The passage south had been trying, to say the least, and Galin was glad to reach Vilpamolan.  When he had been South during the War, he had heard all about the pirate city, where everything was available at the right price and the law was a man's blade.  For a man running from a vengeful chieftain after a killing, it was ideal.  He would, he thought, be able to get passage to Adeluna, or at least reasonably close, and from there, rejoin the men he fought with in the Sarchu.  It was not an ideal solution, but being murdered in his sleep while his hall burned seemed a worse one, so here he was.

Guiding his stolen horse into the city's gate, he threw a crescent to one of the armed thugs who demanded a "foreigners tax" rather than debate the issue.  His clothes and arms screamed that he was from the North and there was no sense suggesting that, in a port city with the scum of an entire continent about, there was no such thing as a foreigner.  Such was life, he thought, and idly touched the shield amulet around his neck, invoking the Maker's help.  He simply wanted to be done with the journey and back in the company of fighting men of his own stock.  His life in the North was destroyed so he would have to make a new one in the South and that could only be won with his sword.

Once he reached one of the markets in the town, he dismounted and lead his horse to one of the traders there, looking to sell the beast rather than try and coax it onto one of the ships.  Galin knew the price he was getting was highway robbery but the beast was of no use to him and coin was.  Spitting in his hand, he shook the trader's and sealed the deal, pushing the small stacks of silver crescents on his table into his coin purse.  "Take good care, she's a good one," he said in parting as he headed toward one of the quayside taverns.  A ship's master would be easy to find and the silver and his labor would be enough to grant him a place on a ship bound for the southern kingdom.

His guess was right.  When he stepped into the smoke-filled main room, he was able to make out a man at one of the benches with a fine coat of mail and a worn-looking sword at his side.  His armor spoke of wealth and his sword suggested how he attained it.  Smiling, Galin pushed his way to the man's table and stood across from the shipmaster.  "I assume that you have a ship.  If that is true, I need passage and am more than willing to pay my way and work as well."  The man looked up at him from under bushy white eyebrows and grunted. 

"So where are you headed, buck," he asked as he tore the meat off a rib in front of him with a mouth of yellowing teeth. 

"Adeluna or thereabouts.  There's a company of Northmen there who've sold their swords down there and I look to rejoin them."

"Six pieces, three now, three when we land you, and you work an oar.  You have a problem, you can piss off.  We agreed?"

Spitting and clasping hands for the second time that day, Galin sealed his passage and paid the coin to the shipmaster on the spot.  "And while my purse is open, let's have a few flagons, eh?"  The crew laughed and shouted for service and Galin felt more comfortable that they would not slit his throat in his sleep after they were at sea if he was seen as a good-natured sort.  Still, even as they drank, he kept his hand near his knife as a precaution.  As he raised his tankard to toast the crew for a propitious voyage, a man jostled him from behind and Galin staggered and drenched a man at the next trestle table with ale.  The man cursed a moment and as Galin bent closer to apologize and offer to buy the man a drink, the man's fist slammed into Galin's chin, sending him reeling into a woman a few feet behind him.  "Sorry about that," he muttered and spat blood onto the sawdust floor.

The man had stood, his dagger drawn, snarling at Galin and the Northman sighed.  He had to learn to avoid taverns.  Whatever he did, it seemed he ended up in a fight.  It was a tavern fight that sent him fleeing from the North and now another one might well send him fleeing again.  He pulled his knife from its sheath on his belt and smiled, winking at his opponent.  The battle calm was starting to descend and Galin felt confident.  As the man charged, his dagger slicing low, a little voice in the back of his head warned him that confidence was a quick ticket to an early grave.  "Well shit."

