KARINE.

–

Hector first finds clothing too fine to be a barkeep’s, and his eyes go up to a features that cut in the low lit tavern light and the man they belong to. He’s never seen him before tonight, but in the past hour, Hector’s stolen enough glances at him through his stories and between rounds to want to know who he is. Had they been elsewhere and had Hector been clear of mind and ale, however, he might’ve seen the deceit hidden behind allure. But all Hector can see now in his heat is someone with a face he likes– someone who’s approached him. This Hector likes too.

“You tell me,” Hector volleys, splaying out a set of thick fingers to look at the damage the faces of those men did to his knuckles. It’s not significant, just a faint bloom of soon-to-be bruising, but he doesn’t spend too much time appraising. Instead he sets his sight back to the stranger only to trail his gaze down the lean length of him at a lazing pace. The attention Hector’s giving him is different from what he’s given his old friends behind him or the flattering crowd that’s dissipating as quickly as it gathered. It’s focused and fixated. “I’m standing,” he says without lingering on his victory. “They aren’t.”

Hector sets his cup down and reaches out to settle a hand on the man’s hip to let it linger. For a moment, he entertains the idea of pulling him into his lap for a moment but decides better of it. Hector’s already got him, he thinks. Might as well enjoy the subtlety a bit longer— he’d always liked a bit of teasing beforehand anyway.

He pulls up a stray stool, and urges the man in his grip to move. “Sit,” Hector commands, but softens with a question spoken and another thought: “What is your name?” And are you my reward?

-

what else does he know of the empress’ personal advisor, beyond his myth? ah, that he loves to fight. that he makes a mess of any arena, wide as the wild plains, or as cramped as the one to be found in the lion’s mane, that he enjoys a pretty face regardless of the danger it belies. or perhaps in spite of it. the latter would certainly be a kind of triumph, especially for one so close to the empress who already seems to have a predilection for creatures of sharp edges and smoke, but it is more likely that the once-dragon hunter is only too filled with the highs of victory and ale to know any better. a great shame. 

there’s the bloom of bruises, the hand on his hip, and he imagines hector has conquest on the mind, wonders if he sees everything a bit like an opportunity for a rout now that there is nothing left to provide the challenge of dragons. “they aren’t. but that is to be expected, no?” he concedes, and it’s a breath away from sounding a bit like ‘you tragic thing. what is left after the monsters are gone?’ “your hands. do they hurt? does anything else? i find that every triumph is not without its pains.” the man meets his unblinking fixation in kind, roves the length of him, and karine smiles faintly, elongates his expanse, crooking his neck, unfurls as prey would in exchange for mercy. or the way a waiting maw might. 

his first instinct is to bed him, once, and again, and again, see what lodes of wisdom he is able to mine, what secrets he can tear from the dip in the man’s tongue and keep him talking after he’s sobered up. but surely there is more to uncover--such as, why it was alain decided to recommend a monster-hunter for an advisory position. he supposes he could simply ask alain, but he was never one for ease nor convenience in place of mystery. 

“karine.” he offers the word like a dollop of sweet cream spooned into hector’s palm. “but i already know yours, dragon-slayer. do you have anything else to offer in its stead?”

status: closed for @karinenotturna date: the 28th of maccius, 936 location: the lion’s mane

Val Faim has several places just like this one: not tucked away, but not on brazen display, either. Buildings that blend into the background almost seamlessly, easy to pass over without taking another glance. They are fascinated by places like these, have spent the last enduring hours of the day working their way from quarter to quarter, hunting for something without being able to put a name on it. Sometimes it’s nothing more than a need to be active, out and about, exploring the world they’ve placed themself in. Well – it’s not entirely true. Cassian, on a technical note, pulled them along. But they’re here, so they figure they might as well make the best use of it.

The Lion’s Mane is intriguing: it’s like the building has been divided entirely into two pieces. Raucous peals of laughter on one side, accompanied by the distinct slosh of spilled drinks and men and women colliding their fists’ against other’s faces with intention. On the other, there’s a quieter attitude. People with their heads tucked down, or held in their hands, nursing something and desperately finding the will to go along another day. Not an uncommon sentiment worldwide, and no, they suppose it would make sense that even here, the day-to-day turmoil that plague so many would not change.

Celestine has a reputation of gold. Rowan is eager to discover what appears underneath if they work away at the varnish enough.

