Bar Blight (Wrenmae)

[Theia]

72nd of Winter, 512AV It was madness today. Loud as usual but really, was it necessary to be drunk al hours of the day and night? She would never understand the people in the bar and their need to have perpetually filled cup but as long as it paid her wages an they wished to drink themselves to sleep, so be it. But the smell, she thought, that she could do without. And it was not as if the place was nice, the wall were cracked and moldy a poor mixture of wood and cobblestone, the people looked just as bad. Probably they had been there since the eve before or longer still. But the,tables and chairs always looked relatively nice, didn't break under pressure at least. The bar was a different story, always out of beer at the worst times but always having their hidden things and fake wine ready for everyone. «Nother one!» was bellowed out and Theia weaved through the people to wards the voice, she was on crowd control. Meaning she had to make sure the drunks stayed happy when happy when the beer ran dry and the bodies under the table still lived. «It's coming, how about I dance instead?» Obviously he was drunker than he thought but the hair on her arms still rose as he smacked his even drunker friend. «Oi! I don't wanna see you dance!» That what is the third time this Bell that someone had not seen her. It made her anxious and annoyed, leave it to these fools to piss her off! But desperation boiled in her blood, snaked out from the inside and curled around her because for just a moment he was right. Her hand, her hand was not there! Had to be the fumes of the beer, intoxicated her just like the patrons. No, no, she could see her hand because there was skin covering it. Nice colored skin that was not see through. She just had to focus, maybe go inhale some air that did not reek of booze and sweat. Theia closed her eyes and breathed deeply, stepping back from the patrons with her arms around herself. She could feel it a little rough, a little cold and covering her from head to toe. Because people were covered in skin and she was just a little drunk. When she opened her eyes, there was solid skin and she ran her fingers through her hair and down her face and figure. Damned drunks must be rubbing off on her because she was there and at the core of her being she could feel it. Her realness and how solid she was and...Gods that was enough of that she had things to do and people to please and she wasn't drunk yet maybe she should be!

[Wrenmae]

"Linger, linger," a voice murmured to her, "But why haunt such a place as this, certainly the unquiet dead have other places to be."

Wrenmae had entered the bar earlier on an errand. Sent by another Waveguard, he was here to keep an eye on one Jimern Dolan. Word had it that the man was fence for stolen items and, worse, he was a way for smugglers to communicate. The fellow was unassuming enough...big, stupid looking, a haphazard grin always smeared across his face. The suspect blended in with an almost innocent ease. Perhaps that was why he had gone undiscovered for so long. In any case, someone talked, and talked too much and so now the Waveguard was here, in ordinary civilian clothes and tucked on a lonely stool at the end of the bar.

He'd seen her, a ghostly silohuette in the smoky bar and for a moment had panicked. He remembered Isaacs, the ghostly priest of Dira. That phantom had nearly killed he and Rayage a season or so back and the thought it was back to finish the job was enough to make the storyteller coil on edge.

But her form was too feminine, far too curvy to be the esteemed Isaacs.

Wren's own contact with ghosts was a limited affair. He knew they existed, but little of what kept them bound. Most of the time there were little more than phantoms, moving from place to place in a dazed confusion. Isaacs was no doubt an example of a ghost with self affirmation, too long away from the world not to come back with some harrowing wisdom.

He nodded at the girl.

"What's your story, little ghost?"

[Theia]

Theia turned at the voice, all polite smiles and anxiety but her response lay heavy on her tongue as his words registered. Indignant anger surged through her and she reached for a pitcher to fling in the man’s face. But her fingers grasped nothing but air, leaving her stumbling for a chime, her words just as bad. “Find yourself funny? If I did die I would haunt you for a jinx!” She wished to swing at him and shook silently too afraid to swing for fear of what would happen or what would not; moving away she faced another, “What do you want to drink?” There was no reply and she had been forgetting what she was supposed to be doing and tried to make herself busy. There was nothing she could even pretend to do. Theia need to calm herself, breathe deeply and do her job, the man behind her was her job. Grudgingly she turned herself to face him once again. He was just another drunk was all. Unshaven, young, and either a resident of East street or a sailor from the looks of him. Gods, he was young looking, maybe even younger than her and probably already drunk to boot. She was still angry but she had no reason to be, things were fine and this was just a regular day on the job but this person was being an idiot. There was nothing wrong with her, she double-checked, and wiggling her fingers stubbornly feeling for the flesh that should be and was there. Theia gestured to one of the chairs, still shaking and not wishing to touch a damned thing. “Sit, we’ll get you a drink and you can tell me your story first, sailor.” There was no apologies for her earlier burst she only stepped back and assessed the man again, he wasn’t familiar but faces in the bar always melded together into a mass of flesh with no name. Eyes swung back to her hands, jerking them apart to stop the wringing and hoping her voice came out less tense than she held herself.

[Wrenmae]

Sitting back in his chair with a dry chuckle, the mage crossed his arms and let her move. Most did not notice her and as he watched her, the outlines that held her form ran in and out of reality like water. She was every bit a shadow with color, some reflection of past life long taken, or perhaps newly dead. Certainly her denial was obvious and confusing.

He was struck by the notion of the unquiet dead around him. As Theia faded and returned again, he felt, at once, a thousand eyes on him from every corner of the bar. How many of the dead now remained unseen? Did not of them pass on? Was there no afterlife? No…he remembered Satevis, the ethaeful…he said that he had fallen from there, a realm of Leth and Syna. Did that mean the other gods had dwellings there, or that only some had places for their believers to rest. What did Dira have to do with it all? Were all spirits empowered by her?

No, certainly not, this spirit did not seem to understand the gravity of her state. So it was when she returned to him, addressed him as ‘sailor’, that Wrenmae smiled and motioned for the seat.

“I was out of Sunberth,” he said to her, clapping an empty hand on the table across from him, “A visitor to Zeltiva for now…but I rather like the sights. Come, sit with me and tell me of the city…are you a native here? Have you traveled far from these shores?”