The Working Man

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The Working Man

Postby Tarq » Sat Jul 28, 2012 3:04 pm

Annie is there when he wakes up, tangled haphazardly in the bedding. She approaches sleep as some dire last resort, to be considered when there is no other alternative, and she appears to have gone down fighting. Sometimes days go by without the pair of them really seeing each other – between business and, well, other business – but he discards the idea of waking her. She probably only got there within the last couple of hours.

Instead he carefully extricates himself from the accumulation of blankets and drags his sorry ass into the water closet, wincing at the feeling of bare feet on stonework. He lights a lamp and frowns at the face in the mirror; he wasn’t sure what he was expecting to see, but scruffy, gaunt reality is always tremendously disappointing. Looking down, here’s a slight pouching of the flesh just above his hips, and maybe it’s his imagination, but a couple of his knuckles seem bigger than they ought to be.

He’d always imagined getting old was something that happened to other people.

Through fifteen minutes of some mysterious alchemy, the tattered fragments he woke up with are assembled into a useful whole. Sharp objects and boiling compounds are involved. Steam hisses, pipes gurgle, blood is drawn. Annalea sleeps through the entire creation myth, but she’s seen it before. Tarquin ap Danwyrith makes his entrance upon the day’s stage with a freshly trimmed beard and the seeds of a headache sprouting behind his eyes.

After choosing clothes, of course.

He ambles up the stairs, tasteful yet (hopefully) impressive in black, brown and gold, and is greeted by the intoxicating aromas of the Pig and Whistle. Sawdust, wood polish, the tang of pickled vegetables and the heady thickness of freshly poured stout, something meaty being fried beyond recognition. There’s a handful of day laborers having their breakfast, or maybe night workers having their dinner; some travelling custom; two watchmen studiously practicing to be both blind and deaf in the corner. Three woman up at the bar.

Tarquin joins them at the bar, settling his shanks around a stool and latching his legs onto it like some kind of dangling bug. “Boss,” sings out Lorelli, looking wry and amused. “Boss,” mutters Kyraine, looking hungover. Illithias just grunts, looking like someone with half her face missing. All of them look bored, a condition that sets alarm bells ringing in his head. He signals to Reese Langston behind the counter, already several hours awake.

“Coffee, plate ay breakfast...an’ whiskey for the gentlefolk in the blue coats, wi’ my compliments.” Reese goes about his business, and Tarquin turns to regard the three murderous women. They make small talk while he inches carefully into wakefulness. Everything’s the same as it’s been since they won the Lotus War. After he gets his coffee and breakfast, he gets down to business. “Got a note fra’ Geny,” he says, and produces the document in question, on beautiful silk-thread stationary, from his tunic. “There’s a bloke wis asked ta resign his membership in the Silver Feather. Gettin’ handsy wi’ the ladies, likes. He’s been lurkin’ ‘bout the neighborhood an’ makin’ things discomfortable.”

“So we kill him?” Tarquin winces; Illithias is talking loud enough to be heard by the watchmen. Of course, she knows that perfectly well. He fills his mouth with potatoes, fried and hacked into a thoroughly unnatural state, and chews and swallows until the watchmen have struck up a forced conversation before continuing.

“He’s titled. Jus’ needs ta be dissuaded. Ky, Tymara, pay the lad a visit, if yeh wid.” He hands the folded note over to Lorelli. “All the particulars is in there. Dinna break him.”

“What about breaking his things?” Lorelli wants to know. He shrugs and nods. “He’s probably got all sorts of nice things,” Tymara says, eyeing the name and description on Genise’s carefully handwritten request for criminal intervention. She offers it to Kyraine, who just grunts and drinks coffee, trying to recover her humanity.

Tarquin turns to Illithias, who is visibly sulking. “Somethin’ else fir yeh, Illi. Walk wi’ me oan me wey out–” he cuts a glance towards the watchmen – “an’ I’ll tell yeh then.” The implications cheer Half-Face considerably. Tarquin turns back to his breakfast, and the conversation turns back towards small talk; needling Kyraine over the Gilnean partisan she’s been fucking, which provokes an admirable lack of shame. It probably embarrasses Illithias more.

