Cian (thebettingsort) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-02-19 09:40:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !log, cian wilde, siri d'albis |
Who: Cian & Siri
What: A walk along the rooftopps
Where: The Bazaar
When: After this
Rating: R-ish? Warnings for violence, mention of murder, horrible language, Cian (if he doesn’t have a warning he probably should)
Status: Complete
Tonight she wore not her usual red, but white, a comfortable warm cloak that was smooth (silk) with wet edges from her walk from the Tower to the bazaar. Cian designated a time but time was a variable that they could measure — but true time was to bend by Faram’s will. In her inane babble she had proposed a rooftop dance, but the idea was now in the corners of her mind overshadowed by her eventual need to go see Caspar. And she would, later, once she was done slinking along alleys with a World Serpent and laughing at the happenings beneath them. She was cruel not to help but here she was nothing but a spectator and felt the cold call to her; turn and count down three turns. Was it ten yet? She wasn’t sure but whether early or late she would wait and greet. Or just greet and apologise (or not, because it seemed so meaningless in the long term, Cian knew what time was like for her). If he did not, he was about to find out. She wound up waiting, nearly a quarter hour before Cian appeared, striding out of the darkness, leather jacket unzipped over a thin, plain shirt. As always, the cold barely registered. “Didn’t figure you’d be this punctual,” he said, noting her reddened cheeks, an indicator that she’d been outside awhile. “Hell of an outfit to go walking in,” he commented, looking over her white cloak. There was still snow on the rooftops, but not enough that this could count as camouflage. Then again, he was beginning to doubt this prophetess thought about common sense things like that. She seemed to have other things to think about instead. “We make an interesting pair.” Black and white. Maybe the metaphor was even purposeful -- he wouldn’t put it past her. Who knew? He’d spent too many years slinking around the shadows to dress any other way for a rooftop jaunt. he’d picked out a spot, easily reached from a fire escape, flat and navigable. Conversation about dancing on ice aside, she didn’t seem to have the sort of carriage that implied an ability to maintain her footing on a steep slope, and especially not dressed as she was. “This way.” She smiled widely when he arrived - ten, five, fifteen, twenty - minutes late, it all mattered nothing to her. Finding people willing to understand her was hard and Cian (in appearance at least) seemed to do so with little effort. Siri smiled and drifted towards him, white and swaying like a ghost. And while she maintained her balance well enough, she could never hope to hold a steady pace unless she got rid of the cloak. Which she did when they were all the way up the firescape, shedding it like a snake sheds a second skin. This way, that way, it was all the same to her because Cian would lead the way to what he wanted to find. She knew that already. At the top of the steps, he lifted her easily over the ledge. She wasn’t heavy. The building was tall, taller than many of those surrounding it; the view spread before them of well-lit streets and darkened alleys, with people passing from light to darkness and back again. He had not been exaggerating when he said a great deal happened here, both fair and foul -- it would be interesting what she chose to focus on. He spent a moment watching in silence, taking in the sights. Shoppers. A family with four noisy children. Street buskers. A drug deal going down in the shadows. A flirtation escalating into something more one alley over. A microcosm for the world at large, this district. “See anything you fancy?” Siri beamed at Cian when he helped her up, happy always for some solid individual to grasp onto as she got her footing on the roof. Once up above the city she seemed to consider his question, tilting her head, eyes narrowed at nothing — then as if stung by something she straightened and took his hand, leading him in a particular direction. It was not a far way to go, their view over an empty dark alley and she crouched, ignoring the cold. Every alley in this place had secrets, they all spilled them out for the stars to see and right now they were the sky, the stars and the dark moon that turned its face away during this time of the month. No moonlight to illuminate anything. Patiently, Siri perked up when a couple appeared at the edge of the alley and drew themselves into the shadow, violence in their bones as their argument escalated. She had picked one of the less pleasant sights available. He wasn’t surprised by it -- had, in fact, expected it. The way that she had handled his hand when it had been bloody and the way that she talked told him that she had an affinity for this sort of thing, even if it was just watching. One of the things he found most fascinating about her. But then, any prophet who didn’t embrace violence clearly couldn’t do her job. There were more dark alleys in the world than bright, shiny storefronts. “Someone’s going to get stabbed, unless he stops being stupid,” he said, his tone mild. The man was angry and drunk. The woman was angry and sober, and moved with the sort of grace that belied a certain set of skills. “Sadly, most people are stupid.” When your dreams were painted in red and rage there was nothing