Plot 006: For the Love of Money

[Post 1 l Word Count: 217 ]

Passoa | Talori | Rogue

---

Rumor has spread, like it always does. Words go quicker than hooves could carry and so the news had arrived to her fuzzy ears too. A young filly, barely six years old, had been sacrificed to their Goddess; wings cut off while they weren't even able to carry her small body in the sky. Normally the Talori people were fine with the sacrifice, but now that they'd thrown a child of the edge, chaos had arrived. And there it hadn't stopped: chaos had taken over too.

The Emperor probably gone into crisis deliberation. The royal family locked up into their chambers to stay safe from everything that happened outside. Blind for everything that happened outside. Passoa normally enjoyed chaos like this, for it gave opportunity for Rogues like her. Now, however, it had also gotten to her. She hadn't been there with the spectators, but she'd heard more than she would've liked. The details were horrifying and it sickened her that the Trinity of the Talori herd went so far to follow their so said Goddess.

Shouting arose from the noise of the pub. She looked sideways, two empty bar stools away sat a grey appaloosa stallion, one she remembered faintly. She'd seen him before, from the look of his features probably somewhere around the docks, where the big ships harbored when they weren't on the great, open seas. She couldn't bother to speak up to him, for he was far more drunk than was probably good for him. And he wasn't the only one. Ever since the chaos had taken over in Aquore, the Isles seemed to be even more focussed on the pubs and his drinks than it did normally. It had hit some of the Rogues like it had done to her, while others couldn't bother more; or enjoyed the opportunities it gave one. Opportunity to make some easy coins, for example.

Normally she wasn't one of those that took their harbor in the pubs every night. She was there when she had needs to be taken care off, or when she felt like she needed company. Tonight was such a night. The horrors that the rumor had spread made her feel like being out there, all alone, was even for her a choice she'd rather not make.

She leaned against the bar, zipping her drink that stood in front of her. She kept a close eye on her surroundings. A mare approached the bar she was sitting at, and took place next to the drunken appaloosa stallion; not far from where she sat. Passoa could be eaves dropping if she felt like it, but at the moment she was enjoying her peaceful place at the bar without too much interruption. ''Enjoy your peace now you have it,'' she murmured inarticulately to herself. She watched the bar man make the drinks, while she enjoyed the alcohol that consumed her insides with warmth and slowly blurred her mind. A blur she sometimes so desired, a blur she sometimes so needed.


[Post 1 | Word Count: 505]

A voice made Tala turn her head, and she saw another appaloosa who she hadn't noticed before. This one - a mare this time - seemed a little more sober at least, though she appeared dead-set on getting hammered before the night was over. She flashed a grin and a wink in the chimeric mare's direction.

"Wish I could, love," she replied jovially, eyeing the frothy fermented whatever-it-was in the tankard of the braided stallion next to her with mild curiosity, "but I've hit my limit already. Any more than one drink and I end up flat in an alleyway with my money and my lover gone Cascade knows where." She shook her head with amusement; that had happened to her maybe twice, and not in recent memory, but no one needed to know that. "Besides," she added, blowing a kiss, "I'd say you're attractive enough for the whole table, don'tcha think?"

The chimera mare was pretty, no doubt; hell, she was a pearl compared to some of the hulking brutes lounging in the corners.  But a one-night stand really wasn't what Talaara was looking for.  That went against Talorian laws - well, technically she broke them kind of as a living, but never mind that - and this particular law she wasn't in the mood to break right now.  She should really stop flirting.  But it was fun, and she hadn't done it in a while.

WC: 233

Passoa | Talori | Rogue

---

No matter how she told herself she didn't want to get involved and could better keep out of it, she caught herself being drawn to the rather loud threesome not far away from her. Maybe because they were loud (and probably more drunk than they were loud), maybe because she secretly would've liked some company. The alcohol didn't clear her head like she'd like -or not as fast as she liked- and just as she wanted to order another drink, she could hear the words of a low, heavy voice that reached her curly ears. She hadn't expected the attention, but when she glanced sideways with her golden eyes, she couldn't help but like the attention he gave her. What was it again, that she felt for those rugged Pirates?

''Fun, you say?'' she said as she glided of the bar stool and moved herself to a stool at his side, a bit more clumsy than she would've liked. Maybe the alcohol had hit her harder than she thought. Her golden eyes wandered from him to the appaloosa mare and the pearl mare at his side, observing them for a second. It was an interesting bunch, to say the least, but it could indeed be fun. She could feel the alcohol making her a bit more playful than she was normally, and most of all less leery. Pirates could not always be trusted, even though they were charming... and masculine. But that were the last things she could think of right now. Her thoughts wandered off for a bit, a blurry and dreamy glance in her golden eyes for a moment, before she turned them sideways back to him again.. ''Most call me Trouble,'' she said, a playful tone in her voice, as she watched the bartender set up another drink in front of her. She bowed aside, closer to him the appaloosa stallion. ''But you can call me Passoa,'' she said almost on a whispering tone towards his pierced ears, before straightening up again and taking a big zip of her drink. She was already convinced that this was probably the best way to forget about this week's happening.