Illi follows him out when he’s done, and they lurk about the stoop. The elf woman is ludicrously tall; even leanly muscled as she is, she’s probably half again Tarquin’s weight. He’s had years of business with the Kaldorei to get used to this sort of thing, but growing up a fairly tall bloke before Kalimdor and all that, he can never shake the feeling that he’s been cheated. “Did some checkin’ oan what yir orphans said,” he tells her. “Bout the bloke o’er oan Cooper an’ Sorefoot.”

“The...flower salesman.” Her Common is admirable given the short years she’s spent among humans, but idiom still gives her trouble. She got ahold of that one quickly, though.

“Aye. It checks out. Find out where he got his shite, an’ if there’s any mair comin’. Collect the lot an’ bring it here.” At the elf’s raised single eyebrow – “Annie wants ta run some tests. See if she can do aught wi’ the lotus asides make folk inta droolin’ idiots.” She can do that to men on her own, he would have said if there was any chance of it getting back to her, but Illithias was probably the last person in the outfit to go “Oi, Al’Cair, do you know that the Boss was saying nice things about you?”

Indeed, she’s already slightly hunched with the presentiment of violence. There’s something animal about all night elves, Tarquin thinks, only most of them go to a great trouble to hide it. Illi doesn’t. “And the man himself?”

Tarquin takes his time answering, finding his cigarette case, finding a match, making fire and his first sweet lungful of smoke of the day. “If he’s workin’ fir someone else, he disappears. If it’s jus’ him, he gets found.” He exhales. “Nothin’ fancy.” Meaning barbaric and messy. “Canal job, likes.” Meaning a bloated corpse surfacing in the waters in which children swim and their parents fish.

Illithias thinks it over, nods. “Thanks, Boss,” she says, and that’s the extent of it. She draws herself back up to her full towering height and makes her way up Abel Road, unconsciously splitting the foot traffic wherever she goes. Tarquin watches her depart, then goes the other way. He definitely has a headache now.
Now hang me by this golden noose
'Cause I never been nothin' but your golden goose
Silver tongue don't fail me now
And I'll make my way back to you somehow

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Re: The Working Man

Postby Tarq » Sun Jul 29, 2012 12:15 am

The Chamber of Commerce is an actual chamber. That startled Tarquin the first time he was admitted; now he’s heartily sick of the fucking place. Men with impressive educations arguing about real matters that affect real, solid people as if they were nothing more than philosophical experiments. Tens of thousands of crowns being subtracted from ledgers on one side and added on another because one rich toff could hold his breath and stomp his foot longer than the next. Everything he rails against in Stormwind, and he’s sitting in the middle of it.

Today, the issue is liquor on canal boats. You can rent a boat from the City and row about parts of the canals; it’s a diversion for young lovers or families starved for excitement. And of course, what’s such a diversion without a wee dram? Problem is, put a couple drinks in your average amateur rower and that oar gets a tad bit wriggly. There was a drowning two weeks ago; pretty girl out with her beau who came up under the boat and knocked her head on it, and the useless lad panicked and splashed his way to shore without pulling her up. Now the Church is up in arms about it.

As the man whose arse-cheeks are occupying the seat reserved for the hospitality industry (read: getting people drunk at every opportunity), Tarquin ought to be sticking up for the Light-given right of Stormwind’s free-spending idiots to choke the canals with their bloated fucking corpses, so long as they keep buying booze. But arguing with churchmen (there’s one here today, testifying as to the corrupting and dangerous effects of liquor) is exhausting, and that headache is still pummeling him, and besides, he has to admit that clogging the canals with drowning drunks isn’t great for business. So he’s not saying much of anything today.

It falls to Upnor, that equivocating wonder-boy, to lead the charge for liquored-up toadfuckery. The representative of Sport and Exercise (and thus accidentally the canal-boat rental trade) is an able public servant for his years, but he has a congenital fear of confrontation and a difficulty sticking to the exact terms of any agreement that has occasionally struck even Tarquin dumb with awe. “Loan Upnor a half-crown ta buy a meal,” Murkelmore (Smithies and Forges) had told Tarquin last year, “And ye’ll find yerself paid back with half a turd.”

