The Old Grey Whistle Test (Closed)

[Ruby]

The Old Grey Whistle Test (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYph_LGY6YE)



http://tudleadership.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/old-dogmatt1.gif

Or how the old show the young a thing or two about killin'.


Closed to Logan. Serves as a scene setter for the Lornius Tournament.

It did not take much for Ruby Winchester’s mood to turn. The day had, after all, been quite pleasant up until the point Logan McCloud became late. She had waited, as erstwhile women do, over the cooling contemplating depths of a tall gin and tonic. The gin was sour and the tonic flat, but somehow, the dash of lemon mimicked her smile as the sun went down over the zig zag horizon of Lornius’ small port.

“Can I get you another, miss?” the barmaid enquired, sliding over the beer sodden flagstones of the lacklustre establishment. She had seemingly been waiting for Ruby to tip the last of the contents between her lips until she lurched into action.

“No.” She replied, flatly.

The barmaid was swiftly gone, head shaking with every step, and once more Mrs Winchester was left to her seething. Her eyes, cool and collected, pierced the veil that wafted gently over the tavern’s open windows. From her vantage point at the end of the long bar, she could see out into the tavern’s yard, along the winding path, and down the slope to the start of the harbour. If and when Logan McCloud decided to appear, she would see him coming with plenty of time to prepare a barbed lashing of criticism and putdown.

She used the time to consider the reasons she had given for reacting Duffy’s offer of a partnership. When she had heard rumours of Lornius’ infamous melee, her heart had her clambering for the bard’s plucky blades and unique brand of talents. After she had given it some consideration, and with Leopold firmly seated in his business empire far to the east, there was only one man she could count on.

“I do so hate counting on men,” she clucked. Ruby leant towards the small table, and produced a small hip flask from within the bodice of her plane, well cut, and two seasons ahead of its time dress. Without any concern for her patron’s coffers, she refilled her glass, clicked her fingers, and leant back into the wings of her chair whilst the minor enchantment set into the rim of the glass she had toasted her marriage too produced tonic more suitable to her pallets. It swirled into a maelstrom of inebriation, and settled only when Ruby’s thoughts had calmed and returned to the matter at hand.

[Logan]

It was a dark and stormy night...No wait, that isn't right. Ahem, let me begin again.

It was a day unlike any other, a day of celebration and jubilee. Unless your name was Logan McCloud. The Lornius Corporate Challenge was scheduled to begin anew sometime following the gathering of one Miss Ruby Winchester and one Mister Logan T. McCloud, sans the T. You see, good people of Althanas, the two less than gentle souls had met each other's acquaintance at some point prior, but those days were well beyond fogged with alcoholic ruminations. Logan could barely even recall them. Or her.

Last he could remember of Miss Ruby Winchester was a gorgeous succubus of a woman. Everything about her screamed bitch, but don't mistake my using the 'b' word to mean he disapproved of Miss Ruby. No, quite the contrary, dear friends. The psion quite approved of every part of the lovely and tantalizing Miss Ruby. From her fair skin to her indelibly warm hair and every sweet scent in between, were he younger and less like himself, he probably would have found her in his bed at some point well prior to their formation of a team in the tournament. But enough about the lovely Miss Ruby Winchester.

Our story takes place around the time Logan was working feverishly upon the Bandit Retreat. See, the poor sod had gotten it in his head he would rebuild the Retreat and reinvigorate the days of old when the Bandit Brotherhood name actually carried some sort of weight around the lands of Althanas. Realistically, he would be lucky to just rebuild the Retreat, let alone actually bring some sort of power to a group centuries dead. Still, he fought through the first years with a resiliency he was well accustomed to, just rarely with any actually important tasks.

The good old boy needed a reprieve from his work, though, and that is where our favorite Queen of the Succubi came into play. The journey from the building site of the Retreat to the tavern she had selected for their meeting was a few days, and along the way he had a lot of time to think. And he probably shouldn't have been thinking. The more he thought of Miss Ruby, the more he realized he probably made the wrong decision.

Teaming with Miss Ruby was bound for disaster. He had a reputation to uphold in the LCC. It wasn't like this was his first, and teaming with Miss Ruby would be excusable. She didn't exactly give off an air of defensible when it came to her prowess in battle. Yet, he couldn't back out. He'd agreed, and he was stuck with her. Not that he minded, much. Throwing on a smile as he finally arrived at the entryway, he slipped inside.

