Uvodell: The Lost Princess of Yggdrasil [Draft]

4 || 𝔟 𝔢 𝔞 𝔲 𝔱 𝔶 𝔦 𝔰 𝔞 𝔟 𝔢 𝔞 𝔰 𝔱

"You sure you'll be 'ight, Roe? 's quite the storm comin' on tonight– can feel it in me old bones."

The barkeep leaned back where he stood to catch a glimpse out the window. Large storm clouds had gathered in the distance, wisps of lighting flickering through the clouds as they drawled closer. It'd be on them within the hour if the sense of his bones was right.

"Lemme call your sister on down and– "

"Noooo-" The woman could barely lift her head from the counter, giggling to herself and dragging out the word in a high-pitched whine. "No, no... no no no, there's... t-there's no need to call ol' anor down here. I-I- Why, 'm as straight as a.. As a fiddle!" She suddenly sat upright, half-heartedly gripping the counter to steady herself as the world began to spin. She laughed at the feeling, swaying back and forth in her chair to chase it. " 's no need to call 'er down here and 've- have her yell at me."

The barkeep held his hand out to catch her as she stumbled from the seat, swaying in place as if she were a tree caught in the approaching storm. She waved him off dismissively, groping around the counter and tapping along for the half-filled silver tankard to her right with little success. Her fingers brushed against the bottom, and she scooped it up eagerly, bringing it to her lips for a swig. What didn't make it in her mouth dripped from the sides of her lips, down her neck, to soak into the sheer fabric of her dress neckline.

"Besides–" she set the tankard down, making a show of licking her lips before wiping her mouth, " –I think I can m-manage to find my way back well enough. 'm sure there's plenty of gentlemen and gentlewomen out t'is late that wouldn't mind– wouldn't mind helping a pretty girl out."

The barkeep frowned, he knew that look about her. The drunken girl act was exceptionally convincing, even more if he hadn't known her his entire life. It worked well enough, allowing her ample hunting ground and pickings on most nights. But his old bones felt something brewing in the night, worse than a simple thunderstorm, slowly gnawing away at the back of his mind like an old wound that refused to heal.

"With how the streets are, best you'd some company goin' back." He hesitated. "Please? For us?" As if he ever thought it'd mattered. She made no attachments, less of the mortal kind, like a nestless dove that never came to roost. Always wandering aimlessly from lover to nest, never choosing to stay longer than she felt with any of them. It'd become their habit, their own little game of cat and mouse. He brought her the mice, and she went to hunt.

The woman smiled, a sickening and twisted, unnatural thing, sending shivers tingling down his spine. For a second, just the smallest breath of time, the act came undone and there she was, fully and beautifully as the day they'd met. Fair skin dusted with freckles like cinnamon, hair cascading over her shoulders and down her back in thickets of blonde ringlets, eyes glistening like sapphires. And for the briefest sigh from his lips, she was in that same white dress, the tail gliding along behind her, never dirtying or touching the ground. And he was young again, heartbroken by first love, trying to drown it in the company of alcohols he didn't recognize, watching her through a haze and a dream. She'd become his personal nightmare, a reminder of what never was that gave him the illusion of what could've been.

A drunken woman stumbled into the space between them, crumbling the dream and illusion. Her words slurred together under a thick accent as she slipped herself up from the counter, corset barely held together by a loose thread stretched around her waist. A few more abrupt movements and it would come undone.

Through the alcohol, the woman looked up to see a fine, dark elf man with dimpled cheeks and slicked black hair tied into a ponytail in place of the barkeep's blonde dream. She reached for him, for his face, gazing into those beautiful emerald eyes that enthralled intoxicated poems from her lips. The man smiled down at her, softly- gentle, and allowed himself be held for a moment longer.