The whiskey burned like fire on the way down, but Khari managed to choke it back in two swallows, exhaling heavily and slamming the glass against the light cedar bar counter to a chorus of cheers and applause. She was hardly the sort to spend too much time in such places, and definitely wasn't anyone's hard-drinking bar regular, but she could hold her own when the situation called for it.
And, well, she figured that since Mick had invited her on the grand tour of all five of the little town's bars, pubs, and alehouses, the occasion called for it.
Accepting the silvers slid across the slightly-sticky wooden slab from a good-natured fellow patron, she gave him a bright grin and tucked the coin away in her belt-purse. “Pleasure doing business, serah. If you don't remember this in the morning, rest assured that I shall not forget your valiant-but-doomed efforts to best me." She snapped a jaunty salute to more laughter, then half-sat, half-fell back into her stool, grimacing at the lack of cushion. It was pretty obvious to her that she was mostly a novelty here, an amusement because she was outright strange for a place like this. And places like this, she knew from some experience, were places where 'strange' was really strange, not something a person could find around every corner like at Skyhold.
But she'd been in enough such places before, and she was well-used to being weird in a world where no one else really was. If she was more spectacle than person, well... that was all right for an evening. When the bartender slid her another, she frowned at it and shoved the thick-bottomed glass to her left, where Mick was sitting. “Think I'd better switch to water for a while."
"Lightweight," Mick prodded in jest as he accepted the offered drink. He then made a big show of taking a heavy drought from the glass as if to drive it home. He too seemed like a novelty in the first quaint tavern they'd found themselves in, though after the initial glances his way, he seemed to have settled in with the rest of the patrons. Apparently, he had been something of a regular himself when he had lived there, as the bartender had initially brought him a drink without asking him what he was having. That, or he had already made an immediate impression the last time he was there, and had been hard to forget.
"I would not quit my day job if I were you, if you were thinking of becoming a professional barfly," he said with a waggle of eyebrows and a chuckle. To his merit, he didn't seem to concerned about being considered strange--though that was unsurprising. There didn't appear to be much that would put Mick off.
Khari rolled her eyes at him, accepting the water handed her way with a nod for the bartender, who seemed to be quite on top of things. Maybe because there weren't that many people in here. “Well there goes my fallback plan." She let the sarcasm in her tone convey the untruth of the matter, swallowing a few mouthfuls of water. She didn't think she was especially drunk yet, but this was only bar number two, so it was better to pace herself.
Setting the glass back down, she swiped the pad of her thumb over her lip, dabbing it off on the napkin in front of her. Small pub it might be, but the place still managed to be fancy enough for cloth napkins; she really shouldn't be surprised. This town was cozy and manicured and just the slightest bit pretentious down to its bones. Or in this case, its solid-wood slabs and wrought-iron accents and fresh, still-a-bit-stinky coats of white paint. “Your home town anything like this, Mick?" She gestured to encompass all of the above, though she didn't quite explain. Even she knew it wasn't polite to take issue with accommodations that were, in truth, quite nice.
But he seemed a little less... pastoral, as a personality. A little more real, in the ways Khari understood reality. Maybe that was his life instead of his birthplace, though. Pushing a curl behind her ear, she took another swallow, eyeing him speculatively over the rim of the glass.
Mick shook his head with a grin, rhythmically tapping his fingers on the side of his glass. "Most definitely not. I was born and raised in Val Chevin with three older brothers. Granted, it is no Val Royeaux, no matter how hard it tries to be, but it was pleasant enough. The seaside is nice no matter where you are--though my family's estate was more in the middle of the city... and faced away from the sea," he explained, indicating the direction and placement with his fingers. "There's a hustle in the city that you do not find here, everything runs at a quicker pace so you have to be just as fast to keep up," he shrugged.
He thought about it for a moment before he nodded, "After that, when I decided to become a Chevalier, I studied at the Academie in Val Royeaux, and was stationed there when I met Marcy. I guess I didn't really get out of the cities until I started seeing her." He paused again, and continued, "And when I was shipped off here and there with my unit," He added.
