the blade she wore from its holster. First one. Then the other, pulled free, and tossed carelessly to clatter with sudden sound atop the desk. He was careful not to slice himself. He was less careful where they landed. His attention on the way her dark hair shrouded the delicate shell of her ear and the gentle, elegant turn of her jawline. She was not for sale. "But you still come with a price." He answered.


She almost shrugged - didn't everybody have one? There nothing offhand in the thought, it was simply a truth as she had observed it: every exchange had a price, on both ends, whether it amounted to the benefit reaped by a simple greeting, or the small toll of a snarl levelled at some interloper, a glance cast at a stranger in silence and the mental summary of him thus made, it was all barter of some kind, and so she nodded. May as well name it. "I am using you," she said, against his skin, breath taking the place of her gaze, which had closed while she summoned the will to speech. "As my anchor to a place from which I have drifted very far. Perhaps too far, I don't know. That is my price, for as long as.. this..." Another breath, the words abandoned as too dangerous ground to tread, too close to the tip of that razored knife. Her own blades were permitted to be thrown aside. She had other means to kill, maim, fight, survive.. but this wasn't the thought which rose to her mind as they clattered on the desk; in her was the quiet understanding that the nature of their exchange was a dance of sorts, a fluid barter of minute spatial intervals, given back and forth to mutual benefit. And like the dance, everything they had thus exchanged so far was a symbol. Hers, here, in return, was to neglect her obligation to tear his throat out. Thus, he'd bought - and was paid in turn.




A Little Something

Terse as she'd been since she went to retrieve the conjurer from his escapade to the alehouses of Kelay, Joliette now wore a tiny smile. Not that Colton would see it, being as he was at her back, and she standing before his door. Leading the way into that aptly-named apartment, the necromancer stepped aside to offer him a full view of the room, in which little had changed at all but for a large, multi-stemmed contraption, topped by a tin bowl, beside the bed. On the low bedside table, another bowl, this containing small portions of some sort of dark matter, and Jolie would make a sweeping gesture of hand toward the four-poster when Colton deigned to enter. "A little something, for the pain." He'd see the smile now, wicked and sultry, the kind women wear when they expect a man to enjoy something they've done, or are about to do. Not waiting for his reaction, she sat on the covers and filled and lit the bowl, drawing the mouthpiece of one long, flexible stem toward her lips. An inhalation, released. A cloud of smoke, pluming to perfume the space with the residue of a mildly toxic mixture of several plant materials, sweet and pungent. Then the necromancer closed her eyes, while her smile grew slowly beatific.


For all his considerable experience within the realm of indulgence, Colton Black had never seen such a thing. For some, when it came to narcotics, that would be discouraging and a reason for hesitation. He had none. It was not long before he had settled into a seat upon the bed's coverlet beside her, eager for the stem that had put that smile upon her face. He inhaled deeply and without relent, drawing until his lungs were full and the earthy taste filled his mouth. It did not matter what it was. He did not bother to ask. Instead, he held the smoke in his lungs until the bite finally overcame his will. The exhalation was white, almost creamy, hanging thick in the room before them. It was not long before the man known as Black felt the heady, seeping high for the very first time. The color steadily draining from his eyes as he relaxed. The room's light slipping away some, giving them a dusky, surreal surrounding.


Jolie took one more puff, less deep this time, and set the ivory mouthpiece down on its hook on the contraption. Only then did she turn her pale gaze on Colton Black. "Like it?" This was far from her first experience with the mixture, though she knew very well to avoid over-indulgence, so that she would not feel quite the same level of intoxication. One look, and she knew he must approve, even before his reply, if there was to be one. She turned her frame, lifted her feet from the floor and curled upon the covers, one hand propping her head up, her elbow on a pillow. "Much better for you than whisky." Her pupils were tiny, jagged shapes, black stars in twin peridot skies - the former a result of the smoke, the latter of her affliction. Her eyelids closed and opened languidly, the fingers of her free hand toying with the hem of his shirt, where a smidge of soot, perhaps a residue from the borrowed, burned coat she still wore had marred it.


Seconded his own draw, as deep, if only because it was not in his manner to pace himself. As she reclined, he was tempted. There was a softness, an openness in her manner that sent a warmth twisting up through him. His attention drifted to her small fingers, the way they toyed at the ruin of his shirt. Inhibitions left him, fell away as they remained within the room's near-dark. It was his turn to reach for her, lifting a hand, tucking dark hair off the porcelain of her cheek and laying it behind her ear. His reply came lazily, after he'd wet his lips and betrayed a subtle, almost silly smile. "I think that I've to buy a new… everything."


