Rhiannon Lee (rhiannon_lee) wrote in birthrightrpg, @ 2021-02-19 20:52:00 |
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Entry tags: | rhiannon lee, ~cian o'neill |
Too Many Maybes
Who: Rhiannon, Cian
What: Figuring Out Their Plan
When: Present, Night
Where: Las Vegas
Sometimes when they had a lot on their minds, Rhiannon and Cian would run together. He’d be a cougar or his human self, depending on which road or path they took and the lunar stage. She’d be the hunter who laced into a pair of shoes best suited to that landscape and took off sprinting and climbing at greater-than-human speed. They would often go for miles without having to say much.
Right now, Rhiannon wanted to avoid other hunters. Nature seemed the best way to do so; there was plenty of room around Searchlight. But it was also dangerous for Cian to be observed in were form and the concentration of hunters in such a small town was inordinately high. Instead, they went for a night run in Las Vegas with pavement, buildings, and cars as their terrain. In a pair of running shoes, dark leggings, a trim black hoodie, and her hair tied back, Rhiannon was able to maneuver in and around structures without anyone taking notice. She took a set of concrete steps to the top floor of a parking deck and climbed into an open window. There was a gap between the garage and the nearest building. She bounced on her heels and jumped onto the flat roof. Once she was there, she looked around to find Cian.
Cian had owned compression clothing when he was playing football, hoping one day to have a sponsorship deal with one of the big international brands, and never have to pay for it again. It was light, strong, good for recovery after a hard session, and fit like a second skin. The irony of that last factor wasn’t lost on him now. The only drawback was the time it took to put on, which meant once he was wearing it he didn’t shift unless it was an emergency. The were had also pulled on a pair of lightweight runners and hoodie jacket before they’d set off.
Crouched on the window ledge he pushed off, landing next to Rhiannon. Standing up he looked around, various landmarks evidence enough to confirm his bearings were good, even in this environment. It had been a long while since they’d done this, most trips to the City together had been for specific hunts, or events. Now it was, in a way, them who were being hunted - Cian more so, and they had no intention of becoming prey to some hunter who’d lost the plot. He unzipped his jacket, the night air cool against his chest.
Rhiannon rubbed the inside of her wrist across her forehead. It was cold out, but they’d been sprinting and scaling at intervals and she was sweating. “I didn’t see much,” she said when her breathing settled. “Or feel anything. Maybe word’s getting around?” She took a few steps to loosen her leg muscles and returned to Cian’s side. When she patrolled in Las Vegas, there were often shadows worth a longer look, or human-seeming figures lurking near the tourists, waiting for someone to slip away from the herd. According to chatter on the police scanner, there had been an uptick in reports of fights and property damage, but she hadn’t spotted anything yet tonight.
Cian nodded slowly. There had been three instances he’d detected scents that alerted him to other weres in the vicinity but nothing else gave away their presence. Other scents had at times been all-pervading, but nothing had caused that itch between his shoulders, the sensation of feeling like his fur would be standing on end if Siofra was running. It was nothing more than if he’d been at Seventh Circle with the regular crowd in attendance. He shared this feedback with her quietly.
“Maybe they’ve made their presence felt,” he murmured, referring to the hunters, their attack on Brian well-known through their group. “D’d y’ hear back from Frankie?” he asked, “or Tasha?”
Rhiannon wrapped her ponytail around in a loose bun that wouldn’t stay. “Just Frankie. In a way, he’s got an easier time hiding. No one looks twice at a domestic short hair. It’s you I’ve got to worry about,” she said, tapping his stomach. She went to the edge of the roof and sat down with her legs dangling over the side. Her boot heels scratched the brick façade. “Come here so we can talk?”
The hunter held out her fingers to him.
Cian took her fingers with his, lowering to a crouch first, then seating himself next to her.
“You don’t need t’worry about me,” he told her, pressing a kiss to her finger tips before letting their hands rest on his thigh. The discussion regarding where they would spend their nights was one that now saw them more often at Cian’s home in the Cove, or his room at Gabe’s place in Searchlight, the sorcerer hardly there of late.
