What's It Matter |
Summary: | Two nobles who have recently arrived in Oldtown meet in one of its lowliest places. |
Date: | 22/05/2014 |
Related: | None |
Players: |
.... |
Tooth and Nail
Oldtown
This squalid winesink never closes — somebody broke the front door, probably with an ax, years ago. It doesn't latch, and it'd not even a complete door. Bad weather can leak in through its broken edges. There are a few battered tables, and stools and benches or just empty barrels to sit on. The furniture, such as it is, doesn't match and is probably mostly stolen. It doesn't last long in here. The place has a dirt floor strewn with straw and rushes. They don't appear to have been changed for decades and they emit a dank smell.
The drink is cheap, the food cheaper, and the whores may be cheapest of all.
For a penny one can sleep, or do any other thing, on the second floor. It's drier up there. However, it is all one room and there are neither beds nor a limit to how many 'guests' are sold lodging there each night.
Making his way into the Tooth & Nail in what he is currently considering his more 'casual' attire, Lucas Redwyne takes one look around the place and grunts. Well, it's a shithole, but maybe he shouldn't have expected much else. Then again, he can really only blame himself… since he made it a goal to visit every drinking establishment in the city at least once. Shrugging to himself, and glad that the coin on him is very, very limited at the moment, he checks his sword and then makes his way to the bar. Oddly enough, he is already carrying a bottle of something with him, but that doesn't prevent him from calling for an empty glass and a bottle of the foulest stuff in the place.
Sat right in the middle of the winesink at table that's missing part of a leg and propped up unevenly with a cracked bowl is Reeda Bracken. It puts her straight in the way of bother, for those who expect her to be a whore, but beggars can't be choosers. The tall, ungainly, freckled Riverlander woman's a mash-up of sights. She doesn't fit in here, but she'd hardly fit in anywhere; her golden-yellow embroidered brown dress has been torn of any ornament and lacing, and there's a a scarf of dull red fabric tied and knotted around her head, hiding half of her hair. She looks more a pirate than a lady. Her height's diminished some by her primitive posture; a hunker over the table, a bundle on her lap — all she owns, she has to carry with her. Next to a half-gnawed piece of bread, a scrap of parchment bearing some manner of faded technical drawings sits on the table in front of her. She halts scratching at it to, with narrow eyes, mark the newest figure to grace the ungraceful place. A noble. He looks it more than she.
Having obtained his empty glass and a second bottle, Lucas ponders for a moment as he lets his eyes scan the room. His eyes fall on the woman who appears to be looking at him. Not giving it a second thought, he steps over to her table. As he sits down across from her, he takes in her appearance and asks, "Swim ashore after your ship sank?" He reaches across and places the bottle of swill in front of her as he puts down his own bottle and glass in front of him. Glancing at the glass, he sighs for a moment and then cleans the inside and the rim of it with his sleeves before putting the glass back down in front of him.
As Lucas nears, Reeda's attention focuses on the pommel of the knight's sword and the sigil on his doublet. It doesn't take an expert in heraldry to associate the grapes with the famous wine-makers of the Arbor. "What?" Blunt, plainly not getting it. Dark eyes jut immediately down the second she speaks, not out of withering shyness but rather a solid disinterest in making eye contact. After a brief detour to eye the wine bottle rather suspiciously, she's back to regarding her parchment. It appears to be an antequated, detailed depiction of a fern, torn out of a book. "S'a whore or wench you're lookin' for, ye can move on."
"Probably was a bit rude, but what I meant was that it looked like you just washed up on shore." He quirks a slight grin, though he soon returns his attention back to the glass and bottle in front of him. Putting the glass just so, he takes a moment to open up the bottle and pour a deep, rich liquid into the glass. After the glass is full, he closes the bottle back up and glances over to the woman again. "What makes you think I'm looking for a whore?" His eyes glance down to take in the parchment in front of her for only the briefest moment.
There's a minuscule twitch of one of the woman's bony shoulders; she doesn't bother looking up, just goes on labeling her paper. "Manner a' statistics." Her voice's low, unconcerned, a bit rough, and flush with the Riverlands. Reeda sets down her small, half-effective writing utensil and, with slightly unclean fingers, grabs her bread to tear a piece off in her mouth; crude manners, but she's got all a full set of teeth and they even gleam. "Didn't wash up." She chews and swallows hungrily. "Came in like anybody else."
Taking the glass in hand, Lucas takes a sip and takes a moment to enjoy the flavor before returning his attention to the woman. "Statistics eh? Which statistics are those? How every man who enters a place like this is looking to go whoring? Or how usually the women you find in places like these are whores?" He leans back and squints his eyes at her. "Besides, I doubt I would find many whores in this town that know how to use parchment for doing anything but wiping their ass with it."
"Both," she says of statistics. An amused smile threatens her otherwise poker-faced expression, thinning the corners of her lips. As agreements go, it'll do. Fair enough. She replaces the remaining heel of bread with her writing implement again, leans over the small page — studious, if perhaps rude when someone's speaking to her. Another shrug, one-shouldered. "You're a Redwyne," she points out blandly— still without looking up at the noble lord. If it's an attempt at conversation, it's not a great one. Then: "Wine here's shit."
Lucas' eyebrow lifts as she nonchalantly points out that he's a Redwyne. "A Redwyne am I? Mm, I could be one of their sworn swords." He shrugs and takes another sip of his wine. "But there is one thing I can agree with you on, the wine here is shit. That's why I gave you the bottle." Another grin crops up on his face, because to him all wine is shit except Arbor wine. "Anyway, what are you scratching out over there?"
