The Three Meet

Brotz was rocked up against the bar, leaning on his elbows, very, very drunk.

Eupa was watching him. Ro was, too, but not from indoors. She thought he was strange, she couldn’t figure out why, and was compelled to watch from the window, with a nice wall between her and the noises and the crowd, with a good view of the sky and the breeze in her fur.

His hair was a messy red poof ball on his head, his beard was an extension of the poof ball that spilled down the sides of his face, and he wore a mustache that curled neatly on the ends. Everyone was looking at him. He stuck out. He was big, he was golden-skinned, he was red-headed, he was wearing pretty nice, if filthy, armor, he had a big pack sitting near his feet, and he was drunk.

Everyone in the tavern kept looking, waiting to see who was gonna talk to him first. The bartender had developed a system where he didn’t have to talk, he just had to knock on the bar near his mug when he needed a refill.

Finally, someone was drunk enough to come up to him. He was relatively big, almost as tall as the redhead and might have weighed about the same, but somehow looked so much smaller--his shoulders were narrower, his arms, as big as they were, were only two thirds the size, even his head was smaller. Only his belly was bigger. Undoubtedly strong--but he didn't measure up to the redhead at all. The simpleton lumbered up and sat down next to him. “Hey, buddy,” the man said at a very drunken volume. “Hey!” he shouted when the redhead didn’t look at him. “Hey!” He leaned on the bar to get into his face. The redhead slowly, finally, put his palms on the bar and pushed himself upright. He didn’t say anything, but he slowly turned his head to look at the intruder with bloodshot amber-brown eyes.

The idiot grinned at him. “Hey, buddy,” he said again. “You need a bath. You’ve got something on your head, and we think it’s gonna eat someone.”

It wasn't a very clever remark, but the big man was apparently having a very bad day.

The man removed his gauntlets carefully and placed them on the bar next to his helmet.

The smaller drunk grinned big, knowing he’d provoked successfully. He didn’t have the good sense to run away.

The giant slowly rotated on the chair to the drunk and, without a word, grabbed him by the face and flung him nearly fifteen feet into the table he had come from.

The whole table fell. The other patrons threw themselves up and away from their chairs. Drinks and chairs and the table all crashed to the floor, and several people looked very angry, now. Eupa checked to see if the bartender was mad, too, but he wasn’t. He continued cleaning with barely a glance upward.

Eupa cleared her seat very quickly and deliberately vanished behind the stairs. Ro turned where she sat on the rainbarrels to get a better view.

The giant turned on his seat, facing the room, and slowly stood up. Eupa realized with a start that he didn’t even stand up to throw the other guy like that, and that he was even bigger than he looked.

He unfolded, going from slouched and hunched and low to standing broad and tall, almost double his previous posture. He loomed in place, feet lined up with his shoulders, head half-tucked down, chest out and shoulders back and square. His ridiculously bushy beard had ale on it, his ridiculously bushy hair would have added a layer of humor to the situation, but everyone was too afraid to laugh anymore.

He didn’t move to attack. Instead, he held his hands out at an angle, palms out. He untucked his head and lifted his chin. A completely open stance.

Both the girls could hardly believe what they were seeing.

He was taunting them. He’d just thrown a friend at them and now he was taunting them.

No one moved for several seconds. Everyone waited on the other to swing. Until the giant said, in a very quiet voice, “You scared?”

It worked. They picked up chairs, mugs, barstools, but didn’t get a chance to come at him. He charged them as soon as they were ‘armed’. He barreled in bare-handed and swung an enormous fist into someone’s chest, then another into someone else’s gut, another swing hit someone else’s face.

Four men were down in a few moments.

One of the remaining two hit him in the back with his chair to no avail. Two of the fallen got back up, two of them didn’t. Someone else broke a mug over his head to absolutely no effect. Someone from another table made an attempt at running at him to tackle him, only to collide with his side and stagger away as though he had been the one hit. The big guy grabbed someone by the back of his pants and flung him almost entirely across the room where he landed and rolled.

More got up, nearly fifteen of them, from neighboring tables.

The big gold-and-red man picked up someone and threw him across the room, caught another into a headlock, caught someone else in his other hand and used the sash around his waist to wrap around that one’s arm. He grabbed a third in his now free hand and swung him in a huge circle to launch him into a wall, knocking over two more on the way.

He tossed a few people into other tables to deliberately upset the people sitting at them. If they didn’t join the fray, the big red-head would taunt them. “Come on, guys, I’ll lose eventually,” he roared once.

He would, but not tonight, Eupa determined from her hiding place.

The rampaging man did not stop until the tavern was nearly empty, and even then he was looking around the room, wild-eyed and angry, trying to see if anyone else wanted some. His breath was coming in huge gasps, he had a rumble in his throat that would have been a growl if he was a growling species. He did a circle in the room, finally left his fighting stance. He stopped growling.

