Merry Christmas, kiyoshi_chan!
kiyoshi_chan: How about if my request is a "villain" and a "hero" who're both not very white or black? :x
kiyoshi_chan: Like they're both grey-ish? :D
Note: Well, I tried, at least!
Being a Story of Shades of Grey
The first time was the night before they were due to cross the border. He was the guest in a manor, and had been offered a room to stay rather than camping out with the men.
Lothair woke with the feeling that something was wrong. He didn't open his eyes yet, he just stayed still and listened, trying to breathe like he was still asleep.
The sounds of night birds and insects were louder than usual, and he thought he heard the rustle of curtains. So, the window was open. That was wrong. He remembered closing it before going to sleep.
His guards should still be outside his door. He thought he could hear them shuffling their feet, occasionally talking to each other. He approved of that reminder of their presence - it would keep them awake, and keep others from thinking they were slacking from their duty.
Lothair listened to the silence for a moment, then rolled onto his side and swept up his sword from next to the bed in one movement. Without pause, he dashed to the door and opened it.
Yellow light from the candles spilled into the room. The curtains fluttered mutely in the breeze from the open window.
"Sir?" asked one of his guards - he thought it was Matheson.
"I couldn't sleep," he said, stepping around the corner, away from the doorway. He turned to face his guards. "I think you should check my room over. There may be an intruder."
"Sir?" said the other guard - he definitely knew this one's name, it was Browning. "Nobody has come by here."
"Just... check it out for me."
Matheson nodded. "Yes, sir."
Lothair waited patiently as his guards entered the room, still ready to fight, should somebody burst from the room.
"There's nobody here," called Browning.
Still poised to fight, he glanced into the room over Matheson's shoulder. The window was closed now.
"Never mind," he said. "He's gone."
Lothair saw his guards glance at each other, clearly wondering if their general had perhaps gone a little loopy overnight.
--
Two days later, they received word that one of the other major-generals had had his throat slit in the night. There was no sign of the assassin, but they suspected Asynaean activists.
Lothair scoffed. "They cannot fight a proper war, so they send assassins in the night. Not an honorable people."
"We will show them the true way," said Matheson, a light in his eyes. "They will come to understand."
Lothair shrugged. "They won't have any choice."
--
The second time, he met his assassin face to face - or rather, eye to eye.
It was the night after the first battle - no manor bed now, this time Lothair was wrapped up in a bedroll like the rest of his troops. He was lying mostly-asleep in his tent when he became aware of another presence.
Years in the military made wakefulness quick. He rolled quickly over, picked up his sword and settled into a defensive crouch.
The fire outside the walls of his tent made the walls glow lightly orange, and it was in that light he saw the assassin.
There wasn't much to see - he was dressed in dark clothes from shoulder to toe, with a cloak covering his head and a mast covering his face below the eyes.
"What do you want?" Lothair whispered.
The assassin threw a knife at him. Lothair dodged easily, and picked up the corner of his bedroll to act as a kind of shield. Anything can be a weapon, his old master had said. Lothair liked to apply that theory to defense as well.
"A knife isn't an answer to an honest question," said Lothair.
"End this war," hissed the assassin. "End it now."
"I'm sorry," he said, simply. "I don't have that power."
"Then you will die," said the assassin. "Like the others."
"Not, I think, this night," said Lothair. Sword versus dagger was a fight he was reasonably confident of winning, but... He took a breath, dodging a second knife. "Guards!"
There were the sounds of rapid movement outside, but too late - the assassin slipped away through a slit in the back of the tent.
"Sir?" asked Browning.
"Someone cut a hole in the back of my tent," said Lothair. He pointed to it. "He tried to kill me."
"You stopped him?" said Matheson.
"Yes," he said, stepping over the knife pointedly. "I think the general will be interested in this."
--
He learned a few days later that one of the lieutenant-generals had been killed in his sleep. A knife in the dark, the work of another assassin. The guards had had no idea until they entered his tent the next morning.
Unfortunate, but no true warleader would put all his faith in his guards.
It had already saved Lothair twice, after all.
--
The third time was after they'd taken the first big city. Lothair was sleeping in a bed provided at the city keep. It started much like the others - Lothair awoke in the middle of the night and immediately grabbed his sword, falling into a defensive stance.
"Why do you keep doing this?" he asked, after he had avoided the first knife.
"You are destroying my country," said the assassin.
"If you didn't fight us, this entire war wouldn't be necessary," said Lothair.
"You think we should just roll over for you? I think not." The assassin shrugged. "Besides, he continued, brightly, "I'm being paid for this."
"Your employers aren't getting irritable at your constant failure?" asked Lothair, viciously.
He couldn't see the assassin's face, but somehow he knew he was smiling. "You're trying to make me angry. You're good."
This time the assassin's knife nicked his shoulder as he dodged. Lothair cried out involuntarily, eliminating the need to call for the guards.
The assassin melted into the darkness again. "COWARD," called Lothair, clutching at his shoulder. "Finish the job!"
Matheson stayed with him while Browning fetched the doctor, who pronounced the wound non-serious and bandaged it up, advising Lothair not to do anything strenuous for the next week or so.
Browning returned a couple of minutes later. "I tried," he said, "but I couldn't find him."
"You went after him alone?" said Lothair, incredulously. "That was stupid."
"Sir," said Browning, stung.
"This was a trained assassin," said Lothair. "He would have killed you without a thought."
"Do you think he was Asynaean?" asked Matheson.
"I would say, almost certainly."
--
Three days later, Lothair was promoted to lieutenant-general as another was assassinated - this time at dawn, as the lieutenant-general attended to personal business.
Lothair did not intend to be without his guards at any moment of the day. He assigned Matheson and Browning to sleep with him in his tent, and more guards to guard the outside.
--
The fourth time was the before they were due to attack the capital. Lothair didn't sleep at all that night - he knew if the assassin were to attack any night, it would be then.
As it turned out, the attack didn't come until the morning. As Lothair entered his tent to dress and pack for the siege, he found Browning dead at his feet. The assassin had a knife at his throat before he could blink.
Lothair heard Matheson draw his sword behind him.
"If you move, he dies," said the assassin. He felt Matheson freezing at his back. "Don't say a word."
"What will killing me achieve?" asked Lothair, swallowing. This close, he could feel the assassin's heart beating in slow, steady pulses.
"The people will know there is hope."
"Hope? Of what? It's almost over. The last thing you want is to give my people something to rally around. If you kill me, it won't stop my army attacking. The king will see it as a personal challenge and betrayal, and there will never be peace for your country."
The assassin's gaze never wavered. In the daylight, he could see that the eyes were brown. He tried to commit them to memory, in case he ever saw them in the crowd. They spoke of death, but also a kind of deep-seated humour, like their owner wasn't really serious, even as he held a knife to Lothair's throat.
He found himself intrigued. "It's gone too far for you to stop now," said Lothair, watching for a change in the eyes.
Amusement flickered in the eyes again. "I can see why they promoted you, and none of the others," he said. "You are a worthy opponent." He flicked his other wrist, and Lothair heard Matheson yelp behind him. A leg shot, he figured.
The assassin pulled back the knife, and swept Lothair's feet out from beneath him. He was gone before Lothair could even think about getting up.
On his knees, Lothair moved over to Matheson. "A thigh shot, nasty," he said. "Let's get you to the doctor."
--
Lothair was declared general in charge of the effort to keep the capital. It wasn't hard - with the death of their king, the Asynaean resistance collapsed. He received a special commendation from his own king, and a summons to return home in the Spring.
--
The fifth time was on Midwinter Night. Lothair was alone in his room in the castle, without even a guard on the door. "It's Midwinter," he said, tiredly, from his familiar crouch on the floor. "Shouldn't you be with your family?"
"I don't have any family," said the assassin. "You killed them."
"I don't kill people," said Lothair.
The assassin snorted. "What do you think your army did? I tell you, you did not take over the country with hugs and kittens."
