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Maurice made a few more guttural noises before finding his voice again. He coughed and waved at her with a shaggy arm.

"Leave me alone, I'm makin' up for lost time! I been gone a whole year and the world's kept movin' on without--" He paused to bite back a gross-sounding belch. "Me. You see...you see some of the shit's been happening here?"

Maurice pointed at one page with a blunt, hoof-like fingernail. It was a dogfood ad.

Gone for a...?

Oh.

Fuck that's right.

People come back sometimes, don't they.

For a second, hope squeezes her chest a little bit... but no. No, she's not gonna hope. Better to be pleasantly surprised than wait like a stupid fucking dog next to the door and just be disappointed every time it doesn't open.

She lets out a little puff, wrinkling her nose at the belch and pushing the shades back up.

"Buddy, I've been living some of the shit's been happening here."

Heather's revelation was just met by a slow blink. A few more newspapers slid down from the pile as he leaned heavily on one elbow, scooting them slightly.

"Oh yeeeeaaaaaah." His ears slowly stood up--not all the way, but enough to show that he was actually thinking. "Do you know where the graveyard is?"

She goes ahead and claims a stool, hopping up onto it with a flick of her wings.

Whatever the hell this guy's deal is, it's a good distraction from the weight on her shoulders right now.

"The graveyard? Sure, why?"

Maurice straightens up only to slump back down again.

"I gotta-- my friend, he told me that I got a grave stone there and I wanna see what it says." And for a long moment he was quiet and it was unclear if he was deciding if he should say something further or tying not to vomit. "I wanna see...if I'm in there too. In the ground I mean. If there's two of me."

She sees that 'maybe boutta puke' look and scoots her stool away an inch or two.

"... Not gonna lie, in the state you're in, that sounds like a fast-track lane to elevating your existential angst into an existential crisis."

Would it? He wasn't sure. He wasn't sure why he wanted to see it so bad. His tail gave a single swish as he thought about that. Papers rustled and dragged across the bar floor.

"It wouldn't be the weirdest thing that's happened here," Maurice decided at last. His eyes dragged the floor before slowly sweeping up upon the Harpy again. Those wings. The barred pattern. He tilted his head and his mane fell across one bloodshot eye.

"I know you..."

'I know you' is not always the BEST thing to hear when you're in a Crime Gang, so the harpy's immediate, instinctive reaction is to tense, ears flicking back and golden eyes narrowing.

"... Yeah? I get around," she says cautiously, squinting at the kelpie. Hmmm... Oh, shoot... is it that guy? She thinks maybe it is.

Had she even gotten his name? She doesn't remember.

That week was an exercise in mingled terror and intense shame.

"Yeah...yeah!" His ears lifted a little more. "You totally hit that door, ahahah--uugh--"

Maurice cut himself off and brought a hand to his head. Ooh, spinny.

"I gotta...I gotta see if that guy's still alive. Gotta get him some money."

He frowned down at all the mugs and papers. He'd had money, but he'd gone and blown it on this weird "research" project of his.

"--oh, shit."

THAT'S RIGHT.

Okay, NOW she remembers him.

And unfortunately she is not yet sunk into her new Professional Role (tm) enough to stop herself from saying: "Wow, you really look like crap."

It's... rude, but... true.

She reaches out to grab... whatever he's been most recently drinking from, be it bottle or one of the many mugs, and scoot it out of reach.

Maurice lifted his head and managed to form a half-insulted look before it melted away. He knew he looked like crap. He felt like crap.

The horse man drew in a gross-sounding sniff and leaned precariously forward to try and reclaim the mug she'd scooted away from him.

"Whatdayoucare?"

The harpy leeeaaaaans right back, holding it out of reach. Her arms are as short as the rest of her but she has the advantage of not being blackout drunk.

"I own a bar, I can tell when someone's had enough."

As though she'd been a bar-owner longer than like... two days.

But he doesn't need to know that.

It was true, Maurice did not know that, but.

DOUBT.

Maurice squinted at her and slowly eased one long hoofed leg off the stool so that he could balance on it and continue to reach.

"Yyyou can't own a bar. You're a little girl."

And she leans back even further, wings spread for balance.

"Well, nobody told me that when I got it."

Maurice let out a horse-ish whoofing sound in frustration because in the very...very short time they had been having this 'argument' he forgot the point that he was arguing for because the further away Heather drew his drink the more out of focus it got.

The brilliant bars on her wings were also very distracting and kind of hurt his eyes if he looked at them. He wasn't able to look at them much longer though because the stool he was balenced on finally tipped and sent him surging forward in a shower of mugs and newspapers and kelp.

"WAUGH!"

It was a wonder none of the glasses broke.

The weight of an entire horse(man) hitting the floor is nothing to sneeze at, and even the harpy wobbles dangerously on her stool before righting herself giving him a snooty look as though to say 'See?'

