Late Customers
- Location: Black Gull Tavern
- Participants: Psamathe, Frakklesworth, Viviane, Drystan
It is quite late. The tavern is nearly empty, except for a few lingering louts. Reeb goads the sloshy stragglers toward the door with the butt of a determined broom, but has not yet battoned down the pub for the night. 'Psamathe' mills about, her movements absent, wiping tables and collecting empty mugs.
Frakklesworth pours in through the doorway, his sea legs nimbly bearing his wayward frame on a straight course for the bar. A languid smile wraps nearly across his entire face, and his unfocused eyes twinkle in moistened merriment. His course is disrupted by the smattering of mislaid chairs that dot the floor, but habit has rendered him deft at dealing with tavern terrain. "Eevenin', my pretty!" he sings out to Psamathe. "'Tis I, come in from th' fiel' for a nip a drink. Jes' a nip, min'." He hiccups and, finding a stool, plops down.
Pushing past the riffraff in Frakkle's wake teeters Viviane, poised despite mild dishevelment. She B-lines for the bar and settles in by the stoat's side, cajoling eyes aimed at Psamathe. "My dear cousin-- wine, would you?"
Seated at a seat in the corner, Drystan avoids the prod of Reeb's broomstick simply by being quiet and still. The todd watches the others with amused curiosity, the smile of a secret joke playing on his lips.
Psamathe swivels on her bare heel to meet the familiar voice; match the wanton grin. "Oi, Frak!" she chimes, balling up the rag in her hands. "Ye' always manage t'slip in, don't ye'?" A similar, though subtly affected, smile is paid to Viviane, before the bartender turns to scrutinize the options. "So .. a nip fer ye' weary night travelers, eh? Hrm." Dicarding the cloth to the counter, the vixen pinches her chin, deliberating.
Frakklesworth leans heavily forward on the bar, his head bobbing faintly, watching Psamathe's movements. Then his head swings wildly to the side to peer at Viviane. "Evenin'," he says, then turns back.
Psamathe glides a step, until the shelves are within reach, and her extended hand hovers in the air. "Nip nip nip," the vixen hums, but, arriving at a decision, she pounces a greenish bottle. "This'll do ye' up good, Frak." She uncorks it as she turns, deftly gathering a pair of short cups in the same practiced whirl. "An yew, coz'," the vixen adds for Viviane.
Viviane, cocking an eye at Frak, offers him a curt nod, and the vixen's smooth voice leaks from her maw: "Be shrewd of your company this late, my dear; the witching hour draws near." She hums to Psamathe, teeth bared as she smiles more cordially for her brethren. "Thank ye."
Frakklesworth swats a paw at his vest pocket a few times before managing to sneak it inside. He then proudly produces a pair of gleaming coins, which he tosses insouciantly onto the countertop. "Came into a bit a money. This'll settle my tab, deary?" His tone suggests a poor grasp of the value of money.
The coins, of course, bounce and roll: they circle several times, amid Psamathe's fluttering swipes, before plunging to the floor with a victorious, metallic plunk. She then looks up, locking Frakklesworth's wandering gaze, and chokes on her crooked smile. "Close 'nough." An ear flicks at the other vixen's peculiar alert, but the keep shrugs it off, pours the drinks and distributes them.
Frakklesworth's paws never fail in guiding cup to mouth, perhaps in some vain hope that someday that cup will contain something, anything that will give his liver a rest. No such luck today. The stoat greedily knocks back the burning liquid and slams down the cup with a triumphant sigh. "Hit th' spot."
"'Course it did," Psamathe huffs. "'Ave I ev'r failed ye', Frak?" Her ears flatten impishly. "If ye'r betrayin' some sorta' skepticism concernin' my taste in hooch, I kin' thinko' a few more spots o' yers I'd like t'hit." Putting her weight against an arm, the vixen leans into the counter, lilac eyes still pinned to the weasel.
"The wine here is terrible," Drystan speaks up abruptly from his corner of the room. "Worst vintage I've tasted in years."
Frakklesworth shrugs limply and looks into the empty vessel. "Nah, you ain'." He presses it to his mouth again in search of what few lingering drops it might contain. "Unlike m' wife. Bloody she-devil." The stoatsel quirks an eye at the querulous fox.
Psamathe deadpans. Hackles slightly raised, the vixen chirps, "Iffn' ye' got a gripe, take it up wif' our complaint department, dear sir!" to Drystan, and gestures at the slumbering mountain of wolf. "Jus' poke 'im inna' belly an' tell 'im *all* about yer woes." Then she smiles, vast and bogus, for the tod, and returns to her stoatsel. "Problems wif th' wife again, eh? Poor dear." The keep pours Frakklesworth another. "Can't catch a break, can ye'?"
