mothers make the man
Perhaps a part of him had been hoping, however naively, to catch sight of his peers. Perhaps, though he had chased himself away from the Mors (from his home) for the risk of running into those who were to be his enemy, he had allowed nostalgia to drive him closer than he ought. Perhaps he had been looking for ghosts.
But Anatoly had not been looking for her.
Avdotya, adorned in a well-worn pelt (a trophy if he ever saw one), turns the corner ahead of him and he immediately controls the curl of his lip, the teeth that want to bear. Here is the woman who courted ruin for them all, with her weakness carefully fostered by too-eager soldiers, with her so-called potential, with her gods damned mother. She was looking insultingly well, and he wondered if she even cared for all their brethren who lay dead in her wake.
There is little he would like more than to see her dead in these very halls, than to watch her chest fail to rise and her blood pool on the floor as it should have many years before, but Anatoly is not a fool, however much he would like to be. Killing her now, in this place she knows so well, so surrounded by allies, would make little more than a martyr of her. He must take her apart first, piece by piece, until those who have flocked to her banner turn away in disgust. No, when Avdotya dies it will be public and brutal, and prove once and for all that she is unfit to be Davke.
So he nods his head in passing greeting, face neutral, and steps just enough to the side to allow her passage without weakening his own position. With any luck that will be the end of it. He has already found many interesting rooms, many nooks a clever enough assassin could disappear in, so he might as well find the exit. And that's when her steps stop, and she spins to address him.
Of course, what luck.
And so he turns to face her, no hesitation in a single step, and bows his head a little deeper in greeting. “Of course.” He says, perfectly agreeable. Looking at her for the briefest of seconds, at the harshness of her face and the shift of her body, he calls up how he felt the first few years in courtly halls, smothered and trapped and perfectly willing to murder his way out, and grins at her, all teeth and agitation. “Forgive me Khan, but these walls are stifling, I hardly thought either of us in the mood for conversation.” And still he keeps his body forcibly loose and prowling. “Did you have need of me?”
But Anatoly had not been looking for her.
Avdotya, adorned in a well-worn pelt (a trophy if he ever saw one), turns the corner ahead of him and he immediately controls the curl of his lip, the teeth that want to bear. Here is the woman who courted ruin for them all, with her weakness carefully fostered by too-eager soldiers, with her so-called potential, with her gods damned mother. She was looking insultingly well, and he wondered if she even cared for all their brethren who lay dead in her wake.
There is little he would like more than to see her dead in these very halls, than to watch her chest fail to rise and her blood pool on the floor as it should have many years before, but Anatoly is not a fool, however much he would like to be. Killing her now, in this place she knows so well, so surrounded by allies, would make little more than a martyr of her. He must take her apart first, piece by piece, until those who have flocked to her banner turn away in disgust. No, when Avdotya dies it will be public and brutal, and prove once and for all that she is unfit to be Davke.
So he nods his head in passing greeting, face neutral, and steps just enough to the side to allow her passage without weakening his own position. With any luck that will be the end of it. He has already found many interesting rooms, many nooks a clever enough assassin could disappear in, so he might as well find the exit. And that's when her steps stop, and she spins to address him.
Of course, what luck.
And so he turns to face her, no hesitation in a single step, and bows his head a little deeper in greeting. “Of course.” He says, perfectly agreeable. Looking at her for the briefest of seconds, at the harshness of her face and the shift of her body, he calls up how he felt the first few years in courtly halls, smothered and trapped and perfectly willing to murder his way out, and grins at her, all teeth and agitation. “Forgive me Khan, but these walls are stifling, I hardly thought either of us in the mood for conversation.” And still he keeps his body forcibly loose and prowling. “Did you have need of me?”
@Avdotya
anatoly
