- Chapter One -
Hours went by, well, it only felt like a minute. But it was definitely hours after that first bottle of merlot, as I catch-up to myself slumped in a bar stool. I should be barreled over in a laughing-fit to the image I have found myself in tonight. Smoking a pipe in one hand, slugging a pint of ale in the other.
The intoxication isn't the funny part. In my younger years, I have seen a fair share of drooling nights over a bar, slamming tequila shots and jagerbombs like they were M&Ms.
What was funny, and is still something I am chuckling at every few minutes, is the bar we have found ourselves in. A cosplay bar, some sort of gathering of Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, and Harry Potter fan clubs. Everyone seemed to have their own unique, yet convincing set of mediaeval clothes and appearances.
From fake white beards, exposed hairy feet, vests and knicker-bottoms. Even the bar itself seems to be furnished to the theme, fitting in with the absence of technology, candle-lit tables and it's aesthetic tavern appearance.
There's even a curly-haired bard plucking away on his lute.
I can't say I've ever been to this bar. Yet, either through the amount of alcohol, or the hipster backstreets of our town I've never visited, it doesn't seem implausible that I've never heard of such an establishment as this one.
Though I do wish I'd changed my clothes. I note that I had changed into black, wide-leg pants and a plain, string-drawn jersey. Maybe I could be a pirate?
"This stuff is awful!" Hana perks up from her own pint, cheeks bulging as if holding in a fountain of vomit, "Absolutely disgusting."
I let out my own disgruntled burp, "That's the beer talking. You wanna complain *hick* to the bartender about a lack of vodka lemonades?" and my eyebrow lowers from it's questioning arc "Perhaps we should find a new place…"
"You know," Hana slurs, slipping a little over the carved bar, "I don't remember coming in here… like at all…"
I ponder for a second, "Huh. Nei-ther do I."
In thinking about it, I can't recall anything past being halfway through that bottle of merlot at our apartment watching rich people complain. Now that I can focus on what is happening, the intricate carved pipe between my fingers doesn't make sense at all. And I have been openly smoking it in drunken smugness with no objection from anyone. In fact the whole bar of curly-haired people seem to be smoking something. And it doesn't taste exactly like nicotine.
Another thought hits me abruptly, "Yo, have we been paying for these beers?"
"Oh shit," she gasps and we both glance towards the bartender who is busy with a red-haired, cheeky faced man in a green vest. Again, no one seems all that bothered… "Maybe we have a tab?"
"I don't remember set-ting up a tab,"
And with no cash register, eftpos machine or any slight hints of modern technology, I ponder if there is a backroom with all the electronics.
"Well we are drunk and high, so I wou-n't put-it past us."
Damn these ales are proving a little more higher in the percentage range than previous beers I've had. There is no doubt that my legs wouldn't stand the pressure of walking straight, to which the bartender may find us a nuisance then and kick us out for being too intoxicated.
Tonight's goal: will not fall off the seat.
"Crap!" Hana shrieks out instead.
I turn as fast as I can, taking a minute to stare at the tangled legs of my drunk friend, the overturned bar-stool and her droopy face smooshed deep into the cobblestoned floor.
"Yo-ahahaha!" I burst out, "Ah-Haha-Haha!" and holding onto my worn-out seat for dear life to not join her on the floor.
"Oi!" a rusty looking bearded fellow shouts, appearing suddenly from behind the bar.
Must be the manager…
He shakes a yellow-stained rag and one mean looking mug, "Get on the road, you two!"
No more than a minute later, we find ourselves both standing outside in a strange courtyard with a country night looming over us.
"I lost my footing!" Hana complains with a smokey, warm breath of beer.
Chuckling, I try to spot anything familiar but come up with nothing but what seems like farmland for miles. How did we get here from the roaring city? I couldn't make out if the silence of it all was deafening or peaceful.
"Fi," Hana stumbles over to where I've absently wandered off across the gravel road, "I can't find my phone."
"Bloody hell," I whisper and my hands travel to where my phone should be in my leather bag. Yet my drunk fingers cannot find the telling shape and texture of my own mobile. Ah, Merlin's Beard.
After another minute, we have gone from being kicked out of the mediaeval cosplay-bar to emptying out every single item we possess onto the street in blind panic.
"Well shit." I admit defeat, slumping back onto the cold gravel.
"How do we get someone to pick us up?" Hana stresses, still fumbling uselessly through our possessions, "I'm not stumbling through the bloody outback just to end up sleeping in the dirt!"
I think, collecting the scarce scraps of our movements, before coming to one measly conclusion: "It's probably in the pub."
"You think *hick* that they'll let us back in?" Hana questions hopefully, gazing back to the glowing windows and cheering drunk people who have started to sing another folk-song.
Groaning as I force myself off the street, I sustain a stumble. My toes seem to move underneath each foot, unrestrained by the sneakers I have on. They have no muscle, just limp fat with concerningly, icy toenails.
"They have to hand over the phone!" I protest over the internal battle against my own feet.
Hana is already tapping a fierce beat on the pub's door. The same manager/bartender answers, turning from a poker-face to aggressive within seconds. He grumbles something incoherent before folding his hairy arms, learning against the wooden frame.
"Yes?" he snarks.
Hana dramatically bows in return, "Sorry to bother you madame, but you wouldn't happen to have our phones?"
