loch lemach gives zero fucks (cutandthrust) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-03-17 23:52:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !log, loch lemach, siri d'albis |
the shark has pretty teeth, dear, and it shows them pearly white...
WHO: Loch & Siri
WHEN: Today, mid-morning.
WHERE: The Docks
WHAT: Loch asks and Siri doesn’t give very good answers.
STATUS: Complete
Theo had mentioned missing her family and once that notion had taken root in her mind, Siri couldn’t stop thinking about it. Did she miss them? What was family like? She tried to think of what she knew of Rictor’s family, of Caspar’s family — things she knew but never stopped to dwell on. They were minor details in the tapestry of her visions, everything around pulled the strings but her madness was centre to her life, colouring every aspect. The straightforward questions posed by the younger Finch had her faltering at times and puzzling at others. “Miss them.” She muttered thoughtfully, her steps taking her to the docks. Kerwon laid on the other side of the sea, not this particular one, but good enough for her memories. Salt in the air and she traced the ropes that anchored one of the ships, Siri tilted her head in thought — no, this ship was not the right one. She continued her path, passing by a woman who made a shudder run down her spine, the greeting should’ve not happen but it was out of her lips too late; sleepy and dreamy, “Hello snake at the bottom of the poisoned lake.” The voice was one Loch had heard before―chanting, an ear-piercing scream at the slash of a blade―and the words just went to prove that the Prophetess on the network (and it could be nobody else) needed to learn to keep her mouth shut. “You want your cargo, find your fucking shipping manifest and bring it to the office,” Loch snapped at the sailor she’d been arguing with for the past five minutes. “Brownie points if you find your wits while you’re at it. Excuse me.” The man shook his tattoo’d fist at her, the effect of the gesture diminished by his inability to stand upright, but Loch was no longer listening to his grumbling. In a moment, she was next to the mage, smile sharp as a blade. “Hello there, Prophetess,” she said. “Fancy a stroll?” Words that spilled out were not intentional, sometimes she had to let them out or they would drive her insane— hearing the same phrase over and over again, until it came out and it was a relief. A sigh, the line of her shoulders easing up, strings relaxed. The wooden planks beneath her feet as she continued her walk, examining which ship was adequate for the voyage she considered making. Siri felt, rather than saw Loch and she tensed up, “A stroll to the bottom of your lake? No, I do not fancy that.” Fear coiled in the pit of her stomach but she refrained from screaming or running, she wouldn’t get far by doing either. Either way, Loch’s presence didn’t cause the acute ache Aislings did, Siri could withstand this by walking along casually, as if this were nothing but another of her dreams. “The bottom of the lake can wait,” Loch said. As a group of dockhands passed them by, she nodded a greeting and waited for them to be gone before speaking again. “For now, a stroll somewhere no one can hear you run your mouth.” Mornings at the docks were always busy: merchants and clients alike buzzing around the area, sailors shouting profanities at each other, even the occasional high-bred lady booking passage on one ship or another, face pinched as though she were walking through the sewers. And now, a direct envoy from Faram. An honor she’d never asked for. “No one here gives a fuck what you say here. Got plenty of crazies around every once in a while spewing bullshit, and we’re all trying to do our jobs here.” Her tone was conversational, but there was more to it. “But I sure as hell would like to know where you come up with the shit you say.” Wait, but for how long? Siri refrained from asking because she certainly had no desire of hearing the answer to the question, instead she allowed Loch to lead their walk now that she was satisfied that there would be no attempts of any kind that would end up with bodies, poison or something unpleasant. There was no desire in her to die — why would Faram intend for her to meet Loch now? Humming softly in reply to Loch’s question, Siri realized that Loch was one of those people who would not be satisfied with any answer that could not be touched by hume hands, and that was a problem because her information came from Faram. Instead of replying with words, Siri merely pointed upwards towards the sky, because that was where. “Tried that one on me already,” Loch said. “Told you, I ain’t buying what you’re selling. So try a different pitch.” Siri let out another thoughtful hum, swaying a little from wooden step to wooden step as if she were following some pattern or beat. Well, like with Cian, people should learn not to ask her things they didn’t want to know. So with ease, Siri turned around, stepping backwards for three steps before stopping and really looking at Loch. Dark eyes fixed on her, seeing through her and digging for something; Siri ought to know better than to rise to the bait but she couldn’t help it. Loch frightened her and the prophet wanted to make sure that Loch knew that approaching Siri was a bad idea. “There isn’t much you care for, life torn like wood smashed against the rocks by the tide.” A pause, head tilt and she was turning away, “You care for a flute-merry-man — I see it in your eyes.” Once she was facing way from Loch, Siri slumped a little, closing her eyes briefly. Looking, there were so many things she saw, she merely had picked out one which stuck out to her. Like Cian’s wounded scale. Loch’s eyes widened. Her hand went to the small of her back, where Serendipity was itching for a reunion with the mage; the