The Worst Possible Scenario

[Carnath-Emory]

A simple plan, constructed by a swordswoman who usually leaves the planning to her sister. Her lover. Her student. Her governor. The simplest possible plan: have Hrimfax convey her to Myrken's borders in absolute haste. Move incognito to Darkenhold. And there, begin to write letters: innocuous questions for most recipients; pointed questions for a reliable few. Calmomel. Helstone. Burel.Treadwell. Magda. Betzalel. Sources of even shreds of information. Perhaps even a contact within the Militia, the Constabulary, if she dared - which was unlikely. The simplest thing, to accomplish that much uninterrupted, all in the hopes of unraveling the death of Jons Feul and what had gone so very wrong that her nightmares had begun to scream. The simplest plan. Upon a chessboard? Two moves, perhaps as much as three. Unless your piece is a pawn, in which case one must anticipate -

interception.

Understanding drills through her, a burning sickness.

He has an attentive student at his table, this dark-clad man. He will know this within moments of beginning that recitation: hers are eyes which do not waver from his own as he describes a controlled calamity, and her hand has abandoned that wine-glass at last; has curled gently upon the tabletop instead. Attentive, clearly absorbing his words, and murmuring so quietly into the midst of it: "A school," as if it were a marvel. Well, and he understands enough of Myrken to know that it is just that. Will he sense the moment in which sickness begins to seep through her nerves? Perhaps not; this is not Duquesne, who might know a woman's mood by the stillness of her heart, the sudden lurch of blood within her veins, and schooling her features into quietness is a lifetime's habit. The angle of her mouth will not betray her; no stunned gasp will speak the words her voice cannot, when he says - terrible things. Horrifying things.

Two sisters had sometimes wondered if they were the blight with which Myrken was cursed.
Mentor Sefall had sometimes mused aloud on matters not dissimilar.

This assassin with his fading smile; will he know the moment in which he gentles the horror he'd provoked? But her manner is so casual, so mild - even then; especially then, until the moment in which he speaks of old things, precious and contentious things -

Some sound. The slightest exhalation of half-held breath. In a single moment this man explains precisely why she must be turned back, precisely how Governor Burnie knows that her intervention is certain.

"Neizbezhnost Raskayanie'."

The words are hardly spoken at all; whether he hears this phrase or not matters so very little.

"It is an old practice, an old style of thinking. It has its merits. Tell me..." Stronger now, this voice; a small lift of the chin fixes her eyes upon his own. "Tell me this, your opinion: is the benefit larger than the cost? Or do you sit here only at your employers' request."

Because she will not believe this. She will not believe this until she hears the words spoken.

[Glenn]

Oh, the things he could tell her.

If only they had that luxury, nightly meetings over wine and water, and whatever northern toxin that they called 'drink' in Dauntless. Two people who were set upon this planet to intercept and intervene, to protect and destroy, people of action, yet who still cared to think all the more so because of what they were. The things they would say.

The things he could tell her.

He could tell her of a virtual paradise, a place turned horrific, a series of city-states where oligarchical greed bound all to war and terror. He could speak of a boy who grew up during such tragic times and how he found wisdom and knowledge in the most unlikely of places, of how that boy grew to write of his times, of how those writings inspired a veiled society of men and women who realized that only through tyranny could order overcome chaos, that people were ultimately short-sided and greedy, that all nature, including and especially human nature had to be bound for the good of all. He could tell her how it all went wrong, how one failure after the next, over generations, led to an inevitable debasement where ideals were tossed aside in the name of expediency, and then in the name of avarice once again. How he was born, over a century after it all began, into that fallen "family" of crime and villainy, and last of all, how he found a way to reconcile the new debased ideas with the idealistic old here in Myrken, here with the Governor that he served.

He could tell her all of this over long peaceful, pleasant months... except for one little thing:

It was already too late for that. This had to end tonight. It could not be allowed to go any further. She could not be allowed to go any further.

Why then, why.. had he said what he did? Why not lie? Why was it so damn hard to lie now, for he was a creature of carefully layered deceit and misdirection. Only a few weeks before he had poisoned the Marshall from behind without a second thought just because she MIGHT have been a traitor. Now, though, when a lie would serve them all so very well, he spoke the truth.