How fitting it is, then, that they find Karine here. Something like resentment rolls over in their stomach, and they elect not to roll with it for now. Instead, they choose steely determination, which is why without bothering to order a drink or call anyone over, they sit next to him with a hefty sigh. There’s humor to be found in this situation, they tell themself. So – here they are. Desperately looking for humor. They’re not laughing yet, but they might, by the time this conversation is done. “Funny,” they start, as they settle, “finding you here.”

the lion’s mane is a place of origin. 

not of his conception, prophet forbid, but of his rebirth. his becoming. his first slaying, that witless ambassador, took place in one of the rooms here, before the new proprietor was even grown. whenever he does return, he arrives only with sharp intent, exploiting loose lips drowning in ale and undeterred by inquiry. today is no exception, although he’s in possession of a greater predilection for the bottom of a flagon than usual. all because of that damned ship. 

he didn’t expect for the ruse he’d had with rowan to carry on forever, no, he’s seen the bloodier side of living too often to be anything but a pragmatist. but life in widrowem was... different. slower-paced, leisurely, although not even a less lethal for it, possessing different pleasures and beacons and traps of its own that it seemed to run alongside his life in celestine as a parallel, or an alternate reality--apart, but infinite in its path. how disappointing that it ended, as all things do.  

with a sigh. 

rowan’s, in fact. karine looks up from his drink to return it in kind, wry smile nearly reading as rueful, if one were imaginative enough. perhaps he is. it was tickling, playing as a man who could lay in another’s bed as if his hands weren’t stained down to the bone with blood, some damned merchant’s proxy who never saw death in his life, taking to rowan’s home like a feral turned housecat. if it was easy, he wouldn’t admit it. 

—

There’s a stillness that surrounds Roth as he paces the gardens, back and forth, as if mirroring the same motions his head seemed to be attached to. Countless thoughts ran through his mind, too many questions and not enough answers plaguing what should be a clear head — Roth is quick to blame the entire city of Val Faim for how crowded his head seemed to be but deep down he knows there’s more to it than that. 

But the knowledge of it does not mean he allows himself to think it, not clearly, lest the dark cloud that follows him decides to make it a reality. 

It doesn’t take long for the Chevalier to recognise the honeyed tone that reaches his ears, echoing in what he thought were empty gardens. “Karine,” he breathes out before even turning on his heels. Though Karine had made an appearance on what is Roth’s much needed time alone, the Chevalier can’t turn his old company away. Even if it’s in a selfish attempt to remember a past that seems far too uncomplicated compared to a dark clouded-riddled present.

“Oh, that’s an easy one — the mage that blew himself up. I doubt the Empress would have called us back if it were not for the explosion. You’re going to be thanking a dead man, though.” 

-

roth’s frankness has always rather endeared him, at odds with a chevalier’s noble reputation and intrigue, but such a manner has always been preferential when so much was left up to guessing and assumptions. of course, they were past mystery and coy pleasantries.

”poor fellow. unless you suppose it’s what he intended?” he leans his arm against a marble post, and his chin on that, and he schools his lips and thoughts into sympathy. the night is clear, regardless, the climbing ivies and rose bushes create spindly shadows that waltz across his face, ever shifting, such that it is near impossible if it is they that undulate with the dark or if it is he. 

the chevalier looks overcast, changed since the last time karine had seen him, perhaps troubled, perhaps strange; this, he finds this a great deal more curious than a dead man. that the two could be intertwined is all the better, can’t remember ever seeing roth so troubled. “is that why you seem to have such a cloud over you, ser? did it pain you to fathom it?” he laughs, the sound a silken spool unraveling. “or is this simply an inconvenience?”

𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍: 20th of Maccias 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄: The Lion’s Mane 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇: Open

Dismissed for the evening, Hector finds himself on the steps outside the palace and in the company of small group of unarmored chevaliers he shares a brief, however fond, history with. He’d trained with these men for a brief stint, slept in their barracks, crawled through mud, hunted and rode with them. He’d also rang their heads like bells in spars with them, and they’d tried to ring his too. Now, they’re dragging him to the Lion’s Mane in the familiar way old friends do and forcing a thick bottomless cup into his hands. It’s been years since he’s seen the few of them, years since they’d heard his stories of the stories of dragons that burrowed and flew and breathed fire, and how Hector slew them all. He’s goaded into entertaining his stories and humoring his brothers, and before long, the man who drinks least and talks less so at banquets and galas, has now put a dent in the barkeep’s barrels and attracted a crowd.

