A Play
Tenebrae - Thursday, February 19, 2015, 9:42 PM
-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-<* A07: Fernwood Pub *>--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-
The common room of the Fernwood Pub dominates the inn, spacious and airy because of the high, vaulted ceiling. Ornately carved beams of dark, polished wood form a lattice overhead, supporting the arched roof two storeys above the floor. To the right of the double-door entry is a spiral staircase, winding upwards to a balcony that rings and overlooks the main area. Large windows at this level grant an excellent view of the river to the west and colorful market stalls to the north and east. An air of coziness is salvaged by keeping the pub dimly lit; parchment-shrouded mana lanterns hang at intervals from the base of the balcony, nestled amongst lush, magically propagated ivy and ferns that grow over this false demi-ceiling and the struts that support it.
The bar is sleek and simple, comprised of meticulously polished black lacquer. Tables are set under the darker niches formed by the balcony floor as well as on the balcony itself. A few are deliberately sized to accommodate halflings and gnomes, but the majority are meant for human-sized individuals. A large common table is on the main floor, set before a semi-circular stage situated against the western wall. Beside it, with pipes mounted upon the wall and running up past the balcony and almost to the ceiling, is a refurbished pipe organ made to look like the one lost when the Fernwood was destroyed during the Merkabah Siege.
Cesran laughs a little bit at the song and he nods, "Yes they are adorable." He says as he finishes his sandwich, "This sandwich was great Myrana."
Svarshan leans down to speak with the elder--hisses and pauses. Looks towards the softskin children. A few questions being asked, before the elder turns to Myrana: "Why is their elder not ssinging with them?" she asks. Apparently the fact that Sandy is not showing cheer is of concern!
Finally, the song ends, "Daeus loves me, he will stay close beside me all the way. He has bled and foguht for me, I will henceforth smite demons for him!"
That is also not how it goes. It seems to be a theme.
Sandy groans. She looks at Svarshan, then groans again. Mostly because she knows he'll like that part. So they, given the way they all wave at him at the end of the song.
The tallest child moves to the front and proclaims, "I AM ARENDT! RAWR! I AM A BIG SCARY DRAN WARRIOR. RAWR! He pounds his chest a few times. Theother children are now turning towards him, pointing fingers.
Mikilos makes his way into the pub via the front door, peering around a moment after closeing it behind himself. Spying Myrana, the elf takes a few steps her direction, only to pause, blinking at the children. "....Arendt is younger than rumors suggested...." he mutters with a grin.
Myrana leans her chin on a hand and smiles at Cesran. "You're most welcome, mister Cesran. I hope you're feeling alright." Since she, y'know, may have tried to lobotomize him last night during the festivities. Just not on purpose. Nudging the whiskey coffee toward Sandy again, she looks at the Elder and blinks... then realizes; this means Sandy! "O-oh, er... er..." she gulps, and starts to cover for the other sorceress. "I uh, I believe honored one that Sandy is enjoying listening." A bead of sweat goes down her back and she smiles, nervously with closed lips. Seeing Mikilos, she waves in greeting. DISTRACTION!
Stjepan ducks in through the door, narrowly avoiding hitting his head on the lintel. He pauses, blinks, and takes in the scene. Then he scuttles sideways so he doesn't block the doorway entirely.
Xiuhcoatl shifts in his seat a bit, but keeps his focused demeanor. His tail lashes back and forth in quick strokes.
The elder sith looks towards Myrana in that way only an older elder might. I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SU--er, just that knowing-look that says that the young ruffian is obviously up to no good.
Well, this is Myrana.
That is kind of the default.
Svarshan continues to watch. Occasionally, the Unnamed shifts...and goes back to sleep. So tired. So...such a long, long day it must have been. "Have you. Heard thessse ssongs. Before?" he asks the blue.
Myrana has the grace to look a little bashful.
"I am not enjoying /anything/," says Sandy, douely, to Myrana.
Meanwhile, the children are now turning and pointing at Arendt and laughing.
"Arendt is a LOSER!"
