ic Getting Your Shots In

[Fox]

"A river of beer doesn't sound so bad, really," Teagan pondered, briefly imagining would it would be like to laze on a sunny bank next to such a feature. "The blood thing is weird, but mortal stories just get stranger with time. I don't wanna see you drunk for some stupid folktale, I wanna see you drunk 'cos I think it might be funny."

She shrugged, pouring herself a fresh glass of whisky and gesturing with the bottle. "See, I figure either you'll be funny, or you'll freak out some mortals and they'll be funny, or I'll eventually get drunk enough that anything's funny. I win regardless, and we both probably let off some stress. Cheers."

[Gizmo]

"Twas consumed by an insatiable bloodlust at the time, so--" Scrunching her eyes closed briefly, Sekhmet waved a hand over the table before her in a dismissive gesture. "Hathor relates the tale in far more unpropitious detail than any mortal ever could. I would speak no more of this. Do not think me oversensitive, great beast, nor ungrateful for thy camaraderie. Cheers indeed." Finishing her second glass perhaps more quickly that was wise in her diminished form, the goddess rested her chin in the palm of her hand with an expression of melancholy. "Tis little mystery to my need to take temporary leave of the liesmith's company but what finds you from the Geb Knight's side?"

[Fox]

Teagan made a grumbling noise, throwing back what was left in her glass (with poorly-disguised difficulty, though she at last knew that the burn was coming) and pouring a new one while she frowned. "....he's too nice," she attempted, clearly aware that it didn't sound like much of a complaint. Her accent was slipping, too - in as much as she was very slowly slipping into something that sounded very lightly British. "He's like the anti-'liesmith'. He isn't perfect or whatever, but he can be so incredibly boring. He never really wants to just have fun."

She gestured with a glass, exasperated. "Even his hobbies are boring. He sculpts. He can mold rock with his mind and he still sits there, for hours, and moves clay around with his bare hands. And, whatever, I like art and all, but sometimes I want to just go fly around or pick a fight or capture a princess or something and I can't, because this stupid world is full of demi-gods and you can't get away with ####."

[Gizmo]

Sekhmet began nodding in knowing and commiserating fashion almost as soon as Teagan began to explain her frustration. "Thy plight is familiar. My consort tis an architect. Ah, ex-consort." The goddess punctuated the correction by sliding her emptied glass toward the disguised dragon for another refilling. "After two millennia of being unable to perform the only tasks at which I excel, I evidently grew 'moody'. Rrrh. Eternally contemplative Ptah would not know a mood if he were bitten upon his sculpted buttock." Lying her chin on the wood of the table, she raised a cupped hand to illustrate a very specific shape. "Literally sculpted. God of craftsmen."

[Fox]

Teagan snorted, pouring Sekhmet a full glass. "Well, at least that's something. Got to enjoy it while you had it, heh." She went to refill her own only-mostly-empty glass before noticing that the bottle had run dangerously low; that earned the whiskey a suspicious, squinted red eye for a moment before the redhead shrugged and tossed back what she had left. "Hahh. Never did have much luck there. A fling now and again, but I don't like being tied down and...well."

Slumping back in her chair a bit, Teagan held up her glass and eyed the liquor still clinging to its sides. "Dragons are kind of jerks, and humans are mayflies. Both of 'em are good for a romp, but nothing lasts, y'know. A thousand years of sculpted buttock doesn't sound half bad once in a while."

[Gizmo]

"Sooo pretty..." Sekhmet sighed mournfully, rolling her Rs slightly and letting her Ss linger. "Thee be not a jerk, Teagan, thy merely know thy own desires. Tis a virtue, hrrrph." Something in her tone suggested the red haired woman wasn't the only one at the table she was taking about. Somewhat belatedly Sekhmet began to pace herself, taking a small sip from her glass and arching her shoulders slightly while she leaned over the table. "I had thought thee and the Geb Knight... well." The goddess made a vague twirling motion with her free hand while something close to a snicker rumbled in the back of her throat before she cleared it away with a dignified cough.

[Fox]

Teagan's face twisted up into a mixture of surprise and amusement. "Th---ssnnk haHAAHAHAhaHAA!"

The force of throwing her head back laughing almost knocked her chair over, leaving her - still shaking with laughter - with an undignified scramble to catch the edge of the table with one hand and remain upright. "Ahah! Hmmhmm...ha, no. We'd kill each other!" she announced, settling back into her seat. "I mean that. I respect him, whatever, but any sorta actual relationship would end in blood and a ruined city block. Two!" She held up a pair of fingers for emphasis, still laughing. "Two city blocks."

