((Continued from: viewtopic.php?t=1599 ))

The evening had been an eventful one, seven Brothers dead on his account, five he'd killed personally. The pirates who had saved him from the last two had already had their fill of liquor and were gone, leaving Artemis sitting alone in the tavern- well, almost alone. On the way there his falcon, Horas, had found him, a small dead animal in his claws. Now the bird was perched somewhere in the rafters, eating it's prize. The other company was of no real interest to him, all drunken strangers, though he would occasionally look up as someone entered, fearing they might be of the Brothers- he didn't want another encounter so early.

Artemis leaned forward in his chair, his right leg propped up on the table as he worked at sewing up the wound in his thigh- though he certainly wasn't an expert on stitches, he had learned long ago how to do so effectively enough to close a wound, albeit a tad messily. Though he'd cleaned it up a good bit with a rag dipped in alchohol, blood still oozed slowly from the gash. The bullet hole in his left shoulder was less of a problem, and was for the moment taken care of by a scrap of fabric wrapped tightly around it. Pausing in his makeshift stitchery, he took a sip of his Dirty Chan- the fourth glass of the evening. He was pacing himself.

Rosalie's ship was grounded, and so was she. It was the thought that had been cycling continuously, frustrating, through her mind for three days now: that and a disgusted 'Pirates'. The worst of it, however, was this endless sense of doom. They'd called it an unpaid shore leave, but she knew it for what it really was. Punishment. Degrading. And what could she do about it?

"...nothing." It was a hiss, frigidly furious, as she inched into the tavern. There was coin in her hand, but not much. Should have been saved for food, perhaps, but she wanted booze. And she wanted it dirty.

Rosalie should have looked out of place, slim and proper and -- and, well, galdori as she was. But something about the way she clomped up to the bar and shouldered people out of the way to get her drink canceled the effect out. Then it was a matter of finding a place to sit. Artemis, sewing himself up, had a wide berth, exuding a sense of trouble as he was. No one would be stupid enough to sit near that clusterfuck.

She didn't care. Nor did she ask, just dropped down across from him with a thud of cup against wood.

Artemis had noticed the young woman enter the bar, but had since then lost interest and returned his attention to his thigh. So intent was he on the stitching that he hadn't noticed the woman drawing near until she plopped down across from him. He flinched when her cup thudded against the table. Tying off the stitches, he cut the thread with a dagger, then proceeded to dip a rag into his ale and clean up the remains of the sticky blood that clung to his leg. That done, and having nothing more to distract him, he finally met the woman's gaze.

She was a passive, but that didn't necessarily mean much in Old Rose Harbor- the Brothers recruted people from any race, it seemed, as long as thye had some sort of useful skill. The way she carried herself it was obvious she'd seen her fair share of battles. That also didn't mean a whole lot in Old Rose; there were plenty of people willing to get in a scrap who weren't Bad Brothers. One thing he did notice was, she certainly didn't look the sort to be anyone's toy. He arched a brow, looking her over. Finally, he decided that- however pissed she obviously was- she wasn't going to attack him, at least not any time soon, so he allowed himself to calm down, and smiled charmingly at the woman. "Oh, my, where are my manners? Care to join me?" He removed his foot from the table and leaned forward, taking a swig of his Dirty Chan. Though he really wanted to ask her what the clock she wanted, he was being polite, albeit in a bit of a sarcastic manner.

"You're taking up a whole corner of the tavern - " Her voice was surprisingly soft and well educated, for this area; Rosalie tipped her head to look back out into the place, hand shifting to brush fingertips thoughtlessly along the rim of her cup. She was angry, yes, but it was a cold sort of anger. Restrained. The dangerous kind.

Her eyes slid back onto him, green and very serious. "- for your first aid there. Bullets?"

Artemis smirked at this, his silver eyes sweeping the room around him before fltting back to her. "I hadn't noticed."



