The Indebted

"The fact that we need to drink me pretty aside, you're telling me you don't believe in the guy below. Which I take means you don't believe in the guy above." Kay reaches over and grabs the damn pen because it's scribbled a pair of sharp canines and that is enough of that. "And you're brave enough to voice it." He thought most people thought it was all lies and fairytales, but for the sake of keeping up appearances, they went along that there was this thing in the sky. He's got a lot of thoughts about religion in general, thinks it's something people made up to feel comforted about death. The guy below however? He didn't have a hard time believing there was something evil in the world and just wished whoever was puppeting him from either above or below would maybe choke him from time to time. "Somewhere my grandmother is clutching her pearls." Whether she really believed in religion or just believed it was something she was supposed to do, he would never know. "Are you one of those 'all men are monsters' varieties like myself or are you just that indifferent." He's still holding the pen, religious views feel somehow too personal and while it's not a something he can write about, he's curious.

Comically, Conan closed one eye as he looked at Kay. "Oh, there it is." He grinned, naturally thinking himself a laugh riot before he waved the question about gods, demons, and whatever else off. Next wasn't stated but blatantly implied - Conan's level of interest could make itself into this piece that Kay had taken an interest in writing about him. "I think monsters is heavy handed. Everyone wants an excuse. They want to feel special. They want someone to blame." Conan quipped once again but there was a distinct ring of truth to the sentiment, a severity in the cadence of his tone that had shifted. "No one's special and at some point we've only got ourselves to blame." Woe are they their parents were shit, oh no someone was mean to them, what do you mean I can't have it my way? "People aren't monsters, they're whiners." He gestured for another drink though he likely didn't need it. "Go ahead and write that down."

A huff of laughter. "No, Deja. Sometimes it's where I work and sometimes it's where I sleep." That she held the room for him was nice, but Conan bounced around too much to call anywhere home. He fixed his messy collar, but the adjustment did nothing to soothe the rampant wrinkles that had overtaken the jacket. "But you're sweet for saying so." Conan smirked before he went to the door, leaving it open as he stepped through, the stage was calling, duty for the sake of room and board and all that. True to bardic fashion, Conan looked back and winked at Deja before puckering his lips for a second - sending a kiss in her direction. "Now get the hell out of my room unless you plan on getting naked." He laughed, taking the stairs two at a time - pint first, song second.

"First off, I don't fuck with that that guy." Actually he'd very much like to believe deities didn't exist in any shape or form, but he couldn't deny that one. There were some things even he wouldn't do, and he'd like to think that if he hadn't gotten fucked up enough to raise his deceased mother from the dead, he'd never cross that kind of line to start looking for the kind of trouble the Dark One came with. "And secondly," He rested both elbows on the table and looked to Conan across the table and it really is kind of difficult to look at him without some kind of subliminal flash across his mind's eye of that damn bathhouse. It's not even the nudity, it's just a flash of canine when he smiled. "because I'm new." And sexy, that had been said and pointed out and Kay was going to cling to that compliment for the rest of his surely short life. "And because I don't let anyone in my pants without making them work for it a little." Maybe the skooma was finally hitting, maybe lying was indeed the most fun a girl could have without taking her clothes off. Professionalism kind of went out the window just a little bit if he had to pull out a bit of the "slut era" act to get content.

"Please." The world needed someone to blame for all their problems - Conan sold his soul to a devil, that was on him. The darkspawn were ugly, diseased... Whatever, but the werewolf didn't prescribe to a boogeyman in the sky heckling the downtrodden from above. "There's no such thing as the Dark One, people just like to put a face to all the fucked up shit they do. It's not my fault, the dark one made me do it." Conan had to laugh, "But you're in luck, I couldn't be less interested." He held his hands up, "Go on, keep asking your questions. I'll keep answering them until I get bored." So far none of them had amounted to much but this 'new guy' was pretty confident in his journalistic ability - or at least his ability to spin a story. He took a drink, "Or until my cup's empty." What was he getting out of this again?

"When you've lost everything, a noble cause can feel like a hand reaching out in the darkness." Her homeland had burned as she ran through the trees that had sheltered her entire life, her father's body left behind in the dirt as minutes prior she had watched what was once wonderous light fall from the heavens above and wonder turned to horror as she watched her father be hit in the chest by a fiery ball of magic. She couldn't return home and her days felt like a waking nightmare, she needed a raft as she was untethered and she felt like she was living on borrowed time so it was a mad death wish and the wolf emerging as she drank blighted blood in her first kill, the wolf and the maiden becoming one.

"Tch-" Conan scoffed, "or a slap in the face." Hope for the hopeless was a walking oxymoron. "Bad story but a good song, that's not something I'm interested in peddling." He'd leave the storytelling for the bards who majored in the subject, Conan didn't sing to make a name for himself - any thoughts of that grandeur had died in a gutter ages ago. His songs paid the bills, kept the mind spike in his system, and wrangled him when he was spinning out of control. Conan could pass off a smile like currency and make himself at home in any room with an open bar. The stories about griffons and heroes could stick with the storytellers who believed in them.

There is an ache that exists within her chest for her home that she can never return too as the lost empire of Aetheron had invaded and conquered, gone are the familiar haunts although she rarely left the sanctuary of her cabin within the grove of the Ironwood forest. She hopes the trees that her family had planted for generations still remain, their roots stronger and tougher than any simple pine.

Conan’s grin faltered for just a moment, his sharp gaze studying her with a bit more intensity. He set his drink down with a quiet clink, leaning forward just a little, as if the weight of her words pulled him closer.