What was Henri babbling on about? Ah, the phlogiston exhibitor. Bah. That wasn't something he wanted to flash around that much, admittedly-- only when he thought it would get him something better. It was a serious invention and he rather did want to register the patent for it and sell it... if only the patent office weren't in Vienda. Inwardly he sighed, drinking deeply of more rum.

The problem with Charlie Ewing and rum, at least it was a problem by other people's estimation, was that his body was simply not sure what to do with it all. A normal man with his sort of drinking habits might have by now developed a stronger constitution than he had. Then again, Charlie was not your normal sort of man. Situation being such as it was, by the time Charlie got to his third shot of rum he was feeling a considerable bit more than slightly tipsy. By the fifth, Charlie Ewing was flat-out soaked, his brain pleasantly floating on a sea of sweet dark alcohol.

Henri really was looking decent right about now. He'd been looking decent from the start, but he was looking really decent at this point. Slightly wobbly as well. And too far away. He could hear him talking, asking him to show off the exhibitor. "Oh Henri," he slurred his words a bit, "you talk entirely too much." With that he leaned in and pressed his face to Henri's in a sticky, rum-soaked and slightly sloppy kiss.

Henri chuckled at Charlie's blank look. From the looks of things the golly couldn't hold his rum worth nothing, although he shouldn't laugh. Taking a swig from his new rum, his mug refilled by a passing waitress, he could feel the the warmth of the spicey rum beginning to cover his thougths in a delightful haze. Vaguley he realized that he was slowly slipping away from that lovely state of 'very much in good will' and beginning to lean more towards the state of ‘that sounds like a fine good idea', which, all things considered, is not a very good state to be in for any length of time.

Honestly, he had thought his sobriety would have lasted much longer than that, having been no stranger to alcohole since he had been much smaller than he was now. He could even drink some of the harder drinking wicks in his tribe under the table, which was why he had kept ordering drinks. But then again, he hadn't been exposed to this sort of rum near enough to be an able judge of this state of drunkenness with any real accuracy. But at this point he was finding it hard to care.

So he was a little drunk, he could handle being a bit suzzed.

"You know, you know," Henri waved his unoccupied hand in the air for emphasis, frowning slightly as he tried to explain to the guttered golly. "The little fire thing, witho' magic. The F-fillo... Philly Examin-Nator. Whatever ya call it with the flash-y light and all. The vodundun thinger, ye chen?"

Perhaps a bit more drunk than that.

Henri was wobbling, his head buzzing ever so slightly, and he was fealing rather good, like he could do or try anything at all. This rum was having an odd affect on the wickling: accustomed to drinking as he was, he had drunk a lot, the slow yet potent affects of the sweet spiced rum slowly clouding his mind while he was unaware. He was not yet guttered, but at this moment Henri was very very drunk...

Suddenly Charlie was a lot closer than he had last remembered him being. Eyes widenin at the sudden change in in proximity, he was struck with just how striking the galdor’s eyes were. Blinking blearily and rum befuddled, the wick just barely registered the golly’s words, hardly able to hear due to the rushing in his ears and the drunken slur they were spoken in.

His mind was so preoccupied with trying to make sence of the words that it took a few moment before he realized that... that... THIS GOLLY MAN WAS KISSING HIM!

Henri panicked. With a slight yelp, he whent to jump to his feet in a knee-jerk reaction to bolt and dust as far and fast as he could; only to be hampered by the fact that he was still sitting down with his legs under the table. Tangled up, he tripped over his own feet, catching them on the crate he had been sitting on and turning it over. The wick boy floundered in the air, arms flailing as he lost his balance and toppled gracelessly to the floor.

“Gahh,” the wick moaned eloquently as he raised a hand to his head, not quite sure what had happed.

Aye looked down at her drink as she took another sip, funny, it tasted mostly like fruit juice... She shrugged and then looked up when she heard Charlie speak.



She gasped and sat frozen, they were kissing?! She certainly hadn't expected that, and especially hadn't expected it to happen so suddenly. "Ah-" she tried to speak, but the pair fell to the ground as Henri jumped up. Aye stood quickly and backed up a few steps to avoid them, sloshing her drink around and spilling it, and knocking the crate she had been sitting on over in the process.



