Antimony forced herself to take unhurried, even steps back down the winding stairs of Ul'dah's inner walls. Her tail twitched every so often in display of her anxiety, but she kept it close to her body so as to not whack the miqo'te, Mitari, with it. She frowned as she walked, thinking of the envelope and the gathered files it had contained - data on several key "businesses" along Pearl Lane that had turned out to be not true businesses at all. The names attached to them were even more incriminating, and the idea of the Blade lieutenant Loughree rifling through them was none to pleasing.
It was fortunate that had not happened, thanks to the seemingly well-meaning if ill-advised actions of a stranger.
"She will listen to reason," Antimony said as they walked, approaching an open area at the center of which sat a tall fountain. The water bubbled and echoed pleasantly against the round walls. Antimony found the set up odd, considering no natural light reached this area, only the yellow glow of the lanterns lining the city-cavern's walls. But it had been, until perhaps today, the most relaxing corner of Ul'dah.
With this verbal reassurance, meant for both herself and Mitari following silently behind, Antimony stepped into the open space and glanced around in hopes of locating the rather intimidating person of Loughree.
Mitari followed wordlessly, his hands in his pockets while he shuffled along after Anti's perfect steps. She was really graceful. That was the first thing he noticed as they walked. A clumsily graceful girl? Well, woman it seemed more like than a girl. He was only twenty four after all. He probably still looked like a little kid.Â
And like a little kid, he followed Anti around and shrugged. Jail didn't scare him too much. He could make his way through it if he needed to. And that other brat brass blade? Someday he'd take her down a notch.Â
As they entered the main around and looked around, MItari wondered why they came back here. No way a Brass Blade would stay put after they. They always went back to report at the office. "Umm... Miss Antimony? She'd probably be back at the main office...?" he suggestioned.
Her ears swiveled back and then twitched, going a bit lopsided in some strange display of emotion. "... Ah. Yes! Yes, of course you're right." She shook her head, turning half way to look back at Mitari and smiling apologetically. "I'm not sure why I thought she'd still be here. I suppose I wasn't really thinking at all..."
Shaking her head, she turned again, this time towards one of the branching halls leading away from the circular courtyard. "At least we will have the benefit of familiarity. Or I will. Ah... don't worry!" She added in a hurry, "I'll make this right," and made to move on.
Mitari chuckled faintly at her cute flustered behavior. For being so serious, she didn't really think did she? Or perhaps it was just that her mind was on other things. He turned on his heel to follow her down the hallway towards, well he assumed she knew where it was, the Brass Blade's Main Office.
"Don't worry about it Miss Antimony. I already fucked things up so it's no problem if I take the heat for it. Just make sure to come visit once in a while okay?" he chuckled awkwardly, keeping a leisurely pace behind her.
The Pearl Lane offices couldn't exactly be called a headquarters. The Brass Blades had a sparse few rooms and one long hallway, with a pair of holding cells that were little more than rusty old cages far in the back of the building. But when Captain Lamandu was away, it was comfortable enough for Lieutenant Loughree Desfosse, especially since she tended to while away her time in the Captain's office.
He liked to keep things orderly, so Lou would knock everything on his desk over, shovel his paperwork and then kick back in his chair. It was the only room in the building with a window, fogged as it was, and Lou liked how the black officer's chainmail caught the light.
It didn't take too terribly long to cross the Steps of Thal out into the open-air market place of Pearl Lane. The lesser cousin of Sapphire Avenue, the place was lined with boarded up buildings. Most merchants here kept their wares on blankets spread out on the street; a few could afford stalls, usually little more than stacks of crates; fewer still managed to lease out some of the buildings.
Antimony made her way down the lane with a brisk familiarity, worrying her hands in front of her, down by her waist. Her tail grew increasingly active the closer they got to their destination.
Eventually, she stopped outside an office marked with the seal of the Brass Blades, and she paused to half turn towards Mitari, giving him what she hoped was an encouraging smile. "No talk of visiting jails now. As I said, it was all a misunderstanding. A simple talk will clear it right up!" She only half believed her own encouraging words, having seen the lieutenant's nasty side on more than one occasion now, but she said them all the same.
With that, she turned to push into the office, smiling at the pair of lalafell manning the front desk and questioning, "Is Captain Tyremandu in?"
One of them responded with a negative, but gestured her towards his office nonetheless, informing them that Loughree was watching things while he was gone. Mitari they gave a shrewd look, to which Antimony replied, "We're here on business," with a pleasant, if mildly strained, smile.
The pair of desk jockeys either didn't particularly care or accepted her excuse and again waved them on to a door off to one side. Sparing a glance at Mitari, Antimony hesitated a moment longer before knocking out of habit and then opening the door to slip inside.
Mitari followed, not paying too terribly much attention as they walked. He'd spent the last month or so hanging out in Ul'dah, looking for work and coin pretty much wherever he could get it. He'd been lucky to fight some strange Lalafell that furnished him with good coin awhile back for being 'stronger' but, other than that he hadn't had too much luck with jobs. There were so many adventurers and mercenaries that getting a job for yet another one was filled with competition.Â
As they entered the Brass Blade's officer on Pearl Lane Mitari paused to glance around. He wasn't too familiar with their officers yet, and overtime he entered there was the faintest smell off... rust. Or at least, he thought it was rust. He wasn't totally sure yet.Â
Still, he meandered in after Antimony and kept his hands stuffed into his jacket pockets. He tried not to growl as the strangers at the desk gave him funny looks, but instead smiled like Antimony and followed her away towards the office. Supposed office. If worse came to worse, he was pretty sure he could break the door down and use his lance to charge through and run for it. Or just Aetheryte to like... Limsa or something.
The legs of the chair Lou had been leaning back in slammed down as she rose quickly to her feet, ears and eyes wide to watch Antimony enter. Her chain mail clattered against her sword and sheild, which remained where they were even as the chair swayed on the verge of falling.
"Well," Lou exhaled, at first too surprised to express anything else. When she realized that bum from earlier was there as well, her lips dipped down and her eyelids drooped into a threatening glare. "This is kind of bold."
Taking the glare in stride as best she could - that was, hesitating just a second as her tail shivered behind her before she gathered her wits - Antimony pursed her lips and lifted her chin, giving a short nod.
"Perhaps, but I firmly believe misunderstandings as what just occurred shouldn't be left to fester."
Mitari let his ears flicker at the sight of the... woman member of the Brass Blades. Bold? Ah well. Maybe. He bit his bottom lip and kept his mouth shut for now, his tail swaying behind him low under his coat. His lance still rested on his back, ready in case he needed to use it.
"Sit down," Loughree instructed firmly, pointing at the chairs that sat in front of Captain Lamandu's messed-up desk. "Both of you."
Mitari sat as instructed, taking the lance from his back and holding it across his lap instead.
With a shake of her ears, Antimony looked first between Loughree and Mitari before folding her hands in front of her and moving to take the remaining chair alongside the latter. "I'm sure we've all had time to think over what happened, yes? And certainly, Miss Loughree, you realize you were out of bounds attempting to handle private documents. Likewise my, ah, friend did not react in a very positive manner, but... well, we were all rather agitated."
Loughree steped out from behind the desk and walked over to the door to the office, closing it and throwing the latch, locking them all in the room together. Arms crossed, back against the door, Lieutenant Loughree Desfosse said very plainly, "I've got three months on the scab for assaulting an officer plus more for resisting arrest and maybe some on the side for interfering with an investigation. A week on you, Antimony, for assosciation. That's me being nice. You want to make a deal?"
"Ain't no scabs here lady." Mitari hissed at the woman as she turned to lock them all in the room. There was still a window and he was still crazy enough to jump through it if he had to. "Better go look outside if you’re looking' for them. Or better yet, check a mirror."
