Making a mess
Vaughan completes a task.
Vaughan moved quietly, trusting patience to substitute for experience. He trusted also that the morning would have the sisters seeking morning baths, shopping trips, and other diversions-- that they'd be far from the Seven, now, enjoying the spoils of a night's hard work.
He trusted last, and most, that Raveki had trusted him.
The drawer whispered as he withdrew it from the dresser, and Vaughan winced at the sound. When he'd come in there'd been no one on the premises that he could tell, but he suspected the building could never stand empty long. Linens to wash. Dinner to eat. Clothes to change.
The clothes in the drawer would not be anyone's favorite pick tonight. Vaughan tilted it over and let its contents fall out onto the floor, and with the drawer hanging from his hand he kicked through the clothing, sending a ball of socks skittering under one of the four beds. Another kick sent a pair of panties into the doorway and then he had to shake his foot to toss off the slip that had hung up on his shoe.
The next drawer got the same treatment, then the next. In the bottom of the last one he found a tiny cloth purse. It looked like socks at first and he nearly gave it a good kick, but then bent down to retrieve it. It rattled woodenly and Vaughan winced: one of the girls hadn't heard. Or hadn't listened.
He pocketed the purse, adding it to the lonely, mateless pearl earring he'd found amongst the lipsticks and eye powders in the other room. Ripped the beaded straps off of a fancy camisole and pocketed those too, and threw the ruined garment on a bed. He wondered if it was hers. If it was meaningless. He thought the beads were probably glass, but even glass beads had value to someone, somewhere. Maybe, he thought with a snort, Saiyah would wear them.
Vaughan left the girls' bunkrooms behind and slunk through the last of the doorways along the short, dark hall in the back of the Seven's bottom floor. A quick peek told him the bedroom beyond the office was hardly used, as quiet and tired as an abandoned cothold. It waited for its next inhabitant. Feeling a chill in his spine and a weird heat in his face, the dockhand turned his back on the empty space, putting it out of his mind.
There was a desk, and he treated its drawers, far more slowly and far more carefully, to the same treatment he'd given those in the girls' rooms. The drawers' contents were likely to be loud if he just dumped them out casually on the floor, so no matter how he wanted it to look like he'd done just that, he took his time. The worst of the objects-- pens, an inkpot-- he took out and put down deliberately. After a moment staring at them, he tipped over the ink with his toe. It formed a slow puddle while he pulled out the last drawer's contents: a small, locked box.
He bent and retrieved a letter opener from the floor, then put the box-- it was like a jewelry-box, he thought from a distant, abstracted place in his mind-- on the desk and leaned down on it. It didn't take much to jam the dainty lock and pop it, rendering it useless; faster than looking for a key, and another violation to boot. He dumped out markbits onto the desk, then upturned the box at an angle into the open drawer from whence it had came.
The markpieces were worn and dinged from journeys through many pockets. At a glance he couldn't tell if they were as he'd asked, and Vaughan had to let himself be satisfied with that; it wouldn't do for the chips to be obvious, anyway. He had to hope it had been done.
He had to hope she'd trusted him.
Pocketing the markbits, Vaughan looked around at what he'd wrought. Spilled ink. Broken pens and other broken things. Elsewhere there were doors left ajar that shouldn't be, clothing wrinkled and kicked about like so much trash, a bed shoved out of place, a lipstick crushed, a bottle of some kind of makeup liquid upended on mussed sheets. He didn't know which of the sisters he'd offended most, and knew it had to be that way, but felt bad about it. It would have been so easy to just identify her things, to violate her only. But he knew it wouldn't work.
He had to hurt them all.
On his way out through the kitchen, he paused to look thoughtfully on the remains of the day's breakfast, then quietly, carefully upended the scraps and dishes onto the floor. A gentle press of one shoe broke a plate in two, and after that, he was gone.
Vaughan moved quietly, trusting patience to substitute for experience. He trusted also that the morning would have the sisters seeking morning baths, shopping trips, and other diversions-- that they'd be far from the Seven, now, enjoying the spoils of a night's hard work.
He trusted last, and most, that Raveki had trusted him.
The drawer whispered as he withdrew it from the dresser, and Vaughan winced at the sound. When he'd come in there'd been no one on the premises that he could tell, but he suspected the building could never stand empty long. Linens to wash. Dinner to eat. Clothes to change.
The clothes in the drawer would not be anyone's favorite pick tonight. Vaughan tilted it over and let its contents fall out onto the floor, and with the drawer hanging from his hand he kicked through the clothing, sending a ball of socks skittering under one of the four beds. Another kick sent a pair of panties into the doorway and then he had to shake his foot to toss off the slip that had hung up on his shoe.
The next drawer got the same treatment, then the next. In the bottom of the last one he found a tiny cloth purse. It looked like socks at first and he nearly gave it a good kick, but then bent down to retrieve it. It rattled woodenly and Vaughan winced: one of the girls hadn't heard. Or hadn't listened.
He pocketed the purse, adding it to the lonely, mateless pearl earring he'd found amongst the lipsticks and eye powders in the other room. Ripped the beaded straps off of a fancy camisole and pocketed those too, and threw the ruined garment on a bed. He wondered if it was hers. If it was meaningless. He thought the beads were probably glass, but even glass beads had value to someone, somewhere. Maybe, he thought with a snort, Saiyah would wear them.
Vaughan left the girls' bunkrooms behind and slunk through the last of the doorways along the short, dark hall in the back of the Seven's bottom floor. A quick peek told him the bedroom beyond the office was hardly used, as quiet and tired as an abandoned cothold. It waited for its next inhabitant. Feeling a chill in his spine and a weird heat in his face, the dockhand turned his back on the empty space, putting it out of his mind.
There was a desk, and he treated its drawers, far more slowly and far more carefully, to the same treatment he'd given those in the girls' rooms. The drawers' contents were likely to be loud if he just dumped them out casually on the floor, so no matter how he wanted it to look like he'd done just that, he took his time. The worst of the objects-- pens, an inkpot-- he took out and put down deliberately. After a moment staring at them, he tipped over the ink with his toe. It formed a slow puddle while he pulled out the last drawer's contents: a small, locked box.
He bent and retrieved a letter opener from the floor, then put the box-- it was like a jewelry-box, he thought from a distant, abstracted place in his mind-- on the desk and leaned down on it. It didn't take much to jam the dainty lock and pop it, rendering it useless; faster than looking for a key, and another violation to boot. He dumped out markbits onto the desk, then upturned the box at an angle into the open drawer from whence it had came.
The markpieces were worn and dinged from journeys through many pockets. At a glance he couldn't tell if they were as he'd asked, and Vaughan had to let himself be satisfied with that; it wouldn't do for the chips to be obvious, anyway. He had to hope it had been done.
He had to hope she'd trusted him.
Pocketing the markbits, Vaughan looked around at what he'd wrought. Spilled ink. Broken pens and other broken things. Elsewhere there were doors left ajar that shouldn't be, clothing wrinkled and kicked about like so much trash, a bed shoved out of place, a lipstick crushed, a bottle of some kind of makeup liquid upended on mussed sheets. He didn't know which of the sisters he'd offended most, and knew it had to be that way, but felt bad about it. It would have been so easy to just identify her things, to violate her only. But he knew it wouldn't work.
He had to hurt them all.
On his way out through the kitchen, he paused to look thoughtfully on the remains of the day's breakfast, then quietly, carefully upended the scraps and dishes onto the floor. A gentle press of one shoe broke a plate in two, and after that, he was gone.