Hunt A Crow

[imbroccata]

WHO: Byerly, Fitcher, Lino, Yseult
WHAT: Hunting down and killing Lino for being a shitlord
WHEN: mid-late Solace
WHERE: Denerim
NOTES: violence and death, but don’t worry; lino won’t succeed in murdering a child

Here’s the sitch:

• Early in the month of Solace, an Antivan Crow by the name of Gio will visit the Gallows. They’ll snoop around briefly but mostly they’ll seek to parlay with leadership. Turns out, Lino is on their shit-list and Gio has been sent to kill him. Gio sees an opportunity for Riftwatch to get some approval points with Antiva and the Crows. Why not just kill him yourselves? Save Gio the trouble, yeah? They can’t offer the name of Lino’s contractor or target, but they give a location: Denerim.


• By the looks of it, Lino barely has a day’s lead, having scarpered as soon as he got wind of Gio being at the Gallows.


• To make matters worse, Denerim has decided to hold a cèilidh, at which all manner of folk will be in attendance. Queen Anora will be making an appearance, and lesser nobility from all across Ferelden will be there. It’s a veritable smorgasbord of assassinatible targets. Byerly will have gotten word of this celebration. Stands to reason that whoever Lino’s target is going to be at the cèilidh.


• Your mission, whether or not you accept it, is to leg it to Denerim as fast as you can and stop Lino. Kill him. Stop him from killing his target. Feel free to get yourselves a funnel cake or two from the shindig.

Comments

[bouchonne]

Byerly actually quite adores sailing. He has a steady stomach, and he's charmed by the sea in all its variability. And sailors are quaint and charming. And so, in spite of the tension of this mission, in spite of - well - everything, he turns towards Fitcher with a droll smile.

"Life," he responds simply, with a gesture of his long fingers to indicate the applicability of that lesson to the whole of existence.

[unshut]

Turning her face into the wind, she chuckles with one hand set delicately against at her middle as if worried laughing might somehow remind her stomach of the last seventy two hours and so risk resuming all manner of unpleasantness.

"What a pessimist you are." Her eyeline slides sideways to him. "You're not displeased with me, are you?"

[bouchonne]

"Whyever should I be?"

He props himself up on the rail, elbows braced, hands dangling, face likewise turned into the wind. Face turned, not coincidentally, away from her, which has the effect of obscuring his expression, not giving her any cues until he's heard how she'd tell this story.

[unshut]

It doesn't keep her from looking for them. Fitcher makes brief study of the line where his dark hair ends at the back of his jungle-ruddy neck, the forward line of his shoulders, and decides on, "Well, it's hardly as if I simply overlooked mentioning once scrubbing floors for a living. Some people find the whole business distasteful."

She drums her fingers absently at her center, then offers this too: "That it would seem I didn't trust you with it."

[bouchonne]

And what a hypocrite he would be if he despised her for that. Hah.

"You say it would seem as though that were not the reality," he responds. His voice is light - loud enough to carry over the spray, not so loud as to strain. He wonders if there's any remorse over that choice. He wonders if there is any part of her that would be actually disappointed to lose his regard, or if it would be something that would leave her utterly unbothered.

"Perhaps you simply thought I would have assumed it," he says. "Antivans, after all."

[unshut]

"Perhaps. Though Crows out of Antiva are, as it turns out, usually looking for someone." Present circumstances being something of a case in point. "I should hope that had you'd suspected something, you might have mentioned it to someone."

From this angle, there is hardly anything by which to measure him by.

"Must I continue to address the back of your charming head, Byerly?"

[bouchonne]

Too churlish to continue to look away from her after that rebuke. So he swivels his head back around, smiling in a manner that is lightly puzzled - as though surprised that she'd chide him for merely taking the breeze.

"I did not think you an ordinary clerk," he says, "to be fair."

[unshut]

"I'm flattered."

No she isn't. Standing there beside him, moving beneath her lightness and good cheer, lurks some ripple of uncertainty. Or wariness. Or regret. Or some other thing.

[bouchonne]

"You don't look it." He smiles crookedly. "Dismayed, perhaps, that you are not as subtle as you hoped?"

