Where it Hurts

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Anaxas' main trade port; it is also the nation's criminal headquarters, home to the Bad Brothers and Silas Hawke, King of the Underworld. The small town of Plugit is nearby.

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Tom Cooke
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Wed Aug 21, 2019 10:28 pm

The Cat’s Paw The Rose
After Midnight on the 17th of Roalis, 2719
Felt like a godsdamn prison guard. She walked behind him at first, her steady gait even slower than his shuffle; then she sped up her pace, like she was suddenly determined to walk beside rather than behind him. Confound it, but Tom couldn’t figure anything out. Had Hawke really just sent her to keep an eye on him, to make sure he didn’t get mugged somewhere between Berret Park and Lossey? Make sure he didn’t pass out and choke in a gutter? What a laoso job. He’d’ve pitied her, if he wasn’t so pissed.

Or maybe – and he kept coming back to this in his head, kept turning it over and over – maybe it was a threat, after all. A warning. That he’d send Niccolette, too, knowing who Tom claimed to be, knowing who he’d worked with. The more he thought about it, the likelier it seemed. Reminding him the King had eyes and ears everywhere. It opened other doors: it raised questions about how much Hawke knew. How close of an eye he’d been keeping on Vauquelin, these past few months.

Tom didn’t like any of it none.

The name of the ship, spoken in that faintly condescending tone, elicited a grunt from him. He hadn’t thought she’d respond; he wasn’t sure why she had. After a pause, he registered she’d spoken again. He blinked, brow furrowing.

Must you eat them?

He couldn’t help but snort; he hadn’t meant to, but once he had, out came another laugh, deep and genuine. He didn’t think he’d ever heard Niccolette Ibutatu joke, and he still half-wondered if she’d been serious. “Afraid not,” he replied. “The Lady Lambert.” His tone wasn’t quite patronizing, but it was wry enough: he reckoned the name spoke for itself.

Some of the anger’d bled from him, and in its wake, it’d left a muddle he was hopeless to sort through. He was still on his guard, or determined to be – he couldn’t bring himself to look over at her. He kept his eyes on the path ahead as it wound down, parallel with the water. Over an uneven line of rooftops below, Tom could see lights on the Mahogany, mirroring the stars. The thin lip that separated the water from the sky was invisible; with the clouds, you almost couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.

Almost to the bridge, and then to the west side. He’d make it to Cantile, he promised. He’d walk on his own until Cantile.

Brellos pez Hirtka was enough to bring his gaze back over to her, eyes widened for a moment in surprise. He studied her face through the dark, through the haze, as she spoke; she seemed to labor at it. He caprised the slightest blue shift in her field, and he frowned again. Then it was smooth, indectal, and she was crossing her arms.

On the edge of my beloved’s eyelash, flickering bright, he recited, slurring a little on the last words, the fire that burns the heart; he cleaves me from myself… Shaking his head and swallowing dryly, he turned away. “Shit, did I? I don’t remember what I said. I remember I was – thinking about that poem, though,” he said, hesitating. “The whole flooding party.”

Too drunk for this. He knew what he was saying was risky, but he couldn’t bring himself to put on Anatole again. Even the memory of the party turned his stomach. Up until that moment, it was like the memory of being someone else. A flat, gray memory. The sound of busting glass jumped out at him, and the feeling of faint, cruel amusement, in the way that going through the motions left an imprint on your soul.

The night wasn’t getting less confusing. The boards of the bridge creaked underfoot. The sea swelled, and the solid wood seemed to shift, and his aching head spun. His lip twitched, curled again; he hissed a curse, felt like he was tipping. For the first time since he’d been sick in Voedale, a wave of nausea rose up in him, and he paused in his step to force it down. He shook it off with a shiver, forging onward, steps even more tremulous.

Pez Hirtka wasn’t a name he’d expected to hear on Niccolette’s tongue, but – thinking about it – flooding hell. When he was alive, of course, he’d never thought to notice any of the books in Uzoji’s library; he’d never’ve talked to the kov about poetry, of all things. Now that he knew, an interest in pez Hirtka didn’t seem at all out of place in Uzoji’s repertoire.

“Was it –” He wasn’t sure how to ask, or what he was even asking. “You knew it,” he said instead, with only the edge of a question. “Even then.”
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Last edited by Tom Cooke on Thu Aug 22, 2019 6:51 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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Niccolette Ibutatu
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Wed Aug 21, 2019 11:54 pm

After Midnight, 17th Roalis, 2719
Bean Island
An orator. That was, Niccolette remembered now, how Enofe had described him. She had not heard it in Vauquelin so far, not this season, but for a moment, as he spoke – if not for the slurred edge to his words – Niccolette thought – yes, perhaps. She could almost hear it, lost somewhere in pez Hirtka’s ode to the man he had loved.

Niccolette glanced at Vauquelin again, and drew her own conclusions. She thought for a moment of his wife – Diana, Niccolette remembered. Considerably younger. Wasn’t she his second wife? Did they have children? The Bastian could not be sure.

They were on the bridge over Mahogany Bay now, the warped wood creaking noisily underfoot. Niccolette could not walk side-by-side without brushing Vauquelin – she thought of Uzoji, his hand in hers, his shoulder brushing against hers, of stopping on Bean Island for a few moments to catch their balance and breath – Niccolette chose to walk behind the incumbent. He was wobbling in front of her again, and Niccolette pursed her lips. How many knew he was in the Rose? If he pitched off over the bridge and fell into the bay below – Hawke would not blame her for that, surely. That was not like someone getting stabbed and – like as not, he would be washed out of the Rose soon enough, out into the depths of the Tincta Basta.