Antimony blinked hard as the door latched shut but  kept her gaze firmly forward while Loughree delivered her... well, it certainly sounded like an ultimatum more than any kind of deal. And that was assuming-- "It's my hope we can talk this out as three reasonable people," she began, weaving her fingers together in her lap tensely. "Not deal making, just people coming to an understanding that no one dealt with the situation well. Might I remind you, that you attempted to take documents related to my investigation from me? That doesn't reflect well back on you."
Ignoring Mitari's retort, Loughree sighed and spoke as though explaining something simple to a child. "I had reason to be suspicious, which gives me a responsibility to investigate. I don't go around looking to make enemies, Antimony. Now, listen, because you don't get it." She pointed at Mitari, "I'm going to try to arrest him, and he's going to run away. Then you, Antimony, are going to get pinned with aiding him. You'll be arrested. You'll lose your job. You'll fail." She crossed her arms again. "Do you want to make a deal or not?"
"Could have fooled me, running around grabbing things from people like it's your own property. Disrespecting the law like you're above it. You're just like that rest of those scumbag Blades." Mitari scowled before picking his lance off his lap and placing it in Antimony's lap instead. "I want you to hold onto that for me, okay? It's special to me and I don't want them taking it. So please keep it safe for me while I'm in jail." he smiled cheerfully at Anti, not really wanting her to worry about some vagabond like himself.
Antimony started as the weapon was placed in her lap, lifting her hands up above it as though afraid to touch the thing. She frowned at it, then at Mitari, and lastly the surly Blade lieutenant. She didn't quite understand Loughree's words. "No one needs to go to jail," she insisted, "Not over something as silly as a misunderstanding! This ma--ah, Mitari was not involving himself in any part of the investigation. I don't even... well! There was no need for you to take liberties with my materials."
"Throwing a punch isn't a misunderstaning," Loughree replied. "It's assault, and it's a crime. So is running away from me when you know I'm talking to you." She opened the door and turned her gaze to Mitari, gesturing for him to follow. "Come on. I'll take some time off because you're coming nicely. No cuffs if you're a good boy."
Mitari gave a somber smile at Antimony. "I told you she wasn't going to listen. They never do." And with a sigh and stood and trudged over to the door, moving to follow instructions for the time being. No point in arguing really. It would just agitate the situation and get Antimony into more trouble, which was the last thing he wanted.
Her ears and tail shivering, Antimony made as though to stand but was stopped as the lance threatened to fall to the ground. She held it awkwardly, as though it would bite. "No, this can't be right. Blows were thrown, certainly, but... it was all over nothing - both of you! Miss Loughree, I will be speaking to Captain Tyremandu regarding your disrespect towards the privacy of the investigation!"
Leaving the door open, Loughree said, "Walk with us, Antimony. We can talk." And turned to lead Mitari towards the very short hall that would take them to the holding cells. She weeathered the confused gazes of those who worked the office, and when one was about to speak to her, she silenced them with a glare.
Lame. Jail again, huh? Mitari couldn't say he was disappointed really. He had been bored but now he was just going to be... well honestly he couldn't decide how he felt about it all. His tail swishing behind him, he followed wordlessly the women to the holding cells, following directions as prompted.
Antimony wavered, torn between a need to protest further or protect her own livelihood. Not knowing what to do with the spear, she clutched it in both hands and stood with an unsatisfied frown to follow Loughree. "Talk of what? You made a mistake, and now you take it out on this man. That doesn't... well, it doesn't seem becoming of an officer of the law."
The holding cells were a simple place: two rusty cages with a hallway in between. The things look like they might crumble if hit hard enough, but that probably just meant a lot of very disappointed inmates who had gotten their hopes up and failed. She led Mitari to a cell and opened it, gesturing for him to enter.
She spoke to Antimony, "I'll let Lamandu know what happened. I don't even have the authority to pardon people. Especially for assaulting a Blade."
Rusty cages? Mitari crinkled his nose. No wonder the place smelled of rust. Eck. Did they ever bother to clean these things? Distastefully, he entered the cell and glanced around at the 'amenities' if you could call them that. More like a rusty place for a makeshift bed and a rusting toilet Mitari didn't want to get anywhere near.Â
"Seriously. This cell is going to kill me. Don't you guys ever clean this crap?" he huffed, moving to sit on the metal deathtrap of a makeshift cot.
Antimony kept a healthy distance from the cell, eyeing it uncertainly as Mitari entered. His calm at the situation baffled her and did nothing to assuage the measure of guilt she felt towards getting him, a hapless stranger, into this situation. She didn't like what she could smell in this short hall, even if she couldn't identify all of it, and she wasn't comfortable leaving such a seemingly kind man alone here.
"I never intended for you to end up..." she trailed off, pursed her lips, and then sighed. Her ears and tail drooped somewhat. "I suppose it was too much to hope, that we could simply talk things out."
Slamming the cell shut, Loughree crossed her arms and walked over to Antimony, standing very close. "Talk is worthless. I offered to make a deal and you didn't. he gets three months for assaulting and officer, two more for resisting arrest, another three for interfering with an investigation. What is that, eight months? You just cost your friend eight months of his life because you didn't want to talk business."
Antimony's eyes widened, her mouth dropping open slightly as her composure retreated. "I... what? What are you talking about, business!"
Mitari frowned at the officer again. Really. What a colossal bitch. Eight months? What a waste of eight months. He hoped he wasn't stuck in THIS particular cell for eight months. Because that would REALLY suck.Â
"Hey, leave her alone. She didn't tell me to do any of that so it's not her fault." Mitari scowled at Loughree, his ears flattening on his head. Eight months... wow. Sucks.
"I meant a bribe, Antimony. Anyway." She grabbed Antimony by her collar. "I'm keeping you at least overnight. Like I said, I don't have the authority to pardon people, and that includes you." With her other hand she harshly struck the lance to try and knock it out of her hands, and began to pull Antimony back towards the other cell.
"Hey! Leave her alone!" Mitari hissed, immediately getting up from his seat although he could do nothing to interfere.
Attempting to lunge after the dislodged lance only jarred Antimony against Loughree's grip on her collar. She brought one hand up to try and loosen the grip but was rather helpless to resist the Blade officer's not so gentle urging along. Dragging, really. "W-wait!" She yelped, suddenly frightened, and tried to dig her heels in. "What are you--I've done nothing! What are you doing?"
"You resisted my investigation and fled with a criminal who you knew had attacked me. You convinced him to turn himself in, and hey, you're a friend, so I won't keep you long. But I've still got to keep you." She opened the door to the cell and thrust Antimony into it. The act was neither kind nor cruel, but was very forceful.
Not a particularly physically adept individual, Antimony stumbled towards the back of the cell with the force of Loughree's shove, catching herself on the far wall in time to keep herself from falling. Her tail was puffed out to an almost comical size, her ears pressed so tightly against her skull that they all but disappeared into her hair. She took several moments to recover before turning to cast a wide-eyed look Loughree's way.
"I didn't intend to run!" She pleaded, keenly scared for the security of her job and, perhaps, her person. Antimony wasn't one to break even the smallest of rules, so to stand at the back of a jail cell as a criminal - it was too much.
"Hey!" Mitari hissed again, grabbing at the cage of the cell and rattling it furiously. "She didn't run! I grabbed her! She never did anything wrong!"
Chuckling, Loughree closed Antimony's cell and turned to Mitari. She smiled at him meanly and stretched, "Keep it up. I know some guys who'll pay good money to ride feisty ass. Feel like making some money while you're in there? I'll take a cut, of course."
Antimony brought both hands to her mouth at that, staring at the back of Loughree's head in shock.
Mitari reddened furiously and hissed at the girl baring his fang. With far more strength than any normal being had, as the cell door had never seen the tremendous strength of a dragoon, Mitari rammed his side into the steel cage and made a sizable dent, bending the bars apart enough to leave if he had chosen to do so.
