#hellsbovnd

And so he settled on a morning—or rather, the morning settled on him. He slept most of the day prior and found him awake when most others would be rising for once, rather than closer to the middle of the day as usual. He bundled himself up in a warm coat and scarf in an effort to stave off the biting coldof the early morning breeze and set off for a cafe he once frequented (it felt like a lifetime ago now…), situated near the Crozier in a rather unsuspecting corner.

The cafe itself was fairly small, too small to have seating inside at any rate. The bell chimed as Rosemund pushed the door inward—stuck on some half-frozen hinge—and he offered the woman behind the counter a tired smile, which she returned. Her clothes and face and hands were covered in flour, and the apron additionally had colorful spots where berries had fallen or coffee had been spilled. Some old stains, others new, but it added character.

The last time he’d been to this cafe, she’d informed him that the previous owner, her mother, had finally retired. She regarded him kindly, with warm, dark eyes, even as he loomed over her by a good fulm and a half: a shadow that some had told him was unsettling at best. “It’s been a while, ser! Have you been holding up well?”

“As well as I can. Thank you,” he mumbled in reply. “And you? How’s your husband?”

“Holding up well.” She let out a sigh, leaning back from the dough she was kneading. “He has his hands full, taking care of the kid. Anyroad, what can I get for you?”

“Do you have blueberry scones today?”

“No, but we have blackberry.”

“Blackberry is fine, then. And, uh, some—breakfast tea.” It’d been so long since he’d been to this particular cafe that he’d forgotten which of their teas was the best. It really had more of a reputation for coffee, but despite its purpoted uses in treating hangovers, Rosemund had to admit that he was not a big fan of coffee. No matter how much sugar or cream he added, it was always too bitter. But he figured that he couldn’t go wrong with a cup of tea.

She nodded and accepted the coins he offered in exchange for the service—along with a rather generous tip. “Right away, ser.”

They made somewhat awkward small-talk as she set about fixing his tea. The scones were fresh out of the oven and needed to cool anyway, though Rosemund immediately regretted ordering tea—it took time for the kettle to boil, after all, and there were only so many ways he could loop back around to innocuous topics—the weather, and… Well, the weather. He didn’t rightly know the woman behind the counter well enough to feel comfortable delving into anything else, and she wasn’t highborn so he managed to avoid getting caught up in the rumor mill for the morning. Come to think of it, he didn’t even know her name…

He offered her a mumbled thanks once the tea was ready and stepped out of the cafe with his breakfast.

The little iron-wrought tables outside of the cafe were freezing-cold, but they provided somewhere for Rosemund to sit while he ate. Church bells tolled the hour, ringing through the Crozier which had started to fill with people running their morning errands—maids and manservants running about to find food suitable for their lords’ and ladies’ brunches, lunches, midafternoon snacks, and dinners; children passing through on their way to their tutor’s or to church. It was too early to shop for clothes in Rosemund’s opinion, but there were even a few noblewomen drifting away from a tailor’s shop.

Such a sight made it easy to forget that until a few years ago, Ishgard was a nation with the constant threat of war looming on the horizon. The weather, too, seemed to forget; the sky was a hazy blue and the sun was rising steadily in the sky. The feeling of the sun’s warmth on his face actually brought a smile to his lips—a rare blessing indeed, when most days the sky was a terible, soul-sucking gray.

He brought his cup of tea to his lips, golden eyes wandering among the passers-by. It was, perhaps ironically, a result of Rosemund’s solitary nature that drove him towards people. Despite his more misanthropic musings and his tendency to reject the company of his peers in favor of paying charity to the lowborn during winter moons—inviting them into his home as a reprieve from the biting cold of the winter moons. He enjoyed being an observer, he always asserted. It was easier than trying to forge legitimate bonds with others.

Never in the middle of things, always on the fringes…

While it was that time of morning that most highborn children would be getting ready to start their daily routine—he remembered somewhat fondly the path he traced around the city in his youth, dragged first to church and then to class and then to errands and then, after he turned twelve, to training—the lowborn were not bound by such responsibilities. Some children ran about the Crozier, darting around to avoid remaining in any one person’s path for too long. They laughed and yelled, two of the older-looking boys chasing each other with sticks.

“Halt, fiend!” the one giving chase cried, half out of breath from running and half out of breath from laughing, his cheeks red and his grin irrepressable.

