Is there a debt here?

Re: Is there a debt here?

Postby Rance » Wed Jun 12, 2013 4:00 pm

Because I kept you from drinking something that was added to your glass at the ball.

She was supposed to. The images of rolled-parchment letters crumbled away from her mind. The swirling excitement between her ears started to rattle to a halt, like a carriage being drawn by a tired company of grand jah'zoon. He tasted his brandy with his fingers; his mouth opened and closed more than for simple words, and the way his teeth shone, they seemed to gleam, magnify the dormant, flickering light into something blinding, distracting.

When he touched her hand, a chill rolled through her bones. She stiffened. He wrapped his muscular fingers around hers -- hers were little sausages, with dimpled knuckles and chewed-short nails -- and commanded her with an urging motion to strike her final move into place.

"No," the seamstress said, and with a jerk, a frantic toss of her hand, she threw the piece of charcoal against the bar so that it rolled off the other side of the counter and was lost to the floor beyond. In the field of their game, he was on his knees and surrounded by her imaginary armies. In her mind, she pressed a boot against his shoulder and held the blade just under his chin, his egg-round chin, a victorious matron of war--

--while before him, in reality, she looked away, whispering, "Am I supposed to thank you, Clayton Thayer," the girl said, gritting her brittle teeth against feelings, against a burn welling inside her chest. He'd hair that seemed to gleam like spun gold. "Am I to thank you for something I was unaware of? That -- that you acted in my interest, and now wish to play games with me to ensure my acknowledgment of the fact?"

A twitch in her cheek, something between a frown and a grimace--

Can't you just hold my hand?

"Don't -- don't touch me," she said, scrubbing her palm against her chest. "I -- I don't understand."
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Re: Is there a debt here?

Postby breeevil » Wed Jun 12, 2013 4:29 pm

As fast as she throws the coal, his hand is pulled away from hers and he leans back away from her, blinking, a finger tracing across his lower lip again. Of course he wont apologize for causing her grief.. panic. He wont let her know how he wasn't even aiming to get a rise from her.. or take the time to let her know that it would be easy to twist her to do his bidding with how quick she was to withdrawl , how quick she was to back down.
At least at Tic Tac Toe.

"No. I'll never wish for you to thank me or be greatful to me for anything." Clayton's head shakes, his brows furrow and once again his leg starts to bounce up and down from his toe pressed against the bar under his stool.
"The only game we are playing is on parchment, Seya.. so you'll have to explain to me what it is you mean."

His words.. the things he does. They have never failed him before like they have since he came to this place.. Myrken. Is this what normally happens to those who are, as they say, turning a new leaf? Starting anew? For everything that is done to wind up being something that he should regret? Or was it a lesson to him from karma and fate? All of his deeds coming back to him three-fold?

It would be easier to take from her, now, than to try and go the better route. To do to her what he did to the fae.. ruin everything. How long would Gloria the seamstress last if, deep down inside, she knew she would never properly secure a button again? That the friends that she had here would only laugh in her face from this moment on.. mock her smile. Mock her sausage fingers.. poke fun at her fears.

Throw sand and glass shards in her eyes. Spill broth over her hair.

It would be easier to walk away from her hearing the sounds of pleading and wailing and fists beating in to the floor. Tears of turmoil and dejectedness because of what he has taken from her, not caused her.
When stripped of their pride.. humans tended to revert to toddlerhood. It turned messy.. he didn't like to do it.
But that would be easier than this.
If only he could feel guilty.. if only his reactions weren't so wrong. If only his words didn't follow suit.

"What are you trying to understand? I hope, very much, it is something about you, Gloria. Because you will waste your time trying to make sense my words or actions.."
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Re: Is there a debt here?

Postby Rance » Thu Jun 13, 2013 1:28 am

"I don't know what I mean," she admitted, her voice shrinking. "I don't know."

