Catch.

[Jirai]

The idea had been coalescing in the dark elf's mind for a while now.

A chance remark from the little squire had set her onto it; if the words he'd spoken were true, it could be the solution. It might've been a trap though, cleverly set by another. Perhaps that was why she did not immediately investigate it. Or perhaps it was her reluctance to involve herself any more than she already was with the Myrkentowners. Or perhaps... it could have been many things.

Whatever it had been, though, was no more. She was tired of waiting, impatient beyond measure - and her impatience tended to violence.

There was no violence in her as she entered the tavern though - no more than normal, at least. She was looking for one man in particular and she would find him. And he would do this task for her, one way or another, for she had been growing more and more certain that she could not do it herself.

The crazy man could, though.

Catch.

[catch]

Catch would, indeed, be lurking in the tavern. He hardly left it, save to make his excursions into town, or to wield axe against the Dagger's woodpile to provide it with more fuel. The latter done under careful supervision, though he hadn't yet cut himself - or anyone else, for that matter - through accident or deliberate intent.

He was finished with that for now, however. So he lurked, or sat, more like it, a tall glass of milk before him, bare and filthy toes curling against the wooden floor. Had grown from a skinny, tall thing into a massive, hulking-tall thing, so that even the chair he sat on looked ridiculously small by comparison.

Though he, by-and-large and through his shyness, only ducked his head as patrons entered, milled, and left, the drowess was an entirely different matter altogether, and his tramp's-beard chin lifted, nostrils flaring in the wind, those mismatched eyes turning to follow her with wide-eyed peace. He saw maggots, wriggling in her skin and dropped off onto the floor, only to be turned to ash and float upwards until they were no more.

It was a fascinating sight, and he watched it more than her sinuous approach, with only teeny maggot-screams reaching his ear.

[Dulcie]

The tavern's manager hadn't exactly disappeared off the face of Myrkenwood but her presence hadn't been a daily occurance in the common areas of the Broken Dagger, however while she was tucked away in the kitchen going over some of the finer points of the Dagger's service she just so happened to catch wind of a drow woman being out in the tavern. Naturally these creatures frightened a number of the locals for a variety of reasons and the serving girls were bickering over who was going to have to tend the bar. With a hefty sigh Dulcie Miller abandoned her books and rose to her feet. She'd assure her staff that she could certainly handle one drow and she'd then be out of the kitchen and into the common room.

She hadn't changed that much really. Her clothes a little finer, her hair kept braided and bound up neater but she really wasn't any softer than she had been before. Her hazel eyes glanced over the few patrons the day had brought her recognizing them both as she came up behind the bar and took advantage of the moment not only to fish out her apron from beneath the wooden surface but to assure that her usual collection of weaponry was there. It was always best to be prepared when Jirai was around.

With a smile on her face she'd look at them both.

"So, anything from the bar then?".

[Jirai]

The dark elf's focus was clear. Upon entering the room, she had glanced around but briefly - only as long as it took her gaze to settle upon the dirty tramp where he sat. Then there was no more looking about, eyes fixed on the man as she sauntered towards him.

The hood of her cloak was down, but the fabric still served to conceal most of the weaponry she carried. Her hands were empty though, briefly displayed before she pulled out a seat of her own. The contrast between the dark elf and the crazy man was almost laughable - everything from skin tone to attitude to size (for he dwarfed her as well as he did the chair).

Jirai had seemed to have eyes for no one and nothing else, but Dulcie's voice broke the silence and the barkeep would have her attention if not her gaze, for Dulcie could be counted on for obedience, could she not? "Wine." the dark elf demanded. "And for him, whatever he prefers."

One leg crossed over the other, she regarded the man with an intentness that belied her casual posture.

"You have a rabbit, I hear."

[catch]

She drew a chair, and settled into it, an action that shed many of the maggots to their fiery doom and muted wails of despair. His nostrils were full of many things, clogged with blood-clot earth and dark, filthy whispers, and - though he still did not fear - his doe-like eyes took on a frantic sort of glaze. As if being so near the woman set his broken mind ablaze.

Tattooed fingers curled about the glass, then, cringing there as the drow-woman and Miss Dulcie spoke. As he sat there, with shoulders hunched, one could almost imagine - as ridiculous as it was - that the bigger man was ruled by the power of the small, dark woman alone.

She spoke of the Chamberlain, and Catch's gaze came up, from where it had flickered downwards at the mention of her, buying him what he desires. He did not answer yes, or no, either way, because it would display a greed bordering on rudeness. He had milk, after all, though Chocolate would be even better.

"The Chamberlain is quite busy," he said, and his voice sounded weak even to his fly-buzzed ears. The tip of a tongue appears between chapped lips, and he moistens them before pressing on, his normal, sing-song voice a strange sort of monotone. "But if you'd leave your name, I could make you an appointment."

He knew her name, of course. This wasn't the first time they'd met, after all, and Ser Glenn had spoken of her many times before. Only, it was buried under mounds of worm-muck and feline carcasses.

He paused, and felt that it was only polite to continue. "You are losing an alarming amount of m-maggots. Perhaps you should get that looked at?"

[Jirai]

Ridiculous that he could be dominated by one so much smaller? Hardly. That was how it should be, to her way of thinking! She might not always be a perfect specimen of her race, but of arrogance she had no lack.

The dark elf's mouth opened, then closed again, for even one with a mind as twisted as her own needed a moment or two to edge closer to the circuitous routes required by conversing with the madman. Maggots? She decided to ignore that at about the same time she came to the conclusion that "the Chamberlain" might be the rabbit.

"I do not wish to speak to the Chamberlain." She clarified. "I wish to speak to you. I heard the Chamberlain was broken."

It was an indirect approach to what she wanted, but she wanted first to hear it from the man himself. The squire was, after all, not all that intelligent. And he'd been poisoned, too. The information might not be accurate - though, if it were not, she was not entirely sure what steps to take next.

[catch]

"Oh! That. That's something quite different, then." Monotone vanished, all at once, and Catch seemed to restore some of his good cheer, for he almost sang out in that youthful voice. Though hand still trembled upon his glass, he looked up, and actually attempted to make some sort of eye contact, a slow and steady shy smile drawn across his slack features.

"He broke one day, yes. It created quite a mess, you know, and a broken Chamberlain does no one any good. But, it's alright. I put him back together."

[Jirai]

"You put him back together," she repeated with some satisfaction. "Good." She leaned back in her chair, smiling easily at the man though the expression never reached her eyes. That was the answer she had wanted to hear.

"What if, say, Dulcie over there was broken? Could you fix her?" She directed his attention to the bar's owner, with a bit of a smirk for the woman at the same time. Jirai really didn't care about the answer to that one, she'd simply thrown it out to see what the woman would do. Dulcie was usually good at avoiding her games, but one never knew.

[catch]

Catch had not the mind to grasp that as any sort of threat; still, his mismatched eyes turned to Dulcie, wide and childish things regarding her a long, long moment, as lips worked and the worm-paths in his shattered brain burrowed deeper, seeking broken memories for an answer. He did not wish to answer incorrectly, for that may inspire some sort of wrath; but did he want to answer correctly? He saw Miss Dulcie, bloodied and limbs strewn as the Chamberlain had been, snaky intestines coiled to the sky. When he turned back to Jirai, his eyes were brimmed with tears, face screwed.

"I. I'm c-certain I c-c-could," he said, voice small and timid; in child-like fashion, his knuckles raised, scrubbing them against his eyes in vicious punishment for the tears. Give him a moment, and he should be right as rain.

[Suede]

And the weasel that lived in that lived within Catch's head must of scurried its way out amidst the tears, for now Suede was sitting several tables away from the trio. He was wrapped deep within the confines of his cloak, bloodshot eyes peering out in suspicion towards all of them and then towards random shadows. One of his eyebrows was twitching slowly.

It suggested some manner of improvement to his state of being that he hadn't perched himself in a corner this time. No one was in the table behind him, of course, and he kept his entire body hidden, tense. The tailor looked ready to bolt at a moment's notice.

He was a little disconcerted by this discussion, but he couldn't muster up in that fear riddled mind of his as to why he should be. He needed to keep a closer eye on people beyond making sure they weren't going to stab him.

[Jirai]

"Good," she purred as the man sniffled. "Very good. No need to worry, though, I don't think I will be breaking her." Not right now, at least. There was a faint flicker of her eyes to another in the room, but it was only a brief interruption of her attention for the crazy man.

"Now, Catch. This next one is harder." she continued. "Could you fix someone if you can't see what's broken? If what's broken is inside, maybe in their head?"

[catch]

The ragged, addled man took the drow woman's word at face value. He did not fear this woman hurting Miss Dulcie, only the thought that Miss Dulcie could - possibly, at any given moment - fall apart upset him terribly. Just as the Chamberlain had.

She asked of things that he, himself, had wondered in the darkest parts of the night, and though such thoughts if mending his own broken mind set the wolf to howling and the maggots to gibbering, he found, with wonder, that no such rude interruptions occurred when he thought of it so abstractly.

It caused the last of his tears to dry, and that hairy head tipped upwards, bird-like, regarding the smaller woman with eyes wide in a sort of clarity that seemed so out of place on his slack features.

"Oh, I can see it. Smell it. Yours is all rotten, but only like the ground after all the sugar-snow's been licked from it, and the green things come out to play." Not the most direct of answers, but there is a slyness to his sing-song voice, and he squirmed in his seat as if he held a great secret, tattooed fingers knotting and twinging together in constant, grinning motion.

[Suede]

Every time the conversation dipped further along it's path the tailor noticeably flinched. Half of him had already decided that the best course of action was to get up and leave, the other wanted to sit and see precisely what would come of it.

His hands were flexing and relaxing, again and again, along the underside of the table now. Unless he was crazy he could smell the potential brewing, and a chance to being his old charming self again. He just had to fight down the instinctive fear and desire to run.

It was proving harder than he anticipated.

[Dulcie]

She was generally quiet, a trick that any bartender learned early. It was sometimes better to just remain silent, to gain all of the information and to avoid the confrontation all together. After all, that was how Dulcie had managed to stay alive so long. So in the midst of all the questioning and discussion on being broken she was pouring wine for Jirai and watching Catch's reactions to what the drow was saying.

"Catch is not for you to make a tool out of Jirai." She said firmly when she started to see some of the man's reactions shift from being happy to more concerned. "I won't have my customers being harassed, the moment this becomes an unpleasant discussion for him I'm going to have to ask you to leave." Her voice was firm, her gaze set straight upon Jirai. Years of experience tending the bar gave her a fairly low tolerance for when other people were being bothered.

[Jirai]

The dark elf's head snapped towards Dulcie as the bar's owner broke her silence, with a narrow-eyed glare and a bit of a snarl on her lips. Despite that, her voice was ever so sweet when she spoke.

"I have already told Catch that I do not plan on breaking you. I sincerely hope that I do not have to change my plans." With that, she turned her attention back to the crazy man, ignoring her wine for the moment.

"That's very nice, Catch." Not that she had the slightest idea what he meant by those bizarre words. "Now, what about him?" With a flick of a thin, gloved finger, she indicated the well-cloaked tailor.

Her next words were clearly directed at Roschen. "Don't even think about running."