"Might be wise. You look like a pauper." Jolie wore her own grin, "There's a shop nearby. Friends of mine, tailors, they're very good." But this was no time for making plans, or effecting them. Her goal was simply to make the make the man rest - accelerating healing, as he claimed, or not, the wound still looked ghastly, his cheek, his wrist. She lifted herself up, filled the bowl again, reclaimed her pipe-end. The next billow of smoke she exhaled would be blown directly upward, to be trapped in the canopy overhead, her dark hair spread across the pillow. "You're a very strange sort of man, Colton Black," she said, wispily, a slight air of curiosity in her tone, but it was more a statement of what she saw as fact than accusation or demand for reply. "And at the same time, most ordinary..." The smoke was soothing the tension from her now, no mean feat; tension was the state in which she lived, and which had kept her, the calamity she was, alive - despite herself - for all her centuries. "And this coat smells quite horrible."


For all the content, all the intent, Colton Black found himself unable to summon up a suitable reply. The smoke only exaggerated his condition; his inability to summon the wit within his thoughts and force them to words was something that would come to be known as typical. He smoked with her, easily prompted by her own lazy movements. The stretch of his hand found her hair then and fingered it, slid it through his grasp until he'd lost it entirely and was forced to take hold of it again. It was not so dissimilar to the way she had toyed with his shirt. When the words came they were of other matters, a question forged as his eyes tracked through the room's dimly lit confines to the tub. "Do you think one of your girls could see the tub filled?"


Jolie smiled, or better to say she did not stop doing so. She'd already organised the bath, and even now Cook was heating the water for buckets that would be carried up and down the stairs by some sturdy lass or other. "I think that can be arranged," she said. With a clean shirt and trousers, pressed and soon to appear. The coat.. she ought to take it off, but her limbs were not conducive to motion, just as yet... a slightly more involved replacement, something for later. Money to her was like water, a commodity that arrived, was used, and was spent with as much thought as involved in taking a bath, so it did not occur to her that she was, in fact, spoiling him. She liked him, he needed things, he got things, and it was all as natural and unaffected as any other of her daily functions. Green eyes watched him toy with her hair, and she added, "Ought I to go, then?" Her gaze was bright, amused.




Girl Talk

Colton arrived. His path is cut swiftly towards a particular corner of the bar, ignoring the bodies jostling past and all other faces. He is an odd collection. The blood-stained, tattered, and charred ruin of his coat still dropping pieces with every stride. Threadbare, filthy, and thick with the stench of death it is a ghastly thing. The rest of him is otherwise entirely put together. A crisp white shirt with stiff collar, flawless dress slacks tucked into polished riding boots. Half-noble. Half-pauper.

Jolie was busy, briskly so, waiting tables and whispering deals in corners with ne'er-do-wells, and the sundry tasks her station required. The place was spotless, almost too clean. She did not look to Colton, but only the corner of the bar where his usual bottle was not.

Colton actually hesitated. For a moment, just a moment, his eyes cut sidelong to Jolie's shape amidst the shifting crowd. There existed this uncomfortable moment, his face unreadable, before he laid a pair of coins atop the bar and gathered himself onto a stool. Steadman’s approach was scrutinized intently, even his departure watched after his bottle had been left.

Jolie went on, as though Colton was invisible among the sea of faces, her eyes passing him over with the same pasted on affability every tavern keep learns to affect, and which Jolie managed to wear for the most part, despite herself. Amid what was a proprietary note-taking of stock, she'd vanish to the cellar - her heels staccato on the stone, her cadence.. brisk.

Steadman wrinkled his nose - even his jaded olfactory senses were affronted by Colton's outer garment. The one-eyed barman perused the conjurer with his singular capacity to do so, and quietly retrieved the white box Jolie had punted to a corner, not long before. This, without word, was delivered to the timber at which Colton Black sat. Steadman then, with a nervous glance toward the cellar doors, would find some sudden reason to finish his shift early, or at least take a break that involved not being present when his employer would emerge.

Colton turned his eyes onto Jolie and levied a blatant stare upon her. His scrutiny was unveiled, rare to those that had seen him, and unapologetic as his hand passed hers the bottle. "What is it? And yes."

Jolie swiftly exchanged one bottle for another, "Five gold. And it's a solution to the complaints about your odor. One your whores might appreciate." Her smile was small, and frosty.

Colton answered Jolie steadily, even as his eyes sharpened upon her own. "And here I thought they'd been complaining about my lack of patronage." Her gold was not in a pouch this time. The coins were flicked onto the bar so that they scattered here and there, one rolling quite a ways down before it struck an empty tankard and toppled over.

Jolie did not pick them up. And while one brow quirked minutely, and her lips betrayed a lack of thier former linear displeasure, she said, "Oh?" Silence reigned a moment. "Running out of gold? Or.. is there somebody whose pomp and complications you find not quite so unbearable, after all?" The latter was spoken quietly, though clearly and crisply enunciated.


