Five mugs of beer in a single hand. It was a personal best.

Rum Ginny's fingers had dried into a useless, claw-like branch by the time the frothy mugs had been laid before their intended consumers; she shook it until the blood came back, but barely had time to wince at the tingling before more trays were pushed into her arms by Phineas, who was looking labored and put-upon. He had a black eye - no, two of them, now that the light had shifted. She hadn't a moment to consider their origin.

Off to table six, where seven wheezy, drunken idiots were bemoaning the loss of their factory jobs in the recent downturn. Whisking by table eight, which was occupied by what was most likely a resistance cell; breezing over to table four again, taking down orders mentally, a quick thump over the head to the boy who had attempted to drink and dash, then back to the bar.

Her feet ached. Her hands ached. Her head ached. It would have been far quicker to catalogue the parts of her that did not ache, incidentally. Ginny griped and moaned to Phineas in the half-moment it took her to gather up more drinks - the fussy man at table one had ordered a ridiculously complicated cocktail! - before she had to hurry off again.

It was worthless to pretend that all this business was bad; they had done more profit in the last week than they had all year. It was the announcement. It had changed the way everyone looked at things. Every conversation skewed serious; everywhere she turned, there were drawn faces and whispers of open war. It scared her worse than her most potent nightmares to think of it.



"It's real now," she had heard a man whisper. "I thought it was just stories, but it's real."

Ginny shook her head, trying not to think about it, to focus on work. Money in the coffer. Money to get Stu out of Vienda, to get them both out while there was still time. She could do it. She could do it all by herself, without him. Catching Phineas' eye, she hurried back to the bar to serve the fresh crowd of people pouring in, all desperate for news about Jon Serro and the resistance but not daring to speak too loudly.

Well, you're fucked now, aren't you? Fion had thought when she'd heard the announcement. How many were there that could point the finger at her during this witch hunt? If they bothered to look they'd find they were right. It wasn't as though she had a husband or family to protect her. She could imagine Piran trying, bless him but it wouldn't get them farther than another charge on her list.

She tried to tell herself it couldn't be true. The seventen were likely just stirring up shit where they could, leaving confusion and dissent among the party ranks. It wasn't as though it hadn't worked. The B&B was packed.

She wondered, don't these bastards have homes to go to? Steadily ignoring her place among them. Fion had wanted a drink, then more to follow but from the look of the place, she imagined Ginny was drowning. What did the waiter folk call it? The weeds?

"Need a hand?" She yelled at Ginny, over the din, as she walked up to the bar.

Stu's replacement did not carry a black eye as well as his predecessor did.

A flood of relief filled Ginny's heart when she saw Fion. Had she not been carrying two trays of drinks she might have hugged her; as it was, she merely beamed.

"Yes, yes, a thousand times," she called out over the din, nodding at Phineas, who was preparing another set of libations. He glanced up and spent an obvious moment trying to remember who Fion was.

Ginny dearly wished to pepper Fion with questions about Stu, whom she had not seen in a week's time, but it was too dangerous to say his name aloud; the story on the books was that he'd moved out of town to go work on a farm. A weak cover, but a common one. She was not burning to discuss Jon Serro. A gnawing feeling in the pit of her stomach made her feel like vomiting whenever his name came up, and worry and anxiety were already too familiar for her. She told herself that she didn't care; it wasn't her battle anyway, and perhaps everyone was better off with that looney out of command...

Over in the corner, a crowing group of men eagerly awaited their drinks. Among them, a tall and stately figure dressed in black stood perfectly still. Oxidus' eyes twinkled when he saw Fion.

The mug in Vicka's hands was still mostly full. She stared at it. Vicka was sitting at a table, but she did not know her tablemates or if they were here or there or anywhere. The friend she'd come with was up and about, maybe flirting with someone like why they came to bars in the first place, but Vicka didn't quite have the heart to try.

Cal had never really cared for Jon Serro. It had been Vicka who tentatively defended him, citing the damage done to the gollies. Cal always had an argument, though, and it went something like, "well, Vicka, how much blood does freedom cost?" And she would go to bed with a pit in her stomach.

She examined her hands around the mug. Vicka had healed more than her share of "terrorists", though most of the time she did not know who they were or where they had been. She never asked them questions past what she needed to know.

