cause i am, i am a little wicked
hands red, hands red just like he said
It had been a long time since she'd done a hit. Too long, really, but each one required a measure of caution and a level of research that she always adhered to. There was no room for mistakes and carelessness in a situation such as this.
She always made certain it was well deserved.
This man, Vendetta had believed, hadn't had a slave ever since his last escaped a few years ago. But, as she'd recently discovered, he'd just gotten better at hiding them. She assumed he was being far more careful, didn't want to risk losing another. Unfortunately for him, that also meant he was on her radar. Oh, soon he would not need to worry about his slaves getting the best of him. He wouldn't need to worry about anything at all. Tonight, she would get the best of him.
Vendetta moved through the quiet, night dark streets of Solterra like a wraith. If any who knew her would see her, they'd hardly recognize her without her finery on. She'd left all that behind in her home. She couldn't risk her skirt catching on something, or a stray pearl or rose petal falling on the ground. No, it was better to go in plain, and the only thing she carries with her was a dagger. Her newest dagger, actually, purchased from the shore of Vitreus Lake at Denocte's masquerade over the summer. In the night it shone like lightning and was smooth as glass.
She found the man's house with ease, having walked past it more than once during the day. In no more than a few seconds she was inside, walking carefully across the polished floors. Truthfully, Vendetta could not help but admire the decor. The nobles certainly liked to brag about their status through their homes. Marble, gold leaf, huge drapery and fine carvings. It both impressed and disgusted her, simply because of the kind of horror these walls no doubt saw.
She wondered what secrets, what sort of hells, they could describe. Then she decided she'd lived enough of it herself and moved on, passing through archways and by doors. One of these doors hid a monster. Another held his hostages.
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.
Vendetta cracked open a door, and down, down, down it led, into a darkness her sight could scarcely penetrate. She descended, only her own breath whispering in her ears. At the bottom she almost expected to find cells, but what she saw instead only made her anger burn colder. If she could turn this place to ash she would. It, like he, deserved to rot in hell.
It was the second door she opened, back on the main floor of the house, that held the girls, for they could not be that much older. 3 years, perhaps 4. They startled when they saw her, and she saw in their eyes everything they'd been through and it all looked like fear. With her knife she cut their chains and looked them in the eye. “You are free now, you can go. I promise he will never hurt you or anyone else again.” They nodded, shoulders shaking eyes wide. That was when Vendetta noticed the empty place next to them, clearly meant for a third. Empty, or missing?
“Is there another one of you?” They nodded, eyes tearful. One of them, blue like the ocean with hair like a starless night, whispered ‘He… he took her to b-bed.’ Vendetta's eyes hardened, and she straightened out, dropping a bag on the floor before them. It made a metallic jingling sound when it landed. “I will send her to find you, then all of you need to get out of here. Use that,” she indicated toward the bag, “to do whatever you need to get on your feet.” As she turned to go, the other girl, pale as a spring sun with hair as warm as the desert sands, scrambled to her feet. ‘Wait! What is your name? How can we ever repay you?’
Vendetta paused at the threshold of the door, and when she spoke there was a quiet power to her voice that only rang louder in the silence between them. “Do not ever let anyone make you into their possession again, be your own master.” Then, she smirked, and her ruby eyes sparkled in the dimness. “I am the Pearl Mistress.”
Then, she was gone.
There were only a handful of doors left, and only one of them held her prize. She trailed the hallway like a ghost, nearly silent, only there would just be one ghost made tonight and it was not her. Vendetta turned the handle on the next door to the right and was met with exactly what she had been looking for. Her gaze narrowed as she looked on, and as she did every time she pushed away the similarities to her own past. She pushed them away and drowned them in her ire, letting it fill her veins.
The girl woke as Vendetta moved toward the bed, and her breathing was sharp and ragged and in the light filtering through the sheer curtained windows Vendetta saw a world of abuse on her skin. She tried not to grind her teeth as she pressed ever closer, and then she began to speak, her tone hushed but firm. “The others are waiting for you. Go, find them, and get out of here.”
Slowly, oh so slowly, she moved out from beneath his monstrous embrace, and she, of the three perhaps, had the hardest glint to her eyes. His favorite, or did she just take the brunt of it upon herself to protect her friends? When the girl finally stood and looked Vendetta in the eye she had a feeling she would be just fine out there in the world. This girl wore shadows as a skin and had hair like moonlight and eyes like a still summer lake, “Go,” Vendetta said again, and the girl only nodded and she, too, was gone.
