Private Tales Empty Bottles, Empty Life

[Joseph Meier]

Joseph Meier had lived one of the strangest lives ever bestowed upon a being. He had been born a human, undersized and scrawny with a twisted foot. His father abusive, his mother poorly willed, he had grown up in isolation. Perhaps it was there that the seed of malcontent and hatred began to gestate and swell, pouring forth roots into every part of him as he aged. He had the fortune, or perhaps the divine misfortune, to fall in love with a Fae.

That Fae had, eventually, turned him into one himself. No longer human, he had been thrust into the strangely decadent world of fae courtship. Even after their divorce, after decades of turbulent war and gut wrenching arguments, he still stood with his head high as a High Lord of the Winter Court. The only lord of his kind, a shapeshifter. Strange, then, that a shapeshifter would keep his normal shape. He wasn’t any appealing figure, a skinny creature dressed in a simple black suit and vest, leaning on the bar like any other common drunk.

Fine wine didn’t dull the pain of life quite so much as cheap whiskey.

Joseph downed his glass and shoved a small mess of gold coins across the bar. He didn’t care that he was overpaying. Neither did the bartender. If a fae lord with more money than he knew what to do with wanted to overpay for rat piss whiskey, who was he to argue? He knew it, Joseph knew it. “Just leave the damn bottle.” Joseph growled, curling slender fingers around the neck as the bartender made to tug it away. With a sigh, the other man relented.

For such a powerful creature…Joseph seemed on the fast track to drinking himself to death.

 

[Vandor Colton]

Spoiler: Music IC

Vandor Colton had lived one of the simplest lives ever bestowed upon a being. He had been born a human, well built and tall enough with two feet. His father was good to him, his mother still, and he had grown up with a brother to keep him company. Perhaps it was there that the seed of chivalry should have been planted, but it had been granted by Vandor’s uncle, his father’s brother, and it had hardly been a staple of his upbringing.

No, while not hateful, what gestated within the boy was a sense for revenge. Though satiated, vengeance aged with violence, till the man became a mercenary, with fortune not so divine, with love a fairytale far away from fate before his feet. Indeed, a fairy would have been a miracle for this fool and tool.

What else was a sellsword, a mercenary? Cheap whiskey didn’t dull the pain of life quite so much as fine wine, and the not-quite-a-knight had neither. He’d settled for mead and meat to drink and eat.

Vandor downed his glass and shoved a small mess of gold coins across the bar. “You’re underpaying,” came the bartender. “Oh. Sorry.” The mercenary offered honestly, tossing another piece. He didn’t glance at the tab. Who was he to argue?

Not one to drown sorrows from downed drinks, though so suddenly taken to memories, Vandor wagged a finger. “Just leave the damn—”

“—Bottle.” Someone else called. He had caught Vandor’s attention sitting to the left of him, an empty stool in between. Emptiness. That was the expression that registered on this patron’s face.

“All right.” Vandor sighed. “Let’s have it.” He wasn’t depressed to any extent, even if remembrance was a bit of a mess in his mind. “What’s your story, friend?” He asked the guy. Empty bottles, empty life. Emptiness was everyone’s best friend when it came to thirst in a tavern.

Joseph Meier

 

[Joseph Meier]

Joseph eyed the young man down the bar from him. Young. Pretty. Stupid. He was a dime a dozen in Floiland. Young mercenaries were always trying their luck in small bars and taverns like this one, drumming up business between rented rooms and the road. What was it like to be that young, that inexperienced? Some part of him would give anything to go back to being twenty something with no scars on his heart.

The other part of him just wanted to slap the kid.

“I’d let him be.” The bartender warned the mercenary quietly. Joseph turned his large brown eyes on the bartender.

“And you weren’t consulted, Farris.” Joseph hissed at him.

“Easy, Joseph. I know how you get.” Farris shot back, reaching for the bottle at Joseph’s shoulder. “Listen, you’ve been drinking for hours and you don’t need this. Why don’t you sleep it off upstairs-“

Joseph, quick as an asp, grabbed Farris’ wrist. His fingers were thin and long, more suited to a piano or writing desk than war, but the bartender flinched all the same. “Leave. The. Fucking. Bottle.” Joseph growled. “I’ll talk to whoever I want. When I want.”