Colton grimaces, as though cornered into the conversation. His reply is measured with a drink. A very large drink. A hint of it spills from the corner of his mouth and is hastily swept aside by a large, deftly-fingered hand. "I've plenty of gold."

Jolie nodded. "You may find it a little loose in the shoulders," she said, after a beat. "Any alteration necessary can be arranged." With that, leaving the coins where they lay, she went on with her inventory-taking.

Colton considers the box a moment. Then Tenebrae. The box. Then Tenebrae. The tension seeps from his features, turning them into their typically impassive lupine look, before he fills his glass without another word.

Jolie scribbled a few jots down on her notepad, resisting the urge to turn and look for that long, before giving in. She glance to the box. Then Colton. Then the box. "Are you going to open it?"

Colton answers Tenebrae without lifting his eyes to her. A hand laying briefly atop the box, strong fingers bracing its shape. "Not here. Later."

Jolie acknowledged his reply with a brief curl of lips, "Somebody's removed your corpse, as you've probably noticed. Pity. They're quite the deterrant for trouble." She laid the notepad down, and half-slid to a stool, not quite opposite the conjurer's own. His bottle was reached for. "I don't miss the flies."

Hanan arrived in the tavern as she arrived in all taverns. Hands in her pockets, grin on her face, a slight swagger in her step. Granted she'd slept there, but it was the exterior entrance she used. Gods knew how she'd spent the day. "Whiskey, if you don't mind," she said, slipping into one of the barstools and giving Colton a cautious nod.

Jolie slid off her stool, with a marked reluctance and stepped to the shelving for a bottle and glass. She did not note, therefore, Colton Black's quiet leave-taking, and would turn to find him gone. The bottle was clunked on the counter in front of Hanan, "Five gold."

Hanan slipped a hand into her deep coat pocket and pulled out the required amount, set down on the counter with small metalic clinks. "Y'know, Black says we should be friends." She slipped her hand from the gold to the bottle. "He's a sick duck." She did not say duck.

Jolie nodded. "Clearly." She scooped up the coins, slid them to a pouch at her waist. "Just imagine." Her arch look suggested her visions thereof weren't rainbows and unicorns.

I"d rather not. Bastard's not known for his good taste." She poured whiskey into her glass, an odd look crossing her eyes. Not unlike Jolie's when facing the death enthusiast with the garish medalion. "He's bad news, Tene. I caught him torturin' people to death on the doorstep of your tavern. Couldn't give me a reason why. That's not good for business."

Jolie was silent for a time, while processing the question of whether Hanan had just offered her a de rigeur insult or not, and the latter comment's implications. Pouring herself three fingers of something green and transparent, she sipped and nodded. "Well. It's the Dark Lands, Pollyanna. What did you really expect?"

Hanan blinked. "Absinthe? Really? That explains a whole lot." She sipped her own whiskey. "And I know the Dark Lands well enough, Tene. Remember what I'm still and you're not." She set the glass down and looked her in the eye. "But most in Vailkrin have a reason. And he did it on your doorstep. That's mess, Tene. I know you don't like mess."

"Do you." It wasn't a question. Jolie took another long gulp of the un-watered liquor, baring her teeth to display faintly-sharp canines after. "Stuff's got a kick... And look at it this way. We're understaffed. You saw the .. interesting.. types that are flooding back in." One leather-clad shoulder lifted and dropped. "I think of it in terms of what deterrence he offers to trouble." Her brow crinkled. "What do you care, anyway?"

"It bothers me. That's wasteful, what he does." She wanted to say cruel and horrid but right did she have to say that. She drummed fingers on the bar, took another gulp of liquor before refilling the glass. "And it concerns me that he doesn't have a reason. You know that's dangerous to have around, you're no moron."

Jolie almost mirrored the pirate's action, refilling, drinking. "How do you know? I mean, he -could- have a reason. Just because you don't know itl doesn't mean there isn't one." Her eyebrows dipped again. "Hanan... You're a pirate, and a bloodsucker. I am fairly sure the people whose homes and businesses you raid, the owners of the throats you rip out, I am sure they'd have a hard time understanding your motives. Yannow?" Another gulp. Another refill. "Everything is relative. He's offered me no harm..."

Hanan growled. Literally. "I'm a killer. True. But not so often as that. See, whores sell blood and I have some measure of self-control now that I've had fangs for a few years. Makes business ruttin' easier to conduct. I'm not a walkin' slaughterhouse like some people I know." She sipped again. "And I don't torture. There's no point in it. It's low and it's messy and it leads to nothin' good."

Jolie downed another several slow sips whilst she mused on the captain's words. "So what... you want a medal, for your moral superiority?" There was nothing in the frankness of her gaze that would indicate this was a casual dig. "The lowest ghoul, the baby killer, the soul eater, they all have a place in the world, Hanan. Like ... rats, and maggots. Things we maybe sneer at, maybe wonder why they exist at all, but they do have a place. And this is the place for those who do not even belong under the lowest stone of the world out there..." she flapped a hand toward the general direction of "out there", "...like it, or not. As for me? I'll take their coin. I'll boot them out when they're too much trouble. What they do outside my pub is not my concern, unless it is." She eyed Hanan's glass. "How're you doing, there?"

