Private Tales One Toward the Past, One Toward the Future

[Samantha Black]

She normally did not struggle so much to snap the necks of her foes. Despite her inherent strength, Sam's body felt weak and slow to respond to any learned means of engaging her adrenals. Len's metal rod landed several sound thwacks on her, but with Lan's large mass covering her own on the table it also caught him in the cross fire. Sam refused to give, Lan refused to die. They'd reached an impasse.

Fine. We'll do it the hard way.

With a kick of her legs to try and gain purchase under herself, Sam shoved with a heel against the edge of the table and rolled herself and Lan over like a lopsided log. They both fell from the table to the floor, Lan face down with Sam on top of him. Len immediately moved in with his baton and began to wail on her, though his spirit was in it he simply wasn't strong enough to beat her away.

His hits landed like half-assed punches, and Sam remembered well the training pit against her fellow initiates. She'd been called a mountain for reasons, and took each strike with grit. Her body slowly strung taught while Lan continued to struggle beneath her, Sam reasserted her grip around his neck with the chain and heaved upwards, "NNNYYYAAAAAAAGH." In one hulking movement she snapped his neck clean backwards and watched his jaw bend up and back in ways a human head never should.

Then it flopped forward as the chain wrenched free and fell to the stone floor with a slap.

Len hit her once more, his strikes leaving rising welts along her back that reddened within the lines of her ink like Tommy's coloring book. Sam turned a slow, frigid glare at the small man and began to push herself to her feet.

"MARTA!" Sam bellowed, affixing a broad, tooth-filled grin on her face as she stared down Len while he backed away, "I'M COMING!"

 

[Marta Martigan]

Len cowered backward, fear filled steps, his thin arm held out with the metal rod gripped tight between his bony fingers. "Get back!" he warned, and swung the rod. "I-I, I'm warning you!" a step too far and he bumped against the racks of jarred organs. The glass containers rattled, and glugged, one fell to the floor with a crash that left glass shards sharp pointed scattered across the stone floor.

Desperate for his life, Len swung his rod against the glass jars, and flung them onto the floor with a quick sweep. Metal chains clinked and chimed as he turned for the door. His eyes wider still he found his neck grabbed up by one strong hand and his body slammed back against the casing.

Marta. Naked in her rage. Grinned wide as she pinned the smaller man and squeezed her fingers tight about his neck. The chain she had been hung up with, wrapped about her left wrist like some strange bracer.

Len flailed, clawed at her, tried to whack her still with his stick. Her wide eyed stare never broke.

"You know," she said as the little man struggled on. Her right hand bloodied and purpled from where fragile bone had broken, held up for the bastard to see. "I was really hopin' the first time I heard you say that," she bashed the fucker across the temple with a grunt. The sharp agony of her hand a hot spike through her that only had her grip tighter. Grin wider. "would be under different circumstances," the man's struggles came to quivering end.

A pathetic whimper and choke before he slumped limp.

With a grunt. She threw him to the floor, onto the broken glass where he skate across the fluids. Came to stop like a coat over puddle before Sam. Right next to what looked like a tongue.

 

[Samantha Black]

If it wasn't for the fact that her vision kept splitting every time she tried to look up, she would have enjoyed the scene play out far more than she did. As it stood, Sam saw it out of her peripheral as she lent her weight against the table. A symphony so familiar, so intimately coiled into the fiber of her being it nearly felt like going home. It was beautiful and she hated it all at the same time.

When Len fell into her line of sight her gaze fixated on his meager form for several long moments.

After a few beats, her lips slowly split into a cheshire grin.

She began to cackle, low and rasp as her arms pushed her past the short end of the table, slowly rounding it with heavy strides that shattered broken glass beneath the pads of her bare feet with barely a flinch. Bloodied steps carried her to his downed body where she leaned over, gave Marta a good long look at her bruised and tattoo'd ass, and plied the keyring from his belt.