Khari nodded slightly. She knew enough to know what chevaliers did during times of peace: there were never any bandit shortages, that was for sure. When there wasn't any direct conflict to be had, there was plenty of unit training to do, too. Big Bear had even made his unit do some of that stuff. She was too young and dumb to ever be put in charge of a formation or anything, but she'd learned to ride and march with one. How to set up a military camp on all kinds of terrain, how to look after horses with nothing but a field kit... all that shit was like breathing now, though it'd been a while since she needed to use any of it. Probably took a bit longer for noble kids to learn. Khari had never had grooms or servants to do anything for her, and so it wasn't exactly a surprise when she was expected to set up her own damn tent.
If she thought about it hard enough, she could almost smell the mix of dirt, ash, armor polish, sweat, and horse that had made up that part of her life. If she thought about it a little harder, she could almost imagine what it would smell like if she added blood and misery. “You fought in the civil war, right? What was that like?" She'd seen the trenches, at least. But one thing Khari struggled to imagine was lifting her sword for a cause she didn't really believe in. And she'd never have been able to make herself believe in that one. She counted herself lucky that if she ever did make it into the chevaliers, the Emperor she'd be serving wasn't the kind of man to mobilize his army for anything that wasn't both necessary and important.
Mick frowned, and his entire demeanor shifted. In fact, a quiet had descended upon the little pub. He took a glance inside his mug and internally gauged it before lifting it to his lips and downing the rest of it in only a few swigs. "A fucking nightmare," he answered succinctly and before he waved the bartender over. "Let's get out of here," he said to her aside, "We still need to hit the others before we get thoroughly sloshed." He then attempted to pay off their tab, but was subsequently waved off by the bartender. Mick smiled and nodded his appreciation, before looking back to Khari and jerking his head toward the door.
He didn't wait for her either, standing up and making his way toward it, apparently assuming she'd be close behind. Outside the bar, there was a chill to the night air, but not uncomfortable so. The lanterns that hung along the street the bar was on were lit, and in the distance across the fields of farms and vineyards dots of fire light twinkled from the spattering of homes. Mick looked both ways down the street before deciding on a direction and then taking it. As he walked, he appeared to still be in thought, undoubtedly from her previous question. If judging by how uncomfortable he had seemed on Dirthavaren, they were not pleasant memories.
Finally, he broke his silence. "Bandits are one thing," he began, "It is something else entirely when you have to fight your countrymen, people I could have very well attended the Academie with. Fucking masks we wear when we fight... I could have very well killed one of my brothers and I wouldn't know it," he added, spitting to the side.
Khari had thought that was what the designs on the masks were for—so that a person could identify the one beneath it without being able to see their face. But probably a lot of that got lost on the field, in the middle of pitched battle, or from the distance the army would use for shooting arrows. “Would it be better? To know whether you killed someone you were close with?" It wasn't exactly the kind of situation where he could have called an armistice just because he ran into an officer he knew and liked.
She pursed her lips. “I like to pretend sometimes. That I can't remember the faces of the people I kill." Her vallaslin pulled as she frowned. “That the Haze makes it all blur together. But it doesn't—I can see all the little details, clear as day." The way she fought meant she was always up close and personal with her opponents. She couldn't keep them at spear's distance, much less bow's distance. “I like fighting. It's what I'm best at. But killing is hard, and it hurts, and I think that's good. That doesn't mean you should torture yourself about it."
Mick laughed, but it was one without any humor. "You say that like I have a choice. I did what I had to, doesn't mean it still doesn't keep me up at night," he stated, slipping into another frown. His pace slowed down as the approached an alley, and a different thought seemed to enter his head. He tilted to the side as he tried to remember something, and apparently decided on it he nodded and turned back to Khari. "This way, this one is a little more hidden," he said, taking the alley. "At least, it should be this way," he added quietly.
"I do not like to fight," he revealed, before tilting his head to the other side, and clarified, "But I don't hate it either. It's a more of a chore, a means to an end. It was what I was good at, like you, so I did it." He chuckled again, "Marcy would try to say that there are other things I'm good at, but," Mick said, pointing between them, "I get you."
