[closed]

[ophidia]

WHO: Richard Gecko, Loxley, Gwenaëlle Baudin, Seth Gecko, Richard Dickerson
WHAT: Richie and Loxley are trailing the same guy, shit goes sideways for both of them
WHEN: Time is a social construct
WHERE: Kirkwall -> Gallows
NOTES: Blood, violence

It's a clinical pragmatism and cool acceptance of what he is that has Richard calling this hunting. He could easily pretend otherwise - it wasn't like tailing a mark was a practice he'd only learnt on being turned, after all. But it's the result that makes it different. A job would end with a score. A hunt ends with a kill. There's no hiding from the reality of that.

The skills are the same though. Recon first, hanging around the various taverns, blending in with the usual patrons while he watches and listens. Chooses the mark. Tails them for a couple of nights, learns their patterns and habits. Then, it's location.

He'd had it down to a fine art long before Kisa, and long before Kirkwall. Sure, it had needed some adaptation here, but now it's been three months. He's ironed out the kinks. Has it down smooth as silk. And Seth hasn't needed to get involved once.

So he'll argue it's confidence, not complacency that has him failing to notice this particular slaver has another tail. Quickening his pace to bear down on him as he takes a left into Richard's chosen alley, not seeing that there's another shadow following in both their wakes.

Comments

[charmoffensive]

Surely, one of the biggest benefit's to Gecko's routine and its smoothing out is how little anyone gives a fuck about what happens in Darktown.

This portion of Kirkwall was a mine, and once everything of value was extracted from its depth, everything (and everyone) considered worthless sloughed down into it instead. A warren of dark tunnels, larger chambers dug into the stone, cloaked in miasma that no one should be breathing for very long. The echoes of voices seem to come from every direction, shouts and whispers and sometimes just inarticulate wailing.

Loxley's business does not take him down here too often, but certainly not never, and more than he'd like it to. It takes him down here tonight, because that is where Quileni, the man he is tailing, has chosen to go.

It's warm down here, humid and feverish, and the cloak he is wearing doesn't help. The edge of his hood is generous enough to cover his head and sit over his horns without giving him away, the ratty drape of it hiding the fine rapier he has lashed to his belt. He curls his hand thoughtfully around the hilt as he—too late—notices that another figure is following along with more purpose than he realised.

Well—

He speeds up, footsteps near-silent.