[Closed] Riposte

Catriona Fraser's struggles with the Greers invite unwanted attention.

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A large forest in Central Anaxas, the once-thriving mostly human town of Dorhaven is recovering from a bombing in 2719 at its edge.

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Sun Nov 10, 2019 12:00 am

Black Cat Smithy, the Dives
Morning on the 23rd of Yaris, year 2719
It was hot.

Inspector Camille Pherigo was on foot today, which was as much a burden as a mercy; patrolling chroveback had its downsides – sore unmentionables being one of them – but navigating the crowded, dusty maze of the Dives on a warm Yaris day wasn’t one of them.

He had a complex relationship with this sort of heat. It wasn’t that he liked it, precisely; personally, he had always found it loathsome. With each second spent in it, even now, he was conscious of the sweat prickling underneath his heavy Seventen uniform – of the way that one or two curls of thin, white-blond hair would find themselves out of place, plastered to his scalp. It was impossible to keep oneself in perfect order, under these conditions; one drooped in the heat, it had always seemed to Camille, like a withered flower. Under the deafening bell of the sun, the whole world drooped.

But he remembered – and how! – Yaris in the central erg, and sometimes, on days like today, Vienda felt like a strange, shivering mirage; as if he could tear it apart, tear down the thick-set buildings and the bustling crowds, and find the desert somewhere underneath it all. He remembered the years he’d spent stationed at Paora Fo, and how the wind had whipped the sands up thicker than the smog in the Soots, so thick that you could scarcely see your hand at the length of your arm.

Pherigo did not much like the heat, after all, but looking up at the broad blue sky, or the sliver of it that he could see between the rooftops – he couldn’t keep the turning of his mind away from what that sky might be looking at elsewhere. There was a gulf in Pherigo’s life; there was a before, and an after, and a place in between.

But now was After, and Pherigo had plenty to occupy him today.

It had seemed petty to him, at first, but much of this job was petty, and he was hardly the one to question it. He had been briefed, and he knew a little of Catriona Fraser: he knew that they called her the Black Cat (a charming moniker, he had to admit). He knew that much of her clientele was galdori; she had been well-recommended, having trained under a galdor smith, one Raynarus.

Other things had not been a part of his briefing. He did not know Harry Greer very well – they had seldom spoken, and never worked together – but he knew that she had run afoul of the Greers, one way or another. Isolda, Greer’s wife, seemed particularly inflamed. That was the rumor, at any rate. Camille also knew, through his own private enquiries, that Miss Fraser was known to be mute.

For the moment, all of these details floated apart, scrambled and scattered; there was no way to put them together, and so he did not even try. The whole thing, in Pherigo’s opinion, stank, and he would be glad to wash his hands of it as soon as possible.

But as strong as his doubts may have been, an accusation of affiliations with the human resistance was no small matter. Not now. In ordinary circumstances, he would have gone, and he would have had a chat with the blacksmith, and, having discovered nothing, he would have reported to his superiors in the Oculus that the accusation was invalid, and that his investigation had yielded nothing. But it was Yaris, and the heat and the winds had whipped up their own sort of sandstorm in Vienda – and if Pherigo was correct about the direction of the winds, Catriona Fraser would not be the first human taken into custody on false accusations.

The sun was heavy, and he was growing tired, and he was thinking of this as he skimmed the crowded street for the smithy’s sign. Thinking of what he might do, and when, and how. But when he saw it, he did not hesitate. Pherigo knew how to navigate a crowd, and his Seventen uniform with its sash didn’t hurt; he wove among the press of bodies, touching a shoulder here, slipping sideways there, his dark eyes fixed on one, and only one, thing – the sign of the Black Cat.

Slowly but surely, he followed the little streams and tributaries of the throng; slowly but surely, he broke out into a clearing, and found himself very near to the sign. He hadn’t taken his eyes off of it the whole time, but now he let them wander down, and he found himself looking at a forge.

Fitting his customary pleasant smile on his face, he approached it.

