Tavern

[glismi]

Xania was more than a little interested, at first, when Kiku mentioned the beach. She was about ready to show some skin. This dress was suffocating after a while.

But then she noticed how confident Kiku was. Something was up, and she didn't like the direction that he was heading.

"I'm pretty sure I'm down for some sex on the beach, if you are that is. And I'm not talking about the drink."

Yes, he was too confident. He had, evidently, begun to think of Xania as easy prey. She hated that.

*Now you've begun to see why I warned you to hold back, Xania?*

Yes. Yes she did. She would give Kiku a bit of a surprise, that was for sure. She would make him strain to get at her. He would, in the end, but not without a fight.

"I don't have a bathing suit though, hope you don't mind."

"Maybe I do," said Xania, putting on her best turned-off sort of face. Her dress loosened, the neck and back got higher, the bottom got lower. "You think I'm that easy, do you? You'd started to impress me for a minute. I'm disappointed."

[Kiku]

Kiku hit a bit of a snag. It seemed that she thought that Kiku thought that she was too easy, which he did, but he didn't mean to let it show. It seemed his confidence had gotten the better of him at this time, but the situation wasn't completely unsalvageable. He could fix it for that body. Because she wasn't a fan of his over confidence, maybe it would be best to play a somewhat softer part. One that was slightly more reserved and more unsure, even thought he was sure that he was having sex soon. First things first; rebound.

"Me? Think you're easy? What gave you that impression?" Kiku asked, somewhat shocked, "Was it the sex on the beach joke? You know, I thought it was a cheesy line, but I went for it anyway. I figured at the worst you'd give me a playful slap. Sorry about that." He tried his best to sound honest. In reality, he spat the line because he thought she'd get wet for it and jump on him right there. Turns out even Kiku can be wrong for time to time.

"I actually don't have a bathing suit though, I wasn't joking about that. If it's really a big deal for you, I guess we could go somewhere else, but I was really going for that beach anyway. Figured you'd wanna get out of that dress too. Feel the nice water and the sand between your toes and such, ya know?" Kiku shrugged his shoulders and put on a goofish smile.

After he had said it, he noticed that her dress had changed, significantly. There was something definitely not normal about this chick. She was obviously able to change her appearance, which raised the question.

Is this even what she normally looks like?

[glismi]

So, he was putting on his polite face. Kinda cute. Not Xania's favorite facet of Kiku's, but it was cute. And he seemed shocked by her reaction to his line earlier. This was good, he was starting to get it.

And he still wanted to go to the beach, that was a plus. She did like the beach, after all, just not the way that he had proposed it.

"Well, I suppose that we could still go...You owe me two drinks now, though." She laughed a little. "I wouldn't mind getting out of this dress. It's suffocating after a while. Incidentally, what sorts of bathing suits do you prefer?"

Xania's dress returned to normal, then shortened, ruffled, and changed color, until it was a thin-strapped white sundress that came down about to her knees. Her shoes flattened into straw sandals. She removed a floppy, shapeless hat from her bag - it morphed into a straw sun hat with a white ribbon as soon as it touched her head.

"So, the beach, then?"

[Kiku]

Kikuriku watched in amazement as Xania's dress shape shifted right before his eyes. Before, it was almost as if she was trying to hide it, but now she was straight out in the open with it, and Kiku wasn't too sure how he felt about it. It was a little confusing. Was this some form of special power? Or perhaps it was an illusion, and she already wasn't wearing any clothes. Maybe it was just an illusion that was put in place to cover up her woman parts so she never had to wear clothes. That would be so hot. Just to have her rack hanging out like that. I want to cop a feel so badly. She'd probably get pissed but God I really want to.

"Well, you seem prepared." Kiku said, giving a nod of approval as Xania transformed into her clothes. "What type of bathing suits do I prefer? Would you hate me if I said birthday suits?" Kiku said, with a playful smile, just so Xania would know that he was joking. Unless she is really ballsy enough to take it there. That's be pretty hot. Ohhhhh sex on the beach is gonna be awesome.

"Onward, to the beach!" Kiku said, turning around and walking in a northern direction. He wasn't exactly sure where a close beach was, but he was sure that if he kept walking one way, he'd hit the end of the continent Mystara continent, and then there would be a beach there. He just hoped that Xania wouldn't bitch too much while on root. Oh, my feet hurt. Can you carry me Kiku honey? Well, that depends, can we have sex? No? Then you're walking. Haha.