"Yeah! Arendt cries every time someone picks on him a little. OKay, everyone! Let's make Arendt cry. SAY MEAN THINGS TO ARENDT!"
The child playing him is now POUTING.
A lot.
Myrana leans toward Sandy and murmurs in her ear: "Hey a chance to be mean to children."
Godwyn blinks for a moment, then leans forward. "Hmm... this just got interesting." She puts her head in her hands. Godwyn mutters with a coy smile, "So then Den Mother, what now?"
Xiuhcoatl shakes his head. "I am new...here....." He says to the Elder eyeing his surroundings. "I don't know any songs. I heard one last night, but it by the short hairy ones." he nods to the children. "This is better."
Mikilos mmmmms and smiles, making his way around towards Myrana, trying not to interupt anyone's view. Shrugging off his pack, the magus pulls out a small lead box, grinning as he reaches those gathered, murmuring a sing-song.
'Arendt and Sandiel,
sitting in a tree.
K-I-L-L-I-N-G...'
Sandy promptly picks up a mug and empties it over Mikilos.
Mikilos blinks innocently. "Oh, I'm sorry, is it spelled with a double 'S' instead?"
A little wide-eyed at the exchange, and maybe a little scandalized, Jessamy covers her mouth with one hand, eyes dancing with amusement, trying /so/ hard not to laugh. Because it's rude.
Cesran nods, "My nose is fine. I went to the temple of Eluna and they checked it out and applied a light healing spell to fix it after I drank everyone else under the table." He hmms, "Boy I'm really embarrassed now that I couldn't kill him now." He says aside and he speaks up as he doesn't want to see any child picked on, "Okay you've defeated Arendt, and part of diplomacy is making up so everyone can live in peace."
Xiuhcoatl narrows his gaze, trying to piece together the pieces of history he's missing in the skit. Cleaerly, he is missing some cultural context.
Stjepan stands there for a long moment, then blinks and guffaws. Then, then he goes and gets a beer. He makes his way over to Jessamy. "You know, you can laugh. It's okay -- and you don't want to pop a stitch."
Godwyn glances toward Stjepan. "Oh trust me, we're both trying not to do that." She gives him a nod. "Glad to see you well."
Myrana looks startled as Sandy reaches -over her head- to pour her cup over Mikilos' head. "M...my coffee," she says, woefully to nobody in particular. Taking the box with a questioning look at the wizard, she pulls it toward her on the table with a glance at Cesran. Well, at least there wasn't brain damage. Diplomatically, she does not laugh at anything going on, but sort of hunkers down in desperate neutrality.
"I have not. Either. ...but it iss a. Good ssong." Svarshan says--the words are slow as he pieces them together. He does so as best he can, and quiets again, to listen. The pouting one gets a thoughtful look. Beside him, the elder sith-makar present appears rapt and fascinated.
Sandy picks up another mug.
She empties it's contents over Mikilos as well. She cheated and used magic to steal another drink, much to the consetrnation of someone else. This time, it is mead.
Sandy smiles charmingly to MYrana, "It has served a useful purpose, I assure you.'
"Arent is bastard," yells someone from the crowd.
"Arendt smels like my grandmother's drawers!"
They're not very creative, but...
Mikilos smiles, and hunkers down next to Myrana, ignoreing for the moment the sticky wetness. Nodding towards the lead box, he frowns, serious. "You left those behind. Don't open it if you don't need to, but near as I can tell they're perfectly mundane."
Myrana's hands stall on the box in the action of opening it-- and snap the lid shut again rather loudly.
"Th-thank you," she says, dropping her voice. "You er... you inspected them?"
Svarshan thumps his tail once, and stubbornly watches the children. He refuses to see Sandy dumping booze over Mikilos' head. I-am-here-to-watch-the-ssmall-ones, that stubbornly says. I DO NOT SEE A THING.
...and then his Unnamed swats him with its tail, before partly shifting, and starting to snooze again.
Svarshan has left.
Xiuhcoatl has disconnected.
In the meantime, as the mean things are called out, the boy playing Arendt begins to make exaagerated 'boohoohoo!!' cries.
