P0rcelain
Houdini Star Queen
- Joined
- Dec 24, 2021
- Messages
- 72
- Reaction score
- 53
It was early morning in Braeroch, the sun still only barely rising over the horizon. A ginger haired woman walked down a garbage and flora ridden back-alley in the dim light, shaking with an old, scrunched up hat in one hand. Her dark robes shifted and flowed around her in the frigid air as she paced. She did not stop when she awkwardly took out her canteen, popped off the lid, and took a sip. The liquid burned her tongue. A sensation so numb to her that it didn’t affect her in the slightest. In fact, it eased her tremors. An open door beckoned her, and she entered.
Inside was a filthy, run down bar. Stains littered the floor and table and many of the seats and chairs were broken. Her eyes passed over a rowdy group sitting at the back while a bartender eagerly paced past her out the door. That brought a smile to her tired face. Their shift was over, which meant her favorite was now on-duty. She beamed at Emeryk; An unusually short-for-his-sex, but still burly wyr man who stood behind the bar during the mornings. The ginger-haired woman approached him; and the least rickety, unoccupied stool.
“Aaa… Morning Tatts.” Emeryk greeted her.
‘Tatts’ was the nickname the regulars had taken to affectionately calling her, on account of the tattoos that were all over her body. This was especially remarkable, because all of her tattoos were writing. Words wrapped themselves around her arms and legs, and psalms embroidered her back and chest. A couple of lines also crept across her cheeks, refraining only from passing over the most distinguished parts of her face.
“G’day, Emeryk.” She greeted back with a wholesomeness only mornings can bring.
Now seated, she placed the hat she was carrying on the table. Now uncrumpled, its point sprang up and brim laid flat on the wood in all its witchy glory. Tatts produced a shiny, metal medallion and slid it over the bar table towards Emeryk. She was overpaying by about three times with that particular coin, but she knew he would assume she was paying for her next drinks too.
“Aha! Look at you! Today's the day, then?” Emeryk said as he procured a pint from the back-bar and began pouring.
“Ye, just gotta fuckin’ top up ‘fore I’m off.” Tatts replied. “Haven’ quit yet.”
“Y’were close last time. I’ll give ya that.” He passed Tatts her drink.
She took a large gulp, then lowered her glass with a sigh of relief. Her tremors were starting to stop. He stared at the hat she put down on the table.
“Already got your hat, have ya? Looks a bit… worn.” He commented.
“Ye, it’s me ma’s. Wanted me to wear it… Fo’sum fuckin’ reason.” She snickered sarcastically and took another sip.
“How about that. Mind putting it on? I wanna see how it looks.” He asked proudly.
“Eh…” She murmured nervously, “‘Tis meant for when I win.”
He blinked vacantly. “...Win?”
“Win all ‘eir tests or whatever.”
“You mean graduate.” He corrected, raising an eyebrow.
“Somethin’ o’ rather… ‘Spose.”
“C’mon, y’can take it off after. I just wanna see.”
“Fuckin’ fine, fuck. Ye fuckin’ nag. Ma woulda fuckin’ smacked ya just for that.” She bantered playfully.
Then, Tatts held the hat by each side of its large brim and placed it delicately over her own hair, twisting it to make sure it was fitting snugly on her messy bedhead.
“Now that’s precious.” The bartender smiled. “Look at that. One of us is getting outta this shithole, that much is certain.”
“Ay, but stop fuckin’ lookin’ at me like that, ye’ll make me fuckin’ blush.” She lowered her chin so that the hat covered her face, because she already was.
-
Tatts remembered that they had talked for a while after that, but she did not remember what about or for how long. She tiredly raised her head from the bar table, finding that her fingers already had a medallion between them, and that she was tapping it repeatedly against the table. She sensed Emeryk’s presence beside her.
“You’ve been well behaved, lately.” Spoke the tender idly.
She raised her head in a stupor, revealing her face from under that large brim. It was flushed pink, contrasting the freckles around her nose.
“...Ay.” She sagged again. “Cuz if I ain’t, I get fuckin’ banned.”
“Yeah, well.” Continued the tender, “I ‘spose places don’t like their customers beating each other to a bloody pulp, don’t they?”
She became rigid to take a swig of her pint, then lowered her head and adjusted her hat with the hand that had the medallion, shimmying it from the brim.
“Fuckin’...” She was about to remark, then refrained. “Fuckin’ ‘spose, ay.”
