A Bloody Good Time (Open, Tavern?)

[Nevin]

Nevin was sitting in one of the local taverns in Stoneville, quietly nursing a mug of mead that he had been hanging onto for over an hour now. He wasn't there to get drunk - while he didn't mind being buzzed, actually being heavily intoxicated did not sit well with him. Instead the redhead was sitting there, just listening to the hustle and bustle of the tavern, letting the cherry atmosphere wash over him.

Even here he was wearing a long sleeved shirt and gloves, though he had forgone the cloak and the tunic in the stifled air of the drinking area. He'd drawn a few odd glances for that, but no one really raised a fuss about it - several of the people in here were miners after all, and had paid his shop a visit once or twice for medicine. While he wasn't an overly familiar face, Nevin was at least recognized.

And no one wanted to irritate or offend the man who was making it easier for them to breathe. So at a table he sat, exchanging pleasant greetings with those who passed by, and waving the barmaid off whenever she came by - aside from asking for a mug of water and some bread and stew. Normally he would have gotten bored and gone back to his shop already, but he was forcing himself to take a break from working on formulae and ingredients for a while.

[Stare]

((hi there! Alt character of Philomel here!))

Exhausted and personally irritated, Stare slumped into the bar. Her claws clunked like tired swords against the floor, and her whole figure looked dulled in spirit. Most of her feathers drooped unhappily, shrouding her in a coat of depression and an air of grumpiness. Slouching over to the bar she glowered at all those who thought it was a good idea to stare at the sudden tengu in the room, and slumped into a bar stool.

For a while she sat there still, fending off the last of the looks with her dark eyes. Those who dared were soon told otherwise as their hearts beat wildly at meeting hers. Seconds passed, minutes then and there was peace for her. The only gaze was that of the bartender.

"Ummm?" said Melanie, waiting.

"Beer," Stare grunted. "Please. Lots. I've just fought my way through a whole street fighting tournament."

Melanie looked briefly over the tengu and saw the obvious marks. Dried blood on the edge of feathers, a few scratches on the beak and weariness running through every muscle that could be seen. Quickly Melanie drew a large beer and set it on the bar before Stare, realising she was across from a potential warrior.

Stare raised that proud brow of hers that framed the dark eyes capable more than just seeing and watched the woman for a while as she cautiously slid the drink across. Brown liquid sloshed with creamy foam, melding the two as one and sending a spirited droplet sliding down the side of the large terracotta tankard.

[Nevin]

Nevin had watched the avian enter, her body posture slumped over, taking in the droop and the way she slouched even as she sat down. He had studied her for a few moments before humming to himself as he pushed his food and drink to one side of the table. A few moments of searching - and a hush falling over the room which made him pause for a second - and he had found what he was looking for.

Parchment and a quill, with an ink bottle - writing tools, always a good idea to keep on hand. He shot a quick glance back at the humanoid bird, taking in the fact that they were able to consume human-standard foods and began jotting notes down on the parchment, the sound of the quill tip scratching into the paper strangely loud in the hushed quiet of the Tavern following the new arrival.

"Avian in nature, potential for increased metabolism, possible lower body mass than traditionally ground-based individual. Likely needs a lower dosage as compared to the norm - though perhaps not.
Still, lower dosage to begin with would probably be wise, if needed quantities can be increased to satiate needs from there." This was said quietly, to himself as Nevin wrote. He didn't even seem to note that he was speaking, and if someone looked at the parchment he was writing on they would find that his words did not match up - the page was slowly being filled with formula.

[Jethro]

Gawkers had definitely had a show today as if the bird and strange man was not enough Jethro stepped in. He was a stock medium built man his skin was mottled, or what skin could be seen under a hooded duster. His left pupil was blue the other was crimson as if his eye had been smashed by something heavy and it was still healing. His duster was remarkably aged and well worn. He found a seat at the bar and looked at the grill, and asked the nearest tender "Is that meat fresh?" the bar tender nodded "I'll take roast beef, rare, as rare as you can make it. I'll also take two large potatoes grilled as well, a large wedge of cheese and whole loaf of bread." His tone was a hairs breath away from being monotone and had the bite of aggression to it.