"I could use another." She lifted the empty glass. "And no, I don't get a medal for ruttin' intelligence and a sense of pride. There's. No. Pride. In. Torture. Torturing a man means you're not convinced you've won." She leaned back on the stool, found her eyes flicking to the stairway up. "And, frankly, you offered Ace a job. If she ends up playing violin in the same room as a maniac who kills at random, then yeah, it's my concern." No way in hell would Ace be convinced to leave. Hanan was pretty convinced of that.

Jolie shrugged, grappled for another bottle of Hanan's drink of choice. "He doesn't seem to me the type," she said, quietly, uncorking the whiskey, "to do anything without a purpose to it." A generous slug was poured before she set the bottle down. "And I don't think he'd harm your girl. Why, I myself..." she stopped, took up her own drink. "I'm quite convinced there's more to him to than what he seems. That there's a reason, however much you may not approve of it, for what he does. And that his choices.. are made more carefully than one may think. Call it an instinct."

Hanan rolled her dark eyes, but took the drink. "Yeah, that's the sort of shyte he tried to shove on me. More to him that meets the eye. Right. The guy in the blood coat who spoonfeeds human remains to other humans is a damn hidden chessmaster. No, Jolie. He might be smart but he's still some kinda cannibal fetishist." Hanan's fingers tapped anxiously on the glass. She wouldn't admit to that. "If he lays a finger on her I'll kill him. Who knows what his reasoning is."

Jolie's fingers tightened around her own glass, which she stared into, her eyes almost two mirrors of its surface. "He's been.. good to me, Hanan. You don't know..." The drink was loosening her tongue, and she almost bit it. "...If he harms Lita - hell, if he looks at her funny with a hammer in his hand, then I will kill him myself. But I'll say this much - I would trust him with my own life."

Hanan looked at her a moment. A long moment. And then she snickered. "Good to you. Alright. I trust you if you say that, I guess. He keeps callin' you Tenebrae. I like that. Jolie always sounds stupid on my tongue. No offense." She took a sip of whiskey, enjoyed the burn of it. "Good to you. He the one who left those bite marks, then?"

Jolie smiled at mention of her former appellation, and stuck the lip of her glass in front of her face, watching Hanan over its rim with a similar pause, "Felt good to me." Another very long sip, and another, draining the glass. "It appears I have been shortchanged, as far as this absinthe goes." The necromancer narrowed her eyes at the bottle. "I coulda sworn there was more in the last one."

"You know you're supposed to put water in it, right?" The absinthe. She was casting a smirk, that one that made her tan face all lopsided, Jolie's way right before she finished her portion of whiskey. Tenebrae was being bitten by a mallet-wielding maniac. Interesting. "Pour water over a sugarcube, right? Lasts longer that way."

Jolie said, "Of course I know it." She made a wild swipe for a shelf too far away, and stared at it upon failing to grasp another green bottle. Much closer was the whiskey supply, so she snagged one of those, and poured them both a long shot. "But it has more kick, my way." The Darkness looked indeed as if it had kicked her, already, more then once. Her face developed its own slow, crooked grin, "He's trouble, Hanan, I won't deny it. But you know.. I don't know if you -do- know, we never knew each other that well, you know? Me and you. But .. what was I saying?" Apparently, the whiskey jogged her memory. "Oh, right. He's trouble. But -my- kind of trouble."

"We never did know each other too well. Because you were too busy bein' a damned bitch." She lifted her glass almost as if in salute, then knocked back half her portion. Whiskey. Whiskey made her feel nice. And loosened an already loose tongue. "So you like 'em big and murderous now. Fine. I've been known for... goin' after big and murderous. How long's he been 'troublin you?" Girl talk with Tene-rutting-brae. Gods damn the world.

Jolie's eyelids descended, then ascended again in a very slow blink. "Hanan... " she leaned in, "... you're a bitch. I'm a bitch. It's a thing we... do. You know." She did not lift her drink, but lowered her face to it for a slurp. Since it was less effort, and all. "So people don't know what we are, and we scare 'em in the pants and... stuff." There was a driplet of whiskey on the tip of her nose. "And whaddya mean "now"? I never have liked 'em sissy." For a brief flash of a moment, there was hollow, haunted look in her pale eyes, but it vanished with her next thought. "And you're a bitch." She nodded. "A big ole bitchin' bitchy bitch. 's why I like you." The necromancer sniffed, and then snorted the whisky drop thus inhaled. "Not that I like you, or anything. I have booze in my nose." She tilted her head back, as if to offer the pirate a look.

