RP:Varnish

The Hanging Corpse Tavern, Vailkrin

The tavern wasn't busy this time of day. Steadman was enthusiastically doing nothing but gouge at errant earwax and slide the odd bottle across the bar toward the woman seated there amid drowsy drunks and slurring barflies. There were several uncollected empties on that counter nearest Tenebrae, and it seemed she was intent on an attempt at pickling herself, with so far mixed and somewhat disappointing results. "I swear you're watering the grog," she grumbled at the keep, who extracted his finger from his ear long enough to mutter something at her regarding dead tongues and their ill capacity for taste. The back-and-forth went on, two old friends pretending they weren't, much as yet unspoken between them. It was a little like old times, Tene mused, and downed another gulletful of the sharp liquor to wash that thought away. Nothing was like old times anymore. This wasn't. She wasn't. Entropy could go and get effed, for what it cost. Much as with the whisky, she felt a little cheated.

Thistle was not typically one to run away from her problems. Oh, she had been, at one time in her life, but she had grown since then. Learned things. All sorts of wonderful things that had done their part to turn her bitter and cynical. That she'd experienced one of those, earlier in the day, was perhaps why she had followed a road she shouldn't have followed, and wound up in a place she shouldn't have been. If anyone was keeping score, she should have been in the ramshackle piece of garbage that served as a home, no matter how often she told herself it was only a temporary one. No one would have been able to tell her she was lost, as she stumbled into yet another building searching for a place to rest and hoping for, if she was entirely honest, someone that she could push her frustrations onto and blame for them. Honesty wasn't her strong suit at the moment. She paused, inside the door, eyes sweeping over the bar that was cleaner than she herself had been in a long time. It was warm. Almost homey. Hesitation marked her cruelly as she groped for the door, unsure if one so destitute as she would be welcome.

There'd be plenty of proof that the Corpse had an open-door policy on the destitute - and the dirty, as well - seeing as there were enough poor sods at wits' and pockets' end soaking up cheap, temporary relief from their woes or sleeping off the result, mainly, at this hour, in the several occupied booths and at points along the bar. Most of the seats there were emptied now, though, which gave Tenebrae plenty of elbow room. The dearth of bodies offered the Vailkrin wind direct access to her, however, and so the untidy woman propping the door open was given a shrewish look. "Born in a tent, eh?" And in case the point wasn't clear enough, "Come or go - either way shut the damned door. s'cold enough to give death itself a shiver..."

Tenebrae was leered at by Steadman, for that last comment.

Tenebrae said to Steadman, "Shut yer cakehole. And if you're done with mining that earwax, hit me up."

Perhaps it was coincidence that, as a matter of fact, Thistle had been born in a tent--or her peoples' equivalent of one, at any rate--but the words were spoken and Thistle let the door shut. "It is," she said, because while agreeable hadn't been on the menu for some time, being spoken to like an equal was just enough to ignite the part of her that still remembered to be civilized. Miracle enough she could be more than an alleyway scavenger, seeing as how she certainly felt like she'd been playing the part of pauper longer than she'd been alive. The burst of confidence had her looking around, and seeing the patina of wear from bodies not so different from her own that she had overlooked on first glance. Money was an issue, but as she had every day, she found herself scrounging a few grimy coins from within the pocket of her overcoat that formed from belt at waist up to mismatched buttons securing it at her left shoulder. She needed a drink. "Anything recommended to chase memories away?"

"A crossbow bolt to the back of the head'll do it. Or if you're feeling a bit more courageous, you could try Steadman's whisky. It'd take the varnish off a chair." Tene’s turn to smirk pointedly at the one-eyed barman. "Here, give it a try." And the latest addition to the bottle collection on the counter was slid Thistle's way. " No varnish left on me." Laughing at her own jest, the Necromancer displayed two rows of sharpish teeth, as though they'd been filed that way, and the hint of a slightly bifurcated tongue. The woman herself wasn't too shabby, hardly in finery but the leathers she wore were the best local make, not that this counted for much in her esteem. Her dark hair was clean, though her face was so alack of colour as to suggest ill health, or long confinement. Thistle was studied, blatantly. "Not seen you around before." There were a lot of folks she hadn't seen before in Vailkrin since her absence, but this wasn't the point.