She slumped back onto her barstool and crushed her knuckles into the lap of her skirts, staring at the edges of his boots and the bouncing of his leg on the rung. Her chin begged her to look up at him, to soothe her day with the memory of his face. But instead, she was strung between thoughts and compulsions. One instinct -- to run away, a Jerno girl is to be chosen by a man, or bought, or claimed from within an outer branch of the family -- conflicted with another, the want to reach out and strike him with the base of her palm, or to be softer, gentler, scoop his chin into the edges of her gloved fingertips and wonder what he tasted like, if all those letters of love and emotion meant something, if his tongue was a strong ox and--

But she'd never written letters, not to Clayton Thayer.

The girl said, with a heavy voice, "You make sense, Messa Thayer. You make a great deal of it. To my head. My stupid and -- and overfull head." The seamstress traced invisible circles on the edge of the leather where they'd scrawled their game. "It is hard not to look at you. You see? And -- and I should not be alright with that. I should be running. I should be scared. I should not hesitate to crumble you under my skills with the stones and -- and the bones."

Finally, she looked up. Her nostrils were red-rimmed, her lips begging to swell, and eyes threatening to spill over. She wanted to cry, not out of shame or upset, but for the mere strain of frustration. He touched her and she felt nothing -- no fear, no desire to distance herself. She had forced herself to sense those reactions, to enact them. Clayton was not a corkscrew of wily confusion like Tennant -- was she saying the right things to him, was he even listening to her? -- but a strong and piercing spearhead of truth:

You could love this man.

When he laughs gold gleams in the joy of it.

Should he have come to you in the Pens, other Numbergirls might have called you a wh--

Potions of love were devious things.

"If someone put something in my drink," she said, "then why intervene? You could have simply let me drink it, watch as I surely made a fool of myself or -- or spoke in fictitious tongues. Had a good laugh at my expense. How did you keep me from drinking it," Gloria asked, "and why?"
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Re: Is there a debt here?

Postby breeevil » Thu Jun 13, 2013 3:54 am

"Then sit up. And finish your ale.. maybe the kind bartender will retrieve our pencil for us.." A look for the person serving the drinks, a quick smile. "Because if you don't -know- then there is no reason to dwell. Right?" His drink is brought to his lips again and a longer drink taken this time. Because he needs it.
When you can morph the emotions of a person, the uncontrolled flood of feelings from them is draining and difficult to ignore. He drinks more.

The words about her -stupid head- and running and being scared have his eyes pressing shut, leave him sighing. And again he shakes his head, setting his empty cup down harder than he meant to on the counter. The *clunk* not honeyed as a display of frustration should be.

"Is it a bad thing that you don't want to run away or hide? I would think it would be relieving." Clayton shifts in his chair, moving to lean forward on the bar with one hand still toying with his glass. But his eyes are on his tears, the tip of his tongue pressed between his lips. -You look lost, girl.-
Something else he would have said almost anytime or anywhere but here.. but to this girl. This seamstress. And it doesn't really count as a change of subject, but he'll take it if it means she wont start crying.

Clayton, as he has this whole time, answers her with the truth. "You are neither a jester nor a comedian. For them to use you for their own want of wit was wrong. It would be going against my nature," Recently adopted nature or not, "..to have let you drink that. And it might have done something other than turn you into a fool.. made you ill. Made you.. blind or rotten. Or red. Or worse. " And he doesn't need anything else to be unable to regret.
He barely remembered who it was that poured whatever it was in to the glass the Gloria had taken.. a drow, he thought. He had the glass from the seamstress without a word, ignoring his date and his friend, and spilled whatever it was over his shoulder with no care for the floor or who had to clean it. And the glass had been returned to it's original owner. And Gloria had given him the same look then that she had given him earlier. Something like want.

"I took the glass from you and spilled what was inside." He shrugs. "I may or may not have given you something else to drink instead, I don't remember."
The charcoal is set on the bar along with another brandy for Clayton.. but ignored by him for now.
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Re: Is there a debt here?

Postby Rance » Thu Jun 13, 2013 7:06 am

She hid her face into the mug of ale, drinking at it with a few desperate gulps. He willed it, instructed he to do so, and in the interest of quiet obedience -- she wished in no way to disappoint him -- the glass-bottomed mug was snapped against the bar, emptied. A trickle of ale glistened on her skirt, and she breathed as if she'd just gone dashing through a farming field.