Walking into the tavern gave her flashbacks to the last time she was here. She made direct eye-contact with the barkeep, but he must have been so shaken from her last visit that he showed no recognition. Sheer luck, she thought, and strode over to the bar to order a pint and head to a table in the farthest, darkest corner of the establishment. Even the sconce over the table was out, and Rixxan thought it couldn’t have been more perfect. She shrugged off her bag, leaving it on the seat facing inward toward the crowd of the bar. Her sword thumped down like a corpse, the sheer weight of it something an average person might gawk at. Rixxan didn’t mind. Sometimes the fatigue of swinging such a bulky weapon was the kind of burn she liked, other times she simply revelled in the humor of how she looked next to it, a slight, fair elf girl with a sword nearly her size. Oftentimes people would mock her weapon choice; it made killing those persons just so much more enjoyable.

She had a map out on the table, had been peering over it while sipping her mead and making notes of where she might go to seek out company and like-minded individuals. Soon enough she grew hungry of sitting, and got up and headed over to the bar to order a real meal. After all, someone had to spend that stolen money. If the previous owner died before I stole, does  it still count as stealing? She smirked, and handed the barkeep some coin with her order. Her eyes sparkled with the conversation, and for a moment the barkeeper paused, as if he remembered her for a split second, then turned and went back to his business. She spun around and returned to her seat, folding away her map now and tucking it into her pack, and picked up her sword–it had fallen again–off the floor, leaning it against the wall next to the seat facing in. Rixxan sat, unnaturally, facing the wall. The hood of her cloak was raised, and if she were not the perfect picture of mystery then surely there was none.

The crowd had grown considerably from when she had originally come in. Groups of travelers, pirates, warriors, they were scattered about. Some had come and found friends, some had left with fewer than they came. One group was particularly rowdy, centered around an armored older man. Rixxan would have surveyed some more had she particularly cared, but her eyes focused on something beautiful and steaming that was coming towards her through the smoke. Her stomach rumbled and her hand shook as her eyes wandered all over the well-muscled, golden, beautiful hunk of meat the barkeep was carrying towards her. It took a conscious effort to not let her mouth fall open and drool.

“How a li’l elf girl like you possibly can eat all ‘ this, I’ve no idea, deary, but here y’are,” he lowered the plate onto the table and Rixxan’s eyes must have strained all of their muscles. It was at this very moment that she remembered it had been days since she had anything aside from a drink. For a brief moment, she felt peaceful, unawares of her surroundings. Savoring the moment, she lifted the leg up and prepared for what she was confident would be one of the most satisfying bites of her life.

Unfortunately, it was not.

Rixxan's blood boiled. Someone had just bumped into her, with enough force that it knocked her hood down and caused her to drop the shank.

"Are you fucking serious…" She growled as her food hit the plate, causing the plate to clang on the table and for some of her vegetables to spill over on the floor. If the person had apologized, she didn't hear it, and instead sat rigidly with her eyes fixated on the disheveled plate before her, trying to control herself.

Keep it under control… Keep calm… Keep…

Talking herself out of this probably wouldn't be a good idea, or a fruitful one at that. Trying to barricade herself from the squabble seemed the next best bet. As full of hatred as she was, hunger was a more powerful mistress, and it was she who called Rixxan's name. Rixxan reached around the table and dragged her sword over, sliding it onto her seat behind her with the hilt out so that anyone who stumbled near would either trip or fall over it. She gathered herself, inhaling deeply, exhaling through her mouth, counting to ten, trying every trick in the book to ignore the ruckus and eat her damned lamb shank.

The drunken man had miscalculated, or the Maker was smiling on Galin that day. His wild charge was checked when he slipped on a wet patch on the floor and staggered forward, off balance and his dagger flailing. Galin stepped aside easily and hammered the hilt of his knife into the crown of the man’s head, stunning him as he fell. Galin danced back on the balls of his feet, holding the broad blade at his waist as he looked at the man’s friends, all on their feet with hands on the hilts of their own blades. “Calm yourselves,” he growled at them, “or you will die like mewling puppies on my blade.” He held it up slowly, cutting patterns in the air, remembering the words of his first war leader, that a good swordsman had a strong arm but a great one had a quick wrist. “I am Galin Ochiern and I watered the Sarchu Valley with the blood of the Godslayers. I am the one that gutted Aelric of Ejgora’s Academy in the shield wall.” He spat his words at them as a challenge, smiling calmly as the heavy blade cut its shapes in the now-still tavern air. The men at the table stiffened when he mentioned the War, knowing about the great bloodletting that was the campaign in the Valley. And any man who had taken the life of one of the graduates of the battle academy in Ejgora was not a man to take lightly.


