[Wild Roses] Last One Standing
Title: hunter's blind
'Verse/characters: Last One Standing; Strider, Aodh
Prompt: 86D "seeing red"
Word Count: 1354
Notes: after cufflinks and sailor knots. I hate this POV for never thinking of himself by a name. I keep having to put him in first as a result. Stupid pronouns.
He continues to have a postal box at larathia's, of course.
---------
The fox had played bait. I'd thought about arguing it, pointing out that I knew the city, knew who I was after and the shortcuts I could take. But he'd offered, and I knew enough about him to know he meant it.
The reflexive possessive growl hadn't even occurred to me until later, as I'd watched him go tearing by on Callo with a couple low-level runners in pursuit. He was in a rival's colours, mussed hair an unremarkable brown; I'd never have spotted him if I didn't know what he was up to. The runners were yelling for reinforcements every other corner or so.
Sliding the third-storey window back closed before I left--only common courtesy and something I never forgot--I went up the fire escape to the roof, chewing over the fact that I hadn't growled. Wasn't growling now, come to think of it, and there was a fox tearing through my streets wearing local gang colours and stirring up trouble.
Someone had fixed the bolts on the final stretch, I was pleased to see, and both bridge-boards were on this side of the divide so I didn't need to worry about stranding someone. Not that most people worried about that kind of thing, but this wasn't my building.
Two minutes saw me across the gap, putting the board I'd used neatly away under the eave of the roof's edging. Good new board, at that--the other was in as-good condition. I wondered if there'd been a break recently, or if someone had just come into some spare change.
I wasn't in a hurry; the fox had hours yet before he was due. I just liked the roof-roads.
An hour's leisurely wander saw me on the roof of an abandoned warehouse, two layers deeper than most people could see, with full line of sight into the smaller warehouse across the street. I'd picked the spot, before the fox had even offered to help, and if the lack of population out this way was a bad sign for regrowth, it was very convenient for a spot of civic bonsai.
I curled up against the edge of the roof's wall, head propped just high enough I could see without making my head a target. A package of jerky from my coat, flask from another pocket, smokes, and I was set to wait as long as I needed to. This layer was bone-dry and had been for weeks, so I'd unpacked the rifle and laid it out, ready, not bothering with an oilcloth, before getting into the smokes.
Sunset saw the fox taking refuge across the way, a few illusory companions ushering him inside and slamming doors behind him. He immediately dropped a good eight layers, shaking off gang colours and the brown hair like a cat coming in out of the rain. Looked up through the broken window in his version of the warehouse, tipped an imaginary hat at me, then walked through the wall of the warehouse, far as I could see.
Nothing quite like a reminder that the fox could see even farther than I could, I thought as the fire escape five running strides away clanked.
"Evenin'," the fox said as his head cleared the roofline, and I nodded a reply.
Thought for a second, then nodded further at the half-empty container of jerky as I sat up a little farther, watching for the tell-tale signs of the small gang the fox had picked up since we'd last crossed paths.
"Oh, hey, 'ci," the fox replied when he saw the jerky. Wandered over in a way that looked absent, but the flick of snatching fingers and the instantly disappearing first strip put the lie to that. I bit down on the smile that passed for a laugh when I was working. No sense in letting the fox see he'd got me.
I doubted any of the gang could see me in this layer at all, but caution had never bit me on the ass. I stayed low.
When I glanced back at him, the fox was sprawled out on his back, trading drags on a smoke and bites of a piece of jerky, staring at the just-coming-out stars. "Lef' couple illusions--two droppin' layers to get 'way," he remarked as he finished a strip. "C'n take 'em down now 'f y'think they'll leave good-eyes outside to stand guard."
"Leave one," I said after thinking about it, wishing I could have another smoke myself. Too close to working time, though. "Make 'em think they're chasing the last to leave."
"Mm. Oui," the fox mumbled around the last of his smoke, then sat up, ducked his head so he didn't clear the edge of the roof, and slithered over to sit next to the rifle. Stripping off a bracelet, he did something twisty that resulted in a long loop of string in his hand.
"'s family trick," he explained as a cat's cradle took shape between his palms, just barely glowing in the fading light. "'s set. Want 'em flushed, once they start droppin'?"
I raised an eyebrow, not sure it'd be seen beneath the shadow of my hat. The fox grinned anyway as another smoke levitated out of the pack and wandered over to him. If I looked close, I could see the way the smoke moved in the tiny manipulations of string in the fox's fingers, but I had to look close.
