Spinning out of control somewhere on the road to happiness

Colt

Cold nights, a sleight of hand
No trace of innocence, long gone, long gone
I've been tangled up, I've been wrangling up heathens
I've been double-cupped neck-up in the deep end

If Hotaru dims once they step out of the caverns, Colt doesn’t seem to register it, such is the glow about her right now that has nothing to do with Frey’s touch. Perhaps not so literal, it still lingers in Colt’s perception of the Valkyrie, a bright spot she didn’t expect when so much has gone lackluster. A shame she never got to know the demigod better before this, maybe she’d have had another friend down the road, if the current state is anything to go by. Instead, she’d seen her from a distance, known in a way that offers no substance, each of them busy in their own worlds until those broke apart.

A long sigh that speaks to more suffering than this moment deserves winds out of Colt. This is not the first try it, you’ll love it that she’s endured, and she regards the drink extended out to her with a smidge of disdain. It slants her expression into one side of her face, head tipping with it like a dog assessing a sound it can’t place. The look she gives the gin-based beverage is all assumption and distrust, but when she lifts her amber stare from it back to Hotaru, the intent to rise to the challenge is clear. ”In my experience, one love is plenty of trouble,” she murmurs, exhale rippling the surface of the drink as she leans in.

Her hands lift, curling around the bottom of the glass, fingers brushing Hotaru’s where they crowd around the drink. The gesture is less about the uncertainty of the drink’s position and more the habit of holding, unaccustomed to sipping from what’s held aloft. She manages it though, tongue swiping a taste of the rim before tipping in with a slurp and a taste. One eye pinches shut immediately, and a shudder rolls through her without any modicum of control as she swallows her trial.

”Awful,” she declares, thumb and forefinger pinching away the wetness from her lip as she retreats from the edge of the glass. Shaking her head like it could disperse the aftertaste, she reaches for the reposado right as it’s placed down. In a ceremony too practiced to delay, Colt licks the top of her thumb, salts it with the counter’s shaker, holds up her shot in a miniature air-toast, then tongues the salt free and takes her shot. The glass clicks twice on the counter as she sets it down, sliding its empty container away. ”Much better.”

It’s the exact kick she needs to launch into her sorry state of affairs, lips twitching in response to the sympathy offered, never great at letting it land. The change Hotaru had made before had left a subtle ripple in her, adjusting to the new image of what she thought she knew, a known trait but not so freely seen with their lack of close acquaintance. Now that she watches it happen in real time, shades pulling back like ink being siphoned out, Colt only finds a certain comfort in it. It almost feels like watching someone be honest, which is usually more guess than anything half the time.

Brushing past the sorries and the things lost, not intending to dwell, least of all right now, Colt focuses on what lies ahead now. ”No,” she hums, head shaking faintly, gold shifting over her shoulders. ”I’m here on business. Selling most of the ranch stock, to downsize. Then…” She inhales, straightening up a touch, a preparation for bracing which she does without even noticing. ”Heading to Hak Etme.” A beat, a laugh, as if approval for Hotaru to do it too, proof that she knows how it sounds even as she continues to say it. ”I’m going to try turning it into something. I’ve been before, and it has something I think, if anyone would take the time to polish it up.” She shrugs a shoulder, the motion trying to keep the idea light, to make herself ridiculous before anyone else can.

”There’s a certain beauty to wild things that resist being tamed. You gotta fight to work alongside them, to find your footing, and that seems like a place I’d like to figure out. Plus, could be good trade with some of it’s more…peculiar plants. Might even make my millions running a casino there.” Her grin races out as she reaches for her margarita, hiding the smile behind the rim as she takes a sip. ”If I succeed, maybe I could hire you as a bouncer?” Something lighter, a reminder of what they’ve shared, if this threatens to steal it away so soon.

They all know it's the wrong road
But they still go, they still go
Fucking long days getting longer
And the dark days getting darker

Hotaru

Somewhere my lifeline still hums and sings
In the mess of all I have thrown away

Colt may be no stranger to being urged and jeered into trying new things, but Hotaru is paid in full by the grimace she receives and the faint, there-and-gone warmth of Colt's fingers brushing against her own around the glass. Pulling it back into her possession with a trilling laugh, the Valkyrie laves her tongue over the honey-sugar rim where Colt's lips had been and drinks down the woman's taste with the current of her own laughter. Gin-slick lips smile unrepentantly once both parts are tucked away safely inside her.

