milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Shadwell is lurking by the bar, trying to get some service in this heathen place.

He's really craving a nice cup of tea, but he'll settle for anything that doesn't feature the blood of virgins.

[OOC: If anyone would like to explain the "magical bar" concept for him, go right ahead-- but please can it only be the first person to tag? Love you all.]

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"Better," he growls back, not to be outdone.

And he eyes her carefully.

"How high're the roofs in Niffle--Nifla--Niffy-- whatever-it-is?"

Because he's willing to undertake the sending-back-to-abyss-of, aye. It just seems a mite more complex with a package like this one.

"Miles."

She says blandly,

"It is an entire world, after all. My world, at the bottom of Ygdrassil. I could take you there, if you're curious."

What can we say? He's just too easy to mess with,

"Niflheim. Knee-fl-high-em."

Knee-fl-high-em?

Sounds Jewish, now he thinks about it.

He doesn't truck with Jews. Witches, the lot.

"An' ye're ruler and mistress o' yer own pit o' treacherous filth, filled wi' lost souls in lubricious thrall to your ev'ry cruel whim?"

It takes her a few moments to figure that out. Then she says,

"No, mostly they just stand around and collect dust."

And there is no way that she could be making that up. Not with the level of disgust and boredom that fills her voice when she says it,

"I rule the place, and I don't think they're lost because I know exactly where they are."

He's a strange little man.

"... Is that sooo?"

He looks her up and down.

This entails a lot of up.

"Never heard anything about any o' that before."

"Well you wouldn't, now would you?"

She looks down at him. This entails just as much down.

"You're just a Man."

"Aye?" he says, hostile, as if daring her to make something of it.

Only Hel = really tall.

So it's a polite dare.

Really.

"Yes."

She leans down (a lot) until she's more or less face to top of the head with him.

It would be nice to say that Shadwell shows no fear.

It would also be incorrect.

Because he gulps, shuffling back as short a distance as he dares, and then glowers at Hel.

"Rather be a man than a creature o' darkness," he mutters mutinously.

"I'm not a creature of darkness."

She objects,

"I'm half blind. I need more light than you do. Besides, its usually cold in the dark, and them my joints freeze."

He squints into her left eye.

"Cannae see out o' that one?"

"Well, yes."

She says after a moment,

"But the state of your soul isn't enough to get around by."

Shadwell frowns.

Then he glances quickly down to his chest, harboring a sudden vague suspicion that his soul is leaking out for all to see.

He's not sure he's in favor o' that.

"It doesn't live in your chest."

She tells him gravely,

"I just see them. With my left eye."

Shadwell is confused.

See, rulers of their own pits o' whatever-ye-like-- dust, if you prefer-- don't gen'rally speaking have the ability to look into one's soul. Not their business, as it were.

But Hel's a cunning one;. She could be LYING.

"Ah don't believe it," he sniffs.

"I could show you."

She says quietly, gravely. Never forget that the first part of "gravely" is "grave".

He looks at her warily.

Obviously she's bluffing. Obvious, that.

"All righ'," he grumbles. He holds up a warning finger. "But none o' yer tricks! No castin' me down into the abyss, or trickin' me inna suppin' on a virgin's heart, or any o' that witchy business."

She holds out her living hand,

"All you have to do is touch my hand. It won't do anything to you."

Except possibly drive him mad(der). Which should take slightly less than half a block.

Shadwell hesitates, and then, at potential peril to Hel, thrusts his hand into hers.

Suddenly, he is overcome with the same feeling of discombobulation that had seized him when he had woken up on Madame Tracy's bed and discovered a mirror on her ceiling. An out-o'-his-body experience, this, but this time a real one.

Funny how he can be so sure of it.

But there's something else, too-- it's to the left, to the side Hel said she saw souls out of. And it's still him, but gone all blotchy, like, maybe like something he'd find in his pockets that had progressed from mold to low-level sentient life.

There's more, too ...

"You should have something to drink. Like Tequila."

She suggests. Her tone says, very clearly I've seen worse.

Shadwell doesn't usually hold with foreign drinks, but aside from some ambiguous muttering, he makes no protest.

Its not only foreign, its alcoholic. And strong.

And Hel is quite willing to hold his nose and pour it down his throat, because if anyone needs to get drunk, Shadwell is the man.

Shadwell drunk is an idea too horrifying for most people to entertain, the exception being perhaps Madame Tracy.

Well, and now Hel too.

He regards the drink with as much hostility as he can muster. He did not see it appear, which probably means that the witchy Bar conjured it up.

However, it is also a drink. A drink with alcohol, even.

Slowly, he extends a gnarled hand to it, then snatches up the glass and sniffs at its contents.

It looks like water, and smells like booze. Really strong booze.

Hel gets the good Tequila.

She picks up her own glass of it (at least a gallon. Fifteen feet tall, Norse, goddess. Do the math), salutes him, and drinks.

He watches her for a long moment to observe any potentially witchcrafty side effects, such as transformation into a familiar or overrunning of the body with pustules.

Then, appearing satisfied, he imbibes approximately one drop of tequila.