Hanan watched her. Just watched her. Gods damn. Apparently Tenebrae couldn’t hold her liquor. No wonder she used to be the wine type. Had she been the wine type? Hanan could have sworn she remembered that. Anyway. "Yeah, but there's a difference between not-sissy and brute, you follow me? Just like there's a difference between bitch-who-likes-me and bitch-who-tries-to-kill me..." Her voice trailed off. Jolie liked her. Imagine that. "You never answered my question. I'm not interested in your damn nose."

Jolie looked vaguely wounded. She, after all, had a perfectly nice nose. When it wasn't burning with whiskey. "What question? And all my.. " the sentence hung mid-air, like a bridge with its midsection missing, "... I always liked the brutes. The killers. Look at Memnoch. Laeth..." she sneered. "Leo. Killers, Hanan. I like e'm because that's what I am." The somewhat haughty look crumpled, then. "What I was.. I'm not different, now. I had reasons, for holding back, I had...." The whiskey seemed suddenly and horribly neglected. "I've been drinking all day. Since yesterday. Since... Hanan," she leaned in again, "I might be a -little- bit tipsy. But can we talk? You and me. Fancy. But can we? And you'll keep your giant fat trap shut about it?"

"I'd rather not look at 'em." Said with that old lopsided smirk again. "And you are different. No matter what you're tellin' me now." She reached over, grabbed the whiskey and refilled first her own glass, then Jolie's. "But we can talk. If you're insistent on flappin' your manpleaser, we can talk. And I doubt you'll say anything worth my repeating."

Jolie talked to her glass a while, watching the amber liquid ripple under the candleabrum's indistinct glow as she poked her fingertip in it. "I'm not. Different." Her lower lip jutted, the necromancer's stubborn edge on display. "I thought... I tried... but I'm not." Black hair shifted, wisps falling over her eyes as it did so. She'd hook them with her thumb and peer at the pirate. "I'd never have made him happy, Hanan. He's too.. and I'm too... you know?" Her wince, the way she shifted her attention back to the glass, demonstrated the knifelike quality of her current train of thought. "He needs a wifey. Some happy l’il home maker, cookin' dinner, rubbin' his damn feet. I'm... I'm not...." her lip lost its stubbornness, and trembled. "I'm the ducking Darkness." She had not referenced waterfowl.

Hanan , after a moment of silence, offered a slow shrug of her shoulders. "I never pegged you for the settlin' down type, Tene, I'll tell you that. Watchin' you in a damn tattoo parlor was just weird. So it didn't work. Don't know if it's because there's somethin' wrong with him or because you're a terrible lay, but Leo always struck me as an idiot. So there's that." Tenebrae's lip was trembling. Maybe that softened her voice. "But you're not the ruttin' 'Darkness.' You tend a bar, for gods' sake. The Darkness does not have such hobbies."

Jolie's face hardened, under the several misconceptions laid forth by the captain, and she knocked back her shot, refilled it. The glass was put down with slow deliberation. "Hes not an idiot. And I'm..." there, half a wan grin, ".. never mind. And I ran this bar, all the time you were gone.. wherever y'went. I ran it back then, and I run it now. Same as ever, Hanan. Same motives. I just.. wanted to be... tried to be... something else. For.." The glass was swivelled, while Steadman lurked by, back from his break, still clearly anticipating trouble over the box incident. The necromancer, however, had for the time being forgotten it. "Steady," she muttered without turning around, and the man froze. "Get me a bottle'o'green, willya?"

Relieved, Steadman did just that, and skulked off to the cellar.




Revelations

Colton arrived. His descent down the stair marked with languid, easy strides. The immediate path he takes is toward the bar and his place at the corner. The ruin of his coat is gone. The ragged, tattered, and stinking leather has been replaced by the heavy length and panels of a new coat. The fine wool is a deep charcoal and the buttons polished. Beneath it, his shirt is unbuttoned and rumpled. His hands quick as they find the bottle and glass Steadman has immediately placed on the counter. His eyes sharp upon the cyclop's features.


Jolie was the next to descend the stair, her steps light, and clad, unusually, in a gown of soft ruby velvet, far more formal than her regular attire, or at least it might seem so in comparison. Her slippered feet were soundless on the stone as she made her way across the room, and would pause to offer Cornelius a nod, eye the cowled guard briefly. Once behind the counter, she'd uncork a bottle of whiskey and slide it to the bar's end, a glass tilted over its neck. "Evening, all."


Leifong says nothing in response to Jolie as she enters the room, just stands there solid as stone, trying to push boredom from his mind.


