Private Tales Whatever Helps You Sleep At Night

[Serryn]

Serryn was well connected. If anyone was asked about her, they most likely know of her, but didn't know much about her. They knew those who got too close disappeared under mysterious circumstances and no one ever seemed to ask any questions.

She had many contacts and one such person had led her to this darkened alleyway, lying in wait for her prey. She had been tracking him for a month now, until she knew his daily routine like the back of her hand. She had nothing better to do, this man was what all her hunting had been for and she would not mess this up.

She sat perched on a stone ledge with a good view of the street ahead and the alley behind. The people in the streets were dwindling as dusk fell, casting shadows that people walked quicker to avoid. Something that might have been a smile twitched on her lips. The shadows were for hiding, if one was clever enough. And she knew the person she was stalking knew that as well. He had been rather hard to follow at first, but once she begun to figure him out, it all came easier.

Then she saw him.

Tian.

His head was covered by a hood, like usual. He paused by the alley, as if sensing there was something hiding in the shadows. Serryn had to give him credit, he was good. But she had had hundreds of years of sneaking in the shadows.

She dropped softly from the ledge when he blinked, crouching in the shadows. Then, before he had time to draw in breath she was behind him, a very sharp knife pressed to his throat with her right hand, her strange, shadowy left hand pulling his hood down and jerking his head back by his hair, exposing his neck.

"We can do this the easy way, or the hard way," she whispered into his ear.

 

[Tian]

It was a blacker night than most.

There were no contracts and had been none to speak of in weeks. It was a rare day that the assassin accepted any such things, and when he did it was often for his own pursuit of a justice that would never come. The world was wicked and vile, the people that staffed it cynical and uncaring by and large. Here and there one could find a ray of light, of hope...

...but it was rare. In cities, it was even rarer.

Ever a victim of his own past, the male moved quietly through uncaring streets. Tonight it was not anger that haunted, but guilt - guilt at a heartless tragedy that he could not have avoided even had he wanted to. Like so many others that ran into the mist of time. He could not recall much of the deep past - humans were not meant to live lives as long as his.

Even with the ephemeral nature of memory, there were some that could not be expunged, some so deeply carved into the mind that he knew he would always see the eyes, the curve of her lip, and hear her ask the question over and over again as he plunged a lamp-blacked blade into her heart.

Why?

"I did you a favor," he murmured to the ghost of the was, as he had for centuries. It didn't make the scorching heat of blood on his hand disappear, nor did it make the icy stab of betrayal sting any less.

Tian had spent all of that time honing a craft that he had long since grown to despise. It was not a path he would ever choose again. He should have turned aside from that path long ago. If only he could affect the world in some other way than by the blades at his hips. Myriad regrets and promises, spoken to star-filled skies - promises to make the world better in her memory.

And so.

Moving through empty streets with nary a sound, he was left to his own thoughts. Lost in those thoughts he was not, though; the entire reason for his continued existence was a survival instinct that placed his own survival above everything else. A stab of regret, there. What was done, was done. What was about to happen, though...

That immaculate survival instinct was the first thing to betray Serryn. Tian knew his environment well, knew the ebb and flow of the night to a nicety. He could feel the charge in the air, sense the hidden danger. The second thing to betray the young fae - because to him, she was young - was her naivety.

If she had thought he had sensed her presence, why in all of the grand pantheon of Arethil would he continue into the trap?

The reason was soon evident.

Bereft of the hood, Tian was the most mundane of mundane; pale scars crisscrossing a face untouched by time and framing eyes nearly colorless. If the sudden touch of steel or the hand in his hair startled him, it was very well hidden.

"You will find," he said softly and completely composed, "that there is really very little difference between the two, lady." She had not watched his hands. A heavy bladed knife, wickedly sharp, tapped the inside of her thigh almost politely.

He was smiling, starlight dancing in his pale eyes. Completely and utterly composed and unconcerned, else very very good at hiding his discomfit. "I'll make a deal with you: take the knife from my throat, release me, and walk away. Else we can see which can deliver the coup de grace quicker."