(Sorry it's a short post, I had pretty well nothing to work with, as this is a leaving post....)

(Further more, you can either respond here, or make a post with a beach setting and start of there if you want )

[Cherry Milerand]

When one was bored, and looking for something to do for the sake of frittering time away, it was a perfectly viable excuse for one to make a visit to the tavern. But not just any tavern, mind you. One should always go and visit THE Tavern. Because what other tavern would go to unless you had no other choice, really? Everyone loved this place. The barkeep probably made bank on it, too, which you wouldn't expect based on that surly attitude people tended to speak of.

Well, to readdress the point, Cherry was quite a bored individual on this particular night. She wasn't too sure why she had come to the General District a few days ago - honestly, aside from the occasional party, the place was pretty boring. Still though, The Tavern offered an escape from that boredom on a regular basis, so it wasn't a total loss. The question had remained though: how exactly did Cherry wish to spend the evening? Depending on what the conclusive answer was had the entire impact on the way she was dressed. After all, a smart individual chose their attire accordingly to the occasion, yes?

Having eventually settled on wanting nothing more than a little conversation and a few laughs, she went with a more casual choice of garb. A short, brown skirt, though with black leggings worn beneath it so as not to expose any skin, complimented well with some thick, brown traveling boots (though chosen carefully so as not to seem too masculine). On top, she was clad in a long-sleeved, V-necked black shirt, with a sleeveless, equally V-necked Vest worn over it, also colored brown. The cut in the shirt was specifically chosen to invite a few looks, though nothing that screamed "Come here and hit on me". A pair of simple, silver earrings occupied her lobes, and her hair had been pulled back into a Ponytail, though her bangs still remained up front, offering a bit of framing for her face. To top off the ensemble, she had a small necklace, adorned with a silver star, with the ornament falling just above her "little valley", where the shirts she wore covered the rest from prying eyes.

All in all, she bore the appearance of a lady adventurer, who still knew how to maintain some appearance. That oughta earn her some respect among some of the more chauvinistic of the men at the bar.

As she stepped with confidence into the place, she found that there was some general disarray in the area - it seemed a barfight was well underway. She hefted a sigh at the incident. "Of course. I just had to get the night with the bar fight going on. Wouldn't you just kno- oh, holy crap. Is he dead?" she asked no one in particular (they were all too busy to hear her anyway), as she stared with a blankly surprised look at a dead body on the ground. It seemed that the back of his head was in a bit of a sorry state. "You know, I should probably feel really bad about seeing this. But I think I've seen too much of it already." she sighed, feeling rather more detached at another person's death than she knew was really appropriate. "Furthermore, you'd think that some of these brawlers would notice that there was a dead body here. Shouldn't somebody call a mortician, or something like that?"

Again, no one was really listening, obviously. Geeze, with the level of attention she was getting, she felt like she might be interested in joining this thing. Maybe walk up to someone and crack him on the head with a bottle. That would actually be pretty fun, she guessed. Giggling to herself, she carefully began the task of navigating across the Tavern, avoiding flying bottles and thrown fists, hopping aside when a group of fighters came struggling past her, and eventually, she managed to reach the counter with a sigh. Already, she'd managed to get some alcohol spilled all over her vest.

"Hey there, barkeep." she greeted half-cheerily as the man appeared near the counter, looking rather annoyed at the preceedings, but also probably used to them. "So, what's the story here? How'd this one get started? I'd rather not wait for the Tablet to publish the story, you know, as long as I'm here for the firsthand experience." she giggled.

He simply shook his head and mentioned something about some idiot killing a couple of people out of nowhere, and triggering this chain reaction. She had t laugh slightly to herself. Honestly, some people. Once the man was finished with his explanation, she went on to request a drink, noting that he should surprise her, rather than have her tell him what she wanted. It wasn't long before she received the drink, and she began to casually sip at it as she watched the fight with mildly interested eyes. 'Sure hope something more interesting than this happens while the night is young. Otherwise, this'll be one hell of a wasted trip." she commented dryly, again, mostly to herself.

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[Violet Macar]

The tavern in the General District was one of Violet's favourite places. It was a place that was often filled with the rowdy willing to chat about anything and everything, or scandals of major politicians or other famed men and women. It gave her pleasured goosebumps just imagining what might be in store for her there. Of course, she didn't go too often. She decided that if she went too much and published too many stories about it, people would get suspicious or another Molotov Cocktail would be tossed into her office. That, of course, was something she wouldn't be entirely partial to having happen.

