After the snow has fallen

[valmont-vicomte.livejournal.com]

Wednesday, early evening; after the snow has stopped but the power is still out.

It seems that I missed some excitement last night. When I came through from the apartment to the inn proper in the late morning, I found a note from Adam.

Boss -
There was a bit of a ruckus here last night. Some girl took her clothes off and got offended when Billy Hogan got fresh. A fight broke out - just the usual broken glasses. Will tell you more about it when I'm in next. Don't believe everything any of the regulars tell you - I was the only one who wasn't drunk.
A.

I would, perhaps, have got to hear some of those stories, and I must say I'm terribly curious, but then it started snowing. It has been a long time since I saw snow fall like it did this afternoon; since I lived in New London, I think, for Versailles was warmer. The Whitechapel is quiet enough during the early afternoons anyway, so we locked the front door, Cora and Peter soon settled into a high stakes game of gin rummy, and I went to make sure that Hermia and Alice were alright. Luckily we have plenty of food and firewood, and the apartment is well furnished with candles.

The snow has settled down now, but it is very dark outside and the power is still out. So I come back into the bar and Cora - cheerful for once, having managed to take most of Peter's wages for this week - and I get the fire banked as high as possible and line the windows with candles so that passerby can see that we are open, and I unlock the front door. I imagine that many people's homes will be very cold and very dark this evening, and what better cure for that than company and alcohol?

[OPEN]

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[gaueko-erebus.livejournal.com]

Well, at least the idiot wolf girl knows my name. She goes white and starts stammering, "Verdi's trying to fix it. She doesn't want him hurt."

"Verdi's not doing a very good job, is she?!" I snap at her, "And I personally am quite in favour of beating my problems brains in until they quit being problems." It's an approach that has very rarely failed, I must say.

There's a low, ringing noise in the room, like the tolling of a deep bell, loud enough to make me press my hands to the side of my head. Fucking bells. But it cuts all of the noise in the room, from the bellowing voices to the scrapes of chair legs off the floor to the chink of glassware. "Why don't we all calm down some." Say Azrael.

Oh, that's bloody cute. Wonder when he remembered that little trick. I catch sight of the innkeeper, trying to get ahold of my ninia, but the good girl she is, she presses her back against me, almost ducking under my coat. There's my girl. In the meantime, the bartender's making amends, or trying to, "Again, I apologize for my part in this and rather than beat me to a pulp, why don't we have a drink instead?" He pulls a flask from his pocket, "It's Verdi's firewhiskey. I'm sure she'd be pleased to know you shared it with me."

Oh, somehow I doubt that. "If there was any drink in the world that would be worth abandoning this over, it would be that one. However, considering the fact that you married and abandoned my daughter," fifty-fifty chance, anyway, "I'd say we're a bit beyond drinking."

My Ninia's seized my hand, her back still pressed to my side. "Is somebody dying?"

I look up at the bartender and grin, "Not yet."