[Deaths] Eduard De'Ath & the Morrigan
Title: mutual bribery
'Verse/characters: Deaths; Eduard De'Ath, the Morrigan
Prompt: 09A "edge of the knife"
Word Count: 1208
Notes: follows old soldiers.
---------
The Morrigan had stopped by a few hours ago with coffee, sweet, black and with a generous glug of a moderately priced scotch already lurking in the cup.
"You of all people don't need hallucinations," she'd said when he eyed her over the cup, arrested at his mouth when he'd recognised the smell. And then wandered away to go give another old man heart palpitations.
He'd assumed, anyway, as she hadn't clapped her hands together in anticipatory glee at the prospect of visiting a tailor or a cobbler.
And he was dwelling on it again, so he didn't have to think about the fact that he had yet to properly read the sheaf of papers she'd presented him with last night, with the bald accompanying words that his brother was alive.
Rubbing absently at his temple--the headache was back again, pulsing with every beat of his heart--he slumped farther down in the chair, squinted at the desk's surface and the papers arranged neatly on it, as they'd been when the Morrigan arrived that morning. He needed to read those damned things, needed to make notes about what arrangements the Councils had, both in terms of his brother and in terms of trade agreements and current territories. He had the note-paper ready, a pen dipped and dried eight times already this morning, the ninth dip drying as he sat there, glaring at the couple of unintentional blots on the top sheet where his hand had trembled without his permission while holding a wet pen.
He snarled, stood, shoving the chair back from the desk as he did and ignoring the sick lurch in his head and his belly. Fine. If his eyes hurt and his hands shook when he tried to read, he'd walk and think his way through the problem with what he had already, start the process there and take what else he could as he had ability to focus.
The Morrigan found him again at sunset, demanded he accompany her to a new restaurant she'd discovered near the local roman road. He strongly suspected that if she'd had a sword to hand she'd have used that in her quest, and acquiesced before she went looking for one.
The idea of food made him feel ill, let alone the reality as the smells billowed out the doors to greet them, but he steeled himself and followed through, split two bottles of wine with the Morrigan over three courses of meal and didn't even bother to argue when she ordered a whiskey-and-amaretto for his after-meal drink, and a scotch and soda for herself.
"Tell me about the local territories," she commanded as the drinks arrived--they'd talked of the city and its neighbours over the meal, the state of trade and if local shipping would recover from Spain's latest escapade--and he blinked, took the tumbler carefully from the presented tray, though his hand wasn't currently shaking, and began talking.
He retired for the night at something nearing the old witching hour; crows were calling outside the window as he slid beneath the duvet and pulled the pillow over his head.
Rising late, tired still and wondering why his brain had sent him a letter in a dream that detailed his niece's death at sea, he wasn't surprised in the least to find an article in the morning's paper about an unexpected riot at the edge of one of the in-city territories he'd described the night before.
The Morrigan was laughing still when she arrived at lunch, laden with packages--the contents of at least one he devoutly hoped he'd never see--and had missed a spot of blood in her hair, which he politely pointed out as she set out the tea things.
He still had no appetite, but faked it for her benefit, and she as politely ignored the way he had to keep wiping his hands on a napkin so he didn't sweat his flatware right out of his hands onto the floor. She sweetened his tea--without asking--with orange and almond liquors, the orange imported from Spain, and asked him happy meaningless questions about the roman roads and the silk trade.
"Come dance with me tonight?" she asked when he pulled her chair out for her after the meal, tilting her head up and back to see his face. Her hair was still damp from the water she'd used to soak the blood away, pinking her own napkin, and it curled sleekly against her head.
"I think I will decline," he replied, beginning to move her packages out of a drift about the table and instead stack them neatly against the wall he used least.
"You'll feel better for it," she said softly, and he frowned down at the box currently in his hands--the most expensive lingerie shop in the city, if he had any memory at all--didn't respond.
But he went out with her that night, didn't defuse the situation when she taunted a young blood into growling a challenge.
Didn't argue when she flung threads everywhere, messy as she ordinarily wasn't, and let four or five of the ones that touched him sink in, disappear beneath his sweating skin.
She was three fourths of a bottle into a balanced red when he rose the next afternoon, dancing with an invisible partner around his sitting room to the tune of a new jazz band and laughing her head off, face flushed and eyes merry.
He leaned sideways against the doorjamb, arms crossed over his chest, watching her. How anyone had ever mistaken her for a delicate dancing flower completely escaped him--she knew exactly where her feet were at any given moment, and even drunk her body moved like a sickle-fighter's should.
He gave her a crooked smile when the song ended and she glanced up and saw him.
She beamed back, bright as any child let loose to run in the park.
"Might I steal a nip from your bottle?" he inquired, and she waved majestically towards the side table and the record player.
"You may," she replied gravely, "as long as you repay me in food. I'm quite sure I brunched, but something more substantial seems in order."
He chuckled as he poured a glass of the wine, sipped at it. "I'm sure I can think of something to tempt your palate."
She giggled, spun off to the beat of the song now playing.
He bought updated maps at a store on their way back from a late lunch, left the poor shopkeeper's assistant to the Morrigan's tender mercies as he discussed his needs with the shopkeeper herself, and retrieved his companion only after he had a large roll of maps tucked into a carry-case under his arm. She went reluctantly at first, until he bribed her with the teashop down the road from his lodgings, where she quite happily terrorised the man behind the counter as he himself settled in to reacquaint himself with cartographer's codes.
She left tea at his elbow more than once--he drank it absently as he shifted the cup from place to place so it didn't obscure sections of his maps--and once he returned home, he began amending his new charts with the notes he gleaned from the Council's papers.
