[Deaths] the Morrigan
Title: tell me something dangerous and true
'Verse/characters: Death be not Proud; the Morrigan
Prompt: 18A "truth"
Word Count: 766
Notes: follows perhaps that was a bad plan, just before old soldiers.
The remains of the apprentice led her, to her utter lack of surprise, to the local council's complex. She smiled nicely at the kid who opened the door when she knocked.
His eyes got big. She turned down the intensity slightly, widened her own eye slightly.
"Where might I find your master-of-students?" she inquired, reaching down to gather up her skirts and step over the threshold. He stepped back automatically to make space, which she took full advantage of, coming in before he tried closing the door in her face and screaming for someone older to come deal with the crow at the gate.
"In his chambers, at this hour--history just finished and it's not yet time for practice," the kid told her as he closed the door behind her; she left her skirts in her hand, the folds hiding the remains of a shattered Venetian dagger and a spool of gently glowing sky-coloured thread tangled around her fingers.
"My thanks," she replied, walked away, her shoes clicking on wax-sealed tiles.
She knocked with the tip of one foot at the master's closed door, leg extended high enough to be a hand's work, spinning the shard on metal on the rapidly lengthening thread in her hand.
The master screamed when the door opened and she put the shard into his left eye, yanked it free again with the last whisper of the apprentice's life, then tangled the shard in front of his working eye, suspended now by nothing but her own energy. "This idiot-child tried to take me in the middle of a street!"
The master wheezed a few times, his hand clamped firmly over his injured eye. "My apologies?" he managed eventually.
"I wasn't hunting, or poaching. She offered no words of greeting or threat before attacking me, and she didn't even know how to look for skeined power, let alone how to identify me." She kicked him in the knee closest to her. "Is this your idea of hospitality?"
He didn't answer.
She bared her teeth at him, tossed the shard up into the air and snatched it back out with a flick of her hand, swooped in, held the sharper end just beneath his thus-far undamaged eye. "Master-of-students, how badly are you teaching your apprentices?"
He rolled his eye down as far as he could, tried to focus on the shard. "I teach what the council bids me teach, lady."
"That doesn't answer my question," she told him, pricked a series of dots into the delicate skin below his eye, one much larger bead when he flinched.
"They know better than to go after anyone with a council mark."
" . . and to go after anyone without one. Clever, if hard on the children. How many do you lose a year?"
He didn't answer, again, eye flicking between the shard and away from her, towards whatever weapons he had hidden in his rooms, some way of screaming for help.
She sketched a feather on his cheek in his blood, reached, yanked.
He screamed, loudly enough that others heard, but by the time they got there he was dead, wrapped 'round her hand and glowing.
Crows were circling the highest building by the time she found the last of the local council's members.
"I don't think I like you," she observed from the doorway, watching him tap out a message.
"I must be doing something right," he replied, looking up. "Happy with your day's work?"
"Not really. I had plans for shoe-shopping." She shrugged, gestured with the sickle she'd taken from their armory. "Shall we?"
He shot her in the chest with a gun he'd had in his hidden hand, pounced while she was still reeling.
Bent backwards, sickle locked to block the short sword from getting any closer to her neck, "Yes."
He growled an inquiry.
"I definitely don't like you." She tried to put the shard through his temple, which left them both bleeding all over the place but no longer locked close and her at the disadvantage.
Some time later, panting, bloody, caws ringing in her ears, she yanked the last thread out, stamped on his hand for good measure.
There was a scattering of papers, fallen from his desk when he'd dived across the surface. A string of words caught her eye, and she half-knelt, shifting her torn skirt out of the way, and started reading.
She hadn't realised she could still feel sick. It was an unpleasant realisation.
She used the council's message system to send one of her own, gathered up the papers, and took her leave of the council.
'Verse/characters: Death be not Proud; the Morrigan
Prompt: 18A "truth"
Word Count: 766
Notes: follows perhaps that was a bad plan, just before old soldiers.
The remains of the apprentice led her, to her utter lack of surprise, to the local council's complex. She smiled nicely at the kid who opened the door when she knocked.
His eyes got big. She turned down the intensity slightly, widened her own eye slightly.
"Where might I find your master-of-students?" she inquired, reaching down to gather up her skirts and step over the threshold. He stepped back automatically to make space, which she took full advantage of, coming in before he tried closing the door in her face and screaming for someone older to come deal with the crow at the gate.
"In his chambers, at this hour--history just finished and it's not yet time for practice," the kid told her as he closed the door behind her; she left her skirts in her hand, the folds hiding the remains of a shattered Venetian dagger and a spool of gently glowing sky-coloured thread tangled around her fingers.
"My thanks," she replied, walked away, her shoes clicking on wax-sealed tiles.
She knocked with the tip of one foot at the master's closed door, leg extended high enough to be a hand's work, spinning the shard on metal on the rapidly lengthening thread in her hand.
The master screamed when the door opened and she put the shard into his left eye, yanked it free again with the last whisper of the apprentice's life, then tangled the shard in front of his working eye, suspended now by nothing but her own energy. "This idiot-child tried to take me in the middle of a street!"
The master wheezed a few times, his hand clamped firmly over his injured eye. "My apologies?" he managed eventually.
"I wasn't hunting, or poaching. She offered no words of greeting or threat before attacking me, and she didn't even know how to look for skeined power, let alone how to identify me." She kicked him in the knee closest to her. "Is this your idea of hospitality?"
He didn't answer.
She bared her teeth at him, tossed the shard up into the air and snatched it back out with a flick of her hand, swooped in, held the sharper end just beneath his thus-far undamaged eye. "Master-of-students, how badly are you teaching your apprentices?"
He rolled his eye down as far as he could, tried to focus on the shard. "I teach what the council bids me teach, lady."
"That doesn't answer my question," she told him, pricked a series of dots into the delicate skin below his eye, one much larger bead when he flinched.
"They know better than to go after anyone with a council mark."
" . . and to go after anyone without one. Clever, if hard on the children. How many do you lose a year?"
He didn't answer, again, eye flicking between the shard and away from her, towards whatever weapons he had hidden in his rooms, some way of screaming for help.
She sketched a feather on his cheek in his blood, reached, yanked.
He screamed, loudly enough that others heard, but by the time they got there he was dead, wrapped 'round her hand and glowing.
Crows were circling the highest building by the time she found the last of the local council's members.
"I don't think I like you," she observed from the doorway, watching him tap out a message.
"I must be doing something right," he replied, looking up. "Happy with your day's work?"
"Not really. I had plans for shoe-shopping." She shrugged, gestured with the sickle she'd taken from their armory. "Shall we?"
He shot her in the chest with a gun he'd had in his hidden hand, pounced while she was still reeling.
Bent backwards, sickle locked to block the short sword from getting any closer to her neck, "Yes."
He growled an inquiry.
"I definitely don't like you." She tried to put the shard through his temple, which left them both bleeding all over the place but no longer locked close and her at the disadvantage.
Some time later, panting, bloody, caws ringing in her ears, she yanked the last thread out, stamped on his hand for good measure.
There was a scattering of papers, fallen from his desk when he'd dived across the surface. A string of words caught her eye, and she half-knelt, shifting her torn skirt out of the way, and started reading.
She hadn't realised she could still feel sick. It was an unpleasant realisation.
She used the council's message system to send one of her own, gathered up the papers, and took her leave of the council.