Out of Character:
Closed
“A double shot of your cheapest liquor.”
The barkeep smirked, but when he saw the look on the Draconian’s face, his eyes nervously twitched to the two bouncers in his employ. He doubted they would stand a chance against the large, fearsome drakeling seated at his bar. She smiled at him, a humorless, calculating smile, as if she knew his thoughts. The man was taken aback by the way her supple lips almost disappeared, and her mouth split open to mid-cheek, revealing rows of clenched, wicked teeth.
The Draconian waited with maddening patience, relishing his apprehension at the sight of her. The crimson, scaled wings that folded against her back were tipped with onyx talons, and every breath Neceran took caused them to shift menacingly. Her tail, equally long as her seven foot frame, coiled lazily, the tip of it twitching on the floor behind her, and woe to the one uncareful enough to disturb it. The tapping of her claws against the polished wood bar caused those sitting near her to shift uncomfortably.
“Anything else?” the barkeep asked, feigning disinterest. He wiped the smears from a tumbler before filling it with a rank tequila.
“Cow,” Neceran replied, “still mooing if you have it.” The barkeep attempted to conceal his distaste, and nodded swiftly before disappearing into a back room of the bar. Neceran smirked at his back and adjusted herself on the pair of too-small barstools. The drakeling’s exotic face relaxed again, and she scanned the room.
The inn was as quaint and as unimpressive as the city of Underwood itself, flat and hidden among the trees of Concordia, very much unlike the soaring mountain-top eyries the drakeling called home. It was here, Neceran had heard tale, that war raged between the Empire and the Rangers, yet any real evidence of bloodshed was non-existent. There were, of course, the incidents of skirmishes, raping, and pillaging, but drakeling noble had seen as much and far more in her homeland of Dheathain. War could be a very relative term.
The tequila that cascaded down her throat burned less in her gut than Neceran’s recent loss of the Adventurer’s Crown, and Kenneth Stern’s prize of Destiny’s Book. She had persevered among those much more experienced than her, and had even given her life to advance, but a minor technicality had seen her ejected from the contest unexpectedly.
The Draconian had heard that some unknown elf of Raiaera had won, a fumbling, weak little creature who managed to worm her way through the rounds, advancing when others far better than her had been eliminated. She almost spat at the thought, but figured that might not be the best idea since there were candles and sconces with open flame around her, and the tequila only added to the flammable nature of her saliva. There was no need to cause a scene. Not yet, at least.