That had been in the past, though, with Cal as their "nice guy" or whatever. It occurred to Vicka that she might be useful, that she was a good healer, and . . . and that Cal would have wanted her to carry on. But . . . she steepled her fingers over the glass and grimaced. She could be useful. Or she could leave.

Demkaih had heard the announcement, hungover and sort of dazed, but he'd heard it. That was some statement...and it had to do with the resistance. If he'd been drunk, or perhaps even in the same state of mind he was last night, he might have ignored the whole thing and just pretended he didn't exist. He didn't know this Jon Serro.

But he did.

Taking the path up the ladies had been hard, and his legs didn't want to go where his mind was taking him. But it had to. It was right. He couldn't walk away now, not like this.

Standing in front of the acursed building of his enemy, the tall dark mugrobi took a deep breath, then entered. Standing at the doorway, he took a moment to get his bearings in the overcrowded, bustling tavern. Looking over the heads of strangers, he noticed familiar faces. Ginny...Fion...

Making a beeline for the two women, he noticed the expression on their faces, the way Ginny held her hands and her ragged features. Stopping close to them, he touched his hands to his eyes, then to his forhead.

"It appears that you could use some help, my friend." He said in a loud but low voice. His blue eyes looked at Fion, and he nodded a greeting. The pain in his heart, the anger, the hopeless...it all subsided when he saw her. It still ached, she was still not his...but just seeing her in the flesh was enough to still the pain. Like water to a dying man.

Fion was reaching for the next set of orders, about to ask who they were meant for, when Dem approached them. She had not seen Oxidus yet. She wasn't exactly pleased to see Dem again, it reminded her of all the things she hadn't been ready for and looking back, how intense their time together had been. Fion sometimes felt like she had used him, wanting him because he provided stability and undivided attention, then leaving when that turned out not to be the case.

It was messy and she didn't like mess. She hadn't planned to ignore him, just give him some space. Fion loved Stu and she was confident about his sensibility and courage, comfortable being with him because she had known him for such a long time. She trusted him more than anyone else she knew. Dem served as a reminder though, to days when Fion had been at the end of her rope and had just wanted...

At least she could be honest about it now, she'd wanted sex. It had been years living next to a bunch of gossips and trying not to do anything that would get them off-side. Balancing frustration with the practical desire to keep her reputation spotless. In many ways, Stu was the perfect fulfilment of that need. If someone caught them, her smallest worry would be what they were seen to be doing.

It was too difficult to say hello. Fion nodded her head instead and smiled, a weak and almost painful thing, before reaching for the glasses and preparing to deliver them where needed. She hoped he was well and that someone else had come along, someone better suited to him than she was.

Wendy pushed her way into the B&B without knowing why she was doing it. She didn't like to drink-- if her experience with Viator had taught her anything was that drink eventually lead to betraying your friends and leaving them to go adventuring. Or, in short, being an asshole. She felt the intense anger rise up in her stomach when she thought of it again. That moony bastard had come back to her after years and then he'd left as quietly and suddenly as the first time. She shouldn't have expected any better. She should have learned the first time.

And if she ever saw the man again she was going to make sure he stayed out of her life. Wendy scowled as she made her way through the throngs of people. She didn't like the atmosphere here. It was tense, and unhappy, like the rest of Vienda. Although she tried to keep to herself, the passive wasn't entirely impervious to the news that Jon Serro had died. Why did she care about Jon Serro?

Because everyone in the clocking world seemed to care about Jon Serro. She decided she didn't like the man who was causing so much anxiety among the humans. Spending so much time with them had eroded her feelings of unease and had replaced it with a somewhat confused affection.There was something extremely gratifying about being around people who knew the meaning of hard work and little pay.

There was something very pleasant about being around people who knew anger just as well as she did.

Wendy walked towards the bar and stopped a few feet away. It was packed with people. She asked herself for the second time what she was doing here. She shrunk just a little and took a tiny step backwards.

I should leave. I should leave before I do something stupid.

"You need a place to sit, love?" Vicka called out to the girl, to Wendy. She couldn't particularly tell, but the bar was crammed with humans and tsats alike, and Vicka felt sympathy for the girl. She beckoned toward her, toward the empty chair of her table, which she had been saving until now for her companion.