“Yes,” Niccolette said, answering the question Vauquelin had not asked. “The fire that burns the heart,” she said, softly. “He cleaves me from myself with his touch. Like esera, he has made…” her voice trailed off there, and Niccolette shuddered, coming to a stop for a moment. She groped for the wooden of the railing, squeezed it tightly with one hand. The moonlight glinted off her wedding ring, and it was a few moments before Niccolette could walk again.

The shape of him, she thought, dizzily, carved into my breast.

“I do not believe you knew my husband well,” Niccolette said quietly, when she had caught up again – when she could be sure her voice would not shake. “He liked poetry,” she glanced up at Vauquelin’s back. Niccolette knew that she should stop; she knew this was nothing to tell a man like Vauquelin. But there had been something in his voice, when he recited those lines of the poem. Something –

She did not think he would speak of this night again. Niccolette knew she would not, not if she could avoid it. And so – and so –

“He had not read al-Jenwa,” Niccolette whispered, her voice only just audible over the creaking of the wood, the rushing of the water below. “I – gave a copy to him, for – our sixth anniversary.” Our second to last anniversary, she thought – but did not say. Tears stung at her eyes again. They were at Bean Island now, but Niccolette clung to the bridge a moment longer. A wave crashed against the pier below, sharp and sudden, and salt water sprayed her face. She shuddered, and wiped it clean.

Castle Hill glinted up ahead. The Tincta Basta lay out the bay to their right, no more than vague, distant movement; it was impossible to tell where the sea ended and the sky began, but somewhere above the horizon there were stars, glistening dimly through the clouds and the city haze.

Here, at least, was a cleaner scent – salt water, tinged with the faintest reek of old fish, the soft smell of warped wood fuzzed over with green slime. Impossible, even here, to forget that this was the Rose.

Niccolette followed Vauquelin onto Bean Island.

“Real still,” There was a voice from behind her, hissing into her ear – an arm wrapped around Niccolette, abruptly, and she felt the prick of a knife at her throat. She looked up to see the dim outlines of another man holding Vauquelin, fumbling through his pockets with one hand, the other holding a knife to his throat as well.

“They’re fuckin’ gollies,” The man behind Vauquelin said, his voice a high, nervous whine. “Ye said they’d be an easy lift.”

“Gollies bleed same as anybody, you prick ‘em,” The man’s breath was hot on Niccolette’s cheek; the tip of the knife dug into her neck. “Ent that right, girlie?” He squeezed slightly, and Niccolette gasped for breath at the sudden pressure on her torso.

“Any o’ that jibber,” The human holding Niccolette said, firmly, “one word o’ jibber, an’ we’ll see how that golly sap looks, ye chen? But ye hold still, dagka, ‘n ye, chip, ‘n ye’ll be on yer way wit’ no harm done t’ nothin’ but yer wallet.”

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Tom Cooke
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Thu Aug 22, 2019 7:18 pm

Bean Island The Rose
After Midnight on the 17th of Roalis, 2719
He has made – he has made a different man of me, finished Tom, squeezing his eyes shut against the rolling in his head, the churning in his guts. He kept walking, one foot and then the other, his fingers tracing the cold, slimy-damp, rusted metal of the railing. His lips moved, unbidden, Swathed in his arms like Her waters, but if he spoke, he couldn’t hear Anatole’s voice over the lap of the water and the call of the gulls.

Niccolette spoke again, and his eyes fluttered open. The night tilted again. He caught himself hard on the railing, fingers curled tight, knuckles bleached. He swallowed bile.

“No,” he said. “I didn’t know him that well.” Sucking at a tooth, he thought of how it’d felt to lift Uzoji’s slight, still form off the old warehouse floor. Bundled up, he remembered, in the same coat Niccolette was wearing. It was still true: he hadn’t known him, hadn’t known either of them. Not like this.

Wasn’t much further to Bean Island.

The wind picked up, and the Mahogany swelled with it. Tom turned back, his eyes drawn over the side to where the moonlight danced in the spidersilk-web of foam on the skin of the water. It swelled, and it swelled, and it tossed. A lungful of salt and fish, rough and welcome. The spray across his face was cool; he couldn’t help a faint smile as he wiped the moisture from his cheeks, running his wet, bloody hand through his hair. Distant, somewhere at the docks on the Bean, he could hear men bawling back and forth over the wind. The crash of the waves on the rocks.

Maybe it was the drink, but he could almost pretend. He felt like he was staggering back to Quarter Fords after a good fight. It felt strange, like a dream.

Niccolette was talking again, saying things he never thought he’d hear her say. Things she shouldn’t’ve said, by all rights, to either of them – to the man she thought she was talking to, or the man he’d once been. Not that she’d’ve given that man, that big, mung human, a second glance. But then, he didn’t know how either of those men would’ve felt, seeing her in Uzoji’s coat; and he hardly knew how the man he was now felt about anything. He realized he didn’t know who she was, either, not since Uzoji’s death.

He turned, just managed to meet her eye over his shoulder, glittering in the moonlight. He saw a glint of fire on her hand. “Did he like it?” he asked softly, before he turned back. “Pez Hirtka –”

Motion in the dark. Something. Godsdamn, but he couldn’t see. Vita tilted; there wasn’t a bridge to hold onto. He felt something brush him, something loom into his sight, then a grip like a vice.

“– fuck!”

“They’re fuckin’ gollies – ye said they’d be an easy lift!”

Tom twisted round, but he couldn’t get himself free of the bigger man’s grip. He hissed another curse between his teeth, wrenched his elbow back, but missed. Pain cracked through his shoulder instead, like he’d pulled a muscle. Then he felt a jagged-sharp edge against his throat, close enough to dig into the skin. His lip curled back over his teeth again, twitching, and he was about to hurl another curse –

There was another big human behind Niccolette, he saw, with a knife to her throat. “One word o’ jibber,” he said, and Tom clenched his teeth, drawing his breath in sharp through his nose. He stared over Niccolette’s shoulder with murder in his eyes, but he kept still, silent.