Upnor’s argument mostly circles ‘round the fundamental unsoundness of a canal-boat trade that eschewed liquor; the churchman (one Father Anglesly) is not impressed, but he’s the only one unaware that he’s basically a sideshow. Upnor has to convince his fellows that the Church will be less annoying in this case than he and his allies will. That’s how decisions get made in the Chamber.

Someone – is it Campbell? – finally makes the point that Tarquin’s been dreading. “Your concern’s not unwarranted, Mister Upnor, but Sport and Exercise isn’t, ah, the only boat in this race.” They all get a sad little chuckle over that. It is Campbell, the fucking snake from Tourism. “It seems to me that liquor, wherever it might be served, is just as much a Hospitality matter as it is anything else. What does Hospitality have to say about this?”

All eyes turn to Tarquin. He entertains a brief fantasy of having Illithias put Campbell in the canals, next to the hapless lotus dealer. Except for his head, which Tarquin will keep in a box and occasionally tell jokes to. The jokes will not be funny. Then he shrugs and finally speaks, taking care to flatten his vowels and discard the hard edges of his R’s so as to not discommode the good folk of the South. “The gent from Tourism makes a good point. Let’s break for lunch, an’ I’ll tell yeh what I think after I’ve thought o’ it.”

They chuckle as if he’s not just telling the truth, and then Van Rosen tells everyone to please try and be back in an hour. Tarquin flees into the street, but barely gets his cigarette lit before Upnor catches up with him. “They’re killing us in there!” he grumbles. Somehow his fear of argument never stops him from complaining. “That bloody priest, he’s like a wall. Like a wall with pins on it. I can’t stop getting stuck to them.” His meaning’s clear: aren’t you going to do something about it?

Tarquin draws in a lungful of tobacco and tries to put himself in Upnor’s shoes. It doesn’t work. The man’s about his own age, making them two of the youngest in the room, and like Tarquin he’s just trying to squeeze whatever advantage he can out of the situation, and maybe occasionally stick up for the interests he’s supposed to represent. Apart from that, though...among the muscular giants and wicked-eyed enchanters he’s ended up employing, Tarquin is a mouthy scarecrow. But he’s still a fucking adventurer. In the Chamber of Commerce, with men like Upnor and Campbell, he’s a bloody-handed god.

But this is his job now. “Yeh need ta gie the churchman somethin’,” he says, interrupting Upnor’s wheedling. “Father Anglesly, he has na stake in it like the rest ay us. He jus’ wants ta go back ta the Cathedral an’ say We won this yin, lads! A thing he can wave afore the congregation wi’ pride.” He looks up and down the street. Most of the Chamber is going to Galahad’s or the fake-arsed pub up the block. “Yeh like elf food, Upnor?”

“Er...what I’ve had, I’m not sure that it counts–”

“Then yeh’ll learn. I ken a decent wee place, down Faol. We’ll eat some spider an’ sort this out.” It’s not going to do anything for his headache, but he’d rather get this mess done with. Besides, the look on Upnor’s face with a more-or-less traditional Kaldorei dish in front of him will be worth it. They head down Faol Street, sharpening their arguments.

When they get back, slightly over an hour later, they’re not even close to the last ones back. Van Rosen’s hour lunch break has turned into more like an hour and a half before they get down to deliberations. The hard-working public servants of Stormwind! As they agreed, Upnor takes the lead, while Tarquin sits back, digests bean soup, wild-rice cakes, and well-cooked bug, and waits for him to fuck up badly.

He doesn’t, really. He gets the churchman to agree that there’s nothing illegal or even morally wrong, really, about having a glass of wine or a tankard of ale, a sentiment heartily seconded by the dwarf Murkelmore (on religious grounds, naturally.) Then he outlines the distinction between “Fellow having a dram on a boat” and “Drunken idiot piloting a sheaf of fragile wood around the deep canals,” and then gets to the proposal. “There’s always sailors on shore leave, river tradesmen between shipments, discharged navy men. Let’s get a program going! Let’s make a pilot part of the price of boat rental, and then the passengers can have all the drinks they care to! –within reason, of course,” he allows to the scowling Father Anglesly.

