theo. (escutcheon) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-02-14 09:39:00 |
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Crack crack crack — a little echo from the King Bomb remained, altering her perception slightly; whatever injuries sustained had already been tended to but her body still felt bruised and battered and burnt. (Have you ever seen a pyre climb upwards? Starting with the flicks of ash pushed out — followed by the lick of blame and charred flesh. What is the shortest distance between two points? Zero). That had not been her line of thought and Siri, who had been heading into the Commoner’s District seeking out Seven Cups found herself lost. When time becomes irrelevant and the streets all bend beneath the weight of it, you can walk in circles again and again until reaching too much has passed). Dusk was settling in when it all came back to her and Seven Cups closed; her mission having failed she sought to temper the disappointment by visiting another of the establishments in this area. Somewhere new that she had yet to know, if it was nice perhaps she would ask Cas or Ric to bring her here to spend time. It was loud. The sound of broken songs reverberated and drowned out the crack crack crack. Siri liked this place for that reason, and she glanced at the makeshift stage where someone was singing their woes about a failed relationship. It was not all in tune but the sound was comforting enough. Rising and fading out, she headed over to the bar, resting her hands on the edge and lifting her on tip toes. Her eyes didn’t stay on the bartender but kept looking around, taking in the scene, to the point that she was unintentionally blocking other customers from getting their drinks. “Pardon,” Theo said, looming behind her and attempting to reach around for his own drink. He himself had come here deliberately and for one purpose, a drink or two on his way back home, a search for a salve for his growing concerns. The berserker had spent the afternoon combing through the sewers with Monaco and Thornton at his side, looking for a comrade of theirs that now seemed to be inarguably missing. The signs bode ill. But here, alone with his thoughts and adrift too in the tide of song and drink, he had searched for some semblance of comfort. What he found, exactly, was a lost mage lingering around the bar counter. He tried not to seem to intimidating, though his usual frown remained as he wondered just what she had been up to. “You ordering?” A man of Theo’s size would have been intimidating on reflex, except that he was built like Caspar and Rictor were. Big, strong, solid. For a moment she turned her dark eyes on him but it was not him, but Caspar asking the question. A blink and it was gone, replaced by this stranger whose drink she was probably getting in the way. “Sorry.” She edged slightly to make sufficient (albeit close) space at the counter, “I was distracted.” Which was stating the obvious, but Siri didn’t care for those trivial social conventions, choosing to smile at the other. “Why are you here?” The question came out more abrasive than intended, but then this mage was not one to speak sense. Theodore had the (mis)fortune of catching her current attention. Nothing malicious, nothing devious, just pure curiosity wrapped in the constant search for grounding. For stability that she had always been denied. Theo slid into the space beside her, or tried to, but the man behind him had been shoved (on accident) out of the way as he leaned on the counter and reached for his tankard of ale. Without armor and weapon, he still served to look formidable by size alone, and the frown of confusion did little to soften his appearance. He meant no harm here, however, and instead worked on provided a serviceable answer to her question. “Out for a drink,” he said, straightforward as ever. To prove his point, or perhaps just to sate his thirst, Theo took a long swig of his ale. His eyes wandered to those around, curious. “You with friends?” It didn’t appear so, but in a crowded tavern at a busy hour such as this, he knew that meant little. The truth of the matter was that Theo had never been particularly well-versed with small talk and strode through conversations with forcefulness and a noticeable lack of grace. However, this did not prevent him from making an effort. Wriggling a little bit more, she tried to made more room but it was pointless seeing as Theo had effectively and efficiently moved the man on the other side. Siri smiled, simple (perhaps a bit vacant, unintentionally but common in her madness). “No, I got lost.” And really, after a month here she ought not to have been lost; but it was easy to allow the crowd to sway and to follow a shadow into an establishment like this. Pausing she considered what to make of this man (nothing, little, more), “And now I should drink, so you do not drink alone — or are you with friends?” Siri cast a quick glance around him, obviously assuming that his friends would stick by him if they were here. “No,” Theo said, and he set his tankard on the counter with a heavy thunk. Fishing through his pockets, he summoned up enough gil to have the bartender fetch the woman a drink as well. Money had never been a concern for him, after all, and the effort