Galileo hardly wanted to allow himself to enjoy the festivities, but try as he might, he was intrigued by the characters who had arrived. From the fringe of the capital, he stood like a watchful oak tree, eyeing up those who came and went. He wasn't quite sure what he waited for, but he did so anyway, for the sake of learning, if anything. His short time in the Solterran city had reminded him so much of his early days that it was almost uncanny, and he seemed to not be able to break apart the two memories. There was no doubt that he could look at any one of these faces and pair them with a lord or lady from his childhood, his mind not allowing him a break as it stood at guard.
A bell tolled.
It was a simple, singular clang, all that was needed for the throngs to pay attention. However, they seemed to know something he didn't, and move away from the courtyard they had mingled in towards pale cream tents. They all knew their place. Curiosity got the better of him, and he followed a short distance behind, head lowered so he seemed less threatening with his impressive rack of antlers. Light, billowing fabric like the skirts of a queen created a perfect atmosphere; they were translucent enough to let light in, but thick enough to hide away the guests (and their antics) inside. Around the tent, sun-themed decorations were hung. Golden paper streamers lined the pine that was holding the tent up. Young colts and fillies eagerly painted themselves in chromatic paint.
Most surprisingly of all, those who were participating seemed content. He had never seen such honest, true faces at an event like this. Every royal that had sat pretty on the throne of his own country had been worse than the last, but these sons and daughters of Solterra rejoiced... Rejoiced as though they had known terror and heartache for too long. Galileo did not know the histories of these lands, but he could feel the cold memories lingering beneath them as they built something new on top.
A drink -- that was what he needed (as ever). It was a lot for a man who had spent so long away from company.
He finds one, being passed out by a server. The vial itself is decadent, made with such craftsmanship. Inside, a copper coloured liquid, thick like syrup, sits awaiting to be drunk. Though a little unsure at first, he finds the first touch of alcohol to his lips is refreshing and spiced, much like rum. To be sure of the taste, he downs another in quick succession, ignoring those around him as he get his fill of something he has dearly missed.
TONIGHT
WE ARE VICTORIOUS
all my friends
we're glorious
Look, Sabrina didn’t think she was a very wise creature. There was a lot in the world that she did not know, and she would happily admit to that fact because, generally, it meant that annoying people asking her questions would then fuck off and cease to be her problem. Of course, if the opposite happened-- which it generally did, with men-- and they decided they wanted to inform her of something she did not know and did not give a shit about, she could just punch them in the face and put them out of her misery. It was a win-win situation; being up front about one’s strengths and weaknesses was an honest skill, and Sabrina was nothing if not honest.
But parties? Lord, did she know about parties. Through osmosis, mainly, because Delph was really the party girl. Sure, Sabrina could sling ‘em back with the best of them, and she’d done some stupid shit in her time under the influence, but Delph was the fruity drink, loud and screechy, dancing on tabletops sort of partier; the consoling other drunk girls in the bathroom partier; the trying to find someone’s house to go to at 3 A.M because last call was two minutes ago and they were kicking us out type of partier; and Sabrina was the poor soul that got to follow her around and make sure she didn’t get killed, injured, or married (which generally were the three things she worried about when Delph was alone, irregardless if substances were involved).
On a scale of 1 to 10, Solterrans were kind of in the middle on whether or not they knew how to have a good time; now, Denoctians, they knew how to have a good fucking time! But this wasn’t Denocte and there weren’t fun bonfires and dancing fits of bachanal glee, naked under the stars; but what there was was an open bar. And that was the first place Sabrina went. Drinking was something she knew how to do, and she was good at it; it was comfortable, like wearing dirty pants. Wings tucked in close, she funneled her way into the alcohol tents with the rest of the boozers.
From the outside, they were cheery shadows, like happy ghosts. From the outside, it was all anonymous, the awful singing and the moon-eyes and the careless flirting, touching, bumping. The flaps of the tent entrance undulated in a warm summer breeze; funky metal sculptures that shifted and changed shape in the wind and the light decorated rock overhangs and the sides of buildings; sun charms dangled from every available surface, every ear, every neck. It was a true Solterran celebration. It was a celebration of life, not just survival.
Sabrina didn’t consider herself a true Solterran (just a passer-by, really) but it was time to see if she could drink like one.
She finally shoves her way up to a bartop and starts off with her uje: whiskey, neat. The bartender puts the short glass in front of her and nods their head. As she downs the glass and is about to ask for another, the server grins. “How about something special?” they ask, not the least bit cagey.