He felt the other man’s hands rustling through his coat. Ain’t your fuckin’ dagka, he thought, but he didn’t say anything; he just swallowed. His throat bobbed, and the knife pricked him, just a little, stinging hairline. Pissed as he was, drunk as he was, he felt like a trapped osta. Felt trapped in an osta, to be more precise.

Plain and simple, he’d been on the other side of this plenty of times; he knew not to try anything with a kov that had a sharp to your throat. There just wasn’t any point. Not like this.

This was the second time. The second fucking time, in Vauquelin’s body. He pressed his lips together, a thin, bloodless white line. He stared into Niccolette’s eyes, and a smile twitched across his face, bitterly humorous.
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Last edited by Tom Cooke on Thu Aug 22, 2019 8:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Niccolette Ibutatu
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Thu Aug 22, 2019 7:50 pm

After Midnight, 17th Roalis, 2719
Bean Island
There was silence on the little island, taut and tense, but for the rustling of a hand against fabric, and four sets of fast, taut breathing.

“Nod ‘f ye understand,” The human hissed in her ear.

Niccolette grimaced. His breath was rotten – not only stale beer, she thought, but a hint of something sweet beneath it. His teeth, if she had to guess; something rotten and throbbing deep in his jaw. Something as foul as he was.

The human squeezed her across the torso again, and Niccolette gasped for breath. Vauquelin was staring at her; the other human was still rummaging in his pocket, but his eyes were shifting between them – flicking from Niccolette’s face to the human holding her, then dropping back to Vauquelin’s coat.

Her field was pulsing in the air around them. Niccolette exhaled, slow and careful, keeping it cool and indectal. The knife was sharp against her throat; the Bastian could feel the tip of it resting against the spot on her neck where her pulse throbbed. The jugular vein and the carotid artery, she thought, coolly, picturing the diagrams from her textbooks. It would depend on how deep he cut – it would depend on if he cut lengthwise or down. It being, naturally, whether she bled to death in moments or hours, for there was no help here. She did not believe Vauquelin would make it out any better than she would; she did not think him capable of going for help, let alone knowing what to do in a situation such as this.

At least the incumbent was smart enough to keep silent.

Fury pumped through her veins. How dare they, Niccolette thought. They should have known better than to think themselves a match for any galdor, let alone two. Vauquelin, perhaps, did not quite count – at least from this distance Niccolette could not feel the awful scraping of his field – but there was little chance of these men knowing that.

Niccolette inclined her head, slow and careful. She dampened her field, pulling it in cool and close against her skin – no need to spook him, Niccolette thought, coldly. No need at all.

“Benny,” The human murmured. “Benny. Y’ just keep quiet, ‘n we ent gon’ t’ hurt you.”

Niccolette’s hands were loose at her sides; the human’s arm around her chest meant she couldn’t move – much. But, then, the galdor thought coolly, she didn’t need to.

Niccolette’s hand slid into the pocket of Uzoji’s coat, slow and careful. This, she thought, would be the trickiest part. She settled her fingers around the handle of the gun, finding the trigger without shifting his coat, careful and easy. She began to withdraw her hand, slow and careful -

“Hurry up, ye fucking ersehole,” The human was saying from behind her. He was staring at the other man – he shifted – ever so slightly –

Niccolette finished lifting the pistol, pointed it back at the man’s thigh, and squeezed the trigger. She shoved back into him at the same moment, putting every precious inch she could between her neck and the blade. There was an enormous roar, a clap of sound, and the bullet struck him mid-thigh. Niccolette could not watch, of course; she could hardly hear anything, over the deafening crack of the shot. But she could picture it easily enough – the bullet, ripping through the muscle of his thigh, shredding it – shattering the femur, if she was lucky.

From the way the man screamed, the way he crumpled, she was. The knife flailed against her - pricked sharp against her skin – jerked, caught the edge of the collar of Uzoji’s coat, and shuddered away. Niccolette dropped with the human – his grip on her was too tight. The man was screaming; the Bastian ignored it, and slammed the back of her fist, still wrapped around the pistol handle, back against the leg she had just shot.

He let her go then.

Niccolette crawled forward and stumbled to her feet, pointing the pistol at the man holding Vauquelin. She was stained with blood now – reeking with it, and she raised an eyebrow at the second human, hardly able to hear him over the ringing in her ears. Her bad ear hurt – there was a high-pitch shrieking in it that Niccolette did not hardly like, but she could do nothing for it now. Her neck hurt too, but it was a faint stinging and a soft trickle; she knew even without checking that it could not be more than a graze.

The Bastian raised an eyebrow. She exhaled, and released the dampening on her field; it washed out through them both, sharp and bright, flooding the area with red beneath the moonlight.

“Shit,” The human gasped. “Vrunta! Fuckin' – fuck!” He let go of Vauquelin – took a stumbling step back – turned, and fled.

Niccolette stepped to the side. She paused, thinking it over, then fired again. A moment too late, she thought – but the bullet caught him, ripping through the outside of his arm. He stumbled – blood blossomed dark against his sleeve – but he kept running, vanishing into the tangle of trees and weeds on the island, all but invisible in the dark.

“Pity,” The Bad Brother said, coolly. She dropped the gun back in her pocket, and looked down. She could see a faint stain of red blossoming against Uzoji's shirt, much worse staining his coat, and the red color in the air around her shifted darker.

“Ye fuckin' golly bitch,” The human spat. He had stopped screaming, but he didn’t seem to be trying to rise. Perhaps he had, Niccolette thought, and she had missed it. “Ye’ve – ye’ve ruined my fuckin' leg!”

“No,” Niccolette said. She paused, glancing down at him. “Well,” She nudged the bloody mess with a booted foot, and he screamed. “Perhaps,” The Bastian shrugged. “But not as much as I shall.” Her field pulsed again in the cold night air, sigiling, heat rising around her.

