15 Cylus 719
Evening
The tavern was a hole in the wall crowded with the type that made most people nervous. Their clothes didn't fit quite right. Scars and pock-marks were common characteristics fresh on their faces. Some of their smiles were nearly predatory, the joy not quite reaching their cynical eyes. Their shouted words were crass and their humor brutally crude. Maxine fit right in. Well, she fit in as much as a ex-convict of her experience could fit in anywhere.
"Grog?" the half-toothless bartender garbled out when she first found a seat at the bar. She looked at his weathered, lop-sided features for a couple trills before shaking her head firmly.
"The rum," she answered him.
"A cup then?"
"I'll take the whole bottle actually."
"Lotsa drink fer a small lass," he commented, snagging the requested drink from the shelf and placing it down in front of her.
"A small lass who could out-drink you and anyone else in here."
"Aye. I reckon ya could." He smiled knowingly at her, taking the liberty of uncorking her drink. "Considerin' I ain't had a drop in two arcs."
"A sober bartender? There's a first. Sorry for your loss."
"Nah," the old man disagreed with a shake of his head. He carefully placed the cork down beside her bottle. One of his spotted hands stroked at his discolored grey beard.
"No loss. I realized I hadn't been myself, my real self, fer a long time." He smiled to himself and took up a damp rag, drawing careful circles on the counter between them. "Wasn't feelin' much of anythin' anymore. The missus finally threatened to leave. When she was gone, I saw how far off the damn wagon I fell. Didn't like myself. So I quit." He tossed the rag into a bucket behind the bar at his feet. "Now? Never been happier. Got my old lady back, too. Life's got color again."
Maxine leaned back in her chair with a skeptical expression, tipping the bottle to her lips. That sweet, sweet burn flowed down her throat. Her body welcomed it, relaxing the slightest bit as though she'd been on edge for some time. A round of rowdy laughter boomed from the center of the room. Mugs of grog slammed together, spilling the alcohol upon the soggy tavern floor.
"How'd you do it?" she found herself asking, surprising the bartender as much as she did herself.
"How'd I do what?" He cocked his head at her. "Quit?"
"Yeah."
"Heh," he crossed his arms as he regarded her, momentarily stumped. "Shite. It wasn't easy. Still ain't."
"You still feel it? Even now?" Max took another drink of rum. The bartender's eyes followed the liquid as it left the bottle a trill too long.
"I feel it every trial," he sighed. "Especially here. Took me a good bit to hang 'round it again."
"Sounds like a losing battle. Why even bother?"
"I already told ya. Drinkin' put everything in the dark. Now I walk in the sun. I'm a better man for it, I think."
"Sure, man." She raised the bottle amicably toward him. "Thanks for the drink."
The bartender politely nodded and moved down the bar counter to take care of a patron shouting for him. Max settled into her chair and considered his preaching with a slow shake of her head. Stone cold sober bartender. There was no better idiom in her mind. He made dropping the drink sound so easy, like he'd just woken up one morning and managed not to have a drop until the end of his trials. They weren't the same though. At least that's what she reasoned with herself.
The stranger was a man whose problems seemed to come from the drink. He loathed the emotional cloud that dimmed everything down inside. For the ex-convict, it was just the opposite. Her problems weren't the drink per say, but they sure were drowned in it. Alcohol was a vacation from herself. To some degree, she could numb so much away. She didn't have to think. She didn't have to feel. The rum would depress her system and quiet her mind. Sometimes, when she drank enough of it, she slept so soundly she didn't have to weather her own dreams. Alcohol was that sweet, mild escape. Something harder and more gripping had shrunk it in its smoky shadow.
Max could feel the stubborn wound on her torso every time she shifted in her seat. The stupid bandages were tight around her middle, an annoying, constant pressure that reminded her along pain that someone had slipped literally past her armor. More rum would soften it until it vanished completely. She took another drink while the voices of a couple men a few feet away grew louder with intoxication and excitement.
"Aye," the rat-like one with long black hair gathered the attention of his mates. "Jacked 'em up real good, I did. Thirty silvers, too. Know what the little scrap did after I made 'em heavy in the trousers?" He stomped his foot up on an overturned crate, face reddening as he recalled his ire. "He gone and went to tell on me. Like a little baby bitch, he did!"
"Told who?" one of his mates, a ginger with a full beard, guffawed. "His mummy?"
