The Truth Was Seldom Told So Sweetly.

[Carnath-Emory]

There was a boy newly hired at the Broken Dagger. His face was not nearly so scarred as her own, his manner more pleasant by far; he was much of an age with that Radeorin and she'd half-wondered if he might be slated to replace the murdered stablehand. Trivial considerations. The smallest things. The whole extent of her interest in Blake Caplin, until the moment that he'd pressed a loosely-wrapped gift into her hands and informed her of its origins.

Could anything else at all have drawn her to this particular street? Not even the gift itself - a masterwork in steel and crimson gemstone - could have brought her to stand before these shop windows; not coin nor a Governor's requests, nor anything else at all except for the tiniest discrepancy in that boy's stammered explanations.

Thirteen days ago, Blake Caplin stood at this door; he came for cakes and he left with a package. Nearly two weeks later there stands a swordswoman in his place, all scarves and high collar against the late morning's chill. Near her side lurks the dark warhorse, nudging restlessly now and again against her shoulder, but her eyes are for the bakery's windows and her touch, testingly, for its door.

[Altias_Bromn]

He had come back, using that strange way of traveling that Lamai was fond of, to gather a few things that he would need for a stay that was extending longer than he had envisioned. Lamai had suffered a great loss and she was not really seeing visitors right now, so he had not been able to speak to her at length as he wished, before he returned here. For that matter, he wasn't sure that he would return at all.

The rattle of the doorknob of the shop got his attention, the sword at his side drawn without thought. The tall thin man stalked toward the door, throwing it open without hesitation.

"Who the hell are you and what do you want?"

The words nearly died in his throat as he realized who he had drawn down on, the sword barely a few inches from her heart.

"Ariane...?"

And ghosts of the past just never stop haunting.

[Carnath-Emory]

How his blade sings, as it plunges for her heart.

It is a whisper of sound. It is as the slow-drawn breath which fills her lungs, the shifting of scarves when her spine so slightly arches back, and she moves no further than that; his blade hangs an inch from her heart and she is poised light upon her toes and just as still. When motion comes to her it is as a tilt of the head, as her gaze traces fine steel from edge to edge, and when these eyes slowly lift it is with brows raised like a question, and a mouth which smiles, reckless with laughter.

[Altias_Bromn]

A smile.
Reckless.
Laughter.

If there were three things Altias Bromn rarely, if ever, expected from Ariane Emory, these would be the three.

So it was a long moment as his sword hovered between them. Hung like an unasked question, a discarded though, In the silent air. Slowly, the blade would be lowered, sheathed, in what was a practiced motion once more. The man had little else to do staying where he was. Much longer and they would call him a Thesshole too.

He faced her, dressed not unlike she would expect to see a man of business. Smart black leather trousers, a deep green silk shirt, the color of the Winter Solstice tree which would have normally graced the front of his shop. No heeled boots, no outrageous colors, simple black boots, with a smart silver buckle which matched the hammered silver clip that held his crimson locks back from his once more lavender eyes.

"I...did not expected anyone." Least of all, you. "What do you require? I am afraid I've not been here to bake, there is nothing I have to offer." Nothing that has not already been offered, and that was so long ago.

[Carnath-Emory]

His sword is retreating from her flesh, and how she longs to halt its fall. A word might do it. A gesture. A glance, easily misinterpreted.

The smallest thing.

"No doubt," she's murmured softly; a musing sound, a sound to fill the space between one thought and the next; a sound better than swords. For his is away again now, and the sound of its sheathing is a frisson of cool pleasure the length of her spine. "What I require is the answer to the question that is you being here. But not even that," and she's waving aside her own question so easily; a tilt of the gloved hand sets it aside from consideration, and she is already gazing past the green silk of his shoulder, long into the room beyond. "For here you are, mn? I'd expected so many things.

"But never that."

He has her back, when she turns from him: a gentle swirl of long coat-skirts and trailing scarves, gloved fingertips light upon the edge of a door which had never quite closed behind her. Perhaps she imagines that it might be the sword again: there, swift and sweet at that point just below the shoulderblade. Perhaps she gifts him the means to do it, the liberty to do it with ease. She is endlessly more than Violence, a man had said days and weeks ago, and how she had cherished this, these words which were valuable beyond price, but still sometimes, sometimes...

"I would thank you, though." With the head slightly turned; with this glance back across her shoulder's edge. "For your kindness to that Caplin boy. And for your gift. It was - too much. Far too much and far from necessary. But then, you have always been one for excess," and it is with an echo of a smile that she steps past the threshold now, back towards the street and all its cool morning breeze.