Trying not to wince as the smoke lit itself on an inhale--handy trick that, I wished I could learn it even as it half-blinded me--I shrugged. "Why not."
"'ll do," the fox murmured agreeably around the smoke, before he sucked the cherry even brighter, nodded towards the warehouse. "'ncomin'."
Three motions saw the rifle snugged up to my shoulder--I saw the fox blink from close range--and I let my eyes relax, watched as the gang broke down the door. Knowing it was coming helped with the surprise when a stranger in the fox's pretended colours yelped and dropped layers, losing coherence every layer, until the gang and I had lost him both.
I knew he was just a faded spell, but the gang didn't, and they were milling around in a manager's long since abandoned office, lost, shoving at each others' shoulders as they tried to figure out where their quarry had got to.
"Best eyes in the group's tha' twitchy kid in back," the fox told me conversationally, if near silently. "Nobody else can see t'fire yet."
I couldn't see whatever fire he was talking about, but he was right--that kid in the back of the group had suddenly got really twitchy, scuffing his feet in the dust and starting to back away.
Through the scope he was up there in the ranks, despite his age, gold and gems around his neck and his hair pulled back the way his bosses did. Wouldn't go straight if I threatened him--if he'd been younger it might have been worth trying. I dropped him in his tracks instead.
I hadn't bothered to bring the silencer, so the gang heard the bullet's passage through an empty pane of glass into the office and their eyes' head. As he dropped, the rest of the gang promptly panicked, climbing each other and the walls as they tried to find me, the fox, the way out--
Someone pulled a gun of their own, so I dropped him too, two in the chest and one in the head because he fell slow.
And then there was fire crawling the walls around them, barely five layers down, and I couldn't help but stare. So did two of the gang, if the shift in panic was an indicator, silent shouts of 'Fire!' and 'Run!' readable through the scope.
"Tha'd be the next two best," the fox said, and I actually glanced over at him. The eye nearest me was circled in gold, the eye itself glittering green, and he'd started another smoke a few seconds ago. I could still smell the spark.
"'s not real," the fox told me, "and 's farther away than it looks. Flushes the eyes--" I clicked my tongue at him, not bothering to nod acknowledgement because I'd drop the line of the rifle, and he laughed, chirped back at me.
I went back to work.
'Verse/characters: Last One Standing; Strider, Aodh
Prompt: 86D "seeing red"
Word Count: 1354
Notes: after cufflinks and sailor knots. I hate this POV for never thinking of himself by a name. I keep having to put him in first as a result. Stupid pronouns.
He continues to have a postal box at larathia's, of course.
---------
The fox had played bait. I'd thought about arguing it, pointing out that I knew the city, knew who I was after and the shortcuts I could take. But he'd offered, and I knew enough about him to know he meant it.
The reflexive possessive growl hadn't even occurred to me until later, as I'd watched him go tearing by on Callo with a couple low-level runners in pursuit. He was in a rival's colours, mussed hair an unremarkable brown; I'd never have spotted him if I didn't know what he was up to. The runners were yelling for reinforcements every other corner or so.
Sliding the third-storey window back closed before I left--only common courtesy and something I never forgot--I went up the fire escape to the roof, chewing over the fact that I hadn't growled. Wasn't growling now, come to think of it, and there was a fox tearing through my streets wearing local gang colours and stirring up trouble.
Someone had fixed the bolts on the final stretch, I was pleased to see, and both bridge-boards were on this side of the divide so I didn't need to worry about stranding someone. Not that most people worried about that kind of thing, but this wasn't my building.
Two minutes saw me across the gap, putting the board I'd used neatly away under the eave of the roof's edging. Good new board, at that--the other was in as-good condition. I wondered if there'd been a break recently, or if someone had just come into some spare change.
I wasn't in a hurry; the fox had hours yet before he was due. I just liked the roof-roads.
An hour's leisurely wander saw me on the roof of an abandoned warehouse, two layers deeper than most people could see, with full line of sight into the smaller warehouse across the street. I'd picked the spot, before the fox had even offered to help, and if the lack of population out this way was a bad sign for regrowth, it was very convenient for a spot of civic bonsai.
I curled up against the edge of the roof's wall, head propped just high enough I could see without making my head a target. A package of jerky from my coat, flask from another pocket, smokes, and I was set to wait as long as I needed to. This layer was bone-dry and had been for weeks, so I'd unpacked the rifle and laid it out, ready, not bothering with an oilcloth, before getting into the smokes.
