[CLOSED] With a little blackmail from my friends

[bribon]

WHO: Astrid and Desidério
WHAT: Making friends in the Ambassadoria
WHEN: Now
WHERE: Minrathous, Tevinter.
NOTES: ooc info

He's never been to Minrathous. Not many people from the South have, he would guess. But a city is a city is a city, and he'll happily take two turns around enemy territory sooner than he would care to spend any more time traversing the Crossroads. There's something unsettling about the latter—a strangeness that drags at the flesh and makes his feet heavy. And so Desidério had been, against all reason, instantly relieved the moment he and Astrid had exited the eluvian.

It helps that he's Antivan and she's big enough to legitimize whatever dumb story he spools out for who the fuck ever might ask. 'Oh this? My bodyguard, on account of the fact that I'm working for an Antivan tradesman looking to renegotiate contacts with the north in spite of the sanction that no Antivan trade west of the Arlathans.' Or maybe, 'Oh her? She's clearly an Ander warrior late of the front line. I was a mercenary stationed near Starkhaven and we fell madly in love while she ransacked the Marches, and we've come back to Minrathous to cash in our war loot.' Or even, given a few days of extreme boredom watching the comings and going of the Ambassadoria and having gleaned enough unearned confidence to be a little curt, 'Fuck off, can't you see I'm busy?'

And so on. They have been able to move about the city and lazily survey their best prospects relatively unimpeded so long as they'd used good sense.

Arguably, this—the part where they are presently waiting to jump Lemmit Nista's brother on his way to his less than legal rendezvous—is not that. But only arguably. Which Desidério loves to do, hence why he is working through a few practice rationalizations in case there are questions when they return to Kirkwall.

"My other argument," he says to his companion from inside her shadow. They are both loitering just at the mouth of the alley with a clear view of the corner around which the younger Nista will come skulking. Desidério at least looks perfectly innocuous. He is presently eating an apple, speaking between bites. "Is that we've come all this way, and it would be a shame not to take the opportunity."

(This is his second tack. His first one had been 'We knock over the younger brother, get some evidence, and then present it to the clerk as blackmail. Easily done. They both fold like cheap paper. We trot back to Kirkwall with the assistant eating out of our palm to protect his status and an Ambassadoria guard as a bonus. I all but guarantee it. Who could complain about that?')

Comments

[brennvin]

Patience is a virtue, and Astrid is normally quite good at it: sprawled in the woods waiting for her prey, in contemplative silence with nothing but the wind in the trees and the crack of twigs underfoot, the movement of a deer bolting, the satisfying tension in her bow. Not this: a bustling city with too many godsdamned people on every corner, bustling crowds and noise, strangers knocking into her shoulder walking by, them scowling at her, and her scowling back.

And normally, she doesn’t have a restless Desidério chattering away in her ear. The problem with this is that the longer he talks, the more his logic wriggles through all the cracks and crannies and chips away at her until his ideas sound like the very height of good sense.

The Nistas are surface dwarves, which means they are the easiest to get to. Some of the other targets at the Ambassadoria barely even go aboveground. Even when they peer through a spyglass at the windows of the Nista family home, it’s not particularly interesting (“Does he ever do anything but paperwork?”) — so it had been, frankly, a relief to realise the younger sibling had an interesting side-hustle.

After days of dull monitoring, she’s going a little insane and feels about ready to kidnap a guard.

“Listen, you can’t guarantee jackshit,” Astrid says, peaceably. She’s slouched against a wall in this quieter alley, using a knife to absentmindedly pick at and pare down her nails. Bonus: she’ll be able to use it later for little flips and spins and looking really cool and intimidating. “But I do think it’s worth trying. Like, what else are we gonna say in our report otherwise? ‘They never leave the godsdamned embassy and their favourite souvla stand is three streets away, sorry, we don’t have any more intel than that’?”

Which, by the way: “—also, after this, we’re getting grilled meat on sticks. That stand looked really good.”

