Two Half-Orcs Walk Into A Bar

The Pannier is a perfectly serviceable, modest establishment; even with just a quick glance through the windows it seems quiet and clean and comfortable compared to the places Baine has been known to frequent. It probably has something to do with the lack of adventurers as returning customers. Tugging at his grey tunic and fur cloak, wondering at once if he’s both over- and underdressed and trying not to worry too much about his hair, he finally takes a deep breath and pushes the tavern door open.

A warm, welcoming atmosphere greats him - lovingly worn tables and chairs, quiet laughter and a simple violin from somewhere in the back. A couple of heads turn to look, giving him quick, curious glances before turning back to their conversations.

He stops just inside the door, scanning the room and tries to not to look too obviously nervous. A dwarf with an intricately braided beard and a grey apron pauses at the look of him, balancing a tray laden with mugs and tankards expertly in one hand.

“Looking for someone, love?” she asks, a warm smile across her face.

“Uh, yeah. I’m- Carlin. I mean, I’m Baine, I’m not Carlin. I’m looking for Carlin.” Baine slams his mouth shut and tries to control his blush. “Is he here by any chance?”

She raises an eyebrow but graciously doesn’t comment on his outburst.

“He’s this way, dear, follow me.”

She weaves her way deftly around the low tables and patrons and nods her head towards a corner in the back of the tavern.

“Somewhere over there last I saw him. I’m Isveig, give us a shout if you want drinks.”

“We want drinks!” shouts a familiar voice, and a familiar rumbling laugh follows.

“Oi, you!” Isveig shouts back, smiling, “The shout-for-drinks offer is for new customers only! Old salts like you can come to the bar and ask nicely!”

But Carlin is already easing himself past a table of gnomes to join Isveig and her new customer. Baine can’t help grinning from ear to ear at the sight.

“There you are! Hope I didn’t keep you waiting.” He nods his head towards a waiting Isveig behind the bar. “I know we didn’t settle this proper last time but I really would like to buy you a better drink than whatever that swill was. It’s a matter of personal pride and growth. What will it be?”

Carlin chuckles and claps a hand on Baine’s shoulder. “Well now, I wouldn’t want to hurt your pride or growth! I’ll have a cider, then. Young Yesna’s new batch is pretty good if that’s your taste!”

“Two ciders, please,” Baine says to Isveig, placing a couple of silvers on the counter. As the dwarf scoops up the coin and starts pouring their drinks, he turns back to Carlin.

“Sorry it took me so long. I got stuck in Kundar for a bit - something nagged its way into my head and I couldn’t seem to let it be. Was supposed to be a quick jaunt up north but...”

He trails off and shrugs.

“I even got you a present - some sort of drink made from a cactus, I think? But I had to barter it for my safety when I got back; my dogs got loose somehow and the Master Scout stepped in something they left behind and he threatened to do some unspeakable things to me.”

Struck suddenly by the idea, he reaches up into his flower crown and tugs gently until a red one comes free. He offers it to Carlin with a small smile.

“Sorry I’m late.”

Carlin looks at it a second with a slightly surprised expression and then takes it, smiling a smile that’s less jovial than usual, more gentle.

“Well, now. It’s been a long time since anyone gave me a flower. Or even since I gave myself one. Funny, isn’t it? Little things like that, but you just don’t think of it, somehow…” Whatever this thought is, he seems to put it aside. “Thank you. Just as good as a cactus drink, I’m sure!”

Isveig serves them the ciders and Carlin takes them both in one large hand, leading Baine over to a quiet corner. They sit down across from one another at a small table and clink their tankards together in a small toast before Carlin continues.

“So, Kundar, was it? How’d you get on?”

Baine shrugs. “Fine. Did my work alright, got paid. Got a good fight out of it and none of my mates got hurt. I’ve definitely had worse trips.”

He hesitates for a moment before continuing.

“I thought while I was up there I’d ask around for my mum’s tribe. Cinderblade. Don’t know if it’s a wild goose chase and they’re all back in Faerûn but I got a lead on a place called Harnash. Never heard of it before, apparently it’s a whole nation west of the desert. Loads of orcs. Ever been?”

“Harnash!” says Carlin with eyebrows raised. “It’s strange, I never heard that name until about a month ago. There’s a blue elf been coming to the warehouse now and again. Not much good but she’s spirited and she takes a beating with a smile. You know her?”

Baine shakes his head.

“No, haven’t met her. Why? She know something about the place?”

“Lived there twenty years, give or take! So she says, anyway. Want to meet her?”

The younger man’s eyes widen.

“Well I’ll be damned. Sure, I’d love to! Point me her way next time we’re in the pits would you?”

“Course I will. Haven’t seen her about much the last tenday or two but I dare say she’ll be back.” A graver look crosses Carlin’s face. “You thinking of going out there? Across the desert?”

“I’ve been thinking about it, yeah.” His brow furrows in a mirror of Carlin’s face. “D’you reckon it’d be dangerous?” A strange smile crosses his lips, a sad and simultaneously proud thing. “Couldn’t be worse than most shit I get up to these days.”

“You know more about danger than me, I reckon. But they say nobody from this town ever crossed that desert. And orcs…” He sits for a few moments looking into his tankard, absent-mindedly prodding a stubby tusk into his upper lip a few times. “Lad, I’m not proud to say it but I’m scared of ’em. Always done my best to avoid ’em, truth be told. True, what that elf Dwirhian was saying didn’t sound much like the butchers and pillagers you hear stories about, but still… I don’t know.”