“What’s up?”
“You first.” Rhiannon gave his leg a tickle through his pants. “Then I’ll go. Tell me about this.” She reached into a zippered pocket of her hoodie and took out the knife with a purple Amethyst under the pad of her thumb. Cian had seen enough of her weapons and other belongings to know that knives and engraved objects were near and dear to her. Rhiannon didn’t have any special attachments to guns, stakes, or the crossbow in her possession, but she loved her mother’s silver-inlaid weapon, as well as her own engraved lighter and cigarette case that stayed close to hand even when the hunter wasn’t smoking. The folding knife he’d given her had its own meaning, she was sure, and she wanted to hear about it from him directly.
He couldn’t help but smile when he saw the knife in her hand, pleased to see how well it sat there, that the sizing of the handle was sculpted to ensure best grip along with the arrangement of the celtic knotwork. He’d checked with Annie as to the validity of the stone he wanted to use, amethyst, the birthstone for February, and was pleased to hear her support for this, especially given it was for Rhiannon. This he told her, adding, “and it all linked in, being that the stone is the bearer of the energy of fire, creativity and spirituality,” he continued, his hand cupping hers that held the knife and folding her fingers over it as he finished with, “and it’s the stone of St Valentine, and faithful love.”
His smile widened into a grin after leaning in and placing a kiss on her cheek. “As for the work?” he said, looking down at her closed hand, the stiletto blade he’d had designed for her hidden inside, “it, like the rest of it, was forged by Gabe’s family’s bladesmith, engraved with the symbols to ensure clean work, swift results and protection against loss.”
“It’s beautiful,” she said. Like fighting, there was no reason that something designed to defend or kill, if necessary, had to be crude. There was elegance in all of it — a fast strike, a near miss, a quick takedown. Rhiannon studied the weapon a little longer, thinking that it almost looked ceremonial because of its intricacy, before putting it back into her pocket for safekeeping and pulling the zipper. The weight settled reassuringly at her side. “Some people accessorize with earrings,” she quipped, a smile on her face. “I have shiny, stabby things. I think I win. What made you think of it?”
The smile still lingered on his face as he looked out across the roof of the building across the street, then down at some of the figures moving below, walking, hurrying, trudging through the cold night air to their destinations, homes. “They’re that much safer when you’re here,” he said before turning his head to look at her. “I want you to be that much safer,” he continued, glancing down to her pocket, ”when I’m not.” He huffed a soft laugh, as if to lift the heaviness of the simple statement, “plus I wanted to give my girlfriend something nice for her birthday and it just seemed right?”
“That’s a good enough reason for me.” Rhiannon looked at what passed for a skyline in Las Vegas. The orange haze of lights both neon and ordinary muted the darkness of the night sky and made it difficult to pick out the stars. Behind her, Rhiannon could feel her hair unwinding from the bun like a slowly uncoiling snake. She pressed her palms between her knees to keep them warm. “Okay. My turn. You know about Sean. How much have I told you about Rob? My cousin?” It seemed like a thing she would’ve mentioned often, given the closeness they once shared, but Rhiannon had been careful to only give Cian the broad strokes about her family because it was an uncomfortable topic, given their role in the raid on his friends’ home almost seven years ago.
His eyes had returned to the street then lifted to hers as she’d started to speak. The subject of her family had always lain between them like a bed of hot coals - crossable, but only with either extreme focus, or pain. Over time it had eased, but the underlying truth remained. Her uncle and cousin would have killed Siofra without hesitation that night, as they had the other weres there. And from evidence available at that point in time would do the same now.
“That he w’ like a brother to y’,” he replied, looking back down into the street again. “And he’s his father’s son, ready to take over where his father leaves off.”
“Yeah. Well, that might be changing.” Rhiannon looked from Cian out to the city and back again. “He’s here. I met up with him in Cal-Nev-Ari to talk. Sean sent him out of town to Boulder before he orchestrated this whole thing, but Rob found out through the grapevine anyway. Rob wants him to call it off, but Sean’s not taking his calls. I can tell he’s pissed at Sean, he’s just not saying it, plus it’s kind of hard to parse which one of his pissy looks is for me versus his dad. Anyway, Rob thinks it’s over the line.”
