open/closed ][ I should not be left to my own devices

[bealufull]

Who: Kaz Brekker & open
When: March
Where: Cadens & Horizon
What: catch all for post event stress, open posts in comments
Warnings: violence, bar fights, the damage of such fights, gambling, likely excessive drinking, talk of body horror, vicious mockery including taunting others about weight and looks





𝐈'𝐦 𝐚 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐥

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[earthborn]

Were she to be asked, Shepard would say, out of a face full of scars and too-thin wrists, bruises healing slow and still too-easily tiring, that she was fine. She would insist upon it, really, force it to be true for all purposes, practical or otherwise.

She is fine. She is fine. She is fine.

It takes more than this to wear her down, more than the hollow-cheeked reminder of a childhood that revolved around the pain in her gut, circling the gutter by ever more violent means until someone finally yanked her up out of it. But not too far; never too far to slide back down, if she willed it.

Case in point: Shepard's days used to be so full that she could kill herself with working hours, and never run out of things to do. Now, she has time to reflect, and wander, and to pick at all the scabs of memory until she is raw and bleeding and— Maybe it's fate that Kaz has chosen this particular dive, this bar, this night. It's a likely-looking spot for if you want to hit something and don't care to be told not to.

There's an order to these things, of course. Drink first. Then a fight. When Kaz comes in and gets right to business, so clearly spoiling for the ass-kicking that it's rolling off him like radiation. Shepard does nothing. She orders another couple of shots, and tosses them back to the sound of rising voices and tipped-back chairs that squeal on the poorly-cleaned floor. Plenty are watching it happen, and nobody is doing much to indicate they care. It's not that kind of place.

She lets it go on for a while. Fights, real fights, are fast; there's a simple frugality involved, that the longer you let it go on, the higher the cost of engagement. Shepard's not like Kaz, she doesn't want to be hurt, what she wants... is to hurt people— Alright, fine, she wants to kill them, but restraint is the difference between adults and children. So she lets it go on for a little while, until it's not one, or even two, but three big shots aiming to try and wipe the sneer off Kaz's skinny face, and then she tips back the last shot, stands up, and taps the biggest of his assailants on the shoulder.

He turns, full of fire, and she hits him with all her shoulder behind it, a blow that'd felled Krogan and cracked armor, in the past. He goes down as if he had been shot, tipping back over a table with his face a crunched-in mask of blood. The table goes all to splinters, as someone else whoops and throws a bottle so that it shatters against the wall— someone is taking bets, quietly, and the room is full of spreading tension.

It's a decent enough distraction, Shepard thinks, and she spreads her hands in an open invitation. While they're looking at her, assessing all of her five feet and three inches for a threat, they aren't looking at what Kaz Brekker is about to do.

[bealufull]

Kaz grew up on the streets of the Barrel. He isn't a so called king, no mercher blood, and nothing to him but anger, spite, and violence. And brilliance. It's something he's been facing here as the others assure him he doesn't have to be the Bastard of the Barrel and his hands don't have to remain dirty.

He's just not sure that's him.

After all they've been through, he needs this. He needs to feel in control. And he is, more than many might know. He's taken more beatings than many having taken baths, and he gives as good as he gets between tenacity, years of fights, and a beautifully weighted Durast designed cane.

From the movement of others, he's aware he's not the only one in the fights, carefully watching those around him though before putting his focus on anyone else there around him. Through those shifting though, he catches sight of a familiar face, a brow quirking at that but not taking the time to focus on her yet. Not as one gloved fist connects solidly with another's jaw and he turns on one heel and clocks another upside the head with the gilded crow cane.

"Now now. Are you trying to steal my good time," he challenges, his words thick from the hits he's taken and yet there's a lightness to those words at the same time.

[earthborn]

"Plenty to go around, don't be selfish," She replies, cocksure and casual, fists up in a boxer's guardas she steps back from the wild flailing produced by the wet thock-impact of his cane. The man goes down and doesn't come back up again, the back of his head suspiciously shiny; scalp wounds always do bleed like a bitch. More relevantly, it produces an opening as the crowd, both observing and participating, pulls back from the impact, oddly dainty, "Besides—"

Necessity makes a hesitation, and she pauses to duck a thrown table-leg, stepping over sprawled limbs and splinters with a glance for the footing. It's winding down, if only for lack of continued participants— It's sad, really. But for everything bright and joyful there's always that unfortunate bite of after-climax. Alas, the real world always comes 'round eventually.

But not yet.

"...I'm not even trying," Shepard lunges towards the man with the club, driving the air out of him and throwing him bodily towards Kaz. You hungry for more, kid? Fine, have another, eat until you've had enough.