“Sure, why not,” she says. Mama ain’t raise no bitch.
The drink takes a little longer to bring than her single-ingredient go to. It is in some sort of old-timey cup, with a flower-shaped base, a thin stem, and veins of bronze running along its sunburst-shaped calix. The liquid inside is dark as oil and smelled a little like how Sabrina imagined Hell might. She gave the bartender a cockeyed look, and was given a sly grin in return. Then she thought, to hell with it, shrugged, and picked up the chalice-- it was heavy! This was real metal shit-- and tossed it back all in one go.
It made her mouth and throat numb and it tasted like cold. She smacked her lips and sighed, trying to place the taste, but there… there wasn’t one, really. Fresh? Sure, she was good with fresh.
“Cool,” she said, “I’ll have another.” And she did, and she took her third one to go, exiting the tent and hoisting the chalice high, feeling… slightly happy. Maybe not, like, pre-sister vanishing happy, but pretty damn happy. She was smiling. People were smiling back at her. Someone clinked their cup with hers and she didn’t even see who the fuck it was. “Hell yeah, brother,” she cheered, not even knowing who she was talking to-- and people cheered back! She did a little spin and--
--accidentally crashed into someone, because she was huge and kind of a cow. Her wings-- she’d gotten lazy and let them fall a bit, and they caught on something, or someone, and this is what she got for being happy. She stumbled a bit and let her drink tip and the top third of it came spilling out in a black deluge; it splattered, inky and almost immaterial, across a sun banner that had just caught the wind of her sweeping wings. With an angry, acrid hiss, the substance ate away at the black and gold threads.
Sabrina gaped, deep blue eyes going wide, because her first thought was, that looked familiar. Something at the corner of her mind was… unsteady, like a ledge threatening to give way. Her gaze jumped up and locked onto the golden eyes of some antlered, stripey person. They held there for a moment… before a huge grin split her face.
“I have been fucking drinking that!” she said, mildly euphoric, pointing at the spot where her beverage had eaten away the banner. In the next beat she drained the remainder of her chalice, then wiped away the remains from her face with a chuckle. “Ha haaa, that’s amazing.”
"SPEECH." | @Galileo | everyone say "thank you magic drink for not reminding me of the way the love of my life died"
01-26-2021, 08:58 PM
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In the corner he resided in, the drink he nursed was the only company he needed. Bellowing laughter and squeals of delight were drowned out by the alcohol, swirling around his head as he drank one after the other. He played in his own mind, silencing the happiness that so taunted him. Liquor was created to suppress memories by a man who needed to forget, or so Galileo believed. It picked you up in its warm embrace and led you to raging hearths, away from the crisp air of the night. It blew you sweet kisses that made your spine prickle with passion and carelessness. It filled the deepest voids of your soul, if only for a night. Anything it left untouched, well, that was what whores were for -- to make you forget the rest.
And so it was that Galileo Kodarki, third son of Bagheera the Wardog, the Commander, the General, the Warhammer himself, was reduced to a husk of any glory he had formerly held. For although alcohol had the power to temporarily give, it also had sharp teeth that tore apart the protective walls built by clever minds and left them in tattered pieces for morning herself to sweep under the rug. That was the many moods of drinking.
From the way he bluntly ignored those who attempted to eagerly speak to the newcomer (no, not even a glance), he was in one of those moods. The catalyst? That copper liquid in those dainty vials. The remedy? More of that copper liquid in those dainty vials... Or perhaps he would instead try the obsidian-black drink next. The opportunities were endless.
Before he could even grunt to a bartender or server for another drink, he finds himself -- a true tank of a being -- careering away from his precious corner. He saw the whole thing in slow motion, and watched himself stumble into more less than impressed equines. "What the fuck..." he started cursing, before his muzzle smacked into a wooden post dug firmly into the ground holding the tent up.
The alcohol stopped him immediately from finding his feet again, but once he shook his antlered head, he angrily turned to confront the weight that had pushed him. He once again repeated, this time more angrily: "what the hell do you think you're doing!?"
Quiet in their tent settled, and Galileo realised he was causing a scene, and thus, attracting attention to himself. Curse this winged woman who had disturbed his peace, and now made him the man of the hour. Side-eye glances and whispers filled the room and he found himself shooting angry looks at any he thought were talking about him. When she spoke, it just angered him further, and his eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed.
