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The tavern is not a good one, the primary distinction for which it was chosen being a significant distance between its location and the location of another such establishment. It would have been no use going to Two Beers tonight, even if he wouldn't have had to pay for his own drinks: eventually one of the others would have come along wanting to know what was wrong and that's not a conversation that he is yet prepared to have.

Not even with his twin.

In one corner of the smoky tavern, a place where it's best not to examine the food too closely, a gangly figure sits slumped over a table. Every time someone has passed with a pitcher he has paid to refill his mug -- times beyond counting -- but the beer is cheap enough that his purse is far from empty. His clothing puts him a good few steps above a place like this, though it is rumpled and wrinkled, and ordinarily his blind determination to drink himself into a stupor would make him a target for pickpockets and worse.

But the rook that sits on the edge of his table is anything but ordinary and terrifyingly sober: she watches the room with a glint of malice in her red eyes, regarding everyone she sees as possible enemies. Under her fierce stare, the young man she stands guard over is not even cheated -- he pays no more for his seventh mug then he did for his second, an unusual circumstance in this area. An eighth follows the seventh, and maybe there's a ninth, maybe there isn't, he'll never remember, but the world eventually tilts away and the smoky, dirty bar, so far removed from the warm, clean smithy, fades from his sights.


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" .. he's a bloody noo-since, s'wot he is." How it is that Ghastly is able to talk coherently through a mouth full of rope is hard to say, but somehow he manages it. Underneath the judgmental stare of his Guardian, he is carefully pulling the knots tight, one hand gently pressed against the back of her burden, the other twisted in the ropes themselves. The pair of them stand out in front of a tavern in a rough area of town, looking perfectly at home in the shadowy streets. In the darkness and the dirty shadows, even the Guardian does not stand out: the dappled pattern of her fur only blends in with the night, blurring her elegant shape and turning her into something vaguely sinister.

Looking back, she sniffs her burden distastefully and shakes her head, stomping one delicate foot for emphasis.

Ghastly can only nod agreement, shoving the semi-conscious body of his brother back into place on Dapplegrimm's back, without a care for what this scene may look like to strangers. Here he is -- a lout of a pirate, with ragged clothes and tangled hair -- tying up a young toff, maybe some merchant's son, who's gone and had a few too many. Anyone who doesn't get too close a look at the kid's face might assume that this is some kind of kidnapping in process. Especially in the late night darkness, it's easy to catch only a glimpse of the young face and assume the worst.

" .. 'go watch 'im,' Jay says, 'e's loike ta do sommat foolish,' he says, ooo, an' not jest drink 'til 'e's slaggered, then fall over!" The pirate's grumblings are kept quiet, but might still seem like the ramblings of a madman to any happening by, and perhaps this is the reason that no one's yet raised a cry to save the poor drunken boy being tied to the Guardian's back. "Coulda had me a drink or three, only nooo, I gots to watch someone else get toshed .. life's unfair, is what it is, an all this time I ain't had no company, none but me flask."

“ ‘EY YOU yersel’,” Ghastly shoots back, before he’s even gone and glanced over his own shoulder to see who’s given him a shout. He ain’t afraid to be loud, and a man that’s got to be heard in a storm has learnt how to project, as some would so, so when he wants to be heard there’s little danger his words or his cross tone’ll be missed. But that’s a mite troubling, when he looks crossways finally and see’s there’s some smart lad all done up in uniform. No matter that the fellow’s occupied at much the same task as he: Ghastly ain’t no fool, he knows well enough that there’s rules and there’s Rules, and one such as he is like to get the short end of the stick where either is concerned.

But he rolls his shoulders and gives the other man a grin, making his way over to Patrek to offer him a length of rope — more then sufficient to fix the wobbling Aufidius to the back of the unfortunate Careo.

“Oy, you too, milord? Works better ye ties ‘em on, careful-like. Jest around they shoulders, so, then fix they hands around the lad’s neck. Ooowee, yer a fine lookin’ lad, now ain’t ye? They wulves shud already be fearin’.” He bows briefly to Careo himself, for all that the somber Guardian beside him would roll her eyes if she could: this, she seems to think, is an unnecessary bit of theatrics and it’s annoying.

“Young lads, tsk. Mayhap one day they’ll knows they own limits, and thank old louts as us’n, dragging them home, aye?” It’s clear — from the top of his scraggly head to the bottom of his worn boots — that Ghastly is a sailor. From his carefree attitude in the face of authority, Patrek might even think pirate, although that can only be a past occupation now, with the shadow at his side: he’s come to land for her, perhaps to stay.