did well to appease whatever chivalric urges a man such as he might’ve possessed. “Came here after work,” he explained, watching as a large tankard matching his own was set in front of the woman. “No time for plans.” At another time, perhaps, he might’ve sought to message Divina (as close as the two had grown over the past few months), but the day had him troubled enough to hesitate. For now, he would attempt to converse with the woman in front of him--at least until she grew tired of his company. Strange though she seemed, and concerned though he was that she had chosen to come here alone (the worries of peacekeeper, difficult to dodge), Theo did not seem to mind. The free drink stuns her, evident on her features before it is all shut down behind a pleasant smile. “Thank you.” Because she was a polite thing at heart (all those ‘please’ and ‘thank you’s that her mother ingrained into her back in Kerwon). “Then come, stand with me and let’s talk.” Siri turns from Theo to look at the bar (but it isn’t really the bar she sees, but ash and smoke and it all fades back and forth). Her finger taps at his tankard three times. “Are you troubled?” It was a guess, stabbing in the ark as Siri did when conversing with strangers. Most times there seemed to be enough weight in her words to warrant a reply. This was not the intention, she just wanted to talk but her tongue was always so heavy, refusing her commands and spilling out what Siri did not always mean. She is mad, and having that realization while talking to a stranger is not a good feeling. She is so ashamed of herself, she wants to crawl away and leave this poor man in peace; but being polite keeps her where she is. Theo snorted into his tankard as he tried, unsuccessfully, to take another drink. This was more confusing than trying to figure out his young squire at times, he decided, but went along with the odd line of questions anyway. Who was he to understand the maneuvering of women, after all? “Aye, enough,” he said, his massive shoulders shrugging at the admission. “Habit of EKP work.” He had no trouble bringing up the topic of his profession--had always been proud of it, in fact, ever since his days as a young knight. Whatever else anyone thought of the peacekeepers, her included, he saw it as admirable work, if dangerous at times (and was there anything in the city that wasn’t lately?). His mind went to Siana briefly as he took another drink. “And you?” Oh good, that had not been a misstep — and she felt herself warming quickly to his stranger (but he wasn’t really, was he? No, no he was not). Horribly familiar, she could almost see Caspar in the line of Theo’s shoulders, and Rictor in the way his fingers curled on the tankard. “I’ve never met someone who did EKP work.” The barkeeper set in front of her a tankard to match Theo’s and Siri cast it a doubtful look before she shrugged and clasped it in both hands. It was new, “So you drink to find some sort respite.” She turned her eyes to him again, focusing on Theo and not the ghosts; it brought her relief to know how to do that. Just a little willpower. “I kind of like the idea of drink as something to soothe the soul, the conscience. There is ample need of that among people, isn’t there?” Theo listened to her speak, stuck to his spot at the counter like a stone, his attention unwavering regardless of the ebb and flow of people around them. He gave a low grumble in reply. “No Sunday mass is this,” he said, “souls better served there.” After a moment of consideration he offered her his hand, calloused and scarred by years of battle and training at swordplay--perhaps he ought to have done this earlier, but a certain amount of social fumbling was expected. “Sir Theodore Finch,” he said by way of introduction. “Second son of Edwin Finch, all that it matters here.” His frown lessened almost imperceptibly. “Well met.” “Not all souls.” He was firm where he stood, but she swayed a little, tilted her head and allowed her fingers to trace the edge of her drink. Siri smiled up at him, as if such fact was normal: not everyone could be saved, and not everyone deserved it. Faram’s mercy could only go so far, could it not? She took his hand, curious and not at all concerned with social etiquette. His surname was familiar, Siri had briefly crossed path with the elder Finch. Pleasant man from what she recalled, nothing more, nothing less. A quick squeeze of his hand, gentle but firm (acknowledging him as Theodore and not a shadow of her mind). “Lady, I suppose, Siri D’Albis, from Kerwon.” Her father’s name couldn’t matter in this place but, “I can tell you my father’s name if you’d like but it seems unimportant. Kerwon is a long way off.” And it wasn’t by his name that people knew who she was. “I think it is nice to meet you.” After shaking hands with Siri, Theo went back to tending to his drink--but a subtle shift in his mood had slowly begun. It had been a strange stroke of luck, he suspected, that he’d struck up a conversation with any stranger who could stand for it, and he wasn’t of the mind to take such a thing for granted. “Aye,” he said, trying with the best of his abilities to keep the peculiar woman talking (as it had now become, in its own fashion, a salve to his ailing mood as well). “Tell me of it.” |