“Come on you whoresons, try your steel or take your friend and run out of here with your tails between your shit-stained legs.” Galin took a step forward, over the unconscious body of his challenger, and snarled at them, almost wishing they would come test him. Instead, their hands dropped from their blades and they held them out to their sides, showing they meant him no harm. Spitting on the floor in front of them, Galin slammed the long dagger back into its sheath and returned to the shipmaster. “Sorry for the fracas,” he said and smiled. “It won’t be a recurring worry, never you worry.” The shipmaster looked at him suspiciously but waved him away and Galin decided not to press the issue. Instead, he had another apology to make and he started back toward the woman he had jostled in the opening seconds of the fray.

“Well, I must apologize again, miss. Things took a turn there without a moment’s warning. Sorry for disturbing your meal. Would I be able to buy you a drink, since that insensate bastard over there refused one from me already,” he asked, jerking his thumb toward the man they were carrying out, blood matting his head and face. “As you likely heard, I am called Galin. Might I ask your name, so I can stop calling you miss?” He smiled, reaching out a hand in greeting, wondering if she too would tell him to piss off. It was starting to feel like a pattern.

Rixxan was sitting rigidly staring at the plate in front of her, when someone in the crowd of fighting folks decided to address the rest and start some monologue about being someone that people might have heard of. She was not in the know, nor did she care. She didn't care who someone was, she didn't care what kind of history they had. She simply cared if they could benefit her or not. She gritted her teeth as the man continued to address the commoners, looking over her shoulder at the scene. He was clearly charismatic, strong and ambitious. Everyone grew tense at his words, so Rixxan must have been very out of the loop on whatever they were talking about. She really had no idea. He stepped toward the group and kept talking, and Rixxan turned back and looked at her food. She hated it now, and didn't want it anymore. She sighed and slumped against her chair, still feeling the ache of hunger in her, but too filled with disgust to have any real hunger.

Rixxan wasn't sure if there was a reason she didn't know much about the world. Perhaps during her time consumed with destroying what was trapped inside her, she had forgotten about everything outside of her and stopped paying attention to the world. She had only been in touch with the world for a few weeks, really, so she didn't know about anything that the rest of these people seemed to know as far as current events. She hardly even knew the names of towns save for her map, and if she didn't have that she would certainly be lost. Part of her urged the rest to listen to whatever was going on, but overall she was indifferent. She sat up straight for a moment just in time to catch footsteps coming towards her. 

Oh no.

Rixxan stared at the wall, waiting for whatever it was. Had she been recognized? Was she getting thrown out? The fear of being removed from the establishment now suddenly reawakened the hunger inside her, and she looked back down at her food. Was food worth fighting for? She grasped the hilt of her sword with one hand as a precautionary measure, and bit her lip. Please don't be the barkeep… please don't be the barkeep… Rixxan turned her head in time to find, to her surprise, that it was not the barkeep approaching her but in fact the very man who had so carelessly bumped into her earlier. Her nose wrinkled with disdain. 

He introduced himself as someone "called Galin," and Rixxan thought that was strange. Called Galin? Is that not your real name? Is it similar to a petname? What exactly is that… He offered Rixxan a drink, and she was not sure if she should be nice to this man or not. She had not been nearly present enough to know if it were his fault what had happened earlier, or if he had been pushed or tripped into her. Rixxan wasn't exactly loaded with silver, either. She pursed her lips for a moment, calculating. 