She stared at the two, Henri on the ground, and Charlie Sprawled out over him. Setting down her drink, the girl held out her hand to help them up, but then, not sure that was the right thing to do, she pulled her hand back away. "Are, are yeh ok?" She asked, a worried expression on her face.

Lacey watched the Black Dove's patrons as she sat on the bar, bottle of rum between her legs as they swung back and forth. Occassionally, she threw the barkeep a glance that read 'you poke me again to get off her and I'll gut you.' With mild amusement, she watched the two men and the wick child as they talked, chuckling as she could physically see them getting drunker and drunker. Quite suddenly, they kissed, or...tried to. As they landed on the floor, the blonde pirate burst out laughing, pushing herself off the bar and onto the floor. Walking through tables, rum still in one hand, she reached them just as the wick child asked them the age old question.



"Oh lassie, they're okay, just a wee bit drunk!" The green eyed captain said with a grin, coming over and resting one arm across Aye's shoulders, leaning down to be on the same level as her.

"Y'see, that golly thare? Well, judgin' from what I just saw, he's got a taste fer yer fellowman thare." Taking a swing from her bottle, she raised one finger to say 'however'.

"Howe'er, yer fellowman aint the boy kissin' type, from what it look like anyway. So he panicked, as first timers of'en do, an' he jumped. The rest, is history." Letting go of Aye's shoulders, the pirate stood over the two men, a cheeky grin on her face.

"I'm happy t' test that theory too. Men or Women love?" She said to Henri, winking slyly.

Whatever reaction Charlie had been expecting, one that resulted in him falling over onto the floor on top of the wickling was not it. He was just as startled as Henri, albeit for very different reasons, to find himself sprawled out on the ground.

"Both," he mumbled, though the question wasn't directed at him. "If you're offering."

Henri had gotten quite a whack on the head from their little tumble, but fortunately the rum had taken away from most of its bite... unfortunately the result would mean a crippling headache to go allong with the terrible hangover he was guaranteed to have in the morning. But at the moment, the wick had more pressing concerns to deal with than the prospect of future agonies; like, for instance, the rather guttered amorous golly that was sprawled out on top of him and pinning him to the floor of the bar.

If he had the presence of mind, Henri would be cursing rum, the rum-giver, and all things alcoholic ten ways to the gods, as well as himself for always seeming to end up in this rather uncomfortable situations. But the rum had worked its slow wicked magic, and his wits had been sufficiency addled as to leave him speechless at a time he most needed to dust.

And he did very much wish to dust... Oh, so very much to be up and gone and away from this terribly awkward position; trapped under the full weight of the (oh gods) randy golly. A heated, embarrassed blush scourged Henri's face as his mouth hung open loosely as he dumbly stared, halfway terrified, into Charlie's galdor eyes.

Aye's unsure query was rather rudely ignored, but the noise of the bar and the roaring sound of his own blood rushing in his ears had left the wick lad too deft to hear her hesitant voice. Lacey's voice, however, was quite easily hear over the din...


“Wha...?” Henri gaped up at the assertive pirate nattle, his eyes darting between her and Aye and the object of his distress looking, if anything, more lost and rattled than before.

The lovely rum-haze that had claimed his mind and had seemed so nice and warm had turned into a thicker, more sinister rum-fog, that had seized hold his wits and his tongue, declaring them held ransom for the rest of the evening. Leaving poor Henri in a position that was probably not the best, when making such important decisions over things like what Lacey had so casually asked.

Blinking, Henri worked his jaw slightly in an attempt to make words come out ... when Charlie's soft mumble choked them off in his throat.


“B-both?” Henri gasped slightly, not realizing that his slurred and slightly sozzled stutter could be misconstrued as an answer.

Was possible to be both? Henri was dazed as his hazy mind processed this new thought in loopy jumps and waves of drunken logic. He had known that a person could be either one way or the other... but the thought of both had never crossed his mind.