“Good afternoon,” he called, despite the fact that it was morning – then laughed, as if realizing he’d made a fumble. He hadn’t the strongest voice, and it didn’t carry well over the buzz of the crowd behind. He pushed his spectacles up on his nose as he approached the smithy, leaving them a bit crooked. When he caught sight of a slim, soot-streaked figure at the forge, he dipped low in a proper, respectful galdor bow.

When he raised up, there was a smile on his face. He moved into the forge slowly, as if tentatively; he looked nothing if not hesitant. Unassuming, despite his uniform and its glinting snaps, as if he’d simply found himself dressed in it that morning without knowing why.

“W-would you be, ah,” and he hesitated, as if struggling to remember the name, “Miss – Cat? The b...b-blacksmith, by chance?” He tugged at his blond mustache with a plump hand, and his smile brightened.
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Catriona Fraser
Posts: 68
Joined: Mon Sep 16, 2019 5:14 pm
Topics: 8
Race: Human
Occupation: Blacksmith
Location: Vienda
Character Sheet: Catriona Fraser: The Smithy
Plot Notes: Cat's Plot Notes
Writer: GingerJSM
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Sun Nov 10, 2019 11:30 pm

25th of Yaris • morning
Cat had a few projects going on but none were so frustrating as this banjo. Even the prosthetics did not seem like they would be as much trouble as this ridiculously meticulous piece that would create music. She’d wanted to try working with steel for the frame but it was something she would have to buy directly from someone who made it and they weren’t cheap by any means.

She was hammering on a thin sheet of tin material to make her first frame. She expected to need to do it a few times, as she did with anything she made for the first time. The rhythmic clanging of a hammer against metal was a calming sound for her where others would find it nerve racking.

In the heat of the morning, Uptown was already becoming crowded. As the sound of her workings filled the nearby street, she could see galdori and human citizens alike bustling toward Kingsway Market with purpose. Some were merchants and pulled wagons of goods behind them or carried baskets and boxes. Still, others were galdori businessmen who would be traveling beyond the market to some important appointment. And between them all, keeping the peace, were the Seventen.

The Seventen frightened Cat in the same way they frightened most humans. Thankfully, the Seventen rarely, if ever, frequented her forge. They were issued weapons that were contracted elsewhere so if they ever did commission anything from her, it was usually a decorative piece or jewelry. None had ever caused her any harm themselves, but her fear was justified all the same. They had the power to search her shop without reason, to accuse her without cause, and to punish her without proof. So she treated them with respect, gave them fair prices, and completed their weapons and other oddities in a timely manner.

She thought little of it, when one such Seventen stepped into her smithy. After all, the streets were crowded and it was easy for someone to cross the threshold of her forge involuntarily as they attempted to circumvent the throng of people moving. But then he greeted her, “Good Afternoon!”

Her hammer froze mid-air and then was slowly lowered, as she placed it on the anvil with the rounded piece of tin. Her hair stuck to her face, as she imagined so many others’ did as well, where she’d been unsuccessful in pulling it all back. She was wearing her traditional cotton dress with the short sleeves which was, along with the leather apron, finely coated in a layer of soot. Her face and hands were no different. He seemed to realize his error on the time of day. It was morning, but even if he hadn’t, Cat would not have corrected him. As he laughed, Cat also gave a small smile in his direction as she took a cloth from a workbench and used it to wipe her hands free of most of the excess soot. With that, she too found herself bowing low in respect, as she did with most of her galdori customers. Her bowing received all manner of reactions from galdori who appreciated her manners to those who thought her cute for mimicking the galdori customs and even some others who liked to ‘help’ by correcting her form. Nonetheless she did it, if only to show deference to her ‘betters’ as they so eloquently put it.

He was timid for a Seventen and, Cat thought, handsome in his own way. Even dressed as he was in his uniform, he looked unsure of himself. Cat knew the look. He was here for his wife, or his girlfriend, perhaps his Mother. It was always the way with gentlemen. They were confident until they needed to impress a woman and then they were so insecure, wondering if what they were getting was good enough. Cat was always willing to convince them that she could do better than good enough.

She produced from that same workbench a notepad and pencil that she scribbled on quickly. “Yes, Sir. My name is Cat and this is my smithy. How may I help you? Perhaps a new blade? Or a fine piece for someone special?”