He stood in silence for some time, leaning against the bar table next to her. She did not speak either, though a cheer of bumbling voices attacked her drunken ears from elsewhere.
“Tatts.” He called sternly.
“...What...” She replied harshly and absent-mindedly.
The bartender had dealt with many sassy drunkards and wasn’t dissuaded. “‘Thought y’were going to attend Falbreck.”
Tatts looked up at the ceiling. She let out a frustrated sigh. She was irritated that this had come up. Irritated at how she had chosen to spend the morning. She supposed that it was about time he reminded her she was only here to 'top up'.
“C’mon, Tatts. Your mother taught you, and for what?” He egged her on. “So ya could waste the opportunity for a fucking drink…?”
She kept tapping the medallion on the table while she withstood his incessant encouragement. Her thoughts were clouded and hard to read, like a lazy fog rolling over a dark country road.
“I wanna see one of us rats get into a place like that.” He slapped her platonically on the shoulder. “You seemed to agree earlier this morning. You’re not changing ya mind, are ya?”
Tatts stopped tapping with the coin and lowered her chin back down to a sulk. “Fuck Falbreck.”
Emeryk was stunned, staring at her intensely. Disappointment seethed and broiled in the air around the two. They had been talking about it for the past month. It seemed like everything in the dejected woman’s life had been leading up to today, and she just cussed it off. In those two words, the morning had gone from cheery and exciting to disgraceful.
“Just ‘membered I’m out.” She rolled the medallion across the table towards him, then elaborated in an embarrassed whisper. “Besides, it’s full o’ fuckin’... bigheads.”
He sighed, then stood up fully to fill her pint again. “I want you outta here by midday, hear?!”
She got lower down to the table, failing to hide her shame.
“I wanna see you quit again! Just come back so you’re not going cold turkey, alright? …Shit’s dangerous.” It was unfortunate, for Emeryk knew more certainly than anyone else if she was still drinking. She had been banned from every other establishment in the area.
The rowdy group had stood up and was now passing behind Tatts, laughing and joking. They each left medallions on the table in front of Emeryk as they barged through. As a man from the group stomped by, he spat on Tatts’ hat. She winced at the sound and dragged her fresh pint closer to her face. Emeryk could see a subtle tinge of anger touch her face.
“What a fuckin’ disgrace, ay?! Wearin’ that fuckin’ hat. Who gave ‘er the right?! Hahahaha!” The man mocked, tapping her on the shoulder roughly. That time, it was not so much of a friendly thing.
Her nose wrinkled. She did not mind the words. The spit, however… That was her mother’s hat. Tatts wasn’t one for staunch traditionalism. Though, even still, her mother was a delicate subject. She was seeing red. She had been caught in a vulnerable moment with a low swing. Maybe she did not even want to wear the hat. Maybe she just wore it for a friend and forgot to take it off.
“Tatts!” Emeryk shouted with command. He could tell her consciousness was leaving her body.
She glanced at him. She couldn’t direct her thoughts, she could only think about her complicated family, and the meaning of the tattoos she had put all over her body. The truth was she came here to forget all that.
Thinking that he had got her attention, Emeryk looked her dead in the eyes and spoke with a lethal strictness that he hoped would freeze her down to the bones. “Stay. Seated.”
He didn’t mean to boss her. He knew what she needed right now: Direction. He knew she would not take it personally. She knew he wanted what was best for her. He simply did not want to see her relapse again. These brutes were addicted to her attention. The sting of her bite and the fierceness of her strike. They wanted to stir her up and he knew this. Yet, Emeryk could not turn them away in good faith, and he knew she needed to put up with the sting.
She began breathing. Good. She took a swig. Less good, but acceptable at the moment. Then, it happened:
“Hah! Yea, listen to ‘em ye obedient bitch-”
Emeryk immediately stood up to tell them to leave. Now, he could turn them away. Unfortunately, before a word could leave his mouth, Tatts was standing too. She kicked the barstool she had been sitting on behind her, and her arm had shifted in the fraction of a second from lifting her glass to drink from it to launching it directly at a random, unlucky group member who had not read the tension of the situation yet. Alarmed shouts and cries filled the bar and the sound of glass shattering, followed by a gasp and a colorful series of words. What followed was chaos. Emeryk slowly raised pinched fingers to his nose.
“...Fucking shit.” His curse sounded more like a factual expression of the moment than anything else.