Hector sings his stories to the songs of praise and he’s heralded after each one. Dragon’s bane, beast-man, dragon knight, stone-man, he collects his fair share of titles from jeers and cheers that end with raised mugs punctuated by the hollow slams of them on tabletops. It’s after the fifth story Hector’s finds that he’s allowed himself to become drunk, or has at the very least guzzled enough of the Mane’s finest to step into the fighting ring for a demonstration of a dragon slayer’s strength…

When it’s done, his count’s up to seven men flattened. He’s lost his jacket and the strings of his sweat wrinkled shirt hang untied and open, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. The ridge leading down his chiseled chest is flushed and heaving, the chorded musculature of forearms littered with scars of curious shapes and glorified origins. He’s led back to the tables smothered by a pack of men he’s inspired who praise him with shouts in his ears, pats to his back and elbows to his ribs. Hector’s more drunk on their attention than he is on ale at this point, he’s got to admit, and he can’t for the life of him remember why that’s a bad thing.

With his head in a swirl and his body in the highs of adrenaline he throws himself onto his chair, his knuckles reddened when he wraps his hand back around his cup only to find it empty. 

“Another!” Hector shouts to command, shoving his cup against someone, anyone, within his arm’s reach as he plucks the mug from his nearest comrade’s lips to finish off himself. It’s only after he wipes the corners of his mouth with the back of his hand that he turns to look to who he’s bestowed the honor of being his cupbearer. 

- ☾ -

it really isn’t prudent, karine thinks, for one’s legacy to be chanted by a crowd. makes one easy to spot, makes one recognizable, familiar, and altogether far too easy for someone like him to track--the entire forest announcing the presence of a fox as the hunter enters the clearing. but hector geraud is hardly prey, and karine has no business that leads him to the man. none, except, intrigue. 

hector may not know him, but he knows what a dwindling dynasty feels like. the notturnas were never as grand as dragon-slayers, but once, they might have shared the same circles, or at least, calandre’s favor. but karine’s family is dead, the line shaved to ashes and bone, and the gerauds have hector--a hero in a time absent of dragons. 

does it hurt him, he wonders?

if there were to come a time where grudges and cindering hatreds dissipated with the wind, an era without assassins, he would surely feel bereft. pained without an impetus. ah, he wouldn’t be able to help the circumstances then, but dragon slayers slaughtered their own source of legend. if hector is lost, it is by his own making, is it not? 

all questions living at the tip of his tongue and drown in ale as he watches the organized fray from his own booth. he’s content enough to continue on like this, until he’s pulled from his private spectatorship by none other than the man of the night--ah, with a demand, no less.

“i suppose the champion of the ring is due his just reward,” karine hums, and passes the cup to a passing employee to refill, grin crooked and warm, encouraging of familiarity, but his watchful gaze is unblinking. “and how did those men measure up to your dragons?”

karine’s never been one to become too comfortable in one place--it is complacency, not curses, nor prophecies, that leads to a certain death. loiter too long where one isn’t meant to be, and circumstances will see to it you’re thrust back out, read you as malignant and poisonous. he can’t say it’s an inaccurate assessment, but as far as widrowem goes, there’s a rueful little morsel of him he would loathe to call sentiment that finds the kingdom a fine reprieve. unexciting, perhaps, as its leaders seem to be competent and its people happy, which means apart from whatever mandate alain had him underneath, jobs were slow for karine while he was there. days happily crept to a leisurely crawl here, in this kingdom of virtue and wisdom.

but he seldom finds room or time to whinge when he finds himself whisked away to its capital city and donning his usual shroud of mist and whispers; alain is clear about his objectives. and beyond that, he has his own. it begins with looking to win over the widrowem ambassador, or to have his ears, at least, and it’s morphed into this: his first night back from val faim, sweeping into their living quarters while they’re out like a breathless exhale, and making a home in between the sheets, flickering between their books, stretching out as far as the room will give.

There’d been a fight of some sort. Matthieu realizes this in increments, like spokes slotting in a very old wheel. His senses come back through vapors thick as tar, and swallow everything in between the Lion’s Mane and his crawl to the palace. The fight had to do with… well, nothing in particular, he supposes. It went over the way it always did, with him, with every other creature of rage in the realm. The coals are already strewn for the touching.

