All I wanted was a quiet drink. Was that too much to ask? People all over the world go out for drinks when they feel sad or happy, or just cause sometimes. Sports players and business professionals go and get drinks after a hard day at work. For crying out loud, even Norse warriors get to have a drink after they are killed heroically in battle. But do I get to come back from storming the Marchioness’ labyrinthine stronghold after defeating one of the Erkling’s Daughters to a nice quiet table at Atwaters with a pint of Guinness to emotionally recharge?
No, apparently not.
Just so you can feel my pain, I will give a brief synopsis of the nights events.
The evening had been, for lack of a better word, hectic. After coming out of the Summer Princess’ chambers, Conor’s evidently very attractive chauffeur drove me around so that I might rejoin the group, with some stops along the way. I discovered that Auntie Em, had been kidnapped by someone wanting Staple dead. Fae, as it turned out, robbed me of my lone blood relative left to me that I am aware of and who has been a tad stand-off-ish since I moved out on my own and left her in an empty house alone again. I was fairly distraught by this, but not so distraught as to give in to my feelings of loss and anger (ie The Dark Side) and subsequently just do as I was told. I have never been good at that anyway, just ask my music teachers. I did go to Staple, in his hideaway in Oak Lawn, I think. I asked whatshername not to tell me, so I didn’t psych myself out and ruin future potential conversations. I got there just fine, had a relatively mature conversation with Staple, and discovered that my group had already met with him and discussed helping arrangments. Eventually he mentioned that storming the Laybrinth would probably be easier if I had a copy of the Tabula Smaragdina. I didn’t, but Claret did.
After some discussion with Claret (ie I owe her big time) and some light traveling, Claret showed Staple the Tablet, and asked her about Black Cyprus trees. Claret evidently took the hint from Staple’s exploitation of a loophole in his fae-compelled tight-lips problem. I could tell because I’ve lived with a Malk for six plus years and forbade him from discussing certain topics only to have him exploit some turn of phrase or ‘innocuous’ conversational topic to get around my order. I could also tell because Claret said something in a language that sounded like English and French’s dirty bastard love child, obviously a swear of some sort. I decided not to press it and ask later when my Aunt’s fanny wasn’t on the line.
After a brief trip to the Ft. Wolfe Posse’s club house in an attempt to solicit their aid, I arrived to find it deserted but with the threshold intact, unlike my Auntie Em’s. I managed to hear some voice messages that had been left asking for help by their families due to a large number of kidnappings. So either the Posse had rushed in to save the day themselves, or they had been blackmailed into being ‘guard dogs’ for the Erkling’s Daughter. So there was that.
I caught up to the rest of the scooby squad later, and we set up a plan for ‘storming the castle’. (“Think they’ll make it?” “It’d take a miracle.” “Bye-Bye!!”) The main Scooby’s would be going thru the Labyrinth, while Santiago Martinez (who I asked to help on account of Belle Starr and Barbara also being kidnapped), Nate (who owes Conor and me something resembling a favor), Cody (who is very helpful and politely curious for ex-law enforcement), and a few others that I can’t recollect at the moment guarded a ‘backdoor’ from the Marchioness’ main stronghold to the NeverNever, just in case they tried to bolt at the last minute. I think Jamie is getting really tired of that, bad guys slipping away due to something he/we could have prevented if we had thought about it. Also, Midori (who refused to not help due to Hiyashi Keisuke‘s death) and Oreamnos (as part of Summer’s assistance in this matter and cause he’s nice) had kept the Never-Never main door to the aforementioned labyrinthine stronghold open, so as to keep myself and the rest from experiencing some of the more unpleasant aspects of what I like to call “Never-Never temporal f***you physics”. They had to do this while backstage at Trees downtown, so I guess that could be awkward. Or awesome considering they were in a climate controlled building the whole time, which will make more sense in a moment.