"I am not a girl who is meant for -- for flirting or fawning over men," she stated, her posture suffering at the slump of her spine. "I do not like it when a man touches my hand. But -- but you," the seamstress said, twisting a skirt-hem. "It is hard to not look at you. You see? And that is not me; that is nothing like Gloria Wynsee."

She scraped a rough sleeve at the edges of her eyes, resuming upon the chair what was a more modest posture. Knees together, bonnet shading her face, gloved hand and its bare brother together in her lap.

"Thank you. For -- for overturning the drink. For protecting me from embarrassment that night. I should think I do a fine enough job of it on my own without the aid of a poison." With unsure fingers, she sought out the charcoal. She plucked it up, gave his new glass of brandy a knock against its rim with the black sliver, and tried to hide an apologetic smile beneath the edge of a bonnet-wing. She had snapped at him, had demanded not to be touched -- but those were counterproductive desires, a fit of emotion and culture that had begun to fade.

The seamstress tapped the back of the leather tome where their game of Bones and Stones awaited.

"Do you cede the game, Messa Thayer, that we might end it peacefully? Or would you prefer I drive home the final strike?"
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Re: Is there a debt here?

Postby breeevil » Fri Jun 14, 2013 12:38 am

Clayton's eyes follow the bartender around for a moment while Gloria finishes off her drink, only hearing labored breathing turns his attentions back to her, and as if he had known she would happen to spill something on herself.. Clayton is prepared with a napkin, sliding it over to her and trying hard to keep the smile from spreading over his lips. But he fails, and then he chuckles a bit, head tilting to the side as he draws his glass to his lips again, speaking in to it before he drinks, "People change. Things happen." That was not what he wanted to say. He would have liked to say sorry for having made you uncomfortable. Or it is very like Clayton Thayer to make people dreadfully uncomfortable, so don't look too far into it.

The glass hits the bar again along with his elbow, his chin coming to rest in his palm. There are many seconds ticking by where he just stares at her after she says her thank you and he remains quiet, eyes squinting up bit by bit. "You're welcome." Fingers pluck at the rim of his glass where the mark had been made on it.. the pads of his thumb swirling around in the black and dribble of alcohol left behind by his lip.. dragging a black line halfway down the cup.

"Please.." A gesture to the page.. to their grid, their game.
A game that, in his mind, had turned in to a battlefield many, many minutes ago when he had started refusing to surrender. His page is old.. something he has been carrying around for a long time.. the grooves in the leather from where he has folded the paper so many times threatening to split and turn in to a puzzle instead of a Stones and Bones board.
Decades of humidity have left it spotted..
And every dot, every grainy bit of flesh, could be a man swinging a blade, fighting for something in the name of royalty. Every stray bit of ink that had splattered during his placement of his Stones or his Bones could be a commander. Could be a guard. An assassin. A spy. A scapegoat.

..And he could lead them secretly. Like he had led so many before.. being the brain behind the king. Being the muscle behind that sword.. being the shield. He would walk through fields of bodies, bloated, smelling and surrounded by bugs that would lead the flesh back to the earth. He would tell the generals, "I told you so." When they didn't listen. He would tell them, "This is the way to go." when they would.
He would sit around campfires at night, ripping skin and meat off the bones of goats, cows, pigs and enemies with his men.. the spoils of war, he would call it.. pouring wine from flasks that would never be empty, bringing women from their beds, tearing babies from their breasts and husbands from their hands.. all in the name of making them ready and willing to win.


But he was not at war. He was sitting in a bar with the seamstress, Gloria Wynsee.
"I would never go down without a fight, my friend. Put me out of my misery." And Clayton grins. He cannot -cede- the game.
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Re: Is there a debt here?

Postby Rance » Fri Jun 14, 2013 5:12 am

"It is not a victory I cherish. War is not fine. War is bloated with -- with the terrible cost it requires to wage it. I overcome you now, not out of desire, but out of pure necessity."