She snickered, eyeing what was left in the whiskey bottle but leaving it where it sat. "I dunno, maybe at some point we'll both be stressed enough to need to work off some steam, but it'd never go anywhere in a million years. He's too nice for his own good."

[Gizmo]

"Mayhap. Between the first ruined village square and the second, however..." Sekhmet made a low rumbling sound that was unmistakably a feline purr until she could no longer keep a straight face and dissolved into rolling laughter herself. Propping her chin up on both hands with her elbows resting on the table she gave Teagan a toothy grin of immaculate incisors and pronounced canines. "I am less able to grant blessing than I once was but may thee find a partner worthy of thy centuries, great beast. Or several worthy of thy momentary distraction, hah!" That set the goddess off again, shaking her shoulders with amusement.

[Fox]

"Hah! Likewise, oh mighty lioness." Teagan grabbed the whiskey bottle and split what little remained into their two glasses, chortling. "Dragons aren't exactly known for their blessings, so I can't help you there. But we have our tricks, and I'll tell you what."

Leaning heavily on the arm of her chair, she grabbed her glass off the table and held it up in a toast, flashing a lopsided grin that had entirely too many teeth. "I'll be more than happy to give you second pick of any sculpted buttocks that I find, and if my hoard ever has anything in it that could silence a god, it's all yours. Peace of mind or a piece of...buttocks, haha!"

[Gizmo]

"Hah, 'buttocks'," Sekhmet snickered, lifting her own glass and knocking it into Teagan's with a resounding clink before draining the last of the whiskey within. "A worthy tribute. Thou art fortunate I am accustomed to choosing second or third among sisters or mayhap offense would have be taken." By the goddess' expression, she found the mock warning to be devastatingly hilarious and was struggling to maintain a haughty affectation without cracking a smile. Ultimately she had to clamp a hand over her mouth momentarily, shaking in silent amusement before rubbing her eyes with the heel of her palm. Even as she did so, the black lines surrounding them remained notably unmarred. "Hathor would never say as much but she was incredulous when Ptah began courting, hah!"

[Fox]

"Rrrrrgh, don't even talk to me about sisters," Teagan complained, though she was still chuckling as she leaned back, finished the whiskey, and put her free hand to her forehead. "Five eggs in the clutch and only one sister, and she still managed to be a royal pain in my....."

She ran the hand down her face, laughing and shaking her head. "Literally, sometimes! Always sneaking off t'play some inbred royal for their crown or title or whatever, and all high and mighty about it until someone needed help when it all went wrong. And it always went wrong!" she added, throwing up her hands as if appealing to high heaven. "But 'til they need help what good do they think you are?"

[Gizmo]

"Hah! Bast-- Bast has never required anyone's aid for anything," Sekhmet insisted, apparently finding the entire notion positively hilarious to consider, holding up a hand to excuse herself until she could get out an entire sentence without breaking into laughter. "Thy sister at least has the excuse of being merely mortal. Ah, no belittlement intended, Teagan. Pardon my manners. I mean only that Hathor, my twin, tis the divine incarnation of love and beauty and joyous celebration. All are eager to share in her presence." Pursing her lips, she began eying the remaining bottles on the table with predatory intent. "Rrr, I suspect even thee would prefer her company, great beast. Hathor tis the patron of miners and their precious wares as well."

[Fox]

"There's mortal and then there's mortal," Teagan pointed out, snorting. "Most get...what, a century, if they're lucky? I'm looking at a millennium minimum, if I don't get myself killed first."

She leaned forward in her chair and grabbed a beer, using the table edge to take the cap off by way of example. "As for 'shiny things'...ahhh, I do love shiny things," she admitted, leaning back again and taking a drink. "But the problem with miners is that they think it's theirs, y'know? And I'm pretty sure it's mine, and that causes problems. Hathor'd be in a pretty good spot to bribe me, wouldn't mind staying on her good side, but otherwise I'm not sure I care. 'Sides, there's more to a good hoard than that: weapons, knowledge. Random stuff where just having it makes other people angry and jealous. Fun times."

[Gizmo]

Sekhmet decided that there probably wasn't any use delving into how abstract she found the distinction between centuries and millennia, coloured by the vague suspicion that it would be somehow rude in any case. The relative bleariness with which she reached that conclusion had her raising a hand palm down before her eyes and glaring at it suspiciously despite its steadiness. "I begin to suspect as well that my constitution has diminished somewhat along with the rest of me." Seeing Teagan take one of the bottles which had been previously identified as beer and demonstrating the mechanics of their stoppers, however, she opened one for herself. "Tis only a theory, still."

