Les Liaisons Dangereuses or Busywork at the End of a Blade

Re: Les Liaisons Dangereuses or Busywork at the End of a Bla

Postby Carnath-Emory » Wed Jun 13, 2012 2:39 am

It's an awful thing. Not that there'd been a weapon come suddenly into his hand - that is incidental, is the most reasonable response imaginable. Awful that her skin had produced the armour at all, and that it had shocked the man into dropping something precious. That's worth apologising for, and nevermind an old instinct which reckons that apologies are a gateway to concessions and subordination. It's only one of many rules suspended since Lentham's arrival, for no reason but that the conversation interests and Ariane means to be unimpeded as she follows where it might lead.

She has not, for instance, yet inquired after Lentham's business here.

Everything else is simply more important, until he makes a request of her - the tiniest thing - and the blackjack reappears as a means for murder. Until they make that short, cold return to the mundane and the expected and things conclude as such things generally do. It is possible to accept such a possibility while all the same hoping quietly against it. Why, she's been doing precisely that since the man first approached her stables.

"No big secret." Now, with the flask recovered by his hand and a towel in hers. Old custom has the dark hair grown past her hips, and toweling away the worst of its damp is a necessary chore if she doesn't care to freeze underneath its weight. No big secret, because she hadn't attempted to make it one. Hadn't intended to leave at all, except that one day they'd ridden so far and -

What a thing he asks.

"That urge ... was gone long before I left." With the pale eyes set easy upon him then, and some slight tilt of the shoulder. "You know my name - Detecting Constable. You know the words that go with it, mn? Traitor. Insuh-rectionist. Compromised." The damage done to her face might be turned away from him, but not the way it tugs at her lips when she smiles just so. "I think on how it must seem, that moment." Black wings against the brilliant sky; a girl and her dragon, the world so small beneath. "So I tell you this thing, Detecting: that I was angry. You had friends down there - but so did I. Amongst your constables, amongst Janeiro - and the men heading both besides. I was angry - that it had come to this, when it needn't have. That good men would die, but not for good cause. That it was murder, instead of talk - as a consequence of politics." The lips curl; cold derision, fleeting. "You tell me: for how long do you hold your anger? No. I stepped back, that day."

Many words. An incomplete answer. Perhaps it may suffice all the same. And in any case, there's an explanation of his own forthcoming; one which has stilled her hands and quieted her eyes. "You were there," she's murmured, when her mouth proves willing to shape words at all. "But not amongst those I met." Her question is obvious; is inevitable. He knows it's coming.

"Who did you hunt?"
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Re: Les Liaisons Dangereuses or Busywork at the End of a Bla

Postby Glenn » Wed Jun 13, 2012 5:18 am

Pleasant springtime mornings and cozy winter evenings. Laying upon cool grass or sitting in front of a hearth. Playing chess, perhaps. Even for a soul as tempestuous as Ariane Emory's, there was a time where conversation, especially the interesting sort, did not inevitably lead to the darkest tidings of the heart. That must seem like long ago. Still, she asked on, continuing down the path towards this knowledge, towards this night's inevitable conclusion.

Lentham did not think such thoughts. He was here with specific business. Another had arisen unexpectedly (though it really shouldn't have come as a surprise). It had been quenched. Very soon, he'd be getting to the point. He always did eventually.

For now, though, violence was avoided. The blackjack was returned. The metal was reined in. He sipped at his flask and they spoke on, neighborly, friendly enough.

"Was it, Duchess?" Simply put as he looked her up and down, as if for the first time. There had been more pressing visuals up until now, no offense to Miss Emory. This was a man more used to looking down than up. Darkenhold even had nice floors, for the most part. Now, though, he was staring, and he nodded. She said it. He believed it. Something about her, some.. precision within her,perhaps, it was enough.

Something she asked though, rhetorical probably. Maybe. "Anger. Not sure about that. Anger's one thing. Purpose is another. When you have none of the latter, when there's a big hole ready to be filled, well,.. when something angers you, you don't get angry. You just.. get."