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Rolls
Pistol shot 1: SidekickBOTToday at 4:22 PM
@moralhazard: 1d6 = (6) = 6
Pistol shot 2: SidekickBOTToday at 4:43 PM
@moralhazard: 1d6 = (2) = 2
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Tom Cooke
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Thu Aug 22, 2019 10:12 pm

Bean Island The Rose
After Midnight on the 17th of Roalis, 2719
One second bled into the next.

He kept on. Still, silent. Quiet as a mouse, he thought bitterly. No clocking jibber. He couldn’t see the kov behind him too well; he could hear the scrape of his breath, he could smell him – a fragrant mix of whisky and cold-sweat and piss, one Tom knew well enough – but he couldn’t see him. He didn’t much mind the hand that was rooting inexpertly through his coat, uncomfortable as it was. What he minded was the feeling of him all around, the weight of it. The way he thought he could hold Tom Cooke down, and the way he’d succeeded.

The knife against his throat didn’t help; the blood was beading along the thread of a cut, now, and he could feel the wetness at his neck. Kov was a handful of inches taller than him, maybe, not too bulky – all lean muscle. Two years ago, Tom could’ve broken his grip easy. Could’ve turned it around on him, could’ve held him and twisted his arm ’til he begged.

Of course, two years ago, he wouldn’t’ve jumped Tom. He would’ve known better.

Tom tried not to think about it, but it was hard. He was drunk, and his mind was wandering. He couldn’t keep the wry, bitter smile off his face, couldn’t quite take any of it seriously. Well, he kept thinking, if the laoso opened up his throat, and that was that – well, he’d just have to pick better, this time. He hadn’t made for a very good galdor. Benny that he’d die in the Rose – always – with the salt-smell, the wind off the bay – funny that he’d die drunk again, but at least, this time, he’d be awake.

When the gun went off, he barely knew what was going on.

The kov’d fumbled his wallet out of his coat pocket, and he was going through it, awkward, one-handed. At the bang, he dropped it; it flopped against the stones, clattering out pennies and scraps. The knife sank deeper into his throat, just deep enough to draw blood proper. The kov who had Niccolette stumbled back, dragging her down to the cobbles with him, but she was up in a few seconds, and he was screaming. He saw her face, then, pale in the moonlight, saw one dark eyebrow arch.

Another bang, and something whizzed by Tom’s ear. The kov let go of him, shouting profanities. Tom whirled, baring his teeth, balling his bloody fist, starting forward – but the kov was scrambling back and away. He blinked, squinting through the dark, and staggered. The night spun.

“Laoso!” His voice came out a ragged roar. “Where the fuck’d he go?” His heart thundered; his veins felt full of fire. He reached up to touch his throat, and his fingertips came away smeared with dark blood. The fist at his side, thin and delicate, was trembling.

Suddenly, every breath was rage. He didn’t know when it’d come back to him, but it had. It had flooded back into every inch of his spare frame. The air hurt in his lungs, hurt worse than it ever had; it scraped him raw, but it made him feel alive. That wasn’t good enough. He searched the empty street, the stars whirling above, but the kov was gone. Gone –

There was noise behind him. He turned. Niccolette stood by the other kov, nudging him with her boot, making him squeal. Tom’s lip twitched. He knotted his fingers in the sleeve of his coat, pulled it down and used it to wipe more blood away from his throat.

He took a few steps toward the two of them, peering down at the writhing natt. He saw, now, what’d happened: he saw the nest of shadows at his leg, blood leaking out between the stones. Smart. She must’ve had it hidden away someplace, and then – oes. The moonlight lit his face only faintly, licked his beard into shape, wild. Played in his eyes, glittering feverish.

He glanced up at Niccolette, briefly, when she spoke again. His mouth set in a thin, grim line. The world might’ve been in motion, but the kov on the ground was still. There was fire in his leg – he knew what he’d do, he thought, if it’d been his to do, if he’d won it fairly – he’d’ve landed a kick squarely in the kov’s thigh. But it wasn’t his, and the fire had nowhere to go, and he had to swallow it. And the shame burned deeper.

So he spat on the stones near him. “Should’ve known better than to fuck with her. Have fun,” he snarled. His lip twitched. “And I’m not your fucking dagka.”
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Last edited by Tom Cooke on Fri Aug 23, 2019 1:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Niccolette Ibutatu
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Thu Aug 22, 2019 10:46 pm

After Midnight, 17th Roalis, 2719
Bean Island
Niccolette had thought to ask if Vauquelin was all right, but a snarl of furious curses burst from the man’s throat. Niccolette thought of the punch she’d seen him thrown in the bar – before she had known who he was, of course – and decided he was likely fine. She watched him approach, his field jangling painfully against her own, and grinned, broadly, when he spoke. That, Niccolette thought, was proper galdori pride. For a moment, she wondered what he would have been like when he still had a relationship with the mona, before – whatever this strange illness had been. He had been a perceptive conversationalist, Niccolette believed, and it did not take much imagination for them to…

Well.

“Fuck off,” The man on the ground spat.

Niccolette nudged his leg with her boot again, a little harder; he screamed. She crouched, studying the twisted mess her bullet had left. She thought it very likely she had hit the bone – almost certain. Still…

The Bastian began to cast, a careful quantitative spell, murmuring the request for information to the mona in steady, even monite. Drunk though she was, her voice did not slur; the red-shift had bled from her field, along with the feeling of rage, and cold, indectal precision filled it once more.

The mona responded, and showed her what she had done – where the bullet had ripped muscle apart. Yes; it had hit the bone, and a splinter of cracks spread out from it, space between them here and there, bone shards digging into the muscle. Injured, badly. Not beyond hope. Yet. Niccolette smiled a little wider, eyes flicking back and forth over the man’s leg. She turned the spell she had planned over in her mind – planned, carefully, how to temper it. This was a tricky spell.