I went home after the meeting with about three hours to prep for the upcoming assault. By the way, to any of you big nasties out there reading over my shoulder (and well done there cause it’s in braille), never ever give competent spell-casters time to prep. We may be glass howitzers in a fight, but by golly we pack some mean punch with those howitzers. Claret, Midori, Hobbes, and I managed to put augment and successfully cast-prep one of my earlier ‘anti-werewolf’ plans (I used to give Hobbes one once a year on the anniversary of our meeting, so there are about six of them) in about two hours. I created a sleep spell for Werewolves tied to a little ukulele that Pallas had gotten me for my birthday a few years ago as a gag gift and that I had learned to play to spite him. Since I’m ‘sound-only’, I had to dip into some of the Talent that lies in my Voice. As I’ve mentioned before, my Momma always told me I was thrice-blessed, the thrice being my voice that let me bend certain ‘issues’ with my sonomancy, particularly where music is concerned and so long as I can sing. I sang a song of sleep, a magically potent lullaby, into the ukulele that would activate after the first strum of the strings. I picked Hushabye Mountain, one of my favorites from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but using the modified Sophie Madeleine cover rather than the original Dick Van Dyke. Don’t get me wrong, DVD is the man in my opinion, but I needed something in my register for this particular usage.
We stormed the labyrinth just like we planned, with some Black Cyprus Tree-only invisibility potions that Claret made for everybody. Next we had to traverse some extremely hot obstacles, which sucked, some stoney obstacles that tried to kill us, which also sucked, and then some Goblins, Wargs, and Wyverns (“Oh My!”) that really tried to kill us. Then when we actually got to the stronghold, Ramon and about a dozen werewolves were there, all primal and snarling, not at all the highly regimented force I had come to know and semi-loathe. I strummed the strings of my ukulele, singing with the spell as each of the werewolves gave a soft woof and slumped to sleep. Ramon was the last to drop, slowly trying to get to me as he drowsily kept his feet. Finally as the last note of the song fell, so did he, not six inches from me. I took his necklace at that point, in equal parts one-up-manship and preventive measures. Inside the stronghold itself, Hell-T and a bunch of his cronnies really really tried to kill us, but since the Marchioness was tied up in that room at the time (cause of torture I’m assuming, no one will give me a definitive description so I’m just going off the smell of blood and sweat and other assorted scents I can’t identify), and as she was released about a millisecond into that fight, they didn’t really really try to kill us for very long.
The Marchioness and the Erkling’s Daughter ‘fought’ at that point, I guess, again no one will give me definitives besides that the Marchioness definitively won. But everybody made it out in one piece, as well as all the families that had been kidnapped, and especially my Auntie Em. The Marchioness says no one kidnapped will remember the events as anything more that a bad dream, although I don’t relish the conversations coming about how someone broke into and trashed my Aunt’s house without waking her. Maybe I’ll just tell her her new meds have extra sleepy side effects and she took a nap instead of getting mugged. Regardless, that is future Erica’s problem (thank you HIMYM).
Santiago and Matthew had done some wonders on my battle injuries, especially the ginarmous gash that had come from a goblin axe earlier in the night. It had been difficult to hold the ukulele with that thing plus all the blood, but keeping man-eating wolves at bay can definitely help one ignore pain. I had my arm in a sling and a new dress on by the time I had arrived at the bar, and Claret was on her way with some ‘special pain meds’ which I didn’t want to know about but was convinced that they wouldn’t be as good as three pints of the dark stuff which I had previously decided was my reward for surviving and achieving victory to boot.
Present Erica’s problem walked into Atwaters around Midnight just as I polished off that third pint of Guinness. I knew that my night had stopped being quiet and that the trouble was coming my way by the loud crashing of the main door being slammed open and a familiar gruff a$$hole-ish voice bellowed my name simultaneously. It was Ramon, and he was pissed. I’d like to say that I kept my calm and ‘stared’ him down (as much as a drunk blind girl could anyway), but that’s not really how that happened. Instead I fell out of my chair, banged my head on the underside of the table as I crawled beneath it, and started swearing a lot. Three set of footsteps hurried up, tossed over the table, and Ramon, almost in a slathering fury, barked at me to “Give it Back!” Luisa (definitely Luisa based on past sparring matches and she and Ramon’s height difference) grabbed me like a sack of flour and hoisted me to my feet.
