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An Accident [closed, ooc welcome]


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((An brief story to follow this RP done in the IC chatbox the CRA website))

 

The nights move on their own, hundreds of feet below the walkways in Limsa. After dark the shadows sink below the buildings, and the ink throws up a cold wind that smells of salt. The occasional reflective flicker on the surface of the ocean is just that; a flash on the very utmost level. It does not penetrate. Instead, it is thrown away. The same would not be true of bodies. The ink would accept the bodies and toss them about in its waves. Joyfully, like a child with a doll, the shadows took the dead body of Ernafalk Bleigearyson and slammed it against the barnacle-laden walls of one of Limsa's towers. The businessman's lifestyle had left him fat and buoyant, and the gray sack of flesh and bone that had once been so frugal and duplicitous was easily shattered against the stones of his home.

 

Megiddo looked down, a frown on his face. The remarkably thin Duskwight stood stock-still on the walkways, and watched. More accustomed to pitch black caverns and nights in the Black Shroud, his eyes watched the bloated gray corpse smacking against the tower. Again and again. It had been caught in an eddy where two walls converged at a concave angle, and though the water sucked out of that corner, the body never escaped before it came washing back in.

 

"What are you looking at?" A Lalefel inquired beside him.

 

The cold wind pulled at clothes and hair, and nearby banners swayed. The Duskwight was not moved. His pale eyes blinked, and he responded without tone, "I believe someone may have fallen."

 

"Well, that happens! It's likely too late for him," he shrugged and bid farewell, "Good evening!" And the Lalafel walked on.

 

For several seconds more, Megiddo observed the floating body, the occasional flickers of light that would not stay in the ink to keep him company. Then he turned to watch the small Lalafel walking away from him.

 

Perelon Paqirelon knew the power of ink in ledgers and documents, but would not consider the ink that the ocean became after nightfall, nor the inky color of the sky that sank heavily over Limsa. The white stones at his feet, the gray and yellow lights that glowed throughout the city, deluded him into thinking the night did not seek him. Even as he walked away from the bloated corpse of his partner and the Duskwight who had already vanished into the shadows, he did not realize that the cold wind was that of death. He had a meeting to get to and an assassin to hire, after all! Business trumps all.

 

Silence sneaks up on people like a bandit, like shadows. The meeting spot was typical in that it was away from the heart of Limsa, from the voices of people and the eyes of the Yellow-coated authorities. If Perelon's instincts were good to him, the silence and multitude of shadows would not sit easily with him, for when he arrived at the place where he was to meet the professional hitman and discuss the job of killing Antimony, he was alone. While it is terrifying to find an assassin in the dark when you do not expect to find one, it is perhaps even moreso to not find an assassin where you expected one to be.

 

"What is this? Which shadow are you in?" Perelon spun. He stood on a round platform no more than ten meters in diameter, on which there was a single lamp next to which he stood. In truth, there was only a single, great shadow, which was the entire world around him. "Is he late? An unreliable worker at this point wourld be-"

 

"I am not late."

 

Perelon stopped. A fragment of snark sat at the back of his throat, but it choked. A scarecrow-thin shadow stood straight and still in the dark, and the cold wind did not move it.

 

"Oh, Perelon Paqirelon." The shadow had a familiar voice, deep and choking, "Antimony said that you were very good to her, so you have my respect. This will not be humiliating to you."

 

"Antimony?" The Lalafel gaped. "What-!"

 

A movement of shadow, brief as a passing thought, left the platform empty. The body of Perelon sunk initially, but became buoyant after his flesh bloated in the ocean. Both he and his business partner would be found soaked through the following morning, bits of their meat eaten away by the fish. It did not look like murder, for indeed, both Perelon and Ernafalk had fallen without being injured, and writhed desperately in the water. If they had not been so out of shape, they may have swam to safety. It was such an unfortunate coincidence that the two partners had fallen separately, drowned alone, on the same night.

 

Dawn found Megiddo lingering in an orchard, peeling an orange for breakfast. The smell of the sea clung to his hermits linens, and his knives were steal clean where they were concealed. Of course it wasn't his most subtle work but, as he threw the skin of the fruit into the dirt, those two hadn't really earned his best.

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