Hydaelyn Role-Players

The contents of the bag made a distinctive cracking noise as the bag was tossed to the wood planking. No one heard it, and if they had heard it, no one would have been surprised. Particularly not the lad who scooped it up, and hugged it to his chest as if it contained the secret to his continued existence. He looked around nervously, shoulders hunched.

It was dark outside, and there was no one else present on the small, rickety spit a small, rickety skiff had been tied up to alongside. No one but the miqo'te in the skiff, at least.

Another bag landed, this one with a meaty thud, but the third was hugged tightly as the miqo'te hopped up. She was a skinny thing, hollowed out with hunger and likely some pretty nasty excesses. There were dark circles under her eyes, and a discreet stud pierced through her right ear. Or, perhaps that was a particularly fat tick that she hadn't managed to dislodge. Who knew. Either way, she was as ugly as any dirty fuck what'd walked Limsa Lominsa.

"This ain't fun," the lad said, shuffling awkwardly to the side as the miqo'te crowded him.

"Shut up."

"Ye was sayin' it'd be fun."

"Ye want yer tongue gone, too?" She glared down at the missing first knuckle of his forefinger.

He looked down, as well, before hiding the deformity against the bag he held. He glowered at her. She, in return, fingered the chain around her neck; it disappeared down into her shirt. He looked away.

"What's th'plan?" His voice cracked, but he didn't wince. He stood, placid as any docile beast of burden, expression soured and still.

She hefted the bag, grunting with effort, and a grin split her lips. It lightened her expression in all the wrong ways. "Why, me laddy-buck, fun, o'course! Would I lie t'yerself?"

She strode past him, hitting him with her shoulder in the process. When she'd cleared a few yalms, the lad muttered, "always," under his breath before trotting to catch up with her. "Why now?"

She looked back at him, and he recoiled, ducking his head and sidestepping. He did not draw up alongside her, though the boardwalk had ample room for the two of them.

"This is me own time, laddo." She nodded up to the sky. "Let it be remindin' ye next time ye think crossways: Zhavi Streetrunner don't deal in daytrippers. Nor gadabouts."

"But it weren't -- "

"Remind me why yer throat ain't slit?"

"Cuz I'm all ye got left what ain't plannin' on guttin' ye up an' leavin' ye fer th'birds," he snarled, swinging his bag so that it hit her square in the back.

She stumbled and fell, one knee and one hand making contact with the boardwalk in a way that was sure to tear skin. She turned over, onto her ass, and looked up at him with a giggle and a grin. He sighed, some of the steel in his spine giving way under her scorn.

"Oh, me little daisy-chain, ye've things t'learn." She pushed herself up, stumbled, grimaced and readjusted the weight of the bags she held. "Yer throat ain't slit cuz I paid th'gaffer fer yer scrawny hide." She tapped the side of her face, right beneath her ear. "An' if ye think I've been cut loose o' all me contacts, ye've less wits'n I thought ye did. Now shut it, an' follow. I've some churls after me own heart t'meet."

She turned them towards the spires and bridges that formed Limsa Lominsa, her feet knowing the back ways and decrepit streets though she hadn't tread them for some few moons.

Zhavi Streetrunner was ready to play.

Her Highness was as it usually was this time of night; quiet murmured voices carrying through the dimly lit tavern at Fisherman's Bottom. There were still a few souls left willing to drink at this hour and Ruru sat at the bar alone as he'd done for so many moons now.

His hygeine looked lacking as his hair was unkempt and longer than it had been in some time, as he'd not bothered to cut it; though he'd maintained the hair coloring...ensuring it was black. He wore thick unkempt facial hair and and had worked to dye this as well, never breaking who he'd become in the time since he'd been in Limsa.

He was Vivikuso. He was Flit.

The last thought made him close his lone eye and he tapped the bar with the near empty mug. "Another...same as before." He directed this to the elder Hyur working behind the bar. The man sighed. approaching and taking the mug with care before speaking.

"Look, Flit...I've gotta cut ye off, son."

Flit's eye opened and looked up as he scowled slightly. "Cut me off?" He sounded disappointed.

"Aye, son....look I know yer a regular...but....ye still owe from last time. And I think ye've had plenty tonight by the hours ye've been here." He rubbed the back of his head nervously.

Flit maintained his straightfaced stern look at the man who was starting to look a bit nervous. "You know I'm good for the coin. I've a job in two suns that'll cover whatever I owe you."