"Friend came along with me, but she walked out that door jus' a second ago with a man on either arm. I don't think she's comin' back anytime soon," Vicka explained, feeling more tired than jealous. She didn't know why she agreed to come to the B&B now. It just reminded her of her husband. "You can have her spot, if you like."

Vicka caught Wendy just in time. She had been about to turn and flee. Avoid bars in the future at all costs. The passive turned her face towards Vicka, trying to disguise the terror that had settled upon it. "Sit?" She echoed, staring at the woman and listening wordlessly to her explanation. Somewhere in the back of her mind the word 'wick' floated into its reaches. She tried to break herself out of her paralysis.

"I-- yes. Thank you." She said with a wary smile. "I'm Wendy."

I didn't want to come to this bar. I've lost friends because of alcohol. I'm a passive. I've run away from home. I'm alone. I need help but I wont ask for it. Ever.

"What's your name?" Wendy said instead, letting her eyes float around the room looking for the barmaid... She wasn't going to order a drink though, right?

Vicka smiled back at the girl, who seemed a little skittish; not so uncommon, perhaps. Dark days, after all.

"I'm Vicka. Or Mrs. Vanmoor, whichever you might like," she said cheerfully. "Pleasure to meet you, Wendy. Crowded, ent it? And all these bent heads."

She leaned forward, her cheek in the palm of her hand and sighed. "Seems like everyone's talking about nothing, doesn't it? Grim times, I say."

"Idle talk leads to idle minds." The words jumped to her lips without her asking for it. Wendy felt the heat rise in her face for a moment. Hopefully the wick wouldn't recognize it as a passive proverb. It was unlikely, but she still berated herself for letting her cover slip, even if just for a moment. Wendy quirked her lips to the side, staring at Vicka as she spoke.

"I wouldn't say it's about nothing, exactly." She said sullenly, annoyed at the changes in the people around her. Annoyed at the strange feeling of instability she suddenly felt from everyone. "It's about that Serro man, isn't it? The one who's dead." Wendy pulled her bangs out of her eyes and folded her arms severely.

"Well, anyone with half a brain could tell the Seventen were lying." She had been repeating this to her coworkers at the factory, and had been rewarded with expressions of mingled fear and awe at her frankness. Wendy didn't like the mystery that surrounded this Serro man, but she thought even less of the galdori attempt to control the human populace by spreading false news.

"And if they weren't, they're idiots for thinking it would keep people quiet." Wendy's expression darkened. Killing off people that were loved wasn't exactly a good way to befriend the public. The passive was not impressed. "Hello, we've killed a man you obviously had some degree of respect for! Are you ready to submit to our imperial will?" Her voice was heavy with sarcasm. She stopped and glanced sheepishly at Vicka.

"...Sorry. I'm about up to here with all of this business." She said, lifting her hand towards her head and dropping it again. "I just wish things would go back to normal." It felt like an empty wish.

Wendy grinned, "But I seem to have a habit of not getting what I wish for, so why bother? It's probably safer the other way around. You're not spooked by the whole business, are you?" She wondered what tribe Vicka was from.

"The Seventen sometimes lie, and sometimes they don't say anything at all. Couldn't say which is worse," Vicka said, shrugging. The Seventen had not exactly announced what had happened to her husband, after all; but her husband had been a nice guy, as opposed to Jon clocking Serro.

"Not everyone admired him," she continued, a bit quietly. "Beside that, if he's not dead, I expect it'll be a surprise when he shows his face and blows something up--not what the gollies want, I think."



"If he's dead, or if he's alive . . . I expect we'll hear both in the days to come and never know, unless they put on some circus with the body," Vicka said, twisting her necklace around her fingers. "It isn't my business, anyway. Normal or not, times are hard. I got my writ by the skin of my very teeth, you know, and they're still like to kick me out. Tsat my whole life and all!"

She shook her head. "Maybe I ought not get what I wish for either. I love this city, but it seems more and more like I'd be better off on the road."

"You've got the itch?" Wendy said with a small smile. "I met a lot of wicks in surwood that would tell me about how they couldn't sit still in a single place for long. Never had the feeling myself. I like Vienda." She wondered vaguely what 'tsat' meant.