The rest is all details, which takes two hours. Tarquin speaks up to say that there’s no trouble with lowering wholesale booze prices to the boat rental folks (after all, this will probably sell more liquor in the long run), and otherwise nurses his headache and Ayes or Nays where he needs to. In the end, they have a fully drafted proposal to send to Good King Chinn and his council for a seal of approval. It’s a good day’s work, but when Van Rosen lets them go Tarquin is mostly just boggled and frustrated by how much time he spent accomplishing so little.

Then again, what’s the alternative? Let the fucking King do it all himself? He shudders at the thought as he has his third cigarette of the day. Being the voice of the people is a headache and all, but things could always be worse.

For instance, he could be dead and floating in the canals.
Now hang me by this golden noose
'Cause I never been nothin' but your golden goose
Silver tongue don't fail me now
And I'll make my way back to you somehow

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Tarq
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Re: The Working Man

Postby Tarq » Sun Jul 29, 2012 12:33 pm

He’s ambushed within three steps of coming in the door, a thunder of feet coming too quickly for him to react. He has just enough time to inventory his possessions – cigarette case here, knives here, here, and here, fragile breakable things here and also, y’know, there – and crouch down defensively, arms arranged just so as his attacker bolts around the corner and delivers her war cry before springing at him with all the strength in her body.

UNCLE TARK!” It’s ear-splitting, even without the headache, but that’s just the price Tarquin has to pay. He catches Naiara mid-leap; she’s not yet big enough (nor he old enough) for this to cause a problem. She does almost headbutt him, but having been regaled with tales of her actual, deliberate headbutts, he can judge this one probably just an accident. “Uncle Tark!” she says again, regular-loud instead of shrieking-excitedly-loud. “Where you been?”

Tarquin kisses his godsdaughter on the forehead, then rubs his bearded chin against her skin and makes her giggle. “Business, hen, business.” Really, it’s the same sort of explanation he proffers to adults when called upon. He holds Naiara at arm’s length, inspecting her gravely. He thinks she’s big for a child of three, but maybe she’s small. The hell does he know about children? “Is that a new dress, then?”

“Yyeeeeahhh...” the little girl says, with a practiced mock-bashfulness that will surely be heartbreaking in ten or twelve years. “Uncle Taarrrk, um, how come you not.. wearin’ your hat?” She says it with such gravity that he has to laugh, and puts her down carefully. He pats his head carefully while Naiara smooths down her new dress.

“Huh. I guess yir auntie must ay took it.” He frowns, shakes his head, clicks his tongue, and generally exhibits signs of disapproval. “She alwis does tha’ ta me hats, yir auntie. Dreadful wicked habit. Dreadful wicked woman.”

“Yeh knew what yeh were gettin’ inta!” Bricu bellows hoarsely from another room. Tarquin takes his godsdaughter by the arm and walks slowly towards the source of the invective. It’s the kitchen, of course; the Bittertongues’ residence is modest enough, but boasts a kingly kitchen. It ought to, given the hours Bricu spends in there. He’s bounded by counters, holding diced rows of leeks, carrots, peppers, and vegetables that Tarquin can’t even name. Six plucked hens on a spit. An oven from which the smell of bread baking rises intoxicatingly. An enormous kettle overlooking the proceedings, simmering merrily away. And in the midst of it all, Bricu Bittertongue in a freshly stained white apron, employing a cleaver with the same facility with which Tarquin’s seen him make use of a double-bladed orcish war axe.

“S’pose I did,” offers Tarquin, keeping a firm grip on his godsdaughter, who looks ready to start dinner now. “Wha’s the occasion? I miss a holiday?”

“One o’ Padraig’s mates is retirin’.” Bricu speaks between measured thwacks of his cleaver, separating some scalloped green stalks into manageable chunks. “Threnny always liked ‘im.” Thwack. “Thought I’d do ‘em a solid, instead o’ havin’ the party in some expensive-arsed pub.” Thwack.

“What, the Pig’s no’ good eno’ for yir guid-father an’ his mates the now?” Tarquin is only mock-injured, but he’s a little curious.

