even in arcadia, there i am.

"...M'think it sounds nice."⠀ Defensive, ⠀"Rr—respect...able."

This old dogs got a mouth on him. Strung out as it is, the syllables stick together worse than a whiskey-hot cheek does to bartop. Eyes roll across its polish to eyeball his chest hair through a popped-loose button. He gets stuck there, how does he have a job with a look like that? the bird in his ear indignants, the candy clattering against Gallaghar's teeth least concern.

a few more shines, squeaking worse than fairweather's flapping gums and too-fat tongue. it'd grate on any savant, and any savant worth their dime would be scandalized by the barmaster's slovenly way of dress, and let them not be witness to the act of a finger poking through that hole in his shirt. what awful manners! what a salacious display! gallagher pauses, lips pursed: the glass goes down, finally rendered free of his hands, as his lips warble into a grin.

"that, my friend, is a secret as old as time," a knock of his knuckles has the tip of fairweather's finger sliding up, up, through his thicket of chest hair, over his pecs, and out of the hole in his shirt; he takes a fine hold of that little single digit between two of his. "but you know what isn't?"

he leans in, like he's unveiling it from between his paws, a surprise he picked fresh out of the garden:

It isn't clear to Ite, whether he's talking about her or the drink. She's caught. Knuckles rap makes heart scuttle, tail tip flicking straight into air in place of a verbal ǃ withholding rattle. Slow,

Slowly. Eyes scratch the bartop on way to look at him, heavy with more than a buzz. Hold a stiff side-eye as the tip of the bottle hovers above the shot glass, last of the gold dribble clinging to bottleneck. It catches the dim barlight before soaking into thumb. ⠀Familiarize my palate,⠀ an echo off the shell of a red ear. A thought smushed between hot cheek and bartop.

“Bitter.” ⠀Every ounce of bubbly in the bottles fall flat in unrefined mouth. Unmixed, uncurated, uncouth— prefers the drinks made for her. It doesn't stop her from cautiously pawing at the nearest glass, despite negative retort. ⠀Would he take it from her? ⠀ Reaching out through a gap in two of the open bottles and dragging toward self. Slow,

this is a familiar sight, one he's seen many times before, on many different faces floating throughout the penaconion bar scene. knows someone looking for a drop of liquid courage, treating their beverage like the finest ambroisa when it he hands it off to them. those down on their luck looking to go bottoms up! it never ends well.

gallagher sighs, a little wistful. ite is a funny girl in how she carries herself. her steps are cautious, and yet she lunges forward with curiosity that claws at her stomach. everything is treated as something new, an experience, something to learn. those who have walked throughout a waking life have muscle memory to carry them forward: she is still in the process of training those muscles, memorizing life to the bone, earning her sea legs with a shabby waltz.

so why not throw her one, gallagher thinks with an inkling of humor.

plato's allegory of the cave speaks of prisoners trapped within - you guessed it - a cave with a fire, who are bound to only watch as shadows of objects passing by are deemed their reality. this is what they know, despite the shadows not being the true, real thing. they are based on the senses, and only the senses, and a limited scope of understanding. they are inaccurate depictions based on what we can base them around.

this sounds a little familiar...

"Suppose if all the clocks are displaying the wrong time..." "If those bound to promises fulfilled their vows through betrayal..." "If those who sink into the realm of dreams never truly fell asleep..." "If the dead return to life, only to discover their names have been stripped..." "If... If..." He blows out the flame, and in darkness, there is but the eternal ticking of the timepiece.

...doesn't it?

this is something i want to delve deeper into when i'm able to articulate myself all the better, but the theory suggests that people long for a higher level of understanding, yet the other inmates - those who are within the dreamscape, in this telling of the story - do not wish to leave, as they know no better life... than the paradise of dreams that has been built.

the theory also supposes that these prisoners will eventually be released from their imprisonment. the first thing the prisoner would see is the fire, and the strain of the bright light would hurt his eyes, so he would not believe it, despite it being before his face. the light, the philosopher supposes, "... would hurt his eyes, and he would escape by turning away to the things which he was able to look at, and these he would believe to be clearer than what was being shown to him"

does this sound familiar to you? here's where i'll start pasting directly:

Socrates continues: "Suppose... that someone should drag him... by force, up the rough ascent, the steep way up, and never stop until he could drag him out into the light of the sun". The prisoner would be angry and in pain, and this would only worsen when the radiant light of the sun overwhelms his eyes and blinds him. "Slowly, his eyes adjust to the light of the sun. First he can see only shadows. Gradually he can see the reflections of people and things in water and then later see the people and things themselves. Eventually, he is able to look at the stars and moon at night until finally he can look upon the sun itself (516a)". Only after he can look straight at the sun "is he able to reason about it" and what it is. Socrates continues, saying that the free prisoner would think that the world outside the cave was superior to the world he experienced in the cave and attempt to share this with the prisoners remaining in the cave attempting to bring them onto the journey he had just endured; "he would bless himself for the change, and pity [the other prisoners]" and would want to bring his fellow cave dwellers out of the cave and into the sunlight 

so... who does that sound like?

⠀⠀Theft,⠀ comes the foremost thought. An enraged rabbit, decisively. The Astral Express isn't to wealthy as to be able to afford crystal champagne glasses, so the bottles off the high shelf aren't for casual consumption is an easy deduction. One that hadn't stopped her from lining up three bottles, wax seals chewed off, and oh-so carefully filling up shot glasses to the very brims. Tail sways low, happy.

⠀⠀Happy with the four other taste tests already had.

well, he thinks with humor strained through, don't festivities and drinks pair well? to the the ever-growing and ever-changing today -- has a nice ring to it.

the barsmith props an elbow on the counter, casual, leaning over it with one ankle hooking over the other. a sleaze's lean, eyes on a ring of stickiness leftover for a glass... he traces with a lone finger, just to rub it against his thumb. watching her for a few moments more, he raps his knuckles once, twice.

"evening. seems our mixologist in training's getting her fill in to familiarize her palate, eh?" a crooked grin, one that emphasizes the wrinkles beneath his eyes.