Of course people could be both... it had been silly to think otherwise. If they could go one way then there certainly wasn't anything preventing them from going the other, now was there? Going back if they didn't particularly like one way... or maybe just … trying it out.

Aye turned to look at the two men, listening to hear Henri's reply.



She didn't think Lacey had aimed the question at Charlie, but he had answered. Of course, it didn't matter whether he answered or not, she had a good guess as to what the golly liked.



She raised an eyebrow. Both? From Henri's reaction to the galdori kiss, she hadn't thought he liked men too, but she guessed things weren't always as they seemed. Still, it didn't seem like he liked men, the way his answer sounded like a question told her that. But then some answers always sounded like questions, it depended on the person.

She grinned after a moment of thinking, noticing that the two were still on the ground. She was a child, yes, but she knew what adults did, she may not know all the details, but she knew kissing always led somewhere. "Havin' fun?" She asked teasingly, grinning wider at the pair.

Fun? Who, exactly, was having fun here? Charlie's lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl at the little wick girl. Children, he'd always felt, should be seen and not heard. Preferably not seen, either, if that was at all possible. Charlie knew what fun was, and that was not a mild headache and a bruised knee from having the support yanked out from under him when little baby wicklings became far too startled for their own good.

A growl escaped his throat as he pushed himself up. He didn't like the floor. When he'd thought of having the wicklet sprawled out under him, this wasn't quite what he'd pictured. There'd been fewer children involved, for one thing.

"Yes both. Are you absolutely certain you're a wick?"

This night had become distinctly strange. When Henri had started out in search of the interesting, this was not at all what he had had in mind. Sprawled out on the grimy floor of the shady bar, pinned beneath a mandrake golly with an audience of two chips... was not even close to what hadn't been on his mind. This whole situation was so far from the one he had envisioned when he had first set out, he had a hard time wrapping his mind around what was actually going on. The fact that he was currently very drunk wasn't helping the matter any either. But despite being as guttered as he had turned out being, Henri was not yet lost to his surroundings and, shocking sexual revelations aside, Henri did not like this golly's tone at all.

“A'course I'm a wick,” Henri frowned blearily, his irritation at the accusation bubbling up beneath the blanket of rum induced fog, “Wha else would I be? You sure yer a galdor?”

Probably not the best retaliation he could have thought up, but it was the best he could do in his current state of flustered embarrassment and inarticulate drunkenness. Really, this golly had no business saying that he wasn't a wick, and the fact that he had brought it up was really ticking him off.

Glaring up at Charlie, Henri decided he had had enough of this. Trying to get up, he put his hands on the golly's shoulders and tried to shove him away, “Gerroff of me.”

"Whether I'm a proper galdor or not is up for debate." Then he frowned-- was he being shoved? It was the wick's own damn fault Charlie was down here on the floor in the first place-- if he'd stayed put, godsdamnit, this wouldn't have happened. Charlie did get up, but not with any gentleness or grace. He might have even kicked him a little viciously on the way. "Gladly," he sneered. "Not so pleasant an experience, anyway." He did not mean the fall.

Aye watched the two wrestling with each other to get up, frowning at how they were talking. It was both funny, they were slurring their words, and annoying, the galdor man was being a little mean. She reached down to help Henri up, now that she knew he didn't want to stay wrapped up with Charlie, and tried to pull him up gently.

"If it wasn't pleasant, yeh shouldn't 'ave kept on doin' it." She said matter-of-factly to Charlie. "An' it didn' seem teh be too very pleasant to Henri 'ere, either.", she stuck out her chin haughtily, and looked away from the galdor.

The tussle on the floor was anything but pleasant for the poor wick on the ground. Elbows jabbed, hands roughly shoved, and at one point Henri was gasping for breath as a sharp booted kick to the ribs knocked the wind out of him.

Wheezing as he staggered to his feet, his head spinning and throbbing rather nastily, he gratefully accepted little Aye's assistance as the world had decided to turn itself upside-down and sideways for the time being. A good hold on something steady was a great reassurance at the moment and, sitting back down before he fell down, the wick searched for his mug for further comfort... only to discover that the wicked concoction had spilled in their little tumble to the floor. Henri glared down at the unresponsive object that was both the source of his present woes and denied relief.