He paused for effect and then shrugged, completely careless of the blade at his throat. "Truth to tell, neither of us will win. You will cut my throat and I will sever your femoral artery. We can make sweet music as we bleed out, together."

 

[Serryn]

Serryn felt the blade pressed against a vital artery in her thigh and she knew with just a bit of pressure, both of them would bleed out together here in this alleyway. While she wasn't afraid of death by any means, she did not want to meet her family again until she had avenged them.

Both of them were unblinkingly calm, despite Death's shadow looming over them. She did not move her blade from his throat but did not press any further. She was still as stone. "I need to talk to you, and unfortunately corpses can't talk, or else I wouldn't be here right now," she said, her voice just as calm and soft as his. He may have been trained to be a professional assassin, and Serryn may have even underestimated his abilities, but there were some things one could only learn from experience. Serryn had grown up on the streets.

Suddenly, the hand holding the knife to his throat faded away, the knife fading with it. Serryn released her hold on his hair with her right hand so that he could either run or turn around to face her. If he turned, he would see that her left cloak sleeve hung empty, where before the form of an arm and hand had been. There was no trace of where the knife she had been holding had gone, but there were plenty of other knives in hidden sheaths across her body.

Her hood shadowed her face but her teal eyes seemed to glow from the shadows. A soft breeze stirred the folds of her cloak.

"You worked for the Rei Company as an assassin." she would say, as a statement rather than a question. "Have any experience killing fae?" she continued, as if she was looking to hire him.

Tian

 

[Tian]

A sigh escaped him as the blade faded and she spoke. There was a certain element of weariness to it, the quality of someone who has been down a particular path many times. The road was well worn to the point of being a rut and escaping that well rehearsed story was a chore in and of itself.

The knife - damned near a short sword - vanished from her leg, back in its sheath at his hip as though it had never left. He turned round, straightening his tight fitting leathers as though they had been disturbed. His eyes regarded her, a quick sweep up and down. Whatever he thought of her did not register in them; his face was a blank slate, his thoughts murky and unknowable.

"I have worked for all manner of companies over the years, girl. Benevolent rulers, tyrants, lovers, the best and the worst." He shrugged, tired. The blackest of nights, compounded by this tired retelling. Despite the sorrow that breathed down his back, he smiled. It was forced, but it always had been. "And killing fae is remarkably like killing anyone else." He sniffed dramatically, though it wasn't her scent that tipped him. Her poise, the delicate features, and the question itself betrayed. "Will admit that your kith and kin require a bit more killing than some."

He paused, folded his arms in front of him. "If you are looking for someone, look elsewhere. I am not for hire, and you seem capable enough." He did not believe for one second that the line of questioning had anything to do with hiring him. Curiosity stirred despite itself; even in a black mood he was still not inclined to hide from the world. At least not entirely.

 

[Serryn]

He was being difficult, but nothing ever came easy and Serryn was not surprised. Thankfully her short temper had been dulled over the years but at times it still threatened to surface. That was a long way off though, for now.

"I am not looking for someone; I am more than capable of doing the job," He was nigh impossible to read, but she sensed he was not in a good mood. She didn't give a rat's ass because neither was she and besides, she hated people who drowned in their pain and did nothing about it. He was still breathing, wasn't he? She also hated people who were condescending and people who killed her family so all in all, she was not feeling too friendly towards Tian. But the only evidence he would be able to see of her feelings could be sensed vaguely on her scent.

"I am here because you have taken something very important from me," she said, her voice soft and cold. She knew he had killed a lot of other people, whose families likely missed them just as much, but the difference between them and Serryn was that she would not rest until she had found out why they had been killed and and punished him.

 

[Tian]

"Then whoever they were either pieces of shit or were unlucky and have been dead for quite some time."

He could not scent her well enough to pick up emotions. He was not fae. Wasn't precisely human any longer, either, but what abilities he had were grounded in the unremarkable banality of that race.

