Honey to the throat; But poison in the Blood...

[firdarrig]

Date: July, 2010
Time Frame: Afternoon
Place: Troll market
Status:Closed to Lucy

Gibbering chatter fluttered through the air, riding along aromas both sweet and musty. The afternoon sun hardly penetrated into the dancing smoke that permeated the upper levels of the Market and innumerable varieties of lanterns, mundane and otherwise, were already glowing eerily amongst the shadowy streets.

Betwixt the scurrying creatures and lumbering beasts strode a tall man clad in a blood red coat with a snowy, long beard that reached his waist and paper-white hair that fell in tangled locks around his shoulders. His beady eyes hid beneath dark glasses as they scoured the stands, viewing the exotic and grotesque wares of their fantastic vendors. In his right hand, clutched in spindly fingers at the end of a long arm, was a canvas bag, the contents of which sagged lazily, swinging like a hammock as he gracefully weaved his way through the various characters that crowded the noisy street.

Gingerly, he sidestepped past a large ogre and paused for a moment as a specific vendor caught his eye. He strode towards the four armed creature behind the crimson stained booth and inhaled deeply. This aroma was something he recognized well, the metallic tang of iron gave it away. The tall man grinned with long yellow teeth as he eyed the slabs of flesh drooping from elaborate hooks...

"How much?"

His voice was croaky and he spoke with a heavy Gaelic accent.

"How much for 5 pounds?"

[lucybishop]

It hadn’t been that long since Lucy had last been to the Troll market. Her ‘job’ often required her to come to this place to arrange meetings with those who couldn’t exactly meet her at the local coffee shop, and that’s exactly what she was doing today. The Troll market was also the location of one of her favorite doors on the planet, which was an added bonus when she had meetings here. She had purposefully gone around the long way so that she could open the door herself, even though she could have just come through one of the many doors in the market itself. The only problem with this plan is that she had to walk to through the meat processing plant, which she abhorred. She had used a key to enter in through the office of the meat packing plant, and she had nearly walked straight into the frozen carcass of a cow.

"Scheiße!!”

She cursed again in another, more obscure language and only through years and years of physical training was she able to sidestep and duck the hanging hunk of meat and not walk face first into it. Giving herself a disgusted shake, she continued on to the enormous gear-covered door, her face lighting up with a grin at the sight of it. Her entire being practically hummed with magic and excitement. Oh she loved this door! It didn’t particularly take a lot of effort on her part, but favorites were favorites, even if they were simple.
She skipped the last couple of steps, something she would never do if she thought she wasn’t alone, but she was confident that there was no one else around. Stopping before the door, she raised her hands and wiggled her fingers. With a loving touch, she ran her fingers across the face of the door and in its wake gears began to turn and hum,
“There you go, lovely, wakey wakey.”

With what sounded distinctly like a contented sigh, or at least to Lucy’s trained ears it did, the enormous door creaked open, and Lucy walked through it, closing with a grumble behind her.

She walked confidently through the market, despite looking completely out of place. She wore dark jeans, red Chucks, a black t-shirt with the Batman logo, and her leather bomber jacket. Add to that fact that she was a good foot shorter than most of the market’s inhabitants, and Lucy looked like fresh meat to a pack of wolves. However, as she strode purposefully through the rows created by the stands and shops, the creatures of Troll Market, if they knew what was good for them, moved out of the way. Her reputation apparently preceded her, and for that she was glad, she didn’t have the time or patience to deal with nonsense right now. Her face no longer bore the grin it had before, and was now set in a glare which quickly turned to a death glare at any that dared to get too close.

She walked right up to one of her least favorite booths in the market, the reek surrounding it assaulting her senses. However, she had just come back from a job that had made her quite, to be frank, pissed the hell off, and someone was going to pay. Literally pushing right past the scarlet-robed older man who was in front of her, disregarding the fact that as she did so, her eyes blinked at what appeared to be a glamour momentarily. So she might have just assaulted what would now be pissed off Fae, but she was just going have to deal with that later.

