Birds, bees, and booze

He was damn lucky that the Flood happened to be in Stormbreak at the moment, and Tal knew it. Maybe Mother Molly's would have been a more suitable place for a conversation about Frey - the sexy one. Well, the more sexy one - but the courier needed to work his way up to that level, and the Hart seemed like a safer bet. More neutral ground.

And supplied with plenty of lovely bottles filled with tantalizing concoctions to lubricate his stumbling tongue and seek solace in.

He already had one in hand as he waited in a small booth towards the back. The bottle was a lovely blue color, and the lager inside was dark and bitter, with a slight fizz that sparkled on his tongue amidst the more somber flavors. Boreal had attempted to wedge herself under the table like some of the other companions in the establishment had done, but her bulk was far less convenient and her head and foretalons stuck out, making for an adorable but rather pointy tripping hazard for the waitstaff as they moved around the room. It was late afternoon, and the place was quiet but not empty, with a soft buzz of conversation filling the air that was still low enough to speak easily over.

Tal played idly with the bowl of peanuts on the table while he waited, but he kept his eyes on the door, and when he saw Sunjata's unmistakably tall form duck inside the door he raised a hand to wave glumly towards his best hope for finding a way out of the hole he'd dug himself.

// dance me through the panic 'til i'm gathered safely in
lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove //

It’s always been a strange sensation to go from being nervous about walking around within Stormbreak — what, with his ascended scars amongst the more brutal one that twists his face. But there’s something satisfying in it now, too. Because after the time spent here with Sohalia and now Lena, comfort spreads in the fact that he’s known for other things now rather than just the demigod that had betrayed a beloved Safrin.

Now, walking into the Hart he’s meet with recognition, easily casual and charming smiles offered to those that took note, before spotting Tal at the back. Petronella settles on his shoulders like the broadness of them is her throne, casually cleaning a paw while Sunjata orders a drink and meets him in the back, humming a quiet hi to Boreal before he slinks into the seat opposite of the courier.

And perhaps it’s because it’s with an air of playfulness (because nobody had fucked up with the gods as bad as Sunjata has so far), that he flashes Tal a grin of greeting before getting into the grit of it. “So.. What happened?” He asks, his steel gaze focused wholly on Talyson to drink up the story, even when he goes to take a sip of his whiskey.

dance me to the end of love

SUNJATA

Boreal raised her head as Sunjata and Petronella came into view, rumbling a happy greeting and slapping Tal's shins with her tail so that the courier winced and wriggled in his seat like there was a spider down his shirt until the Flood gave her a hello of his own. She huffed contentedly and settled back down, warming the feet of both men and never mind that it was still Longheat.

Tal's greeting to his Archon was more subdued, his smile weak as the other man got his drink and settled in. There was relief and gratitude in his eyes, however, when Sunjata didn't make him dance around with pleasantries and jumped right into the heart of the matter, and the courier offered a toast with his bottle before he took a deep drink and then a big breath.

"So... y'know the Hollowed Grounds?" Dumb question; Sunjata had lived there long before Tal had ever left Halo's borders. "I was lookin' for a shrine to pray at, t'the Old Gods, when I was havin' some trouble on a delivery run. There's a shrine t'Dygra there. I should know, I helped build it," he added, nose wrinkling at the memory of blood. "But I couldn't find any others. An' I thought that was weird. So... I dunno. I got t'thinkin' maybe someone should do somethin' about it. An' since I was th'one bothered, maybe it should be me." He shrugged, conflicting emotions chasing across his face, not least among them regret and feeling like an idiot saying the embarrassing words out loud. "I tried prayin' here, at the Celestine. T'all th'Old Gods 'cuz, well, I figured one shrine t'all o'them in th'Grounds would be easier on everyone than a whole bunch o' little shrines scattered around. But... it was Frey that answered. Sex Frey. T'other one, I get on real good with. But Sex Frey..." Tal grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck, pausing for a drink before plunging ahead. "Never really felt comfortable with 'em," he admitted. "So... it was weird that they showed up? An' they didn't seem all that interested in a shrine. At first I thought they were gonna send me t'Safrin or Vi, but then they gave me a quest for it after all. I gotta get permission from everyone already livin' in th'Grounds which... sure. Makes sense. An' then I gotta build the shrine. But then..."

Now he paused, looking down as the flush spread from his neck to his ears. "But, uh. Then I gotta...'christen' it. In a manner 'befittin' sex Frey.' An' I'm not really the, uh... th'performin' type. Not in public, y'know? An' even if there's no one else around, I'm not really comfortable jerkin' off outdoors for anyone else's amusement. Even a god's. An' I was kinda hopin' y'might have some suggestions about if there's anything else I could do, that Frey would accept? 'Cept... I'm also kinda worried... th'way they want it christened, well... it sounds more like a Frey shrine than a shrine t'all th'gods? But they went an' disappeared before I could ask 'em about it."