There was no way to tell which of what he accused them of being they had been. The girl in front of him was cool at best and winter incarnate at worst, but that did not say anything of her character. And even if he could tell what kind of person she was at a glance, that did not speak on the character of those whom she had lost.

"I do not work for just anyone, and I do not kill just anyone either. Not anymore, and not for... well, not for a very long time. By human standard, at least." And the truth of it was that he would never allow himself to be chained as he once had. Serryn was not the only one with an axe to grind, but it had been decades since he had heard even the tiniest whisper of his own quarry.

"Whatever you seek, vengeance will not bring them back." There was something in his voice at that statement. It was not made to be condescending, and it wasn't meant to preach. There was, however, a note of truth in it - one gained from experience.

"That brings us to the question. If you are not looking for anyone to do work, and you believe that I am responsible for some reprehensible evil... why are you talking, and not cutting? What do you want?" And why, he might have added, was he not simply slitting her throat and moving on?

Some ghosts are harder to sidestep than others. Well, he had plenty of fucking skeletons in his closet. Far be it for him to pick the lock on her door.

 

[Serryn]

His first comment made her anger surge suddenly and briefly and her teal eyes flared bright. But as quickly as it had come it faded away. Only a hundred years back she would have exploded with rage, but she had a better handle on it now. It seemed though that Tian was doing everything he could to chip away at her control.

"You do not deserve to speak of them. You did not know them." she said coolly. Memories from a different lifetime surfaced but Serryn tucked them away for later.

"I am not trying to bring them back. If I was, I would have dabbled in necromancy by now and would not be talking to you," she paused, "I am trying to understand. You were paid to kill them, and I want to know why."

Surely her answer was a strange one- and if one had met her right after her family's deaths, she would have killed anyone she thought might have killed her family, with no thought for why. But it was not as black and white as that. Killing this strange man would not bring her family any justice.

"I could ask you the same thing. Why are you talking and not cutting? Or fleeing?"

 

[Tian]

"Because I do not kill for the sake of the art. Whatever history that lies between us, I do not know you. As for fleeing?" A fleeting smile, there and gone. There would be no answer, no boasting or bragging. They could cut one another to pieces and aside from the chance that he might die in the exchange, it meant nothing to him.

"And I have no idea of whom you think or know that I killed. But if they died more than a hundred fifty years ago, give or take, then they died so that I might live." There was a touch of resentment there. "Some of us did not always get paid in gold and silver. Sometimes the right to take another breath was the payment."

It was his turn to be cold. Why bother with preserving his own life at the expense of others? Perhaps there was not as much difference between the two of them as she thought. The only difference was that she had proven softer than he, which was beneficial to him. When the time came, there would be no questions.

All that efficient, ruthless skill would be bent towards ending his life before he even knew what was happening.

 

[Serryn]

"Have you killed so many that you have lost all sense of self? Have you no conscious? Don't the voices of those you've killed echo inside your head?" She said, her voice not as cold as before but still soft. She knew what it was like. Even though she only killed for good reason, they all still haunted her, and she knew it would never go away. It would show that there was something wrong with her if it did. Her conscious grounded her.

"You killed my family. Even if you don't remember it, I do. And you've not only ended their lives but also ruined mine for selfish reasons. Not that I don't understand." A pause. "But if you're so miserable now, do you regret it? Not just killing my family, but anyone else you were hired to kill."

She sensed resentment on him, and she wondered who he was resenting. Himself, or perhaps his previous owners.

 

[Tian]

"No."

He paused for a moment, took stock of all the questions asked. "I do not regret killing your family. There is only one death that I regret delivering; the rest were necessary. My sense of self - indeed, my self - only continue because I did what was necessary."

He let his hands fall to his sides, but away from his weapons. If any blood was drawn here, it would not be because he spilled it first. He knives were nearly holy in their purpose, these days. No amount of bloodshed would ever undo what had been done, but he could at least ensure others did not find themselves on the same bitter road he had.