"Waaaaaaaaaaaaah! I am the mightiest warrior ever! Nobody can say mean things about me!" He knuckles his eyes and stomps his feet.
Looking at Sandy and turning bright red, Myrana clams up and grabs Mikilos by the arm, tucking the box under one arm. She draws him away from the other sorceress before they can all get chastized by the Makar elder, a ways out of arm's (and hopefully cup's) reach. So standing before him and holding the box to her chest, she looks up at the wizard worriedly for his response.
Now, Sandy abandons Myrana and Mikilos, her wrath proprly expressd, for the moment. She is keeping na eye ont hem. Her eyes now twravel towards Jessamy, Godwyn and Stjepan.
Mikilos blinks as he's hauled away, but goes willingly enough, idly sweeping back his damp hair and murmuring a minor cantrip, ridding himself of the worst of the mess. "Yes, briefly. Lead blocks most magics, so should be safe enough unto themselves, though my concern is more along the lines of being used for a link. Magical scrying, or some such. Though I get the impression he knows you too well to need such a thing?" There's a story here, and the elf doesn't know it all. He doesn't like not knowing things.
Godwyn raises her right hand in salute to Sandy as she turns her gaze toward their table.
Jessamy never does quite warm to the task of teasing a child, acting or no ... her personal experience with Arendt is shall we say limited, but she does flash a smile at Stjepan as he approaches. "It's okay. I've been healing myself as much as I can," she explains. "I'm not that good with it yet, so it's taking a while."
Godwyn leans toward Jessamy again. "Well then... if you need any help, you let me know. I've been training, getting better at it." Because, well, Althean. ^^
Stjepan nods, rumbling. "Good. It can't have been fun being that close to the explosion." He nods to Godwyn. "And you." He sits very carefully, levering himself down onto a chair with a thud and a wince. "So, Arendt, why don't you tell the happy people why your home village got slaughtered."
Bahken declines to insult Arendt, but still applauds the children.
"Huh?" says the kid. "Uh, I have no idea! But I'm sure it's because I am a smelly monster person who is smelly!"
They're kids. Not geniuses.
"Arent stinks!"
"WAAAAH," shouts the child.
"Hello, Jessamy. Good to see you're not dead." A curt nod towards Stjepan as Sandy addresses the paladin.
"I don't know," says Myra, looking down at the box, knuckles whitening around it. "I don't remember." This second is very, very quiet, and very wretched sounding, even hopeless-- but then she tightens her jaw, and regulates her voice. "I've.... had some dealings with him. I don't want to talk about it here, though."
Godwyn has disconnected.
Mikilos nods, understanding. "Later, then. I'm tempted to destory them on principle, but might be useful later. The city is one of the safest places to be, with plenty around who could, and would, fight if he tries anything. But we should be able to set up some wards and the like without too much trouble, just to be on the safe side."
As Sandy approaches, Jessamy turns the smile on her as well. "Yeah. Sorry I didn't send word." She makes to stand, then. "Your children are wonderful, Sandy, but I should lie down." It's pretty obvious she isn't feeling great -- and is a ways from being fully healed.
Stjepan nods. "Smelliness might have something to do with it. Maybe, too, people going off to the Secure Panacea?" He doesn't look like he thinks the kid is an oracle. He nods to Jessamy. "Be well, get some damned rest." He sips his beer. Healing, healing beer.
Bahken having finished his wine and his food a while ago, Bahken rises and tosses a few coppers to the children for their play and music, then makes his way for the door.
Cesran comes back from getting a drink and he sits down, "So how's the performance going?" He asks as he takes a sip from his drink.
Myrana nods, and after a moment's nervous contemplation doesn't thrust the box back at Mikilos, but instead holds it to her chest and turns to rejoin the others, gesturing that he should join her if he wishes. "I'm never working with the Panacea again," she says to Stjepan when she hears them mentioned. "Stonehammer's a trouble magnet."
Mikilos nods and follows, muttering another cantrip to get the rest of the mess off his clothing. No reason to get the chair sticky. "Eh, I wouldn't say never. All thigns change in time. But can quite understand not any time soon."