Charlie had said something, but Henri had missed it as he had been too concerned with regaining his feet and his breath to pay the golly anymore mind. However, now that he was righted, he did hear most of Aye's reply to whatever the unpleasant man had said and the tone, and what content his fuzzed mind had garnered did not help his rather put out mood one tick. Drunken irritation boiling over, Henri glared at the glass vessel that mocked him with it's emptiness.

“A'course it was no' pleasant,” Henri snapped, is eyes sparking with befuddled anger, “Vrunta, he's a clocking golly-kov. Ent enough manna ging in th' urbo fer me ta get close to mung laoso like 'im.”

Henri shot the golly a scathing look. Then, smirking as a wicked thought crossed his rum befogged mind, turned to whisper secretively to Aye in a voice that was a touch too loud.

“I betcha, I betcha 'is 'riff' is fair pina too, ent worth spitch.”

It was with a smile most feral and unpleasant that Charlie loomed over Aye. He was not a big man, but he wasn't a soft one and he had a field stronger than most in the Rose. He was ever-mindful of this when he was having altercations with the lower races; he was galdori, strong in the priviledge of his birth and in the hot rum in his veins. This witchbaby was skating on thin ice, a fact he did his best to impress upon her. "Little children," he said, and it was more than likely that Aye could smell the liquor lying heavy on his breath, "should be seen and not heard. Has anyone ever told you that, little one?"

It was only after he considered the little girl considerably menaced that he fixed an eye on Henri. He didn't really understand that low and dirty slang wicks were so fond of, but he knew an insult when he heard one. The meaning of it was clear enough.

"I would hold my tongue, boy, were I you." He was unsteady on his feet, but at least he thought he seemed perfectly menacing.

Lacey watched the men get up, slowly, sluggishly, arguing like an old married couple. Lazily, she downed a few more swigs of the rum, squinting at the pair.



The blonde pirate spluttered a laugh, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and grinning at the wick.

"Har! Aint tha' always th' way laddie!?"



Lacey frowned. Now that was no fun. Golly or not, children weren't no menace. Casually, the green eyed human pulled a pistol from her belt. It wasn't the same one from the Cutlass experiance, no, that had drowned miserably. But then, the smithy had a fine hand in gunsmithery it seemed. Casually, she scratched behind her ear with the barrel.

"Now, now. Aint no need t' be gettin' all uppity with th' babe m'hearty." Watching the man carefully, she seemed a lot less drunk then she had been a moment ago.

"I've bin known t' shoot gollies fer less." It was a fine night for a barfight.

Aye giggled at Henri's insult, "I be--", she glanced up at Charlie and flinched at his expression. That smile... Oh the horror!



"N...ooo...", she said slowly. She wasnt exactly sure she understood what that sentence meant, but his face told her to shut up. She frowned and opened her mouth to say something sarcastic about wishing she couldn't hear drunk adults, when Lacey spoke up.



Aye grinned at the woman, glad she was on heir side, but the gun worried her a little. She had heard stories of guns, how they could end a life faster than a spell. She wasn't sure that would be a good thing to do to another person, who knew if Charlie had people who cared about him, how would those people feel if he died?



Ayes eyes widened, would she really shoot him? The girl hoped not, seeing someone get shot to death wasn't exactly on her wish list.

Distracted by Lacey's uproarious laughter, the guttered wick looked up at her with an odd expression. He seemed to be wavering somewhere between his own prideful amusement, and surprised that the pirate woman had heard him. In either case, Henri had completely missed the exchange between the golly and his little witchling friend... his attention only returning as Charlie addressed him in a low hiss.



Henri drunkenly glared up at the towering golly, an insubordinate set to his chin as he tried to stagger to his feet. This queer golly wasn't gonna intimidate him, no sir-e! And he wasn't going to take any threats sitting down either.