Sometimes. But not today.

[Altias_Bromn]

And she is for the door. A part of him wants to reach out and grab her shoulder and spin her around, confront her with every thought that had passed over his mind in these past months. He does not. Another wants to draw that sword and demand she run him through with it. He does not. Instead he offers only the calm voice of a man who has questions. Trivial questions that do not matter really, and because they are so, they are safe.

"Who is this Caplin boy?"

He hopes that will be enough for her to stop, to turn around and be more than a shadow, more than a memory, more than a nightmare.

"What gift is this you speak of? I have sent nothing, to anyone, since my return. Save for cakes, and there was no boy who came for cakes."

Altias Bromn had learned to understand many things in these past months. One of those things is that the woman he once knew was gone. Not even trivial conversations would change that. Still, he did not need more rumor, more suspicion. This must be addressed. And yet, it would be more likely than not that she was already in the wind, and he would likely never see her again.

[Carnath-Emory]

He might yet do this. He might yet confront an errant swordswoman with the storm of ideas and thoughts and inclinations that have had months in which to fester and nurture and burn. He might yet have her by the shoulder just to see what might come of that; she'd been so still before the weight of his sword, after all; so silent. But for now he says a word, and she stops. He says another, and she turns.

"Blake ... Caplin. From that tavern, the boy with the - " a vague gesture towards her own face, towards the scar bisecting one cheek. "A young thing, dark-haired and courteous, come to your bakery with a want for cakes and a shortage of coin. He received," and how the words quieten; slow suspicion fills the spaces between one and the next. "He received his pastries and an errand as well."

There was no boy.

How cold is the wind, channeled through an open doorway and into a bakery that's been deserted for so long. It wreaks merry havoc upon the loose weight of her hair, tangles with trailing scarves; it whispers a pallor into her cheeks. "And are you certain of this." The narrow body advances a step, a second; its fingertips do not quite let the door swing closed again, and perhaps this is only because they require some tangible anchor. "You've been mistaken before."

We both have.

"You've forgotten before. Things, places; even yourself."

You've been possessed by the DreamWitch.

"Are you sure of this? Cakes. A boy. Very unassuming. But it seemed such ill-timing for a gift so - " How gently gloved fingertips tighten upon the door's edge. "For any such thing at all. Be certain, before I manage this."

Because you know.
You know how important it is that I be sure.

[Altias_Bromn]

"Ari..." The name slipped so easily from his tongue that he barely had time to regret it. Even as he leveled his eyes on this wraith of a woman, this ghost of something once known so well.

"I have sent no gift. I have sent no boy with cakes. Save for young Paulie who does all my deliveries. He is ginger haired and a young lad, perhaps ten. I know no Blake Caplin, of this I am certain."

He would watch her then, before turning back toward the interior of the shop. There was a slight motion of his hand, for her to enter, if she wished. It seemed they had something to discuss after all.

"Tell me of this gift...and this boy. I wish to know the detail, so that I may know the devil."

[Carnath-Emory]

Her name upon his lips, and it is not the first she's heard it spoken so; not in these last weeks, not even in these last years, and still -

Still, it is not unlike his eyes, which are so quiet with their watch; quiet even when he speaks. There is something new in the feel of it, something refreshing, and if she had known his thoughts - that he reckons her a wraith, a ghost, how she might have smiled. For that, too, is new and familiar in one and the same moment. A ghost's voice, she'd been once before, to a man who lay wound prone in so many bandages and not quite dying, though his wounds were grievous yet...

A red-haired boy, he says; so very young, he insists, and she is already slowly nodding. Is there a backwards glance for the streets, for their cool, morning air? But this is a fleeting necessity, and if her fingers are reluctant to let the door fall closed behind her it is only because she is of two minds - about this, about so many other things besides. This week, this month. A world which has unfolded just a little further, and its revelations were savage.

"Are you certain?" Even as he motions for her to draw further into his business; even as she advances another step and then the next. Are you sure? But having gone that far she cannot quite be stopped: can make herself into motion now, a slow skirting of the interior walls, step by quiet step. Three years ago she had explored Cambree Swinton's home in this way; here, now, and for not dissimilar reasons. "The boy was as I said: of - such a height," and a hand drags away from a counter's edge to demonstrate Caplin's size. "Simple. Thoughtful. I should have known," a sudden grin cuts his way, fleeting and hard. "The gift was - "

There ought to be a way to put it.
There really is.