It was, Niccolette thought, pleased, somewhat beyond her capabilities to heal a shattered thigh bone altogether. There were, naturally, plenty of living conversationalists who could, but it took years of careful study and considerable power. All the same, if she had been a healer, she could have reassembled a shattered bone – enough that, likely, it would be able to heal. Likely. With multiple casts, over multiple days, she would have given herself a better chance. But she knew the spells to cast to coax the mona into knitting the bone back together, to explain to them in careful detail the shape it was meant to be, to coax them into pulling it close. It was, anyway, not done to heal the bone fully; the body was always meant to heal itself.

Could a wick do it, or some back door butcher who worked here in the Rose? Well – of that, Niccolette was not sure. Likely, if she left the man lying here, he would never have full use of his leg again.

But, Niccolette thought coolly, she was not satisfied with likely. Conquest was not satisfied with likely. She wished for him to rue this moment every day for the rest of his miserable life. Though – Niccolette could freely admit that might well not last past tonight – shock was a terrible thing, and his companion did not seem terribly dedicated. Even if he made it through the night, there was always infection. But if he managed to survive, if he ever tried to walk again, Niccolette wished him to think of her with every painful, twisted step he took. She glanced down at Uzoji’s coat, at the blood splattering it – at the cut in the lapels – and fury burned through her, lightning her veins. Conquest demanded no less. Let him be a lesson; let him not only learn for himself what happened to those who dared attack a galdor – let him teach it to all those who saw his miserable, dragging walk.

She was not, herself, a spellwriter, but with time, energy, resources and, most of all, money, there was no end to the grimoires one could find. Hawke had never been less than generous. Niccolette fixed the words of the spell in her mind and began to cast, chanting them into the cold night air. Pale energy hovered around her in the night, collected, and streamed slowly into the man before her, settling deep into his leg.

Instead of bringing the shards of bone together, Niccolette asked the mona to rip them further apart. It was not her strongest cast; her ear throbbed, painfully, her neck too, and the alcohol she’d drank churned in her stomach, but Niccolette held strong through the nausea, and with her quantitative cast, she could target the slight force well enough. It seemed to be enough, judging from the man’s harsh, aching screams, the way he writhed on the ground beneath her. Niccolette was glad it hurt; she had thought it would, but it was hard to be sure. His leg bulged, something shifting faintly beneath the skin, and twisted before their eyes, the thigh bone shattering into further uselessness.

Niccolette curled the spell, and rose. She stumbled, feeling a shakiness through her body – her hands were trembling – and she curled them into fists.

“Now your leg is ruined,” She spat on the man. He seemed to still be trying to scream, Niccolette noted, curiously. She supposed his voice was gone by now. She had thought of demanding an apology, but she certainly did not have the energy for a spell to soothe his ravaged vocal cords. Well; she was sure he was sorry.

The Bastian fumbled one of the handkerchiefs from her coat. She pressed it to her neck; the cut had largely stopped bleeding, and the Bastian wiped away softly beaded red, too late for the shirt she wore beneath. She lowered it, glanced at Vauquelin – eyes lingering professionally on his own neck. A nick, a painful one, but not so much worse than one might do shaving. He would be fine; she need not even heal him. That was good, because – if Niccolette were honest – she was not sure how well casting any other spell would go. It was very nearly all she could do to stand, at least for a few moments.

Niccolette turned the handkerchief to the coat. She mopped at a few of the worst bloodstains, grimacing – did her best, until the handkerchief was bloody all over. She wadded it up and tossed it on the ground, swallowing hard. The shaking in her hands had settled, somewhat; the bone deep weariness had not fled, but she felt she could push through it.

Niccolette gave the shaking man on the ground one last glance. His eyes glinted wetly in the night air, she noticed. Tears. Good. She turned away from him, then, and did not look back again, bringing her gaze to Vauquelin once more. She felt stronger now, strong enough to keep walking. “Let us go,” The Bastian said, taking a few steps away from the sobbing wreck of a man she had left, ready to continue their strange dark journey through the Rose.

“He liked pez Hirtka very much,” Niccolette added a moment later. Her voice trembled, faintly – caught, then held, and Niccolette did not let one ounce of weakness show in the proud lift of her chin.

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Rolls
Quantitative cast to determine damage to leg: SidekickBOTToday at 7:20 PM
@moralhazard: 1d6 = (4) = 4
Bone fragment splitting spell: SidekickBOTToday at 7:21 PM
@moralhazard: 1d6 = (3) = 3
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Tom Cooke
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Fri Aug 23, 2019 2:39 pm

Bean Island The Rose
After Midnight on the 17th of Roalis, 2719
Wasn’t sure how that grin made him feel, but he didn’t want to think about it. Instead, he just smiled back at her.

The kov on the stones spewed out a curse, and, as if on cue, Tom backed up. One step, two, three, four. Some part of him, thank the Circle, was capable of remembering what Ezre’d told him. He backed up ’til he couldn’t feel Niccolette’s field anymore, not even at the outermost frayed edges of his field. He backed up, then he stopped and crossed his arms. He stared down at the kov as Niccolette began to speak, and he set his jaw.

The first words he recognized, in a funny, distant sort of way. He recognized the way she said them, anyway. If he shut his eyes, he could almost picture a phrase Ezre’d spoken in the Ghost Town, something he’d woven into – oes, that was it. He’d seen something similar in a grimoire, too. In the library, he’d read about how the clairvoyant and quantitative conversations might as well’ve been brother and sister, for all they were about getting questions answered.

With a jolt, Tom realized she was probably asking the mona how bad the gunshot’d fucked up the kov’s leg. For the first time, the icy fingers of something, some misgiving – it wasn’t fear – crawled up his back and settled, prickling, at the nape of his neck, making the hairs stand up. He frowned deeper. He couldn’t see the kov’s face too well, but he could hear his labored breath. The shape of his chest swelling up with air, falling, irregular.

