[Closed] Somebody Like You

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Morning, 20th Roalis 2719
Sherry's Peninsula

The carriage was old, and poorly sprung; it rattled unsteadily over the streets of the Rose, and one felt each and every miserable jolt of the wheels against the cobblestones. One of the wheels creaked and groaned, loud enough to be audible inside, and the unfortunate contraption gave the sense that it might collapse at any moment – and yet it kept rolling. The horses were tired old things, but they kept going too, and somehow the buildings outside seemed to shudder past.

Niccolette sat with gaze fixed firmly on the moldy curtains over the window, and did her best not to take in the miserable, unaired scent of the place. The Bastian wore a black dress, ruffled and flounced. If the ruffles had been somewhat crushed by her escapades the night before, the dress itself was still of thick, expensive material, well-tailored to her. A man’s coat lay in her lap, too thick to wear in the heat of a Roalis day, and her hands were buried tight in the fabric, the slender gold ring on her left hand glinting in the soft sunlight that seeped into the cabin.

She did not, so far as she could help it, look at her traveling companion. Xonia, who Niccolette had found injured and half-dead in an alleyway the night before, had managed to fall asleep straight away into their journey; Niccolette had looked at her, then, and not known if she felt pity, disgust, pride, or sorrow. The young girl had not been shy about telling Niccolette what she had suffered. Niccolette might have wanted to know none of it, but she knew now; she could not but know. That, too, and the mona had told her something of the history of it, written on the girl’s bones, inside of her.

Forever, Niccolette thought, idly. Forever marked by the history of what had come before.

The Bastian had thought of trying to close her eyes; she might have wished she could sleep. But the rattling of the carriage forbade it, and her own thoughts did not help. She would be glad to leave the girl behind with Corwynn; let him deal with this. Xonia had never asked Niccolette for help, and Niccolette did not want or need her gratitude. In truth, she could not precisely have articulated why she had helped the filthy, bloody girl in the alleyway; she would not have wanted to admit that Xonia’s will to live, in the midst of all that despair, had touched her.

And so Niccolette kept her chin up, kept her gaze away, and kept her mouth pressed in a thin, soft line. Her whole body ached; there was a queasiness in her stomach, and she had not heard anything in one ear for several days now. None of that could be attributed to the casting she had pushed through the night before, but the bone deep weariness that ached somewhere inside could – was – and Niccolette wished, rather desperately, that she might simply be able to go sleep. To cry, of course, too; of course.

Corinth Wynngate III – Corwynn, to his friends and comrades, and Niccolette counted herself as the second, if not quite the first – lived on Sherry’s Peninsula, the long strip of beach that stretched out from the end of Old Rose Harbor, that curved around to protect the opening of the Mahogany. Niccolette lifted a tired hand to the curtain of the carriage, and twitched it open, gazing back at the Rose stretching out along the shore behind them, as they began to draw closer to the large, old, half-empty house. Niccolette had been there before, more than once; there were memories there that the widow did not quite shy away from, but neither did she embrace.

Corwynn. Niccolette held back from glancing at Xonia, trying to reconcile the man she knew with how the young girl had spoken of him. She did not like it; she did not like it in the least. But this was the best way; Niccolette did not wish to care for the pathetic little galdor, and whatever Corwynn’s motivations – at least Xonia would have a place to sleep. Niccolette’s jaw clenched, slightly, and she let the curtain tumble shut, buying her hand in her husband’s coat once more. Corwynn reminded her of a maja’wa; Niccolette thought of the sun-drenched creatures, lying on the banks of the Turga in Mugrobi – waiting patiently in the waters around the Muluku Islands, half-invisible in the tangled weeds. Strong and tough, useful in the right circumstances, but nothing to be weak around. Those jaws, stretched open, happy to devour whatever came along –

Niccolette exhaled, tiredly, and rubbed her face with her hand. She was in no state to face Corwynn, but, then, she had not been in a state to face anyone for months, and yet here she was.

The carriage rattled to a stop. The leathery old Bastian hopped with surprising spryness down from the coach box, and opened the door. “'ere ‘t is, madam,” he mumbled, touching his cap with a glance between the two galdori.

