TEST DRIVE MEME #7

[fairyfoes]

TEST DRIVE MEME

Considering apping to EACHDRAIDH? Why not give the setting a test run here! OPTIONAL SCENARIOS 01. ARRIVING IN THE DRABWURLD. The Seelie and Unseelie courts welcome you not with mirthful revelry, this time around dear friends. There is a seriousness in the air, though the food is still hearty and the imps still mischievous. After you have been briefed on your purpose here, you will find an endless feast and a night filled with entertainment to placate your concerns. Mingle with new arrivals, sneak down the castle halls and make sure your eyes are always on your glass; fairies and imps have no bias when it comes to tricks! 02. THE STATION. Looking for a little slice of home? The Station gives you all that and more. Take advantage of the wifi, have a cup of fairy-brewed coffee (the one they didn't spit in) or sit back and relax on the patio. You can even move your things into one of the available rooms! 03. WILDCARD. Your own scenario! Explore the Drabwurld or simply take advantage of your Locket! Be mindful, though -- the monarchs are watching and cross court communication should be done with the utmost secrecy.

Comments

[circumnavigates]

[Did someone say belching fire after drinking a buttload of crappy booze in some seedy dive tavern?

Perfect. Rider is thoroughly impressed and claps very loud, requesting a bottle of rum to bring over to this amazing champion of their time, and take a seat at her table, plunking the bottle and two classes down.]

I've seen a lot of parlour tricks in bars, but that one was the single best.

[nughumps]

[And Hawke has seen a lot of titty in a lot of parlours and bars, but Rider's majestic tits nearly startle her into dropping the mug she's nursing after the last bout of flames. At the last second she slams it messily onto the rotting table.]

Couldn't you tell? That was no trick, and neither could you insult me by calling it an illusion-- ooh, 's that my glass? How kind!

[circumnavigates]

[Why thank you, she's awfully proud of her majestic tits.]

...You really breathe fire, it wasn't some sort of trick with a match?

[Awesome. She nods about the glass, filling each to the brim for them.]

Do you shit fire too?

[nughumps]

[Being an adult and not a teenager, even in varying stages of insobriety she has no trouble keeping her eyes above Rider's chin. Her laugh is loud, crass, straight from a farm.]

Buy me enough of these and I'll demonstrate, my friend. The world is at an end. Why not?

[circumnavigates]

[That's a good laugh if ever she's heard one, and the one Rider gives in return is much the same. She sets the bottle down with a thud, waves with a demand for more alcohol, even if it's a lazy motion, and puts her feet up on the table.

Then she takes her glass and raises it to Hawke.]

I'll buy you a fucking sea of whatever you want for the chance to see that.

[nughumps]

[A raising of the glass! Her most cocksure grin!]

A toast to the night.

Toast to... another chance.

[Meaning something known only to Hawke, apparently; she knocks back the rum.]

[circumnavigates]

Here here.

[She nods to the woman across from her, and likewise knocks back the glass. Then she immediately tops both of them up, takes a look at the bottle and takes another swig for herself right from it.]

And another toast to getting shitfaced.

[nughumps]

[Her generosity is infinitely appealing.

It occurs to the mage as she's topped up, however:]

You've got me ready and willing to do an awful thing but haven't graced me with your name.

[circumnavigates]

And here I am buying you drinks and haven't gotten any name in return either! Where are our manners.

[Her legs sweep off the table, heels clacking on the floor as she sits upright and offers her hand across the table.]

Called Rider lately, but - name's Francis Drake - 'sir', technically.

[nughumps]

[Her eyes tick down to follow the movement, dragging up again with heat behind them.

What? It's been a lonely few weeks.]

Ser Francis Drake, I'll call you anything you ask. [She thrusts a friendly hand into the other and shakes once, twice, briskly interested.] Only say what you'd prefer. Everyone calls me Hawke. No, I can't fly, and my beak is very fleshy.

[circumnavigates]

[She grins. Well Hawke can just hop aboard her flying ship sometime then.]

I'm not picky. And I don't give a single flying fuck about formalities, by the way.

[Time for another swig.]

So what do you do, Hawke? Just sit around in bars spewing fire from every orifice, or maybe a hunter like your namesake?

[nughumps]

So grateful that my reputation doesn't precede me.

[Champion see, Champion do. Hawke is beyond tasting the difference between cheap rum and the good stuff she kept under her old bed in Kirkwall.]

Ahhhh. Look at me. Do I seem like the sort for hunting?

[Reclining, the solid thickness of her waist and shoulders paint a picture not uncommon to the backwater tavern they're drinking in. Whatever she's in the business of doing, Hawke is someone used to doing work with her own two hands. The glint of her eyes suggests everything and nothing in particular.]

[circumnavigates]

[She shrugs. And if they were somewhere better, she'd be springing for the top quality shit. But a drink's a drink, the cheap stuff has its own charm.]

More like skinning, maybe.

So, what, some kind of knight? What is your reputation?

[nughumps]

[Hawke loses it at 'knight'.

When she's finished hooting, her arm slips off the table, rum forgotten. Her elbows brace on each knee.]

No, never a knight. My armor's not so shining, I really ought to clean out the more persistent bloodstains. [joking aside] Stole treasure from dead dwarves, stomped an invasion, saved a lot of rich people. They named me Champion for the deed.

[Accidentally helped her friend blow up a place of worship with people inside it. She doesn't say it, and the downward twist of a lip is gone in a single beat.]

[circumnavigates]

[Rider raises an eyebrow, watching that reaction with great interest. That far off the mark, huh? Well then, it's definitely got to be something very interesting.]

'Champion', 'knight', is there much of a difference? That's pretty much the same shit that got me the title.

[Another shrug. Not saying she takes it seriously at all or wants to throw the title around either, it's more funny than anything. She's proud of her accomplishments, not what she was given for them.]

Anyway, sounds pretty interesting.

[nughumps]

[Seeing Rider, all of Rider (scar, coat, the way she takes up space in the room), Hawke snags the glass for a swig; she's too intent on hearing the story that must brew beneath the surface of her bodaciously good company. Almost forgot the free rum.]

Not very. I'm a bore.

But you-- why'd they knight you?

[circumnavigates]

Hah! I doubt it!

[But, oh, the chance to brag? Well, okay. She does enjoy her own stories.]

I was the first to circumnavigate the globe. If somebody tells you it was Magellan, they don't know shit, that idiot died on the trip, that's a load of propaganda. Also sank and raided more than a few enemy ships on the way. They started calling me all kinds of things, like a bloodthirsty dragon without a trace of mercy. -Actually that was already my reputation on the sea, though.

[That's earned her ANOTHER DRINK]

[nughumps]

[A commiserating nod, yes, Hawke totally knows who in the Void that idiot Magellan is, of course he perished on the voyage.

She tilts forward even further off her chair, enchanted at 'bloodthirsty dragon'. The story induces nostalgia and she's been avoiding the bloody piss out of that, drowning it when an option, but what can be done but egg Rider on?]

You mean to tell me I walked into a tavern and a dragon bought me rum? And it isn't the setup to a hideous joke?

[circumnavigates]

That's right. This dragon doesn't sit on a pile of gold, she likes to spend it. What good does a pile of treasure you won't spend do, right?

[She grins, raises her glass again, and tips it back.]

Pirates might steal and all, but I like to think we're pretty generous. So I'll take being a dragon in name, and a pirate in deed.

Or something like that, forgot what I was getting at.