loch lemach gives zero fucks (cutandthrust) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-01-18 01:47:00 |
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Loch Lemach surveyed the man before her. Not the same she had dealt with seven months ago. This one was short, stout, easily provoked. Had to be loyal, too, if he was being sent on such an errand. His outfit was simple but of undoubtedly fine make. Aquamarine. Loch wondered, absently, if her office’s proximity to the sea had inspired the color palette, or if the man simply had such terrible taste in clothing. Hidden by the desk, her fingers traced the outline of her crossbow’s stock like a lover’s touch. The man shifted in the chair he occupied, attempting to find comfort which would forever remain elusive, by virtue of the chair’s peculiar design. The hint of a smile flickered across Loch’s features, glimpsed for the fraction of an instant in the treacherous half-light of her office, and gone again. “I trust,” the man said, “you are aware of the shortcomings the previous model possessed, and will be able to correct them.” She barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “I trust,” she said, “it is not your place to question that, if your master believes I can.” The man squirmed in his seat, not quite as subtly as he might have liked. Time and time again, the chair proved to be worth every last gil Loch had paid for it. “Indeed you are correct,” he conceded, as though it pained him to do so. “I merely wished to assure we understand each other.” “You and your master understand what I can do.” Her free hand gestured to encompass the barren surface of her desk. “But I don’t understand why I ought to do it.” The man’s displeasure coiled in the air like steam from a red-hot iron plunged in water. Yet no matter how much he disliked her, he had orders to carry out. This was not his decision, and they both knew it. His smile was strained, as though invisible threads were tugging at the corners of the man’s lips and the muscles on his face had tightened to resist the pull. Hard to term it a smile, by the classic definition of the word. He dipped his hand into an inside pocket, and Loch’s fingers stilled around Curiosity’s trigger. The hand emerged, clutching a purse, and tossed it onto the desk. It landed with a miffed metallic jangle, that sounded like a complaint from the coins inside at receiving such harsh treatment. Loch’s hand resumed its idle caressing of her weapon. “That is half of your payment. The other half will be delivered to you once my master receives and approved the commissioned items.” His smile turned sardonic. “Do you understand now, Miss Lemach?” The only sound in the office was the clink of gold and silver as Loch inspected the contents of the purse. The leather gloves kept her skin from coming into contact with the gil and the fabric. Once her task was finished, she said, “Next time, start your explanation from here.” He looked all too pleased with himself as he replied, “Seeing as your new model will correct all the previous one’s failings, and perfect design, perhaps there will be no next time.” She watched his smirk with amusement, and thought of the man who had placed the first commission in his master’s name. One evening in late Leo, he had been found in the waters of the harbor, a piece of hume-sized flotsam. A tragic loss the authorities have not yet found an explanation for, lamented the Valendian Standard. “No,” she agreed. “Maybe there won’t.” As the servant rose from the chair, relief plainly visible on his face, so did Loch. The hand that had been toying with the crossbow came to rest against her waist instead, from where Serendipity could be easily retrieved. The man held out his hand, and Loch shook it. “It has been a pleasure doing business with you,” he lied smoothly. “You have one month to complete the order, as agreed. My master looks forward to hearing from you.” Loch unsheathed a smile sharp as a blade. Let the man glimpse the edge before she put it away. “He won’t have to wait long,” she promised. Five seconds after the servant left, Loch squeezed out through the window in the back room, into the street outside. Under the mantle of Vanish, nobody noticed her circle to the front of the office and settle into step behind her target—least of all the man himself. The warehouse district lost respectability with every inch the sun sunk into the horizon. Dockworkers, criminals, and those who combined both occupations, were now slowly taking over the streets, one carefully-stationed man at a time. The noble’s servant seemed aware of the inadvisability of an evening stroll through these parts. The hostile looks stabbing him in the back breathed haste into his clop. Loch’s feet were light on the cobblestones. She followed from a well-calculated distance. Far enough that she ran no risk of being overheard, should she accidentally raise any noise, but close enough that she would be able to track his advance in the dimming sunset light. Orange and lavender bled into each other and struck the silhouettes of buildings and humes alike at an oblique angle, deepening their shadows. At the first opportunity, the servant veered off the dogleg alleys onto a wider road leading back to the city proper. The maelstrom of activity that would now be swirling through the downtown area saw its dregs washed