Tonight, it was a throwaway remark about the Obsidienne. There’d been a circle of believers down at the Mane, spouting nonsense like a thin brew of dirt. Matthieu called them out for the children they were, snidely and loud enough to ensure no one could pretend they didn’t hear. It felt like a challenge to the whole world, at the time; a roar against the tide of events.

The memory is misted over by booze and murk. It’s sultry and looped around his head, and, small mercies, lessening as he hobbles into the hallway. A fight, then. There’s just enough signs to go on: the sting on his knuckles, the slower crackle of their joints when he twists the doorknob, the taste of someone’s blood in his mouth. Like a crown of fog lifting from the battlefield, he imagines he will look down and see the carnage.

The only thing that matters: he’d left his sword at home. It’s the same he always does when he knows where the night is headed, because drawing your blade is so damn natural after a tankard or two. It’s inconsequential: just a swish of metal, an answer sprung from the extension to your own hand. It hardly feels momentous, until dawn splits up, and the sun bursts like overripe grapes on what you’ve done. Saints know, though: where Matthieu’s concerned, the lack of a sword is no guarantee. He could’ve torn out a man’s jaw without any gauntlet or dagger. Lambert wouldn’t have let him, he’d think, but then Lambert’s power was a thing of daylight, for all that the proprietor shrouded himself in dusk.

He waits until he’s inside to assess the damage. His eyes thin at the growing light. He’s let the lamps die out, he thinks. He should start letting chambermaids in here, because, Saints, a broken neck is far more ignoble than an assassin. Matthieu has to bring his fists up to his face to squeeze them, twice, so that he knows the bone won’t give. It could be worse. It would be worse if what he was afraid of happened, if he’d gone into a man and wrung him like a damp cloth. It’s just a scuffle by his usual standards—relief surges out, the last lever that kept him upright. He slumps back against the desk. He is already trawling for another bottle when he spots the open window. The figure filigreed inside it, like a sparrow trapped between the jamb. 

Everything comes ten beats later; everything crashes ten measures too slow. The fucking sword. Where’s the fucking—? He’s too sluggish to put up a fight. He braces up for the pounce, but it never comes: the stranger seems as content as a lover, settled snug beside bedframe and covers. For a second, an absurd and wrenching moment that cleaves the haze in two, he wonders if he’d somehow asked them here. Worse things had been done, when he was in this state. Worse things had been held in the dark.

“About as long as it takes for me to reach you. Why? Want to get a closer look?” He licks away the blood, laps at it with a shattering breath. He raises his head just enough to pin them in the scope. “Where the fuck did you come from?”

he watches the chevalier for a beat more, the steps heavy with whatever he’d sloughed off himself earlier that evening that sticks to his boots, the trawling for more to imbibe, apparently suffering a dearth of the relief the booze and the fight have offered him already. wonders, does the leash calandre pull taut around his neck, the bloodshed she goads from his sword hand, compel him to drink, to sniff out the fight and carnage he’s yet to spill? 

or does he do it because he has gone without for too long? does he languish without it, as karine does? does he brood, a shadow lost, in the restlessness, the doldrums of peace, wishing for them to become dregs instead, for them to coalesce into the moment before war? 

does he resent calandre her grip? how it has morphed through their years as master and prized pet? how has it changed? is she all he knows?

such a plethora of questions he seldom muses over so deliberately, not even with his kills. but perhaps this strikes differently because this chevalier is hardly a victim, because he is so revered and feared in equal measure--and does not every deity known for his cruelty stumble when he is without a waiting heart for his blade?

he recognizes that crush of panic; the darting eyes, the twitching fingers hungry for the comfort of a pommel, not quite realizing yet karine had moved the sword from its usual resting place and tossed it under the bed without much reverence for its own role in carnage. the shoulders stiff with bracing. how deliberately karine watches him with the semblance of an ancient ritual, red smile spreading thinly, the dark of his eyes trained curiously, blossoming into black wells that offer consumption, so that the echoes of matthieu’s might would have a resting place, somewhere.

“would you afford me one without the threat of a slaughter?” karine asks, and he’s finally in motion, sliding off the window’s ledge like silk unspooling. “because i would be terribly disappointed if you couldn’t.” for a moment he simply stands, silhouetted against the open window and the brutal backdrop of the night, to see how the chevalier reacts. 

when: 24th day of maccius where: sylviane’s studio who: closed for @karinenotturna

It has been a long day by the time Sylviane returns to their studio, smock and sketchbook in hand, Vaska off at the market getting them something for dinner. They’d begged off the crowd, citing a need to replenish some of their paints for the next day, but in reality they needed a moment to breathe, to simply exist on their own. With much of their time spent at the Summer Palace, their studio has lain somewhat neglected. 