When Niccolette spoke again, the screaming started. Tom heard – hell – underneath that caterwaul, those godsdamn animal noises, something wet – he couldn’t think about it. He was curling like a roach that’d been halfway-crushed and then left.

He wanted to look away, but it wouldn’t’ve been right. Wouldn’t’ve been the thing to do. His hand hung at his side, twitching, and he balled the fingers. They were itching for something; he wished he’d thought to bring a drink. Something, anything. Back in Vienda, he’d poured out most of what he had in his study, and he’d stopped carrying a flask. He’d made a point of not needing a little something everywhere he went. Of getting through without. Before the party. He wished he had it now.

What would he’ve done back then? When he was him? He breathed in deep the smell of blood, sweet and sticky, putting his hand back in his pocket. On went the monite pouring from Niccolette’s lips, steady underneath the cacophony. He cut off the bit of his heart that felt for the kov and tucked it away for later.

The kov’s screaming was unraveling, patchy and frayed. Tom was grateful; it wasn’t doing his headache any good. Niccolette curled her spell. He watched her rise, noticed her balance wasn’t much better than his. Watched her dab at her throat and all the blood-soiled bits of Uzoji’s coat, remembering the way she’d picked up her skirts back in Berret Park. To step delicately round the poor sod Tom’d…

He nodded at her, kicking himself into motion a little haphazardly. He didn’t look back at the kerchief she’d tossed down; he didn’t even look back at the sobbing, wheezing wreck on the stones. He left his wallet, with its scattering of coins, behind. Seemed fair.

Then she answered his question. Tom didn’t know what to say to that, so he just nodded again, once. “It’s beautiful,” he said quietly. He kept his eyes trained on the path ahead.

The Bean was oddly quiet; he couldn’t hear anything from the docks anymore, and the wind had fallen, lulling the Mahogany into a shifting, unsteady sleep. It wasn’t long before they were on the bridge to the west side, and he was grateful for the railing to hold onto. He wasn’t quite ready to ask for her arm.

After a moment, he glanced back at her. He couldn’t be sure what he was feeling, but it wasn’t something he expected.

“What the hell were you doing to his leg?” he found himself asking. He glanced over at her, raised an eyebrow, then glanced back out over the bay. “Making it worse, I’d guess.” A snort, then a pause, then, “I’ve never seen living conversation used like that. Pretty piece of work back in Voedale, too.” That might have been the tone of a thank you.

It wasn’t exactly a lie, either. He’d’ve just had to add, by anyone else. Knowing about the mona, knowing about all that rubbish, didn’t make whatever the hell it was Niccolette Ibutatu did – had always done – any less disturbing. It did raise questions, though. Tom remembered something else he’d read in a book when he was in the south, something about the noble uses. Knowledge, he thought.

Then, something else. Sharp borders made soft by knowledge. He’d never had to ask what she meant by that.
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Niccolette Ibutatu
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Fri Aug 23, 2019 4:07 pm

After Midnight, 17th Roalis, 2719
The Bridge over Mahogany Bay
Vauquelin called pez Hirtka’s work beautiful. Niccolette nodded, and regretted the motion for the nauseating stab it sent through her ear, the dizzy rush that followed it and spiked through all of her. The engines of the airship, the retorts of the pistol - even the man’s screaming - she could not tell if it was merely irritation, or something again worse. The Bastian lifted careful fingers to her ear; there had been no sudden sharp bursting pain, but, then - a burst eardrum could onset without it. There was no trickle of fluid this time, nothing but clammy skin and the edge of her jawline. She clamped her jaw shut tight against the sudden need to vomit, and swallowed back bitter bile.

Tomorrow, Niccolette thought, dazed and tired. She would deal with it tomorrow, if it still hurt then. When, the living conversationalist amended; she was not quite such a fool. When it still hurt tomorrow, she would deal with it, and the cut on her neck. It would not do to have such a scar, even if the fashion was for high-necked garb.

Beautiful. The poetry was beautiful, but what Niccolette remembered, better than reading it, was the look on Uzoji’s face as he had read. It had taken him some time to get to the actual poetry - he had admired the cover, admired the inscription, looked up and admired -

Eventually he had gotten to the poetry. She had, of course, already read it. He must have known that, but he had not been able to stop himself from reading snatches to her, here and there. She could almost hear him, through a haze of sleep.

“Listen,” His hand had stroked her hair, brushing the strands from her forehead. “He writes: Love was sharp and dry; desire the desert’s unquenchable thirst. The storm of you swept through me...”

Niccolette had rolled onto her back and looked up at him, the sharp planes of his face. They had been on the island then; she remembered seeing the white canopy flutter in the wind. She knew he had not read the poem in full; she could not find the words he had spoken, but she remembered the touch of his hand on her face, the soft parting of his lips, the grin that had quirked them up.

Niccolette could not lose herself, not utterly. She wanted nothing more than to retreat into memory, but she could not. The island was still and quiet around them in the night, nothing but the distant splash of waves and creaking of wood - but so too had it seemed before. On the second bridge, Niccolette did not let Vauquelin pull ahead; she stayed close, and ignored the soft brushing of Uzoji's bloodied coat against his. Vauquelin gripped the railing on one side, thin trembling fingers holding tight; his hand was almost translucent in the moonlight. She kept her good ear towards him.

“Not quite living conversation as they teach it at Brunnhold,” Niccolette acknowledged, when Vauquelin had finished his question. Her voice rasped, and she cleared her throat. Her head swam a little more, and she held tight to the railing too - for just a moment, before pushing off and walking on.

