snake oil

for @Callahan ; using prompt: You come across an orchard of apple trees. Scattered on the ground are a few rotten apples. In the distance there is a stag who is staggering from the fermented fruit and doesn't seem to notice you.

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janus hadn't realized he was napping on a tree until the leaves around him shook, and the branch underneath him broke. a grunt echoes past the tree line as he falls with a glorious thud. his nostrils suffocate when he did. a sharp smell envelops the man, it dances in his mind. janus ain't a fool — he recognizes exactly what this potent smell was.
rotten fruit. wine, the refined may call it. and just right beneath his feet. they were ruined now, unless he was desperate enough to link the fermented mud the mushed apples made, but there was no need. this orchard was made of apples, and he wasn't alone in this bar.

a broad-chested stag with grand antlers makes a fool of himself, stumbling through the clearing. a deer of his age and stature should've known better, but all men have their vices. but this vice would mark the end of this stag, and many more days for janus until his own vice would claim him. instinct still makes him careful. perhaps a drunk fool of a stag would be more dangerous than one with his head still in place. he keeps to shadows, reaching high ground and waiting.

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janus ain't quick to take a man at his words. callahan's promise wasn't enough to rip the bard away from his prize. his tongue swiped the red off his lips, and he'd reach for one of the fruits. food and a drink never hurt a man. only what he did with it. but janus didn't care if drinking infront of this stranger would be a mistake. he also ain't ever been one to think ahead.

“it'll be bard to ya.” he took the first bite at a morsel of fruit and then a mass of meat. smacking his lips, his own dull green eyes observed the man before him. “who are ya to ask?”

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the man was noble — too noble. yellowed teeth twisted at crimson meat. janus' beady eyes searched the trees, the dirt, anything before reaching the man. just a traveler, he says. damn right, he's half the size of this shit-faced buck!

he nudges his bloodied face into the carcass and steps aside. “too much for me to eat.” so you can have some, i guess. janus licks his chaps, though cares little to clean the rest off his weasel muzzle. “where ya travelling to? if ya don't mind me pryin'.” he cocks a brow, scratching at the scruff of his chest — he ain't expecting callahan to not answer his question though. his answers are payment for janus' most generous donation.
maybe it'll give some direction on where the hell is he.

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