Closed Spirits, Tunes, and Tips (Cirrus)

[Leila]

Timestamp: Spring 40, 513 Leila walked through the warm entrance of World's End Grotto, ready to get to another day of work. She still had a couple of bells before the lounge got truly busy, so she had time to prep, as well as practice making drinks, something she truly enjoyed doing. She'd heard that they had entertainment coming in to perform for them, some unknown bard. As she walked around the bar, she saw that she had a couple of customers already sitting there, the usuals. She relieved the early shift and began checking out what needed done. She brought her journal so she could take an accurate inventory, and to write down any new ideas or recipes she thought up. "Inventory: 2 Barrels of Honeyed Mead 1 Barrel of Ale 1 Barrel of Wine, Weak 2 Barrels of Wine, Common 1 Half Barrel of Wine, Fine Several bottles of unknown spirits." She wished she could try making recipes out of the spirits, but they were so expensive and difficult to come by, that the proprietor had said she could only try it out if a customer paid for it up front, which was extremely rare. And fruits were rare this early in the year as well, so her stock of those were very low. But no bother, she could always work around the other items, and besides, the usual customers didn't really have a thirst for the adventurous. She checked to ensure all her pitchers, mugs, flagons, and glasses were clean, which they were thankfully. She wiped her hands on a cloth, then walked up to the old, wizened man in the middle of the bar, "How's it going Charlie? Another bright day topped of with honey mead?" Charlie flashed her a toothless smile, though his eyes carried the weight of a man who's lost everything, and is searching for it in the bottom of a glass. She never could get him to speak about his past, intoxicated or otherwise, but he at least let her try out new drinks on him, so long as they involved honey mead. At about this time of day, she knew he'd be on about his third drink, and had a long night ahead of him, so she started making his fourth drink. She went to her pack and pulled out her herbalist's kit, and pulled out a small pouch of finely ground mint leaves, so fine that it was a powder. She grabbed a flagon off of the shelf, poured a healthy pinch of the powder into the bottom, then topped it off with the first draft of the barrel of mead. She stared into it, noticing it didn't all dissolve. She grabbed a wooden spoon, and stirred it gently, then scooped out the remaining particulate. She brought the drink over to Charlie, and set it down just as he finished his previous. "This one has mint flavorings in it, let me know if you like it." Leila knew that Charlie had three reactions to new drinks. If he set the flagon down and scooted it away, he hated it. If he set it down and then drank it a bit later, it was mediocre. If he drank half of it in the first go, then he loved it. And Charlie was still chugging, which brought a smile to Leila's face. "I'll be sure to make you some more tonight hun" She looked over at the middle aged woman, who was still half way through her wine, and didn't particularly care for conversation. Leila took Charlie's empty flagon and began to wipe it down, as her eyes scanned the lounge area looking for any potential new customers.

[Cirrus]

Cirrus Cirrus stepped in the door, the dramatic silhouetted effect somewhat spoiled by his short height. The tallness of these people amazed him - they must have plentiful food somewhere, but he had had much the same meals he'd had everywhere else in Zeltiva. He was the tall one in his family - he supposed all desert peoples were doomed to be somewhat malnourished. He calmly walked across the room through the sparse crowds of early-evening revellers and hoisted himself into a bar seat. Leaning across the bar his eyes met the face of one of the singularly prettiest women he'd ever seen. Not beautiful, but pretty. He imagined that this kind of pretty would outclass many different kinds of beautiful. There was a kind of unconscious grace about her, a thing that you wouldn't notice if you didn't have a little sister - the bounding, boisterous innocence of one who has not even seen a night in bed with a man. He wondered briefly if she even went in for men. Well, if he was lucky he'd find out - such women were rare. He took in her shapely but sparse frame as she served a man she referred to as Charlie in common too fast for him to follow. The man happily chugged away at the drink she gave him, and she seemed pleased. He'd have to ask for a glass of whatever the man was having. Her eyes swept over the room, and over him. He wondered what he was doing to be so unnoticeable in the sparse room, the obvious foreigner sticking out like a gigantic Benshiran elephant in the room. Well, he supposed he was hunched over and very small anyway. He whistled and tapped the counter, and called out to the lady, "Ho there! Can I have some of that, and a meal to start my evening?"

[Leila]

She heard a customer with a very foreign accent call out to her, while she was standing there daydreaming. She meandered over to him, a genuine smile adorning her face, "Sure thing, one Golden Mint coming up. I believe tonight's meal is pork tenderloin, roasted potatoes, and a sweet pea salad. That's one silver miza for the meal, and five coppers for the drink. I'll be right out with that." She chuckled to herself at creating that name right on the spot, and quickly wrote it down in her journal sitting behind the bar. She'd heard that accent of the man's before a handful of times. If she remembered right, he's from the desert cities. She quickly grabbed a flagon, dropped a pinch of mint powder in, though smaller than she used for Charlie's, so as to not have leftover bits. Then untapped the barrel and poured the golden mixture in, a divine mix of bitter, sweet, and minty refreshment. She carried the drink over to him and set it down, "There you go hun, I'll be right back with your meal." She walked back into the kitchen to find the cook asleep face down in his cutting board. The man had several children and was working three jobs just to keep their house. The tenderloin was simmering in it's juices in a crock, with potatoes floating within it, and a large bowl of the salad was on a nearby counter. She fixed the man a plate, giving him a larger portion of the meat than most would get, since this was the first time she'd met him. She patted the poor cook as he slept, and then went back to her bar beaming. "Here you go hun, nice and hot. The sweet peas are especially delicious this time of year, grown up in the foothills. So what brings you here to the late shift of World's End, all the way from the deserts?" OOCI took the meal price from the location thread, and the drink price from the Price List + 1 CM for the added mint.