Cornelius pulls himself out of his reverie at the distinctive sound of footsteps descending the stairs. He is still clad in his 'work clothes' as it were, with cuirass and gorget over clothes chosen for sturdiness more than fashion - even if the expert cut and fit of them might suggest otherwise at times. He glances at He Who Drills Eyesockets with mild curiosity, noting the man had indeed recovered as rapidly as Jolly-girl had suggested he would. The memory brings the slightest quirk of a smile to the scarred dandy's lips. His gaze flicks rapidly across to Jolie, though, and he allows himself the luxury of arching an elegant brow "Evening, Jolly-girl. Looking splendid this evening, wot." He pauses a moment, then adds "When you have a spare moment, old bean, we had a potential applicant for the role of security today. I conducted a minor interview, although the gent was entirely unprepared for a proper showing. I'll give you my overview at your leisure." He returns his gaze to her companion "Evening, Monsieur Black."


Colton speaks even as he tips his glass to Cornelius in easy salute. The drink he measures in that glass is generous. Damned generous. The kind of lush pour that would suggest anything other than a casual indulgence. Yet, for his part, his manner is steady, even, and otherwise entirely passive. "And to you."


Jolie offered Cornelius a gracious smile, her vanity thus mollified. "Here and now is fine, Corny." She settled into a seat, quirking a smile at the very bored-looking guard. "That one over there needs a drubbing. Look at him staring at his shoes. Not enough trouble for his liking.." Leifong was winked at, and she continued, turning to the conjurer, "You look dapper, Mister Black. Got a date?"


Colton replied after finishing the first of what would appear to be a few generously poured glasses. There is a touch of a smile now, it creeps across his lupine features, not quite softening them even as it touches his eyes and fashions a small glint there. "I don't know. Do I?"


Jolie stole his bottle, when he chanced to put it down, and tipped the end-drizzles to a glass. "I have a date with a bottle of finest. Would you join us? We might take a stroll around town later."


Colton inclines his head steadily, his tone betraying familiarity now. That warmth is entirely new. "I think that would do me well."


Cornelius nods "Chap named Malcolm Smithson. Struck me as the knightly type - hubris and lack of intelligence included as part of the whole package." He straightens his sleeves "Gent claimed he had men who answered to him: skilled, professional, experienced; the usual sales pitch. He couldn't give me any references, and hadn't had the forethought to bring at least one of them with him. All in all, he was an easily provoked individual with an overblown opinion of himself - but showed nothing to back up his hot air. Oh, and apparently he was born in Rynvale."


Jolie curled her lip at mention of the island. "Figures. So that's a no from you, Corny?" She raised a hand to excuse herself from the conversation, and said to Leifong, "I require you and Xiang for a journey on the morrow. Can you see to it that he is informed?" Her gaze drifted back to Colton. "The fortress. I think you'd find the place.. interesting."


Leifong chooses now to push away from the wall near the stairwell and approach the bar, moving with utter silence, though it is largely from habit and not any effort to hide his motions. "I need a drink." He announces plainly to Steadman without spending time to look at any of the others. Apparently the fact that he was here whilst his counterpart was out 'having fun' didn't sit so well with the priest. "Now, if you'd please" He adds to stifle the mild look of surprise from Steadman, who'd heard Leifong speak all of about five sentences in the last five days. "Whatever's strongest." seems to clarify whatever confusion might have been had as the robed figure leans his hip against the bar, a foul expression twisting his lips serving as the only visible portion of his face.


Colton said to Jolie, "How so?" His eyes cut towards her. His glass paused before it could quite reach his lips. "I confess that I'm curious."


Jolie said to Leifong, "Join us. Over here. If you're drinking." She grinned. "It's unhealthy to drink alone."


Jolie's features settled into a more serious mien, and while she hunted for something under the counter replied to Colton, "It's.. " She looked aside to Leifong, and back. "Monstrous. But I've a feeling you'd appreciate why I don't have it levelled." A small wooden box was placed on the bar, "Razed. Cleansed."


Cornelius nods to Jolie "Unless he manages to impress you should he approach you directly. I have given him the seeds to allow for self-improvement, but whether those seeds shall grow in such soil is unknown."


Jolie returned to Cornelius, nodding. "As ever, I trust your judgment." Another grin. "In everything but women and waistcoats." She flipped open the box, offering it toward Colton. "Cigar?"


Colton took one without hesitation, his pale eyes tracking briefly from the contents of the box to the woman's face. For a moment it loomed in his deft fingers, held aloft, before it was stowed in his coat while he spoke. "I'll have to take a look, then. And yes, thank you."


Colton produced the cigar once more, only this time a small steel-bladed dagger came with it. The smooth blade worked effortlessly to guillotine the cigar's end off before it found proper home between his teeth and the knife was returned to its place within the wool panels of his greatcoat.


