Drunk (open)

[Amalric Maulesel]

The tavern fire flickered like a firefly and twisted like an earthworm, slithering on the peat and digesting its rotten sweetness. The dust arose in a perfume among the four men surrounding it. Each one held a cup of beer as they swayed and sang in a night they would not remember. Amalric was on his fifth cup.

"My god is great," said Sir Münche. "He gives me free beer!" The knight leaned back on his stool grinning.

"If your god is great, my god is greater," Amalric slurred, then, downed half his drink, breaking into another grin that made his eyes squint. Sir Münche could only laugh at this point, considering whose the king, and took another guzzle of his cup. "Still, not drunk!" he laughed afterward.

Then, Amalric got up from his stool and wandered aimlessly around his men to the keg they had propped up. He refilled his cup with the frothing, bubbling beverage, brewed bitter from the mountains. All his knights were jolly and cross-eyed, the subject changing after each round of guffawing. They made the kind of jokes that you close your eyes to and by the time you're done with the thought and the subject ought to change, you've forgotten what the heck you were laughing. Dirty mugs clustered the stool in front of them like a city of warm glass. Amalric filled up another glass halfway, then his own the rest. He left the halfway filled one on top of the keg, and returned wobbling with his own seat. He'd forgotten it completely.

Finally he wobbled over to his old friend and poured some beer from hos own mug into the knight's. They clinked cups in that perfectly mutual way people get when their drunk, whether they be in front of their king or their boss or even their enemies, and Amalric said, "Cheers, and now, you finish!" The King chugged first, Sir Münche second with such ease that one might think they weren't trying to be competitive when really they had been pushing each other all night.

"Where is Sir Pilsener?" Sir Münche finally asked. "I swear, he went off to our room and he hasn't come back." They had lost their perception of time, you see. "We should check on him." The four men eased up, getting their bearings. They're heads all had a kind of tightness, but this was eased by the warmth of their drink. Sir Münche will chug a vase of water in the morning, while Amalric would suck it up and say he was fine. They wobbled like reluctant bears out of the common room and toward the rented tavern room. All hands felt on the narrow corridor like a bulky centipede until they came to their room of sleeping mats. The tavern was quaint, built in a rural area absent of a local noble. Amalric preferred it to the forest, only tonight, he wobbled onto the doorpost while his hand came up to his nose. Sir Münche came from behind him and was the first to exclaim, "So he was sick."

"It still was a good night," Amalric said, looking down at his knight who snored in a puddle of milky brown chunks. Amalric was disgusted, and the smell of it made him want to puke as well but he was too sedated for his gut to clench. Amalric scratched his head, wondered where the inn-keeper was. He began to turn around too go check the common room, but Sir Münche said, "We should get him off of his blanket" while wobbling at Amalric's shoulder like some blessed, drunken angel of common sense. Amalric agreed with the same rational that made him lift his glass when the rest of his buddies did - he wouldn't have helped rolled the knight over and muck up his sheets if he was sober. Sir Pilsener groaned when they yanked out the linen covering. "Stop, what are you doing?!," he growled dazed. "Go! No!" when they tried to wrestle away his smelly pillow. "Good, Pilsener, sleep in this," Amalric warned, but he soon found a solid shove in the stomach more helpful. With the sheets stripped from the hay mattress, the sick man promptly buried his head in straw. "Just leave me," he muttered, his voice hoarse.

They carried the sheets out, their own tipsiness numbing them to the horrible smell. They closed the door behind them, then huddled about what to do in the thin corridor.

"If the inn keeper sees this mess, he'll throw us out," Amalric said. The pillow was of goose down and the bile had soaked through the case. Never mind he was a king and could buy the place if he wanted. He was tearing the cloth off while Sir Münche interjected, "We can clean it."

"No we can't. Look at this!" He shoved it at Sir Münche, who shoved it back at Amalric, who shoved it back at Sir Münche who finally kept it.

"We can wash the stain out a little bit and say it was stained with cider, possibly?" Sir Münche queried, though it sounded like, "Wecouh wass astain out alllbiiit a say it wassdand wih cider, possiblee?"

"Maybe for the pillow, but the sheets?" The mess was huge and they needed their soap more for themselves than an entire bed of sheets.

"We can bury them," Amalric said at last. "Mmm. We can bury them. In the garden." Amalric decided, rolling the clean part of the blanket and mattress covering over the muck. This was his responsibility, and though he still was in a good mood, something had to be done. The man lying inside that room was his fault, and now, the whole lot of them were stuck with a mess that would keep them drinking all night to avoid going back to the room. He found a pillowcase and stuff the everything inside. Then, he wound it up and tied it as solid as the straps of a saddle.

"Münche, go check if the innkeeper is at his counter."

"Yesssirrr!" Sir Münche said loudly, clicking his heels and saluting. He marched into the common room. When he came back, another beer in hand, hiccuping, and taking rather longer than he needed, he returned to say the innkeeper had been at his post but was no longer thanks to his new friend. He gave a big drunk smile at the word friend. Amalric, in the meantime, had checked a few of the supply closets. All he could find were sheets and cleaning supplies, potpourri, and other such plain, housekeeper items, but no shovels and no trowels. He stomped down the hallway, and indeed seeing that the innkeeper absent, shouted to the lot of guests who still meandered, drinking and eating and enjoying the company of another.