Thistle scratched her own head and the shaggy, coarse head of hair residing there, likely containing some number of fleas or lice. Not that she had the luxury of being able to do anything about it, and for that she had no self-consciousness for it. "'Fraid I can't afford the bolt," she said, as she took a seat. She slouched into it with some discomfort, as if she hadn't quite gotten the hang of sitting on something. She took the bottle, and gave its contents a fair go. Shortly after, she was coughing, having had her throat and, unhappily, lungs stripped of whatever 'varnish' was supposed to stay on them. Despite the fit, she didn't let go of the bottle, and gave a watery smile to the woman opposite. Once done, she studied the woman in return. "I'm usually keeping the trash company on Cenril's streets. If not the trash, then the local drunks, and if not company, then keeping an eye on their weapons for them. Your money is an odd thing, and after learning how not to be killed, I've recently learned how to obtain it. Are you a demon?" The last question was asked casually, before she tipped back the bottle again. That time, the coughing didn't last nearly so long.

Tenebrae just grinned, begging Thistle's latter question further still while generally ignoring it. "Cenril, eh? If it's coin you're after, I've a friend down that way with a shop. He's always after new meat.. " she blinked, "Being a butcher and all. And I think whoever he's got in as help is slacking off," the grin widened as she recalled the heavy dust on the window, and her graffito'd jest at Valentin's expense. "That is, if you're not too fussy for mopping up bone meal and old blood. Or cleaning the odd window.." Behind her Steadman was nodding emphatically, making 'scary Tene' faces and 'oogedy boogedy' finger-shapes.

Tenebrae said to Steadman, "Stop that."

Thistle let the question go. It was habit, she told herself, and not any sort of professional interest. Even if she was determined to keep up that beat after her quite unceremonious removal--well. She had no armor or weapons, and she really didn't feel like it, at the moment. What did that say, that a woman who was, in all likelihood, a demon was treating her better than her human brethren had for the last number of years. She sighed, nearly coughed up a lung, and thereafter kept her melancholy to herself. "It's not that I'm fussy," she said, or tried to since her voice sounded as though it'd been used to grate rocks, "but truly, the way people clump together here, build here, settle--" the bottle was used as a prop as she swung her own hands in emphasis. Steadman, for his part, was docked one point for potential mockery and ignored. "The concept of 'work' is ...unsettling." The memory of the open steppes, of the weight and living muscle of her horse beneath her, of her own prowess took up a life of its own behind her eyes. She made a face at it.

Steadman was over his lapse from being gritty and stoic anyway.. He'd slouch off to some duty or other as the women continued their conversation.

Tene sipped the dregs of the bottle-before-last, and nodded in response to Thistle's observations regarding civilisation in general, "Mortals are at their best when on the move," she agreed, assuming that had been Thistle's point, "Easier to..." cull, she almost said, forgetting for just a second where she was, "Uh.. get 'emselves in a bind, all clumped up behind a wall. Like." She coughed, and glared at the bottle, as though the whisky'd caused it, which was at least half true. "So you're not a townie, I take it?" And here, the Empusai's finer senses came into play, even a little dulled as they were by all the de-varnishing. "I take it, also, that your people aren't much for soap," was her final, astute perception.

Thistle watched Steadman leave, giving him more attention when his attention had gone elsewhere than when he'd been interacting, if that word could be used, with Tenebrae. At least this woman had no illusions about her state of being, which oddly made Thistle more comfortable, rather than less. Points to her for her pointless and utterly unnoticed rebellion, next act would be to become friends with one of them. That would be dangerous. She rubbed her fingers over the inlay, leaving marks that she didn't try to rub away. That wouldn't work: she'd tried something similar, before. That was what uses soap had. The education that had befallen her regarding the word and its various meanings, be they intended with seriousness or sarcasm, had been a long road. "No. To both. Are you?" She lifted her eyes in an attempt to meet Tenebrae's. If there was some quality of challenge in them, there was no guarantee it was not intentional.

