log; cian & seloria (silent cries) Who: Cian & Seloria What: Murder and parkour, tbh Where: An old building in the Tenements currently housing Lord Miliona’s little “business” When: Virgo 15 (Sep 6) / Night. Rating: R. So extremely R. WARNINGS: Violence, torture, murder, mentions of rape, mentions of severe child abuse, basically…. read this at your own risk, it is not pretty and may be triggery Status: Complete
It felt red and warm, just as she’d remembered it. There was so much of it, far more than there should have been, but that was the nature of blood; messy. Her head felt like it was underwater and she could hear the fast rhythm of her heart pounding in her ears, even as she looked at the slumped mess in front of her with the sock in his mouth. She hadn’t been kind with the blade. It hadn’t even been hers. It’d belonged to the unconscious man outside. She’d never trained to be a ninja, but he hadn’t seen her coming. There was a mess there too. The lady had accepted that this was not going to be a pretty job the moment she realized exactly what was happening.
The children had not gone missing.
They were being taken.
They had been sold.
They had been…
A ragged breath shuddered free of her body as she looked at the man in front of her. She’d been far too kind. There weren’t enough holes in him. She should have stretched this out for days. She should have made him suffer as they had. She should have broken him and left him helpless, but she would learn from her mistakes.
It had felt far too gratifying.
First he was just surprised to see her there. Then he tried to sweet talk her. Then she just started crying and said she didn’t know how she got there. The tears came easily, stinging her eyes with pure rage, but it was the shock that helped keep the emotion from her face. He’d tried to sooth her. Those disgusting hands pawing at her arms, rubbing them up and down and she only cried harder. She let him pull her closer, those hands stroking her bared back in soothing motions as his voice told her everything was going to be fine. He thought it was going to be okay for himself. She knew, because she could see him reaching for the gun, right before she shoved the knife into his shoulder dislocating the nerve there.
She had never been trained in torture, but it seemed like a good place to start. That was confirmed when he yelled out in pain. She’d stopped crying by then. The back of her hand went to wipe the tears out of her eyes as he stumbled back in shock. Her grip on the knife only shifted and tightened, as she stepped forward. “You,” she said raising the blade and pointing it at him accusingly. “How could you do this?”
Lord Miliona had no idea how to respond. He’d never been approached with such hostility before. While small, she had dared to harm him physically. She was a lady of the Bard’s guild. A dancer. A frail and dainty thing, but the power behind that strike had been unmistakable. “Lady Cassul. This is hardly the way the sister of a Council Member should act.”
How clearly she was thinking now of all the ways she could hurt him. There were facts she’d been taught over the years that she’d forgotten and they all rushed so conveniently to the forefront of her mind. “Do not dare to mention my sister. You are not fit to speak her name and I will have your lecherous tongue for it.”
“I didn’t--”
“But not before I make you confess to your sins and beg for me to send you to hell.” Somewhere in the back of her mind, she realized her words were on the dramatic side, but she meant all of them. She meant them and the power behind her voice had made him take yet another step back, before he drew himself up.
Why was he quivering like a babe in front of this girl. She was a danger, yes, but he was bigger. Stronger. And more importantly. He had a gun. Unfortunately, he was not ambidextrous, so when he reached for it, he found the blade buried into his other shoulder causing him to drop the pistol.
“Please sit,” she said shoving him back into a chair. “Tell me what you do with the children.”
“What?”
“Tell me. What you do. With the children. I do warn you that I hate to repeat myself,” she said picking up the gun with her gloved hand. Two weapons, neither hers. The men were so accommodating.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She twisted the knife.
“I DON’T KNOW!” He screamed in desperation.
“You thought no one cared because they were orphans, well you were wrong.” The last word was punctuated by a full turn of the knife, now leaving a gaping hole. “You’ll need a healer soon.” To his credit, he kept a brave face a little longer. “You’re growing cold, aren’t you?” He wasn’t, but the suggestion was enough to break him.
“Confess and I’ll take you to a prison where they will keep you alive long enough to see you hang for your crimes.” But a man of Miliona’s influence could get himself out of that sort of predicament couldn’t he?
“I bought them and sold them,” he finally said confidently. “No one would believe the sister of a fell whore anyw--AH!!”
“I told you not to speak of her.” While Aspel might have been low in approval, she could never be as low as the one before her. It was something she hadn’t considered, but it was the truth.