I’m sure my drunkness and battle-hangover are fully responsible for what happened next, and also for the my not being able to remember what happened next. I’m sure it was only a second or three, by all accounts. In the end, my back was on the floor, Luisa was lying on my chest facing the ceiling with my legs wrapped around her waist and my ‘singing’ boot knife at her throat. And for extra excitement, her Glock lay severed at the handle on the ground, Molly Malone held a genuine gul-ram tommy gun on Ramon (she told me afterwards), and Ramon and the other guy had their hands up. Luisa kept struggling in my grasp and would have totally pwned me in two second had I not quietly whispered in her ear the first six words to Hushabye Mountain, letting my voice lightly touch the magic that had hit her like a truck three or four hours ago. I couldn’t put her to sleep from here, I’d have to recast the whole thing, but she didn’t know that. That little brush just acted as a reminder of her own earlier pwnage, and she stopped struggling of her own accord. That or Molly told her to stop, I have a hard time remembering, remember? (side note: stop typing the word ‘remember’. Also, I might still be a little drunk. What? I had to update the journal while what I could and couldn’t remember was fresh, right?)
Ramon and the other guy apologized to Molly, and said that they would take it (and me) outside. Molly called BS and told them to behave or she would call the cops and/or the Warden to come deal with them, provided she didn’t ‘plug them full of holes’ if they so much as twitched. I like Molly. She is such a doll. I let go of Luisa at that point. Well, I moved the knife away from her throat and she quickly wiggled out of my sh!tty judo lock that had only worked because I had surprised her by cutting her gun in half. I stayed laying on the floor, relaxing from not having the weight of a whole other person on top of me. (Side note: Claret will now not stop giggling after I re-read that last sentence out loud. And now Hobbes tells me she is giggling and pointing at me. B!tch.)
Molly got Ramon and the other guy to reset the table and chairs, as well as purchase a round of drinks for the bar as an ‘apology’ and recompense for ‘letting this one go’. Molly does not screw around, it seems. I told Molly, as I slowly crawled up the nearby chair, to put the round on my tab. Molly pays my Atwaters gigs in beer, and since I’m a light weight and can’t drink nearly as fast or as often as I play, I have some black in that account. Molly agreed, instructing the three troublemakers to have a seat, putting away her gun after they complied.
The Bar, from door slam to gun stow, had been as silent as a tomb. It was a Friday night an hour before last call in Accorded Neutral Grounds, so it had been hopping with plenty of spooky-side customers. A couple of whispers crept thru the silence as I sluggishly put myself back into my seat while still trying to keep my dress from exposing anymore of my dignity (OK, either Claret needs to keep her trap shut or I need to stop re-reading things out load). Molly, in a firm, loud and definitely bartender voice, announced, “Free Round on the Blind Girl! Sally up and name your poison!” There was a moment of silence, then a cheer from the back as a half dozen guys stood in unison to approach the bar. Ramon’s mystery guy muttered something and made to stand up, just as another good dozen others started heading in. Molly shouted for him to keep his seat and that she’d give them whatever she ‘damn well pleased’ and to ‘shut their yaps about it if they knew what was good for ’em’.
I really like Molly.
The crowd bellied up the bar, and Molly did that voodoo that she do while the Ramon, Luisa, and mystery guy stared at me while I, ya know, didn’t. Molly and the other tender took care of the bar in short order, climaxing in Molly setting down and annoucing another pint of the dark stuff for me and three Shirley Temples for the other three. Virgin Shirley Temples. More than a couple people in the bar laughed at that, and I think someone tried to get a slow cap going. Or maybe that was me.
After the bar returned to it’s natural boisterous state, Ramon, still seething but keeping his perverbial sh!t together, asked me, curtly and politely this time, to give back what I had taken from him. I took a sip of the dark, which was fantastic as usual, and told him that he was just in time for our regular ‘lessons’ and that we should begin. I promptly pulled out his necklace from my meager décolletage and tossed it across the table towards his voice. He grabbed it like a junkie grabs for a long lost needle, prompting a gently surprised ‘Ramon, mi querida’ from Luisa and a disgusted sigh from Mystery guy. I asked who the new guy was, and got a ‘none of your business’ snarl from Luisa as she helped Ramon with the necklace.
