#aberlaw

[tales-from-vesuvia]

“Seditious, he is. A rabble-rouser. Never can leave well enough alone.”

This doesn’t ring true of Aarhir at even his lowest points, he’s been known to outrun lunch if it’s a few degrees too hot to swallow. Abe squints at the barmaid and rattles his nails on the counter. “Seditious, y’say? Well then, it seems I’m after one of them Pinocchio types, all masks and strings and what ‘ave you.”

He pitches what’s left of his tumbler down the back of his throat, and places it deftly back into her hand, all two-faced in his manner. “I’ll need me a bottle of the pissier stuff if I’m to make it through this one, dear Agnes.”

[tales-from-vesuvia]

“Your teeth,” he says softly. “They’re made of wood.”

“So?”

Zachariah stares at him, and twists his hands. He’s ill at ease, and stutters. 

“S-so... So I wonder as I study you... How did you lose your teeth?”

This is when Aberlaw grins at him, in a way best described as just “creepy”. He leans forward in his chair, and rests his knobbly elbows on his gangling knees. “I ain’t never seen a penny from that slippery fairy o’ teeth.” He coos. “I was born with oaken gnashers, sir. Oh yes indeed, I was.”

[tales-from-vesuvia]

“You’re spoony for that one, Abe.” He says, and sucks the foam out his moustache. “You’ve gone wrong - and for what, I ask? Some toff Mary-Ann that prances about in the forest for bundles of herbs and what-’ave-you?”

“You haven’t seen ‘im, Oswyn, not anything like... Jammier than the jammiest bits of jam, he is. More proper than the most proper bits of frock... I’ll make a goodly home of him yet.” His pale lips split and bleed when he flashes his oaks, grinning at him from over his drink. “And you will watch on, and covet my home, and want one for your own satisfaction.”