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[CLOSED]
WHO: Character(s) Marcoulf and Benedict
WHAT: C is for casual extortion.
WHEN: Now
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: n/a, will add if necessary
WHAT: C is for casual extortion.
WHEN: Now
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: n/a, will add if necessary
[It's difficult to say when exactly it begins and at first it could be construed purely as coincidence, but at some point a paticular narrow man begins to make regular appearances on the margins of a certain chamberlain's work. He happens to be assisting some girl from the laundry bringing up fresh linens to a room being remade for a new guest; he is conveniently stationed at the bottom of some stairwell well frequented in the business of running the Gallows day to day; and so on.
Today, Marcoulf is sitting in the shade of some narrow side courtyard that Benedict happens to be passing through. He has his legs stretched out before him and a handkerchief with a half eaten heel of bread inside it spread on the bench beside him to suggest his time here may simply be some idle moment taken between work. He isn't following anyone; he certainly isn't a spy. But Marcoulf does look up when Benedict passes into the yard and nothing on his narrow face indicates he's at all surprised to see him there.]
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"Does she not know how we are treated? Does she not know that this could kill us? To ask her own son - "
It takes her a moment, a second, so visibly livid through her whole body. "And no one but Marcoulf and your mother knows?"
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He doesn't know the answer to the following questions, all save for the last. He gives a timid shake of his head in response: no one else knows.
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And there is nothing comforting in it, she stares, jaw clenched hard, fingers twitching in a curl around nails against her palm as she steadies herself against it. Something boiling over, flat and sharp all at once. Sitting in the pit of her stomach and churning about. Like lava sitting deep below the surface until, inevitably -
"Marcoulf." It's barked in a battlefield voice, "here. Now."
Lets him get close, lets him get near. Held so still, so ready, it could only be winding up to something.
Slap. The strike isn't hard, but it's sharp and quick, stinging against Benedict's cheek. Then, again Slap. Across Marcoulf's just the same. Nevermind that they both stand over her comfortably. Sharply in both their face with one threatening, pointed finger. Stepping in close so they didn't dare think they were getting away from her in this moment.
"The pair of you, I should drag you in front of Coupe for your idiocy if I there was a punishment for it. What were you thinking? You - " Her finger jabs harsh into Benedict's chest. "You are a mage, you should know the danger of those things better than even I do to go playing near a rift! Let alone to get yourself marked by one." And before Marcoulf can think he's gotten away, her voice rising with each word as it leaves her mouth, losing that polished edge where her temper gets to her, the thickness of her own accent coming through the angrier she becomes. Her finger pointing threateningly in Marcoulf's face, direct for him to not look anywhere else - "And you! Warning about hurting Magni, about nobles games, damn near get your hand cut off in battle, and you go and do something that could get you killed! Around a rift, then trying to trick a noble. You could be executed and you damn well know it if he had called anyone but me! Then what would you do? What?" The rest, the rest it is probably best that it stops being in common language because it becomes quickly less pleasant. Questions that they clearly weren't going to answer any time soon, not for their own reasons, because damn if she was going to let either of them get a word in right now.
"The pair of you - Chootiya!" One she goes for another minute, until she has to stop, swallow, taking a steadying breath. "Did you two want to die? Who's going to bury your bodies if you had kept this up? It wouldn't have been me! Wasting everything you have both have done, could do, on this!"
Because the fear of it, for them, for what could have happened to them, if this kept on the way it had, is genuine to that point - even if she has no other recourse for expressing that fear in these moments than this.
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Now pressing his own palm to his face (his beautiful face), he shrinks away from her as best he can for someone half a foot taller, alternatingly nodding and shaking his head and shrugging and looking like he's about to cry.
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"You both went to a rift that no-one else knows about," she says, softly, "and made a point of saying it had nothing to do with the battle." That horrifying mess of a battle. It seems convenient, really, a suspicious underlining of how it had nothing to do with the battle and its outcome, and she looks to Lakshmi.
Do you seriously believe this?
"We've both been made fools of. In the best case, you have faith in a gutless coward with no spine, and I had faith in a friend who thinks only of himself." In the worst case? She dreads to think.
She shakes her head, and starts walking.
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(Something feels so wrong in the whole picture she paints that it saws at his nerves. That's not how it went. You have it strung together out of order. Most importantly, she should know all of it on her own without him saying so. That she doesn't is--)
Anyway.
There's a night bird somewhere in the ramparts. He can hear the sound of it calling under the sound of Magni drawing away.
"Have we finished here, Madame Bai?"
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But then, there is no helping it. Anything that could be said, has been said, and anything that matters - no longer has a chance. She looks over the pair of them, over Magni's retreating back, and rubs a hand over her face.
"Enough, then. Go back to your quarters." She has a headache if nothing else. "I will come by in the morning, Benedict, to sort that out." She sighs, looks over Marcoulf briefly. "You hurt her, I think." And that - that is all that needs to be said, the memory of the weight after the battle.
With that she flicks her fingers, waving them off. Dismissing them both from being yelled at, at least, anymore.
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Glancing sheepishly at Lakshmi, he finds the unfairness of it welling in him-- hadn't he asked her for help, only to be shouted at like some kind of servant child?-- but there's no need to be impetuous, not when she looks like she's ready to take someone's head off.
Scowling, he casts a glance at Marcoulf before beginning to slink away, left hand tucked under his right arm again.
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He looks at her in the uneasy shadow of the narrow courtyard. There's something cutting in the lines of his expression. I didn't ask her to come.
Then he's gone too: slipping off through the dark and away.