PM to join Them's fightin' words! (Glen)

[Ealisaid]

40 Winter, 514 Scrub, scrub, scrub… Ealisaid paused, feeling the strain in her shoulders, the film of grimy water now chill on her chapped hands. Carefully, she straightened, easing her back muscles into an upright position, as she sat back on her heels. The room was hardly warm enough for her to break a sweat, despite the hard labor of trying to bring some semblance of clean to the filthy floor. The fact that she was attempting to do so while the tavern was open, and men, and the occasional woman, were constantly coming and going, tracking more snowy, muddy muck in, was more than discouraging. Typically, her master, Sneed, couldn’t give a rat’s behind about the level of grime that coated almost every surface of the place. But Ealisaid had made a grave mistake one day recently, when she muttered some disdainful comment under her breath about the vermin she had found cozily inhabiting one of the nastier corners of the kitchen area. Of course, her reward for being a smart mouth – even though she hadn’t really meant for the old miser to hear her – was that she’d been set to the literally Herculean task of cleaning the place up. Unfortunately, there were no rivers Alpheus and Peneus to reroute to accomplish the task, and so the poor woman had spent many a long, long hour on her knees at the backbreaking task. It was a good thing that the place was tiny and cramped. Still, given the freezing weather of the season, and the fact that she had to do all her other duties as well, it had taken the better part of a week to finally reach this far corner. Another square foot or so, and she’d have hit every inch of floorboard and counter top and cupboard. Of course, that only meant she’d no doubt have to start at the beginning and repeat the drudgery all over again. The young woman looked down at her almost numb hands in dismay. The skin was cracked and fissured, chill blains forming about her nail beds. They ached and at night she wept from the pain of her abused skin. If things went on in this vein, she’d be a bent old hag by the time she reached her thirtieth year. Some days – most days – she spent quite a bit of time pondering the words of the big, blue Akalak who had assisted her a few weeks back, when she’d stumbled over those frozen corpses. He’d been contemptuous of her state, and wondering of anyone who would continue on a slave, instead of simply killing their master and running off. This was Sunberth after all. But Ealisaid was well aware that Sneed had his connections, and she was afraid of what would happen to her if she took his life and fled – and then was caught by one of his associates. Her life now was miserable, but she was no fool. Things could easily be far, far worse…. With a sigh, she went back to her labor and within the next quarter chime, she was done, for now. She rose from her aching knees and lifted the bucket of cold slop water, taking it out back and dumping it quickly out the door. She was careful to throw it to the side at least, so it would freeze to ice there and not directly where she needed to step. Coming back inside, she poured water from the kettle that remained constantly warming over the meager fire in the hearth, first rinsing the bucket, and then another bit went into a basin for her to wash her hands in. She let them rest there a minute, letting the heat soak into her cramped fingers. There was no soap, of course. Water would have to do. Knowing she would not be allowed to tarry over even such a very small luxury, she carefully dried her hands on her skirt. There was a bowl of goose grease used for various domestic tasks which sat on a shelf on the back wall, and she dipped her fingers in this and rubbed the oily substance into her chafed skin. With no idea how she looked, for there was no mirror in this wretched dive, she ran her hands over her hair to smooth it back, tucking it behind her ears. Even the scarf that she once used to bind the unruly mass of dark brown waves and ringlets into obedience was lost to her. Sneed allowed her at least the use of a comb, and she did her best to keep her wild mane under control, but what she really needed was a pair of scissors for the length now reached to her waist. At least the thickness was some protection against the bitter cold of this frost filled season. The tavern, such as it was, was no more than a single room, divided by a bar counter, such that about two thirds of it was for the patrons, with a few beaten and battered tables and stools crammed in. On the other side of the plain, scarred – but now clean – counter, was the hearth, upon which watery stews and misty soups were always simmering, in a great, ancient cauldron that hung suspended from a hook. Various barrels and casks were piled up too, along with a single table for slicing off chunks of the usually stale, coarse brown bread which went with whatever liquid viand was being served up that day. Bowls and cups hewn of rough wood were stacked there too, and that was now Ealisaid’s world. Even at night, her “bed” was a blanket drawn as close to the embers as possible, short of setting it and herself on fire. Dark green eyes surveyed the crowd that she was to serve, as Sneed stepped away to join s friend on the other side of the counter. It was becoming more crowded as the day slipped away into evening. Despite the snow and cold, men wanted drink, and if they wanted cheap drink, they could always get it here. There was no entertainment here, ever – despite that Sneed’s acquisition was something of an accomplished dancer. He was too stupid to use her skill to line his purse further. Her fancy dress and various accessories were all lost to her when she’d been attacked and taken by the slavers, just as her meager savings had been. She had nothing, except the knowledge and talent that now knew no light. She was a drudge that cooked and cleaned and served bad ale to hard, mean, dangerous men. Still, the flame of life was far from extinguished within her, and her eyes carried a warmth of spirit that had yet to be frozen by complete loss of hope. Standing behind the bar counter – a simple slab of pine, stained and despoiled with age and smoke and ill use – she turned those eyes to the next customer and asked, “Pint, or half-pint?” There was no need to inquire to which type of drink she was referring. Ale was all they served.