Vendetta only waited a few minutes, as long as she could afford to give them time to get away from here without risking him waking up. She watched him sleep and thought if she didn't care about getting dirty she might gut him then and there. The unicorn bared her teeth like a wolf and then moved our the bed to his side. One of his wings hung lazily down onto the ground, darkly colored. With some satisfaction, Vendetta decided she'd like to wake him up, and she raised a leg into the air, poising it over the tender fragile wing bones before slamming it down. The crunch sent a shiver down her spine, but the man's answering scream, muffled by the was of bedcloth she held over his face, made it that much more satisfying.
His wild eyes found hers, leaning over him in the dark as a demon might. And oh, if she wasn't to be his reckoning. Jeweled purple eyes met ruby red and his fear was reflected back at himself. “If I were you, I would start praying to Solis to save your soul. But I think even then it would be too late for you.” He had no time to try and scream before Vendetta wielded her dagger, dragging it defy across his neck in one smooth motion. She stood back, and knew that the last thing he would see was her silhouette in the moonlight. Vendetta hoped her image would haunt him wherever he was going.
She didn't even wait to hear his last breath before she was leaving, pushing her way out a side door. No doubt once intended for staff, as it opened directly into an alleyway. As silently as she'd arrived, Vendetta disappeared into the shadows again, making her way back to her own home. There was nothing else she needed to do here.
As they always do — the ones cunning enough (desperate enough) to request the Illusionist’s services know full well his preferred hours of operation.
Caine slices through the envelope with a flick of his blade. The messenger hawk who had delivered it — a handsome creature, the sort of breed only the wealthiest of the merchant houses can afford — rustles its wings at him impatiently.
He ignores it, and skims through the creamy paper’s flourishing script with an offhanded glance. And sighs. Of the utmost urgency. Abazar means to move tonight, if the rumors are true.
They are always urgent, Caine thinks with a withering glare, before he swiftly folds the paper smaller and smaller. Until a paper crane hovers delicately in front of him: the Illusionist’s wordless agreement.
He ties it back on the hawk’s awaiting leg, and watches as it flies silently into the ink-black night.
—
He knows that something is wrong even before he sees the sprawling mansion’s padlocked gates ajar. It is too quiet — deathly quiet.
Frowning, Caine slips past the gates and slinks towards the estate’s back entrance, dagger never far from his reach. He makes it halfway up the servant’s stairs, keeping carefully to the shadows, before he hears her.
“The others are waiting for you. Go, find them, and get out of here.”
Footsteps — light, anxious footsteps — scurry down the hall above him, and he folds himself ever tighter into the dark. Puzzling over the presence of another.
His job tonight had been peculiar. As efficient an assassin he is, Caine’s services lie in something far more enticing: secrets. The blood and butter of the shadow world.
There is nothing Caine can't find out, for the right amount of coin, and his contacts know it. Depend on the Illusionist’s uncanny talent. For prying secrets from dead men’s lips, and for doing so without leaving the slightest hint there had ever been anyone present.
As formless as the shadows he dwells in, the rumors whisper.
He has never bothered to correct them.
Caine had come to Abazar’s mansion tonight to siphon the secrets of the man’s most recent black market deals from his dreams. And his paperwork — oftentimes that was far less cryptic.
Abazar is a name Caine has heard uttered time and time again in taverns and alleyways alike — the merchant famous for owning a fifth of Solterra’s harbors, and taxing all the ships who docked in his waters.
A man whose secrets offered more coin than taking his life ever would.
Caine listens through the dark, waiting until he is sure there is no one left. The female voice doesn't come again, though he is certain she is still near. Who is she? Why is she here? His mind swirls with all the possibilities — but one in particular concerns him the most.
It was a well known fact that the sly merchant with a penchant for cruelty had no shortage of enemies out for his head. And perhaps tonight, Caine thinks, almost amusedly, one of them has come to take it.
He heads straight for the bedchambers — he had taken the liberty of memorizing the layout of the merchant’s home before coming. After a short detour to Abazar’s office to slip a few confidential papers (always left haphazardly strewn on their desks — the merchants of Solterra were as arrogant as they were cruel) into the folds of his cloak, Caine pushes the doors of the bedroom softly open and steps inside.
The tang of freshly spilled blood greets him, an old friend.