Thwack. “He’s a mate o’ Thenia’s, too.” Bricu looks up and smirks, which is an expression that he uses to stand in for a great many others. Here it’s likely a grimace. Threnn and Annalea’s father is a realistic bloke, who’s as proud of his daughters as he ought to be and gets on well enough with the Riders he knows. His wife, well, she’s just about at the point where she can say Bricu’s name out loud without revulsion, and that’s pushing it sometimes.

Tarquin shrugs. So it goes. Thwack. “Yeh goin’ ta cozy yer skinny arse up ta me table for another free meal?” Bricu says, softening his glare slightly and moving it to his daughter. “Naiara, love, if yeh see this beggar lurkin’ about the table, throw him a wee bone.” Thwack. Naiara giggles and makes a renewed effort to wriggle away. Tarquin grins as he catches her; he’s basically just gotten the Bricu Bittertongue version of “Would you like to stay for dinner?”

“Nah, I’ve the opera with Annie tonight.” Thwack. “Gettin’ a bite after.” Thwack. “Only killin’ time.” Bricu’s finally done hacking up whatever it is, and moves on to his next counter, which is covered with severed bits of the cackling Old God of Ulduar. Or maybe just root vegetables. Tarquin’s not much of a cook.

“Aye? Well, you can take care o’ that one.” Bricu waves his cleaver in Naiara’s direction, a gesture which would doubtless horrify his good-mother should she witness it. “She’s under me feet half the bloody time. Goin’ ta end up in the stew,” he croaks, and makes a horrific face at his daughter, who squeals. This is exactly what Tarquin wants to hear. He drags in a chair, hefts Naiara onto his knee, and has the most rewarding conversation of his day, notwithstanding that it’s mostly funny faces, nonsense about horses, and mutual confusion.

At some point they move on to singing, and Bricu joins in for a few. He’s actually pretty good, for a chain-smoking ex-drunk. Tarquin’s passable. Naiara, of course, is an enthusiastic three year-old. When the cacophony gets too much, Bricu banishes them both from the kitchen, which turns into a rousing game of chase-Naiara-around-the-house-making-monster-noises, which turns into an exhausted toddler. Tarquin puts her away with an old crowd-pleaser that he can’t remember the provenance of:
‘Twas early in September, how well I do remember,
I staggered down the street in drunken pride
When my feet began to stutter, so I lay down in the gutter
And a pig came up and lay down by my side.
Not a soul was we disturbing, as we lay there by the curbing
Till a lady passing by was heard to say:
“You can tell a man who boozes, by the company he chooses...”

–And here it’s necessary to add a dramatic pause and teary sniff, as if fighting back a pained memory, to the sleepy delight of the audience–
And the pig got up and slowly walked away.

He tiptoes away from Naiara’s bed and shuts the door, leaving the trouble of waking her for dinner to her parents, and returns to the kitchen. Bricu has ran out of foodstuffs to dismember and is undertaking what he claims is the hardest part of cooking – waiting. “What’s the score tonight?” He hands Tarquin a cigarette, one of his hand-rolleds. That’s number four on the day; it would be five, but he knew Bricu would offer him one, and the man knows his tobacco.

“No’ sure.” Tarquin accepts a light, nodding. “There’s navy money in play. Fixin’ up auld ships, stockin’ hardtack an’ lemon juice...heard this past week thir lookin’ ta contract weather-makers up the Academy.”

Bricu takes the sort of quick drags that he always does when he’s thinking. “Invadin’, or explorin’?” He’s not even exactly asking Tarq, just framing the question.

“Dinna ken. Maybe after tonight I’ll have yeh an answer.” They both know that if this is a real happening, it’ll likely end up an invasion, wherever it lands; after all, this is Varian Wrynn’s Stormwind. But whether it starts out an invasion fleet, or just sort of stumbles into being one, does make a difference. Especially if they’re going to make a profit off of it.

Tarquin spends another half-hour there, filling Bricu in on the day’s business (Bricu is particularly irritated that anyone still has the temerity to sell lotus-tar in Old Town, after what happened to the last bunch of arseholes); his second, in turn, keeps him updated on the grousings of the various agitators, rabble-rousers, and religious malcontents that have the wary ear of Bricu Bittertongue. Again, it’s all the same as it ever was. The unspoken accord is that these naval rumors need to come to some sort of fruition, because if there isn’t some kind of trouble for the Wildfire Riders to get into, they’ll start their own at home. And both of them are getting a little old and paunchy to wriggle out of it like they used to.