Finally winding to the end, he drew another deep breath, held it for a few seconds, and then expelled it with a sharp nod to indicate that he was done.

Then he tilted up his bottle and chugged it dry in several long, desperate swallows, trying to ignore the faint tremor in his hands from the anxiety over sharing something he was afraid would sound stupid to a demigod.

// dance me through the panic 'til i'm gathered safely in
lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove //

“Of course I do.” Sunjata hums initially, settling in for the story and sips on his whiskey, leaning back to rest an arm along the back of the arm rest while Petronella continues to groom and settle in, before curling around his neck like a scarf, her long scaled tail drifting down the Flood’s chest.

And truthfully, it’s a lot, despite the little cheers, he can see the Messenger is having a lot of conflicting emotions, things of which Sunjata isn’t entirely sure how to alleviate or if he even harbors all the answers.

But there is a hint of understanding in the crinkle of his gaze when Tal mentions that he tried to pray to all the gods and ended up with one he wasn’t expecting, a low hum leaving him before he draws silent again, until Tal draws silent himself and Sunjata huffs out a sound not unlike a sigh but similar to an oh fuck that’s a lot, kind of feeling.

“Fuck. Well…” Sunjata huffs a laugh, not aimed at Talyson per say but the situation – if there’s one thing the Flood knows, it’s exactly that his deity loved to do things big. “First of all… There hasn’t been an old gods shrine in there for a while, right? Like.. Gods it’s been before the war that I even last went to one there.” He’d always traveled – having little problem with it to go and see who he wanted to talk to.

But, that’s not what Tal is asking about, and so he drains the rest of his whiskey and motions for the bartender to bring another glass and another bottle for Tal as he leans forward, strong scarred and tattooed forearms bracing on the table. “It's... Not that weird that they showed up. The whole reason I got into the Safrin shit was because I went to Frey’s shrine and thought I was praying for them to attune and instead Safrin attuned me.” His head tilts in an equivalent of a shrug. “And we all know how that turned out…” Which has lead him to believe you could call upon anyone from an old god shrine, regardless of its dedication. Though he’s never tried aside from the accident that set him off the career of his life.

As for the rest of it?  “If you’re worried about it, you could put up a tent or something?” His scarred brow rises and he leans back to lift an arm to scratch at Petronella in thought. “I’ve never really needed to come up with a different way to go about it, to be honest.” He’d never had to think about it – finding it easy as possible to drift out toward the shrine spot and indulge in ones vices. He’d done it numerous times, even, without a single issue. "Sorry. The tent might work, though." He brings up the prior thought, but he doesn't think that the Messenger has a good chance of getting out of not doing it.

dance me to the end of love

SUNJATA

It was funny how a sigh or a hum or a huff could say so much without any words being involved. Sunjata's huff of 'that's a lot' was the perfect encapsulation of what Tal was feeling and the courier nodded glumly in fervent agreement before he raised his bottle to tilt it morosely, double-checking to see if any last drop remained.

It did not.

At the first question about old gods shrines in the Grounds, Tal could only shrug helplessly. It had taken him a while to start making deliveries to that once-forsaken region, and it had only been in the past year that he'd started hunting for a shrine to pray at while he was there, now that his delivery routes took him there regularly. Still, he perked up a little with a murmured thanks when Jata called for another round, and listened curiously as the other man revealed how his own original plans had gone astray in more detail than Tal had heard before.

The mention of a tent had Tal's nose wrinkling as he tried to imagine what that would entail. He didn't look surprised that the Flood had no issues christening things for Frey - he figured it kind of came with the territory of being a suitable demigod for that flavor of deity - but he didn't look excited by the suggestion. Still, he nodded glumly and accepted the bottle that arrived with relief. Waiting for the server to leave again, he leaned forward and lowered his voice to a strangled whisper, heat darkening his cheeks until he looked like an overcooked tomato as he looked down at the table between them rather than meeting Sunjata's eyes. "Is it, uh. Gonna be a problem if I can't... y'know. Get it up for 'em? Under that sorta pressure? S'long as I try?"

// dance me through the panic 'til i'm gathered safely in
lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove //

He could go into all the intricacies of just how Sunjata’s original plans for his life had gotten uprooted the second he met Safrin. And honestly, the only reason he’s even creating a shrine to Frey there in the first place is because he refuses to go to the Safrin one. After all, there’s nothing like going to pray at a shrine you quite nearly died at by the hands of one god, only to call for another.

And being that it’s the only shrine in King’s End, well, Sunjata made adjustments accordingly in his bliss of Frey’s announcement of his growing strength and immortality.

