Happy Birthday To Me...

[Talulah]

89th Day of Spring. Around Sunrise.

Talulah slid off of Jewel's back and patted the horse with a sigh. "Jewel, just stay out here please. I'm tired and sad and I don't want to have to deal with any shyke today. If anybody tries anything, just whinny, ok?" She murmured to the Strider, reaching into the saddlebags for a couple coins. She shoved them in her pocket and kissed her horse's muzzle before going inside.

Talulah raised her eyebrows when she noticed that the pub wasn't like most she went to. No loud drunks shouting and leering at women, no fights breaking out. But she was too depressed to be curious. She hauled herself onto the bar stool and looked up at the bartender. "Just gimme...." she waved her hand and tried to think. "Ugh, just give me whatever. I don't really care." The bartender nodded and gave her a drink. She took a sip, sip, wrinkling her nose a little at the taste, and put a coin on the counter. She guessed by the way he looked at her that they used some other type of money here but she didn't really care at the moment.

"What a way to spend my birthday." She said, mostly to herself. "In a bar after a miserably pointless journey that ruined my chances of getting the reward from that quest. Not to mention all the fame and glory...Imass and the other knights are gunna hate me..." She sighed again and to a big swallow of her drink before purposely slamming her head down on the counter, hard.

[Alyxandyr Finn]

As Alyx sat in the Sharp Tongue, he slowly sipped an ale he'd recently acquired from one of the other patrons. Unfortunately for the patron, they were unaware that their beverage had gone mysteriously missing. Fortunately, he was already too inebriated to care. He leaned against the bar, surveying the current patronage. Unfortunately for him it was mostly a sausagefest, but then again most pubs were. Oh, there were a few fetching barwenches, and the occasional lady patron--most of which were either older women who imagined themselves to be much younger than they were, or strung out things that would never have fallen under the category of 'pretty' in the first place. As such, when a beautiful person walks through the door, it's hard not to notice how blatantly out of place it is. Even though the Sharp Tongue was one of the best places to get a beer, that didn't mean beautiful women frequented the place. It was like being called the coolest place in the desert. Some things just seemed irrational when compared to the norm, whichever norm that may be.

He took a moment to observe her entering, and watched as she approached the bar. He observed with careful interest how she ordered and slammed her head upon the bar surface with an unceremonious whump. Even at his distance, which was half the length of the bar, he could hear the sound reverberate solidly, forcing him to flinch at the imagined pain likely caused by the act. As the humanized stoat slid down the bar, he didn't bother to conceal the way he allowed his eyes to consume her body. He found her petite, luscious, curvy, and very attractive. She was also very young by human standards, barely an adult, if that. She wasn't a redhead, but hey...no one's perfect. Didn't mean she wasn't absolutely petchable.

As he approached he leaned on the counter and put his head in his hand, which he rest on the bar a foot and a half away form her. A bemused smile danced across his rather rodent-like visage, his quirky grin full of both confidence and pity.

]"You look like you've been to Dira's doorstep and back...quite the rough day by the look of it. Wanna talk about it?" His nasally tenor was a bit annoying, but by and large amused and sympathetic. Meanwhile, his eyes were casing her body not only for personal enjoyment, but also to try and find her purse.

[Talulah]

Talulah lifted her head, which was now a little red from slamming it on the bar, and looked over at the man speaking to her. He spoke to her but his eyes examined her body. She'd been in enough situations on her wild goose chase to get suspicious and she frowned a bit at him. "First of all, from the way you're looking at me, I'm guessing you're either looking for something or staring. I don't really give a shyke if you stare but I swear to the dammed Goddess who cursed me, if you try taking anything I will kick you in the balls so hard, you'll lose them for a week."

Talulah sighed and ran her fingers through her hair, which was unbraided and messy, after saying that and resisted the urge to slam her head on the counter again. "I was on a quest a while ago with some knights and other people...I could've gotten five thousand mizas from it...But then one night I had a dream about Alvadas that made me want to go there. It ended up being nothing but shyke and now here I am, back from Alvadas, celebrating probably the worst birthday I've ever had."

Talulah blinked and bit her lip when she finished speaking, surprised she'd let the words just tumble out like that. What was she doing, talking to a stranger and telling him all her problems? But she felt a bit better now that she had done so. So she shrugged and slammed her head down again, sighing and cursing Gnora.