Her smile fleeing quickly, Loughree didn't miss a beat. She warned, "Just say no. If you start acting up, I might have to take my offers to Antimony."
Mitari could form no words and only hissed hostility at the woman before turning his back to her and stalking to the back of his cage. The older woman made a small sound in the back of her throat and just watched Loughree's back with disbelieving eyes.
Her smile returning, Loughree cooed, "That's right. I might like a ride myself if you want to take a month or two off." Humming pleasantly to herself, Loughree picked up the fallen lance and eyed it briefly before moving as if to exit. Her steps are paused, though, when she notices a strange thing on the ground in front of her.
A doll. Made mostly of dirty white rags, it has yellow thread for hair, a thick strand of yarn for a tail and small paper flaps that imitate a Miqo'te's ears. It sat, posed cutely with its legs crossed and its arms in its lap, staring up at her. Spying such an out-of-place thing, undisturbed in the middle of the hall, she frowned and approached it curiously. It was only after a few seconds that she noticed several thin, black needles sticking out of the things face. Her eyes widening with confusion, she cringed at the disturbing sight. "... The hell?"
Mitari banged his fist angrily into the ground and shifted to sit on the filthy floor. It was all filth and grime there anyway. What difference did it make? Still, he couldn't believe he had gotten such a nice women in such a bad predicament. And his lance... that bitch would probably sell it.Â
"Sorry Antimony..." he called lightly towards the other cell, not noting the other's reaction to a doll he couldn't see.
Antimony had flinched at the Blade officer's final insinuation towards Mitari, cringing and turning herself away as though to hide from the entire situation. The words left a sick feeling in her gut.
Her dwelling on what she vainly hoped was a nightmare was interrupted first by a strange declaration of confusion from Loughree, and then by an apology from the unfortunate soul Mitari. She looked between the two, blinked with an odd expression at Loughree, and inched forward.
"It's not your fault," she mumbled a bit faintly Mitari's way as she shuffled toward one side of the cell. "I am sorry I couldn't... I thought I could fix this." She kept her movements hesitant as though fearing some sort of retribution, but curious. She thought she'd seen... She blinked. "The doll...? How did..."
Loughree spun on Antimony and pointed towards the doll, "Hey! Did you put this here?" She looked around. Her normally very fuzzy tail seemed a bit puffed out, though not nearly as much as Antimony's was. Her ears stood up and swivled around alertly. She saw the door to the hall was shut. had she shut it when she came in here? She couldn't remember. Her nostrils flared as she sniffed at the air; something didn't smell right.
Turning back to Antimony, she said, " Explain this!"
Antimony leaned away from the bars of the cell, stumbling two steps backwards. She cast a worried, helpless look in Mitari's direction, then back to Loughree. "I don't... I didn't! It just--I've seen--" She hesitated, blinking rapidly, and suddenly questioned the wisdom of saying more.
Mitari really hadn't expected anything other than the worst situation to happen... damnit. He should have put his lance somewhere safe, but he had totally forgotten when he promised not to leave that spot for Antimony. He tried not to pay much attention to the apparent distress of the Blade member responsible for their imprisonment, but when she turned on Anti he quirked his ears up to listen more intently. A doll...? Strange.
With a growl on her lips, Loughree said, "You've seen what? You've seen this?" She spun back to the doll and bent down, closing a plated fist around the dolls neck. The thing's head immediately burst, and the thin black needles flew directly into Loughree's face. She screamed, a hideous, crackling sound from her unprepared throat, and threw herself backwards. The now headless doll and the lance both went flying. Loughree's scream was silenced when her back hit the ground, but moments later was replaced by a sicker sound, an almost impossible screech as she plucked bloodied needles from herr features.
One of the needles was stick. The single needle that had buried itself in her right eye was far too deep for her to get out. She writhed and scraped her face with her armored hands, leaving red marks in her own flesh.
Antimony let out a cry of her own and fell back away from the bars of the cell, dropping to the ground in shock and fear at the sight. She brought her hands up as though to ward against something and shook as her gaze tore between the now headless doll on the ground and the writhing form of Loughree.
Seen what? Mitari frowned wondering what it was she was talking about and where Anti had seen it before. He wasn't going to really look until Loughree screamed. It sent shivers down his spine in a terrible way and he sharply got to his feet and peered through the bent bars to see what was happening.Â
Indeed there was some sort of strange doll but it was headless and nearby his lance. Mitari went a bit pale as Loughree's second screech, something of a sickening sound he had heard a few times before. He watched somewhat horror-stricken for a moment as she pulled the... needles!? from her face and scratched at her eye for another one.Â
"Hey, hey, hey! You're making it worse! Stop!" Mitari yelled before taking a few steps back and ramming into the bent bars again with his full strength. The bars groaned before cracking finally, and letting Mitari crawl his way out of them. "Stop pulling at it!" he yelled again at Loghree. He was a Dragoon, but he was also a healer. Something his mother had taught him a long time ago. Something he had treasured and held close to him, trying not to let others know about his talent for it.Â
But he couldn't just let her scream and suffer in front of him, even if she was kind of a corrupted bitch that had tried to get him to sell his body for time out of jail. So he knelt down next to her and tried to pin her arms down to the ground so she couldn't hurt herself any further. "You're going to blind yourself! Stop it!" he ordered fiercely.
Loughree was a powerful person. But she was just a person, and she couldn't resist Mitari's strength, try as she may. She writhed under him, making desperate sounds, kicking her legs and digging her armoed heels into the old floor of the building. When she did manage words, it was only to cough out, "My eye... it's...!"
"In your eye!? Okay, I got it! But you gotta hold still! I can't get it out if you're flailing and trying to grab it out with those gloved hands!" Mitari shot back irritably. "So don't move and I'm going to let go with a hand to get it, okay? I can push it out with some magic, but it will probably hurt. So I need you to not move, got it? Or you're gonna blind yourself."
When Mitari had come bursting out through the cell, Antimony had cringed away at the force of it. When he came down on Loughree and began to bark out rough, clear orders to the woman, she curled her arms over her head and found she couldn't watch any further.
Shielding her view from Loughree on the ground, Antimony found her panicked eyes drawn to the doll on the floor, tatters of stuffing poking out where its head should have been. Its familiarity was chilling.
Unable to manage a verbal response, Loughree nodded and went mostly still. Only mostly, though. She still writhed slightly, her body riddled with adrenaline and panic. Every muscle in her body was tense, and she almost felt like she was trying to hold herself down instead of just laying still. She was a pathetic image on the ground. Obviously terrified, breathing fast and barely restraining herself from sobbing and screaming.
"Okay, good." Mitari coo'd gently, trying to get the woman to calm down. His task would be utterly impossible if she wasn't calm enough to hold still without him pinning her down. He leaned close to her face to examine her eyes, looking for the needle. And indeed after a few minutes of searching his eyes fell on where he believed it to be. "Alright, I'm going to try and use a spell to have your skin push the needle out far enough so I can grab it. Okay? I need you to bear with the pain for a bit so I can get it out. Okay? I'm going to start." he breathed out slowly, trying to calm himself down in an effort to keep the girl calm as well. It wasn't as easy to keep calm when people around you were panicking. With a careful movement he placed his hand over the afflicted eye and allowed aether to gather for a few moments. His hand glowed a soft gee and borrowing the life energy in the Aether around him, he used it to try and regenerate the cells beneath the needle, in an effort to have the regrowing cells force it upwards and outwards.
Essentially, the flesh inside of Loughree's eye was pushing back against the very sharp point of the needle. To Loughree, this felt as though the needle was being driven deeper into her eye, very slowly, and very painfully. Even besides the screeching sound drawn from her by the pain, there was the instinctive need to stop the needle. It was almost overpowering. Her fists closed tight enough to make the metal of her gauntlets keen, and very slowly her arms lifted to lay against Mitari's body and squeeze him, a expression of desperation she couldn't stop.