He sips from his whiskey with ease, at least until Tal’s voice lowers and the question that hits has him nearly choking on it – a feat that Sunjata admittedly (and thankfully) has never had to experience. Squinting down at the glass as he clears his throat from the surprise of the burn and Petronella mewls her displeasure at being rocked from her comfortable spot, Sunjata takes a deep breath. “I think you’re over complicating it, Tal.” He admits, quiet for the sake of the Messenger’s embarrassment.

“Don’t think about all the rest of the world around you when you’re there. It’s just between you and Frey, and they asked it of you. So set up a tent or something and have a good time.” His voice grows a bit more accented there, a playful note to try and ease Tal’s worries. “All they want is for people to have fun and indulge themselves.” There’s a note of how his voice grows a bit more gravelly, courtesy of tearing it up with the coughing on the sharp high proof whiskey. “You can do it.”

dance me to the end of love

SUNJATA

Boreal snorted her opinion of her human's anxieties from beneath the table, rolling more heavily onto his feet in an attempt to reassure him. It largely worked, thanks to the courier's familiarity with her antics and the steel toes he'd put in his boots specifically to prevent her from squishing his toes when she was feeling supportive.

The fact that Sunjata didn't laugh at him helped, too, given that Tal was trying very hard to squirm out of his own skin with discomfort. The older man's calm, quiet forthrightness was like the first breath of Halovian Deepfrost, or a well-deserved slap that stung but helped to clear his head from the spiral of anxious worry that he'd been slipping down. He gripped his bottle more tightly and bit his lip, but he didn't pull away as the Flood continued.

It was... actually really good advice. Maybe it was obvious to sex Frey's usual devotees, but to someone who'd shied away from that aspect of the god before it was something the Messenger needed to hear from someone he trusted.

"So it's... it's fine if it's just me, yeah?" he asked, the words slow as he started to wrap his head around the fact that there wasn't an alternative... or at least, not one that was likely to appease the sexiest of gods. He'd come hoping for a loophole, or at least assurance that he just needed to... to take a bubble bath at the shrine, or something. Sunjata's answer wasn't what he'd wanted to hear, but maybe... maybe it was what he'd needed to hear?

// dance me through the panic 'til i'm gathered safely in
lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove //

Sunjata’s legs stretch out just a tiny bit with the amount of room offered from Boreal trying to soothe Tal, and it gives him a moment of reprieve of his thoughts as he runs his hands along Petronella’s scales and fur, while she seems to grow a bit more resigned, her horned head butting against the side of the Flood’s briefly before her gilded attention returns to the patrons (a few of them confused at seeing the much smaller sea panther amongst their midst).

“Should be. But, if you want to make it more Frey-esque, bring some things to try.” A casual shrug, a small smile blooming from the corner of his lips that twists in a way that’s crooked from the scar. And perhaps the next set of words to leave his mouth are precisely why Frey had chosen him, because it surprises even himself with how close to his god it sounds like as it falls from his scarred lips. “You might learn a lot about yourself while you’re testing things out.” It’s punctuated with a wink, before the Flood settles back easily.

Experimentation certainly seemed up the alley Frey might approve of.

dance me to the end of love

SUNJATA

"Things," Tal repeated, looking a little weak around the gills as he took a long pull from the bottle, seeking strength in liquid courage. "Like, uh... y'mean like... candles an' pillows an' wine an' roses, kinda things? Or, uh... other... things?"

Boreal might not understand the specifics of the humans' conversation, but she was catching images from her human that had her chortling with smoky humor and Tal cleared his throat and nudged her ribs with his toe, hissing down at her: "Hey! Behave!" Which had worked exactly never on the big, mischievous reptile and wasn't about to start now.

"Sorry," he mumbled to Sunjata, not quite meeting his eyes. "She's, uh... well. Y'know what she's like." By now, the Flood probably had a pretty good idea, both from personal experience and stories from Hotaru!

// dance me through the panic 'til i'm gathered safely in
lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove //

“Well…” Sunjata trails off, trying to figure out just what the fuck he was trying to say – hoping naively that Talyson would pick up what he was setting down, as it were. But in the face of it, and the sudden interjection to the dragon under the table, Sunjata snorts and nods. “Yeah I know.” He reassures the courier. Truth be told, it isn’t like Petronella’s any better. But his companions always seemed to have that streak of fire in their bones.

Back to the original subject that seems to have Talyson turning green on him, he tilts his head slightly – keeping his voice low for only Tal to hear, but having the edge of his accent creeping in thicker with the attempt. “I was leaning more toward toys or blindfolds.” He admits – figuring it better to be blunt than trying to avoid the true subject matter. “You know what I mean?” He asks, wondering if he’s going to have to explain every kind of thing out there that Tal could try.

dance me to the end of love

SUNJATA

Sometimes being Frey's demigod was cream and honey, and sometimes it involved conversations like the one Sunjata was currently having with Tal. It could have been going a lot worse, but that didn't mean it was easy on either of them to navigate paths the courier so rarely trod.

