Gutz Tavern

When we get to “Guts,” it is somehow exactly what I expect even while having absolutely no idea what to expect. It is a rundown looking place, a lopsided wagon black with grime and soot. There are remnants of colorful designs adorning the sides, but they are nigh faded away, old and forgotten. In red paint that is jarringly new, “Gutz” splashed in big letters across the side.
This is definitely the place.
Had we come straight here, I’d be confused as fuck about how anyone expected to fit more than three or four people into a small, walled wagon, but having just come from the bookstore…
We walk up to the swinging doors on one end of the caravan, the cacophony that emitted getting louder with every step. Apollo throws me one last grimace and pushs forward into the doors as I brace myself for whatever we are about to walk into.
Obviously, it too is bigger on the inside.
The small and dingy caravan transforms into a sprawling restaurant, full of tables and brimming with loudly drunk patrons. The whole place appears to be housed in a cave of some sorts, but a large cave, with the ceiling soaring at least thirty feet above head. Long chains suspend colorful lanterns, which smoke and crack with gold and purple fire, casting lurid shadows over the whole affair.
To a somewhat sheltered angel, which I suppose I was one, this place should be a horrid display of Fae magic, chaos, and dirt - all things which angels abhor. I know exactly what I’m supposed to do in this situation, what my brother would want me to do, but every beaten down part of me that yearned for freedom embraced this bar.
This odious din filled with ruffians and ill deeds, dangerous propositions, sinful couplings, broken promises. An angel could lose herself here, stay low, blend into the crowd, fade away from Heaven’s prying gaze. I could be that angel… if not for my stubborn twin.
We move through the masses of bodies, and I can’t help but wrinkle my nose at the pungent odor wafting around us. This bar may represent freedom, but it would be ill-gotten freedom, and of course it would stink.