Cian’s eyes narrowed for a brief moment as she told him of the meeting, and the possible breaking down of the family relationships that had held them together through all of their time. He knew how much Rhiannon believed in bloodlines, and family, and he understood it. His own actions after the loss of his had been a reaction to that loss, driven by whatever it was that bound individuals together via the blood that flowed through their veins. As much as the friends he’d lost in Chicago had meant to him, their demise hadn’t driven him to react the same as he had back in Ireland.
“So it looks like he’s ‘off the reservation’ from more than just our side?” he finally said with a soft huff, the reference one he’d learned more recently. It was what he’d feared, in one way, for Rhiannon’s sake, but also hoped for, as it would not be the same person she’d known in her youth, who’d trained and raised her, provided for and guided through the perils of ‘hunter apprenticeship’.
“What do you think? Do you believe him, Rob? Would he lie to you?”
“I believe him. Robby had to swallow his pride to tell me he wasn’t in the know.” Rhiannon sniffed. “When we were kids, he had a leg up on me for the longest time because he was older, and because he was Sean’s son and my mother was gone. Even when things evened up in our abilities, Robby imagined himself inheriting the weight of our family’s expectations, even when I was standing right next to him. But then I took myself out of the running, so… he’s been wearing that mantle, and now he’s seeing that Sean will keep secrets from him, too. I know how it felt for me to realize it and it’s got to be worse for him.”
She reached across and gently picked up Cian’s hand. “He always took orders and he doesn’t talk to weres or vamps. He keeps his lines very sharp. But it seems like he’s coming into his own now. I’m not going to lie. He was there with me in Chicago, in the kitchen. But no matter what happened back then, at his core, Rob is not a bloodbath kind of guy. He wants Sean to back down.”
“But he’d just as soon put a silver bullet in me as he would any other of my kind?” Cian asked, wanting to know just what would be the case with her cousin if they should ever meet.
Rhiannon breathed out heavily. She lifted her shoulders. “I don’t know. I can’t get a straight answer out of him. If I bring up the subject of weres, he deflects and asks me if that's who I care about more. He says hunting’s in his DNA so he’s never stopped to ask himself which ones he can trust. I know one thing: he doesn’t know about you. He told me he’s willing to stand up with me against Sean, to try to send him a message. I don’t know if knowing about us would change that, so I didn’t tell him.”
He gave a nod, understanding, but not feeling any more at ease about her cousin. There would be nothing stopping him from being at Rhiannon’s side during any confrontation with any of them, but he didn’t know how much either man would be able to tell about Cian, and Siofra. He knew there’d always been something between the two of them, but not whether that translated at all.
“How much c’n they tell? Or know, about me? Like this?”
Rhiannon bit the inside corner of her lip. “It’s like a current in the air. You get this sense that something extraordinary is around. I’d put it on par with knowing you’re being watched. You know that feeling? It isn’t the same feeling, but it’s about the same magnitude. But you don’t immediately know what it is, or exactly where it’s coming from if you’re in a crowd. Remember, you had to show me your eyes, and that was even after we touched.”
She squeezed his fingers. “I won’t go without you.”
He nodded once, acceptance of her promise. “Good,” he added, acceptance of what she’d said in its entirety. Forewarned was forearmed and in instances when he was up against those who might want to kill him that was a good thing. Especially when it came to kin.
“S’ what’re you goin’ to do?” he asked, knowing she wasn’t one to let sleeping dogs lie. “When’re meetin’ wi’ Robby again?”
“We agreed that a massive confrontation with everyone we know involved is just going to get more people hurt or killed, which neither of us wants. So we agreed that both of us, me and Rob, will call on a few people we trust. Then we’ll find Sean and confront him together. If we can do it without fighting, that’s the best thing. If we can’t… We agreed we don’t want to kill him, just take him off the board. Sean may have this loose band of hunters following him into town, but he doesn’t have his family anymore. I honestly think if anything will persuade him, it’s losing his family. Both of us.”
