ArchivedLogs:Levelheaded

Levelheaded
Dramatis Personae Ion, Isra, Savannah, Monsterling
In Absentia	2016-03-20 "I think it says that your life must be full of... interesting surprises."
Location <NYC> Q-Tip - East Harlem
This is the kind of place you go to when you want a dive bar but don't want to wait for compete for use of the sole pool table covered with suspicious stains that always leans toward one corner pocket. Q-Tip may not be fancy, but its tables are solid and the drinks are decent. The bartenders are polite but taciturn, the regulars are diverse but largely blue collar men with a sprinkling of hipsters, and the neon-lit jukebox always seems to be playing classic rock. It's not too crowded in here, Sunday afternoon, people perhaps finding plenty of other ways to celebrate the (rather chilly) first day of spring than with drinking and pool. /Other/ people, anyway. Ion is not one of those people, arriving into the pool hall with a /thud/ of fist against the door, and an /exuberant/ fierce grin on his face -- but then, in his heavy tall motorcycle boots, thick jeans, scuffed and well-beaten leather kutte (it reads 'MUTANT MONGRELS MC' on the back, around an emblem of a Jolly Roger, the skull fanged and horned and crossed lightning bolts in place of the crossbones), he /looks/ like the kind of person who spends his Sundays somewhere like this. If he's wearing his kutte over a neat button-down shirt and tie, welllll. Sunday is for church, /too/. There's a baby carrier held in one of his arms, though the bundle of blankets inside rather obscures whoever he might be carrying; he's holding it kind of stiffly. Walking kind of stiffly, too, which doesn't seem to put a damper on his bright cheer. "{Before long,}" he's telling the baby carrier this, in gravelly-deep Spanish, "{you'll learn how to /use/ those hands. Hold a stick properly, right, right, right, shoot /straight/, hit some motherfuckers who give you lip -- they /always/ give you lip in here.}" Isra trails in Ion's wake, her immense wings folded tight against her back and only partially covered by the huge purple shawl draped about her shoulders. Under this she wears a long, leaf-green tunic dress that flatters her lanky, muscular frame, cinched at the waist with a wide purple sash. Her skin is predominantly sky blue, shading toward a lighter purple medially. Her horns gleam like burnished gold, as do the sharp talons tipping her long fingers, toes, and even the spars of her wings. Once inside, she straightens up a little further on digitigrade legs, settling at a height just over 6'2". Her vivid green eyes scan the establishment coolly; she doesn't look impressed. "{Once they learn how to use those hands,}" she speaks Spanish much less fluidly than Ion, though her accent sounds distinctly similar, "{they will not need sticks.}" Savannah is already inside, sitting at the bar slumped over what looks to be, at this point, a warm, probably flat and unappetizing beer (Sunday be damned!). Dressed in a simple black t-shirt and jeans, her clothes are a worn and slightly frayed, though clean. One hand props up her chin, while the other hand traces the ring of the glass in slow, methodical circles reminiscent of a nervous tic of some sort. Perched on her face is a signature half-frown while she continues spouting on to the bartender, who may or may not be listening at this point, "... never got a response. And then, right as I'm about to call, my phone dies. It's like the universe is trying to tell me something." She sighs with an air of petty petulance for petty problems, and shifts in her seat uncomfortably. "{No come /on/, sister, sometimes no matter /how/ much pointy you got on you you just gotta give /someone/ the business end of -- well what the fuck ever you got at hand, right? Right right.}" Ion is ambling over towards the bar -- the baby carrier gets a bar stool, /he/ does not, leaning carefully (wincingly) up against the counter beside Savannah with a sympathetic grimace. "Some day," his English is just as gravelly as his Spanish, just as sloppy in its grammar, though somewhat more halting, a thick Argentine accent to his speech, "some day it just /ain't/ your day, huh? Me my phone they don't never last a week." Their arrival -- okay, /Isra's/ arrival, admittedly, with her enormous wings and horns and talons -- has drawn more than a few stares, and he's not /unaware/ of them. Anyone looking their way just gets a fiercely brighter grin. "{Yo, sister, what you drinking?}" Savannah looks up with a bit of a start, not having expected any actual input. The half-frown gives way to a start of a smile at Ion until her eyes take in the baby carrier, and then Isra, in that order. In a fluster, the best she can do is to eek out, "Come again?" "Your phones never last more than a /day/, by my estimation," Isra adds, her voice low and flat. She does not initially seem to pay Savannah much mind--doesn't really seem to pay anyone in the establishment much mind other than her companion. And, at the moment, the bartender. "Good day. Have you any hard ciders on tap?" Sher wings shuffle beneath the shawl, and she reaches out a hand to pat at the bundle of blankets in the baby carrier. Her ears swivel to Savannah at last when she speaks. Then her gaze turns that way, as well, flat and unblinking, predatory. "He asked what you were drinking." "Oh shiiit right English right shitdamn. Man, so much fucking /easier/ when the zombies was here and didn't /nobody/ expect me to speak this bullshit." Ion sounds amused, really, more than complaining. "Drinking, drinking, drinking. I'm not so good at the /deciding/, huh? Brain all full of fucking -- fog, I think it the pain -- pills. How I supposed to pick a proper /pool/ drink so many options. -- Do you play?" He's hooking a thumb over towards the pool tables. Savannah stares at Isra for a beat too long. "Blackhouse porter. It's not bad here, and yeah, I do play." She flips a sheaf of hair over her shoulder. "I'm quite good too." A lock of her hair lands in her beer -a real smooth move. "Though, you don't seem like you're in the best shape to play..." Her last words trail off ambiguously with a hint of a question as her eyes do another quick once