Niccolette murmured something about Hurte, and the old man smiled, revealing a mess of broken, yellowed teeth, with a few prominent gaps. Niccolette did not look at him again, stepping out of the carriage, and waiting a moment for Xonia, Uzoji’s coat still folded over her arm.

“Wait here,” she told the man. “I shall not stay long.”

Niccolette waited for Xonia; she did not rush ahead, but neither did she quite look at the younger woman, pacing her steps without the faintest acknowledgment of it. Niccolette made her way slowly to Corwynn’s door, sighed one last time, and rapped firmly against the old, weary wood, then stepped back to allow Xonia to make her own re-introductions.

[Xonia]

She awoke with the carriage coming to a halt. Still not able to look at the rescuer, she sighed and pushed away from the wall, ready to get out. The smell of the old carriage made her feel sick to her stomach. By the time she had gotten out, she turned her back toward everyone and let go of her breakfast. With some shudders, she stood there for a long moment to give herself a chance to recover, and she would soon join and follow the woman.

Xonia was feeling out of sorts still, though the more she rested, the easier it was for her to move and walk around. Even after some morning sickness, it was like she was almost back to her norm. However, it was the fact that Nicco had saved her life and kept healing her despite not being asked for help, despite the fact that the amnesiac could very well have been some kind of psycho… She wasn’t, she was just a girl in her late teens that needed a bit of guidance.

Seeing Corwynn again was necessary, he needed to know that there was something going on that was bigger than just her story; how it affected more people than anyone even knew. She had a lot of work she was going to have to do in the time to come, she had done whatever it took to keep the face of her former lover in her mind so it could be drawn in case there was one person, anybody, who recognized who the guy might have been.

She wanted to draw the place where she had been… it had not been too far from the harbor at all. That would come with time.

For now, she looked up at the edifice ahead and had the nerve to feel less than nervous. But then, Cor wasn’t the type to yell at someone for doing what they had to do, even if doing it was as foolhardy as what she had done. He would give her no sympathy and she knew that much. He didn’t give her any when she told him what was up with her weirdness, but that was something else entirely.

She finally gave a glance over to the one who had been helping her, and she said, “Thank you for getting me here,” and went inside when it was time to do so.

[Corwynn]

20th of Roalis, 2719
HOME | MORNINGISH

There was a body in the dining room. It had slumped over the night before, apparently, for Corwynn did not remember leaving the man in that position. He'd spilled what had been left of his wine and Wavorly had apparently just not felt particularly ersed to get it all cleaned up—not the expensive Bastian red vintage nor the thick, congealed mess of this poor fellow who he'd shot after conversation had turned, well, rather unfavorable and sour. It was probably a waste of a bullet, this one.

The blond galdor hadn't really slept, anyway, and as he sat at the opposite end of the table, nine fingers curled possessively around a steaming mug of kofi while early morning Roalis sunlight sparkled off the Harbor and danced through open windows, he mulled over the previous eveningand just what, exactly, had gone wrong, especially considering Silas had asked him not to murder anyone.

Just this once.

"Oops." Exhaled the Taxman, breathing gently over the dark surface of his drink as if he could at all cool it, talking to the corpse as if it mattered, as if it was going to sit up and jump right into the discussion they'd been tangled in just a couple of houses earlier. The question was, of course, whether or not he was actually addressing the dead wick with his statement, "You did this one to yourself, ersehole, but here I am, due to take the blame for it. Gods, if you could just—"

He hissed at the sound of knocking on the door. Had the poor man been missed last night? News did travel fast in the Harbor if you knew the right currents of information to sail in, but it was too damn early. Surely. Setting his mug on the table, he waited, but wherever his old wick pirate butler was, it wasn't here at home this morning. Frowning, he stood, glaring at the cold Black Hand across from him,

"Just wait here, then."

