High Sprung and Clocking

Avi Kwenise is found by an old 'friend'

Open for Play
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.

User avatar
Avi Kwensie
Posts: 15
Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2018 10:07 pm
Topics: 3
Race: Human
Character Sheet: Character Sheet
Writer: Iz

Fri Nov 02, 2018 4:51 pm

Corwynn’s laugh was smooth like quicksand. Lovely and deadly. There wasn’t much that a two-face, self-indulgent golly like Corwynn could be happy about that would give Avi any comfort. He moved in her space like he owned it, but Avi kept her steadylike and shrunk not a bit. But she didn’t move either, just her face to follow him around the room.

“I figured you’d prefer mine.”

Avi exhaled a dry laugh, shrugged, and looked at her feet. No, he was right. Better Cor than the King, sure, but Cor was the King’s Gun - and he knew that well enough. Didn’t stop him from being coy about it.

And then they came down to terms. She grew strangely calmer even as her heart beat faster. A skill learned in prison, how to settle into a growing threat so you could act with a cool head. Less applicable now. Corwynn sang merry things and little gifts that they both knew were nothing more than bait. A favor was a debt. A big favor all the worse.

He said thirty. Thirty. Avi couldn’t help but groan. Thirty was poverty. She covered her angry mouth with her hand and shook her head. She’d be grey before she saw the promised twenty. Thirty would keep her having to come back for more favors. Thirty was no good.

How did that sound? It sounded like shit. Before she went away, she’d inherited her master’s gentle seven percent. Brothers had kicked it up to ten. And then she got resentful. And then she got in trouble.

“That’s not going to work for me,” she said less carefully than she should. “I can’t afford that kind of help, Corwynn. You know that. I’ve paid.”

Tags:
User avatar
Corwynn
Posts: 138
Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2018 10:03 am
Topics: 14
Race: Galdor
Location: Ol' Rose
: The Taxman
Character Sheet: Character Sheet
Plot Notes: Plot Notes
Writer: Muse
Writer Profile: Writer Profile
Post Templates: Post Templates
Contact:

Fri Nov 02, 2018 11:01 pm

11th of Yaris, 2718
CASTLE HILL | AFTERNOON
He watched the woman go through the process of consideration and indignant rejection, aware that his opening bid was insanely high. Was Avi a risk? Was she not a worthwhile investment in this quarter of the Harbor? An apothecary business was certainly an excellent business in Castle Hill, and the neighborhood had felt its loss.

Corwynn sighed, brushing dust from his fingers like it was something far more offensive and pretending he didn't hear her groan. He stopped in front of her and curled his hand against the back of his head to scratch his scalp as if thinking made it itch when really he was just restless,

"Paid, yes." The older galdor smirked, his tone quieter and without malice, "You've given your time, which isn't something you can work hard enough to gain back. I'm aware."

He'd paid that price before. An entire decade.

Oh, and a finger.

"Fine." His first offer had most likely been a ruse, anyway, a curious test of his own making. A game. He smiled, well-bred white teeth flashing for a moment on a well-aged face. The blond gunman was comfortable in Avi's personal space, hardly ashamed about invading it, field and body heat even in Yaris, "Can you afford not to accept any help at all, Avi? Because, that's an option."

His sharp blue gaze studied her face, shoulders relaxing, chest rising and falling with a deep breath, hand falling from behind his head to fill the space between them, calloused palm up, four fingers expectant,

"Twenty to pay off my favor. And once you've done that, sweetheart, I'd be willing to settle down to twelve in regular taxes so you can keep whatever comfort you turn this place into all to yourself."
User avatar
Avi Kwensie
Posts: 15
Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2018 10:07 pm
Topics: 3
Race: Human
Character Sheet: Character Sheet
Writer: Iz

Fri Nov 02, 2018 11:39 pm

Corwynn moved in and Avi caught her breath. He was too close, every inch an implicit threat. Charming, collected, and protected. If he was most anyone else, she wouldn’t hesitate to find that special spot between some ribs and then to get a fistful of hair from the crown. Or pick up the lamplight hook and get handy. But that was before and this was Cor.

"Can you afford not to accept any help at all, Avi? Because, that's an option."

Angry Avi lifted her chin to the gollie, keeping her grit behind her teeth. The answer was no. And that was the point. This shop was all she knew how to do, and abolished though it was, it was the best go she had. Without help, she’d lose it. Oh certainly, she’d scrape and things would get better but it wasn’t cheap to be on the outs. And it wasn’t safe to lack the Brothers’ favors.

He was staring at her and she stared back, although her stance was a survival tactic with very little to back it up. When he spoke again, the stakes had lightened.

Avi turned over the numbers in her head against what it would take for her to get the place working again, the slower start up pace as she re-collected customers, gained credit with vendors, keeping herself fed. Well, suffice it to say twenty by twelve was a far better deal than thirty by twenty.

And that was the point. And, Avi realised, was no concession for Corwynn from the beginning.

She took his clipped hand in hers, a grip to agree to terms.

“You’re a generous man,” she said.

Then, Avi slipped out from under his thick umbra. She hoisted her bag onto the counter and dug around for her last cigarette, the one she was saving for her first sunrise on the harbor. The cig was already between her lips when she found her matches at the bottom of the bag, wet and useless. Just her luck. She turned around to face Corwynn again and leaned against the counter.

