The pink light that partly filled the room was coming from the bar's sign, which was perched at the end of the roof outside the window. Bats were swooping in and out of its hazy light busily. The blonde man at the window blew a plume of smoke and said, "Okay, I am a little embarrassed."

The light didn't make it very far into the room--just enough to touch the edge of the other bed (which was unmade and empty) and the ceiling fan that was going slowly and needlessly overhead. There were two digital clocks on the bedside table, one for each bed--the nearest one blazed '9:48' and its light traced the detritus of the night on the table surface. The blonde man tapped the ash off the end of his cigarette into the plastic tray that sat on the windowsill.

Hawk stirred and took a breath. "Why's that?" he asked.

"See, I spotted this cute halfbreed guy," the blonde man answered dryly. "I meant just to chat him up, y'know, but I drank a lot waiting for him to be free, and, well."

He gestured at Hawk, who was taking up the entirety of the bed, lying flat on his back with his wings half-tucked under him. The only thing he was wearing still was his shirt, but that was hiked up above his stomach as well. He'd pulled the covers over himself somewhat, but hadn't moved much else, as the blonde man was (very carefully) still sitting on his wing. He half-laughed.

"That's embarrassin'?" he asked, and tugged his collar. "I'm too drunk to figure out how to get my own shirt off."

The blonde man--whose hair was half-shaved off and half pulled into a now rather untidy pony tail--grinned at him. "With those wings? Looks hard enough to do sober, honestly."

Hawk laughed and rubbed his eyes. Maybe it was the way he lay, but in the moment his vision went dark, he saw not the back of his eyelids, but a deep teal sky heavy with clouds and sheets of hissing rain. He opened his eyes again immediately, the smile dropping from his face.

From where he lay, he could see the tattoos on the man's torso. One piece was a simple set of four pawprints situated on his left shoulder, as if something had been crouching there. The other was much larger and more intricate: a staff with snakes winding around it drawn the length of his spine. The head of the staff was crowned with a pair of antlers, and resting between those was an anatomically-correct heart. A pair of wings stretched out from either side of the staff, wrapping around the man to his chest.

"I overheard you talking about flying to Enodia, by the way," the man said after a while, sounding a bit more somber. "I'd almost put escaping this place outta my mind, but..."