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| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | Siamus, fresh from the knowledge that the conspiracy he's stumbled upon has seemingly no bottom, returns to Lathrik and Natalyah's to reveal a corner of the board they didn't realize was there. Joelle and Reniya play a game with a skilled player. And the rando worgen Natalyah picked up off the metaphorical streets isn't as random as they thought. 14k~ words. |
| Rating: | M for Mature 17+ |
Arc: The Red String Game
Two worgens make good time through a forest, at least up until near the city limits, where a human form may be slower, but safer for many reasons. The evening has come down into the city in full now, the street lamps bright, and the guards of the city carrying their lanterns of swinging lights over the cobblestones. Mid-October's nights come with a bite of autumn, and the clear skies that show off stars in the inky violet black give no relief of cloud cover warmth.
By the time Natalyah gets to the door of the gremlin house in Old Town, it takes her two tries to open it, her hand cold, slippery and shaking, and she sounds like a Hallow's End reveler playing a toy of rattling bones with the chattering of her teeth. The gown, never meant to withstand any weather, has made things worse by soaking up sweat and chilling her further, and she forces her way into the house with the desperation of someone who has been telling herself for the past twenty minutes a mantra that she's almost there, all she has to do is get into the house. So it is that she makes quite a figure for Lathrik to see, stumbling into the center of the room, leaving the door open behind her to accommodate a surprise guest.
Lathrik glances towards the door from his spot by the fireplace, poking the fire to keep it going. "Oi, 'Talyah, d'ye need —" He stops when Adamantia walks in behind her.
"Hey," Adamantia says, glancing around, taking in the place. "I'm Adamantia. You can call me Ada. Natalyah said I could crash here."
Natalyah makes her way towards the Lathrik, her teeth chattering all the while. "She was — living off the — forest. Like me," she adds. "Worgen. From Northrend." As soon as she gets close enough to do it, she tosses herself into Lathrik's arms for his body heat and current proximity to the fireplace as much as any other reason.
Lathrik straightens and puts the fire poker away in time to catch her, wrapping her up in his fire-warmed embrace. He peers at Adamantia over her shoulder. "A Northrend worgen? What brought ye south?"
"I met a few southerners, decided they weren't bad people, and thought I'd check things out down here for myself," Adamantia says, stalking around the room, inspecting it. "And then the world went a little wild because of the mad dragon Aspect. I'm sure Cobalt Company is on that, though."
Natalyah nuzzles against Lathrik's neck, pressing in close against him, letting her canes dangle from her wrists as she lets him hold her up. "She was — near Harvey. And the worgen — that was here — before," she tells him.
"I do have a few questions," Adamantia says, finally settling on the couch. "Why does the city smell completely terrible lately? It wasn't quite so potent when I came here."
Lathrik stares up at the ceiling for some reason, idly rubbing his hand along Natalyah's back. "The Horde have got it in their heads to assail us with stink bombs," he says.
"Okay, that's not cool," Adamantia says, nodding amiably anyway. "And why does that little town in Elwynn keep catching on fire? This pumpkin head guy keeps showing up and rhyming, and then it's this whole emergency."
"Happens every year around this time," Lathrik says with a sigh.
"Oh, so it's normal? Huh." Adamantia's expression is a mix between impressed and disturbed.
Worgen hearing is likely sharp enough to catch the swift, certain stride that approaches the Gremlin House from up the street, but even non-worgen hearing cannot miss the brisk triple-knock that sounds a moment later.
Vice Admiral Siamus Fallon is standing outside the door, hands in his overcoat pockets, the coat's collar turned up against the evening chill. He is not looking at the door; he has his back to it, is watching the empty street behind him.
Natalyah half turns in Lathrik's arms. "That doesn't sound like Ren," she says, who might be the only person she's expecting at their door at this point given everything. She looks back to Lathrik with a pout and a faint whine, before she sets her canes back on the floor, staying by the fire. "You answer it." It's that habitual ordering tone of hers, but it's softened significantly by the fact that she takes advantage of their proximity to press a quick kiss to his lips and then another to his cheek for good measure.
"Sometime tonight," Lathrik says, starting towards the door, "we'll eat dinner." He doesn't sound very confident. When he opens it, he frowns. "Vice Admiral. Forget somethin'?"
Siamus turns. "Dinnsfield. May I come in? I need to ask ye some things I'd rather not on the street." The words themselves are cordial but his tone is tight, his expression hard.
"Aye, well, we've a visitor, if that'll be an issue," Lathrik says, stepping aside.
Natalyah tenses up. "What's wrong? Did something happen?" The worry is obvious in her expression as much as her voice, a fear setting her own metaphorical fur on edge.
Siamus steps briskly in past Lathrik and halts at the sight of the visitor. He watches her as he replies to Natalyah. "I've had some new information, and so I have some questions. It's to do with your colleague, Dinnsfield." He continues to watch Ada. Both the vague wording and the direction of his gaze suggest he is not entirely sure he wants to talk with this unknown here, but he'll let Lathrik and/or Natalyah be the judge.
"If it helps," Adamantia says, watching him from the couch, "I probably won't have any idea what you're talking about. You could put me outside, but I'd still hear you."
"She's Adamantia, a worgen, from Northrend," Natalyah explains. "I just met her. She was homeless living in Elwynn forest, and she needs a place to go. She doesn't know anything."
Siamus looks ready to be way more paranoid about a random forest worgen befriending Natalyah and following her home on this of all nights, but he does not say so. He just gives Natalyah a look that kind of says so, politely.
But then he says, "Has Hartrim been having trouble at work lately? Beyond the… ill-advised recreational side effects situation?"
"Oh, that. He's fine now. He was upset because we had an incident, he and I. There were things done and other things said, and he went on a destruction bender at work. We fixed it," Natalyah says with the same frankness she's shown, except what it looks like when she's omitting details deliberately.
She looks over at Adamantia. "Adamantia stopped by our house before, sniffing around, and she was lurking on the edges of Harvey's territory. Yes, obviously, she could be a spy for the Count, especially somehow linked with Jothran from all that death knight Northrend business, but she could also just be a person trying to live without any resources or anywhere to go, and she's starving and desperate. We can't let someone who needs help go without it just because there's a chance she could be someone dangerous. At some point, you just have to take the risk, and she doesn't feel like she's evil. As opposed to Ilanya, who reeks with something off about her."
Siamus reconsiders Adamantia. Could she be… a Lady in Straits?
She's definitely cute enough to be one.
"You're making it sound extra suspicious when you put it like that," Adamantia says. "I was only lurking because I smelled a worgen. I don't know your southern Count or whoever Hartrim is."
Lathrik moves to pour himself more whiskey. What a night.
"There's been a lot of coincidences that are suspicious, so we have to be at least a little cautious. I just don't think you're an enemy," Natalyah says as she pushes over towards Lathrik, aiming for more snuggles. What a night. Hold her, Lathrik.
Siamus bows his head courteously to Adamantia; he's still unsmiling, but he is doing Manners. "I apologize, miss. Vice Admiral Siamus Fallon. I'm sorry to hear of your situation."
"I'm not going to starve to death, I could go home. I'm not that eager to take another boat, is all," Adamantia says. "Plus I'd rather not run into my family. Which… speaking of. Are you related to Lady Sintha?"
Lathrik offers an arm to Natalyah. Just one. Maybe he's not real big on full-body snuggles when there's this much company.
Siamus looks slightly sardonic. Naturally Sintha knows something about this person first. "I'm her brother, aye."
Natalyah snuggles against Lathrik into the open space of his arm. They're nearly of a height, so she leans most of herself against him. She's still cold from the weather outside, although at least she's stopped shivering. "How do you know that?" she asks Adamantia.
"She was the second person I met when I got off the boat," Adamantia says. "The first was Lady Dara. I think they might have figured out the worgen part. Also I… chewed the soles of my boots off during the boat ride, so I was barefoot."
Siamus regards Adamantia levelly. What does one say to this?
"Ah," is what.
Natalyah makes a startled huff of a wicked laugh, but it clashes with a look of horror in her eyes like hail on a sunny day. "Not that I don't understand the impulse in a metaphor of being so bored that you could, but was it that or did you not have anything to eat properly as, what, a stowaway or whatever so that's what you tried eating?" She seems to be equal full parts of amused at the ridiculousness and distressed on Adamantia's behalf at the possibilities.
"I'd never been on a boat. Ship. It was swaying all over the place and I got nervous and couldn't hold my form," Adamantia admits. "So I… hid in a cabin and chewed on my boots to stay calm."
Siamus regards her with a line between his brows. Imagine being nervous about a ship.