Her vision shook and blurred, went dark and returned. All of her senses fired and went flat as though electricity were firing into her brain. Flecks of light and darkness stormed in front of her, and for a moment, she was honestly convinced that Mitari was actually killing her. There on the floor, of the cells, she was going to die.
Mitari didn't pay much mind to the screaming nor the desperate squeeze. He was too focused, all of his energies settled on getting that damn needle out of her eye. The process was slow and imprecise. At first the needle just kept piercing through the newly grown flesh again and again. Mitari attempted a slightly different tactic by pumping more Aether to regenerate cells even more quickly. The needle's point pierced through some but by rapidly accelerating their regeneration process, he began to made a little headway with the needle. He could feel the aether begin to push it back, and then he could see it more clearly. A thin black needle point lodged in the corner of her eye. Mitari focused harder, trying to push it further out through the clumsy process he had been using. He was positive it hurt terrible and wouldn't be great for her vision, but it was either that or losing it so he was doing his best not to damage surrounding tissues too badly.Â
Finally enough of the needle remerged that he stopped trying heal her and simply reached his hand down to grab the fine point and pull it gently out. Of course, grabbing such a fine point by and eye wasn't terrible easy and it took a lot of trying to even grab the dam thing in the first place. "Almost got it..." he mumbled, biting his lower lip as he tried to grasp it again.
Her eye wanted desperately to blink, and so Loughree stared wide-eyed at Mitari as she shook. When he stopped channeling whatever spell he had been using, the pain largely subsided, as did the fear of death and the instincitve need to stop what was happening to her. She still waited, in a panic, but had enough control of it to bark at him, "Just get it out!"
"Trying!" He barked back loudly as his nails finally managed a grip on the needle. "Got it!" And with a swift pull he managed to get the damn thing finally out of her eye. "Finally!" Mitari sighed heavily and examined the small black needle. Where had it come from in the first place? And why? He hated the Brass Blades, but not that much.
At the exclamation of success, Antimony peeked out from behind her arms just slightly.
She could definitely feel the needle leave her eye. The feeling was inexplicably powerful despite the slightness of it, very right that it happened though it left her feeling very wrong. The pain lingered, and her vision from just that eye was dim and blurry.
Loughree closed her eye and pitched her entire body up at once to knock Mitari aside, her legs churning and arms scrabbling against the ground. "Get off me! Get away from me!" She tried to get away from Mitari, and would throw herself against the hallway's back wall if she could.
Finally. Finally he'd gotten it out. That was really... difficult. He wished he knew an easier spell for something like that, but he really only knew what his mother taught him. And that was definitely not something his mother taught him. Still, he held the small needle in his hand, looking it over. At least for a moment before Loughree so gratefully decided to throw all her weight giants him and try to buck him off. As he was unprepared, Mitari flipped over backwards and landed with a thud, the needle he had just pulled out of Loughree immediately imbedding itself in his hand with his ungracefully landing.Â
Mitari hissed, his head throbbing with its sudden throwback against the gross cell floor. "What was that for!?" Mita growled, nursing his aching head with his now injured hand.
Loughree hit the wall like a fleeing animal suddenly cornered. She'd pulled her shield from her back without even realizing it, and found herself hiding behind it in a humiliating posture she couldn't help. "I don't..." Her unwounded eye was open wise and flicking about in a panicked searh, her ears turning this way and that, her tail puffed up to be as thick as her leg and wrapped around one of her thighs.
"I don't know!" She shouted. "I don't know! Is he gone? How did he get in!"
"What the fuck are you on about? He? Who's he? I didn't smell anyone else in here." Mitari ground, slowly sitting up and nursing his injured head, which game with a series of angry growls and grunts of course.
Spurred by Loughree's own fear, Antimony sat upright and darted her eyes about the jail hall. She thought it was strange that she wasn't worried so much about where he was as she was the whys. Still, she huddled away from the bars of the cell, unwilling to risk exploration after the booby trapped doll.
"I don't... understand," she muttered faintly under her breath. "It wasn't like that before.."
Shivering against the wall, hiding behind her shield, Loughree muttered in response to Mitari's question, "...Grandfather." Not even a second after she'd said that, she lurched to her feet and pounced on the door to Antimony's cell. Her hands moved on the lock clumsily, shivering so much that she had difficulty working the mechanism. Eventually she got it open, and pulled it with such force that it creaked and slammed loudly.
"I wasn't going to-" she began, and choked on a displaced sob, which she swallowed. "I wasn't going to keep you here. I was just being mean. You two need to leave." She stumbled over to Mitari's lance and picked it up, almost tripping on her own tail. The weapon shook visibly in her hands as she walked it to the man's cell. "You need to leave or he'll kill you too."
Antimony stared at Loughree with no small amount of confusion, which flashed into baffled understanding, and then went almost immediately back to confused disbelief. She stood only after several seconds, when Loughree moved to return the lance to its rightful owner, and her legs wobbled for a time, shock draining their strength.
"He wouldn't..." she started, then thought better of it and stepped hesitantly out of the cell. The doll lay nearby, and she frowned at it before kneeling to pick up its tattered remains.
Mitari was too busy hissing on the floor and holding his head, which now had a migraine thanks to the blow. Leave? Now? But hadn't she been the one who...? Why was her grandfather trying to kill her? And Antimony knew the grandfather it sounded like? Too confusing. The male miq'ote simply hissed again and pressed his head to his knees. "Ow ow ow ow ow."
Briefly staring at Mitari, looking more confused than anything, Loughree flexed her hands on the lance and turned to look over at Antimony. She blinked at her. "What? He wouldn't..." Her lips moved, her ears swivled. One hand fell and tried unsuccessfully to pull her tail out from where it wrapped her thigh. "Help him." She gestured to Mitari, looked at Antimony. "Help him. This isn't... It's dangerous. You need to leave."
Holding the doll in one hand and keeping her eyes averted from Loughree's cowed form, Antimony moved wordlessly to Mitari, bringing her other up to his head, fingers seeking to feel out the skull beneath his hair. They shook noticeably, but that didn't stop her.
"You should be alright to stand," she said after a moment, voice quiet. "I'll help you up. There are some supplies back in my room..."
Mita felt a warm hand run over the back of his head and let his own hand drop to his lap so she could feel the ever growing bump on the back of his head. The softness of her words were appreciated with the raging headache and he carefully moved to start standing. "Lance." Mitari remembered abruptly and reached out, groping with a blind hand to find it.
Loughree deposited the lance in his hand, made sure he had it, and then retreated as though she were afraid of him. One eye still wide open and one hand still trying to get her tail under control, she lurched across the hallway to Antimony's empty cell, through the door, and closed it behind her. She locked herself in the cell.
Frowning, Antimony hovered close, acting on instincts borne from decades of training to lend support in Mitari's efforts to stand. She spared Loughree a concerned look but couldn't manage much more than that. The doll in her left hand seemed to carry an unnatural weight to it, though she knew that to be only her imagination, and the hall with its pair of cells seemed even more unwelcoming than it had minutes ago. As though the walls themselves were trying to push her out.
"Not too fast," she cautioned Mitari and made as though to guide him out of the hall.
Mitari grabbed his lance and the cool feeling of the metal on his hand gave him some much need comfort. The lance also acted very well as a sort of walking stick to help him keep his balance. Antimony also helped that whole process as she made an excellent guide and aide for standing. Still, his head was absolutely killing him and he couldn't way to lay down somewhere quiet and dark to sleep.
Warily watching the pair leave, Loughree said, "Find somewhere safe. Don't come back," while she moved around in the cell. She took the cot and laid it sideways against the door with a heavy metallic crack. Her sword and shield both were in her hands then. She paced the cell.
