Wynn spread out two goblets delicately carved out of clear quartz and the dark green bottle of the wormwood liquor. It wasn't just standard absinthe, but brewed in Faerie. The smell of licorice filled the air as the peridot liquid began to pour into the glass.
Her movements were graceful and sure as she began to prepare the drink with the slotted spoons and sugar cubes.
Rattus kept watching Wynn attentively as she finally prepared the goblets for the ritual. He noticed that the drink-ware she was using were not made of glass, but rather finely craved rock crystal. And when she opened the bottle of absinthe and poured its contents into the goblets, that ever-familiar smell began to slowly seep into the air of the salon. Despite drinking absinthe for almost a century already, Rattus never really paid attention to its liquorice smell. Or rather, he never savored it. And that was because the only thing he is reminded of whenever he chances upon it is what happened to his country just a few years after the end of the First World War.
To put it simply, Germany's economy was hit so bad with hyperinflation that the once wealthy and aristocratic Rattus von Engles lost his fortune overnight and reduced him to nothing. This was exacerbated by the feeling of rage and sorrow he kept inside during that time over his country's defeat at the war and the subsequent result of the signed armistice, the Treaty of Versailles, which he saw as an added insult to his already badly-injured country. But what he mourned during that time wasn't his fall from the opulence he once had, but rather the German Empire's fall from grace as a respected military and economic superpower. He didn't mind that he needed to work as a steelworker just to earn his keep, but he saw that many more of his countrymen can't find a job to support themselves. And everything he felt during that time made him resort to something he never imagined he would do just before the war happened and ended: He began to spend most of his monthly salary on alcoholic beverages, particularly absinthe. Then, after his working hours, he drank himself to death, in order to alleviate all his mourning and fury over his country's current situation. But despite the fact that he would wake up the next day in great pain, he pulled himself tremendously to avoid truancy from work, as well as composed himself in order effectively function in his working hours. Such practice took a toll on his overall health, but he didn't mind. He thought to himself that, as a Prussian and immortal, he must give out more than what he is able to, and this was his life everyday for many years after the First World War.
The fact that the smell of absinthe brought back memories of his past already alerted Rattus. He feared that if he got too drunk, he might become careless and tell the lady of the shadows some things he isn't supposed to divulge to any other person. Such thing happened many times too often already, he thought to himself, and it would be inappropriate for such to happen today, in a front of someone else he doesn't consider a close acquaintance. More so, the smell seemed to give the impression that the liquor is of exceedingly finely made, and it can even be described as ethereal on its quality. But such fear did not show on his exterior and all he did was to carefully observe the dark lady as she elegantly placed the slotted spoons on top of the crystal glasses filled with the wormwood liquid and then placed the sugar cubes on top those spoons. Now all that's left to do is to pour water on the sweet cubes, in order to melt them slowly and drip the saccharine water into the absinthe, louching it little by little.