Natalyah's amusement drops away, and she makes a movement towards Adamantia like she might go to cuddle against her, but it's aborted for some reason, as she curls into Lathrik a little more, some emotion adjacent to shyness in it. "I'm sorry. That's horrible." And now everyone is staring at Adamantia, so Natalyah throws Ren back as a distraction. "Why were you asking about Ren's Destruction Bender? Did his parents say something else?"
"Aye, did ye enjoy your chat?" Lathrik asks, taking a drink.
Siamus gives Lathrik an inscrutable look. "How did ye know what the woman is? She told ye herself?"
"She did. In the context of what drove Ren from his home at fifteen," Lathrik says. "That her husband doesn't want 'er on the ships."
"So she trusted ye a great deal, you understand," Siamus says. "As a friend of her son's. There are only a handful of sages on the mainland, so far as I know, and they keep it very quiet. And that woman in particular is terrified of her own gift."
"You're the only one we've told," Natalyah says defensively, as if Siamus has accused them of yelling it in the streets. (He has not.) "She seemed generally nervous about everything, and a little paranoid. Why would she be scared of a gift? Does it do something?"
"Most dangerous person who knows it would be your Ralaea," Lathrik says.
"Ralaea knows better than to spread that," says Siamus. "She's Kul Tiran." And Siamus is an optimist.
To Natalyah, he says, "And I did tell Mrs. Hartrim the pair of ye were trustworthy. And aye, the gift… does something. It's not for faint hearts, and it's not for anyone who fears themselves as weak as Othelia Hartrim does.
"But Miss Kensington-Whit — earlier, ye mentioned in some detail what I smell like to you." His gaze is very dark. "Do ye remember? Can ye tell me what Reniya smells like?"
He pauses. "When he's not sleeping in bathrooms or puking on desks, that is."
"I've never smelled him in either a bathroom or after any desk incidents, thank the Light for small mercies," Natalyah says, her expression showing strong disgust of someone imagining both of those so clearly she can almost smell them. "He smells like spiced apples from something he wears, a cologne or shampoo or soap, sometimes other people, the leather of his armor, and under it sea salt. That's why Ilanya called him the Salt Man. It lingers on him, probably from being out on his boat often." It's a good hypothesis, but not quite right, especially if you're missing out on a piece of information.
And she frowns even after she says it, the look of a scientist stepping back and reviewing her data again. "Wait — " She lunges forward, bracing a hand on the table, sniffing deeply near Siamus. "You both have the exact same sea salt scent. And you asking about it, that means something doesn't it? That you both smell like sea salt all the time?"
Siamus is silent for a moment, regarding Natalyah.
"Where is Reniya now? Does either of ye know?"
"Ordinarily he'd be at a bar around this time," Lathrik says. "But after the whole bit with Tabiana, he's been headed straight to the barracks and stayin' in. Rattled him some, I'd guess."
"Are ye willing to go and fetch him? I would but I don't want to draw more notice than necessary. I'm concerned the man's already had too much of it." Siamus regards Lathrik, weighing his words. "Tidesages are… highly uncommon, in Kul Tiras, and they're prized. Important. On the mainland, they're unheard-of, and mostly prefer to keep it that way. Reniya's mother suspects she may have passed on the blood to him. And I suspect that, courtesy of his licking lass, Amerith may know it whether Reniya himself does or not."
Natalyah straightens, setting both canes back on the ground. "Prized in a way that would be bad if the Count knows of it? Is Ren in danger from it?" She glances over to Lathrik, guilt streaking across her face like rain on a window.
Siamus shrugs. "Mrs. Hartrim seems to think so. The Count… 'collects novelties,' she said. On the other hand, the man's known me for years and I'm given to understand finds me dull as dry toast, but I couldn't tell ye what he actually knows about me beyond… the public face."
"Mind ye," he says after a silence, "I think Mrs. Hartrim's particular fears in this instance arise more from… her own history than from likelihood. She was under the impression I might have gone there to… buy her or one of her children? I very much doubt even Amerith would intend such a thing." Siamus glances toward the door, frowning.
"It's like a bleedin' chess board," Lathrik mutters, heading towards a small black box he keeps on the shelf next to his mercifully de-sparkled sword. Someone was busy while he had some alone time with the sparkle invasion. "The Count may not buy people with money, but he's not above collectin' in other ways."
He picks up the box, presses a button and says into it, "Oi, Elle? Ye happen to have eyes on Ren tonight?"
A moment later, a man's voice comes through the box. "Yes. We're playing cards with —" The transmission abruptly cuts off.
Lathrik frowns and tries again. "Elle? You're playing cards with who?"
Silence.
Lathrik stares at the little box, his normally relaxed expression filled with such intensity that the Light begins its glow around him. "Might be," he says, his voice dangerously calm, "that they broke it on accident playin' around."
Siamus regards Lathrik with flat impassivity. "And the odds of that? Hartrim and your friend… Elle? are both guards, so I'm going to believe they'd not easily walk into trouble over their heads." (Technically, he may be assuming that of Elle exclusively. It seems entirely likely that Reniya would stroll facefirst into trouble over his head.) "If they have —"
He looks toward the door again. "And not to leap to premature conclusions," he says blandly, "but I came to ye straight from the House chambers this afternoon, so I'm not armed. I can be, and with a fast horse, given fifteen minutes or so. And we have a pair of worgen ladies with us." He glances at Adamantia. "Assuming they're both willing to help. Among us, I doubt there's any trouble over our heads.
"But as I say, ye know Hartrim and Elle and their likely situation better than I do." He raises his eyebrows.
Natalyah looks neither calm nor impassive. There's a crackling storm of energy to her, anger and worry both chasing each other across her face. "Ren would stroll face first into trouble over his head, especially if money was involved, and Elle wouldn't abandon him to it. Even if it's just an ill-advised party, and it was Ren who broke or took the box from Elle so he couldn't say, isn't something we can ignore, not with Ren's history. It could be only a prank to get back at us again, but all the same I'd rather ruin it than wait it out." She's already moving towards the bedroom, pushing the door open to reveal some of the room, painted a shade of brown almost nearly the same color as Lathrik's eyes, and small. There is no sign of any other room in the house.
"If they aren't at the barracks, but started at the barracks, I might be able to find them by scent if no one knows where they are already. I say might because there are hundreds of scents all the time in the city and finding one like Ren's or Elle's is like looking for a single color sequin on a multicolor dress filled with dozens of similar shades. The more we can narrow it down the better."
Natalyah re-emerges from the bedroom with the world's cutest worgen plushie backpack, which she puts on, leaning against the doorway for balance in between. "And once we find them in general, I can stay back with Siamus and Adamantia and go in with my sight in Lathrik until we know what the situation is, to know if we need to go in, or if we need to get back up. I have my journal and extra mana potions."
"Okay, I guess I'm helping," Adamantia says, a bit baffled by the whole situation. "Cool, cool. Just tell me who to stab."
"Oi, nobody's… We're goin' to avoid the stabbing if it can be helped," Lathrik says, but he begins to put on his armor, which doesn't make for a very convincing case. "It's probably nothing, but it's been a night, and I'll not leave this uninvestigated."
"Mostly also we can't leave you here. We don't know you well enough, and you could decide we're crazy people and take our things to sell and dash off," Natalyah says as she gets her canes looped back over her wrists again.
Siamus watches Lathrik put his armor on. "Do I in fact need to be armed?" he asks mildly, as if he's asking whether they think he'll need an umbrella.
"You're not making a very good case for not being crazy people," Adamantia informs her.
"Shouldn't need," Lathrik responds to Siamus. "If it turns out to be such a situation, ye can fetch more of the guard. I'd rather not have ye armed in a way that could give the Count ammunition against us."
Once dressed more appropriately, Lathrik picks up his shield. The shield sparkles eagerly. Apparently he missed some sparkles from earlier. With a frustrated sigh, he pulls open the door and steps out.
Adamantia gets up from the couch and follows him out.
Siamus turns up his coat collar again, puts his hands in his pockets, and follows. An ordinary autumn evening stroll with an armed guard and two worgen. No umbrella.
"We just have a lot of information that you're missing," Natalyah says to Adamantia as she steps out of the house, pulling the door shut and locking it. "Like the way it can sound crazy if you say that you chewed through your boots until someone knows the contextual elements of worgen and first experience with a ship, and needing to find a way to stay calm. You're watching us chew through our boots, but we have good reasons to be doing it." She tenses up against the cold. After a hesitation, a curling of her shoulders, she moves her canes to one hand as she announces, "I'm going to shift." It's the warning given before the action, a smooth transition from one form to the next, a silken black worgen loping to catch up to Lathrik's side.