Leifong doesn't answer his charge's request rapidly, assuming she would know that his compliance was compulsory of the post. Instead he just waits for the drink he so desperately needs, and as Steadman approaches with a bottle and a glass he waves dismissively with his left hand, allowing his sleeve to slide down and reveal several of the most vile tattoos you could imagine, or at least portions of them. "Leave the bottle, take the glass." he grumbles, and Steadman balks at being spoken to in such a way, but a slight flash of the suddenly dangerous eyes beneath that hood, and he does as requested, mumbling several rude comments and casting an irritated glance to Jolie as he walks away. "I'll inform him." Leifong states in the most even tone he can manage as he uncorks a bottle of, well, honestly he doesn't know, but he knocks it back all the same and gulps from it like water in a shocking display of manly vigor, or stupidity. Yet it would seem that his choice for the moment is to keep his distance from the group at large, and indulge his dark thoughts alone.


Cornelius smiles at Jolie's response, and lets the conversation progress with no further interference while the dandy continues to mentally sift through preparation after preparation, his eyes again drifting off to stare into an unseen horizon.


Jolie said to Cornelius, "You might join us, Corny. Not sure it'd be a venture to your.. taste. But of course, you're welcome." She removed a tinderbox and matches from the box, struck one and held the small flame before Colton. "Corny, cigar?"


Colton bent near the red-dressed femme fatale, eyes steady on her own. It took only a few draws to invite the flame into the cigar, tobacco quickly crackling and a cherry-red of glowing embers started. The thick smoke was exhaled away from her as he reclined, tipping his head to her in muted appreciation.


Jolie had left the box in easy reach, in case the dandy wanted one.


Jolie blew the match out. "I wanted to show you something, Colton."


Cornelius ponders "If nothing else of pressing nature intervenes, I see no objection to accompanying you, wot. I shall need to visit Kelay and Cenril soon anyway." He gives a slight shake of the head at the offer of a cigar. "No rest for the wicked, and all that guff."


Jolie said, "None at all, it seems." Her grin was hidden behind a sip of stolen whiskey. "How soon will you be returning to.. Nightshade Avenue?"


Colton began to rise, but only after draining his glass. The cigar was something new. He took to it quickly, no coughing. No choking. Instead, he indulged himself, immediately quiet in appreciation.


Leifong broods, and continues to drink sulkily from his bottle of random gut-rot.


Cornelius is carefully expressionless "Not until I have obtained certain equipment to assist in the restoration."


Jolie too rose, smoothing her skirts with one hand, the glass in her other. She nodded to Cornelius. "Let me know. You know I'll come with you, if you want me to."


Cornelius gives the slightest hint of a nod.


Jolie drained the last sip from that glass, and hooked a bottle off the shelving behind her. Its label was red, the initials 'JFX' stamped in gold upon it.


Jolie said to Colton, "Are you ready for our stroll, Mister Black?"


Colton answered her with an easy nod. His hands lift to stand the collar of his coat up before belting its warm, woolen panels closed. From there he takes a quiet place at her side, smoke curling lazily from the cigar.


Jolie made her farewells to Cornelius, a sly look given the monk, and the word, "Tomorrow." Then, as she took a leisurely pace toward the door, an aside to the conjurer, "If it's not too forward of me, Mister Black.. you do look rather dashing, when not covered in other people's brains."


Cornelius sketches a slight salute "Enjoy yourself, M'dear. Don't get caught doing anything I wouldn't do." The last is said with a slight smirk.


Jolie noted that. She wouldn't get caught.


--- On Hemlock Way ---


Colton inclined his head some as he moved at Jolie's side. His eyes briefly track sidelong towards her. "You look beautiful, Miss Tenebrae. It's less conditional."


Jolie kept that leisurely pace, which might require her much taller companion to shorten his strides, seeing as her slippers worn to match the gown lacked the several inches of height her steel heels afforded. "I don't have the blueprints yet," she said, as they entered Vailkrin's eternal night, dim-light by the twin moons, "But I wanted you see where my manse will stand." The bottle was uncorked, and she sipped. Passers-by would glance thier way, perhaps not unkindly in some cases, seeing a handsome and affluent couple out for a walk. Other, harder eyes were upon them, from the rooftops and alley-bred shadows.


Colton buried his hands in his deep pockets as his eyes track the road beyond. He speaks as they move together and his manner is defined in an easy posture that seems, at its heart, a marriage between the drifter's disconcern and a rich man's arrogance. Despite it all, however, his eyes are keen and aware. They cut with certainty to the eyes that linger on their path, and more so onto the woman at his side. She is far smaller than him now. Petite and lovely. The contrast in their shapes pronounced sharply by their attire. "I meant it when I said you were beautiful."


Jolie's features betrayed a moment of fluster, faint colour rising in her cheeks. "Thank you, Colton." They'd walk a little further along the street, an arcing, black-paved bower created by the looming clasp of hemlock branches overhead. "And.. forgive my joke. I meant it, too. Fine things sit well upon you." In the comment was a hint, perhaps not even noticed by its maker, of a question that had nothing to do with her next comment. "Give me time, Colton. I need.. time."