Tonight, however, was a special night. Not only was she celebrating the discovery of some fantastic gossip from that little boy-girl Pi, but she had only spent a half hour feeling dizzy and sick after transforming herself to go on this little hunt for tid-bits. She had turned herself into a young blonde slip of a girl. Her hair was wavy and fell down her (now perky) buttocks, her waist was slim and didn't look like they should quite be able to hold up the fake breasts that were pouring out of a lovely red slip dress. She decided that she looked like the kind of girl men would open up to if they had the prospect of opening her up, so it was decided that the blue eyed bimbo was the perfect form for tonight. After turning herself, she had spent the usual time in her office chair dealing with the spinning of the room and painful headache, she had to pause to thank the deities that this would not occur when she turned back.

When she had been ready, she asked her boss (a wonderful magician as well as editor and chief) to teleport her down to the General District, which he did after taking a moment to appreciate her... journalistic intent. When she got there, she turned a few heads with her slightly more-experienced-than-not walk in heels as she head towards the tavern where she would get the gold she needed to fill in the extra space beside her main story. She wasn't expecting what met her gaze when she walked in, however. A slew of people fighting, what appeared to either be passed out drunks; unconscious brawlers or unlucky dead people; and a few violated tavern wenches. Well, I didn't expect it to be so livalidely tonight, She thought as she stepped over an unmoving man on the floor to get to the counter. She snagged the seat next to some teal skinned Lamini girl and then ordered herself something to drink before spinning about in her chair to observe the scene.

Although it could make for some juicy gossip, Violet wasn't much a fan of bar fights. Sure, if someone famous died in them, someone interesting was involved, or the reason they were fighting was tantalizing, it could be pure gossip gold. However, without those important aspects, they were boring and far too loud. This one didn't appear to hold much interest to what she was looking for, and the men were all too distracted to come up and chat to her whorey blonde form. With a sigh, she turned back about and sipped at her drink before turning her ears to the girl next to her whom had spoken to the bartender just moments ago. She spoke softly to herself, but Violet decided that she would join in. She did agree after all. She had to think hard to not use any of her regular words if course, deciding that to speak normally would be better."I can't help but agree with you," Violet smiled, sipping away. Her voice wasn't as it normally would have been, instead it was smoky and sultry, her personal choice for a body such as this.

"A bar fight can be entertaining, but this appears to have gone on too long. Do they not see the bodies laying about? Men and their pride, hm? Can't stand them myself - of course you just have to have one. Can't live with them and... Well, I'm sure you know the rest. It's a bit of a cliche that is too often applied to the fairer sex," She had to consider her words carefully before speaking, but once she got going, she realized that avoiding the use of her made-up words actually tended to be easy, and more efficient since she didn't have to explain herself. She still preferred the use of her own words, but she decided that if she used her fake ones here, she would be able to use her made up ones in a story and not garner too much suspicion. In the end, it definitely all worked out for the better. It was always so much more fun to use made up words when everyone could read them and say a collective 'huh?'. She loved to leave people speechless.

(ooc: Wow, that came out a lot longer than I expected.)

[Cherry Milerand]

Cherry had been rather disappointed with her lack of attentive attitude as soon as the woman beside her spoke up. Sure, she had probably noticed in some corner of her head that she had walked in and taken the seat next to hers, but she had obviously not actually stopped to think about it. Like her mind was on auto-pilot, or something of the sort, driven to the point by the boredom brought about by the scene before her. Absently, she wondered how much longer she would have stayed in this place had this fight continued on - despite her complaint, it certainly didn't seem like she was planning on going anywhere.

But to bring matters back to the present, there was a woman talking to her now - quite the busty knockout, in fact. Cherry was always one to be confident in her own looks, not usually intimidated by the figures or beauty of other women, but even she had to mentally stop herself from gawking at this... gorgeous chick. Since when did they even come in those dimensions?! It was downright unfair. There was good-looking, there was beautiful, there was downright sexy, but THIS girl - she was something else entirely.