It was fortunate that had not happened, thanks to the seemingly well-meaning if ill-advised actions of a stranger.
"She will listen to reason," Antimony said as they walked, approaching an open area at the center of which sat a tall fountain. The water bubbled and echoed pleasantly against the round walls. Antimony found the set up odd, considering no natural light reached this area, only the yellow glow of the lanterns lining the city-cavern's walls. But it had been, until perhaps today, the most relaxing corner of Ul'dah.
With this verbal reassurance, meant for both herself and Mitari following silently behind, Antimony stepped into the open space and glanced around in hopes of locating the rather intimidating person of Loughree.
Mitari followed wordlessly, his hands in his pockets while he shuffled along after Anti's perfect steps. She was really graceful. That was the first thing he noticed as they walked. A clumsily graceful girl? Well, woman it seemed more like than a girl. He was only twenty four after all. He probably still looked like a little kid.Â
And like a little kid, he followed Anti around and shrugged. Jail didn't scare him too much. He could make his way through it if he needed to. And that other brat brass blade? Someday he'd take her down a notch.Â
As they entered the main around and looked around, MItari wondered why they came back here. No way a Brass Blade would stay put after they. They always went back to report at the office. "Umm... Miss Antimony? She'd probably be back at the main office...?" he suggestioned.
Her ears swiveled back and then twitched, going a bit lopsided in some strange display of emotion. "... Ah. Yes! Yes, of course you're right." She shook her head, turning half way to look back at Mitari and smiling apologetically. "I'm not sure why I thought she'd still be here. I suppose I wasn't really thinking at all..."
Shaking her head, she turned again, this time towards one of the branching halls leading away from the circular courtyard. "At least we will have the benefit of familiarity. Or I will. Ah... don't worry!" She added in a hurry, "I'll make this right," and made to move on.
Mitari chuckled faintly at her cute flustered behavior. For being so serious, she didn't really think did she? Or perhaps it was just that her mind was on other things. He turned on his heel to follow her down the hallway towards, well he assumed she knew where it was, the Brass Blade's Main Office.
"Don't worry about it Miss Antimony. I already fucked things up so it's no problem if I take the heat for it. Just make sure to come visit once in a while okay?" he chuckled awkwardly, keeping a leisurely pace behind her.
The Pearl Lane offices couldn't exactly be called a headquarters. The Brass Blades had a sparse few rooms and one long hallway, with a pair of holding cells that were little more than rusty old cages far in the back of the building. But when Captain Lamandu was away, it was comfortable enough for Lieutenant Loughree Desfosse, especially since she tended to while away her time in the Captain's office.
He liked to keep things orderly, so Lou would knock everything on his desk over, shovel his paperwork and then kick back in his chair. It was the only room in the building with a window, fogged as it was, and Lou liked how the black officer's chainmail caught the light.
It didn't take too terribly long to cross the Steps of Thal out into the open-air market place of Pearl Lane. The lesser cousin of Sapphire Avenue, the place was lined with boarded up buildings. Most merchants here kept their wares on blankets spread out on the street; a few could afford stalls, usually little more than stacks of crates; fewer still managed to lease out some of the buildings.
Antimony made her way down the lane with a brisk familiarity, worrying her hands in front of her, down by her waist. Her tail grew increasingly active the closer they got to their destination.
Eventually, she stopped outside an office marked with the seal of the Brass Blades, and she paused to half turn towards Mitari, giving him what she hoped was an encouraging smile. "No talk of visiting jails now. As I said, it was all a misunderstanding. A simple talk will clear it right up!" She only half believed her own encouraging words, having seen the lieutenant's nasty side on more than one occasion now, but she said them all the same.
With that, she turned to push into the office, smiling at the pair of lalafell manning the front desk and questioning, "Is Captain Tyremandu in?"
One of them responded with a negative, but gestured her towards his office nonetheless, informing them that Loughree was watching things while he was gone. Mitari they gave a shrewd look, to which Antimony replied, "We're here on business," with a pleasant, if mildly strained, smile.
The pair of desk jockeys either didn't particularly care or accepted her excuse and again waved them on to a door off to one side. Sparing a glance at Mitari, Antimony hesitated a moment longer before knocking out of habit and then opening the door to slip inside.
Mitari followed, not paying too terribly much attention as they walked. He'd spent the last month or so hanging out in Ul'dah, looking for work and coin pretty much wherever he could get it. He'd been lucky to fight some strange Lalafell that furnished him with good coin awhile back for being 'stronger' but, other than that he hadn't had too much luck with jobs. There were so many adventurers and mercenaries that getting a job for yet another one was filled with competition.Â
As they entered the Brass Blade's officer on Pearl Lane Mitari paused to glance around. He wasn't too familiar with their officers yet, and overtime he entered there was the faintest smell off... rust. Or at least, he thought it was rust. He wasn't totally sure yet.Â
Still, he meandered in after Antimony and kept his hands stuffed into his jacket pockets. He tried not to growl as the strangers at the desk gave him funny looks, but instead smiled like Antimony and followed her away towards the office. Supposed office. If worse came to worse, he was pretty sure he could break the door down and use his lance to charge through and run for it. Or just Aetheryte to like... Limsa or something.
The legs of the chair Lou had been leaning back in slammed down as she rose quickly to her feet, ears and eyes wide to watch Antimony enter. Her chain mail clattered against her sword and sheild, which remained where they were even as the chair swayed on the verge of falling.
"Well," Lou exhaled, at first too surprised to express anything else. When she realized that bum from earlier was there as well, her lips dipped down and her eyelids drooped into a threatening glare. "This is kind of bold."
Taking the glare in stride as best she could - that was, hesitating just a second as her tail shivered behind her before she gathered her wits - Antimony pursed her lips and lifted her chin, giving a short nod.
"Perhaps, but I firmly believe misunderstandings as what just occurred shouldn't be left to fester."
Mitari let his ears flicker at the sight of the... woman member of the Brass Blades. Bold? Ah well. Maybe. He bit his bottom lip and kept his mouth shut for now, his tail swaying behind him low under his coat. His lance still rested on his back, ready in case he needed to use it.
"Sit down," Loughree instructed firmly, pointing at the chairs that sat in front of Captain Lamandu's messed-up desk. "Both of you."
Mitari sat as instructed, taking the lance from his back and holding it across his lap instead.
With a shake of her ears, Antimony looked first between Loughree and Mitari before folding her hands in front of her and moving to take the remaining chair alongside the latter. "I'm sure we've all had time to think over what happened, yes? And certainly, Miss Loughree, you realize you were out of bounds attempting to handle private documents. Likewise my, ah, friend did not react in a very positive manner, but... well, we were all rather agitated."
Loughree steped out from behind the desk and walked over to the door to the office, closing it and throwing the latch, locking them all in the room together. Arms crossed, back against the door, Lieutenant Loughree Desfosse said very plainly, "I've got three months on the scab for assaulting an officer plus more for resisting arrest and maybe some on the side for interfering with an investigation. A week on you, Antimony, for assosciation. That's me being nice. You want to make a deal?"
"Ain't no scabs here lady." Mitari hissed at the woman as she turned to lock them all in the room. There was still a window and he was still crazy enough to jump through it if he had to. "Better go look outside if you’re looking' for them. Or better yet, check a mirror."
Antimony blinked hard as the door latched shut but  kept her gaze firmly forward while Loughree delivered her... well, it certainly sounded like an ultimatum more than any kind of deal. And that was assuming-- "It's my hope we can talk this out as three reasonable people," she began, weaving her fingers together in her lap tensely. "Not deal making, just people coming to an understanding that no one dealt with the situation well. Might I remind you, that you attempted to take documents related to my investigation from me? That doesn't reflect well back on you."
