Long Dark Drink-Time of the Soul [Hadyn x Quinn]

[Dark]

Hadyn had been feeling rather under-the-weather to begin with and had only grown increasingly surly as the day progressed. The day had started off with spoiled milk, and if the three markets he had visited were anything to go on, the entire city was facing a massive milk shortage. Giving up and heading back towards his apartment, he got caught up in an impromptu rally against abortion; it took forty-minutes to navigate a single city block before he could finally cut down an alley and escape. He finally gave up and headed for the bar after the short altercation with an ill-tempered bander that followed.

He’d had a beer; he’d had several—more than several—over the course of the evening. To his dismay, it didn’t do its damn job as well as it should; he had always held his liquor well and it took stronger stuff—in much greater quantities—before he ever felt even slightly tipsy. Hadyn desperately wanted to be tipsy.

He should have never gotten up this morning.

[Shinigami]

Jingle~

Jingling bells and a good payment for a week's work and a prettypretty ferret waiting for her at home because she'd promised to come back far more often than she had in the past few months. All her fault too, for staying away so very, very long. Such a bad Quinn. Bad, bad Quinn, all neglectful of the light of her life. Tut, tut.

On the other hand, there were times when one had to spend some time on one's own. And if she didn't come back until later in the day, then it was still today, and her dearest Vessatha would have no need to worry about anything whatsoever.

And so, happily, she jingled her way into a bar that she rather liked, because the bartender would humor her and mix up whatever odd concoction she might order (no matter how bad it might taste, thus causing her to reject it) because she was willing to pay for the result no matter what she felt about it.

...jingle!

[Dark]

Hadyn’s claim to higher cognitive skills was tumultuous at the best of times; it took very little to set him off these days, and he’d already been inordinately tolerant with everything else that had happened. He’d used up his quota of patience for the day.

Hadyn wanted to be left alone. He wanted to get smashed. And people toting bells—happily ringing out with every bouncing step; and how could bells be happy—did not fit into the equation.

He tried to ignore it—he wasn’t looking for a fight tonight—but with every jingle-jangling step, he felt his delicate hold on sanity slip just a little more. Jingle. Jangle. Jingle! Hadyn felt something snap.

Hadyn turned to face the annoyance, “Oi! Stop that bloody jingling, before I do something about it myself!” Hadyn had already decided to do something about it, but he supposed it was polite to at least give the bloke a chance, or—something. Manners had never really been his forte.

[Shinigami]

Quinn jerked to a clattering halt as the rhythm she'd had going - had to make sure that the bells jingled harmoniously, dontcherknow, instead of all discordant and icky - came to a similarly abrupt halt. She turned slowly to stare at the icky-loud person who had just burst into her jingling so rudely, giving him a black stare before she drew herself up, horribly, terribly affronted.

"Ex-cuse me?! There is nothing wrong at all with a properly-tuned set of bells, you icky-head!"

...mature, Quinn. Real mature.

"I don't see why you have to yell at me about it, or anything! It's not like you're quiet yourself." A smirk accompanied that comment, and she narrowed her eyes to focus on the thought of him, reaching for the ability she'd found recently with that fun little statuette she'd liberated from a stash and kept for herself. It had been a nifty little find, and even though she'd slept for a while after playing with it and tossing it around a bit, she'd gotten the fun magical addition out of it. Even if it wasn't quite as good as bells.

_{Small Metal Human: This little Human figurine is made of tin and tingles magically when held. The suggested SD will fall asleep shortly after touching it, and awake to find that they are now able to concentrate on the thought of an opponent and force them to make a hollow clanking sound as they move. Even if the opponent is using a silencing spell, when this hits them it kills their spell. This is fantastic for using against invisible opponents or if you’re suspicious that you’re being followed, you don’t have to know if anyone’s there, if there is no one to hit, the spell simply dies. Can be used once per day.}

[Dark]

Hadyn quickly came to the conclusion that the woman he was dealing with was mentally unhinged. Having dealt with many crazy individuals over the course of his life, he wasn’t in the habit of purposely seeking them out; they seemed to have an annoying habit of finding him all on their own. He was prepared to walk away—annoyance or not, being called ‘icky-head’ had a certain way of killing the mood—but then his skin crawled with the promise of magic.

Hadyn had wanted a simple fistfight; bringing magic into the equation was simply uncalled for. He took a step forward with the intention of giving her a piece of his mind, and to demand to know what she was about—and pulled up short. He clanked. Horrified, he took a step back to look at himself—the horrible ‘clank’ noise issued forth again—he didn’t look any different, thank the stars, but the noise was coming from him. Was it temporary? Or was he cursed to have a chronic migraine for the rest of his life? As if he didn’t have enough problems.

“What the fuck did you do to me?” Bitch. His vision washed to red.