It was then that Cherry considered the possibilities; she could be a shape-shifter, or maybe an illusionist. Or even better, a Succubus. Trina was a Succubus, and Cherry still found herself staring at her sometimes. Or, she could be a Goddess come to visit the Earth on a whim. What a charming little idea that was. It probably wasn't anywhere close to the truth, and she was honestly leaning way more toward Succubus, but in the imaginary land of Cherry, any possibility was worth addressing. And if this woman was in fact a Goddess, well, wouldn't it be lovely to enjoy a conversation for a spell? How many people could say they've talked to Goddesses? Maybe Cherry could say that later. Go around telling people she talked to some deity, even if it wasn't true.

Of course, Chery's mind had a habit of moving in rapid-fire succession, so it was only a second or two after she had been spoken to that she responded, despite all of these thoughts simultaneously pounding into her head. "Oh, I so know what you mean. And even more importantly, do they not see us? What kind of decent man, or hell, even an indecent one, leaves two beautiful ladies completely unattended?" she asked in a joking manner. She didn't voice the part about how the other woman was two or three times more beautiful than she was, but she was sure she probably knew that anyway. "It's downright disrespectful, if you ask me." she added, taking another sip at the drink the Barkeep had gotten for her.
"Although, I was half-considering joining them. Don't you think it would be a little bit of a thrill to just crack someone over the head with a bottle or something? I've always wanted to do that!" she giggled out, still amused at the mental image she got. Maybe the brawl would focus around her after that, and she could have the time of her life beating back the advancing ruffians with a chair or something. Yeah, a chair.

"So," she suddenly piped up, turning to look at the woman fully, her full attention no longer on the boring fight. "To whom do I owe the pleasure? I'm Cherry, by the way, Cherry Milerand." she offered her hand out by way of greeting, offering her the typical smirk that could usually be seen on her face. "And do tell if you have any ideas regarding how to break this thing up, because mine isn't all that great." she managed to tack on at the last moment, so as to hopefully not interrupt the coming reply.

[Violet Macar]

Well this was already turning positive for Violet. This person seemed friendly - chatty even. The perfect type to draw out some scandalous news, whether it was true or false didn't really matter at this point, nor would it matter later. Violet sat, smiling at her new conversation partner and occasionally fake-watching the fighting. She would let this girl speak as much as she wanted, which she seemed to enjoy doing, and then input a small bit of her own conversation to keep the Lamini talking. This could turn out to be a profitable night after all.

"Irene," She smiled dazzlingly, shaking the proffered hand while making eye contact with the sparkling baby-blues that she had given herself earlier. She turned back to the fight, a contemplative look on her face as she made it look as though she were thinking of an answer to Cherry's plea. What she was really thinking was where she had heard the name Cherry Milerand previous to thirty seconds previous. It kept escaping her, however, and thus she turned back with a supposed recently garnered answer, "Well I would love to hear your's because mine, although likely effective, probably would have more negative consequences than positive. I was going to say we take clothes off and run through the middle of it all, but that doesn't seem very smart when you think more, hm?" She gave a small, perfect, laugh and then took a sip of her drink again.

She paused part way in drinking, however, and swallowed quickly to add on her own query, "By the way Cherry... Do you think we've met before? I have this strange feeling that I know you from somewhere, but perhaps you just have one of those faces, hm?" She wondered if in the past she had done an article on this girl, or had heard her name from a source or something. She knew it sounded familiar, but Violet - or Irene, as the case currently was - but she just couldn't find a way to place it.

[Cherry Milerand]

Cherry sat at close attention as Irene went about discussing how they might break up the scuffle that was currently underway, and while she made the effort to quiet it, she couldn't help but laugh at her suggestion. "No, you're right, it doesn't seem too smart. I'm sure I can defend myself against one or two people, but a hoard? Sweety, they'd be on us like flies on dung the moment the clothes hit the floor." she continued to giggle, immediately deciding that this woman was charming company. She certainly had a sense of humor, after all, and that was much more than Cherry had received from the majority of the people she'd recently met. So many dull, sour, or serious people, frankly.

Cherry was about to make some kind of remark about maybe pretending to be SSPB officials (she had just the outfit to look the part, too!) in order to scare the brawlers into submission, but before she could voice this equally humorous thought, Irene had taken a look at her for a moment and inquired as to weather or not they had met before.

Thoughtful now, Cherry took a sip of her own drink before giving Irene a very serious look, taking her in. She then smiled and nodded. "Absolutely not. I've never seen you before in my life before tonight." she answered, giggling just a little more. A thought occurred to her as she stared down at her drink. She was giggling an awful lot already, and she'd barely had any of this stuff, so it couldn't be the alcohol. And she wasn't exactly in the greatest mood of her life, either (after all, her entire evening had nearly been spoiled). Was it just this woman? She seemed really easy to loosen up around.

