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Who: Boromir and Ilde.
What: Boromir is on his way to a tavern for post-monster slaying ale, and ~~gets drive-by trolled~~ meets Ilde along the way.
Where: Somewhere by the Gross Tar!
When: Sukkardi (Saturday) evening.
Notes: None.
Warnings: None.

Boromir was restless. In less than a week he had been slain in battle, resurrected in the strangest city imaginable, attacked by even stranger creatures and resolutely he had battled on. But when he had finally gotten back to the Valhalla Inn on Sukkardi morning, washed and tried to get some rest, he found he could only manage a few hours. He wasn't used to a long night's sleep; he had been travelling for months on end, alert and ready at the slightest hint of danger. It was impossible to suddenly stop.

The answer was to find whatever tavern was still open and hope that a good, long drink of ale could bring him some respite.

Still unsure about his bearings, especially at night, he made his way towards the Gross Tar and followed the river.

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Welcome to Introduction to Tolkien Characters 101 (perhaps Baedel will be good for him, in a strange, strange way). Boromir feels strangely saddened; despite everything, he likes to think he will always believe in the good in people.

"And we're back to drink," he says, getting up. "You're welcome to join me, although I won't be offended if you say no, either."

Considering it for a moment, Ilde weighs her options and the likely consequences; on the one hand, she'll probably need a hand out of the bar and for Boromir to call Sonja later, but on the other, she's pretty sure she'd have more luck taking advantage of him than the other way around, and after the week they've all had...she could use the drink, too. She gathers up her papers and her purse, holding a hand out to him to be helped up, imperious as she remains. "There's a bar that makes the drink I like. I'll show you."

Boromir can introduce modern beer to his system, she wants a brandy alexander.

Boromir is pleasantly surprised. Considering how the last part of their conversation had went, he had expected some form of polite refrain. He helps her up, ever the gentleman, before saying, "Lead the way."

Whatever Ilde is, she is as tempestuous as her element, in her own quiet way (ah, it seems as though he's learning).

He has his moments, this guy.

One of the papers goes in her bag, with her cigarettes and her CiD, but most of the rest (and her improvised ash-tray) get left on a bench not far from the river to free up her hands (and abandon newspapers she isn't going to need) as they walk. The bar in question isn't far away - of course she knows somewhere handy to the river - and it's not much like the kind of tavern Boromir might've found on its own. A stone-arched place lit a neon-blue and underground, it caters mostly to people in their mid to late twenties who won't feel out of place listening to German techno, and Ilde has previously established that it features European beers and a bartender who knows his way around a cocktail.

This is probably significantly more culture shock than her tail was, though Ilde's of the opinion that coming to down here in a white tshirt and flipflops is weirder than his outfit.

...she'll just order for him and find a table out of the way, it's fine.

Just a bit of a culture shock (although not the stone-arches; they are familiar). And what in all of Arda is that din these people are listening to.

He sits down at the table she picks, with a look of that says this drink better be impressive.

Ilde pushes the bottle towards him. "Don't be a baby."

Much like how Captains of Gondor don't blush, they don't sulk. Boromir drinks, and concedes the beer's quality with, "Not bad."

Mouthing 'fussy' at him - the techno doesn't bother her, relatedly, but then, she's reading the shape of his mouth more than she's listening to his voice in the first place - Ilde tastes her own drink, then takes a deeper sip, evidently satisfied.

(And a little flushed, almost immediately; alcohol hits a fairy hard and fast. If she were a more sensible creature, she wouldn't drink the way she does, but where's the fun in that?)

"See how you feel about it in the morning, if you're using it to get to sleep." He looks like he'd be funny, hungover. Men are babies.

Boromir is about as fun hungover as anyone can imagine, but it takes a lot to get him drunk (he's over six foot is used to drinking every day, you figure out his tolerance).

He continues drinking (it is, admittedly, good beer) and can't help but watch the other bar patrons with idle curiosity. When he turns back to Ilde, he asks, "Is this tavern like the ones in your world?"

She shrugs, one-shouldered, following his gaze briefly - there's a little dancing going on, but for the most part, people are mingling and drinking and it's almost low-key, as evenings they go. "Some of them, like they used to be - I used to go to a place just like this, at home, when I had a fake." ID, she means, and it turns out that she's a bit less taciturn and a little more animated when there's alcohol in her system; Ilde's a bit of a chatty drunk.

She's also baby-faced at twenty-one, so one can only imagine how she managed passing a fake ID for the short time she had one.

"When we still had bars," she adds, saluting him with her glass. "Tavern is archaic. You're archaic." Your face is archaic, Boromir- no, she's friendly, still, just tipsy and blunt.

He lowers his bottle from taking a drink and looks at Ilde. Really. She's not even finished one drink and he can already see the signs.

"Bars," he says, musing on the word. It does make sense; they do call the area where the drink is served 'the bar' and the people behind it are called 'the barkeep' or 'barmaid.' But they also served as a place to reside in for the night, in the countryside between cities and settlements. He wonders if that's changed.

"At least I can handle my drink," he jests in good fun.

Just wait until she stands up later and lists like a sailor.

...for the meanwhile, she kicks him under the table, which serves no purpose at all but to amuse her; her flipflops aren't exactly going to do him any damage, and she's not kicking very hard, laughing her gurgling little laugh into her glass. "I'm handling it," she says, with dignity. "I'm just handling it my way."