Zyla has arrived.
Stjepan nods curtly towards Myrana. "There was a reason I was curious about them. Gotta agree with almost all of your statement. Thing is, if Stonehammer wasn't a trouble magnet we wouldn't have learned all that other stuff either."
Bahken has left.
"They're not MY children," says Sandy, hurriedly, to JEssamy. "Just... attached to me. Sort of. Because of adventuring troupes and what not." She clears her throat, shoots Myrana a dirty look, and says, then tips Mikilos' latest drink over with a flick of her hand from a distance. She's petty that way. She only does it because he's clean. And if he has one.
She turns back towards Cesran, though, and says, "Fine. Just. BLoody. Fine."
'Arendt' runs to the back of the Fernwood, wailing, "I'll get you all! Everyone who was mean to me!!"
The audience is cheering and laughing.
Stjepan has disconnected.
Cesran smiles at Sandy, "That's good. I don't know, that little blonde haired elf boy looks like you Sandy."
Myrana sees that dirty look, and raises Sandy a finger pulling down one lower lid and a tongue.
"My hair is black,"says Sandy, darkly, to Cesran.
Mikilos rolls his eyes and smiles. "It's okay Sandy. You don't have to keep up the facade. We all know what a nice person you are deep down, and we love you too."
"That reminds me," says Myrana, and looking at Mikilos takes a seat at the bar and crosses one knee over the other with a rustle of skirts. "You still owe me lunch, don't you?"
"I am going to set you on fire, Myrana," says Sandy, pointing a finger at her.
The kids are ressembling at the moment, with the Arendt sketch over.
Myrana tosses her hair and gives Sandy a stunning smile. "I'm flame-retardant."
Cesran smiles, "So you are saying the father was blonde?" He asks as he sips his drink.
Myrana says, "What father?"
Cesran leans in, "Is it Mikilos' love child?"
Myrana's mouth drops open and she looks at Mikilos, scandalized!
With a quick zip of her fingers, a drink is thrown onto Cesran, as if by magic. Actually, it WAS by magic.
The bartender loosk like he's about ready to show her the door.
Mikilos blinks at Myrana, glancing for a moment to Sandy but chosing to ignore the comment. "Lunch? I don't remember that, but suppose it could be." Blinking again, he glances to Cesran. "No no, quite confidant I'm the youngest of my family line. And pretty sure I'd remember..." he glances to Sandy "...much as I might want to forget."
"Well they won't let me back in that pie shop without a responsible chaperone," says Myrana under her breath. Oh god Myra HOW DID YOU GET KICKED OUT OF A PIE SHOP?!
Mikilos blinks at Myrana again. "....and someone has mistaken me for a responsible chaperone?"
Stjepan has connected.
Myrana blinks. "Are you an irresponsible one?" she asks, looking shocked and slightly scandalized.
Cesran laughs as he gets splashed, but with a quick word of eldritch and a wave of his hand his clothes are clean, "Oh Sandy lighten up I was only teasing."
Mikilos blinks. "Oh no, I'm frequently responsible. Though I've been advised not to discuss any details in public. No, it's the chaperone part I'm confused by."
Myrana says, "It just means 'its your fault if we get kicked out of Mister Grund's Pie Shop'."
Myrana says, "Which, of course won't happen! What happened was... well, well I won't go into it, but I have been grossly mislabled as a rabble rouser by an unjust set of circumstances."
Stjepan looks over at Myrana and doesn't choke on his beer. "Rabble Rouser? I thought you just wanted to cook Kulthians."
"That is how rumors start. Next thing you know, you're god-mother to Jibbom's children," says Sandy, acidly, to Cesran. She glares at him. "Or god-father," she adds meaningfully.
Myrana looks up at Stjepan and looks every inch the maligned innocent. "I was just defending my order from Missus Trillium; that old bag always swoops in and steals my week's order before I can get in the door instead of ordering ahead of time like ANYBODY ELSE!"
Cesran laughs, "I doubt Jibbom would ever ask me to be the god-father of his children. He's probably going to ask the Coyote to."