"You have nothing to worry about." He answered her. They walked together and she'd find it easy, his pace muted to suit her without effort or acknowledgment. Instead, as they passed beneath the canopy and on, she'd find his only real expression lay in the tick of his cigar from lips to fingers with each exhale. The end glowed brightly along the shadowed streets, casting his wolfish features in an eery, blood-red glow. "When I call you beautiful it is for the sake of it. Nothing more."


Jolie looked at him sharply, "Yes. I am aware of that." Several more strides brought her to a stone bench set by one of the flickering lamps that offered a modicum of illumination here, where the trees blotted the silver moonlight. Halting, she offered the bottle his way and nodded to a vacant lot, south of where they stood. "I meant, in relation to what the hell I'm doing here." Her tone softened, as she gazed at the site. "It's hard, picking up something I freely abandoned. Gathering my people again.. " she sighed, ".. for what? And that's where my house will stand, if the permits are approved." Her lips once more displayed a displeased line. "Bloody.. red tape. It never used to be like that."


Colton passed on the bottle and was not entirely certain why. There, standing at her side, he let his eyes rake the empty lot. A manse could be there. A home. To what ends, in his mind, there seemed no clear answer. While she looked to the empty place where her dream was taking shape, Colton cut his gaze sidelong and considered her. Did she believe it would soothe her to have a place to her own? He wondered, briefly, if it was merely boredom. Around them the street had emptied but it did not trouble him. It was growing late and even in Vailkrin there was a time when most simply found sleep. She spoke of her people and red tape, concepts to which Colton Black had never particularly cared for. She talked and he listened, and watched, while the cigar burned steadily down. "You think too much." He said at length.


Jolie's laugh rang clear in the empty street, the necromancer shaking her head, her smile unabating when she canted her face up to his. "I think you're probably right, on that point." Her gaze rested on his. "You must have some understanding, though.. of what it is, to be so full of.. life. Ambition. Like a nocked arrow, but with no target, no release. That's how I feel. Sooner or later, one's arms get tired." He probably didn't get it. It wouldn't bother her any. She gestured to the lot. "I've never had my own house. Or anything, really, that was just mine."


Colton countered gently, without accusation really. His manner was of a man standing beside someone, not atop them. The cut of his eyes generous in their appreciation of her face. No, they were different in that regard. Her ambitions needed direction while Colton Black wanted for nothing but his life to unfold without a clear destination. Regardless, this difference in their nature seemed to assist the way they fit together. "You've plenty that is yours, Tenebrae. You make the choice to share it."


Jolie's gaze remained on his, searching for.. she didn't know. Wasn't thinking about it. "I'm sure of nothing, right now. Not of my choices, not even of.. " the sentence ended quietly, ".. what is, in fact, mine. But time will sort it out, I dare say. In the meantime..." she turned now, back to that barren ground where a former home had been demolished, stripped of all useful materials. ".. I'll do what I can to prevent myself being too boring. Even if I don't feel quite equal to razing Larket." Her smirk was so faint as to possibly not be observed, in that dim atmosphere.


Colton took a liberty, if only because the moment demanded it. The stretch of his rugged arm was sudden and certain, curling against a crimson-clad waist. She was small and light on his arm and it was easy, painfully easy, for him to draw her into him until her form was crushed into the wool of his coat and bent against him. Colton Black kissed her and he kissed her hard. The crush of their lips a sudden thing amidst the dark. The moment stretched under the moon's pale light, hung on until he broke from her. There was a severity in the words that left him then and a predatory, unyielding glint fashioned in the amber-touched softness of his eyes. "You will be sure. And soon."


Jolie nodded, almost absently, her lips stung dark with the forceful kiss, and with not knowing what to say. So she said nothing for a time, only pressed her forehead to his chest, her fingers toying with a button on his coat, smoothing over the fabric. "I think .. " she said, finally, not lifting her face to him yet. ".. it would be very kind of you to escort me safely home, Mister Black."


Colton answered her. The pure amount of words he had for her tonight unlike any of their previous moments. "You need a guard like I need sobriety." The rare attempt at humor marks an end to their longest conversation. Before he turns, however, the man in the dark coat reaches up with a deftly-fingered hand and brushes dark strands of hair from where they have fallen to veil her eyes. It is with remarkable, perhaps unfathomable care that he tucks them behind her small ears. The spread of his hand at the small of her back serves as a gentle buoy to their movements back towards the Corpse beyond.


She’d reply to that with another soft laugh. “I saw you drinking water this morning. And I run with some dangerous people... Colton.” Not as dangerous, perhaps as the conjurer himself, was the irony which escaped her, Tene’s mind still swimming somewhat from the kiss. His words. Implications. She allowed him to guide her back to the path that ran the short distance between the site and her tavern.