Who: Leliana & Cindy-lou What: Doing away with the woman that threatened Gale's life When: Tonight Where: Abandoned church Rating/Warnings: High for kidnapping and murder. Status: Complete!
The only way out of this game is to kill or be killed.
Words to live by, words that rung with truth when it came to dealing with a lifestyle of this macabre nature. There was never any pink slips of termination, no ‘two weeks’ notice, not when you were in this deep. Not when you knew the truths beneath the lies and your ledger was nothing but red. Leliana had been at the top of the hierarchy when it came to her division; the one she took from Marjolaine after she killed her (a relationship ending with literal knives in the back, how romantic!), and now someone was attempting to usurp her.
By attacking what mattered the most: the heart. It was a sure way of crippling anyone, even those with the blackest of them, and it was a tactic she had used herself. It was effective. An old method of the trade. Tactically, the way of going about it was very sound.
Gale’s way of going about it was better. Not that she could take credit for his stroke of brilliance; he’d manage to concoct a better plan than she did in a more pressed amount of time and with the way they had executed it (by keeping the secret only to a select two), everyone had believed the woven tale of deceit. To the public, her lover was the victim of an unfortunate and sudden accident that left his body mutilated. To those dear, her lover was the victim of a traitor among her ranks. The consistency was his death and it needed to remain that way.
Then, as a sign from even Andraste herself, someone of the undead variety came in the way of her crosshairs and he was perfect. A certain vampiric esquire took the reigns of offing the dozen traitorous agents in the surrounding area, raising panic and uncertainty. Meanwhile Nightingale played the mourning role, too distraught in her grief to even bother with what had been going on (and had some vocal tiffs with the bitch in command of operations). What a way to bestow chaos in such a usually meticulous organization.
All things came to an end, and they’d come to an end here, at this barn-sized church, the setting rays of the sun filtering through the stained glass of holy images. Dusty pews, old candles, rotted wood, but the floors had been recently cleaned. It was a lovely hut she liked to use for certain tasks, such as tying up a meathead that had been stalking her baby bird’s now-husband to teach him a lesson, or…
Such as tying a traitorous cunt, several years older than Leliana (how old Marjolaine would have been, if she was still alive), bound with rope to a chair. Her XO, second in command, someone who she had been to hell and back with, someone she had trusted. To this day she didn’t know what her purpose was, why she was suddenly doing this, but she supposed that she’d find out.
Tonight.
“I think I accidentally upped the dose on this horse tranquilizer,” mumbled the redhead, dressed in clothes that looked woven by shadows themselves; black, and a material that didn’t absorb the wet things all that much. Trapped between her fingers was an empty syringe, needle still in place, and she sighed. “She’s been out for hours. Oopsie.”
This was no pristine place of holy worship that glittered like the gates of Heaven. Perhaps it had once been that way, but not anymore. Miles of pews stretched on and on, the stone statues still remained, Catholic saints on parade - but the place was empty as a ghost ship. It still held plenty of promise, not to mention memories - it was where Cindy had taken care of a little problem, perhaps elaborately so (because it would have just been easier to play sniper and shoot the fucker from atop a building), but she never claimed to not have a cruel streak in her. Especially when it involved vengeance, and payback gifted to those who had hurt her loved ones.
“We’ll wait a little longer, maybe,” she responded casually, waltzing to the pulpit where she had the case of knives stashed - pristine, nestled in velvet, she took one out and it winked and gleamed at her, catching the last ray of sun that shone in through the dust-covered windows. She too was dressed in black, something sleek and something that easily moved with her, boots laced up her calves. Her blonde hair was pinned up out of her face, and she examined the state of her nails to kill time. “Because when she wakes up, she’ll probably wish she was out cold again.” The poor dear.
“My patience is waning,” she announced, those glacial eyes narrowing over at the woman who probably deserved to be hung by her intestines from the ceiling - but that was just a fantasy. In reality it’d be messy and too much effort would be involved, but luckily Leliana was equipped with many tools of the trade. She liked options, you see, and in her cosmetic bag was another set of syringes. More tranquilizers if need be, but there was one or two tiny plastic tubes full with one thing that’d wake the bitch up.
Adrenaline.
The new syringe in question was flicked once, before Leliana walked across the room, the sound of lethal heels clicking and clacking against the floors, and she plunged the needle in without tenderness. It only took a matter of seconds for the woman to jolt back into the land of consciousness, jerking forward, eyes bulging and wide with breathing that sounded more like desperate attempts of swallowing air.