And it all comes full circle. A longer sip from the flask. Necessary, though not for courage. Just necessary. "Haberdasher's Row was his doing. The Baie wasn't. The Flux wasn't." New elements introduced without explanation. "Me being where I was during the fighting.. wasn't. Don't blame him for that. Killing a good man for no good reason... That though." A long shake of his head, a tired thing. "I've chased him through the winter, through the woods, to the Elves, themselves. I've chased him through the years, until I chased out whatever humanity was left in him. Been paired with an elf, with one of Garrison Bromn's griffins, with crazed tailor, a criminal and a scholar, but in the end it's always been me, and a Myrken that wouldn't listen. Til the bodies started to appear again, til the sacrifices began."

She knew, didn't she? Who else lost a hand in that dream? Still, she asked, and the Cosntable's voice would finally rasp in response. "Aeryn Karolinger. I chase Aeryn Karolinger."
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Re: Les Liaisons Dangereuses or Busywork at the End of a Bla

Postby Carnath-Emory » Wed Jun 13, 2012 8:52 am

Early winter mornings, half-freezing in a training-room that even an architect's best contrivances couldn't quite warm. Sat upon a fountain's broad edge, rescuing autumn leaves from its waters; the soft flutter of crimson sheers under sunlight. Silent orchards; the piercing scent of pine-needles and fresh winter snow; an apple perched upon her head, her sister's hand lifting the bow. Hammering at a stable's roof beneath the coming storm -

Not so long ago. Even now there are always these moments; it's just that there's everything else, as well, so that sometimes they must serve to delineate one hour from another. And sometimes they are simply the cloak which makes the other possible at all.

The swordswoman has no answer for his question. This is a man of some intellect, of particular capacity; it's for him to determine what he'll believe and what he must find suspect. Isn't that the purpose of a Detecting Constable? Perhaps that will be a question for Calomel. But she's easy beneath Lentham's consideration meantime; has bent her head to towel away the last of this damp, and in time meets his nod with this slim shrug. "Perhaps it return the next day; perhaps it return tomorrow, mn?" Something small and amused in her eyes, then. "Who could say? Not I. Still, we're not treading on cinders - are we?

No," she's continuing - some long moments after, in the wake of words which had quieted her. "No. It is just as you say. Anger without purpose. Anger that wants for direction, and having none, it - " He has better words for this than she, who must make this small, brutal gesture instead: the hand is a fist, the fist mimes a scattering explosion. "Everywhere. You know?" A dangerous suggestion. But then, when they've already suspected you of treacherous conspiracy, certain cautions begin to erode.

None of them are appropriate to what follows, in any case. Haberdasher's Row: from a distance, you watch the disaster's approach. Fists clenched against helplessness, you march against it anyway, knowing what little will come of even the most desperate efforts. She'd implied as much to the Governor's man in that border tavern: that it should never come to such sacrifice, to any such violence at all. That a woman is a simple brute but expects that politicians might be something more. The Baie, though. The Flux. A litany of disasters, linked by a single shared thread of tragedy...

Certain guesses can be made. But no questions; not yet and perhaps not ever. Instead, this inevitability: a hand to her shirt's loose collar, a sparkle of silver emerging amongst its fingers. A dolphin's fluid lines, polished and well-kept. "Aeryn Karolinger," she murmurs, grey eyes set quiet upon Lentham's.

"He's not here."
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Re: Les Liaisons Dangereuses or Busywork at the End of a Bla

Postby Glenn » Thu Jun 14, 2012 1:06 am

This was a man with few words, that rarely spoke unless he had something to say, that rarely had anything to say. Get by with a grunt and a nod and, maybe, just maybe a toast. Particular Capacity. Sometimes, something else escaped, a rambling madness or strangeness. Something of the other. Something born of pain and the loss and the loss of loss. All those lost brain cells from all of those spirits didn't help either. Sometimes odd words left his mouth, odd observations, something askew. Usually though, particular capacity and admirable brevity.

Here and now though, a semblance of focus. Years of chasing. Such good reason. Purpose.