"My conscience is intact. Mostly. The voice of one regales me from beyond, but I would not expect you to understand. Losing your family by another is one sorrow, but there are other songs whose melody is even more tragic." He looked at her, eyes hard. "Not that I seek your commiseration. I paid the ultimate price for my hubris a thousand years ago and more. Now I simply try to even out the scales. Your family is on one side of the balance."

He gave her a rather unpleasant smell, the death's head rictus of someone that had bathed in the blood of innocents... and also of tyrants. It was clear which of the two he preferred.

"No matter how you feel about it - no matter how I feel about it - I will not simply cease. In fact, you might call it a curse - to live forever, to never be allowed to seek an ending." And he did not believe for a second that she would be the one to bring about that ending.

"Turn aside from this road. A knife in the dark is lonely and empty of any meaning you do not give it. Vengeance is not a meaning worthy of the name."

 

[Serryn]

Serryn said nothing for a moment, just watched Tian. His face was blank and was impossible to read. So he was haunted, but nearly enough as he should have been. But he was rather strange, wasn't he? He looked like a human at first glance but she knew he had lived longer than any human should live, longer than many fae, even.

There was something about him, that up close, she hadn't noticed. Those memories that she had tucked away, she pulled them back to the surface. That horrid night that she could never forget, there was something about her family's killer and the man that stood in front of her that didn't match up.

"What you thought was necessary," she whispered, repeating what he said, her mind distracted. What had her contact said, before he had died? Something along the lines of "wouldn't care if you killed him, but good luck".

Serryn never asked permission before killing someone, and the fact that he had all but told her to kill Tian put her on edge, more so now like it should have a month ago. Assassins could not be trusted. But then again, neither should she.

She tilted her head at Tian. "And what gives you the right to decide whether it is necessary for them to die and you to live? What gives you the right to decide that their lives were not as important as yours?"

 

[Tian]

"I don't get a choice."

There was an intensity in the statement that had been lacking up to this point. Something akin to anger and frustration, tinged with a deep sorrow. It ran contrary to his normal flippancy, his general disregard to form and seriousness. Sarcasm had been an armor for much of his life.

But tonight was a night darker than most.

"You are familiar with glamours. You are familiar with magic? Then believe me when I say I do not have a say in this matter. I can turn aside from killing - now - but even that has not always been the case." You will live to regret, and you will live a very, very long time. I will take everything from you for your defiance. No - I won't, you will. And then you will live with it.

Still, even if he had a choice in the matter... The wounds were old. Ancient, even. And some instincts were very difficult to suppress, and he said as much. "Even if I could, I would not. What gives me the right? The drive to live. Morals are a recent affliction of mine, but even with morals it is no easy thing to simply permit yourself to be killed. Or for others to be killed as a result of inaction. Wake up, girl - the world is cruel, cold, and heartless. Sometimes there are no easy answers. Sometimes all the choices lead to bad ends. Sometimes the bad guys win." He paused for a moment, huffed a laugh. "Who the bad guys and good guys are, that is simply a matter of perspective. You are always the hero of your own tale, after all."

He didn't really believe that of himself, though it was true enough. No one ever thought their actions evil or unjustified. The mental gymnastics some would go to in order to seem the morally righteous one could be spectacular to behold. At least he didn't try to justify in any other manner than his own survival.

 

[Serryn]

Serryn almost laughed when he told her to wake up. She already had, two hundred years ago. "I am not the hero of my story. I'm more of an anti-hero," she said, sarcasm creeping into her tone. He sounded very sure of himself, for someone who had lived for a long time and done bad things and it would take another of his lifetimes to "even out the scales". She supposed he had the time. Or at least he thought he did.

"There are no bad guys or good guys. There are people that do good and bad things," She replied to his last statement. "We all have our reasons," she added.

"What, exactly, were you thinking, two hundred years ago? What were your thoughts as you slit their throats?"

 

[Tian]

"That I'd get another day."

