Private Tales A Silver Tongue Turned Gold

[Tal]

Tal only smiled. "Well."

He told her softly.

"Stick around, little girl." In his time with the Syndicate he had never much made it a habit to share information. Telling anyone anything was paramount to inviting a knife across your throat. It was a lesson he'd learned early on, and one he stuck to. "You might learn a thing or two."

For a brief few moments he let the silence of the room linger, then continued. "You want to know how you died?"

Tal asked. "Why?"

 

[Inara Irren]

"I don't remember it. I don't remember why. Everything I know was told to me while I was making the deal...I stole from the Syndicate and they killed me." She said and finally, bravely or stupidly, raised a hand to try and push his that was holding the knife away.

If he moved his hand, she would relax slightly but not move from her position on his lap. "The spirit told me what happened and then offered to trade my life for my ability to lie. It was all for her entertainment."

 

[Tal]

Tal smiled, glancing up at the woman as the blade slowly, finally fell away from her neck. "You seem very certain of that."

He said, the amusement clear in his voice and upon his lips.

"If you can't even remember that..." As he spoke Inara would notice Tal relax in his chair. Not moving her from his lap, but simply leaning back as though she offered him no threat at all. Both of his arms hung at his side.

"How can you be sure of anything at all?" He asked. "Are you sure of your name?"

Tal smiled wider. "Where you came from?"

 

[Inara Irren]

Inara didn't move. She could now. The knife was gone and he had sat back but his words burrowed into her skull. She opened her mouth several times to answer his three questions but nothing came out. She pushed back from him and stood on now shaky legs. She stared at him in horror.

"Because I...I was...told...I know..." She back up until she was sitting in her own chair again and she buried her head in her hands. There was no prick of pain from when she lied. That meant it had to be the truth. There was no other explanation. Right?

"And, of course I know my name and where I am from! I knew that before I died..."

 

[Tal]

"Did you though?" Tal coaxed.

The mind was such an interesting thing. Sometimes so interesting that it couldn't even be trusted.

He smiled just a bit wider, taking another slow drag of his cigar. The sickly sweet scent of the tobacco filled the air as he let out a breath. Silence lingering between them as he teased out the seconds before he elaborated his point. "Even spirits lie, you know."

Tal continued.

"Better than most, in fact." He mused. "And memories...well even I could change some memories."

Or he could have, if it weren't for the damned chains around his wrists.

 

[Inara Irren]

Inara felt like she was going to throw up. She heard his words but they were foreign to her. Had her memories been changed? Had she been fucked with? She was going to throw up and it was so hot all of a sudden. She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths.

In and out. In and out.

Inara opened her eyes as a realization hit her. If he had information about her death then he knew the truth. "What do you know?" She asked silently and she tried to stop her shaking hands.

 

[Tal]

Tal's smiled that chesire smile. A spark of mischief flickering through his eyes as he looked at Inara. The grin on his face practically split his face, teeth keeping the cigar in place. "I know quite a lot."

Some of his men had told him he should be an information broker. That with all the little birds coming to him he could have made quite a pretty penny.

But money was never the point.

Tal didn't care about coin, he'd had plenty of it his entire life. There was something more important that he wanted, something that no amount of gold could buy him. Something that required more than he already knew.

Something Inara would help him get.

"But." He told her with a smile. "Information has a price, sweetheart."

 

[Inara Irren]

Inara wanted to slap that smile off his smug ass face so bad. Instead of giving in to her violent urges, she just glared at him as she asked a very simple question.

"What do you want?"

 

[Tal]

There was the rub of it.

"Well." Tal said with a smile. "You've unknowingly happened into a situation where I already have what I want."

He told her. "Mainly, you."

A shrug rolled over his shoulders.

"But." Tal said, raising a finger and gently waggling it as if to stop her from interrupting. "If you promise to cooperate, and do as I say. I promise by the end of this, you'll know everything I do."

 

[Inara Irren]

Her? How was she what he wanted? Did he finally believe her about not being able to lie and he wanted to use that? As he shrugged, she opened her mouth to ask what he mean. Before she could ask though, he was wagging a finger at her to stop her from talking. She rolled her eyes at his finger and then those same eyes narrowed at his words.

