Re: Dinner with a Werewolf
Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 7:14 pm
"I fear I would," agreed the Clank, apprehension and amusement fighting for dominance in his features. "I do have a Get out of Jail Free card, in this instance, however. Any old-fashioned spy is hard to beat when it comes to acting the part of someone who is well and truly soused. I would stagger and holler as much as needed for a while, suddenly profess the need to visit the sanitaries - and then quietly exit through the back door, only to call you and moan about how insufferable these business meetings with former historical Barbarians tend to be."
Being as cheeky as he seemed to be following their early morning hours spent together, he opted to let her see what had once allowed him to grudgingly work with the city's gangland-era Temperance Union. As today's undercover cops sometimes acted out the part of someone jonesing for a fix, he'd once had to act like a convincingly desperate drunkard in need of something else to wet his whistle. His eyelids grew heavy and his lower lip was curled outwards, something in his features suddenly looking morose and suggesting some sort of mental enfeeblement. He looked at his fork as if he didn't recognize the object and then tossed it aside.
One of his elbows loudly banged on the table, his hand pointing at her in a wavering motion, as if he had trouble taking aim. "I... I know you," he then stated, after a few mushy-sounding lip smacks. He'd pushed hard on the affected slurs, but then again he wasn't really trying to act the part of someone on a modern-day pub crawl. That was a chronic mechanical alcoholic in front of Crystal, or at least a very convincing depiction of one.
He shifted his accent to a fairly adequate Midwestern bent. "You one of them werewolf types, right? Fresh off the reservation? S'your eyes; color's kinda funny... You're one of these magical Redskin types, I'd bet good money on that... Lissen, you got any friends in the moonshine business, doll? Come on, help an old guy out, wouldja? Still goddamned thirsty 'fter six hours on the sauce; fuckin' Clank bullshit. They said I'd stop feelin' thirsty all the time with that new baseplate, yeah? Well, they lied! Fuckin' Clanksmen - I paid good money, too!"
Just as smoothly, he recomposed his natural self with a single pointed cough. "I used to call him the Pathetic Drunkard persona. The trick is to save all of my morning coats, even those with torn seams or unremovable stains. I haven't tossed away a single clothing item in two hundred years. Everything that breaks down or stops fitting becomes a potential costume item. Take off the vest and the armbands, let the shirt hang loose on one half, deliberately misplace your cravat for the day and switch to an old gibus that has more in common with a chimney top than an item of formalwear. and you're mostly set. Add a little creative pickpocketing, and a man finds a wealth of additional props available in the open."
He shrugged. "Past that, staggering or falling convincingly takes some practice. A sober mind's instincts is to protect the body during falls. A drunk mind has no such compunctions, or tries haphazardly. It usually requires that I sustain some voluntary amounts of minor structural damage - misplaced or shattered eyeballs, broken teeth, twisted or missing covers, et cetera..."
Being as cheeky as he seemed to be following their early morning hours spent together, he opted to let her see what had once allowed him to grudgingly work with the city's gangland-era Temperance Union. As today's undercover cops sometimes acted out the part of someone jonesing for a fix, he'd once had to act like a convincingly desperate drunkard in need of something else to wet his whistle. His eyelids grew heavy and his lower lip was curled outwards, something in his features suddenly looking morose and suggesting some sort of mental enfeeblement. He looked at his fork as if he didn't recognize the object and then tossed it aside.
One of his elbows loudly banged on the table, his hand pointing at her in a wavering motion, as if he had trouble taking aim. "I... I know you," he then stated, after a few mushy-sounding lip smacks. He'd pushed hard on the affected slurs, but then again he wasn't really trying to act the part of someone on a modern-day pub crawl. That was a chronic mechanical alcoholic in front of Crystal, or at least a very convincing depiction of one.
He shifted his accent to a fairly adequate Midwestern bent. "You one of them werewolf types, right? Fresh off the reservation? S'your eyes; color's kinda funny... You're one of these magical Redskin types, I'd bet good money on that... Lissen, you got any friends in the moonshine business, doll? Come on, help an old guy out, wouldja? Still goddamned thirsty 'fter six hours on the sauce; fuckin' Clank bullshit. They said I'd stop feelin' thirsty all the time with that new baseplate, yeah? Well, they lied! Fuckin' Clanksmen - I paid good money, too!"
Just as smoothly, he recomposed his natural self with a single pointed cough. "I used to call him the Pathetic Drunkard persona. The trick is to save all of my morning coats, even those with torn seams or unremovable stains. I haven't tossed away a single clothing item in two hundred years. Everything that breaks down or stops fitting becomes a potential costume item. Take off the vest and the armbands, let the shirt hang loose on one half, deliberately misplace your cravat for the day and switch to an old gibus that has more in common with a chimney top than an item of formalwear. and you're mostly set. Add a little creative pickpocketing, and a man finds a wealth of additional props available in the open."
He shrugged. "Past that, staggering or falling convincingly takes some practice. A sober mind's instincts is to protect the body during falls. A drunk mind has no such compunctions, or tries haphazardly. It usually requires that I sustain some voluntary amounts of minor structural damage - misplaced or shattered eyeballs, broken teeth, twisted or missing covers, et cetera..."