| Hit Me With Your Best Shot |
| Summary: | There's a bar fight in the Highfield inn. |
| Date: | 17 August 2012 |
| Related Logs: | None |
| Players: |
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| The Ash and Oak Inn |
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| It's an inn. |
| August 17, 289 |
Sela has a job. It isn't a very permanent job, but it is a nice jumping off point for her actual line of work — investigator of odd jobs. She twirls about the main room of the inn with a tray of ale mugs, placing them neatly before patrons of various states of drunkness. One of the more aggressive drunks is graceless enough to pinch her bum on her way about, and she casts him a dark scowl. "You don't tip enough for that kinda action, goodman." And she pirouettes off back to the bar to pick up her next order. It is perhaps not what is expected from a woman who has been recognized as a noble bastard, to be working as a bar maid — but she has more lifetime experience as a Shale than a Hill.
Darek has a job too. Two of them, actually. He's enjoying his second right now, sawing away at his fiddle. He even manages to move through the crowd himself, and as the drummer still back up on stage takes over the song for a moment, he leans over and gives the handsy, pinching drunk a relatively light whack in the back of the head with the strings of his bow. "Sorry." The smirking apology is anything but sincere, but in another moment, his bow is on the strings of his fiddle again, and the singing strings rise again as he steps away again. He's probably going to get in trouble for that later if not sooner, but that's not going to stop him from playing and, well following after Sela now and then.
"Watch it!" The disgruntled patron growls after Darek, his dirty green eyes narrowing after the fiddle-playing squire. He hastily swallows down his refreshed ale, glowering at Darek as he follows behind the swishing skirts of the pretty little thief. She stacks the next few plates of food onto her tray. She is singing along with the song, even if the boy and his drummer does not indulge in lyrics. As Darek nears her, she turns with a bright smile illuminating her freckled face as she hefts up her tray to begin back out into the sea of patrons. Still, the offended man continues to watch the pair hawkishly.
Darek stops a few paces later on, offering a dimpled smile and a wink to a pretty young woman eating with an older woman who might be her mother. Another moment and he's stepping off again, only to stop another couple of paces on as the singing young waitress turns about. The squire keeps the fiddle music dancing, and he bows from his waist, that grin pushing dimples into his cheeks as he does. The song whirls to a close, and Darek hops up onto an empty chair and offers up a flourishing bow to the room as a whole, even as he notes sotto voce to the thiefette, "You're not half bad at that, Blue-eyes. So long as you don't try 'The Trout and the Minnow.'"
Sela blushes brightly like a tomato at his compliment, the red easily coloring over the splatter of freckles. "Thank you, Squire," she says brightly as she continues to sweep into the crowds to drop off the plates. She is smiling with a kind of infatuated warmth.
There is applause, even some of those younger girls are perhaps cheering with a bit of excitement. One of the girls is sweeping through the crowd toward Darek, looking to be perhaps a year or so older than Sela herself. She is a cute kind of sort, all golden hair and perkiness. "Hi," she says breathlessly, a brief by flirty greeting.
The thief is busy dropping off the plate of meat and potatoes in front of the previously offensive drunk. She is just about to head back off toward the counter when he grabs her a bit roughly, pulling her in to whisper something rank against her hair. A disgusted look colors the bastard's features, and she snarls a bit. "As if." And she starts to tug away from the disgusting drunk.
Darek tosses back his hair as people start cheering, slinging his fiddle over his black leather jacket so that it hangs down at his left hip, where his sword might have been if he were wearing it. He glances down at the blonde, inconspicuously flicking his eyes down toward the neckline of her bodice, "Well hello there." Reaching up to scruff back his hair, his eyes happen to fall on the grasped thief, and his dark eyes flash, "Hold that thought, Blondie." He holds up one finger, then hops down from his chair, walking over toward the drunk, slipping around a table to come up from behind him. Up at the stage, the drummer starts playing again, singing a country harvest song as he does. Darek, on the other hand, reaches out to tap the drunk on the shoulder, "Hey asshole. Take your stinking paws off her."
"Oh, well…" The blondie says a bit dejectedly as she looks after where the boy departs. She looks sullen, crossing her arms along her rather buxom chest, and she seems to be taking his words to heart as she does indeed wait to see if the squire comes back. But, she might be sorely disappointed as when Darek taps on the drunk's shoulder and makes his demands, the reeking drunk turns abruptly on the squire. He does what is asked at least as he lets Sela go, but what ends up happening next does not suit either party particularly well. The drunk throws a punch, aiming to crack Darek's jaw aside — was it mentioned that said drunk has rather large paws?