"Rixxan," She exhaled, loosing a bit of the tension she had built up inside, "…and I wouldn't mind a drink, actually, I'm about finished with this," she gestured to her untouched meal and stood up to grasp his hand. "Though I'd like to get out of this corner, I think. A little too cramped for me…" The corner table was intensely more cramped now that it had a giant plate of food, and if another person sat with her it would be incredibly uncomfortable. She eyed a spot on the bar that had cleared out and motioned there, sliding her bag over her shoulder and grabbing her sword with a single hand, "Would that work for you, Galin?" 

She started over, dragging her monstrous sword behind her like a dead body, and sat down at the end of the bar, leaning her sword up against the corner edge as if it had its own place there.  

"Pleasure, Rixxan," he replied and let himself be steered by the petite woman over to the bar.  She was a bit more forward than he would have expected, especially for a woman of her stature, but Galin was learning that in the south, things were very often not what they seemed.  She had left her meal nearly untouched and he grabbed the platter with his free hand, not wanting to waste the food when he was already hungry.  "And aye, that would work.  Gives us a bit more room to breathe."  He struggled to keep from guffawing at the sight of her dragging a sword that looked twice her size behind her to the bar, but he did not ask anything about it right away.

As they settled in, he ordered them a round of drinks.  While the serving maid busied herself with them, Galin looked over his unlikely companion.  She was not human, that was clear enough and that put him a bit on edge.  His experiences before and during the War with other races had been decidedly negative but, in his current position, it would not do him any favors to alienate a potential ally.  After all, a man with a price on his head needed as many friends as he could muster.  When the woman returned with their drinks, Galin tossed her a crescent to cover the cost, then raised a glass to Rixxan.  "Well, again, my apologies for before, but I hope this is the start to something better."

Sipping at his ale, Galin glanced to make sure none of the men from before were lurking about, looking to finish what their friend had started.  Once he was sure there was no threat, he turned his attention back to the petite elf.  "Now, I've got to ask, how in the name of the Maker do you move that damned sword.  I barely think I could," he laughed, nodding his head toward the oversize blade the woman carried with her.  "And if you don't mind my asking, what's brought you here?  This sort of city's always the end of a good story, I've learned, and I'm curious to hear yours."

Normally, Rixxan would have been irked at the fact that Galin had taken up her untouched plate, but at the same time she didn’t mind that someone would be eating it rather than waste it. Though her disdain for the humanoid creatures flowed freely through her veins, she couldn’t let a whole shank of an animal go to waste without feeling some sort of guilt. He trailed behind her to that bar, and upon seating himself he ordered the next round. Once the drinks arrived, Galin raised his glass in some sort of toast, and as customs indicated she should, Rixxan clinked her glass against his and nodded.  Something better, indeed, for you. 

Galin surveyed the scene, Rixxan noticed, as if he was maybe worried. Was he thinking about whether or not the rest of these men would want to fight him again? That would be interesting. Round two, Galin versus Thugs, who wins? She finished her first sip, leaving the glass nearly empty, and exhaled. Rixxan wins, when someone knocks over her drink and she cleaves them all into pieces in retaliation. The idea was entertaining, and she played the scene over in her mind a few times, smirking at her hypothetical slaughter. Galin returned his attention to her after making sure he was safe, she assumed, and started on the topic of the sword. 

“Two hands, it’s not terribly difficult. I’ve slain an allotment of unfavorables and favorables with it. Doesn’t seem to bother me quite much at all unless I try to wield it singlehandedly. And no, you don’t need a shield with a sword like this,” she traced her finger along its edge, admiring it, “You can just use it as your shield. Two birds, one stone; makes more sense to me than lugging around a sword on a belt and a shield on your back. And a little magical energy never hurt anyone either,” she winked, conjuring up a wisp of dark energy in her hand and letting it fade. If elves were good for one thing, aside from their striking beauty, it was magic. Rixxan leaned back against the seat now, boots pressed against the bar and tilting her chair back to the point it might fall backwards if she were not careful.