"But you know, there is a chance you could have seen me before without me seeing you. I tend to travel a lot, for one thing. I've also dressed quite a few people up in clothes of my own design, so you might even be thinking of someone who was dressed like me...let's see, what other possibilities are there... hmm, well here's something! Have you ever visited Liesdro?" she knew her parents had a habit of welcoming random guests into the manor, sometimes even to tour the grand estate. Or at least, they always did that back when she was younger, a few hundred years ago, and still lived there. Who knew, maybe Irene had been one of those tourists recently? Or perhaps Irene aged very slowly, like herself, and had glimpsed Cherry in her childhood days near the Manor? Anything was possible.

In any case, she was rather eager to explore the possibilities of how she may have seen Cherry somewhere before, namely because it had never happened previously. No one had ever told Cherry that they thought they knew her from somewhere, so she couldn't very well have "one of those faces", as Irene put it. So therefore, this was exciting!

Ohhh, what if she's some long lost childhood friend? I remember Mommy and Daddy arranged playdates for me on a couple occasions before we started traveling, but none of them looked like this girl... and that's assuming she ages slowly, which I doubt. She looks pretty human to me...what a mystery this is!

[Violet Macar]

“No, I’m afraid I’ve never been to Liesdro, however I would love to go sometime,” ‘Irene’ admitted, Violet keeping herself in character. In reality she had gone to Liesdro plenty of times in her travel, but did Cherry need to know that? No, definitely not. “So you’re a designer then? How interesting. It takes a certain brand of creative mind to do something like that. I think clothing design is an art form, really. I’d never be able to pull it off. Then again, I can’t really do anything artsy. Painting, writing, you name it – I’m inept at it.”

She paused to sip at her drink and to look at the crowd again. She hoped that she might catch someone interesting among the fighting crowd that was slowly thinning. The fight was obviously coming to an end. What had caused it, she did not know at first. Then, however, she caught sight of a few familiar uniforms. Ah, Sea Peacekeepers. They typically provided nice gossip. Mostly from the head honcho himself, Markus Woodrow. He was an interesting fellow. A couple of months prior she had done a profile on him. That copy of The Tablet sold more than any before. Some people thought it was because of the headlining article about the Attonians. Violet, however, was sure that it was because of her story. It was certainly one that caused a lot of talk and a lot of rumours.

“Perhaps you could design something for me Cherry. Someday. It would be nice to have something a little more… unique. Have you always designed clothes for a living?”

[Cherry Milerand]

Cherry's mood dampened slightly when her hopes of a past meeting with this Irene character were dashed away. If she had never been to Liesdro, then she had obviously never met Cherry in her younger days, or even seen her home. And if they had met recently or even a couple years ago, Cherry would have certainly remembered it.

However, her spirits picked immediately back up when Irene asked her if she would perhaps design something for her someday. She felt like her eyes had probably morphed into stars at the suggestion, her face lighting up instantly. "Me, design clothes for you? I would love to! You've got such an amazing figure, and I can think of a ton of things that could look very becoming on you!" she chirped happily as she jumped to her feet, now pacing back in forth in front of Irene, looking her up and down with a now thoughtful expression. "I see... so a 42 there, 13 over there... shoulders are probably 7 or 8, wrists definitely a 6..." she muttered, reciting her own little system of measurements to herself, one she had invented in the effort of preventing other designers from preemptively stealing any of her work. Reaching out, she plucked up Irene's free arm, analyzing it carefully before releasing it. "Arms are a 12, no doubt. Do you work out at all?" she babbled, continuing to look here and there as she jotted down mental notes.

She only realized after a moment had passed that she hadn't answered Irene's last question. "Oh my! Sorry, I got caught up in... this. Um, to answer your question~" she picked up with an air of "Okay, moving on". "I actually haven't. This is something I've always done for myself - er, designing, I mean. It was only recently that I decided I should probably share my ideas. I had been running around, occasionally dressing up random people I met, and they always seemed happy with the results, so I thought, hey, why not?" she explained, plopping back down on her stool, and only just noticing that the bar fight had seemed to subside. "I actually used to do all kinds of work - waitressing, managing, sales, even housework. Actually, until a few months ago, I was working as a maid in the Cowell mansion. But let me tell you, that turned out to be the worst job I've ever had. The guy is batshit insane, no doubt in my mind."