Still, for herwords, for the small amused thing in her eyes, he would bark a short, honest laugh, one that would fade as quickly as it had come. A raise of the flask and an excuse to drink again. There's that toast to her. Granted, he'd toast most people. Calomel. Burnie. Gnolly. Any excuse.

Not Karolinger, though. Any excuse but that.

She spoke of anger. "Purpose," for he knew himself in this matter, if not in any other. "most of the time. Sometimes, just seeing red. A shallow pond. You can't burn the world without seeing it, without it living in your head, clunking around, the whole damn thing." To see it all from a dragon's eye view. He didn't have the luxury. Once, maybe, when life made sense. Now, he had lost too much perspective, too much information. Hearing it second hand was like reading it in a book. You'll never understand life that way, least of all your own.

He's not here.

"Hn." Quiet now, serious in a lackadaisical way. Liquid sloshed in his flask, far more jolly than he. "He's not." Agreement, nice and simple. "Never has been, not while hiding. Not while running. Not while selling his already black soul. Too civilized here." Loaded words, but loaded how? What did such sentiment mean from a man like Kurt Lentham? What did it mean from a man who has seen what he has here tonight? Quite a bit, one would think.

"I am. You are." Stopper put onto the flash. It sheathed, as it was, with a worn leather strap around his neck. Crumpled papers tied together clumsily removed from that ill-shaped pack he'd he refused to remove. "This is." Then, a small upturn of his lips. "Can drink all night, if you want. Fine by me. Here for business, though. Has to get done eventually." Dire business indeed, one froth with horrific portents and solemn purpose. But it was purpose years in the making. It was a patient thing and so was he, especially when jenever was involved.
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Re: Les Liaisons Dangereuses or Busywork at the End of a Bla

Postby Carnath-Emory » Thu Jun 14, 2012 3:10 am

Brevity - and even capacity - have made this conversation possible. Lentham is not inclined towards the sort of linguistic acrobatics behind which a swordswoman can only stumblingly follow; when they turn to metaphor - symbols - it is of a sort familiar to a creature who has lived by steel and blood and the precise application of outrage. She'd have named him Soldier, if he hadn't already identified otherwise, and wonders even now if her opinion isn't the more accurate; his habits are so familiar. His manner, even when his words move towards places where she cannot follow, thoughts stretching far beyond some unknowable horizon -

That being the breadth of the story he tells.

An architect had once sworn to her that there are fine qualities to be discovered even amidst the worst moments, the most dire tidings; that any instance at all might lead to finer things, better times. They had differed then, do still now, but she finds a moment's accord in this constable's laughter. In a thing so unexpected that she's grinning despite herself, and with a little tip of her head to answer that toast. It has value. She will keep it long from now; has it to temper what follows - which are dangerous words, and a single, wordless confession. In its wake she can slip the pendant back beneath her garments, and:

"Thank you." Because he'd just now spoken what might have been a particularly valuable compliment. Or just a comment on the state of Karolinger's being; there's no room to be certain either way, but with a lift of her hand she's already interjecting: "Never here; years have passed since I've seen that boy, but you must understand this: Had he approached, we would not have turned him away."

Quiet disclosure, from a woman inclined to return honesty in kind. Quiet eyes, too, which follow a man's hands as they stopper a flask and exchange liquor for business. Which look a little askance upon the production of papers, because it is a familiar gesture and one weighted with old resentments. He has set aside that flask, but this time she will not follow suit; has a sip from that bottle and then another, as she considers this matter, and with a slight shift of the shoulder: "Proceed then, mn? Let us have it done."
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Re: Les Liaisons Dangereuses or Busywork at the End of a Bla

Postby Glenn » Thu Jun 14, 2012 3:30 am

Soldier. What was a Constable in Myrken Wood except for a soldier in a very dangerous battleground? Calomel had been something else. Others as well. Lentham did not pick his path, except for in that he never took any steps to divert it. Negligence. Good at that, very, very good at that. Still, Ariane Emory would have made a very interesting Constable, almost as interesting as the strange man before her.