"This has got to be," Sam righted herself again with a grunt, feet shifting and scraping glass beneath them, as she heaved a heavy breath and strongly blinked the poison haze from her eyes, "one of the best first dates I've ever had."

"But fuck-" another prolonged, internalized groan as the pounding of her head hit a crescendo, she grinned in spite of it, "you should come with a warning." Sweat had begun to bead on her brow. This poison was some serious shit. She fumbled numbly with the keys as her hands began to feel gummy.

CLINK. One cuff off. Sam bit into her tongue hard enough to cut it open on her teeth. Blood welled in her mouth and began to push onto her lips. The pain clarified her mind enough to finish the job. CLINK went the other cuff and the whole chain ensemble clattered to the floor. She gestured to Marta, "I wasn't prepared to take a trip down memory lane tonight." Blood dribbled out of her mouth with every word and painted her teeth into a sanguine smirk.

 

[Marta Martigan]

A wicked little huff of laughter, like smoke come curl form a dying fire, puffed from Marta's mouth as Sam picked up the keys. She made no play at looking away.

"Glad I didn't dissapoint," she said with a smirk, and watched as the proud warrior freed herself from the irons. The things fell with a hard clatter and clang. Sharp and cold, and when Black flashed her bloody smile, Marta huffed, shook her head and smiled more softly in return.

"You can tell me all about your thrilling past when we get niiice and cozy somewhere far away from this shithole," She took a quick look about the room. "Or not, be just as well hearing you say other things," she grinned.

Nothing but organs, and tools for harvesting.

She shook her head, and moved closer to Sam, held out her remaining shackle, her free right, likely too fucked up to work the key properly.

"You going to be alright to make a run out of here?" she asked. The adrenaline fading fast. The pain and exhaustion trying to overtake her. But a genuine concern was still there in question. A care in her eyes now as she regarded the other woman."Might be more guards we have to put down and," she looked back at the trail of bloody footsteps, back to Sam's face, and the red smeared about her lips. "Regardless, you let me take point,"

 

[Samantha Black]

She could have gotten nice and cozy right here, truth be told. The room to her was akin to an old study. A dark and cluttered place where intense instruction had been undertaken by her superiors upon her - mind, body, and soul. Sam could not deny she was as comfortable here as she was back at the Tenpenny. Could've taken Marta right on that table if it weren't for the unknown poison in their veins and Marta's mangled hand.

Hell...

Smugly bearing through her own bodily malaise, Sam blinked slowly at the other woman as she spoke. Words would do them no good here. A delayed and prolonged blink gave her a moment to take stock of herself. Marta was right there when she opened them, shackle clinking.

"I could recite some poetry..." she murmured as she made the effort to free her companion from her tether. It wouldn't be good poetry, but she could recite it.

As for if she'd be alright? Sam gave a grunt of a laugh in response, bowed her head forward to plant a bloody kiss on Marta's near shoulder, "If I've got that ass to follow I'll be just fine." The manacle clanged to the floor but the keys remain firmly in her grasp. They might need them, yet.

She'd have preferred for herself to take point, but that was just her way. The poison was effecting her perhaps far more strongly than Marta given the nature of her own imbued magic of her body. Things weren't working like they should but there wasn't any reason to proclaim that fact. She'd bully her way out of here the same way she did every other misadventure.

"Lead the way, Birdie."

 

[Marta Martigan]

"Poetry," she smirked. "Spose if its coming from you, that wouldn't be so bad, Lady Black," she mused.

This all felt, too familiar. The strange thrill that came with such violent acts. Never the violence itself that excited her. Not really. But the test. The proving.

Fuck these fucking fucks and their fucking fuckery fucking tying her up and fucking beating her sides purple. Fucking deserved to get proper fucked just the way they did.