There we go.
“Deja vu, isn’t it, Cindy?”
“A little,” Cindy chuckled, watching with great amusement - her sky blues were so alive, because she just loved observing Leliana at work. This was the woman she’d learned from, many tricks of the trade, and getting to commit a little revenge murder together? She liked that too. It was better girl bonding than manicures and pedicures (as nice as those were, don’t get her wrong).
In Cindy’s former scenario, she’d knocked the bastard out cold after changing her appearance to catch him off guard - and then stabbed him dead in this very same church; there hadn’t been much talking going on since he was ever loyal to his stupid cause, but here, she had a feeling that Leli wanted information too. Wanted to prolong the experience, wanted to know why the traitor had signed her death warrant this way.
“Sleeping Beauty’s awake, then, good,” she drawled, sauntering closer, standing on the opposite side of the incapacitated lady. “Now the fun can start.” Cinderella did enjoy fun with knives - she was ever so eager to sink one in.
It took the woman a couple coughs and wheezes to ease herself, blinking away the bleariness of her pretty eyes - a lovely shade of emerald, the hint of wrinkles around the edges - so she could properly assess the situation. She wasn’t an idiot. This structure was familiar, this entire setup was familiar. Except she was never the one in this particular position, no. That part was relatively new. Though she took it calmly, albeit still somewhat jittery from the injection of the adrenaline, but the dosage wasn’t high enough for an episode of Herculean strength to break out of the confines.
“Apologies for the rude awakening,” she smiled, all venom, all lies, but never say that Leliana never acted polite. A chair was pulled up, wooden legs scraping against the floor, and she got comfortable directly across from her former right hand woman. Then a hand motioned to Cindy. “You remember this one, hm, Natalie? An old friend, worked a couple missions for us. Recently married, you should be congratulate her.”
Natalie relaxed against her ropes, chuckling mirthlessly, and licking her cracked lips. “Congratulations,” she told Cindy, their gazes meeting, but it was void of all sincerity. “And our deepest apologies,” she then tacked on, because this was about to get personal, “for having Hawthorne miss your festivities.”
Leliana tried not to let that existing smile widen.
Oh, let the bitch just try to go for the bond-ripping with Herculean strength. Just try. Cindy would dart forward like a viper in the grass to slit a beautiful red, dripping-blood smile right in Natalie’s throat. Not even with a deep finality to kill her, but just enough to make really irritating (one of the finer tricks of the trade; she listed it as a favorite).
“Thanks, honey,” she spoke with a complete lack of sincerity on her own end, not that it sounded that way - it was acidic poison that was disguised by a few spoonfuls of sugar and southern niceties. “Right, about that? We’ve all been mourning the loss, taking it pretty hard, Nightingale especially.” A glance at Leliana. “In fact, I think that’s what she wanted to talk to you about, maybe...not sure though.”
Gee, I wonder? What could ever be in store for lovely Natalie today?
Natalie wasn’t stupid. She knew what this meant, knew what the endgame was and while she could try and shuffle with the ratchet ropes keeping her bound, the blonde bitch was watching for suspicious movements like a hawk - nothing would escape those baby blues because they had helped her hone that skill years ago. It was the end of the line, she knew this was a possibility, but she had gotten far and had been smug on the fact that she’d gotten Nightingale where it hurt the most.
An eye for an eye, even if she didn’t know it yet.
“Well, before we get into all that...” Leliana straightened, pulling the oh so familiar blade that was the twin to Cindy’s. Friendship daggers. It was very them. “I have been contemplating what your motives are, and I’m a bit at loss. Did you want power this desperately?” Fingers stroked the edge of the steel weapon, gently. “Did someone else put you up to this? Hm, the options ran through my head but with what happened to Gale…”
Leaning forward, she used the blade to lift Natalie’s chin up, just to make sure the bitch got a good look at those angry eyes. “It all seemed highly personal. Why?”
“Marjolaine,” was Natalie’s explanation. It wasn’t an answer Leliana actually expected. “You never knew we were fucking behind your back, did you? All those years ago, she’d been pulling your strings because she knew she could get you to do exactly what she wanted - but she loved me, and then you killed her. Back then it was best to join you and not fight you, and I knew you’d eventually slip up.” Now came the cocky look as she leaned back, like the chair was some kind of comfortable recliner. “You got all smitten with someone a decade younger, it was really pathetic of you, Nightingale. But perfect for me.”