"Of course," and amusement now, amusement in the face of her brash comment, not brash. Matter-of-fact. Not even pride so much as truth. Cute. "Like I said, Duchess." And he'd leave it there for a long second, before thinking better of it. They were understanding each other well, but there were limits. "The gates." Then after a shorter pause, three more words, just to make sure. No time to run around each other in circles. "Made for petitioners."

An end to appreciating cute, a swift end. "He's not a boy. McCoy was a boy. Good kid. Green. Wanting to make his pa happy by wearing the colors. Would have too, if he didn't get cut down by Karolinger. Immature, but not a boy, not even then. Hn." Lentham dropped the papers. Crumpled, damaged, written with such care, compiled with love and wonder by Inquisitory scribes. Now falling to the ground. They were in the way. They were dropped. Good thing about training rooms? No wind. Paper didn't just walk away. It wasn't going anywhere. Still, he put a damaging foot upon the slightly scattered pile, just to make sure.

Flask opened once again. A longer sip. Toasting the boy, though there was no sign of it. He knew. Somewhere the boy knew. That was all enough.

"Need to fight gods. Seven, Nine? Something like that. A few too many." He had come seeking succor. He had SAID as such. And succor came in such disparate and surprising forms.
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Re: Les Liaisons Dangereuses or Busywork at the End of a Bla

Postby Carnath-Emory » Thu Jun 14, 2012 4:58 am

She'd considered it once. Doesn't everybody? A life in the Constabulary: uniforms; drills, no doubt; saluting one medalled fool or another; an adherence to instructions. Considered it - very briefly, and discarded it all for the same reasons that everyone else drawn to Darkenhold had discarded such prospects. Hours from now, she might think to wonder at how a man like Lentham has found satisfaction in serving that cause. In this moment, though, it all seems so clear. Detective constable, after all.

He excels. Clearly. Even here - with her - which is markedly unusual; these halls have been host to a thousand misunderstandings, many of them involving a woman who speaks when she shouldn't and loses her words when she needs them most. He distinguishes pride from confession - the sort of born of nothing but simple respect; he accepts enormities with the calm of a man who - A man who is accustomed to the breadth of Myrken's savageries, perhaps. There is a brief, strange instant in which she wishes very much that he'd served Helstone as some sort of confidante...

"'Duchess'," and these are skeptical eyes; skeptical and something more. She means to press him upon that hesitation, absolutely means to until a question intervenes. "Do you think we'd accept any petitioner at all? Really?" And let's that hang for a moment as she glances towards papers - no, towards papers underfoot now. Well. Can he forgive this twitch of a smile? Because a swordswoman can't imagine any more fitting fate for those pages, really just cannot.

"He was a boy when I knew him." Leaning back against the wall, now, content enough to nurse the bottle against one thigh and watch the man sort through his business. "In every way that counts." Touching fingertips to her chest; they tap there once, twice. "A headful of fancies. Heroes, heroism. He - " A difficult judgement to make; one made years ago nonetheless. "He should never have been allowed to Orvere, not in the role he was given. It inspired him - to overreach, to - "

Following which the mouth clenches in a moment's silent frustration, because even that's not quite right; she lacks the words for this. A precious thing falls away into darkness; heart in your throat as you run so hard just to catch its hand. Arrows darken the sky, white-knuckled fists because there's no preventing what comes. Some poor, brave boy, severely outmatched; down on his back and staring up into his death, but if she's fast enough - if she's enough - there's steel to interrupt a warlord's plunging sword, and oh how she'd loved slowly killing that man...

It is in this crystallising moment that the swordswoman knows she will make contact with Burel. To his Hél with the politics.

"You mean to fight gods." Quiet moments later, and with not nearly the sort of surprise that such a statement deserves. "Then it's my sister you're seeking; my sister or perhaps Bloodmoon. Myself? I'm quite certain they don't exist."
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Re: Les Liaisons Dangereuses or Busywork at the End of a Bla

Postby Glenn » Thu Jun 14, 2012 5:26 am

Satisfaction? Drills? She heard him listing off those he served. She saw the state of his uniform. This was a man who toasted frequently, but saluted rarely. Would very likely hurt his wrist. Satisfaction, though, seemed to be found at the bottom of a bottle, in frequent naps, preferably upon his desk, and through what purpose could be wrung out of the rest of his waking hours. Lentham defined it it meant for him to be a Constable, not the other way around. Ah, the benefits of being a man who was both willing to die and able to read. Always many of the one in Myrken. Rarely was there one of the both.

