Down On Skid Row [Closed-ish]

[sulahnan]

WHO: Athessa, Byerly
WHAT: Repairing friendship maybe??
WHEN: a few days after By's backfired apology (pre-Ghislain)
WHERE: Lowtown
NOTES: Drinking and drug use and probably violence, threadjacking negotiable

Lowtown taverns haven't been Athessa's regular haunts for a long while, probably because she tacitly conceded them to Derrica in favor of drifting along the battlements in clouds of smoke and visiting Hightown apartments where the food is arguably much better. But she's here now, leaning against the bar and trying valiantly to get the barkeep's attention. This isn't the one who passes her information for Riftwatch, just an unaffiliated one who has something against elves, or women, or short-arses, or all of the above.

So while she waits, she produces a blunt and lights it on someone else's match just after they light their own cigarette. It's surprising enough for the man that he stares, confused, until the flame burns down to his fingers and he drops the match and stomps it out when it hits the floor.

"Cheers," Athessa says, though he's already ignoring her again, just like the barkeep. She turns and leans her elbows on the bar, scanning the crowd for anyone pretty, handsome, pretty handsome, or pretty interesting.

Comments

[sulahnan]

"How else would I have afforded that case of wine?"

[bouchonne]

"By having money the normal way, I suppose."

[sulahnan]

She shrugs, sort of. More of a shift of the lay of his arm.

"Or maybe I won a pineapple in a game of poker and traded that for the wine and I'm actually very poor. Who can say?"

[bouchonne]

"That seems more likely."

He looks at her a moment, then. And then he says, "Most people are a bit curious, why a well-bred fellow like me knows these tricks."

[sulahnan]

"Do you want me to be most people?" She asks, looking sidelong at him with a wry twist to her brow. Knowing what she knows about him, and not knowing fuck-all about being well-bred, it doesn't seem like any big mystery why he'd know such tricks.

[bouchonne]

His shrug in return is casual. But he replies, "I think that everyone would like other people to show an interest in them, no?"

[sulahnan]

Sometimes, is the dismissive thing she could say, as someone who regularly finds herself wanting to disappear. So instead, she asks:

"What was your favorite game to play when you were younger?"

[bouchonne]

A cocked eyebrow. What a way to go about it.

"Is that what interests you most about me? My history of gamesmanship?"

[sulahnan]

"No," simply put. "I wanna know what games you liked, and why you liked them. Whether it was about winning, or just having fun, or if you only learned to play because someone important liked the game, and you wanted to catch their eye."

[bouchonne]

Well, since she seems sincere enough... "When I was old enough to care about seeming sophisticated, Wicked Grace. Which I played very badly. The lying always came naturally to me, but numbers have always given me quite a lot of trouble, ever since I was a child. Before that point, my favorite was having someone give me a line of music and seeing if I could replicate it perfectly, which is a game without a name, but which pompous children have been playing for centuries, methinks."

[sulahnan]

"On the violin?" She is sincere, which feels more vulnerable than sharing the pain from her own past. It's hard to explain why. Perhaps it's along the same lines as why that shared nightmare of Bastien betraying her to the enemy cut so deeply. "Has it always been that, or do you play other instruments, too?"

[bouchonne]

A shrug. "Pianoforte a bit. Cello a bit, though not so well as Bastien. The oboe, though there I am but mediocre. The melodeon. I sing tolerably well. Violin is my best, though."

A shrug. "Music is one of my few real talents."

[sulahnan]

"It's a good talent to have. Music has a way of grabbing hold of people and never letting go."

[bouchonne]

With a laugh - "Well, I don't know about that. But it's versatile. If you have a fiddle, you can play for your supper. And if you've hocked that, you can sing for it. Maker have mercy on the days you're sick, of course, when your voice is rough and hoarse - but otherwise, it keeps you alive."

[sulahnan]

She hmms. "I never thought about singing to get by."

[bouchonne]

"Really? Not even once? Buskers aren't so uncommon."

[sulahnan]

"Really," She shrugs. It's not that buskers were uncommon. "It was easier to pickpocket once I understood that I needed money for things, because it didn't take talking to anyone."

[bouchonne]

"I wouldn't have taken you for someone shy," he says.

[sulahnan]

"I dunno if shy is the word for it, but I didn't speak to anyone in Kirkwall for at least a few months after wandering in from the woods. That didn't last long, of course, but. Well. It was scary, being in a completely new place where I didn't know anybody and everyone already had reason to dislike me," She says it calmly, matter-of-factly, the way someone talks about an old injury that only acts up during a storm.

[bouchonne]

"If only you'd come across me," he says with mock-guilelessness. "I like everyone."

[sulahnan]

A soft huff of breath. Anyway.

"Maybe I'll sing for you sometime, if you provide the music."

[bouchonne]

"Would I enjoy the experience?" he asks, still with that exquisite innocence.

[sulahnan]

"I would hope so," she says, "Otherwise I might start to doubt Bastien's praises."

[bouchonne]

A shrug. "He is always too kind."

[sulahnan]

This is straying dangerously close to hurt feelings territory, but she forges on, valiantly. "Guess you'll just have to judge for yourself, then."