There was nothing else he could say to the question, after all. He had managed to escape his slaver since then, but the details were hazy at best. The details of her family - that was hazy, too. He had never been meant to live beyond a hundred, and two hundred years and more down the line meant that there were vast swathes of memories that had faded.

"If you are looking for specifics, you'll have to look elsewhere. I do not recall much beyond a century ago, saving for some specific things." Hot blood on hands. The look of betrayal in her eyes. The twisted look of glee in his, "I am not the villain you seek. Just another in a long line of people doing whatever it takes to survive. Just another bad guy in a world full of them."

Whether he wanted to or not. The pact would allow nothing less, after all.

 

[Serryn]

Gods, this night was going worse than Serryn had planned. She had gotten no real answers and a bunch of philosophical questions for all her efforts. And now what was she to do? She wasn't even totally sure Tian had actually been the one to kill her family and if he had, now she had to find the person who had hired him? Just when she thought she was close to the end, a new door had been opened.

And through it she would walk.

"Who were you working for?" she asked, making her tone cool, trying to turn the conversation away from philosophical matters. They would not agree, and arguing over these things would only raise her blood pressure.

If she could figure out why someone had wanted her family dead, and then seemingly forgotten about her, maybe she could understand it all and come to terms with it. But what then? Not having a purpose scared her, but she shoved those thoughts away and focused on her current mission.

Tian

 

[Tian]

"Were?"

Finally some real emotion in his voice. It is not indignation or arrogance or humor. It is unadulterated rage that hisses in his voice. "He still holds my leash - or the broken end of it. Avanth. A fae Lord, and my patron. Cruel, capricious, arrogant, and ruthless."

He looked at her, colorless eyes ablaze. "You didn't ask, but I am offering anyway. Some advice? Patience. You are no match for him. You obviously understand patience - the skill of our mutual craft? Train. And wait until the moment is right."

Tian would have loved nothing so much as to be the one to kill Avanth. But the thing about centuries of rage and sorrow and pain is this: he would just as happily see this woman end his patron as he himself.

So long as the fucker was dead at the end of it, that was all that mattered. Maybe then he could finally be free. "And, in the meantime, just frustrate everything he does instead."

 

[Serryn]

That was something she could do. Be patient. She had it in abundance when she wanted to, and she would particularly enjoy tearing apart this Avanth man piece by piece. Better to prolong her revenge, so she would not have to worry about being purposeless or dead.

She could tell Tian wanted Avanth dead just as much as she did, if not more so. Perhaps the stubborn, sarcastic man could still be of use to her. "Could you lead me to him? I have plenty of time to spare, to train, plan, and make sure his last years are a living hell. One of us will kill him."

He could be useful. He knew more about this Fae lord than she did and it would benefit them both if they pooled their collective talents together to even out the balances a bit more.

 

[Tian]

"I could lead you to him, but killing him has proven to be..."

Difficult. That didn't even begin to describe what it was, but he had attempted numerous times throughout the years. Since a knife in his fucking heart hadn't proven effective, he had spent a century trying to work through the problem, to find the source of his apparent immortality.

"I have been relegated to simply being a nuisance to him. You stay in orbit round him, see what his apparent ambitions are... and frustrate them." He did not mention the fact that the bastard was defacto immortal. Knife in the heart, still breathing. Some fae magic, no doubt. He would have avoided fae in their entirety if Avanth's primary ambitions seemed to have been manipulating a court here or there by killing assets or the like. Hundreds of years, and he still had no lead on what the fucker was actually up to.

"Which is all to say, I do not care if you join me in this most wondrous pursuit of mine. Just realize you are dealing with something beyond the normal bounds, and be ready for ... frustration."

From the Lord, or from him and quite honestly - from both.

 

[Serryn]

Serryn had already dealt with plenty of frustration in her life, from a number of people. Perhaps she was underestimating this Fae Lord, but what was another couple hundred years if she got what she wanted in the end? She had all the time in the world, and she knew how to be smart.