"Burnie doesn't know I'm here. He doesn't know you're here. Actually, in this moment, he doesn't even know I'm alive." Too much truth in that. There had been no time to check in, though a note had been prepared, just in case he did not make it out of this room alive. "You're a blind spot in his plans. You always have been. Calomel wasn't. Duquesne, Randall, even some of the monsters, but you, bella, you will overturn the applecart.."

There was a reason he could be so free with such information. The die has been cast. Too much had been said and she would not turn away now. He knew that. There was only one way this night could end, but then when two such people came into contact, there was always only one way.

...but, then, she had asked him a question. "We both agree,though. It is necessary. It is not even a thing to be argued. Burnie is no longer one for hesitation. Yes, his end goals are somewhat different than mine except for in the broadest sense, but I defer to him. His is my employer, as you say, no? Of the means? Sentiment blinds him, rarely but sharply. Usually it's pride. Almost always the two go hand-in-hand with him, yet he somehow makes that a strength. Madness." A shake of his head that was more exasperated than fond, though perhaps a little fond as well.

"He does what is necessary and Myrken prospers." Two words that should never go together. Of course nature had to suffer in such a scenario. Then, with an air of finality, though no weapon had been drawn as of yet. "Will you return North, then?"

[Carnath-Emory]

What a quiet creature it is that shares this strange man's table. This encounter was birthed in violent intents and unexpected laughter, but the smile had fallen from his lips long ago and the swordswoman is similarly stilled. Has made of herself something other than a collaborator, a laughing counterpoint to his wounded eyes and smiling banter. He has an audience now, this man - a bitter irony, given that what he offers is no performance at all; is a frank disclosure which she had never anticipated. She listens therefore - this woman, this weapon; offers colourless eyes and impassive features behind which the mind furiously works, the thoughts tumble over and over.

This problem. This problem.
Several routes immediately present themselves.
Not one of them is acceptable.

Thoughts tumble, and this is a woman schooled by a years-long interaction with such devious minds as Michael Renne's; who has suffered and strived beneath sway of the King's Hand; who has spent countless hours in the company of a master of blood and money and spies - so that when this man names the only two weaknesses she really owns, there is no flinch to mark the moment, no horrified little gasp. There is merely the steady watch of considering eyes, until:

"Do you consider this prosperity?"

Sometimes the words just come out.

"Do you consider this reasonable? And I'll ask you this because clearly you're something other than some streltsy brute with a stolen sword; clearly you're no sort of fool at all."

Sometimes the words just spill from her before she quite realises what she's going to say.

"Here is a problem worth the solving." A hand has set itself down upon the tabletop. "Here is what you've described for me: merits. Flaws." The other, by its side. "Here we sit, you and I and your very good wine, and I could very easily spend a night questioning you on these things. Nights. These things, other things. I tell you plainly, ser Chernogolov, that I would do this gladly - because you have a mind which is keen, and I like to hear what you choose to say. So: you. Your Governor. For as long as it might take to see if we may abandon atrocity while retaining order, so that Myrken might prosper in more than one sense. This is not unreasonable, I think. This is what people do, when they are more than just the reach of their sword."

Sharp, sharp eyes. Does he see it, the moment in which she reaches for the weapon? But it's there in her hand already: the slim cultist's dagger, slapped down onto the tabletop between them - and her eyes are hard, her eyes accuse. Tragedy has loosened the words from her and now she does not relent.

"But this is Myrken's solution. Yes?" This narrow length of steel. These murderous dimensions. "This is what a Better Myrken requires: you leave this room or I do, but never both. This Better Myrken demands blood: mine or yours. This Myrken says: Bare your weapons, sir, and cut down whatever bars your way! and do you call this prosperity? I do not. I do not even call it change.

I call it the same old hungers, given a shift - of - focus."

[Glenn]

"The problem isn't Myrken." Thoughts flashed through his mind. She was a fetching sort of companion for this sort of thing. Harsh and not smooth. Contradictions and not compromises. It was refreshing and endlessly frustrating. He'd said too much already. To get drawn in further was dangerous, deadly. Still, he allowed it due both to his own weakness and the strength of one simple fact he had yet to convey to her, that she seemed to be missing in the face of her precariously balanced ideals.