So naturally I introduced myself, hold out my hand as I rose a little from the table. The mystery guy reciprocated, shaking my hand and introducing himself as Lord Rodrigo de Palencia Y Campos. His hand was a little clammy and thin, skeletal almost. Either he was fantastic on the piano or he hadn’t eaten in a while. The lack of appropriate callouses on his hands with their general overall softness told me he was well-bred. As our hands shook I got a now familiar shiver of Winter cold up my arm, and my arm broke out in goose flesh. “Of Winter, I presume?” I asked, and he replied “Indeed.” I chuckled at that point, contemplating on whether Ramon had groveled to the Winter Duchess to spare his and his pack’s lives for acting with the Erkling’s Daughter and saddled with a Winter Noble as ‘keeper’, or if he had tried to deal on account of his coercion from the defeated Daughter, citing me and his precious stolen necklace as stipulation and collateral for some later favors. I don’t usually chuckle at that sort of thing, but it had been a long day.
I told Lord Rodrigo that it was a pleasure to meet him, turned to Ramon and told him in no uncertain terms that he was a bigger dumbass than Carlos. Ramon and Luisa bristled audibly, which is saying something, and Ramon told me to say that to him outside and see what happens. I told him no thanks, starting to get more than a little worried about what would happen when I did eventually go outside and the current potential location of the rest of Ramon’s crew. I explained that the dumba$$ery I was referring to had to do with whatever possible arrangement he was now stuck with in regards to the Winter Court that I wanted to know nothing about, no offense mystery guy. Ramon informed me that it was indeed none of my business in no uncertain terms, and that he had acted in the best interest of his own, and what else he could have done. I told him I didn’t know cause I wasn’t there for that conversation, thankfully, but that in the end, He and his owed me and mine for their lives.
Ramon and Luisa didn’t bristle as they had earlier, but they were still uncomfortablely shifting in their chairs not drinking their Shirley Temples. I told him that this, then, would be our lesson for today. Luisa asked what I was talking about, and not-so-surprisingly enough Lord Rodrigo answered, informing her of the typical favors and life debts owed by one who saves your life. I thanked the gentleman, and added that while the fae where bound to this as concretely and unilaterally by this as we were by Newton’s First Law, us mortals could, should we choose, ignore such debts and even ignore that they were debts to begin with. Ramon informed me that he did not in fact owe me anything, and that the only reason he didn’t let Carlos rip my throat out was due to the return of his necklace. I re-informed Ramon, shaking my half-empty Guinness at him, that I could have just as easily killed him and his with my spell, or put them into such a deep sleep that they wouldn’t have awoken until some big bad Winter nasty had tried to take a bite out of him, or that I simply could have let Jamie, a Warden, Conor, Lord Dallas of Summer, Elena, The Dallas Doubletap (I tried to whisper this one), and Matthew, Captain Holy Hand Lasers, deal with them as I hung back and watched. And that both of them knew full well what each of The Scooby Squad was capable of from our previous epic escapades.
Ramon and Luisa snorted, and told me to watch my back as they stood up. I thanked them, bowing a little in my chair in a vague japanese fashion (I was drunk), told Ramon that not only could I do just that, and doubly thanked him for allowing me to take a good long hard look at his precious Necklace. Ramon froze at that point. I know because he abruptly stopped scuffing his feet on the hardwood floor while Luisa asked what was the matter, presumably due to the look on Ramon’s face. I took a small spoon out of my pocket and tossed it on the table, a small pure silver spoon that I had borrowed from Auntie Em. I let Ramon know that I could send a certain “other shoe” virally to every interested party in the greater DFW area should I choose, and that my friends had already been informed and would also deliver these “other shoes” to interested parties should something happen to me. Ramon, without another word, walked out the door of Atwaters, with Luisa and Lord Rodrigo in tow.
At that point I started shaking a little, huddling into my chair. I don’t deal well with confrontation. Well, let me rephrase that. I do really well with confrontation when I’m in the act of confronting, but I get a kind of emotional post-combat shakes afterwards as my brain catches up to my proverbial and evidently great big brass balls and asks the simple question, “WTF?!” So yeah, I verbally sparred with two of the most lethal individuals I know and only vaguely came out on top, letting the guy (Ramon) who was holding back the other guy who wants to kill me (Carlos) that I knew I how to kill him and had told others as well.
Yeah. That went well.
I’m still flying, so I’m calling this a win. I called Conor for a ride home, though.
Speaking of flying, Claret arrived not long with those ‘special meds’ and by golly they worked. Molly cut me off after I thanked her for the millionth time and asked what they’re expressions looked like. Conor gave me and Claret a lift home, even though Claret totally drove here on her own, the little hussy. Then I took my journal-only braille typewriter into the kitchen, made some coffee and started journaling. So that’s what I’m doing now, YAY META!! Ok I have to stop now that I yelled yay meta as I typed it and woke up Claret. Now she’s taking away my coffee.