Sandy just looks at Cesran. As if to say 'CHALLENGE ACCEPETED'.
Myrana says, "Oh-- where did Svarshan go?"
Zyla has left.
Mikilos says, "....'Jibbom's children'... little Jibbom running around... I think I'm too sober for that thought..."
Myrana says, "Has he left?"
Myrana brightens. "I have won a bet."
Stjepan grunts. "I gotta eat something before I seep through my gods'damned bandages."
"WHAT?" Sandy hears Myrana says that and turns towards her. Then she looks around and blanches. "Oh no," she says.
Meanwhile, the children start to sing again.
"Taara is a c-,"
"NO! NOT THAT ONE!"
She clears her throat, "OTHER SONG."
Cesran grins, "I'll be godfather if you'll be their godmother."
Mikilos blinks, looks to Sandy, looks to the kids, looks to Sandy again. "...you know, maybe I am a responsible chaperone, if only by process of elimination..."
"They have wonderful lentil stew here, Stjepan," says Myra, gloating. Then she nods to Mikilos, covering her smile with a hand.
Myrana says, "I made a bet that Sandy could not get Svarshan to swear."
Stjepan sideeyes Myrana. "Talking up the competition?"
"Well its not as good as -mine-," Myrana amends.
Mikilos mmms. "Think it varies on who tried to 'help'... seem to recalls a piar of socks one of the Oxley added 'for fiber'... I was a little susprised they knew what fiber is."
Stjepan laughs, shaking his head. He orders it anyhow.
Myrana shudders at the memory. The Oxleys are the Worst People In Alexandria, and unfortunately they are all permanent fixtures in her life thanks to inheriting the Ox-Strength Tavern in the reading of her one-time boss' Last Will and Testament. "Since I have won the bet...." She points at Sandy. "You will be wearing nice clothes for two weeks!"
"...no!" Sandy points at Myrana, "I... you wouldn't!"
The children are all staring. And giggling, now.
Mikilos peers mildly at Myrana. "That might be a little much all at once... maybe one week, a week to recover, and then a second week?" He glances between the two, and then smiles sweetly at Sandy. "By the way, did i mention I'm prepareing for a formal ball, come the first of spring?"
"Oh yes!" Myrana gives a -very- passable villainous laugh, sure to delight children and very possibly upset adventurers in earshot. "Yes I've got plans for you, dear Sandy. Its too cold to be wearing so few layers; I think petticoats are in order, and I know just the seamstress. You can borrow some things of -mine-." Aahahaha!
Cesran laughs a little bit, "Oh what bet is this? I have to get an artist to draw Sandy in a formal ball gown."
Stjepan sips his beer. "You must have been taking notes from a certain Chosen one on our trip, Myrana. That sounded very natural."
Myrana pents her fingers and leans back-- then remembering there is no back on the barstool she's perched on, does a sudden panicked 'oh shit don't fall off the stool' kick for balance that thumps the underside of the bar with her toe, blinks away a tear with manful stiff-upper-lip-ness, and sits straight again.
Myrana says, "...ow.""
"Oh er-- er, er." Myrana looks a sobered by this reminder of having seen Eurid Barntos on their trip with the Panacea, a bit of a chill going over her. "W-well I was in theatre for a while."
Myrana says, "But yes. Someone must draw Sandy during these weeks."
Myrana changes the subject quickly.
No. NO. That is NOT happening," says Sandy, firmly. "That's it! SHow's over! Kids, go home."
"AWWWWWWWWWWWW."
"HOME!" Sandy points. It's getting late, anyways.
Mikilos mmms. "Cloth isn't my forte, but I'm sure could make something nice and approprate and frilly and most likely pink."
Stjepan's stew arrives. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't need to.
"NO PETTICOATS," says Sandy to Myrana as she stomps out.
Myrana sips at the coffee that's put iin front of her. No promises.
Mikilos stage whispers. "So. Many. Petticoats..."
Myrana says, "I have a whole closet of them."
Myrana finishes her coffee, and bidding everyone good-evening she takes the lead box that Mikilos brought her and takes her exit.