Authoress’ Note: New story, yes? This will be the collection of random Dragon Raider-themed one-shots that my friends and I come up with, whether during AIM conversations or at lunchtime.

THESE ARE MEANT TO BE FUNNY, NOT (REALLY) SERIOUS. They’re like satires…I can make fun of the characters, and yes, everyone will have some degree of OOC-ness. (out-of-character)

The ones that are serious will be taken into consideration for inclusion on the actual Dragon Raiders story.

Also…Hilmar is not my character. He belongs to the AUTHOR, Alabrith Ironflame. I really don’t know much about him, so if you’re interested, please read her stories, or go look up Cisca Ironflame as well. This oneshot is NOT HilmarXCalypso! Just thought you should know. We were just all talking about how Hilmar’s always traveling, and how he would strangely end up running into all of the Dragon Raiders, but not know it till later. Hence why I call him a stalker.

This chapter has MAJOR OOC for Calypso, as I’ve stated in her epilogue that she despises drunken fools, yet here she is being one. For some reason, it’s quite easy to picture Calypso getting drunk. Perhaps it’s cause she complains so much. WARNING: DO NOT GO DRINK YOURSELF SENSELESS JUST BECAUSE CALYPSO IS. I don’t approve of drunks either. 8(

Each chapter is a different story in and of itself, and they’re not necessarily in order, either. Randomness will ensue in this collection. I’ll tell you about each one at the beginning and if you’re confused you can PM me.

Now, on with the first one-shot :D

…Anyways.

Basically, Alabrith is being held against her will at the Anger Management HeadQuarters on Topaz Isle. So, her darling younger sister Cookie has taken it upon herself to go and rescue Alabrith. She runs into some difficulties, but luckily Mr. Charming—er, Hilmar, mysteriously shows up and offers to help. We wonder how he found her…wasn’t he supposed to be with Alabrith? 0o Oh well…plot hole #1…but anyways, Cookie and Hilmar arrive via boat at AMHQ. Cookie runs into some more difficulties that I have nor the time or the patience to explain here, but for reasons unbeknownst to even himself, Hilmar runs away, leaving Cookie all by her lonesome and stuck in peril! Le gaspe. What kind of creep does that to young girls?

…Don’t answer that question.

Hilmar returns to the mainland Angkora, feeling ever so guilty, lost and confused, and decides to waste away his worries in senseless drinking. Or not. But, he does decide to go spend some time at a pub.

Hilmar, as you may or may not know, is a cocky, charming half-elven lad. And like many specimens of the male gender, he is sort of…well, naïve? Innocent? Ignorant? Oh, and perhaps dense. But not like Raven-dense.  He has never been to a pub before. Heh.

I talk too much. Deal with it; reading is good for you. So, Hilmar trudges up to some random pub in some random town in some…random place…okay, it’s probably in the Catha’lan Plains. Maybe near the Leah River. It’s not the usual hour for pubs to be full of customers, so there’s only like…3 people there? Including Hilmar and the bartender. And some random nobody who is there to take up space.

Okay, I lied…CALYPSO is at the pub too. Why, you may ask? Well, if you know Calypso, she’s pretty much our story’s satirist, and has a heck of a lot of so-called problems she’s always complaining about. Yes, I suppose she could be called emo. Being a self-endowed intelligent person, her solution to all life’s problems? Meh, just drink them all away. Good advice, Calypso. We’ll be sending some men in white coats over to your house shortly to pick you up. 

Hilmar has never been to a pub. Wait—I lied. This is a bar. Not a pub. There is such a difference.

But he’s never been to either. Poor kid—er, young man. He’s a tad nervous, not to mention rightfully guilty and miserable over what happened a few hours previous.

Here is where I, your narrator, leave you…you’re probably happy about that…pff…

Hilmar abjectly trudged up the beaten path to a small building on the top of a hill. A weather-beaten sign read, “Noriko’s”. Noriko’s…what? What belonged to Noriko? The house, maybe? Or the sign? These are the questions that Hilmar was desperate to know…or not.