Emeryk was not going to interfere. He doubted he could, even despite his weight compared to her. All he could do was hope no one outside would notice. Surprisingly to first-timers, but not to regulars, the group was cheering and whistling at Tatts in her fit of rage, even while harsh crunches; cracks; and girlish screams were emanating from their drinking buddies’ bodies. She was not untouchable, of course, though the amount of punches she was taking from men and women alike was truly a spectacle to behold.
“Tatts! Tatts! Tatts! Tatts!”
“Let's tango, lass!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!”
“FUCKIN’ SPIT ON ME MA’S FUCKIN’ HAT!! AND ‘ERE I WAS THINKIN’ I WOULDN’ BE SEEIN’ ANY FUCKIN’ BIGHEADS!!!” She screamed in an ear-splitting war-cry.
A woman was thrown yelling against the bar table. Blood splattered on it as her nose made contact with the edge. Emeryk flinched, but was taken only slightly off guard.
“Keep your fucking fluids in you, for shits sake!” He squawked helplessly, his voice cracking with indignation.
No one was hearing him. Especially not Tatts. “MAYBE I WANNA WEAR THE FUCKIN’ HAT!! MAYBE I’M THAT FUCKIN’ SURE O’ MYSELF, AYYYYY?!! YE FUCKIN’ RATSSSSSSS!!!”
Unexpectedly, they had managed to catch her in a hold. Though, they did need three people just to keep her down. Someone began punching her in the stomach. The air left her lungs, before she rather impressively flung the person holding down her left arm towards the floor and began punching and kicking in retaliation, with meaty thuds.
“...fuck it!!” She gasped in pain as loud as her winded little lungs could muster, “I’LL FUCKIN’ PASS 'ERY FUCKIN’ TEST THEY THROW AT ME!!”
It took Emeryk several seconds to realize she was talking about Falbreck. His appallment at the incident left him in a deep frown, yet inside, a small relief washed over him. At least he would not be mopping this up for nothing. Tatts began sprinting exhaustedly to the exit. She jumped as she passed another brute and gifted him a rather solid right hook to the face. He spun around and hit the floor like something out of fiction. Emeryk watched her leave in that run, bruised and limping.
“Fuck you, Tatts!” He shouted at her. Despite his concern and consequent relief, it was still hard not to be livid at the mess she had just dumped on him.
Tatts bent her arm behind her and gave him a rude gesture with one hand, before disappearing into the sunlight of the now bright back-alley. He chuckled with facetious surprise.
Good for her. Emeryk thought to himself. And the Rift save those bloody Droma.
Inside was a filthy, run down bar. Stains littered the floor and table and many of the seats and chairs were broken. Her eyes passed over a rowdy group sitting at the back while a bartender eagerly paced past her out the door. That brought a smile to her tired face. Their shift was over, which meant her favorite was now on-duty. She beamed at Emeryk; An unusually short-for-his-sex, but still burly wyr man who stood behind the bar during the mornings. The ginger-haired woman approached him; and the least rickety, unoccupied stool.
“Aaa… Morning Tatts.” Emeryk greeted her.
‘Tatts’ was the nickname the regulars had taken to affectionately calling her, on account of the tattoos that were all over her body. This was especially remarkable, because all of her tattoos were writing. Words wrapped themselves around her arms and legs, and psalms embroidered her back and chest. A couple of lines also crept across her cheeks, refraining only from passing over the most distinguished parts of her face.
“G’day, Emeryk.” She greeted back with a wholesomeness only mornings can bring.
Now seated, she placed the hat she was carrying on the table. Now uncrumpled, its point sprang up and brim laid flat on the wood in all its witchy glory. Tatts produced a shiny, metal medallion and slid it over the bar table towards Emeryk. She was overpaying by about three times with that particular coin, but she knew he would assume she was paying for her next drinks too.
“Aha! Look at you! Today's the day, then?” Emeryk said as he procured a pint from the back-bar and began pouring.
“Ye, just gotta fuckin’ top up ‘fore I’m off.” Tatts replied. “Haven’ quit yet.”
“Y’were close last time. I’ll give ya that.” He passed Tatts her drink.
She took a large gulp, then lowered her glass with a sigh of relief. Her tremors were starting to stop. He stared at the hat she put down on the table.
“Already got your hat, have ya? Looks a bit… worn.” He commented.
“Ye, it’s me ma’s. Wanted me to wear it… Fo’sum fuckin’ reason.” She snickered sarcastically and took another sip.