"Of course that's wrong. The problem IS Myrken. The problem is absolutely Myrken. It's always been Myrken. It's not that change is impossible, bella," The smile returns, despite himself. The word prompts it, perhaps. The fact that he was allowed to call her it one more time instead of moving straight on to violence, perhaps. "It's that it's impossible now. Not forever. A school. YEARS of prosperity, the sort that can be measured. Growth of towns, food on tables, no blights or massacres. In time, that will lead to the change. For now, though, management. Myrken must be managed. Only then can change occur." Now he was the one with ideals, the only other one, perhaps. "Burnie doesn't think in these terms, necessarily. He doesn't have to. He sees a problem. He fixes it with an eye to the future." Purity of thought and action. Careful management of the people, conservative and superstitious, illiterate dirt farmers and short-sighted townsfolk. Brave men and women who would give their lives for their homes and never, ever run, even in the face of true despair.

"You cannot abandon atrocity while retaining order, not in Myrken, not yet, but you can manage atrocity while creating order." He wished for another glass, badly, but with that dagger between them on the table, reaching anywhere could cause a quick end to anything pleasant, and not on his terms. "And in time, change."

The main gauche was drawn, quickly and quietly. It was a simple weapon, simply made, a pale reflection of what he lost in the woods. His hand did not shake though perhaps his eyes did. The smile was gone and the words had turned a mild shade of bitter. "The problem is ultimately not Myrken, Ariane Emory...bella. I told you. He has his plans. Deflection. Redirection. Reappropriation. Bloodless atrocities for the good of all. He has his plans. Just not for you. You're the sole exception." No move to attack as of yet, however. "The problem isn't Myrken. The problem is you."

[Carnath-Emory]

"Bloodless atrocities."

And her smile is small then, a thing of narrow contours and bleak humour. It is not without warmth; the moment's flash of anger has been let to fade aside. It is not without regret, when she tilts a knowing glance towards the weapon his hand has gripped.

"Bloodless atrocities - and the occasional, necessary sacrifice."

Her inquiries should have begun days ago, long before she ever set a hand to Hrimfax's bridle. She should have waited for word well before venturing beyond those northern borders. How many have already perished? But she will not give herself to terrified speculation, and in any case the answer may well be None At All. This man has listed names, but they're names of those she best trusts to manage themselves safely. Her sister would not fall to this. Duquesne would have it suffering long before it could ever reach its throat. And Calomel -

She will not speculate.

"Very well." Gloveless hands folding upon this tabletop. Their fingertips are far short of that dagger's edge, are quite still in their repose. "You've asked a favour of me, the - tiniest thing." How we smile, you and I. "I have a counter-proposal."

Thank you for the phrase, ser Duquesne. A woman rather wishes you were here to sort this mess. A weapon knows endgame when she sees it.

"Finish your wine. Return to your governor and tell him I'm dead. Hand him this - " swift tug at her throat; a palmful of silver and glass poured onto the tabletop " - for a token. If he demands a corpse, tell him to fetch it himself. You'll be long gone by the time his man reach this place."

Slouched back in her seat then, loose-limbed and easy. If only the eyes were so casual.

"Run away. Never return."

[Glenn]

Giuseppe is not a slow man by any means. He possesses a quick mind and a deft hand. This is not his native language. This is not her native language. He is most certainly not at his best. Can she see his beleaguered mind, a mind not ready for this encounter, processing her words? They come as a surprise. For, much like her, in this matter he saw the world as a stark contradiction. It would be her or it would be him. Either or. No other possibilities.

She has introduced a third possibility.

Neither.

It was .. useful. Reasonable. Burnie thinks her dead. She retreats, and what does it cost the Southerner? His presence there. Things were in motion. He was a tool, only rarely a driving force. It was one thing when Burnie had first returned from Underdark, when he was gutwrenchingly mad, a shocking being, utterly out of control. Now he was almost in a sort of balance once again. His power was more secure everyday. Simply put, he no longer needed the Man In Black.

Ariane's arrival would spin things out of control, but Giuseppe's absence? No, likely not at all.

