#alwaysgetitinwriting

Tempest had stopped by the bar to speak with Conny and snag a drink. He was busy, but not too busy for his best friend. He slid over golden drink with flecks of emerald floating merrily amidst the bubbles.

“Having fun tonight?” The lanky Air Genasi said, leaning over the counter, waving forward another bartender to handle his customers. She smirks over her drink, running a finger over the rim giving a half shrug. “It’s been a…lucrative evening.” She takes a long look around the room, leaning back against the bar. Her body draped in near sheer fabric, hiding and revealing skin with every movement. Temptation personified. 

Her name? Tempest. A force of nature beyond comparison

She’s relaxed as she listens to the to bit of gossip Conny has, laughing at one of the more amusing stories as she survey’s the room. All at once, her amused smile drops from her face. Horror, rage, and deep sadness threatening to overtake her

Her glass shatters in her hand. It’s enough to surprise the patrons at the bar, but Conny is already there, smoothing things over, grabbing at the bar top, a quick bit of sleight of hand and he’s holding up a poker chip amidst the glass. “I’ll have a talk with Jox. This is the second time this week someone’s been flinging these around.” 

Before Conny can do much else, Tempest is already gone, somehow lost in the room full of people. 

She felt like she was in a fog. The decorative bands on her horns glint eerily in the firelight. The ting of the gems dangling the only sounds she can hear. Her eyes are locked on the blood red velvet coat swishing in front of her, a worn captain’s tricorn, battered and cracked sat on a head. His head. The Captain of the pirate band that’d shattered her world. He turns, greeting someone. 

Her veins feel like ice; she knows that face. There are more age lines, his claws and shell showed signs of wear. But if anything, what drove her rage and anger was the relaxed, almost joyous expression on his face. 

He doesn’t deserve joy. Doesn’t deserve happiness or pleasure. The Tortle was laughing, eyeing up several of the staff members as he made his way through the crowd.

She made her way to Ember, the fire genasi who handled the books. It was blessedly free of anyone, Asha having just led away a particularly handsome and exotically dressed (or rather underdressed) Coyotefolk. His attention was on Asha, but Tempest reflexively gave him a little wave. He winked before turned back to Asha.

“Hi Tempest!” Ember greeted from behind the counter. His flames immeasurable in the face of the ice pulsing through her veins. “I don’t have any requests for you at the moment.”

Tempest shakes her head, “I wanted to check in about the…Pirate Captain”

Ember nods, “The Tortle right? Lots of money that one. Dubious means, but” he shrugs, flipping through his book while Tempest looks on with carefully crafted curiosity.

“Looks like he’s requested the evening with-“ Tempest leans over the desk, twirling the book around so she can look at it. Ember lets out a huff, running a hand through his flaming curls, before scratching at his stubble.

“Tempest, please, I don’t want to have to have another staff meeting about poaching clients. I hate doing those.” He grumbles. Tempest waves him off, a charming grin on her face.

“You want to stick him with Arasha? She just got back from her vacation and she’s  with one of her regulars right now.” Tempest silently gestures to a beautiful Air Genasi sitting on the lap of a finely garbed dwarf. Ember looks up, brow furrowed in surprise at the beautiful dwarven Lady. Tempest used his distraction to make a few quick alterations to the book.

“Oh, I didn’t realize Lady Undershadow was back in town.” He looks back, trying to turn the book around, but Tempest is still reading through it, lazily twirling a fountain pen. “What are you doing to my book?!”

“Are you sure you’ve recovered from your fire-sickness? You’ve put Hela with the Helmsbridge Twins.” His flames shoot up a little as he hurriedly grabbed the book, “Ashes and dust! She’s supposed to be with Dame-“ He stops, squinting up at Tempest as he hurriedly makes the appropriate corrections.

“You won’t tell Aunt Tolly will you?”

Tempest’s smile is dazzling in its sincerity. She mimes locking her lips.

“Thank you. Take the Tortle, I’ll charge him the house special.” He sighs in relief. The House special was an extra 15% charge that was given directly to the companion of the evening. The cerulean teifling gave Ember a sultry grin and little finger wave before she’s back to weaving through the tables. 

This time she made sure she was seen; her presence is somehow magnified. She was a favored courtesan for a reason. Her path was winding, giving the Tortle ample time to see her. She knew he was intrigued. She was Tempest. Seductress. A Lady of the evening. And tonight? She’d be the last thing he’d see. 

She wasn’t even halfway to his table when he’d flagged down a waiter, pointing to her, asking about her. She was partway through a conversation with a tipsy regular when she received the summons to the Tortle’s table.

She oozed charm and sophistication. 