over of the trio: Isra. Baby carrier. Ion. "Neither, indeed, are you in the best shape to drink," Isra adds. If she's bothered by the lingering of Savannah's gaze in the least, she certainly does not let on. "But that's never been known to dissuade him." This, at least, seems directed at the other woman, even though she is not presently making eye contact. "Better he find a game with someone disinclined to pick a fight." Though now she does look at Savannah. "You do not, I hope, feel inclined to pick a fight?" There's no enmity in this, no warning and no suspion. Just a sort of vast weariness. "What you on about I come here /ready/ to drink Frittata you tell her," Ion's hand is rapping at the edge of the baby carrier, "I so fucking ready. -- /Ey/-o." His eyes widen, bright and /defensive/ at Savannah's statements. "What /you/ on about who think I can't shoot I can shoot with the best of -- of -- you don't need all your organs for pool /do/ you?" He's poking kind of /testingly/ at his midsection with this. Isra's weary question, though, does not perhaps have the desired result. /He/ straightens abruptly (probably too abruptly, this comes with a sharp wince too as he bounces on the toes of his boots), a brighter glint in his eye and his fists already curling at his side. "Oh /damn/ you looking for a fight?" There's a hopeful eagerness to his tone, now. Savannah looks amused and responds with a chuckle. "What if I am? Do you make it a habit to pick fights with women at..." She glances at a cheap looking wristwatch, "Five thirty-eight on Palm Sunday? If you are, then I'm honored to be the primetime pick." Turning her attention back to Isra, she says with a hint less of humor, "I assume you're the more level headed partner in this relationship." The blanket in the baby carrier stirs as its inhabitant tugs it aside with a...wing? A batlike wing. The creature attached to that wing has a huge, bulbous head set with huge, bulbous green eyes above a wide mouth full of sharp teeth. Its neck, arms, legs, and wings are spindly and long and tipped with tiny black talons. Its skin is gray and covered from head to tail with a fine, velvety black fuzz. Its eyes cast around and it emits a series of soft, curious clicks as its fists wave in the air, passing each other, signing 'FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!' "You don't need /all/ of your organs, but you need most of them," Isra's reply comes matter-of-fact. "Don't encourage him," she advises Savannah mildly. Then, to the bartender, "One Blackhouse porter and the Crispin cider on tap, if you please." She slides him a credit card and turns back to the others. "I am the more level headed partner in most relationships," she admits, "although I do not think it says a lot about my own proclivities in this particular case." A long pause. An appraising look. "Yourself?" "What yeah! Yeah yeah Sunday the /best/ day for fighting, right, like, you /fill/ with spirit. /You/ feeling it, huh, Monster?" Ion reaches down one hand to rub a finger against the tinycreatures bulbous head, between two small nubby horn-buds. "Well okay Monday pretty good too everyone cranky after start the work, want some stress gone huh? Tuesday not so bad that shitty fucking rat-trap dive over in work got a good happy hour usually find /some/ asshole good to throw down with. Or Wednesday alright too --" Though he's derailed from his excited musing on why /Wednesday/ might be the ideal day for throwing down by the arrival of his beer, offering the bartender a cheerful thanks. Lifting his mug in cheers to Savannah with every bit as much warm enthusiasm as though he /hadn't/ just been offering to punch her. "-- why what's /your/ favorite day for the fighting?" The question seems quite in earnest. "I think it says that your life must be full of... interesting surprises." Eyes wide at the sight of the creature, she reaches for her drink and takes a mouthful, and then a second for the cheers. "Well, Monster, is it? Monster looks like they're in support of some Sunday spirit." In avoidance of Isra's question, she nods to the pool tables to the side of the bar. "How about this - we play a round, and if you win, you get yourself a... "fight". If I win, you pay off my tab and throw in a twenty so I can get dinner." Isra receives her drink with a polite nod at the bartender. "They are their fathers' child," she comments dryly, tucking the blanket back around the goblin-creature's body, though leaving the arms free, at least. "Well. I suppose I ought to root for her, then." Despite this, she grins a sharp, fangy grin behind the rim of her glass. "Keep in mind, though, I shall be very cross if you tear out any stitches." "{Ohshit} you /on/ you hear that, Omelette, it's /on/. Hey what life is without /surprise/?" Ion's cheek clicks against his teeth, his eyes widening with feigned hurt. "Look that, taking sides over her own family. Don't nobody ever like me havin fun. Come-come-come. Tinydragon, you be my luck." He takes a large swig of beer, /huffing/ at Isra. "How I'mm'a tear stitches at pool what kind of pool /you/ play? One /quiet/ /friendly/ game. Who you think I /am/?" He's extending a calloused hand to Savannah, though, answering that question already with an introduction. "Ion. We playing, you should probably know huh? And the tiny gremlin, that's Egg." At the sight of fangs, Savannah tenses a bit and hides behind taking another long draw from her beer. After setting down the near empty glass, she reciprocates Ion's extended hand with a firm shake, though from soft, warm skin. "Savannah. Nice to meet you both," she nods to Isra, "And Egg - or at least nice to meet you for now, I suppose." She chuckles, "Is Egg... a girl or boy?" "Isra," she says, inclining her head such that her horns gleam in the dim light. "Egg bites," it's a rather casual sort of warning. "They are..." Isra looks to Ion, lifting one hairless eyebrow ridge. "Neither? Undetermined?" Ion's handshake comes with a small zap -- not particularly painful or even all /that/ noticeable, it's a tiny jolt like a static-shock discharge. "The fuck kind of question is that?" He looks down at Egg, brows furrowing. "Egg's a goddamn /dragon/. Come on. Let's /play/."