"Well, seeing as how I have nothing else on my schedule for the next couple hundred or so years, I think I will be just fine." She could tell Tian was frustrated with this Avanth fellow, but it only made her more the curious.

"And as for something beyond the normal bounds..." She continued, raising her empty cloak sleeve. One blink was all it took and then a shadowy arm appeared so vividly it almost appeared solid. Serryn turned over her hand, opening and closing her fist, before releasing, her phantom arm disappearing as quickly as it had come.

 

[Tian]

What must it be like, to be meant to live so long? The frame of reference was different for him than it was for her. "Two hundred years for you might be nothing, but it is not so simple for me. Especially where the Lord is concerned. I am pact-bound to him... I think."

It was a question that could never be answered. He thought he was free of it, and yet here he was. Still alive, ten times and more beyond the lifespan of a human. Many of his other skills remained intact still. The power he had gained by chaining himself to a fae remained intact, even if the pact itself was dissolved.

Theoretically at least.

"Neat trick," she remarked. Would be one hell of a dirty one to pull on someone - letting them think you only had one arm, fighting them until they either died or got a seeming upper hand before pulling that trick out in some devious manner and putting paid to whatever problem. "Could see some interesting trickery with it. You fae are supposed to be good at trickery anyway."

He paused, shook his head. "I have no such tricks. I have been alive for eleven hundred years - that is my abnormality." That, and the experience that comes from not dying in all that time. No amount of magic limbs or the like could compete with sheer experience.

 

[Serryn]

A neat trick. Serryn almost snorted. She got the feeling they were in a pissing competition- going back and forth about who is better at killing or who was a better or worse person. This was getting them nowhere.

"Perhaps a fresh pair of eyes and a younger mind is what it will take," Serryn replied.

"Where does this Lord Avanth live?" A plan was already forming inside of her head. "Tell me everything you know about him. Two heads are better than one, especially with both of our experience," Her words ceded power to both of them in an attempt to stop their arguing so they could actually focus on killing Avanth.

Tian

 

[Tian]

"And one of his kindred, no less," Tian added in a desert-dry tone.

"I do not know where he lives. Likely among one of the fae Courts, but he is consistently enshrouded in his own glamours." He paused, cut his eyes to the side as he finally reached up to draw his hood back over his head. "You of all people should know how difficult it is for humans to pierce faerie glamours. I can only do it with extreme effort, but of my Patron's? I cannot even scratch them."

Part of the mystery of his continued existence. He had not deigned to respond to any commands from his Patron for more than a century, and yet he retained his extraordinary abilities and his life.

"One might even begin to believe that he does not even consider me a threat."

 

[Serryn]

"Well that is his mistake," Serryn replied. If Tian knew even a little bit about Avanth, wasn't he a liability? If Serryn was in Avanth's position, she would have killed him already.

"Glamours are not impossible to undo. All I need is time and patience." The Fae could unravel Fae induced glamours; the stronger they were, the longer it would take and the harder it would be.

"Can you sense when he's coming?" She asked.

 

[Tian]

"He has been closed to me for decades," he said simply. "Unfortunately, anything regarding direct confrontation with him will require good old-fashioned leg work. Cloak-and-dagger spy things. I have never seen him outside of the wider world."

And he had received no work from him in a century, either. It was almost as if he were a toy that had been entertaining for a while, and suddenly and completely lost any interesting qualities. It would rankle if Tian cared, and he did not.

Serryn was also discounting a third option in all of her calculations: that the Lord was beyond either of their skills, and that neither of them were a liability to him.

"You can move in fae circles more readily than I. Perhaps you have seen him before?"

 

[Serryn]

"Well, I've only just found out about him today," she said, almost sarcastically, but she was already thinking back to her limited interactions with other fae in the fae courts.

It was possible that she had encountered a fae who kept to himself and covered himself in false glamours. She thought the most likely court to start looking for him would be the Night Court. Many strange, hidden dealings went on in the shadows, and the others tended to keep their distance.

"The Night Court, perhaps," she said, voicing her thoughts to see what Tian would think.