They switch on a small lamp as the enter, tossing the smock over a chair and opening their book to the page where they’d marked down the colors they wanted - azure, crimson, umber, each with a swatch next to it, as if they could ever forget the palette that ran constantly through their mind. They’re rifling through their paint cabinet, humming softly to themself, when they feel the whisper of a presence behind them, the smallest creak of a loose floorboard. They freeze for an instant, whirling around with a tube of titanium white clutched in their hand as though it would be any help, ready to yell for Vaska before they remember she isn’t there. Before the light catches on the hard planes of a familiar face. Before their heart stutters, once, in surprise, fear melting away in an instant. 

“Karine.”

His name escapes their lips before they can even think, before they process the implications of him having been waiting in what should have been a secure room. Something tightens in their chest - heart and lungs crushed by a yearning so strong it’s almost palpable. They knew he was alive and well, Vaska had said so herself only a few days prior, but that was nothing until they could confirm with their own eyes. Now he stands before them cloaked in shadows, and the nearness of him after two long years makes them feel as though they might burst into flame.

Their brain finally catches up with them, and they furrow their brow. They should likely be concerned by the apparent ease he had in breaking in to their space - and this will be deeply uncomfortable to explain to Vaska, for a whole bevy of reasons, not least their apparent obliviousness to threats - but, frankly, they’re more concerned with when he’d entered, since they’d been puttering around for several minutes before he’d made himself known. They dismiss the thought with a huffed laugh, lips quirking up into a grin. “You do know that I have a front door that you are more than welcome to use, yes? Save me the heart attack and you the trouble of - wherever it is that you came in from.” 

They are overwhelmed with a desire to touch, to confirm he’s really there - but they hold themselves back, uncertain. This - thing, between them - whatever it is - they don’t know how the last few years have worn on him, where he stands, so they merely smile, softer, and hope he feels the same. “It’s good to see you.”

sylviane has always been a creature of the limelight, as far as he knew it to be. he’d first met them as a favorite of the empress, resplendent with praise and goodwill, as synonymous with luxury as they are with their craft. one lends itself to the other, he supposes. not that he could ever fault them for it; artists of varying caliber would surely kill to have attained their level of exultation--royal portraits, of all things. their work affixed throughout the palace, their name a household name within celestine.

imagine then, the shock! the awe! renowned painter gives it all up to chase shadows in the obsidienne. perhaps the peculiar charm he’d seen in them first upon meeting so many years ago had been just a strange pull to darkness and grit that took bloom this way, manifesting in abrupt aplomb, walking as close to the void as they could muster and painting what they saw within. 

if he was being truthful, he hadn’t expected such persistent nerve. the boldness, he had expected--known them long enough to realize there was something beneath the surface beyond the clean-edged prestige of which most associated with them. perhaps the unflinching resolve endeared him to them; he would not admit it even if he knew. 

what matters is that they’re back. it is curiosity, he thinks, that leads him back to their studio after an entire two years, finding a way in through a window that wasn’t sealed just enough; perhaps sylviane will tell vaska. perhaps not. 

—

Her shop is Cyril’s safe haven, the place she goes to when sleep doesn’t seem to be coming to her when she wants it to, especially after all that’s happened around her in a city she had come to see as more of a home than her actual home. And she worries, about Val Faim, about Calandre, about all that she’s come to love, places and people alike. 

But all it takes is a stranger and a knife on their hand to break that reality apart. The shop no longer feels safe, it no longer feels like an extension of her. Instead, if feels like a place where she’s just as exposed as everywhere else. The moment she hears the lock clicking and her eyes notice the thin blade he carries, her heart feels frozen. Cyril can’t move, her body unable to move in shock and fear. All colour is drained from her skin. “Who — who are you? What are you — what are you doing?” Even speaking becomes harder, her throat tightening in fear. 

Cyril backs up, eyes looking around for anything she can use, anything to keep that dagger away from her. And when her gaze falls on the stranger in front of her, she can’t speak, fear dripping from her expression. She’s not going to fight but she can run. The back door. Cyril wills her body to unfreeze and, even if moving every part of her body feels like she’s walking through water instead, the tailor tips over one of the mannequins near her and bolts for the back door. 