“Jerry!” she sing-songed in as possibly sarcastic way as was possible to the four-armed creature that now stood warily before her. Now his name was most certainly not Jerry, but to prove how pissed off she was, she called him by a 'nickname' she knew would piss him off.
“ Do you remember that deal we had? The one where I, being the caring and accommodating person that I am, agreed to help you out, by picking up some chimera meat you wanted from the Kaçkar Mountains.

“You remember that Jerry?” Despite being twice her size and strength, the demon seemed rather uncomfortable, if not nervous at this angry petite girl in front him, spitting accusations at him.
“Well Jerry, you forgot to mention that that meat you wanted me to pick up, happened to still be attached to a very much alive CHIMERA!” Now at this point, Lucy wanted to slam her fist down on the counter to add to the effect, but wasn’t willing to put her hand anywhere near Jerry’s ‘wares’, so settled for pointing angrily.

“Now, I got you what you wanted, at serious risk to myself might I add,” if one looked closely at her, it became more obvious that she had recently been in some sort of scuffle, her jeans and hair were singed slightly on one side and there was an abrasion near her right temple. Though the severity of the encounter might have been exaggerated a bit. “But if you want it, and I know you do since I can see you are out, you are going to have to pay double.” She stood back, hands on her hip, waiting for what had better be an agreement.

[firdarrig]

The tall, elderly man grunted audibly as he was pushed aside by a very rude and small young woman. Having been knocked aside, he was facing away from both the girl and the vendor and is beady eyes squinted sinisterly beneath the dark spectacles wrapped about his face as a broad grimace spread across his thin lipped mouth, exposing numerous, long yellow teeth. He quickly turned back towards the demonic vendor, grinning amiably.
"My dear sir...
If it's Chimera flesh you seek, well I just so happen to have a hefty 20 pound of it with me. I was actually looking for a buyer to relieve me of this burden today but if you'd be willing to barter that fine flesh you have here..."
He gingerly stroked a fat mass of skin, fat, and meat that looked unnervingly similar to that of a human...
"I think I would consider it a fair bargain..."

His voice, though hoarse, was very soothing and friendly. It starkly contracted the strident anger of the girl beside him...

"Afterall..."
He lifted his right hand and snapped his fingers, and, miraculously, the small woman who seemed to instill so much fear into the hearts of the creatures around her, appeared to vanish. She was completely gone from all sight and all that remained was the curious stench of old cheese...

The strange old man in the red coat leaned over the blood-stained wood of the stall and grinned widely at the four armed creature...

"I don't think you'll be getting an offer better than this..."
As if by magic, the tall old man pulled from within his deep red coat a large, succulent package wrapped in blood stained parchment. The old man chuckled as he casually dropped the large mass of bright red meat in front of the creature's greedy black eyes...

A sideways glance at the spot where the fiery woman once stood, the now rather pungent odor of spoiled dairy, and a slight chuckle from the old man was the only indication that Lucy had bumped the wrong kind of stranger. By no means had he really hared her in any way, but it was quite evident that he was now the only being in the market capable of seeing her and there was certainly something dripping from her hair with the consistency of something between cottage cheese and butter and a smell to outstink even the worst Bogart's best work.

[lucybishop]

Oh for the love of all that was holy.

If Lucy was any more furious by the current circumstances she would be combusting. In fact, at the moment, she wished her ability was to combust. Teach that self-righteous little imp a thing or two. Honestly, where did he think he was? Neiman Marcus? 5th Avenue? It was the damn Troll market, not exactly the place you go to for respectful and polite crowds. If one small shove from someone who was clearly in a hurry was enough to send this little many into a tizzy then either this idiot had never been to the market and thus was getting his panties in a twist over things he clearly wasn’t prepared for, or his undergarments were already spun so tightly they were cutting off circulation to his tiny pea brain!

UGH.

And now she smelled like rotten cheese and milk. Disgusting Fir Darrig and their disgusting magic. Well, he must be some kind of idiot if he thought some Fae glamour was going to keep her contained, and he was trying to take her job and HER MONEY?!!? Well he had another thing coming.