"Could be," Reeda agrees over the man's identity, not sounding to particularly care one way or the other. She rubs at a mistake on the page, smudging her thumb and doing little to right the wrong. She writes over it instead. "Tansy leaf." A pause interrupts her work, and she lifts the slits of her eyes long enough to eye the wine bottle; an unfavourable eyeing, it seems for a second that she might reject ownership of it, too conflicted, truly, for consideration of such cheap swill. She ultimately gives up thinking more on it, looking back down. Scratch, scratch. Each tiny part of the odd botanical drawing is labeled.
"What is a tansy leaf?" As if Lucas has had any experience with anything that comes out of the ground except for grapes. He picks up his glass once again, and as if it is an afterthought, he asks, "And who are you? A runaway apprentice or student or something?" He considers this as he swirls the contents of his glass around for a few moments, seemingly lost in his thoughts. "Instead of leaves, why don't you take up drawing people? That might earn you some more coin."
Reeda actually stops and looks up at Lucas. Her eyes are narrowed, but seem to naturally tend that way. Their colour's just a guess in the dim light of the Tooth and Nail. Her brows pinch, skewing a splash of freckles between her eyes, skeptical and judging, though it's not clear over what, exactly. The fact that he doesn't know what a tansy leaf is, the inaccurate wager that she's an apprentice or a student, or that she needs to earn coin… "Tansy leaf's the leaf of tansy." With her straightforward tone, she might not even intend to be contrary. "Not my drawing," she clarifies. "What's it matter to you who I am. I don't care who you are."
Lucas seems to be oblivious to her reactions to his words. "The leaf of tansy, interesting." He states this matter of factly, not seeming to be too interested in the leaf anyway. "I suppose it doesn't matter really, but I figured I would try to make some conversation at least. I can't say that there were a whole lot of options for available seating here, and I'm not really interested in cheap whores." He offers up a shrug before asking, "How about what's been happening here in the city? Is that something I can ask about?"
Reeda accepts these terms, though there's no tell besides her silence and the fact that she still has her head up, at least. Her gaze slips to the side, eyeing the dull surroundings — made only less dull, but no more favourable, when a cluster of patrons gets rowdy in the corners every so often. "Just arrived," she answers in her succinct way and considers. "Heard there was a ship adrift and the crew were killed. Things drawn in blood, inside." Delivered with no vigor, yet interest enlivens her eyes. An elbow scrapes along the table and she nearly curls back over her paper out of habit, but forces herself to go on. This is a lot of talking for the quiet Bracken. "That's on the water, not the city. Don't know what goes on in Oldtown. Not much to see from here."
The news about an adrift ship with a slaughtered crew seems to get Lucas' attention. "A murdered crew, really. Things drawn in blood? Sounds… well, doesn't sound like something pirates would have done. They would've taken the shi…" He quiets, his mind taking in this information and chewing over it for a few minutes. "That's a bit of news anyway, something for me to pass along to others." Lucas smirks at this and then ponders for a moment more. Finally he shrugs and slides the glass of wine over to her. "Here, drink something worthwhile with your bread. Consider it a thank you for that bit of news."
She eyes it with somewhat aggressive suspicion, like a wild animal might eye a cooking scrap from an untrustworthy human hand. When she does decide to take it, she lashes out as if she might snatch the glass just as fast and run off into the dark with it, but her hand slows on the return, recalling manners distantly impressed upon her. She raises it neatly, thin wrist curving; almost like a lady. The hint of grace is out of place on Reeda. She drinks a sip quick. "What's a Redwyne doing in a place with shit wine," she asks — an attempt at a normal question as a kind of thank-you in return.
"Ah, well I feel that I should first point out that I brought my own bottle." Lucas nods to his bottle of Arbor Red with a grin. "Otherwise, we just arrived and a few of us decided to go out and see what bits of news we could pick up. It's never a good idea to call into a new port and not go out and try to get what information you can. Like this news about the ship, gives us something we can possibly look into." Especially since having ships be mysteriously attacked is never good for trading.
"It was a Reach ship, I think." Reeda attempts to be helpful — to a point. "Started with a C, the house. Heard sailors talk." She sips her wine, shifting her jaw back and forth as if stalling actually swallowing rather than savouring the liquid. She finishes her bread, a task that requires a good deal of tough chewing, meanwhile starting to tuck her precious leaf diagram into the pack hiding partially under the table on her lap.
Lucas mentally notes the information about the ship… Cockshaw? Crane? There were a few possibilities, but he will leave that to later when he actually goes out and starts digging around about it. "Sounds like I need to go spend some more time out on the docks then." He fixes his attention back to her, catching her starting to put away her diagram. "I think I need to go and see what else I can find out about this ship." Standing up, he brushes off the front of his trousers for a moment as he takes in the rest of the room. "If you hear anything else that may be interesting, feel free to seek out our ship in the docks."
Reeda watches Lucas rise, wine pouring from the bottom of its cup into her mouth as she does. She sets it down and gives the man a quick, stiff nod, although it holds little weight. She might do as he says, she might not. She pushes her rickety chair back, hefting her pack up; it's full, and she has to wrap both her thin arms around the thing to keep it all together. Could be a thief's easy mark, though they'd be sorely disappointed by the contents. Without a goodbye, she stalks off toward the stairs that lead up to the place's less than illustrious second floor.