"i’m only a messenger, ma choupinette. a mere executor of fate and will.” 

she makes a valiant attempt at escape, though wasted. it is the mere thrashing of a prey whose leg is caught in a trap, and once upon a time, he’d found it thrilling. it begs for a mercy now, as most pitiful creatures do without speaking, and he sighs faintly as she leaves a mess trailing behind her. “and someone’s willed you dead.” he does not attempt to follow, does not take another step, but instead lifts his hand to fling a dagger--finding its target in the heart of a mannequin a breath away from cyril’s trajectory.

“you’re being cruel to yourself, tailor, by running,” he calls, voice lilting, crueler than a song. admittedly, he has no dog in this fight, no real sway to implore her to accept a quicker death--all it becomes when she runs is a prolonged terror, a humorless kill. no real mirth to it, barely a hunt to speak of. 

like orbiting stars, or a lodestone and the north, or a curse and its bearer, karine is someone that vaska has never failed to meet, sperating and colliding in the most unusual of circumstances. from children prancing in finery between time-worn gravestones, to bloody hands clasped in greeting, to whatever this is -

perhaps there’s something to this prophecy, with how cyclical time pulls them, into eddies and whirlpools, and back to homes turned into ruins.

vaska dismounts as well, gives the horse a sugar cube. ‘ stuns me that you would ever feel nostalgic, ‘ they throw back, before dusting off their hands and moving to the gate. ‘ proper little nobles, prince locked into his tower, heir of the realm. ‘ they shake their head, half-scoffing. if their old selves met their current ones, what would they think? how easily would these current incarnations cut through bone and innocence.

with an experimental push, they try to move the gate and it lets out a terrible grinding squeak, moving two feet before the vines and warped metal prevent it from going any further. ‘ after you? ‘

-

twin flame, how terribly they burn in unison. growing only in terror and cruelty from similar loam of dead ashes and soil of crushed bones. who else but the other to understand how blood came to stain their hands? who else but the other to never question why they refuse to clean it?

well, he’s not so certain about vaska anymore in that regard. ex-mercenary, now guard to an imperial artist, privy to their influence, burning anew in a fresh flame of rebirth. or so he assumes. redemption never really suited him, never was in want for benediction no matter how many fell at his feet. once, thought vaska to be the same, and wonders now that they aren’t, whether it was out of choice, or if they simply fell into place after hitching their wagon to sylviane’s. 

“you always inspire this nostalgia in me, vaska. who else would?” he shoots them a wry smile, expecting more of the same half-hearted dismissal in return. it’s not untrue, not even a half-truth--dead dynasties ought to remain dead, and they do, but they’ve got death on them, both of them, tracking ashes like hounds through a graveyard, and he can’t help but glance back at their steps taken, where they started. “you don’t have to believe my intentions all the time, shouldn’t really, can’t blame you for most of it, but believe that.” 

he’s heard tell of the bloodiest chevalier in the empress’ retinue through his usual means, and is only remiss to have missed out on the goriest spectacle given life by calandre’s mere whim, second only to the execution of hippolyte. indeed, it seems everything was overshadowed by the latter by virtue of the entire pageantry of it; not unheard of, with paranoid rulers and an abundance of time and enemies, but a great shame. as defined by his devastating precision as he is, karine cannot deny the progenitor of his life lived now, that what had started it all was the stirring within at the sight of a smattering of crimson, damning as a halo.

he missed a good show.

but he does not intend to miss a glimpse of the headliner, as much a luminary, admired and revered, as he is darkened by an umbra of carnage, even if he has to thieve it. 

and so he does. as best he does, when one is embraced by the night. 

and how it loves him so, curls into the wit of his marrow, serpents through his bone and cartilage and nestles into his pulse. doleful creature, the dark; how it tempts him, how it coaxes him into its own agent, separate from crown and usurper. it leads him to knight’s balcony, as easy to scale as a low-lying fence in a meadow, and he finds his perch straddling the windowsill, so still and unmoving as if he’s carved into the frame itself. this is he; a creature of mist and smoke, intangible until he catches candlelight and sinew with his blade.

here he waits, silent even as the chevalier himself stalks through the door, freshly bloodied and pooling at his feet and trailing dirt, like a hound fresh from the hunt. watches the man seethe and bleed another man’s blood. waits while matthieu searches for a light, or a bottle, in the dark, before speaking.