Her blood boiling and her hair now dripping, she took a deep breath of now rank air, vibrating with renewed anger at the thought of her lovely hair now covered in that filth. Deciding that whipping out her falcatas and slicing the little man’s head off might be a little drastic (but not out of the question) she reached into her inside jacket pocket, pulled out a small, nondescript mirror and a wax pencil and began to write furiously across the surface of the it. A large ‘evil eye’ took center place, surrounded by runes and symbols, one at five different points. Now this spell wasn’t exactly subtle, but Lucy was too irate to think rationally and remember any of her other glamor-breaking techniques or spells.The only spell that had come to mind was one she had learned from a very old, very wise man that she had stumbled across while walking down a market in the streets along the Ganges in India.

Calling a key to her Keyring that she knew was sharp, she pressed her finger against it until it became pricked and a small bead of blood formed at the tip of her finger. Squeezing it onto the pupil of the drawn evil eye, the other writing began to glow, almost as if the blood had bleed out into it. The spell was in place and the ‘sacrifice’ had been accepted. Essentially she had fashioned a sort of apotropaic, which should reverse any glamour magic, after just one more...step...and with that Lucy threw the spelled mirror to the ground where it shattered and burst into light, strong enough to momentarily blind anyone that had eyes, and strong enough to shatter any glamour in the area. The spell was strong but not refined. It was essentially like using a grenade where a pellet gun could have worked, but it had done the trick and the glamor had dissipated.

Once the light cleared which was only a moment after it happened, Lucy turned to stare down the now little man. For an added bonus she called upon the falcata from her Keyring. It appeared like any other key, spinning around the ring, before settling into her hand. The blade gleamed wickedly, though Lucy’s face remained impassive, though furious energy rolled off her in waves. This little man was about to learn why when she walked through this market, people moved aside. She had earned her place among these creatures and it wasn’t because she’d rolled over and given up.

“I’m sorry, I don’t believe we’ve met Fir Darrig,” her voice sing-songed sweetly, though the words were punctuated by her rolling the weapon in her hand.

[firdarrig]

As the flash went off a furious shriek shot through the Market streets. Where the tall old man once stood, there was now a very angry, 3 foot tall, Fir Darrig in a dingy red coat. His wizened, wrinkled and gray-skinned face was distorted into an infuriated grimace and his beady black eyes betrayed a burning anger. At his feet lay scattered the remains of a very old skeleton and where the lump of succulent meat once sat now festered a percolating mass of rancid cheese far beyond any expiration date it may have had once in the past.

He'd actually managed to shield his eyes from the flash of light and he could see quite clearly that the angry cheese covered woman before him was armed and dangerous. He bore his yellow teeth at her in fury and his croaky, aged voice erupted in a flurry of hardly intelligible babble that sounded vaguely like English with a heavy Gaelic accent.

"Funny lil lass are ye
To ha'e the gall to muss wi' me.
Lo'ely lil lass
wi' a lo'ely lil face
'ow lo'lier 'er face'll look when cringin' under pain's embrace...
Cringin', cryin', sawbin' bawlin'
How th' red'll look so pre'y fallin...
Cringin', cryin', sawbin' bawlin'
girl's too loud ta hear her rea'er callin'..."

At the last note of his odd, ominous rhyming he opens his cloak and from within the enigmatic depths rushes a great dark cloud accompanied by the sound of high pitched fairy chatter...
The cloud buzzed with the sound of small faerie wings and the small gray bodies that it consisted of swarmed the immediate area, causing a rather noisy panic in the host of fantastic onlookers. The small creatures were the infamous tooth faeries and they were hungry.
In the center of them all, the small, bearded creature stood and laughed, tapping the floor with his gnarled cane while the smell of spoiled food became suddenly very pungent.

[lucybishop]

Really? I mean really? Did this Fir Darrig think she was an idiot? She’d already identified what he was after she broke the original glamour. Did he think she wouldn’t know what he was doing if he tried another glamour, or pishogue as it were with this Fae. She rolled her eyes, the smell alone gave her all the evidence she needed that this ‘attack’ of tooth faeries was in fact just another glamour. One more likely to cause panic and mayhem within the market, but still a glamour. Also one to really piss off the inhabitants of the market once they figured out what this little man was doing. And all over a piece of 3-day-old junkie human flesh? Didn’t seem particularly worth it to her, but then again, she didn’t exactly have a taste for human flesh, coke junkie or not.