But it scared her. She wouldn't say it. Couldn't. Not if she wanted to get out of here. Not if she wanted-

A laugh, a lurch, and the press of sticky wet lips against the sensitive skin of her shoulders sent a shiver down her spine. Caused her breath to catch in her chest, and a little grunt that was half reluctant, and half pleased.

The iron dropped.

Marta let out a cool sigh. "You fucking rouser," she whispered as she turned her eyes away. Too many feelings. Warm across the face. Cold in her gut.

Lead the way birdie.

Marta nod. Rubbing her mangled wrist gently with her still good left. "Right, you just keep those baby blues right on birdy's tail feathers, got it?" she grinned.

Out she went, methodical as they moved through the maze of brick and mortar.

Their stuff had to be in here somewhere, right?

Turned the corner, and there it was, a stash. With a couple of bastards picking through their stuff.

One drew steel from its sheath. "Oh ho, Anirian steel this, quality stuff,"

The other blew a raspberry with his mouth. "Ain't no Belgrathi blade, now is it?" he
turned over Marta's favorite knife in his hand. Curved and wicked thing, looked almost an axe with his fingers wrapped around it.

Marta let out her breath. This one was going to be a huge pain in the ass.

 

[Samantha Black]

She didn't need to ever be told to watch tail feathers when the tail feathers were that nice. Sam trudged after her, head on a slow swivel as they made their way down strange and putrid halls. Whatever this operation was, it had clearly been successful in this place for some time. The stench of death clung to the stone, made all the more rancid by the moister air of being underground.

The smell and taste of it hung in the back of her throat with the after-taste of vomit. She was going to need a very strong drink after all this.

As they came upon the pickers and their stash, Sam stifled a groan at the remark of ain't no belgrathi blade. Well he wasn't wrong, but fuck if she didn't take an off-handed insult with a bit of ire.

"It'll taste just the same when I plunge it down your throat," Sam croaked at him, her figure pushing forward to fill the remaining space of the hall next to Marta.

The two men looked over at them and stared, gobstruck by the sudden appearance of two surly, naked women. They weren't guards by the looks of it. No armor, bit grubby, and neither one of them had any lick of bulk on either herself or Marta. They could take them, even with the poison, and the men did seem to recognize this.

"You're-" the man with Marta's dagger stood up and pointed at them, "you're supposed to be dead."

"I told Lan not to take them," said the other man, who had promptly dropped the sword and stood, beginning to back away, "too beefy."

"Where's your boss," Sam drawled as she pressed off her heel and slowly began to advance on them, shoulders slowly shifting side to side, "we'd like a refund."

"I don't get paid enough for these bitches," said the second man who promptly dogged backwards and disappeared through a door, slamming it behind him.

 

[Marta Martigan]

The door slammed shut.

"Oy! Oy! Digri! You fucking bastard come-" the dense bitch came up to him quick. He raised a hand up.

Marta's eyes widened at the site of her dagger being made off with. A growl came from her throat and she bulled forward "Fuck if you think I'm going to let you-" her legs pumped hard into a sprint.

The guy with the sword gasped. Squeeked, and coward away from the charge.

Marta ripped the door open and ran into the darkness, after her knife.

The one left with Sam's eyes turned up to her, big like and full of fear. "Y-you, the boss?" he laughed nervous as his knees knocked and his lip sputtered. He raised the blade at sam, arm shaking. "Step back! Step! Oh, I'll cut ya!"

He didn't look half strong enough to cut a twig. Specially not with how he held the Anirian blade.

 

[Samantha Black]

Sam's eyes did not leave the face of the man presently holding her sword.

Well, holding a sword that she had been carrying. It was no more hers than it was his or anyone else's, so far as she was concerned, but that was an irritation for another time. She lifted her head from her hunched position at the threat of being cut, a brow curving upwards as her jaw went tight. Sam pressed forward, the sinew of her body rippling beneath flesh wallpapered by ink and scars. He was no longer concerned about her nakedness as she came within range of an errant swing.