After a few moments of standing still and apparently relaxing, he sat back down on his stool where his helm and gauntlets awaited him. “Sorry,” he rumbled to the bartender, who was writing something in a book.

The violence had died down, the people were starting to get up from their various forms of broken on the floor. Several filed out of the big double doors and went to their homes, some went upstairs to sleep off the alcohol and injuries.

Eupa waited until everything was still before she sat back at the bar. Ro made eye contact with her through the window, and Eupa jerked her head to a side to indicate the rest of the room, and mouthed the word ‘empty’. It wasn’t quite yet, but no one was making any noise, for certain.

Ro waited until after the man bent back over his spot on the bar on his seat. He seemed to fade out of awareness of the rest of the world, he picked up his drink and finished it.

She stepped through the door and was promptly smacked in the head with the tankard the giant had been drinking from. He’d flung it reflexively, Ro didn’t even get the chance to read it in his plans-- he didn’t have any. He was half-drunk and fighting mad.

She staggered back, and her mouth screamed “Eupa, no!” for her as she felt Eupa doing… something.

Too late.

He was on the floor on his back with Eupa straddling his chest. Ro had cried out when she had her knife inches from his eye. The split second of hesitation gave him the chance to grab her knife arm and sling her into the floor, slamming her onto her back and head. It was the fastest Ro had ever seen anyone that wasn't her father move. She hardly had time to react before he was already on his feet, holding Eupa's arm twisted behind her back with her knife hand held in his fingers and thumb. He got her other arm trapped to her side and wrapped his free arm all the way around her.

Everyone stopped for a moment. Eupa was trying to figure out how to get her knife into him without letting him break her arm. His hands were huge, he had her entire forearm in his hand and a bit of her wrist. He had his thumb in the palm of her hand, crushing it painfully but not enough to get her to drop the dagger. His other hand closed on her left arm like a vice.

“This yours?” he asked Ro. He sounded surprisingly okay for someone that almost got stabbed in the eye. He was trying to shift his hold on her as if trying to get her away from him without actually releasing her.

“For your own sake, let her go and run quickly,” Ro warned quickly. “Really. I saw your fight, I know you’re good, but please, she’s getting angrier, it’s not safe.”

He seemed confused. His grip shifted as he tightened it and pressed her hand with his thumb a little harder. “What do you mean for my own sake?”

“Please, maybe throw her and run-- Eupa!”

It was a hell of a trick. Eupa slipped his arm by dragging her body and legs through his hold and flipping around, untwisting her knife arm so she could drop it into her left hand, stab him in the chest under his arm, and throw from there into his skull through his chin and sinuses.

He didn’t even see it happen, he just sagged to his knees. Eupa was released as his arms dropped to his sides and he collapsed forward onto his face. Eupa brushed herself off and took her dagger out of him. "I'll give him credit, he was fast," she muttered. "And he's tough."

He was still and no longer breathing, but Eupa hadn't felt good death, yet.

Ro was across the bar in a single motion, grabbed Eupa’s hand and started to pull her toward the door. “Eupa, you cannot just kill--”

"But he's not dead yet -"

Ro stopped, turned to look at him, turned her body to face him. Even Eupa seemed horrified now, eyes going wide and mouth falling open.

"He was dead."

"Dying, for sure," whispered Eupa.

He pushed himself to his hands and knees, then to his feet. Eupa tore her hand back from her sister and went… somewhere, practically disappearing before their eyes. Ro saw her jump and figured she was either behind the bar itself or behind the stairs again. No? Up. Squatting on the railing of the second floor.

Ro was frozen where she stood, staring at the enormous man as he examined what remained of the stab wounds, patting over his head until he found the gash in his chin and touched at it.

Finally, he leveled his eyes onto Ro and blinked at her cluelessly for a few moments.

She couldn't think of anything else to say. “You died. Everything about you said you were dead." As though he didn't know.

He went back to investigating the little gash in his torso, twisting and lifting his arm, and finally undoing a buckle on his armor to get a better angle. “Yeah, that’s how that’s been going lately,” he rumbled irritably. He gave up trying to see the damage and he picked his stool back up. He started to sit down, paused, looked around the room, then looked back at Ro. “Was good, though. I've never been dropped like that before. Where’d she go?”

Ro was still frozen, confused. “Dunno,” she finally managed.

He grunted, didn’t seem to mind much. Sat down, turned back to the bar, crossed his arms on it and leaned on them. “Sorry ‘bout throwin’ the mug at you. Wasn’ payin’ no ‘tention. Lemme get ya’ a drink.” The bartender placed two mugs on the bar. Ro didn’t get too close, but she did sit down with an empty chair between them. She propped her spear against the bar and took the drink.