He soon entered the place to find what looked like a bar. “This isn’t what I was expecting,” Hilmar muttered. “…but it’ll do, I guess, for now…”

The bar was nearly empty, except for a flaxen-haired man at a table alone and the bartender, of course. Lamps were lit in every corner of the room, giving the place a cozy sort of atmosphere.

Hilmar walked up to the bartender’s table and looked for something like a menu. “…Excuse me, sir, but may I ask what you have to drink here?” he asked politely. This casual politeness was a product of his many years doing servant duty to nobles.

The bartender, who Hilmar assumed was Noriko, looked up from his current job (writing labels on kegs) and smiled at Hilmar. “Boy, all we have is drinks, here,” he said, in a laughing tone.

Hilmar smiled back. “Oh…yeah…I’m just…new to places like this…”

cough Loser. cough

“Oh, well then I’ll give you some time to think, then,” Noriko said, and turned back to his work. Taking that as a dismissal, Hilmar also turned around and looked for a place to sit. Pretty easy, really, considering only one table was taken. The youth with the long, fair hair was just sitting at the table along, pint in hand, staring into space. Not wanting bother him (and also wanting to be alone), Hilmar sat a table some feet away.

He sighed audibly.

The youth nearby twitched and stirred slightly.

“Hey.”

Hilmar instinctively looked up and around, and saw the youth looking straight at him. He also saw…that it was a she. She looked to be near a state of drunken stupor, but there was no mistaking the cunning and brilliance behind those piercing blue eyes—she was in the full bloom of her sanity.

Ha. cough

Hilmar replied (stupidly), “Me?”

The girl—Hilmar also noticed that she was Elf-kind; when her hair moved back and revealed tapered ears—rolled her eyes. “No. Your grandmother. What are you, an infant? Of course I meant you. But I’m getting ahead of myself here”—she took a large swig out of her pint—“so how about you come over here and we talk.”

Hilmar was uncertain. This girl, however uncanny she appeared, had obviously downed one too many pints. Of what, he didn’t know, but there were at least 5 empty pints on the table beside her. Still, she intrigued him, and he needed to tell someone his problems, so he went to sit across from her at the table.

“Listen…I heard you’re new to this place…bet you don’t know what to get, eh?” She leered at him.

“No,” he said. “I can’t remember if I’ve ever had any fancy drinks before…”

The girl shrugged. “Hey. If you want something to…” she waved her hand in the air, gesturing, “you know…erase your complications, as it were, then I’d go for…the Elvish wine.” She held up her own pint.

Hilmar gasped a little. “Isn’t that stuff…expensive? And not just that…but…potent?”

The girl—he still didn’t know her name—shrugged. “Eh, it’s nothing after you acclimate yourself to its wonderfully satisfying after-taste.” She licked her lips. Hilmar could almost smell her breath. He backed away a little. He had been brought up not to talk to strangers and/or strange people.

“Um…I guess that’s what I’m looking for, sort of…” Hilmar mumbled uncertainly, and went up to the bartender.

“Hey, can I have some Elvish wine, like she’s having?” Hilmar asked Noriko. The man turned and smiled wider.

“One pint, for starters?”

“Well…I don’t want that much…” the youth said. He leaned in closer. “I don’t want to end up like, “he gestured with his head, “you know, her.” Despite her clever eyes, the girl was clearly teetering on the edge of sane and drunk. Or perhaps just drunk.

Noriko didn’t quite catch the hint. “Like who?”

Hilmar beckoned again. Noriko didn’t get it. Hilmar sighed and gestured again, a little more forcefully, and this time the bartender nodded slowly, grinning.

“Ah, I see…That’s Calypso, sonny. She’s a regular here. You’re a minor, ain’t you?” he asked.

He was a practiced liar, Hilmar. You slimy dog. “No, do I look it?” Hilmar asked innocently.

(Let’s ignore the fact that Calypso is probably a minor herself. )

Noriko shrugged. “Sort of…anyhow, you want a pint of Elvish wine, right?”