Hussy B!tch.
No, apparently not.
Just so you can feel my pain, I will give a brief synopsis of the nights events.
The evening had been, for lack of a better word, hectic. After coming out of the Summer Princess’ chambers, Conor’s evidently very attractive chauffeur drove me around so that I might rejoin the group, with some stops along the way. I discovered that Auntie Em, had been kidnapped by someone wanting Staple dead. Fae, as it turned out, robbed me of my lone blood relative left to me that I am aware of and who has been a tad stand-off-ish since I moved out on my own and left her in an empty house alone again. I was fairly distraught by this, but not so distraught as to give in to my feelings of loss and anger (ie The Dark Side) and subsequently just do as I was told. I have never been good at that anyway, just ask my music teachers. I did go to Staple, in his hideaway in Oak Lawn, I think. I asked whatshername not to tell me, so I didn’t psych myself out and ruin future potential conversations. I got there just fine, had a relatively mature conversation with Staple, and discovered that my group had already met with him and discussed helping arrangments. Eventually he mentioned that storming the Laybrinth would probably be easier if I had a copy of the Tabula Smaragdina. I didn’t, but Claret did.
After some discussion with Claret (ie I owe her big time) and some light traveling, Claret showed Staple the Tablet, and asked her about Black Cyprus trees. Claret evidently took the hint from Staple’s exploitation of a loophole in his fae-compelled tight-lips problem. I could tell because I’ve lived with a Malk for six plus years and forbade him from discussing certain topics only to have him exploit some turn of phrase or ‘innocuous’ conversational topic to get around my order. I could also tell because Claret said something in a language that sounded like English and French’s dirty bastard love child, obviously a swear of some sort. I decided not to press it and ask later when my Aunt’s fanny wasn’t on the line.
After a brief trip to the Ft. Wolfe Posse’s club house in an attempt to solicit their aid, I arrived to find it deserted but with the threshold intact, unlike my Auntie Em’s. I managed to hear some voice messages that had been left asking for help by their families due to a large number of kidnappings. So either the Posse had rushed in to save the day themselves, or they had been blackmailed into being ‘guard dogs’ for the Erkling’s Daughter. So there was that.
I caught up to the rest of the scooby squad later, and we set up a plan for ‘storming the castle’. (“Think they’ll make it?” “It’d take a miracle.” “Bye-Bye!!”) The main Scooby’s would be going thru the Labyrinth, while Santiago Martinez (who I asked to help on account of Belle Starr and Barbara also being kidnapped), Nate (who owes Conor and me something resembling a favor), Cody (who is very helpful and politely curious for ex-law enforcement), and a few others that I can’t recollect at the moment guarded a ‘backdoor’ from the Marchioness’ main stronghold to the NeverNever, just in case they tried to bolt at the last minute. I think Jamie is getting really tired of that, bad guys slipping away due to something he/we could have prevented if we had thought about it. Also, Midori (who refused to not help due to Hiyashi Keisuke‘s death) and Oreamnos (as part of Summer’s assistance in this matter and cause he’s nice) had kept the Never-Never main door to the aforementioned labyrinthine stronghold open, so as to keep myself and the rest from experiencing some of the more unpleasant aspects of what I like to call “Never-Never temporal f***you physics”. They had to do this while backstage at Trees downtown, so I guess that could be awkward. Or awesome considering they were in a climate controlled building the whole time, which will make more sense in a moment.
I went home after the meeting with about three hours to prep for the upcoming assault. By the way, to any of you big nasties out there reading over my shoulder (and well done there cause it’s in braille), never ever give competent spell-casters time to prep. We may be glass howitzers in a fight, but by golly we pack some mean punch with those howitzers. Claret, Midori, Hobbes, and I managed to put augment and successfully cast-prep one of my earlier ‘anti-werewolf’ plans (I used to give Hobbes one once a year on the anniversary of our meeting, so there are about six of them) in about two hours. I created a sleep spell for Werewolves tied to a little ukulele that Pallas had gotten me for my birthday a few years ago as a gag gift and that I had learned to play to spite him. Since I’m ‘sound-only’, I had to dip into some of the Talent that lies in my Voice. As I’ve mentioned before, my Momma always told me I was thrice-blessed, the thrice being my voice that let me bend certain ‘issues’ with my sonomancy, particularly where music is concerned and so long as I can sing. I sang a song of sleep, a magically potent lullaby, into the ukulele that would activate after the first strum of the strings. I picked Hushabye Mountain, one of my favorites from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but using the modified Sophie Madeleine cover rather than the original Dick Van Dyke. Don’t get me wrong, DVD is the man in my opinion, but I needed something in my register for this particular usage.
