Topic: The Fates of Fortune Subject: Lost in emotions
He could read part of her at least, that she admitted to herself when his locked on hers and he smiled and stepped closer to her. As always his proximity made her breath still and silently she cursed herself for the reaction. He questioned her desire to stay loyal to the Hellkites and she paused, debating how much he saw and how much she dared to reveal.
"If Dmitrova ever discovered what has truly happened over these past two days... I'm dead." She says nothing more but instead looks up into Nyx's eyes.
This has gone too far for me to turn back... it is you I trust with my life now.
"What did you have in mind?"
“No, elen en cormamin,” he whispered into the air between them, swimming in her eyes even as he willed his hand not to reach out and touch her unbidden, “if Vadim ever discovers the truth of these past two days it will be his death that is the price of it, not yours… I promise you that if nothing else…”
Ask me to kill him for you, now, Nyx couldn’t help but think at that moment, and I shall gladly do it… and hand you the whole of the Hellkite’s for your own if that is what you wish.
The very thought brought a smile to his lips again… Such a thing could possibly happen before this was all over and done, couldn’t it? Very soon, in fact, if the plans that were at work in the assassin’s mind played out... “To find out exactly what our dear Captain knows, we shall need to visit his home,” he said before poking the last of the mince pie into his mouth, “There will certainly be information to be found in his offices beneath the Hydra but, if Vadim is anywhere near as smart as he believes himself to be, he will have squirreled away any allusions to his darker dealings somewhere more private, yes?”
Her heart fluttered and her fingers twitched slightly. He promised so much, his words were laced with terms of affection and his eyes suggested that none of it was trite. She couldn't full decide if she should throttle him or kiss him. It seemed that at this point both prospects were painful to her.
Instead she tries to focus on the job at hand. Slowly she nods. "Yes... he might underestimate people, but he is not a complete fool. Whatever he knows will not be easy to get to. Aelion might be easier to reach come to think of it. I still think we should move quickly no matter what we do.
"My face is too well known amongst the Hellkites to use a ruse like we did with the Trade officer to get in. I'm not due to report to Dmi for another few days. I imagine they drug you there in some back way, but I doubt you can clearly remember it."
She stops a moment and her eyes drift off somewhere as she considers a thought. Slowly they refocus on him. "To get into the dungeon our best bet would be to do something that would get us arrested... the same could be said for getting into Dmitrova's lairs. One of us could easily be escorted down for the right infraction... as you have learned well enough... it would be dangerous, though."
He crumpled the grease-stained paper between his hands as he chewed the last morsel of the pie and considered her words. “Easy enough for me to get arrested, I would think,” he smirked, tossing the crumpled pie wrapper into the gloom, “I could step outside right now, say a word or two, and have Legionnaires on my heels in moments…” he brushed his hands off on his pants and, folding his arms across his chest, leaned a shoulder against the wall beside her… “and to end up in Vadim’s private audience again, I think I would have to do little more than show up at the Hydra and wink at him, yes? Speak my mind to him and get ushered just as quickly back into that tunnel…”
Ah, yes, the tunnel…Nyx’s voice trailed off, there, and his gaze flitted away to fix on some nether-point in the shadows that blanketed the depths of the room. That tunnel in which Dmitrova’s little torture chamber was secreted away continued on past the chamber itself, didn’t it? How far beyond, he wondered – all the way from the Hydra to Dmitrova’s own private lair, perhaps - and what would be the best way to get inside to find out? A mischievous spark flickered in his yellow eyes as they let go of the shadows and returned to dance across Cay’s face once more… “Tell me, Cay,” his lips parted in a devious grin, “what do you know of spells that might render a person invisible?”
Speak your mind indeed... you seem very good at that dear Nyx... She thought to herself with a sigh. A few more bites of her pie while he spoke kept her eyes on it instead of him, noting the slight crescent moon shape it took while she ate it.
"Invisibility?" The corner of her lip raises and she turns her head to look at him. A little laugh escapes from her and she shakes her head. "None. I cannot say I have had much use for such spells. I'm not like you Nyx. I have not crept in the shadows for years killing... and it has likely been easier for me to avoid being arrested all these years than it has been for you..." A sliver of ice slipped into her voice when she reminded him that they were not alike despite their almost comfortable conversation. It did not disappear as her thoughts shifted to Dugan, recalling the way his blood soaked ring had caught the morning light.
"However..." she hurried on, "I can make it so that others are stricken either blind or deaf... of course it isn't temporary..." Her eyes brighten and she smiles at that somewhat proudly. "And then there is one I used on the Trade officer... he could see what happened around him but was not in a state to do much about it... although that was helped by what I did to his balls... that one is temporary, but it lasts for a long while. But most of what I have learned is to inflict pain."
The assassin offered a faint nod as Cay, in her musings, didn’t fail to point out the differences between them, again. A near-inaudible sigh – which could have emoted exasperation as easily as disappointment – whispered over his lips as his gaze hardened a fraction and slid away from her face to regard the dusty floorboards at his feet. “We each creep in the shadows in our own way, Cayrimsa,” Nyx offered as he contemplated the difficulties of infiltrating Vadim’s tunnel without the aid of the spells he hoped she would have, “though, I suppose stealth would concern you less that it does me, in most cases. Your targets, I have noticed over the years, are lured to their fates easily enough with but a look and a promise…” He shrugged and almost chuckled, lifting his eyes to hers again. “…Those I hunt are not so easily persuaded. Perhaps if I were prettier, yes?”
