Dead and Buryd

Chapter 20: Behind the Bar

The Rion district was alight with Adveni electricity by the time Georgianna trudged through their streets. While the district was controlled by Adveni, Veniche huddled on street corners, waiting for an Adveni who might give them a second glance.

On one corner were the Olcinyty, who would sell their bodies for an Adveni’s pleasure at the right price. On the next, a couple of Carae who would sell the Adveni their pleasure in substances the Adveni did not know how to create from Os-Veruh’s plants.

Georgianna travelled past them all, before turning down an alleyway to go in through the side door of a bar. Closing the door behind her, she moved through the back corridor to a small room assigned to the workers. She placed her bag on one of the shelves against the wall, and pulled out a ribbon to tie her hair in a knot high on her head.

Leaving the small room, she passed along the corridor that led out to the bar. Greunn, the Adveni owner of the bar looked out of his office as she passed, clucking his tongue against his teeth.

“Late.”

She gave him an apologetic smile.

“I’m so sorry. I was on my way, but there was an emergency.”

He didn’t look convinced. He raised an eyebrow, scratching his jaw.

“Always is,” he grumbled.

Georgianna’s smile faltered as he turned away, grasping the door handle to his office.

“Docking wages, maybe that’ll teach you.”

Nodding respectfully at his back, she slipped past Greunn and headed out towards the bar. It happened to be the third time he’d told her such a thing, so she wasn’t too worried.

Lifting the thick wedge of wood that closed the bar off from the customers, Georgianna slipped past. She closed the wedge behind her and turned around, straightening the front of her shirt as she went.

“You’re late,” a man chuckled from his seat on the other side of the counter.

Glancing at him, her eyes widened in surprise. It was Edtroka, a drink in front of him, his dark gaze fixed on her. He looked different without his guard uniform, less scary in some ways, but odd in others. She had never seen him in anything less than a perfectly kept Adveni uniform. Sitting in front of the bar, he looked almost, dare she say it, normal.

“Has someone been telling tales on me?” she asked, glancing down the bar at Liliah, who had clearly been listening in on the exchange. She looked at Georgianna and swiped her finger swiftly across her lips. Penn, on the other hand, washing out glasses, grinned sheepishly down into the suds.

“Glad to see you take timekeeping more seriously when you work for me.”

“I, Volsonne, do not work for you,” Georgianna insisted. “I work to keep those prisoners alive.”

“And yet you run every time I send you a message,” he sighed. “Must be my irresistible charm. I should have that looked at. You don’t happen to know a medic who can give me something, do you?”

Georgianna giggled involuntarily as she shook her head. She couldn’t quite believe he was talking to her this way, though their exchange when she’d asked for details on Nyah should probably have alerted her to the fact there was a side to Edtroka of which she saw little. She wondered how he was with his friends, how he behaved around Adveni women. She could imagine, what with the way he was now and the way he looked, that he would be rather popular.

“Maybe some sort of sedative,” she suggested. “It would certainly keep that ego under control.”

Edtroka cocked his head to the side, considering her words. After a moment, he nodded slowly.

“That would certainly work. Wouldn’t be half as entertaining as what I had in mind though.”

“Well, I do try to tell my patients the downsides of any medication,” she told him. “Now, would you like another drink?”

Georgianna was kept relatively busy with customers after delivering Edtroka’s fresh drink, and when there weren’t people at the bar waiting, there were tables to clean and glasses to collect. She didn’t get much of a chance to talk to Edtroka again, especially not while there were other Adveni in close proximity, and the guard kept a steely silence.

Penn apologised to Georgianna for telling the Adveni that she was late, but Georgianna dismissed the apology and told Penn that there was nothing to be sorry about. He had only been telling the truth after all.

Liliah, however, seemed much more interested in why Georgianna had been late, not to mention her banter with the Adveni, even though he was still sat at the bar behind them. As the two of them found themselves reaching for the same bottle of dark berry wine, Liliah finally found her chance.

“There’s nothing to tell,” Georgianna assured her. “I was out in the camps visiting my Da’ and I ran late.”

“So you weren’t with…”

Georgianna glanced at Liliah as she took the bottle of wine from her and began pouring some into a glass.

“With who? Keiran?”

“Unless there’s another?”

Giving her friend a scandalised look, Georgianna rolled her eyes.

“What exactly do you take me for? There’s no one else, and I wasn’t with Keiran. I was at home.”

She turned quickly away from Liliah, delivering the glass of wine to the customer with a respectful bow of her head. Liliah gathered a brewed beer and the glass of wine she’d poured, and took them to her own customer before returning to Georgianna.

“Did something happen?” she asked, placing her hands on her hips. “Did he do something?”

“Suns, Lil’, what makes you think that? He didn’t do anything.”

“Every time I’ve seen you recently, you’ve either been working, or you’ve been with him, now you’re going home instead,” Liliah answered as if it were the most obvious thing on the planet. “Girls get their hearts broken and they run home to their Da’.”