The man shook his head and grabbed a bottle of wine and handed it over. "Look...just take this...it's on me. I just....I'm afraid I need t' draw a hard line here son. Come back when ye can pay and I'll serve you happily. But for tonight...I think it's best ye head on home."

Flit stared and slowly grabbed the bottle before slipping off the stool and before he turned to leave he said in a cold flat voice, "I'll have your money in two suns." He turned and left, his black and gray padded armor  matching his eyepatch and hair. The sword hanging on his side an indication he was no mere tourist.

Limsa had become his city and he thrived in its darkness, its underbelly as his former.....what had she been anyway? It mattered not. She was gone. Had left him as others had done before and he was as alone as he'd ever been. As he walked the darkened docks he recalled when he'd simply played guard here  moons ago before he'd been nurtured and taken in as a proper sellsword, a paid killer....his contracts now providing enough for him to drink his fill each night until he needed to fill the coffers again. And the dead men and women who'd fallen to his blade helped fix that thirst.

That thirst for blood and revenge and quelling the anger in his heart if but for a single day. He spotted a poor homeless soul with a small cup jangling some coins and begging passerby for more and half considered running him through, taking the coin so he could pay back his debt at Her Highness then felt the wieght of the bottle he'd been given and knew he could drink at his place freely. He passed the man and smirked as he knew the man had been spared only by the grace of the barkeep.

As he entered his small messy apartment he kicked aside some trash and slumped onto the bed, opening the bottle and taking a long pull on it before stopping and looking at the side wall with his typical scowl. The dusty paladin armor sat half covered with clothing and trash and he scoffed before drinking again, knowing he was close to passing out, his nightly ritual nearly complete.

The paths Zhi had tread the past few moons had kept her out of the heart of the city, and it took some readjusting as she paced its streets. One of her holes had been jacked, and she wrote it off with a scowl and a glare for the boy -- "What?" being his own sullen response, some of the steel returned -- but eventually the gear and loot they carried was delivered into the proper drop locations. Or eager hands.

The boy was licking his lips as Zhi counted up the coin, shifted out his pay, and handed it to him. But before he could leave, she shook free a few more coins and held them out expectantly. "Brindle."

He looked back, eyed the coin as if it bared fangs. He looked at her the same way.

It made her smile. "Watch. Gad. Stay off yer new buddy. Make contact, an' I'll be knowin', an' ye won't like what I make o' it, understand?"

He shifted, and glared. He spat between them, but took the coin. She was losing him. Circumstances being what they were, she hadn't been able to cut him loose like she'd intended. She'd pay for that, more than she already had.

"Fondle a sheep, Zhio," he muttered. She didn't offer him anything more but a cheshire grin, hiding her surprise at the old affection.

It felt cheap coming from him, now.

The old apartment was but a street over from where Zhi parted ways with Brindle, and she moved quick over it. She'd put on some small padding of muscle, and she put it to good use as she scaled the building and peered inside the old room. She snorted to smell him in there; idiot had stayed put while she'd been gone. Lucky he hadn't gotten himself killed, the way things looked. Her Keeper eyes picked over the room, over him, and scorn rose up in her throat. It was mirrored in her voice.

"Ye smell worse'n a bilge filled wi' a moon's worth o' gadabouts' shit, y'beggared churl."

The figure in his window frame didn't startle him. Ruru had been threatened more than once and he knew there were some within his own organization that'd hand him his own skin given half the chance. He continued to drink his bottle while his hand went to his belt, seeking his familiar dagger, the one thing that still felt right in the world.

As his hand clasped about the hilt in the second the individual appeared, he had intended to hurl the blade until he heard the voice.

The bottle fell from his hands and smashed to the floor and he pulled the dagger stepping up and backing two steps behind. Ruru's voice was a stammering wreck and he looked as pale as he'd been in his life.

"G-gods no....It...you...can't be...."

He wanted that drink so badly and felt his throat go dry like an arid desert as he looked at the familiar figure of Kink.

"You.....You're a ghost. A spirit." he gulped and then narrowed his eyes, still unsure of this was not some drunken hallucination he had surely earned.

"But....if you aren't a ghost.." He scowled and held the knife in a stance as if preparing to attack. "....then you best have a damned good explanation for why I shouldn't cut you down right now."