“Sold them to be fucked, because they’re of no other used to this city. Nothing but parasites, leeching off the goodwill of others as foolish as yourself.”
She didn’t believe she could be as surprised as she was, but she’d stopped dead. Shocked at the way he so easily confessed what he did as if there was nothing wrong with it. The ease which he talked about it had taken root and nailed her to the floor.
Then there was the red and the warmth and the splashes around the floor. When had she cut his throat? The blood had sprayed onto her clothes and the she could feel the damp spots spreading across her breasts, stomach, and the front of her thighs. She just stood and stared at him, not sure what to do next.
That was when the door behind her opened.
Cian had heard the scream, which had cut off rapidly shortly before he’d gotten to the source. Anyone else in the building probably had heard it -- thank fortune for small mercies, this place was out of the way of the typical nighttime traffic.
Which, in retrospect, was sort of the fucking point.
But Cian was the only one who’d come at the sound of the cry, because the other adults in the building were currently having their own problems, courtesy of the small strike team Cian had brought along to disarm the entire depraved operation. But apparently, he’d planned his carefully-timed raid on the wrong fucking night, because someone had beaten him here. And though he’d made plans of ensuring this guy roasted for his twisted and fucked up appetites, he was taken aback for the briefest of moments by the sheer quantity of blood splattering the room.
He wasn’t an idiot, though -- by the time the little blonde (Faram fuck everything three times over of course it was the little fucking blonde twit) whirled around with her knife, he had a gun pointed at her. “Fuck’s sake, goldilocks, I know I told you you’d get filthy but this is something else again. What were you gonna do if one of his fucking lackeys shot you in the back?”
He wondered if she’d ever sliced someone up before -- didn't seem it, as there weren’t enough cuts by his reckoning. She should really have kept him alive longer. The corpse even seemed to have all its fingers intact. Amateurs.
Seloria's knuckles had turned white with how tight she'd been holding the handle of the blade. What is he doing here?
Of course, he's here.
He said he'd had business.
But his words didn't match up. Realization slowly dawned on her that she was in a room and there was someone else there pointing a gun at her. "What?" she said blinking at the question. "What if they had..?"
She turned to look back at the body. He was dead. "Fuck." A word she hadn't used in a long time. She looked at her blood soaked gloves and her blood soaked clothes. Then there was the blood soaked everything else. She still hadn't fully woken up from the task. Her sister was a fell knight and now she'd be pinned a murderer.
There was a small smile of realization of Rictor's perfect timing. He'd left before he could get dragged down by the shame of it all. She didn't know if it even mattered anymore. "Why are you here?"
“You’re shit at this,” he told her bluntly. “I told you to leave it the fuck alone, that it would be dealt with.” Because now, now he was embroiled in this with her. The people out there were being dealt with in a variety of ways, but they weren’t going to die in this Faram-fucked place, because he had more sense than to kill a couple dozen rich perverts in one place and think no one would notice. He’d intended to deal with this sack of shit somewhere else, in a leisurely fashion, and now instead he had a room full of blood and people who had seen people who were obviously here on his orders, plus half a dozen fucking terrified kids (fuck, fuck, fuck, don’t think about the kids, not right now), and everyone knew that kids couldn’t keep their fucking mouths shut if you paid them unless you’d terrified the fight out of them first, and none of them had been here long enough to get that broken. he knew better than most.
Just, fuck everything.
“Put the knife away, goldilocks,” he said coldly. “I’d rather not shoot you right now.”
That it'd be dealt with? She exhaled. He wasn't working with him and if he'd wanted to shoot her he would have. It would have been easy to take her down knife or no, so she just let it drop. It wasn't hers anyway.
"Are the children okay?"
“Didn’t check that before coming back here?” he asked, one brow quirked. Berserkers could learn some lessons from this girl. “Listen, I really should leave you to clean this up yourself, but --”
From outside the building he heard a not-too-distant whistle and cursed under his breath, thought forgotten. “Right, leaving the mess,” and here’s hoping no one had seen her and she’d kept her gloves on, “out the window.” Before she could hesitate, he came up to her, holstering his gun and giving her a nudge. “Move.” He’d consider later why he was helping her at all. “Hope you’re not afraid of heights.”
"I passed them," but she hadn't let them out. Her plan was to go back for them, but that was now completely out of the question. She couldn't let them see her like this.