She handed it over and waited for his reply. Accounting for recent events had Cat on edge. She breathed slowly, careful to never look the Seventen in the face, and kept her hands clasped in front of her as if to prove she would not be going for a weapon. Everything was fine, she told herself. Everything was going to be fine.
Last edited by Catriona Fraser on Thu Nov 21, 2019 8:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Wed Nov 20, 2019 6:34 pm

Black Cat Smithy, the Dives
Morning on the 23rd of Yaris, year 2719
Cat bowed the deep, deferent bow of a human accustomed to dealing with galdori. That wasn’t unusual, in itself — it was not an uncommon bow, in Vienda — but Camille filed it away nonetheless; with every nervous glance he flicked over her, he studied her, and he wondered what thoughts she might be safekeeping behind that bow. He wondered, too, what she thought of him, the deep green uniform that had suddenly appeared in her forge on a warm Yaris day. If she had any suspicions, she hid them well enough, but that, too, was not unusual.

Camille often wondered if he might have been better served to choose a focus in the perceptive conversation. Many of his fellow officers in the investigative division had done so. Some conversed with the mona more sparingly, in times of great need, but some lived in whispered entreaties, the subtle push and pull of foreign minds.

Pherigo did not think that a good investigator required conversation to uncover secrets. He had uncovered a few already this week. And in any case, this particular job was hardly about actual secrets; if Greer got his way, it would not matter if Miss Fraser, or Cat, or whoever the poor girl really was, were as innocent as a hingle or a gods-damned revolutionary hurling Stacks specials through the windows of unsuspecting Uptown galdori.

As his eyes adjusted to the relative dark of the forge, he found himself glancing around. He mopped a little more sweat from his forehead. For just a space, he found his eyes lingering on a sheet of tin behind her, a hammer nearby. Soon enough, however, he was distracted: he watched her take a pad and a pencil from the workbench and scribble something. Then, she extended the paper to him, all the while refusing to meet his eye.

He did his best to look sheepish. Clearing his throat, he took the paper and read it. In the corner of his eye, he was conscious of her standing there, her head down, a few loose locks of hair plastered to her forehead in the heat. He was conscious of her hands clasped together at her waist. If “a fine piece for someone special” made him feel a tickle of wry humor, and deeper, a tug of nasty anger, he showed no sign of it. Once he had finished reading, he looked back up.

Another pleasant smile sprang to his face. He held the paper in his hands and began folding it; it was a fidgety, fussy motion, meant to look unintentional. He shifted from foot to foot, cleared his throat again awkwardly, and mustered up the words.

If everything else was false, the pause was real. It was not difficult to fake anxiety around speaking; he had lived with it for long enough, though not so long that he did not remember what it had been like without it.

“You have seen right through me, m...m-miss,” he trilled with some difficulty, “seen right through me, indeed,” then giggled, clasping the note in his hands behind his back. He blinked his eyes at her and then pushed up his spectacles. “It is — it is — ah, forgive me, this heat is simply intolerable…”

Casually, he moved deeper into the forge. His field was quantitative, light and plain and indectal; Cat would feel it as perhaps more tame and less heavy than most galdor fields. He pulled at his damp mustache, then smiled at her again. “My wife,” he said, in a lower voice. “Her birthday is in Dentis. The B-Black Cat comes highly recommended, but I’m afraid — well, I’ve simply never — I wouldn’t know the first thing about any of it,” he offered vaguely, and, in his nervous way, watched Cat very carefully.
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Catriona Fraser
Posts: 68
Joined: Mon Sep 16, 2019 5:14 pm
Topics: 8
Race: Human
Occupation: Blacksmith
Location: Vienda
Character Sheet: Catriona Fraser: The Smithy
Plot Notes: Cat's Plot Notes
Writer: GingerJSM
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Thu Nov 21, 2019 11:55 am

25th of Yaris • morning
Highly recommended? Cat brightened at the prospect, her demure expression giving way to a hopeful one. In truth, Cat imagined her name was currently being dragged through the mud by one Isolda Greer. The jent (Cat was enjoying adding that word to her vocabulary. Even if wasn’t intended as an expletive, she used it as such in her mind.) certainly was said to make things very difficult for her if Cat didn’t comply with her demands.