Flicking the jet black bangs hanging over one side of her face idly with one hand, she took a sip and pursed her lips in thought. "I do not think I have often inspired jealousy. Truly, my current duty in unenviable. Anger, yes, hah. I do not think I would characterize my relationship with Hathor as either. Thee seem to have more clarity regarding...?" She left a pause for Teagan to supply the name of her own sister, though the one golden eye visible seemed unfocused as though regarding something very, very far away.

[Fox]

Teagan hrrrrmed, slumping to the side with her head in her hand as she took another swig of beer and slowly thought that one over. "I...think she went by Sarah, last I knew?" she supplied, though the uncertainty didn't seem to bother much; she shrugged, taking another drink. "We kinda knew where we stood, but that never made it simple, y'know? Sometimes I helped her, once in a while she helped me, sometimes we tried to kill each other. Don't really think there was ever much jealousy, though - never really wanted the same things, heheh. She always wanted the politics and power, and I'm more about punching people and setting things on fire."

She shrugged again, grinning lopsidedly and gesturing with her bottle. "S'family, y'know? Even a god's gotta get that."

[Gizmo]

Sekhmet regarded Teagan contemplatively, swaying very slightly in her seat and somewhat distracted by the warmth the hastily consumed whiskey was spreading throughout her disconcertingly mundane physiology. "Blessed Ra, tis akin to gazing upon a mirror," she remarked after a moment, deciding as she said it that it was a particularly droll observation and making a sound that was half chuckle and half snort. "Albeit one tinted crimson and with a scaly texture, hah! ...these are not subjects on which I frequently converse," the goddess admitted, her demeanor swinging to somber. Cradling her bottle in both hands, she peered into its tinted glass and rocked it back and forth, watching the liquid slosh about. "A warrior should not be so open in her uncertainty."

[Fox]

"A warrior has to let that #### out sometimes," Teagan bluntly pointed out, waving the beer bottle in a dismissive gesture that was perhaps not as steady as it had been a while ago. "Y'gotta have your pride, and all, sure. There'll always be people and idiots you don't want t'have see you with your pants down. Or...scales...down, I dunno, that metaphor kinda doesn't work. Whatever."

She took a sip from her bottle, tipping it up by the neck rather than pulling her head back up off her hand. "Look, maybe there're warriors or monks or gods know what out there who just bottle it up all the time, but I figure it isn't healthy. I leave that to vassals and people with no senses of humor. Sometimes you've gotta be all stoic, and sometimes you've gotta relax a little, let some fire out, and party hard. Talk t'someone, join a feast, find a pair of buttocks, I dunno. Something. Or y'go crazy. Barbarians!" She thumped the table with her bottle, shaking her head. "Barbarians always got it. They had their problems, y'know, not always great folks. But you wanna lose some stress, you find a barbarian camp. They can throw a feast that'll go for days. ....or, could, I guess," she corrected, face falling a little - not truly despondent, but like someone who'd remembered that an old acquaintance had died. "Not anymore - don't think they have any left here."

[Gizmo]

Sekhmet attempted to maintain a straight face in deference to Teagan's somber turn but after a few moments she broke into rolling laughter, interspersed with sing-song intonation of, "Bar bar bar bar bar...!" Covering her face with her empty hand until her shoulders stopped shaking quite so badly, she took a long breath and gave the disguised dragon an apologetic look with a slight quirk to the corner of her mouth. "Forgive me, Teagan, I was reminded of the Greeks' inflated opinion of their own language. Constantly renaming everything. The blame of the Olympians, methinks."

Taking another sip from her bottle, the goddess managed to square her shoulders. "Thy counsel be wise, great beast. Mayhap too much have I 'bottled', in thy words. Rrr, blessed Ra knows I have lacked certain outlets for some time."

[Fox]

"Don't think I ever met many Greeks - gods or mortals. But I know the type," Teagan observed, chuckling. "Pretty sure that type is 'everybody'. Everyone's got a language, everyone's sure theirs is the best - us, too, but ours is the best. We have the secret, though. <We cheat, and speak all of 'em.>"

She laughed, the shaking of her shoulder nearly dislodging her head-bearing arm from its rest on her chair arm; she hadn't quite had enough to drink that she couldn't catch herself before falling, though. "Hrrrm," she mused, pulling herself back upright with the wind taken out of her sails.. "As for outlets, my great beastly wisdom is....hell, I don't know."

She laughed again, rolling the shoulder that'd nearly betrayed her. "Still got that problem myself most of the time."