And errant swing he did. The sword swiped through the air haplessly and stuck into the meat of her left thigh, just below the cut of her hip joint. Sam's only indication of pain was the faint narrowing of her eyes that crinkled at the corners, but the effect of the expression was only more frightening.

Sam moved forward again, slow like.

The man yelled in fear, dropped the pommel from his hands and ducked down the hall after his pal, and Marta. Sam watched him go, reached down and yanked the sword from her leg. Blood quickly followed, as did a fresh surge of adrenaline that sent her eyes flickering up into her eyelids with a groan.

Much better.

She began to dress.

 

[Marta Martigan]

The man made a horrid rasp as the life was squeezed out of his neck. Marta's eyes wide, and her grin wider as her arm flexed to iron cable, and her whole body wrenched behind it.

He flailed. Threw impotent swipes with the one arm he could still flail freely, the other, jammed up in the vice grip of Marta's strangle. The man wheezed. Rasped. Fell heavy and limp against her.

With a satisfied grunt, Marta shoved him off and he fell like a limp sack.

Her dagger chimed bright against the stone. "Stupid fucker," she said as she bent down to grab it up.

She spat, and started to turn back, saw another pair of eyes looking right back at her.

The other bastard stood there, dumbstruck and wide eyed, hands raised up as he stammered.

Marta grinned and angled her knife. "Well?" she asked.

"I, I didn't,"

Marta gave a happy huff through gritted teeth, and step that slapped forward. Her knife gleamed.

The man yelled, and broke forward, desperate to escape. A hooked foot, the right amount of pressure and the slightest shift in weight saw him tripped and knocked to the ground.

Marta laughed as he whimpered and tried to scramble back up. She gave him a hard kick in the ass that saw him back down.

"Not so fun, is it,?" she said with a wild look in her eyes. Stood over him, and braced his back with a knee. Yanked his head back by the hair and pressed the edge of her knife up against his face. A shudder of pain shook through her as her damaged hand flexed its fingers about his greasy hair. "Being played with,"

 

[Samantha Black]

Slowly, piece by piece, Samantha Black was putting herself back together.

Well, almost.

The task of dressing oneself back into her clothing and kit was proving more difficult than anticipated. Her hands didn't want to work in the dexterous way required to button buttons or buckle buckles. What she would give to have that komodi here, dressing her up like a blood-soaked, poison-addled princess. And yet ... what had become of that komodi and why wasn't it also here? Had they gotten to it before herself and Marta?

Marta.

Sam lifted a ragged eyebrow in the direction the last man had run, knowing that he surely met with the blunt wall that was her evening's companion. She sucked air in through her teeth -

"Marta-" and loosed a sore rumble from her lungs, "don't kill him. We need answers."

And Marta needed her clothes. So they could get the fuck out of here and take their clothes off again.

 

[Marta Martigan]

Marta clicked her teeth. Frowned. "Shame," she said, pulled the knife's edge from the man's throat. Left a long thin slice across the skin. "I was just getting used to being soaked in blood again," their was a cruel joy there in the growl of her voice.

Something she might regret later. Well after she drank and whored enough to make the memory small and meaningless under a pile of indulgence.

She jerked the man's head forward, hard enough to make it smack against the stone. Wiped his blood off on his ragged clothes. Hoisted herself up and looked to Sam.

A hungry smirk on her lips. "Nice," she walked back into the armory, and started slipping into her gear.

 

[Samantha Black]

There were some smaller pieces missing from her own kit, but Sam couldn't be bothered to fuss with them. Too much fine-motor-skills required for too little benefit. She yanked her boots on, stuff the laces down through the throat and slowly righted herself just as Marta began to pull her own layers back on. Sam didn't linger but swapped to where Marta had just previously been, tormenting the piss out of the only man left alive down here. He was reeling from the smack against the wall, but still perfectly conscious and capable of bolting.