“Can you only fill it up to like…1/4 of the whole thing? I really don’t need that much…”

“Eh, sure, whatever makes you feel good,” Noriko said. He took a pint and went over to a keg and filled it up only partially. He handed it to Hilmar, who paid him—crud, it was expensive—and went to sit back down with Calypso.

She nodded at him.

He sighed. “Would you think me a bad person if I told you I left a friend of mine to fend for herself?”

Calypso looked at him, piercing him with her eyes. “Boy, lemme tell you something.” She took a large swig for the third or so time. “We all have our problems. Why do you think I come here?” She waved her arms grandly.

Hilmar grimaced. “I’m not a boy! I’m probably the same age as you!”

Calypso snorted. “You keep telling yourself that, half-elf. I’m probably as old as your parents, at the least.” The deadened look returned to her eyes and she drank slowly from her pint, draining it. She looked sourly at it. “Guess I need some more…I still don’t feel quite happy. Hey, Noriko! ‘Nother pint of Elvish wine over here, if you please!”

Hilmar saw that Calypso’s strategy was to drink herself into oblivion—but not into drunken unconsciousness. No, she went right to the limit of passing out—and then stopped. This way, she could still speak intelligently and have some semblance of intelligent thought as well.

Noriko came with another pint, and Calypso snatched it from him immediately. She took a large slurp and then placed it down on the table and sighed.

“So…I don’t believe you told me your name, boy,” she drawled.

Hilmar sighed. “It’s Hilmar…and you never answered my question from before! It’s really important to me…”

“Well, say it again, then.”

“I’ve done something very bad…I really regret it now. Would you think any worse of me if I told you I ran away from a friend, just to save myself?”

Surprisingly, she seemed to be poring over his question. He was glad to see her show some seriousness. She looked straight at him, and her eyes were clear and focused.

“Hilmar,” Calypso began, “…We’ve all done something we regret in our lives. It stays with us wherever we go and we can’t stop thinking about it. The more you try and forget about it, the more you keep remembering it…and the memory pains you intensely. It drives you insane. “ For emphasis she banged her now-empty pint on the table.

Hilmar listened with great interest. She was actually making sense.

“But,” she continued, “what you’ve done doesn’t make you any less of a person than I. You’ve just done something…different.”

Hilmar nodded, entranced. She sounded like a philosopher. He was about to question her some more when Calypso looked up at him again, and he noticed that her eyes were no longer focused. She seemingly left her ‘trance’ that she had just been in, and was back to being…drunk.

Calypso grinned at him across the table. “Like I said, Hilly—can I call you Hilly?--, we’ve all got problems…” She grabbed a new mug and drank heavily. “Like me, I can’t stop drinking—but that doesn’t make me any different than you, does it? You seem like a good person to me, so I don’t care what you’ve done.” She leered at him again, grinning stupidly. He smiled back.

“Thanks…Calypso. I think I feel a little better now…and I know what I’ve gotta do now.” Hilmar got up and pushed his chair in. He began walking out the door when he heard Calypso call to him, “Anytime, Hilly!”

He grinned, shaking his head. Now she was a character. He wondered what Alabrith would say if he told her he’d hung out with (and taken advice from) a drunk Elf girl…no, what Alabrith would do…

Alabrith…and Cookie. He snapped to attention. He had to go back, or he would never forgive himself. Feeling empowered, Hilmar ran back to the dock and found his boat. He untied the ropes holding the boat to the dock, jumped in, and began to row away, towards Topaz Isle and A.M.H.Q.

Forgetting, of course, that the waters at this time were filled with DANGEROUS MAN-EATING SHARKS—not really.

And…you can figure out the rest. Hopefully. Because I don’t feel like writing this anymore. 

A/N: So…I hope you guys liked it. This was mainly written to entertain my friends, but it’s always nice to hear what ‘outsiders’ think of it. ;D I’m always up for suggestions.

Oh yeah, I allude to Raven early on…as in Raven Skylir-Stormrage, on of my other DR OCs. His main flaw is a near-childlike innocence, which for this story’s purpose I’ve exaggerated and made him extremely dense. You’ll see this in later chapters, I’m sure. Read and Review:D