Ignoring Mitari's retort, Loughree sighed and spoke as though explaining something simple to a child. "I had reason to be suspicious, which gives me a responsibility to investigate. I don't go around looking to make enemies, Antimony. Now, listen, because you don't get it." She pointed at Mitari, "I'm going to try to arrest him, and he's going to run away. Then you, Antimony, are going to get pinned with aiding him. You'll be arrested. You'll lose your job. You'll fail." She crossed her arms again. "Do you want to make a deal or not?"
"Could have fooled me, running around grabbing things from people like it's your own property. Disrespecting the law like you're above it. You're just like that rest of those scumbag Blades." Mitari scowled before picking his lance off his lap and placing it in Antimony's lap instead. "I want you to hold onto that for me, okay? It's special to me and I don't want them taking it. So please keep it safe for me while I'm in jail." he smiled cheerfully at Anti, not really wanting her to worry about some vagabond like himself.
Antimony started as the weapon was placed in her lap, lifting her hands up above it as though afraid to touch the thing. She frowned at it, then at Mitari, and lastly the surly Blade lieutenant. She didn't quite understand Loughree's words. "No one needs to go to jail," she insisted, "Not over something as silly as a misunderstanding! This ma--ah, Mitari was not involving himself in any part of the investigation. I don't even... well! There was no need for you to take liberties with my materials."
"Throwing a punch isn't a misunderstaning," Loughree replied. "It's assault, and it's a crime. So is running away from me when you know I'm talking to you." She opened the door and turned her gaze to Mitari, gesturing for him to follow. "Come on. I'll take some time off because you're coming nicely. No cuffs if you're a good boy."
Mitari gave a somber smile at Antimony. "I told you she wasn't going to listen. They never do." And with a sigh and stood and trudged over to the door, moving to follow instructions for the time being. No point in arguing really. It would just agitate the situation and get Antimony into more trouble, which was the last thing he wanted.
Her ears and tail shivering, Antimony made as though to stand but was stopped as the lance threatened to fall to the ground. She held it awkwardly, as though it would bite. "No, this can't be right. Blows were thrown, certainly, but... it was all over nothing - both of you! Miss Loughree, I will be speaking to Captain Tyremandu regarding your disrespect towards the privacy of the investigation!"
Leaving the door open, Loughree said, "Walk with us, Antimony. We can talk." And turned to lead Mitari towards the very short hall that would take them to the holding cells. She weeathered the confused gazes of those who worked the office, and when one was about to speak to her, she silenced them with a glare.
Lame. Jail again, huh? Mitari couldn't say he was disappointed really. He had been bored but now he was just going to be... well honestly he couldn't decide how he felt about it all. His tail swishing behind him, he followed wordlessly the women to the holding cells, following directions as prompted.
Antimony wavered, torn between a need to protest further or protect her own livelihood. Not knowing what to do with the spear, she clutched it in both hands and stood with an unsatisfied frown to follow Loughree. "Talk of what? You made a mistake, and now you take it out on this man. That doesn't... well, it doesn't seem becoming of an officer of the law."
The holding cells were a simple place: two rusty cages with a hallway in between. The things look like they might crumble if hit hard enough, but that probably just meant a lot of very disappointed inmates who had gotten their hopes up and failed. She led Mitari to a cell and opened it, gesturing for him to enter.
She spoke to Antimony, "I'll let Lamandu know what happened. I don't even have the authority to pardon people. Especially for assaulting a Blade."
Rusty cages? Mitari crinkled his nose. No wonder the place smelled of rust. Eck. Did they ever bother to clean these things? Distastefully, he entered the cell and glanced around at the 'amenities' if you could call them that. More like a rusty place for a makeshift bed and a rusting toilet Mitari didn't want to get anywhere near.Â
"Seriously. This cell is going to kill me. Don't you guys ever clean this crap?" he huffed, moving to sit on the metal deathtrap of a makeshift cot.
Antimony kept a healthy distance from the cell, eyeing it uncertainly as Mitari entered. His calm at the situation baffled her and did nothing to assuage the measure of guilt she felt towards getting him, a hapless stranger, into this situation. She didn't like what she could smell in this short hall, even if she couldn't identify all of it, and she wasn't comfortable leaving such a seemingly kind man alone here.
"I never intended for you to end up..." she trailed off, pursed her lips, and then sighed. Her ears and tail drooped somewhat. "I suppose it was too much to hope, that we could simply talk things out."
Slamming the cell shut, Loughree crossed her arms and walked over to Antimony, standing very close. "Talk is worthless. I offered to make a deal and you didn't. he gets three months for assaulting and officer, two more for resisting arrest, another three for interfering with an investigation. What is that, eight months? You just cost your friend eight months of his life because you didn't want to talk business."
Antimony's eyes widened, her mouth dropping open slightly as her composure retreated. "I... what? What are you talking about, business!"
Mitari frowned at the officer again. Really. What a colossal bitch. Eight months? What a waste of eight months. He hoped he wasn't stuck in THIS particular cell for eight months. Because that would REALLY suck.Â
"Hey, leave her alone. She didn't tell me to do any of that so it's not her fault." Mitari scowled at Loughree, his ears flattening on his head. Eight months... wow. Sucks.
"I meant a bribe, Antimony. Anyway." She grabbed Antimony by her collar. "I'm keeping you at least overnight. Like I said, I don't have the authority to pardon people, and that includes you." With her other hand she harshly struck the lance to try and knock it out of her hands, and began to pull Antimony back towards the other cell.
"Hey! Leave her alone!" Mitari hissed, immediately getting up from his seat although he could do nothing to interfere.
Attempting to lunge after the dislodged lance only jarred Antimony against Loughree's grip on her collar. She brought one hand up to try and loosen the grip but was rather helpless to resist the Blade officer's not so gentle urging along. Dragging, really. "W-wait!" She yelped, suddenly frightened, and tried to dig her heels in. "What are you--I've done nothing! What are you doing?"
"You resisted my investigation and fled with a criminal who you knew had attacked me. You convinced him to turn himself in, and hey, you're a friend, so I won't keep you long. But I've still got to keep you." She opened the door to the cell and thrust Antimony into it. The act was neither kind nor cruel, but was very forceful.
Not a particularly physically adept individual, Antimony stumbled towards the back of the cell with the force of Loughree's shove, catching herself on the far wall in time to keep herself from falling. Her tail was puffed out to an almost comical size, her ears pressed so tightly against her skull that they all but disappeared into her hair. She took several moments to recover before turning to cast a wide-eyed look Loughree's way.
"I didn't intend to run!" She pleaded, keenly scared for the security of her job and, perhaps, her person. Antimony wasn't one to break even the smallest of rules, so to stand at the back of a jail cell as a criminal - it was too much.
"Hey!" Mitari hissed again, grabbing at the cage of the cell and rattling it furiously. "She didn't run! I grabbed her! She never did anything wrong!"
Chuckling, Loughree closed Antimony's cell and turned to Mitari. She smiled at him meanly and stretched, "Keep it up. I know some guys who'll pay good money to ride feisty ass. Feel like making some money while you're in there? I'll take a cut, of course."
Antimony brought both hands to her mouth at that, staring at the back of Loughree's head in shock.
Mitari reddened furiously and hissed at the girl baring his fang. With far more strength than any normal being had, as the cell door had never seen the tremendous strength of a dragoon, Mitari rammed his side into the steel cage and made a sizable dent, bending the bars apart enough to leave if he had chosen to do so.
Her smile fleeing quickly, Loughree didn't miss a beat. She warned, "Just say no. If you start acting up, I might have to take my offers to Antimony."
Mitari could form no words and only hissed hostility at the woman before turning his back to her and stalking to the back of his cage. The older woman made a small sound in the back of her throat and just watched Loughree's back with disbelieving eyes.
