“ You goin’ to give me back my wallet or do I have to take it back? ”

     “ Halt, you will step no further! ” Raising his gun, half shrouded in shadows, the intruder narrowed his eyes. He’d easily snuck aboard the stationary ship in order to find the empress and bring her reign to an end... but, much to his surprise, the ship was empty.

     Except for this woman, of course. However, upon closer inspection, he noticed she wasn’t Altean - and therefore could not take her into custody for questioning. But he did not lower his gun - how had she gotten here, and more importantly, where were the others?

@ishvalanlancer

Send me a ‘🎨’ for an aesthetic or mood collage for our muses. | Accepting

▐│∶x∶; —                  dublith was a hell hole. not really in the sense that it was an awful, nightmarish place to live (it was shitty, sure, but nothing compared to the pit he'd dragged himself out of). because it got so goddamn hot. joke about frying an egg on the sidewalk all you want, but an egg is child's play to what you could really do with that kind of heat. trust him. they'd spent an entire afternoon seeing just how much they could get away with. 

the point was: dublith's scorching summers made rush valley feel like a cool breeze. 

dolcetto kept to the shadows as he moved through the valley's market, eyes shifting, nose twitching. the dry air was strangely damp with the irritating scents of oils, gas, polish and other automail related bullshit he didn't know the names of. every couple of steps the sharp whir of machinery would send an alarmed twitch through his muscles. he'd huff, shake it off with as little show as possible, and move on. 

since... that day, gunshow had been getting by with some shitty automail they'd found. getting it into the sockets nearly made him pass out. it hadn't been worth it; both of the chipped, rusty arms ceased function only twelve days after. patient as gunshow could be, he was starting to get short-fused. but... who could blame him, really? having to rely on the rest of them to feed him, get him dressed and other things. shit. it not only stripped him of his independence, but... dol could only imagine it brought back less than pleasant memories from the labs. 

he ducked around back of one of the garages, pausing long enough to sample the air. mixed into the sour, nose-wrinkling burn of mechanical what-the-hell-ever, he picked up on two...--no. three human scents. should be easy enough. two of them would probably be at the front of the shop. another would most likely be working on automail. all of them would be distracted. juuuust long enough for him to act.

             ❛ ... ❜ picking the lock? easy. slipping inside without a sound? simple. now to navigate... find where they stored... hell, he didn't know. something. whatever he could find that was about gunshow's arm size and looked like it would work when it was plugged in.