There was a momentary hissing sound on the griddle and with out much fanfare an entire plate of food was plopped in front of the stranger. Looking over the piece of meat which was still pink the stranger nodded "that'll do." Eyes were on him of course eyes were on him he was a strange looking, stranger in a small town. But unlike the bird lady he was a guy, and it didn't take long for drunken miners to get up enough courage to challenge him. Mid way though his meat he looked up at the ring leader and simply asked " Do you know what a bad idea is?" It wasn't until the drunk miner made an attempt to take the bread from his plate that Jethro showed him what a heavy mistake the miner did make.

There was a loud crash and an ugly organic crunching sound. The miner's face seemed to have bounced off of the bar causing him to stumble backwards into an adjacent table, belonging to a silent observer. Table, drunk miner, and mead spilling all over the place.

Snapping his neck at the drunks buddies who started to rise in retaliation he asked in the same unwavering tone he had been using "do you know what a bad idea is?" They backed off and Jethro mentally groaned, this was going to make for an interesting night.

(OOC Sorry for such a crappy post. My head hurts so bad I can feel it in my teeth))

[Stare]

Siezing the handle of the tankard Stare began to raise the drink to her lips as the violence begun. Rolling her eyes back into her head she grunted, her tongue loudly clacking on the inside of her massive beak with distaste. She shouldn't have come in here expecting there not to be some fists thrown. It was a downtown, grumpy pub after all. But she was exhausted. The three rounds of the street fighting had truly tired her out - three rounds and three sets of full five minutes where she had had to see off more than twenty other combatants. Some had been twice the size of her, others had been smaller, but all had underestimated the strength and dexterity of the bird-creature to the extent where the crowd had been stunned to silence. Fifteen minutes of her life used up, but a hefty fine purse of gold was hers now at her belt and she was not going to let anyone, not even that frigging god who presumed to speak to her in her head even when she was on holiday ...

Watch out!

Smoothly she slid off the stool and to the side as a huge miner collapsed into the bar, just where moments before Stare had been. Immediately a string of kenku was coming from her beak, a mighty torrent of muttered caws and clicks that told everyone in the near vacinty of her immense dislike of being disturbed. Standing there, not hurt and thankfully without a spilt drink (now there had been a lucky escape for these brawlers) Stare looked around for the prepetrator. She found a human with black hair looking back at her with a steak of meat before him, looking just as displeased as she was.

You should clean yourself up, the handsome, melodic voice spoke again, directly into her mind.

You should leave me alone when I am on holiday. As we discussed, Stare retorted.

There was a short constiction on her mind, as the presence paused a little and sent pressure to remind her just who and what he was. But then the human-form-bound god of blonde hair and many secrets grunted and retreated somewhat. Have your holiday then. Just be aware there is a man over there with a book and ink making notes about you.

Stare narrowed her eyes and immediately began to turn. Scanning the room she ignored the now prone body of the miner on the floor and looked as everyone just ... got back to their drinks. It did not take long for her eager eyes to find the hunched figure of the young, tall man taking notes and mumbling something about "avian."

Well that could only mean one person. She sauntered over to the table and stared until he noticed her.

"Writing about me, huh?"

[Nevin]

Nevin barely registered the brawl that broke out as he muttered to himself and scratched away inside his notes. Aside from lifting up his notebook when it almost got splashed by some spilled ale, the red-haired man didn't twitch. He had glanced up when the newest figure entered the bar, but his gaze had dropped back to the formula he was writing almost immediately.

He also didn't respond right away when the avian individual noticed him and walked over - it took several moments of staring before he even looked up. His eyes were a bit dried out, and didn't process her appearance at first, at least not consciously.