And Patrek may also see something familiar in the face, which has been worn by salt and by sand to an older, more rugged version of a face he has seen once or twice — the face of the boy on the back of Dapplegrimm, which Patrek may or may not have gotten a clear glimpse of just yet.

Yet the pirate takes no offense from his tone, or if it offends he does not show it — for were he to take insult, and cry it, who’d end up in goal then but his own fool self? No, he don’t call the man on his tone, but assumes it’s a natural part of Patrek’s character, like the uniform he wears. He’ll keep a weather eye on the other man’s knots — and may in fact snort himself, and if Patrek allows it will step to the other side of Careo to help. The way he ties marks him even better then his sun-bleached hair: he’s a sailor, no doubting, able to tie the knots without hesitation, and to show Patrek how they can be undone all in a few easy tugs.

The question strikes him as particularly funny; his laugh is low and deep, as rough as his voice. “Oh, aye, a mort’ve ‘em. ’Tis one on me lass’s back, there’n. ’Tis his first broken heart, it is.” This last is whispered conspiratorially, and he will lean back to take First by the chin and tilt his face up so that it can be more easily compared with his own. For his part First does not seem to notice, lost in either slumber or unconsciousness or some unpleasant mixture of both: he is pale under his freckles and more then a touch haggard. “Figured someone oughter watch the lad so he don’t come to no harm tryin’ t’drink away his woes.” He lets First slump back down onto Dapplegrimm’s neck with a shrug. “How ‘bout your lad there?”

Ghastly is watching Patrek carefully as he speaks -- for he knows that how the man reacts could tell him how the guardsman knows the twins, and indeed how well he knows them. If he's just nobbed one of them for something, he'll not know there are two of them, and so his inquiry will be simple, for 'Friedrich.' If he's seen the pair of them together (and bad luck, that!), then he'll ask after which one it is. Ghastly doubts that the man knows them well enough to be able to tell at a glance which of the twins he's got, for he'd already know the stranger's identity himself .. but if he can tell, well, he'll have to be that much more careful with the man, and perhaps put out an alert to have him watched.

During this discussion, Dapplegrimm has edged forward to examine the young buck in front of her, perhaps intrigued by his pale hide in comparison with her own darker fur. It is hard to say what she thinks of him, though she is watching him with a critical stare — she will, in greeting, touch her nose lightly to him if he will allow it. There is an aura about her of determined competency, as if .. despite the nature of her Chosen .. it is she that is now in strict control.

Dapplegrimm seems pleased by the other Guardian’s steadfastness in the face of her stare: she knows that she can be an intimidating sight, even to others of her kind, and appreciates having found someone who does not shrink away. She moves closer, sliding her cheek along his own, the equivalent of a welcoming squeeze given during a human handshake. Drawing back slowly, she only then returns her attention to the conversation being held between their Chosen: an event of secondary importance, so far as she is concerned, in comparison with her introduction to Careo.

“ .. nay,” Ghastly’s saying, cursing his luck and that of the twins, to have met a fellow what’s clever enough to pay heed to the one obvious tell the twins have been so careful to hide. The both of them carry totems these days, though First’s is false — carved and painted expertly — and encourage their inhuman friends to at times accompany the opposite twin. But that does not fool something, someone, like Careo, though Ghastly don’t know this. So far as the pirate’s concerned, either this man has been watching his sibs better then he’d like, or he’s a right clever b*****d what oughter be carefully watched.

“S’what makes yon heart-break so hard, y’see. His twin sib, ‘e’s got a lass, an’ a fair one at that, and me lad here, well, all ‘e’s got ’tis ‘erself.” He gestures lazily upward, where Unwelcome is sitting like a pale shadow atop a lamp-post, the lamp which ought to have been hung beneath her long since stolen. When attention is brought to her, she huffs up her feathers and quorks imperiously at the both of them. Ghastly shrugs, dismissing this scolding, and eyes Aufidius sympathetically .. his sympathy not being for the lad, but for poor Patrek caught in the same situation as he.

“I tells ye true, m’lord, us lads, we been worryin’ our lad here,” and he pats First, “will take t’them ways, on accounts he may hope t’will ease the pains, but as we more ‘sperienced menfolk ken, ain’t but Time t’will heal. Been planning on takin’ our lad out of city for a day, of’n away from yon tavern, and teachin’ him a bit’ve rough’n tumble, what t’distract hisself. Ye fancy sendin’ yon damp fellow along, so’s we kin sober ‘im oop?”

First makes a small noise when examined by Careo, for he remembers that sensation. Half in a dream, perhaps, his hand will curl in the shape of a Guardian’s head, running over Careo’s nose and dazedly back towards his ears before he drifts off again.