Leliana blinked up to Cindy, and then to Natalie, and it was clearly just a look that translated to nothing but what the fuck. “You tried to kill my lover because of what happened over ten years ago?” Crimes of passion? Maker. Not that the entire revelation of Marjolaine screwing around behind her back was all that surprising. She was the same woman who literally put a knife in her back, but...
Their hostage’s comfort suddenly diminished. “What do you mean, tried?”
Let’s just say the look was matched on Mrs. Vakarian. Blonde eyebrow arched way up, nearly to the hairline. Oh, that was rich - someone harboring such hatred and biding their time for years just to avenge a fallen lover, who had really kind of started the whole thing. Such an intricate web of cheats and lies, black widow spiders spinning all their silk.
“Kinda sweet,” she remarked sarcastically, head tilting to the side a bit, baby bird so amused. “I mean to wait that long, Natalie. You played it well, we’ll give you that.” And ah, there we go - the wheels were turning, something was clicking in that head of hers. No, the woman obviously wasn’t stupid - no one could be, in this job, unless you were expendable. Sometimes that was the case too.
A game of smarts, of intellect, but look who had just come out on top. “Tried,” Cindy repeated for emphasis then added to Leliana, “You tell her. I don’t have the heart.” Ha.
It was impressive dedication, Leliana would at least give it that. Natalie had almost succeeded. If she’d arrived minutes later that night, Ritz would have put a fatal bullet in Gale and that closed-casket funeral she had arranged for show would have been the legitimate thing. There wasn’t even a bit of her that actually cared to ask questions about the nature of her and Marjolaine’s relationship (aside from the sex and proclamation of looooooove, how sweet) - Natalie had been swept up in the same seduction, same charm, but had not been the one at the end of her dagger.
Like Cindy would say, bless her.
“Gale’s alive,” she confessed. And chuckled, mind you, a happy sounding sound. Because the moment she let those words slip, Natalie visibly twitched. Muscles tensed. Jade-colored eyes widened, and her mouth curled back into a very unattractive scowl. “I already suspected something off, and had gotten wind of your little operation. I foiled it. He killed Ritz while I distracted him, and we thought it amusing to let you think you won. And while he was safe, I sniffed out every agent involved and had someone of…” Hmmm, how to say? Leliana hummed in thought. “Someone of semi-cannibalistic tastes handle them, but I’ll leave the rest to your imagination for the next couple seconds of your life. Surprise.”
A drop of sweat rolled down her face. It almost looked like a tear. Natalie answered back with silence, and Nightingale thought she broke the poor thing. How hard things must be for her, no?
The redhead sighed contently. “I’ve been holding that in for awhile, it felt very good to say.” To finally come out with the truth and soon, after this, he could actually come back home. A glance was spared to Cindy. “I’m sorry, for not telling you sooner.”
“I understand,” Cindy shrugged, a flash and wink of her knife blade as she studied it, contemplative - like she was debating the best place to slip it in on Natalie, who seemed to be having a quiet breakdown of sorts. Really, bless her smudge-blackened heart. “You did what you had to do. Then and now.”
It was obvious what would be happening here in the now. Though even Cindy had to admit that ‘semi-cannibalistic’ tastes was a surprise in this equation - only in Orange County, right?
“As for you two lovebirds...“ No, she didn’t think it was necessary to ask about the nature of her and Marjolaine’s relationship either. What’s done is done, it was in the past. No reason to dig it up and defile it. But there was at least one high point, hm? “Don’t worry, you’ll be together soon.” In Hell.
A slice to the throat was the typical signature. It was effective when the goal was a quiet kill; death in the darkness, quick and effortless. Quick, however, wasn’t something the woman before her really deserved. They were friends, once. Or at least Leliana thought. She had no choice but to take it rather personally - she had robbed them of their time together, forced her to fabricate a web of lies to everyone he cared about, and caused her to deceive to her dearest of friends to keep up the charade. And it was worst when it came from someone who she thought was one of her dearest of friends.
So when she pressed the tip of the blade into her chest and pushed, it was done slowly. A heart for a heart. “You’ll have to give Marjolaine my regards,” she whispered. Best to bask in every pained change of her face, every sound, every tremor of her body. Natalie’s mouth opened but instead of words came a gasped groan. “Just as Gale would like to give you his.”