Lathrik leads the way at a brisk pace through Old Town, only changing routes to avoid a stray stink bomb now and then. When they arrive at the barracks, a familiar woman is just emerging. She has medium length blonde hair, and is wearing a modest dress of pink and dark green, and she smiles when she sees the small group.
"Lathrik, Natalyah, Lord Fallon," Ilanya says in greeting, her green eyes shining with mischief. "And I don't know your friend. You're too late, you know." She hands a small black box to Lathrik, who meets her with his own, barely contained lazy smile.
Siamus does not take his hands from his pockets; his expression has at some point become that slight, sardonic, glint-eyed smile that is his mask. It does not change as he makes a survey of Ilanya now, but there is a sort of electric, barely-contained tension in his posture, a focused intensity not unlike that with which he'd descended on the Hartrim household not that long ago.
Natalyah growls, a deep, dangerous rolling black of thunder, as she bares her real teeth in a rippling snarl, claws against the cobblestones digging in hard enough to scratch the stone. It's possible the only thing keeping her from lunging at Ilanya then and there is a deal made with Lathrik that he's first into a situation, and she stays in the middle. "What did you do?" she demands, the words harsh and edged with a bestial type of defensive fury.
"I finished our card game, what else?" Ilanya's smile is still there, but one of her hands has disappeared from sight, and her gaze is focused as she watches Natalyah.
"Let's… keep this civil, aye?" Lathrik says, ready to stand directly between Ilanya and Natalyah. "We'll ask Ren." His hand is tight on the box.
Adamantia takes in Ilanya with more curiosity than anything.
"A pleasure to meet you, Miss Ravendusk," Siamus says blandly. "Give Amerith my regards."
Ilanya gives him a formal curtsey. "I will be certain to, Lord Fallon," she says.
Natalyah closes her jaw and bows her head down, possibly from penitence or scolded shame by Lathrik. Except that in the darkness of the night, hidden by the angle of her head, shadows swirl out from her pupils to cover her eyes as she leaps to Ilanya's sight.
Ilanya continues on her way, heading out of Old Town and towards the city's exit.
Lathrik waits for a moment, until Ilanya is out of sight. "'Talyah," he says. "You good? D'ye need me here, or would ye rather I fetch Ren?"
Natalyah stumbles towards Lathrik, throwing herself at him, shifting in an iridescence in mid-movement so that it's the human woman to catch rather than the large worgen as she puts her head into the place where his armor leaves his neck uncovered. "I need you," she tells him, a shake to her voice that doesn't seem to be just from the cold. Her voice is low, muffled into his skin. "She's headed out of the city."
"What would ye like me to do?" Siamus asks mildly. "Shall I go see about Hartrim?"
"Aye, if ye would," Lathrik says, securing Natalyah in his arms. "Shouldn't have to go far."
"So, what, he smells like apples and salt?" Adamantia asks. "I can probably find that."
"Spiced apples, leather and metal armor, the barracks, and faintly sea salt," Natalyah corrects in that lecturing sort of tone of someone who cannot just let facts be misrepresented when she knows better. "At least two other guards smell like 'apples,' one of them from a sweeter perfume that covers up some sort of muskier sweat, and the other from probably handling them a lot like a cook assistant, of actual real apples. Besides, Siamus doesn't have to smell him out. He knows Ren, by sight and vice versa."
Siamus nods. "If there's licking to be done, however, I'll leave that to you," he tells Adamantia deadpan.
He turns to stroll into the barracks like it is a typical Wednesday night thing for an Alliance Vice Admiral and member of the House of Nobles to drop in on the guard barracks with his new worgen pal.
"I can lick him? Neat," Adamantia says, following him.
They find Reniya in what appears to be a mess hall, sitting at a table with a larger man, whose black hair is pulled back into a tail.
"Psst," Adamantia says to Siamus. "Why are we mad about a card game? They look fine."
"Depends on the card game," Siamus says dryly to Adamantia as they approach the table. He raises his voice. "Hartrim?"
Outside the Barracks
Meanwhile, as the other two enter the barracks, Natalyah shudders in Lathrik's hold like a leaf blown in high gale winds, clinging onto the branch with the tiniest of grips, as she watches what Ilanya sees. There's a high pitched whine that emerges, as if holding the connection is painful or difficult.
Ilanya pulls a deck of cards from her sleeve, and shuffles them idly while she walks, but only when no one is looking. She seems to be making a game of it, hiding the cards when people pass by, pulling them back out when she's alone. When reaches Elwynn Forest, a carriage seems to be waiting for her, driven by an aging coachman.
She climbs inside, closes the door, and stares out the window as the carriage starts towards the Count's manor.
Inside the Barracks
Inside the barracks, Reniya looks up at Siamus's call, near startling to his feet. "Vice Admiral," he says. "What's called you here so late?"
The man beside him remains seated, gazing at Siamus with deep chocolate eyes. He offers a small smile.
Other guards throughout the area peer in Siamus's direction, but no one interrupts. They're off duty anyway.
"Looking for you, naturally," Siamus says. This is also a totally normal Wednesday night thing; Reniya hangs out with the Vice Admiral. "And this must be… Elle, then? What have the pair of ye been about this evening?" Just bros being bros.
Then he recalls the non-bro in the equation. "And I beg your pardon, this is my… friend Adamantia."
Oh no, Siamus. You probably made that sound wrong.
"Can I lick him yet?" Adamantia asks helpfully.
Reniya glances between Siamus and Adamantia, puzzling something out. "An… interesting choice," he finally says. "Elle an' I were just playin' some cards, only, the cards seem to've wandered off on us. If y'had a… suggestion of what we might do instead, we're open to it."
Siamus puts a consolatory hand on Adamantia's shoulder. No, my 'friend,' no one gets to lick him yet. "Oh? Pity about the cards. Why don't ye come along with us for a bit, then? I'll buy ye a drink, we can catch up. And I'd be glad to get to know — " He surveys Elle. " — Elle. Better. After all I've heard."
It's entirely possible he'd be glad to get to know Elle better.
Reniya glances at Joelle and nods. "Alright, mate," he says to Siamus. "Lead on, then."
Joelle gets to his feet as well. He is several inches taller than them both. Adamantia stares at him, then glances at Siamus. She might be hoping she doesn't have to stab the big guy.
Siamus might be okay with stabbing the big guy but that's neither here nor there. He cants his head genially in a casual beckoning gesture, and turns to head from the barracks without another look around. Very normal Vice Admiral social times for Ren and Joelle.
Outside the Barracks
"She's taking a carriage to the Counts," Natalyah tells Lathrik, her lips against his skin. She is now shivering for another reason, the cold a deep discomfort against her bare shoulders and upper arms, the metal of Lathrik's armor providing no significant warmth. But she holds the connection.
Lathrik takes one of his gauntlets off, placing his hand on her shoulder as if he can block the cold from reaching her, but even he knows that it's only a matter of time before his hand gets cold as well. "Next thing I'm investing in is a coat," he informs her.
"I wasn't expecting to need one today, or I'd have bought one," Natalyah says defensively, as if Lathrik's scolded her for not buying one already. (He has not.) She breathes Lathrik in and out like he's the only clean air. She focuses on Ilanya harder, trying to see outside the carriage from the field of her vision. "I can't see where they are, but she has to be going to the manor." A thought at last occurs to her, a tensing in her shaking shoulders. "Wait — what does Almeiria look like?"
"Slender, has a bit of a odd sense to her, like somethin' about her's off, hair black enough to devour the sun, brown eyes," Lathrik says. "And I'm not sayin' we should've planned to leave dinner on the table for hours to come out into the cold while we fussed about with this whole… whatever this whole day has been. I'm saying that I'm gettin' you a coat at some point. It'll be winter soon."
Siamus emerges from the barracks with his entourage in tow in time to catch this last. He begins, reflexively, to unbutton his overcoat to offer it to the Lady — look, ladies get coats, Mrs. Hartrim already wore this one tonight, sort of — and then remembers that this is Natalyah, and decides not to offer. It seems to give him a twitch of physical pain not to do so.
"Here we are," he says mildly to Lathrik instead. "Back to yours?"
"Aye," Lathrik says. "If only to get out of the —"
"Oi, oi, oi, hold on a second," Reniya objects. "Y'didn't mention Lathrik and Swallowtail'd be here. Is this… a trap? Are you trappin' me right now, mate?"
"We didn't sign up for traps," Joelle says. "Did we?"
"No," Reniya says. "We didn't. What's this really about, then?"