Baine nods solemnly, thoughtfully for a moment, turning the tankard in his hands in a slow circle.

“I’ve never met one. Just a handful of half-orcs like us. I haven’t got the first idea what they’d be like. From what I heard, the ones that was part of the Sack were outcasts from Harnash, like, like they wasn’t civilized enough to stick around or summat.” He sighs heavily and eventually looks up from his drink.

“I think I have to go, though. Be it good or bad, it can’t be worse than the shit I make up in my mind at night.” He lets out a mirthless laugh. “I met a dragon recently. ‘Cause that’s my life. He told me he could smell the sins of my forefathers on me. I have to go see it for myself. I need to either shine a proper light on my demons or put them in the ground.”

He scratches at his temple and gives Carlin a rueful smile. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to be that bleak.”

"Don't you worry, lad," Carlin smiles reassuringly. But the frown returns and the head shakes. "Sins of your forefathers, is it? I'd have thought a dragon'd be more polite, somehow. But aye, I understand. Better look 'em in the face, whatever they are."

“Yeah, I don’t see another way of going about it.” He throws Carlin a small bashful smile. “I’ll be careful though. I’ll take good people with me and I’ll make sure to come back in enough pieces that you can still buy me that drink afterwards.”

“You’d better!” Carlin raises his mug in a sort of toast. “You’re a brave one, Baine. Braver than I ever was, that’s sure.”

“I’ve been told it’s less to do with bravery and more to with my ‘complete and utter lack of self-preservation.’” He grins as he pronounces the words carefully. “Bet you’ve got loads more of that than me. You’ve chosen a smarter line of work, for one.”

He takes a small sip from his tankard and chews his bottom lip before hesitantly continuing.

“I’m alright with where I’ve ended up in life. Wouldn’t have chosen anything else. But I can’t help but wonder what it would be like, sometimes. A quiet life.”

His eyes search Carlin’s face, asking a question he couldn’t quite bring himself to say out loud.

“A quiet life. Aye. And what do you think? What’s it like, the quiet life of Baine Cinderwood?”

In their quiet corner of the Pannier, Baine sets his tankard aside and closes his eyes, just for a moment, and lets himself entertain the thought. When he opens them again, they’re distant but warm.

“I dunno really. A life with less violent death. Worrying about crops instead of fiends and liches. An honest, steady job.”

He reaches out with a large hand and gently grasps one of Carlin’s, turning it palm up, rubbing at the calluses on his fingers, similar yet so different from his own.

“Using a smithy to make tools instead of weapons. Sleeping in a house instead of barracks.”

His voice rumbles quietly between the two of them.

“Maybe even finding someone to share it with. Someone who sees all of me, not just the reach of my arm.”

Carlin sits looking at his open hand on the table, and Baine’s. “I’d a life like that once,” he says slowly. “After I stopped soldiering. It’s a good life to have. And a hard one to lose.”

Baine gives a small nod.

“I’m sorry.”

Carlin sighs quietly and shakes his head a little. “No, it’s all right. I was just thinking about my boy… he’d be a young man now, thinking about a trade. Maybe even following your sort of road. He was always going off on adventures, down by the brook or up a tree…”

“What was his name?”

“Mikan.” He gives a little chuckle. “It was a little goofy maybe. Mikan Mikitstala. But it happened it was Lia’s father’s name, and she liked how it sounded.”

“A good name.” Baine gives him a small, heartfelt smile but it fades from his face quickly. “I’ve lost a few people myself. Family. But a son… I can’t even imagine.”

Knowing there aren’t any words for grief such as this, he simply takes firmer hold of Carlin’s hand with his own and squeezes. Carlin lays a couple of slow, heavy pats on top with his other hand.

“Ha, look at me bringing the mood down”, he says, a little awkwardly. “Anyway, I hope you do find that quiet life of yours, if you want it, and that somebody. You must’ve had some offers, handsome lad like you!”

Baine’s eyes widen almost imperceptibly. He lets go of Carlin’s hand and grabs his drink instead, letting out a dry chuckle.

“You’d be surprised. Not many people are keen on the soldiering life, or the people in it for that matter.” He goes to take a sip of his drink before seemingly changing his mind, sighing, and setting the tankard back down.

“Listen, I didn’t mean to pry and open old wounds. And I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable, that wasn’t my intention.”

“No, no, it was me brought it up,” says Carlin, bringing his own hands back to his drink. “It’s just… you, uh… you make me think of him, a little. How he might’ve been.”

The open, tusked face looks almost apologetic.

Baine’s only reply for a long moment is a small nod and a wistful, resigned smile as he works his jaw a couple of times and tries to find the right words.

“That’s one hell of a compliment, Carlin,” he says, finally. “But hopefully he wouldn’t have had quite as many gruesome, impressive scars.”

Digging out some little bravado from somewhere he grins - feeling the mass of scar tissue around his left eye pull tight - and gives him another wink.

Carlin laughs, relaxing a little. “I hope not indeed! And I hope you’ll not get too many more either! I don’t like to think of all the dangers you folk throw yourselves into.”

“Ah, but you forget, Carlin-“ Baine finishes his drink in a large mouthful and sets it down, grinning, “-I’m very good at it.”

Carlin chuckles and shakes his head at the same time, then raises his cup in salute. “Well, now. I’ll drink to that!”

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Carlin voiced by the inimitable Jamie J 💙