An officer of the SSPB has wandered over then, inquiring as to weather or not the two of them were unharmed in the scuffle. Cherry waved him off with an assuring smile, turning back to Irene. "Hmm, did you see that?" she asked, once he was out of earshot. "His face was all red just from approaching us. Or, probably more you than me." she laughed. The woman DID have quite a wonderful body. She simply HAD to design for it.

[Violet Macar]

Oh. Oh. This was gold. Alright, not gold. But it was damned near close. The current flavour of the month was the Birds-Eye Alliance news, and Lord Markus Woodrow. Still, Cowell wasn't exactly old news. He wasn't news. But he was still juicy. She now had something inside. Something that used to be inside, at least. It was the next best thing, and it also meant that she likely wouldn't be bound very tightly to any sort of confidentiality.

Violet took no notice of the SSPB member that wandered by, and really only acknowledged he had sauntered over to 'ask questions' when Cherry commented on it. "Oh no, he was interested in you, certainly," She smiled sweetly. Cherry was a cute girl. She wasn't drop dead or anything, but she was cute. The Lamini skin colour bothered some, but despite it, Cherry still managed to look quite ravishing.

"Now, Cherry, you can't honestly expect me to believe that you worked for the Tristan Cowell? The second most eligible bachelor of the year - according to The Tablet? And you say he was completely crazy?" She decided, after a quick run through her thoughts, that this strategy would be best. She just hoped that she didn't come across in the wrong way, or that Cherry reacted the wrong way. Everything could go to Ephilroa in a second if she didn't play her cards right. "Not that I don't think you know what you're talking about," She added, "But I've never heard anyone - except for enemy quotes in the tabloids - call Tristan Cowell crazy. Let alone..." She giggled at the word as if it were something new, "Batshit crazy."

[Cherry Milerand]

A grim smile fixed itself firmly upon Cherry's face. "Oh, you'd better believe it, honey. And rest assured, the word crazy doesn't do the man justice." she replied to Irene's incredulous and yet flattering comments. The woman was clearly fishing for a story, and Cherry saw no reason not to give her one. After all, she knew what a total ass Tristan was, so why not share some of that truth? It's just too bad there wasn't some reporter here to take it down - sure, publicly smearing a celebrity's name wasn't anything new, but the only people who ever did that to Cowell (publicly) were men and politicians.

Imagine what the world would think if a beautiful girl such as herself came forward with the travesties of Mr. Cowell? The world loved a damsel in distress.

Taking a sip from her drink, she took on a look of thoughtfulness. Perhaps it was high time she told the whole story to someone. "I've always had these shady feelings about Tristan Cowell." she began, lowering her voice only slightly, so that the other tenants of the now peaceful Tavern wouldn't overhear her. "And I had to find out my suspicions were quite justified in a most unfortunate way. You remember a few months back when he was supposed to be getting married? Well, about a week beforehand, he had been acting all kinds of nervous. Him of all people! The man they say exudes confidence. Clearly, his bride-to-be was someone of a special caliber if she could throw Tristan Cowell into such a fuss. Well, I digress. That behavior can hardly be called crazy, but it really makes me wonder about this next part." she explained, grabbing her drink and downing a good portion of it this time before she continued. "So the day of the wedding arrives, and I, in the absolute goodness of my heart, decide that the Castle Should be PERFECT for when he gets home with his new missus. I whip the other servants up into a cleaning frenzy - they sort of had this respect for me after I'd been there for a while - I've got the maids cleaning every room and dusting every corner, the chefs are all in the kitchen preparing a grand feast, the servant boys have all run off to press the curtains, sheets, carpets, anything with cloth in it. And I, personally, handled his Quarters, tidying it up from top to bottom and definitely setting the mood. I was honestly expecting some kind of nice cash bonus for all our work, especially since he should be in some kind of awesome mood, right?"

The grim look was back as she recalled the following events. "Wrong. I'm standing at attention, at the ready for anything right by the front Gates as he arrives home. And the first thing that stuck out to me was the fact that the entourage he had left the Castle with weren't with him when he got back. The next thing that stuck out was that he didn't have a blushing bride on his arm. And as soon as he stepped foot inside and fixed me with this hateful glare, I knew there was trouble.