After a fifth cigarette, Tarquin departs, leaving well-wishes for Threnn (rushing back from business in Westfall) and a small pouch for the retiree being honored. “Auld Town man, innit?” he asks Bricu, and gets an affirmative. “Then let ‘im ken that Auld Town’s grateful. If he willna take it, ask ‘im a charity–” but Bricu’s heard it all before. He pointedly gets back to his cooking, and his boss takes the hint and fucks off.

Lady o’ the Green help me, he thinks. Fucking off to the opera.
Now hang me by this golden noose
'Cause I never been nothin' but your golden goose
Silver tongue don't fail me now
And I'll make my way back to you somehow

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Tarq
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Re: The Working Man

Postby Tarq » Mon Jul 30, 2012 10:18 pm

“That could have been worse,” is how Annalea breaks the silence. She’s not wrong. They could have gotten the plague, or been ambushed in their box by a squadron of trained assassins. The actors might have pulled out crossbows and opened fire. Tentacles could’ve burst writhing from the floor and swept the audience into the maw of an eternally hungry abomination. Galvan Swiftblade could have shown up. Really, there were all sorts of ways the opera could have gone worse. But that doesn’t mean it went well.

That’s what Tarquin thinks, but what he says is “Uh,” or some similar grunt. His head is pounding, despite the half-flask of potion Annie slipped him. Councilman Upnor found him during intermission, drunk as a sailor, slapping him on the shoulder like an old chum, chattering away about their victory, and what had been obnoxious became intolerable. He would have left if it wasn’t for the navy rumors, and as for chasing those...

“Oathbreaker,” he mutters. They’re turning off of Broadway, taking the long way around to get away from the after-opera chatter, so Annie hears him just perfectly. She doesn’t respond, though, and he could just let it hang in the air and move on. He chooses not to. “Oathbreaker, he called me. The fuckin’ tosspot ponce had the nerve ta call me Oathbreaker, as if he’d half a fuckin’ clue what it even meant!”

“Oh sweet goddess, here we go.” Annalea Al’Cair is a woman of many virtues, depending on how you define “virtues,” but patience is not one of them. A part of Tarquin’s dimly aware that this line of conversation doesn’t really deserve anyone’s patience, but it’s too late, the rant is on and it will take a far greater force than Annie rolling her eyes and being disgusted to stop him.

“I mean, does Admiral Tongue-the-arse even ken wha’ first called me that? A fuckin’ troll! An enemy ay the fuckin’ Alliance, cos’ I bollocksed up a shite deal wi’ the Horde!” Tarquin gets so few opportunities to feel righteously outraged, and it makes him care less about his headache. “It’s go’ fuck-all ta do wi’ Hinote, or Absolution, or Gilneas, or runnin’ Auld Town, or...or any ither fuckin’ thing! I’m a fuckin’ patriot behind that name!”

“Tarquin, if I agree with you that Admiral Tunnery’s an idiot, will you shut up about it?” Annie’s downright waspish, and that gives him enough pause for her to slip in a few more words edgewise. “We’ll follow up somewhere else. We know other navy people, and they’ll talk to us. Just...don’t worry about it so much. You don’t need to make a bad night worse.”

Actually, he does, petty as it is. “Yeh really think I could? Even the opera was shite, Annie! Barely a half-decent play an’ then yeh put in all the bellowin’ an’ shriekin’–”

“Oh, all the opera you mean? The thing they do at the fucking opera house?” She’s into it with him now, face all narrowed up and eyes dark as thunderheads, and they’re going to have a shouting row down a backstreet at the edge of the North Corner, practical still in the shadow of the Cathedral. It’s the perfect capstone on the night.

