Emersyn's voice could be many things, she knew how to change it, bring it high or keep it low.  She knew which words to use with different people.  If horse brains were engines (and, in a way they were) - then Emersyn would be fit to be called a mechanic.  One who would pull her black gloves on and open the vale to see the parts (and most of the hidden ones) .  She would see what each part could do, Nicolai had trained her well.  All those young hearts that were crushed along the way.  She was tasked to break them each and every way he told her how.  And though the real world was not as textbook as Nicolai's trainings had been, it certainly prepared Emersyn for it.  

Not only was Emersyn a soldier, she was an invader as well.  Poor Vig thought he saw her coming, but nothing prepared him for her quiet attack.  Kisses, silk, whiskey, and cigars.  What man could resist? 

"Tell me more about them?" A soft kiss to the cheek, a familiar press of her shoulder against his.  A gentle swish of the tail against his legs.  And cocktails, so many cocktails and tobacco. Vig laughed with such joy, his old blue eyes twinkling as his company kept herself close to him.  Emersyn was far too young to entertain a man who was near his double digits without him suspecting her. But Emersyn was persistent, and she would not cease to press him for information in her own way. 

Remain confident, this will work.  He will give you what you want.  They always do.

This was her third day visiting in a row, Ausvig was starting to get familiar with the white face and blue eyes - but he couldn't relax.  Newcomers didn't come into Solterra too often to drink, or at all.  Not now.  Possibly not ever, so long as Raum was king.  But Emersyn wanted to know more about something she shouldn't have known about in the first place.  The secret was that there was no secret.  And if there had been one, seldom few knew it, and those that knew would be old school foot soldiers to a powerful underbelly which would still hold them accountable for their secrets (which did not exist).

And Birch - the guy who knew a guy, who somehow knew the guy who was a part of the past - said Vig could be found .. here.

On the first day, Emersyn wanted to know about the Scorpions, he denied ever knowing such a name.  Pretending that she was only curious, followed with a large blue-eyed smile seemed to put the old man at ease.  "A beauty like you sure has a wild imagination.  How many fairy tales you read over there in Delumine anyway?  This ain't a place for a nice young girl like you." Vig said at first, he accepted her company despite that.  She knew she wouldn't get the secret, but she knew she could plant the seed.  He was untilled soil, nothing had grown in it for years.  Nothing even tried to.  Vig was repulsive. 


On the second day, she caught him by surprise.  Shocked that Emersyn even wanted to return to him (she made sure to promise him that she would with a diligent smile)- it made it easy when she begged the old man to trust her with a secret. Vig told her without hesitation that he defected to the enemy King of his country, Zolin.  When she asked why, he said that he was not only opportunistic, but greedy for coin as well.  When Emersyn agreed that he had made the right choice, not only did he call her pretty again, but he said she could blow any enterprise higher than a kite in a windstorm.  She watered her seed, she waited, it had begun to put out its roots and grow, a tremble of victory unseen beneath her feet. 

Emersyn told Vig a story on the third day, something inspirational, woven from the old testament of her life.  Something sad, intense, and desolate - she made sure that he knew how far she had traveled to get here, how hard she had worked for it.  And how desperate she was to see him after all this way. 

Vig paid for the drinks on the third day as Emersyn practically sat in his lap and blew soft air in his ears because she knew he liked it through all their endless seventy-two hour banter.  The man crooned like a springtime molly when she did that.  A spell (if something so natural could be called a thing) had been woven into the inner pocket of his soul.  Whether he intended for it or not, he had grown quite fond of the phantom-gray woman, he laid awake at night thinking about her.  A leaf at last emerged from the soil, stretching up-up-up inside of Emersyn's vigilant shadow.

Then.

"I would give anything to know if the Scorpions are real.  Vig, am I really just a silly girl chasing after fiction?  You'd tell me right?" She made sure he knew she was as serious as an adder's strike. And perhaps it was not just a metaphor, for Emersyn failed to mention to Vig that - this time - the bartender (he and his family had been starving for weeks;,his name was Gliessen), now had enough money to eat like kings for the next couple of days, all he had to do was slip poison into Vig's drink and serve it.       So Gleisson did,

,and Vig could not understand where his truth was coming from, just that he could not stop himself.  And he was angry when her hand was revealed through the guilty look on the bartender's face.  Gleisson could not stop apologizing and Emersyn could not smile more proudly.  Who will you tell?  Either way you are a trader to your own secrets.  Emersyn paused, blue eyes philosophical and dark, smiled, while her lips remained pressed into a mirthless line, 'Hungry' is such a funny way to be, what you would do for a ripe apple these days...

Gleisson had enough to buy a full sack of them, and more.  She made sure of that, but with a costly debt.

Vig spit at her feet.


"They will find you before you can find them. You bitch! I hope they kill you!"

"I hope not, Vig.  See you soon?"

Emersyn footed the bill and left quickly.



...



It is the end of the third day and Emersyn is finally free of that stinking old man and finding a way to clean herself up in the middle of a desert.  She wants nothing to do with his perfume and tobacco, so the first thing she does - even if it is the middle of the night - is scrub every square inch of her body in sand and soot, hoping the salt of it all will erase Vig's presence entirely.  He has given her the keys to his kingdom and all she had to do was open his head up with the right words.  His weakness had been her weakness, at least that is what she wanted him to think it was. 