[Glen Fiddich]

A retort readied itself on the tip of his tongue, but he thought the better of it. Under other circumstances, he might have protested that he was neither a child nor a woman, and that no self-respecting man would drink a mere half-pint; but such things usually led to insults based upon the length and flow of his hair, and Glen was not in the mood to silence such idiotic tongues, not without actually getting some ale inside him first.

"Pint," he replied simply, with a nod of acknowledgement to the wench behind the bar, before his attention turned to scrutinising his surroundings. The slumped and drunken thugs and labourers that littered the tavern's tables made the wretched patrons of the Drunken Fish seem downright savoury. His place of employment was a haven of revelry, debauchery and inebriated antics, filled with sailors and dockworkers who were interested in three simple pleasures: booze, breasts, and brawling. The first two the Fish provided intentionally - the tavern stacked quite the brothel atop it's upper floors - and the last was an unfortunate side effect. A good-natured tussle between sailors, working out their frustration seemed to occur a few times a day, especially when weather like this made it tricky to take their disagreements outside; but a few bruises, breaks, and a nasty headache was usually the worst that anyone wound up with. Glen's role was a boot in the backside and a hurl out the door more often than not. Altercations upstairs were less frequent, but also less pleasant: every now and again, some idiot with a knife would try his luck for a free ride; some premature whelp would blame his own inadequacies on some ploy by the woman to cheat him out of his time. Those men received not an ounce of patience or restraint; Glen put them on the ground, and they stayed there for a good long while, until they mustered the ability to crawl away into the gutter where their breed of refuse belonged.

It was wore upon him, though; that was the unexpected curse of his employment. For a man such as Glen, the prospect of working in a tavern - the kind of venue with which he had become so familiar over the years - had seemed perfect. What self-respecting mercenary would turn down the opportunity to spend every day surrounded by beer and brawls? What alcohol-addled perceptions failed to notice however was that the surly men behind the bar were not so because they were simply born without humour, but because their every waking moment was spent struggling to tolerate the inebriated and their insufferable noise, their intolerable antics, and their irritatingly persistent presence. Taverns were a wonderful place for the drunk, but they were hell on earth for the unfortunate sober.

That was why Glen was here, rather than there. No matter how much alcohol he filled himself with, he doubted he could last another few minutes in that place without some sort of brutal murder taking place. Worse, he badly needed a drink, and the conundrum had soured his mood intensely.

He had trudged through the cold in search of the dingiest, most out of the way tavern that he could find; somewhere his familiar patrons wouldn't trouble him, and where he could fill himself with ale in relative peace. His selection had ultimately been made by the chill rather than being his own decision; he meandered until his frayed nerves could not stand to do so any longer, and here was where he found himself.

He regarded the other patrons, but had no interest in lowering himself to the level of conversing with such men. Instead he loitered behind the bar; perhaps in the barmaid he would find some sort of kindred spirit.

"If we were to lose our tempers," he muttered gruffly, gazing out across the tavern, "And slaughter each and every one of these degenerates, do you think anyone would actually mind?"

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[Ealisaid]