[Cirrus]

Cirrus Cirrus grinned over his mug as he handed a golden miza over the counter. He took a sip, and something strange happened in his mouth. The first thing that hit him was the mint powder that hadn't quite dissolved. Then the sweet and bitter of the ale itself, which he was used to. The mint tweaked the taste of both towards... meaty...? It wasn't half as unpleasant as his own train of thought made it sound. "This is good," he said, swallowing his first mouthful. "Make sure to keep it on the menu, and I'll consider myself profiting from my payment for the food." Smiling, he considered the question. As he took a mouthful of meat, he started talking through it, the very picture of total lack of eloquence as he realised how hungry he was. "As for how I'm here, I mostly walked, though sometimes I rode and at one point I was dragged about three miles," he joked, his arm held to his side and his hand tilting back and forth in a 'give-or-take' gesture. "I jest, of course. I'm a travelling minstrel, and I play for money. This fine establishment happens to be the latest site of my thinly-veiled robbery. I say that because I no doubt enjoy the job enough that I double my pay in satisfaction alone. "What about you, then?" Cirrus asked. "The drinks you mix are good, so far as I know the word to be used. It seems to me you've made a fine choice in making a living out of them, though it must be maddening to have the very same drinks bought for you by a million drunken boys," he joked, gesturing to the room filled with the selfsame revellers. "How did you come to be in this work?"

[Leila]

Leila listened to the man talk, smiling, for no one spoke like that in here. It was playful yet elegant. It was the sort of talk she hoped the man she would marry would speak, at least back when she was a girl. Her mother would've hated him, she could hear her voice now, "Marry a minstrel and all you'll get is a bunch of babies and no food to feed them." But Leila ignored the thought, for this man was incredibly good looking. She blushed from his compliments, then smiled when he asked about her. Most of her customers wanted to talk about themselves, but he seemed genuinely interested in her. He asked, and she answered, "Well before Spring, I still lived with my parents. But then I moved out, got my own place, and my papa helped me get this job. But it's only temporary, I'm opening up my own shop next season. I always liked cooking, and papa thought it would be good to have a job that lets me meet a lot of people." She smiled, then leaned on her bar, resting her head on her hands, "So you're working tonight? I can't wait to hear it, do you sing? Or play an instrument? And where might you be from? You look nothing like the men from here."

[Cirrus]

Cirrus Cirrus grinned and raised his tankard. He'd been here five minutes and despite the enclosed space he was already in his element. Pretty women, good ale, and good food. All he had to add was good music and the atmosphere would be like every other day he'd spent in this town. "Here's to leaving home," he joked. "I come from the desert, Eyktal, south-west of here. I travelled on foot and horseback through the plains of the Drykas, the horse-people, and was bored by their posing, macho ways for many years. This all to get away from my family, who used to travel too. But now, only I have the time and money. So I travel, and play music, and I'm not a burden on my family. Which brings me to your other question - yes, I play music, on a lyre. I also sing! Really, I'll do anything that pays for food, drink and something to seal the water from my tent." He took a sip again and wiped his lips. "Well, if you were to try to open your own cookery you'd soon run this place out of business. Maybe you can buy it, you may well be better than the resident landlady. Who knows? Such things are mysteries." He took another sip. "All I know is, your drink is good, your food is good, your father is a very smart man and I am all ready to play music. Are you prone to head-pain?" he asked, in a slightly softer tone of voice.

[Leila]

Leila's appreciation for the man and his personality all but evaporated as he finished speaking. First he insulted an entire culture, which Leila felt was probably inaccurate and unfair. She hadn't heard much of the Drykas people, but she hated racism in any form. And then he went on to talk about himself, which before would've been informative, but now was just gross boasting. He then went on to presume she was opening a cookery? She hadn't even mentioned that, and then said she'd put her employer out of business. She didn't always have good days here at World's End, but she still loved the people here. She would never hope to close them down, no matter how successful she were to become. In a somewhat bitter tone, "Oh yes, I'm sure there will be plenty of headaches soon." She turned away from the musician and pushed open the door into the kitchen a bit violently. The cook looked up from his work, cooking steak over the fire. "What's wrong Leila?" "Ugh, one sec hun." She stormed back out to the bar, poured herself a flagon of honey mead, then re-entered the kitchen. Speaking in a voice she knew couldn't be heard outside the kitchen, not that she really cared at the moment, "That man out there, with his honeyed words," took a long draft of her beer, "and charming smile is gross and insulting. For a brief moment, I might've thought he'd be a good guy, since... since I've not heard from Ricky in over twenty days since we met that horrible woman." Leila drained the rest of her drink, slammed it down on the counter, then burst into tears. The poor cook took the food off the fire, and came over, wrapping an arm around her, to console her. "He could be dead for all I know. None of the other Wave Guards know what happened to him, I don't know where he lives. I tried waiting along the route where I met him, but he never showed. I'm so worried about him, that woman could've killed him while he slept for all I know." Taking in several deep breaths, and wiping her tears from her eyes, she hugged the cook. She then turned and walked back out into the bar, expecting to see the musician setting up for his performance. She grabbed any dishes on the bar she could find, dunked them in the water bucket, and began wiping them down.