Khari let her chin dip a little; this late, the air outside was crisp enough that a cloak might not have been unwarranted, but she'd come without one and the alcohol was making her feel warm enough for now anyway. She exhaled heavily, turning her eyes up to the stars. A little different here than at Skyhold, and both of those different from her clan's camp in Dirthavaren. But she found the raven easily enough anyway before her eyes fell back to the road so she didn't trip.
“It's not a chore for me. It... makes me feel alive." The admission was slow, like it didn't want to leave. And maybe she didn't want it to. It was a hell of a thing to admit, really. Most people she knew were like Mick. Fighting was a necessity, the means to an end. But for Khari... fighting was the end, as often as not. “That's—that's sick, isn't it? Wrong. That I feel something like that." She shook her head. “That the world makes the most sense that way."
"Not really," Mick said just as easily. He slowed to a halt and then gestured toward the door of the newest store front. It was another tavern, though this one seemed less... fancy than the other, though it still somehow seemed manicured, even in this alley. He took a step toward the door and pushed it open, allowing Khari to file in before him. "The farmhands like this one, with it not being on the main street and all," he offered, following her inside.
It was like he said, the inside had more of a rougher feel to it, where the gilt was thinner. It was clear that this one was for the workers instead of the visitors or upper crust. And Mick still fit right in. He offered a wave to the bartender before they found their seats, a little table off to the side of the bar. "It's not much different from what you said about fighting and killing," Mick continued, "If you enjoyed the killing, then I would be willing to call you sick." He leaned back in his seat, and flashed two fingers back to the bartender before leaning back to continue the conversation. "But fighting? I'd call that... energetic." He flashed her a smile, perhaps opting for the most polite word he could think of.
Khari snorted, but her frown had gone, replaced with a very small smile. “You say energetic, but somehow all I hear is crazy." She allowed herself to grin, then, accepting the drink the bartender slid across the table. “Thanks, Mick." She only let her tone stay sober for the two quiet words, before she pitched it up again, back into something that matched the way he described her. Energetic. She liked thinking of it as 'verve,' because that seemed like one of those words that didn't usually get applied to people like her. And that was half the fun: being what she wasn't supposed to be. “Three of five, right? I've got this."
Turning around so her back was to the counter, Khari leaned against it and surveyed the patrons. Mostly laborers in this one, common folk with dirt on their clothes. She didn't mind that at all.
“...all right, then. Which one of you guys thinks you can drink me under the table?"
And, well, she figured that since Mick had invited her on the grand tour of all five of the little town's bars, pubs, and alehouses, the occasion called for it.
Accepting the silvers slid across the slightly-sticky wooden slab from a good-natured fellow patron, she gave him a bright grin and tucked the coin away in her belt-purse. “Pleasure doing business, serah. If you don't remember this in the morning, rest assured that I shall not forget your valiant-but-doomed efforts to best me." She snapped a jaunty salute to more laughter, then half-sat, half-fell back into her stool, grimacing at the lack of cushion. It was pretty obvious to her that she was mostly a novelty here, an amusement because she was outright strange for a place like this. And places like this, she knew from some experience, were places where 'strange' was really strange, not something a person could find around every corner like at Skyhold.
But she'd been in enough such places before, and she was well-used to being weird in a world where no one else really was. If she was more spectacle than person, well... that was all right for an evening. When the bartender slid her another, she frowned at it and shoved the thick-bottomed glass to her left, where Mick was sitting. “Think I'd better switch to water for a while."
"Lightweight," Mick prodded in jest as he accepted the offered drink. He then made a big show of taking a heavy drought from the glass as if to drive it home. He too seemed like a novelty in the first quaint tavern they'd found themselves in, though after the initial glances his way, he seemed to have settled in with the rest of the patrons. Apparently, he had been something of a regular himself when he had lived there, as the bartender had initially brought him a drink without asking him what he was having. That, or he had already made an immediate impression the last time he was there, and had been hard to forget.
"I would not quit my day job if I were you, if you were thinking of becoming a professional barfly," he said with a waggle of eyebrows and a chuckle. To his merit, he didn't seem to concerned about being considered strange--though that was unsurprising. There didn't appear to be much that would put Mick off.