Well, he thinks, drily, Abazar won't be doing any sort of moving tonight. Caine sighs and runs an agitated wing through the silken braids of his hair. “Looks like I’ll only receive half of my promised pay, despite all the trouble I went to," he mutters, striding over to the bloodstained sheets of the bed and staring at the smiling gash on Abazar’s throat. A clean, efficient job.
But it is not the work of a hitman — the scene is too disheveled for an impassive killer to leave. She has not even bothered to clean up after herself, he thinks, and he does not know if he admires her arrogance or not.
Caine stares once more at the dead merchant, gaze as cold as ice, before he steps carefully over the blood and tangled sheets and vaults through the open window.
He drops to the ground, light-footed as a cat. His wings flap once to cushion his fall, and a gust of wind rustles the nearby rosebushes.
Straightening up, Caine flicks dirt from his midnight pelt while he ponders what to do next. The papers he stole press against his chest.
As far as his involvement goes, the Illusionist’s job is finished. But Abazar’s assassination leaves a sour taste on Caine’s tongue. Not that he holds an ounce of pity for the man — he is sure he’d deserved it — but never before has another gotten in the way of Caine’s business. Perhaps his pride is just a little tarnished.
In the corner of his eye, a shadow moves. Swiftly, Caine draws back against the wall of the mansion. It’s her. The assassin, he realizes, at the same time he realizes that she is heading towards him.
Saints. I can't leave without being spotted.
With each second of hesitation, the woman draws nearer and nearer. His remaining options die, one by one. Until the boy has one card left to play.
With eyes raised heavenwards, Caine pushes himself out from the shadows (before he can regret his decision) and plasters a silken smile on his lips.
"Good evening, miss.” His eyes glow far too bright, far too keen. "I admit, I never thought I would meet another here tonight. What a coincidence, wouldn't you say?”
@Vendetta | "speaks" | notes: this was an absolute joy to write
cause i am, i am a little wicked
hands red, hands red just like he said
Through the door and into the shadowed alley, Vendetta moved silently. A spectre, her hooves made almost no noise on the sand dusted streets. Without her skirt there was no fabric to rustle against the sandstone. Without her roses and pearls, no wind to whistle through petals or chiming of jewels as they gently swung off each other. She moved like a predator, with grace and fluidity—so different from the way she carried herself normally, head held high, each step a force.
In her thoughts she was already back at her residence, cleaning the dagger she carried, admiring the way it sparked like electricity, hot and blue, before placing it in the case alongside its brethren. Her ruby eyes glittered in the dim light, truly catching the light like facets of a gem. And then before her, the shadows grew and grew and grew. Vendetta paused, muscles coiled like a snake’s, gripping the dagger at her back. Until the shadow separated itself from the rest and became a boy.
Her eyes narrowed, pulling apart the details of him. Midnight black, darker maybe, with two pairs of wings folded at his sides. Eyes silver like the moon floating idly above them. The smile on his lips was as smooth as ice with as much authenticity as a two-bit diamond, and his eyes read as much into this moment as her own.
‘Good evening, miss,’ and Vendetta almost felt the corner of her lips curl upward, could almost feel it dragging from her a bitter laugh. Was he not just the perfect young gentleman, then? Oh, but she could see right through him. The unicorn had not risen to her status on trusting the facades offered to her by others. She had looked deeper inside them, dug out their true intentions. She knew so few who showed who they really were.
“Your formalities are lost on me,” she said, and if she’d had a tail it might have flicked for her exasperation. Then, Vendetta continued to walk. Without ceremony she brushed past him, and could feel the warmth of his skin on her own as she did, for the service alley was barely wide enough to fit a small cart down without scraping the sandstone on either side. She thought, perhaps, a few feathers from his large pairings of wings whispered against her side, but then she was beyond him and heading toward the mouth of the alleyway.
“I hope that you were not expecting to meet Abazar—alive,” the unicorn tossed over her shoulder. The words were casual, light, as though she were simply saying goodnight to the other equine and not suggesting something which she knew he already had found out. “I’m afraid you would be disappointed,” and if there was a steel glinting in her eyes, like a polished knife, he would not see it for her back was to him.
Though she made no admission of her involvement, there was no point in hiding what the walls hid; it would be news soon enough come the rising of the sun. Oh, word of his murder would no doubt fill the streets, flooding it with whispers and wide eyes and secretive glances. Who had done it? Why had they done it? But Vendetta would be in her home, high atop her throne, and none would touch her.