[Cirrus]

Cirrus Cirrus felt an instant stab of shocked guilt at the expression on her face, her temperament changing suddenly. It was the feeling he got whenever he realised he'd said something truly, horribly wrong. Ugh, of course. First woman you meet who's not an idiot working in this godforsaken inn and you treat her like one. You're a piece of petching work, Cirrus. She stalked out into the back of the inn and without a word, he took his case and opened it, the lyre producing its reassuring harmonic thrum as he lifted it out, changing his guilt into a kind of sadness he could sing to. He had to work tonight, however he felt and whoever in this room hated him. Then he remembered his drink, ran back over, slammed it down his gullet before the woman could come back, and reaching into his purse he left a golden miza in the bottom of the tankard because he was an idiot. Heading back to his seat in the corner, the one he'd always used, he found it occupied. Usually this wouldn't have bothered him but today it felt like the latest in what would probably turn out to be a series of stinging blows. Sighing, he sat down on the table next to the woman there, who was pretty and staring at him prettily, not that he had the attention or motivation to notice. He launched into a sad song, one of the few his father had seen fit to teach him, a song that dated back to the time before he left home and somehow just made him sadder. The verse was sad, the refrain worse, but somehow it just seemed to suit his mood. A song of a sailor's girl who lost her sailor, a simple woman who deserved better. A fitting metaphor for the state of the world. The bartender was just storming back through the door as he drifted sadly, softly into the last verse. "She sits by her window, she sips at her tea, she waits for her love to return from the sea, her suitors come calling, she watches the tide, and all the while Violet bides."

[Leila]

As Leila dunked a flagon into the cleaning water, she heard something tink out in the bottom. She fished around in the water, and found the golden miza the man had left. She dried it off, and slipped it into her pocket. Then Leila heard the man start into his song, and listened to the words while her hands scrubbed away at the dishware. "...she waits for her love to return from the sea..." And while Leila didn't love Ricky, that line made her think of him once more. And how there was nothing worse than waiting to hear if someone were alive or dead, not knowing if she would even get that luxury. Tears stung at her eyes again, but she forced herself to keep them from falling. "...her suitors come calling..." And now she was thinking of her mother, and her years after she'd started receiving her womanly tide a few times a season. Her mother had been working hard to find her a suitor, but Leila had refused and rebutted and was downright stubborn about every single one of them. Her mother and her had fought many a good fight through those years, the both of them growing more bitter and resentful toward each other. And then at the end of Winter in 512, Leila had managed to move out with the help of her father, and was subsequently told that her mother would never speak to her again. And Leila was quite fine with that. Leila knew that she probably overreacted on the poor man, and now wanted to apologize. After all, at least he wasn't as bad as her mother. She sat down on her stool, grabbed another flagon for herself, leaning on the bar, watching and listening to the rest of the man's performance.

[Cirrus]

Cirrus Cirrus stopped and let his shoulders slump slightly, bored with the business of playing music already. His fingers were numb and seemed to be playing by themselves as a terrible, disproportionate guilt grated in his chest. He hated hated hated making enemies. Arguments weren't his thing. Conflict killed him a little every time he had to deal with it. Nonetheless, his job was his job and whether it were playing music or hauling blocks of lead by his ears it would still be a necessary work. He tuned the pegs slightly before he began his next song, feeling singularly bad for the incredibly drunk man in the corner who was sobbing into his mug. I feel for you, friend. Looks like we're both having bad evenings. The song was Shiber, and the timbre of his voice matched it perfectly as it wavered from his lips, the foreign words not making much sense to the majority of the room. The woman beside him was determinedly trying to get his attention, but his fingers were bent, and his eyes were closed. He didn't want to see the room anymore. His only thought was for the waves of hatred he perceived from the bar, the bartender who must hate him now and who worked in the same place he did until season's end. His words weren't spring, or summer. They were winter, the kind of crushing regret that only Cirrus could feel over something so inconsequential. His fingers tripped over the strings as he sang out the last of the final verse, and the heroine bled to death on temple steps already slick with calves' blood. The last chord rang out, and by the end three men were drunk enough to join in the weeping. Without waiting, he launched into the next song. He felt a little better.