"I rest my case."

The commotion did not go unheard by the other resident bar owner. A short, thin man with a thin mustache narrowed his thin eyebrows as he walked down to their end of the bar. He gave Heather a look before leaning over and looking down at the heap of horse on the floor.

"Okay, pal, I know you don't have any more money. Get out." He turned to retreat into the back but paused. "And take all your shit with you."

Maurice groaned and shakily got to his hooves. He gave Heather an accusing look before starting to gather up the heaps of newspaper. Some of the newspapers were soggy from him spilling his drink on them or maybe just his general Kelpie...dampness.

"Oh, go sit in a corn field," was Maurice's half-hearted attempt at a biting response as stooped down to pick up a few of the fallen papers. He wobbled and had to catch himself by his elbow on the bar side. He'd never been this drunk and still conscious. Usually he blacked out by now. Maybe it was a monster thing.

Heather's gotten the stinkeye from every barkeep in Bavan and then some just for being one of Greed's smartasses-- she weathers both glances without so much as batting an eyelid.

She does hop off the stool and give it a nudge out of the way as Maurice bends to collect his Moist Archive-- but does NOT help scoop them off the ground. Pond slime and feathers aren't a good combination.

"That's not a very nice thing to say to a little girl."

The more papers he picked up, the more slid out from under his arms. He was like some kind of perpetual failure machine. Maurice finally gave up and snatched the one he'd favored originally--the one with his obituary which was little more than a mention of a new headstone--and called it good.

He edged around Heather. Her remark did catch him a little off guard and for a moment in his stupor he thought of the little girl back in the hospital who had played board games with him. He wouldn't have said anything like that to her...or maybe he would have if she'd just shown up and started telling him that his very good double body graveyard theories weren't worth exploring and that he looked like crap.

Wait.

Little girls couldn't own bars.

Little girls weren't supposed to even be in bars.

While Maurice puzzled all this out, he'd just kind of been staring at Heather with one green ear slowly cocking upward. Was she not then? Was he wrong? Was...she a girl? No she was totally a girl. He remembered that. He remembered walking and talking with her a little now. He didn't remember what they had talked about because his head had been so foggy with wrath.

Finally, the man deflated a little, his ear lowering back down. "Oh...this whole time I thought you was like. Twelve. You're so little."

In all honesty... she barely remembered what they'd talked about, either. She remembered him breaking the door... and feeling mildly nervous. But the creature miserably gathering up his damp newspapers next to her is one of the least intimidating monsters she's ever seen.

Her eyelids drop to half-mast when he speaks again, but honestly, she's kind of used to hearing that at this point.

"Oh my god. I'm in my twenties."

... WHERE in her twenties, she's honestly not sure anymore.

The years have bled together and she doesn't make a point to celebrate or even remember when her birthday is anymore.

"Oh...me too," said Maurice. He rubbed one arm self-consciously and grimaced when his own stupid hand stuck to his own stupid skin. He glanced back to the bar where the tender had yet to return. He had to get out of here before he came back and realized that he wasn't going to clean up all his newspapers.

"I gotta...I gotta jet. 'For that guy comes back." He clop-sloshed his way toward the door, dragging his long leafy tail behind him. Several newspapers were stuck to it. He stopped near the door though and peered around the bushy mane pouring over his shoulder. "What's your bar like?"

Screw sticking around, honestly.

She has even less of a reason to barhop in Bavan than she did before-- hell, if she has to run the show, the smart thing to do would probably be to find someone ELSE to take over her old distribution duties.

Tossing her crest airily, she takes the liberty of strutting out the door before him.

"Better than this dive. We have blackjack and hookers."

Maurice lifted his arms to protect his face from Heather's wings as she passed him. He managed to un-stick his hand from his arm and sort of aimlessly trundled after her.

Her words caught him off guard again and he was too drunk to suppress a scandalized gasp once they were on the street.

"Hookers is--are illegal!" A thought. "Aren't they?"

"Not in my town."

Actually, she isn't entirely sure they're illegal anywhere else, either... there certainly were plenty in Bavan if you knew where to look. And Vandare, too-- goodness knows plenty of them had followed the Nesters to their new city.

Her tone had been light, but after a second's thought she pipes up again, almost sounding a little indignant-- as though predicting he might want to debate it for some reason.

"--And I mean, come on, it's gonna happen whether it's legal or not... at least they're doing it somewhere where people'll look out for them."

The Kelpie fumbled with his newspaper, readjusting his hands slightly so his weird sticky powers wouldn't smudge the ink.

"I guess so..." he admitted at last, but his ears were back and he was glancing around as though he was afraid of getting in trouble just for thinking about hookers. Suddenly he leaned and had to catch himself on the wall. "Eating people is probably illegal too."

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