[The Spinning Coin] Trouble-Makers {Shiress}

[Hadyn Skellig]

18th Day
Sping 513
Late Night


The door of the Spinning Coin shoved open, revealing to the rowdy crowd two already inebriated ladies stepping over the threshold of the most nefarious establishment in Syliras. For Hadyn the outfit was nothing new, having been well acquainted with the pit for most of her adult life. The woman wasn't much of a gambler however she could be counted among the more familiar faces in the place. She wasn't entirely sure how it would sit with her companion, though. Regardless the blacksmith had promised Shiress a night of trouble and what better way to start than the Coin?

The two had begun the night at the Stallion, wiling the time away chatting and getting to know one another. After establishing a mutual enjoyment for drinks and a good time it was decided the evening needed to continue in a more exciting capacity. Shiress was some years Hadyn's junior and a newcomer to the city. For both those reasons the blacksmith felt a sisterly responsibility to show the girl a good time. And while she couldn't yet slam the drinks like Hadyn there was hope yet for the lovely barmaid. They'd taken their merrymaking from the empty hall of the Stallion into the streets, walking the distance to gambling pit of the Coin, ready for the night to continue.

Brushing back loose strands of hair the brunette made her way past devious and lecherous patrons alike, a brazen air to her and a simpering grin on her lips. Nothing about the smoke filled raucous, sweaty chasm bothered her. In fact she gave a nonchalant nod and smile to acquaintances she passed, casting an occasional eye over her shoulder to be sure the girl was following. When they finally reached the bar, Hadyn placed a hand on the rough worn surface, making room for her companion.

"Oi," she hollered over the din, alerting the barman with an upward jerk of her hand. "Rum. Two." She kept the order short, an affirmative nod from the man had the woman turning to her friend with a smile. Leaning the side of her body against the bar, Hadyn glanced at the packed building before offering Shiress a smile.

[Isolde Seibold]

Isolde stared down at the bar. She had ordered no food, no drink. She didn't blink, didn't move. Didn't breathe. Just stared. To anyone looking she might have seemed asleep --or dead-- with her eyes still open. Her thoughts drifted in a lovely, meaningless path, pulled this way and that by her raucous surroundings. She was vaguely surprised to find herself in this place, wherever it was. The Nuit couldn't remember how she'd gotten here, but everything looked different and she was very tired, so she imagined that she had recently taken a new body. It was likely that she had performed the soul transfer last night, or the one before. And then afterwards-- she searched for the memory. Somehow she had found her way here. Perhaps she had gotten confused while wandering "home." She was certainly confused now, but it was a good thing; the distractions here were mesmerizing. Even if some of the people sent a thrill of chill fear skittering down her back.

A particularly loud voice battered in the Nuit's ears, raised above the din of the crowd, and Isolde blinked in reaction, raising her head. She turned her face to the side to see who it was that had caught her attention. A young woman leaned on the bar next to her, and was hollering at the barman. Another woman --younger still-- seemed to follow in the first's wake.

"Oi. Rum. Two." The woman jerked her hand for emphasis.

Isolde was surprised again; she found, suddenly, that these newcomers had captured her attention, her curiosity. She didn't know why. Something about their manner. For a moment Isolde thought she had felt her mouth quirk upwards in a smile, but then again maybe she hadn't. She didn't attempt to speak to either of the women. She simply stared and stared at them, and especially at the one that had asked for the rum. She hardly knew what to do with her interest. Perhaps she should continue to watch them to see what they would do. Yes. Perhaps she should.