“Let’s see…” She had to choose her word carefully now, not many people wanted to hear her whole story and continue on a conversation. Or… maybe a partial truth would be good enough. “Well, to be honest, my lover died tragically and I’ve been in the area since. A bit more bitter than sad. Finding a city full of no-good scoundrels where no one notices when people go missing after a bad night… definitely has been my soft landing. ” She sighed, remembering the loss for a moment, but quickly regrew her outer shell and hardened facade. “Fortunately, you can make a quick buck taking more than money from people down here in the South, so the bitter rage has come in handy in that respect. Lives are worth enough to live off. Though I should really be finding somewhere else to head out to, nothing has quite tickled my fancy enough to convince me to leave as of yet.” She shrugged, unsure of how he’d take hearing that sort of thing from a woman, and finished her drink, then sent her empty glass sliding down the bar until it came to a halt as it bumped into Galin’s. 

 “So now that you’ve heard my little story… What about you, Sir Galin the great warrior of wars and conquests and whatnot? What’s dragged your mighty self down to the city of thieves?” She had meant for it to be playful and almost mocking at his big preach to the rest of the tavern-goers earlier. Rixxan let her chair back down onto all four feet, and sat up as if she were proper. She wasn’t terribly interested in what his story was, but she was also bored with the day and could use some kind of entertainment. Maybe he was, under this stereotypical hero-type exterior, a bit interesting, or at least interesting enough to maintain a night’s conversation. 

"Ach!” Galin touched the Maker’s shield around his neck when he saw the elf’s conjuring out of the ether. Northmen were not very trusting of magic, as it was far from prevalent in the windswept valleys and hills. There, the people survived on their wits and skills, not some strange power that could not be properly understood. “A mage, then, is it? We don’t get many of them up our way, you see. So don’t mind if I am a bit jumpy. Though,” he said, breathing evenly to calm his heart which had sped up without him noticing, “I still can’t countenance the idea of a sword without a shield unless there are no shields to be had. I imagine you would have to keep that big bastard moving all the time to make up for not having a few willow boards strapped to your arm. Me, I’ll take my shield any day.” Weapons were the sort of conversation that Galin understood and he focused on them rather than make sense of the woman’s magical inclinations. Even so, he looked at her a little more warily and made sure his heavy fighting knife was close at hand. Mages were never really to be trusted.

Her story was as intriguing as she was striking and Galin listened raptly, sipping at his pint and nodding, giving an occasional grunt of affirmation. A lost love made for a good story, one that Galin understood well himself after Timedeath and the campaign in the Sarchu. It had been a bloody affair but he and his love had survived but after Time rent the world apart, she left him and he had not heard hide nor hair of her in many months. Though it seemed that she was a bit darker than her appearance would let on, having grown callous in her thieving and killing. Neither thing particularly bothered Galin on their faces, but there was a time and a place for things, he thought. War was one, one that he knew well, where a man could live outside the rules of civilized society and even be praised for it. Kill, loot, rape, and the Maker knew what else, and you were a great fighter. It was a strange, strange thing, but stranger still to hear of it spoken so casually as a means of employment no different from a tanner or tailor.

“Well, it seems you have made yourself a way to be comfortable,” Galin replied, hiding his slight discomfort with a sip of his ale. “I can’t say my story is as exciting as all that but we Northmen are known to spin out a tale, so here goes. I was born up North, north of Dunholm in the Highlands, and lived as our folk do, herding and the like. When the War broke out against the gods, I was living in the south about a year, having sold my service to a shipmaster in Dunholm who served the King in Adeluna. In the war, we were sent to the Sarchu Valley and it was a fucking nightmare. Skirmish after battle after skirmish, wearing down the enemy as they wore us down in turn. I was to be married then, to a lovely lass that could be your cousin, from the look of you. Elf she was, and a boon friend of Time herself. When the sundering of Time ripped things apart, we were casualties as well. Lost her, so I headed back home.