"Can't blame a girl for trying," she sighs mournfully, nestling the glass alongside the still-untouched one that was meant to be solely hers. Extending her pinky away from the glass, she uses it to point vaguely at Colt's vile setup. "Though I only hold distaste for yours because I couldn't hold my liquor prior to becoming a demigod. And I'm the least interesting drunk there is, so shots are wasted on me." The former is true, the latter is far from it. Hotaru has abstained from anything past the line of tipsy for so many years that she can hardly recall what she's like drunk - merely knows it's something she never wants seen again if she can prevent it. Colt can keep her liquid fire; Hotaru only wants people to see what she makes them see, and alcohol strips that bare.

Colt seems to subscribe to a similar doctrine if the way she moves past Hotaru's sympathy is any indication. The Valkyrie is far from offended by it - impressed, more like. Colt soldiering on even with liquor in her veins and an open shoulder to fall upon sitting right there is proof of resilience that Hotaru plainly admires. So no - she doesn't laugh.

"I once ruled a region nobody thought could be survived, much less tamed. It had to be carved out of ice through stubbornness alone, and nobody believed it could be done until it already was." She had not been alive for those days, but her father had, and his stories had inspired her to venture there and - one day - rule it. "Halo was once regarded as such too, you know. People always assume there's no worth in savage things." Her smile is liquid smoke, appraising even when she has already determined the worth of what lies before her. "Luckily, I hear you're rather known for gentling and breaking wild things. It sounds like a perfect fit for you." Even if she hadn't shared her vision of the place, the role she'd held in King's End precede her. Hotaru has an odd, firm faith in her ability to see this through. Though her ears do perk on a selfish chord struck by an errant statement Colt supplies.

"Lucrative business, those plants. All the more so if you make them into a valid business, like the House of Midnight. Perhaps even offer certain experiences and products in your casino where you can profit twice over?" Her aunt had been dubbed the Poisoner, and though she is out of practice in the arts these days, she knows a promising venture when she smells it. Drugs? Why, that's one of the oldest currencies in the world. Draining the first glass of gin, Ru smiles and swipes the remainder of honey off the rim to pop it into her mouth, muffling her laughter until it slips free with no trace of the sticky confection left behind. "I'm honored, but also insulted. There's more to me than my muscles, darling - are you objectifying me?" Her eyes remain their natural shades as they glimmer with amusement, the knowledge of their unveiled nature still lost on her. It's easier - better - to center the conversation around Colt and the dreams that keep her afloat. Any genuine bits that slip through are like her eyes - just a slip of control, something to be politely ignored for the sake of social propriety.

Hungry now,
I am gathering new seeds to throw wide

Colt

Cold nights, a sleight of hand
No trace of innocence, long gone, long gone
I've been tangled up, I've been wrangling up heathens
I've been double-cupped neck-up in the deep end

The laughter never comes, not from Hotaru. It’s just her, laughing at herself, and the sound dies out soon enough. Colt shifts a bit in her stool, as if needing to reposition to more properly regard her company now, a new light coming in that has very little to do with the glow Hotaru magically puts off.

Leaning further towards the Valkyrie, Colt’s arm props up her head on the counter. Beyond the smiles over drinks and dreams, she sobers into serious interest in what Hotaru has to say about ruling things meant to ruin. ”I completely forgot that you ruled there,” Colt says with a breathless hint of apology as her eyes widen and her mouth shapes open faintly. ”I spent so long in my own little world in a corner of King’s End, ignoring so much outside of it.” She sighs, mouth tugging into the press of her hand as she smushes it deeper against her face. Not completely sheltered, but certainly she treated distance as if it’d always remain, at least until The Family had proved her so wrong. She rolls that flaw away with a shoulder, because she has stepped out of that version of herself.

The way Hotaru talks about Halo, not just the what but the way, ignites in Colt a kindred flame. ”That’s exactly it,” she confirms, an eagerness pushing the words out for someone seeming to understand it wholly. ”I’ve always felt a certain affection for Halo. You have to respect the land, work with it, or else lose to it.” Some don’t want that discomfort, but Colt rather thinks that’s what reminds you that you’re even alive.