Zhi wrinkled her nose and slipped inside. Gods, when had she last heard that? She smirked. All too often. "Y'got any more o' that?" She nodded down to the fragments of glass, the splattered liquid. "Ain't had no drink in half a moon, an' me thirst is right powerful enough t'topple even a roegadyn. Fancy?"

She didn't move further into the room. It didn't matter whether or not Flit spooked her; even the most bumbling idiot occasionally struck true. "Or are ye still a helpless squallin' babe cryin' fer his mam?" She looked him up and down, a wicked grin splitting her lips. "Can't say as I'm impressed, flittermouse."

He scowled and threw the dagger to the floor near her feet, meaning to miss, and even drunk was a feat he could muster relatively easily. The throw was in anger, and meant to threaten. His voice was cold and low as he glared at her with his lone eye. The other covered no longer by a red eyepatch he wore when she'd been there before but a black one, matching his hair and clothing.

"First....you don't get to call me that. Dead women don't get to call me that."

He stalked a few steps back and forth, eye never leaving Kink's visage, as if he were a caged animal ready to pounce. He finally stopped and spoke, voice still cold, deeper than it had been to her before if she had noticed.

"I suppose you think you can just wander in from wherever you've been like nothing's happened, nothing's changed. And you still have yet to tell me how you're standing there alive and well after so long...." He walked to the wall where his armor was and shuffled some items quickly and drew his sword, turning back to her, calmly, as though she were a mere inconvenience in his world.

"....and why I shouldn't gut you. Not like the city'd mind, nor would it miss you....since it hasn't thus far." The words were laced with venom and were meant to hurt his old friend.

Zhi hopped to the side as the blade clattered, unselfconscious about her twitchiness. Reflexes kept you alive; weren't no shame in moving. Her grin remained in place, however, and she stooped to pick it up. She observed it as he spoke, and when he did -- she laughed. Delighted, hooting laughter, as if they were trading humorous anecdotes over a pint. Like they had, at one point in time. Time, yeah, that was always the problem.

She rolled her eyes. "Don't be a gadabout, or craven. Ye knew what ye were signing up fer when ye treaded water wi' me, an' if ye claim innocence then I'll claim ye a lackwit."

The dagger was nice, especially for him. She didn't know what that meant. Yet.

"Now, ye gonna cry or are ye gonna get over yer blimmin' self? I don't do tantrums, flittermouse. Never have."

He always had been a loose cannon. Too bad she needed him.

He walked calmly and lifted the sword to her thigh, scowling still and yet in control of his emotions. In his mind he envisioned all of those that had fallen to the same blade and that kept him calm.

"No tantrums. No fits. That man is gone. Left behind on the docks when you decided to disappear. The Handers have been good to me...made good use of my skills. If I twitch my hand one way or the other this blade will cut one of your major blood vessels and you'll bleed out here in my apartment. And I will drink a pint over your corpse..."

The dagger, he took in a deft and sudden move as his eye never wavered or flinched from hers.

"...if you do not explain yourself to me now."

Of all the --

Zhi backed up against the window, a thrill of fear spiking through her. So. He wasn't just throwing tantrums now, he was throwing them with sharp steel to make his point. She tossed her head, ears going back, and fought to keep herself from spitting at his feet. She kept her saliva to herself. Barely.

She also just barely managed to keep the haughtiness, and the scorn out of her voice. She didn't like groveling, not by any stretch, and she was less in a mood than usual to perform the necessities that kept her breathing. Rutting Nald'thal, again.

Her voice was level when she spoke. She'd a last shred of dignity to her, yet. Best not spend it before she had to. "Either ye hold steady and deal like a man," she almost rolled her eyes again, resisted, "or I'll leave ye t'yer gladhapping an' not darken yer door again. Yer own choice."

Ruru tilted his head to the right after she spoke, as if considering and then he flipped the blade upward, the point held at her left cheek. His breathing was calm and his narrowly lidded eye didn't even move.

The blade flashed quick, a small quick slash, leaving a long cut across her cheek as he lowered the blade, expression not changing. The cut wasn't too deep and might not leave a scar but he wasn't fully sure. He'd done it in anger. Tossing the blade to the side he finally turned and walked back to a chair nearby and sat down in it, leaning back and finally looking back at her. When he spoke his voice was still cold, complete with a begrudging acceptance.

"Welcome back Zhi. Start talking."

She flinched back from the cut. Three, two, one . . . it started to sting. Not a lot, but enough for her to know that it'd be a bitch later.