“The basic spell is from T’mathyr,” Niccolette continued. The Hessean had left his post at some university during one or another of their old wars; he had had plenty of opportunity, on the battlefield, to study and understand, and he had mingled knowledge and conquest in defense of himself and his patients. His journals, when discovered, had proven immensely valuable; Niccolette did not have a copy herself, but she had several grimoires based on them. Two were even legal. He had prized both efficiency and speed, and even today a few of his spells were taught in the general magic education classes at Brunnhold. 

“A lesser-known journal,” Niccolette added, swallowing back the nausea. “But the basic principle is very consistent with all of his work,” she shrugged. “One uses what one has. You would see classicists like Gregoires or Kannamar suggest that one describe the shape of the bone as one wishes it to be. T’mathyr simply points out that it is more efficient to work with the shape of the break.”

Niccolette paused, and added, “Naturally, the same principle applies to pushing the shards farther apart, rather than pulling them together,” She pressed forward through another wash of tiredness. The edge of her boot caught on the wood, and Niccolette stumbled - caught herself sharp against the railing, and shuddered. Her stomach heaved, protesting.

Slowly, Niccolette forced herself upright, and kept walking.

The bridge was coming to an end, and Cantile glittered ahead of them, sharp and bright in the dark. All down the edge of the Rose, the wharf glittered, lanterns bobbing here and there in the dark. There were bits of the city that never slept; Niccolette could hear very little over the shuffle of her steps and Vauquelin’s, but she imagined the distant splash of oars, the scrape of rowboats against docks, the sort of dark dealings in the night that the Rose liked best.

Cantile, and then - terribly far still to go. Niccolette’s legs shook stepping down from the bridge to solid land again, and the Bastian crossed her arms over herself, pulling Uzoji’s coat tight, and took a deep breath. By the circle, but did she ever want a drink. Her voice had gone dry and hoarse at the edges as she had explained, and she cleared her throat again, feeling it rasp.

One last step – Niccolett saw it, she knew it was there, but her heel clipped the edge, and she dropped, sinking to her knees. The Bastian shuddered; the hard drop sent spikes of pain through her, nausea too. Her head swam – and she lost the battle against the nausea and threw up. She managed to catch her breath for a few moments, shaking – then she threw up again, sniffling, and held, crouched against the ground, a few tears dripping down her cheeks.

Niccolette took a deep breath and sat upright, slowly, easing back against her heels. She found the second of her handkerchiefs and scrubbed her mouth with it, swallowing hard. Her ear throbbed, and she touched her fingertips to it, then lowered her hand. Niccolette stayed, there, kneeling on the ground – in truth, she was not entirely sure what would happen if she tried to stand, and she did not wish to make it worse by falling again. She did not look up at Vauquelin either, more than a little ashamed, shuddering on the ground.

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Last edited by Niccolette Ibutatu on Sat Aug 24, 2019 10:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Tom Cooke
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Fri Aug 23, 2019 10:34 pm

The Bridge The Rose
After Midnight on the 17th of Roalis, 2719
Even with the bay quiet, he had to shut his eyes so he could listen to Niccolette. The night was still all motion, all stirring dark. It wasn’t a problem; the path was narrow, and he could feel his way along it on one side with the railing. On the other, he could feel the brush of Uzoji’s bloodied coat against his. Her gait, he noticed, didn’t seem as steady as it’d been before; they were both hobbling along, now. He was too drunk and tired to wonder what’d happen if neither one of them could stand up straight.

Not quite as they teach it at Brunnhold. Tom snorted again, soft, a wry little smile flickering across his face. Couldn’t argue with that. Not that he’d ever been to Brunnhold, save the once, but Diana’d insisted he see a handful of specialists for his “condition”, and none of them seemed like the type for busting a kov’s leg up even worse than it already was. He tried to picture Dr. Plourde, or even Professor Ophet, calmly asking the mona to drive the bone shards of a gunshot wound even further apart. He failed.

Not that he knew, either, who T’mathyr was, or Gregoires, or Kannamar – or any principles that might’ve applied to their work. It always seemed, now, like there was a never-ending stream of names he had to know, good clocking golly names, if he wanted to make sense of the first damn thing.

He tried to imagine who Niccolette thought he was. The thought tore him out of his drunken stupor, for just a moment; he breathed in the chill, salty air, and a little current of fear and wonder ran through him. He took it for granted, sometimes. She had no godsdamn clue she was talking to Tom Cooke.

She might’ve just been talking – she sounded tired; she paused, and he thought he heard her swallow bile – but she must’ve thought he knew, at least, who T’mathyr was. She must’ve thought he could cast his mind back thirty-and-some years, to some elementary living course he’d had to take before he settled on his perceptive focus. She didn’t, and couldn’t, know the real reason why he’d asked: she couldn’t look over at him and see the big, mung human Hawke’d sent to back up her poetry with brute force. Couldn’t see in Incumbent Vauquelin the slack-faced fear of seeing her open up a kov’s scar.

Niccolette stumbled, and he glanced over despite himself. He looked away just as quick. She’d caught herself, and he could see out of the corner of his eye her pale hand gripping the railing tight. But he didn’t think she’d appreciate him looking too hard, or, worse, offering a hand.

“Funny that you can break – or worsen – whatever you can fix, all with the same principle,” he murmured, listening to the boards crack and pop underneath their scuffling. Two pairs of light, galdor footsteps. “Everything works two ways.” The salt air stung his bloody knuckles; it felt good. Damned good.

The steps off the bridge were a complicated operation. Sober, they were tough; drunk, they were even tougher. Slick, of course, with foam and algae, like everything in the Rose. Just a pina slimy. Tom held onto the railing tightly, as always, turning himself a little to the side, stepping down with his boots lengthways.

The lights of Cantile ahead. The Rose at night, he thought: how long’d it been? A bloody fist, a knife at his throat, a sobbing, broken man in their wake. The smells, the lights bobbing on the water. The quiet back streets you took when you didn’t want to attract attention. How long’d it been? This was home.

