Low Tide NPC Characters (low_tide_npc) wrote in low_tide, @ 2010-03-01 15:21:00 |
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Entry tags: | npc |
A Working Vacation
How he hated the ocean.
It was the salt. The air was saturated with the compound and it, in turn, saturated everything else. It clung to his hair and filled his ears. It wedged under the beds of his fingernails. It made skin taste like the constant sheen of sweat.
He had no designs on this island. His territory was northward, in the claustrophobic cities of the northeast. The Florida keys were an unpleasant interruption in his schedule, made more obnoxious because his client -- Roxanne -- had boarded a plane and flown this far to get away from him, even going to the trouble of having a witch cloak her location... A witch who gave him next to nothing. From a certain standpoint, he respected that; Unlike Roxanne's, her word was bond. He tried forcing the issue, but that only resulted in a fight. Not even splitting her tongue had stopped her counter-magics. Now the hard line of his mouth was swollen at the corner, the blood vessels were broken in one of his eyes, and a walking cane supported his aching leg. The latter was Roxanne's fault. When a client broke her word, he paid the price in pain until he collected on the debt. Iain made certain of it. It was a cycle born out over hundreds of years. The neutrality of victory, the agony of defeat.
There was no long-term satisfaction in his work. He felt a quickening when he granted a wish or got his pound of flesh. A tiny, intimate instant in which he felt what they did, and then it was gone. Clients who broke their word were hated all the more because he knew what they had received on his back, and he was left pay the price.
No. That wouldn't do. Roxanne's vacation would be short-lived. When it was done, he'd leave the island and return to the city.
Until then, he had the salt to contend with, and the population of Key West to keep him preoccupied. Darian believed the term was 'a working vacation'.