"I'm sorry my sister killed you," Ro said after a moment, sniffing at the ale. She never liked the smell so she'd never tried drinking it. Eupa and she always carried water, and the alcohol she drank with her packmates in the village was poisonously strong.

"S'. Um. S'alright, I guess," he mumbled, petting the mostly-healed wound under his chin. All that remained was a mere fleshwound, barely a scratch anymore. "Haven't had another person do that to me, yet. Sober now. Dammit." He groaned and dropped his head to the bar. "Dammit."

"What's wrong?"

"Agh. Nothing. Just take a lot to get drunk. What's your name? Didn't mean to throw the mug, you took it pretty well." He was definitely more alert than before, but that seemed to hinder more than help. He was foreign, Ro could tell by the accent alone, let alone his smell. He was from somewhere dry, she was sure of it. She wanted to ask about the immortality, but that felt rude and invasive, somehow.

"My name is Ro." She studied him for a few minutes more, trying to find answers, but other than 'not from here' and 'very sad', Ro was not getting much. The immortality didn't show, not in any ways she could see. She smiled again, then tried to use her mouth to do it. "What's yours?"

He turned to her and stuck a hand out. "I'm Brotz."

Ro looked at his hand, then his face, then his hand again. "There is a tradition or protocol here that I do not know about," she told him after a moment. "We're not very civilized."

Brotz blinked at her. She sounded civilized, at least. She did look a bit wild but she had fur, he wasn't sure what else to expect. He took his hand away and slouched against the bar, and he felt again at the cut on his chin. "You said she's your sister?" He looked around for her again. "Where did she go?"

Ro bit her lips, considering how far she should go to avoid scaring him, then gave up and let it loose. "There is no easy way for me to tell you that even if you looked directly at her, you would not see her."

Brotz furrowed his brow and turned his lips up. "Is she magic, too?" He finally checked his side for the wound there again, but he seemed reluctant to take off the armor.

Ro snickered at Eupa's silent outrage on the balcony. She didn't even know Eupa was doing or saying anything, she just knew that Eupa hated being accused of using magic. "Mundane as can be. My magic isn't exactly something you can learn."

Brotz grunted unhappily and picked up the mug. "Just never been killed all at once like that," he muttered again. "Was weird." A third mug was placed on the other side of Ro despite Eupa's absence.

"Where are you from?" Ro asked.

"The fuck are you doing?!" Eupa finally yowled from the balcony.

"Making friends," Ro argued unhappily, crossing her arms and squaring her shoulders at her sister.

Ro noticed that the big man was unhappy to have incited the reaction. "It's alright," she said to him. "She's always like this."

"I am," Eupa agreed sharply, and she jabbed her dagger at him pointedly. "The fuck. Are you doing. Making friends with an immortal?"

Ro peered at her sister with a tense brow for a moment, and Eupa stomped her foot and flung an arm, thumping the dagger into the floor next to her own feet. "Because it's a horrible idea! We can't stop him!"

"You cannot stop him," Ro argued, rocking her weight back on the stool and recentering pointedly on the big man next to her. "Eupa's paranoid," she told him cheerfully. "I'm sorry."

Brotz's bewildered stare was unmoving, even as Ro tried to smile at him. "I do not know how to respond to your current...." Ro finally said, and she rocked back again and slouched. "Mood?"

Brotz began to chuckle, at first a bare stutter in his breathing, which grew into a nervous titter, and then finally a real peal broke through and he began to roar with laughter, so loud the room echoed and the twins covered their ears. He laughed like that for a while, and he patted the top of the bar with an enormous hand, sending the bartender scurrying while he continued, pausing only to gasp a breath, before finally the hearty guffaws fell and he wiped a tear from his eye.

"The fuck was so fucking funny?" Eupa demanded.

"You two," Brotz laughed. "I think you might be able to stop me, yeah," he continued, and he picked up the new drink delivered by the bartender to him. "What can you do? Can you do that like she can?"

"Could I kill you in a couple of strikes? No." She weighed him up anyway and frowned with thought, trying to remember what he was like when he was fighting. "I think I could hamstring you well enough to take you down for her," she said then, and she smiled at him. "I did like your fight, though, that was impressive."

Brotz blinked at her again and weighed her up as well, including the spear and dancing ribbons.

"I think it would take... probably five or six tries for me. I'm not very precise."

"Because you're lazy!" Eupa cried, and she finally dropped from the second floor to Ro's side and pulled the stool up close, practically putting their seats together.

"Lazy?" Brotz asked.

