Should I pay you for this?

[Peregrine Inveryne-Lamont]

“I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind.
Some come from ahead and some come from behind.
But I've bought a big bat.
I'm all ready you see.
Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!”
~Dr. Seuss

-~-~-~-~

Peregrine The Pirate: The room was empty as so felt his heart as the black window of his mind played well upon his fortune. It had been time, for far too long, but had any expected it to be so soon? Even Carmen the gypsy tramp who ran the place in his absence seemed to distance herself. She had seen it all before, the heart of an eagle trapped in a cage begging to spread it's wings. Further and further he withdrew, and now brooding in the darkened corner of the room he seemed  to boil over. Between weather worn hands a blade traveled spinning over each digit with ease, and it would be then Carmen wondered if he would even feel the break in his skin should the blade fall. "It's time is it not M'lord? How long must we sit and wait?" Her ruby red lips whispered as she sat a mug before him. "Not much longer, my dear.." Her smirk was clear as his words left his lips like a sigh, and hungry eyes traveled her body. Lord..would he ever  learn? (d
 
Ursula Darling: She wasn't much of a drinker, she wasn't much for taking new lovers as her clientel was supposed to do. She was all around a poor excuse for a courtesan but did she admit this? Of course not, she always took the wrong road in life, always followed the wrong crowd, perhaps that's why the Cat's Eye caught her attention. She had only ever made one other appearance, when it was rumored she was sleeping with the General after his wife had 'died'. A rather silly notion that her grinning for weeks on end, allowing people to spin tales for she wouldn't break a clients contract for the few there were. The door pushed inward as she stepped within, she was a Lily amongst thorns or so it looked  with the swish of brightly colored copper skirts. She caught Perry eyeing the woman and heaved a roll of chocolate colored eyes. No, the man would never learn but as a brightly painted and well paid whore, she really wasn't one to talk.*
 
Peregrine The Pirate: So spoke the spider to the fly..He could only muse as the cat would drag one painted whore to another, and it would be Carmen who would release her first claw. The Gypsy's eyes rounded over the woman and her dark brow rose in disgust. "I'm sorry honey, you must be in the wrong place." Carmen would snap as she moved behind the bar to serve another drink to an already drunk guard. The pirate would sit back in his chair, and all darkness fell away like the dawn chasing the night. His smaller frame would sit back in  with the tip of his foot. "What would a Lily be doing in the underbelly of Skye?" (d
 
Ursula Darling: Ursula head tipped, just ever so slightly as she eyed the woman. She had a great way of reading people despite what was on the surface. It was one of the things Alen liked about her and went after to turn her into a spy. "Actually, I'm not, but thank you for inquiring." She purred in the softest voice before sweeping towards Perry. "Curiosity killed the cat sweetheart" She returned with a grin as she motioned to a seat asking silently if she could join him before sliding into the chair. (cat*) "Paid to be classy, there is a difference. Or have you forgotten you know I come from an underbelly just like this one?" Her head tilted just so as she leaned back within the chair. "I thought to revisit old roots, or at least as close as I could come without leaving Skye. Also, your manservant, Jean Claude, he has been tending Shaden, you must know how she is doing...I've had no word."*
 
Peregrine The Pirate: The laughter that fell from him then was pure, a raw sound that escaped him with ease. Did she just call Jean-Claude his manservant?! Tears would even fill the Pirate's eyes, and he had forgotten how good it felt to laugh. "If he were my servant, Darling, he would not be tending to Shaden. She would have died in her sickness, we've no time for trials of the heart." He mused again settling back into his chair, and waving Carmen to get the Lily a drink. "Shaden is doing very well, she will be home soon. Perhaps if could charm the secrets out of Jean-Claude he would tell you where you could visit her." Her comment of coming from the underground had perked his interest, but it would  the same time Carmen came to place the drink before her. "So what has been keeping one of Shaden's pets hmm? Did you ever get rid of that fool who kept you like a doll?" Harsh and brash words, but Peregrine was always upfront. (d
 
Ursula Darling: The look on her face was pure and simple, there was nothing to it. No way to distinquish what she was thinking while he was laughing. Faces could turn and think him mad for laughing but her just plain insane for being so stock and unwavering, not even smiling. "Ah, so you don't believe in love either I take it?" Her head jerked with the question, as if she found amusement in this, even her lips twitched briefly with a small smile. "I rather doubt Jean would know any woman's charms but Shaden's...I am glad she is doing well, but I will wait till she returns to speak with her. Chocolate eyes turned to Carmen as a drink was placed before her. "Thank you my dear.." Always a show of pleasantries and manners, that's what she had been bred for as a Lily, even in the underground she had to keep the image and even without it, there wasn't much behind it. Just another mask. Eyes slide back to Perry. "Which one?" It was an honest question, many men sought to dress her up and flaunt her as a doll. "If you mean Jonathan, then yes." Point blank and nothing of it after. She shifted to retrieve the glass and take a sniff of the contents. Seeing as she didn't trust easily for one and didn't really order a drink for two, it really was not an offensive move, just curious.*
 
