The Bear and Barnacle

Brought to you, under duress, a fine selection of Ed's smoothest verbage with the ladies (mostly):

( Oh, dear God, please shut up...PLEASE... )

Missed it around here! Please excuse my absence. Crazy work + multiple extended illnesses = 1 very useless lady.

 
She's beautiful and he just... Can't. Get her. Out. Of. His. Head.
Oh, hell, not again.

Shit. Shit. Shit.
You're a pervert. Pervert, Ed. Per. Vert.
No. It's fine. It's really fine. It's just-
Shut up. Shutupshutupshutupshutupshutup.

Oh, fuck.


The wall is cool against his cheek, damp with condensation from the shower.
The breath is still hitching in his chest and he really wants to just slam his forehead into the wall over and over and over. It wouldn't help. He knows that. Even if he knocked himself out, it still wouldn't help, so instead he wipes a hand over his face and - shakily - finishes dressing.

The second he makes unexpected eye contact with Zelgadis in the hallway, he goes scarlet and bolts into his room, muttering incoherently about having forgotten shoes. It's anyone's guess as to what Ed is on about as he is very clearly already wearing his boots.
 

Faramir was given his first sword so long ago he doesn't remember not owning one and while he was at first much more interested in his books than in weaponry it was not long before the influence of his adored brother began to set in. Boromir is ten years his senior and Faramir has spent the entirety of his sixteen years thinking his brother a god.

In some ways the two could not seem more different even though they look so much alike. Even as children it was so. As Boromir sat beside their father Denethor in court and eagerly learned from the citadel guard all he could discover and some things he shouldn't have repeated, Faramir spent his time following the keeper of Gondor's ancient library and doing odd jobs for the Wardens of the Houses of Healing. He was at his father's knee only to ask for answers and stories rather than to absorb and adopt the ways of the ruler. By the time the brothers were eight and eighteen Boromir had picked up many mannerisms of their father and commanded his first expeditions with a tone and mind very familiar to the men in his service. Faramir was said to resemble his mother or neither parent in his shy nature and his willingness to listen to any snippet of lore or history that someone would tell him.

So it startled a few of his tutors and the servants of the house when at thirteen quiet, bookish Faramir began challenging Boromir to practice swordsmanship with him. Boromir indulged him and Faramir always lost.

But he persevered and refused when Boromir kept offering to go easy on him. He learned more from the losing than he would have from a swordsman of his own ability and soon that ability was greatly expanded. Their illmatched practice never seemed to draw more than half curious glances from Denethor, but Boromir's laughter and the rough hand ruffling Faramir's hair – those gave the boy a warm, steady glow that no other's praise and no other's touch could equal.

Now that he is uprooted from home and far from the warmth of his brother's love and the long-held hope of his father's approval, Faramir carries his sword close by him even though he's already noticed that very few in this place go armed. Its weight at his side is comforting as he pushes into the Pub having come on Mina's recommendation. Here in this strange and frightening place it is a touch of home and a memory of his brother that he cannot imagine doing without.

The below is an IM continuation (of sorts) from Ed's arrival post, wherein Ed is kindly offered a place to sleep by Jack and (in a slightly less enthusiastic manner) Zelgadis. Players involved in the IM convo will, in all hopes, be able to continue the thread this way without so much reliance on coordinated schedules. :D Even so, others can feel free to comment and/or threadcrash about Ed's living situation, or whatever strikes their fancy!


Jack: *pushes open the Pub door and pulls his jacket around him* It's not a long walk ( -- just a few blocks. )

 
Used to walking everywhere no matter how long it takes, drawn into solitude by the grating of not-belonging in his gut, he arrives. He's seen it in the shiny, colored leaflets scattered about town, been there in the day more than once, and though he's more a creature of farmland, or even desert, he craves the relief of cool-aired silence and a place to just exist for a few moments.

( He slips through the closed, darkened shop. )

The first thing he feels - ( ouch )