Still, three days is too long and Emersyn is still dissatisfied at the amount of time it took her to break him in.  She hates the idea of having to use trace elements, i.e. datura (she calls it), it is too risky.  The other high risk is taking too long - others will notice (others have noticed).  Others will recognize her.  Perhaps now, stained black and rose with the red-red sand in her gray coat, she'll buy some space between her and "Saquaro's" before being intercepted.  Poisoning someone but leaving them to recover and not die is guaranteed an audience.  When Vig said he was a vengeful man, she knew he was an easy check to cash.

She can only walk so long through the dunes, wending back and forth in the red sand like the snake she is, seeking purchase of quarry she can sink her teeth into.  It is opportunity that drives her, and though poisoning Vig may cause harm to her chances, she believes it might not.  Emersyn is not known for foolish gambling, even though she leaves sidewinder trails in large enough scale that is no wonder when she finds three horses at last.  They seem to be waiting for her but she doesn't want to admit it out loud.

A blackbird has been sent, due east for a property that belongs to their bosses' boss.  Just like Birch, with his guy who knows a guy, that knows of a guy - the three before them work for Vig, who works for his boss - who's bosses' boss is now being informed that she has a visitor.  They form a gate that Emersyn will have to pass through by force if she doesn't stop to greet them first.  Peacefully, she does just that.

"Are you here to see the sunrise too?" She asks as if she is none the wiser.



           

Still young, there is hope for Emersyn yet.  It is a hope founded by the young, determined woman herself - her hope is for control, power, and success.  All three things desirable by most, but complicated pathways to walk, and not always achieved.  Not only must one be strong, but one must be cunning too.  If strength and brains are not enough, one must possess a certain degree of charisma as well.  Something the Mistress seethes with.  Emersyn's mouth goes dry, and with words like flint stones, just the wrong locution could spark a blaze.

The atmosphere changes from crisp and cool to muddy and hot.  It doesn't help that the moment the sun begins to rise, so does the temperature. Despite feeling like she has been sucking on cotton in the midday sun, Emersyn tightens up her guts and keeps a calm look about herself.  This is it.  You cannot walk away from this empty handed soldier.  Primary blue eyes meet primary red, Emersyn makes a mental note at how cutting Vendetta's expression is.  The Mistress reminds the soldier of her favorite weapon that she left back home, a rapier.  

There is so little time to drink in every detail of the Scorpion that stands before her, what she asks then, prompts Emersyn to speak at once.  "Fortunately for Vig, no.  I learned very little, just that I would see you before sundown today." Emersyn spares one more glance towards the horizon, the sun is coming up.  She wants to say something along the lines of, Vig played into my hand too well, but she spares herself from being too asinine. She might know a lot more, but Vendetta has not asked her to elaborate.

Emersyn is a lot of things; a fighter, a soldier, a warmonger - but she is also a gardener, strangely.  Perhaps that is where the careful hoof comes in hand with her day-to-day operations.  She assumes that Vendetta must already know who let their tattered old threads get pulled (Vig, what an old fool).  Scorpions can and will protect their own, if Emersyn has learned anything from Vig she chooses to keep his secrets quiet.  Besides, if she has to go back to get rid of that loose end, she's more than willing to do so.

"Aside from the Solterran, there is no trace of my path, I've cleaned up along the way.  Rest assured" Emersyn speaks the truth, she may have more to say as well, but she avoids over-pouring her method.  "I have had to go through many resources, and travel far and wide to get just the slightest tip.  I travelled to Solterra with nothing but a name - do you know how many brothels there are between here and the Night Markets in Denocte?"  Emersyn grins at Vendetta like she might already know the answer to that.

The answer is many. And that is with massive bodies of water taking up most of that distance.

Emersyn did her sleuthing in all the typical places a crooked old man like Vig might be, with nothing but a name, it proved to be a tedious, extensive task.  She endured more rough company than she cared for and drank her way to the bottoms of many a sour-sook ale just to get answers.  Most of the tips left her nowhere.  She wanted to leave for Delumine halfway through her concourse to Solterra from Denocte, but managed to press on.  Why she wants to know so bad is a mystery.  We do not choose the things that haunt us. 

"I am searching for opportunity, I was told it would be here.  With the Scorpions." Emersyn's voice remains steady, her dark heart pumps the same cool blood through her veins as it would as if she were sleeping, Vendetta is so very-very important to Emersyn and she doesn't even know it. 

Or perhaps she does.  

"I have dedicated a lot of time into finding you, surely you understand how hard that can be for almost anyone."  To say otherwise would mean that the Scorpions were not as protected and exclusive as they intended to be.  "I wish to be of service, the resources I can get you out of Delumine are untapped." I have already been dabbling, she thinks afterward, not certain Vendetta would want a competitor.  Emersyn keeps her distance, eyes skillfully trained on all of them without appearing aggressive.  She is ready for the fight - if it should come - and the precariousness of conversation too, if it should settle more calmly than she anticipates.