"Nah. Woulda had him callin' me daddy if he had. Nah. 'Stead he tattled to the fuckin' Elements."
"What a little sackless cunt."
"Aye."
"They ain't cuff ya?"
"Fuckin' Lords, no!"
"How the fuck ya manage that?"
"I'll tells ya." The rat-like brute dropped a meaty elbow down on his elevated knee. He took a drink of grog with a twinkle in his eye, pausing for dramatics while the three others waited expectantly to hear his secret to avoiding apprehension.
"So," he started his tough tale with a snicker. "I'm sittin' here. Drinkin' my grog, mindin' my own, right? Weren't I here, Danny boy? Here drinkin' and mindin' my own?" His holler seemed to indeed reach the bartender, who silently nodded with a bored expression. It was all the man needed to encourage him. "Like I told ya, here I was. Don't ya know these two twats come walkin' in, lookin' 'round all nervous 'cause they never seen so many unfriendly faces in they life. They taps me and says, 'hey, the fella told us you robbed him.' Somethin' like that." The speaker took another drink, gesturing toward the very spot he must've been sitting at the bar with his mug.
"I says to 'em, 'what fella?' They go pointin' at Little Bitch Boy. He's waitin' outside in the rain like a bloody dog on a chain. I laughs and I says to 'em they got the wrong lad. Then one of the soldier twats grabs my arm. This very one!" He flexed his free arm as though no one would've believed him if he hadn't. "They grabs me out the chair! So I put my mug down like this." One last chug and he slammed the mug on the table his comrades were seated at. "I told him to get his hands off me, yeah? He tries to tell me I'm under arrest for robbery. I says to him, 'I'm under arrest? Who the fuck is gonna arrest you?' Now he and his twat partner look at me all confused. He says, 'arrest us? For what?' I looked the Element right in the eyes and you knows what I says? I put my finger up like this." He prodded an index finger toward one of his friend's faces. "And I says to him, 'for all them girls your lot murdered last arc.'"
"Lords, what did he say to that?" the ginger asked with raised brow while the others chuckled their amusement.
"That twat just stared at me like this," the dark-haired man said before eyeing his friends with a stupid expression, eliciting a round of laughter. "Told him next that lot of us blokes here lost women in that shite storm. Told him if he laid another hand on me, he'd be leavin' without a head. One look at the rest of us here on that busy night? Second man I had shittin' himself that trial."
"Then what?"
"Then what? Then that bloody coward mumbled some shit about 'must've had the wrong lad' and they jogged off. Them and the little dog in the rain. You think I was gonna let some flea get me tossed in Slags? Nah, boys. We got too much schemin', bigger schemin', to go out like that. I wasn't goin'. Woulda killed them if I had to." He leaned more on his knee with a devilish smirk. "Only good Element is a dead Element anyways."
"Do you ever shut the fuck up?" Max growled from her seat at the bar. The whole place went silent, heads slowly turning to take in the woman sitting alone with a whole bottle of rum to herself. The storyteller blinked at her in disbelief.
"Bitch, I know you wasn't talkin' to me," he grunted, turning his attention away from his audience to burn a hole through the back of her head.
"Yeah?" she lowered the bottle from her lips, hardly turning her head his way. "What other dumb shit would I be talkin' to?"
'That's enough," the bartender tried to mediate with a booming shout.
"Sit this one out, Danny. Wouldn't wanna knock out the few teeth you've got left."
The storyteller waltzed over toward the bar with big, echoing steps. Maxine looked toward the bartender, her expression as even-keeled as a ship on smooth seas. The loud-mouthed man shook a hand through his obnoxiously long hair as he regarded her.
"Did somethin' I say offend you?" he taunted her with a bite in his tone.
"Just the sound of your voice," she responded with just as much ice. His tongue prodded the inside of his cheek in disbelief. He looked to his friends and then back toward the woman with the sharp tongue.
"Knock it off," the bartender attempted again. "I'll get a soldier in here."
"Y'know," the dark-haired brute responded with eyes trained on an indifferent Max. "Maybe you should get a soldier. Before I kick her skinny ass."
"Come off it, Kevs," the ginger piped up warily. "Ya do that, you will get arrested."
"Nah," the storyteller countered. "She'll just be a warm-up. I'll have the Element gutted before he makes it 'cross the threshold." His lingering stare darkened, and then it disintegrated into absolute amusement. "But you'd like that wouldn't you, Element Killer?" Max's grip on the bottle tightened. He laughed, "Aye. I thought that was you."