[Gizmo]

"Tis the loss of those not bedded, then," Sekhmet decreed primly, finding herself sufficiently into her cups for plainspoken frankness to outweigh conservative propriety by a wide margin. The goddess placed her empty bottle on the table and frowned, the expression gradually turning into a feline snarl of annoyance. "Ridiculous!" she exclaimed a bit more loudly that she'd intended, slamming a palm against the table with a clatter of glass bouncing against wood. "She Who Mauls does not sit mewling, she acts!" After a short pause, she eyed Teagan sideways and clarified, "I am She Who Mauls. Tis me. ...tis I?"

[Fox]

"Haha! Now that's an appellation worth having!"

Teagan raised a woefully empty bottle up in an approving toast, laughing all the while. "And hell yes, you act. Destiny and helplessness are for wyverns and house cats. Greater beings choose. You grab that loom of fate and sharpen your claws on it, or somethin'." She paused and then waved a dismissing hand, recognizing but clearly not bothered by her flop of a metaphor. "You know what I mean. You want some, you go get yourself some!"

[Gizmo]

"Yes!" Sekhmet agreed emphatically, slammed her palm into the table again. "Those words thou speaks! I deem them good and true! So!" Twisting in her chair, the goddess surveyed the room with golden, squinting eyes. "Rrrrr... Ha, him! The purveyor of spirits, the..." Frowning, she struggled to remember the term Set had used for the vendors at the coffee houses he insisted upon visiting with annoying frequency. "The barrister! His features be pleasing enough and he possesses a station not unlike the head attendants of my own temples in days past. Passable!" Hitching the knot in her plaid purple shirt under her bust and tossing her asymmetrical bangs with a flick of her chin, Sekhmet paused long enough to slap the table a third time for good measure then stood and began a confident walk toward the bar.

Focused as she was on her task, she failed to noticed the mountainous slab of a man turning from the bar with three shot glasses cradled in each of his sizable but evidently dexterous hands. Dexterous enough to salvage one of the half dozen drinks when they inevitably collided, at least, while the remaining five stained his sleeveless jacket. "Gah! Watch where yer walking, ya--" Looking up with an angry grimace, the bald man met Sekhmet's eyes and nearly bit his own tongue in surprise. "<Cronus' damned teeth, the Lady of Slaughter?!>" he sputtered in what the goddess dimly recognized as archaic Greek.

Taking a step back, Sekhmet placed her hands on her hips and studied the suddenly nervous man's face. "Do I know thee...?"

[Fox]

Teagan would have been perfectly happy to slouch back in her chair and watch Sekhmet flirt and/or feed some ape his own ugly jacket; under normal circumstances she could have sat there with a beer and gotten a good laugh and some vicarious satisfaction out of it. That last bit caught her ear, though, and with only a small amount of effort she hauled herself up onto her feet and shoved her hands into her pockets.

That hadn't been English. She wasn't exactly sure what language it was exactly, but it sounded Greek and they'd known who Sekhmet was. That sort of thing never ended well. "Whaddya know. You're famous."

[Gizmo]

"The fault of the Tubes of Thee, perhaps," Sekhmet supposed, though the narrowed looked she was giving the hulking Greek suggested she was less than convinced. "When last that title was spoken in that tongue, no less than Artemis was the speaker. Name thyself."

"Hey, lady, I dunno what yer talkin' about, okay?" the bald man insisted, using one hand to flick some of the liquid pooling on his shirt down to the barroom floor. "Ya just startled me. Just tryin' to have a damn drink with my friends over there, see?" He pointed over his shoulder with the thumb of his other hand to indicate a table where a willowy Asian woman with row after row of long, dark braids adorned with metal beads that matched her numerous silver piercings sat leaning forward next to a handsome black man with sharply defined lightning bolt shaped streaks of white hair at his temples that accentuated strong cheekbones, who lounged nonchalantly in his chair with a natural smirk.

With her attention drawn to them, it didn't take long for Teagan to notice the distinct wiff of sorcery about all three of the strangers even over the numerous odours of the bar, especially since it smelled very much like magic which allowed the dragon to walk about in human guise herself.

[Fox]

"I think your friends are going to have to take turns drinking your jacket," Teagan pointed out, raising a wry eyebrow. "See, if you had sleeves they could've shared, but as it is they'll--"

She paused mid-sentence, one ruby eye focused on the pair at the table. She sniffed, once, then twice, the second longer and more careful. "....well," she said, showing off a grin with entirely too many teeth in it. She was looking at all three of them with avid interest, now, and that interest wasn't entirely benign. "Isn't that interesting. And all of you, too! Tell me, pincushion, did the new body come with all that metal or did you get bored and try to figure out how many holes you could poke in it?"