Despite the obvious sass coming from my friend, I am still overly impressed as to how she is managing to string together a full sentence. You drunk genius...
"The only thing you have left in here is this." the bartender responds, his tone not at all amused.
"Yay!" I exclaim, lunging for the pipe in his extended hand, and giggling like a child.
But I catch myself under the fierce look of disapproval Hana shoots out. Clearing my throat and lowering the pipe behind my back, I put on my best non-drunk but very professional voice towards the man: "Do you have any idea where we could hire a taxi back to town?"
Hana swirls back to the bartender, "Or perhaps any phone we could borrow to call someone?" she queries.
The mediaeval manager/bartender nearly looks murderous, as though insulted by our innocent questions. His freckles seem to get smaller as the wrinkles around his rounded nose become stronger.
"I do not appreciate your little games," he snaps, "and you would do yourselves good to head on home, and dress yourselves in proper attire the next time you come out."
The door slams, leaving the both of us out in the cold night again.
"What the heck was that all about?" I stress in high-pitched shock.
"Bloody poor hospitality," Hana scoffs and turns to the bar's exterior, "cause WE ARE NOT PAYING FOR THOSE DRINKS ANYMORE!" she shouts in competition with the loud music, shaking both fists.
"I don't think they cares," I state, folding my arms, "Maybe we try somewhere else?"
Hana hiccups out of her drunken rant to then put on the softest, cutey-pie voice ever, "Where were you thinking, Sherlock?"
"Well I have this," I smile despite her attitude, and produce the pipe, "so we should have enough to knock on everyone's door until someone helps us."
"Ah brilliantly mad as always Fi," Hana remarks with a chuckle, sending a congratulatory smack along my shoulder, "Let's just hope none of these country folk have guns and shoot us for trespassing on their property."
I trudge behind her, "You know, this is how a horror movie would start."
"Don't say that, Fi." Hana shakes a little, "The country is scary enough."
"Oi!" Hana shouts with her fierce fists banging harshly against the yellow door that just seconds before had two little children throw a couple tomatoes through the crack, "That's no way to behave, little devilish rascals!"
I pull her away, "Hana, they *hick* children," and I peel off a chunk of tomato from her strained forehead, "Cheeky little things."
"Parents should give them a hard whooping," she growls but thankfully turns away, huffing and giving a plant at the gate one swooping, drunken kick, "Tomato throwing, little shits."
I skip behind her stomp up to the next door, smoking the pipe that surprisingly hasn't gone out. Perhaps this is some magical pipe, lit by the hope of our journey of salvation. Though Hana seemed to be less inclined to share in this joyous matter.
"Look there!" I exclaim, halting my skipping and using the pipe to point up the hill, "Look at that blue light. Perhaps we ought to follow it, Peter Pan! Could lead us both to Neverland!"
Hana throws a tomato peel over her shoulder, "I am not in the mood."
"Humour me, babe." and I yank her wrist in the direction of Neverland.
With a musical tune along the wooden door with the glowing 'F', I cannot stop jumping in and out of my shoes as though ants were having a disco-party in there. Fueled with alcohol and tobacco, I just couldn't seem to stand still. My senses were off the chain and I desperately want to shake it all off to the Mamma Mia soundtrack.
Hana grows impatient and starts banging on the door.
"You keep being aggressive with the knocking." I sway in my tipsy state, feet still tapping to the music in my head "Got an issue with green doors?"
She huffs, "I mean, do they have something important going on?" and she knocks with a louder intensity, "Come on! What could be SO important?!"
"Merlin's beard," a voice booms as the door erupts open to reveal a massive grey cloak with a-
"Ho-oly Smo-okes!" I shout and leap away from the extremely tall stranger, "Giant!?"
But Hana doesn't seem at all bothered as she aggressively tugs on his cloak, "Yo big-man, could you help us?"
The giant, now standing outside the house, is around double our size, with long grey locks accompanied by a fully-grown beard. He has those wrinkly grandpa eyes with the most bushiest eyebrows I have ever seen. They must need to be combed every morning, or else they'd fall into his eyes.
Stop thinking about the eyebrows Fiona!
"Ahh, it is you two," the giant says, switching to a chuckle, "You finally made it. Come inside before your little toes freeze off."
Hana hums, peers over the man's hip and folds her arms, "I was more thinking if you could call us a taxi? Or tell us where we are?"
"Mr. Giant, we only want to go home." I squeak, my heart racing as my neck starts to hurt from looking up in terror.
"Fi," Hana snipes, smacking a hand across my shoulder, "Don't be so racist."
My fear of Mr. Giant is quickly replaced with befuddlement. I glance at Hana with a sharp crack, "How's that racist?" and turn to gesture wildly at the strange giant, "He's super tall!"
"You can't just go around calling people who are taller than you, Mr. Giant!" she lectures with a wagging finger.
"You're telling me you ain't a giant?" I ask the tall man.
He chuckles as if knowing something I do not. There's an aura around him that screams 'I went to Harvard University'.
I glare in return, How dare you, Mr. Giant.
"I am a wizard, little one, "He says, "My name is Ga-"
My sharp finger-snap cuts him off, "Aha! A wizard?!" what with his long grey beard and old wisdom eyes, I can't believe I didn't see it before!
"You're Dumbledore!"