ofelia zhou deals in secrets. (consultancy) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-08-12 10:45:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !narrative, ofelia zhou |
this town is only gonna eat you.
Who: Ofelia Zhou
What: Attending to business and chasing ghosts.
Where: LeSait & elsewhere
When: Recently
Rating: Tame
Status: Complete narrative.
The slip of paper has been neatly folded three times, and is currently winging its way through pneumatic tubes, the veins and arteries pumping information through the lifeblood of the LeSait. There’s a rather detailed doodle on the outside (a hawk perched on a skeletal tree), which makes it look a bit like discarded scrap paper.
*** The tip of her snow-pale nose is a little sunburnt from Ordalia, the freckles standing out more prominent than ever, and her compatriots notice, remark, and laugh. “Been to the tropics again, Starling?” one of them smirks over coffee, and she exhales in mock irritation. “Is it always that obvious?” “Yes, but take no note of us. We’re simply jealous. I don’t get to go abroad again until Libra.” *** She found the message in an unmarked envelope, slipped into her suitcase from the Monte Karlo. Innocuous to some, but it was handwriting she knew. Handwriting that hers mirrored, had patterned itself on: she had seen it as a neatly-scribed yes on RSVPs and addresses on heavy stock, letters to ambassadors and gracious agreements to performances, cryptic reports slipped into coat pockets, the woman’s perfume in the air. Ofelia’s hands tightened on the paper, knuckles turning bone-white. *** “Dove!” As soon as he heard his name, the tall man slowed. “I’ve some questions for you,” Starling continued. “Do you have a minute?” “For you? Always.” His teeth flashed in a grin as he whirled to a stop, leaning against the nearest pillar at what she knew was an exaggerated sprawl. She ignored it. “Did you ever know anything about your predecessor? It was before my time here.” Dove thought for a moment, then said, “No. He died long before they even brought the name back into circulation. Out of respect, and all.” He tore another bite out of his sandwich, absentmindedly chewing while Starling crossed her arms and thought. The man’s codename was harmless, but she could see a fierce predatory raptor-like glint in his eye—she’d always respected him. “If you go down to the archives, though, you ought to find some information.” “I’d hoped to avoid it,” she sighed. The archives were dusty and impossible to navigate sometimes, crammed with Emillion’s history (both secret and not), an endless labyrinth to the directionally challenged. A pause, then, “What about Raven? Do you know if it’s in use? I’ve never actually met one, in all my years here.” “I think that one’s retired. Last one performed some service to the King some fifty years ago or summat. Why? What trail are you chasing now, Starling?” Never trust black dragons wearing masks, and Ravens eat Doves for breakfast. “It’s personal,” she said. *** The drink hit the counter along with an incredulous laugh. “Look, Hellena Zhou’s dead.” “That’s what we assumed, but I could never actually find concrete proof of it. I searched for years, until I eventually gave up. Until hope ran out. But if there’s anyone under this sun who could stay hidden if she wanted to… it’d be my mother, wouldn’t it?” She hated that rise to her voice, that hopeful little lift at the end of her sentence. She’d scrubbed out hope like this. She’d burned it to the ground. Buried it, planted the gravestones, left the offerings rolling on the marker. Hope was a sickening thing—but it was back, a small little fire kindling in her chest, and oh, how she hated it. *** Not for the first time, she missed having Azalea and Ophion in the city. *** She was burrowed deep into the archives, sifting through report after report written by the former Dove. The man’s handwriting—whoever he’d been—was crisp and neat, with a telltale flourish that she associated with the nobility, with cursive lessons and calligraphy pens. (It was amazing, sometimes, what details of identity one left behind like breadcrumbs sprinkled in one’s wake.) Starling traced his words over and over, immersing herself in the man’s head: the papers spoke of out-of-date politics, tense situations that threatened warfare before sinking back into a low-boil (due in large part to his involvement, she now knew). Off-the-books conflicts that had never even reached the history texts, meaning the Bureau operative had done his job properly. There were quite a lot of reports on the noble society of the time. Which meant the inquisitor had been more like Magpie, then, she thought, not herself. Ravens eat Doves for breakfast. She kept reading. Until she reached the end of the file: a near-empty slip of paper, the text printed in firm courier from a leaking typewriter. AGENT: DOVE DATE OF TERMINATION: 1998, O.V. It was a date she knew well; it had been carved into her memory, after all, from the first moment that Leila took in a small, tear-stained orphan and gently pushed her over the threshold of a creaking attic bedroom. Ofelia dropped her fountain pen with a clatter. It rolled under the table, and her hand clapped to her mouth. It wasn’t what she’d been looking for, not at all—it seems this was a dead end in some regards—but she’d found something else in its stead. “Goodness,” she blurted out, her head reeling. *** A half-finished game of rummy lay spread over the kitchen table. The suitcase still sat in the corner of her room, the envelope tucked into its outside pocket (just barely visible as a glint of white), waiting. |