“Oh 'sh that right?” Henri slurred, his blood pounding in his ears as he glowered at the taller man. Lacey's words and actions lost as his entire focus boiled down to just Charlie and the rum-heated boil within him. “Well ye ent me now 're ya! S'you can just clockin' make me!”

Somewhere, deep inside him, the rational part of him, that remembered just exactly how short he was and how unlikely he was to win a full out bar fight with anyone, was shrieking out in dismay, telling him, warning him, just how stupid what he just said was... but that voice had been drowned out by the pounding of his booze baked blood.

And as his fist clenched around the forgotten mug of his lost rum, Henri realized he wanted nothing more than to take this arrogant golly down.

When Charlie was drunk or under duress, he tended to make even poorer decisions than was his usual wont. There were rational parts of him that knew picking this particular fight could get very messy, very quickly. There was a gun involved, after all, and guns, usually, were bad.

Lots of his poor decisions seemed to involve magic.

He was wise enough, however, to know to stick to the basics. His mouth formed the monite for Ignite, letting the rarely-used syllables trip over his tongue and into the air. He wasn't aiming for anywhere fatal, really, just the shirt Henri was wearing. Lacey, perhaps, was more actually threatening but she had yet to pull that gun. Any danger she might have presented to his person was somewhat lowered in his estimation.

Lacey watched as the wick jumped in, short as he was, yelling something fierce. Taking another drink of rum, she threw the bottle away, cocking her pistol. Obviously this was going to get messy, excellent. A wide grin pulled across her face as she held her pistol lower, hovering around her waist.



The pirate was no golly, but she knew what that weird language they used reprisented. Spells. Sometimes nasty spells. Swearing like only a pirate could, the woman leaped to the right, curling her free hand around the wick child's waist and pulling her away from the stupid golly. Away from whatever the heck was going to happen. As she moved, she spun, lifting the barrel of her pistol and aiming at the clockstopper, knowing full well her bullet would probably reach him before he could let off another word. The blonde hesitated in pulling the trigger, aware the spell was not aimed at herself. Still, golly spells sometimes didn't do what gollies wanted them to do.

Oh yes, the mona knew Charlie. The slurred, under-practiced words drifted into the tense air and the galdor's field felt heavy like molasses. For a moment, everything felt slow and weighty, the mona either hesitant or purposefully taking its time. Charlie tasted ashes, foul and dry in his mouth that stuck bitterly against his tongue. Then, the smell of burnt hair and fabric filled the air without smoke for a few moments.

It seemed as though nothing happened.

Suddenly, a thin trail of faint smoke flitted from the bottom edge of Henri's shirt, blackening at the seams, but not igniting. The smoke smelled terrible, stinging the nostrils of everyone nearby. The wick felt a flush of warmth, a heat that was unbearable for only a moment.

Then, nothing.

A fizzle, or perhaps even intentional unwillingness from those mysterious particles. Maybe they just had a sense of humor.

Charlie had spoken words vaguely familiar to the wicks ear, but he was too drunk to recognize the magiced word... only that it was magic. Taking a half step back as his eyes flew wide, Henri racked his mind trying to remember which it was, what it did, if their was a counter... all sorts of things that he had been too lazy to search before, and now too guttered to recall even the little that he did know.

The moment hung, tense in the air as the heavy weight of invoked mona lingered between them, and for a moment... the wick began to think that perhaps the golly had stumbled or stuttered, and that the heavy foreboding was merely imagined...

Frowning with returning anger at his brief flash of fear and confusion, Henri growled at Charlie, his eyes hard as he stepped forward...

That was when the pain hit, a sudden indescribable heat and searing pain blossomed across his abdomen in the space of a heartbeat.

It was hardly anything at all, but it served its purpose in startling the wick. Yelping sharply, Henri jumped back, his hands flying to the wounded spot like one would at an unexpected bite of an insect. But in his less than agile state he managed to, yet again, trip over his very own feet, and was falling to the floor once again, knocking over his chair as he crashed to his knees.

Frantic, Henri's hands scrambled to check the damaged to his person... Only to blink in surprise.