Tenebrae narrowed her eyes, two chill slits of pale green that momentarily held a vicious sort of suspicion, then as quickly an aspect of humour. "I indulge in both, for different reasons. But to be honest, I too chafe with confinement these days." And her gaze lost its edge altogether as her sight turned inward, to boundless skies and patchwork villages viewed from the back of a wingbeast, the rugged crags and blackened spires she'd left behind.. "This used to be my city. I mean. My home. Now it isn't so much. But I like to visit. Steady there gets lonely, being such a bastard that no-one else'll put up with him."

"Well, maybe I have more in common with him than I thought. Or you, even, aside from the--" she waved her hand in front of her mouth. Wrinkles creased on Thistle’s forehead, under the dirt and mop of hair, at some thought that caught her fancy. It disappeared, as did the lines on her face as she let them fall away to give the woman who could be considered her host the politeness of a blank face. "Why did you return?"

Tenebrae shook her bottle, which didn't slosh at all. Another shrug, one-shouldered, and she said, "Because I had no choice in it," was the blunt reply. There was a silence. Then, "And it seems I'm stuck here, at least for the present. May as well live it up, I figure." The offending vessel was put down, and she called for a full one, "Quid pro quo, stranger. What brings you to this hov..." Steadman was eyeing her as grimly as a one-eyed man can eye anything, and the solid clunk of the new bottle on the counter before her was clearly nothing to do with lack of depth perception. "... This uh. City. Place." The keep was grinned at, and paid with a solid gold coin half the size of the woman's pale palm. "S'for the tab, Steady. And a bowl of whatever Cook's got brewing, for the lass here." She half-glanced to Thistle, "If I'm not wrong about you being short of supper, too." Perhaps the lack of varnish was making Tenebrae talky, but she'd abruptly swivel on her seat to face Thistle then, "Not a demon. Though there's those who'd argue with that."

Thistle turned to see what had cut Tenebrae off, and only caught the backside of an innocent bartender. She narrowed her eyes, but turned back around in time for another splutter fest of a swig. The alcohol she was used to drinking was not so strong on mouth or on the stomach. Free booze was free booze, though, and she wasn't likely to let it go until her fingers went numb. She shrugged to the question. "The same. I had no herd. Rutting men on the road took my animals," and that, given the sudden spark in her eyes that had nothing to do with the city beggar she looked, was a greater offense than anything else man or beast could offer, "and there is no survival without them. So I came to a place where animals are not so needed, but neither honor. " Then went the bottle, onto the bar, and both palms went straight to her forehead, "Am I your guest, then? Say what you will but you're assuredly not human. There are but two options, from my homeland. It doesn't matter. Anymore. It used to. But that's past."

Tenebrae only nodded to that sentiment, and raised her new bottle briefly before robbing it of its top half-inch of liquid and pausing to let the burn of it wear off. "Guest.. yes, I suppose. Call it payment for the lack of having none but the one-eyed git to converse with," because there were no freebies in any world Tene occupied, said her look. "And aye, not much of honour about anything, here. But there's animals aplenty, if you're not so disdainful of work that you wouldn't liberate a few from their pastures. Not here," she added, lifting her free hand - her left, oddly darker than the other - to indicate the city moreso than the tavern, "Depending on what you'd be after. Horses, by the stink of you. And I never said I was human."