The boy in the lead turned on his heel, then and gave his pursuer a solid whap with his stick, catching him right in the gut. Rosemund winced at the sight; he remembered his days of roughhousing, but…

It didn’t look like either of the boys was any worse for the wear, though. The pursuing child took the blow in stride. He only stumbled for a moment to indulge in a little theatrics, clutching the ‘wound’ before they were off again.

“Your wicked blade is no match for the will of the Fury!”

“Oh yeah? Well your bladework is no match for the power of darkness!”

“I’ll make you eat those words!”

Rosemund frowned at that, but by the time he’d rightfully processed what they were doing, the boys were long gone down the road, up towards the Last Vigil. His shoulders fell and he shook his head—

Dark Knights were a fairly well-known urban legend, but in his youth he never would have dreamed of playing as one. Was that the new trend? He supposed that with the end of the Dragonsong War rendering it unacceptable to capture dragonfly scouts to beat with sticks, kids had to find ways to spice up their leisure-time. And that seemed to involve beating each other with sticks now…

He finished the last of his tea, staring off down the road after them. If they only knew that neither of their roles was particularly glamorous… If they only knew the weight behind the games that they played.

If they only knew the Hells you went through to get to this point.

Rosemund gritted his teeth, banishing the thought from his head. No different than Knights and Knaves, surely; after all, in all such child’s games, there had to be some sort of ‘villain,’ right? It was nothing, nothing…

Tonight he’d chosen a dive bar in one of Ul’dah’s seedier areas: far away from the sort of establishment he would usually frequent, but the food was good, at least. Never tried a drink before, didn’t want to risk it at the time just in case drinking made it harder to maintain a façade. He had used this establishment to test disguises before and the bartender remained unconvinced of his authenticity for the entire night. That had been over a year ago, though, and he liked to think that he had improved substantially since then.

As Leonnaux made his way inside, he found the bar was just as smoke-choked as he remembered it. The lanterns on each of the tables were forced to cut their way through a thick curtain of smoke to illuminate the space. Leonnaux wrinkled his nose at the smell, his hands buried in his pockets, a wry smile pulling at the corners of his lips. The establishment was very nearly filled to capacity, with a number of patrons drinking their sorrows at the bar or engaged in a merry night of banter at one of the tables.

One or two parties were even engaged in some heated card games on the balcony above, but he wasn’t in the mood for cards tonight—he was in the mood to get even.

The disguise of the night was on the subtler side of things; unlike his adventure in Ishgard during the Fury’s Moon, he tried to keep his appearance fairly close to his actual appearance. It was often the subtle changes that were the easiest to pull off, even if they went against his usual philosophy of every impression you make on a stranger should be wrong.

In Ishgard, that philosophy meant making drastic changes in both appearance and manner. Tonight, however, the policy was applied more loosely. He didn’t change the color of his hair, or even the length tonight—though the character that he had constructed presented herself in a more feminine manner than Leonnaux typically did in his day-to-day life—and more rough and tumble besides. He donned a pair of leather pants that he had picked up recently, and threw on a leather long coat on top of it. He settled on compromising with well-fitted, cropped halter top that would hide the fact that his cleavage was fake while still exposing enough abdomen to be provocative. He shed his usual gloves in favor of armguards and feathers reminiscent of a magpie’s iridescent blue-green plumage were intertwined with short braids just in front of his ears.

A little makeup work smoothed down sharp angles and strong lines in his face; eyeliner, mascara, and kohl framed his eyes—glamoured to be mismatched shades of hazel—for a suitably intense look when paired with dark lipstick. And of course, a pendant was tucked into his shirt to change his voice so that he would not have to strain to maintain a higher timbre for the night—which without magic would be the one aspect of his person that was unlikely to pass muster while wearing a feminine guise.

“Evening,” the bartender greeted with a smile, tossing the rag he was using to dry newly-cleaned glasses over his shoulder. “What can I get ya?” He was an scrutinizing fellow, a Duskwight with a discerning eye. The sun had given his skin a little more color over the years than he would have had naturally, stealing enough of the grayness from his skin that were it not for the clan tattoos running up his arm and neck—etched into his skin with a blade, not a needle, and highlighted only in certain spots with white ink—he would pass for a Wildwood. His dark gaze settled on Leonnaux, his lips twisted in a smile that was—procedural, somewhat sarcastic even.

Leonnaux tapped a manicured nail on the counter as he hauled himself up and onto the bar stool. When he spoke, it was not with his own voice, but a more feminine one—albeit one on the sultry, low side, as he figured that that sort of voice would fit the character he created for the night the best. “Sazerac. On the rocks.”

His gaze rose to the bartender as he slid some gil coins forward to provide payment for the drink—and a tip, of course.

