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[sub]Interacting With: Vane [@Sen][/sub][hr]

If only booting some freeloading loitering drunks was the highlight of Sabine's evening the night might well have been business as usual. Relatively speaking, of course, given that business at this particular tavern was in a constant state of flux. The regulars were reliable, sure, but a business couldn't exactly thrive with a small pool of customers. What would happen when the regulars decided that the risk of beasties in the night wasn't worth the piss water they depended upon to get through the following morning? Sabine was thankful for the lighter work load, sure, but at the same time more people would have meant bigger pay. 

After the drunken lad gave what Sabine hoped wasn't his best insult - though the lad was but a boy who was probably emulating his da' - and left with his entourage, Sabine returned to work with every intention of seeing the shift through as usual. "Are you done flirting?" The proprietor asked with his surly disposition turned to full. Sabine merely rolled her eyes and grabbed a cloth to wipe down a mug with every intention of going on to dust the always dusty tables. "I asked you a question." 

[color=ADFF2F][b]"Aye, that ya did. Ye know I weren't flirtin'."[/b][/color] Sabine had been down this road before. Any time she wasn't in the tavern proper was seen as wasting time even if she was doing tasks specifically for the tavern such as opening or transporting a cask or helping drunks to the street. Time was money, and the less time Sabine was visibly working and wading through drunken hoots and hollars the less money Alden was theoretically making. She knew where this conversation was going. 

"I don't pay you to flirt, this isn't a whorehouse." Alden spoke and Sabine mouthed along wordlessly. It was as reliable as the crowing at dawn. In her mind, Sabine always responded the same way. [color=ADFF2F][b]"Ye barely pay me at all. Maybe if this place were a whorehouse ye'd turn a decent profit fer a change."[/b][/color] 

"What was that?" 

Sabine froze mid-wipe down and cursed under her breath. Her response this time slipped out from the safety of her mind and left her lips proper. A simple mistake to be sure but one that was likely to be costly. Already she could hear the heightened breathing that was a prelude to a very angry tavern keeper. "You ungrateful wench!" There it was. The whole spiel about how much of a favor he was doing, how he provided a roof and food. At this point Sabine knew what was coming next. "Go on then, get out! Who needs you?" 

Losing her sole job wasn't exactly what she had in mind given that it also meant she was likely going to have to dig into her special pouch to find a room tonight, but she would be lying to herself if she said she wasn't at least partially glad to be rid of him. She chucked her apron to the floor and hurried to the basement where her personal effects were. Not much there, the clothes she arrived in - which she adorned now, trousers and all - and one of the few remnants of her past life: the boarding axe she had been using to chop wood for the tavern fire. 

Sabine was out in the night air without a look back. The town was different at night. Quieter. She'd only ever stayed indoors but she'd still heard the stories. That's all they were. Stories. A town with foul creatures that stalked in the night wasn't anything special - every town had their criminal element after all - though there was a certain chill about it. The silence, the way she could hear her footsteps on the path, it was disconcerting to say the least. 

And then she heard it. What it was she didn't know only that it sounded like something in pain which was then matched with a cry for help. It could well have been a trap, get someone alone and mug them of their riches and their dignity but such traps tended only to work when there was at least a mildly busy street. [color=ADFF2F][b]"Sod it."[/b][/color] Sabine gripped tight around the handle of her axe and followed the sounds. Of course it was near an alley. Everything that went bump in the night was near or in an alley. There was a panicked looking person, no doubt the lad in distress. 

[color=ADFF2F][b]"Oi, keep yer voice down, would'ya?"[/b][/color] Sabine announced her presence by pushing past him, standing at the entrance to the alley. She held her axe at the ready. eyes narrowing towards the black abyss that was the alley. [color=ADFF2F][b]"Can't kill what I can't hear with yer wailin'. Either run along ta yer mum's bosom or stop cowerin'."[/b][/color] Sabine whispered aggressively towards the man before swinging her axe at a moving shadow, striking flesh and sending another pained shriek into the night air. Pulling the axe back, she wiped the blood on the nearby wall. 

[color=ADFF2F][b]"Now's a good time. Think I just nicked its arm."[/b][/color][/center]