It was a bar, somewhere out "West," dry and hot all day and freezing all night, with miles of sand and rock and scrub between every tightly clustered point of civilization. It was "near" Cadentia in only the most liberal sense of the word, and really not close to anywhere. The perfect place for the man -- or woman -- who did not want to be found to crawl into a whiskey bottle and be left alone.

Usually.

There was barely enough power for a neon sign out front and a single fan blowing cold air down the counter, and a radio playing a sports-cast periodically interrupted by brief snatches of alien gibberish. The bartender suffered behind the counter, had gotten out a towel to wipe down the bar but hadn't made a single effort at it, always using every new towel to mop the sweat off his brow. It was early in the afternoon and he paid little attention to his handful of patrons. There was little need to pay them any close mind. If they needed drink they'd holler, and on a day like today, he thought, they'd keep out of trouble.

G?elle had really had just enough of Vrashne, of RhyDin, even of Saint Aldwin. Of the explosions - fun but it sometimes seemed like that damned dam would never be fully dismantled - and the snow and rain and the one very memorable actual rain of cats and dogs in RhyDin. So on this hot day in the middle of nowhere, she swaggered herself into this rag-end bar and on up to the counter. Of course she was sweating some in the heat, but that didn't stop her from slapping her palm down on the bar and saying, with that distinctive Newbreton accent, "Whiskey and beer."

"Where the hell are you from, dollface?" the bartender asked with a sharp look at her features, but he had no more energy to follow that up, barely enough to get her whiskey and her beer and collect the money. He grabbed a bottle from the ice chest because it was easy, tipped the nearest whiskey bottle into a glass, slipped the money into his hand and just kind of felt it for a while. "God damn it is hot," he muttered, and tipped his ear back to the radio.

The whiskey wasn't very good. The beer was okay. An engine rumbled in the distance, but no one looked up. A couple of men were leering openly at G?elle; the rest were too tired to be interested.

"The end of the world, t?te de chien." The insult was as casual as the leers from the table and the leg she slung over one of the stools, somewhere between sitting on the seat and leaning on the counter. The whiskey curled up her face until she swigged back the beer to chase it down. "Early in the year for this weather, non? And another." More bills hit the counter with the empty whiskey glass.

The bartender huffed a laugh. "What weather? Just plain hot 'round here, miss." This would have been the perfect line for the leerers to turn to jeering at, their second favorite pastime, but again, it was too goddamned hot. More whiskey was splashed into her glass, more money collected, and the bartender actually thought about the till at the other end of the counter.

The engine stopped near the bar. "F*cking Christ," the bartender said, and someone found the motivation to leave, though the others did not. From the sound of it, it was three or four men -- yeah, four walked in, one of them drunk as a skunk. All heavily tattooed, all with much of the same imagery. A local gang, probably.

"Whiskey!" the first one in commanded with a threatening point at the bartender, and they began circling the table with the others at it. Knocked over a glass, upset a couple of chairs, went eye-to-eye with the other patrons.

G?elle?s light hazel eyes rolled in the dusk of her skin, and she huffed out a breath of a laugh that matched the bartender's earlier non-sound. She didn't slug back this glass of whiskey, gave it the serious consideration of something actually drinkable. Watched the toughs in the dusty mirror that hung behind the bar. "Regulars?"

"You could call them that," the bartender confided as a man was hurled bodily through a front window, and the other patrons scattered. "They come in for a drop maybe once a month, and -- " Crash!

The bartender grunted as a spinning glass glanced off the side of his head, stumbled a step back, and the local toughs closed in. "Hey sweetheart," one said, "throw your legs up for newbie here or hit the f*cking road. We got new blood," he said to the bartender, and pounded the bar with both fists. "Let's celebrate."

"Christ Jesus, he was serving my damn drinks." She sounded - annoyed. "Wait your own turn." The Newbreton accent came through more strongly in her annoyance. "And may God Himself help me if I am your sweetheart or throwing my legs up for your filthy, diseased corpses." Now she knocked back the rest of her whiskey, sucked air through her teeth for the burn. That became a grin at the spokesman, big and cheerful.

