So I realized that in Fable 2 Reaver has blue eyes and in Fable 3 he has brown eyes. In this I've given him gray because I couldn't figure out his eye color at first and it seemed to match his alignment the best. If anyone makes a big stink about it I'll change it but if not I'll continue with gray. This chapter took me a little longer than I thought it would simply because of New Years. So HAPPY NEW YEAR! And enjoy chapter 2 and drop a review if you feel moved =)
Thank you Veritas Est Vana for the story alert!
Disclaimer: Listen if I owned Reaver he would have never left with Garth at the end of Fable 2. Also the Hero of Brightwall's legitimacy would need a serious look over. ;)
"So," Reaver cocked his head at the hero, waiting for her to finish read the letter they had picked up at Poorman's Point. After what they had encountered on the Point, the pirate thought a name change was definitely in order. Perhaps Lonely Lookout or Pathetic Ghost Woman Way. He tapped the handle of his pint idly.
Sparrow looked up from the ghost woman's letter and met Reaver's gaze with her own tired eyes. She desperately needed a good 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. "No, I will not sleep with you. I will not 'don the velvet cap' or whatever gross innuendo you have cooked up whilst drinking that swill of yours."
"I was only going to ask what it said." Reaver replied with an innocent gesture. "But I was wondering if later-"he began wiggling his eyebrows suggestively, a joking grin appearing on his face.
Sparrow leaned across the table and promptly stuffed a roll in Reaver's mouth. "The ghost wants me to find her fiancé, seduce him, and then give him this letter which explains how horrible a person he is." She informed him, a smile creeping across her face at Reaver's expense. He looked a bit like a roasted pig with the roll in his mouth like that.
The pirate ripped the roll out of his mouth. "What did you put in this, thing? Rocks, do you bake rocks and call them rolls? You do don't you." Reaver complained gurgling ale in between each outburst. He tossed the offending roll over his shoulder and sighed happily at the resounding crunch of breaking glass.
Sparrow winced and massaged her temples with an irritated fervor. "Just because I own the tavern does not mean I make the rolls. And I am sure you could have found somewhere else to eat." She added in reference to the flocks of women that had accosted them since they entered the city. Even now she felt their hot eyes boring holes into her back. I swear I'll never understand why women still fall for him. Sparrow thought. There's no way they haven't heard the stories.
Reaver rolled his eyes; she hardly paid any attention to her businesses. "No it means you should fire your cook." Reaver slipped his hand over the table and snatched the ghost's letter. "Now you've gotten us off topic." He scanned the letter quickly. "This is addressed to a fellow named Alex." Reaver looked back at Sparrow, quietly admiring how the smoky tavern atmosphere complimented her fiery hair, sun warmed skin, and, of course, a glimpse of modest cleavage.
Sparrow just sighed and as Reaver read the ghost woman's letter once more, drank the remainder of his ale. The mug hit the worn table with a loud clang that hardly cut through the increasing noise of the tavern.
"Alex," Sparrow explained, "Is her fiancé, or, was her fiancé. He left her at the altar and she was so heartbroken she threw herself off a cliff." Sparrow suppressed a shudder as she remembered her almost fall from that afternoon. "She wants him to feel the pain that she felt. You would've heard all of this if you didn't keep poking fun at her."
Reaver waved his hand dismissively, the ghost woman had been easy pickings and he couldn't help himself. "So, seduce him and then break his heart?"
"I'm not doing it." She spat refilling the mug from the pitcher on the table. "Leading her fiancé on and then telling him he made his love jump off a cliff? He'd go join her." She took another gulp from the pottery mug and gritted her teeth as she swallowed the bitter liquid. She had never really liked that taste of ale but she was so strung out from traveling with Reaver and four sleepless nights that she welcomed the heady feeling that followed the bitter taste.
Reaver watched her, his eyes dark as he considered the hero's predicament. She was assuming the ghost bride's former husband-to-be was a good man. Sparrow was prattling on about how horrid he must feel after his true love off'd herself. Reaver doubted the situation was anything like what Sparrow was describing as she drank his ale. After all Sparrow's client was dead and clamoring for the death of her fiancé.