A cough caused blood to spit up, wet sticky rivulets of crimson staining her lap. “You’re not out, neither of you are,” she hissed, hair sticking to sweat-glistened skin. “Play house, live your fucking illusions, but you’ll end up like the rest of us. Dying is the only way to end this sick ride, ladies.”
Such a sheen on pretty Natalie’s skin - like she’d oiled herself up with succubus lotion, how quaint. Cindy had already selected the knife, her favorite, a sleeker and smaller version of the one she’d used to kill the meathead who had taken over Garrus’ former condo. It was very nearly a switchblade - so perfect.
“I’m afraid you’re wrong,” she stated, with a sigh. “We are out, because we made that choice. You could have been too. But you just...weren’t strong enough.”
There were bad decisions made, and mistakes. That happened sometimes - when it did, well, you had to pay for them. It was the only way you learned.
The knife started at one end of her throat and slashed to the other, opening up a beautiful wound that spilled red velvet.
It did look like a smile. A red one, grinning at her, and blood spritzed and fell. Eyes rolled into the back of her head and the Spymaster could even see her chest rise one last time for that one last breath. It was then she knew they’d taken her life. Natalie was dead, and the room fell eerily quiet.
The last mission. Finally, it was over. Weeks of preparing, sleepless nights, keeping tabs and sticking to a lie she hated to keep up with had finally come to an end. Leliana breathed deeply through her nose and was met with the scent of iron, yet it bothered her none. It was merely extra proof. “Thank you,” she told Cindy. The knife was yanked from the flesh allowing more blood flow and it began to puddle on the ground. Drip. Drip. Drip. “It’s barely been a month, but it feels so much...longer than that.”
Longer since she’d actually seen him. Communication had been cut off entirely since the night this all started; it was safer that way, and if something happened Wash would act like a liaison between the two. Now she could bring Gale home, to her and everyone else - right where he belonged. Alive and safe.
Cindy’s cast-iron look of hardness, no regret and no remorse for what she’d done, softened into something else entirely at Leliana’s words. “Anything for a friend,” she spoke sincerely, and reached out to squeeze her shoulder. Hey, this was her Maid of Honor - they were in this for life, having seen each other through some serious shit.
“Let’s not linger here. I’m sure you want to get to him, since you’ve been separated for far too long.” She understood what it was like, to be on pins and needles when it came to the person you loved, since she’d experienced something similar during the crime wave debacle with Garrus - and she also understood the sense of relief that flooded you when you realized that you didn’t have to live like this any longer.
Cindy might have squeezed her shoulder, but she squeezed Cindy - a full blown embrace with one person she knew she could trust completely, who had also been in this tango of death and lies and hadn’t been lost to it. It was only fitting for her baby bird to be here; out of anyone she’d know the feeling, knew the inside of this church, and she wasn’t someone she had to walk on eggshells with. This wasn’t the easiest of jobs to stomach. Leliana had needed someone who understood how this worked.
“I’ll call someone to clean this.” A hand motion to the corpse. . Let it sit too long and it’d reek, and the routine clean-up was usually involved stuffing the dead weight into plastic barrell and drowning it with something stronger than hydrofluoric acid. It’d break down skin and bone without eating through the barrel itself. A handy thing to have when leaving behind evidence was not an option, and Rosa at this rate was a professional. The cans of Lemon Pledge she carried around was typically for the shits and giggles.
Once their things were gathered, she’d get Bella (she’d been doing somewhat better, but the depression still clung) and head off to the safehouse. “I am officially too old for this,” she tiredly smiled. “And officially ready for a cute co-owned house to decorate with all my failed Pinterest projects. Should have known the first conversation we had upon our reunion would actually pan out.” They’d discuss her staying longer than she intended, and, well…
This place was some kind of happy vortex of hell that sucked you in and never let you go.
The fierce hug from Leli was returned as passionately from Cindy - she may have even gotten a little misty-eyed, because this was big. A whole story closing, a new one to be written - the end of an era. In a way, it was kind of sad, but she also knew it was for the best. Leliana would have been ruined, if she kept down this path - might have even ended up like Natalie, and that was the last thing Cindy wanted for her good friend.
“Hey, sometimes I’m right about things,” she winked, referring to their conversation. She wasn’t psychic or anything, but sometimes you just knew. Sometimes you just had to trust your heart. The rest, well - it usually fell into place.