Siamus turns back to him and slings a companionable arm around Reniya's shoulders. It's a friendly gesture. It might even be a flirty gesture. Okay it's definitely a slightly flirty gesture. It's also a you're-staying-right-here-with-me-buddy gesture. "Hartrim, I said I'd buy ye a drink, and I will. But I need to ask ye a few questions as well, if ye don't mind."
Natalyah scowls, but her face is hidden in Lathrik, so all that really gets seen is a woman shivering and shuddering against a paladin in heavy armor, looking for all the world as if she might be having a very quiet, very intense sobbing session. She doesn't reply to Reniya, which is even weirder than anything she could possibly say. The vulnerability of her curved neck suggests she's definitely not at her sharpest.
Siamus gives Lathrik a pointed look and, with the arm not around Reniya, plucks at the collar of his coat. Do it, man. Ask him.
Lathrik might be considering it. The wheels are turning. But not fast enough, as Joelle, in the spirit of friendly, and slightly flirty gestures, slings his own arm around Siamus's shoulders, trapping the coat where it is.
Reniya, for his part, stares suspiciously at Natalyah, probably wondering why he's not getting yelled at right this second.
"Ren, it's been a bleedin' obnoxious day, can ye just come with us so we can get indoors?" Lathrik asks.
"Alright, alright, but I'm tellin' you, y'didn't need to send in the fleet," Reniya mumbles.
Siamus laughs delightedly. He's the fleet. He does not even mind the fact that his coat is now trapped, because the big guy's being friendly and potentially slightly flirty. Good times.
"Aye, let's get back. I'll make a stop along the way and meet ye there, if I may? Hartrim, are ye going to take your boat out tomorrow? What's the weather?"
"Lathrik," Natalyah whispers to him. "I can't — I can't walk like this," she admits. "I can't hold it and walk."
Siamus still has his head turned toward Reniya as if genially, but his black gaze is directed sharply at Lathrik.
"And I don't suppose ye'd let me carry ye?" Lathrik asks. "Don't answer that. Elle. Go grab a blanket."
"Oh." Joelle disentangles himself from Siamus, and turns to head back into the barracks. He pauses in the doorway. "I'm warm. I could —"
"Blanket," Lathrik repeats, and Joelle complies.
Natalyah ignores her orders. Don't tell her what she can and can't answer, Lathrik. "As a matter of fact," she says sharply as she nuzzles closer, in a contrast of two separate emotions on high. "I would let you carry me." She says it like a dare now. "I just don't know if I'll be able to hold this shape the whole time. I don't — I don't like being carried." The words are ground out around a high pitched canine whine. Lathrik might have an inkling as to why she really doesn't like being moved that way.
"Aye, and that's why we're gettin' a blanket," Lathrik tells her. "Ye had a stop to make, Vice Admiral?"
Reniya is sulking in silence under Siamus's arm. He's still mad about the trap.
"I do," says Siamus. "I'll meet ye back at yours. Won't be ten minutes." He pats Ren on the shoulder and releases him. The countdown has begun, Hartrim.
He steps away and strides off down a sidestreet.
Natalyah stands in Lathrik's hold shaking, and still doesn't scold or apply her sharp tongue to Reniya in either physical or metaphorical ways.
Joelle returns with a blanket, which Lathrik takes and wraps around Natalyah securely in an attempt to stave off the worst of the cold.
It's at that moment that Ilanya arrives at her destination. The Count's manor is just as ominous as usual, though the side with Gilnean architecture seems to be decorated for Hallow's End, spooky orange skull lights and pumpkins abound. Waiting for her when she steps out of the carriage is a slender woman with a sickly sweet smile and black hair that seems to devour the sun, just as Lathrik described.
Ilanya steps down from the carriage, going in for a hug…
Natalyah has barely started to describe the exterior of the manor, and just begun to say, "There's a woma — " before she gasps, full body twitching in Lathrik's hold, as she drops the connection with a quick, hard snip of a full break. "Almeiria is back."
"Did she see ye?" Lathrik asks, the intensity returning to his gaze.
Natalyah starts to shake her head and then halts the motion to say instead, "I don't know. I broke it quickly, but if I had time to see her, she had time to sense shadow on Ilanya. I don't think she had time to see me, but she knows something was there. Like slamming a door of hearing the sound, even if she didn't catch the person behind the door." She huddles against him within the blanket, not eager to part from Safety Paladin.
Lathrik nods slowly. "We may've just given the Count two new pieces off the chess board," he says. "But we can worry about that at home where it's warm."
"At least we know Almeiria is back," Natalyah says as she at last fully lifts her head up and straightens. She looks exhausted, as if something has badly sapped some inner energy, and she sniffles, maybe from just the cold. "I'll shift to get home." She can't hold the blanket and walk in either form, but at least as a worgen, she has her fur coat.
Lathrik collects the blanket from her and tosses it back to Joelle. "Put that back for us and meet us at our place?"
Joelle catches the blanket. "Okay," he says, trotting back into the barracks.
Adamantia watches him leave. "The guy's a good sport for being asked to do all the running around."
"Someone had to be born to balance me out in the universe or it would implode," Natalyah quips, as she shifts to her worgen shape, and nudges at Lathrik's leg to urge him into motion. She wants to go home.
They set a rapid pace for home, one that barely falls outside the line separating a jog from a fast-walk. Apparently Lathrik is also eager to get home, if it wasn't already obvious. Reniya and Adamantia are forced to follow at speed, or risk the paladin's increasing ire.
When they reach the front door, Lathrik already has the key in hand, unlocking the door and entering with such speed and purpose that when he stops in the center of the room and just stands there, it looks a little awkward. He's done it. He has achieved home. Now what?
Now hug his girl, as Natalyah crosses the threshold and throws herself at Lathrik, shifting midway, a shivering unhappy bundle of worgen.
Lathrik catches her with one arm, while attempting to work the straps keeping his armor on with the other. Adamantia, followed by Reniya, enters the house next, and Adamantia closes the door behind them. Reniya looks ready to bolt, himself.
Natalyah at last turns a baleful look at Reniya, narrowed eyes and thunderous brows hinting at a coming storm. Oh yeah, she's definitely mad at him. But with genuine penitence softening the glare, what she says is, "I'm sorry about before, Ren. I shouldn't have called you a coward, and I was wrong to do it. You were just doing your best on a weird, difficult day." Just in case Reniya had started to feel like he has a handle on Natalyah.
There's a brisk triple knock on the door.
"Aye, well, I've been called worse things," Reniya says, opening the door since he's standing near it.
Natalyah presses a kiss to Lathrik's neck before she gets her canes down on the ground, pushing over to get to the dinner now cold and definitely much, much less appetizing than it would have been hours ago. But she has to eat, she has a deal with Lathrik about it. One way or another, she is going to have dinner.
Siamus steps in with a nod to Reniya. He has shed his House of Nobles persona and is dressed like he just walked here from the docks, in roughspun blue work trousers, salt-stained workboots, and a navy peacoat. His hair is even more wind-tousled than usual.
The two worgen present may also detect a telltale mingling of scents: metal, oil, something acrid. He is wearing his guns now, discreetly beneath his coat.
He's also carrying a bag, and he pauses a step past Reniya to reach into it and pull out a bottle, which he offers to Ren. It is whiskey. It is very good whiskey at a price point one does not generally find in Old Town.
Reniya takes the bottle with raised eyebrows. "This the peace offering for trappin' me?" he asks. He looks more amused now, than sulky.
Lathrik begins to remove his armor again, while Adamantia settles back on the couch, eyeing Siamus suspiciously.
"I didn't trap ye. I told ye to come out with me and I'd buy you a drink. And that's what's happened. I also said we'd catch up, and that's yet to happen. Ye might want the drink first."
Siamus brings the bag to the table and sets it down with a clink. He takes out two more bottles — one of the same very good whiskey, one of a very cheap rum — and then a tin of cheap loose-leaf black tea, and then a little string-tied bunch of garden sage and marjoram. He considers this last for a moment, starts to put it back in the bag, and then changes his mind and puts it in his jacket pocket. He will definitely remember it's there. Last, he takes out a deck of cards and sets it on the table.
He picks up the tea-tin and looks to Lathrik and Natalyah. "Is there a kettle I can use?"
Don't make the man go out and buy a kettle at this hour. He might.
"No," Natalyah says. "We have a pot we use for coffee. But it does the same thing of heating up water." She holds out a hand for the tea tin. "I can make it."
Siamus considers her for a moment. On the one hand, he is a sailor perfectly capable of making his own bad tea. On the other hand, Natalyah.
He passes her the tin and bow his head. "Obliged to ye, Miss Kensington-Whit."