(( It said open so I jumped in; I hope neither of you mind. ))

[Shiress]

The walk to The Spinning Coin was more a float to The Spinning Coin for Shiress. She held her own following in Hadyn's wake, but inebriated she was and her gait was showing the effects of the nights drinking. The blacksmith stepped through the door, followed closely by the barmaid whose steps resembled more of a stumble than a step. After giving herself an amused chuckle, Shiress ran her green eyes around the establishment. The girl was completely put aside by the size of the place. The Coin was much larger than the Stallion with a vast variety of activities set up around the floor even tables were set aside for throwing away a coin or three on a card game. Noticing she was lagging behind her more graceful companion, Shiress walked a bit faster to catch up, stopping just behind the blacksmith as she ordered their first round of drinks, well, first round at the Coin anyway. Immediately, the girl noticed glaring eyes coming from a female sitting near where Hadyn stood. Looking far more intoxicated than most, the strangers eyes seemed to bore a hole through the blacksmith. Shiress had looked on long enough and her curiosity, not to mention intoxication, finally got the better of her. She took a couple steps up and moved between Hadyn and the stranger, quickly leaning over to bring herself face to face with the glaring on looker. "Her name is Hadyn if you are wondering, and well, I'm Shiress, but I bet you wasn't wondering that, but I told you anyway." She straightened herself, glancing over her shoulder to Hadyn with a proud, albeit, crooked smile. "She wanted to know your name I think, so I filled her in." Explained Shiress with a nod of her head. A proud, tipsy girl she was.

[Hadyn Skellig]

Their drinks arrived with a swiftness that nearly caught the brunette off-guard but she quirked a smile at the bartender, tossing the appropriate coin his way. Turning, a drink in each hand Hadyn was ready to hand one off to Shiress but her attention was occupied by a curious female seated nearby. On closer inspection the blacksmith could only define this stranger as... odd. It didn't bother her much but Shiress was addressing the interloper directly, stepping between the two. Hadyn honestly couldn't make out much of the barmaid's speech over the din but smiled when she quickly explained herself to Hadyn over her shoulder. Handing her the drink, the woman nodded to the strange female with a grin.

"Glad for it," she yelled loud enough for the barmaid to hear, situating herself near enough to the auburn haired girl that she wouldn't have to shout. Tilting her head toward the stranger over Shiress head, Hadyn leaned against the bar. "What brings y'to this cesspool of humanity tonight?"

It wasn't necessarily an invitation but Hadyn saw no harm in engaging the other female, despite her uncanny aura. Taking a slow sip of rum, the brunette's attention flicked from her companions to the other patrons of the Coin. Ever vigilant for trouble the blacksmith took it upon herself to see that Shiress not only had a grand drunken time but that she was kept safe. Assessing eyes scanned the pit before returning to the strange lady who was intent upon staring. Casting her drink toward the individual in a polite manner, the brunette took another swig, attentive to an answer.

[Isolde Seibold]

Imagine the flash of amazement that scurried through the Nuit --dancing on her expression, tingling her fingers-- when the two young women actually started to talk to her. She stared at them with a strange expression, wide-eyed and dull, trying to pick through the sludge in her mind, trying to come back to the present. She had spent the evening sloshing through her memories. It was always so hard to come back from that, though the atmosphere of this place --where was she?-- certainly was helping her along.

And then it clicked into the Nuit's mind, and she opened her mouth and dropped out one word, "Oh." As if it was surprising to her that they had really spoken, and that now it was her turn to speak. She cleared her throat, one hand reaching up to tug her hood into place, the other going to the surface of the bar to start tapping out a rhythm on the well-worn wood. When she finally collected herself enough to speak, it was with an unsteady, crude voice, as if the words needed to be dusted off before use. "Oh," she said again, at least that one was easy enough, "Erm, well-- I-- I-- I'm I-Isolde." She said it as if she was uncertain of her own name. To the others, she might just seem extraordinarily drunk. But truly the Nuit was trying her best. She was just so surprised by everything. The conversation, especially. She felt uncomfortable, and shifted in her seat. To the louder one's question --had she been introduced as Hadyn?-- the Nuit called out, sounding peculiar and confused, "I-- I, uh. I d-don't really-- really know. What... what is this-- this place?" She looked over her shoulder at the main body of the room as if seeing it for the first time. The noise of the crowds she had come to understand in her time spent... here. But she hadn't bothered looking around before.