She looked to the two mares at his side when he spoke to the one that was named Rory, for what she thought was the spotted mare and couldn't help but laugh at his words. ''I bet you are fantastic company,'' she said with a grin, looking aside again from under her thick, curly forelock. This promised to be a good night, to say the very least.


[Post 2 | Word Count: 430]

Passoa | Talori | Rogue

---

She grinned at his words, looking back at her drink to take another big gulp out of the cup. He had indeed be right - drinking with others was more fun, and it definitely gave more distraction than the alcohol alone had done. She could hear him shift his weight on the stool he was sitting on, leaning closer to lounge against her side, whispering with his dark, low voice as he did so. ''I'd love to hear those stories,'' she replied playful, shifting her gaze towards Rory for a moment. She could feel the appaloosa's sides softly touching hers when he laughed heartily. She could smell the salty scent from his coat, mixed with the bitter but oh so sweet smell of alcohol. She couldn't tell, but she herself was probably soaked in the scent of the amber liquid too and she wasn't planning on stopping with soaking it some more anytime soon. Bars were perfect to get drunk at, so why coming here to not take on that opportunity?

Her golden gaze wandered to the pearl mare that spoke up once more, a question quite heavy for the light and flirty conversation that was going on, but her mind worked too slow to think anything more of it. The stallion next to her replied to the question as light as the conversation had been and she couldn't but laugh. That was probably not the answer the pearl mare had been waiting for. She winked at the appaloosa stallion as he used her name in his wordplay. ''And now you found me,'' blowing him a kiss as she said so - insinuating as if this meeting had been planned, or had happened before.

If it wasn't for the cloaked silhouette that had approached them, she'd be having a wonderful night. The thoughts that had been bothering her were already long gone, drowned in the warm, cozy atmosphere of the bar, her spirits lifted by those next to her and most of all her mind blurred by the drink she'd been consuming. The voice of the cloaked figure pulled her right out of her playful, drunken state and she peeled her golden eyes for a moment, as she looked over at him. The stranger's voice had a remarkable depth to it, something she hadn't quite heard before. But no matter how intrigued she was by this sudden stranger, she still felt the warm blur that cut of the sharp edges. She swiveled her ears around as she looked at him, the grey appaloosa answering for them.

"I and a few others are seeking safe passage from Aquore. The Emperor has a bounty on our heads, but we can offer just as much once we reach safety. I can give you a few moments to talk it over, but take to long, and I will take my offer elsewhere. We don't have time to dawdle, as our lives may very well depend on us getting away from here as soon as possible." The strange figure looked at them as a group talking to them, pausing in the middle as he did so. She could hear the sweet words of coins - probably lots of coins. But the other thing that trickled through his story was that they were rebels, extremists, and that they weren't safe anymore in their own herd - their own family (as that was how the Talori liked to speak of their fellow herd members).

She was a bit overwhelmed by the proposal, or the offer, so to speak. She usually wasn't the one that went on rescue missions - all though she was the one smuggling things across the border. These weren't things though, but Pegasi. And like things you couldn't just put them into your pocket and sweet talk your way out when they caught you. They would hang when they were caught, but like usually: she wasn't the one that were to be held back by that thought. Risks were always there to take, just like laws were there to break.

She put her ears back for a moment, before she looked back to the threesome next to her. ''If these are indeed rebels against Talori's government, fearing for their lives inside Talori's borders, I would be willing to help them,'' she said, a slight roll to her tongue that you could hear from she'd probably drunk slightly too much. If they were in, she was too. She might be a criminal in most's eyes, she had a good heart and when horses dearly needed help, true help for they would otherwise they'd be sentenced to jail or worse, she would be willing to help if she could. It called to her as adventure, as an act of rebellion - both things she could dearly enjoy.


[Post 3 | Word Count: 795]

As the newcomer weaved his sob story, Rory had listened in uncharacteristic silence, blue eyes thoughtfully narrowed. The the rum flowed freely, but she wasn't drunk, not yet. She wouldn't be at all that night, if this were indeed the way things were turning. Rum had a way of making good people make bad decisions, and this... well. This sounded an awful lot like a bad decision in the making. With a sniff, the mare pushed her tankard away with a telekinetic thrust.

"Why are we debating this?" She asked, unsure of how 'we' had become involved in the first place, for Trouble and Tala were certainly not the familiar faces of their motley crew. She could roll with it, though, provided the former gave more attention to her bleeding wallet than her bleeding heart. "The decision is pretty clear, isn't it? Why risk our necks for the same amount we'd gain by handing them over?"