They were just about to the bottom when he heard a scuffle from beside him, and Niccolette went down. He stepped off, stepped shakily to one side. Winced. Tom reckoned they were just about even. She was hacking up her own yats all over the dirty stones.

When she rose up, Tom noticed, for the first time, as she reached up to touch her ear. He thought for a moment, eyes narrowing. His brows drew together. He stared up the street, trying not to look too hard at her; he’d seen a glitter on her face, and he heard her sniffling. But she was just kneeling there with her handkerchief, and the seconds drew on.

Tom’s fingertips were still brushing the last of the bridge’s railing, but he took them away, shifting his weight shakily. After a moment, he cleared his throat. “Madam,” he rasped. The air was thick with the smell of sick, but it wasn’t a foreign one to Tom; he didn’t have to pay it much mind.

Matter-of-factly, trying not to look too hard at her, he bent a little and extended the crook of his arm. His head spun; he swallowed a lurch in his stomach, but he kept his feet.

“I think we’ve got enough balance between us,” he said. “I’d appreciate a hand.”

He swallowed another lump. Cantile, he thought, then – where? He tried to imagine her leaving him at Lossey, staggering home alone in the dark. Formidable, oes, but overextended. Dizzy, drunk, with whatever was wrong with her ear. Hell, he thought. He was too drunk for this. Circledamn and clock it.
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Niccolette Ibutatu
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Sat Aug 24, 2019 10:00 am

After Midnight, 17th Roalis, 2719
The Quietest Streets of Cantile
The world was spinning around her, and Niccolette held as still as she could, pressing the handkerchief to her mouth and waiting for the throbbing in her ear to ease. Had she burst the eardrum again? She still held out hope she had not; the dizziness and nausea could well be from the rest of it: the long trip, the hangovers, the exhaustion, casting a bit too much while drunk. She was no stranger to throwing up; it wasn’t uncommon for too much casting to take her this way.

Another moment, Niccolette told herself. Just - just another moment, and she would find the strength to stand and stumble through the Rose once more.

Could she do otherwise? Could she tell Vauquelin to go? Clock that ersehole, Niccolette thought, but it didn’t have the same heat it had before. She couldn’t find the anger she wanted, the heat in her veins that would urge her to get up just to spite him, the moony old bastard.

It was all his fault, Niccolette thought bitterly. If he could have just - if he could have just found another bar for his death wish. If she could have just picked anywhere else, she could have drank in peace and never known it when the Mugroba stabbed him in the kidney and left him to die. And now - now, they were in Cantile - it wasn’t Voedale or Bean Island. Surely he could get his drunk erse home, and she would - she would -

Niccolette thought of Vauquelin on the bridge, mumbling about how he had wanted somewhere no one would know him as incumbent. She thought of him calling pez Hirtka beautiful beneath the moonlight. She thought of him telling that godsdamned human that he shouldn’t have fucked with her, of stepping back to let her do her worst. The faint flame of anger she had managed to summon flickered and died, and she was no closer to standing than she had been.

He cleared his throat.

Niccolette wiped her mouth again, spat into the handkerchief with what little moisture she had left, and dropped it onto the mess she’d made. Well. If he did not wish to wait, then he could just leave, then he could -

Vauquelin bent down and offered her his arm.

Niccolette glanced at it; his gaze was politely off to the side. He might have been offering to take her into a ballroom or to a formal dinner, for all it showed on his face. And he had asked her to help him, carefully, politely, without the faintest trace of condescension. It reminded her, bitterly, of Uzoji, and Niccolette had to look away to keep from showing him the tears that slid down her cheeks.

Only a few, Niccolette thought as they stopped. For now. She knew it would solve nothing for her, but her chest ached for the moment when she could weep, and properly. She wiped her eyes on the back of her hand, and turned back to Vauquelin. She shifted, slowly, pressing her toes against the ground; she tucked her arm inside the crook of his, and tried not to lean too much weight against him as she rose. She wobbled - more than once, at that - but if it was slow and shaky, at the end of it Niccolette was standing. She didn’t pull away from Vauquelin either; she left her arm entangled with his.

It was an awkward, shambling sort of walk for both of them - but when Vauquelin stumbled, he was light enough that Niccolette could hold stiff and keep him upright, and he did not let her fall either. Niccolette tried not to think of what would happen if they both lost their balance at once.

She had thought perhaps he would look for the noisy lit boulevards, the spots where in Cantile even now there would be the whisper of voices from bars, women and the occasional men looking for company willing to pay to pass the long night. She had thought to have to steer them to the quieter streets, the dark back ways through the Rose, but there was no need; he sought them out without hesitation, and with surprising ease.

The only sour note was his field. The mona in her own field buzzed and tangled and jumped, flailing away from his own. There was no way of becoming accustomed to it, no easing of sensation. She wondered how he lived with it; she supposed he must not have a choice, if he wished to live at all. It did not help with the nausea. Niccolette kept her field as separate as she could manage, as smooth and indectal as she ever had, and did not caprise him even in the slightest, held back from even the natural mingling that might happen in such close proximity. She stopped short of dampening her field; it was not good for one’s relationship with the mona, and he was too close anyway for it to help more than psychologically.

Niccolette did think of asking, but - she did not. He knew; he could not not know. This was not like a fight in Voedale; she could not think of any guidance to offer, for a porven this bad. It would be only to sate her curiosity, and with his thin arm through hers, his trembling shoulder nearly brushing hers - she did not ask.

It took nearly all she had to put one foot in front of the other, slow and sometimes even and mostly steady, past shuttered shops and sleeping houses, beneath the glittering night of the moon, the muffled noise of the city always staying distant. Just a little further, Niccolette told herself. Just a little further.

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