to do but to embrace it as best as one could. She had, to some extent, learned to do so, reaching out her fingertips to the inevitable — the abyss echoed and called. Kings without emblems and crowns. “No.” Siri held her hand, curling her fingertips on the edge of his shirt, leaning a little forward as the man and woman below them argued. The anger hit her from the distance, bitter — suffocating and it was only a moment or two before the woman acted. She moved with scorpion-like angles, curling her tail and bringing down her sting around his neck in the form of a garrote. Siri felt the air catch in her throat, as if she were the man below who had been surprised by the sudden turn of events. The prophetess diverted her eyes at the last moment as if the transition between life and death is too heavy to bear and she pressed her forehead against Cian’s arm. “Rotten at the core.” Unlike her, he watched. That no of hers -- it was as if she’d know what weapon would be pulled before it happened. Fascinating. Useful as hell. No way to prep someone, not unless you hired the couple, too, and sacrificed one to the cause. Still not impossible, but verging on improbable now. “We don’t know why they fought. I don’t,” he corrected. “Could be, he deserved it. Or could be she’s got a black hole where her so-called soul ought to be. She wouldn’t be the only one in this town. But I doubt,” he added, watching the woman slink away, “that she’s the core of it. More like a byproduct.” Insignificant in the grand scheme of things. “No cry for the EKP?” he asked, curious. “They could still catch her, if they knew.” Siri kept her eyes on his sleeve, shook her head once. “Even if I screamed now, they wouldn’t arrive in time.” Her tone left no room for uncertainty on that fact. She could, in fact, be wrong but the matter was moot now; the woman was gone with nothing but a shadow and cooling body behind. Always up to the test; broken and tossed as a child into nothing but the improbable. Dying curled up on the forest floor would’ve been far too easy, no prophet worth carrying the title would yield with such ease. “Death does not care for merit,” her voice steady, looking back down at the scene before she turned her attention to Cian. “No one who deserves to die necessarily does, and those who deserve to live… don’t always do so.” “As you say.” Someone would find the body, eventually. As far as he was concerned, it was no business of his. A smart man picked his battles. That guy hadn’t been smart, and now he was dead, which was the way of the world. He noted that she’d looked away in the moment, but seemed to have recovered her composure remarkably quickly. “Death doesn’t care for anything,” he answered. “But people - people care for merit. Rarely met anyone who’d kill a man for no reason. The strength of the reason, though…” He shrugged. “It takes all kinds to keep the world turning. And keeping alive has nothing to do with merit, either. That’s all common sense, and a healthy dose of luck.” Maybe her composure was easier to keep when she was looking at him and not dead things. Dead things were gone, immaterial and left to rot — he or her … they were all things in the end. Siri pressed her forehead against his forearm again, “World Serpent, that may even be you one day, trapped and lured by someone into a back alley. Never step into a shadow unarmed or you’ll be gone quite quickly from this earth.” She paused, “Wouldn’t that be a shame? It would for me and all. You’re needed, maybe not wanted but who else to rule the underworld you dwell in? No one but you.” “Fortunately, I try to be less stupid than our dearly departed friend there.” He never went unarmed, for one thing. Even when he slept, he had weapons within reach. Such was his world. “Paranoia is a good way to stay afloat, and I don’t intend to drown, even if the jury’s still out on how much of a shame it might actually be.” Not many people would miss him when he went, he knew. Not on a personal level, certainly not the way she’d just stated. But the organization would suffer, and the cracks would extend far, he knew that too. He’d stared death in the face not so long ago; the fact that he’d managed to escape it had been luck. “Dark alleys are hardly the only danger. Probably the least of them.” “Try to be?” She mouthed those words and grinned, oh she believed them and Cian wouldn’t have been alive this long otherwise. Letting out a quiet huff of laughter, she reached out for his hands, having tucked away her gloves in her cloak back at their starting point. Come on, come on tip toes and walking backwards with steady footing Siri was not afraid of falling and breaking something apparently. Unsurprising, this slip of a girl was mad, she saw danger but this wasn’t danger to her: it was dancing. “Dark crevices hold the worst things. Stare long enough and you’ll fall right in, claw your way out — if you can.” Where else were they going tonight? Siri had no idea, but she liked how they moved now, linked hands and her backwards step in snow and darkness. Cian hadn't lied when he'd said he wasn't much for dancing. He was, however, feeling indulgent -- often a byproduct of being intrigued, and that, she'd successfully managed some time ago. His hands enveloped hers, big and warm as though the temperature hadn't dropped below freezing some time ago. His certainty of step was brought not by madness but by experience; if she wished to dance on a frozen rooftop, for tonight, he would not let her fall. |