“So you can tell the King we’re good, then,” she suggested, taking the unlit cig between her fingers out of habit. An old habit.
User avatar
Corwynn
Posts: 138
Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2018 10:03 am
Topics: 14
Race: Galdor
Location: Ol' Rose
: The Taxman
Character Sheet: Character Sheet
Plot Notes: Plot Notes
Writer: Muse
Writer Profile: Writer Profile
Post Templates: Post Templates
Contact:

Sat Nov 03, 2018 10:06 am

11th of Yaris, 2718
CASTLE HILL | AFTERNNOON
"I'm not."Generous, he meant. He wasn't often, but at least he made it look good regardless. Corwynn objected to the complement with a wry grin creasing into his sea-worn features, the well-aged galdor's crystalline gaze full of the insatiable mischief he was far too well known for. He shook her hand, his too calloused for his race, minus one digit, and watched the unlit cigarette move from her lips to her fingers—a sad sight.

"It'll be my pleasure to do so." The tide of mona shifted, gathering to him the way seawater filled a damaged ship's hull, and while he'd normally have to speak Monite for more complicated Physical conversation, like flying an airship or tossing a ball of flame, lighting the end of a cigarette was nothing in comparison, a fiddly snub to the glory of the gods all summed up in a quick, simple motion of his five-fingered left hand.

He grinned, the scent of sulfur in his nostrils for a moment as magical particles diffused around him like so much exhaled smoke,

"Tomorrow, then? I'll have some nice lads from the docks come see what they can do with the place. Do you need somewhere to stay?" It was either an idle question or a less-than innocent offer. With Corwynn, they always sounded the same.
Last edited by Corwynn on Sat Nov 03, 2018 10:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Avi Kwensie
Posts: 15
Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2018 10:07 pm
Topics: 3
Race: Human
Character Sheet: Character Sheet
Writer: Iz

Sat Nov 03, 2018 10:58 am

Avi only just perceived the deliberate quiet in Corwynn that preceded a golly spell; her cigarette quietly crackled and flared gently, lit by the inaccessible powers that hid in everything. She stared at it for a moment. Another clocking favor.

Oh, they spilled forth from Corwynn. He denied it, but his generosity overfloweth.

Despite herself, Avi looked at him as she took a long draw. Corwynn’s kindnesses were as hard to deflect as his threats, such was the sick love of the Bad Brothers. Despite her dark judgement of Corwynn, the King, and his kids, a creeping and comforting familiarity was also re-kindling. She’d lived her entire life in Old Rose Harbor, had been a subject of Silas Hawke longer than not, as had her teacher. Avi’d learned all she knew under the violent benevolence, the manipulated civil tranquility. These conditions were was as much home as a house. It had been difficult in these last years to remember, but even Old Rose Harbor had joys in it.

She’d been good before. And it had felt good. And she’d do it again. Debts or not, she’d do it again. The markets would know her mark again and she’d know comforts. At the thought, her thumb turned the etched silver ring on her middle finger. It was tarnished and would need a polish.

Time had not done the tobacco kindly, but it was a sweet pleasure to mark the end of a thing and the beginning of another. She’d saved it for a sunrise, but this reunion with Corwynn would have to do.

She moved from the counter to ash the cigarette in the fireplace, as if the entire place wasn’t covered in a worse residue.

“Maybe another time, Corwynn,” she said, blandly aware of all the implications of the invitation. That was the other terrible thing about Corwynn: she meant it.
User avatar
Corwynn
Posts: 138
Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2018 10:03 am
Topics: 14
Race: Galdor
Location: Ol' Rose
: The Taxman
Character Sheet: Character Sheet
Plot Notes: Plot Notes
Writer: Muse
Writer Profile: Writer Profile
Post Templates: Post Templates
Contact:

Sat Nov 03, 2018 10:22 pm

11th of Yaris, 2718
CASTLE HILL | AFTERNOON
"When it's all put back together again, then—" The blond galdor hummed at the not-quite-rejection, his a knowing smile creased into his salt-worn features while he let his gaze wander appreciatively over the woman before him as if he'd done so before but needed a reminder. Time away rarely did anyone any real good, but Avi weathered it well.

This was his home, Old Rose Harbor, and regardless of what everyone else wanted out of the place, he still wanted to keep it livable. Not because he wanted to retire here—he didn't; he wouldn't—but because other people still had to make the place work. The Rose was somewhere that anyone had a chance to be wealthy, somewhere that anyone had a chance to live as they pleased right under the noses of his own kind making the rules in Vienda, regardless of the race of their birth. Nowhere else in Anaxas held that promise, and because of this, Corwynn was rather keen on ensuring the success, not failure, of businesses and ventures that he deemed useful.

Other gangs, pirates, revolutionaries, and other unsavory ne'er do wells that didn't sit right with Hawke or himself didn't last long unless they made themselves compliant and paid their godsbedamned taxes. As if there wasn't already enough fighting in the Kingdom. Well. Maybe there wasn't. Maybe that wasn't the problem. But it certainly wasn't the older gilder's problem. Not anymore. Not really.

His smile softened. Less predatory. Just Corwynn.

"—I'll bring the wine. Something with candles." The Bad Brother arched a slim, fair eyebrow in emphasis before he laughed, broad shoulders rolling like waves into a shrug, "But, until that happens, I'll come back in a week to check on how things are going, to keep an eye on things."

He dismissed himself with a coy sort of nod, hand moving to adjust the firearm at his hip out of habit because he didn't wear hats and couldn't tip one. Hovering near the threshold of the doorway leading back out into the Yaris heat, he added quietly before slipping back out onto the street, "Welcome back to the Rose, Avi. Silas Hawke appreciates the return business, of course."
Post Reply Previous topicNext topic

Return to “Old Rose Harbor”

  • Information
  • Who is online

    Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 7 guests