His smirk faded, "... The one on my shoulder is, yes..." He indicated the somewhat crudely sewn gash on his leg, "This one was a sword." He shrugged, "Just two more scars to add to an ever-growing list." Apparently he ddn't much care what wounds marred his body, as long as they didn't kill him. He knocked back his ale and set the now-empty glass on the table, eyeing it as if deciding whether he should get another. Taking his hand away from the glass, he decided he would stop for now- he needed to be sober. He met the woman's eyes, "You're not from around here." It was just a simple statement of the obvious, no inflections leaning toward one emotion or the other. Perhaps it could have been taken as a confirmation to reassure himself.

"I'm from here as much as anywhere else. The bullet still in there?" She raised her eyebrows, leaning in across the table. Something about Rosalie's expression was almost fascinated, almost curious. She didn't deal with guns much, not in her line of work, and that was generally how she preferred it: the elegance of a sword was so much better. However, this was interesting in its own way. She kept one hand on her drink, delicate, to keep it from tumbling over.

He understood that one. He never much stayed in any one place, going where the jobs took him.



He leaned back a little as she leaned forward, watching her expression carefully. "No, it just clipped me..." Damn good thing the Brother who did it had a bad aim.

She blinked, raised both eyebrows, and settled back down into her chair -- meeting his eyes quietly, both of her hands shifting around her cup. "Then what do you need with a whole table." It wasn't a real question, more like making her point. Rosalie finally went for a drink, just a faint edge of something disgusted taking over at the taste of the swill. Oh well; it was, after all, what she'd been wanting. And it was cheap.

Artemis raised a brow at that last comment, choosing not to answer. It was then that, on some, unseen signal, Horas finally decided to come down from the rafters and perch on his master's shoulder. The bird eyed Rosalie cautiously, his head cocking to the side in the manner that birds do. Artemis absently stroked the bird's feathers as he further examined the woman.

Rosalie didn't seem to notice at first. Her attention was cough up in the throat-burning sensation of her drink. It was the flutter of feathers that hauled her attention upward, onto the bird in a quietly, mildly curious sort of way and then back onto Artemis's face.

"Who shot you?" She shouldn't have asked. Questions like these were the way to get noticed, which was usually a bad thing in Old Rose. She needed it, though, set afloat as she was and with so few marketable skills...

Artemis tensed visibly, though he managed to keep his expression completely neutral. "Do you often pester people with dangerous questions, or is it just my lucky night?" There was a silence as he studied her curious expression. The woman was likely to get herself killed asking such things in Old Rose, not that it was any skin off his nose, but having already conjectured that she was not one of the Brothers, he gave his answer, "A nameless cutthroat in the Brothers... He didn't last very long."

"Did you deserve it?" Maybe she'd get herself killed, or maybe she wouldn't. Rosalie looked perfectly calm and steady, taking another generous swallow of the drink but holding her breath this time, so she didn't have to taste it when it went down. Her eyes had strayed from hem again, out toward the drunken louts, pondering the possibility that she might be the smallest person in the room. "...for that matter, did he?"

This woman was grating on his nerves, "Who truly has the right to say what we do and do not diserve? I have long since given up on such questions. The world is a cold place, ready to turn on even the best, most respectable of men. Why should I care?" His gravelly voice was cold and bitter as a heavy winter storm, and he made no effort to hide it. "Perhaps it's simply a matter of being in the wrong place, at the wrong time."

It actually sparked a light of amusement in her eyes, if not around the pulled tight edges of her mouth. It must have been the alcohol breaking through; she finished the rest of her drink off, perhaps solely to keep herself from laughing or saying something inappropriate, and licked her lips.

"So be it, then. But you did decide to do your little triage in a bar, not in the privacy of, say, your own home. You're asking for questions."

He stard blankly at the woman. Perhaps he had not thought that some overly curious passive would come around and ask him questions best left unanswered. "Don't have a home." He shrugged, thinking little of it, "But if you end up on the wrong side of my blade, well, you're the one who chose to pester an armed man with little to no inhibitions." It was a clear, fair warning.

"I didn't threaten you, no need to go threatening me." Empty cup set back down on the table, Rosalie raised her eyebrow at him, her head tipped to the side. She passed one hand through her hair, leaving it a black rumpled mess. "Is your cup empty?"

