Jocasta smiled, surprised in spite of herself at the commotion her rhetorical question had incited. She lifted her hand as though to run it through her hair, then remembered it was filled with a tacky mass of seasonings. She turned to the bartender, a thick set man with a bald head that had been polished until it gleamed, offset by a neatly trimmed gray black beard. He looked skeptically at Neil, clearly doubting his ability to pay, but then arched a questioning eyebrow at Jocasta.

“Do you have Tindiri Starfire?” she asked. The Bartender snorted and produced a cloth with which he began polishing a glass.

“We have anything you want darling, providing it is shine,” he replied, then reached below the bar to produce a plastic jug of clear liquor. He poured four shots and slid three across the table to Jocasta, pushing the fourth to Neil. The liquor had a slightly oily sheen to it, indicative of a home brew. You could find whatever you wanted in a city like this, but the combination of the blockade and the influence of the more radical mosques, meant liquor was harder to find than most other narcotics. That in turn meant there was huge money to be made in unofficial stills, some of which were more professionally managed than others.

“Well, it doesn’t take a genius to figure this out,” Jocasta observed, and picked up a shot in each hand. She dumped them into a glass of water that was standing on the bar, then emptied the glass over her head. Cold water ran down Jocasta’s body as she pulled the towel from around her waist and began to scrub the spices out of her hand, staining the towel yellow and orange. She tugged her braid free and shook it out into a messy mane, the took the final shot and knocked it back, a slight watering of her eyes suggesting that it might have better followed the first two into a career as solvent. That project at least was going well as she continued to clean the spicy stains from her hair and scalp.

 

“Well I suppose that will have to do until I can find some shampoo, or a hair stylist, or a decent sanitation unit,” she observed, tossing the stolen and now brightly stained towel over the bar into an overflowing trash can.

“Or a pair of pants?” the Bartender asked, a smirk on his face.

“One, impossible challenge at a time,” Jocasta muttered, shifting the green silk to preserve her modesty as best it could before turning to look at the new comer.

“I haven’t seen you here before,” she said, shaking her head to disperse a spray of droplets and doing further violence to her already disheveled hair before extending a hand.

“I’m Jocasta Ap’Gwyn… Jill of All Trade and Unfortunately Grounded Captain.”