Khari rolled her eyes at him, accepting the water handed her way with a nod for the bartender, who seemed to be quite on top of things. Maybe because there weren't that many people in here. “Well there goes my fallback plan." She let the sarcasm in her tone convey the untruth of the matter, swallowing a few mouthfuls of water. She didn't think she was especially drunk yet, but this was only bar number two, so it was better to pace herself.
Setting the glass back down, she swiped the pad of her thumb over her lip, dabbing it off on the napkin in front of her. Small pub it might be, but the place still managed to be fancy enough for cloth napkins; she really shouldn't be surprised. This town was cozy and manicured and just the slightest bit pretentious down to its bones. Or in this case, its solid-wood slabs and wrought-iron accents and fresh, still-a-bit-stinky coats of white paint. “Your home town anything like this, Mick?" She gestured to encompass all of the above, though she didn't quite explain. Even she knew it wasn't polite to take issue with accommodations that were, in truth, quite nice.
But he seemed a little less... pastoral, as a personality. A little more real, in the ways Khari understood reality. Maybe that was his life instead of his birthplace, though. Pushing a curl behind her ear, she took another swallow, eyeing him speculatively over the rim of the glass.
Mick shook his head with a grin, rhythmically tapping his fingers on the side of his glass. "Most definitely not. I was born and raised in Val Chevin with three older brothers. Granted, it is no Val Royeaux, no matter how hard it tries to be, but it was pleasant enough. The seaside is nice no matter where you are--though my family's estate was more in the middle of the city... and faced away from the sea," he explained, indicating the direction and placement with his fingers. "There's a hustle in the city that you do not find here, everything runs at a quicker pace so you have to be just as fast to keep up," he shrugged.
He thought about it for a moment before he nodded, "After that, when I decided to become a Chevalier, I studied at the Academie in Val Royeaux, and was stationed there when I met Marcy. I guess I didn't really get out of the cities until I started seeing her." He paused again, and continued, "And when I was shipped off here and there with my unit," He added.
Khari nodded slightly. She knew enough to know what chevaliers did during times of peace: there were never any bandit shortages, that was for sure. When there wasn't any direct conflict to be had, there was plenty of unit training to do, too. Big Bear had even made his unit do some of that stuff. She was too young and dumb to ever be put in charge of a formation or anything, but she'd learned to ride and march with one. How to set up a military camp on all kinds of terrain, how to look after horses with nothing but a field kit... all that shit was like breathing now, though it'd been a while since she needed to use any of it. Probably took a bit longer for noble kids to learn. Khari had never had grooms or servants to do anything for her, and so it wasn't exactly a surprise when she was expected to set up her own damn tent.
If she thought about it hard enough, she could almost smell the mix of dirt, ash, armor polish, sweat, and horse that had made up that part of her life. If she thought about it a little harder, she could almost imagine what it would smell like if she added blood and misery. “You fought in the civil war, right? What was that like?" She'd seen the trenches, at least. But one thing Khari struggled to imagine was lifting her sword for a cause she didn't really believe in. And she'd never have been able to make herself believe in that one. She counted herself lucky that if she ever did make it into the chevaliers, the Emperor she'd be serving wasn't the kind of man to mobilize his army for anything that wasn't both necessary and important.
Mick frowned, and his entire demeanor shifted. In fact, a quiet had descended upon the little pub. He took a glance inside his mug and internally gauged it before lifting it to his lips and downing the rest of it in only a few swigs. "A fucking nightmare," he answered succinctly and before he waved the bartender over. "Let's get out of here," he said to her aside, "We still need to hit the others before we get thoroughly sloshed." He then attempted to pay off their tab, but was subsequently waved off by the bartender. Mick smiled and nodded his appreciation, before looking back to Khari and jerking his head toward the door.
He didn't wait for her either, standing up and making his way toward it, apparently assuming she'd be close behind. Outside the bar, there was a chill to the night air, but not uncomfortable so. The lanterns that hung along the street the bar was on were lit, and in the distance across the fields of farms and vineyards dots of fire light twinkled from the spattering of homes. Mick looked both ways down the street before deciding on a direction and then taking it. As he walked, he appeared to still be in thought, undoubtedly from her previous question. If judging by how uncomfortable he had seemed on Dirthavaren, they were not pleasant memories.