“i have never seen a wound walking before. tell me, how long have you been bleeding?”

rot and the writ.

𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍: 20th of Maccius 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄: Cyril’s shop 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐒: Closed, @karinenotturna

The ring of the bell echoed through Cryil’s as her latest client exited, the smile she held while she watched them leave sticking to her lips as she walks towards the back of the store. Her gaze falls on the mannequin that displays her latest design as he steps come to a halt. For a heartbeat, the tailor simply takes it in. The last fitting she had with Helene gave her the idea to have light armour interwoven with the rest of the design, studying the best way to create various looks out of it without repeating it. 

So enveloped in her imagination and what she’s been doing, Cyril almost misses the bell ringing again, letting her know that someone had entered the shop. Quickly, her head snaps back towards the closed curtains that separate her and the front of the store and her eyebrows furrow. Did she read her agenda wrong? Cyril puts down the few flowers that she’d been holding, trying to mix hues to form a colour that is just like the one inside her head before she makes her way to the front. 

Cyril parts the curtains and stops, the curtain slowly falling behind her. The look of confusion is still evident in her expression but there’s a smile that is soon made part of all of it. “Hello, welcome,” she greets, eyes narrow as she tries to remember if she spoke to the person before. “I’m sorry, do we have an appointment?” 

-

hardly a moment after alain departed, another one rushed over, impatient, seething, and palms spilling with dor—the sure sign of a prospect. 

“i need you to help me be rid of competition.” 

“oh?” he’d crossed his arms, canted his head, gaze roving up and down the stranger. well-dressed, dripping with gold, too willing and too desperate to let go of their wealth. “let me guess. rival assassins? you’re vying for the same woman? i should warn you i’m not cheap, especially for a common dispute.”

a tailor. the bell tinkles as karine slips in, silent as a sigh, a shadow cloaked in silk, and locking the door behind him. a fucking tailor, he thinks, gaze trained ahead despite abundance of luxurious and lush fabrics brimming with magic lining the space of the shop, instead trailing after the faint sounds of rummaging towards the back of the shop, no doubt by the proprietor herself. in his surveillance, he’s seen no other employees, and the late evening hours seemed to be the slowest, leaving cyril beauchamp alone and more vulnerable than she’d like, if she knew any better of what is to befall her. 

well. he’s never one to turn down a contract if someone is willing to pay his high prices, even if said job is promising to be more like chasing a chicken in its coop than the pursuit he’d been lacking since alain summoned him. 

above, the winding elms and willows and rosebushes cut black silhouettes against a miasmic evening sky, moon sweeping its light to the evergreen earth below. and below, the empressian gardens, flourishing and flushed with night breeds in full bloom, the air fragrant with clouds of mingling floral aromas that one could taste should they stick out their tongue. the space is uncommonly void of visitors save for himself, and an old companion. not bad for a reunion. 

the truth of it is, he’d spotted roth inspecting the site of the explosion and recognized an opportunity when it was presented to him. the truth of it, he’s probing for information just the same when they first met and promptly made their way to bed. can’t quite remember what he’d learned beyond a chevalier’s regiment schedule, mais, well.

"roth, ​mon chevalier vertueux.” he draws closer, pace leisurely, gaze capricious as he calls back to an old, familiar apellation, one that had made a home on his tongue during their affair some time ago. he’d always thought it fitting, that he and his lethal wickedness would have found his way into bed with a chevalier so indivisible from his code, his honor--a dazzling capture. a good man. karine can hardly remember a time goodness ever made itself a choice.

his lips split redly into his jaw. “to what circumstances ought i thank for this?”

what was once a descent is now a ruin. 

he hops off his horse, takes slow, leisurely steps up to the mangled wrought-iron gate, and appraises what remains of his once-home. rampant foliage and vines have begun to overtake the crumbling walls, the manor itself split open at several seams--negligence, fallen trees, the ravages of time. behind the ruins lie an expanse of graves and mausoleums, in better shape than the home itself, he can’t help but note wryly.

“would you believe this week was the first time i’ve felt the least bit nostalgic for this?” he throws over his shoulder at vaska, lifting his brow as his gaze follows. he’d like to believe it’s the truth, so too the odd relief that tickled him when they reunited in accompaniment with their charge. so rarely do people in their pathing and trade survive past what their luck deigns to offer, but vaska was always beyond his expectations. the only real constant in his life, however intermittent their reunions. has to count for something.