"That was war," said Lothair. "War is different to cowering under cover of darkness and killing from behind."
The assassin laughed, a silvery sound that seemed somewhat at odds to the moonlit shadow in the window in front of him. "So tell me, General Lothair, why are you not with your family on Midwinter Night?"
"I have none," said Lothair, shortly.
"No little wife waiting for you in your home town?" asked the assassin.
"I am not married," he said. "Although my king informs me that he has chosen my wife for me and we will be married when I return home in Spring," he added, not really sure why he was talking.
The assassin laughed. "I do not understand blind obedience to a monarch," he said. "It seems a sad thing."
Lothair shrugged. "I find it more honourable that blind obedience to money," he said, tartly.
Another silvery laugh from the assassin. "A point to you. Can I help that death is where my skills lie? We are not so different, you and I."
"I don't know what you mean," he lied.
The assassin shrugged fluidly. "If you wish to believe that all the deaths you have caused are not your fault... so be it. Fare well, General Lothair."
"Aren't you going to try and kill me?" asked Lothair.
"Would you like me to?" asked the assassin.
"No!" said Lothair, instantly.
More of that silvery laughter. "Then I won't," he said.
"What do you want?"
"I want you to understand," said the assassin. A cloud moved across the moon, plunging the room into darkness. When light returned, the assassin was gone.
--
Lothair returned home in the Spring. His wife-to-be seemed a nice enough girl - well-bred, pretty and submissive, she seemed the perfect wife, by their standards. Yet, when he looked into her eyes, he found himself wishing for the bright character he had seen not that long ago in eyes of brown.
--
The final time was two weeks before his wedding.
"Aren't you a bit far from home?" asked Lothair.
"Put your sword away," said the assassin. "I'm not here to kill you."
Lothair snorted.
"No, I've fallen out of the assassin trade of late," continued the intruder. "Killing for just money just isn't the same as killing for money and a good cause," he said, with a dramatic sigh.
"You know," said Lothair, suddenly. "You know my name, but I don't know yours."
"Edan," said the former assassin. "Come with me," he said.
"What?" said Lothair.
"You cannot tell me you are enjoying this," said Edan. "I have been to court. It isn't the place for an intelligent man used to ordering people around."
"I thought you wanted me dead."
"If I wanted you dead, you would be dead," said Edan, seriously. "I told you. I want you to understand."
Lothair hesitated.
"The way I see it, the choices are this: you marry the girl your king chose for you - a barbaric practice, by the way, women should not be bought and sold - and live your life out a good husband at court, with all the power the king chooses to give you; or you come with me, and live life the way you want it to be."
"That's a very selfish way to look at things," said Lothair.
That familiar, silvery laugh. "Are you telling me you aren't tempted?"
--
Lothair hadn't scaled down a wall since his teenaged years, and he'd never engaged in the kind of covert action Edan was leading him on now. He wondered if this was to become his life.
--
When Lothair awoke, he stared at the ceiling of the inn room in confusion. He rubbed a hand through his hair and across his face - no beard, Edan had insisted on that before they left. He sat up and looked around.
The young man in the room was utterly unfamiliar to him. Of middling height, he nonetheless moved with a kind of lanky grace. He had dark hair that fell to his shoulderblades in waves, which he was brushing with a fine-toothed comb.
But the eyes... the eyes were familiar.
He was surprised, but for the life of him he couldn't place whether he had thought his assassin would be older or younger.
Edan smiled. "You've been asleep all morning," he said, cocking his head to the side. "Were you tired? Have you not been sleeping well?" Amusement danced in those liquid brown eyes.
Lothair rubbed at his eyes. "I suppose I haven't," he said. "I haven't really thought about it."
"I brought you some clothes," Edan continued, with another smile. "Although I must say, it will be most strange to see you not in your nightclothes."
Lothair felt chagrin wash over him for a moment before he realised Edan was probably teasing him and settled into a kind of grim amusement.
"And there is fruit and cheese to break your fast," he finished. Whistling, he began to pack an assortment of belongings into a rough pile.