“Fuckin’ butcher’s shop, mair like! How can yeh say it wis aught but shite? Or am I too fuckin’ unlettered ta grasp the bloody subtleties–”

“Elune's bare ass in the night, Tarq, where you got the idea I was even thinking about condescending to you I can’t imagine, but–”

“Um, excuse me.” They both turn and look at the same time, ready to unleash their wrath on whoever dares interrupt a perfectly good argument; Tarq is bemused to find himself confronted by the business end of a loaded crossbow. The crossbow is being held by a grey-haired man in good clothes; there’s a skinnier, red-headed man with a couple knives in front of him. “Dreadful sorry to interrupt, sirrah, damoselle, but I am going to need your coin purses.”

Tarquin can only manage a strangled noise, something like Bwurgh? Annalea is speechless. He hears footsteps and turns, and behind them, coming down the alley that he belatedly realizes they had wandered down, is the ugliest Draenei he has ever seen. It’s hard to make that judgement on an inhuman race sometimes, but this squiddy looks like he has been smelted together in a hurry and removed from the forge before he entirely dried. He’s a droopy, crooked mess. But he is fucking enormous, and also well-dressed. Except for the weapons, these three (especially the one with the crossbow) could be coming back from the same opera.

“Coin purses,” the nattily-dressed man says again, patiently, his stance and expression indicating how very sorry he is to put them out like this. “And, hmm, those cuff links, sirrah. And your pearls, damoselle, I’m afraid those’ll have to go too.” Tarquin’s brain is finally starting to catch up to the idea that they’re being mugged. He paints a picture of what they must be seeing – a pretty woman in a daring red dress, a well-dressed bloke with a big hat and an ostentatious just-for-show walking stick, walking down a dark alley because they’re arguing about the opera.

He’d probably try to mug himself too.

“Right, then,” says Poncy briskly, and nods to the ginger bloke, who sheaths one of his knives and approaches. “We’ll handle that bit; all the two of you need to do, if you please, is hold...the fuck...still.” His voice takes on an entirely different tone, that would probably be quite chilling to the people he thinks they are. Squid looms up behind them, very close; Poncy keeps the crossbow trained. Tarquin glances at Annie, and sees the hint of a smile at the corner of her lips. His blood is starting to stir; there’s an old hurling or rugby chant in his head for some reason. Here we go here we go here we go...

Ginger is going for Annalea first, which is perfect, zeroing in on either her necklace or her tits.“If you come any closer,” she says, with a very believable tremor, “I’ll scream.”

It’s Ginger who answers. “Scream all you want, love.” He leers at her. “This ain’t the opera house no more. Nobody fuckin’ cares.” So with Squid within clubbing distance of Tarquin and Poncy levelling said weapon at both of them, Ginger reaches for Annie’s necklace, and she screams.

Tarquin knows it’s coming, so he’s only moderately put out, like someone’s running a file down the chalk slate of his soul. Besides, he’s busy diving forward with his hat flying off, trying to keep Ginger between himself and Poncy. That works for a couple seconds, because Ginger is bolting, wailing in animal terror. Behind them he hears Squid yelping with an oddly high-pitched voice, something in his incomprehensible language and his heavy hoof-falls clomping away. Poncy’s further back, so he just flinches, swivels his crossbow to Annie, and pulls the trigger.

Annalea comes apart. Like she was a carefully stacked house of cards and there was a strong breeze, only instead of cards, it’s inky motes of something dark and inexplicable. And then Tarquin’s in front of Poncy, the “useless” walking stick heavy in his hand, and he swings it like a hurling stick and the defenseless man’s head spins halfway around, spitting blood and teeth, legs going out from under him.

On a quick guess, a big ugly bloke is more likely to come up swinging than a skinny fellow who likes groping girls. So Tarquin swivels back to where the arse-ugly Draenei is just regaining his composure, but not his understanding of the situation. He has no idea what his chances are in a straight-up fight, whether or not this goliath is a trained killer of men (who’d probably kick his arse) or a meat-fisted amateur (who might get lucky). This isn’t a straight-up fight. He crosses to the staggering squiddy in three quick strides, hefts his walking stick, and commences making that ugly face uglier.

He checks over his shoulder between blows. Annie’s put herself back together and has Ginger reeled in like a gasping fish, the air between them stained purple-black with the echoes of a much less pleasant world. Poncy’s starting to find his feet, so Tarquin switches tactics; he hefts the stick, measures for a second, and then swings it two-handed into Squid’s kneecap. Crack. The Draenei screams and crumples, one hand on his bloody face, the other failing to catch his fall. He screams louder when his knee hits the ground. He’s not going anywhere.