“How about that. Mind putting it on? I wanna see how it looks.” He asked proudly.
“Eh…” She murmured nervously, “‘Tis meant for when I win.”
He blinked vacantly. “...Win?”
“Win all ‘eir tests or whatever.”
“You mean graduate.” He corrected, raising an eyebrow.
“Somethin’ o’ rather… ‘Spose.”
“C’mon, y’can take it off after. I just wanna see.”
“Fuckin’ fine, fuck. Ye fuckin’ nag. Ma woulda fuckin’ smacked ya just for that.” She bantered playfully.
Then, Tatts held the hat by each side of its large brim and placed it delicately over her own hair, twisting it to make sure it was fitting snugly on her messy bedhead.
“Now that’s precious.” The bartender smiled. “Look at that. One of us is getting outta this shithole, that much is certain.”
“Ay, but stop fuckin’ lookin’ at me like that, ye’ll make me fuckin’ blush.” She lowered her chin so that the hat covered her face, because she already was.
-
Tatts remembered that they had talked for a while after that, but she did not remember what about or for how long. She tiredly raised her head from the bar table, finding that her fingers already had a medallion between them, and that she was tapping it repeatedly against the table. She sensed Emeryk’s presence beside her.
“You’ve been well behaved, lately.” Spoke the tender idly.
She raised her head in a stupor, revealing her face from under that large brim. It was flushed pink, contrasting the freckles around her nose.
“...Ay.” She sagged again. “Cuz if I ain’t, I get fuckin’ banned.”
“Yeah, well.” Continued the tender, “I ‘spose places don’t like their customers beating each other to a bloody pulp, don’t they?”
She became rigid to take a swig of her pint, then lowered her head and adjusted her hat with the hand that had the medallion, shimmying it from the brim.
“Fuckin’...” She was about to remark, then refrained. “Fuckin’ ‘spose, ay.”
He stood in silence for some time, leaning against the bar table next to her. She did not speak either, though a cheer of bumbling voices attacked her drunken ears from elsewhere.
“Tatts.” He called sternly.
“...What...” She replied harshly and absent-mindedly.
The bartender had dealt with many sassy drunkards and wasn’t dissuaded. “‘Thought y’were going to attend Falbreck.”
Tatts looked up at the ceiling. She let out a frustrated sigh. She was irritated that this had come up. Irritated at how she had chosen to spend the morning. She supposed that it was about time he reminded her she was only here to 'top up'.
“C’mon, Tatts. Your mother taught you, and for what?” He egged her on. “So ya could waste the opportunity for a fucking drink…?”
She kept tapping the medallion on the table while she withstood his incessant encouragement. Her thoughts were clouded and hard to read, like a lazy fog rolling over a dark country road.
“I wanna see one of us rats get into a place like that.” He slapped her platonically on the shoulder. “You seemed to agree earlier this morning. You’re not changing ya mind, are ya?”
Tatts stopped tapping with the coin and lowered her chin back down to a sulk. “Fuck Falbreck.”
Emeryk was stunned, staring at her intensely. Disappointment seethed and broiled in the air around the two. They had been talking about it for the past month. It seemed like everything in the dejected woman’s life had been leading up to today, and she just cussed it off. In those two words, the morning had gone from cheery and exciting to disgraceful.
“Just ‘membered I’m out.” She rolled the medallion across the table towards him, then elaborated in an embarrassed whisper. “Besides, it’s full o’ fuckin’... bigheads.”
He sighed, then stood up fully to fill her pint again. “I want you outta here by midday, hear?!”
She got lower down to the table, failing to hide her shame.
“I wanna see you quit again! Just come back so you’re not going cold turkey, alright? …Shit’s dangerous.” It was unfortunate, for Emeryk knew more certainly than anyone else if she was still drinking. She had been banned from every other establishment in the area.
The rowdy group had stood up and was now passing behind Tatts, laughing and joking. They each left medallions on the table in front of Emeryk as they barged through. As a man from the group stomped by, he spat on Tatts’ hat. She winced at the sound and dragged her fresh pint closer to her face. Emeryk could see a subtle tinge of anger touch her face.
“What a fuckin’ disgrace, ay?! Wearin’ that fuckin’ hat. Who gave ‘er the right?! Hahahaha!” The man mocked, tapping her on the shoulder roughly. That time, it was not so much of a friendly thing.