[Shinigami]

Clank. She sighed. It was such a horribly inelegant noise. Not at all like a pretty, melodious jingle from a bell. No, it was just clank. Hm, she knew a few people who knew some other people who might have some ideas about a couple more people who did stuff like this. Maybe she could have one of them teach her how to turn it into a jingle! That'd be great!

...and she should probably keep her mind on the current situation, which was pretty difficult considering it was used to wandering off whenever it wanted to. It was a free-spirited thing, her mind. Didn't like to have a leash put onto it.

"I'm not entirely sure, you see. It's this nifty little thing that happened when I had this little statue and then I fell asleep and when I woke up I could make people clank. It's a nifty little thing, really. I mean, if people want to follow after me, I can make them all clanky, and then they can't sneak up on me!" The scarf went swirly around her in a happy circuit. "It sucks though. Because really, jingles are better than clanks, and even you, rude and boorish as you are, should be able to understand you."

[Dark]

Hadyn was feeling rather belligerent. The woman was a complete loon, and not very bright; if he didn't know any better, he suspected she thought herself rather clever. In her more sane moments.

He hadn't actually wanted an explanation--well, he had, but he hadn't actually expected one. Especially so thorough an explanation. Still--at least now he knew what to look for in getting the curse lifted, if it didn't wear off by itself. Handy, that.

Regardless, to bring magic into a bar fight was unforgivable--there were rules--and annoying behavior beside, she had flauntingly broke conduct. And her scarf was annoying, not to mention the fucking bells.

He briefly considered punching her in the face--simple, elegant--but quickly decided that wasn't good enough retaliation. She only had herself to blame--she was the one who had thrown magic into the mix to begin with.

"I hope you don't mind me returning the favor." He took a step towards the hallway--the shadows were deep there--and promptly winced at the horrible noise. He would really have to be careful not to move once jumped.

[Shinigami]

No, she didn't really know much about the proper conduct of bar fights. Or if she did, she'd long ago disregarded the rules (or even outright forgotten them). So Quinn didn't have the slightest clue about what had ticked off this brightly-marked man (and wasn't he pretty? all fire-colors on black), much less what she was supposed to do about it (unless it was the clanking, because that would annoy anybody, which had pretty much been the point, really).

"It depends. I don't think you got a statue, so it's not like you could make me clank too. Icky clanking." Her word of the day seemed to be icky, or at least it was one of her words of the day.

She shifted to stay facing him, bells ringing quietly as the scarf swept back behind her, out of the way should she need to move. Dark eyes took in the hallway and his motion toward it, and maybe she wasn't quite as oblivious as she seemed.

[Dark]

As a general rule, Hadyn didn’t look too closely at himself or his actions—down that road lay emotional turmoil (angst, misery, woe, etc.) In the current situation he felt a certain level of retaliation was required—something above and beyond his usual method of punching, biting, and clawing—but because he wasn’t in the habit of ever looking at anything too closely, Hadyn was consequently a very poor planner. And what he wanted to do actually took a bit of thought, which meant tempering his natural inclination to simply throttle her.

Control wasn’t something to be gained in a moment, and he eyed her darkly as he fought with himself. It was a very good plan, but he wanted so badly to leave her bloody and broken. His claws sunk into the floor in aggravation.

She was watching him now, and Hadyn felt another wave of resentment. Hadyn stepped into the shadows and ‘jumped’ to the other side of the room.

Shadow Jump Ability:] Every other day, he is able to slide into the shadows and become virtually invisible for a full five minutes. The only way he'll be spotted is if his opponent has sight based abilities or if he steps out of the shadow at all, or if he's tossed or knocked out of the shadows. He can jump, or teleport, from shadow to shadow within his sight unless someone is touching him, in which case both people will seem invisible, but the teleportation power will no longer function.

[Shinigami]

Out of sight. Her lazy focus sharpened, at least internally, and the scarf stayed behind her. She hadn't been drinking - really, had only planned on a little nip of something before heading back to the Court of Spades where her heart waited for her. But this...fascinating and interesting and therefore, something that she most definitely wanted to invest some time into.

...besides, she needed to see if she could figure out how to make him jingle, instead of clank. 'Cause that was a fate the world had to be deprived of. The clanking, that was.

Still looking around the semi-empty barroom, she simply focused on not being seen. Her outline blurred, as did her entire appearance. She didn't vanish as such, but it was more as if she was being looked at through thick, blurred glass. Any attempts to fix on a specific part of her body would be made quite difficult. At the same time, her scarf began to twirl and twist sinuously, drawing the casual eye to it.

<sub>*Notes: She has the uncanny ability to appear to be out of focus if she doesn't want to be seen.

Notes: Her scarf flows about her on its own constantly - its floaty twirls can be distracting.</sub>