A song of ice and fire [Noah]

It had been a long week, and Lorin was eager to get out and away from it. School was getting harder her last year and, as an intern in the defense department, she had struggled with the inanity of it all. Rarely did she get to do anything particularly interesting. She mostly made tea and coffee for her seniors, and filed paperwork and memos, made copies and the like. She was tired of being regaled to a second-class citizen and wanted to work harder and get closer to being able to handle true case work. She needed a night out, though she had no one to truly go out with, and found herself at the bar of a club called Inferno, a handsome spot attached to a hotel—just in case she couldn’t make it home at the end of the night. Not that she planned on getting carried away, but it was a nice setup regardless. She would need to bring Rosaline here one day, she thought. 
 
She was sitting by the bar, sipping a fruit cocktail that was stronger than it seemed. So far she had been approached by a few subpar men who asked her to dance, one whom she obliged though he got handsy and she hated when men felt entitled to her attention. She had ditched him and so far had seen him put the moves on a few other girls from a distance. She wished them all better luck with him. She was lonely, but not desperate. She just wanted to relax a little bit.  
 
A man came up to the bar next to her to order and she paid him little mind, twirling her straw in her drink, feeling a little buzzed. She was thinking of late-night Thai, knew a good place nearby, and was getting hungry. Perhaps she should call it a night soon? Though, she would very much prefer to have someone buy her thai for her and keep her company late into the night. 
 
Then, to her surprise, as the man grabbed his drink off the table, he slipped, pouring the contents over Lorin’s tight dress. She shrieked in surprise. “Excuse me!” She exclaimed, looking up at him and catching his eye for the first time. She was irritated but not angry. She reached for her wand to try and clean herself off. Her dress was so delicate, she hoped it wouldn’t stain. 

@Noah Haas

Noah did a full three-sixty in the middle of the dancefloor, almost half a foot taller than most of the people around him, trying to spot any one of the small group he had come out for the night with. Clubbing wasn’t his scene, per se, but they had started with a few drinks at Colin’s, then someone had suggested going to a bar, and Noah had tagged along because why not (and for once, he wasn’t wearing sweatpants).

He lowered his hand from where he’d been shielding his eyes against the lasers and spot lights, went to take a step in the direction of the bar--maybe they’d gone to grab more drinks while he’d been in the bathroom--stopped suddenly when he felt someone grinding on him. He turned, recoiled slightly at the state of the girl draping herself over him. “Uhh—” He pointed at the bar— The strobe lighting started then, giving him the opportunity to sneak away through the crowd.

Noah was practically flushed out of the writhing mass as he reached the edge of the floor, stumbling slightly as he approached the bar. He still couldn’t see Colin or any of the others, so decided he might as well order himself a drink. He looked along the bar itself first, expecting to see a sticky laminated shots menu or something, but glanced up after a moment and spotted the gigantic chalkboard that would display every available beer, then wipe itself clean and show all of the cocktails, then the shots, and so on. Noah gaped up at it until a bartender appeared in front of him. “Uhh, can I get a Long Island Iced Tea?” It wasn’t what he really wanted but there were so many options and it was the one that jumped out at him, for some reason.

He paid for his drink and rested against the bar; a minute or so later and the tall glass was set down in front of him. Noah picked it up, turned around and scanned the room— “Yo, Colin!” he called out loudly, upon spotting the other man, and in the same moment lifted the hand holding his drink in the air to make himself more visible -- in doing so, spilling it on the woman next to him.

“Oh, fuck—” he swore, in the same second the witch shrieked Excuse me! Noah set his (now mostly empty) glass down, staring at the mess he’d made of her dress. “Sorry, I didn’t—” he began to apologise, looking around for a napkin or something he could help clean up with, considered that he could offer her his t-shirt if it came to it. When he came up empty in the napkin department and faced her again, she had already cleaned it up.

He was staring again--at her boobs now, more than at the rest of her body--and he had to force his eyes up. “I’m really sorry,” he said, over the noise of the club. He glanced in the direction he had spotted Colin and couldn’t see him. Noah turned back to his victim. “I— Can I get you a drink?” he offered, picking up his empty glass with tattooed hands and wiggling it a little.

Lorin wasn’t mad per se, but she was a little shocked and embarrassed, tipsy. “Ahh, sorry.” She apologized. “It’s okay, it didn’t ruin the dress.” She smiled at him lightly. His accent was interesting. American. She didn’t know the dialects enough to know where from, but she had heard Americans were cocky and entitled, and wasn’t sure how to take him. He didn’t seem that way to her so far, but of couse she’d only just met the man.

“That would be great, actually.” Hers was just out, and she wasn’t sure it was time to go home anytime soon. Her eyes were drawn to his tattooed hands, and tattoed rest of him. She wasn’t sure how she felt about so much ink, but it certainly made an impression. She doubted she would forget him. He was handsome too, in a nontraditional way, she decided. He was a bit thin for her taste in broad men, but just because he was buying her a drink didn’t mean she had to take him home. She knew some men who definitely wished that were how it worked.

She hailed the bartender and ordered another of the same she had before. She forgot what it was called, but it was fruity, with midori, and sweet. This coming one would be her third, but she was being careful. Right? She didn’t want a repeat of her seventeenth birthday when she needed to be carried back to the castle. How embarrassing.

“So, are you new around this area?” She wondered. “Your accent…”