“Up there, I was a hero, you see, because we’re a war-loving bunch and I made a name for myself in the South. So I lived well enough, but eventually the past caught up with me and a knife fight made me an outlaw. My hall and barns were burnt, my stock driven off, and they tried to kill me too. Made a hash of that, as you can see, since I am still breathing. So now I am headed south, Adeluna, so I can hook back up with the lads from the war. The pay is good and it’s about as far away from the North as I can get, so I may not get myself gutted in the night.” He paused, hearing another commotion starting behind him, and finished his drink quickly. “Look out behind,” he muttered. “Things are getting a little rough again and as the prettiest thing in the place, there’s a good chance you’ll get drawn in, so get that giant bloody cleaver of yours ready, yeah?"

After Galin finished his drawn-out story, of which Rixxan had started to lose interest, she started again to tilt her chair back, nursing her drink as he spoke. When he finally finished, she was not entirely sure how to respond. “Well, best of luck with all that, hope you get your things sorted out. Never been to Adeluna myself, only traveled around the coast from the kingdom up North. Funny that you warrior-types from the Highlands all refer to yourselves as Northmen, with your evasion to magic and all my peoples’ things, when we infact are actually a bit above you on the globe…so by that logic, we elves have as much, if not more right to the North than the Northmen! Though we would never be so silly as to refer to ourselves based on our geographical location. Elves are too clever for that…” she nodded to herself as she went to set her drink down now that the ruckus had started up again, but her decision to lean back her seat proved foolhardy, as a duo of brawling pirateers knocked into her chair and kicked it into it’s proper upright-chair position. At the force of the collision, Rixxan’s drink spilt nearly completely on the ground, and she stared at the untenanted glass with darkness starting to burn within her eyes.

A moment passed silently for her, as she attempted to smother the flame that had just been lit inside her heart, but that attempt proved futile. Without a word she set the empty glass on the bar and swung to the left of her chair, taking her sword in both hands, and as she was still unnoticed by those involved in the ruckus, lined up to serve up a swing she had been waiting for all night. The two nearest her were the two that were responsible for causing the beverage casualty, and she bit her lip as she lifted the hulking weapon. For a moment she was so fully consumed by her inner nature that she almost killed the two, but her senses got the best of her and she did not want to scar the tavern keeper anymore than she already had with her last visit. As she exhaled, she swung the broad side of the sword at their heads with all her might, hitting them hard enough to send one straight to the ground and stagger the other. The noise was enough to give most people a fright, for sure, but it wasn’t quite enough for Rixxan. Letting her sword fall to the ground, she stepped over the downed fellow and grabbed ahold of the stumbling squabblers collar. He was still reeling from her hit, as she’d gotten them both square on the side of the head and probably smashed their temples up a bit. Gathering the same black energy around her left hand, she drove an uppercut straight to the man’s jaw, followed by a loud crack that turned enough heads to stop the rest of the rabble-rousers in their tracks. One of her favorite tricks, that was; the punch backed by a solid energy bolt, it was more than enough to break most humanoid bones to pieces. The man was instantly rendered unconscious by the hit that had no doubt broken his jaw, and Rixxan dropped him to the ground over his already-fallen foe.

“Now, if you gentlemen are finished with these absolutely ridiculous fights, would you please be so kind as to remove these pathetic wastes from my sight!? I would like to finish my evening in peace!” Rixxan growled at them and threatened them with her dark energy, then turned her attention back to the bar. She tossed her hair back to it’s normal position since the quick fight had roused it a bit, picked up her sword and returned it and herself to their previous spots, sword leaning up against the bar and herself seated next to what was most likely either a very stunned or very confused Galin.