"... Beak would make it hard to imbibe potions from normal vials - perhaps a nontoxic crush able alternative made from a glazed material, or a preference to powders or smokes that can be inhaled - oh sweet crimson I am so sorry." Near the end of his babble awareness returned to Nevin's eyes, and he grimaced before blinking furiously, trying to get fluids back to his eyes. He took another look and registered the question, and looked down at the formula that were now scrawled in front of him.

Idiot! This was supposed to be a break from working! Not finding a new branch to work on - OK stop ignoring the woman? With claws and daggers that asked you a question before she decides to start stabbing. He shook his head sharply, and focused his gaze back on the avian woman.

"Right, sorry. Uhm. Kind of? Less about you specifically though you did trigger it, but more about avian humanoids in general and I'm sorry I'm babbling." He took a deep breath, and gestured to the seat across from him.

"If you want to take a seat? My name is Nevin, and I work as an alchemist. You are the first avian-type humanoid I've seen, so it... Sparked the question in my mind of whether standard remedies and potions would work on your kind." He rubbed the back of his head, nervous and mildly worried. What was with his luck of running into intimidating individuals with daggers??

[Stare]

Her brow was still high, as high as it could go, letting the glory of her fully black eyes peer at the young man before her. Young in terms of a human, certainly, but maybe older than Stare in years. There was a certain advantage to being: one, of a race little others knew about; and two, being of a race with accelerated aging.

"The proper name is kenku," Stare replied, her beak only slightly opening as she spoke. Most of her words, after all, were formed in the back of her throat and accentuated with her long dark tongue. "Though we used to use the word 'tengu,' but that is a long time ago."

On the suggestion of the human - she presumed he was so by his seemingly normal appearance - Stare took a slumped seat across from him. Her eyes glanced down and read upside down the sentences that he was scribing. She blinked as she read ways that he considered she could be made to imbibe poison without use of a classic vial. With an amused gleam in her eyes she pointedly raised her tankard and opened her beak wide. Then, with a practised clawed hand she lay the edge of the tankard to the very edge of her beak and tipped the liquid in.

Quite ordinary for her, but quite unusual for anyone else to watch.

"I'm not immune to poison in the same manner the next being or beast is," she shrugged. "Remedies for the same matter." She smiled in her eyes. "My race has about three or four thousand members in its whole species, so it's rare to have heard of us."

She sat back and looked briefly over to the man with the steak, just checking to see if he was going to start fighting again.

"I'm Avis. Or used to be. Now Stare," she stared at him, her eyes begin to shimmer. "So what do you do? You're a ... Poisoner then?"

[Nevin]

Nevin watched, fascinated as she drank - it was more like pouring the beer into an organic funnel. He tilted his head in consideration of that - with practice, the Kenku had no problems with human standard vessels. Hm. Still, inhalant mixtures might be more effective on them - birds had lungs outsized of the norm for their bodies. He wasn't about to go asking Stare if her lungs were bigger than a human's though - that was easy to misconstrue.

And jut because they weren't immune to poison - or their remedies - didn't mean things didn't affect them in different ways. Body weight and tissue type had to be considered when making alchemical mixtures. What worked for one person might be too much, or too little, for another.

Then he processed her question, and despite himself Nevin frowned. He spun the book around and pushed it towards her - if all she knew were poisons and antidotes, she'd only be able to recognize some of the recipes on the paper. He tapped a block near the top and began speaking.

"As I said, Miss -" he paused here, making sure she didn't object to the epithet, " - Stare, I am work as an Alchemist.
While I can make poisons, my primary focus is on remedies and supplements. This section for example is a set of formula for a energizing potion that can help with physical exhaustion and a need for sleep." He tapped the set of equations as he spoke, steel in his tone.