She lofted the charcoal and made the final mark.
X|_|O
X|X|_
X|O|O

He was patient with her; she knew nothing about him. He overlooked her manic fear; in the matter of games, she lay waste to him with a regretful hand. The charcoal was clapped against the bar and she brushed the black off her fingers and onto her skirt.

"Are we," she asked. "Are we friends, Clayton Thayer? For I find myself--"

enamored

"--fond of you. Of your idiosyncrasies and your appearance. Of your work ethic your offer of drink, and your willingness to -- to remained amused with me despite that I am often times not very amusing. I admit myself--"

endeared to you

"--indebted to you, with fairness, after what you did for me at the ball."

And because the game was through, a connection felt dashed, severed; she was suddenly unwelcome there, purposed smothered by the final strike of an X upon their makeshift battlefield. She slid down to her feet and smoothed her hands upon her hips until well after the permanent wrinkles in her dress had proclaimed their stoicism. "I said things to your lady, Messa Thayer, of which I am not proud. And yet, on that night, you averted my discomfort by ridding me of that drink.

"I wish to--"

wonder how she won you over, how she is not afraid of kisses…

"--apologize to her."
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Re: Is there a debt here?

Postby breeevil » Sat Jun 15, 2013 1:33 am

"Hmm.." Again his hand runs through his hair, stopping to scratch at the back of his neck and one eye scrunches up.. his head shakes.
"War is the most fun a man can have without a mate. Something about a battlefield teaches you everything you'll ever need to know about yourself just.." His fingers snap, "That quick. This.." His fingers tap on the paper, but then he stops, lips parted to keep talking but after a couple of seconds he just exhales, and smirks. "..Was also fun, though."
That was much better than what he was going to say, even if it didn't make all the sense he wanted to make. Maybe it was the brandy... he'll blame the brandy.

Clayton would have liked to think that his patience was endless, but he knew how quickly it could run out and would just hope that it never happened to Gloria. Fear bothered him.. especially when it was aimed in his direction when he was on his best behavior. It made him feel, more for Gloria than most others.. maybe because the two of them have almost nothign in common. She is scared, she seems timid and shy.. she says things to make herself appear self-loathing. And he is none of those things.

His smile stays around while she speaks, "We are friends. Yes." He nods. "But I don't hold on to debts, Gloria. You owe me nothing.. anyone with an ounce of decency would have done what I did.. anyone with more would have done something back to the joker."
She looks to be moving to leave and Clayton turns to the bartender, tapping the top of his glass, mumbling something about -one more- before more coins clatter on the countertop. Hearing her talk again leaves him blinking.. fully thinking she would have wandered off after confirmation of their friendship and a lack of her owing him anything.
His lady? The man looks baffled for a moment, brows knitting together and lips pursed. What is she---Snowy. And he bursts into laughter, palm landing hard on the bartop and his head hangs.. shaking. There may be a tear forming.

"-That mess- is not my lady." He wont include that the only reason Snowy was so rude to Gloria was because of him and his ways of toying with the white woman's brain. The two of them had been wildly entertaining with their talk of sagging or not sagging breasts though, which was really the high point of his whole night, so even if he was capable of it he probably wouldn't regret what he did.
"She means nothing. -Nothing-. You owe her nothing even resembling an apology." Quiet words again, serious words. Where Clayton has seemed rather chipper during their game, their chat.. he seems almost irritated as he talks about the fae's mate. "But if you must.. I will help you figure out where she is. I stopped keeping track."
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Re: Is there a debt here?

Postby Rance » Mon Jun 17, 2013 6:06 am

"Have you ever been on a battlefield," she asked, "to know if it is more fun? Or is that conjecture; is it assumption?"

All she knew of battle she had read from books and poetry. Jernoan texts glorified it, praised it, elevated it. The finest deaths. The most honorable pursuits. Corpses strewn in the shadows of gods, blood mucking the sand; rules of human life completely eschewed, a chance for wild young boys to will themselves against the righteous teachings of life and prosperity just to preserve them.