Sunset saw the fox taking refuge across the way, a few illusory companions ushering him inside and slamming doors behind him. He immediately dropped a good eight layers, shaking off gang colours and the brown hair like a cat coming in out of the rain. Looked up through the broken window in his version of the warehouse, tipped an imaginary hat at me, then walked through the wall of the warehouse, far as I could see.
Nothing quite like a reminder that the fox could see even farther than I could, I thought as the fire escape five running strides away clanked.
"Evenin'," the fox said as his head cleared the roofline, and I nodded a reply.
Thought for a second, then nodded further at the half-empty container of jerky as I sat up a little farther, watching for the tell-tale signs of the small gang the fox had picked up since we'd last crossed paths.
"Oh, hey, 'ci," the fox replied when he saw the jerky. Wandered over in a way that looked absent, but the flick of snatching fingers and the instantly disappearing first strip put the lie to that. I bit down on the smile that passed for a laugh when I was working. No sense in letting the fox see he'd got me.
I doubted any of the gang could see me in this layer at all, but caution had never bit me on the ass. I stayed low.
When I glanced back at him, the fox was sprawled out on his back, trading drags on a smoke and bites of a piece of jerky, staring at the just-coming-out stars. "Lef' couple illusions--two droppin' layers to get 'way," he remarked as he finished a strip. "C'n take 'em down now 'f y'think they'll leave good-eyes outside to stand guard."
"Leave one," I said after thinking about it, wishing I could have another smoke myself. Too close to working time, though. "Make 'em think they're chasing the last to leave."
"Mm. Oui," the fox mumbled around the last of his smoke, then sat up, ducked his head so he didn't clear the edge of the roof, and slithered over to sit next to the rifle. Stripping off a bracelet, he did something twisty that resulted in a long loop of string in his hand.
"'s family trick," he explained as a cat's cradle took shape between his palms, just barely glowing in the fading light. "'s set. Want 'em flushed, once they start droppin'?"
I raised an eyebrow, not sure it'd be seen beneath the shadow of my hat. The fox grinned anyway as another smoke levitated out of the pack and wandered over to him. If I looked close, I could see the way the smoke moved in the tiny manipulations of string in the fox's fingers, but I had to look close.
Trying not to wince as the smoke lit itself on an inhale--handy trick that, I wished I could learn it even as it half-blinded me--I shrugged. "Why not."
"'ll do," the fox murmured agreeably around the smoke, before he sucked the cherry even brighter, nodded towards the warehouse. "'ncomin'."
Three motions saw the rifle snugged up to my shoulder--I saw the fox blink from close range--and I let my eyes relax, watched as the gang broke down the door. Knowing it was coming helped with the surprise when a stranger in the fox's pretended colours yelped and dropped layers, losing coherence every layer, until the gang and I had lost him both.
I knew he was just a faded spell, but the gang didn't, and they were milling around in a manager's long since abandoned office, lost, shoving at each others' shoulders as they tried to figure out where their quarry had got to.
"Best eyes in the group's tha' twitchy kid in back," the fox told me conversationally, if near silently. "Nobody else can see t'fire yet."
I couldn't see whatever fire he was talking about, but he was right--that kid in the back of the group had suddenly got really twitchy, scuffing his feet in the dust and starting to back away.
Through the scope he was up there in the ranks, despite his age, gold and gems around his neck and his hair pulled back the way his bosses did. Wouldn't go straight if I threatened him--if he'd been younger it might have been worth trying. I dropped him in his tracks instead.
I hadn't bothered to bring the silencer, so the gang heard the bullet's passage through an empty pane of glass into the office and their eyes' head. As he dropped, the rest of the gang promptly panicked, climbing each other and the walls as they tried to find me, the fox, the way out--
Someone pulled a gun of their own, so I dropped him too, two in the chest and one in the head because he fell slow.
And then there was fire crawling the walls around them, barely five layers down, and I couldn't help but stare. So did two of the gang, if the shift in panic was an indicator, silent shouts of 'Fire!' and 'Run!' readable through the scope.
"Tha'd be the next two best," the fox said, and I actually glanced over at him. The eye nearest me was circled in gold, the eye itself glittering green, and he'd started another smoke a few seconds ago. I could still smell the spark.
"'s not real," the fox told me, "and 's farther away than it looks. Flushes the eyes--" I clicked my tongue at him, not bothering to nod acknowledgement because I'd drop the line of the rifle, and he laughed, chirped back at me.
I went back to work.