And what demands they were. Demands that Cat could never, in good conscience, follow. And as such, her galdori patron had left with a storm in her wake, promising a date worse than death. Had it frightened her? Of course. But all galdori frightened her to some extent and Cat knew there was nothing to be done that wasn’t already in motion, thanks to a helpful wick.

Cat allowed herself the smile that crept across her face. She still kept her eyes downcast as she bowed once more in thanks and went back to scribbling on paper. “I am honored that you would patronize my smithy, Sir. I have many options for finely crafted jewelry and even decorative weapons that are very big as functional as they are a sight to behold.”

As he stepped further in, Cat instinctively stepped back. It was a minor movement that she tried to cover, bowing once more to excuse herself as she stepped inside the workshop to grab another case. When she returned, she placed it beside the display case already bolted to the table outside the workshop. She opened the covered one and left the one with the glass top closed. Inside the glass case were several finely made silver and gold rings and one necklace that boasted pearls dipped halfway in gold. The process of making such a thing was terrifying, as one needed to become close and personal with molten gold, but it had paid off. In the other wooden box were two tiaras, one silver and one gold, similar to Hoxian vipoxz but with more generic designs, each with precious jewels embedded between twisted metals and etched designs. Sitting in the middle of the tiaras were matching necklaces and earrings. She had already written on a piece of paper that she handed to him. “These are for sale as they are but I am more than capable of making something specific to your wife’s tastes.”

Cat knew, if nothing else, how to sell her product. She was honest, but she knew that one had to bolster themselves in the presence of someone who, however awkward they might seem, was still someone to be feared.

And he was! Awkward that is. He seemed so unsure of himself, and as he blamed the heat for his stumblings, she couldn’t help feel inquisitive. His field had not been as harsh as perhaps other Seventen but that made her curious all the more.

We are all human, she reminded herself. A human could be a smith, and a galdori could still find themselves timid in the right situation. She was doing her best not to judge. Doing her best to see past the uniform and find the husband, desperate for something beautiful for his wife. Vita smiled upon her in that moment. Cat let the warmth of the day become her blessing, rather than a curse and she took a deep breath. She smiled at the man and looked him dead in the eyes with a warm expression, as one would regard a friend they were trying to help, and waited for his reply.
Last edited by Catriona Fraser on Thu Nov 21, 2019 8:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Thu Nov 21, 2019 6:43 pm

Black Cat Smithy, the Dives
Morning on the 23rd of Yaris, year 2719
It had not escaped Inspector Pherigo how, for his step closer, she had taken a step back. He noticed it with a sharp glance, but he did not think she had seen it; to cover it, he shifted, pulled at his uniform as if it gave him great discomfort. It did: even the light summer and dry season uniform weighed heavy on one’s shoulders, and they prickled, and Camille wondered every so often if the underarms had grown damp. He shifted from foot to foot, too, uncomfortable in his boots, which did not change from season to season.

The Black Cat had moved off into the workshop, leaving Camille standing in the forge, holding her last note in his hands. He dared to lean a little and peer in after her, but he couldn’t make out much, and he didn’t want to look too curious.

Of course, it wasn’t unusual for a human to steer clear of a galdor, especially a Seventen in uniform. The erstwhile smith had been a galdor, though – his apprentice must have spent plenty of time around him, in full range of his field – and so Camille began to think it was the uniform; and he wondered, because it was his job to wonder, whether it meant that she had something to hide from a Seventen. Well, that would not have been unusual, either. Most humans had something to hide.

He heard some shuffling in the back. As he waited, he began folding the second paper, mock-nervous, as if rehearsing. The back of his neck prickled with sweat, and he briefly considered just having done with it. Asking for her writ, attempting to bully her into some sort of admission of guilt – or to the satisfaction of his superiors that she had nothing to hide. He doubted any one of them were under any suspicion that the poor girl actually had resistance sympathies; in that moment, dabbing more sweat from his forehead, there was nobody Camille Pherigo hated more than Harry and Isolda Greer.

