in this thread, gwen attempts to replace the leprechaun.

[trouvaille]

WHO: Gwen Wynne-York & King Art.
WHERE: A BAR NO ONE SAW ANYTHING.
WHEN: Now-ish.
WHAT: Arthur needs to learn to play pool if he's going to be an adequate substitute for Gwen's favourite drinking buddy.
WARNINGS: tbd if need be.

“Look,” she had said, profoundly tactlessly, when they arrived at her Maurtia Falls dive bar of choice (so chosen for, among other things, being roughly walking distance to her home in the event of that being a good thing for a bar to be), “your people.”

The expression on the bartender's face spoke volumes of familiarity breeding tolerance if not fondness - though when Putinka takes up residence near the gap where the bar itself opens to get to and from the stock room, it's evident someone in this equation is charming, even if it's not her highness. It's apparent that they're regulars (there may have been some fey trickery involved in getting her dog in the first time, but the benefit of a second, growlier bouncer is not to be ignored), that her ImPort status is tolerated because 'tolerating it' is mostly how she treats it, too -

No one's coming here for celebrity photo ops. Drinks are strong, the company's fine if you like that kind of thing, and there's at least one older man in here who has the hallmark slightly wobbly scarring of a bottle-related injury sewn up by a young woman who'd been pounding shots not long prior. It's maybe not a great look for an employee of a mayoral candidate to choose as her local, but this is Maurtia Falls, so maybe it'll net Baelish some unlikely voters in the end. Who can say.

“Haaave you ever played pool.”

Comments

[hardcut]

("My people would be busier than this," he'd told her, and the man at the bar who'd overheard had merely nodded along. Nobody in here is getting any work done.)

"I've played in a pool." Arthur is leaning against the counter, comfortable just about anywhere - even if he's more natural at the shady anywheres. It's funny to him how it translates across centuries. Humans, man.

Or non-humans, as it were. He's not got any expectations for tonight, never sure if Gwen is going to go off the rails with her high strung energy or... whatever, stay on the rails with her high strung energy. But he doesn't mind her. Weirdos are people too.

[trouvaille]

On or off the rails, Gwen is very rarely ever dull to be around - frustrating, confusing, irritating, but not dull, a small force of nature that some are more inclined than others to roll with the shifts of. If some of her recoveries are less graceful than others when she veers off-course, it has thus far not seemed unsalvageable in Arthur's company, so -

Pool. And liquor. And Putin, who could be mistaken for sleeping but shouldn't be.

“I'm not very good at it,” she prefaces, picking up a pool cue with the sufficient familiarity of someone who has played here often enough to know which one to reach for, “but you don't actually have to be to teach someone the rules. I am experiencing a moral twinge at doing so,” she has never experienced a moral twinge in her life and would not recognise the sensation if she did, “but I'm sure you're a responsible and upstanding sort of man who wouldn't take anyone for a ride later.”

[hardcut]

"Ain't my line of work anymore," he says, of taking anyone for a ride, which is both a prostitution joke and a criminal activity joke, complete with sending her a charming, though deliberately sleazy (thus making the aforementioned charming claim deeply questionable) smile. "But I'll keep it in mind. What's a moral twinge feel like?"

Arthur, being the upstanding honest citizen he is, actually has seen this before, on his roadtrip with Mickey to Chicago, but didn't do much in the way of participating - or paying attention, honestly. There was an awful lot happening on that trip. He picks up a cue and observes Gwen, and observes her dog observing the two of them. The creature's giant size isn't shocking - most dogs in his day and age are built like that, work animals all, but he does wonder what use she has for it. Does she own sheep that are often in peril, or something.

[trouvaille]

“Sort of colicky.” Gwen. She grins at him; tracks his gaze over to Putin- “I think he likes you, by the way.”

Her pool cue gets leaned against the table while she racks up the balls, and the great big animal in question offers a lazy thump of his tail in probable support for her conclusion. It's certainly never hard to tell when he doesn't like something, or someone - he is, probably, a much better judge of character than she is.

“So essentially, the point is to sink all of your balls, and then the black one. If you sink the black before you've sunk all the rest of yours, you lose. When the game starts, whoever sinks something first - stripes or solids - those're your balls for the rest of the game. And it's your turn until you miss.”

[hardcut]

Arthur spares Putin a look, friendly enough (if one can be friendly with a god). "Glad to hear it, mate," he says to the fuzzy beast.

Of the game, "Alright." Rules are simple enough - he figures the learning curve is getting the actual mechanics of it anywhere near accurate, but Arthur's more or less acceptably dexterous. It'll probably be fine. He leans against the table behind them, mostly interested in how Gwen manages the whole 'using this tiny stick in any way productively' aspect.

"Show me how it's done."