InsaneJournal

Who: Megaeris & Rune + NPCs
Where: Random tavern
When: Late afternoon



They called it a Breach of the Peace. A pretty name to be written in law, for was it not simply a brawl? Megaeris called it ‘behaving like a human’. A little harsh, perhaps, but also true. She wished luck to those who wished to try and go through archives for dragon-only brawls, and the elves simply did not seem to have that level of aggression in them, even under the influence of alcohol. She did her best not to imagine merfolk at all, since the idea of them just made her hungry. Regardless, she ignored the noise starting up behind her -- no, she did not look like she belonged there and more than one drunken lout had assumed she was a whore -- and turned her attention to the barkeep, drumming her nails on the bar to catch his attention. He was a good man by Megaeris’ reckoning, and aware she was a merchant, though had a funny habit of calling her ‘milady’. She supposed it was her jewelry.

“Have you seen Pogg?” She had no idea why the boy called himself that, but he must have been among the best pickpockets in Kingswood -- surpassed only by his younger sister. She had promised him she would see if she could find better, safer work for the girl. That was, after all, precisely how she started in the clothing business herself. Light fingers.

On the barkeep’s face, cogs were turning quite visibly. “No, milady, I--” His eyes flicked nervously to the source of the noise behind her. “No…”

Without questioning the hesitance in his reaction, the dragon finally glanced across to a gathering that seemed odd even to her eyes. She had been wrong when she had supposed it was a brawl: they were just absurdly noisy. Also, if you held certain values and were of a particular class, terribly insulting. The reputation of someone’s mother -- then wife (which was then withdrawn since the target was not married) -- was called into question a number of times. In days gone by, the first time would have been cause for a duel in her honour. Naturally, for every insult, the more vulgar spectators seemed to delight in parroting what had been said. She briefly considered swanning over and calling the barely-upper-class gentleman calling names a ‘hedge-born mannikin’ and waiting to see if he worked out what she meant by it (she liked she older insults), but compared to her human form he was a mountain of a man. As was the man he was trying to goad into a fight. When words like ‘knave’, ‘scrounger’ and ‘parasite’ (and, strangely, ‘fop’) replaced everything else, the table they had shared suddenly up-ended as the wounded party tried to throw it at someone he’d likely thought a friend.

Sighing, Megaeris turned back to the barkeep, who now looked both pale and crimson-faced all at once. “Let Pogg know I’m looking for him, please.” Then she slid off her stool and moved toward the fight, aware she was the most durable individual in… well, the building. She felt oddly protective over it, probably because she knew the children frequented it, even if their aim was to pick pockets. It was merely unfortunate that a Mountain Man (they were both bigger than her, she didn’t know which was which and no longer cared) was drunk enough to miss his target (he would have hit the table anyway) and hit her. Most would have staggered a step. Nearly everyone else’s head would have snapped to one side, or back, or something. The dragon looked momentarily stunned, though more out of genuine surprise than physical shock, and blinked. Then she gave his ankle a vindictive but ‘gentle’ kick, sending him sprawling.

Apparently not that gentle, then.