( closed ) YOU DON’T STAND A CHANCE,

[strangel]

WHO: Helena & D’Artagnan
WHAT: rifters being problems
WHEN: early Bloomingtide
WHERE: shady bar in Lowtown
NOTES: violence and Helena

Cosima drinks wine. Sarah drinks whiskey. Helena isn’t sure what she drinks yet. She wonders, sometimes, if all the different sisters have all different favourites. If their tongues work as differently as their brains and their souls seem to. She remembers sometimes seeing posters and advertisements with wine pictured in them, how it always seemed very classy and very refined.

Helena has a jug of wine in front of her that she’s trying to drink, trying to think how people drink wine. Very classy, she thinks. She tries to sit up straighter, a little too much, so her back arches and she rests both hands on the bar. Fancy ladies have good posture, like Cosima. A gulp of wine, and the cup is set back down, and she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Hey.”

She ignores the voice, as it repeats more insistently, and then there’s a hand grabbing her shoulder. “Hey.”

Helena turns to face the source, eyebrow raised.

“I’m trying to talk to you. One of those rifters, aren’t you?”

She looks at him blankly, and doesn’t reply. A shrug, and she turns away. From there, it escalates predictably poorly. He grabs her shoulder, pulls her around forcefully, and tips her cup of wine over her head. She rolls her shoulders, very calm, curls her fingers about the back of his neck, and smashes his face into the bar.

And then a couple of his friends join in; Helena escalates.

Comments

[mousquetaire]

D'Artagnan lets out a breath of relief. Still, his sword stays in his hand until the door swings shut behind them. Only when they're out does he fully drop his guard, and slide the sword back into its scabbard.

Then he turns to Helena, aware of how angry she was. Rightfully angry, though also frighteningly so. He'd seen enough in there to know she has skill. And decent improvisation, too. That bottle might as well have been a blade in her hands.

"Are you all right?" Regardless of her answer, his eyes are checking her over. "Though I think you probably hurt them worse than they hurt either of us."