"The gift was an excess disguised as a sword. But," she concedes, "a very good one. Choked-up across the ricasso, neatly-balanced along - " A sudden glance. "But you don't care about swords even when you wear one. So," and a tilt of the hand sets this aside. "Well-crafted. Very much bejeweled. I cannot imagine its cost. Excess. And it were two weeks ago that he came to me with this thing and with your name, and it seemed to me unlikely that you might have been here to give it him."

That week having been what it was.

"And so I came to see. Perhaps I was mistaken, mn? Although it seemed the smallest possibility."

[Altias_Bromn]

Excess

He shook his head softly, crimson silk flowing behind him. This was not as it should be, but then with her it never was. It was as if everything they had been through together simply had not been. At least for her. He was the wraith in her eyes. He was the one who could never be trusted, was never more than the freakish little fop. Even now she believed the sword he wore bore no meaning, no skill behind it. It didn't matter anymore.

"A sword. Tell me of it, do you have it with you? Is there anything about it that seems odd, other than the very excess of it? Why do you suppose the boy told you it was from me? Perhaps Thadius?"

No one had told him. He didn't know. Thadius dead and gone, and he had not even had a moment to smile about it. Renne had returned, as had Thadius and he truly believed it was his fault. If only she understood that was why he was leaving. There was a time he would have confided his very last confidence to her. That time was over, she no longer needed the burden he placed upon her. None of them did.

"Do you think perhaps it is some sort of trap?"

Even as he spoke he was gathering things from behind the counter, placing them into a satchel set atop the display case, where once beautiful cakes had been, when things were better, and things were as they should have been. By the door were two large bags, his cloak draped over the top of them. He stopped for a moment and watched her skirt the corners of the room like a stranger. Another shake of his head as he continued to pack.

[Carnath-Emory]

This is how it must be - today. And tomorrow? Tomorrow is its own beast and there is no describing it, and how that irks; a swordswoman has spent a lifetime dreaming of an orderly life, of one day fading seamlessly into the identical next and yet Myrken conspires to defy. Much like everywhere else, it must be admitted. Two years spent in near constant motion had taught her that very well indeed. This is how it must be today: the slow circling of this room and of the crimson-haired man set at the center of it. The flesh is restless, the body demands motion, and it is the only such want that she will not deny it.

"No. It is upon a desk in my home; an hour's ride and more from here. Such a thing - " How it shone. To touch fingers to its steel was to unleash a cascade of gleaming crimson. "I could not wear it, I could barely touch it. Too much - you know?" A glance finds him, holds. "Like - eating with silver forks," and it's softly horrified laughter at the thought of it. "Like drinking a truly aged wine. A thing which is art. You know? Not made for the likes of me. And certainly worthy of better than the paper it was wrapped in. But there was nothing odd, nothing that had me to suspect, else I'd have been here days ago, I'd - "

A thin shake of the head. And she's lingering a moment by two bags; has dropped into a loose-limbed crouch by the pair, gloved fingertips light upon their blanketing cloak. "Perhaps the one who gave it him gave him your name as well; a boy newly come to Myrken mightn't know, mn? My error," another glance, lips flattening. "I might have had him describe the Altias which he came upon here. I might have bade him lead me back here and immediately. But this is easily remedied; they employ him at that tavern, and I will have better answers from him come morning - by asking better questions." Quiet satisfaction in the sound of that then, and in the texture of her eyes when she lifts her head towards him a second time. "Thadius will not feature. Thadius Dhrin is as dead as I know how to kill a thing. Nothing remains with which to wake him a third time over. Not blood nor bone nor even ash."

The words are warm with kindless pleasure, but hers are hands which can be gentle despite it; which have traced gloved palms across this cloak and what hides beneath it, back and forth and then slowly once again. A trap, he says, and her eyes betray her with an instant's real alarm: "It had best not be. That thing is in my home; we have a room for things which might be dangerous and it is not there - "

Catches herself, then. On an indrawn breath swallows that back, exhaling breath and her concerns in a single, slow sigh. "I think - I think - "

Quieter then, this upwards glance; it lingers.

"Tell me. What do you think of souls."

[Altias_Bromn]

An orderly life? In Myrken? If he could have heard such a thought he would have laughed outright. There was no such thing in this place. To his knowledge there never had been. The only order a person had in Myrken was order of their own making and most times even that was not safe for long. It was partially for this reason that the bags sat by the door, and the stachel was being filled with trinkets and potions and ...nonsense really.

