milliways_bar | first entrance

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urquhart

first entrance

When the door opens, a shadow walks into the bar.

He lifts his head when he realizes that he's not where he was intending to be. The look that crosses his scarred face isn't a very pleased one, to say the least.

His clothes are an obvious indication of the time he's stepped in from (a dirty, bloodied Civil War uniform with Confederate insignia identifying him as a First Lieutenant of the Cavalry) and the twin holstered pistols on his gunbelt should tell people that he's not to be messed with.

Dark eyes survey the room from beneath the brim of his hat, and his grip on the (bloodstained?) burlap sack in his left hand tightens a fraction.

"Hrm."

This may be problematic.

Tinytag with a big scar: Jonah Hex

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"It's just...loud, s'all."

The idea that it never stops isn't all that promising, either, but he doesn't let that show.

After he regains the ability to fully reopen his eyes, he looks at her once again.

"Forgive me for bein' short," he adds. "Name's Jonah."

She considers telling him that being short is just fine, and he should consider making his stay here very short as well, because it isn't a great place for a holiday if you are an axe murderer... but she decides that probably won't help her out at all.

He thinks windows are loud, after all. He's liable to think anything.

"I'm Shaz. Sharon Granger. WPC." That is, officially, the most awkward she's been introducing herself, but in her defense, people usually don't have bags dripping blood as accessories.

"It's a pleasure, ma'am. I'm sure."

There is a healthy hint of sarcasm in his voice -- because he can tell she's uncomfortable. He doesn't blame her, really. Women tend to stare at him regardless of what he's carrying in his hand. The idea that a member of the delicate sex would feel ill when he's just walked in carrying a man's head wrapped in a bloody sack isn't very far-fetched.

(He was married, once. He knows these things.)

"I was lookin' for a different establishment," he adds needlessly. Obviously this is not where he intended to be.

A waitrat approaches, spots the blood on the floor (and table), and begins to 'yell'.

Now, for the record, Shaz was not best pleased to find out that food was being served by rats around here, when she first came into the bar. In fact, she continued to not be pleased about it for months. But the rats really are very hard workers, and they remember the patrons who come here - after a couple visits they would fetch her tea, just the way she likes it.

...

Not even Chris gets it exactly right.

(Tea in the strainer (loose, not bagged, you heathen) and left in the pot for five minutes, with just a splash of milk)

So when one of those rats starts squeaking irately at the axe murderer, she looks even more frightened. The rat is going to be skinned before her very eyes!

So she does the logical thing.

She swoops in to save the rat before it can commit a little rat suicide. Three steps and she's got the rat by the scruff (oh hell that is blood) and she's pulling it away (that axe looks really sharp) as fast as she can (really, really sharp) out of immediate axe-chopping range.

The woman manages to get the rat before Hex can draw his tomahawk -- his hand rests on the top of the metal head, but he doesn't pull it free.

His eyes narrow, slightly.

And then he leans over, grabbing the dropped (hastily abandoned) tea towel that was being carried by the rat just moments earlier. The bladed weapon then comes free of the holster, and he brandishes it for a brief second--

"Dead rats walkin' round."

--before he turns his attention to wiping the few remaining smears of blood off the iron. He doesn't want the weapon to rust, you see.

Her lips thin as she shoos the little rat on its way.

"Well, if you weren't being so inconsiderate as to mess up the floors, perhaps he wouldn't have yelled at you." She retorts hotly.

And about two seconds before she decides that is a supremely stupid thing to say to someone who messed up the floors with blood from a dripping bag.

Um.

"You don't have to threaten them, is all."

"...it ain't like I was makin' an effort to be threatenin'."

A few moments later, with the tomahawk clean (as well as a mental note made on the subject of it needing sharpening) and towel discarded, he turns his full attention back to the woman.

"Because I ain't in the mood for trouble this evening."

He really just wanted to turn in the bag and get some cash in return.

And a drink.

"You said they were dead." She retorts again, but not hotly - this is more of a 'oh hell why did I say anything' sort of way, because she's realizing she should have taken the rat and her files and run, to hell with CID pride.

"Said it 'cause it's true."

(He's got his head turned away from the window, still trying to block out the sounds of a desperate and dying universe. He's used to the screams but these ones are just persistent and it's starting to set him on edge.)

"We'll just say that's one of those things I can just tell 'bout most people."

"... They're walking around. And breathing. And serving people. I don't think dead rats can do that." Says a very skeptical Shaz.

"Sir." She adds, belatedly, eying the axe and the axe murderer and now they're so conveniently close to one another.

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first entrance

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