The ominous suggestion that Reniya might need a drink before catching up has him lose a shade of color. "Is it… Tabiana?" he guesses. "Did the baby kill her?"
"Oi, settle down," Lathrik says, moving to the shelf next to him to deposit his weapon. "Nobody's dead."
Adamantia probably wishes she had some popcorn for all this.
Siamus swivels an astonished look around at Reniya. "Tides ha'mercy, man. Ye think I'd break a thing like that to ye like this? Clearly ye need a drink to get your nerves on right, if nothing else."
Balance the humours, Ren.
Natalyah at least knows what she's doing with the tea. She was trained for this, whether she liked it or not. Luckily for Siamus, her idea of making tea is trying to make a person regret choosing tea by making it as much like coffee as possible. Everyone else can find out if they like tea brewed with vengeance against the tea leaves.
While the water sets to boil in the pot, she busies herself taking out plates and putting a proper dinner on at least four of them, scouring the cupboards for options to stretch the portions out. She does this by adding two different sorts of breads, one a dinner roll, and another a piece of flatbread. This means that the plates have a serving of rice just this side of burned, a very long cooked stew of boar meat, carrots, celery, and potatoes, two types of bread, and a handful of peanuts tossed in the center.
"Y'say that, but there are people who haven't got a good sense for that sorta thing," Reniya says, already working on opening the bottle. "I'm not sayin' you, just. People."
"Elle doesn't count," Lathrik says, removing the last of his armor and taking a seat at the table. At least it is still expanded from earlier.
"Adamantia, go sit at the table," Natalyah orders with that unavoidably haughty tone of a noblewoman accustomed to giving them. "I have dinner for you, and we don't eat at the couch. That's what the table is for." At least these are the rules now that Natalyah lives there. She brings over the first plate with that careful step from kitchen counter to table, and half pushes, half slides it over to Siamus, served first as the highest ranking person in the room by old habits of hospitality rules. A simple, cheap fork follows the plate. One down, three more to go.
"Oh, we're doing this now? Okay." Adamantia gets up and joins Lathrik at the table. She can't exactly complain, it is a free meal.
Siamus looks slightly astonished to find a plate addressed to him. He looks from it to Natalyah, starts to unbutton his coat to sit, remembers the guns.
Okay whatever, we're all friends here. He takes the coat off, deposits it on the end of the couch, takes the pistols from his belt, and lays them neatly on top. It's Gun Manners. Removal of the jacket reveals him in, again, one of his plain, loose-necked linen sailing shirts, the anchor and the kraken pendant around his neck.
He returns to the table to sit with the other two, at the plate which was delivered in his direction.
As the next guest, Adamantia gets the next plate, slid over to her with that same sort of push into place, as Natalyah balances carefully. Another fork goes to her. Lathrik gets the next plate, and a spoon, because they are out of forks. The final plate goes to the empty chair where Natalyah will sit, along with her spoon. She drops of in pinches of two at a time six cups for whiskey and/or tea. The guests might have to pick one at a time. There are only two (2) mugs in the house. Welcome to the edge of poverty.
She sits in her chair, looking tired and worn out, as she immediately begins eating with the focused energy of someone who has been starving and now most definitely knows it. Plus side, it keeps her from making any remarks Reniya-wise.
Reniya, for his part, gets the bottle open and heads over to the couch to drink it. Out of the bottle. Joelle enters the house shortly after, without knocking. He was expected. Probably.
"Blanket deposited," Joelle reports.
"Thanks, Elle," Lathrik says, perhaps a bit more conscientious after Adamantia's earlier remark. "Have a drink?"
Joelle glances around at everyone eating dinner. Then his gaze shifts to Natalyah, as if asking permission. It seems he has come to recognize her as the second giver of orders.
Natalyah misses the initial gaze because her face is basically on her plate as she hoovers up a meal without tasting it. At the pause though when Joelle doesn't immediately sit, she looks up, and waves him over to the last seat. "Sit down. I have tea coming if you'd rather have it than whiskey." She stands up as she says it, moving over to where the water is boiling to start the Black As Tar tea that will be delivered to the table in three minutes.
Siamus is eating like a man unaware he has not eaten all day but whose body is very aware of that fact, sort of absent-mindedly putting food away at sailorish rate. When he is finished — which is very soon — he lays the fork down on the extremely empty plate in correct, gentlemanly fashion, and says, "Thank ye, Miss Kensington-Whit. That was excellent."
Then he reaches for the second bottle of whiskey sitting on the table, because there is tea coming and the humours must be balanced.
Natalyah startles slightly at the compliment, looking warily over at Siamus like she suspected maybe he meant it sarcastically, but finding no trace of it just says, "You're welcome. It would have been better warm, but between Harvey and Ren, at least we got in before twelve bells." She has to hold the makeshift tea bag of the looseleaf in the water, and when it's done, she pours some of the tea into one of the two mugs, moving to set it in front of Siamus.
"So why does Ren need to be drinking whiskey?" she asks as she does. She is not a woman who holds back on wanting to know things.
Siamus picks the mug up sailor-style, fingers around the rim, and has a long swallow of scalding hot tar. "Because I'm going to ask him things he might not want to tell me, and he tells me more when he's had some good whiskey in him at my expense. Miss Kensington-Whit, the tea is perfect."
Reniya, already several swallows into the whiskey, chokes on it. "You are trappin' me!" he cries when he catches his breath.
Natalyah again seems like she's searching Siamus for signs of deeper sarcasm, and finding, again, none, gives him a wicked, impish smile that makes her look like she has a secret she's going to tell him. It alters into a warning storm watch as she points a finger at Ren. "No, Ilanya was trapping you in a game. We are your friends trying to help you out with something to do with your family." She makes her way back towards the kitchen, pausing by Joelle's chair as she does. "Do you want any tea, Elle?"
A brief hint of surprise shows on Joelle's face for a moment, before he nods to the offer. "Yes. Please."
"I have told ye at every point my purpose," says Siamus mildly to Reniya. "Even if I didn't tell it whole. The things I mean to ask ye are for your good, or as Miss Kensington-Whit observes, I wouldn't be doing it in a house full of your friends."
He tips back the mug of tar and drains the entire thing in one go, demonstrating an honestly kind of alarming tolerance for scalding temperatures as well as a lack of self-preservation.
Then he pours top-shelf whiskey into the empty mug, as one does.
"While we're on it, though — what did Miss Ravendusk want with ye this evening?"
Reniya shrugs. "She wanted to play cards. So we did. And I asked 'er some things. She asked me some things. Nothin' bad."
Lathrik focuses on his food, but he is listening.
"What sorts of things?" Siamus asks, his black gaze intent on Ren. "Be specific, if ye please. I'm not trying to aggravate, but it's possible that other people's safety is in play. And whether ye like my methods or no, I am trying to help ye."
Natalyah pours more of the tar tea into the other mug, and brings it Joelle, adding, "We do have milk and sugar if you want it, and you can put it in if you do." For herself, she sits down again and pours herself some of the top shelf whiskey in a glass. "Sinners and martyrs, Ren," she says. "Really?" That's all she has in her at the moment. Give her a bit of time to rebalance the humours.
"I didn't write a list," Reniya says. "Elle, you remember what all she asked?"
Joelle accepts the tea from Natalyah with a duck of his head and a quiet "thank you." Then he nods. "She asked if we wanted to play cards. Then she asked how he was doing. The last time they met he wasn't doing well. She also asked about my family. Hobbies next. Then sexual interests. Our jobs. That's when Lathrik called. The game ended soon after that."
Siamus raises his eyebrows. He looks like he kind of wants to ask about sexual interests. He settles for, "And what all did ye tell her?"
"He said —"
"That's —! Enough, Elle, thank you, I can take it from here," Reniya interrupts. "I jus' told 'er I was figuring my life out and whatnot. Y'know, I could answer your questions better if I knew what this was about."
Natalyah rolls her eyes up to the ceiling, as she tips back her whiskey, and there's enough flash of lightning in those eyes to warn a man. "It's not all about you, Ren, that's what he's trying to find out what you told Ilanya by what you said exactly. Because you might think it's some innocuous comment, but she might have put it into a puzzle that puts someone at risk that you didn't know was something important. Your mother was apparently worrying earlier that the Count might be looking at you and Penny, to 'collect novelties.' And he's already interested in Hana."
Siamus tips a nod at Natalyah. "I don't know what ye might have given her that she'd read as useful unless I know what ye gave her. I need the whole thing laid out. And it isn't just you or your family or the people in this room. I want to know what Amerith is after because I don't yet know who it affects. You're a bloody Guard, man. This could mean people's safety. That girl is playing a game with ye, and she's already figured out things ye may not even know yourself; ye don't know what you're giving her or what she's reading. So tell me and we can try to piece it out."
"Aye, an' you lot are bloody paranoid," Reniya says, getting to his feet.
Lathrik rises as well, turning to face him.
"Mate," Reniya protests. "You can't mean t'keep me here, aye? I already told you why I —"
Lathrik shakes his head. "Calm down," he says. "I trust ye. Let's just, for the sake of things, go over everything, alright? And the rest of you — " Lathrik turns to address the room " — stop actin' like Ren hasn't earned his position, aye? I know ye've heard some things lately, but I've made my share of mistakes in this as well, and I don't hear anyone callin' me on them. Vice Admiral, I believe a bit more transparency might help the situation?"
"I told you repeatedly throughout it all that you needed to tell people, like Ren, what was going on in full so they'd know," Natalyah points out. "I'm not treating him any differently than I did you, for the same reasons, which is that this is bigger than just a kinky maid looking for some fun."
"I beg your pardon if I seemed to question Hartrim's earned position." Siamus bows his head to Lathrik. "I was in fact appealing to it, because I'm well aware he's dedicated to his work and a man of conscience. But all right, then, I will ask a plain question. Hartrim: d'ye know whether you're a tidesage?"
Reniya furrows his brow in thought. "Can't say I know much about 'em, my mother's not one to talk about it. Or she wasn't." He gives Lathrik a very pointed look. Since we're calling people on mistakes now. "You've got it in her head that the Count's lookin' to collect us on the thought that we might be tidesages, Penny and I?"
Siamus also looks at Lathrik.
Natalyah looks like she might get incandescent with rage at the accusation, as she rises to a stand, bracing both hands on the table.
"We never mentioned the Count to your mother," Lathrik says, gazing evenly back at Reniya. "Our visit was about your performance at work, to see if we could determine the cause. That's when we learned about the tidesage business, and I mentioned it to the Vice Admiral, who paid a visit this evening and came right back lookin' for you."
Reniya sits back down and takes another drink. This is definitely a drinking night.
Natalyah does not sit down. It may be that the only thing keeping her from either exploding or running out in pure rage is Lathrik. As it is she glares at Reniya, her hands flat on the table trembling with flashes of black fur, sweat beading on her forehead as she holds off a shift of high emotion, her cheeks stained a darker red.
Siamus clears his throat. "Your mother, then, seems to have taken the notion of the Count's interest on her own. And I wish to clarify a few points as to that.
"First, your mother doesn't know whether you or your sister is a sage, but she's in a terror at the possibility — based I believe on her own history and experience rather than any general practice.
"Second, I have reason to believe that you are one, and Amerith knows it, specifically courtesy of Miss Ravendusk. Who refers to ye as 'the Salt Man.'
"Third, the matter is of keen interest to me — as was meeting your mother — because — and if anyone here doubts I trust them, then ye may stop it now — I am a son of the Fallon line and a grandson of the Parrish line. No one in this room knows what that means, but I assure ye that your parents both did when I told them, Hartrim. If anyone on the mainland has taken an unwholesome interest in tidesages, I very much want to know about it. I have a six-month-old daughter, myself."
Joelle offers Natalyah his tea. From the cup he has already taken a drink from. It's… the thought, maybe?
"Does the Count know you're a tidesage?" Reniya asks after a long drink. "Do we know if the Count knows what one is? Seems t'me like it's a secret you've all been keepin' pretty tight. Wait… Tidesages taste like salt?" He pauses to lick himself.
Natalyah does not take the tea. It's unclear if she even sees it. There is enough of a storm in her expression, that she picks up her canes, and pushes away from the table to storm off to…the bedroom. That's as far as she goes, shutting the door hard behind her. Well. That's at least some form of progress.
Siamus gazes after Natalyah, and then looks at Lathrik for a moment, his brows raised.
He turns back to Reniya's question, since Natalyah is not his problem to manage at present. "I'm fair certain Amerith does not know I am, based only on the evidence that it seems he may have an interest in sages, and he's never had an interest in me." Siamus smiles faintly. "It's plain I'm involved in whatever we're doing here now, though, so if tidesages are what he's looking at, perhaps he takes an interest. I can't say. I still have a Duchess I can deploy as needed." Siamus shrugs. "But I am sensitive about my people and my culture.
"And aye, it is kept secretive. It's a religious matter, but not only that, it's a matter of some national concern to Kul Tiras. There's a reason Proudmoore's Fleet is the finest navy the world's known, and it's not just that we're natively brilliant sailors." He tips his mug of whiskey from side to side idly and gives that sardonic smile. "Although we are."
Lathrik stares after Natalyah, then hesitantly starts towards the door. "Sorry, I'll just… I have to… Please continue." When he reaches the door, he taps on it gently. "'Talyah? Can I come in?"
"Are you sure my mother's not just paranoid?" Reniya asks, continuing as bid. "If you've met her… First off, I can't imagine it went well t'start. Was my father there too?"
There's a very gravelly sounding, "Yes," from within the bedroom. She is definitely no longer holding her human shape, that's for sure.
Lathrik opens the door just far enough to squeeze through, and shuts it again after him.
Siamus nods. "He was. He came in after your mother had fainted, as I was getting her sorted out." There's some dry amusement in his tone. He may be aware, it suggests, that Mrs. Hartrim is… high-strung. "Your father and I had some words. It may be sorted, I don't know; he's the one who subsequently fetched your sister to meet me.
"I can't say whether it's paranoia or not. It seems odd that your mother would take the notion from the blue, but she also had a notion I'd turned up to… buy your sister or something, it wasn't clear to me. Conscript the lot of ye." Siamus shrugs, dismissing this. "What catches at my attention in the whole thing is that your mother has taken this notion, and it seems likely you're a sage, and Amerith's girl has expressed some kind of… knowledge about it. I'd like to know what she and Amerith know, and what the nature of any interest might be." He lifts his mug to gesture at Reniya with it. "Hence my interest in the minutiae of your conversation with her."
Adamantia, meanwhile, is discovering that she's not a fan of bread. The face she makes while eating it is one of pure disgust and resignation. She can't just leave the gross stuff there, can she? Beside her, Joelle catches sight of her face, and quickly deduces the reason. As she prepares to eat another piece, Joelle intercepts it, taking her hand in his and eating the bread himself, straight from her hand. Adamantia stares at him, baffled. Whoa. Who is this guy?
"Firstly, I'm sorry for my folks, there's a reason I left home," Reniya says, shaking his head. It might be disbelief, except he definitely believes every word. "What I told the lass, approximately 'cause I'm not Elle, was that I was goin' through some life changes, my hobbies include boating, workin' on my boat, and bar hopping, I told her a little bit about my interests in the bedroom, and the sorts of things I do for work, which includes, outside of the usual patrols, scouting and investigative things. She didn't ask about Lathrik, and I didn't see anythin' dangerous in what she was askin' for."
Siamus nods, sitting back with an elbow on the table and a hand wrapped around a mug full of whiskey; his dark gaze is intent on Reniya, his brows drawn sternly together. He is silent for a few ruminative moments. "And so ye know, I came here on the Dinnsfield business, and that's still my purpose. That is, there's a main thing going on here — I think — but there's also beginning to be a pattern of branching interests. It looks to me from here that the more people approach the main game board, the more likely they are to find themselves either… pieces in the game, or objects in new games, or whatever it is. I don't think Dinnsfield was an original object of the game, but he was drawn into it and now it's playing around him as a new object. We know for a certainty that Amerith has a deep interest. We don't know whether that interest is… malicious, for the Count's own amusement, on behalf of someone else… any of it. We don't know what Amerith means by any of it.
"Now, similarly though, it seems to me you've been drawn in. Ye picked up interest — as Dinnsfield did, if I'm right — by coming in at the edge of a larger interest. But now ye have that interest yourself, and what's caught it or where it leads, we've no idea. Did Amerith know about sages? My inclination is to suspect he did not, until ye caught Miss Ravendusk's attention — but once ye caught that attention, well, now ye have it. And if I'm right on how all this tangling works, it will point — or has pointed — toward other people. Like your family, like sages as a group — I don't know. It's a web getting woven around anyone who steps into it, and I can't tell ye if the spider at the center is venomous or just likes collecting things in its web. But Miss Kensington-Whit is correct that Miss Ravendusk is not simply a —" Siamus pauses to consider yet another new phrase for his vernacular. "Not simply a 'kinky maid.' Not just for her role in Dinnsfield's affair but for her interest in you, now, ye must be wary of her. For your family, for your other friends who may be tangled in by proximity — like Elle, there — and even for tidesages as a group. Which may mean nothing to ye personally yet, but it does matter, and it stretches the web even wider."
He watches Reniya seriously. "I'm not after making trouble for ye myself. 'Trapping' ye or the like. I came into this to try to untangle the business, but it just keeps proving more tangled. And it may be my mistake for getting involved, because perhaps I'm in the web now too, one way or another. I still mean to find out what's lying at the center of it, though."
He tips back a swallow of his drink and squints at Ren. "Ye do investigative work, in particular?" He glances toward the room where Natalyah disappeared.
From within the bedroom, there isn't much information to be heard — the people within talking too low to be heard through the walls — except that perhaps, in a pause, a high pitched few sounds that travels a little more, a little further through the wall between, that bears a strong resemblance to sobs. They're over quickly, but neither Natalyah or Lathrik re-emerge from the bedroom.
Reniya glances towards the bedroom, a flash of guilt on his face before he smooths it out and takes another drink. "Aye," he says. "I taught Lathrik what he knows. But lemme ask you. Has it occurred to you that the lass might jus' be lonely? I'm not sayin' this as an excuse not t'be wary, but think who she works for. Everyone goes treatin' 'er like a spider's accomplice, y'think she's even got any friends?"
Siamus raises his eyebrows and regards Reniya for several long seconds. Then he sits forward to reach for the whiskey bottle again.
"Aye, I suppose it could be. Anyone might be lonely. I'm not sure how it changes the fact that she's also clearly gathering information on your friends — and now yourself — for a man of shadowed reputation and questionable motives. She's said as much, she's made as much clear, and she's made it clear she's playing games. I'm not sure ye can have a harmless, friendly conversation with the lass when ye don't know what she's trying to get out of ye in the first place.
"If someone says to me, 'Fallon, what's the weather looking like tomorrow?' and I tell them, well, they might have been asking me honestly. They might just think, 'Ah, he's a sailor, he'll know the sky.' But if they already suspect me for a sage and they asked me to that end, then it's a data point. D'ye see?" He raises a brow. "How d'ye propose to befriend her, Hartrim, when ye can't know what she's after or what she might take back to her employer? My own feeling is, if ye don't want to be treated as a spider's accomplice, don't hire on with a spider." He has a sip of his drink.
"Way I see it, she can get her information two ways," Reniya says. "Either she does it subtly, an' we'll never know what she knows, or, she plays 'er games and we try to control what she's gettin'. See, I'm of the mind that the second option is better for us, 'cause she's right there, in our sight, aye? I've been askin' some questions of my own while I have 'er, and based on the lass's answers, I don't think she's been lyin'."
"I'm not sure that the games she's playing in your faces aren't subtle, nor what other subtler ways ye have in mind of her. But go on, then. Tell me what ye have and what ye have reason to think." Siamus leans back and taps his fingers idly on the rim of his mug, watching Reniya.
"During the game, I came out and asked if she was an assassin workin' for the Count," Reniya says. "She said she was… somethin' more of a counter-assassin. See, the Count's got attempts on his life often enough, so she's often shadowin' him t'make sure none of 'em take. But mate, the way she talked about it, I suspect she's been at it longer'n a year, aye? Means she was his before she was ever in service t'Lady Ravendusk. I also learned she's got an… affection for poisonous plants. Flowers, specifically, an' that she can taste poison and know the type."
Siamus sits up, his gaze sharpening. "His before Ravendusk's?" He frowns into space. "That is interesting." He taps a finger on the mug again. "Which suggests he'd know this 'Lady Ravendusk' for a false player, and likely her identity?" He is doing invisible math in the air again. "If 'Lady Ravendusk' was his creature rather than… Mondragon's or anyone else's, then her assassination and Amerith's injuries may both be…." He frowns. "Unless Miss Ravendusk tied up that loose end on behalf of Amerith."
He rises from the table to go to the couch, and sets his pistols aside a moment so that he can rifle in the coat's pocket. He comes out with a little bunch of herbs, shakes his head, and tries again: this time it's a notebook and pencil.
He returns to the table, regards the herbs he's still also holding blankly, and then tucks them inside the back cover of the notebook before flipping to a middle page. He begins jotting spiky not-math again. "Did she say why Amerith has such regular attempts on his life?"
"Mm… she mentioned an unfortunate habit of pissin' off the wrong people," Reniya says, putting his feet up on the coffee table. "Some people find 'im dangerous." There is a smile that comes to his face at this. Clearly, they are 'some people.'
Siamus smiles faintly, sardonically back at him. "If ye mean to make an implication, I'm happy to say two things back to it: First, I've said I'm trying to sort out what the motives are here and what the game is; we know for a fact that Amerith has done suspicious and potentially illegal things, and is connected at least tangentially with the death knight who framed Morningdew and with the Twilight's Hammer. Whether as an accomplice to or opponent of either, I can't yet tell ye, and it's part of what I mean to find out. We also know he's… I will politely say 'eccentric,' and finds the damnedest bloody things entertaining. But if the man would like to be thought not dangerous, he might reconsider his behavior, else it seems like he means deliberately to present a certain face to certain parties.
"Second, she might very well tell ye that because he's not dangerous and she wants ye to know it. She might tell ye that because he is dangerous, she works for him, and she wants ye to decide it's all shadows and nonsense. That data point's so biased as to be irrelevant, as I'd frankly expect ye to know, Hartrim." He eyes Ren, the same sardonic smile fixed in place. "If ye'd like to prove she's right, ye may as well investigate it with me, because I'm open to that case. Once I have actual data, that is, and not an attractive young lady's assurance over a card game."
"Oi, you asked a question, I answered it," Reniya says, still smiling. "If there was an implication t'be made, it's that all of us find 'im dangerous, and for good reason, not that I'm buyin' into him bein' a falsely accused saint." He takes another drink. "What's the plan, then? I could go play in his manor again. Didn't get to properly search it the first time, as I had t'pull Lathrik free an' escape Ilanya who was huntin' me."
Siamus raises his eyebrows and does the absentminded staccato pencil-tapping on the table. He nods. "I'm pleased to know we're on the same page, in that case." The same notebook page, as it were. "And while I understand absolutely the way things have been previously handled — and, as I told Dinnsfield, I have full faith in the integrity of the Stormwind Guard — I am going to advise ye that as a Vice Admiral of the Alliance Navy and a member of the House of Nobles, nothing I've heard ye just say implied a warrantless search of Count Amerith's manor, as we're dealing in hypotheticals."
He sits back and contemplates Reniya narrowly. "D'ye have a means into his manor? Again, contemplating hypotheticals: I don't believe it prudent at this time." He pauses. "… but I'm told ye know Alysson Mondragon, don't ye?"
"If you're askin' if I can get in, aye, I can get in," Reniya says. He raises a brow at the mention of Alysson. "The street rat? Aye, I know 'im. What of 'im?"
"I'd like to know what relation he is to Kaela Mondragon, is what. As Mondragon — Kaela, not Alysson — is where this entire headache began. D'ye have any idea of it yourself?"
"Alysson Mondragon is involved in this?" Adamantia asks, eyes wide. "He's… here? Alive?" For some reason, she starts straightening out her hair. "I can tell you that one. Kaela Mondragon is — was? Is she dead-dead? His aunt."
Siamus swivels in his chair, blank-eyed, like he had forgotten Adamantia was there. To be fair, he had forgotten Adamantia was there. Also her name. "Sorry, ye know — hang on a bloody —"
He expels a breath that sounds very much like a wordless what a fucking evening and flips back two pages in his notebook. "So ye know Mr. Mondragon. And he's Kaela Mondragon's nephew."
"I also met his mother, who was… one of the weirdest people I'd ever met before I came here into the heart of weirdness — sorry, but it's true," Adamantia says. "He was calling her 'axe ma,' but her name is Alynnra I think. And trust me, she did not look old enough to be his mother, though there's for sure a blood relation there."
Joelle watches her straighten her hair, then reaches over and starts petting her. He's helping. Adamantia stares at him again. Seriously. Who is this guy?
Siamus also looks at Joelle. Seriously. Who are any of these people?
He looks at Reniya again.
"I… didn't know any of that," Reniya says, frowning. "Lathrik barely told us about the whole death knight business, an' Alysson's just… I dunno, Alysson."
"Alynnra," Siamus repeats, and writes it down because at this point he might as well. "D'ye happen to know, Miss — uh, miss, what Alysson's relationship with his aunt was? That is, personally. Were they well-acquainted, friendly, estranged…?"
"Ada," Adamantia says. "A-D-A, it's three letters. Write it down if you need to. As for Alysson… I think he wanted to be friendly with his aunt, but then we learned from this other death knight who was questioning his mother that Kaela was in Voldrune with some live prisoners, and we decided to help. He also mentioned that his aunt attacked… a Miss 'meiria? I dunno if that helps."
Siamus sets his pencil down and puts his head in his hands. "Tides almighty," he says, a little muffled. "Almeiria Fey. Ties to Mondragon as well?"
"So I never got a clear answer on this, but you seem to know something about Kaela Mondragon… do you happen to know what she was doing with a cannon? It looked like she was getting ready to launch… a person out of it," Adamantia says. "It's purely curiosity at this point, you don't have to answer."
Siamus is silent for a long moment, his face still in his hands. When he lifts it and sits back, though, he is (apparently) perfectly composed. "Kaela Mondragon was a Scourge death knight who had previously been the commander of my ward Ralaea Westwind's unit in the Scarlet Crusade. She was bent on — we think? — collecting members of her former unit to turn them, and was hunting Ralaea. She attempted to lure Ralaea into a trap by abducting her brother and taking him to Voldrune, which is where ye saw… that. The cannon was a prop from the Darkmoon Faire, sent to Northrend by Count Lester Amerith. Mondragon was defeated at Voldrune by Ralaea's mercenary company, some Argent Crusaders, and some Ebon death knights, and her brother rescued.
"Meanwhile, Ralaea's… fiance, Harvey Morningdew — also a death knight, but of the Ebon Blade, and not yet Ralaea's fiance at that point — had become involved as he meant, naturally, to protect Ralaea. He had, by the by, been killed by Mondragon in the first place. Mondragon attempted subsequent to the Voldrune business to set him up for a triple homicide here in the city, possibly with the twin goals of separating Ralaea from his protection and turning public sentiment even harder against death knights. That is where I became involved. And also Dinnsfield. And also —" Siamus gestures vaguely. He has no idea who might be involved, at this point.
He sits back and spreads his hands. Ta da.
"Okay, so… Isn't Kaela Mondragon dead by now? If she was working with the Lich King…" Adamantia says. "I guess if this Count is still doing what she wanted, that's a problem. But did you ever figure out what the cannon was for? It seemed a little out of place."
"I did not," Siamus says. "I was neither present nor involved in any of this at that point — I did not even become acquainted with Ralaea until subsequently — and for that am relying on what I know from my sources who were present. There are several details of the whole business that are purely speculative at this point, and I included only what we know or have strong reason to suspect. The purpose of the cannon is… not one of those things for me." He folds his arms across his chest. "And, to be clear, I have no idea whether the Count is still doing what she wanted, or doing something entirely of his own making for some other purpose, which happens to involve the same pieces on the game board. That is… one of the things I'm trying to sort out, here."
"The Darkmoon Faire cannon," Joelle says, finally speaking up. "Is safe. For people. She was trying to launch someone? A prisoner?"
Adamantia looks at him in surprise, and nods. "I think so. There was an injured man on the ground near it when we got there. Westwind, probably."
"To relocate him, maybe." Joelle ducks his head and returns to silence. Nobody asked him. He's sorry.
Siamus regards Joelle for a moment. "I don't think," he says gently, thoughtfully, "that I would relocate a wounded man by cannon. Not even one that was, in and of itself, not designed to fatal purpose."
He rubs his brow. "And be that as it may, I'm not clear whether the rescuers knew it was a Faire cannon until they were nearly on the thing."
"You're thinkin' it was a bluff, then?" Reniya asks. "That the Count might risk associatin' with the Scourge so one could bluff some people?"
"As I say," says Siamus, and sits forward again to put his elbows on the table. "I have literally no idea why Amerith does anything, and I've been on the House of Nobles with the man for over a year.
"What I do know is that he was involved in this business — whatever his motive or relationship with Mondragon might have been, whether he was an accomplice or a victim or merely an… honest purveyor of carnival cannons — and that he continued and continues to crop up in it for some reason. That is the crux of the inquiry. I know what Mondragon was up to and why; I have no idea how Amerith came into it or why, nor do I have any idea what he's doing now in relation to the same parties. Whether he was on the side of Mondragon and is continuing some scheme of hers for… some nebulous purpose despite her death, whether he was a victim of Mondragon and keeping eyes on — or meddling in the lives of — other victims, or whether he's decided to play at something of his own with the same pieces on his board. Either with ill intent or so he can have a demented chuckle to himself in his manor late at night, as he fondles a lion."
He shrugs wearily.
"Well," Adamantia says, leaning back in her chair. "I don't envy you. Good luck, buddy."
A surprised chuckle escapes Reniya. "S'pose you'd like me t'let you handle the next steps?" he asks Siamus. "I could always try askin' that Ilanya lass about the cannon, or anything else, but I've a feelin' everyone's gonna keep telling me to stay clear of 'er."
"I'm going to tell ye to stay clear of her because I do not believe Amerith knows we know about the cannon, and at this point, as I was discussing with Dinnsfield and Miss Kensington-Whit earlier, we do not have enough information ourselves to try to barter with Amerith or Miss Ravendusk. At best, we would be handing them a puzzle piece they do not yet know we have, and for which they may reciprocate either nothing at all or bare falsehood." Siamus tips his head back to gaze at the ceiling, frowning. "If I may ask, however — perhaps ye could try to track down, without resorting to Miss Ravendusk, what became of the mage who portaled the cannon there. The man has not turned up since. If he is still alive, he would certainly be in possession of potentially useful information."
"I can try," Reniya says. "Y'had someone look into it some time ago, I expect? Be quicker if you send me what you've got on 'im so I'm not rehashing the same ground."
Siamus nods and drags both hands through his hair, then sits forward again. "I'll pull my correspondence and check wi'the agent who first looked into it."
Joelle watches Siamus, then reaches over and starts petting his hair. Helping, again.
Reniya nods. "Do that, send me what you've got, an' I'll handle it," he says. "If it takes me out of the city, you'll… have an eye on Tabiana for me?"
Siamus tries not to lean sideways away from Joelle. This… might as well happen, at this point.
"I will have an eye on Tabiana no matter what. She's under House Fallon protection now, I promise ye. If it does take ye out of the city, stay in touch, aye? Not — to be clear — because I don't trust ye to handle it competently, but because there are a hell of a lot of other people I do not trust involved."
Adamantia tries not to start laughing at the Joelle situation. Like, really tries.
Reniya's smile returns. "I appreciate you sayin' that, mate," he says. "These days, seems like someone's got issue with everything I do. Aye, I'll keep in touch. Every three days. If that stops, assume the worst."
Siamus nods at him. Gently, so as not to disturb Joelle's hand too much. You do you, big guy. "And I'd like to talk with ye on… the other business. Aye? Whether Amerith's after ye for it or no, it's a thing ye should know for yourself. Doesn't have to be now, but when next ye come to Fallon House, or whenever I'm in the city. Which is regularly, these days, because of —" He gestures vaguely northward. You know. House of Nobles shit.
"Tabby Cat's contract starts in November? I'll try t'be by before then," Reniya says. "Then I'll start pokin' around after our mage friend more earnestly after you've got 'er safe In House."
"November the first." Siamus nods.
Reniya glances back towards the bedroom that Lathrik and Natalyah still haven't emerged from. "Don't think they're comin' back, mate," he says. "Might as well get home, aye?"
Siamus nods wearily. He is so ready to get home.
He gets to his feet — sorry Joelle — and then flips toward the back of his notebook and scrawls a note. He tears this out and props it between the whiskey and rum bottles on the table, then steps away to collect his guns and his coat.
He pauses and turns back to Adamantia. "Ada. Miss Kensington-Whit said ye need a place to stay? Ye may as well come with me. We've more than enough space."
Reniya gets to his own feet. "Oi, mind if I borrow your pencil a minute? I should leave a note too." He sticks the cap back on his whiskey.
Siamus obligingly passes the pencil over and then buttons his coat as he waits.
Reniya also borrows Siamus's note, scribbling on it just two words wherever they will fit: Sorry. — Reniya.
Then he hands the pencil back. "Thanks, mate. Let's go, Elle. Leave the two of 'em t'have their night."
Joelle rises, and follows Reniya as he makes his exit.
Reniya pauses outside the door to wait for Siamus. "I'll lock up," he says, pulling a pair of lockpicks from somewhere. It's such a quick movement that it's hard to tell where they came from.
Siamus eyes the lockpicks, eyes Ren, nods affably, and steps past him into the street. That might as well happen, too. "Evening, Hartrim," he says, and heads for home.