“Gods! I can’t deal with you when you’re like this.” The bartender ripped his hand away with a look of disgust and turned to Vandor. “Don’t sleep with him. I mean it. Just makes him worse the next time he comes in here.” With a shake of his head, Farris moved off to serve other customers, leaving Joseph and Vandor alone.

“I thought you forgave me for last month!” Joseph called after him, a nasty grin decorating his thin lips as he opened his prize, pouring his glass to the rim.

“Still repainting the damn walls!” Farris called over his shoulder, clearly not ready to let the fae have the last word.

Joseph chuckled darkly, and turned his attention to Vandor. “So. What are you then? Mercenary? I know you haven’t stepped foot in the faelands, and you’re certainly not from around here. People aren’t stupid enough to call the Lord of Withered Branches a ‘friend’ casually.” He leaned on the bar, taking deep draughts of the whiskey glass without so much as a twitch of an eyebrow.

For proclaiming himself a lord, he didn’t look it. His clothing was woolen and hopelessly plain, he wore no jewelry, and he was skinny enough to be used as lifting equipment. He weighed less than a hundred pounds, was shorter than most women, and was favoring one leg. There was nothing to give away that he was fae…even his oversized ears were as rounded as any human. He had none of the fae’s ethereal beauty; his gaunt face, thin lips, and bruised eyelids were proof enough of that.

 

[Vandor Colton]

Spoiler: Music IC

There was an answer to the man’s question though it had come from another, the bartender, rather than the one being questioned. To the former, Vandor turned his attention. The latter spoke up just then. Then became an exchange of conversation between both men. So the mercenary just sipped his mead and listened.

Joseph. Farris. Names penetrated memory. That meant little and less in the moment, but a man like this mercenary could leave this establishment as a drunkard and yet remember those names while he pissed the morning away. Maybe.

Apparently the small gaunt man was already more than three drinks into the night. And more than a mite thirsty. That man had angrily demanded of the bartender. The two clearly knew each other. For his part, however, Vandor was less interested in another man’s heart or flesh and more interested for the story of this other guest.

Still, Vandor accepted Farris’ courteous tip to not sleep with Joseph, even if it wasn’t needed. This was all about civil conversation, after all, here in the mead hall, or what have it. Just then, Joseph turned his attention to him, pegging him for a mercenary. He wouldn’t put it past him.

Lord of Withered Branches. The mercenary licked mead from his lips, tasting dreariness. How dismal a title. The other man drank; no, he devoured, as if his whiskey was no drink but a shower on his gaunt cheeks.

Even small skinny men could handle alcohol, however. Unless the whiskey is what got him into his condition to begin with. But the taller one wasn’t one to judge. “Aye,” he agreed. “I’m a mercenary.” Sipping, not chugging, his mead.

“Vandor.” First name basis. Seemed okay, fit the occasion after learning the other’s name. “Quite right. This is my first time in these lands.” Vandor watched the other man’s glass. The problem with drunken conversation was that the truth could prove to be too much for someone. He didn’t want his friend to pass out without spilling the juice.

“Lord of Withered Branches,” Vandor spoke less as someone who bends the knee and more as someone who is just curious. “Is that the name of your estate?”

Joseph Meier

 

[Joseph Meier]

A newcomer?

“Clearly.” Joseph chuckled. He downed the whiskey like it were water, and after so many years of alcoholism it might as well have been. Joseph kept himself clean, and there wasn’t the usual stench of sour booze that permeated the air around most human drunks. No, Joseph was a strange creature through and through, and more than a little willing to indulge mischief on behalf of someone who didn’t realize what he was.

“Vandor. Interesting name. Seems I have a talent for picking up men with V names.” Joseph snickered to himself, as though at some private joke, and tilted his head as he considered the mercenary’s question. “No. I have more than one estate. Fae lords, especially fae lords who have worked and suffered as much as I have, tend to accrue titles in time. I’m known by so much more; my favorite being He of Shifting Blood.”

Joseph took another tug off the bottle, and set it on the counter. As he did so, he changed. His cheeks filled out, his jaw arranged itself into an elegant sweep, and his eyelashes grew into long curls. His lips grew pouty and full, and he grew half a foot. Healthy muscle and fat roped a frame that was no longer male. His hips widened, a pair of breasts sprouted on his chest, and long black hair cascaded over one shoulder.

“Of course…it’s more an art than anything.” His voice had softened, gentled, become womanly. “Not an illusion, a true change of flesh and blood.”