"Pardon my tardiness, Miss Ruby. I know it is never wise to keep a lady in waiting, but I just had to stop and get you these," he said as he pulled from behind his back a small bouquet of wildflowers he had plucked from the small clay pot just outside the entry way. Better to get on her good side, now, right?

[Ruby]

Ruby Winchester had been insulted many a time in her long life. She had punished men for considerably less than the sleight Logan performed before her now. She had, if her gin sodden mind was not playing tricks on her, killed for less.

“Oh, how cute, and charming!” she chirped coyly.

Today, however, was not going to be a day to fall for old habits. Logan would pay dearly in other ways for his pathetic attempts to get on her good side. There would be other ways, much more painful and anguishing ways than a quick thrust of Lucrezia, her singing sword, to the gentlemen’s groin. She leant forwards across the table, held out a hand, and took the bouquet when it was offered.

“Here I was expecting you to swan in here like an uncouth vagabond and talk dirtily and succour before a lady of distinguished,” she sniffed the wilting blooms, “and refined tastes.” The tavern slowed just long enough for its other occupants to suss out the situation, ease out of its sudden tension, and fade back into a hubbub of drunken conversation. There was, clearly, nothing new to midnight flits on the isle of Lornius.

“I aim to please, Mrs Winchester.” The psionic’s grin sent a trill down Ruby’s spine, like an untalented pianist tickling the vertebrate ivories. “May I?” he waved his hand over the chair opposite his would be team mate, and quite before she could reject or accept, he sat. Ruby, taken aback somewhat, leant back into her chair and set the flowers on their side on the table.

“By all means…” she said flatly.

She stared at him whilst he waved down the bubbly barmaid, flirted with her outrageously, and ordered them both a drink, despite her protestations that she was all set with her present vessel of refreshment. She said it three times, just to make sure he heard. When the second glass appeared next to her own, she forgot all about her dislike for the gentlemen. Time was going so quickly she forgot her self-loathing and bitter thoughts about their previous encounters.

“You were saying, Ruby, about why you wanted to enter this tournament?” Logan’s eyebrow bobbed with a curious smirk underpinning it. His own grey hair, perhaps through magical means, and not simply age shone as he began to adjust himself in his chair. His robes, curious vestments quite out of fashion anywhere Ruby had been in recent months continued to catch eyes and, if her hearing was not failing her, whispered comments too.

She sighed.

She had rather hoped to have had the chance to get Logan to tell her his reasons first. It was clear, that although Logan was polite enough to afford her the common courtesy, he was having none of her aggressiveness. She folded her left leg over her right, and bobbed her black stilettos up and down in a timely manner. He was quicker, smarter, and slimier than he looked.

“My reasons are threefold.” They were four fold, in actual fact, but she did not want to reveal that particular gem of a gambit until she had withdrawn the knife from the crown jewels of the man she was all too fond of gutting. “Firstly,” she picked up her glass, tipped it in his direction, and smiled with a flash of brilliance in her eyes, “I want to forge a new bond of allegiance between the Tantalum Troupe and the Bandit Brotherhood.”

A reason equating to ‘strictly business’ if ever there was one.

“A reason I can toast to,” Logan said dryly. He waited, lips pursed, for the real and ‘meaty’ rhetoric to start flying. Surely, a succubus like her had darker desires than wealth?

“Second, I want to raise the funds to purchase a smallholding in Scara Brae.” She nodded her head from side to side in consideration for her words. “Our previous play house was…” she sighed. “Well, let us say it was condemned, and leave it at that.” By condemned, she meant flattened to the ground in a cataclysm equating to an act of war. Logan would never hear about that, or get the chance to profit from the deals that followed in the black market of the island’s capital.

“Thirdly.” She paused dramatically. She set her glass down, leant towards Logan, and whispered. “I want to show some men a good time.” She leant away, tantalisingly, and chuckled. “A time that doesn't end in birth or disease or a large headache.”

Logan sputtered.

“For me, at least.”

A reason equating to ‘strictly pleasure’ if ever there was one.

“I…err…”

“Was just going to tell me your own reasons, I do believe?” Firmly back in control of the situation, the grey haired matriarch set aside her now empty gin glass, and picked up the vessel of fruity cocktail Logan had ordered for her. She would never let him know in anything but passive aggressive undertones, that the cocktail he had ordered was her favourite.

A Screaming Orgasm.