The general watched him for a moment. It was hard to imagine this young man causing the deaths of three of the country's best war leaders.
"What is it?" asked the assassin, after a moment.
He was about to lie, then wondered why he was sparing the feelings of an assassin. "I was thinking how strange it seems that you could have killed my fellow officers," he said.
The assassin's amused smile didn't waver. "I'm very good," he said. "But, you know, I tried to go back into the business after the war, but it wasn't the same. After trying to save the country... it just wasn't working for me any more."
"You mentioned," said Lothair.
Edan shrugged. "I think perhaps some of your idiotic honour rubbed off on me."
Lothair prickled indignantly. "It's not idiotic."
A grin. "You are too easy to tease," said Edan. "Come, you should pack. We have a long way to ride."
"Where are we going?" asked Lothair.
"A little place I go to escape," said Edan.
--
The cottage sat at the base of the mountain, concealed on all sides by thick forest, and only accessible by a winding, unpredictable track. There was a cold mountain stream that turned a water wheel at the side, and the woods seemed thick with wildlife. It was the kind of idyllic life that seemed completely suited to his easy-going companion.
--
"Is this place yours?" asked Lothair, a few days after they arrived. He hadn't wanted to ask at first, but curiosity was eating him up inside.
"Does it matter?" asked Edan.
"Yes," said Lothair. "What if the owners come back?"
"It belonged to one of my targets," said Edan. "Nobody else knew about it, and he has no use for it now."
Lothair grimaced. "I think I shouldn't have asked."
Edan grinned. "One day you will learn," he said, patting Lothair on the cheek.
Lothair caught the hand in his. "What do you want with me, Edan of Asynaea? Why did you bring me here?"
Edan smiled. "You intrigued me," he said. "And I like you. I thought you would like this place."
Lothair frowned.
Edan's smile wavered. "You don't?"
"I do," said Lothair. "I just don't know how you knew."
The former assassin shook his hair back behind his shoulders and took Lothair's cheek in his hands. "It's a gift," he said, and leant forward to kiss him.
END
kiyoshi_chan: Like they're both grey-ish? :D
Note: Well, I tried, at least!
Being a Story of Shades of Grey
The first time was the night before they were due to cross the border. He was the guest in a manor, and had been offered a room to stay rather than camping out with the men.
Lothair woke with the feeling that something was wrong. He didn't open his eyes yet, he just stayed still and listened, trying to breathe like he was still asleep.
The sounds of night birds and insects were louder than usual, and he thought he heard the rustle of curtains. So, the window was open. That was wrong. He remembered closing it before going to sleep.
His guards should still be outside his door. He thought he could hear them shuffling their feet, occasionally talking to each other. He approved of that reminder of their presence - it would keep them awake, and keep others from thinking they were slacking from their duty.
Lothair listened to the silence for a moment, then rolled onto his side and swept up his sword from next to the bed in one movement. Without pause, he dashed to the door and opened it.
Yellow light from the candles spilled into the room. The curtains fluttered mutely in the breeze from the open window.
"Sir?" asked one of his guards - he thought it was Matheson.
"I couldn't sleep," he said, stepping around the corner, away from the doorway. He turned to face his guards. "I think you should check my room over. There may be an intruder."
"Sir?" said the other guard - he definitely knew this one's name, it was Browning. "Nobody has come by here."
"Just... check it out for me."
Matheson nodded. "Yes, sir."
Lothair waited patiently as his guards entered the room, still ready to fight, should somebody burst from the room.
"There's nobody here," called Browning.
Still poised to fight, he glanced into the room over Matheson's shoulder. The window was closed now.
"Never mind," he said. "He's gone."
Lothair saw his guards glance at each other, clearly wondering if their general had perhaps gone a little loopy overnight.
--
Two days later, they received word that one of the other major-generals had had his throat slit in the night. There was no sign of the assassin, but they suspected Asynaean activists.
Lothair scoffed. "They cannot fight a proper war, so they send assassins in the night. Not an honorable people."