Finally, he broke his silence. "Bandits are one thing," he began, "It is something else entirely when you have to fight your countrymen, people I could have very well attended the Academie with. Fucking masks we wear when we fight... I could have very well killed one of my brothers and I wouldn't know it," he added, spitting to the side.
Khari had thought that was what the designs on the masks were for—so that a person could identify the one beneath it without being able to see their face. But probably a lot of that got lost on the field, in the middle of pitched battle, or from the distance the army would use for shooting arrows. “Would it be better? To know whether you killed someone you were close with?" It wasn't exactly the kind of situation where he could have called an armistice just because he ran into an officer he knew and liked.
She pursed her lips. “I like to pretend sometimes. That I can't remember the faces of the people I kill." Her vallaslin pulled as she frowned. “That the Haze makes it all blur together. But it doesn't—I can see all the little details, clear as day." The way she fought meant she was always up close and personal with her opponents. She couldn't keep them at spear's distance, much less bow's distance. “I like fighting. It's what I'm best at. But killing is hard, and it hurts, and I think that's good. That doesn't mean you should torture yourself about it."
Mick laughed, but it was one without any humor. "You say that like I have a choice. I did what I had to, doesn't mean it still doesn't keep me up at night," he stated, slipping into another frown. His pace slowed down as the approached an alley, and a different thought seemed to enter his head. He tilted to the side as he tried to remember something, and apparently decided on it he nodded and turned back to Khari. "This way, this one is a little more hidden," he said, taking the alley. "At least, it should be this way," he added quietly.
"I do not like to fight," he revealed, before tilting his head to the other side, and clarified, "But I don't hate it either. It's a more of a chore, a means to an end. It was what I was good at, like you, so I did it." He chuckled again, "Marcy would try to say that there are other things I'm good at, but," Mick said, pointing between them, "I get you."
Khari let her chin dip a little; this late, the air outside was crisp enough that a cloak might not have been unwarranted, but she'd come without one and the alcohol was making her feel warm enough for now anyway. She exhaled heavily, turning her eyes up to the stars. A little different here than at Skyhold, and both of those different from her clan's camp in Dirthavaren. But she found the raven easily enough anyway before her eyes fell back to the road so she didn't trip.
“It's not a chore for me. It... makes me feel alive." The admission was slow, like it didn't want to leave. And maybe she didn't want it to. It was a hell of a thing to admit, really. Most people she knew were like Mick. Fighting was a necessity, the means to an end. But for Khari... fighting was the end, as often as not. “That's—that's sick, isn't it? Wrong. That I feel something like that." She shook her head. “That the world makes the most sense that way."
"Not really," Mick said just as easily. He slowed to a halt and then gestured toward the door of the newest store front. It was another tavern, though this one seemed less... fancy than the other, though it still somehow seemed manicured, even in this alley. He took a step toward the door and pushed it open, allowing Khari to file in before him. "The farmhands like this one, with it not being on the main street and all," he offered, following her inside.
It was like he said, the inside had more of a rougher feel to it, where the gilt was thinner. It was clear that this one was for the workers instead of the visitors or upper crust. And Mick still fit right in. He offered a wave to the bartender before they found their seats, a little table off to the side of the bar. "It's not much different from what you said about fighting and killing," Mick continued, "If you enjoyed the killing, then I would be willing to call you sick." He leaned back in his seat, and flashed two fingers back to the bartender before leaning back to continue the conversation. "But fighting? I'd call that... energetic." He flashed her a smile, perhaps opting for the most polite word he could think of.
Khari snorted, but her frown had gone, replaced with a very small smile. “You say energetic, but somehow all I hear is crazy." She allowed herself to grin, then, accepting the drink the bartender slid across the table. “Thanks, Mick." She only let her tone stay sober for the two quiet words, before she pitched it up again, back into something that matched the way he described her. Energetic. She liked thinking of it as 'verve,' because that seemed like one of those words that didn't usually get applied to people like her. And that was half the fun: being what she wasn't supposed to be. “Three of five, right? I've got this."
Turning around so her back was to the counter, Khari leaned against it and surveyed the patrons. Mostly laborers in this one, common folk with dirt on their clothes. She didn't mind that at all.
“...all right, then. Which one of you guys thinks you can drink me under the table?"