"And the fact that there are so few of your race indicates to me that there is a very good chance that herbalists, doctors, and alchemists like myself may never have encountered you and so don't know what medicines will work best for you. And I despise holes in my knowledge base." Nevin had grown agitated as he spoke, and grabbed his mug of mead and drained the rest of it as he worked to calm himself down. Alchemy was a precious subject to him, and regarding it as just a means to one end, poisons, aggravated him. It was limiting and he did not approve. Finally he took a deep breath and refocused his gaze on the likely either amused or irritated Kenku across from him.

"My apologies. I am an Alchemist,
from a rather small town before I traveled here. You are not the first to regard me as a poisoner, and it.... Irritates me to be considered such." He signaled for the barmaid to bring him more mead as he switched to drinking his water for the moment.

[Stare]

Indeed, it was hard to tell if the kenku was irritated or amused. They had that sort of face that consisted simply of a large beak, two huge eyes and a brow. Beyond these there was little indication of expression from a kenku. Only the gleam of the eyes, the raising or lowering of a brow and the slight ability to turn the corners of a mouth up or down at where beak became flesh was where any physical signs of emotion came from. Right now Stare was looking at the alchemist, but had he been watching slowly, and had he known her well, he would have seen that the openness of her eyes showed that she was not annoyed.

"There is little need to apologise, Alchemist, despite what others of my kind might have to say. I'm one of the very rare kind who dwell outside of our homeland. Which is near Akashima, and shares some similarities if you are curious."

She chugged back another mouthful of beer and slowly ran a hand through her feathers at her face. At that closeness the deep grey claws could be seen clearly and the scaling that covered over her skin shone under the dim light from the window nearby.

She found a line of dried blood across the edge of a few feathers. Grunting she began to run at it and the fine dark red flakes began to fall down to the table like unfortunate snow. She huffed through her small nostrils with slight aggravation before continuing.

"I apologise for assuming you are a poisoner, but let's just say ... I don't walk amongst honest people. In fact I'm technically on holiday," a twitch at the very corner of her mouth made a smile, "Basics - our bones are more hollow, like a bird, allowing more agility and a lighter frame. No, we don't fly, and technically we are from a different world altogether, not made by the gods of this world." She waved a hand and leant back.

"What else are you thinking? We are shorter if you are curious about that." And she clicked her tongue and let out a rapid series of caws and calls, saying, "We have our own language," in tengu. She paused again.

"Well?"

[Nevin]

Nevin listened to her explanation and snatched up his writing tool again, quickly scratching out several formula scattered across the notes that he'd been working on. He chewed in one end of it as he studied her, frowning intensely in thought.

"No need to apologize Miss Stare.
I'm well aware that alchemy has some skewed views .
It doesn't help that we do make poisons, or other... reagents, from time to time." He was not about to ask her what she was in vacation from - better not to remind her of it, if she was trying to escape it for a while. A flip of the page brought a blank sheet up, and he began jotting down bullet points of what she had said about her race, twirling his quill at times as he thought. Finally he looked back up to her, his lips quirked in a slight smile.

"Well now. You say you and yours are from another world than our own, yes? That makes me curious about the nutrients that your kin need - mayhap you're missing something, like a mineral. Or your world is close enough to our own that everything you need you already get. That would... Well, thst would be seen on whether or not the Kenku have developed any sicknesses since coming here, and has probably already been addressed if so. But you say that you're lighter built,
and your bones are Hollow - that indicates smaller doses for most things for equivalent effect, but things... Hmm, things that affect the marrow inside your bones might not be as well suited to you as other races." He had started off speaking calmly, but by the end of it he had returned to frantically writing short hand notes down in the notebook.

It took a visible effort to rein himself back from that, instead focusing his gaze onto her. He had more questions as someone related to medical skills, but he was going to restrain himself to alchemic topics for the time being. At least, what he saw as alchemic topics.

"Have you ever noticed, or heard tell of, medicines not working quite the same on you or another Kenku as they would on a Human or something like am Elf? They're close enough to Human standard that most natural remedies that work on one race work on the other." That wasn't always true for the humanoid races, but, why wonder about the Kenku when he had an individual here in front of him?