It was a simple decision. Endlessly simple, so long as he understood her correctly.

In the end, however, despite his high ideals, despite what he thought he believed in, he was human, a selfish human. He was what he was raised and molded to be, both by caring and tragedy. Despite all of that charm, deep down he was a bully and a criminal, a cutthroat out of expediency and pleasure more than ideology and discipline.

He worked too hard. He bled for this, had his soul scoured, his flesh burnt to near ashes, his body and being violated. He couldn't leave all that behind. This was HIS as much as Burnie's. He deserved it just as much. In the end, his true character showed trough. In the end, he murmured an apology in his language and drove the blade forth. If he could just be quick enough that she could not change her skin, could not activate that mechanism, could not grab the blade on the table. If he could just be quick enough, he could get exactly what he deserved.

[Carnath-Emory]

Two days' ride from here towers stately Darkenhold, a grand construction of glittering black stone and gleaming glass. It is a study in contradictions: inviting and austere; militant and hospitable. It houses two armories, one heavily-used training room, a parapet ringed with heavy ballista and a trio of dainty fountains. Its curtains are sheer silk, its gate heavy iron. It is by conventional standards impregnable, and it is Ariane Emory's truest home. This brute, this murderer, this sometime-assassin and caretaker of monsters - she enjoys free roam through its vast libraries, the company and good advice of its kindly citizens, and more luxury and liberty than her twenty-something years had suggested might ever be possible. It is sometimes home to the sister and the architect that her heart cherishes beyond reason.

There is no clearer indication that Myrken Wood doesn't care at all about what people deserve.

Giuseppe is quick enough. His blow is a flicker of motion that comes from nowhere at all, and if she'd attended his hands instead of his eyes it would've gutted her. But oh, those eyes; the period through which he considers, the moment in which he thrusts all those considerations away. That is when she knows - and she's quick, but so is he; there is no time for anything but a blind tilt of her body -

Seven inches of flawless steel go right through her shoulder and out the other side.

It all happens very quickly now. All in the space of heartbeats: pale eyes shocked wide by the force of that impact; the rush with which silver floods to fill that wound and far more besides; the brutal hiss-click of some mechanism as she slams her good wrist against the table-edge, and her seat's already tumbling over as leans for him, fingers reaching for that wielding arm.

"You're so stupid," she breathes -

and within her veins, living iron is an elated roar.

[Glenn]

Glenn Burnie loves Rhaena Olwak. It was a simple statement of fact. For others, though, he had such regard. He had regard for Giuseppe, yes. Quite a bit. The man was his closest confederate in his attempts to reform Myrken. He trusted him completely. Unfortunately for the Man in Black, the governor had more regard still for Ariane Emory and his promise of discretion from years past. While he told the assassin so many things about so many people, things necessary for the job, necessary for the protection of Myrken Wood, he did not reveal the secrets of the swordswoman.

It was such a damn shame really. Giuseppe owned dragon scales. If only he knew...

The Southerner had been a rather peaceable boy; quiet, reserved, more of a scholar than a fighter, before it all went wrong for him, before the family business dragged him in, kicking and screaming. Before that, he had fallen under the wing of a renegade, a member of the old guard, a bearded grandfather on the last legs of a long life. From the wizened man, he obtained a classical education while his cousins and siblings were spending their time developing much different skills. Giuseppe well understood prophecy. He understood hubris. He understood inevitability. He knew well that, like so many others, he had set such possibilities into motions with his actions, the very things he had been working so badly to avoid.

He knew this and thusly, he knew how essential it was that this remarkable woman did not leave this room alive.

She would find no hand to grab. Despite his slight surprise at his speed, he had a particular luxury. He had plenty of blades to go around. The main gauche could be abandoned. Hands were pulled back to draw twin daggers. Was this chess? Were they pawns? If so, he had made a miscalculation. If not, he had still made one. It had been so essential for him to strike her before she could summon that eldritch iron. His best chance had been a quick killing blow. Failing that, as he had, he had two choices, to strike from outside the range of her schiavona, or to strike inside that range.