(Perhaps the initial heartbreak wasn’t the lady. Perhaps the crack in his heart started farther back, at a tree he looked up at through fog and rain, watching his brother climb up through the branches and reaching for something that he could never have.)

“Soots yerself,” says the pirate amiably, “if’n ye changes yer mind, asks o’er at Two Beers, they’ll leads ye on. Fact o’th’matter is, milord, Ol’Ghastly — that’s me, if’n yer particular enough t’need me name — Ol’Ghastly wouldn’t mind hearin’ how a straight oop gennelmun like yeself kens me brothers, and goes int’bars what to bring out handsome little pinks.” He takes a step back, one hand on Dapplegrimm’s neck, as if aware he may well have crossed a line here, though all the same he can’t stop grinning. “Or mayhap I knows. They brings changes in our lifes, right, milord?” He gestures to the Guardians, with a flick of one hand, as if Dapplegrimm and Careo are responsible for the one being off the sea and minding his little brothers, and the other minding people of elements of the city that he should ordinarily be arresting — thieves and drunks.

There’s a quietness that comes over Ghastly then, although he probably didn’t either expect and he certainly doesn’t welcome it: he does not seem the sort of man given to reflection of any kind. He looks sidelong at his younger sibling, and then gives Unwelcome upon her high lamp post a closer look. “Cain’t say as it hadn’t,” he says softly, in a tone that seems more suited to the emptiness of the night. “Were her as told the lass he loved her, when he wouldn’t’ve said. Were her as told the same lass he’d gone and found distraction best he could in another’s arms — if she were a gent, he would’ve —“ He cuts himself off, abruptly, and shrugs his shoulders, but the sentiment is clear. Retribution would have followed, possibly the sort that would have needed to involve someone like Patrek.

“But he ain’t said so much’s an unkind word. I wonders, sometimes, I do, about that.” With a sigh he lays one hand on Dapplegrimm’s shoulder, then gives a shake as if determined to rid himself of such uncomfortable serious thoughts.

“Aye, ye’ve prolly the right’ve it,” offers the pirate at once, with something like a pensive look: his sideways glance seems to suggest that despite the young lad’s evident distress, such a relationship, if begun, would have been unlikely to last very long in any case. But trust a pirate not to think much of love or long acquaintances: no doubt he prefers those ladies who are accustomed to entertaining whomever is in port, sometimes more than one an evening.

“He’ll come o’er it, soon enough.” He utters this confidently, then gives the other man a little half-bow lacking any elegance whatsoever. “Here’s t’hopin’ yer lad does, too, eh? Good luck t’ye, m’lord. I’ll be tellin’ the lad ye were askin’ after him when he wakes, shall I?” It is a question, asked of Patrek with one raised brow: but Ghastly seems to be hoping for permission to do just that. Undoubtably, telling the boy that a lawman was asking after his health would disturb the young man, perhaps enough to distract him briefly.

Besides, it’d probably be funny.

“Aye, sir,” Ghastly responds cheerfully, with a salute just this side of mocking — but then he is turning away, with Grimm walking alongside him, and it will seem as they trot along that she is the one who leads, and he the one who follows: she nudges him as they depart, in silent scold for being so scornful before a figure of authority. His answering grumble is too soft to hear, but defeated in tone: his brothers are not the only ones changed.

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After that the nights will come and go, and there is surprisingly little word of the Grimms, should Patrek listen for it: there are murmurs that there are more of them than is usual, a growing collection of the family making their presence known as faint ripples in certain societal circles. Yet for such a concentration of trouble-makers (some say four, some say seven; the truth is actually in between), they have caused surprisingly little actual trouble. There is no increase in crime, no dastardly plots, nothing unusual ..

.. until one night when Patrek rounds yet another corner, perhaps on his way to or from to deliver Aufidius from himself, and will find himself staring at the naked back of the pirate.

The completely naked back, along with an equally completely naked pirate.

The location is unusual, insomuch as this is an area of town which does not generally appreciate such riffraff as pirates or even law-abiding sailors such as Ghastly pretends to be; the alley is one outside a relatively modest manor home of a merchant’s family. There is a window on the second story, and it is from this opened portal which Ghastly seems to have come; as Ghastly stands there, looking up at the window, a pair of pants is flung abruptly out of it and the window slammed shut.

The pirate, snatching them out of the air, mutters a curse to himself and begins pulling them on. His shoes and his shirt are nowhere to be seen: his hat is hanging on the edge of a dustbin nearby.