#shadowplot

Her high heeled shoes resounded against the stone path leading up to her home, reaching for her keys to let herself in. She let out a gust of a sigh, just wanting to sink into a hot bath with a glass of scotch and a cigarette to soak away the two weeks worth of stress that had built in her. It had just been insane with the amount of negotiating she had been having to do for contracts and to replace the amount of income she had been earning versus what she had lost from the contract in Ala Mhigo. Her brother had gotten wind that she was in Gridania and had been asking about Myrriah...and she still had the bruises from that confrontation on her arms and back.

Nearly a half dozen times she felt she had been watched in her travels or was being followed. She had taken multiple different ways home -- even tonight, she had taken the long way. A ward over was when the watchful, malevolent presence had disappeared and she still couldn’t pin point whom nor where it was coming from. She hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, considering she hadn’t seen enough of her friends lately to tell them.

Arik was in and out, busy with handling Vanguard missions and personal business. Saphyra was absent, off in the wilds of the Black Shroud and doing whatever it was that she did. She knew Emeline had enough of her own problems to handle at the moment and she seemed far to absorbed into whatever issues she and Jun were having to even broach. Mafrea seemed to be as embezzled in whatever was happening with Jun as well. The last thing he needed was yet another problem laid at his feet.

There was no need to hit the hornet’s nest, especially when they were already swarming over another crisis. She would handle her shit, as she always did. Rosette opened the door to her home and stood in the doorway, eyes widening and her mouth dropping open.

It looks like a hurricane had hit her apartment. Everything was upturned and tossed around, items broken and shard of glass all over the floor. The lights were out, only the light from the setting sun seeping in through the windows. She walked inward in a daze, looking at the broken furniture and drawers overturned on the floor. Her dining table was broken, her chairs and couches flipped, her plates were broken and shattered on the floor in the open kitchen. She winced as a glass shard pierced the bottom of her sandals and she looked down, seeing the vase shards and flower petals beneath her feet. She pulled out the shard and started down the stairs to her living area. 

Once more, books were scattered everywhere and shards of glass from her fish tank were on the ground. The fish lay dead on the soaked carpet where they had fallen, bottles of liquor and wine smashed on the floor. Her bookshelves were emptied, her desk flipped and drawers rifled through. A quick peek into her bedroom and bath saw her clothes strewn everywhere and feathers all over the place from her down pillows. Her make up was scattered, mirror cracked, and plants ripped to shreds.

She reached down, picking up the now headless stuffed Namazu she had kept on her bedside table from where it had been tossed. She hugged it to her chest and turned, speechless as she slowly sank to the floor in middle of the living room. Confusion, fear, and the feeling of being exposed ripped through her. 

The gray light of dawn was just filtering in through the windows as Rosette started to wake. Her limbs felt heavy, her head felt foggy as she fought to open her eyes through the last vestiges of the sleep spell that Mafrea had hit her with before he had left. She had been dozing lightly just before, trying to stem off the dizziness and headache that came with using her own very miniscule aether manipulation abilities to halt Jun’s aetherflow.

She opened her eyes, looking at the semi-lit room. Her dreams had been plagued with an inky darkness that had flooded the room, threading its way up around Mafrea’s limbs as he had taken a long drag of a cigar. The smoldering tip of it had been the only light in the room as the dripping shadows had hovered over him, a skeletal reaper with a long scythe dangling just over his left shoulder. The Thaumaturge’s skin had started to wither, become pockmarked in the ink that dripped from the creature hovering over him. She had tried to call out to him, to warn him...but her voice had been stolen as the darkness washed up over her and dragged her into the abyss. 

Then, wakefulness had started to creep in and drag her out of slumber.

Rose didn’t have the energy to move and simply remained as she was, the bench only slightly uncomfortable. She knew her back and shoulders would be stiff and sore later, but she just...couldn’t bring herself to move.

Last night had been difficult with Jun’s possession rearing it’s ugly head, worrying about the team that Arik took to discover what the hell was happening with her caravans, and the fall out that happened between Emeline and Mafrea. She cringed and lifted a hand to run over her face as she recalled the Conjurer yelling at Mafrea, partially revealing that Rosette felt more than what their familial bond was. Luckily, the mage likely missed it as he was so focused on Emeline and her lack of control.

Then, there was the news that Anhashy delivered about the Garleans not truly being Garleans. They were hired thugs paid to target her shipments, intent on destroying her. She knew she had upset some people with her bravado and blunt dealings, but actual enemies that would strike out? She supposed it would happen sooner or later, she thought as she shifted a little to relieve the pressure on her right hip. Still, she had felt oddly vulnerable.

Perhaps it was because she was so depleted from aiding Jun? Manipulating someone’s aether was an incredibly difficult task for a seasoned professional...much less a novice stumbling through it based on another’s notations. She had wanted to ask Mafrea to stay on the ship instead of taking a walk to get some air. Yet...she let him go. He needed to go do whatever it was he did when the rage was close to breaching the surface. His need was greater than her own.

Rose closed her eyes, once more trying to talk herself into getting up and give herself a pep talk. She had paperwork to file, contracts to review, and a meeting to talk with a stained glass and window merchant about setting up shipments to Kugane and Doma. Yet still, she didn’t move.

It wasn’t until the first streaks of sun bathed the ship that she was seen walking away from the Rocinante, shoulders slumped and eyes downcast as she was lost in her own chaotic thoughts. She had more questions than answers after that caravan’s mission and she looked forward to the full report. She had some digging to do.

The scritch-scratching of a quill against parchment was incredibly loud in the area that served both as a study and as an intimate gathering space. Rosette’s home was quaint, small...nothing like the house that she had grown up in, the Valeria estate sprawling in one of the larger plots of the Goblet’s wards. Truthfully, she preferred it this way as it provided a cozy atmosphere for when her ragtag family gathered together for a meal or to visit. 

The merchant dipped her quill into the ink and continued to elegantly scrawl notations on the documents and reports for her Syndicate patron, Lady Noni. The one benefit of having been so badly injured was that she had gained the ability to catch up on inventories, shipping manifests, a multitude of different contracts that demanded her attention, and some research into shipping companies that could move her product. Murdock, her retainer and right hand man for the newly minted Desert Rose Industries, was utterly indispensable when she was out and about with the Black Garden. The one-eyed, scarred redheaded Hyur and his chosen Elezen life partner, Richart, ran quite the tight ship on her behalf. Once she had been feeling better, she was immensely pleased that nothing was amiss and everything accounted for.

She didn’t look up as she heard footsteps across the floorboards above her head, continuing to focus on her notations and reviewing contracts. Nor did the sound of footfalls on her stairs break her trance. Murdock and Richart had continually been coming and going the last two or three days, bringing her updated inventories and offers from shipping companies that ventured to and from Doma and Kugane. She had a few ideas and had been up late the night before speaking with both of her associates in regards to branching out into supplies to help rebuild Doma and tempt some Goldsmiths and jewelers in Kugane--

“Well, dear sister, I do hope I’m not interrupting.”