So his hand would be gone as she gripped for it, only to return a moment later, with its fellow, both clenching jagged and twisted daggers. The hands formed an unorthodox horizontal U shape, one dagger aimed at her throat, the other for her lower abdomen. Perhaps the iron spread to different parts of the body at different speeds. It left him open, yes, (though maybe not for her known blade of choice) but it no longer mattered what happened to his body. He'd already turned his back on an easy solution that would have provided for that. No, what mattered now, what mattered more than anything else, was stopping her no matter the cost.

[Carnath-Emory]

She might have died to ruinous dragon-scales in this very moment. She might have died to an assassin's poisons, and hour ago; to his dagger, in the moment that she closed her eyes and savoured things strange, foreign, exceedingly fine. I am very difficult to kill, she'd told a man once, and this is true. But only when the means are direct, for a weapon who's so difficult to kill is also so easy to deceive....

And cannot be unaware that this very moment is stolen time.

His hand has escaped her grasp - water between fingertips - but her neck has not escaped the attentions of his dagger; it's hard across her throat with an unholy squeal of metal against metal that shoots the length of her spine and draws not a single fleck of blood. Better luck with the other dagger, for it's driven low where the armor's yet unformed; where it's little but a writhing, liquid tide amongst her garments. That is where her flesh could become a home for his blades, and she's not nearly fast enough to seize the schiavona in time to stop him, she is wide inches away from catching that arm at all!

Steel strikes steel.
The grip which she cannot reach is firm within her hand.
That hand high inches above his own, the schiavona's blade its long and lovely extension.

Its angle deflects, and as his dagger rebounds she's lunging a swift step back; a second after it, an ankle hooking the tangle of that fallen chair to send it sliding between them. Distancing, as if she imagined an assassin might not own daggers that can be thrown. As if she imagines that the growth of her armour might outpace his throwing arm. And perhaps that's exactly it, for there's a weapon stuck through her shoulder and not a friendly face in miles, but her eyes -

Silver crawls the edges of her chin, but it hasn't yet claimed her face - and just above the glitter of mercury, her eyes are plainly enthused.

[Glenn]

Order out of Chaos.

Giuseppe lost control of this situation, of himself. Blame Catch. Blame Pantha. Blame a soul had been wrenched and twisted, literally. Blame the aunt that orchestrated the death of his lover just as they were about to get away. Blame a father's weakness that put him under her thumb in the first place or even the grandfather who encouraged his excess when perhaps cold strength was needed instead. Blame Burnie. Blame any or all of these things as you would. Giuseppe? He would blame himself in these long, brutal moments. Forget the dragon scales he had not known about. There were a dozen methods he had.

Even just moments before! If he had chosen far and not near he could have drawn one of those poisoned darts instead! The moment had called for an intimacy. It had been so important that she not draw that blade! More the fool was he.

Doors were closing forever, one after the next after the next. Her sword was drawn. He would not get so close to her again. The armor was forming and he had a choice. One of Burnie's favorite tricks left in his pocket. The bottles of wine, still close to her. He could rupture them, set off a quick expansive fire, but would that even matter? Were she flesh and blood it might do the trick.

No, he was down to two options. Either he ran or he threw one of his daggers straight between those eyes.

There really was no choice. With expert skill, the blade went sailing towards her. Despite appearances, he knew it was all he had left.

[Carnath-Emory]

She might have died to poisons, in the instants before livid iron had surged from her pores, claimed her flesh.
She might have died to flames, an old and inescapable fear; might have died twitching in a tangle of molten steel.
A hundred ways to die and so many within his grasp, and she will think long on this, hours from now, weeks from now. How easy it could have been. How unlikely it was not.

And on this, too: the fever which consumes her in these last moments. The way in which even fused with flesh, this living steel still screams for bloodshed. The way her heart leaps with the breathless fury of it all, contained within the body's measured motions but no less wild and wanting. The way in which outrage congeals into furious determination.