Ferris snorts in his sleep.
"Good enough." Drystan lets his head loll back against the wall, that smile still dancing about his face.
The snort is met at once by a frantic, knowing glance from Frakklesworth. The stoat, seeing that the wolf is still soundly sleeping, untenses his muscles. "Aye. 'Swhy I come here." He smiles up at the vixen.
"Here's t'that," the vixen chimes to the stoat, curling her hand around the neck of the bottle. A fleeting look is cast to Drystan, verifying his capitulation, before she brings the booze to her mouth and imbibes, straight from the vessel, with an utterly medieval disregard for sanitation. "Ah." Psamathe smacks her lips, beating her chest with the unoccupied fist. "Can't be bothered by much wif' a bitta' this coursin' through ye', eh? Mmm mm." She takes another swig.
"Graham C. Frakklesworth!" A stern female voice slices in through the relative quiet of the tavern. The beckoned stoat blanches at the sound of the voice. "She-devil followed me. Bloody..." He stands, frantic, and nearly tumbles backward onto his rump. "Quick-- uh. I gotta hide!" One paw on the stool where he was just sitting, he stabilizes himself and readies his uncooperative legs for a sprint.
"Oho, the she-devil," Drystan murmurs, straightening up again to better see what happens. In a snap decision, the fox gets to his feet.
Psamathe lifts both brows, jaw falling a bit slack. "Hide? Ain' it a but late fer' all that, Frak?" Her eyes skip off the fuming she-devil, then back to Graham C. Frakklesworth. "Think she's got ye' cornered, mate." The vixen is hastily maneuvering from behind the bar, bracing to intercept any incoming projectiles: shoes, chairs, pitchforks.
Frakklesworth's back is indifferent to Psamathe's counsel. The young fellow wobbles his panicked way to the staircase and begins crawling on all fours up to the second floor. Just then, the figure of a slender female conspecific appears in silhouette in the doorframe. "Graham! Where in toadpond are you!" Her husband's noisy escape quickly furnishes her a reply.
Viviane, having drifted into some otherworldly realm for however long it's been, returns with a snap, and a quick pardon from the bar; she tosses some coins at Psamathe while watching Frak with concern or amusement, and dodges into a dark corner. Drystan is hereby noted, and she slips into a seat nearby. "And /that's/ why ye should never get married," she mutters.
Psamathe props her hip against the end of the bar, vacantly gathering the rag. She wrings it, sizing up the banshee, and chooses to stay clear of the battle. "Oh Frak," she whistles, and, with a shake of her dready head, ambles back to her post behind the counter.
"Precisely right." And then Drystan is stepping into the doorway, barring the path of the she-devil. "Good evening, madam." A paw drifts up in the gap between them, and when the todd twists his wrist a flower appears in his previously empty grasp. "For you."
Frakklesworth scrambles the rest of the way up the steps. Presumably he has an escape plan, but, well. One never knows with a fellow like that.
The wife, intending to send a barrage of chairs flinging from her path as sight of Frak's tail, is suddenly graced by a flower in her squinted vision. Her focus, having been pursuant with the stoat's retreat, is placed upon the delicacy of the plant, and then to the tod's dear visage. "A real /ge'le/man, s'what yew are!" she half-growls, snatching the flower to savor its scent, nostrils tugging the petals; and as soon as she sniffs, she tosses it over a shoulder, disgusted by the gesture. She scoffs at the tod, then turns her fury back to its source. "I cans see wheres y'r 'eaded, Graham C. Frakklesworth! An' dere ain't no ways out!"
The steamy stoat returns to stalking her scoundrel, feet pounding against the floorboards with insurmountable weight. She reaches the stairs in time to snag a swatch of scrambling Frak-hair, but the guy slips from her grasp. "Keep runnin' if y'manage t'get out o' 'ere! 'cus y'know what's comin' t'ye if ye don't!"
Drystan is shoved aside, and makes his way remorsefully back to Viviane and his seat. "Well, I did what I could."
"Go an' get 'im, eh, my dear!" Viviane calls to the vehement vermin, eyes mirthful at the woman's rage; she even offers the stoat-maid a half-salute with wine in paw as she stares at the onslaught. She chuckles as she sips, scooting away from her table to kick up her feet. Highly uncouth for such a lady, but it's late, and she's quite merry, now. She grins at Drystan; "There's no sense in stopping a woman scorned. She'll fine a way."
"Indeed," Drystan replies, settling into his seat. The todd watches quietly as the stoat-marm does her thing.
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