knife was halfway out of its sheath when the cries of a gull overhead reminded her where they were. Being called a snake she could be amused about―she had been called far worse―but some insults could not be tolerated. “Bottom of the lake’s getting impatient after all,” she said, and clamped her hand over Siri’s forearm, to drag her away from the pier and toward the alleys between the merchants’ warehouses. Siri’s reaction was instantaneous, she dropped her weight back, refusing to budge as more of Loch entered her; as if her breath became her own and her hands stained with blood — not her hands, this woman, this snake — “Don’t touch me, you asked, you got — stop, stop there’s so much blood, green and -” putrid, festering under the skin. It made her sick to her stomach, and she was only just holding down the urge to vomit, if Loch held on… she was probably not going to be very happy in a moment or two. The conversation on the network with Ash came to her mind. That’s what you get for going to church, she’d said, but apparently there was no fucking escape. Around them, people halted in their tasks to stare. “Ten years too early to pick my pocket,” she said, pushing the girl forward as though she were nothing but a thief caught with their hands where they shouldn’t have been. “Once I show you out of here, better you don’t try anything funny around here again.” A glare at the nearest spectator was enough to remind the rest of the audience that they had jobs to be tending to instead of just standing there. One by one, they turned away and went about their business. “Start walking,” Loch hissed, coming up behind the girl. Salt, wood, and rusting metal. Maybe it was a little bit of Loch’s bitterness that took over her because Siri let out a sharp laugh, “If you touch me again, you’ll regret it.” That was not a threat though, it came out as a bland warning, not because Siri would do anything but because she would probably just see more into what Loch certainly didn’t want her to see. Still, very complaint she shuffled along with Loch behind her in the direction of- where? She had no idea, all she had wanted was a nice walk. Why did she keep finding snakes and doves? She much preferred to find wolves and serpents. In silence, they wove through the crowd gathering at the market and beyond the stalls toward the warehouses. Without warning―grabbing her by the collar of her robes―Loch pulled Siri through the narrow space between two buildings, to a nook where almost no light trickled in from the street outside and almost no sound trickled out. “Listen up, now,” she hissed, knife in hand. “I don’t know what hole you crawled out of and I don’t know why the fuck you know the things you know, but I told you to keep your mouth shut before and I guarantee it’s damn good advice.” Right here, right then, she could gut the bitch and make sure nobody ever found out, and she would have, if not for something else Ash had said on the network. Cian’s new pet. “The nicknames are fun and all, but no more flute-merry-man, no more poking your head where it don’t belong unless you want it taken off.” Considering her situation was dire, the prophet seemed fairly unconcerned, looking at Loch through half-lidded eyes as if this were nothing but another waking dream. To her it felt like that, white-washed shades moving around her as Loch shoved her into a narrow space, the wall against her back. Destiny had dictated that every time she set foot outside in this city, she was going to meet interesting people. Undesirable people too. Siri felt a surge of exasperation, “Then don’t ask. Don’t touch me and don’t ask how I know what I do — I just showed you how.” So that Loch would leave her alone, nothing more or less. “You’re all open books, each and every one who wanders beneath Faram’s sun, some of you scream out your secrets in my ear. You whisper them quietly, but I still heard. I’m not for your blade, snake, if anything your poison may do the trick one day.” Not today, now she knew more than she wanted of Loch and Siri had no interest in going near someone this dangerous, this dark. Loch smiled. “I feel so lucky I don’t wander beneath His sun,” she said, voice low, amused. “So if I come for you, nobody will see me there.” Then she took a step back, away from the wall and the mage, and her knife vanished into the sheath concealed in the folds of her clothing, as if it had never been. She extended a hand toward the mouth of the alley, a parody of courtesy. “Now you wander. But never here. You won’t seek me out here, ever again.” Again Siri seemed incensed by the comment, “I didn’t come looking for you, snake.” The probability of Siri ending up at the docks again wandering in a daze was likely enough and she didn’t know how to communicate that to Loch without her thinking she was making this up. There was another way though, because a Serpent was bigger than a Snake. “I don’t care to spill your secrets, I don’t even care to know them.” How much clearer could she be? Probably not much, now she knew far more than what was prudent of Loch and one day it might cost her; Siri was afraid of Loch, would always be afraid, even if beneath the veiled look she had it was kept at bay. Her mind blanked, helping to cope with the fear and the mage relaxed once she spotted the open exit, “Mm, it is a nice day out.” And there it was, whatever lucidity, whatever secrets she had spilled were tucked away somewhere else as Siri moved towards the exit of the alley. Why had she come here to begin with? Oh yes, Kerwon. The girl wandered out, as if in a daze, avoiding collision with the people running around the docks thanks to dumb luck rather than any awareness of her surroundings. Moments later, Loch rejoined the crowd again as well and headed back onto the pier to resume her duties, as though it was just another day on the job. |