"What's your tribe?" Was that a rude question? Wendy was being flooded with memories from surwood. Meeting Vicka was making her slightly nostalgic. She missed Petra. She wasn't about to present herself to the witch as a black hand, although her adopted aunt had made it clear that she could if she wanted to...

But although Wendy had loved every minute of Surwood, she just...wasn't a wick. She was just a passive pretending to be a wick pretending to be a human.

Or something. She was beginning to think it didn't really matter as much as she used to think it did. Maybe sweeping so much sawdust was clogging up her brain.

Vicka chuckled. "The itch? I suppose . . . to be honest, traveling isn't my fondest dream."

She folded her hands on the table. "My da is a Yellow Eye, so I suppose I'm one too, but that doesn't mean so much. He joined up with some spokey types just after I got married, so I wasn't really about to follow him, you understand."

But now she was a widow. She had her friends and some that was near as family as you could be without blood between you--but her own father and her own brothers--no threat of eviction or gollies hanging over her--it was hard to resist.

"What about you, Wendy? You travel much?"

Annie had caught wind of the announcement almost as soon as it had been made. It wasn't hard, considering how quickly news like THAT spread about Vienda. Faster'n the Clap at a whore house, I reckon, she thought to herself with a slight smile. She wasn't smiling because the man was dead, necessarily. No, that would be crude.

She was smiling because...well, maybe I am smilin' 'cause he's dead.

At least, that was what the announcement said, anyway. Ever the skeptic, Annie was loath to believe it. He prolly threw some other unlucky bastard out in th'muck wit' his name slapped on th'stiff, an the sloggin' greenbacks don' care 'nough t'check otherwise. Still, there's always hopin'!

Ever since she'd helped Emme run away, Annie had held a small amount of fear towards the man. The resistance did run the length of Anaxis, after all, and it wasn't like people couldn't have come after them. Her brow creased as she thought of Emme, being left in Old Rose on her own--weren't like it were my own decision, we'd both agreed it were best!--and wondered how her friend was faring. Shaking her head with a grin and the mental image of the girl on a beach somewhere, cool drink in her hand and a sunny tan on her skin, Annie decided her friend was much better off where she was, as long as it was far away from Vienda.

The reporter clinked a few coins around in her pocket (she'd just been paid that morning) and decided it was time for a well deserved celebratory drink, and she knew just the place to stop in for one. The Book and Bell was a packed madhouse of people, all of whom were whispering, guffawing or talking slightly loudly about the same thing. It's like a papergirl's dreamland, Annie thought as she entered the bar. So many sources, so little time! She took a few steps toward the crowded bar and saw a few faces she recognized; instead of calling or waving, however, she decided to wait for them to notice her.

Demkaih could see the look in her eyes, the almost painful nod. It hurt, a pain he'd expected he'd lost - a sharp dagger in the heart. Was he that much of a disgrace to her that she couldn't even stand to greet him, to at least give him as much as she gave a random stranger on the street. The dark man swallowed hard...why had he even bothered to come here? It was pointless. This whole thing was pointless. Even if he had come to declare his best wishes for her and the bartender - she thought he was dirt. He'd bared his soul, cradled her heart, loved her...he'd moved to protect her and her son in a way that was permenant...and she cringed at the sight of him?

Turning hurt blue eyes to the floor, muscle in his jaw jumping, he turned and made to leave, hands fisted in an attempt to avoid an outburst. It was her life, her decision - he just...hoped that after the time they'd shared...she would at least care about him as a friend, a collegue. A person.

Pushing his way past noisy patron's, he almost ran into the reporter. Looking up at the last minute, he jumped a bit, putting his hands out to avoid bowling her over, grabbing her elbows.

"Oh, I am sorry my friend. I did not mean to..." He noticed the face, and let go, bowing slightly.

"Ahh...Annie November, saviour of drunk spice merchants." The mugrobi lifted his forearm wryly, showing the bandage was still there.

"That's right! I...I killed Jon Shhherro!"