The bartender saw the looks on the pair's faces and left in a hurry. The door slammed noisily behind him, though perhaps it just sounded loud due to the quietness that had taken the room. Kevs took a drink from his grog with a wide grin.
"Why don't we just team up?" he asked, looping a thumb through his belt and grasping it. "He'll come back with one of those twats. Probably three or four, I reckon. A nice little ruse to get 'em here, right where we want 'em. They'd never know what hit 'em. I've always wanted to give one of those soldiers a second smile. This place is quiet enough. We could make it last, you and I, Element Killer. Make it hurt, like they hurt you and them girls." Maxine took another drink of rum. Her expression tightened and her eyes darkened. Kevs noticed the way they drifted, like she was remembering something. The observation swelled his ego. "The only good Element is a dead one. Come on. You know you want to."
The rum bottle shattered in his face before he even knew what hit him. His friends a few tables over gasped when he stumbled down to his knees, clutching his face. The stool broke over his back long before any of them had a chance to process the sudden turn. The impact leveled Kevs flat to the floor. With a short start, Maxine's boot slammed into the side of his face like she was kicking a ball from her childhood. He was out in that instant. Blood drooled from his swollen, red face. Already was his flesh muddling with bruising.
"What I want," Max replied ominously between grit teeth, furious stare glued to the matted back of the man's head. "Is some fucking quiet for five god damn bits. Get it now?" The men at the table finally rushed to a stand. Her head snapped in their direction and she scooped a stool leg into her hand. The toe of her boot jabbed into Kevs' ribcage as she stepped past him toward the small group. "Yeah? You too?" She gestured with her free hand toward the stool legs scattered about the rum-sodden floor by her feet. "Look, I've got one for each of you. Who wants to join him first?" Kevs sputtered and moaned behind her. The ginger slowly stepped forward, arcing out of her way and moving to drag his downed friend toward the exit. The others nervously followed suit, hustling to help in the labor. "Excellent idea."
Maxine threw the stool leg down and looked at the shattered bottle sprinkled around her, cursing. She shoved a hand into her pocket. After a few trills of fishing, she returned with a coin and left it on the bar counter for Danny. Then she was gone.
Evening
The tavern was a hole in the wall crowded with the type that made most people nervous. Their clothes didn't fit quite right. Scars and pock-marks were common characteristics fresh on their faces. Some of their smiles were nearly predatory, the joy not quite reaching their cynical eyes. Their shouted words were crass and their humor brutally crude. Maxine fit right in. Well, she fit in as much as a ex-convict of her experience could fit in anywhere.
"Grog?" the half-toothless bartender garbled out when she first found a seat at the bar. She looked at his weathered, lop-sided features for a couple trills before shaking her head firmly.
"The rum," she answered him.
"A cup then?"
"I'll take the whole bottle actually."
"Lotsa drink fer a small lass," he commented, snagging the requested drink from the shelf and placing it down in front of her.
"A small lass who could out-drink you and anyone else in here."
"Aye. I reckon ya could." He smiled knowingly at her, taking the liberty of uncorking her drink. "Considerin' I ain't had a drop in two arcs."
"A sober bartender? There's a first. Sorry for your loss."
"Nah," the old man disagreed with a shake of his head. He carefully placed the cork down beside her bottle. One of his spotted hands stroked at his discolored grey beard.
"No loss. I realized I hadn't been myself, my real self, fer a long time." He smiled to himself and took up a damp rag, drawing careful circles on the counter between them. "Wasn't feelin' much of anythin' anymore. The missus finally threatened to leave. When she was gone, I saw how far off the damn wagon I fell. Didn't like myself. So I quit." He tossed the rag into a bucket behind the bar at his feet. "Now? Never been happier. Got my old lady back, too. Life's got color again."
Maxine leaned back in her chair with a skeptical expression, tipping the bottle to her lips. That sweet, sweet burn flowed down her throat. Her body welcomed it, relaxing the slightest bit as though she'd been on edge for some time. A round of rowdy laughter boomed from the center of the room. Mugs of grog slammed together, spilling the alcohol upon the soggy tavern floor.
"How'd you do it?" she found herself asking, surprising the bartender as much as she did herself.
"How'd I do what?" He cocked his head at her. "Quit?"
"Yeah."
"Heh," he crossed his arms as he regarded her, momentarily stumped. "Shite. It wasn't easy. Still ain't."