Then Cat was out again, with an armful of a display case. Raising his brows, he drifted over to the table, where she was setting it carefully down. The early morning light glinted off the glass, even in the shadows underneath the covered forge.

“Well,” he breathed admiringly, almost inaudible under the buzz of the throng behind. He took the paper, reading over the writing, nodding. When he set it aside, he looked at the cases.

He did not look at the human for a few moments; he made a show of looking over the jewelry intently. And look he did at each tiara, the glittering drip of each set of matching earrings. He tapped one finger on the table, then straightened his glasses again. His eyes skirted the pearls dipped in gold, and he did well that his lip did not twitch in disdain.

His eyes lingered on a silver band, engraved with thin lines in some pattern he couldn’t make out. He had done well, and he had looked at the rest of her work with a pleased smile underneath his mustaches, requisitely impressed. But there, and only there, his eyes paused for a long moment; his lips pulled down in the slightest of frowns. He blinked as if blinking away a memory, then looked back up at Cat, his smile returned.

“Simply m...m-marvelous.” He pressed his hands together, inclining his head. She was looking him in the eye now, he noticed; it was warm and almost conspiratorial. She certainly knew how to sell to a customer. He pulsed his field gently, in a friendly manner, and studied her for any changes in expression or body language. After a moment, he added, gesturing at the tiaras, “These – these are in the Hoxian style, are they not? Quite – well, what with the new tariff, everything Hox is – quite fashionable, quite. But my wife, I think – well –”

He broke off, pulling at his mustache again. He stared intently at the cases. Then, he looked back up at Cat. “You mentioned, ah – hmm – decorative weaponry?” The two words soured in his mouth. But his smile only brightened, and he even leaned a little closer. “My wife – her friend recommended you, you see. They’re quite close. She says you made her the most beautiful piece, only recently - a blade, I believe.”

He spoke as if in passing, cheerfully as ever, but his eyes never left Cat’s.
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Catriona Fraser
Posts: 68
Joined: Mon Sep 16, 2019 5:14 pm
Topics: 8
Race: Human
Occupation: Blacksmith
Location: Vienda
Character Sheet: Catriona Fraser: The Smithy
Plot Notes: Cat's Plot Notes
Writer: GingerJSM
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Sat Nov 23, 2019 12:01 pm

25th of Yaris • morning
She nodded, smiling as he inspected the tiaras and commented on their Hoxian style. Cat didn’t think it necessary to do more than that. But he still seemed unsure. Still seemed unconvinced. And then he mentioned weapons and she couldn’t help smiling a little wider. She appreciated a woman who would prefer a blade over a bracelet. His field flooded her with friendliness. Perhaps a bit too much. Galdori didn’t tend to just buddy up to her no matter how friendly she was. Especially not the Seventen. But still, Cat could chalk that up to him being nervous.

It happened so quickly. She’d been picking up the case that held the tiaras, he’d leaned in as though he were sharing some secret between them. And he’d cheerfully, casually, mentioned that she’d made a sword for a galdor not too long ago. The box dropped. Cat quickly dropped to her knees but too late. The sound of wood meeting stone was an unpleasant crack as the box had most certainly been damaged. That jent bitch! What had she said? What had he heard? She couldn’t believe for a minute that Isolda Greer, Queen of all things unkind and untrue, had only casually recommended the human smith she’d just threatened the life of a tenday ago. She should have told Aodh to burn the place to the ground. Forget the information. She wanted them gone from her life forever.

And then it hit her. This was the first of the favors. Isolda had told her she would call on her. Wanted her to run messages back and forth for her. That must be what this was. Some ploy to get things for her friends at a discount or perhaps for nothing at all.

She sat there on her knees for a moment, checking the box and closed her eyes. She took another deep breath. She could be like Ava if only she tried. She could hide far away behind her mask, too. She just had to find it. She grinned and gave a soft choking laugh as she lifted the box and placed it back on the table. She smiled at him and shrugged her shoulders as of to say ‘oh how clumsy of me!’