Poncy gets the score quickly when Tarquin’s boot comes down between him and his crossbow. “I can get you money,” he mushes out bloodily. “I don’t have it but I can get it, just let me go.” Tarquin checks on Annie, who has matters well in hand, and gets down on one knee next to the man. He hoists up his trousers slightly and slips a knife out of his boot.

“What’s yir name, mate?” When Poncy doesn’t answer immediately, he presses the blade of the knife to his cheek, just below his eyeball, an attention-getting gesture if ever there was. “Name.”

“Pantagruel!” The man shows pleasing alacrity. “Louis Pantagruel.” An Alteran then, or the son of one. Tarquin briefly enjoys having his opinions of Alterac confirmed yet again, and moves the knife away from the man’s face. It’s still very much there, though.

“Any other mates waitin’ round? Lie ta me an’ I’ll put this in yir eye.” He says it like he’s just stating a fact. This usually has a sobering effect, and being sobered in a situation like this makes people cooperative.

“No! None. Just us three.” Tarquin’s eyes flicker up to Annie, who’s come over to stand near them, keeping an eye on Ginger (unconscious), Squid (curled up on the ground whimpering), and either end of the alley (empty). She nods, taps her waist where a pocket-watch would hang, and holds up two fingers. Tarquin considers Master Pantagruel, staring at him with the terrified eyes of a man in way over his head. He’s got about two minutes to sort him out.

“So this is what passes fir Right People in Cathedral Square.” Tarquin shakes his head. “Where d’yeh keep yir money-pouch?” Pantagruel licks his lips, and Tarquin sighs and moves the knife forward.

“Left leg!” the Alteran squeals. “Strapped, uh, strapped inside my thigh.” Fuck me. Is Tarquin really going to reach within the neighborhood of this bloke’s bollocks just to get his paltry cash? He looks up at Annie, who just smirks at him. He shrugs, grabs ahold of Louis Pantagruel’s leg, and quickly slashes along the interior of the man’s trousers. Louis screams, but the knife barely touches flesh. Tarquin locates the pouch and unhomes it with another flick of his knife. It’s disappointingly light, but who knows? If these three prey on North Corner folk, maybe it’s all gold.

That complete, he pats Pantagruel none-too-gently on the cheek. “Stay in yir neighborhood, mate. If yeh ever come down Auld Town an’ live long eno’ fir us ta find yeh, we’ll eat yir fuckin’ liver.” He straightens up and recovers his walking stick and, carefully, his hat. The brim’s a little mussed, and he considers kicking Squid in the knee or something, but their two minutes are about up.

Annalea makes a little moue with her mouth and blows a kiss to Pantagruel. Literally, a little mouth-shaped blot of inky darkness floats a few inches from her mouth. Tarquin smells human urine as they walk the rest of the way down the alley. They make it out to a better-lit street, probably Erasmus, before Annie starts giggling uncontrollably. “Oh, goddess. Oh, Elune’s tits, those poor bastards.”

“As a criminal, it’s fuckin’ embarassin’,” Tarquin agrees, laughing – well, giggling – a little himself. He looks at Annie for a long moment while she tries to get ahold of herself. Shadow-priests can take their clothes with them when they “disperse,” but it usually has a mussing effect. Things are askew and rumpled. Askew and rumpled is a good look for Annalea. He’s aware he’s grinning like the village idiot. “So, uh, what d’yeh think about stayin’ in fir dinner tonight?”

Annie’s smile is like the razor edge of the new moon. “My place?”

“If yeh dinna mind. I’ll get us a coach. Louis Pantagruel’s treat.” Tarquin tears his eyes away from Annie and looks up and down Erasmus for a hansom cab. Turns out, his headache’s completely gone away.

The day’s not over precisely, but the public part of it is. And what d’you know? It’s been a pretty good one, after all. Another successful day for one of Stormwind’s hard-working businessmen.
Now hang me by this golden noose
'Cause I never been nothin' but your golden goose
Silver tongue don't fail me now
And I'll make my way back to you somehow


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