Her smile bites into her cheek at the compliment, and the next breath is stronger, edged around an amusement that seems to be settling easy in this companty. ”Certainly harder to throw a saddle on a sand dune, but I’m gonna try.” Perhaps that’d be the town’s name, she muses around another sip of her drink.

Hotaru’s ability to flex isn’t something Colt would ever call into question, but seeing it firsthand is another experience entirely. The quick slide of her mind from simple chatter to business possibilities slots neatly into place alongside Colt’s mannerisms, the rancher’s gaze gleaming with appreciation as she tilts her gaze up from her glass. ”Can’t say I’m much of a farmer,” something she keeps telling Sunjata despite all his and Frey’s attempts to make her dig and plant flowers. ”I’m sure I could find some though, because that idea sounds like the perfect way to turn someone’s winnings back into my pockets, all while putting a smile on their face. Keeps everyone happy.” Drug delirium is close enough to happy, she’d know.

The quip Hotaru lands earns a short laugh, Colt’s head pulling off her hand as that falls back onto the counter, waving away the harm with it. ”I might be, is that so bad?” she wonders, breath coasting over ice and making it briefly visible before the drink shifts into her mouth. ”No bouncer then, although I’d love to watch you work over another room like that again,” Colt laments faintly, as if Hotaru could not still manage it under some other role, or believes that’s Hotaru’s polite refusal to take no part, Colt not even meaning to truly offer it. ”What would you be then? Pit Boss seems far too dull for you.” In control, sure, but tucked behind lackeys.

They all know it's the wrong road
But they still go, they still go
Fucking long days getting longer
And the dark days getting darker

Hotaru

Somewhere my lifeline still hums and sings
In the mess of all I have thrown away

Forgetfulness has little to do with it, and Hotaru shrugs it away in a motion better fit for sliding furs off her shoulders than cringing away from an embarrassing topic. "It was for a short time. I ruled a similar place for much longer in the world I came from before The Voice brought me to Caido - ruled alongside Deimos, in fact." Until his death, that is. Outlanders are so few now that it feels odd to reveal it, where once they had been the news of the season each time they arrived. Ironic that they have both ruled Halo but never in tandem again. "Besides, you aren't the only one who had eyes only for King's End. I'd be a hypocrite to be offended." Her fingers play idly with the condensation on the outside of her glass in lieu of the easy shrug Colt makes, more ashamed of her reasoning than the other woman's.

Passion, in comparison, is easy and safe to fall into. Colt's support of Halo draws a genuine smile to Ru's face that stills her fingers, settling her emotions without drawing her attention. "You'd have made a fine Halovian then. Everyone there is a kindred spirit." Certainly after the skyboats and improvements that finally allowed native Halovians to escape if they didn't feel such a way about the snowy kingdom. Before The Voice's portals, well, there hadn't been much choice. "But it doesn't sound like the place for us these days, either." Halo will always be dear to her heart - cherished above all else - but it isn't home anymore. It can't be.

Finishing her first glass and sliding it deeper across the bar to be taken away, Ru cradles the second and blinks past the buzz in her veins. She's a terrible lightweight, and hardly a drinker at all, but she doesn't slow herself down either. Not tonight.

"You'd want to be incredibly thorough in your examination of each potential farmer. They'll be your greatest asset, but also your highest potential for ruination." She nibbles on the tip of her tongue after saying it, wondering if she's coming off preachy, or simply revealing that she's used to a level of underhandedness that even Torchline's underbelly can't quite match. Oh Helovia, what a gem you were. Instead of ruminating, she grins lasciviously at Colt's compliment and licks the honey off her glass with a tongue that might as well be pointed and forked. "Bad? Hardly, darling. It's my greatest pleasure to be noticed and objectified - second only to compliments unrelated to appearance, so you're currying immense favor tonight."

Gin sits on her lips as they purse thoughtfully in wake of her swallow. This doesn't feel entirely theoretical anymore - does Colt know that? Intend it? If so, or perhaps more accurately if not, how honest and forward should the Valkyrie be? "I'd be more than just a farmer. Botanist, curator, saleswoman, enforcer...the drug trade is controlled by a random array of short-sighted, power-hungry fools with little care for the quality of their product or the harm their products cause if contaminated or over-consumed." Her nose wrinkles, a flash of white teeth there-and-gone between her lips as she tsks. "Poison is only poison at the wrong dosage. You can be a benevolent villain - unless villainy is all you care about. Like I said: short-sighted." Power and control only last if you care about more than the immediate win.