The bartender nodded and set about making the drink. It wasn’t done with as much finesse as Leonnaux would employ if he were the one on the other side of the bar, and the ingredients here were subpar—catered towards people who were more concerned about getting nice and drunk than people who wanted a high-class experience. That suited him fine, and he tried not to watch the bartender too closely as he muddled the sugar, the water, the bitters. The cognac, the whiskey—stirred, not shaken—then slid over to Leonnaux after a lemon peel was lazily tossed into the glass and left there.

Leonnaux let it sit for a moment before bringing the glass to his lips, leaving some dark plum-red lipstick on its rim once the glass was lowered back onto its coaster. It was good—for the components used. It was what he paid for, anyway; he knew that a place like this probably didn’t have the wherewithal to obtain the nice Ishgardian cognac, and he knew that it wasn’t really ‘in-character’ to complain.

So instead he mumbled a thanks, casting his gaze about the bar. A drunk Seeker whose arms and chest were almost completely covered in tattoos was about six shots in two stools to his left. The stool immediately to his right was vacated soon after he ordered his drink, a midlander woman with eyes like daggers and a scar running down over her right eye having apparently had her fill of listening to the men upstairs gamble their paychecks away.

“So… Friendly bunch,” he started, somewhat awkwardly as the midlander held his gaze until the heavy door had fallen shut in her wake and she was back out on Ul’dah’s streets.

“Friendly’s a word. Think most of our professions down here kinda exclude us from the category,” the bartender replied, setting the Seeker up with another shot even though he definitely did not seem conscious enough that that would be a good idea. The bartender’s voice carried with it a thick accent—caught somewhere between what he had grown up hearing in the depths of the Black Shroud and what might be expected of Coerthas natives.

“I… Don’t think I could have guessed,” Leonnaux replied, squinting a bit. For the disguise he’d gone without his glasses—it wasn’t really possible to navigate around them for every single disguise he wanted to try. Thankfully the low light of the bar didn’t impact his vision too much, and he only had to deal with distance-related issues. The bartender right in front of him was just barely out-of-focus, and the rest of the room? A blur. “Between the scars and the tattoos. You got word of the street?”

The bartender huffed a laugh. “Depends on what you’re lookin’ for, missy.”

“Call me that again and I’ll break your fingers.”

“Oh, oh, this one has spunk! I like it!” The huff turned to something heartier, this time the bartender laughing from deep within his chest, shoulders heaving. “Most interesting thing anyone’s said to me all godsdamned night. Well, then, what’s your angle?”

Leonnaux’s shoulders rose and fell in a half-hearted shrug. “Just new here, just lookin’ for some fun,” he replied, setting his sazerac down on the counter and retrieving a silver cigarette case from an interior pocket of his coat, along with a box of matches. He places a cigarette between his plum-colored lips before offering one to the bartender across from him. “Looks like you are, too?”

The bartender scoffs before taking a cigarette, producing a very different implement for lighting his cigarette—a well-crafted lighter, like the ones that Leonnaux had often seen crafted through the collaborative efforts of the Goldsmith’s Guild and the Alchemist’s Guild, a small fire shard producing a small flame once it was flipped open. He huffed a bit at the sight before striking a match and using that to light his cigarette. The match was blown out before being discarded in a nearby ashtray, overflowing with ashes and cigarette butts and similarly-discarded matches.

“You could say I’m looking for a little entertainment, yeah,” the bartender replied, “It’s all the same shite ‘round here.” He blew out a cloud of smoke to punctuate the statement, a sigh. “Fun’s dried up if that’s what you’re looking for, though. Jobs, though. Plenty of jobs. Jobs that you gotta be really fuckin’ down on your luck to consider takin’, though.”

Leonnaux couldn’t help a little bit of laughter at that. “Well, let’s say I’m down on my luck then. City’s not real easy to get started in, unless you’d rather give me tips than work. But I’d really prefer the work.”

“Not a whole lot for a pretty face like you to do besides hook on street corners.”

His eyebrow couldn’t help but twitch a little in response to that—a brief expression that didn’t go unnoticed, since the bartender burst out laughing in response.

“Oh, oh, lighten up. If you can’t take a joke then you ain’t gonna last five ticks out there.”

“Rest assured, you’re not the only one who’s lacked enough sense to tell me that. Lucky for you, though, you can make a decent drink. The other ones couldn’t.” He lifted his sazerac, then, removing his cigarette from his lips and blowing out the smoke to take a sip from the glass. “Guess you have a half-decent face too. Hate to ruin it.”