Darek had drawn his right fist back, ready to hit the man when he turned around, but he wasn't expecting quite that fast of reaction from the drunk. His head snaps over to the right, and he stumbles back, his left hand rising up to touch his jawline, "What the fuck?" Unslinging his fiddle, he hands both fiddle and bow to blondie, "Hold those. Don't let 'em get broke." The words are a little thick, and he stretches his jaw as he steps back toward the drunk, his fists coming up in front of him, "You really didn't want to do that."
The thief has vanished with the kind of shadowy quality of mythical faceless ones. Darek probably hasn't noticed yet with a rather hefty drunk now shaking out his hand a bit to relax it back into a fist. He looks a little unsteady on his feet, though that does not seem all that encouraging as he is still a rather larger target compared to the skinny, young teenage boy. "Cm'on, little mutt, hit you once, can hit you again," he slurs as he lumbers forward again to aim another slug to his pretty jaw.
The rest of the inn seems to be dividing over the reaction to this little brawl — some are actually starting to cheer, while others try their best to ignore. Over toward the bar counter, a skinny, straw-haired man that was flirting with a rather saggy pair of tits looks up as he recognizes his friend's voice over the din. "Oi!" He barks as he starts in toward the brawling pair.
Darek ducks under the second swing, shaking his head, "You're fucking drunk." And he pistons his right hand in towards the man's stomach, sliding away to his left just in case the hit jostles something loose. "Sloppy, stupid, slow drunk." The drummer does his best to keep attention away from the fighting, banging on his drums all the harder and raising his voice. Darek swings his left hand up, trying to put another fist into the man's stomach, "Hey Blue-eyes, you're gonna watch my back, right?" The straw-haired man touches his belt-knife as he tries to bull his way through the crowd, "Oi! I said Oi! Wot, you okay?"
The drunk takes the punch to his gut with a whoop of air and grunt of pain. He tries to grab the squire by his jacket, hoping to heave the boy up off his feet with that kind of strength that only a fat man can possess. It is enough to cause the crowd to gasp with surprise. One of the kitchen boys is being spurred out the door to find a guard or something to help cork this fight before it gets out of hand while he starts to slap his hand soundly against the bar. "Cut that shit out, boys!" He bellows.
As the straw-haired friend bulls his way through the crowds, Sela appears from the shadows with an abrupt dematerialization. She barrels into him, forcing her entire weight against the man to send him off balance.
Darek yelps a little as his jacket is grabbed and he's lifted up over the big, fat, drunk man. His hands to the drunkard's wrists, and then he draws back one foot and snaps it forward, aiming to nail the big guy right in the nuts with the top of his boot. The squire grunts as he swings his foot, calling out to the angry innkeep, "He started it!"
The straw-haired leerer probably would love to be that close to a pretty little woman in other circumstances, but these are not other circumstances. No, these are the circumstances when he's falling on his face, swinging an elbow for the person who slammed into him, "Fuckin' fuck of a fuck! Get the fuckin' fuck offa' me!"
Sela takes the elbow in the face, and she stumbles back off the straw-haired man as her nose starts to bleed profusely. She touches her face gingerly. "You wanker," she says with a scowl before she grabs the man by the shoulders and thrusts her knee up sharply toward the man's crotch. "Stay down!" She snarls, tossing her curls out of her face as she darts a glance toward Darek. She starts to sweep off toward her lover boy, but only if the straw-man stays down.
It appears that Sela is not the only one with this idea, as Darek's foot lands solidly between those thick legs. He bellows and squeaks as he tumbles back as he grabs for his crotch. Eyes rolling back into his head, it looks as though he is also about to vomit.
Outside, there is the sound of shouting, and within moments, two Charlton-colored guards step into the chaotic inn.
Darek drops down to his feet as he's released, falling backward onto his ass. He rolls sideways, onto one knee and then up to a crouch, looking at the fat man to make sure that he's staying down. "That's right." His voice raises up, "That's what you fucking get when you punch me." His thumbs jerk toward his chest, a cocky snarl painting his face.
Straw-hair's last syllable raises up to a squeak as Sela's knee hits home, "Yer a girl?" he squeaks incredulously. "What the fuuuuuuuuck…" that's more a plea than anything else, as he holds both hands over his groin.