Calloused, salt-worn palms ran over the finery of yesterday's clothes in some effort to make himself presentable again with a fluff of a cravat and a raking of four fingers through fading blond curls, but Corwynn didn't bother shouting that he was on his way. Slipping through sunlit archways and passing through totally unfurnished hallways to stand in the foyer, he let his whole left hand come to rest uneasily on the firearm slung comfortably and loaded at his hip. It was as he gathered his field that he felt the brush of another behind the door, thick and heavy with Living mona. Maybe there was a second, but it was faint—

Shoulder against the threshold, the blond gunman opened the door slowly, blue eyes taking in two women he knew but had not expected. Not used to answering the door himself and certainly in rare form dressed and awake at this house, his jaw clenched as any number of possible scenarios washed ashore in his thoughts as his crystalline gaze lingered on Xonia before drifting back to Niccolette,

"It's clocking early, you know—" His hands wanted to still be holding the kofi he'd left to grow cold like the corpse in his dining room. He wouldn't be offering any breakfast this morning, that was for damn sure,

"—what can I do for you at this hour, anyway?" Corwynn did not, in fact, invite anyone in right away. There was a reluctance to his tone and he hesitated, sighing heavily through grit teeth with a restless impatience, field bristling, before he stepped back and opened the door all the way with a sweep of his four-fingered left hand.

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Morning, 20th Roalis 2719
Corwynn's Foyer, Sherry's Peninsula

Xonia had left the carriage, and promptly lost her breakfast on the ground. Niccolette had not so much as looked at her; she knew perfectly well what was occurring from the sounds, and saw no point whatsoever in watching. It was, very likely, morning sickness; at worst, Xonia was queasy from the poorly sprung carriage. Niccolette knew without having to check that it was not lingering illness from the night before. She had seen too deeply into Xonia already to make such a mistake.

The fact that Xonia was able to get up and walk towards her – past her, waiting outside of the door to Corwynn’s old, once-lovely, broken down, substantial home – confirmed it. She was not, Niccolette told herself, a healer; she had never had any responsibility to Xonia. Healing her did not change that.

Niccolette did not respond in any way to Xonia’s thanks; she did not want or need them, and she was thoroughly sick of them already. Her head ached, and her ear throbbed, and there was a steady churning of nausea only growing in her stomach. Not, she thought tiredly, the sort that would be relieved by throwing up; she knew too much already of how it felt to be sick with this pain in her ear, and it did not make things any better.

Niccolette considered, for a moment, going back to the carriage. She had brought Xonia this far; it was so much more than she had needed to do. She pressed her lips together, thinly, and could not have said why she stayed.

There was a long wait, longer than she would have liked, until Corwynn himself opened the door, much more dressed than Niccolette would have expected. He looked, Niccolette thought, tired. She supposed she did as well; she knew her clothing was no less creased than his, although the black dress was more forgiving of such things than his cravat. At least she did not look old, but in any case it was not an unappealing look for him. His hand was on the gun at his hip, but – Corwynn would have lived to look old if he was not prepared. She would liked, Niccolette thought, to have seen Uzoji as an old man; she knew he would have aged well. They could have laughed, together, at the first wrinkles and gray hairs. He would have laughed.

Niccolette shrugged when Corwynn said it was early. Xonia had stepped forward, and Niccolette was more than content to let her go first. Uzoji’s coat was draped over her arms, and she held onto it, tightly, clutching it against her stomach. She thought again of turning and going back to the carriage. It was not as if Corwynn had not already seen her cry, in front of Hawke; more than once, Niccolette thought bitterly, these last few months.

Instead, she followed Xonia past the sweep of Corwynn’s arm, into his foyer. Her gaze eased from side to side, and came back to rest on Corwynn for a moment. Then, rather deliberately, she turned her head towards Xonia, letting the fall of her thick dark hair come between her and the King’s Taxman.

She had, Niccolette thought tiredly, paid her dues, whatever Hawke said. She wondered, if Hawke grew tired of her, if it would be Corwynn to settle her account; she thought Hawke knew she would not go easily. She wondered if Corwynn would mind. She did not think he would, not really. She wondered again why she had brought Xonia here to him, to be devoured; she reminded herself, again, that it was Xonia’s choice, and none of her business.

The last time she had been here was two years ago, now, Niccolette thought. Perhaps a little more. Drunk, but not so drunk she had not known what she was doing; deliberately drunk, just enough to feed the anger that had burned through her like fire. She wished she could feel it again, simple and sustained and easy, the desire to make Uzoji hurt like she did. He could not, ever again, hurt like she did, no matter what. That thought was enough to make tears prickle at her eyes, and Niccolette was glad she was looking at Xonia and not Corwynn. She thought she might – but the shadow of tears and memories passed, and then Niccolette was simply looking at the young galdor, and waiting, still, for her to make her explanations.