"Anyone got a shovel?!" he shouted, tossing the pillowcase sloppily over his back. "Want to get rid of something."

(TAGGED) Griff and Éamonn Goronwy;; OPEN! It would be cool if this became a three player thread too, so pm me if you're interested, and I'll wait before replying.
(SETTING) Any season, any tavern in the the kingdom of Camelot or on its borders.

[Griff Aubert]

OOC - You'd gone by the time I got your PM, so I hope this is okay.

Griflet had been in the tavern for just over half an hour and he'd already managed to get through three tankards of ale and successfully worked the charm with the small, blonde bar maid to ensure that none of those tankards had been paid for. He had been walking all day, having been unable to take his horse when he'd left Glouchedon, so was more than deserving of the drink in his hand.

Griff looked around his surroundings, trying to take in everything he saw, trying to find an attractive young woman to introduce himself to, but unfortunately and rather strangely none were to be found, so his attentions turned back to the bar maid. "I know you must hear this a lot," he began. He was looking down and playing with the empty tankard in one hand. When he spoke again he looked up at the young woman, "but you really are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen." She blushed, averted her gaze from him and then without a word took his tankard to refill it. It was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a wonderful line but it was all that was needed in this particular instance.

After returning his tankard she shuffled off, presumably to attend to more of the tavern's patrons and so Griff was left to himself again. He had been travelling for a good few days now, and realised that without anyone else he really was dreadful company. He was, by his own declaration, a charmer, but as skilled as he was he could hardly charm himself so there was little to occupy his mind with.

"Anyone got a shovel?! Want to get rid of something."

A man's voice caught his attention and he turned around to feed his curiosity. There was a man, older than him, but that was as much as he could say, he looked in good health so could be quite a far few years older than Griff would have guessed. He certainly had quite an imposing look about him, and appeared, rather curiously, to be in possession of a pillowcase. "It's not a body, is it?" He was near enough to the strange man so as not to have to raise his voice. "I wouldn't be so vocal about it if I were you."

[Éamonn Goronwy]

It was official. Éamonn was confused. And not so much because he had already had his fair share of drinks tonight, which could serve to make many a man confused, but he had been confused BEFORE he got here and if he was completely honest, this confusion all in all was the reason he WAS here tonight, in some tavern he couldn’t even remember the name of, trying to forget that he was confused. Alright, so far he was not making much progress.
What could have happened? What possibly could turn a hard boiled, self-reliant and borderline arrogant assassin into this self-conscious shadow of a man? How could he have come this far down. Of course… a woman, what else? Women truly were the bane of any men, and until now he had thought himself immune to their spell. Until she had happened, a woman unlike any other. Wasn’t it always like that? The pitcher goes often to the well but is broken at last. To every man there seemed to be his personal siren, his personal Delilah. The one woman only created to bring him down to his knees, and yet to make him feel like his doom was what he wanted most… It was confusing… very, VERY confusing.

He stared dully at his already half-empty tankard of strong ale, was it the sixth, the seventh? He had lost count. But drunk and confused as he might be, his senses were still more alert to their surroundings than it would be with a normal drunkards, though it did show in nothing. Just his ears were perked up to his surroundings and he occasionally listened into conversations or the snippets he could get of them. One never knew where his next order could come from after all. Someone might be in need of someone to get rid of another someone… discreetly and easy… just down Éamonn’s alley. Doing what he did best would get his mind off more… confusing things that didn’t belong in his life. The Shadow was a different man. His eyes held only the cold steel of death and determination, a dark tunnel were you never emerged from once you set a foot in it… they did know nothing of other feelings, let alone tender ones. That’s why the Shadow was a better man in Éamonn’s eyes, a perfect mask he could hide behind once his life got too… confusing, there it was again, stupid word!! He took another deep gulp out of his tankard that nearly drained it and then let his eyes wander over the tavern.

It was crowded with many people, men mostly, passerbys and locals alike, and also one party in particular that arose his interest. They looked wealthier than the most sort around here, sporting armor that surely was not cheap. In whole they looked much like knights, at least some of them did, and when he listened closer he could occasionally make out the word “Sir” in their talk.
There seemed to be some problem, as a few of them kept vanishing upstairs where the few rooms for overnight customers were and coming back, having a rather suspcious air about them. Éamonn, whose life often enough depended on reading facial expressions, easily deciphered that they had something to hide. Significantly, one of them, holding himself quite confidently, chose the exact moment where the landlord was absent to ask a very peculiar question.
"Anyone got a shovel?!" "Want to get rid of something."
Raising an eyebrow, Éamonn decided it was time to step in. Get rid of sometTHING? Or someONE? Well, if there was any man in this room suited for such a task it would be The Shadow. Though, of course, he could not announce himself so openly and stupidly like this man just had done…

All eyes were on the man now, so Éamonn actually could saunter up behind him rather unnoticed, leaning against a thick wooden pillar and playing with his now empty tankard. He arrived just in time to hear another fellow voice his own thoughts.
"It's not a body, is it?" "I wouldn't be so vocal about it if I were you."
“Or if you had thought of getting professional help earlier”, he chimed in unexpectedly with his low, velvety voice, “you wouldn’t have to ask all the world for a shovel now but sit down here with your friends having the perfect alibi. Just saying…”