Her smile returning, Loughree cooed, "That's right. I might like a ride myself if you want to take a month or two off." Humming pleasantly to herself, Loughree picked up the fallen lance and eyed it briefly before moving as if to exit. Her steps are paused, though, when she notices a strange thing on the ground in front of her.
A doll. Made mostly of dirty white rags, it has yellow thread for hair, a thick strand of yarn for a tail and small paper flaps that imitate a Miqo'te's ears. It sat, posed cutely with its legs crossed and its arms in its lap, staring up at her. Spying such an out-of-place thing, undisturbed in the middle of the hall, she frowned and approached it curiously. It was only after a few seconds that she noticed several thin, black needles sticking out of the things face. Her eyes widening with confusion, she cringed at the disturbing sight. "... The hell?"
Mitari banged his fist angrily into the ground and shifted to sit on the filthy floor. It was all filth and grime there anyway. What difference did it make? Still, he couldn't believe he had gotten such a nice women in such a bad predicament. And his lance... that bitch would probably sell it.Â
"Sorry Antimony..." he called lightly towards the other cell, not noting the other's reaction to a doll he couldn't see.
Antimony had flinched at the Blade officer's final insinuation towards Mitari, cringing and turning herself away as though to hide from the entire situation. The words left a sick feeling in her gut.
Her dwelling on what she vainly hoped was a nightmare was interrupted first by a strange declaration of confusion from Loughree, and then by an apology from the unfortunate soul Mitari. She looked between the two, blinked with an odd expression at Loughree, and inched forward.
"It's not your fault," she mumbled a bit faintly Mitari's way as she shuffled toward one side of the cell. "I am sorry I couldn't... I thought I could fix this." She kept her movements hesitant as though fearing some sort of retribution, but curious. She thought she'd seen... She blinked. "The doll...? How did..."
Loughree spun on Antimony and pointed towards the doll, "Hey! Did you put this here?" She looked around. Her normally very fuzzy tail seemed a bit puffed out, though not nearly as much as Antimony's was. Her ears stood up and swivled around alertly. She saw the door to the hall was shut. had she shut it when she came in here? She couldn't remember. Her nostrils flared as she sniffed at the air; something didn't smell right.
Turning back to Antimony, she said, " Explain this!"
Antimony leaned away from the bars of the cell, stumbling two steps backwards. She cast a worried, helpless look in Mitari's direction, then back to Loughree. "I don't... I didn't! It just--I've seen--" She hesitated, blinking rapidly, and suddenly questioned the wisdom of saying more.
Mitari really hadn't expected anything other than the worst situation to happen... damnit. He should have put his lance somewhere safe, but he had totally forgotten when he promised not to leave that spot for Antimony. He tried not to pay much attention to the apparent distress of the Blade member responsible for their imprisonment, but when she turned on Anti he quirked his ears up to listen more intently. A doll...? Strange.
With a growl on her lips, Loughree said, "You've seen what? You've seen this?" She spun back to the doll and bent down, closing a plated fist around the dolls neck. The thing's head immediately burst, and the thin black needles flew directly into Loughree's face. She screamed, a hideous, crackling sound from her unprepared throat, and threw herself backwards. The now headless doll and the lance both went flying. Loughree's scream was silenced when her back hit the ground, but moments later was replaced by a sicker sound, an almost impossible screech as she plucked bloodied needles from herr features.
One of the needles was stick. The single needle that had buried itself in her right eye was far too deep for her to get out. She writhed and scraped her face with her armored hands, leaving red marks in her own flesh.
Antimony let out a cry of her own and fell back away from the bars of the cell, dropping to the ground in shock and fear at the sight. She brought her hands up as though to ward against something and shook as her gaze tore between the now headless doll on the ground and the writhing form of Loughree.
Seen what? Mitari frowned wondering what it was she was talking about and where Anti had seen it before. He wasn't going to really look until Loughree screamed. It sent shivers down his spine in a terrible way and he sharply got to his feet and peered through the bent bars to see what was happening.Â
Indeed there was some sort of strange doll but it was headless and nearby his lance. Mitari went a bit pale as Loughree's second screech, something of a sickening sound he had heard a few times before. He watched somewhat horror-stricken for a moment as she pulled the... needles!? from her face and scratched at her eye for another one.Â
"Hey, hey, hey! You're making it worse! Stop!" Mitari yelled before taking a few steps back and ramming into the bent bars again with his full strength. The bars groaned before cracking finally, and letting Mitari crawl his way out of them. "Stop pulling at it!" he yelled again at Loghree. He was a Dragoon, but he was also a healer. Something his mother had taught him a long time ago. Something he had treasured and held close to him, trying not to let others know about his talent for it.Â
But he couldn't just let her scream and suffer in front of him, even if she was kind of a corrupted bitch that had tried to get him to sell his body for time out of jail. So he knelt down next to her and tried to pin her arms down to the ground so she couldn't hurt herself any further. "You're going to blind yourself! Stop it!" he ordered fiercely.
Loughree was a powerful person. But she was just a person, and she couldn't resist Mitari's strength, try as she may. She writhed under him, making desperate sounds, kicking her legs and digging her armoed heels into the old floor of the building. When she did manage words, it was only to cough out, "My eye... it's...!"
"In your eye!? Okay, I got it! But you gotta hold still! I can't get it out if you're flailing and trying to grab it out with those gloved hands!" Mitari shot back irritably. "So don't move and I'm going to let go with a hand to get it, okay? I can push it out with some magic, but it will probably hurt. So I need you to not move, got it? Or you're gonna blind yourself."
When Mitari had come bursting out through the cell, Antimony had cringed away at the force of it. When he came down on Loughree and began to bark out rough, clear orders to the woman, she curled her arms over her head and found she couldn't watch any further.
Shielding her view from Loughree on the ground, Antimony found her panicked eyes drawn to the doll on the floor, tatters of stuffing poking out where its head should have been. Its familiarity was chilling.
Unable to manage a verbal response, Loughree nodded and went mostly still. Only mostly, though. She still writhed slightly, her body riddled with adrenaline and panic. Every muscle in her body was tense, and she almost felt like she was trying to hold herself down instead of just laying still. She was a pathetic image on the ground. Obviously terrified, breathing fast and barely restraining herself from sobbing and screaming.
"Okay, good." Mitari coo'd gently, trying to get the woman to calm down. His task would be utterly impossible if she wasn't calm enough to hold still without him pinning her down. He leaned close to her face to examine her eyes, looking for the needle. And indeed after a few minutes of searching his eyes fell on where he believed it to be. "Alright, I'm going to try and use a spell to have your skin push the needle out far enough so I can grab it. Okay? I need you to bear with the pain for a bit so I can get it out. Okay? I'm going to start." he breathed out slowly, trying to calm himself down in an effort to keep the girl calm as well. It wasn't as easy to keep calm when people around you were panicking. With a careful movement he placed his hand over the afflicted eye and allowed aether to gather for a few moments. His hand glowed a soft gee and borrowing the life energy in the Aether around him, he used it to try and regenerate the cells beneath the needle, in an effort to have the regrowing cells force it upwards and outwards.
Essentially, the flesh inside of Loughree's eye was pushing back against the very sharp point of the needle. To Loughree, this felt as though the needle was being driven deeper into her eye, very slowly, and very painfully. Even besides the screeching sound drawn from her by the pain, there was the instinctive need to stop the needle. It was almost overpowering. Her fists closed tight enough to make the metal of her gauntlets keen, and very slowly her arms lifted to lay against Mitari's body and squeeze him, a expression of desperation she couldn't stop.
Her vision shook and blurred, went dark and returned. All of her senses fired and went flat as though electricity were firing into her brain. Flecks of light and darkness stormed in front of her, and for a moment, she was honestly convinced that Mitari was actually killing her. There on the floor, of the cells, she was going to die.
