OOC: Something a little shorter, the faltering at the end is kinda noticeable. Oh well. Comments and criticisms always welcome. 
The clout of intoxication hung over her like a shroud. The first thing she noticed when looking down at her feet was an array of boots gathered around in small circles, some caked in mud, others worn, and a few spotless in their shine. Here and there she could see thin little strands of hay scattered on the dusty stone, much akin to a fallen field of barley that had failed to see harvest. She trailed her gaze upwards and found – much to her dull surprise – that the footwear belonged to people. She snorted out a chuckle.
Ray was drunk.
The Comb and Wattle was a-bustle with the sounds of celebration, chatter, and tankard clinking against tankard in toast. In the wake of her cousin Hutwig’s wedding, she had found herself lost among a myriad of conversations taking place all at once, all around her, enclosing and nearly suffocating her with the overwhelming chatter. She could see a red-haired woman, slightly taller than herself, wearing a sleeveless leather jerkin of sorts, a coy smile on her lips. The man next to her, "Blacky" as Ray had dubbed him, was almost terrifyingly tall, standing a full head over the other woman and grinning into his tankard. He had a good looking face and a merry disposition about him – someone she could easily see herself propositioning if he turned out to be good company as well.
But for that she needed a teensy bit more alcohol in her system.
"Ye lo' are Trestlebridge 'en?" Ray asked the man in front of her, wearing a strange sort of brimmed hat and green robes. She remembered that instead of suffocating, she was actually in the midst of a small circle of revellers. The man's name was Denaric, she was told, but Ray was more inclined to refer to him as "Hatty" or "Smart-arse".
"Closer to Archet, but we really live in a cabin in Far Chetwood on the banks of Nen Harn." The man replied, pointing a thumb at the red-haired woman, whom Ray had christened Fire, next to him, "T knows where it is, because she loosed some arrows in my front door once."
"Tha' far out? Isn' tha' impractical fer travellin' in the long run?" She asked, furrowing a brow. There was a reason they called it Far Chetwood.
Hatty nodded, "Where I was born, sweetheart. Know no other home."
Ray wrinkled her nose. Sweetheart? She could live with lass, or some other pants-numbingly stupid nickname, but being addressed as sweetheart made Ray decide she did not like Hatty very much at all.
"Le's go for a whisky this time!" Taraborn - Blacky - yelled behind her, and she turned her head to see him leaning against the counter, grinning at her and Fire, "Ye wan' one Tal?"
So they were having whisky. Ray remembered offering both Fire and Blacky a round. She chuckled and squeezed herself past a throng of other party-goers and came in contact with the hard, wooden surface of the bar counter.
“Whisky, Liz, please.” Came a voice, and Ray was genuinely shocked to find that this time, the request came not from her own mouth, but from that of her grandmother’s. She turned her head to regard her dear grandmother, a sprightly yet small, grey-haired woman of more than sixty winters, who had a worn, wrinkled face. Her hands were marked by faded brown liver spots and lined with more than a few creases, and her attire was still a drab grey despite the merry occasion – Gran had always been stubborn about her grief.
Nonetheless, Ray gained a strange sense of cheer in seeing her grandmother loosening up for once: She let out a bark of coarse laughter and grinned widely, bellowing, “Wait, wait, wait, Gran? Yer havin’ whisky? Then I’ll have one too!”
Lizbeth shot her a disapproving look – Ray found herself not caring, enticed by the idea of more alcohol and the sight of her uptight, stoic grandmother drunkenly dawdling about. She had only seen her grandmother drunk a handful of times, most of them festivities and celebrations. Somewhere in the back of her mind she remembered that a drunk Gran was prone to shooting her mouth off with nonsense and embarrassing stories, but she pushed these tell-tale warnings to the side and grabbed the whisky glass, taking rapid, greedy gulps. She glanced sideways.
The glass in front of her grandmother was already empty. Ray blinked. Since when did her grandmother gain the ability to drink a Dwarf to shame? She shook her head and looked around, swaying lightly as the room began to spin around her. Ysopa and Hutwig were standing somewhere behind the mass of bafflingly tall people in front of her, no doubt enjoying the commemorations and congratulations being sent their way. Standing on tip-toe, she peered above the mass of heads, some with hats and some without, and saw the signature clump of hair that belonged to her cousin, standing right next to a longer mass of brown hair crowned by a flowery circlet.
Hutwig, married? She laughed to herself. What sort of sorcery possessed him to go along with this? She remembered when he was still scarce but a pudgy babe being cradled by her grandmother! To imagine her baby cousin Hutwig, all grown, married and on the verge of manhood! She let out a few more quiet chuckles, stumbling lightly sideways, and hoped the next morning would not be one of awkward silence for the newlyweds.
Ray raised her head, searching the crowd for the terrifyingly tall “Blacky”. Propositioning him did not seem like such a bad idea now.