This was not her first exploit, and it would most certainly not be her last. Oh, Vendetta knew she could not kill in such a way constantly. The nobles, while more often than not the swine of Solterra, did have some merit she supposed. If she were to pick them off nightly it would cause problems. She was smarter than that. Then she had a though, her pace slowing slightly as it occurred to her. Did she need to worry about this black as night boy saying something?
“Your formalities are lost on me,” she says, and Caine’s smile mellows at her dismissal of a greeting. He flicks his gaze across her, head to hoof, searching for traces of blood – not for confirmation; her voice matches the one he heard in the mansion precisely – and hums to himself when he finds not a spot of crimson on her save for the ruby of her eyes.
“Good – I never cared for them much, anyways,” he answers glitteringly, leaning further into the cool stone wall to make room for her to pass. His dagger digs into his wings, a reminder of his purpose. A reminder that whispers savagely to him: “you are not here to jest.”
He narrows his eyes at the chocolate and white patchwork of the woman's retreating back, trying – and failing – to discern where he has seen her before. If he has learned anything of Solterra, it is that its underbelly, like a snarling hyena with hackles raised to the sky, pretends to appear larger than it really is.
The same faces commit the same crimes, their actions as predictable as the rising and setting of the desert’s scorching sun. It is the only thing he can depend upon in a kingdom more committed to burning itself to ashes than a dying phoenix.
He wonders if he should follow her – the papers he had snagged rest securely inside a leather satchel he has tucked behind his wings (the only convenient aspect of his twin set of wings is their uncanny ability to conceal almost anything within their feathered depths) and there is nothing left for him to do. He had gleaned all the information he could from Abazar’s bloodless lips (more realistically, the contents of his office), and he deems the effort good enough.
Caine doubts she is surprised when he slinks casually after her, as at home in the shadowed alleyways as a king in a marble castle.
“I hope that you were not expecting to meet Abazar — alive.” He glances sidelong at her, marveling at the crimson horns that sprout from her ears in a perfect circle, narrowing to points just shy of her cheek. “I’m afraid you would be disappointed.”
He thinks of all the things that have disappointed him. The length of the list comforts him, because it reminds Caine that there are worse things out there than him.
“I’m afraid that I am. There were some things he had needed to tell me that he cannot say now.” That he is dead, but Caine lets her fill in the hanging parts of his sentence for herself.
“An inconvenience for the both of us,” he finishes drily, like he is remarking about the inconvenience of a particularly ill-timed thunderstorm.
cause i am, i am a little wicked
hands red, hands red just like he said
His colorless eyes were on her, she felt them. She wondered what he saw, or rather who he saw. If he recognized her, the younger equine said nothing, suggested nothing. She's not terribly worried about it, then. He was a crow in a court of hawks; if she had reason to seek him out it would not be hard to find him. He might blend into the shadows, but the shadows were where she carries out her business.
With all the eyes and ears at her disposal, it would be difficult to hide. At least not for long.
Vendetta didn't turn back to him when his steps echoed their following rhythm, bounding around the sandstone. Her red eyes were like glowing lights in the dimness, strangely bright, and the only indication she gave to him to say 'I know you are there', was the twisting of one ear to catch the sound.
For a short moment, too short of a moment, there was silence. "If you'd been faster you might have gotten there before his untimely demise," Vendetta said, and though there was no smirk to her lips it was almost in her voice. So, he'd been looking for Abazar as well, but the man was far better off dead than alive. If only he'd been smart enough to let go of the slave owner business after he'd lost his last. Perhaps then, this boy of feathers and night would have gotten his answers.
"His death might be an inconvenience to you, but to many more it will be a blessing." There was no room for doubt in her words, not his or anyone else's. For all the lives she had saved tonight, there was no comparison. He wouldn't have stopped at 3. Or if he had, he would have grown tired of them and taken more, and more in an attempt to satiate his need.
Disgusting.
When she reached the mouth of the alley, Vendetta paused and finally turned to regard her unwelcome companion. Now, with more moonlight spilling through the opening she saw the darker marks on the bridge of his nose. Curious, she had to admit. Her Ruby gaze snapped to his.
"If you intend to accompany me to my home, I'd like to know your name so I know who to ask for when the judge and jury come knocking." They wouldn't. They never had. She seemed to have a strange sort of alliance with the Regime. Whether it was because her agenda just happened to align enough with their own or they simply looked the other way she didn't know. Irregardless, she waited to see how he would respond to such a notion.
