As Cypher watched Amadelle skip down the street with Niku running wide circles around her feet in the weary noonday streets, Greyscale calmly pushed against the floor again and again. Cypher smirked to herself when she looked down at him, restraining herself from running a finger over the clay-colored tendrils that were busy holding his hair away from his face. His push ups were always slower when she was along for the ride, and because she knew it wasn't a question of his strength, she often wondered if it was because he thought that he would cause her motion sickness if he hefted her as quickly as he normally would lift his own body weight away from the floor.
As it was, she didn't have long to enjoy her musings. A frustrated male Human walked in the courtyard door, behind the couple, unbuckling his leather cuirass as he went.
"Mishka walked right back in there," he said wearily, as though he'd just pushed an elephant up a hill in order to get the news to its hearers. "Looks horrible. Like they put her at the bottom of a well and left her to starve."
Greyscale stopped himself at the height of a push up, but said nothing.
"It's Ruffian," Cypher said, looking down at Greyscale. "He said she went back to jail again. She didn't say anything to us."
The Dragonborn didn't even grunt, remaining in a full planking position as though he meant to stay there forever.
"Go on," Cypher urged, looking up at the pale skinned, dark eyed young Human man before her.
"They just sat her down somewhere for questioning, or something," the man scoffed, smoothing a spot on his side that was either stiff or sore. "They didn't even put her in chains, because they were too busy dealing with the Drow. That scourge of the Underdark killed six or seven guards, but didn't leave. They don't know where in there he is."
"The place is only so big; they'll find him," Cypher huffed.
"Pfft, more like he'll find them, and then Garimond'll have a few more graves to dig," the mercenary scoffed.
"Did you see the Drow?" Greyscale asked, still at the apex of the pushup.
"Yeah." The man turned his face and pointed to a slice in his grizzled right cheek that looked as though it had suffered gangrene. "I turned a corner on my way to Mishka, and he was right there, waiting for me as though he'd heard me. Witness rules be damned, I was scared as a little girl. So I turn to beat it, but he catches my ankles and dumps me face first. I start scrambling, trying to get out of the way of a coup-de-grace. He kicks me, hard. Sends me right over on my back; winded me good. I had to lay there a minute, and he doesn't move in to finish me off right away. He spits on his blade and slices me in the face, like we cut the Sunfire mercs that we caught? Then he backs up, like he means to let me go. So I get up- suddenly, he's coming at me- boxing, almost, and he's good. I get a good couple of hits in, but I can't get away. We're going at it- and first, my body starts aching, then going numb. He's just wailing on me. Gets me to the ground. I think he's gonna finally kill me, but he hops up. Hops right off, and smiles. I go to move, and I can't. He shuts my eyes for me, because I can't even do that. I'm sweating, but my whole body's witch-tits cold. I laid there maybe a half hour, listening to the guy next to me gurgle himself to death, hearing all these other screams and shouts go up all over the place- it was like a nightmare. But after a while, things get quiet. And my body starts actually hurting again. I'm thinking, 'Pain means I'll live.' I start moving- blinking my eyes, squeezing my fingers shut, pulling my knees up- but everything comes back slow. By the time I can limp myself out of there, Garimond's people are starting sweeps. From the sounds of it, found more dead than alive."
"Good that he left you alive," Greyscale mused, still supporting himself in a full plank position. "And really good that the guard is torn up. Garimond's going to need new people, you know."
The man laughed amiably at first, then sighed. "Give me some time to see a healer or something. I don't want to look like an evil story-book mook for the rest of my life."
"It'll be a good gig," the Dragonborn urged playfully. "Be able to tell your mum about it; make her proud of her last son."
"Go see about that slice before it scars," Cypher cut in, getting up and walking over to a window. Outside, a few strolling guards finished a brief conversation before parting from each other to continue patrolling their sections.
"Pay?" the mercenary asked. There wasn't any malice in the tone- it was like a freshly hand-fasted young man checking in with an elder about what time would be the wisest and safest to bring his young lady home from the tavern.
At last, the rose colored gaze lifted from the floor and turned toward the male Human. "Gold'll come at the end of the week. For now, you're inactive, okay?"