"We will show them the true way," said Matheson, a light in his eyes. "They will come to understand."
Lothair shrugged. "They won't have any choice."
--
The second time, he met his assassin face to face - or rather, eye to eye.
It was the night after the first battle - no manor bed now, this time Lothair was wrapped up in a bedroll like the rest of his troops. He was lying mostly-asleep in his tent when he became aware of another presence.
Years in the military made wakefulness quick. He rolled quickly over, picked up his sword and settled into a defensive crouch.
The fire outside the walls of his tent made the walls glow lightly orange, and it was in that light he saw the assassin.
There wasn't much to see - he was dressed in dark clothes from shoulder to toe, with a cloak covering his head and a mast covering his face below the eyes.
"What do you want?" Lothair whispered.
The assassin threw a knife at him. Lothair dodged easily, and picked up the corner of his bedroll to act as a kind of shield. Anything can be a weapon, his old master had said. Lothair liked to apply that theory to defense as well.
"A knife isn't an answer to an honest question," said Lothair.
"End this war," hissed the assassin. "End it now."
"I'm sorry," he said, simply. "I don't have that power."
"Then you will die," said the assassin. "Like the others."
"Not, I think, this night," said Lothair. Sword versus dagger was a fight he was reasonably confident of winning, but... He took a breath, dodging a second knife. "Guards!"
There were the sounds of rapid movement outside, but too late - the assassin slipped away through a slit in the back of the tent.
"Sir?" asked Browning.
"Someone cut a hole in the back of my tent," said Lothair. He pointed to it. "He tried to kill me."
"You stopped him?" said Matheson.
"Yes," he said, stepping over the knife pointedly. "I think the general will be interested in this."
--
He learned a few days later that one of the lieutenant-generals had been killed in his sleep. A knife in the dark, the work of another assassin. The guards had had no idea until they entered his tent the next morning.
Unfortunate, but no true warleader would put all his faith in his guards.
It had already saved Lothair twice, after all.
--
The third time was after they'd taken the first big city. Lothair was sleeping in a bed provided at the city keep. It started much like the others - Lothair awoke in the middle of the night and immediately grabbed his sword, falling into a defensive stance.
"Why do you keep doing this?" he asked, after he had avoided the first knife.
"You are destroying my country," said the assassin.
"If you didn't fight us, this entire war wouldn't be necessary," said Lothair.
"You think we should just roll over for you? I think not." The assassin shrugged. "Besides, he continued, brightly, "I'm being paid for this."
"Your employers aren't getting irritable at your constant failure?" asked Lothair, viciously.
He couldn't see the assassin's face, but somehow he knew he was smiling. "You're trying to make me angry. You're good."
This time the assassin's knife nicked his shoulder as he dodged. Lothair cried out involuntarily, eliminating the need to call for the guards.
The assassin melted into the darkness again. "COWARD," called Lothair, clutching at his shoulder. "Finish the job!"
Matheson stayed with him while Browning fetched the doctor, who pronounced the wound non-serious and bandaged it up, advising Lothair not to do anything strenuous for the next week or so.
Browning returned a couple of minutes later. "I tried," he said, "but I couldn't find him."
"You went after him alone?" said Lothair, incredulously. "That was stupid."
"Sir," said Browning, stung.
"This was a trained assassin," said Lothair. "He would have killed you without a thought."
"Do you think he was Asynaean?" asked Matheson.
"I would say, almost certainly."
--
Three days later, Lothair was promoted to lieutenant-general as another was assassinated - this time at dawn, as the lieutenant-general attended to personal business.
Lothair did not intend to be without his guards at any moment of the day. He assigned Matheson and Browning to sleep with him in his tent, and more guards to guard the outside.
--
The fourth time was the before they were due to attack the capital. Lothair didn't sleep at all that night - he knew if the assassin were to attack any night, it would be then.
As it turned out, the attack didn't come until the morning. As Lothair entered his tent to dress and pack for the siege, he found Browning dead at his feet. The assassin had a knife at his throat before he could blink.