Setting her glass down, Ru exhales a laugh as she shakes her head slightly. "More words than you needed for a question like that. It's a Frey thing; self-indulgence, the pursuit of pleasure and fulfillment, the grey areas of gratification deemed acceptable by society compared to the darker wantings of the heart...it's my favorite thing to think about." Safely shepherding the hungry and wanting to the doorstep of their desires - offering a way to achieve their pleasures without risk or judgment or shame - is as thoroughly a drug to a Frey demigod as the ones being discussed.

Hungry now,
I am gathering new seeds to throw wide

Colt

Cold nights, a sleight of hand
No trace of innocence, long gone, long gone
I've been tangled up, I've been wrangling up heathens
I've been double-cupped neck-up in the deep end

The appreciation of a good drink and fine conversation has always come easily to Colt. She has never understood those who shy away from this sort of environment, or worse, those who actively shun and shame it. With all the hardships that come naturally with living, it doesn't seem worth it to purposefully make enjoyment difficult too. Bathed in the subtle glow of a woman too lovely to look away from, cradled with the warm hand of liquor in her veins, Colt's smile is unwilling to fully fade.

On topics of places past, Colt makes a wistful noise that's as much understanding as it is disagreement. Knowing something and accepting it aren't one and the same, and it's the latter that keeps her wandering these beaches like some forlorn ghost, head in a bottle wailing about tragedy and loss any time the stars come out and remind her doubly of it. "Yeah, home has a way of changing sometimes. Even when you least expect it to." She lifts her drink like a shield to her lips, tucking the fragile shape that dares bloom out behind the glass. The burn pulls it back, as light and heat have always done to the dreadful things that try to take hold in the dark. She doesn't say more on the topic, because there's no need to echo the sentiment between them. Home is no longer King's End, and it's not Halo either. For now, home is fine enough to be this barstool and this poison on ice. Tomorrow, maybe she'll discover it in the desert like she's hoping to.

Much more content to wonder at the power of hoes and the word they can do with seed, Colt listens. "You sound as if you have experience being ruined," Colt smirks, the motion faint, less amused than apologetic. The old sorrows and new worries tilt easily into the fresh laughter and daring grins they trade between them. Colt's laugh ripples out next as Hotaru soaks in the attention and shines all the brighter for it.

She does not hold back, and Colt does not begrudge the flood after asking for rain. "I disagree," she says with a tip of her glass towards the Valkyrie, hands starting to join the conversation readily now that she's nearing the bottom of her drink. "That's the perfect amount of words to show me how well you know your shit." A wink, as if this is a secret they can keep together. "My drug has always been adrenaline and tequila, but nicotine has kept me company when I find myself without any, and a chance to quiet my head with something more has done me wonders a time or two." She tips her head towards her shoulder, empty drink passed back along the bar. "It seems to me, finding pleasure is a rather worthy pursuit when there's already so much tugging it away from you. People could benefit from a considerate villain, such as indulgence, in the right hands."

They all know it's the wrong road
But they still go, they still go
Fucking long days getting longer
And the dark days getting darker

Hotaru

Somewhere my lifeline still hums and sings
In the mess of all I have thrown away

Kinship weaves itself in delicate threads around her throat as they sit, knees brushing idly when one woman or the other laughs, shifts, or gestures. Even as their tongues dance around the honest depths of their hurt and aimlessness, coated in spirits and hiding behind disarming, smiling lips, there is familiarity that slips through the cracks and finds a home through those same openings in the other woman. It's unnerving, admittedly, but the alcohol - so unfamiliar a method of indulgence - smooths the burrs of what otherwise would have manifested as reticence. Still, even gin isn't enough to have her waxing poetic stanzas about her hurt; she hums a noise of reserved agreement through slightly pursed lips, eyes briefly far away. Least expect it indeed.

When her lips part again it's to permit a startled laugh, flush rising in her cheeks and kissing down her neck at the unintentional euphemism that has slipped past her guard to deliver a rare, powerful blow to her composure. Gods, she either needs to drink a lot more to get better at resisting the effects, or she needs to hold true to never drinking more than a single glass. "I'm not sure if I should say yes, I've been ruined before, or if I should pluck the low-hanging fruit of an innuendo and say that I historically have always done more of the ruining myself." It's true on both counts, sex and sabotage, so Colt can take her pick between the available interpretations. Maybe it will net Hotaru enough time to tamp down the blush heating her skin and remind herself that Colt hadn't just boldly come onto her from a total blind side.