He ordered another brandy. She rubbed her fingers along a hip-wrinkle at the waist of her dress. Then, he laughed, he laughed, and she wondered if it might be the brandy in him. But it was her words, her inquiry, and the younger girl looked at him in askance, her eyebrows almost forcing the folds of her bonnet higher along her brow.

"I spoke rudely to her. I -- I took by the nature of your involvement with her that she--"

She drew in a careful breath, suddenly so very interested in the patterns of woodgrain on the bar, or the marks where bored knives had once tried to scrawl the illiterate attempts at names. The seamstress gave another attempt at the phrase--

"I took by the nature of your involvement with her that she -- she was tumbling with you."

But her eyes never looked back up. They were transfixed, distracted, wondering just how many years old the tree had been that had offered its muscle and skin for this section of the bar. It was not for the talk of tumbling, but for something simpler, more basic, that she admitted:

"I've no need to find her. But I was jealous of her."
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Re: Is there a debt here?

Postby breeevil » Mon Jun 17, 2013 8:16 am

The man turns back to look behind the bar, shrugging one shoulder and staring at the liquor bottles while he speaks, "I have been on many battlefields.. so no, it's neither of those things. It's.. an opinion, I suppose. Some people don't see the chances for kinship and bonding or games and challenges or fulfilling desires and fantasies, while they're blinded by blades and blood. Some of those fighters are just boys who weren't ready to stop sucking on their mother's breast in favor of defending their homes. I doubt they would be finding it fun, no matter what kind of way I could spin it." He pauses as his drink is set down in front of him, blinking down at the cup for a moment before turning to the seamstress again, watching her pick at the bar.
He was babbling. He knew it. Maybe it was the brandy.

He missed it. Missed whistling while he carefully wound his way through miles of land littered with corpses. The sound of metal clashing against metal. The sound of flesh ripping open, the splattering of blood and viscera that sounded no different than a cook throwing away too-old soup out a window.
He missed laughing at the young men he was feeding from when they would vomit at the sight of entrails, knocking them off the proud mental thrones they were erecting in the name of their first kills. That sweet choking feeling in the back of his throat when he could smell rotting blood and bodies.

"What war do you speak of? That taught you of the cost? Would you like another ale?" He's grinning again.

"Pfft!" Breath escapes through barely parted lips and his hand waves in the air before it snatches his glass off the bar. "She deserved what she got. And don't get me wrong, there was a time I would have given her the fucking of her life but.. no. There was no tumbling. There is no involvement. And you shouldn't have been jealous of her. She has nothing that you lack." Half of his brandy is gone in one gulp at that.. again he sniffles a bit, thumbing at the tip of his nose.
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Re: Is there a debt here?

Postby Rance » Wed Jun 19, 2013 2:12 am

"I do not know war," she said. "I have read of it, certainly. I have heard my share of poems. I have -- have seen the insides of a man turning brown and dry in the sun. But the only war I know involves the push of a needle through a stubborn fabric."

He asked if she would like another ale. To that, she shook her head. One was enough; one was always enough, lest she feel too much of the soft felt inside of her brain and find complex decisions suddenly easy, exciting, inconsequential.

"Your opinion," the girl continued, "sounds like Jernoah. Boys given armor of glass and hide at twelve years old, and taught to die by the glory of it before they're thirteen. They still fear the dark, and sometimes cry for -- for their mothers, but they will run through your guts without a hint of disgust. Blood dries quickly where I am from. Spilling it is a matter of amusement."

She worried the edge of her emptied mug with a scraping fignernail. The girl looked away from him, leaning on her elbows on the bar. Her face was twisted like a rag twisted in a dishwasher's hand. "What was it that she -- she got, Clayton," she inquired. "And jealousy is a simple matter of course--"

When you feel this way, when you wonder why you look at a man you've spoken to only twice, and you consider the integrity of the buttons on your dress--

"--when a woman has more than you know you should ever have. And who are you to speak of lacking? You, with your hair, your -- your calm demeanor, your carpentry. You," Gloria said, not with anger, or even a hint of it, but more with intriguing challenge, "who wants for nothing?"
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Re: Is there a debt here?