Ugh, this day was just getting worse and worse. Wake up to fight and take down a chimera, get lied to about that chimera’s state of deadness, come to the market, get glamoured in possibly the worst way, almost get gipped out of her job and payment, and now her intelligence was being questioned. After this, she was treating herself to a vacation. She’d heard Fiji was nice this time of year. Although, first things first, ignore this annoying little man, get her money and get out, and then wash her hair as many times as was possible before it started to fall out.

She walked calmly through the swarm of tooth faeries, occasionally slicing through ones that got too close, though there was no need. Real tooth faeries and she’d probably have high-tailed it out of the market faster than you could blink, but glamour tooth faeries- far less of a risk, if one at all. As she got closer, she sneered at the little man, and then in a near pitch-perfect mimicry (mockery?) of his Gaelic accent, she replied,

“This lo’ely lil lass, wi’ the lo’ely lil face, is ne’er will be cryin’, but can be said of lil men with coats of red and heads so full of not a shred?”

Walking straight at him, getting close enough to bump into him (again) and continued past him. Poor ‘Jerry’ was beside himself, and using all four of his arms to bat away the swarming tooth faeries that seemed to be attacking him. Lucy ignored him, and leaned over to reach under the blood-stained counter, and pulled out an elaborately carved locked box. She ran a finger over the keyhole and the lid sprang open, revealing numerous gold pieces and jewelry. Taking what she was owed for her job, as well as a few extra for dealing with not only a live chimera but possibly the most annoying Fae she’d ever met. She closed the box and with another swipe of her finger it locked once more, and returned it to its original spot.
“Ok Jer, I’m gonna go, but I’ll bring what is owed to you tomorrow, once things have settled down,” she cooed to the large frazzled creature, who gave her a shaky nod before disappearing into the back of his stand to escape the winged little creatures.

Annoyed, she batted another one away, before walking back the way she came, making sure to swipe at the little man with the broad side of her falcata. If he dodged, great, but if he didn’t, he would be like a big ole’ wallop to the back of his head. Or the front, if he was ‘lucky’ enough to turn.

“Alright little man, this has been a whole barrel of laughs, but since I’d rather go a shower then stay here and beat you to death, I’m just gonna go. Have fun dealing with the aftermath!”
Her back was already facing him as she started walking down a side-alley towards an unused door she knew to be there. Her quickest and easiest way out. For good measure, she sent a a sarcastic wave to him over her shoulder. Time to get the hell out of dodge.

[firdarrig]

Should Lucy have paid significant attention, she'd have easily noticed the lack of substance when she'd rudely bumped into the small man for the second time. When her blade would have made contact with his head, the small body merely evaporated like smoke to reveal a large bear-trap, all set and ready, thankfully she hadn't made to kick him.

The Fir Darrig's absence begged the question of his location but by that time, Ea Colquhoun was already a good ways away, singing to himself in his croaky little voice with a large canvass bag full of succulent meat in tow. He was never the kind to stick around for a fight and was far more apt to leave fear and terror in his wake. Indeed the screams of horror from the denizens of the marketplace was music to his ears as he briskly walked down a long thin alley to return to his solitude and study. He cared little for the rude witch and knew that eventually she'd leave and the illusion would wear off, leaving everyone, especially the large, four armed beast, rather disgruntled.

So for the moment, he'd gotten what he'd come for, and wasn't going to remain for the evening's "activities." After all, his business was that of the Prince, and it was never good form to keep Royalty waiting...

"Now everybody's died
so 'ntil our tears are dried
We'll drink an' drink an' drink an' drink
an' then we'll drink som'ore
We'll dance an' sing an' fight 'ntil th' early mornin' light
Then we'll throw up, pass out, wake up and then go drinkin' once again..."