His face was aged and marred with scars. A chunk of his shell had been ripped off since she’d last seen him, but it was covered in more jewelry, decorated with molten gold to highlight his patterns. It disgusted her, to see this wealth, to see him alive, but she disguised it with a gracious smile and laugh.

She lets him touch her. Lets him leer and hear her laugh. He gets to see the charm and smile. His hand wanders, because when don’t they? But she remembers the path it traces. Etches it into the echos of her mind. His voice is cracked and gravely, scarred by salt and sea. She sits in his lap, leaning against his frame, tracing the top of his damaged shell. She learns he’s been away from land for over a year, bringing treasures and riches. He’s got a smug look on his face she wants to claw off. 

It’s not hard for her to convince him to leave his game of titan tiles. Normally she’d prolong the game, convince her client to spend a little more, she gets a cut after all. But tonight is for blood.

She leads him down the hall to her quarters. Each step feels weighted with purpose, her heart is singing with joys vengeance. the thought of his blood staining her floors an exquisite high. She laughs and smiles at his awful jokes and disgusting looks. She passes Ember, hips swaying. She is perfect, practiced, deception incarnate. Other courtesans and their clients giggle and wave in the halls. A dragonborn, a dwarf, the coyotefolk from earlier, her coworkers, all eye her, some with jealousy, some with appreciation. Her heart is pounding. 

When they step into her room she’s playful and giggly. She pushes him into the green plush chair across from her view of the city. Lucky clients get a dance. He seems to be one such person. She tugs down the silks from their hidden spot in the ceiling, stalking around him, teasing him with it, tangling herself, relaxing into the familiar. 

“By the gods they weren’t kidding when they said you were worthy your weight in gold.” He chortles, voice raspy and cracked.

“Well….I do promise an unforgettable experience.” She purrs, draping the silks around him from behind. She grazes his wrists teasing a path across his chest. She leans over his shoulder, lips ghosting his ear, tightening her hold on the blood red silk.

“And I intend to enjoy every second.” The purr shifts to a hiss. Silk tightens harshly around his hands and chest. 

“What’s this? Fancy yourself a little dominatrix? I like to play with my food too.” He’s mocking; even in the face of the storm, he believes himself safe.

She pays him no mind, securing him to the chair. She plucks her dagger from her bedside table, running her finger along the blade. A single drop of blood wells up. She stares at it, watching the gleam in the firelight, and for a moment she thinks she can see Geneive’s eyes staring back.

“You know, I really do like to play,” She turns, revealing the blade, “a pity it won’t be nearly so enjoyable for you.”

“Oh really? Do you even know how to work a blade?”

He has no time before the blade is plunged into his eye, only an inch deep. Not enough to kill him, but certainly enough to permanently blind that eye. She doesn’t stop there, dragging the blade down his face. Blood swells like a tear drop down his face. He lets out a scream of pain. Tempest lets out soft cold chuckle.

“You bitch! I’ll have your head for this!”

“You’ll have nothing but pain and screams. What makes you think I’ll leave enough for them to discover what I’ve done?”

She circles him, dragging the blade along his skin. Cutting rivulets and rivers across the aged and weathered flesh. “I let you touch my skin,” the blade bites deep, “let your eyes wander,” she slowly re-pierces his eye, “there’s a price to be paid on top of your dues.”

“What dues? What-“

She backhands him. “The only sound I want to hear from you is your screams.” With that she plunges her dagger into the space along his shoulder, between his shell.

He screams for her. He rages and cries out as she methodically cuts the gold and gems from his shell. Bit by bit she works her blade into the cracks of his shell. The way he screams when she begins to cut away at it is like the sweetest high, the rush of a win. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she hears the flames roar in her mind. Can scent the salted air of that night.

Blood spatters her lovely green chair. He’s vomited on himself twice. Tears pouring down his face.

“You’re not allowed to cry. Not after what you’ve done. What your men have done” She hisses, rage boiling at the sight, her mother’s dagger cutting another path down his cheek.

“Please…please what do you want?” He garbles, one remaining eye wide and terrified. There’s a crack as she works more of his shell away. He lets out a bloodcurdling cry. She silently thanks Tolly for investing in soundproofing.

“I want what you cannot offer.” She scoffs.

“Anything- anything-,” He begs.

She pushes his head back with the tip of the blade. “Can you bring back the dead?” His eyes go wide, “I wondered if I should tell you what you did. To tell you exactly what you’ve done to deserve this. But, I think the unknown is far more terrifying for a disgusting creature like you. You don’t deserve the knowledge or the memories.”

She right. The terror in his eyes grow tenfold. With each cut and injury he begs. He screams and screams until his vocal cords are raw and bleeding. When she’s done, he’s barely alive through liberal use of a very illicit healing potion. 