Luckily for everyone involved, Boreal found her human's discomfort to be a source of endless amusement, and she wasn't shy about letting him and everyone around him know. Her interruption broke some of the tension, and though Tal was still uncomfortable he wasn't quite as mortified. It made it easier to listen to Sunjata's advice, even if the heavier accent added a different dimension of difficulty, and the courier's nose wrinkled up in intense concentration as he focused on the words.

And then blinked, understanding dawning like the sun over Hak Etme: hot, uncomfortable, and impossible to hide from. "Oooooh, those kinda... things. Yeah. Okay... yeah," he repeated, brain circling a few times without quite coming in to land as he tried to come to terms with this new revelation.

Not a revelation that such toys existed, or even what they were. He wasn't that naive. But that he should acquire some for use on himself, which felt very, very weird to try and imagine. "That's... definitely an idea..." he agreed, the weakness back in his voice though the shock cushioned things nicely. So did the drink he took another pull from, feeling the pleasant buzz easing some of the discomfort from his tongue. "I, uh... I guess I could do somethin' like that. I s'pose y'get that sorta stuff from a brothel, maybe?" Did they even sell toys at brothels? Though that certainly added a new dimension to what might have been in some of those packages he'd delivered to the House of Midnight and the Halenani before...

// dance me through the panic 'til i'm gathered safely in
lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove //

It could have absolutely been going worse, and for that Sunjata is silently thankful that he doesn’t have to explain the details. Something evident in the way he drains the next glass – despite looking unaffected by the alcohol. (He isn’t, an unfortunate side effect of being who he is these days). “Yeah, those kind.” Sunjata confirms, flashing him a smaller, easier smile.

As the courier thinks and Sunjata hears the weakness, he shifts to lean back into his seat again, Petronella’s tail beating lightly against his shoulder as she flicks it. “We do have them if you wanted to come take a look.” His head tilts back out toward the rest of the bar, signaling for yet another for himself, before his attention returns to Tal. “Just try not to overthink it.” He reconfirms his prior comment, hoping that it helped even if he couldn’t be of much use himself.

dance me to the end of love

SUNJATA

Tal exhaled in relief as they cautiously picked their way through the metaphorical handmines that peppered the conversation. It was probably the most uncomfortable and embarrassing talk with anyone outside of his family that he'd had in his entire life, but Sunjata was definitely easier to talk to about this particular issue than Hotaru would have been. Much as he loved her, there were just certain aspects of plumbing that were a little easier to talk about with someone who dealt with such things, well, professionally. Kind of. As much as being a demigod of Frey and a brothel owner could ever prepare someone for dealing with this.

Boreal settled down, feeling some of Tal's anxieties losing the fight against Sunjata's calm, reasonable support, and the courier managed to free a foot from beneath her so he could rest it on her hip. It wasn't easy to take the Flood's offer without flushing again, but he managed to drown his first response in another drink from his bottle, taking the time to think - though there was a pleasant haze making it a little harder now. "Um. Yeah. I... maybe? At least... it doesn't hurt t'look, right?" He chewed his lip, struggling with the one hiccup in the plan and cleared his throat. "Uh. Actually though... d'you think we could maybe go to... not th'House o'Midnight? No offense," he hurried to add. "It's just, I think i'm makin' some friends there an', well... I don't want 'em teasin' me 'bout it." He rubbed at his nose, looking sheepish. "There's a brothel just down th'way from here, I think. Delivered there once before, at least. Mother Molly's, if y'know it?"

// dance me through the panic 'til i'm gathered safely in
lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove //

His head tilts opposite of where Petronella’s head sits over his shoulder and he lifts a brow in response to the question Tal proposes, breaking his concentration on the Messenger while the new glass is handed to him – this one he sips from slower. “Friends, huh?” Sunjata asks, once he’s swallowed the rough sip of the alcohol, settling in as he scans the other man’s face.

It's his turn to be a bit surprised and sheepish, though, amusement leaking from him as he huffs a soft little laugh. “Heard of it, yeah. Never been.” He doesn’t know whether it would be a good or bad thing to appear in the brothel’s building. He figures he’s kind of a celebrity these days amongst the Frey crowd, and seeing as brothels tend to fall under that familiar art, he doesn’t know whether it would be a fan club or tugging him away to see what exactly he was made of.

The smile twists, crookedly because of the scar, and he concedes with a nod. “We can go and ask if they have anything. I’m not sure if other brothels tend to sell their items.” It couldn’t hurt to try, he supposes, since they’re here already.

dance me to the end of love

SUNJATA