Cian thought for a long moment, trying to imagine what it’d be like to have to face off against family like this. He couldn’t. Even his surrogate family, back in Ireland, and here, he couldn’t place them in circumstances where their paths would be on different sides of a chasm such as what was separating Rhiannon and her uncle. It wasn’t just their differences in how they decided their prey, it was how he’d turned against her, interfered with her ‘business’, went behind her back to destroy her from the shadows, and now brought others with him to do the same to her face. To Cian that was crossing a line. It was dissolving that part of the blood that bound, and setting them apart - two strangers in conflict. He could only see her uncle as a stranger, desiring only his own way and prepared to enforce it on those who he believed should bow to his will.
“What d’y’ think he wants from all of this?” he asked quietly.
Rhiannon looked down at her shoes, hanging high above the city street. “I’m only guessing,” she said. “Maybe he realized the town’s this hotbed of activity and I haven’t fixed it on my own, and he wants to show me that it can’t be done alone. Or maybe he’s pissed because he found out who I spend my time with and he wants to trot me out in front of all my hunter friends. Or maybe he got the message I sent through Rob a few months ago, y’know, with whatever I said about staying away and he’s calling my bluff. Or maybe it’s not about me at all... Like if someone paid him a lot of money to come in and clean house, and he figured he might as well fuck with me while he was here.”
She tilted her head. “Actually that’s not bad. That might explain why Nina was collecting heads.” Rhiannon pivoted slightly towards Cian. “So… Sean gets a call to come in and clean up Clark County. Why? From who? We don’t know. There’s a lot of money in it, but it’s a big job. Too big. Sean puts out the word to a bunch of hunters that he’ll pay people if they come out here and prove they’re pulling their weight. But he knows I’m here and things might come to a head, so he sends Rob away, and he tells Rob to take his crew— the people most likely to be loyal to Rob— with him. And Sean gets Nina to leave a calling card because… he’s an asshole.”
He listened to her walk out all the theories, reasons which all justified why her uncle was in town. His head shook lightly, hearing ‘the blood’ talking, hearing her wanting it to be this way. And he understood why. No-one wanted to come face to face with someone they had looked up to, learned from, been mentored by and see a face they no longer recognised as worthy of their trust and respect. He reached over and took her hand.
“So you think this is all legit? It’s just another job that happens t’bring him t’ your turf?” he prompted quietly as he looked back down into the streets they’d just run through, streets they’d both seen as ‘quiet’. “That these streets are teeming with so many of us it needs a big team of hunters to clean it up?”
Rhiannon lifted her shoulders. “Not legit. He’s definitely going for shock and awe. But there’s no reason why something that started out legit couldn’t have mushroomed because he wanted it to because, again, he’s an asshole. Or it could also be that whoever’s bankrolling this really wanted everyone with any sort of capabilities out of the way. Or we’re back to my first hypothesis, which is… He found out about you and me, and he somehow traced you back to Chicago, and he thinks we’ve been connected all these years and I was hiding things from him. And I was. Right? From Sean’s perspective, I’m the worst.”
“And Rob couldn’t give y’ any answers,” he added in conclusion. His fingers tightened on hers for a long moment, giving her hand a squeeze. He understood only too well the actions of that night in Chicago set them both on a different track to what she had been on, different to what her uncle was on. And many other hunters. It had set them on a journey to each other, to that night on 95, to this rooftop. “So what’s the plan?” he asked.
“Rob needs a couple of days to get his people ready. I’ll think about who I want with me, and I need to be strategic about that. As soon as we know where Sean is, we’ll go.” That was the only plan it was possible to make until Rhiannon had Sean’s location.
The were nodded. “Understood,” he replied simply. He’d let the others know it would be another few days of keeping a watchful eye, being cautious and as far as possible out of range of strangers. It was easier for the Marks and Echo, they had the Cove. He was more concerned for Nesryn, Brian and Frankie, whose jobs involved dealing with strangers every day. Brian had already been targeted, and wounded. He’d check in with him tomorrow, see how he was doing.