As she spoke, Rory cocked a knee against Samael's spotted side, giving him a good natured shove. Surely, he would see the sense in her proposal. He knew the better deal when he saw it.

Surprisingly enough, the four of them were evenly split. Trouble and, er, whatever the braided Appaloosa stallion's name was were all for helping the mystery passengers escape from the law, while the flirty chimera mare and Tala herself were more pragmatic with their ideas.  This would make coming to a compromise more difficult than she'd anticipated, but it was still possible.

The stallion put it up to a vote, and Tala hesitated. She couldn't allow these extremists to escape the law; however, "the law" did not necessarily mean turning them in to guardians here and now. Retribution did not have to be either traditional or immediate. She could be patient in delivering justice. But that meant she would have to stick by these terrorists.

"I vote that we turn them in," she said. "Get the money without the risk. But if we don't agree on a course of action, we can always do noting and he'll leave us in peace," she added, reminding the others of an option the cloaked figure had mentioned previously. It wasn't an ideal choice, but it was still there. They needn't do anything rash.

Rory found herself nodding with Tala's input, and subsequently shaking her head at Trouble's. There was just no way, not under any circumstances, that she was going to set sail in the kind of storm Cascade had cooking outside.

"Nah," She said to the curlier of the brown mares, her drawl lazy and thick, "They act high-and-mighty, certainly, but even the Emperor knows the worth of rogues. Without us doing his dirty work, the economy would crash overnight. Psrughh." That, of course, was meant to be the sound of money falling through one's hooves. A woeful sound indeed.

(Perhaps she was a little tipsy after all, but that was neither here nor there.)

"Fact of the matter is that the storm outside can kill a horse dead." She continued, letting her weight sink on her haunches as she raised a hoof into the air, accenting her points with swinging gestures. "The Bloody Whore is a good ship, but ain't a miracle worker. We go out in that, and there's not a chance in fresh hell we make it out unscathed. Now, the Emperor is probably feeling pretty damn desperate with the country on the verge of mutiny, and I reckon he's not going to care who delivers dissenters to his doorstep - just so long as it's done. I think it's safe to say that he'll pay out, and-"

"-GODS DAMNIT, you DRUNK BASTARD." Rory howled, well aware her course was set.

^{[This just counts as a continuation to my last post haha]}

Passoa | Talori | Rogue

---

Where she would normally, more or less, think three times before saying something, that barrier had been drowned by the amber liquid in her stomach. Her golden orbs were focussed on Rory as she spoke; her tongue heavy, her words rolling out of her mouth. She was right on most, but she couldn't quite place why the mare thought the sea would be more dangerous than the lands would be. Had she even see the mess that Aquore had become? Civilians weren't safe anymore; hiding in their houses while extremists -from both sides- destroyed houses and badgering those that were opposed in their opinion; or seemed to be so at the very least. The lands were at chaos, and nothing was aphoristic anymore. She'd been there - wandering the streets when the chaos broke out. She took her way back to the Isles; where it in her eyes would probably be safer (a thought that didn't cross her mind that often). Traveling the beaches that didn't feel as familiar as they'd felt on the way to it, she'd passed Sven's house. She looked for him, but he wasn't at home, which had settled some unfamiliar, bad feeling in her gut. She'd ignored it, but every time she thought of Aquore, she thought of him too, and back was that feeling in her gut again. The streets weren't safe anymore and he was out there somewhere.

It were the same streets they had to travel over, with those extremists in their flanks. Who said they could bring these extremists to the palace, without the extremists, or themselves being killed? There wasn't a bounty on their heads for nothing - there were more horses out there that wanted them death, while others praised them. And they had to get them all through Aquore, before they could reach the damn palace. In her eyes, the libertine streets were just as treacherous as the sea could be at the moment.

''They surely know that, but it's not like they're ever going to admit it,'' she mumbled; probably more thinking out loud than she was talking to someone. Somewhere in her voice there was this frustration hidden, from the fact that they were handled to as outlaw, while they carried their bloody economy on their shoulders. She took another big gulp from her cup, because now that it seemed they were headed onto a mission with more risk than certainty, already tipsy, she could very well take some more edges off. She grinned as the handsome appaloosa stallion cut his mate off, telling her her opinion mend shit - with other words, of course. She followed him with her golden eyes as she spoke, catching the grin he flashed her in between his words. The ship's name, the way he talked to Rory, and the way he kept a flirty way of dealing with her; she couldn't help but chuckle, before finishing up her drink. She knew daring the stallion would set him up a step in her direction and she didn't know if it was the last step he needed or if he just thought alike, but she was happy with the said course they would now be taking - with or without the champagne mare.

