Dún Scáith

[Amelia Sinclair]

[ Room description place holder: UNFINISHED ]

There were rumors. There were always rumors. The bar, Dún Scáith, was not quite new, and not quite old. It had been here for a few years, though it crept into the neighborhood slowly and relatively unattended. For a long time it didn't have a sign-- the outside of the building was nondescript with deep grey walls. It had a warehouse quality and run-down blank face-- though with copious windows that opened up on spring days, revealing a posh, exposed brick cocktail bar inside. The dualistic nature of this impression may have been more than a hint to the type of place and patrons that may frequent the bar. Different types of people would come here, to this crossroads. The serious and the strange. The high brow and the low.

A place for libation and fraternization. And possibly for forbidden things.

The regulars, even the elite, fashion-sleek regulars, knew the second part of the bar's name: *lydia lithos*. Though different people attributed different reasons for it. Some focused on the bar itself, some focused on the bar owner. Amelia was a reclusive but tough sort of woman that took no **** and exuded a present, self-possessed charm. Homage to both these things was the abbreviated nick name for the place: DSL.

If you didn't know better... DSL was just a bar. A bar with great, old-world, thick walls that were excellent at temperature regulation. It retained the heat in the winter, and remained cool in the summer. The place was comfortable for everyone, and the drinks were debatable the best in the city. There are two bartenders: Moriah (a buxom, rockabilly red-head that often sported a Black Sabbath crop top under overalls) was a master of her art. Julian was a mixologist genius. "Make me something that reminds me of spring and debauchery... something with Benedictine, Julian." His shock of black rocker-hair and trim black beard went a little hipster when he wore a pineapple-print Cuban shirt with powder pink suspenders, but his smile was quick so Amelia forgave him his fashion transgressions. Neither would make you a long island or a Ramos gin fizz. For very different reasons.

But the bar had other things going on. Something that thrived in a slow, heart-beat pulse. Like something slithering and growing organic from the cornerstones of the wold. From the ground. Something cathonic lurked in the very skeleton of the bar. In its bones. In the wood and the mortar. Even the brick and interior was a little more earthy and old than it should have been. Perhaps that was why the rumors about the magic here included death, and bodies, and the dark. And the cold.


[EVENT]
Dún Scáith was a crossroads of the truest sense. Lay lines bisected here, their exact coordinates were skeleton-echos in the brick and mortar, the wood and its grain. In the early evening, for a few hours, the thirsty, and the curious, and the profane could find more than a few stools open, even a table or one of the limited number of booths. But the crowd eventually, faithfully, trickled in, and by 10pm there was only standing room. It wasn't quite that late yet. The bruise-purple of dusk had recently faded into ancillary black. It was a new moon tonight, and the streets were extra dark. Shadows lengthened, and a prominent inkling crawling up the back of the neck was that some things crept closer than customary tonight. The impression was presentiment -- nearly visceral.

So tonight, when it happened, when that rolling black pulse of energy sonic-boomed from the back room and rolled over the city like dark-lava and magic, it really wouldn't have surprised anyone. But it definitely was alarming. It would take math, geometry and a sacred knowledge of circles and time and distance to find that DSL was the center of it. And it would take arcane rites and blood and earth rituals to pinpoint a glimpse into the type and location of the source. But it could be done.

But it knew this. It knew this in the core of its being like it once knew how to breathe and once knew how to speak and live and feel. It understood consequences. And it would be ready.

[Olivia Diogenes]

Olivia sat in her usual seat at the bar. DSL was quiet, subdued. It was one of those nights that start really slow. The doors opened and for a little while, for a quiet handful of moments, she was the only one who came in. Julian lifted his palm and gave her a soft wave. He hugged a phone to his ear with the crest of his shoulder. Nothing else changed. Her presence was comfortable and common enough that he didn't feel the formal obligation to end the business call (they were running low on brandy soaked cherries) earlier than it needed to be. At least not to attend to Liv.

Liv welcomed the moment alone. She pulled out her pocket notebook and a pen. She began to sketch an idea on a bright new piece of paper. But out of the back door slunk the owner of Dun Scaith. Amelia, or 'Geth' as she liked to call her for personal reasons, had a light step and approached as quiet as a ghost. She even left Liv in peace for just a little longer, as Amelia began fixing Liv's own cocktail (a sweet, herbal blend of whisky and raw honey). Liv greeted the placement of her glass in front of her with a crooked smile. First it was aimed at her paper, but Amelia saw it and cocked her hip into the lip of the bar and waited.

Liv finished her thought and reached the set of long, skilled fingers to wrap around the snifter. Eventually she greeted Amelia with her sky-cold eyes as well as her smirk. "I don't know how to stay away."

"Oh?" replied Amelia. "Was that your plan?" the dulcet tones of her British accent were more crisp than the sonorus slip of Eastern European, no...Turkish? No...Greek? that was Liv's own mottled patois.

"And if it was?"

"Well, since you do it so infrequently, I'd be curious as to how you handled the failure." Amelia's china-doll lips, purt and petal-shaped, could still slink a smirk under the armor of the most guarded of patrons.

"Mm. Touche," and Oliva lifted her glass to her own archetypal mouth and took a draft of her poison of choice. She sighed. It was hard to be away from a perfectly crafted cocktail. "Staying out of trouble?"

"Are you?"

"What do you think?" The women laughed. It was that secret coterie laugh of older women, alone together, discussing several layers of conversation with only a simple exchange of words about none of them. It was all in the eyes. And between the ice blue and grey fog of their gazes, there was a dangerously beautiful hurricane of a storm between these two women. The familiarity was intimate, but the history and intention would take more to discern. But perhaps they hadn't even figured it out themselves. Perhaps this was going on as they spoke. Right now. Maybe that's why Julian didn't come over even when he finished his call.

"How long are you in here tonight?"

"Oh, I'm not going anywhere."

"I see."

Oliva sipped from her glass. She watched Amelia watch her.

"Well," Amelia began. "Can I be a pratepie and gossip your ear off? I've a slow night and no intentions."

"You always have intentions." A beat. Then Olivia laughed. "Of course, give me. I may have some of my own."

"Well," Amelia inhaled slowly. Liv knew this was more than just an idle conversation then. So, she put down her pen and leaned into the bar. She pressed crossed forearms into the lip of it (oh how something in the belly of the building sighed) and inclined herself towards the pale, silver haired woman. The conspiracies these women could extend into the universe... "So the other day, I'm standing in... well, right here actually and---"