"Anyway so his name is Alex, I'll find him, take him back to the ghost and they'll have a proper row about it and it'll be over by dinner. She'll move on, he'll move on, I'll move on." Sparrow studied Reaver's reaction from behind her pint of ale. She made a mental note to stop after this one. The hero rolled her shoulders, feeling the knots of tension and weeks of travel beginning to loosen. If only she could get a massage….
Reaver blinked, that was her plan? How had she survived her encounter with Lucian? The pirate laughed and looked around the tavern, his dark grey eyes alighting on a large buxom waitress near the game table. "How are you going to find the man?"
"He's around I'm sure."
"And if he's not the saint you're looking for? Which he will not be—"
"Not everyone's as twisted as you, Reaver." Sparrow replied bluntly.
Reaver shook his head, raising his hand to get the attention of the waitress." Sparrow everyone is twisted, they just haven't had a century to perfect if like I have. You are the only exception, my dear." He was distracted by the buxom waitress making her way to their table, it seemed most of the tavern's occupants were distracted by the waitress, and asking in a sultry voice what she could do for him. Reaver ordered another mug and a fresh pitcher of ale before flirting with her. To his pleasure the waitress was a pro at the game.
Now it was Sparrow's turn to roll her eyes, typical Reaver, assuming the whole world was filled with selfish asshats and then chatting up the waitress. "Excuse me," Sparrow interjected, she slapped down a few coins knowing the sound would garner the waitress's attention., enough for the ale and a bit of information. She searched her mind for the woman's name but she didn't remember her from any of her visits to the Cow and Corset. "I'm looking for a man named Alex?"
The money immediately caught the waitress's attention, she licked her chapped lips as she considered Sparrow's question. Reaver sighed at Sparrow's indelicate information gathering, he was just getting round to asking the woman who this Alex was.
"Aye, but we got a couple in'ere tonight." The waitress flicked her watery blue eyes over Sparrow, assessing how much more coin she could squeeze out of the heroine. "What's the one you're lookin for?"
"I don't know him personally. His-ah-a mutual friend of ours pointed me towards him. All I know is he was engaged last spring but the girl died." Sparrow picked one of the coins up from the pile and flipped it over her knuckles. It was trick she had mastered growing up in the gypsy camp.
The waitress's watery eyes watched the coin roll across Sparrow's knuckles. She pointed to man with brown hair tied back in fashionable ponytail nursing a shot of fire water at the bar. His shoulders were slumped and looked like he might have slept in his clothes. "That's the one you're lookin for."
Sparrow flicked the coin back onto the pile, "I take that mug over there please."
The waitress scooped up the coins deftly and nodded, "Sure thing miss."
Sparrow waited as the waitress cleared the plates, nearly falling out of her blouse twice for Reaver's benefit, and then reluctantly left to fill their order before she spoke to Reaver.
"He looks heartbroken." Sparrow said simply.
"He looks homeless. " Reaver replied arching an eyebrow (perfectly shaped) in disbelief.
"Because he's heartbroken."
"You really believe this 'true love' drivel?"
Sparrow dug at cut in the table, avoiding that jaded expression and dark eyes that were staring incredulously at her. "Some things are fated." Sparrow believed that. She had believed it as a child when that kind family had watched over her and her sister every winter. She had believed it when they had managed to scrape together 5 gold coins to buy that music box. She believed it now, when she had lost everything; her sister Rose, her dog Tobar, even Theresa to fufill her bloodline. After a minute of silence she looked up, watching Reaver through a bit of hair that had escaped her braid. This was the second time he hadn't reacted to her expectations.