We stormed the labyrinth just like we planned, with some Black Cyprus Tree-only invisibility potions that Claret made for everybody. Next we had to traverse some extremely hot obstacles, which sucked, some stoney obstacles that tried to kill us, which also sucked, and then some Goblins, Wargs, and Wyverns (“Oh My!”) that really tried to kill us. Then when we actually got to the stronghold, Ramon and about a dozen werewolves were there, all primal and snarling, not at all the highly regimented force I had come to know and semi-loathe. I strummed the strings of my ukulele, singing with the spell as each of the werewolves gave a soft woof and slumped to sleep. Ramon was the last to drop, slowly trying to get to me as he drowsily kept his feet. Finally as the last note of the song fell, so did he, not six inches from me. I took his necklace at that point, in equal parts one-up-manship and preventive measures. Inside the stronghold itself, Hell-T and a bunch of his cronnies really really tried to kill us, but since the Marchioness was tied up in that room at the time (cause of torture I’m assuming, no one will give me a definitive description so I’m just going off the smell of blood and sweat and other assorted scents I can’t identify), and as she was released about a millisecond into that fight, they didn’t really really try to kill us for very long.
The Marchioness and the Erkling’s Daughter ‘fought’ at that point, I guess, again no one will give me definitives besides that the Marchioness definitively won. But everybody made it out in one piece, as well as all the families that had been kidnapped, and especially my Auntie Em. The Marchioness says no one kidnapped will remember the events as anything more that a bad dream, although I don’t relish the conversations coming about how someone broke into and trashed my Aunt’s house without waking her. Maybe I’ll just tell her her new meds have extra sleepy side effects and she took a nap instead of getting mugged. Regardless, that is future Erica’s problem (thank you HIMYM).
Santiago and Matthew had done some wonders on my battle injuries, especially the ginarmous gash that had come from a goblin axe earlier in the night. It had been difficult to hold the ukulele with that thing plus all the blood, but keeping man-eating wolves at bay can definitely help one ignore pain. I had my arm in a sling and a new dress on by the time I had arrived at the bar, and Claret was on her way with some ‘special pain meds’ which I didn’t want to know about but was convinced that they wouldn’t be as good as three pints of the dark stuff which I had previously decided was my reward for surviving and achieving victory to boot.
Present Erica’s problem walked into Atwaters around Midnight just as I polished off that third pint of Guinness. I knew that my night had stopped being quiet and that the trouble was coming my way by the loud crashing of the main door being slammed open and a familiar gruff a$$hole-ish voice bellowed my name simultaneously. It was Ramon, and he was pissed. I’d like to say that I kept my calm and ‘stared’ him down (as much as a drunk blind girl could anyway), but that’s not really how that happened. Instead I fell out of my chair, banged my head on the underside of the table as I crawled beneath it, and started swearing a lot. Three set of footsteps hurried up, tossed over the table, and Ramon, almost in a slathering fury, barked at me to “Give it Back!” Luisa (definitely Luisa based on past sparring matches and she and Ramon’s height difference) grabbed me like a sack of flour and hoisted me to my feet.
I’m sure my drunkness and battle-hangover are fully responsible for what happened next, and also for the my not being able to remember what happened next. I’m sure it was only a second or three, by all accounts. In the end, my back was on the floor, Luisa was lying on my chest facing the ceiling with my legs wrapped around her waist and my ‘singing’ boot knife at her throat. And for extra excitement, her Glock lay severed at the handle on the ground, Molly Malone held a genuine gul-ram tommy gun on Ramon (she told me afterwards), and Ramon and the other guy had their hands up. Luisa kept struggling in my grasp and would have totally pwned me in two second had I not quietly whispered in her ear the first six words to Hushabye Mountain, letting my voice lightly touch the magic that had hit her like a truck three or four hours ago. I couldn’t put her to sleep from here, I’d have to recast the whole thing, but she didn’t know that. That little brush just acted as a reminder of her own earlier pwnage, and she stopped struggling of her own accord. That or Molly told her to stop, I have a hard time remembering, remember? (side note: stop typing the word ‘remember’. Also, I might still be a little drunk. What? I had to update the journal while what I could and couldn’t remember was fresh, right?)