Her nose wrinkled. She did not mind the words. The spit, however… That was her mother’s hat. Tatts wasn’t one for staunch traditionalism. Though, even still, her mother was a delicate subject. She was seeing red. She had been caught in a vulnerable moment with a low swing. Maybe she did not even want to wear the hat. Maybe she just wore it for a friend and forgot to take it off.
“Tatts!” Emeryk shouted with command. He could tell her consciousness was leaving her body.
She glanced at him. She couldn’t direct her thoughts, she could only think about her complicated family, and the meaning of the tattoos she had put all over her body. The truth was she came here to forget all that.
Thinking that he had got her attention, Emeryk looked her dead in the eyes and spoke with a lethal strictness that he hoped would freeze her down to the bones. “Stay. Seated.”
He didn’t mean to boss her. He knew what she needed right now: Direction. He knew she would not take it personally. She knew he wanted what was best for her. He simply did not want to see her relapse again. These brutes were addicted to her attention. The sting of her bite and the fierceness of her strike. They wanted to stir her up and he knew this. Yet, Emeryk could not turn them away in good faith, and he knew she needed to put up with the sting.
She began breathing. Good. She took a swig. Less good, but acceptable at the moment. Then, it happened:
“Hah! Yea, listen to ‘em ye obedient bitch-”
Emeryk immediately stood up to tell them to leave. Now, he could turn them away. Unfortunately, before a word could leave his mouth, Tatts was standing too. She kicked the barstool she had been sitting on behind her, and her arm had shifted in the fraction of a second from lifting her glass to drink from it to launching it directly at a random, unlucky group member who had not read the tension of the situation yet. Alarmed shouts and cries filled the bar and the sound of glass shattering, followed by a gasp and a colorful series of words. What followed was chaos. Emeryk slowly raised pinched fingers to his nose.
“...Fucking shit.” His curse sounded more like a factual expression of the moment than anything else.
Emeryk was not going to interfere. He doubted he could, even despite his weight compared to her. All he could do was hope no one outside would notice. Surprisingly to first-timers, but not to regulars, the group was cheering and whistling at Tatts in her fit of rage, even while harsh crunches; cracks; and girlish screams were emanating from their drinking buddies’ bodies. She was not untouchable, of course, though the amount of punches she was taking from men and women alike was truly a spectacle to behold.
“Tatts! Tatts! Tatts! Tatts!”
“Let's tango, lass!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!”
“FUCKIN’ SPIT ON ME MA’S FUCKIN’ HAT!! AND ‘ERE I WAS THINKIN’ I WOULDN’ BE SEEIN’ ANY FUCKIN’ BIGHEADS!!!” She screamed in an ear-splitting war-cry.
A woman was thrown yelling against the bar table. Blood splattered on it as her nose made contact with the edge. Emeryk flinched, but was taken only slightly off guard.
“Keep your fucking fluids in you, for shits sake!” He squawked helplessly, his voice cracking with indignation.
No one was hearing him. Especially not Tatts. “MAYBE I WANNA WEAR THE FUCKIN’ HAT!! MAYBE I’M THAT FUCKIN’ SURE O’ MYSELF, AYYYYY?!! YE FUCKIN’ RATSSSSSSS!!!”
Unexpectedly, they had managed to catch her in a hold. Though, they did need three people just to keep her down. Someone began punching her in the stomach. The air left her lungs, before she rather impressively flung the person holding down her left arm towards the floor and began punching and kicking in retaliation, with meaty thuds.
“...fuck it!!” She gasped in pain as loud as her winded little lungs could muster, “I’LL FUCKIN’ PASS 'ERY FUCKIN’ TEST THEY THROW AT ME!!”
It took Emeryk several seconds to realize she was talking about Falbreck. His appallment at the incident left him in a deep frown, yet inside, a small relief washed over him. At least he would not be mopping this up for nothing. Tatts began sprinting exhaustedly to the exit. She jumped as she passed another brute and gifted him a rather solid right hook to the face. He spun around and hit the floor like something out of fiction. Emeryk watched her leave in that run, bruised and limping.
“Fuck you, Tatts!” He shouted at her. Despite his concern and consequent relief, it was still hard not to be livid at the mess she had just dumped on him.
Tatts bent her arm behind her and gave him a rude gesture with one hand, before disappearing into the sunlight of the now bright back-alley. He chuckled with facetious surprise.
Good for her. Emeryk thought to himself. And the Rift save those bloody Droma.