"I accept your hospitality," Thistle said, dropping her hands and then her head a few inches in recognition. Her return to an upright position was frankly curious; she struggled with the city-dwellers' ideas regarding "gifts" and when it was and wasn't acceptable to give them. In her mind, there was a firm and solid answer. The thought was momentarily cut off by Tenebrae's next words, and Thistle grimaced. "There are animals, and there are animals. The stock here is bred, largely, for a different climate. And so...animals are animals, and not to be treated after people, but Pojin was." That sentence ended quite forcefully, and its punctuation was the sudden contraction of Thistle's eyebrows over her nose. "It's been some years. I am glad to still smell of him, though I can no longer smell it, myself." Then, she gripped the bottle again, admiring the quick reaction her body had taken to it. "I hate this life. I was a hunter of demons and foul beasts, a savior to my people. Now?" She laughed, fingerprints fogging the bottle up beyond what a simple rag could compete with. "I sold my bow for your money. I sort through refuse for food. My highest goal is to marry my sisters into a station from which they will feel no shame. If they survive." She reached up blindly to touch the mark that spread over the right half of her face; though it lay dark against the already dark copper of her skin, there was a hint of it under the grime.

Tenebrae 's eyes were narrow again, and again fixed on the stranger. Who wasn't so strange, really.. the necromancer had been in similar straits, once. Or twice. Or... "I'm not talking about the hacks they use to haul coal or armoured buffoons up and down the streets," her tone was quiet, Tene having caught the scent of grief, and heard the weight of it in Thistle's words, "Out west, there's better stock. You'd have to see for yourself if it's up to scratch." Another shrug, a minute lift and drop of leatherclad shoulders. Her eyes un-narrowed, then, her brows rose, and lips pursed with the next question poised upon them for a moment, "Hunted... demons, eh?" Her tongue flicked out, lengthening into a pink and fork-tipped ribbon, for an idle lap of droplets adhering to the lip of her bottle. "S'a tricky business, that."

Thistle nodded moodily. "Everything is tricky." She paused, her reaction to the tongue late by several seconds as she stared wonderingly between bottle and the mouth from whence the troublesome thing had come. But, it wasn't her concern, and with as muddled as she'd gotten there wasn't much of a point in pursuing it or mentioning it. No doubt there was some essence of teasing or mockery aboard the misery caravan Thistle felt at the moment was her sole ride, from which the tongue thing had come, but to pursue it was pointless. And the horses...well, she didn't want to talk about that. "Survival comes at any cost, wouldn't you say? Why else return to the places we'd sooner leave behind?" She lifted her bottle in an affectation learned from watching others do it, and saluted Tenebrae before nuzzling the opening to her lips. She didn't cough. Could be her body had found a new varnish.

There was a soft snort from Tene at that, "Like I said, not exactly my choice. And look, there's good coin to be earned left and right, place is a clusterf..ul of overmonied idiots and if survival's your favoured choice of activity for the present, it might behoove you to lighten some of their burden. In one way or another. It's.. was... my business, so to speak, for a time. But if you'd prefer to tough it out, I can respect that. I don't pretend to understand it..." a smile, no fangs on view, "Having always favoured the 'claw your way out of abject poverty and despair by any means available' approach, myself."

Thistle couldn't help the smile that formed at Tenebrae's last words. She waggled her head left and right. "I am too stuck in the past. I am not, as I said, surviving at any cost. If I was, I would forget the things that guided me when I was young. It is maddening. I tell myself that I will change, once they are married. The thought of them losing what makes them of the tribes frightens me." She turned her eyes to the door, thoughtful. "I would like to buy another bow. Even if, the ones I've seen, are so weak. I could make my own, with time and money." Though she didn't say it, the idea of owing a demon a favor was titillating. Any strike against her former masters was petty, now, but also emboldening. "How much money could be earned, by this bloody work?"

Tenebrae slid off her seat, all five-foot-plus-heels of her drawn upright. "You hunt demons, you make plenty" she said, and winked. Then shoved a hand - the right one, the left one was having some trouble holding her bottle's neck - and drew out another of those fat gold coins. "A fool and her money, as they say," the necromancer tossed the item to Thistle, as she stepped toward the door, "And so now, it's mine. Get your bow. I've work for you, when you've done so."

Thistle bowed from her chair, which wasn't as easy as it seemed. She toppled out of it, landing on her bare feet and shrugged it off. "I am in your debt. I will do as you say."

Tenebrae liked no words better in this world than the ones Thistle had just spoken. She smiled again, fangs on show, and departed with a wave, and her bottle of Vailkrin's finest.