"Aw, come on Tark," the scrappy fisherman said as he threw down a fresh net of the morning's catch. Half of it was water bugs and the like, but most oif it was fish, not worth the insult of seven copper pieces. Tarqunius looked dispassionately across the makeshift table and slid the small bag back across to the seller.<br/><br/>"Look, half of it's lobster, Seb, plus it's just not morally right to help a young lad like you crawl into a bottle when it's barely past noon as it is." Sebastilian took the pouch and left the man with his meager catch. What could he help it if the fish weren't biting? Or if he wasn't exactly in the right frame of mind to remember to haul in the nets before the lobsters picked apart the trapped fish. Seven measly coppers. It was hardly enough to get a cheap bottle of the local wine. He scratched at the stubble dusting his face and stretched upward as he headed down the road.<br/><br/>He wore a sun-bleached white tunic and loose blue trousers. Like most of the local seafarers he went around in sandals (or barefoot). He was a strapping if slovenly sort of man. He lived off his boat and it did him just fine. No one complained to his face about it, and that was all that he gave two rotten curses about anyway.<br/><br/>He headed into the cloud of wood smoke, pipe tobacco, stale beer, and roasting fish that made up the local bar, a two story affair with stables out back. The stucco was faded and cracked in a few places, exposing the brickwork beneath, but there was an aura of care taken with the place. The proprietors were good honest folk, and he didn't give them any trouble, and he gave them coin.<br/><br/>He walked in and took his usual seat in the corner, alone, and he was about to order his usual seven-coppers worth of whatever swill he could get the most of when the lady out-of-towner walked in as brazen as the lord king of the land himself. Whatever, she got a round for everybody, he wasn't about to reject the kindness of strangers bearing the tidings of the halfway decent swill anyway. Soon the whole bar was doing a round of the local shanties in honor of the purple-armored lady.<br/><br/>Seb looked over his glass, blue-green eyes taking in the peculiar sight of her. She was attractive all right, but it was more the sword and armor. She had to be deadly or a loon. No one in their right mind would go around in such fancy appointment if they couldn't fend off every thief and highwayman looking to make a small fortune off her affects.<br/><br/>He watched disinterestedly, a niggling little thought in his mind. He should know something about a knight-type with a sword like that and purple armor, but for the life of him he didn't care enough to try and recall it. She was buying rounds and maybe she'd have another in her somewhere. That made her good enough people for him.<br/><br/>Wishes of his second round went out the window with the arrival of the town watch. They were supposed to be proper soldiers, but they hadn't done any proper soldiering in a while. They spent most their days lounging in this very tavern harassing barmaids and fishermen's daughters alike. At first Sebastillian scoffed into his cup when the captain got rejected for playing games outside his handicap, but then things escalated quickly. He didn't know why he moved, but he had already picked up and empty chair and cracked it over the head of the man who drew first blood. The chair broke leaving him with only two remnants of the back legs in his hands. He let them clatter to the floor.<br/><br/>"Sea and stars,"  Seb muttered, "I've wanted to do that for months, docking fines my ass..." He muttered. He let the chair legs clatter to the floor. "Look, fellows," he said turning to the remaining men. "You've already ruined my afternoon, she's definitely buying anymore rounds, and by the looks of her armament she's going to kill all of you and leave, so why don't you drag his stinking carcass out of here and go get the proper army if she's so scary dangerous?"<br/><br/>Seb was a lot of things, but he wasn't going to let the bar of two good honest people get turned into a bloodbath because some captain of the guard in a charitably modest town like Geratus decided he wanted to pick a fight with a woman who looked like she could probably pick him up one-handed. Not to mention he frequented this establishment. The captain looked like he was rousing, so Seb picked up an empty wine bottle and smashed him over the head before staggering slightly to the bar and tossing down his day's earnings. "Sorry about the chair, just put that on my tab and this toward it."<br/><br/>With that he turned on his heel an staggered out into the noonday sun, at least he could get some peace and quiet at the docks without purple-armored lady-knights and bravado-filled guardsmen. He knew he'd probably end up in the local jail for clocking the blowhard from behind, and embarrassing him in front of his cronies, but he had a feeling that without their head bully, they wouldn't take on a fully armed knight, or whatever she was. He hopped down into his fishing boat and rolled up some sack cloth to use as a pillow.