"Aw c'mon sweetheart," the 'spokesman' said, grabbing her face and leaning in. He smelled awful. "We're not bad fella's if you just give us all," with a significant look to the others, "a chance."

With his dirty hand on her face, the smile became a bark of a laugh. "Vous avez le corps d'un chien et le renseignement d'une dur?e de cinq ans. I don't think so." Then one hand went up to knock his hand away from her face and the other became a solid fist into his diaphragm. Since she'd been half-leaning on the stool, she hooked one boot around the leg of that and kicked it back at the tough closing in from behind.

That winded him, and when he stumbled back into the counter, within reach, the bartender smashed a mason jar over his head -- one down for the count. The other caught the barstool in the face and stumbled back into a table, buying her a few moments. The third man went in for the kill, "You're dead, b*tch!" and came in with his fists swinging at her face, fighting like a boxer, or at least like he thought he was a boxer. And the fourth man was... well, drunk and at this moment unaccounted for. Where the hell did he go?

The problem with boxers was that most of them forgot to guard low. "And you're full of sh*t, cr?tin." She took a ringing blow on her ear in trade for another one of those pile-driving punches to the abdomen and a strong kick at his knee. And since there had been four of them - down to three now - she angled herself to get her back to the counter - one less direction for them to come at her from. Now where did the fourth - now third - one go?

One man was unconscious, another on the ground in severe pain, a third still unaccounted for, and that last one... He recovered from the blow of that stool pretty fast, lofted it and swung it hard at her back. "F*ckin' Frenchie. That's what you get!"

It was sort of hard to hear over all the shouting and crashing and fighting, but outside someone was... singing? And that was either water streaming onto the sandy street, or...

G?elle hadn't managed to get her back to the counter quite in time. She staggered when the stool crashed into her back, spat out, "Merde!" and went down to one knee. She did manage to land that knee onto the sternum of the man trying to hug his shattered bone with a bruising impact, at least. Then she rolled off the guy on the floor and kicked up at the groin of the guy who'd thrown the stool.

"You're mine now, you f*cking --- " Right in the pills. The three, even the man with the blow to the head, began to pull one another to their feet, facing her and the bartender, beaten and bruised and partially broke but not quite ready to throw in the towel. They should be able to take her if they all came in at once... right? Right?

What happened next was probably lucky for them. An engine started again, and the culprit could only be one man. It roared in park, then in neutral for several seconds, and then it went into drive. There was no more indecision, the three went stumbling and tumbling out the door after their rookie and the vehicle doing very broad donuts away from town.

They would have had good odds if they'd all come in at once. However, since they'd decided to go after their vehicle instead of her, she was able to lay there on the floor for another moment before she heaved up to her feet and spat aside onto the wood floor. Mostly saliva, a little bit of blood from the cut inside her cheek. "F*cking morons. Once a month or so?"

"Yeah, but uh, probably not anymore, no." The bartender had already looked at the own little cut on the side of his head. He should be more upset about this. A few pieces of furniture got smashed, and the window was broken... but it was just too damn hot to get mad.

He pushed the first aid kit to her side of the bar now that he was done with it, and a good bottle of whiskey and two glasses. Filled them both up and cradled his glass. Lifted it to her and said, "Now tell me what in God's name possessed you to come to a hellhole like this."

She'd tape her ribs later; for now she settled for examining the bruising on her knuckles and taping those up. Once that was done she found another stool to half-lean on and gathered the glass of better whiskey. Tipped it, burned the cut inside her mouth with a sip, and grinned. "I was bored, and sick of the damn rain and snow all the time. Also the cats. And dogs. And gods." The last was a thoughtful addition after she considered some of the patrons of the Red Dragon.

"Huh." He topped off her whiskey and sipped his own. "F*cking RhyDin."

((Adapted from live play with much thanks!))