His head is lolling forward, eye barely open, his intestines in his lap, barely held together by magic and the blood soaked silks. A hammer lands on the handle of her dagger, piercing the back of his shell. Again, and again, she drives the blade deeper.

He feels her move behind him, and he tenses, waiting for the agony, wishing for death.

“Not even going to look at what I made you?” Her voice is a dagger sheathed in silk. Desperately, blearily, he lifts his head. His organs trail a path from him to the door. His shell. It’s been nailed to her door, her dagger holding it there like a prize, like a warning. From the recesses of his mind and image resurfaces. He lets out a pathetic croak.

“It will never make up for what you’ve done,” she saunters in front of him, all teeth. “but I think it’s a lovely start don’t you think?” She wraps her hand around his throat and slowly squeezes. His body jerks as he tries to fight, helpless against her onslaught.

She relishes each spasm, the cries and struggle that taper off into a rattling death call. It soothes a long festering ache in her soul. His screams replacing the ones that keep her up at night. His cries replace hers, and for a long blissful moment she feels at peace.

And then it’s shattered. Horror sinks in. She blinks, staring down at her hands. It’s odd. How detached she feels. 

Her arms are soaked in blood. She slowly turns her hands over, in a bit of disbelief. The joy and vindication seemed to ebb away, leaving behind the cracked and shattered bits of soul in the gaping wound her sister’s death had left.

“You know, I haven’t seen a pickle like this in some time.”

She whirls around. The coyote folk from earlier is curiously examining the shell, still dripping blood and miasma on her door. He looks over to her, impressed. “You certainly know your way around a blade.” He gives it a closer look, “A sailor’s blade I see.”

“Who are you?” She demands, wary. He holds his hand up in surrender.

“A fan of your work. Truly, you’re an artist. The way you plaid that fire genasi?” He chuckles, “Inspired, especially with that little illusion you worked in.”

Alarm bells are ringing. He waves his hand. The air seems to shiver for a moment.

“Peace Tempest, I’m here to help.” The air feels a little weightier. How can she feel nothing in the face of this? The bit of her soul that sang for this justice. She felt…numb. Cold. What was wrong with her? Tears pooled without emotion behind them. She’s on a path of no return and she knows it.

He looks sympathetic. “It’s so odd you know? How much pain the numbness causes. Your mind and soul aching to protect you. The conflicting feelings. Reshaping you. Making you feel like-“

“I’ll never be the same.” Her tears carve a different kind of path, her limbs trembling as she stares at her hands, glancing between them and the man. Stuck between the man who led the slaughter of her family, and this….stranger.

“Why is this, why is this different?” She croaks. He shrugs, meandering closer. “The others, his crew, it didn’t feel like this.”

“They were quick deaths. Oh you certainly made it painful.” He mused, “but you were a little more creative with him. Don’t get me wrong, he deserved it. This was poetic of you honestly.” He waves to the shell, eyes full of understanding and compassion as he moves closer. 

“But acts like this weigh on the mind and soul. It batters the heart even when things feel right. Mortality is pesky in that way.”

Tempest nods jerkily, so this was an immortal being, some entity. “So I just have to live with this?” Her mind whirls. Even if she could clean all this up, would she be able to live with this knowledge? To live with the horrors she’s inflicted on another being? She crouches and vomits to one side, sobbing.

“Oh dear one,” hands rub into her back. For a short moment she relishes the contact before leaping away; she tries to wipe at her mouth, but she only smears blood across her lips and face. Pity is all she sees in his eyes.

“I don’t want your pity!” She growls.

“What do you want?”

The question hangs in the air for a long minute. Tempest can only think of sad eyes and a broken horn.

“Something you cannot give stranger.”

“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?” He offers. “May I?” He gestures to the aftermath. She gives a hesitant nod. The room seems to warp and shift. The viscera, blood, vomit, and organs seem to vanish. He lets out a pleased hum, the color of his fur deepening ever so slightly. The body and shell remain. Her bloody silks still wrapped around him. “Much better I think.” 

“Thank you.” Her task of hiding this was much easier. But the growing pit in her stomach was not something she thought he could so easily repair. “Would I could settle my unease so well.” She murmurs

He leans against the post of her bed, a rueful smile on his face. “Still do you doubt?” He teases. She gives him a sharp look. “Stranger, I am low on patience and lower still on grace. Please speak plainly.”

He gives a barking laugh. “You have fire and spirit Tempest Shi’or, daughter of Vesper, first of Rusila’s twins.” Fear wells up in the pit of her stomach. This…creature, he knew too much. “I am Huehuecoyotl, first and last of my name. God” His eyes flash gold and the room warps agains, “of Tricksters, and you, my fine friend, are at a crossroads.”