He....well, there is no delicate way to put this... he beat me. He beat me down, saying things like "Your Fault" and "Useless Women", and other hateful things. Then he did something else. I'd rather not use the direct word for it, but I'm sure you can probably guess what I'm implying when a powerful man beats a woman down and is obviously not satisfied with just inflicting physical pain. When he was finished with that, he had me tortured for a bit and then thrown into the dungeon. I want you to know, though, that I never gave him the satisfaction of crying out. Although, he revisited me on a near daily basis, simply to torture me some more. He didn't seem to like that I wouldn't scream, and I was worried that he might start removing things if it went on much longer.

I lost faith that anyone was going to come for me after about a week, and decided to risk escaping on my own. It wasn't as if I couldn't free myself from my shackles - I could, though it was obscenely painful, mind you, and without my gift of rapid healing, it wouldn't have been doable - but the real issue was getting out of the castle unseen by any of Cowell's lackeys. I'll spare you the details on that, though.

I later discovered that he had been left at the alter by his former fiance, and I hear from a few reliable sources that he actually burned down the entire Church in his rage. So tell me Irene," Cherry addressed the busty woman, giving her a wry, though good-humored smile. This was the past, she could laugh about it. "Is burning down a church, reportedly injuring several people in the process, and coming home to rape and brutalize a helpful Maid a reaction that any SANE person would have to being stood up?" she asked, chuckling a bit.

She was rather looking forward to the reaction she would get.

[Violet Macar]

Well, that approach went well. The girl definitely started opening up, and Violet had to be ready. She held a piece of parchment in her hand, using her inherent powers to turn it invisible. In a matter of moments she had also turned her quill invisible within her pocket and then set it down on the parchment, casting a spell so that it began to make full and complete quotes of everything being said. Not a single detail could be missed.

Cherry went on to explain how she had made the Cowell Castle perfect and lovely for the couple that everyone was pretty much rooting for since the day she was legal. She explained things Violet already knew - that the wedding had been a fiasco, that the chapel went down in flames by Cowell's hand. She was disappointed... at first. Then there was the little bit no one knew. Torture? Alledged rape? She was sure that Cowell was completely capable of the former. He was a warlord after all. Sure, everyone believed he was honourable and relatively merciful... But anyone who had seen him at that wedding; anyone who had seen him in the midst of an important battle: It was obvious the man was capable of some pretty dastardly things. The rape thing was a little touch and go. It was also a touchy subject, rape was something she didn't go with. If it came back that the person was innocent, people got called out and got into a lot of trouble.

She was right though. Torturing a well-meaning maid was just bad. Even if it wasn't true. It was juicy. Everyone - especially in Malscure - thought of Tristan as a sort of white knight of the country. A representative of the fact that good can even lie in darkness... And now there was the 'fact' that behind closed doors there was torturing of innocents. It wasn't even the torturing of a prisoner of war - still illegal, but not quite so horrible. People excused such conduct all the time. Torturing an innocent? An innocent woman no less?

Gossipping about illegality was going to be tough. She had expected the batshit crazy stuff to be a little less... Well, a little less dangerous for her to publish. She would ignore the rape. The rape was most certainly something that didn't need to be spewed out. People hated rapists, they hated rape, and they hated people who bashed someone's name in with a false accusation. The torture... Well, Violet definitely wanted to get that in print. But would it be approved? If it were, it would probably be forced to run as a full story, not just a gossip column. That didn't suit Violet either.

She stayed silent for an appropriate amount of time. Enough time to make it seem like the horrified look on her face was completely genuine. Enough time to fully process the 'horrible' information she had just recieved. Finally, she let the look slowly fade away. "That's horrible, Cherr" 'Irene' told the fellow knock-out, "Hey, maybe there'll be one of those freakos hiding away in the corner, you know the ones that print that trash over at the Tablet place?" She looked around suspiciously. She saw a man writing on a piece of parchment not too far away. She pointed him out, whispering to her source, "Like that guy. I don't want to sound like some batshit crazy person, but I swear that I'll be talking to a friend and then bam! The next day my words are in that snot rag. Those people are everywhere - the ones who make it their life's work to hide away in corners and hope they luck out listening to someone as intelligent as you or I."

She went to take a sip of her drink, only to find out she had already taken the last one, and put it back down on the counter, sighing slightly. She hadn't the money to spare on a second drink, oh well. "I hope you don't think me paranoid, I just... Well, sometimes things have a way of getting out, you know?"