Peregrine The Pirate: "Oh no..I perhaps believe in love more then anyone on this Isle, Ma Cher, I just have little time for it. You know..expensive too." His heart went out to her for a moment watching as all she did was twitch her lips. How badly did a  heart need to be bruised to be void of any emotion. His hands went around the mug as inwardly he knew the answer. How long did it take Rosalind to smile? Lord he had worked so hard for it! After a moment of silence he broke from his thoughts to let his eyes fall upon her once again, "There is more then just one? Oh sweet darling, figured all that talk of Maahes would have them leaving you be..but you know for the right price I'll bring you any man's heart." A dark look then over the rim of his mug as he took a drink. (d
 
Ursula Darling:"Ah, well..."There really wasn't much to put after that. She really didn't have an opinion on love, she just..didn't understand it. There wasn't any sense to it and so she really, couldn't form an opinion, except based on other philosophers who had pretty much summoned it up themselves. Then again, she was an actress, it was pretty much a given to make others work your own. She hummed, a further smile playing across her lips. "Perry, what man that visits the Lily does not wish to have a doll on his arm to show off? Really, there is no need to take their hearts, they pay my salary.." She set the glass down, smelling the alcohol within, she wasn't about to drink it. A glass of wine once in a blue moon was fine, when she couldn't stand the full extent of reality any longer but in reality, she hated alcohol and what it did to people. "so what has you so melancholy?" She shifted to lean back within her chair  again. "No sorry, wrong word, what has you brooding? Usually your so carefree, even flirty..."*

Peregrine The Pirate: "So you take payments in fists?" She had a mark upon her body at the Yule tree decoration, Jean-Claude had talked about it for weeks. "If that's the case..then by all means let's go back to my ship right now, I'll pay you for the year." He teased coming to lean forward to rest his elbows on the table and his head in his hands. "Am I? I had not noticed." Liar. "The weather is beautiful, always brings me down." Castles burning right? He was teasing her, but a serious face came to mirror her own, "Would you like me to flirt? You know I've got enough cards up my sleeve to kill a man right?" He smiled then, a small forced grin that seemed more like a face upon Jean-Claude then it would be his own. "I've got a soft bed too...it's new...never been slept on. Wanna go break it in?" (d
 
Ursula Darling: Chocolate eyes rolled his way. Perry wasn't very good about joking, especially this. It had been been funny while it was going on and it was not funny now.  "That was Jonathan and like I said, its been taken care of." She sighed as her arms folded over her chest. What a pair they were, just two rays of sunshine's! Leaning upward in the chair, her arm slid across the table and pressed upon his wrist as he laid his head within his hands. She couldn't see his face then, couldn't gage his reactions and emotions and she loved figuring them out, even if she didn't admit it. "The usually bubbly pirate didn't realize he was acting sour and withdrawn? I find that hard to believe." As his face emerged from her hands, she grinned, you don't fool me, the grin spoke back at him. "Oh I don't doubt your abilities to flirt, nor your abilities to...pull cards from your sleeve to kill a man, as you put it." Her fingers hit against his wrist, a small smack as she sighed and let out a hum of a laugh. "You don't want to sleep with me...and stop trying to change the subject."*
 
Peregrine The Pirate: "I don't want to sleep with you..I should..I would. You are beautiful, and trust me..the thought has crossed my mind, and I don't have blood lust..or wind lust..or of body. I can't eat, I can't sleep, I don't want to leave..but I don't want to stay.." Placing his feet up on the next chair he crossed them at the ankles as well his arms over his chest, huffing just a little. "I don't know what the hell is wrong with me. I've got the world at my fingertips now, could break an entire nation and run them over the coals...but I just can't. I'm straddling lines, walking them like a carnival, dangling a thousand feet in the air blind." He went silent for a moment as his thoughts left them both, and his eyes glazed over. After a moment without breaking from his thoughts, "I need direction..." He snapped from his thoughts then, and from one subject to the next he danced, "Maahes take care of Jonathon for a return favor?" Lord there it was..that Cheshire's grin; finally. (d
 
Ursula Darling: "Well, if that was a compliment, its the worst I ever heard."She mused though with a crack of a smile across her face. Her head tilted to the right, watching him with no less intrigue then before. Perry was an anomaly, really there was no putting your thumb on him. To say he was this thing or that thing, would be completely wrong. He simply was, just Perry. "Sounds to me like you have it figured out. Millions of ideas running through your head but none of them seem right to chase after, you just gotta find that perfect one, it'll come to you." Of that she had no doubt. Perry could get into a rut the same as any other person, he wasn't a God with no troubles, but soon he would bounce back to the same Perry as before. Shifting her skirts around, she kicked her feet up the same as him, her arm came up, bending at the elbow as she created a pillow of milk white skin behind her head, slumping within the chair, how very unladylike! "No, the General was not involved. I'm not as helpless as I make it seem, Perry." If he was fishing for information about her past relationship with the General or the demise of Jonathan, it wasn't going to happen. She was an open book for people to read, but she wrote the story and it was always a different picture, a different story, never the documentary people sought.*