At least he was until Sam got a hold of him. Grappled by the scruff, he whimpered as she dragged him back down the hallway and to the small room where the hoard of effects left behind by previous victims remained.

Sam dropped him without ceremony into a chair by a small table and pulled out the dagger from the sheath hidden at her back waist. Moving to stand before him, the blue-eyed Dreadlord loomed over the man silently seething with a mixture of disgust, annoyance, and quickly-thinning patience.

A hand leaned down to grab at his wrist, which he jerked away as her fingers clamped down around it. Didn't need fine motor skills for what came next.

"What's your name?"

"D-Dak Manto," he cringed, leaning away from her with wide eyes.

She pressed his hand against the table, flattening out his fingers, and then lowered the blade onto his pointer finger just below the knuckle.

CRUNCH like a baby carrot, "Tell me everything."

 

[Marta Martigan]

Leather trousers slipped on easy over well muscled limbs. Belts sinched tight across wide hips, and fingers pulled tight the folds of her tunic as it slipped down. A few adjustments across the shoulder. She set her knife on her belt. Felt her hands shake and tremble with the movement.

Grit her teeth. Eyes on the weakness of her own flesh. Left hand, down at her side, but a tangle of raw nerve endings flaring red from where the bones had broken, and the iron had bit.

Steady breaths. Easy breaths. She wasn't that woman anymore.

---

Dak howled as he jerked back. The veins in his neck bulged as he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to pull himself away. His teeth bit down, clamped tight. The pain split up his bones. Up the run of his arm, and the broad held him down with a grip and a weight that made it all feel inevitable.

"Fuck you, you fucking-"

Crunch. Click.

Another howl let loose as metal scraped against stone. As his limbs thrashed and his legs kicked.

"Wha-what do you want?! You crazy bitch! Everything?!"

Crunch. Click.

"We are just middle men!" he cried out before he lost another finger. "In-betweens," his breathing was shallow. His eyes full of water. "I'm just a tough, I swear, hired muscle! I don't know much!"

He sounded... honest enough. His eyes, wild with the fear of losing more.

"They, they asked us to pick up bodies. On certain nights! Bodies from different places, haul them back here, and, and let them do their work! I, come on, what do you want from me?! You think I want to know what they were doing? Back there?!"

 

[Samantha Black]

"They..." Sam narrowed her eyes at the man.

She wasn't a mind reader, but pain had a way of informing truths from the most dubious of people. Especially those who hadn't been trained to bear it, to live in it.

"WHO," she intoned strongly, hot breath flashing across his face as she readied his hand for him to lose his thumb, her voice rumbled over the edges of a roar, "WHO ASKED YOU."

 

[Marta Martigan]

A string of curses spilled out from his mouth. Breath was forced out through his teeth. "Damn it! I don't know! I don't know!!!"

Marta watched on, cold eyed as she pulled down the last bit of her sleeve.

"Any markings," Marta offered. Like a line thrown out to a drowning man. Her voice far away. Clinical. "Symbols, odd dress,"

He gasped. Near choked. Tried to think of something. Anything. "An eye! There was an eye!"

Marta's brows rose. "An eye?"

The man nod, desperate to be free of the agony that flared through the stumps left at the end of his hand. "An eye, damn it! An eye on their cowl," he pressed his brow to the blood pooled floor. "Please, please, I, I swear, that's all I remember about them, I'm just... I'm just a fucking door man,"

Marta stepped closer, bent low to the ground beside Sam. "Oh, I believe you," she let on. "But my friend here," she jut her chin towards Sam, arms rested on her knees. "Gorgeous as she is, see, she's not so soft as me," she grinned, wicked. "Not so nice," she slapped the side of the man's face as he wept. "So you're going to have to do a little better than just... an eye,"

Through his sobbing and pained breaths. The man gathered himself. "I'll draw it for you, I... I still remember the damn thing, I'll show you the eye!"

Marta's brow cocked, she looked up to Sam and nod. Let him up.