Mitari didn't pay much mind to the screaming nor the desperate squeeze. He was too focused, all of his energies settled on getting that damn needle out of her eye. The process was slow and imprecise. At first the needle just kept piercing through the newly grown flesh again and again. Mitari attempted a slightly different tactic by pumping more Aether to regenerate cells even more quickly. The needle's point pierced through some but by rapidly accelerating their regeneration process, he began to made a little headway with the needle. He could feel the aether begin to push it back, and then he could see it more clearly. A thin black needle point lodged in the corner of her eye. Mitari focused harder, trying to push it further out through the clumsy process he had been using. He was positive it hurt terrible and wouldn't be great for her vision, but it was either that or losing it so he was doing his best not to damage surrounding tissues too badly.Â
Finally enough of the needle remerged that he stopped trying heal her and simply reached his hand down to grab the fine point and pull it gently out. Of course, grabbing such a fine point by and eye wasn't terrible easy and it took a lot of trying to even grab the dam thing in the first place. "Almost got it..." he mumbled, biting his lower lip as he tried to grasp it again.
Her eye wanted desperately to blink, and so Loughree stared wide-eyed at Mitari as she shook. When he stopped channeling whatever spell he had been using, the pain largely subsided, as did the fear of death and the instincitve need to stop what was happening to her. She still waited, in a panic, but had enough control of it to bark at him, "Just get it out!"
"Trying!" He barked back loudly as his nails finally managed a grip on the needle. "Got it!" And with a swift pull he managed to get the damn thing finally out of her eye. "Finally!" Mitari sighed heavily and examined the small black needle. Where had it come from in the first place? And why? He hated the Brass Blades, but not that much.
At the exclamation of success, Antimony peeked out from behind her arms just slightly.
She could definitely feel the needle leave her eye. The feeling was inexplicably powerful despite the slightness of it, very right that it happened though it left her feeling very wrong. The pain lingered, and her vision from just that eye was dim and blurry.
Loughree closed her eye and pitched her entire body up at once to knock Mitari aside, her legs churning and arms scrabbling against the ground. "Get off me! Get away from me!" She tried to get away from Mitari, and would throw herself against the hallway's back wall if she could.
Finally. Finally he'd gotten it out. That was really... difficult. He wished he knew an easier spell for something like that, but he really only knew what his mother taught him. And that was definitely not something his mother taught him. Still, he held the small needle in his hand, looking it over. At least for a moment before Loughree so gratefully decided to throw all her weight giants him and try to buck him off. As he was unprepared, Mitari flipped over backwards and landed with a thud, the needle he had just pulled out of Loughree immediately imbedding itself in his hand with his ungracefully landing.Â
Mitari hissed, his head throbbing with its sudden throwback against the gross cell floor. "What was that for!?" Mita growled, nursing his aching head with his now injured hand.
Loughree hit the wall like a fleeing animal suddenly cornered. She'd pulled her shield from her back without even realizing it, and found herself hiding behind it in a humiliating posture she couldn't help. "I don't..." Her unwounded eye was open wise and flicking about in a panicked searh, her ears turning this way and that, her tail puffed up to be as thick as her leg and wrapped around one of her thighs.
"I don't know!" She shouted. "I don't know! Is he gone? How did he get in!"
"What the fuck are you on about? He? Who's he? I didn't smell anyone else in here." Mitari ground, slowly sitting up and nursing his injured head, which game with a series of angry growls and grunts of course.
Spurred by Loughree's own fear, Antimony sat upright and darted her eyes about the jail hall. She thought it was strange that she wasn't worried so much about where he was as she was the whys. Still, she huddled away from the bars of the cell, unwilling to risk exploration after the booby trapped doll.
"I don't... understand," she muttered faintly under her breath. "It wasn't like that before.."
Shivering against the wall, hiding behind her shield, Loughree muttered in response to Mitari's question, "...Grandfather." Not even a second after she'd said that, she lurched to her feet and pounced on the door to Antimony's cell. Her hands moved on the lock clumsily, shivering so much that she had difficulty working the mechanism. Eventually she got it open, and pulled it with such force that it creaked and slammed loudly.
"I wasn't going to-" she began, and choked on a displaced sob, which she swallowed. "I wasn't going to keep you here. I was just being mean. You two need to leave." She stumbled over to Mitari's lance and picked it up, almost tripping on her own tail. The weapon shook visibly in her hands as she walked it to the man's cell. "You need to leave or he'll kill you too."
Antimony stared at Loughree with no small amount of confusion, which flashed into baffled understanding, and then went almost immediately back to confused disbelief. She stood only after several seconds, when Loughree moved to return the lance to its rightful owner, and her legs wobbled for a time, shock draining their strength.
"He wouldn't..." she started, then thought better of it and stepped hesitantly out of the cell. The doll lay nearby, and she frowned at it before kneeling to pick up its tattered remains.
Mitari was too busy hissing on the floor and holding his head, which now had a migraine thanks to the blow. Leave? Now? But hadn't she been the one who...? Why was her grandfather trying to kill her? And Antimony knew the grandfather it sounded like? Too confusing. The male miq'ote simply hissed again and pressed his head to his knees. "Ow ow ow ow ow."
Briefly staring at Mitari, looking more confused than anything, Loughree flexed her hands on the lance and turned to look over at Antimony. She blinked at her. "What? He wouldn't..." Her lips moved, her ears swivled. One hand fell and tried unsuccessfully to pull her tail out from where it wrapped her thigh. "Help him." She gestured to Mitari, looked at Antimony. "Help him. This isn't... It's dangerous. You need to leave."
Holding the doll in one hand and keeping her eyes averted from Loughree's cowed form, Antimony moved wordlessly to Mitari, bringing her other up to his head, fingers seeking to feel out the skull beneath his hair. They shook noticeably, but that didn't stop her.
"You should be alright to stand," she said after a moment, voice quiet. "I'll help you up. There are some supplies back in my room..."
Mita felt a warm hand run over the back of his head and let his own hand drop to his lap so she could feel the ever growing bump on the back of his head. The softness of her words were appreciated with the raging headache and he carefully moved to start standing. "Lance." Mitari remembered abruptly and reached out, groping with a blind hand to find it.
Loughree deposited the lance in his hand, made sure he had it, and then retreated as though she were afraid of him. One eye still wide open and one hand still trying to get her tail under control, she lurched across the hallway to Antimony's empty cell, through the door, and closed it behind her. She locked herself in the cell.
Frowning, Antimony hovered close, acting on instincts borne from decades of training to lend support in Mitari's efforts to stand. She spared Loughree a concerned look but couldn't manage much more than that. The doll in her left hand seemed to carry an unnatural weight to it, though she knew that to be only her imagination, and the hall with its pair of cells seemed even more unwelcoming than it had minutes ago. As though the walls themselves were trying to push her out.
"Not too fast," she cautioned Mitari and made as though to guide him out of the hall.
Mitari grabbed his lance and the cool feeling of the metal on his hand gave him some much need comfort. The lance also acted very well as a sort of walking stick to help him keep his balance. Antimony also helped that whole process as she made an excellent guide and aide for standing. Still, his head was absolutely killing him and he couldn't way to lay down somewhere quiet and dark to sleep.
Warily watching the pair leave, Loughree said, "Find somewhere safe. Don't come back," while she moved around in the cell. She took the cot and laid it sideways against the door with a heavy metallic crack. Her sword and shield both were in her hands then. She paced the cell.
![[Image: AntiThalSig.png]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/179079766/AntiThalSig.png)
"Song dogs barking at the break of dawn, lightning pushes the edges of a thunderstorm; and these streets, quiet as a sleeping army, send their battered dreams to heaven."
Hipparion Tribe (Sagolii)Â - Â Antimony Jhanhi's Wiki