It was good that she did not have the blade with her, likely she would have stabbed him with it at some point. Some sort of strange poetic justice. It was like a fine wine, fancy cutlery. How very lyrical all that was, for someone who could barely string two words together not so long ago. Comparing paper to the masterpiece within, it was so very, odd, to hear her speak it.

"Perhaps...Perhaps the person who intended it for you also intended you to come find me. It could be that this is part of something more. Or perhaps you merely have an admirer who wishes to place the blame on me. Goodness knows the whole province knows how much..."

He trails off then, with another shake of his head. He notes that she is inspecting the bags, but says nothing for now.

As she sets the news before him, like nothing more than another day in Myrken, and perhaps in all reality it was, Thadius Dhrin is dead. Not just dead, but destroyed. No bone, no blood, not even ash. Well, that was something then wasn't it?

"How did he die then?"

It was a simple enough question, but he doubted the answer would be simple. It never was. Never. Not here. Not between them. He had seen Thadius Die, he had killed Thadius. And yet the monster walked not a month ago. Still, he needed answers and she would provide them because no one understood like she did what he had suffered at that man's hands. How they both had suffered.

And then she speaks of the thing being in her home, of the trap it might be, and then there is this. Talk of souls from a woman who knows no Gods. A woman who would have dismissed such a thought as fancy and childhood stories when he knew her. Which had been so very long ago. As her eyes meet his, he does not look away, instead he comes around from behind the counter and crouches in front of the display case, bringing them eye to eye, though across the room.

"I think, Ariane, that the discussion of souls is a long one, and one best not had while we sit here waiting for our knees to buckle and betray us for the aged warriors we have become."

There is a wink then, almost playful, as he rises.

"Come then, if you wish to discuss this. Upstairs it is warm, and there is a bottle of Xanth brandy. We can talk about souls, and about the deaths of madmen, if you trust me."

[Carnath-Emory]

An orderly life. In Myrken; in Thessilane; in 'r'Chy'laud, in E'strielle, in any province at all. One place, she'd said to Calomel months ago - in the midst of chess and candelabras and very questionable wine - is not so much unlike another, as concerns strife and trouble and even the wholesale absence of order. Every nation has its monster, every man has his villain. Sometimes, passing a windowed shopfront, he catches a glimpse of its eyes...

"Mm. Is that half a gift's purpose? The paper is opened and inside waits a thing which says: Come to me." So that she's half-smothering laughter against the back of one hand, but the eyes are gone lively with it nonetheless. "And I suppose I did," she adds, just to explain such wry amusement, with a gesture down towards her own self, crouched loose upon the floor of Altias Bromn's bakery. "If I have an admirer," and it is difficult to shape the word; her lips manage it with a difficulty just short of distaste, "then it has wasted its time and mine, and very strangely at that. Very expensively. As for - "

But here she defers. The whole province knows, he'd begun, a statement that could have been concluded in so many different ways, and her lips have parted upon the verge of answers, of questions; no, the small, deft motion of the hand again. This, too, can be set aside.

"Thadius Dhrin died - very quickly; better than he deserved, mn? And very thoroughly, but - " But. For it is easy to lapse into silence when a man does the unexpected thing: sinks down into a crouch that is some crimson-haired mirror of her own, and from some particular remove. It simplifies. It eases almost everything. And a part of her would like to retain this for a while: to linger in this easy moment, with all the space in the world and something distracting for her hands to explore and the two of them like distant mirrors, each of the other. She would like to. And yet there are words, and there is an invitation which she is of a mind to resist until the idea of doing so begins to feel like outright cowardice. It is a thoughtful glance for him then: for this man, for the staircase just past his shoulder. The eyes cannot choose between one and the other, the features cannot decide between interest and a certain quiet caution. It is the will which chooses ultimately, unfolding the narrow body up to its full height, and her motion is decisive then: directly past him, to ascend that staircase without further hesitation. "Of all the things which might have betrayed me," she murmurs as she passes, "it has never been my flesh."

The stairwell is a swallowing darkness.
She is not adverse.

"Tell me." Four steps ascended and pausing, a palm pressed flat to the wall and her eyes turned back towards the man below. "Tell me, if you would, what - precisely - the whole province knows."

[Altias_Bromn]

For now he would ignore the talk of the gift, for there were more pressing matters. The gift was there. In her home,far from here, and they had so many things that they would speak of, of much more importance than a fancy sword with gleamed with gems of fire. Fire and broken glass. The two of them would be thought mad if others were to watch their conversation, each half finished thought, each unspoken word, dismissed with a wave of the hand. Hers would nearly mime his, as she also dismissed her thoughts on his half finished sentence.