To learn understanding, it was far better to serve as a confidante to barflies and vagrants than governors and kings. If she had asked him about it, however, he likely wouldn't understand the question anyway.

"Yes." Simple. Straightforward. He'd seen those gates. And anyone that would accept both him and Karolinger. Well, really. Still, with yet another of those little pauses with but a "Hnn." to take the time. "Way I see it, one doesn't petition here lightly. Yeah, you let them all in."

Then, she speaks of his prey, his hunt, his enemy over the span of years and there's nothing but a mutter. She says things about a youth who should have been much more and all he has in return is this: "Orvere. Always wondered how you pronounced that."

Was that unkind? Nary a thought given. He'd always wondered and there was little need to go on about just what that boy of hers had become, not yet. They'd get there. Best to start at the top. Gods.

"Bloodmoon." Lentham nods with recognition. "Good man. Could walk and drink for hours without saying a word. Something to that." No smile though, just that nod. He had traveled with an elf, asleep and awake. She'd patted Bloodmoon's shoulder in the dream. He'd seen it, even if perhaps, she'd not seen him. "Alright, then." She was vaguely dismissive. Well and good. "You just fetch your sister then and she and I can have a nice little talk." A swish of the flask, then another, gauging. "I can wait."
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Re: Les Liaisons Dangereuses or Busywork at the End of a Bla

Postby Carnath-Emory » Thu Jun 14, 2012 6:32 am

Myrken's many authorities have leveled a great many accusations at this swordswoman, but quick-wittedness has never been one of them. So that it's taken her this long to acknowledge that an ill-defined something haunts the edges of this encounter, and the realisation has left her marked by a subtle frown and some particular sense of distraction. Her gaze has wandered back down towards those papers - neutral ground - and when there arrive some words which require a little clarity:

"We let them mostly," with this tiniest nod, and fingertips drum some soft, meaningless sound on the bottle's curve. "But we don't always keep them." An important distinction. Perhaps he understands what it implies. Really, who notices the wolf in the corner and just tosses it back out amongst the sheep? But this is almost incidental to everything else now, for her mind has seized upon a single thing, her mind means to follow it where it will lead, as this constable says the things which he must. Karolinger at the Row. A cloud of arrows; the Baie, the Flux. A single, ruinous thread that must by its nature conclude with explosive violence and collateral -

"Of course you'd wondered." Clarity. At last. Marked by the blink of her eyes, and the mild glance they've lifted towards his. "You hadn't reached us until after we'd spoken of it." Us. Her. Karolinger. It having taken the woman this long to unwind one memory from another, piercing through the blaze of her student's death to reach the part Lentham had played in all of it. Bloodmoon, after all. Her hand upon his shoulder: because he was dying. Because there was no time at all to grieve. A hand to his shoulder, like a promise: be seeing you soon.

The obscenity of a knife stuck firm in his back.

"Can your need wait for months? Quincy is miles from here; further than I can count. Hunting gods." This tiny smile; warmed, despite everything else that works through her mind; quietly proud. "Well. They imagine they're gods, until they find they can die. No," the jenever is a bitter balm. "What I mean, Ser Detecting, is that if they've sent you to Darkenhold in search of godslayers then hers was the name they ought have provided. Weapon I might be - but for simpler measures."
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Re: Les Liaisons Dangereuses or Busywork at the End of a Bla

Postby Glenn » Thu Jun 14, 2012 7:15 am

Her mind darts along the path his words had created, haphazardly, but with a logic to it that very few could likely discern. He couldn't. Stopped trying years ago. A path of Myrken's creation, a man batted about by its ebbs and its flows, pushed here on this very night not by the storm but despite it. And of course she could follow it, could put together the puzzle once enough pieces had appeared, this girl of Northern New Dauntless but womanof Myrken Wood.