Postby breeevil » Wed Jun 19, 2013 4:59 am

"Some people would say you're very lucky to have never had to see it up close." In his opinion, those people were stupid, but he wouldn't say that part. "I just can't imagine poems and stories doing the beauty of war any justice." The words are said into his glass, obviously he has no intention to stop drinking even after she declines another ale.

"Twelve? Damn." his head shakes a little, "I was lucky to be older than that the first time I went off to fight.. I was probably seventeen or so. Then I didn't go again for a long while.. wanted to but things kept me from it." And when he did go back it was not to fight. "I think I've never seen Jernoah. Do you miss it there?" Maybe a more pleasant thing for her to talk about?

She looked away but he still looked at her, thumbing at the tip of his nose again.. enjoying the numbness that the brandy brings to his face. "She got your bitter tongue, dear." He grins a bit as he speaks, lips shining and wet from the alcohol. "She got a lesson.. granted it was one she took nothing from.. but.."
Clayton shrugged, turning again in his seat so his body is towards the seamstress, even while she is not facing him. One of his arms rests on the bar while the other dangles over the back of his chair, his foot still bounces, rocking his whole drunk and relaxed body. "I don't understand, Gloria. What does she have? A nice dress? I bought that dress for her.. that's not a mark in her favor. She has no better home than you, the lives at an Inn in a room I don't believe she even pays for. No better man. She's no more educated or worldly. I bet she can't even sew.." His head tilts to the side.. fighting off the want to fill this girl with her own confidence all for trying to make her see. It would be wrong. She would hate him forever for it. "Or is this about a small waistline and thin thighs? Because those things.." His fingertip thuds against the bar, he is making a point, "Are all a matter of preference."

"Who am I to talk about lacking.." He repeats her, stroking his chin in a (dramatic) thoughtful kind of way. "Well. Typically, people care what I think. I'm not sure why they do.." he is sure he knows why they do, "But they do. They look to me and expect me to tell them what they need to change, to remind them of the things they do wrong. To throw the things they lack in their face and encourage them to get them, change it. I'm gonna say that makes me a bit of an expert in the insufficiency department." His words not rude, maybe a bit haughty and arrogant, but certainly not angry or growled. Clayton's nose crinkles a bit, head shaking back and forth shortly. "Don't let me fool you with my hair and my tools. I want for many many things.. most of which I will never have."

He'll ask first, after a moment of thinking his words over. "What do you want for?"
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Re: Is there a debt here?

Postby Rance » Sat Jun 22, 2013 1:47 pm

"No," she said. "I do not miss it. I would much rather forget Jernoah."

But not what it instilled. Not how it had shaped her, having squeezed her with its sandy palms into this: the seamstress who seemed not to know how to mend her own clothes, who felt torn between some compulsion to touch his skin and see his tongue, or turning her back and simply striding off to her needlework, her schooling-books, her priorities.

But he had mentioned fighting, and her clogs were still planted against the floorboards as if they'd somehow been turned to anchors. The question was not offered with sensitivity, but with an almost brutish curiosity: "When -- when you fought in your war, did you kill anyone," like they were just discussing matters of needle and thread, the taste of a particular drink they both fancied.

There was so much else he discussed that she'd no way to respond to. It was with vague compliment that he expressed his bitterness about the White Woman. Perhaps it was best not to venture into the why or the reason behind his disgust -- yet, she could not deny that it did not give her a certain throbbing sense of pleasure, a sensation cultivated at the whims of misguided jealousy. A hint of a little smile. A begrudging amusement.

"You cannot ask me what it is that I am wanting for without first telling me what it is that you lack. And of that, you should be considerably informed. Having, after all--" a finger arched forward, pointing at him, its angle somewhere between scolding and teasing, "--the ability to tell others of the things they do wrong.