The memory took him by surprise it snuck upon him so quietly. Sparrow was admitting her belief in true love (which he knew she knew was ridiculous by how she avoided his eyes) and then suddenly he could almost feel a gentle sea breeze and the warmth of the sun on his skin. Her hair was a tangled mess but it shimmered like gold in the sun. Her back was to him. She didn't know he was there, he had been passing by on his way to the market when he saw her standing on the dock, waiting. Time skipped and it was fall, he was standing before her, they were arguing, and there was something in her eyes and her stance that reminded him of Sparrow….
"Reaver?" Suddenly he was back, seeing only Sparrow's concerned emerald eyes and feeling the sharp pressure of her hand on his arm.
"I rather like having the use of both of my arms." he snapped, brushing her hand away. Another hurtful remark was working its way out when the waitress returned with a fresh pitcher for the table.
"I left your mug at the bar, miss." She told Sparrow, who left the table quickly only to march back to the table and yell angrily.
"Don't even think of putting that on my tab!"
The waitress's eyes widened a little in shock before turning to Reaver, "Who tightened her corset?"
"She's the Hero of the Spire; the whole country tightens her corset."
The waitress gasped, her bosom nearly escaping the inadequate confines of her bodice again. "You mean that was the-."
"Hero of Bowerstone, yes." Reaver finished, bored by the waitress's reaction and a little too engrossed in watching Sparrow as she sauntered up to the man at the bar. He was concerned with whatever it was she had broken in him. He had buried the memories of his old life and did not enjoy seeing them resurface. He was wondering if it was a bad idea to give up on forgetting his year with the hero and return to Albion. After dismissing the waitress, Reaver reached across the table and took back his mug and distracting himself with watching Sparrow enact her plan, which was stupid. He imagined she'd be crawling back in a few minutes or so when she realized that is wasn't going to work or that Alex was total jerk. Sparrow didn't return in the next five minutes or ten or twenty. She was tossing her copper hair and laughing so hard that she nearly fell off of her stool. Luckily that Alex fellow caught her arm and steadied her. Reaver gulped the last of his ale and set it back down angrily as he watched.
Sparrow was surprised to hear that it had been nearly four months since Alex's fiancé had died. Understandably he avoided the topic and turned the conversation towards what had brought Sparrow into town. She revealed that she actually owned the tavern and was here to check on the books, an easy lie. Sparrow owned a few taverns and some stores but she had largely left the previous owners in charge. She was too busy being Albion's Hero to manage a business but she also needed the money for weapons, clothes, and food.
At some point Reaver realized he was glowering. Not glaring or frowning but glaring sullenly at Sparrow and her new friend. It was also around this time that he realized that Sparrow had slipped beyond happily buzzed to sleepily drunk. He recognized the alert and eager posture Alex had taken as Sparrow's eyelids began to droop. Sighing, Reaver stood from the table and made his way to the bar to rescue Sparrow from her teetotaling ways. He was about halfway across the tavern when he remembered her coat was still draped over the back of her chair. It didn't even occur to the pirate that he could just leave Sparrow and her jackets to their fates.
"Come on, beddy bye time." He tapped Sparrow on the shoulder, gray eyes flicking for a second to Alex's drink. It was still full.
"Reaver?" slurred Sparrow, her glazed eyes glazed and her confusion on finding him behind her evident on her flushed face. The hero was beginning to form some protest but Reaver had her coat draped about her shoulders and her off of the stool before it could come to fruition.
"Now, now Hero," Reaver sent an annoyed look towards Alex and emphasized the word as a warning. Reaver recognized the sweet scent that had lingered on Sparrow's breath beneath the ale. The drug's side effects could easily be mistaken for drunken behavior. "Queen of observation, aren't you?"
"Who-?" Alex protested, pushing himself up off of his stool. He was stupid enough not to seem worried by Reaver revealing of Sparrow's title. "Who are you?"
With a well practiced flourish, Reaver whipped out his favorite Dragonstomper .48 and aimed it at the offending man's head. He was tired and annoyed with himself, with Sparrow, and most certainly with this bilge water rat. "I am Reaver." The pirate announced, his voice caring smoothly over the now hushed tavern, and pulled the trigger.