"Difference between a drunkard and a drunk Constable," he added, perhaps losing his way from that path for just a moment. "Get thrown out a lot less." Matter-of-fact, and factually enough, time for another sip. Time to listen as she spoke on. The dream. "I went after the drow after that, for a while, but.." his voice faded off. Everyone hunted Jirai at one time or another. Karolinger, though? He fell off the map. He would have gotten away if Lentham didn't turn back towards him.

The pressing need. She spoke; he missed her smile. No, his gaze had fallen upon the papers underfoot. A long nasal exhale as he bent down to recover them. "Be honest with you." He decided to linger down there for a time. Getting up was an increasingly creaky thing. "Gods can float around in the sky rutting for all I care. When they start helping Karolinger kill people, some Constables, some not. When they make Feul's head go skittering off into the forest with tiny spider-legs." Papers in hand, he began to swish about the flask idly. "Even a tired old fool can see when he's this far over his head, this deep in the hole." Once there was jenever in that flask. Now, after a last, seemingly endless gulp, there was none. "You remember a boy. I remember a boy. For their memory, Aeryn Karolinger needs to die and stay dead."
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Re: Les Liaisons Dangereuses or Busywork at the End of a Bla

Postby Carnath-Emory » Thu Jun 14, 2012 8:00 am

"Oh, that." Skeptical eyes again; there's been a lot of that this evening. "No. That's the uniform - mn? Like the difference between a murderer and a bodyguard," and she's laughing then at what really isn't funny at all. Men dying slowly on a tavern yard, and three days' in court soon after; hadn't it all come down to uniforms in the end? And if she'd actually had one, it might've been hours instead of days...

"You tried your hand at Jirai?" But no, no; of course he did. Fingers lift from the bottle; a shake of her head, something like apology for an oversight. "We finished what you began, in that - dreaming. But only there." Everyone hunts Jirai, sooner or later. Everyone except for Ariane Emory, whose relationship with the drow has always existed outside of easy definitions. How does one explain this to a man like Lentham? That at almost any point conceivable she's found more commonality with Jirai Auvryrahel than with any constable he could think to name. No. Pointless. "And barely that. The trouble you caused me there..." It's this, of a sudden, as abrupt as the rush of memory which preceded it. "They'd just begun to calm, and then it was back to old grudges again like that." A punctuating snap of the fingers. "And I can't even hold it against you. I might have done the same." If. If.

"He wanted to kill me there. Did you know that?" Of course Lentham doesn't; it was short, endless minutes before he'd even reached them. "He would have me challenge him, he would have his ruin that thoroughly completed. Orvere - " because it needs to be said, it longs to be said " - Orvere was worse than I'd expected. But it was nothing that boy even knew how to imagine."

The tense set of her spine relents; the narrow body eases back against the wall, gentles where it's sprawled upon that bench. His flask is empty; her bottle still provides, and it's to this that she addresses herself, except to interject with: "Honesty is my request." It's a dormant thing which he addresses after that, until he's spoken the words that must have her upright over again, that must have her eyes intent upon his own and the jaw becoming a silent clench.

"Jons Feul."

At last.

"I would know how he came to that."
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Re: Les Liaisons Dangereuses or Busywork at the End of a Bla

Postby Glenn » Thu Jun 14, 2012 9:10 am

He let her voice her amusement. Murderer or bodyguard? He didn't know much about that. Then, though she continued on talking about Jirai, about what he had done, about what he had tried to do and what Karolinger had tried. Finally. "No more about the dream." Rasping, stilted, sudden. Then, with a shake of his head, he'd continue. "Exactly the sort of thing that drives a man to drink." Deadpan and bleary-eyed.

Oh, but she had been perked. "Hn. Reckon," he began, still kneeling, even as he let the papers fall once again, even as he placed his empty flask down on top of them, as if the wind had suddenly picked up and was going to actually blow them away now, "it's a shame your sister isn't here, then. A few months." A tsking shake of his head as he held out his hand for that bottle of hers. "Mighty long time to wait." It might, however, be considerably less if she just gave up the bottle.
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Re: Les Liaisons Dangereuses or Busywork at the End of a Bla

Postby Carnath-Emory » Thu Jun 14, 2012 9:33 am

No more about the dream.