Which is 'not at all'. Accursed physiological differences.

It seems to Boromir as though people in this city are very familiar with one another very quickly; possibly as a result of everyone being in the same social position to begin with, possibly because his world is archaic by comparison. After a lifetime of decorum, it's a strange yet comfortable way of interacting.

"If you say so," he says, chuckling.

Ilde was always like this, or would've been, before Prometheus; the blithe new best friend, sliding into and out of conversations without seeming to have much of a care about what she was saying or doing. The awkwardness of finding her footing in the world now that everything is different (at home, in Baedal - she's different, broken in places that were only jagged before) is laid over the foundations of socialite-in-training, and dragging a stranger to a bar and telling him to man up and try the booze is, well, comfortably familiar.

"I do," she insists, accordingly, self-satisfied and pink in the cheeks, crossing her ankles under the table and seeming awfully catlike in her I meant to do all of that attitude. "It's only because I'm-" she makes a little gesture, twirling her finger in the air and trying to indicate 'fairy' rather than 'insane'. (Both are arguably true.)

That does not help matters at all, Ilde, and it only makes him laugh more (although not unkindly) at the unfortunate gesture. "I know what you mean. I've spent time in the company of races other than Man, and their tolerance levels differ greatly."

He seems a little bit wistful for a moment, but pushes it aside. Now isn't the time to dwell on such things.

That catches her attention and her curiosity, and it's probably a happy accident that she doesn't miss the table when she rests her elbow there to lean forward, chin in her hand. "Have you? Such as?"

Perhaps his experience with xenians will spare him any surprise that it's those other than human who seem to interest her the most, though in Ilde's case it's often a matter of how quickly she's trying to catch up with worlds a part of her own that she didn't know existed for so long. 'Naiad' she can swear to, and not mermaid - she knows she needs fresh water - but there are so many stories and so many possibilities and in some ways she's searching for familiarity.

He seems -not uncomfortable, nor stiff, but perhaps for a moment he seems a little bit more tense, more guarded. It's a slight shift in his body language and tone, before easing back again. "I had the honour of travelling with an elf, dwarf and four Halflings for a long journey."

'Honour' is a very specific choice in words, and it's wholeheartedly meant. He held his friends in great regard -still does- but right now he cannot allow himself to think about them or how he left them. Not now. He tries a smile before asking, "Have you heard of their kind before?"

Even drunk - and she's definitely drunk, delicate little monster that she is - Ilde has well-trained herself to catch such subtleties of manner, and in the depths of her pleasant giddiness, she catches herself to make a concerted effort to tread with a litle more care here. It's partly habit; she likes to be liked, and she used to spend a lot of time tailoring her behaviour to at least give herself better odds.

"I've heard of elves and dwarves," she says, holding up a finger, "but not 'Halflings'. What is a Halfling."

...well, under the circumstances 'resisting the impulse to ask what that was about' will have to suffice.

Edited 2011-06-09 19:06 (UTC)

How best to describe a Halfling? Gandalf had once said you can learn all that there is to know about their ways in a month, and yet after a hundred years they can still surprise you.

"Incredible," he says, smiling fondly. "They're also known as Hobbits to some, but in my part of the world they're known as Halflings. I travelled with four of them, and two of them had not yet come of age. They look very much like Men, but range between two and four feet in height. Although they have slightly pointed ears and, of course, there's their feet -covered in hair, so they don't don't wear shoes. They let their soles become thick and leather like."

"As for their nature... Friendly. Very friendly. And funny, too. They describe themselves as peaceful, not much concerned with the goings on outside their own borders. They prefer a simple life." By this point he's much more relaxed again. The conversation is distant enough from his worries to let him reminisce about more pleasant memories. "They're hardy as well, and not to be underestimated. There's something inherently good about them. If you think I'm virtuous, then hobbits are ten times over. But it is not a weakness."

Last but not least, "And if you'd let them, they'd eat eleven meals a day. It reminds me of the two youngest; their names were Merry and Pippin. They ate two lembas each, a type of elven waybread, when one bite was enough to fill a grown man's stomach."

The more or less accurate image that this conjures up is more than a little entertaining, but it's not 'til he says hobbits are yet more virtuous than he is that she bursts into gurgling laughter, giggling through the rest of his description.

"I think I prefer my feet optional," she says, wriggling her toes in her flipflops.

Boromir cannot help but noticed your well placed giggle fit, madam. He makes a dismissive little 'hush, you' gesture and drinks his beer. "All the better to kick men of Gondor, I presume."

Obligingly, as if that were a request, Ilde kicks him in the knee again. (Or, well, she tries - it's more of a 'gently grazing his knee with the underside of her foot as she almost completely misses him'.)

The expression that follows that is almost comically put out.

"Careful with that aim," he says, which is only the slightest bit reproachful, before pushing her ankle gently off his lap. "I would ask if you wanted more but I'm afraid you might end up marinated."

Ilde's foot hits the ground with a thud as she grimaces at him for the 'marinated' remark. "Pleasantly," she stresses, taking a sip from her cocktail glass. "Pleasantly ... tipsy."

"My apologies. Pleasantly tipsy and both pleasant and tipsy." He looks suitably chastened. Please don't be cross with him, little river-maid.

Edited 2011-06-10 06:02 (UTC)