Artemis was a but caught off guard at the woman's casual dismissal of his threat, and then the turn of the conversation to his ale- or lack thereof. He glanced down at his glass, then back at the woman, "Quite. Are you offering, then?" He smirked, if this woman was buying him ale, perhaps she was not so bad afterall. Unless she saught to get him drunk enogh to drag from his lips any answer she pleased. Well, he knew his limits and would stop before such could happen.

"I'm offering to get up off of my seat and bully my way to the bar to get fresh." Stern, almost chiding, with her head tilted toward his leg in a meaningful way. She was already moving to stand, too, with a comfortable sort of grace that helped illustrate why she wasn't afraid of him -- and perhaps the swords would cover the rest. "So that you don't have to limp your way up there. I do not extend the offer to payment as well."

"Mmm, you wound me." He mused sarcastically, "Do you wish for a waitress' tip as well, then?" He dug in his pouch, pulling out the necessary payment for a drink, which would leave just a bit of change. "A Dirty Chan, then," He paused, before adding "Keep the change."

She had been genial enough, really -- for Rosalie, anyway. Downright friendly, she would have argued. This last statement, though, made her stiffen a little. No fury on her face, just a cold and lingering regard that was, in its way much scarier than a blaze of anger. She shifted the coin in her hand, chewing over several words before retreating to get the drinks. It gave her time to mull it over, to come up with something suitably scathing, in the meantime.

Poor Rosalie was rather small for this crew. It would take some shouting to get attention turned her way, but she was used to this. She knew how to project, and wasn't afraid to step on toes or let elbows fly.

Artemis' smirk only grew as he watched the passive stiffen- as she turned and gave him the cold stare. Rather than cower in fear as perhaps a normal person would have done, he simly shrugged it off, amused by her reaction. Yes, it appeared he had struck a chord, and it took a bit of restraint to keep himself from laughing out loud- he kept it at an amused grin.

Probably wisest he did. Time spent shoving her way through men twice her size had not lightened Rosalie's mood. She came back toward him with one beer, instead of two, and she set it down in front of him with enough force that the content sploshed over the rim of the cup and over the table. He'd have to wriggle to get out of the way of a slender line of Dirty Chan, creeping across the wood of the tabletop and toward his leg.

"I decided this place isn't my style." The coin -- his 'keep the change' -- was tossed thoughtlessly in his face, a dangerous projectile weapon in the midst of that cold fury. "The people aren't worth the time of day."

As she headed for the door, it was less womanly saunter and more fighter's lean, deliberate movements. Rosalie wasn't stupid enough to go looking for trouble, but there was some part of her that would probably welcome it.

(( ))

Everything happened so fast- just a blur of fury. One moment he was amused, the next the woman sloshed his drink everywhere, and as he stood- knocking the chair down with a bang behind him- to keep the ale from spilling into his lap, a coin grazed his jaw- and for what it was it hurt. Then the woman was leaving. He was no longer amused. And for some reason, he now couldn't stand that she was, even though when she had first started pestering him, he would have given an arm and a leg to see her leave. No, he simply did not want her to have the last word. Before he knew what he was doing, he was running after her as fast as his bad leg would allow, grabbing her shoulder, and spinning her around to look at him.

"So what's that, then?" He growled, "You come in, pester a wild Bander, and don't expect to get bitten? A temper like yours could get you into quite the mess around here, ye chen?" Though, why he cared was beyond him. He was actually wondering why he even bothered chasing the woman out here. Perhaps he should have just stayed in the tavern...

(( lawwwl fun times. ))

His hand landed on her shoulder, pivoted her, and she didn't even wait to hear him complete his statement, his question. Well-practiced movements carried her through the turn, using the force of his own arm against him.

Rosalie hadn't looked harmless to start with, no, and now it was that much worse. Her expression was calm as she brought her knee up -- not into the expected familiarity of his groin, but almost as dirty. He was wounded, and she went for the newly-stitched slice on his leg. Never even paused in her twist to think about it.

If his legs went out, he couldn't continue to follow her.

Rosalie's reflexes were well-trained, and Artemis was perhaps expecting her obvious movement to land in a different location. The knee to his wound sent a fresh wave of searing pain from his leg to the base of his skull. It was dizzying and amplified, but since he'd been dealing with the discomfort for some time now, it was not enough to knock him over.