[unshut]

"No. I'm rather remarkable for a clerk," she agrees.

[bouchonne]

That pulls a laugh out of him. No false modesty from her, ever.

"So what brings you displeasure, dear Fitcher?"

[unshut]

No avoidance either, except for when it's amusing. It would be easy to turn her head and study the horizon before them or to take in the complexities of the various ropes and canvas about them, but she just looks at him.

"I told you about my soft heart. I've enjoyed this little thing between us, and would prefer not to have wounded you by way if it. The subject of arrows and hearts notwithstanding."

[bouchonne]

Is that true? He turns his gaze more fully towards her. Is there irony lurking in the corners of her sharp eyes? A twist of humor in her tone? The thing about an assassin, he thinks, is that they are fundamentally straightforward. A spy is a liar. But an assassin just does her job.

"To claim the right to feel wounded would be...presumptuous," he responds, his voice measured. "We made no guarantees of honesty with one another." And that is true. Surpassingly true. They are not lovers - not, of course, that lovers are more honest with one another than friends; quite the opposite - they are not wed; they are merely sometime companions. Players in a strange little game. That is all.

[unshut]

"I've found there is a great deal of difference between having the supposed right to feel wounded and the reality involved with the pain of the thing."

Her long hand has flattened at her center, a quiet thing. How good that it is daylight out and not that she'd come to him at night. There might have been an inclination to tip him off the side of the boat then, which would do no one any good at all. Yseult would suspect something. Bastien would be upset. More importantly, whatever secrets Byerly keeps she suspects them to be a different kind to the ones she'd originally thought.

This is true: that it's a shame to end something for no reason.

"All the same, I have been remarkably honest when you've asked. I wouldn't care for this to change how you heard those answers."

[bouchonne]

"Remarkably honest," he echoes, his tone droll in spite of himself. "What a world we live in, that honesty is able to be remarkable."

So says the liar. No; he has no right.

So he offers her a shrug. He intends to offer her a reassurance, but instead what comes out is a question: "Was it painful? To be that person?"

[unshut]

Now there is a question with an easy, ready answer. She shrugs in reply.

"Depending on the day."

[bouchonne]

"Hm." He understands that. "What days were the good days?"

[unshut]

"Some people deserve it and the world is better without them in it. Those were good days." And here, a tip of the head - some sliver of off the cuff lightness. "And you go lots of places and see many things and share in excellent company."

He hasn't asked yet, and maybe he won't. But let her offer him something: "But sometimes the people are just desperate. And there are times I miss Treviso."

See, that's all true too. In a sense.

[bouchonne]

He thinks of what it feels like to kill a person. He wonders how soft he is, that he cannot imagine taking pleasure even from those who deserve it. He must make do with petty vengeances, because he doesn't have the stomach for the stronger ones. How strange, that Fitcher does.

"So how did you come to it?" It's a safe enough question.

[unshut]

"My husband was a troubled man."

Safe is relative.

[bouchonne]

That's too enticing an opening, though. He quirks an eyebrow, impossibly curious.

[unshut]

She breathes out a laugh, and here lets herself look away. A high flash of humor - he is relentless - and something else less easy. When she looks back to him, she has made up her mind.

"Come below with me."

She touches his elbow, a little thing, then draws back from both him and the rail.

[bouchonne]

He wonders why. They do have privacy up here, of a sort - but, well, it would be quite rude to refuse, wouldn't it?

He tips his chin up, acquiescing, then follows her.

[unshut]

The little passenger cabin is as all little passenger cabins are - cramped, stifled, with the only light afforded there being from a lantern which requires lighting once they arrive. There's hardly room for them both in it.

"Sit, would you," Fitcher says, nodding to the narrow little bunk while dredging the cabin door (which disagrees with being closed) shut behind them.

Then she promptly sets to undoing the series of buttons down the side of her bodice.

[bouchonne]

Ah.

His lips part, and his brows draw down. He finds himself dangerously, absurdly close to protesting, as though virtue is something that concerns him. But - no; he stops himself. If she wants to finally, finally screw, who is he to protest? Even if this is...not precisely the best spot for it. But maybe it helps with seasickness? Perhaps?

He sits.