"If you promise to cooperate, and do as I say. I promise by the end of this, you'll know everything I do."

She wanted to punch him again. She was starting to think this was a normal feeling when she was around him. "You buying me was no coincidence, was it?" Inara asked with her eyes still narrowed.

"If you want me to cooperate and do as you say," the last words were said with disgust in her voice. "You need to tell me what you want me to do..."

 

[Tal]

"Nothing, for now." His voice turned slightly, becoming a bit more serious.

This was the opportunity for him to get what he wanted, an opportunity to finally get the manacles off his wrists. He had been fighting towards this for nearly three years now, ever since he left Sheketh. This was another step forward.

A chance to finally get what he wanted. "Listen, and do as I say when I say."

It was not difficult, really.

"I need to reach out to some people, and make sure things are in place." He told her, a tinge of excitement in his tone. "So you can stay here. There's an apartment above this building, and make sure you don't go nowhere."

He smiled again. "You can even make some friends, Daven and Viktor are great conversationalists."

 

[Inara Irren]

"Listen, and do as I say when I say."

Inara's right eye twitched. As I say when I say. She didn't like doing what anyone said but that was also how she got in trouble on the daily.

"Oh goodie, I get to go do absolutely nothing productive."

Tal disappeared and Daven showed Inara to the apartment. Daven was even nice enough to lock the door. Could she blame him? Nope. She wanted answers but it was clear that Tal did need her for whatever his plan was. He was not going to just let her slip through his fingers.

The majority of her alone time was spent going through her memories trying to figure out if anything seemed off or wrong. It didn't. She was not crazy.

 

[Tal]

Three days.

That was how long it took until the door was opened and Inara was ushered out of the room by Daven. She had been fed and looked after of course. In truth the accommodations they had put her in weren't all that bad, though more than a little threadbare.

When Inara was summoned and lead down stairs, she once again found herself in that tiny little office. This time though stacks of crates stood in the corner. Some were labeled, others not. Tal stood at one end of the room, reading a small parchment. "Ah, good."

He said, glancing up at her.

"Did you manage to remember on your own?" The Underboss asked. "Or are we still sticking to our little bargain?"

She was still here, so he assumed the terms still stood, but that didn't mean he wouldn't tease.

 

[Inara Irren]

"I still think you are insane and my memories weren't altered."

It was the truth. She may have had some doubts now but she couldn't find any holes that would lead her to believing him. Her memories were her memories.

But judging by that smug ass look on Tal's face, he knew she was wrong and he was right.

"But yes, our bargain still stands because I want to prove you're wrong."

 

[Tal]

"Fair enough." He had met a lot of people that thought him insane, but he'd never much given it credence.

Tal knew what he wanted, knew how he could get it, and now he had the path directly in front of him. A smile flickered over his features as he slowly made his way around the room. He motioned for Inara to follow after him.

A desk sat in one corner of the room, and upon it lay dozens upon dozens of documents.

Most were nothing but shipping manifests, but a stack had been pushed over and scattered. He searched through them for a moment, and then pulled out what appeared to be a wanted poster. He flipped it and turned it towards Inara. "Do you recognize this man?"

He asked with a smile.

 

[Inara Irren]

Inara studied the wanted poster for a solid minute before shaking her head. There was something familiar in his features but she had never seen before. "No, I don't recognize him..."

Her voice was so soft as she spoke now. Tal was building up to his big reveal and with each question, she knew it was only a matter of time before he proved her wrong.

"Who is he?" Inara asked.

 

[Tal]

"This is Marcus Irren." The man looked older in the poster, grizzled. A large scar cut across his face and etched into his lips. Despite that though there was something alluring about him, as though his words could capture minds and hearts.

"He sits at the head of the Syndicate." Tal admitted. "One of the three who do."

He had never much liked Marcus. The man knew how to talk, and worse, he knew how to lead his men. Tal had come up under Vora, and the two had despised each other for longer than most could even say. Though they had once been the best of friends. "I believe he was involved in your...incident."