"You still feel it? Even now?" Max took another drink of rum. The bartender's eyes followed the liquid as it left the bottle a trill too long.
"I feel it every trial," he sighed. "Especially here. Took me a good bit to hang 'round it again."
"Sounds like a losing battle. Why even bother?"
"I already told ya. Drinkin' put everything in the dark. Now I walk in the sun. I'm a better man for it, I think."
"Sure, man." She raised the bottle amicably toward him. "Thanks for the drink."
The bartender politely nodded and moved down the bar counter to take care of a patron shouting for him. Max settled into her chair and considered his preaching with a slow shake of her head. Stone cold sober bartender. There was no better idiom in her mind. He made dropping the drink sound so easy, like he'd just woken up one morning and managed not to have a drop until the end of his trials. They weren't the same though. At least that's what she reasoned with herself.
The stranger was a man whose problems seemed to come from the drink. He loathed the emotional cloud that dimmed everything down inside. For the ex-convict, it was just the opposite. Her problems weren't the drink per say, but they sure were drowned in it. Alcohol was a vacation from herself. To some degree, she could numb so much away. She didn't have to think. She didn't have to feel. The rum would depress her system and quiet her mind. Sometimes, when she drank enough of it, she slept so soundly she didn't have to weather her own dreams. Alcohol was that sweet, mild escape. Something harder and more gripping had shrunk it in its smoky shadow.
Max could feel the stubborn wound on her torso every time she shifted in her seat. The stupid bandages were tight around her middle, an annoying, constant pressure that reminded her along pain that someone had slipped literally past her armor. More rum would soften it until it vanished completely. She took another drink while the voices of a couple men a few feet away grew louder with intoxication and excitement.
"Aye," the rat-like one with long black hair gathered the attention of his mates. "Jacked 'em up real good, I did. Thirty silvers, too. Know what the little scrap did after I made 'em heavy in the trousers?" He stomped his foot up on an overturned crate, face reddening as he recalled his ire. "He gone and went to tell on me. Like a little baby bitch, he did!"
"Told who?" one of his mates, a ginger with a full beard, guffawed. "His mummy?"
"Nah. Woulda had him callin' me daddy if he had. Nah. 'Stead he tattled to the fuckin' Elements."
"What a little sackless cunt."
"Aye."
"They ain't cuff ya?"
"Fuckin' Lords, no!"
"How the fuck ya manage that?"
"I'll tells ya." The rat-like brute dropped a meaty elbow down on his elevated knee. He took a drink of grog with a twinkle in his eye, pausing for dramatics while the three others waited expectantly to hear his secret to avoiding apprehension.
"So," he started his tough tale with a snicker. "I'm sittin' here. Drinkin' my grog, mindin' my own, right? Weren't I here, Danny boy? Here drinkin' and mindin' my own?" His holler seemed to indeed reach the bartender, who silently nodded with a bored expression. It was all the man needed to encourage him. "Like I told ya, here I was. Don't ya know these two twats come walkin' in, lookin' 'round all nervous 'cause they never seen so many unfriendly faces in they life. They taps me and says, 'hey, the fella told us you robbed him.' Somethin' like that." The speaker took another drink, gesturing toward the very spot he must've been sitting at the bar with his mug.
"I says to 'em, 'what fella?' They go pointin' at Little Bitch Boy. He's waitin' outside in the rain like a bloody dog on a chain. I laughs and I says to 'em they got the wrong lad. Then one of the soldier twats grabs my arm. This very one!" He flexed his free arm as though no one would've believed him if he hadn't. "They grabs me out the chair! So I put my mug down like this." One last chug and he slammed the mug on the table his comrades were seated at. "I told him to get his hands off me, yeah? He tries to tell me I'm under arrest for robbery. I says to him, 'I'm under arrest? Who the fuck is gonna arrest you?' Now he and his twat partner look at me all confused. He says, 'arrest us? For what?' I looked the Element right in the eyes and you knows what I says? I put my finger up like this." He prodded an index finger toward one of his friend's faces. "And I says to him, 'for all them girls your lot murdered last arc.'"
"Lords, what did he say to that?" the ginger asked with raised brow while the others chuckled their amusement.
"That twat just stared at me like this," the dark-haired man said before eyeing his friends with a stupid expression, eliciting a round of laughter. "Told him next that lot of us blokes here lost women in that shite storm. Told him if he laid another hand on me, he'd be leavin' without a head. One look at the rest of us here on that busy night? Second man I had shittin' himself that trial."