She didn't notice the whistle, but she was already being moved along and shoved out of the window. The rain was cold as it hit her face and there was just no traction to be had as she slid down the side of the roof. Rubber soles would've been a godsend right about now, but her she managed to stop at the short flat ledge. It was definitely a long way down. She'd be fine. She could walk on everything. She looked around for a way to get off the roof, onto another building perhaps, especially now that she could see the lights below.
Below, people in dark clothes were scattering, and a kid was crying loudly. Well, that'd give the Knights something to think about for a minute or five. Not much longer, though.
"This way, " he told her, pulling himself up and across the slippery surface of the roof (blessing and curse, this rain; it'd wash them clean, but getting out of here was going to be a bitch).
There was only one gap that he judged risky but jumpable, and he made his way there, trusting the girl would follow (or, if she didn't, he told himself it didn't matter; there was only so much help he was going to offer). Ledge reached, he said, "Dancer, right? Think of it like a grand jester or whatever the hell they're called. Narrower than it looks." That was the only bit of advice before he made the leap himself, stopping a slip to certain injury with a death grip on a convenient cornice.
They'd left the window open and he thought he could hear voices -- moments from now, someone would be looking on this roof, and he didn't intend to be up here when they did.
Seloria needed to pull herself together. She took a steadying breath as he yelled her trying to remember all the stuff that her first mentor had told her. The thief had been a good one. This wasn't her first time, and she was aptly dressed for it. Pants were not something she wore often, but the way they hugged her, even now in the rain, was faintly familiar. She wouldn't be able to help anyone if she got caught. He was helping her get away.
He jumped and she wasn't too far behind. She'd made it. She'd landed, but the water caused her foot to slip and the world gave out from beneath her. To her credit, she only gave a little squeak during the whole thing, hand fingers attempting to grab the ledge on the way down.
Instead, she found herself with his hand clamped around her wrist. Fortunately, she weighed hardly anything, comparatively; it was no trouble to haul her up and then along the rooftop. He wasn’t really thinking as he did it -- it was just something he did. He’d consider it later, at length, but for now…
They crested the edge of the roof, slid a bit down the other side. Concealed, for now. He looked around, spotting -- thank Lady Luck for her foresight -- a rickety fire escape starting from a platform just one story down. Easy enough to jump, provided the metal didn’t give way. Just had to hope for the best. It was still raining, so at least the sound of their escape -- and any traces they might leave -- would be masked.
“If I were you,” he said, “I’d head down and find someplace to hole up for a few hours. Once the heat dies down, you go wherever it is you’re going. I don’t give a fuck. And goldilocks,” he turned, met her eyes (his were cold), “you mention seeing me here tonight, I’ll rethink not letting you go splat. Just so we have that clear.”
Then, right before her eyes, he faded away into invisibility. The only sign of his departure was the low thump as he hit the platform, which held his weight (and would thus hold hers too), and then he was taking the stairs two at a time and, once his feet hit solid ground, setting a rapid pace for the rendezvous point he’d set for his people. He had to figure out who’d been a little too slow in scattering, and then plan accordingly. His work for the night was only half done.
Seloria had thanked him. It was more out of habit. It had been mechanical, not fully genuine at the time. What the hell had she been thinking? No, this wasn't the time to get lost in her own thoughts. He was telling her things again. It was something helpful and what she was sure was a warning. She'd just made a mess of things. The thought had hit her now that the adrenaline was starting to wane. She needed to leave like he told her to.
He'd just disappeared in front of her. It wasn't something she hadn't seen before, just...not in a long time. It took her a moment to register, the thud of his weight on the fire escape letting her know he was still there. She followed suit, thankful she'd opted for black for the evening. The dancer pulled her hood over her head to cover the color of her braided hair and skin. She could only vaguely smell the blood and these clothes would be burned.
Mention seeing him? Was he going to mention she was there? To implicate him would be to implicate herself and she had not been there.
Seeing the lower window to the warehouse open, she slipped inside behind some crates. It was dry, but the water had soaked clear down to the bone. She pulled her knees up and shivered. Waves of exhaustion washed over her, but she couldn't fall asleep. Not here. She just had to wait, as he'd said, for the opportunity to leave.
She would go home. She would sleep. Wake up and put on her best performance for however long it was needed.