Tal knew the whole truth, but he wasn't going to feed it to her just yet. "Perhaps even the cause of it."

 

[Inara Irren]

Inara looked from the poster to Tal. Was this the man she had stolen from? Indirectly, of course. He wasn't among the men who killed her.

"You aren't going to tell me anymore than that, are you?" She asked with a narrowing of her hazel eyes. Tal had a way of giving just enough information to peak curiosity and get you to do what he wanted.

She really hated him.

 

[Tal]

"I don't know any more." The lie slipped from his tongue as easily as any other word. Unlike her he could tell as many as he would like, and right now it benefited him to do so.

There was so much more to hold back, but the truth would only hurt his goal. "Information like this is not easy to come by."

That was most certainly true.

"And I put myself in danger even digging this far." Another truth, though what he had discovered was well worth it. "You know what the Syndicate does to enemies that displease them."

He mused. "Now imagine what they do to one of their own."

Tal was under Vora's protection, but that really only lasted for so long. If Marcus wanted him dead, then he would quickly find himself a corpse.

 

[Inara Irren]

"Fine," she said in a tone that indicated her great amounts of doubt.

"So what now? Marcus has something to do with what happened to me and you obviously want something from him. I am guessing that I get to be the tasty bait. Tell him that his men failed and I've been alive all this time?"

Inara, obviously, did not like that plan but it's the only thing that made sense to her.

 

[Tal]

"No." It was a decent enough plan, and in truth if the situation were a little bit different he would have done exactly that.

Inara however didn't have all the facts, nor the understanding of how the Syndicate worked. That was in no small part due to Tal himself of course, but he wasn't about to start peeling back the layers. Not yet anyway. Not for a long time.

"Letting slip that you're alive, even if out on the street, will likely get you killed." That was a lie of course. "Reaching any of the Triumvirate is difficult, nearly impossible."

They were paranoid men. "Marcus is no different, but, I happen to know where he will be in three days time."

He smiled. "You'll be making an appearance. A ghost, haunting him."

 

[Inara Irren]

The smile that played on Tal's lips told her that she was really not going to like the plan. One thing did cause her to pause though.

"A ghost? Do I look like someone he knew?" She hadn't met him and she was certain he only knew her name years ago. She was not going to be haunting him as herself.

An exasperated sigh flowed from her lips. "What do you need from me, Tal? And don't give me the do what I say when I say bullshit. I need to know an inkling of what is going to be happening."

That was it. One little bit so she could wrap her head around whatever his bullshit was.

 

[Tal]

Tal didn't answer her first question, simply skipping over it. "One of the Merchant Councilors will soon be holding a Ball."

He explained.

"I know for a fact that Marcus will be there." Though none of them had come out and said it yet, it was well known that the Triumvirate wished to legitimize many of their criminal holdings. Cozying up to Politicians was part of that. "As will we."

Tal continued. "I suspect he knows your face, I, like you, don't know why he wanted you dead."

Another lie.

"But I think seeing you will distract him, which is what I need." Just long enough. "Then, at the end of the night you will get your answers."

 

[Inara Irren]

"Fine," was all she said. "And thank you for telling me..." She tried to make her smile look like but it still came out looking like a grimace.

"I suppose I need a dress?" She asked even though she had a feeling that he already had a dress for her. Daven had brought her clothes that just happened to fit her perfectly.

Inara did love balls. That was her bread and butter of cons. She knew how to be a perfect lady and she would play the part he needed.

 

[Tal]

Tal shrugged in answer to the question. Whatever she wanted to go in he didn't particularly care. All he needed was for Marcus to see her face, for him to be distracted and not thinking clearly. Everything else came secondary to that.

"Ask Daven." Tal was hardly the peak of female fashion knowledge.

He had always ignored most of the finer parts of being a Prince. Etiquette and the like had been instilled in him through the tactic of beatings and punishment. Most everything else had slipped him by as he'd run on the street.

Something his father had always hated.

"But." He began. "You're best to still keep yourself scarce until the party."

Otherwise this whole thing could fall apart.