Liliah offered her a triumphant smile, leaving Georgianna to stare dumbfounded as the brunette walked off to collect some glasses from a table left vacated by customers. Georgianna didn’t like it; she didn’t like that Liliah thought Keiran had done something wrong when he hadn’t. It wasn’t her involvement with Keiran that had meant she’d gone home. She’d wanted to talk to her father about Taye and Nyah, though that did open up questions on how she would tell Keiran that she wasn’t heeding his advice about the whole situation.

“He didn’t do anything, Lil’,” Georgianna said quietly as she returned to the bar. “Things are fine. At least, I think they are.”

“You think?” Liliah asked.

Georgianna frowned, scratching behind her ear as she tried to think of what to say. She couldn’t tell Liliah about Taye. It wouldn’t be fair to force that sort of secret on her.

“I don’t agree with him on something,” she admitted, “and I don’t know if he’s going to be upset about it.”

“Why would he be upset? After all, aren’t you two just… friends?”

“Yes, we are, but this is different.”

“Why?”

Resting her elbow against the bar, in front of all the bottles positioned neatly in their rows, she thought of how to explain without actually explaining. Liliah knew Georgianna worked down the Way whenever she could, but telling her that she was involved in the escape of a drysta was too dangerous.

“It’s about my sister’s job,” she said, making sure to pronounce every syllable correctly. “It’s not the safest job.”

Liliah stared back at her in blank confusion. Liliah knew that Georgianna didn’t have a sister, and she opened her mouth twice before the light of understanding flickered in her eyes.

“Okay,” she answered, pausing for a moment. “So why would he be upset? It’s nothing to do with him, right?”

“No, it’s not, but he’s being… I don’t know, he’s… he doesn’t want her to get hurt.”

Liliah could not stop a small squeak of laughter. Looking at Georgianna, she offered an apologetic expression that didn’t quite look sincere as the smile pressed against her lips. Georgianna looked back at her in surprise, raising an eyebrow as she tried to work out what was so amusing.

“Sounds like he’s protective, if you ask me,” she beamed.

“So?”

“So, it’s not like a man who’s ‘just having fun’ to be protective of his friend’s sister, is it?” Liliah asked. “Sounds like he’s not simply taking advantage anymore.”

“Who said he was taking advantage?”

“Isn’t he?”

“No, he’s not, Lil’. He’s not tricking me or promising me things he won’t deliver. I knew what I was getting into.”

“Short term, yes,” Liliah answered. “But long term?”

Georgianna tucked an errant lock of hair behind her ear and crossed her arms. Seeing the look on Georgianna’s face, Liliah held her hands up.

“Alright, alright, forget it,” she said. “So you disagree. What’s the problem?”

Liliah shrugged as she collected up a couple of glasses from the bar and handed them over to Penn. Georgianna grabbed a cloth, absently wiping the same spot on the bar.

“I don’t want to fight with him.”

“Well, there’s your problem.”

“Where?”

“You don’t want to fight. You never do. You keep doing something while it feels good and then run away as soon as there’s a problem. Isn’t that why you stopped seeing the other guy, because you fought and you didn’t like what he said?”

Georgianna’s brow furrowed and she shrugged.

“You don’t stick around to see if something will work. You just move on to the next thing that feels good. You think Qiyan and I never fight?”

Liliah gave a sudden bitter laugh and shook her head, using the glass in her hand and gesturing with it. She moved her hand so violently that, for a moment, Georgianna thought the glass might be flung out of Liliah’s slim fingers and shatter into a thousand pieces.

“We fight all the time, but we stick at it because we love each other,” Liliah said. “Suns, we fight over this place, but he knows it brings food in.”

Georgianna wasn’t entirely sure where Liliah was going with this. If she was trying to convince Georgianna that she should talk to Keiran, even though it might make him angry, telling her how much she fought with her fiancé wasn’t the right way to go about it.

“You know what’s best about the fighting?” Liliah asked suddenly.

Georgianna frowned.

“Nothing?”

“The sex,” Liliah answered. “Angry-fight sex, or after-fight sex, it’s brilliant.”

From his place at the bar, Edtroka snorted with laughter. Both girls turned quickly to look at him, their eyes wide in surprise and embarrassment that he’d been listening to their conversation. Still chuckling, Edtroka raised one hand.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” he said through a smirk.

Georgianna glared at him before turning back to Liliah, lowering her voice significantly.

“So what? You’re saying I should tell Keiran about… my sister’s job? So I can have angry sex?” she asked.

“No,” Liliah answered bluntly. “I’m saying that if you’re not willing to tell him something just because it might cause a fight, if you won’t stick around for the bad, how can you ever expect him to stick around and fight for you?”

Liliah was called away by a customer before Georgianna managed to think of a suitable response. Even as the night progressed she couldn’t find a comeback to prove Liliah wrong. The problem was, the longer it took for her to think of an argument to the brunette’s point, the more she thought that actually, Liliah might not be wrong after all.