Lothair heard Matheson draw his sword behind him.
"If you move, he dies," said the assassin. He felt Matheson freezing at his back. "Don't say a word."
"What will killing me achieve?" asked Lothair, swallowing. This close, he could feel the assassin's heart beating in slow, steady pulses.
"The people will know there is hope."
"Hope? Of what? It's almost over. The last thing you want is to give my people something to rally around. If you kill me, it won't stop my army attacking. The king will see it as a personal challenge and betrayal, and there will never be peace for your country."
The assassin's gaze never wavered. In the daylight, he could see that the eyes were brown. He tried to commit them to memory, in case he ever saw them in the crowd. They spoke of death, but also a kind of deep-seated humour, like their owner wasn't really serious, even as he held a knife to Lothair's throat.
He found himself intrigued. "It's gone too far for you to stop now," said Lothair, watching for a change in the eyes.
Amusement flickered in the eyes again. "I can see why they promoted you, and none of the others," he said. "You are a worthy opponent." He flicked his other wrist, and Lothair heard Matheson yelp behind him. A leg shot, he figured.
The assassin pulled back the knife, and swept Lothair's feet out from beneath him. He was gone before Lothair could even think about getting up.
On his knees, Lothair moved over to Matheson. "A thigh shot, nasty," he said. "Let's get you to the doctor."
--
Lothair was declared general in charge of the effort to keep the capital. It wasn't hard - with the death of their king, the Asynaean resistance collapsed. He received a special commendation from his own king, and a summons to return home in the Spring.
--
The fifth time was on Midwinter Night. Lothair was alone in his room in the castle, without even a guard on the door. "It's Midwinter," he said, tiredly, from his familiar crouch on the floor. "Shouldn't you be with your family?"
"I don't have any family," said the assassin. "You killed them."
"I don't kill people," said Lothair.
The assassin snorted. "What do you think your army did? I tell you, you did not take over the country with hugs and kittens."
"That was war," said Lothair. "War is different to cowering under cover of darkness and killing from behind."
The assassin laughed, a silvery sound that seemed somewhat at odds to the moonlit shadow in the window in front of him. "So tell me, General Lothair, why are you not with your family on Midwinter Night?"
"I have none," said Lothair, shortly.
"No little wife waiting for you in your home town?" asked the assassin.
"I am not married," he said. "Although my king informs me that he has chosen my wife for me and we will be married when I return home in Spring," he added, not really sure why he was talking.
The assassin laughed. "I do not understand blind obedience to a monarch," he said. "It seems a sad thing."
Lothair shrugged. "I find it more honourable that blind obedience to money," he said, tartly.
Another silvery laugh from the assassin. "A point to you. Can I help that death is where my skills lie? We are not so different, you and I."
"I don't know what you mean," he lied.
The assassin shrugged fluidly. "If you wish to believe that all the deaths you have caused are not your fault... so be it. Fare well, General Lothair."
"Aren't you going to try and kill me?" asked Lothair.
"Would you like me to?" asked the assassin.
"No!" said Lothair, instantly.
More of that silvery laughter. "Then I won't," he said.
"What do you want?"
"I want you to understand," said the assassin. A cloud moved across the moon, plunging the room into darkness. When light returned, the assassin was gone.
--
Lothair returned home in the Spring. His wife-to-be seemed a nice enough girl - well-bred, pretty and submissive, she seemed the perfect wife, by their standards. Yet, when he looked into her eyes, he found himself wishing for the bright character he had seen not that long ago in eyes of brown.
--
The final time was two weeks before his wedding.
"Aren't you a bit far from home?" asked Lothair.
"Put your sword away," said the assassin. "I'm not here to kill you."
Lothair snorted.
"No, I've fallen out of the assassin trade of late," continued the intruder. "Killing for just money just isn't the same as killing for money and a good cause," he said, with a dramatic sigh.
"You know," said Lothair, suddenly. "You know my name, but I don't know yours."
"Edan," said the former assassin. "Come with me," he said.