 

[Vandor Colton]

Spoiler: Music IC (Recurring)

‘Vandor’. An interesting name, said his contemporary. However, to Vandor his name was little and less, nothing more. Was its heritage given of a knight? He liked to think so, sometimes. Then again, his surname, ‘Colton’, was a commoner’s badge at that.

‘V’ names just made Vandor think of a name that carried three syllables but ended in ‘a’ instead of ‘or’. Yet it had been a few days and nights since the man had last moved to the music of a woman. Of which, the lyrics in this establishment were from none other than a female vocalist amid strings as sweet as mead.

Joseph, not Farris, had answered Vandor’s question, and had proven that words were not merely of wind as they blew in his direction. Boasting more than one property was one thing, if expecting of the wealthy who lived in luxury to whatever extent, but then the lord expanded on the question.

No mere lord. Vandor cocked an eyebrow at the man sitting before him. No mere human. He was fae. He of Shifting Blood. The mercenary shifted his cup to his lips for another sip. Much better than He of Shitting Blood, at least.

What happened next was enough for a mere human mercenary to hold his breath—except this one had his fair share of experience with magic, no more or less. Nevertheless, he sat his stool like a fool who suddenly realized he was gazing at cake, not pie.

Fae, more like. The fair folk, as some would say. These beings had magic that rippled from fingertips to nipples, whether the latter were muscled or bubbled. In this case, Vandor just gazed as his contemporary shifted position. That was to say, a transformation of flesh and skin; an amalgamation of woman and man, to whatever extent.

“...Indeed…” It was all the mercenary could think out loud in that heartbeat. Yet, again, the moment passed as the revelation of what species he was dealing with was accepted. “Joseph.” Vandor tilted his head. “Or does my lord have a different name?” He smiled, bravely indicating he was playing all the while. “My lady?”

Joseph Meier

 

[Joseph Meier]

Joseph laughed. Oh, how a man’s attitude shifted the moment he was confronted with a pretty face! The musical, feminine laugh that broke from his lips was not at all like the cold, bitter chuckling of his true form. No, this one was practically invented to take a man’s guard down. He smiled and took another sip of his whiskey, looking down his dark lashes at Vandor.

“So, Vandor…as a mercenary you’ve got to be for hire…right?” He asked. “Ever thought about murdering a few fae?”

He set his glass down, and straightened, tossing his hair over his shoulders in a fine silken sheet. He liked the way feminine forms were accentuated in male clothing; breasts firmly held up by his vest, and hugging tight against his thighs. He shrugged off the coat that no longer fit him, giving Vandor a knowing smile. “I have work for men like you. Killers. The man I do have needs some company, owing to the considerable amount of relatives crowding his skull, and I want to see what he’d think of you. What do you say, handsome?”

“I meant what I said about taking patrons, Joseph!” Farris barked from the far end of the bar.

Joseph rolled his eyes. “You’re just jealous.” He snapped.

 

[Vandor Colton]

Spoiler: Music IC

There he was: Joseph. There she was: Joseph. There was no need to change a name just because a being changed one’s appearance. The mercenary had been playing, after all. Still was. Less smitten, more given to the condition of this conversation, whether men or women were in it.

Fairies were tricky things. This one could just as much transform into a horse. ‘She’ looked stunning, a contrast to ‘him’, as if someone had taken an axe to the former face and replaced it with this lady’s. But the other man still had a brain.

The mead was sweet. Yet he wasn’t as many drinks into these dealings as his contemporary. The mercenary knew he was sitting beside a lord or lady or whoever really. His shield was down, resting against the wood beneath the counter, yet his armor rested against his chest, and his guard was up despite Joseph’s breasts, eyes peeled.

Vandor was good and ready to do business, even though he came to this place to be entertained. If a mission was the exchange of conversation then so be it. More than thought. He kept his thoughts to himself about murdering fae. Just as well, as his future employer spoke onward.

Men, women, creatures like Vandor Colton, well, they were killers in every sense of the word. Theirs was not a profession where hands would not get dirty. Then again, neither is a knight’s. His gaze sturdy, if enamored with the game, the mercenary answered.

“I say…” Vandor tilted his mead backward, swallowed, set the glass on the counter for Farris, and interlaced the fingers of his hands. “What is the pay?”

Joseph Meier