"You got it," the Human nodded, tapping a first finger to his head as a reference to the hat that he would tip if he'd worn it. "Don't count me out too long."
When the mercenary had left, Cypher sat on the sill of the window. Outside, a strolling guard spied her gaze and waved.
"What's on your mind?" Greyscale asked, rising from the floor and walking over to her side. He glanced out the window at the guard, who had just received a half-hearted wave in return, smiled, and gave a stronger wave of his own.
The guard nodded knowingly and quickly moved along.
"It's just- this isn't a good gig, you know?" the Human woman sighed, digging her fingers into her hair as she watched the guard leave. "Ruffian- Jerome- could have been found. He could have been seized by the Dragons. What would we have done?"
"Lucky the poison ran through him in time," Greyscale nodded.
"Mi'ishaen is not very lucky, right now," Cypher replied, her words quiet enough to be whispers.
"She's talented," Greyscale countered. "Damn good shot, incredible acrobat, and tenacious. Between her and her pet, Dark's got a good pair."
"At least the Shadar-kai is safe. Right now, that Tiefling is facing double murder and high treason charges at the Pillars!" Cypher hissed. "Does Dark have any ideas about that?"
Greyscale crossed his arms and sighed, leaning on the wall just to Cypher's right. "None that she told me about."
"She caught an arrow with the back of her shoulder and fell off a rooftop, and for what?" the Human woman breathed. "For us? Could sing like a bird and get us killed."
"What's on your mind, Dortana?" Greyscale repeated, sitting down on the floor so that he was looking up into his partner's face.
For just a moment, the Human woman shot an incredulous glance back at the Dragonborn below her. "You must be joking. I'm talking right to you; what do you mean, 'What's on your mind'? Haven't I been talking?"
"You're talking alright, yeah, dropping names like they were important to you- and if you were talking to anyone but me, you'd get away with it."
"Get away with it!" Cypher exclaimed, jumping up at once. "I should smack your face!"
"Yeah, yeah you should," the light scaled Dragonborn sighed, letting his head hang as though it were too heavy to continue holding up. "You should make me feel what you're feeling right now, because unlike you, I can't reach into somebody's mind and pull out what's really there. You're gonna have to put the cookies on a lower shelf, if you want me to get them at all."
There were a few beats of charged silence between the two. When Cypher spoke again, her voice had softened and quieted considerably.
"We're going to be responsible for that girl's death, Yuli."
"Mi'ishaen breathes scams," Greyscale shrugged. "She even runs them on herself. And she's already proven that she can physically get out of that cage at extreme disadvantage."
"But Dark hasn't said anything about how specifically she wants that handled," Cypher argued. "And you just heard that she looks like death. When is Dark going to tell us what to-"
"She's not going to," the Dragonborn answered, sitting up straight and laying his arms on his thighs so that it seemed he would meditate or pray.
"How are you okay with that?" Cypher complained. "How are you okay with leaving a merc that we didn't have anything to do with in a position to turn us inside out to the Dragons?"
Greyscale nodded as though he had been waiting for that question. "We all got the same offer, and everyone who didn't want to take it moved out, with full immunity, in exchange for a promise not to sing to Garimond. And Dark's not a controller. She has a reign-holding hand so much softer than mine that I'm pretty sure more than half of these guys are actually grateful to her."
"But who's going to pay the bill, when it comes due?" Cypher asked, crossing her arms. "Who's going to the Pillars for hostage taking, thievery, murder, espionage, and black market trading?"
"You forgot palm greasing," Greyscale noted, trying to keep the scorn out of his voice. "Don't worry about it; if Garimond comes calling, I answer."
"Yuli, I'm serious," Cypher sighed, squeezing herself tighter. "Is this what our lives are going to be? Dual log books, strategic hostage planting, sending cryptic messages across town to pay masters, secretly cutting Semmite threads while forging steel chains to a head-in-air, demon cuckolded woman in Urmlaspyr with our own hands?"
The light tan scaled Dragonborn planted his elbows on his thighs and folded his hands under his chin.