[bribon]

He suspects—and this is maybe an uncharitablr thought, but he is often prone to them so what can be done?—that the Scoutmaster might actually prefer that version of the report. This is risky, and maybe technically falls somewhat outside the margins of their orders, and if they fuck it up then someone somewhere is going to know that Riftwatch has its eye on the Ambassadoria. Also they're in enemy territory and maybe if they get caught, they die very embarrassing ignoble deaths.

But that all seems mutable by the very simple tenet of Don't Fuck It Up. So no problem.

"Yes, yes. Meat on sticks. A cold beer. A pat on the ass." Cold beers are a good Tevene invention, actually. Maybe mages should rule unequivocally over all the poor peasants and slaves after all.

[brennvin]

Don’t Fuck It Up is such a broad umbrella that Astrid’s feeling fairly (or unfairly) optimistic about their chances. There’s a slightly wistful, dreamy cast to her voice as she says, “A pat on the ass from the Scoutmaster. Could you imagine?”

There’s a definite sense of if only: the new girl vibrating with earnestness and admiration, hoping to come back with something useful for their boss like a dog offering a particularly juicy bone. Also, Yseult’s hot.

As she trims a cuticle, she muses through their plan aloud. “So, you handle the talking and getting the details. And what if we turn him upside down and shake out his pockets and get an example of whatever he’s been smuggling out? Like, they’re not gonna believe we successfully got into the Ambassadoria and stole this shit. D’you think that’ll do as evidence to rattle the brother?”

[bribon]

Not for the first time, Desidério is struck with a twinge of homesickness. Imagine—if he wasn't stuck with an anchor in his right hand (presently very hidden under the thickest short glove he owns), he might even now be making polite inquiries with overdue debtors while Alvez, that affable fuck, hung them off a footbridge over one of the city's more ominous waterways by their thumbs. Ah, the simple life! What is Alvez up to now, he wonders? Hopefully finding comfort for the absence of his dearest and most reliable source of income in the arms of the bustiest Chantry sister one might feasibly locate in Seleny.

"I like the turning upside down part," he says before taking a sizable chomp from his apple. Nista Junior is due any moment now, and he doesn't care to waste it. He continues with the apple in his cheek, "That should do. I don't expect we need to be taking off any fingers and wagging them under anyone's nose. They're surface dwarves working in the Ambassadoria. They'll be jumpy to keep their places. Flinchers."

A bright turn of color across the street briefly catches his eye, pulling his attention from the corner to a woman hurrying along opposite. The underlayers of her skirts are bright red to emphasize a jubilant flash of thigh, a thrilling reminder that summer isn't so distant after all.

"But we should be careful not to say who we're—" working for, he's going to say. Only his attention has wandered back and: "Shit, there he is."

[brennvin]

“Oh,” she says, and “Places!” and instantly straightens from her affable slouch.

By now, Astrid Runasdotten has seen some of those cheap plays in Lowtown. Has never performed in one herself, and therefore her air is that of an amateur thespian in community theater who is very excited to tackle her first-ever part. She rearranges her expression into what she hopes is appropriately intimidating: it’s easier beneath the chalky-white paint she’s applied specially for today, black raccoon smears dripping below her eyes, casting the angles of her face in black and white.

(She’s usually easy to smile, easy to laugh, and so today means playing something else, her bit part and supporting role as Glowering Avvar Bodyguard #1.)

She positions herself behind Desidério, enough that her shadow looms behind him in the too-narrow alleyway. They take their appointed places in time before a burly dwarf guard comes striding around the corner, with quick brisk steps as if he’s in a hurry (Niska the Younger is always in a hurry), and so he walks right into Desidério. Collides with him, then bounces backward, looking up affronted.

The details are there for sharp eyes: Niska’s in hand-me-down armour, not very well-maintained, lazy; but there’s also finely-made new boots, expensive beard oils glistening in his hair. If I ever won the lottery, I won’t tell anybody but there will be signs, etc.

He mutters a curse in Orzammarian, then slips back into Trade to growl at the man blocking the alley mouth. “What are you, stuck in sand,” Niska grumbles. “Can’t you see I’m headed somewhere?”