"What are you missing," the seamstress asked. "What is it you could desire, that --that you cannot simply take, or reap as you wish?"
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Re: Is there a debt here?

Postby breeevil » Sun Jun 23, 2013 4:51 am

Normally someone saying such a thing would have him asking questions. Why wouldn't you want to remember your home? How can you not miss it? Clayton would give his right arm.. someone's right arm, anyway, to be able to return to his home and go about his old life.
Those days were long gone, though. And he was not compelled to ask her the questions he would normally ask everyone else when it came to Jernoah, or any land foreign to him. maybe because she doesn't seem to want to linger on with talking about it.

He nods to her question, one corner of his mouth pulling up to grin. "Wars. And, yes, I did. I have killed many men personally, even more by suggestion and influence and leadership. Never a woman.. never a child." Just to clarify, because while Clayton was many things.. he was not a monster. "Would you like to hear some stories?" He asks in a lower voice.. pitch dropping so low that it sounds more like the start of an earthquake than someone speaking. "They might make your toes curl, though." But still.. he wears that small grin that seems to never actually go away.

Clayton doesn't protest when the conversation turns away from Snowy and everything she does not have. With only one more drink his glass is once again empty, set down in front of him and his fingernails tinkle against the rim. More. Always a need for more.

What he lacks. What he wants for. "Many things," He repeats, watching the bartender for a long moment before he continues on. Chuckling, "Things, as it happens, do not have the same feel for them when you take them or steal them or force them to be or to be yours. I lack understanding, not my own, but understanding from others. I have lack guilt and sadness and jealousy. I have very little self control, and even though I know they're wrong, the things I do when I lose that control.. I do not feel badly about them." All honest answers.. none of them smut. "Because if people would stop whining for long enough, they would realize that I do everything in their best interest." His face tilts down so he looks up at her from his seat, eyes squinted like he is fighting to see her through a fog.. or maybe he's just trying to figure her out. "I like the way you speak, do you know that? Were those the kinds of answers you were expecting, my friend? Would it be more appreciated if I dirty it up for you a bit?" The other other things he doesn't have and wont take?
His hand leaves his glass so his fingers can scratch under his chin.. the back of his neck. "Who better than a guiltless man to tell people what to change? Its your turn, Gloria. Tell me what you want. Tell me what I could do for you."
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Re: Is there a debt here?

Postby Rance » Sun Jun 23, 2013 10:40 am

She had always wondered about the honor of sparing women and children -- killing a man was enough, was it not? As if having a daa'rak alone was enough to ready one for death more than others.

"Your stories," she said, "are yours, Messa Thayer; you will not impress a girl like me with your war-stories. Perhaps if you knew how to work a needle and thread, I would be flattered, but otherwise, they -- they are your memories; your toes are your own to curl."

He clawed with odd desperation at his drink. She wondered, if like Constable Eddington, he was a drunkard, too attached to the bottle to think outside of its clouded glass.

I have lack guilt and sadness and jealousy, he said.

I do everything in their best interest, he said.

"They -- they were not the kind of answers I expected," she admitted, turning her head away from him as if his desire to dirty his responses had somehow -- for a single, imperceptible second -- frightened her, unsettled her. She clenched the thighs of her skirts so tightly that the wrinkled fabric had drawn the hem up from her ankles to her knees, her unmatching stockings like two stalks of summer brightness. She picked with a self-conscious focus at the folds of fabric, tugging at threads and edges of unraveled ribbon.

Tell me what you want. Tell me what I could do for you.

If by the whim of an old potion, she was maddeningly, unflinchingly, uneasily in love with Clayton Thayer, wholly against her will, entirely unknowing that she was -- but his offer was the answer of a dark desire, not the kind of the heart or the thighs. No, more the encouragement of a more base and primitive need. The bandage for a prideful Jerno's heart; an animal's want for stupid, angry, flawed revenge.

"I want to hit Rhaena Olwak in her face," she said. "I want to pull her hair; I -- I want to toss her in the mud. I want to laugh at her. That's what I want."
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Rance
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