The drunken yelp brought the cacaphony of voices to a shocked and muted roar, and many heads turned to look at the man standing on the table, wobbly legs showing through holes in the knees of his trousers, his eyes glazed over with mad conviction. He shot his fist into the air and bumped the low ceiling with a painful crunch of his knuckles. "Killed 'im! Dead, he ishh! I'm a buh-loody hero!"

Catcalls and boos answered his manic laughter, and a few mugs - proper wooden ones, the kind that shouldn't smash against the wall - smashed against the wall. Ginny groaned. Already the heightened tensions in the room were coming to a head, and she could smell a fight brewing easier than she could predict a storm after a thunderclap.

"Shut up, you stupid man," she yelled, pushing him so that he crashed backwards onto the table. It was timely, as a knife had just come whizzing through the air at the man's head. His friends edged away from him as though he was the carrier of some rare disease, but Ginny knew he was only the first - soon the evening would be lousy with pretenders to the throne, idiots who thought they could profit from this death.

The room began to recover from their anger as swiftly as it had begun, and soon they had forgotten the loudmouth man who, trailing a puddle of vomit, was being dragged out of the door by the gangly redhead barmaid. He made a splock sound as he hit the cobblestones.

"Don't come back for a while," she ordered him firmly, silhouetted in the door frame. He squinted up at her.

"You're not at all funny," she added, and slammed the door in his face.

Gannon was sitting in his chair as though he'd been carved from it--solid and unmoving as the tavern he'd found himself in. He didn't know how long he'd been sitting in there, stiff drink in hand and barely sipped on, but he almost felt as fixed to the bar as the rafters above. The others at his table didn't pay him much mind and the four of them were oddly squished over to one side of the table. Gannon's expression was coldly blank.

On the inside was a different story. On the inside, Gannon was a jittering mess of nerves. His eye flicked restlessly from his reclined position in his chair and his ears tuned into each sound. He felt different, now; he felt as though he'd robbed his landlord and hid the money in his boot. Like he was walking around on the evidence itself. Now Gannon knew what a watched wolf felt like and for once in his life he was trying to make himself as much of the background as possible. Things had certainly changed for him. But, oh gods, did it show? Did he give himself away? Was he a dead man waiting to be picked off by the uncles?

Gannon had ordered himself to breath, calm down, drink something, damnit, and hope that the alcohol in his gut would still his rushing senses. At the same time, he didn't want to be dulled, he wanted to hear every damn word that these half-sloshed people were talking about.

Serro? Dead? He was the leader of the Resistance as far as Gannon knew and he didn't exactly count the Seventen as the most reliable news source. With a long drag from the whiskey, Gannon figured that this was a ruse. They were trying to spook the Resistance into making a stupid move into a corner that the government's peace force could kill them in. That was all. He tried to put the issue to rest in his mind when he slapped the glass back down.

Just when the drink was about to calm him to the point of letting his stiff shoulders drop a bit, she walked in. Fion Smith. Ohshit. Gannon's eye widened as he watched her talk to the little barmaid. Now this...this was rotten luck. Gannon considered getting up and leaving (he wasn't drinking much, anyhow), but then he'd be seen and who knew what kind of scene she'd make. Maybe try to get that Mugrobi fellow to box his ears. Hell, he didn't know. Gannon decided it'd be best if he just tried to look small.

He wasn't overly surprised at the man who'd got up to yell, in fact, Gannon barely blinked. He'd grown as used to drunks as a Lost Moon grew used to horses. And they were similar to wobbly colts, he figured--shaky, spooky, and having no idea what they were doing. Obnoxious fit somewhere in the list, too. However, when mugs started smashing against the wall, he felt a twinge of sympathy for whoever ran this establishment. Like stupid colts, drunkards also had the knack for breaking things.

He'd been drinking a little more as he thought, and was entirely surprised to find he was drinking the dregs of his cup. Well then, one might as well have more. Desiring another drink, though not desiring attention, Gannon casually raised a hand and gave a low call for more whiskey. Something to the effect of: "'Scuse me, I could use more whiskey." or some grumbled variation of.

As soon as he had asked, a mug of beer appeared, announced by a thunk as it hit the tabletop and splashed onto the wood. From Fion's expression it was clear she was not happy to see him. Her brow was furrowed forward, drawn in and casting shadows on her face. Fion's displeasure was written in the lines on her face and the tilt of her lips.