"Then what?"
"Then what? Then that bloody coward mumbled some shit about 'must've had the wrong lad' and they jogged off. Them and the little dog in the rain. You think I was gonna let some flea get me tossed in Slags? Nah, boys. We got too much schemin', bigger schemin', to go out like that. I wasn't goin'. Woulda killed them if I had to." He leaned more on his knee with a devilish smirk. "Only good Element is a dead Element anyways."
"Do you ever shut the fuck up?" Max growled from her seat at the bar. The whole place went silent, heads slowly turning to take in the woman sitting alone with a whole bottle of rum to herself. The storyteller blinked at her in disbelief.
"Bitch, I know you wasn't talkin' to me," he grunted, turning his attention away from his audience to burn a hole through the back of her head.
"Yeah?" she lowered the bottle from her lips, hardly turning her head his way. "What other dumb shit would I be talkin' to?"
'That's enough," the bartender tried to mediate with a booming shout.
"Sit this one out, Danny. Wouldn't wanna knock out the few teeth you've got left."
The storyteller waltzed over toward the bar with big, echoing steps. Maxine looked toward the bartender, her expression as even-keeled as a ship on smooth seas. The loud-mouthed man shook a hand through his obnoxiously long hair as he regarded her.
"Did somethin' I say offend you?" he taunted her with a bite in his tone.
"Just the sound of your voice," she responded with just as much ice. His tongue prodded the inside of his cheek in disbelief. He looked to his friends and then back toward the woman with the sharp tongue.
"Knock it off," the bartender attempted again. "I'll get a soldier in here."
"Y'know," the dark-haired brute responded with eyes trained on an indifferent Max. "Maybe you should get a soldier. Before I kick her skinny ass."
"Come off it, Kevs," the ginger piped up warily. "Ya do that, you will get arrested."
"Nah," the storyteller countered. "She'll just be a warm-up. I'll have the Element gutted before he makes it 'cross the threshold." His lingering stare darkened, and then it disintegrated into absolute amusement. "But you'd like that wouldn't you, Element Killer?" Max's grip on the bottle tightened. He laughed, "Aye. I thought that was you."
The bartender saw the looks on the pair's faces and left in a hurry. The door slammed noisily behind him, though perhaps it just sounded loud due to the quietness that had taken the room. Kevs took a drink from his grog with a wide grin.
"Why don't we just team up?" he asked, looping a thumb through his belt and grasping it. "He'll come back with one of those twats. Probably three or four, I reckon. A nice little ruse to get 'em here, right where we want 'em. They'd never know what hit 'em. I've always wanted to give one of those soldiers a second smile. This place is quiet enough. We could make it last, you and I, Element Killer. Make it hurt, like they hurt you and them girls." Maxine took another drink of rum. Her expression tightened and her eyes darkened. Kevs noticed the way they drifted, like she was remembering something. The observation swelled his ego. "The only good Element is a dead one. Come on. You know you want to."
The rum bottle shattered in his face before he even knew what hit him. His friends a few tables over gasped when he stumbled down to his knees, clutching his face. The stool broke over his back long before any of them had a chance to process the sudden turn. The impact leveled Kevs flat to the floor. With a short start, Maxine's boot slammed into the side of his face like she was kicking a ball from her childhood. He was out in that instant. Blood drooled from his swollen, red face. Already was his flesh muddling with bruising.
"What I want," Max replied ominously between grit teeth, furious stare glued to the matted back of the man's head. "Is some fucking quiet for five god damn bits. Get it now?" The men at the table finally rushed to a stand. Her head snapped in their direction and she scooped a stool leg into her hand. The toe of her boot jabbed into Kevs' ribcage as she stepped past him toward the small group. "Yeah? You too?" She gestured with her free hand toward the stool legs scattered about the rum-sodden floor by her feet. "Look, I've got one for each of you. Who wants to join him first?" Kevs sputtered and moaned behind her. The ginger slowly stepped forward, arcing out of her way and moving to drag his downed friend toward the exit. The others nervously followed suit, hustling to help in the labor. "Excellent idea."
Maxine threw the stool leg down and looked at the shattered bottle sprinkled around her, cursing. She shoved a hand into her pocket. After a few trills of fishing, she returned with a coin and left it on the bar counter for Danny. Then she was gone.