Ramon and the other guy apologized to Molly, and said that they would take it (and me) outside. Molly called BS and told them to behave or she would call the cops and/or the Warden to come deal with them, provided she didn’t ‘plug them full of holes’ if they so much as twitched. I like Molly. She is such a doll. I let go of Luisa at that point. Well, I moved the knife away from her throat and she quickly wiggled out of my sh!tty judo lock that had only worked because I had surprised her by cutting her gun in half. I stayed laying on the floor, relaxing from not having the weight of a whole other person on top of me. (Side note: Claret will now not stop giggling after I re-read that last sentence out loud. And now Hobbes tells me she is giggling and pointing at me. B!tch.)
Molly got Ramon and the other guy to reset the table and chairs, as well as purchase a round of drinks for the bar as an ‘apology’ and recompense for ‘letting this one go’. Molly does not screw around, it seems. I told Molly, as I slowly crawled up the nearby chair, to put the round on my tab. Molly pays my Atwaters gigs in beer, and since I’m a light weight and can’t drink nearly as fast or as often as I play, I have some black in that account. Molly agreed, instructing the three troublemakers to have a seat, putting away her gun after they complied.
The Bar, from door slam to gun stow, had been as silent as a tomb. It was a Friday night an hour before last call in Accorded Neutral Grounds, so it had been hopping with plenty of spooky-side customers. A couple of whispers crept thru the silence as I sluggishly put myself back into my seat while still trying to keep my dress from exposing anymore of my dignity (OK, either Claret needs to keep her trap shut or I need to stop re-reading things out load). Molly, in a firm, loud and definitely bartender voice, announced, “Free Round on the Blind Girl! Sally up and name your poison!” There was a moment of silence, then a cheer from the back as a half dozen guys stood in unison to approach the bar. Ramon’s mystery guy muttered something and made to stand up, just as another good dozen others started heading in. Molly shouted for him to keep his seat and that she’d give them whatever she ‘damn well pleased’ and to ‘shut their yaps about it if they knew what was good for ’em’.
I really like Molly.
The crowd bellied up the bar, and Molly did that voodoo that she do while the Ramon, Luisa, and mystery guy stared at me while I, ya know, didn’t. Molly and the other tender took care of the bar in short order, climaxing in Molly setting down and annoucing another pint of the dark stuff for me and three Shirley Temples for the other three. Virgin Shirley Temples. More than a couple people in the bar laughed at that, and I think someone tried to get a slow cap going. Or maybe that was me.
After the bar returned to it’s natural boisterous state, Ramon, still seething but keeping his perverbial sh!t together, asked me, curtly and politely this time, to give back what I had taken from him. I took a sip of the dark, which was fantastic as usual, and told him that he was just in time for our regular ‘lessons’ and that we should begin. I promptly pulled out his necklace from my meager décolletage and tossed it across the table towards his voice. He grabbed it like a junkie grabs for a long lost needle, prompting a gently surprised ‘Ramon, mi querida’ from Luisa and a disgusted sigh from Mystery guy. I asked who the new guy was, and got a ‘none of your business’ snarl from Luisa as she helped Ramon with the necklace.
So naturally I introduced myself, hold out my hand as I rose a little from the table. The mystery guy reciprocated, shaking my hand and introducing himself as Lord Rodrigo de Palencia Y Campos. His hand was a little clammy and thin, skeletal almost. Either he was fantastic on the piano or he hadn’t eaten in a while. The lack of appropriate callouses on his hands with their general overall softness told me he was well-bred. As our hands shook I got a now familiar shiver of Winter cold up my arm, and my arm broke out in goose flesh. “Of Winter, I presume?” I asked, and he replied “Indeed.” I chuckled at that point, contemplating on whether Ramon had groveled to the Winter Duchess to spare his and his pack’s lives for acting with the Erkling’s Daughter and saddled with a Winter Noble as ‘keeper’, or if he had tried to deal on account of his coercion from the defeated Daughter, citing me and his precious stolen necklace as stipulation and collateral for some later favors. I don’t usually chuckle at that sort of thing, but it had been a long day.