"We're all out, you're stuck with beer." The words were spat, not spoken.

Gannon would have been hard pressed to see any resemblence in the woman before him now, to the one he had met and had drinks with just a short time before. Such a sharp distinction between friendly sharpness and bitter distaste.

She didn't even know if they really were out of whiskey, she just couldn't be bothered going back to the bar to check.

"Pay up and fuck off, would you?" she said, and there was an interesting thing, with a flicker in her voice.

Fion was still a bit wary of him. Not even the anger could kill that. He out-weighed her, out-classed her and was probably better liked. Even in a dense crowd, she was trying to force him out because she felt safer that way.

The expression on Gannon's face flickered only for a moment into something that might have registered as a mix of annoyance and resignation to his own shitty luck. However, this expression quickly hardened back into stone.

He wanted no quarrel with this woman, truly. But it seemed he'd earned it, and rightly so, he supposed. She certainly was entitled to her anger and the quiver in her voice did not go unnoticed. He was very aware that he made her nervous. Still.... He wasn't going to run off from this. No sir.

Leisurely, Gannon leaned forward and took the mug. A long drink after (Good Lady, that was sour stuff. She'd certainly pulled up the dregs for her favorite Bastian barkeep.) and his mug came back to the table with a hollow thunk. He looked at her a moment more.

His baritone drawl was steady as his level gaze. "I have no mean to bother you, Mz. Fion."

Something cold and slithery poked its way out of Fion's lizard brain, that ancient part of the mind that kept creatures alive before they'd developed all those feelings and social bonds that made things easier. It considered prior interaction, all the stress and adrenaline and made Fion a snap judgement.

This man is a threat, it said, you know how to deal with threats.

She had an empty glass in her hand. She wondered why. Ganon was now soaked in beer.

Oh. Well, she wished she'd paid more attention, she might have enjoyed pouring a drink on someone. It had been a while. Fion realised she was angry. She was very, very angry.

"Like fuck you don't have the mean." She said, only years of experience preventing her from throwing her tray at him. "You clocking do and don't tell me any different, you sheep-fucking, woman-beating son of a bitch. I wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire!"

She twisted, stopped and turned back. She hated losing her cool. She looked crazy when she lost her cool. Didn't mean she felt like changing her opinion of Ganon anytime soon.

"You want to not bother me?" She asked, eyes hurting and damn she hated that it was pathetic, "Top yourself. Jump in front of a carriage, I hope the crows eat you."

Fuck the day. Fuck Hamis. Fuck the rain. She couldn't go anywhere anymore without starting something she knew she couldn't finish.

Well grand. Clocking, sodding grand. Soaked in beer by a pissed off mite of a woman. Or normal occasion, Gannon Oranos would be stomping, neck-snapping mad. This time, it was only mild annoyance that went back at Fion through his single eye. Anger was one thing, drenching him with the sour wares was another. He felt like saying: Well you clockin' walked in after I did, damnit. Or even, Oh just leave me th' hell be, woman. But both sounded ridiculous.

Woman beater? Was he? Gods, the last time he'd truly raised his hand to a female he'd been 9 and he'd pushed his little cousin Hilda into a mud puddle for laughing at him. The beating he'd received afterwards had been enough to make him skirt around ladies like they were porcelain. It seemed that Bastian humans didn't hold well with harming females, well, at least his Uncle Andrew. Galdori women were a sticky concept in his head: not quite real women and not exactly men. He probably wouldn't know what to do to one of them should ever one be the subject of his anger.

The rest of Fion's tirade seemed to go in one ear and out the other. He wasn't really listening to her anymore, though the tone of her voice certainly stirred up residual guilt. It was still festering down there and it probably would for quite a while till she forgave him. If she forgave him. Not likely. Not unless Vita collapsed into itself.

"Is that all?" he growled half-heartedly to himself as he blew a drop of alcohol from the tip of his nose. He wanted to be angry, he really did. He wanted that comment to sound scathing to help patch his now beer-saturated pride. Anger was his default emotion and it had served him well for eight years. Anger was simple and easy to understand. All he could be right now was remorseful and it probably showed.

Gannon took another drink of beer; as though he hadn't had enough already.