by CherryStatic » Thu Jan 01, 2015 8:52 am
He had waited, patiently, for the girl to reign herself in since the moment she had barged into the room. He had sat indifferently in that chair and been glared at, been accused of abusing the Lady Warden's hospitality, had been labeled as callous, and, perhaps the worst thing of all, had been told to his face that he was wrong. That he didn't know what he was talking about. He was more than used to this treatment in court, when he spoke out against political adversaries of the king, exercising his talent for being one of the most knowledgeable and therefore disliked aides to Branson.
But that was at home. After the sessions at that long conference table that seemed to yawn on for hours, whittling away at his composure and self-esteem, he was free to retire to the massive library and read in a dimly-lit corner, perhaps send for a pot of fresh mint tea and breathe in the dusty smell of the old books until his frayed nerves were once again intact. In the evening, Branson would insist, as he always did, on a walk through the gardens, which he would accept with the usual air of aloofness about him. The would speak quietly of the day's proceedings, Branson boldly declaring what he intended to do about the men who had essentially spit on Michta in court, the half-elf calmly explaining the repercussion of each action to his friend. They would go and sit beneath the willow under which they had first met, bowing over a steam so that its branches trailed through the water, and the seer would realize that he was smiling. There, away from the eyes that hated him and demanded so much of the man he was devoted to, they could be more than king and aide. He could be with Branson.
And yet, here he was. Being treated exactly the same across the sea, in a foreign land, in a town where the guards challenged your presence at the gates, the inn served tea in a way that suggested no one within a hundred miles knew what a proper cup tasted like, and seamstresses covered in animal feces were allowed to sweep into the office of an official and say whatever they bloody well pleased. To top it all off, while this girl was standing over him, telling him what she thought of him, his companion, and their intentions, there was a viper in the woodwork of Myrken who was, at that vey moment, smiling as she plotted how to send each of them to an early grave.
It was because of this that he gave Gloria a look, his composure falling away just enough that both the seamstress and the Kestrel would see a glimpse of Michta Vess those thirty-eight years ago, before he was aide to the king, when he was a starving shadow of a man in the back alleys of the kingdom, cursed with visions and labeled as a lunatic. When he was nothing. With this one look, he was able to perfectly communicate the pangs of hunger, his disgust of the way the world worked, his hatred of formality, and his understanding of what it meant to be judged by others. It contorted his pretty face into something momentarily unrecognizable.
"I would ask you to sit while we spoke," he ground out, acid on his tongue, "but you would no doubt accuse me of possessing some nefarious intention for doing so. So stand, then. Or sit. I care not."
His rose from his chair, one delicate hand slipping into the folds of his robe and producing a sphere of perfectly rounded quartz, entirely clear, the size of an orange. Castor's eyes widened.
"Put that away, elfling." he said, his eyes trained on the orb.
"Be silent." Michta replied without looking at him, his eye on Gloria. He extended his hand, proffering the crystal ball on an upturned palm, so that it was level with the girl's face. "My patience has worn thin."
And with that, light and voices bloomed from the orb. If either Gloria or Egris so much as glanced at it, that would be all it took before they were whisked away into the vision.
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They raced towards the ajar bedchamber door, leaping over the disembowled corpse of the guard who lay sprawled across the narrow hallway, their heart hammering and their breath coming ragged from their lips.
"My lord!" they cried, in a voice that was Michta's, Gloria's, and Egris' all at once. Their hand threw open the door and they froze where they stood, the sight before them almost incomprehensible at a glance.
The king's body was in pieces. There was no better way to put into words what they were seeing. His broad-shouldered torso was skewered to the far wall, behind the four-poster bed on which his severed genitals were neatly laid, almost carefully arranged on the pillow with the utmost of care, staining the ivory sheets a dark crimson. His legs and arms were nowhere to be seen, but the head sat in the very center of the room, transfixing whoever walked through the doorway with the grin of rigor mortis, the glassy eyes staring blankly at the walls all around, covered in bloody handprints and neatly scrawled words.
SUCH FUN WE HAVE one wall read. Across the room: I'M RUNNING OUT OF PAINT
Bile rose in their throats, and they had to turn their head away, leaning against the doorframe. Behind them, the clank of armor indicated the arrival of the guards, who pushed past and filed into the room. The men stared openly, one losing grip on his drawn sword which clattered to the stone floor. Another retched, doubling over.
A woman's scream erupted from somewhere behind them, the acoustics of the castle veiling the source. Managing to suppress their urge to vomit, they turned and ran the way they had come, intent on finding the witch before she escaped. They didn't know what they would do to stop her, only that they had to try. They had never been assigned that duty, but it was their responsibility all the same. Their jaw clenched with conviction as they left the guards behind, gawking in the king's bedchamber.
They raced down the first tier of the grand staircase, passing the chambermaid whose throat had been sliced cleanly open, whose hand stretched weakly, hopefully, toward them as they rushed by. They froze when they reached the foot of the stairs, the entrance hall in clear view.
There she was, the Blood Dancer, a demon given human form. She wove like wind through the blades aimed at her heart, the Hidden Hand falling around her like wheat before the scythe, their weapons skittering away as they crashed to the ground. She looked for all the world to be dancing, nothing more, her long fiery hair fanning out as she pirouetted, but the glint of torchlight against the blade of her weapon, the snap of its cord as it snaked through the air and coiled upon itself, cutting through the men and women and the weak points in their armor like a hot knife through butter, gave her away. She spun, her bladed whip twirling around her, a part of her deadly dance, blood arcing away from the eye of the storm and pooling beneath her.
She had already killed nine of them without trouble. The others held their weapons out in front of them, a safe distance away, holding their ground. None remained between her and the door of the castle. She turned and glanced at it, and someone took the chance to fire a crossbow. The bolt cut the air with a hiss, audible in the abrupt silence, and, watching from the foot of the staircase, their breath caught as they waited for it to find its mark.
She bent over backwards, fluidly, her back a perfect arch as the projectile shot through the space she had occupied a fraction of a second before. Her legs continued the journey, over her head and touching down neatly, precisely, opposite of where they had started. She pushed against the door with one hand, turning her head to look at those assembled.
Her smiling face, covered in blood, was unmistakably Alcara's.
Vixen's.
Jig's.
She grinned, winking at them, and slipped through the door. The guards pursued her immediately, maneuvering over their fallen comrades.
Unable to use their magic to assist, they watched from the foot of the stairs, wondering how many more men and women would die before she was caught.
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The vision ended abruptly, dumping them back into the present with an anticlimatic flash of light. Michta, more than a bit accustomed to the process, closed his eyes to let them adjust.
Castor opened his eyes cautiously. He had closed them the second before the light had filled the room, having a good idea of which vision the half-elf was offering to the two women. He couldn't bear to watch his soldiers die. Not again.
"My Lady." Michta spoke calmly once more, the bitter anger that filled his voice moments before replaced by his usual demeanor. "In my experience, people do occassionally change, for better or worse, sometimes for reasons that I don't try to understand. But only rarely does a person's capabilities change."
He let his words hang in the air for a moment. When he spoke again, it was to the girl.
"Miss Gloria, I do not know this Jig, the dancer. I know Alcara, the murderer. I know that she is dangerous. I know that she does whatever she likes. And I know that she would not hesitate to kill you if she felt the need to do so." He paused, regarding her with his visible eye. "I did not mean to offend you. I am attempting to bring a killer to justice."