The mith’ganni pushed away from the wall against which he had been leaning and ran the fingers of one hand through the ebon spill of his mane as he paced towards the door. “Spells of invisibility would definitely be of use where gaining access to Dmitrov’s is concerned,” he said, thinking out loud more than informing her of anything she likely hadn’t surmised for herself, “in the absence of them, though, we may have more success in our pursuit of having that conversation with Aelion… That which we need from Vadim will likely remain where it is until he is given cause to move or destroy it… But Aelion…” another shrug “…as you said, if the half-moon has not yet been executed it shan’t be long before he will be… and once his thread is severed, any information he might be able to provide is gone along with him…”
He stopped just before the door, his mind already formulating plans on how he might get into the dungeons, and turned to regard Cay curiously for a moment… “Have you ever been subjected to the Empire’s hospitality, Cay?”... For some reason, he couldn’t imagine that she had ever been shut away in the confines of a Braudian prison and, as he had begun to sort the particulars of a planned foray into one of the Empire’s more notable facilities, wondered if she would be able to manage such a thing… wondered if he would be able to manage seeing her there…
She bit her tongue and hardened her own gaze when he started to insinuate that she used her body to accomplish her goals.
Does it bother you Cay? It never did before. Does it bother you because he knows or because he dares to point it out... and did you expect otherwise? You bit him, he bites back.
She said nothing, though and he went on "... I have noticed over the years..."
Years? Over the years? The thought of him watching what she had done with her life for the past years made her shiver and feel naked before him. It was not a feeling she enjoyed and it darkened her expression even further.
Dark eyes followed him as he began to pace, his boots kicking up small clouds of dust in the debris that littered the floor.
"Spells of invisibility would definitely be of use where gaining access to Dmitrov’s is concerned..." he began to contemplate out loud.
"I might be able to get my hands on something..." she murmured and let the last bite of her pie cut off anything else she might be considering.
His eyes ticked toward her and he nodded slightly to show he had heard her then continued with his thoughts, discussing Aelion and the possibility of moving down into the dungeon.
“Have you ever been subjected to the Empire’s hospitality, Cay?” He had turned and looked over at her again, finding her eyes to still be a bit dark and narrowed when he did.
"Don't you know? Don't you know everything about me? Followed me for all these years, standing in the shadows while you watched me work, watched me tease and torture?" She crumbled up her own bit of paper and tossed it behind her as she rose to her full height and took a step closer to him. "Have you enjoyed it Nyx? Watching those humans hurt me all these years? Felt that I was getting what I deserved for abandoning my elven heritage perhaps?"
A pause and then she finally answered his question. "One night, many years ago I found myself in Imperial hospitality. Never again..."
The frown that fell over her lips suggested that it was not a pleasant memory. The fire the burned in her eyes suggested that her emotions were making it difficult for her to stay focused on the task at hand.
“Have you enjoyed it, Nyx,” Cay demanded, causing Nyx to realize that somewhere in his words he had just admitted to ghosting her steps for far longer than even she was aware. She tossed away her trash and strode towards him, her eyes dark and hooded when his gaze met hers again… “Watching those humans hurt me all these years? Felt that I was getting what I deserved for abandoning my elven heritage perhaps?”
The moon-colored eyes didn’t waver from the amber ones that glared almost accusatorially at him as she advanced; neither did they reflect any of the perceived animosity that burned behind those cinnamon pools. Nyx shook his head even before the answer to her questions formed on his lips. “I have enjoyed watching you,” he said softly when she came to a stop in front of him, “I still enjoy watching you… but, no, I have not enjoyed watching them hurt you…”
Now, a voice tittered in his mind’s ear, tell her how many of the ones that she let escape you have killed for having done so… tell her that you have wanted to hurt her on occasion for her denial of her blood, too, hmm? She’ll surely appreciate that…
Another shake of his head, this time not to express anything I particular but, instead, to dislodge the mocking voice from his thoughts…
She didn’t need to hear what he thought, though, the buttons had already been pushed.
She took a step closer to him, taking in a deep breath of his scent as she did. For a moment she said nothing, just breathed him in and looked up into his eyes.
“But you did nothing to stop them. Did you? For all your talk of…” she swallowed hard unable to speak the word yet. “For all your feelings that I am like you, that half of my blood is enough… you never came out and stopped them.”
“You may be right Nyx. What you refuse to say out loud, but what you have slipped between your words. I may be a whore… I may degrade myself to lay with humans in order to get what I want. But let us get something straight Nyx…” Her voice whispered coolly. Without hesitation she reached up and her fingers pushed back a lock of his hair only to light upon the pointed tip of his ear. The fingers dripped down the pale skin and down the line of his neck.
“Your blood is pure elven… you sport the ears, the almond moon eyes of your people…” there was a twang of disgust as she spoke and continued to look into those eyes she mentions.
“You use the silvered tongue of the elves, but not always…”
Despite this tone in her voice her fingers do not leave him, instead they trail down his neck, pressing a bit firmer when they move over his jacket, making sure that through the padding he can still feel her touch. “You dress in shadow, instead of the light that elves adore… cloaking yourself in the tombs of humans deep in the belly of a city not the gentle embrace of nature, and have for years.”
Inch by inch her fingers move down the midline of his jacket, down his breastbone and to the softer flesh of his stomach. “You do not hold life sacred as elves by nature do, instead you kill…”
Finally her hand descends toward his hips, a thumb dragging over the silver skull leaving her smeared fingerprint across the top of it. “You kill for him… your seductive God of death… and you kill because you enjoy it. You gave yourself to him, you left the plains, you killed your people.”
She grips his belt buckle more firmly in her fingers and pulls him half a step closer to her. “You, Nyx Shyndyn may have been birthed of elven parents, raised in their embrace… but you are no more elven than I, perhaps less.”
The amber sparks fly across her eyes and it is difficult to read what goes on in the mind behind them, mainly because she herself was confused by it.
Posted on 2010-02-03 at 21:16:41.
Edited on 2018-11-20 at 12:57:11 by Eol Fefalas
|