Then she pulled out her paper and gave him a pointed look, sort of humored. One that spoke of the frustration of not being able to just come out with it. And so she ducked her head over her paper and wrote quickly. “I make many swords, but most recently, yes, Isolda Greer commissioned a fine sword. One that, while I’m certain is a sight to behold, was a bit more decorative than I usually make. If your wife prefers functionality, I can make such a thing that is every bit as beautiful in design as it is sharp in make.”

She handed him the paper and forced herself to look him in the eye again. This time though, there was a flash of suspicion before she returned to her gentle smile. She prayed to Vita he hadn’t noticed, but something told her thathe had, in fact, been noticing things since he’d arrived.
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Tue Nov 26, 2019 7:14 pm

Black Cat Smithy, the Dives
Morning on the 23rd of Yaris, year 2719
Oh, dear!” exclaimed Pherigo. “Are you quite all right?”

He had watched the case slip out of her hands, and he had heard the nasty crack of wood on stone. The surprise that lashed across his face was completely genuine; whatever he had expected her response to be, it was nothing so extreme. He froze for a long moment as she dropped to her knees, one hand on the counter, the other frozen limp in the air. Then he began to work his way around, bending as if to help her.

By that time, however, she had already risen halfway to her feet with it in hand, and was setting it back on the table. He paused, fingertips lingering on the wood. His dark eyes were still wide, and his mouth was a little ‘o’. Cat shrugged, and he blinked, and his mouth shut. He looked troubled for a few seconds, and then, tentatively – in the same hesitant, twitching manner he’d had all morning – he smiled at her, his glance flicking from her face to the display case with the tiaras.

His smile warmed a little at her frustrated look; it was one he knew well enough. Quite well enough. It cost his facade very little to return it with a wry twist of his own lips, as if to say, ah, I know, and I am sorry. For the first time, looking over her youthful face, he wondered –

Well, he knew the rumors; they were unpleasant, at best, and he doubted the truth of them, though he had seen worse in his time as a Seventen in the capital. She was scribbling again on another paper, and he wondered how this had come to be her method, and for how long she had relied on it. As long as she had been in Vienda, he knew, as the Black Cat, at any rate. It could not have been easy for her.

He remembered a time when he could barely speak at all, much less string together sentences. His tangled-up tongue, among other things, had gotten him discharged from the AAF and sent back to his father in Brayde. He remembered how Olujimi had clasped his arm, just before he had boarded the airship – and how he had tried to tell him sana’Hulali, s...s-s-s-sa, sa, and had fallen into a silence that had knotted him with rage all the way back across the Tincta Basta. That had been the last time he had seen his friend.

Then Cat was handing him a slip, and he was skimming it with his eyes. Isolda Greer, she had written, quite plainly, as if the galdor were just another client. “Yes,” he said lightly, folding up the paper and tucking it, along with the others, into his uniform pocket. “Yes – your work for Isolda was m-marvelous,” he said carefully, intently, licking his lips, “but my wife is…”

He paused, eyes wandering, then flicking back up to Cat’s face. He caught a glimpse, just a flicker – perhaps it had been nothing at all, but he’d thought he saw a whisper of suspicion in her eyes.

The pause stretched for a moment. Pherigo took off his glasses, then, mopping sweat out of his eyes with his hand. When he had settled them back on his nose, he smiled again at Cat, and there was something brittle in his eyes.

“Wherever Isolda Greer’s tastes may lie, I am partial,” he said more softly, “to a blade that can be used, Miss Fraser.”
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Catriona Fraser
Posts: 68
Joined: Mon Sep 16, 2019 5:14 pm
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Race: Human
Occupation: Blacksmith
Location: Vienda
Character Sheet: Catriona Fraser: The Smithy
Plot Notes: Cat's Plot Notes
Writer: GingerJSM
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Sat Nov 30, 2019 8:12 pm

25th of Yaris • morning
How the mere thought of Isolda already struck fear in her. That was, of course, what her intention had been. She wanted Cat to fear her, and, although Cat wasn’t so fearful of Isolda herself, the idea that she might have contact with...with him, well it was more than she cared to consider.