He's right, of course. Has done her an inadvertent kindness, it being well past time to rein in those recollections before she empties too much upon the ears of a very recent acquaintance, and one utterly ill-suited to this sort of talk. That flat-eyed gaze; she's inclined to supply the very drink he'd just mentioned, and indeed she's begun to hand that bottle his way when:

"What?"

Look at that. A swordswoman caught by surprise, and by a man who doesn't seem likely to take much satisfaction from it. This blank glance, this uncomprehending frown.

"What, you - propose an exchange?"

A sound that would be laughter if accompanied by a smile.

"I think you have me wrong, ser. You've come here in search of a woman who is long absent, you make a request which I know not how to supply. I would have some explanation of my friend's death, and you will supply this in exchange of what I do not have to give?" The bottle finds a home back upon the bench; with some slight tilt of her chin she's settling back at all. "Here. Four walls. Petition those, if it please you. They're as capable of satisfying you as I."
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Re: Les Liaisons Dangereuses or Busywork at the End of a Bla

Postby Glenn » Thu Jun 14, 2012 12:32 pm

She laughed. It was a harsh bitter thing to Lentham's ears, and yet, he had a smile enough for both of them, weathered, weary, but amused enough. No laugh, but quite the smile, a smile of dust. If one looked just right, if the light shined just so, the dust of the trail, of the path that had lead him here over years, could almost been seen rolling out of his mouth. If one looked just right.

"Mainly... mainly." Another nasal exhale. "The bottle." His hand was still outstretched. "For the papers." That had been the deal he was really suggesting. "With more answers and questions than you want. More than I want. I just want Karolinger." One more of those pauses as he waited for her to hand him what he was asking for. "Think you're selling yourself short, Duchess. No sister. No giant hammer. No Bloodmoon. You. They sent me to you." his eyes glanced down. SOMEONE sent him to her. SOMEONE gave him those papers. To fulfill his purpose. At the end of his path. "There's a mage. A werewolf." His voice was ripe with raw, almost desperate undertones. "Don't care who they send. I won't get left behind. Not after all this time. Not after I was the only one who still knew he was out there. Can't be pushed aside now."
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Re: Les Liaisons Dangereuses or Busywork at the End of a Bla

Postby Carnath-Emory » Thu Jun 14, 2012 1:11 pm

Harsh, because she'd intended it to be; bitter because it can be nothing else. Lentham has provoked many things in her this evening, but that - moments ago - was the first time he'd roused real anger. Let him smile. Let him smile like a lifetime's weary futility. He has four good walls for company and she is already standing to leave.

His words arrest that motion before she's managed two decent steps.

"This," she's halfway echoing him - with a glance between bottle and outstretched hand, and a moment's breath in which to restrain her first impulse. The pale eyes weigh, but her hand's already offering that bottle to his - and lingers there, when he's accepted, to receive those papers. That, perhaps, will be when he understands just how useless her other arm really is. "There are never too many answers. But then, I lack your Purpose."

But when he describes other things entirely - mages and werewolves and swordswomen, after all - she's back a pace, and the eyes are measuring things which they surely can't see. Things other than Kurt Lentham, although that's the direction of her gaze. "I asked," after a quiet moment, "for honesty. Not for - going about in circles until everything's tangled and wrong. Someone has sent you, but they should have warned you that I'm not known for the keenness of my mind," and it's not laughter at all, not really, but she's swallowed it back soon enough. "There is an answer I would have that is not written in your pages, I think: the name of who's sent you to me."

Just that. That, before anything else. Because the governor's man has left her with a ruin for a face and a shoulder far worse, and now this? This could mean anything at all.

She must hope against that, though. Because there was something to the smile she'd ignored, some keening quality echoed by the words he'd spoke much later. Not after I was the only one, he'd insisted.

To a woman who'd once hunted cultists.
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