I told Lord Rodrigo that it was a pleasure to meet him, turned to Ramon and told him in no uncertain terms that he was a bigger dumbass than Carlos. Ramon and Luisa bristled audibly, which is saying something, and Ramon told me to say that to him outside and see what happens. I told him no thanks, starting to get more than a little worried about what would happen when I did eventually go outside and the current potential location of the rest of Ramon’s crew. I explained that the dumba$$ery I was referring to had to do with whatever possible arrangement he was now stuck with in regards to the Winter Court that I wanted to know nothing about, no offense mystery guy. Ramon informed me that it was indeed none of my business in no uncertain terms, and that he had acted in the best interest of his own, and what else he could have done. I told him I didn’t know cause I wasn’t there for that conversation, thankfully, but that in the end, He and his owed me and mine for their lives.
Ramon and Luisa didn’t bristle as they had earlier, but they were still uncomfortablely shifting in their chairs not drinking their Shirley Temples. I told him that this, then, would be our lesson for today. Luisa asked what I was talking about, and not-so-surprisingly enough Lord Rodrigo answered, informing her of the typical favors and life debts owed by one who saves your life. I thanked the gentleman, and added that while the fae where bound to this as concretely and unilaterally by this as we were by Newton’s First Law, us mortals could, should we choose, ignore such debts and even ignore that they were debts to begin with. Ramon informed me that he did not in fact owe me anything, and that the only reason he didn’t let Carlos rip my throat out was due to the return of his necklace. I re-informed Ramon, shaking my half-empty Guinness at him, that I could have just as easily killed him and his with my spell, or put them into such a deep sleep that they wouldn’t have awoken until some big bad Winter nasty had tried to take a bite out of him, or that I simply could have let Jamie, a Warden, Conor, Lord Dallas of Summer, Elena, The Dallas Doubletap (I tried to whisper this one), and Matthew, Captain Holy Hand Lasers, deal with them as I hung back and watched. And that both of them knew full well what each of The Scooby Squad was capable of from our previous epic escapades.
Ramon and Luisa snorted, and told me to watch my back as they stood up. I thanked them, bowing a little in my chair in a vague japanese fashion (I was drunk), told Ramon that not only could I do just that, and doubly thanked him for allowing me to take a good long hard look at his precious Necklace. Ramon froze at that point. I know because he abruptly stopped scuffing his feet on the hardwood floor while Luisa asked what was the matter, presumably due to the look on Ramon’s face. I took a small spoon out of my pocket and tossed it on the table, a small pure silver spoon that I had borrowed from Auntie Em. I let Ramon know that I could send a certain “other shoe” virally to every interested party in the greater DFW area should I choose, and that my friends had already been informed and would also deliver these “other shoes” to interested parties should something happen to me. Ramon, without another word, walked out the door of Atwaters, with Luisa and Lord Rodrigo in tow.
At that point I started shaking a little, huddling into my chair. I don’t deal well with confrontation. Well, let me rephrase that. I do really well with confrontation when I’m in the act of confronting, but I get a kind of emotional post-combat shakes afterwards as my brain catches up to my proverbial and evidently great big brass balls and asks the simple question, “WTF?!” So yeah, I verbally sparred with two of the most lethal individuals I know and only vaguely came out on top, letting the guy (Ramon) who was holding back the other guy who wants to kill me (Carlos) that I knew I how to kill him and had told others as well.
Yeah. That went well.
I’m still flying, so I’m calling this a win. I called Conor for a ride home, though.
Speaking of flying, Claret arrived not long with those ‘special meds’ and by golly they worked. Molly cut me off after I thanked her for the millionth time and asked what they’re expressions looked like. Conor gave me and Claret a lift home, even though Claret totally drove here on her own, the little hussy. Then I took my journal-only braille typewriter into the kitchen, made some coffee and started journaling. So that’s what I’m doing now, YAY META!! Ok I have to stop now that I yelled yay meta as I typed it and woke up Claret. Now she’s taking away my coffee.
Hussy B!tch.
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