As he crouched she spoke of death, and deserving. Oh that was a subject they could speak on for hours now wasn't it? Who deserved to die. How they deserved to die. How many times might they point fingers at one another? Quickly, she said, though not the how, or the why, and that smacked of too little information. A woman who should be reveling in his death, and she has no detail, no story, to go with the news that should be sung from the rooftops.

'Of all the things that might have betrayed me, it has never been my flesh'

Oh and that stung, just a little. Were the words for him? Who could say, but being the man that he was, he felt them. He knew what he had done, and there was so much she could hate him for, so much that would make her not trust him.

And she is moving then for the stairs, and the soft glow of oil lamps at the top, the stairwell still a narrow and nearly pitch black thing. And then she pauses, turning to place a hand on the wall as she hovered there above him, and she asks such a thing. Of all the things he had said, or tried not to say, she chooses this? Very well then.

There is a dramatic cant of his head to one side here in the shadows as he seeks the glitter of her gaze with his own. A soft, almost bitter, laugh.

"That I loved you, of course"

And he is ducking beneath her hand, her outstretched arm, and proceeding up the stairwell to the room above.

His room is much like she might have remembered the room at the meeting house. Silks and velvets, hues of royalty, violet, red, emeralds and silvers. A curtained bed, a large writing desk. On a small table near the desk are two chairs, a bottle of Xanth brandy and two beautiful glasses. Xanth aritsans no doubt, he did have a love for pretty things.

He would sit, and offer the other chair to her, as he pours two glasses of the rich dark brandy.

"You wanted to talk about souls. Let us first talk about how Thadius Dhrin died. Who killed him, and why?"

He would bully right past the short conversation on the stairs, knowing full well she would rather not discuss it now that she had the answer she sought, and it was an answer she would have little care to dwell on.

[Carnath-Emory]

The stairwell. In the wake of a weapon's sentiments and a woman's quiet depiction of a monster's dispatching. Where, of all the things she might have chosen, she questions the statement that seemed likely to be brief; everything else could wait, but this could be had first - and right here, right here within his stairwell's dark confines. Reflected light from below illuminates her features only in small fragments: a throat's edge, an eye's grey colour; a glimpse of skin, pale and deeply corrugated. This is the way that she will listen as he laughs, as he speaks his short, hard answer, and in its wake she has turned her face from even that that pale light. Swallowed by darkness, a body flattens itself against the wall as a man slips past, and theirs is a dance not without some strange, quiet grace. He precedes her, and the swordswoman will not speak further until she has emerged from that dark herself, and into an opulence as familiar as breathing.

What had she said to her friend so long ago? When this had been her sickroom; when she'd sat just there in borrowed silk, teaching a leg how to walk again and a body to not fear its pain. He has simply relocated the Governorship from there to here, she'd said, or something like it, and the word he'd given her in return was Translocation. A simpler, cleaner way of saying that elegance follows the man wherever he goes: that these were never the trappings of government but only his own influence, his own mark upon the office and upon his home. Are you certain?, she'd asked Altias as he invited her into his home and there were so many reasons for that but this is foremost: that to step into a person's rooms is to step into their self.

Familiar as breathing.

"Have you not spoken with Lamai?" Perhaps it is the room; perhaps it is his manner; either way he has startled her for the first in a very long time, for that's an honest blink of the pale eyes, a frowning glance turned upon him. "But no, perhaps not. Her brother," and on that matter she can say no more; need only nod her head and only once. "Know this then: that he was slain by Dhrin's hand; that Lamai has avenged him by slitting that chyort thing's throat. And that after," as his blood spilled over her fingers, sudden and hot and sweet, "there came a - person, or perhaps an apparition, and of this you must ask her when she is of a mind to speak of it, for clearly this man knew her well and it were for her sake that he came. Whatever the case he urged upon me the means to destroy what remained of that Dhrin. So he claimed, and when I did with this thing as he bade, it - his flesh - fell away beneath my hands, one piece and then the next, and of a sudden all of it gone so completely that there were not blood nor bone remaining of him; there were less left of him than even if we had given that corpse to a pyre."

It is a long recounting. It has left her breathless - with words; with fierce, warm pride. She has not sat throughout it but only rested her palms upon the back of that chair, and when one dislodges now it's to retrieve the glass he'd poured for her and sip more hastily of its contents than they deserve; the wry twist of a smile concedes this. "Now," when she has caught her breath and calmed the set of her features.

"Souls."