“I said. Speak. Plainly.” It felt foolish to oppose a god. To speak through gritted teeth. But she would not bend, would not break. Not now.

“My word is my bond Tempest. I come with an offer. Least of which is clean up.” He waves his hand dismissively, still entirely nonchalant despite the situation.

“An offer?” She’s suspicious. The aching, clawing numbness not enough to stop the spark of wariness. She wonders if anyone will be able to send the cold chasm forming in her chest

“Some relief for that ache in your chest.” Her eyes sharpen, as does the insistence of the ache. “Of course, it’s no small thing.” she rolls her eyes.

“Of course it’s not.” She nearly spits out. His eyes darken for the first time.

“Taking a life is no small thing Tempest Shi’or. Less in the manner in which you have.” 

Silence hangs. She can feel the tears still dripping down her throat. His gaze softens. “No drug or alcohol will do much but numb you further. I’m offering a gift.” He shrugs, “Of course, it’s less of a give from me, and more of a ‘I take from you.’”

She furrows her brow, fearful, eyes flickering to the lack of escape routes.

“I can alleviate you of the burden of these memories, the depravity. The heart cannot ache for what it does not know.”

She freezes, mind struggling to comprehend.

“This may not have been your first kill, but it is certainly a burden beyond what you carry. I see no reason why someone seeking justice should not have peace once it’s reached.” His hand rests gently on her shoulder. She blinks up at him before looking down at her hands. They’re clean and unblemished. Her door is clean and unmarred. She doesn’t look at the chair.

“I-I don’t know.”

“I would only take the specifics of this night. You’d still know he died by your hand.” His voice is soft, achingly similar to her mother’s when she soothed her after a scraped knee. “But your burden would be relieved and your memories and depravity would be mine.”

Her father’s steady words ring in her ears. “Never take a deal you can’t see on paper.”

“I…would need it in writing.” She can feel the ghost of his smile.

Huehuecoyotl flashes a smile, “Of course.” He reaches into a pouch on his side, one she hadn’t noticed before. He pulls out a scroll, blowing off some dust before handing it to her, “It’s been sometime since I’ve had a warlock. Should be exciting!”

Tempest rubs her chest as she tries to read the scroll. The language is old, archaic. Only her mother’s teachings, dredged from the corners of her mind allow her to read even some of this. Slowly, she reads through, the god waiting patiently, leaning on the post while she holds it to the candle light. She glances up.

“Only the details of this night?” She tilts her head to the dead Tortle, bile threatening to make its way up her throat. He nods. 

“Why…why memories?”

He tilts his head, “Memories are what make a mortal. Especially ones like this.” This time, there’s a dangerous edge to his grin. She gulps. “Why would it not do the same for a god?” So that’s why he approached her.

“Just this night? I have your word that is the only memory you will take?” She demands. She doesn’t like the raw edges of her anger, biting and snarling in her gut.

“You have my word Tempest Shi’or.” He intones. The room ripples once more. “Of course, should you need such services again, I’d be happy to alleviate you of the burden of those memories.” She barely restrains a glare, still rubbing her chest at the ache. Her anger is biting, the chasm widening with every passing moment.

She puts a pen to paper, signing her name. 

“I’m a big believer in blood.” He chuckles, slicing his thumb open, looking at her expectantly. She stabs her palm with the nib of the pen, letting a drop fall. He steps up, letting a single drop of gold blood fall onto the page. It flashes green, and she hears a laugh and pitter patter of canine footsteps in the distance. 

“When will it take effect?” The world warps around her, and her head feels heavy, even as her heart and soul begin to feel lighter. He’s rolling up the scroll, tucking it in her side table in the secret compartment. There’s a mischievous grin on his face.

“You mean you don’t already feel it?” He’s amused. She blinks, her chest doesn’t ache, the room is clean, and she feels so sleepy. The world shimmers and shakes. She’s swaying as something else floods her veins. There’s power here. Strength and magic she’d never known. Oh. 

“I don’t think I should’ve skimmed the ‘In Return’ section.” She hears another barking laugh as the world fades to darkness, enveloping her in warmth and the whispered vestiges of her sister’s voice on her subconscious.

When she wakes the next morning, it’s with the knowledge that she’d made a deal and the Tortle had been killed in the process. She should probably be more worried, but…she had a feeling it was for the best. For now… Papa did always say to get it in writing; she wished she’d remembered that last night. She glanced at the windows, eyes wandering across her view of the city, worrying at her lip. She’d figure it out. She always did. Maybe she’d invite Carlisle around. He’d look stunning in the blue velvet chair while she danced with the golden silks.