The reply came as succinctly as the inquiry, and Ealisaid turned to retrieve a cup of the required size. She poured a stream of dark amber expertly into the vessel, and set it down on the counter, in front of the long haired man whose eyes moved to take in his surroundings. It was a wise, and probably automatic, reaction when choosing to imbibe potentially mind altering drink in a place frequented by the criminally inclined. His gaze returning to her, he posed his question, causing one corner of the slave’s lips to lift slightly in a partial smile – though it held little warmth and no mirth. “That might depend on how you define ‘mind,’” she replied evenly, pressing her palms onto the time slicked wood of the bar, and making her own sweeping survey of the inhabitants of the tavern. “I doubt there would be any who’d grieve. But I’d say there might be more than a few who’d take it as an insult of some kind. Most of these have some sort of affiliation or other. Even cockroaches tend to travel in packs.” She left it at that, and turned to regard the opening door, wondering if it would be Sneed returning from whatever shifty errand he’d taken himself off on. It wasn’t him, and Ealisaid could not be said to have regretted his continued absence. He rarely lifted a finger, when she was available to wait on the customers. So his presence typically equated to no more than having to hear him bleat incessantly at her for being slow or being slack or that she hadn’t yet done the half dozen tasks he had just set her in as many minutes. It was either that, or listening to his donkey’s bray of a laugh as he told the same worn out dirty jokes and lewd tales over and over. It was a wonder he didn’t bore himself to death. But the newest comer to the dive was a face she didn’t recognize, though it was unremarkable enough. Her attention flitted back briefly to the man she’d just served – long enough to request payment for the ale he’d just purchased. Forget that most important part of the transaction and Sneed would be taking it out of her skin later. Payment secured, she looked again as the newcomer sidled up to stand beside the long haired one. “We only serve ale here,” she informed quickly, just to set matters straight right away. The man regarded her with eyes agog, one being slightly askew and looking off over her left shoulder somewhat, and she saw that his hands were trembling. With a sigh and a hardened look passing over her features – deeming him as already having delved into his cups, or perhaps being one so pickled in alcohol that he suffered tremors when not yet into them – she waited for his order. The words he blurted out were not at all any she might have expected to hear, however, and first her lips parted with uncertainty and then her eyes narrowed with skepticism. “The-the L-lodestar! It’s a-glowin’! Shinin’ red – like the eyes of a demon!” Spittle formed at the corner of his pale lips as he spoke in a cracked voice. He raised a gnarled finger on high, as he turned to the common room occupants, who at this point, had either not heard his opening gambit, or had chosen to ignore it. “Yay, verily – beware!” he said, raising his voice several notches, his eyes wild. “Tis a sign! The ghosts are a’walkin’! Tis an omen! The evil that man doeth – we shall all be made to pay! Glowin’ red, I tell ye!” A few heads were now turning, most with a smirk of disdain on their faces, as they heard the ridiculously agitated tone of the man’s querulous voice. Dismissive, they quickly returned to their own conversations, while the man stood there gaping, like a fish. Ealisaid, unsure still about whether the fellow was in need of drink, or had already consumed too much of it, regarded him watchfully. There was no bouncer in the place – no muscle to dispel anyone who got too rowdy, other than Sneed himself, or her own thin but corded arm. The man seemed harmless, but agitators were never welcome. If he would calm down, she’d be content to serve him up a cup or two. If not… Of her own accord, Ealisaid poured out a pint and shoved it toward the oddball, reaching to touch him by the sleeve of his ragged coat. “Here. Drink this. I’m sure it’ll all come right.” A meaningless platitude if ever there was one, but she could hardly hope to address what seemed to lay at the core of his disturbed manner. Ealisaid knew of the old lighthouse, of course, and the rumors of ghosts and such like. But she’d paid them little heed. What were ghosts when you had to fight and scrap for your very existence every day of your life? She had no time for such nonsense. She plucked at his sleeve, to get his attention, and in the next instant he turned back to the bar so abruptly, and so unheedful, that his hand hit the cup abroadsides and sent it flying, to splash its contents all over a short, squat, dark youth that was sat to that side of him. “A sign, I say!” he began all over again, raising his hand into the air once more as if he had failed entirely to note the dousing of the other patron, which he was responsible for. “We must mend…” That was as far as he got before the younger man – having jumped up sputtering and swearing - grabbed him roughly by the arm, spinning him about. “The petch you goin’ on about, ya old bugger?” he exclaimed, his coat front now soaked in ale, the lap of his trousers as well. Whether through natural ability, or perhaps somehow reinforced by his nervous agitation, the older man latched onto the younger one by his coat with a good show of strength, twisting his fingers in the wet cloth, still seemingly unmindful of what he had done. “The spirits walk again! You must repent! You must!” A spray of fine spit flew through the air from grizzled lips to a face black as thunder with anger. “Y’er off yer rocker, you are!” the younger man yelled, cocking back a fist and then sending it forward with all he had.

[Glen Fiddich]

Glen stood in silence, watching as the situation slowly began to unfold. It unsettled him how comfortable and natural it felt to be standing in a tavern rather than sitting - surely he had not worked at the Drunken Fish long enough for that to happen, had he? - but not as much as the words that tumbled from the ragged old fool's mouth.

Ghosts. Why did it have to be ghosts?

Sunberth was rife with superstition, and Glen was wise enough to pay heed to such things. True, many amounted to nothing, but there was always the prospect, always the danger that there might be more to the local folk tales than mere rumour. It didn't matter that he had only experienced them proven true in a mere handful of instances; that was a mere handful too many. If it cost him a few copper to heed an old woman's warning and line his doors and windows with salt for the night, then so be it; better to awake less wealthy the following morning than run the risk of not awaking at all.

Fortunately, while not the wisest of men, Glen had made enough mistakes in his life to have learned from a few of them. That was why the axe that hung from his belt was no ordinary axe. Vera was her name, and she was a thing of beauty: forged by an Isurian craftsman from cold iron, a metal that a friendly shaman had assured him would cause the same harm to ghosts that it would to a mortal man. His friends - sceptics all - had insisted that it was a scam, of course; they had mocked him for wasting his coin on such a thing. The joke would be on them though, he had no doubt; while he slept protected and peaceful aboard his ship, surrounded on all sides by a sea of salt water, they would be devoured by restless souls in their sleep, and they would regret their short-sightedness from the next life.

Glen was content to let things unfold as they would. The barmaid seemed to have things under control at first, but the old doomsayer's warnings apparently would not be silenced. It was not until the ale-drenched younger man had leapt to his feet spoiling for a fight that Glen had felt compelled to act.

He wished that he could have simply reached out and plucked the young man's punch from the air with speed and style and grace, but Glen Fiddich was a man who punched things, and hit them with axes; none of those three words were ones commonly ascribed to him. Instead he swung his arm and swept the punch aside, his arm crashing down upon the younger man's, pulling the fist and the force of the punch into Glen's body, and pinning it there firmly.

"Don't be that person, friend," he warned, his voice calm but firm. "Don't be the drunk who loses his temper and beats a harmless old man."

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