Sefall's whisper in the back of her mind: You never really try. You never stop holding back. True. She'd confessed to it freely, all those years ago. And today it is a restraint which she's shed - because today, the need is so great, and today her intent is so particular, so at odds with everything that man ever taught her. It is wholly hers, so that she's waited through these precious moments when she could have advanced, could have closed the distance between them and ended this - definitively. She's held until the armour's devoured her from boots to throat, balanced light upon her toes to compensate for the agony which is her shoulder, and then - only then -

She is a dart of motion, a quicksilver advance that leaps her across the fallen chair, and the schiavona falls away when its gauntlet flies up to guard her eyes. A boot-toe hits the ground skidding, her head jerks aside; there is some terrible sound as the dagger tears through glutinous steel and vulnerable flesh.

There is nothing at all to slow the momentum with which they'll collide.

[Glenn]

He hadn't expected to hit her. It had been a desperate gambit. A vague hope for a man who never let himself hope for anything. Mainly though, it had been a stalling motion. She would draw back. He would regroup, would find some tactic, would dig into his personal arsenal and find a way to put a chink in her armor. Seconds would be all he needed.

He never expected her to charge headlong into the dagger's path.

An education could only take a man so far.

To his credit, he recovered from the surprise within a heartbeat. To his discredit, being unable to resist marveling at her cost him the next heartbeat. Either way, it would have been already far too late. She was a cavalier charging forth in full armor. Oh, the horse was missing, but that didn't seem to be slowing her down any. Reflex drew him back and up. He was trying to leap out of the way, maybe to strike at her side as she passed.

He failed in all counts. Spectacularly.

Metal met flesh and bone and momentum sent him flying backwards. One crushing sound soon gave way to an even louder crash as the partially airborne Southerner went right through the closest table. He was battered, exhausted. The last few weeks had been a grueling mess and now he had surely broken ribs and a newly born concussion that needed to be overcome as well. Still, he was fighting for not just his life but for the budding work of it as well. Recovery was quick and desperate.

In a matter of seconds, carefully protected glass vials were broken and mixed. A spark was generated from flint and steel, and the broken wood of the table, or at least that which was not already lodged into his flesh, became kindling. Fire erupted around the assassin, and as he rose, it was with a flaming chair leg in either hand. Fire nipped at his legs painfully but he had to buy time and distance any way he could.

Deadly torches were brandished in the swordswoman's direction as the flames began to spread upon the floor of the poor, misbegotten tavern. What would this dire payment earn him?

[Carnath-Emory]

This had been her only real gambit - this woman with her precious chess-boards, with her newfound appreciation for such things as strategy and design. That Glenn Burnie owns a keener understanding of her swordsmanship than any other man in Myrken Wood or anywhere. That so little of that understanding could be effectively conveyed to his proxy. That the young Governor has sparred with her a hundred times, a thousand - but he's fought with her not at all, and never like this. Not nearly like this.

In that sense only, she is still capable of surprising.

Momentum sends the an assassin flying; momentum sends a swordswoman skidding through the wreckage of his passage. It could be no other way, for she is locked in combat with a talented murderer and with the urgency of her purpose here as well, and all the while a steady leak of blood from her own torn flesh measures out the passage of precious minutes. With the knowledge that in this moment or the next, a man might choose to drag his weapon out of her shoulder, and that will kill her as surely as his daggers could have.

This is how they have come to a moment in which flame spreads like liquid fury across the floor between them; in which an armoured juggernaut abandons any pretense of intimidation and steels herself to attack. He is allowed a moment's respite, a heartbeat's measure in which to seize his firebrands - but then she's upon him, a lunge of living steel that crushes flame beneath its boots and sends the schiavona lashing not towards his weapons but the arms which carry them. Swift, small cuts hunt out tendons and muscle and nerve - there, where the wrist joins a hand to its arm; there, at the arm's interior where the flesh is tender and vulnerable.

[Glenn]

Fire. He bought himself that desperately needed second, but at just what cost? Flickering flashes of light and heat forced strong familiar sensation to the very front of his mind. Memory. Pain on far more than a physical level. Exhilaration and the remembrance of the very first taste of the madness he spent the last two weeks engulfed in.