There was nothing. Weren't galdor supposed to be powerful? There was hardly even a mark on his skin, just a flush of red on his skin, as if he had brushed to close to a heated coal in a dieing fire... He'd seen worse burns by just sitting out in the sun too long. This was the galdor's superior usage of the mona?

Henri suddenly found that he was laughing. It was just so … so... Funny! He could hardly catch his breath before it was violently expelled out of him again with his laughter.

Was that magic? He was using magic! Aye gaped at Charlie, what could he be casting on Henri? What would it do to him? She almost wanted to jump in between the two, maybe move Henri. But then what would the spell do? Something worse then the spell could happen.

Luckily before she could interfere, Lacey grabbed her and yanked her back. She clutched the woman's arm, barely breathing in the silence. And then Henri flinched and fell onto the ground, and Aye gasped, and the suddenly...

He was laughing. Henri was laughing. Aye closed her mouth and raised her eyebrows, watching the boy. Had Charlie cast a tickle spell, was that why Henri was laughing so hard? She started giggling just watching him, letting go of Lacey and clutching her sides as she laughed out loud.

Lacey watched with wide green eyes, arm firmly around the childs waist, pistol pointed unwaiveringly at Charlie. She glanced to the wick as he fell to the floor, yelling and flapping his hands at his stomach.

Arr kenser bollocks! She thought, He's gone an' boiled th' poor lad's insides. But then, the man on the floor snickered. Giggled. Burst out laughing. Tears rolled out of his eyes and he cackled like a old biddy. In her arm, the child started shaking, a giggle escaping her.

It was infectious. Lacey felt a grin began to split her face, and a chuckle escaped her lips. Her laughter got louder, and soon she had joined in the gasping laughing of the wick on the floor, eyes watering and stomach hurting. The gollies spell was just a poof. Of nothing.

Well that... hadn't gone quite as he'd hoped. His evenings seemed to rather rarely go as he'd hoped lately. Having two wicks and some sort of human tart with a pistol laughing at him was not really part of the original plan. Though he supposed laughing at him was better than, for instance, pulling that trigger on the tart's part.

"Lucky that didn't work," Charlie mumbled. His moods were mercurial, and he'd managed to slip from anger and bloodlust to despondant pouting rather quickly. Damn it all, all he'd wanted was a clocking drink and a lay. Why did this seem to be so difficult lately?

(( SFSR gaiz ))

Sides hurting far more from his violent giggles than from Charlie's spell, Henri just barely managed to quell his laughter enough to compose himself enough to get off of the floor. Clinging to the chair for support as he wiped away an errant tear, the wick made the mistake of looking at the now sullenly pouting golly, and burst into giggles all over again.

“Haha, aw, Don't take it so har-hic-hard Chuck-o,” Henri hiccuped as he slung an arm over Charlie's shoulder, drunk on laughter and... well, drunkenness, “Ish not yerr fault that th' Mona don't like ya-hic. Ha ha.”

(( Its okay... mine's short too. ))

Was the little wicklet actually hiccoughing? Charlie had seen lots of things in his two years in the Rose, but that was not one of them. It was like seeing a living caricature.

"Chucko?" He was somewhat incredulous and faintly insulted. Chucko? Really? He really hated nicknames, to be honest. Charlie Ewing wasn't his real name already-- to divulge any further was to be talking about someone else entirely. He wondered who that person was. What was he like? Charlie imagined him to be somewhat thickset and a little slow in the head. Human, maybe, he sounded human. Genial, though. Genial was good, people like genial.

Then the rest of Henri's statement caught up to him and he huffed, offended again. "I'm sure they like me better than you, filthy little half-breed." Of course it was his fault the Mona had so little love for him. If he studied better, if he was just a little bit cleverer with his memorization and the way he said the monite, maybe they'd actually do what he asked when he asked them to. But he wasn't and they didn't and that was the end of it; it was still no wick's place to tell him that.

This evening was sore becoming an assault to his ego and patience. Either forgetting or ignoring the pistol leveled at him by the human woman, Charlie started to rummage around in his pockets for some coin. He had every intention of slamming it dramatically on the bar and making as dignified an exit as he could muster.