"She doesn't wanna try to be precise. She could throw her spear through your eye if you were across the town from her if she wanted to, but she's just as happy hitting your eye as your mouth as your fucking chest, no matter what bile she's ruining the meat with!"

Ro sighed heavily and audibly. "She is now, apparently, trying to scare you off by being an asshole instead of murderous," she told him. "You don't have to tolerate it, she's horrible and we both know it. She likes it."

Ro watched him pick up the mug like a simple cup, not bothering with the too-small handle, and he turned it up. "S'fine. 'Ve met worse." He picked up the ignored drink in front of Eupa and drained that all at once, too.

"You've met worse than murdered-first-asked-later?" Ro asked incredulously.

"Death ain't the worst thing that can happen to you," Brotz and Eupa said at the same time. "I'm. Still really. How'd she do that?"

"I'm fucking skilled, that's how!" Eupa cried. "How the fuck did you do that?!"

"Dunno. Just how it's been going," he told her, rocking back in his seat and meeting her gaze. He could hold it better than most others, but he still looked away first. "You're the first person... Well. Fourth. You're the first person to do it by yourself. How'd you do that, really?"

"It really is just skill," Ro told him merrily. "We're. From. A pretty dangerous part of the world, I guess?" she grinned at him with her sharp teeth. "We're adventurers. We just finished up a job we were doing, and we were looking for more work. We've got a good treasure haul going, but Eupa's been enjoying some of the more expensive parts of civilization, so we've been trying to keep ourselves funded. There's a lot of treasure hunting to be done, in certain places."

"Are you inviting me to go with you?" Brotz asked after a moment.

"The--What-?!"" Eupa cried.

"I'd like you to come with us, yes," Ro agreed with a pleased sway. "I've never met an immortal before, I'm curious, and also you're an incredible fighter."

"You want his cubs, don't you," hissed Eupa behind Ro's head. Brotz didn't hear her, or pretended he couldn't.

"I wouldn't say no if you asked me again in a couple years," Ro murmured back. "We need to find you a safe place to be before I go considering it."

Brotz finally noticed the whispers. "What?"

"Eupa was being a shit," Ro hummed brightly. "I would like you to come with us, yes," she repeated. "I think you'll be a good add-on."

"He can't even hunt!" Eupa cried.

"Eupa, shut up. Be nice to him," Ro finally said, and she spun to face her sister. "Don't you want to figure out how he's immortal? So you can undo it?"

Eupa suddenly pouted thoughtfully, looking much more innocent than anyone had any business looking with murder on the mind. "Good point," she said, finally.

"She still wants to kill me?" Brotz complained.

"It's nothing personal," Ro assured him. "She was going to obsess over finding you for the next hundred years so she could try again, but she'd be like that with any immortal. She doesn't handle magic very well, either."

"Go fuck yourself."

Brotz continued to stare at Ro, and he visible weighed out what she assumed were his options of staying here and drinking, or going with the murderous psychopath who had already killed him once.

"She really always like that?" he asked, finally.

"I won't promise you'll get used to it, but I did," Ro sighed. "I love her, and she loves me, and the.... attitude is just part of it."

"Go fuck yourself!" Eupa repeated unhappily, and she vanished again.

"I can't even say I minded her killing me. That was weird, but the weird part was how fast it was. I just woke up on the floor. Didn't even hurt. Hardly noticed." He pet his chin again. "That was really. I don't mind," he said again. "I won't be any help to you, adventuring. I can fight, but that's it."

"Can't hunt?" Ro asked. "You smell very. Cityborn."

Brotz chuckled. "Never heard that, but yeah, that's a good way to put it. Can't hunt," he agreed. "Cityborn," he repeated, but his accent got in the way of the flow.

"I can hunt for us, even you, and Eupa both. I can teach you basic things like fire-building and snares and things, as well. It won't be hard, it's what I've grown up doing. And we can leave you at a different city if you decide you don't want to try and put up with Eupa. I really will understand."

He frowned at the bartop. "You want me to come with you, really?"

"You want to come with us, why are you being so hesitant?"

His brow furrowed at her again, and she waited for him to give up on the question, but he eventually said, "I don't think you'll want me."

Ro snickered. "Why not? What's wrong with you?"

He didn't answer, instead slouching hard against the bar and knocking on it twice. Ro pet his back and flinched. "I'm sorry. I don't think anything is, though, or whatever you feel is wrong is something that I don't think is wrong." She smiled, but he still wasn't looking at her. He didn't pick his head up until the bartender brought a tumbler glass of something dark brown and viscous.

"If you'll take me, I'll be happy to stay," he finally told her, and he smacked the alcohol off his lips. "Do you want a drink besides ale? I got a bunch of gold when I came across, I've been drinking it."

Ro wagged her head, and the bartender was quick to put another two tumblers up, and the pair drank together.