[Shiress]

Shiress laughed with a snort as she lifted herself to her tiptoes and leaned close to the blacksmith. "She's so shyke faced she don't know where she's at." She said, with a much louder voice than needed in Hadyn's ear. "One shouldn't get so out of sorts, right Hadyn." *hic!* "S'cuse me"

She lifted her glass and curiously examined it's contents. Good, not whiskey Shrugged her shoulders and took a long pull of the clear liquor as she hobbled around Hadyn and planted herself, not so gently, into a newly unoccupied stool, leaving the stranger and the blacksmith to their conversation.

She situated herself with her back to the bar, her green eyes scanning around her surroundings once again. Directly in front of her, a tall and rather large, beefy man stood towering over a table occupied by men of like stature. His arms were busy aiding in a grand story telling. Beside him was a table of younger men, squires probably, whose laps were adorned by women, their hands busy in places they ought not be. Every other table that her sight landed on seemed to have happy hands and happier females. "Ugh.."

Shiress rolled her eyes and spun herself around to face the bar. She pressed the glass against her lips and flung her head back, taking in more than half of the beverage in one gulp, obviously, getting better at the drinking thing, especially now that her intoxicated state allowed no concern to taste.

She slid her eyes back over her shoulder to give the table's of inebriated love another frown and drowned her growing annoyance with another generous drink from her glass. With a loud groan of a growl, she slammed her glass down on the bar top and quickly glanced up to Hadyn with a toothy grin as the groan was a bit louder than she meant for it to be. "Sorry." She said with her grin spreading into an embarrassed smile. "I'm trying to remember to forget."

[Hadyn Skellig]

Hadyn sipped leisurely on the rum, her gaze concentrated on their new friend. She was not only odd by appearance but manner as well. The girl, introducing herself as Isolde, lacked any significant understanding of her location or her reason for being there. It concerned the blacksmith but when Shiress commented (loudly) on Isolde's state the brunette shook her head in disagreement. Brow furrowed Hadyn leaned closer to the aimless girl, rum grasped close to her chest.

"You're in the Spinning Coin," the woman informed her carefully, gaze intent on Isolde. "Y'lost, lass?"

Casting a quick glance and smile over her shoulder at Shiress to make sure she was still minding her behavior, the brunette took swift stock of the pit before returning to Isolde. Despite being close to tipsy the blacksmith was unable to remove herself enough to be indifferent to the girl's clear plight. One should not find themselves in the Coin without a reason. Taking another measured sip of rum Hadyn watched Isolde intently. She was ready to offer Isolde a drink but she wanted to ascertain the girl's state of mind first.

[Isolde Seibold]

Isolde's brow furrowed first at the name of the place, then at the following question. "Sp-Spinning Coin..." she repeated without much inflection, and yes, now she could see it there, just barely, in her mind; there was something in her memory about the name. Something vaguely unpleasant, like the smell of stale beer and close-packed bodies that perforated the room. She was certain she had never been here before, so the negative association she felt must have to do with the place's reputation in general. No matter. It was interesting here, and the Nuit's interest had rarely been piqued in the last hundred so years. She gazed, doe-eyed, at Hadyn, though her attention kept slipping over to Shiress. The younger girl kept drawing her attention, and she made the Nuit feel almost... nervous. Isolde's fingers would not hold still, but kept tapping insistently against the bar. Shiress was... she didn't know how to describe it, but she didn't look... happy, was it, with her drink, and she said strange things that Isolde thought didn't apply to the conversation. There was something about her manner, too, that the Nuit had a hard time shuffling her mind over. Hadyn seemed to the Nuit to be... more-- more controlled? Maybe that was it. Controlled was good, she thought. Safe.