It doesn't fade half as fast as she'd like when Colt is so liberal with her praise - something Ru would bet money on being hard- earned (well. she'd bet it if she hadn't given all of it to Colt). Praise is sugar water, honey, and molasses to the Valkyrie; take your pick of the form of the lure, it catches her all the same. Noticing Colt's empty drink, Ru extends her arm over the width of the bar and taps her fingers gently on its surface, eyes remaining on the confident, comfortable companion she keeps even as she silently requests another of the same. Considering her options, she steels herself and drains her own glass - her second, gods above - so that they can both receive refills at the same time.

It's just efficient. Nothing more.

Head a bit cottony (though demigod genes are serving her well, making up for her pitiful tolerance and low body mass) Ru takes the new drink as they're both slid over and wrinkles her nose slightly in an expression that settles in an odd but honest way on her normally controlled features. "I hardly ever drink, you know? Always too scared of being out of control." In more ways than one. Scared to be vulnerable and unaware, but equally scared of the force of her own uninhibited desires and the way she'd surely act on them. Admitting it is just as intimidating, but she's going somewhere with it - she'll just keep her gaze away from Colt while she gets to it, avoiding those unnervingly knowing eyes. "But once you take the first sip, once it starts to work, suddenly that fear is gone and you find yourself determined to keep yourself in that zone. Or reaching beyond it, if it suits you." It's how she ended up with the new glass between her hands which she rotates idly to the cadence of her speech. With the bottom still flat against the bar, the ring of condensation around its base distorting with her less than stable motions. "That fear, that apprehension...it's all the greater with drugs. Hard to trust the quality, the motives of the dealer, even yourself if you're inexperienced. How much do you take? What if you only know half of the potential side effects? What will you do, what will happen to you, if things go wrong?" Picking up the glass, she drinks from it while turning back to Colt, the burn of the alcohol forgotten the more she drinks and grows accustomed to it. "But that feeling of escape? It's far stronger than whiskey or nicotine. More unique, too."

Confidence restored as the unintentional flirtation and the memory of Colt's intuitive gaze is put behind her, Ru leans closer naturally, elbow perched on the bar between them. Her grin is as smooth as the drink on her tongue, but sharpens at the corners like the knife in Colt's boot that had wetted itself with blood tonight. "Learning how to coax someone past that fear threshold? How to sell safety and trust in the span of minutes? Making coin off that predation? That's the villainy of it all." In Ru's experience it's just another enjoyable element, that sort of control and feeling of holding power above someone's head that spans greater distances than they can see. "And it's more skill than talent - which is why you'll need to be shrewd in your recruitment if you intend to make use of the plants in that desert." And if Hotaru is beginning to feel a sense of superiority over these imaginary figures? If she is beginning to imagine herself at that helm? Perhaps it can be blamed on the gin. "The considerate part is upfront and honest if you deliver on your word for the quality, consistency, and safety. Pleasure and indulgence." Hotaru hesitates, suddenly cognizant of the passion this has stirred up in her and wondering at the intensity of it. It's more emotion than she's felt in many days, or at least the most positive. She's glad she seems to remain capable of it. Perhaps that gratitude toward Colt's unwitting spark makes her decide the woman deserves a bit more honesty to finish it all out. "In my case, it's because I want to give that to people. Like you said, it's so often torn away from us. Even if it's just a temporary high, sometimes that's enough to keep someone going another day." Hotaru's eyes go dark, but she doesn't look away from the handsome cut of Colt's features in the bar's dingy lighting.

"I may be reading what I want to see in these lines here, but if you find your options insufficient...perhaps you'll consider me in their stead?" It's not exactly nerve wracking, but the squirming in her stomach feels a bit like the kind you get from asking someone on a date even at the height of self-confidence. Lampshading a bit, Ru smirks and leans back, out of Colt's space (how long had she lingered there?) and back into the depths of her barstool. "If you really do make something of that pit of sand, of course. Baby steps."

Hungry now,
I am gathering new seeds to throw wide