audrey (larcener) wrote in emillion, @ 2013-07-21 00:05:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !complete, !log, audrey leradine, azalea cerelia |
Who: Audrey Leradine & Azalea Cerelia
What: Checking on Audrey
Where: The Sapphire House
When: July 11th (Backdated)
Rating: PG
Status: Complete
It had been a long day, but as Azalea took the tortuous path to the Red Light District, she knew that it wasn’t over yet. The events of the week weighed heavily upon her mind. That idiot Conti had left a right mess for her to clean up. Though her personal participation in the investigation likely attenuated the worst of the shitshow, there was no question that the debacle had cast unnecessary shade on the Red Light District and the Guild as a whole. Certainly, the Guild did not have a pristine reputation, never would. But for it to survive it needed as brilliant a cover as it could manage, asshe could manage. Things hadn’t been so great, these days. With their movements already limited by the EKP’s probing into the sewers, she wondered how much worse it was going to get.
Not to mention, revenue was plummeting, as well. Not sharply, not irreparably, but noticeably enough. Fedoro had been a saving grace; however, the decline in whoring and the delay in shipments were never good things. Smugglers were charging more, and the scavengers were coming out of the woodwork.
Azalea sighed, more than ever wishing for some nicotine, eying the unlit cigarette poised between two of her fingers. (Uncharacteristically, her lighter had been left on her desk.) She was considering unrolling the paper and chewing the filler when a gigolo approached her, saying sleazily, “A light for ya, darlin’?”
Lea smiled, distracted. “Don’t mind if I do, honey.” She ignored his visible disappointment when she walked away from him without expressing further interest. Now that smoke was filling her lungs, her exhalations came tinged with relief. Along with the smoke, she blew away the thoughts of business. The visit to the Sapphire House was not of a professional bent, after all. It would not be the only one she would had to make. There was Ofelia, too, and Fumiya.
But Audrey would come first. Of the three of them, no doubt she would be hit the hardest.
The House came into view. Lea dashed her cigarette a few feet from the entrance before making her way in. No sooner had she asked for Audrey than she was led into the ninja’s room. “Hey,” she said gently, stepping in, “Mind company?”
As The Sapphire House was owned by the Sasaki-gumi, the workers were very well aware of the Bard’s Guild councilmembers. As soon as one of the maids opened the door, she immediately bowed her head and scrambled to let her in. “Ah, welcome, welcome, Ms. Cerelia.” Closing the door behind her, she scampered to get in front of her to lead her the way. “Audrey is right this way.” Up two flights of stairs and they had reached the door to the attic. “Just inside,” smiled the girl, leaving Lea to open the door.
Audrey had been a mess ever since Leila’s death. Most of the time she hardly made it out of the Sapphire House, preferring to drown her sorrows away with sake, mead, or wine within the security of her own room. Her room suffered from broken glass and bottles scattered everywhere. When Lea had walked in, Audrey was sitting at the edge of the bed, her palm on her forehead and her other hand wrapped around the neck of a bottle of wine. It was clear that she had been crying for quite some time. Her eyes were bloodshot and her cheeks still moist.
At the sound of Lea’s voice, Audrey lifted her eyes from the ground only to spot the councilmember. “Lea,” she cleared her throat, quickly standing but finding the world shaking beneath her. Catching her balance, she placed her bottle on her night stand. Immediately she went to the ground, cleaning up shards and trash. “I’m so sorry about the mess. I wasn’t expecting visitors.”
“You’re fine, don’t worry about it.” Lea bent to put a hand on the ninja’s back, thinking to stop her. She exhaled, instead joining Audrey on the ground to help. For all Lea knew, cleaning could be therapeutic for the ninja. The menial act also gave Lea time to think of what to say. It had all been planned out in her head, but offering condolences now seemed empty in the face of Audrey’s sorrow.
“Do you want to talk about it?” The question was uttered with some hesitation, uncharacteristic. Death wasn’t their line of work, not this side of it. Losing comrades, grieving—that was for the fighters, warriors who had hardened their hearts and inured themselves to the consequences. Thieves were trained to kill, but there was an unspoken honor among them that was meant to be inviolable. Conti had gone against his own blatantly and without contract. For that, he had found no asylum with the guild. “You asked me before, so I thought you’d want to know how the investigation panned out.”
Quietly she picked up the shattered pieces of broken memories. It was awfully quiet between them. Reaching for a bag nearby, she placed it between them so the trash had a rightful place to go. Sometimes she would stop, look at the remainder of a vase or a trinket, and put it within the bag. The blonde forced a smile for Lea as she slowly shook her head. “There isn’t much to speak about. Leila has passed. I’ve thrown my fits. All will go back to normal soon, I hope. No, it will.”
She exhaled a deep sigh. “I have yet to truly talk to Ofelia. The man with--” she interrupted herself, “Mr. Sasaki will be taking me in for a while. I’ll be between here and his estate.” Clearing her throat, she had picked up what she could and took the bag to place it by the door. “How are things going with the investigation-- with the guild-- what will happen?”