She turned her fuzzy ears when she heard the howl chimera mare after the appaloosa stallion next to her seemed to have finished his words. She grinned. ''I've seen worse drunks, to be honest,'' she said with a roll on her tongue, a smirk on her face, as she looked at the appaloosa stallion before she stepped off from the bar stool. Her first few steps were a bit wobbly; but than she stood steady again, flicking her long, curly tail over the wooden floor of the pub. She looked up at the champagne mare as she again flicked her tail, a calculating glance in her golden eyes, her dark curls falling just aside them. When she heard her words -saying they were screwed- she couldn't help but laugh lightly. ''Well, maybe we are, but I bet we're more fun than staying alone at the bar,'' she grinned, flicking her tail once more. It seemed that, even though the champagne mare was so opposed to their idiot plan, and even though she wasn't in at first, she seemed to have changed her mind - or something like that. She smiled, taking a last glance around the bar before she followed the appaloosa stallion to where ever the cloaked figure had dissapeared to; to whatever danger that laid out there. They would take it - head on.


[Post 5 | Word Count: 765]

Passoa | Talori | Rogue

---

You could call it hubris. Or you could blame the alcohol. But the truth was that if the two of them hadn't been there, she had probably made exact the same choice. She was always in for adventure, no matter the danger that lingered behind it. In her eyes life without taking risks would be pretty boring, just like the safe choices were.

What she hadn't taken into consideration too well was the storm that raged outside. Normally she would've, but the blur in her mind had taken the sharp edges off.

And so it shook her off her hooves, as soon as she set a hoof outside the bar they'd been drinking in, following in appaloosa stallion's footsteps. A shiver ran over her back when she felt the rain tickling on her fur, and before she knew it the thunder banged the clouds above their heads. In a second she laid her ears flat against her neck, growling in between her teeth as she did so; something that was loudly drowned in the rumbling of the storm. She had forgotten the thunder and the stupid anxiety that made her edgy. She tried to ignore it, though, and tried focussing on staying straight in the heavy rain and wind.

Which was, to be honest, pretty hard, especially when your steps weren't all that steady already. She snorted in frustration as she was blown sideways; almost tipped off her feet and on her butt, but she knew just to keep herself from falling on the slippery cobblestones beneath them. ''That cursed wind,'' she grumbled in between her breath. As she heard shards of voices carried over the wind, she looked up to the appaloosa and the cloaked figure, Safely, payment, delivery. It were really the only words that reached her carried upon the howling wind. She also thought to recognize a call from the champagne mare, but she was too busy with finding her way on the cobblestones to not look over her shoulder - the mare was probably fine too.

What a relieve she felt when the ships in the harbor finally came into sight. It always felt as a joy to reach the harbor; she has always loved watching the ships set sail, or harbor back to land. She couldn't even count the amount of time she had been sitting on the beach, watching the ships come and go. She'd always been captivated by the designs of the ships, the amount of woodwork it had probably taken to build them.

Her golden eyes followed the appaloosa stallion and mare, and the ship that belonged to one, or both of them - something she hadn't figured out yet. The large, red sails that wavered in the heavy wind; the hippocampus statue that stood proudly on the very front tip of the ship; all the wood that kept it floating. ''She's beautiful,'' she mumbled, before her attention went back to her comrades. It was a sight she loved seeing, but what she currently could only care for was getting aboard, getting herself off those bloody cobblestones. Just after the champagne mare a thunder hit the sky once more and shot her trotting over the gangplank; not wanting to waste enough time upon it to loose her balance; and boarded the ship.


[Post 6 | Word Count: 551]

"Better be damn good money." Rory found muttered. The chimera had made a beeline for the Bloody Whore's bow, flinging her front legs over the Bannister so that they almost seemed to cradle the figurehead's intricately carved curls. Her gaze was set upon the sea, and all of its furious, churning glory. The waves were high and the seafoam was thick. Water and sky were a reflection of the other, both smeared with a deep, stormy gray. Lightning was on the horizon, incoming quick; she could smell the ozone on the air and feel the electricity in the follicles of her fur.

"Froth, this ain't no normal storm." She grunted, turning away from what was surely her maker. She was beginning to regret her sobriety, wishing she had taken just a bit more rum to the gullet. Certain death wasn't such a fright when you were good and drunk; certainly it seemed to give her captain liquid courage.

She shook her head. It was time to focus. Her last hours weren't going to be spent whining like a concubine over split wine.

"Right." She breathed into the wind. Wind. Every ship relied on it to move, and by gods, they had wind in surplus. That wasn't... necessarily a good thing, for while there was no chance of being becalmed, they were going to have to fight for every inch they remained on course. Rory prayed that the direction of the wind would be with them, that the Bloody Whore would have enough speed to steer rather than be batted about like flotsam. "You two. Trouble... other one, help me rig the sails."

Thank Cascade's left teat that they'd already put the storm sails into place.