But then his final words came to her like a slow burn. That moment just before you realize you’ve laid your hand on a hot furnace. Cat’s face changed from one of demure salesmanship to one of pure fear. He’d spoken her surname, that only one other person in Vienda knew. She backed up further from him, away from the table, her chest rising and falling with what was most certainly panic. She shook her head, tried to focus on the pencil in her hand...she had to communicate. She stepped back up to the table to write:

I don’t recall giving you my name.

The words were so casual written on paper, but as Cat’s hands shook, it was obvious that they were anything but. She left the paper on the table before her, not daring to reach out a hand to him.

As most humans probably did when the seventen came knocking, she was running mental inventory of her dwelling. What could they get her for? The first thing on her mind was her small collection of books currently living under her bed. Books on Vitanism, world history, and even some government books that would mostly be used for children but Cat found them fascinating. Technically her writ was for reading and writing pertaining to her business. Of course no one ever really enforced that but it was there. Would the crossbow cause problems? Maybe. And of course any number of supplies could be seized just for his own amusement.

She had nothing she could do. She couldn’t rid herself of any contraband. She couldn’t run away. That would be a certain admission of guilt. So she stood there, hands clenched around pencil and pad at her sides as she waited. One thing, though, Cat knew for sure. This man was not here to buy a sword.

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Catriona Fraser
Posts: 68
Joined: Mon Sep 16, 2019 5:14 pm
Topics: 8
Race: Human
Occupation: Blacksmith
Location: Vienda
Character Sheet: Catriona Fraser: The Smithy
Plot Notes: Cat's Plot Notes
Writer: GingerJSM
Writer Profile: Ginger's Writer Profile
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Thu Jun 09, 2022 11:59 am

25th of Yaris • morning
Her writ was perfect, regardless of how long the Seventen took to ponder it. Still he checked every signature, wondered at how Cat could have learned to read and write so fluently in such a short amount of time, and then handed it back to her with an air of sadness about him, as if he didn’t really want to be here.
“I must admit, your papers are impeccable Miss Fraser.” He smiled like he was complimenting a friend, and Cat dared to hope. Could he truly be satisfied with a well prepared writ?
“But we will need to search your forge.”
There it was, any last hope she had, snatched away in eight words. As several Seventens descended on Cat’s small forge, her neighbors in this stretch of market looked on in terror, likely wondering if they could be next. And several did, in fact, wander away, likely to dispose of their own contraband. Because none could know. Was this a random raid? Or had Cat the Smithy screwed up so terribly that she was now the subject of a targeted search?

None could know for sure, except Cat herself. She followed the Seventen, trying to rescue projects that they unceremoniously tossed to the ground. Her cash box was one of the first things they confiscated. “We’ll need your ledger. Is it in the box? Oh good.”

“Ah a crossbow. Tell me is it common practice for smithies to hide their commissions under the bed? Or is this bolt meant for someone in particular?”

“Found some books, Sir.”

“Yes, I see, well your writ certainly doesn’t cover banned religions and world history now does it?”

At long last, after much nodding and shaking her head, too afraid to write anything in their direction, the Seventen who’d originally masqueraded as a customer, approached Cat once more.

“Do you know what a lie is, Miss Fraser?”

The question sent her reeling. Back to a farmhouse living room. ”Do you know what a lie is, Catriona?”
But she shook herself from that memory. The Seventen took it as her saying no.

“No? Really? Well then I’ll tell you. A lie is when a young woman, breaks free of her Master and runs away to live the resistance life in Vienda. Don’t look so shocked, Miss Fraser. It would appear that you have been accused of being a runaway slave…” He paused to check notes. “…and that you bear the mark of an owned person. Now I do not wish to fully impede your dignity but, I must inquire, do you bear this mark?”

For the first time since the raid began, Cat dove for her pencil and paper. The mark I bear is from an attack on my life when I was but 13. I have people who can confirm this.

“Yes, people who are no doubt resistance members themselves. They can of course, bear witness at your trial if you should dare to make them risk their lives for yours by perjuring themselves. I’m afraid, Miss Fraser, our business is concluded. You are to remanded into our custody.”

Several bystanders were shocked to see Cat being led from her forge, hands cuffed behind her back, flanked by Seventen who dragged her more than allowed her to walk. Her boots barely touched the ground as they carried her away.
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