“They’ve found the culprit,” Lea replied. “A machinist named Fiore Conti. He’s in gaol, awaiting trial.” She watched Audrey as the latter paused over this fragment or that, before returning to work herself. “The guild won’t help him.”
It was not quite the promise of retribution, and it certainly would not suffice. But Lea could not help hoping that the fact offered comfort, one way or another. “Mr. Sasaki,” she echoed at length, tucking away a stray wisp of hair before attending to another shard. That was his surname now, of course, and had been for a few years. Still, it was difficult to reconcile the man he was today with the boy she had known in her youth. “He going to mentor you?”
(How fitting, Azalea reflected. How painfully fitting.)
Audrey stood up quietly, with her back to Lea after placing the bag on the floor. Her hand went through her hair, brushing her overgrown bangs out of her eyes. “Trial?” A scoff could be heard, as Audrey shook her head in disbelief. “The man should be put to death.” Audrey held her hand out to the side, emphasizing. “Someone like that. He killed three people. Left two orphans. Are you joking? And he hurt Ash.”
The blonde’s hands balled into fists at her side, restraining herself from punching a frame out of her wall. “I’ll do it if I have to.” The thought of Leila made her lose self control. She couldn’t hold back any longer as her fist made direct contact with the glass in the frame, shattering it. Her hand came down shaking the glass out, not bothering with the bloodied fist she was left with.
“You know how the justice system works,” Lea said. They all did. Slow, ridden with red tape, easily intercepted at each turn. In summation: open to exploitation, therefore conducive to the Guild’s affairs. Still, the councilwoman was not unmoved by Audrey’s words. Ash had indeed been hurt, and though Lea had not known Leila intimately, she had spoken with the woman and, more importantly, had come to care for her second-handedly.
However, in her position, it was important to remain cerebral. “Be careful, Aud, honey,” Lea cautioned. Whether about the glass or the killing was ambiguous. After a beat, she added, “You should never kill with a motive.” As far as she had understood, Audrey was not the type to kill at all. But it seemed the turn of events would be changing that. Lea was rising now, taking a potion out of her pocket.
“It’s like painting a target sign on your back.” She held her hand open for Audrey’s, uncorking the potion with her teeth. “And there are a lot of us that’d hate to see you put at risk,” she said, quiet. “You aren’t alone.”
“The justice system is a piece of shit and needs to be changed,” Audrey was enraged and trying to calm herself down was proving to be more of a challenge than she thought it’d be. “It’s failed me more than once and I’m ready to just take it into my own hands.” Bloodshot eyes looked back up at Lea, nothing but confusion locked in her expression. “Why not? I thought motive would be the only reason to kill. Otherwise it’s ruthless. It’s-- He needs to die.”
Watching her near her with the potion, the blonde obeyed, holding her hand out to her. “So what happens now then? Conti gets to live in a cell while he leaves behind two orphans and scars. It’s not fair.”
“There’s the death penalty,” Lea said over Audrey’s hand, gently dropping amounts of the potion over the small wounds. “And then there’s Sasaki-gumi. They… are definitely going to take more than just fingers for an offense like this.” Leila or no, a blight against the Sapphire House was tantamount to a blight against the Black Dragons.
The queries about assassination, an art that was best left to jobs and contracts, were left unanswered. These were intricacies Fumiya would teach Audrey in time, once he too had learned to live with the scar of Leila’s passing. When she finished with the last of the wounds, Azalea was struck by the impulse to take the younger woman into her arms. For a spirit like Audrey’s to be speaking out of eyes like those… However, wary of overstepping, as if grief were a sacred boundary drawn between Leila’s loved ones and the rest of the world, Lea instead gripped Audrey’s hand firmly, tracing a comforting circle over the back of it before letting go. “And then,” she repeated. “There’s what’s left behind. The scars won’t fade, but you can only move forward. For her and for you.”
It wasn’t the first time Audrey had heard of the Sasaki-gumi nor would it be the last. It had taken her recalling memories and placing puzzle pieces together to have the information she had in her hands now. The man with the red dahlias, Fumiya Sasaki, the Sasaki-gumi, Leila-- they were all interwoven together and now she was slowly become a part of that web. Audrey’s head sank down. If anyone deserved revenge right now, it was Fumiya. She would never see the bouquet of red dahlias delivered to the Sapphire anymore.
She hated to admit it, but there was reason in Lea’s words. Leila would be frowning at Audrey’s actions right now. It would be disrespectful to throw away all of this woman’s hard work just because of her now permanent absence. A soft smile formed on her lips, falling back on memories of Leila. No, she was wrong. The woman wasn’t gone forever. Leila had shown her this when Audrey’s parents were recently deceased. No matter what, the warm memories she held would keep the people she lost from ever truly disappearing from her life. “I will,” she nodded. Unlike Lea, Audrey never really considered boundaries. She launched herself from her spot and embraced the woman in front of her, digging her face in her shoulder. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Lea breathed, wrapping her arms around Audrey. “Of course, you’re welcome.”
And perhaps here—the two women standing together, enfolded in each other’s arms, warm and alive—was the first step forward.