"What does your mother do for coin?" he asked after a few moments of silence had gone by.
Cypher peered at Greyscale through squinted eyes. "She's dead. She died in childbirth, thanks to me."
"Your grandmother, then," Greyscale shrugged, as though the previous statement had absolutely no emotional undercurrent whatsoever.
"Washing," Cypher spat back, surprised. "She was a wet nurse for a while, served a family that sold some land to Pop-pop. Why?"
"I'm a third generation mercenary," Greyscale explained thoughtfully. "My father took odd merc jobs, and so did my grandfather, as long as they both lived. Neither of them was even allowed to join a mercenary company, let alone run one."
"You're avoiding the issue, Yulian," Cypher groaned, rolling her eyes.
"No, I'm finally hearing the real issue," the Dragonborn replied. "Dragonborn cannot interbreed. We physically can't. Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Humans, sure, but us- no."
"I- I didn't mean-" Cypher admitted, rubbing the back of her neck self-consciously.
"Sit with your lizard a while?" Greyscale asked quietly.
"Yuli, seriously," the Human woman sadly replied.
"I know, I know." Greyscale reached a hand up to Cypher, who took it and sat in the small nest that his legs made. "It's natural to want a family."
"But you just said we can't," Cypher breathed, snuggling her head close to Greyscale's chest. "And I know the 'marriage by habit' thing is what we agreed, but I don't want-"
"Let me worry about what I agreed to," Greyscale counseled. "I choose to be happy or unhappy. I choose to be docile or bitter. I choose to be loving or hateful. Nobody can do that for me, any more than they could sign my name."
"It's not so hard to reproduce that claw slice of yours," Cypher smirked. "But what about Dark?"
"What about her?" Greyscale snorted.
"Children aren't in the agreement- would she be alright if we- if I tried to- maybe with-" Cypher asked haltingly, leaning up again to look up at Greyscale.
"You're free," Greyscale replied. "You're always free to leave and return as you wish- or not to return at all. You're not counted as a witness, so there'd be no hit put on you. In fact, we're to protect you and your family. If there's a code nobody else is cracking, we might send it your way, but only if you're amenable to that, and if it's a good time for the kids. And your pay's brought to you, no gallivanting off to a paymaster for it. If you're not wanting to help, then we tough it out without you."
"How can you be sure of that?" Cypher asked incredulously. "That's a lot of detail for an arranged marriage to a Human woman who used to be a rival merc."
"We were never rival mercs," Greyscale corrected gently. "You were in a rival organization. I knew you could be better with mine, so I made you a better offer. And before I said I'd take Dark up on her various offers, I asked a few questions- she expected them. Not everybody's a lifer. We both knew that."
Greyscale wrapped his arms around Cypher and nuzzled near to her cheek, which caused a blush.
"Are there Dragonborn orphans?" Cypher asked very quietly.
Greyscale was quiet for some time before he answered, and when he did, it was in so hushed a tone that Cypher had to hold very still to hear him. "As Humans define orphans, yes. But as far as we- as Dragonborn themselves- are concerned, you'd either have to kill the whole clan, or have an unfortunate exiled family."
There was a knowing silence that reigned between the two mercenaries for a few moments.
"Do you ever want to go back?" the Human woman asked cautiously.
"No."
"I don't mean to introduce me or anything."
"I mean no."
A few more beats of silence went by. Outside, a bell dutifully tolled for the first hour past afternoon. Neither one of them even looked up.
"I want you to be happy," the woman said, shrugging slightly. "I like to imagine that I can at least give you that."
"You want to make me happy?" the Dragonborn chuckled, leaning back slightly so that the woman could look at him in the face.
"Well, you said I can't, but I still like trying," Cypher admitted with a wry smirk.
"I can understand that," Greyscale nodded. "There is one thing you can do, actually."
"And what might that one thing be?"
"Marry me," the Dragonborn replied simply and without much outward emotion, as though he weren't proposing a life-changing matter. "Not by arrangement or habit, or as a cover for anything- for real. In your family's holy place, or wherever your gods will hear us, and bless us."
All the patrolling guards as far as two streets away heard a shrill shriek of joy.
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