He looked across at her. “Who’re you considering?”
“Tasha,” she said quickly. “Normally I’d say Katherine, but that might be like dumping gasoline on a fire.” Rhiannon took her hands and ran them over her face, then up into her hair, thinking of everyone she knew, all the white hats who traveled in their circle. For her, it wasn’t a simple matter of species, or who was capable and could hold their temper in a confrontation. It was also who was vulnerable to hunters, and who she was willing to let see her dirt. It would be a lie to claim she wasn’t thinking about that part a little bit.
Frankie wasn’t a fighter. Noah was likely to set people aflame. For the thousandth time, she asked herself why she spent so much time with vampires and pyromaniacs. “Speaking of fire, maybe Noah. What do you think? I mean, it would send a message.” Rhiannon was glad Cian could see the flash of gallows humor in her smile. Noah was an emergency cord she’d only pull as a last resort.
“I’ll figure it out,” she said.
He listened as she listed names, and shrugged at the mention of Noah, having never met him and only knowing of him through the dilemma with Ronnie and when Rhiannon had met with him.
“Y’ c’d have Gabe there. Keeps his cool, and is handy in a showdown,” he suggested.
“I believe you.” She didn’t meet his eyes. Her steady respiration left a warm cloud in the cold night air. “Maybe.” Rhiannon didn’t say much else. If she did tell him what she was thinking, he might argue with it — That she didn’t want a showdown, that she didn’t want to put anyone on a hunter’s target list that wasn’t already there and didn’t belong there, and that she could not stomach the idea of endangering Cian’s best friend when her family had wiped out the rest of them. It was the same reason she would not suggest calling on Mikey.
Between the tone in her voice and the avoidance of looking at him he guessed she had something against the idea. He frowned momentarily, but didn’t say anything - he knew Gabe better than any she had mentioned, trusted him with his life, and would feel a great deal more comfortable having someone of his calibre there. A pyromaniac rather than a sorcerer wasn’t his preference. But it was her deal, and he’d go with it. He just wanted this over with.
“Right,” he said simply, returning his gaze to the rooftops in front of them.
Rhiannon turned to look at his profile. A piece of her hair had gotten loose and stung the corner of her eye. Cian never had to tell her when he was disquieted. It was all over him. “It’s hard for me for you to be there. To let them see you. But I heard you when you told me you didn’t want to be sidelined. I have to accept that anyone who goes could be hurt if things go downhill. Before I came here, everyone I knew was a hunter or took contract jobs. I saw it go badly a lot, but I always knew that was their way of life. When you hear me say names like Tasha, or Katherine, or Noah - even though I’m mostly joking there - it’s because those are people who chose this way of life.”
She got her feet underneath her and stood up. The slight dampness of her clothes had given her a chill.
He sat there for a long moment, eyes staring off into the distance, as if looking back down the path he’d walked. “I might not’ve chosen f’ my life to go this way, but it did. And I will do what it takes t’ make the most of it.” He stopped and stood up, his head turned till his eyes met hers. “Never been one f’wasting opportunities, especially when they’re laid out in front of me,” he added, a small flicker of gold visible in the darkness as a smile curled the corner of his mouth. “And I’d’ve never met y’ if I hadn’t taken this path,” he finished, a brief wink given before his body suddenly disappeared, launched with feline grace into the pale darkness of the artificially lit night.
Rhiannon let go of a long-held breath and took a lap around the roof, attempting to gather her thoughts. Part of what they loved about each other was their strength, but they both brought well-formed opinions into their shared life, so what was beautiful was also a challenge. At moments like this she’d give anything to make Cian see the world from her perspective, and for her to be able to see it from his, just long enough to reassure one another of their intentions. But that wasn’t how it worked. All she could do was love him, and accept his.
The hunter walked to the edge of the roof and looked for her best path to the ground. When she found it, she stepped off into the semi-dark.