'Verse/characters: Deaths; Eduard De'Ath, the Morrigan
Prompt: 09A "edge of the knife"
Word Count: 1208
Notes: follows old soldiers.
---------
The Morrigan had stopped by a few hours ago with coffee, sweet, black and with a generous glug of a moderately priced scotch already lurking in the cup.
"You of all people don't need hallucinations," she'd said when he eyed her over the cup, arrested at his mouth when he'd recognised the smell. And then wandered away to go give another old man heart palpitations.
He'd assumed, anyway, as she hadn't clapped her hands together in anticipatory glee at the prospect of visiting a tailor or a cobbler.
And he was dwelling on it again, so he didn't have to think about the fact that he had yet to properly read the sheaf of papers she'd presented him with last night, with the bald accompanying words that his brother was alive.
Rubbing absently at his temple--the headache was back again, pulsing with every beat of his heart--he slumped farther down in the chair, squinted at the desk's surface and the papers arranged neatly on it, as they'd been when the Morrigan arrived that morning. He needed to read those damned things, needed to make notes about what arrangements the Councils had, both in terms of his brother and in terms of trade agreements and current territories. He had the note-paper ready, a pen dipped and dried eight times already this morning, the ninth dip drying as he sat there, glaring at the couple of unintentional blots on the top sheet where his hand had trembled without his permission while holding a wet pen.
He snarled, stood, shoving the chair back from the desk as he did and ignoring the sick lurch in his head and his belly. Fine. If his eyes hurt and his hands shook when he tried to read, he'd walk and think his way through the problem with what he had already, start the process there and take what else he could as he had ability to focus.
The Morrigan found him again at sunset, demanded he accompany her to a new restaurant she'd discovered near the local roman road. He strongly suspected that if she'd had a sword to hand she'd have used that in her quest, and acquiesced before she went looking for one.
The idea of food made him feel ill, let alone the reality as the smells billowed out the doors to greet them, but he steeled himself and followed through, split two bottles of wine with the Morrigan over three courses of meal and didn't even bother to argue when she ordered a whiskey-and-amaretto for his after-meal drink, and a scotch and soda for herself.
"Tell me about the local territories," she commanded as the drinks arrived--they'd talked of the city and its neighbours over the meal, the state of trade and if local shipping would recover from Spain's latest escapade--and he blinked, took the tumbler carefully from the presented tray, though his hand wasn't currently shaking, and began talking.
He retired for the night at something nearing the old witching hour; crows were calling outside the window as he slid beneath the duvet and pulled the pillow over his head.
Rising late, tired still and wondering why his brain had sent him a letter in a dream that detailed his niece's death at sea, he wasn't surprised in the least to find an article in the morning's paper about an unexpected riot at the edge of one of the in-city territories he'd described the night before.
The Morrigan was laughing still when she arrived at lunch, laden with packages--the contents of at least one he devoutly hoped he'd never see--and had missed a spot of blood in her hair, which he politely pointed out as she set out the tea things.
He still had no appetite, but faked it for her benefit, and she as politely ignored the way he had to keep wiping his hands on a napkin so he didn't sweat his flatware right out of his hands onto the floor. She sweetened his tea--without asking--with orange and almond liquors, the orange imported from Spain, and asked him happy meaningless questions about the roman roads and the silk trade.
"Come dance with me tonight?" she asked when he pulled her chair out for her after the meal, tilting her head up and back to see his face. Her hair was still damp from the water she'd used to soak the blood away, pinking her own napkin, and it curled sleekly against her head.
"I think I will decline," he replied, beginning to move her packages out of a drift about the table and instead stack them neatly against the wall he used least.
"You'll feel better for it," she said softly, and he frowned down at the box currently in his hands--the most expensive lingerie shop in the city, if he had any memory at all--didn't respond.
But he went out with her that night, didn't defuse the situation when she taunted a young blood into growling a challenge.
Didn't argue when she flung threads everywhere, messy as she ordinarily wasn't, and let four or five of the ones that touched him sink in, disappear beneath his sweating skin.
She was three fourths of a bottle into a balanced red when he rose the next afternoon, dancing with an invisible partner around his sitting room to the tune of a new jazz band and laughing her head off, face flushed and eyes merry.
He leaned sideways against the doorjamb, arms crossed over his chest, watching her. How anyone had ever mistaken her for a delicate dancing flower completely escaped him--she knew exactly where her feet were at any given moment, and even drunk her body moved like a sickle-fighter's should.
He gave her a crooked smile when the song ended and she glanced up and saw him.
She beamed back, bright as any child let loose to run in the park.
"Might I steal a nip from your bottle?" he inquired, and she waved majestically towards the side table and the record player.
"You may," she replied gravely, "as long as you repay me in food. I'm quite sure I brunched, but something more substantial seems in order."
He chuckled as he poured a glass of the wine, sipped at it. "I'm sure I can think of something to tempt your palate."
She giggled, spun off to the beat of the song now playing.
He bought updated maps at a store on their way back from a late lunch, left the poor shopkeeper's assistant to the Morrigan's tender mercies as he discussed his needs with the shopkeeper herself, and retrieved his companion only after he had a large roll of maps tucked into a carry-case under his arm. She went reluctantly at first, until he bribed her with the teashop down the road from his lodgings, where she quite happily terrorised the man behind the counter as he himself settled in to reacquaint himself with cartographer's codes.
She left tea at his elbow more than once--he drank it absently as he shifted the cup from place to place so it didn't obscure sections of his maps--and once he returned home, he began amending his new charts with the notes he gleaned from the Council's papers.