To whether or not she was lost, she asked, "This... Spinning Coin... this-- this is Syliras, right?" Hadyn's question was confusing her. Conversing was so difficult. Finding meaning in the words even more so. And the two's expressions were impossible to read. At best, Isolde thought she could discern that they were not angry. And wasn't that all that mattered? As long as they didn't want to hurt her, or worse, then they were fine, right? That felt right. Maybe she could get used to this, to them. To talking. She would have another go. "I-If it is--" Her voice broke off as if the sentence had been snapped suddenly in two; someone had made a sudden move in her peripherals, and she flinched her face that way, wide-eyed, making certain that the disturbance wasn't a threat of some sort. No, no, just a man who'd knocked over a table. Cards and dice and Mizas and mugs still half-full of liquid littered the floor, and there was a bit of a rush to snatch everything up. The Nuit, satisfied that she wasn't in danger, brought her attention back to the conversation. But wait, where had she been going with those words? Oh yes, she remembered. She tried again, clearing her throat, raising her voice over a roar of raucous, barking laughter from a particularly happy man. "If this-- this place, if it's in Syliras, then I shouldn't be-- be lost. I should be able-- to go-- to go home." The last word was a bit hard to push out because that wasn't the right thing to call that place she stayed in, like a particularly large, grey box, but she didn't know what else to call it. Thinking it was polite, perhaps, the Nuit added, "A-And... a-are you? Lost, I mean. Or--" She twisted her mouth a little, thinking on her wording, "--or maybe you're here... for a reason?" She didn't feel like that was exactly the right way to express her interest in what they planned on doing, but she thought Hadyn would understand. Shiress, too, if the girl was paying attention. Isolde was having a hard time telling what was what, with Shiress.

[Shiress]

Hadyn's concern for the stranger caught Shiress' attention despite her growing intoxicated state. She pressed her chest against the bar watching the stranger as she spoke to her friend, but her agitation peaked when she couldn't hear a thing that was being said.

The girl drained her glass and stood and slid around Hadyn, her fingers wrapped tightly around the blacksmiths shirt to stabilize her steps all while thinking she could have gotten up a bit slower.

Shiress made it to the opposite side of the girl and leaned herself against the bar with her arms, lowering her head to meet with the girls eyes. "Whats a matter with you? Somebody hurt you?" Getting a better look at the girl made Shiress' lips descend into a frown and her brow lower. The strangers face was ghostly pale, her lips dark and the hollows of her sunken eyes near black in color.

The barmaid leaned closer becoming a bit more concerned. "Are you sick, friend?" and as Shiress spoke she placed a concerned hand on the girls arm, but as fingertips met with frigid flesh she jerked her hand away. "You're cold." She whispered to herself hesitantly completely unsure if what she just felt was herself or the stranger. Her eyes shifted from her own hand back to the girls arm then to her face as a look of shock grew and spread slowly across her features. Wide eyes slowly lifted to Hadyn and after a chime the shock gave way enough to speak. "The girls skin is..is like ice."

[Hadyn Skellig]

Concern marred her visage as she stared pointedly at Isolde. She seemed disoriented and dazed - neither of which one ought to be at the Spinning Coin. The girl spoke with the hesitancy of one unaccustomed to the language, testing and pressing the words across her tongue and through her teeth. Had she not been so deep in her alcohol Hadyn might've reacted with more apparent alarm. But the woman simply tilted her head, expression conveying both interest and concern for this strange creature.

Before she could respond to Isolde's odd query, her companion interjected with equal drunken distress. Shiress' attention had also been piqued as she tugged purposefully on Hadyn's shirt to stand. Extending her arm gently to help stabilize the barmaid, the blacksmith averted her gaze to cast a reassuring smile to Shiress. The girl inquired after Isolde's state, a question already on Hadyn's lips. Her reaction to Isolde's skin received a raised brow from the brunette. Taking another measured sip of rum (for these things were always easier after the slosh of booze), the brunette regarded their new cold companion.

"We're here for the drinks," she raised her glass slightly. "Now then. Shiress says you've the touch of an icicle. Y'aren't of the human persuasion, are ye?"

Her words were delivered with care for it seemed someone who had trouble speaking would likely find the quick rush of conversation burdensome. Though Hadyn didn't display her surprise at Shiress' discovery she was no less moved. Cold to the touch. Ambivalent and taxed by speech. Clearly there was something dodgy about Isolde. She didn't bear herself with the manner of one abused or assaulted, though her nature did suggest a certain distrust of others. But why the Coin? It was a mystery drunk Hadyn made it her business to pursue. A quick glance to Shiress proved they were of a similar mindset.