“I’ll take another round down here, times two,” Rixxan yelled to the man who still did not recognize her, and she laughed to herself at the thought that he really must have repressed that night into the deepest most untouchable depths of his mind. He nodded and hastily brought over their next drinks, and Rixxan took a long gulp of hers before starting. “So, from what I make of your story sir Galin… You lost the girl, lost the wealth, and lost the honor?, so that leaves you having got not much else left to lose, save for your life of course. But to keep that, you have to run as far away as possible from your problems and essentially hide within your past?” She stared across the room, instead of looking at him, contemplating the nature of such a life. It wasn’t quite different from one she had lived in the not-so-distant past, but that was not of anyone’s business. She took another swig, and turned her head to him as she rested her chin on her hand.

“That sounds downright miserable, to be honest,” Rixxan sighed as if she were really about to empathize with someone she just met. She smirked now, thinking to change the nature of the conversation. “With such a burdened, treacherous life, how do you ever have any fun?  Surely you can’t be all hero all the time! Even the greatest of men need a night off every once in awhile.” She elbowed him and winked, thinking maybe there was some sort of fun to be had underneath his steely mask. If he were truly boring, she would probably end up trying to rob him or something to that effect.

Crazy. She was purely mad, Galin thought as he watched the woman take on the men in the brawl behind them. She used magic and a blade and that scared the living piss out of the Northman. There was something unnatural about it, using dark energy like that, creating it out of nothing and disturbing the natural order of things. He touched the amulet of the Maker’s shield around his neck again to ward off the ill luck of being around such things. He was more used to the things of the South than most men from the Highlands but magic still unnerved him. There was something inherently dishonest about it in a way a fighting man saw the world. In battle, cunning and deception were all part of the panoply of war, but there was a certain sort of fairness to it. One man was about as strong and about as skilled as any other given man and that made things even. There was unlikely to be an army of great, strapping warriors fighting a company of courtiers and poets, after all. But magic changed that. A slip of a girl like Rixxan could swing a sword that Galin doubted he could use effectively and to her, it was little heavier than a willow switch. But to look at her, she could never lift the blade. Something about it made him miss the North, where things were what they seemed and the only surprises were ones of man’s invention.

On the other hand, she seemed like a good time. For someone with her frame, she seemed to hold her drink remarkably well, even for an elf. More pints appeared in front of them and Galin sank the rest of his first in a single pull and pushed it back to the taverner. “Well, your assessment is just about right,” he said with a laugh. “Lost just about everything, but there’s enough to keep a man going. Revenge is one hell of a motivator.” He chuckled and tapped his blackjack against hers in a salute. He was going to go back, he promised himself, go back and kill every one of the bastards that burned out his holding and drove him out of his home. And when he was done killing them, he would kill the spineless chieftain that ordered it. When the blood debt was paid, he did not know what he would do next, but that was so far in the future, it was a fantasy at best. “And you needn’t use the sir; I work for a living.”

He drank his second pint faster than the first, relaxing a fraction, but his hand stayed close to his knife. Even if they were drinking together, there was no reason to assume he could trust the elf, especially with her abilities and the madness. But her change of subject made him chuckle, taking the ribbing in good humor. “Fun? What is this fun you speak of?” His face was a mask of offended shock then he winked back and finished his ale. His third pint in hand, he considered her question and, after another drink, decided to answer. “Well, I’ve never been a big one for gaming, dice and the like, but I do like a good drink and a good fuck. Then again, who doesn’t?” He laughed and drank more deeply. “But aye, I am not exactly the paladin you take me for. Far from it. Fighting, drinking, swiving, that’s the life I love. That’s the North, you see. Raid, plunder, fight like demons, and then spend your silver on women and more pints than could kill a dragon. I am just a bit short on the silver at the moment, so I am looking for a raid to start the whole thing over. A bit of skullduggery if you catch my meaning.” He winked at her again. “Though chatting in a piss-poor tavern with third rate ale,” he said, glaring at the taverner, “is usually not on the list, you seem to elevate the place a bit, so it rates. Aye, it does at that.” He felt a flush on his cheeks from the ale and just let the thought go. The hell with it, he thought, just have a good time.