There is something canny in the dwarf’s expression, though: a slow-dawning suspicion as the human doesn’t move out of the way, and Astrid crooks a slow smile at him over Desi’s shoulder.

[bribon]

There is a kind of mathematics to this. Not that he should be the one mentally opining about numbers and figures—he'd always been rather poor with them, his education being somewhat piecemeal at best—, but his gut is better at calculations than his head is. What happens when you stop a man in a narrow alley, glower at him like a pair of cutthroats, and refuse to make way for him to pass? It's not exactly calculus, now is it?

"As a matter of fact, we can," Desidério remarks cheerfully, making a motion as if to draw either the sword or the knife at his hip.

The point being that when the younger Niska finds the fraction of sense he may possess and makes to break back toward the mouth of the alley—fuck this—, Desidério's foot is there to trip him. The hand diverts. Catches at the neck of Niska's armor and shoves.

Inspiring sudden panic can be a tricky prospect when it comes to men who carry things like Ambassadoria short swords and belt knives. Usually involves some dicey wiggling out of the way of being stabbed. But worth the risk, probably, to put Niska on the back foot.

Whatever. There's two of them and one of him. That's not difficult arithmetic either.

[brennvin]

Niska goes flying forward to the ground, but his center of gravity is very low to begin with, so he ducks, rolls, and pops back up like a jack-in-the-box. What ensues then is desperate and shambolic and more than a little inelegant: Niska’s metal-booted feet flailing, the dwarf shin-kicking, knee-biting, squirming and thrashing to get away from the pair of them.

He almost makes it, too, with one particularly solid and painful-looking kick to the Antivan’s knee, before Astrid’s slipped past them to block the exit in a pincer movement. Two on one, this should work. Flushing out prey, she thinks. It’s just like nug-wrestling, she thinks.

Which means eventually finally wrangling her arms through Niska’s and temporarily pinning him to the wall in front of Desi. “You good?” she asks, looking at the man, while more Orzammarian oaths and spitting curses emit from the flailing mess of limbs which she is, quite literally, holding above the ground.

[bribon]

Desidério's "Owfuck" is mostly lost under the crunch of Nista's armor and the scrape of metal plated boot heels. But by the time Astrid has the dwarf pinned to the wall, the instant surge of pain has given way to a more buzzing kind of adrenaline. His knee's going to blow up like a balloon. Later, he will regret delivering a swift kick right back to Nista's own flopping leg.

Invest in heavier boots, he thinks to himself about the disappointing thump and mild grunt of reproach it elicits.

"Please. It takes more than that," Desidério assures everyone involved, himself included.

He props his arm jauntily against the wall, then, leaning casually into the space in order to be more or less eye-level with their new friend. That it involves casually shifting the weight off his one leg is definitely merely a bonus.

"Now then, let's try this again. And don't you spit at me," he hastily adds, detecting some tell-tale flex of the dwarf's cheek behind his dense whiskers. "Or my partner will take offense."

Nista squirms sullenly against Astrid's grip. Some unpadded part of his armor scrapes at the wall.

"My purse is on my left hip. Take it and go."

Desidério tilts his attention to Astrid. Puts on a 'That's so cute' grin with too many teeth. "He thinks we're robbing him."

[brennvin]

“Our day would be soooo much shorter if we were.”

Astrid’s not a natural actress, but she has worked to bluff and intimidate others before: if you’re a lone woman in the woods running into bandits, it pays to scowl and puff yourself up bigger and let them think twice about stealing your shit. So she’s settling back into this play, this act: drop your voice a little to a lower register, sound very cool and dangerous, and look like you wouldn’t mind planting your very scary barbarian axe in a person’s skull rather than just an animal’s.

It is an act, of course, but Avigd Nista doesn’t have to know that.

“No, my buddy here’s interested in your ex-tra-cur-ric’lar activities,” she says, punching in the unfamiliar syllables, as her grip tightens around his chest.

“My… what?” Nista says after a pause, unconvincingly. “I dunno what you’re talking about.”

Astrid stares meaningfully at Desidério over the dwarf’s head.