- Messages
- 22
- Character Biography
- Link
The meeting point was chosen for its anonymity, no doubt. In the dying dusk, Pitchgate stooped below the shadow of its mightier brethren; the towering gates and walls that marked grand entrances to Alliria. In their gloom, a small gate fit for a country town teetered between the Outer City and the Areck Slums, as reluctantly as its meagre sentries, faces sour below pot-helmets, knowing they had gotten the shorter end of the stick in their duties. It led one to the bit of wetland near the coast, too muddy and untamed for most merchant carts to bother crossing, preferring greater gates and drier footing.
Portcullis shrieking in rusty lament, it allowed exit for those who sought escape from the Outer City into the unprotected slums, stone giving way for rickety wood. The guards looked upon any such traveler with scepticism; the sort of scepticism that weighed the options insanity or stupidity equally on their scales of experience. But for those seeking to come in? The gate only reluctantly opened, its manned operation knowing who brought trouble and who brought manpower to the districts of various crafts beyond.
A group on horseback would already stand out by their sheer mounts. No meagre mules here — no, these horse were all black as night and powerful, muscles rippling below saddlebags and harnesses. The queue of denizens seeking entrance to the Outer City gave a wider berth around this company, chief among them two figures, both wearing long cloaks, equally black as their horses, hoods drawn well over their faces, as if made to melt into the night. Below those hoods, though, they might as well have been night and day.
The first was a human with stubbled skin, mouth puckered into a taught line. His leather gloves clenched tight on the reins of his horse, a rapier jutting out from below his cloak like an open-ended question. If tension could be described with a person, it might well use this man, looking as taught as a bowstring.
The other, however, lounged in his saddle as if propped up by cushions below his cloak. Similarly, he wore a lazy smile — all gleaming white teeth, daring anyone to come question his presence. Hair white as woven moonlight spilled out from his hood, veiling skin too solidly dark and midnight blue in its tinge to belong to a human.
"You think she'll arrive, then?" asked this smiling rascal of the human.
"Oh, she will. You should have seen the look on my sister's face meeting her. I don't think I've seen her this intrigued since she received a diamond dagger from Lazular."
The white-haired rider turned his head subtly, noting the sulking tone in his companion.
"Does my eye spy a touch of jealousy here, Master Fane? A lack of familial affection, perhaps?"
A snort from Fane near matched the one from his restless horse.
"Nothing of the sort, drow. But I know that look. It always precedes a dangerous plan. And that nun, well — she seemed innocent in the way I find few to be these days," Fane's lower face twisted with regret, and he raised his reins, as if considering making it back through Pitchgate. "We shouldn't be doing this."
"Nonsense, my good fellow. A spot of wind in our hair and then a leisurely sail back home. What could possibly go wrong?"
"If you're attempting at humour, you're sorely lacking. In any case, what do you gain from risking life and limb for my sister's whims?"
The smile below the drow's hood widened — and hardened into something much more disturbing.
"That is for her and I to know. But now that you mention it, I think I know which look you mean . . ."
"That so?"
"Mmm--yes, I believe I saw it right before I corrupted her soul with my particular craft. Frightening, really. I never knew humans to have such endurance, such vigour . . ."
"On second thought, keep your lying mouth shut. I don't want to hear your deranged fantasies."
The drow tapped a long-nailed finger to his chin, as if mulling over a philosophical conundrum.
"Now I wonder how a nun compares to a noble. Are they flagellants, by any chance—? Or perhaps— ah, hello, where you going now?"
Fane couldn't endure the drow's lascivious pontifications any longer, cantering his horse out of earshot.
Lilette Blackbriar
Last edited: