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| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | Finley tracks down a potential lead on how the MacBrides may be pulling off their witchcraft, and discovers a rumor that throws his personal plans wildly, unpredictably off course. 3300~ words. Personal/Romance Plot. |
| Rating: | M for Mature 17+ |
Arc: The Bride Will Fall
February 23rd - Al
Goldshire takes him out of the city, and he can’t decide if it’s better or worse here. He can’t lurk around listening for Hana’s harp here, but he has a reason to be in Elywnn forest, and that means passing by her house. It would be so easy to ride by at just the right angle where he could get a glimpse of her curtains. A peek maybe through an open sliver inside, to see how she is. A sip.
Even he doesn’t believe himself.
This has to get easier. It’s been almost two weeks. It shouldn’t still feel like he’s holding his heart together in his chest with pins and ribbons.
He can’t think about her right now.
Miss Curran’s source for information on the possibility of an enchantment that could blur a person’s true notes would only meet in the Goldshire inn; it's a weird table for it, in the center of the room. The source gave the impression of being more than a little paranoid, or possibly unstable. Here, Finley feels exposed, but it is a crowded day, and no one is looking at him in particular. So there’s that. He bought the use of the table, and the apology of bringing in an outside drink with a generous donation to the coffers of the owner.
A middle aged gnome with pink and gray streaked hair waddles up to the table, and stares up at Finley from under heavy, wiry brows, and sniffs the air. He shakes a mustache a few times, and then continues to the other chair, clambering up into it before saying a single word.
“You must be the guy,” the gnome says, slapping both hands on the table, as he checks the bottle of beer. It’s the Blackrock Lager that Miss Curran had to get through a hoarder of the Brew of the Month Club carrier, who had somehow managed to keep the June brew held in a magical suspension. It was one way to prove an identity and willingness to jump through whatever hoops a person sets for information, he guesses.
Finley lifts his own lager in wordless reply, and takes a sip.
Fucking hell. It burns the whole way down like cheap whiskey. He suppresses the urge to cough.
“You can call me Betty. Al always did,” the gnome offers.
“All right. Betty,” Finley agrees. “Al…?” He leaves the space for the last name, which most people would feel compelled to supply in the pause.
“Al.”
That’s how it’s going to be. He was warned. Betty isn’t the gnome’s name, and isn’t even the name that Finley was given, or the name that he was given before he was given a name for this meet.
The gnome takes a deep drink of his beer. Contemplates the flavor. And then belches loudly, releasing a puff of red smoke.
Several people do take notice of that.
But not for long. Stranger things happen in bars in Azeroth.
Finley waits for people’s attention to shift before he says anything, pretending to drink his beer. “So, Al was your boss,” he says, knowing that it isn’t right. “And you two worked on some things together.”
Betty frowns heavily. “Al was my partner,” he corrects. “She had a lot of good ideas, but didn’t have the whole know-how of making it all happen. That was where I came in. I was the Happener.”
“The Happener,” Finley repeats with a nod, because it sounds like agreement and reinforcement, builds the rapport. Betty nods with him.
“Couple of years ago, Al had an idea about how priests do that thing, you know, with the void and shadow, make people sort of not think about them all of sudden when a fight gets a bit heated,” Betty continues. Finley leans in deliberately, just enough to suggest mild interest, as his heart pounds in his chest. This is a real lead. “And then a bit of a spin to it. Something extra that’d be more than fighting. A chemical like a perfume, so it’d be passively active, not just a combat situation. Get people to not think about the person even after the enchantment wasn’t around. Lingeerrrrrrr.” He extends the word and belches again, with another little red cloud.
“That sounds incredibly difficult to pull off. A lot of expertise,” Finley says. Praise to disguise the question. “And expensive to try out materials.”
Betty taps his nose. “You get it,” he says. He drinks more of his lager. “Al wanted more and more of the impossible. You have any idea how expensive eight Primal Shadows are? And that was for a faint effect! We were doubling, tripling, even quadrupling that per attempt. Tossing in vanishing powder, which was volatile as all feck with prismatic shards and Abyss Crystals.” Betty huffs and shakes his head, the irritation making him more talkative to an active listening audience all these years later.
“Still, all of it must have been worth it once you did finally succeed,” Finley says, knowing how the story actually ends, because this gnome has a reputation. It isn’t of being an inventor of a super enchantment. More of the talking to himself and ranting at barrels. Of all of Miss Curran’s possibilities, this had seemed like the longest, wildest shot. Before.
Betty’s rage surges, and he hits his bottle on the table. “That’s just it! If it did, I don’t know! One day, I woke up, and I couldn’t remember where we’d left off, or what we’d been doing, or what our last test had been. All of the materials were cleaned out. All our research, gone! Al, gone! Obviously, I have to think that we did succeed, and then she stole it all for herself. She erased my memory! My brilliant, brilliant plans! But I can’t prove it, and I sound crazy. I’ve never been able to replicate any sort of success.” He turns too bright eyes on Finley. “I am always looking for investors, though. I just know that I could do it, with the right amount of money. We did do it. We must have.”
It’s not that House Fallon couldn’t pour funds into the possible black hole for the technology. But, between the lack of evidence that Betty could achieve it on his own, and the fact that even if he did it would likely be ruled as illegal as shit, he has a feeling the House shouldn’t touch it with a hundred foot gold plated pole.
“I don’t doubt that your partner took something of what you did and ran,” Finley says sincerely. “But, I think it probably means something that the enchantment never made it out on the market. Maybe she decided after a final failure to cut and run. Take what you had, and clear out, to go back to producing what she knew worked. Messed with your mind with some shadow magic to keep you from coming after her.”
The gnome deflates. “That’s what people say.” Betty drinks more of his beer morosely. Light, is there anything more depressing than a sad gnome?
A tear on her cheek he can’t touch.
Finley’s heart lurches in his chest. He shouldn’t have asked, shouldn’t have thought it.
The beer burns all the way down to his stomach, but it’s a welcome distraction.
“Al sounds like she left you a shitty deal. I appreciate your situation though. Personally, I think you should pull the same on her. Cut ties, take your supplies and run off to do your own thing. This was her idea in the first place, after all. I bet you have better ones. Focusing on hers? Eh. What’s it gotten you, right? Al’s bullshit,” Finley says. He points to Betty with his beer. “You’re The Happener.”
Betty perks up at the nickname. “Yeah. Yeah. I’m the Happener,” he asserts.
For a moment, Finley thinks maybe he’s done it. Finally gotten this gnome off this strange, destructive tract he’s been on for apparently the past four years at minimum.
“I just need to make this Happen,” Betty declares, that too bright light in his eyes that says he’s heard absolutely fucking nothing Finley just said. There's something about the look that makes Finley aware of the instinct that told him to leave the Rabbit at home, just in case the enchanter had a strange competitor edge. Betty definitely has strange edges. “I’ll get my hands on a little more Primal Shadow and Abyss Crystals, make it work, show Al after all, and then I’ll cut and run!” He punctuates it with a maniacal laugh.
Right.
“That’s definitely a plan,” Finley hedges.
Betty stops laughing to narrow eyes at Finley, waggling his moustache, and a menacing finger. “You can’t tell anyone. Al can’t know. No one can know. When this hits the market, it’s got to be a surprise. If I find out that you’ve told someone…”
Finley holds up a hand. “Your market secrets are yours,” he lies, and he lies well. He’s going to need to tell Fallon about this, if it proves to be the truth of how Quinn MacBride got her enchantment from this Al schemer. After that, though…
Betty nods. “That’s right. That’s right. They’re mine,” he mutters. “Mine. This is mine.” He takes the beer bottle with him as he slides off the chair and starts waddling for the door. He belches another huge cloud of red smoke.
Great.
Vanishing powder and a priest’s shadow void power of fading away on an enchantment on overdrive. Suggestiveness and chemicals like a perfume. That latter sounds like goblin shit, the kind of thing the Crown Chemical Co. does during this time of year.
It could be what he’s looking for. He doesn’t know what his immunity would be. It might be that if they can find out who “Al” was –
“I think it’s Auction House.” The voice barely makes it through his thoughts, just enough that it’s still there when the next words really do.
“You think ‘A.H.’ stands for ‘Auction House?’ Like they’re writing to ‘Blanque Cheque’?”
Finley’s entire body seizes as his stomach goes sideways. What. No, it can't be. He's hearing things, because he wants to hear it.
“Blank. Or if we go Lordaeron with it, Blanque.”
Two girls, by the entrance, mid-twenties. Dark skinned, hair up in braids for practical work. Local made clothes, nothing finer than linen. Farmers or from the farmlands.
The first one giggles. “That makes them sound like goblins, like what Calvus said,” the first one says. She’s only faking the scandalized tone. She doesn’t think it, and doesn’t agree with Calvus.
“No, don’t say that, you’ll ruin it. I’m not imagining A.H. as a goblin or any of this as a goblin thing. It’s too unromantic. Besides, there’s no way a goblin would be talking about keeping curtains open, and someone peeking inside. There’s not even a little mention of profit or Crown Chemicals Company. I think Dearest Blanque means something else. Like a code.”
Finley closes his eyes, puts a hand on his face.
Breathe.
Oh, fucking hell and Light damn him to it. He might be sick, right here. He can feel the beer burning in his throat.
A.H.
Arched Harp.
Blanque.
There is no way he misheard that, no way he’s misinterpreting those particular coincidences. Even Avrenne would have to admit the odds would be astronomical.
Hana.
What is this, sweetheart?
He has to think quickly. The girls with the gossip are moving outside, not inside, and they’re taking their knowledge with them. He has no idea how widespread this is, or how much they know. He tosses another several gold on the table, and stands up, buttoning his suit slowly. Can’t seem like he’s in a rush. He pushes a hand through his hair. Wastes precious seconds to pick up his coat, and brush it off. He starts to adjust a cuff button as he starts walking towards the door, using the slowness of his upper body and the bend of his head angled to his wrist to disguise his stride and intent.
They’ve already made it mostly out of the building before he’s even remotely caught up to them.
“Do you think with code names that they could be spies?” The other girl asks, pulling her coat over her dress. “It was left like a dead drop.”
Finley doesn’t know if he wants to laugh at how the ridiculous guess is somehow the strangest closest to half of the truth.
“No, it was left on a table, and it says that A.H. doesn’t know if Blanque even cares,” the other says. “There’s no way. This is a tragic love story.”
Somehow it’s worse that she’s probably even closer to the whole truth.
But the mention of the name is what Finley needs, and so he deliberately moves his head like what they’ve said has only just now caught his attention, and takes a loud gasp of breath as if he might say something. He adds in a hnnmmm, just in case they might not have heard it, making sure he’s looking at both girls.
They do turn to look at him, and he feigns embarrassment at being caught. It isn’t hard to access shame at the moment, and he lets it fuel the lie.
“Sorry,” he apologizes. He can tell his cheeks are a little red, adding in a sense of truth that likely makes him seem even more genuine. He puts his hands in his pockets. “I didn’t mean to listen in. I just thought I heard – did you say… A.H. and Blanque?”
The girls close ranks, stepping closer together, physically linking up their arms as they regard him with some wariness. But not closing off. He’s sold enough of the bashfulness that the leader of the two is willing to speak to him. She’s defensive though.
“That’s right,” she says, chin jutting at him. “And before you say it, no it’s not just a goblin advertisement for Love Is In The Air stunt. Dorinda Lane found it, and we saw it with our own eyes.”
Finley has to be careful to not let his true belief show too clearly. He can’t be someone who instantly believes, because he has to be someone who doesn’t already know everything. “Oh, yeah?” he says, like now he’s rethinking a position. “It did seem a bit like maybe it could be an advertising thing. Because of the timing.” He keeps an apology in his voice, a willingness to be convinced. Statements without asking.
The young woman is more than willing to prove her point with the opening. “It doesn’t mention anything about the company, or chocolate or perfume. It’s a note of longing for someone to look in through A.H.’s curtains. And there’s another one.”
He’s going to breathe fire into the air at this rate. There’s been at least two.
Finley frowns, but nods and he deliberately leans down closer to them, trying to create a sense that they’re in on this together. He lowers his voice, alters his tone. “Right. That’s a good point. The one I heard about didn’t mention anything about curtains,” he lies, taking a gamble on a gut feeling that Hana didn’t repeat the same thing, based on how the girl talks about it.
He’s right.
“That’s the one Eberhard found,” the other girl offers up, now that Finley appears to be in on this conspiracy with them.
Eberhard. Fuck. Eberhard who.
“Eberhard Turner?” Finley asks, pulling the last name out of an Elywnn family name hat with a gut instinct.
“Tanner,” the girl corrects.
That was lucky. The names are so close together that Finley seems like he did know.
“You saw that one, too?” Finley asks, using the excuse of the cold to take his hands out of his pockets and wrap his arms around himself, huddling closer and putting himself more in their circle.
The first girl shakes her head. “No. Eberhard just talked about it. A.H. wrote to Blanque and left it on a light on his dog walk route. But it sounded so dramatic. There was a her in it. I think it means there was another woman,” she says.
“Or a first woman,” the other girl corrects. “A.H. could be a man, and Blanque also a man.”
“Or they’re all women,” Finley offers through the Painter.
Both girls consider that.
Finley considers throwing his head back and screaming out the fire beer.
Two letters. At least.
“You may always write to me.”
Oh, sweetheart.
She had taken him at his word.
She just hasn’t sent them to him.
It doesn’t matter. He will get them anyway. He won’t let this go any further, having her private feelings seen by anyone and everyone. Spun into common gossip. He couldn’t protect her at the Count’s party, but he can do it now.
Left on a table in Goldshire. On a light, somewhere on a route nearby. She’s leaving them places. Anywhere? They aren’t their places, neither ventured or mentioned. Those would be entirely different. So it’s not that sort of pattern.
He’s going to need time. And make sure no one gets too curious about this, more than they already have. The best thing for rumors is other rumors.
Finley puts on a look of concern. “Huh,” he says.
It’s the leader who bites. “What?”
He shakes his head, shrugging his shoulders as if self-conscious. “No, it’s probably nothing. I don’t know if I believe in that kind of stuff,” he says, darting a glance at both of them with a twitch of a half-smile.
“What kind of stuff?” She digs further, exactly as intended.
“The whole curses and bad luck thing,” Finley says in a hushed whisper. A hunching of his shoulders, controlled as a manipulator indication of someone who is sharing something they do believe in, but think will be targeted for ridicule. “I heard that someone who picked up a Blanque letter had weird things happening in the house.” He deliberately hesitates, and glances over his shoulder, going quieter.
Both girls lean in further.
“Coal in pillow cases. Rocks in cheese. Curdled milk overnight. You know, someone’s always saying those kinds of things. Acting like because we live in Elwynn, and it’s country, we believe in that stuff,” he says, stressing his Stormwind accent, erasing Lordaeron as cleanly as he can.
It predictably makes them both nod. They’re Elwynn people, all three of them. They don’t believe in that stuff just because they’re country.
Except they are country enough that it will spread, and a lot will believe.
“It’s usually someone’s forgotten to put the milk away, or dropped the cheese in the pantry,” the other girl whispers. Practical soul. Bless her. The other, though, she’s more than half in, ready to believe in a curse or a ghost.
“See? Like I said, I don’t want to give stock to it. It’s just…” He trails off. He leans closer. “It’s just that it’s sort of strange timing. What if A.H. is a warlock? And the letters are cursed so that the only person who can pick them up safely is Blanque? I mean, it might make sense, if they’re being left out where people could find them. Like a fail safe. Move one off placement, or bring one home, and get cursed.”
By him.
Finley will haunt the shit out of them for as many times as it takes for them to learn, until he figures out how to get to them faster.
His audience is completely captivated by this twist. For a while, it will make it worse. They will remember A.H. and Blanque much longer. The drama will spread a bit more. The names will enter some notoriety.
But, at least this way, there’s a better chance that what will happen is they will leave his letters the fuck alone.
Don’t worry. I’m coming for them, sweetheart. You may always write to me.