“Well, color me honored.” The bartender ashed his cigarette, poured the Miqo’te gent another shot—absinthe this time, Leon realized, and though now he was wondering if the bartender was just steadily making his way up the ladder in terms of alcohol strength, he couldn’t help but think the man two stools down might need to stop if he didn’t want to end up worse than passed out in a ditch. “Laraunt, by the way. So, if you’re looking for work… Well, got some postings over in the back. But if I’m being frank, there’s been some shite going on that I’d love for someone to look into. What’s your trade, missy?”

“Call me Reine,” he corrected. “I’m serious about your fingers.”

“Sure, sure, right, right. Anyway, what’s it you do?”

Leonnaux clicked his tongue, considering for a moment, lowering his gaze to the lemon peel floating in his drink. “… This and that. Anything for the right price. Ran some drugs when I was up in Gridania—sonmus, snow, you know, that shite. Prefer to work more discreetly where I can, though—stuff what won’t give folks a paper trail to look for… Information, a favorite.”

His gaze returned to Laraunt , then, watching him carefully for any sign that he wasn’t convinced—pinning his preferred trade as information was a risk, but it was the only risk he could feasibly take. He couldn’t offer any answer that would be easy to verify; he couldn’t describe in-depth what it was like to work a job that he had no experience with whatosever, not even by proxy. To say nothing of if Laraunt decided to cross-check him, or press for more details than he had.

Laraunt considered for a moment before offering Leonnaux a half-shrug. “Information’s honest enough trade, I guess. You just a broker, or do you do groundwork?”

“Depends on my mood…” Leonnaux trailed off, then, somewhat uncertain before he nodded to Laraunt’s tattoos: raised scars and white ink against his dark skin, etching intricate runes and designs and occultic symbols into his exposed forearm and extending up his sleeve to his neck. The designs themselves were, of course, pleasing to the eye—but the runes were chiefly Duskwight in usage, sigils of power similar to the ones etched into pomanders. “But you could say I’ve always to ears out, eh?”

The bartender arched a brow, then, before nodding his assent. “Ah, more than just a pretty face, then! Seems you have some keen eyes, too. Well… Well, I suppose you’ll do, Reine. If you think you can get the job done. I’ve been through a few brokers, kind of need a dedicated investigator if I’m being honest. They all chickened out once they got a handle for the situation.”

Leonnaux perked up a bit, folding his hands in front of him on the table and ashing his cigarette. He looked the bartender over, but without his glasses his eye for detail was somewhat limited, even this close. “Well, running drugs up to the Shroud ain’t exactly a cushy fucking job, as long as no one’s gonna try and drain my body of its blood I think I can stomach getting my hands a little dirty.” He scoffed, then, as if it was a joke. “So what is it. I can’t say for sure unless you tell me what the job is.”

Laraunt met Leonnaux’s eyes, then, his lips pressing into a thin line. “My sister’s missing.”

Oh—oh.

Leonnaux had to fight off the shock when the bartender’s voice suddenly becoming quite grave, going from somewhat condescending and sarcastic to a sobering baritone is no time flat. He took a breath, considering those three words as he drew his cigarette back to his lips, puffing away quietly.

“If it’s a missing person case, I think you’re gonna want the Blades instead.”

“Not considering what all my sister was getting up to before she went and vanished.” Laraunt tapped a fingertip—hard—on the surface of the counter, pulling Leonnaux’s attention back up to his eyes. “This ain’t the best place to give details though—or time. How can I get in touch with you after this? Sit down for a more proper talk. Client to broker.”

Leonnaux paused, offering a shrug. “I’m new here. You think I already have an office? Just pick a day pick a time and—I’ll meet you out back. After a shift, maybe. So we won’t be interrupted.” He tilted his chin up, then, before he snuffed the cigarette out, grinding it in the ashtray and leaving it there in a crumpled heap. With a grimace, he slammed back the rest of his sazerac in one go, chewing on the lemon rind left behind once the glass was emptied.

“Ah, eh… Should be free at the end of the week.”

“Cool. I’ll see you then—see if I can’t turn up any leads on a missin’ Duskwight in Ul’dah in the meantime.”

“I’d appreciate it.” There’s a pause and Laraunt takes a breath, watching Leonnaux as he starts to leave. “Hey, say—this is bugging me, but have I seen you before?”

Leonnaux’s heart skipped a beat, and he paused mid-step to look over his shoulder, one hand against the heavy wooden door, poised to make his way out.

“I don’t know. Have you?”