Catch. It all came back to Catch. Catch and Pantha. Healing and Destruction. Something holy and something demonic. Two sides of two very different coins. How do you fight a demoness? With ten paladins and fifty archers, with holy water and chanting priests. How do you fight a demoness when you are one man? When it is necessary? When she threatens to corrupt all that you worked for? With any tool at your disposal. Half a year ago, the tool was Catch himself. Burnie cut the creature's unwitting hand with a dagger which was then tossed to the bodyguard as he followed the ruinous woman outside. The dagger was licked, forcing inhuman healing energies into his body. As hellfire gobbled at his skin eagerly, as psychedelic madness nipped at his mind, flesh reknit itself, replenished itself, and he was allowed proximity enough to send that knife home and give her, a being to whom healing was oh so deadly, a taste of what he had been nursing. For Giuseppe, it was death and rebirth again and again in a span of minutes. When she was recreated by her Master a week later, he was still in the Remedium. When she attempted to seize his soul, Catch's healing blood still flowed through his system. The end result was a man of heartlessness and sensitivity, one who alternatively felt the pain of old wounds and old joys and absolutely nothing at all.

He was a man currently surrounded by fire, a man whose mouth opened in raw emotion as his own gambit turned back upon him. In that one second he had earned himself, his eyes rolled back. Twisting shadows all around him, globular imposing shapes, tentacles of energy whirling and churning and he in the center of it all. The smell of grass... no, of leaves? Pine cones? Blood and vomit. How could fire smell like both a pleasant, peaceful meadow and like the spewing bile of a wounded god? How could both things be the same?

Old lessons. Old discipline. Chaos into order. Control.

The world stopped shimmering. Reality set in once again. Everything came into focus... just in time to see her coming at him, to see the first whip of that blade. More doors had closed and so few were left to go through. So many mistakes from one who was usually so good at his what he did. She was a work of art and he had been so imperfect in facing her. What a terrible shame.

She meant to maim him. To cripple him. He could not allow that. Whatever else happened, he could not allow that. So instead of parrying or trying to force her back with the torches, he instead moved straight on in, as if trying to impale himself upon that tip in order to prevent what she was so deftly attempting. The torches were up and high, one towards where he had stabbed her and the other towards her face. It was the final gambit of a desperate man.

[Carnath-Emory]

She is a work of art - or she is a construct of steel and muscle and bloody-minded stubborness. You're always holding something back, a man had shouted - lifetimes ago - but not today. She has spent years chasing a corpse across two continents; she's pursued another right back to Myrken Wood, and she will not be stopped here. Not by her student's assassin, not by this man at all. You're so stupid she'd gasped, and meant it: to choose this route knowing full well of what she was capable - and having no idea of her circumstances at all. That there was such purpose to her return, such urgency; that there had been words left unsaid; that there is a sickness to rout, grievous errors to be overturned -

There is so much work to do.

She means to maim him. She means to cripple him. She means to stop this before it lurches out of her control and reaches a more conclusive end than she'd ever intended. And some vicious edge of her wants very much to further this man's education; would like very much to light a spark of horror in his eyes, to have him kneel, have him beg, have him bleed out his life on this filthy floor - Some edge of her that loves to kill, and she chokes it back in this moment as she has a hundred times before. As if to reassure even herself that No. No. It's alright. My will is good.

Old discipline. Chaos into order. Control -

Even in the midst of terrifying fire: a ploy flawlessly executed by a man who reckons himself educated, a man who must surely have known what flame does to armour that will not retreat. To armour that will sear itself into her flesh if she spends more than moments ankle-deep in these flames; already it's begun to grow slick and writhing about her boots, already it's begun to bristle. It's on ashes and burning steel that she's charged at him, and the world is a blaze of his firebrands and his eyes as this man closes on her; as he stabs flames at the two clearest vulnerabilities: the main gauche stuck right through her shoulder; the face that she had left unarmoured.

Didn't Glenn tell him? That whether it's chess or swordplay, you're not fighting the pieces.

You're fighting the player.

His torch burns through air towards the target she'd given him, the target already jerked hard aside; his torch stabs hard towards the wound he'd given her - but that doesn't matter. Another moment's agony amidst all the rest is nothing, because it's what her hand was waiting for, and it's dropped the schiavona to grip his lunging arm instead. Quicksilver, a torrent of fire-lit mercury, crawling the limb in search of his throat.

So close, now. He's drawn so close. His eyes. Regret and warring fury in hers.