"Outside." He commanded the woman. "Now." Leading the way, he pushed past her with his full weight towards the exit.
TONIGHT
WE ARE VICTORIOUS
all my friends
we're glorious
A lightning bolt of euphoria was coursing through her veins, jolting off of her bones as though they were made of aluminum, and zipping right through her heart. Her face was numb and her chest was somehow light and heavy at the same time; she was feeling emotions she had not felt in quite some time, not since childhood, long before the life-changing events which put her on this path. She was not, and never had been, a creature of happiness, light, and positivity-- she was a beast of rage and anger and profound action, not giggles and smiles and dancing.
It was a strange feeling, to smile so hard her cheeks hurt. It was foreign and unsettling, a chemical change, a golden, skeleton key turning and re-arranging things in her brain. Sabrina had always been more of a poorly-tended fire, liable to erupt in a fit of sparks and smoke than a bonfire of joviality. This seemed wrong. She wasn’t allowed to be happy. She wasn’t allowed to enjoy herself. She was allowed to look, watch, maybe bask adjacent in the glow, but not to experience; not to dip her toes. But here she stood in the midst of a carousing group of partiers, holding an empty chalice with a maniacal grin and half a laugh in her throat, swept up in the notion of, swept up in the wave.
And she could not find it in herself to find herself abhorrent. She was just happy. She was just having a good time. She was just.
The person she’d bumped into was a big dude, no imagination needed. He was tall and made taller by the crown of antlers sprouting from his head. He was golden-eyed with delicate white warpaint adorning his forehead in arrowesque shapes. Sabrina watched him smack his golden-eyed, antlered head into a tent post and set the whole thing shaking, threatening to drop it down on top of them. There was a moment of worry where everyone fell into a mumbled-off silence and twenty sets of eyes went skyward, watching, waiting; then the tent settled and erupted with a HOORAH and everyone started buzzing about again.
Sabrina at least had the grace to offer a “Whoops,” before the mountain of a guy was back on his feet-- if a little unsteadily-- and facing her and demanding answers of her and she had none to give. She was still grinning and just gave him a shrug as she less-than-discreetly appreciated the view.
(Puck hadn’t been big. Puck had been… svelte. Compact. Built for flying. Taut. Soft. Touchable.)
The image of golden muscles in the candlelight shattered by the soft murmur of the people around her, the hive-like humming quieted so they could partner off and whisper, whisper, whisper. Normally she’d have chucked the chalice and asked them, less than kindly, what the hell they were looking at. Instead, she lifted her empty cup-- forgetting entirely that the hot guy had spoken to her-- and asked, “Hey, whose a girl gotta kill to get a refill around here?”
Before she could answer the hot guy in question was bodying into her and ordering her to go outside. She stumbled back a bit, smiling goofily at his chin that she barely came up to, and shrugged. Someone from behind her filled her cup-- she teetered on half her legs and winked at them as the weight tugged at her invisible hand-- and then she did what she was told, and followed Gallileo out of the tent.
“Who peed in your oats, bud?” Sabrina asked with a laugh as the two of them came out into the sunlight. One brown-feathered wing hung at half-mast, the tip dipping downwards, as she brought her now filled chalice around to her face. “I mean, I didn’t hurt you, did I?” She looked at him over the cup’s edge as she took another drink. “Look at you, you’re too beefy to get hurt.”
The woman was blasé about the whole thing -- and that irked him. His side ached from hitting the tent post, dug into the ground deep. It was surprising, how much an equine three hands smaller than he could force him into the wooden pole. With a face almost in a pout, he rolled his shoulder, the heat of pain radiating down his leg. A grumble and a snort is all he offers the woman as she states her whoops. Who was she to ruin his lonesome drinking?
As she eyed him, he regarded her with a particular distaste. She is built firmly, much like he, though she carries herself in a much more elegant manner. Wings tucked neatly by her side, it only adds to his disapproval. Pegasi were always such airheads. And that horn pointed menacingly in his direction, sharp as it twirled towards the sky.
The way she laughed, giggled at him as the alcohol bubbled out of her, made him more angry. So she was one of those types of drinkers -- the social kind. In Galileo's eyes, they were the worst. For him, drinking was an event you participated in alone. Reflection and reminiscing were what he did best, remembering times of old when his world revolved around something more than... well, drinking.