"Don't it suck," Sela snaps back with a snort. She sweeps past the blondie, taking the fiddle and bow from her. "These don't belong to you," she says roughly, making the girl flash the thief a glare. Luckily, tonight, the bar fight won't turn into a cat fight. She is heading off toward Darek, grabbing the boy by his collar. "Darek, we need to go," she says sternly as the guards start to fan out, patrons pointing the armed Charlton men toward the pair. The floored bear just hugs his crotch even as a bit of bile colors his lips.
Stray-hair probably would have some snappy, horrible, dirty response, but right now, he's just whining wordlessly and cradling his broken block'n'tackle. Darek reaches up to touch his jaw, half-turning his head toward the thief behind him, although he keeps his eyes on the crowd around, "Go? Why do we gotta go? We didn't do anything wrong?" And there he tosses his head back, despite the wince that the eye-clearing gesture inspires. He looks around behind him, finally looking at Sela. The sight of blood on her nose causes him to scowl, "Who the fuck?" And he gives drunk and smelly a covert kick in the balls, "Fucker."
When those pale blue eyes lift to his, they are wide and anxious. "Please, Darek," Sela says, a hint of panic in her voice. "We need to go." The little theif clutches him tightly around his wrist, trying to draw him back into the chaos even as the guards start to descend around them. Perhaps it's the brand, perhaps it's the fact that they are authority figures — guards with weapons that may not ask questions first. She is already withdrawing, with or without him.
Darek looks up to the guards, then sighs heavily, "Fuck. I'm going to get in so much fucking trouble for this…" And then he nods, turning around and ducking a little bit under the height of the crowd. With every step, he's muttering, "shit, shit, shit…" under his breath. Once they get around behind one of the walls, he stops a moment, twisting his hand around to grab her wrist and turn her around to face him. He pulls up the front of his shirt to dab at the blood running from her nose, "You know we were in the right here, right? And by runnin', we're gonna get in more trouble, right?"
Anxiety still plays its way across her face, and she flinches away just a touch as he dabs at her nose. Sela shudders a bit, though she glances warily toward the guards as they continue to try to calm the chaos, coming upon straw-head and fatty as they start to stand. "Darek," her voice hitches up, breaking under the weight of her fear. "No one believes a thief," she whispers as she still looks to be on the brink of retreating. Her right hand twists up behind her back, and despite being gloved, she is desperately protective of that little hand.
Darek keeps his back to the wall, his eyes on Sela's face rather than the guards imposing order on the chaos, "Hey." His free hand comes up to capture her jawline so that he can get the rest of the blood on his shirt, "Maybe not… but they believe a fuckin' squire, now don't they?" Once the blood trickling from her nose is stilled, he drops the front of his shirt to hang palm-up in front of her, "You can still duck out if you want, but I gotta go back and talk to them."
Sela looks at a loss. Her brilliant eyes flitter about the room, even as he finishes cleaning her blood away. If she is suppose to look like a confident witness, or victim as it were, she looks perhaps a bit more like a flighty bird newly caged. She gnaws away at her lip for a moment before she reaches out with trembling fingers to take his hand. She does not say anything, looking abruptly meek and demured — two features that have never been described as Sela. She nods weakly, letting him lead her to wherever he wishes.
Darek blinks in surprise as she actually takes his hand, opening his mouth as if to say something, and then just closing it. He can be taught. The squire squeezes her hand, then leans down to press a kiss to her brow, "You wanna keep hold'a that fiddle, or you want me to carry it?" On the other side of the wall, two guards are starting to get fatty and skinny up to their feet, although one is cleaning off freshly blown chunks off his boot and cursing rather violently. Another pair of guards are moving slowly through the crowd in the direction the second pair of brawlers departed in.
"Oh," Sela says blankly as she hands the fiddle back to him. "You should carry it," she says almost dejectedly, perhaps assuming the guards will think she stole it. She does not let go of his hand as she turns toward the guards, and she drops her gaze to her feet with a bit of uncertainty. "You should explain," she mutters to the squire as she notes the bits of blood on her dress. She releases a whooshing sigh at their sight.
Darek takes the fiddle and slings it over his shoulder by the red sash. He takes the bow next, and then leads Sela out to meet the guards. They actually are in the right (mostly), and so with Darek keeping Sela's right hand clasped in his left, he gives a basic description of the events — only a little embellished, and only needing a very little input from the little thief at his side. He is, after all, a squire, the squire to the guards' boss, in fact, and the drunkards are laborers.