"What?" said Lothair.
"You cannot tell me you are enjoying this," said Edan. "I have been to court. It isn't the place for an intelligent man used to ordering people around."
"I thought you wanted me dead."
"If I wanted you dead, you would be dead," said Edan, seriously. "I told you. I want you to understand."
Lothair hesitated.
"The way I see it, the choices are this: you marry the girl your king chose for you - a barbaric practice, by the way, women should not be bought and sold - and live your life out a good husband at court, with all the power the king chooses to give you; or you come with me, and live life the way you want it to be."
"That's a very selfish way to look at things," said Lothair.
That familiar, silvery laugh. "Are you telling me you aren't tempted?"
--
Lothair hadn't scaled down a wall since his teenaged years, and he'd never engaged in the kind of covert action Edan was leading him on now. He wondered if this was to become his life.
--
When Lothair awoke, he stared at the ceiling of the inn room in confusion. He rubbed a hand through his hair and across his face - no beard, Edan had insisted on that before they left. He sat up and looked around.
The young man in the room was utterly unfamiliar to him. Of middling height, he nonetheless moved with a kind of lanky grace. He had dark hair that fell to his shoulderblades in waves, which he was brushing with a fine-toothed comb.
But the eyes... the eyes were familiar.
He was surprised, but for the life of him he couldn't place whether he had thought his assassin would be older or younger.
Edan smiled. "You've been asleep all morning," he said, cocking his head to the side. "Were you tired? Have you not been sleeping well?" Amusement danced in those liquid brown eyes.
Lothair rubbed at his eyes. "I suppose I haven't," he said. "I haven't really thought about it."
"I brought you some clothes," Edan continued, with another smile. "Although I must say, it will be most strange to see you not in your nightclothes."
Lothair felt chagrin wash over him for a moment before he realised Edan was probably teasing him and settled into a kind of grim amusement.
"And there is fruit and cheese to break your fast," he finished. Whistling, he began to pack an assortment of belongings into a rough pile.
The general watched him for a moment. It was hard to imagine this young man causing the deaths of three of the country's best war leaders.
"What is it?" asked the assassin, after a moment.
He was about to lie, then wondered why he was sparing the feelings of an assassin. "I was thinking how strange it seems that you could have killed my fellow officers," he said.
The assassin's amused smile didn't waver. "I'm very good," he said. "But, you know, I tried to go back into the business after the war, but it wasn't the same. After trying to save the country... it just wasn't working for me any more."
"You mentioned," said Lothair.
Edan shrugged. "I think perhaps some of your idiotic honour rubbed off on me."
Lothair prickled indignantly. "It's not idiotic."
A grin. "You are too easy to tease," said Edan. "Come, you should pack. We have a long way to ride."
"Where are we going?" asked Lothair.
"A little place I go to escape," said Edan.
--
The cottage sat at the base of the mountain, concealed on all sides by thick forest, and only accessible by a winding, unpredictable track. There was a cold mountain stream that turned a water wheel at the side, and the woods seemed thick with wildlife. It was the kind of idyllic life that seemed completely suited to his easy-going companion.
--
"Is this place yours?" asked Lothair, a few days after they arrived. He hadn't wanted to ask at first, but curiosity was eating him up inside.
"Does it matter?" asked Edan.
"Yes," said Lothair. "What if the owners come back?"
"It belonged to one of my targets," said Edan. "Nobody else knew about it, and he has no use for it now."
Lothair grimaced. "I think I shouldn't have asked."
Edan grinned. "One day you will learn," he said, patting Lothair on the cheek.
Lothair caught the hand in his. "What do you want with me, Edan of Asynaea? Why did you bring me here?"
Edan smiled. "You intrigued me," he said. "And I like you. I thought you would like this place."
Lothair frowned.
Edan's smile wavered. "You don't?"
"I do," said Lothair. "I just don't know how you knew."
The former assassin shook his hair back behind his shoulders and took Lothair's cheek in his hands. "It's a gift," he said, and leant forward to kiss him.
END