Pissed and afraid. That just pissed her off more. She let him see the edges of that complex whorl of emotion, her impatience and her uncertainty. It beat letting him know he'd managed to rile her.

"Is it worth me time, or do I walk an' save meself wasted breath?"

He smirked at her question, the first change in expression since the encounter began.

"Try to walk out the door and you won't get three steps before I put you down. I said talk." He stood and grabbed a bottle of wine from his small kitchen and tossed it to her. "Drink. And talk."

"Little shit!"

Zhi was moving. Her legs flexed, and she'd hopped backwards up into the window sill. The bottle of wine arced and clattered to the floor, cracking as it hit. "T'morrow, I'll be at Her Highness."

One step backwards, and she was off the side of the building. She caught the lip of the window, and was scaling down. Her voice drifted up behind her. "Less y'think ye can catch me, y'wet -- "

the rest of the sentence was garbled by her rapid descent.

Ruru shook his head as she popped out of the window and he shouted back, knowing she likely couldn't hear.

"Oh and THANK YOU! TWO BOTTLES YOU COST ME!!"

She'd been back only minutes in his life and he she was costing him. He sighed and looked around his apartment before a smile cracked his lips and he leaned down and began to gather the trash near his feet.

"Tomorrow it is then, Zhi. Tomorrow it is."

The rest of the night was incredibly productive, so long as you counted productivity as getting blind drunk and doing things in alleyways that would make any well-adjusted person retch. Brindle found her in the morning, tucked away into one of the hidey-holes he knew about, snoring and generally smelling like she'd raided a brewery, only with fouler additives tossed into the mix.

He got a few kicks in before she roused, still inebriated and with more to spare. She had a bottle to her lips (she'd fallen asleep with it clasped to her chest; it accounted for the smell since half of what had been left had dribbled out) before Brindle had the chance to start speaking. Disgust wrinkled up his nose as he watched her, distracted from his original intent. "Already?"

Her eyes were bloodshot as she stared him down. Unfortunately for her, she was far too lame a sight for her usual tactics to have much effect.

He shrugged and presented a scrap of paper. She squinted at it, and took another gulp. "Whazzat?"

"Jacks put coin on yer head."

The bottle slipped in her fingers. She almost dropped it; reflexes honed by years of drinking saved it. "Jacks what?"

Brindle turned the paper around to look at it. Since he could read only marginally better than she, Zhi cold only assume he was highly enjoying himself. Scrag.

"Th'name 'Melodia' ringin' yer bells, boss?"

"Sonuva ship's whore, that--"

The ranting carried on for awhile.
_______________


Zhi didn't make it to Her Highness. The day passed, and she skulked. The day was for daytrippers. The night was for keepers.

Streetrunners didn't get pinned with bounties. Not generally. They kept to the underside of things. They were facilitators. They kept their noses to the ground, their ears open, and slid around just outside of everyone's immediate attention. They weren't worth the effort, even as they curried favors and cultivated connections. They were sly, sneaky bastards. Streetrunners didn't get caught.

Scrags got caught.

Flit would either figure it out or he wouldn't. He'd either sulk and get over it, or he'd keep up his murderous little shitstorm and piss on her memory. Her Highness might be neutral territory, but it was also one of her frequent haunts, and there was one real entrance and exit. Any number of idiots could be waiting for her, the sort looking to curry favor with jacks. The sort that three thousand gil meant food and shelter for a moon. It wasn't exactly the sort of attention she wanted to bring to herself so soon off the dock; she'd be a laughingstock to get caught up in hunters. More than she already was. Shit.

It wasn't until sunset that Zhi walked the streets, climbed spires, trotted over rooftops and ran over and around the city. She'd said Her Highness, she made her way to Scuttlebutt, after a few careful questions of those she knew wouldn't bother with such a bounty. The snickering got under her skin, but she only showed her own self-deprecation. Okay, and maybe a little irritation. Only a little.

She wound up at the edge of the open-air gambling den, no drinks or smokes to keep her company. She was on edge. A hat had been donned, covering her ears; her tail had been wrapped up under a wide sash. She'd dressed the part of a skinny boy. Listening was made more difficult by the hat, but it was necessary; she gleaned what she could, playing a few rounds here and there -- she kept herself even, neither winning too much or losing too often.

Flit either would find her, or she'd find him again, in his shitty, smelly apartment with his blade between them.

Fun times.