He stalked outside, rigid and exuberating distaste. The woman was slow to follow, but he was not letting her get away with her rudeness. So as not to cause a scene, he headed for some gardens with thick hedgerows and multicoloured flowers dotting the way.
His eyes met hers and he rolled them at her comment on who had peed in his oats. If she had to know, he didn't tend to eat oats -- he was more of a fresh grass type. But that was besides the point. With a huff, he puffed his chest threateningly, towering over her. He resisted the urge to call her some less-than-nice names. "I'm fine." He snapped. "And I don't need some random, bumbling courtier to be concerned with me."
When she calls him beefy, he rolled his eyes. A typical response from someone who likely sucked up to anyone and everyone around here.
"Now listen here and listen good..." He paused, hoping for her to fill her name in. "I don't know what you think your game is, but harassing those of us who do not wish to be harassed? Come on now." His words were like snarls out of his mouth, and even Galileo himself was a little confused as to why he was so angry about being pushed.
With a deep breath, he attempted to calm down slightly. Blinking as the sunlight hit his face, he sighed. As he shook off some of the drunkenness, the stallion slowly returned to a more gracious disposition. He had not the time, nor the effort, to fight this mare today. "I hope you were not hurt either, ma'am."
TONIGHT
WE ARE VICTORIOUS
all my friends
we're glorious
Unbothered. It was a hell of a feeling. See, Sabrina spent a good portion of her life trying to cultivate an air of disdain, acting like she didn’t care for the world or what was going on around her. But her obvious willingness to pick fights and get snippy over the tiniest intrusions into her life was evidence of the opposite. Not caring was a double edged sword, one she’d worked really hard on forging. She was so focused on her own self-serving nature that anyone who stumbled across her path immediately earned her ire. She was liable to go off like a loaded gun at any time, as much as she would have people convinced otherwise.
So here was this smouldery antelope-striped deer-horned tall dark and handsome giant all pissed off at her and usually her first response would be to clock him a good one right across the jaw; he was the right height, after all, to just turn around and fire off a good kick. But, much to her confusion and absolute delight, she didn’t want to; the mystery was compounded even more by how this was the exact opposite of how she acted when she was drunk. It had to be this numinous, mythical concoction-- she took another drink, lips numb, tongue buzzing-- which was filling her with such an otherworldly elation. Such an un-Sabrina-esque happiness. It was addicting. It was a relief.
He looked her over and she did the same in kind. He didn’t look impressed and she didn’t give a shit-- that, at least, hadn’t changed. She had been born ugly, ungifted, and blessedly confident. She was no stranger to a raised eyebrow or a lip lifted in disgust. Here, at least, people didn’t spit on her when they found out she was broken. Back home, the fact she was not only magic incapable, but magic intolerant, well, that made people cross the street to get away from her. Like she was diseased. At a young age, she’d learned to not let it get to her. Eventually it had become a blessing.
But the way his face shifted when he saw her wings-- not her wings, Puck’s wings-- got her gears grinding a little bit. She flexed them, and felt the invasive magic spiraling through her veins, kickstarting her heart. “Take a picture,” she cracked, grinning, “it’ll last longer.”
They ended up in some really cliche half-assed hedge maze where the flowers were already wilting from the Solterran heat. Horticulture was particularly difficult in this portion of the world, Sabrina gleaned; the sun leached the color and life out of everything that dared try to be green. Before too long the hedges would wither and dry up, dead and brown, liable to turn to dust if looked at. But for now, it provided some semblance of privacy.
He seemed to be getting more rankled with everything she said and it just made her smile grow larger and larger. Is this how Puck felt, she wondered, when he got under her skin? God, it was a power.
The stranger puffed his chest out and, she assumed, tried to look threatening. Commanding. It made her laugh. “Well, ya don’t seem fine,” she said through her snickers. “You seem like you could use someone to be concerned about you. Mr. Grumpy Guts.”
He scolded her like she was a teenager loitering at a street corner and he was an old man lingering on his front porch. She rolled her eyes in a relaxed and joking loop. “I’m sorry I bonked into you. These things--” she gave a slow flap, and then couched her wings by her side again-- “--well, I wasn’t born with them, so sometimes they’re a hazard. To everyone. Myself included.” She swallowed a hiccup. No need to extrapolate on that.
“Naw, I’m fine. Takes a lot more than you to hurt me.” Especially right now. "And my name is Sabrina.” She stepped a little closer to him, curious. “So, why’s a guy come to a party just to be all dark and broody? Gotta be better places for it, right?”
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