"Drunks."

I sneered from the corner table, or where it had been. The dim lights pushed against the influence of the smoke inside the sorry excuse for a bar. The Dome had a hell of a lot of facilities, but this one was new to me. Seeing the fighters-in-training for a thousand generations was one thing, but watching them get drunk and pissed off was something else. My own table had been overturned and dragged away already, used in some fight or another, and I was propping my legs up on what seemed to be some kind of stool. It had been broken at some point and about half of the legs had been sawed off to correct the damage. It was a great footrest.

A bottle of wine sat in the crook of my elbow. Tasteless drunks had always amused me. Bourbon and vodka had their biting tastes, a bit worthwhile when all you're after is to sink into some hard drunkenness, but this place didn't have those. What this place had was beer—something I knew by reputation, since I found the smell so repugnant that actually tasting it was about as out of the question as kissing a yak—and a lot of it, a dozen different kinds of rotting wheat in liquid form. The beer wasn't the worst, though, because they also sold mead. Alcoholic honey had its charms for little kids, but adults drinking that kind of swill was just ridiculous, especially taking into account the color.

"Yeah, drunks," I replied, unfolding my legs long enough to scratch my shin with my toe. I was drunk myself, but I held my liquor. People like the bawdy idiots at the bar or the brawling idiots in the table area, those guys looked drunk and smelled drunk and acted drunk like it was going out of style.

Me?

I sat. Too calm to really notice, too annoyed to be bothered, most people never made the mistake of interrupting me in drunk-mode. I sniffed regally and cast a glare at the newcomer who had shifted in beside me. He looked young. He looked annoying. I felt a pang of something. It might have been anger, but I was really too far gone to really care what it was, exactly. He shifted until he was comfortable, and I watched him with the same flat glare. He looked uncomfortable again within a few seconds, and shifted again to compensate for it. My sneer came back and I looked away ... but not before I kicked him off the freaking seat. I didn't come to the bar for the social graces of its scum-sucking denizens, and certainly didn't come to watch someone not drink. He was a waste of space.

By the time he stood up, he had already been stepped on twice. Tough luck for him. Why he came the Dome, I have no idea. He could have gotten walked on anywhere, no need to come to a combat school to do it. As he stood up, towering up over my slouched form from what looked like a meager six feet, his face became bitter and angry. I noticed, because I had a nice view, but I could have missed it pretty easy. I guess that latter possibility was what happened to him, because my scabbard snapped his knee in sideways and he became a lot more afraid a lot quicker.

"Buzz off," I growled. Another swig of wine was all it took to make me forget he existed.

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[Graphics by Me.]

[The signature links to Aleksandr Sokoll.]
["I believe in sleeping." ~ Bruce Lee]