down to these streets. Few lingered, or met another passerby’s eye. Motivated by the cold and the urgency of their affairs, they hurried past without a glance at the noble’s man. His own apparent desire to be away from the docks as soon as possible had allowed him to integrate seamlessly into his surroundings. A half mile later the road forked off into the south end of the main thoroughfare that split the Commoners’ District. Here, the servant was almost as inconspicuous as Loch. The fashion trends of this district eschewed the shabby look of the poorer areas and took a step up into the modest-yet-smart. The outfit the man had chosen for his errand had marked him as an outsider on the docks, but here it let him blend into the crowd as if he was just another resident of the district. Loch closed the distance between them by a couple of feet. The last thing she needed was to lose him in the crowd. As they advanced, incoming traffic from confluent streets and alleys made her task increasingly difficult. She was invisible, not intangible, and collision with a passerby or a cart would make detection almost certain. Where before she had had a clear view of the man, now passersby wove across the distance between them, impeding her task. The noble’s servant was a short man. He did not stand out, and if he broke off from the main street into an alley without warning, there was a high chance she would miss him. Loch suppressed a frustrated sigh and, after ascertaining the man continued to advance straight ahead, ducked into an alley on her left side. Weatherbeaten stone steps led up the side of the building onto the roof of the Balding Lion tavern, and she climbed them as fast as she could, flirting with the chance of a false step and a fall that may well break her neck. Her overpriced boots proved to be worth every gil she had shelled out for them, however. The soles gripped the rough surface of the steps and she hauled herself up onto the roof. On top of the world. The city sprawled out beneath her feet. Up here, the crowds were insignificant. She walked at the lip of the roof, eyes scanning the street below. For a curse-inspiring second, she thought she had lost her mark. Then, a flash of greenish blue and a peculiar gait jumped out at her, and she smiled. Ground that would have been impossible to maneuver at street level could be covered in seconds. The delicate part was jumping from one roof to another; fortunately for her, buildings were crammed close together in this district, a tendency underscored as they traveled northeast. When the main thoroughfare veered right, toward the Bazaar, the servant broke off into a side street that, in turn, tapered into an alley and delivered him to the fringes of the Tenements. Whatever Fleetpurse Row’s original name, it had long since been forgotten by the residents of the district. What everybody in the area knew was this: enter Fleetpurse Row with anything that jingled, and someone would be swiftly along to relieve you of your burden. Pickpockets, or the handful of pawnbrokers that set up their stores along the street. It made no difference; whether performed legally or not, robbery was still robbery. The man hurried along down the street, and Loch followed from above. She was not the only one watching him. The people in this area, adults and urchins alike, were conditioned to smell wealth from a distance, and the servant stank. The sun’s last rays raked their claws down the sides of tattered buildings as night’s reign began, bringing with it a touch of excitement to the man’s life. In the dark, it was a lot easier to work up the courage to assault a passerby in the street. Loch wondered, absently, if she ought to come down from the roof and attempt to dissuade any takers. If the servant got killed, she’d never know where he was heading, and her best lead would vanish into thin air. The idea was discarded as soon as it had come into being, however. She could not give herself away, and alert Conti’s noble backer to the fact that she was searching for him. The slow burn of anticipation coiled in her gut as she tracked his advance. Against all odds, he made it to the other end of the street without getting lynched or robbed. A twinge of disappointment was pushed out of the way by a sense of accomplishment as Loch watched the man let himself into an old warehouse at the far end. Not one of the guild-owned warehouses, she was certain—or at least, not one she had ever delivered any merchandise to. He did not come out again, and so she sat down on the roof tiles to watch the entrance. Up here, there was no shelter to be had from the freezing Capricorn wind. A failing all the more keenly felt now the sun was gone from the sky. Loch lit a cigarette to keep herself busy while she waited, then another. After an hour, the cold had thoroughly seeped into her bones from the clay surface below and her hands were numb. Had the servant come out, she could have continued her investigation, but as it was, being there did her no good. There could be another exit on the side of the warehouse she couldn’t see from her position; for all she knew, the man was already gone from the place. She climbed down from the roof onto Fleetpurse Row below and dusted off her clothes. Time to call it a night. After all, stakeouts were the sort of bothersome work she was paying Ofelia Zhou for. |