The evening moons rose, cool and quiet, into the Suzailian sky, bathing the Dragonborn's left shoulder dramatically with their pale light. A single small candle burned at the far corner of his desk, doing a miserable job of lighting the side of the office that the moonlight did not yet touch. The Human woman had to scoot her stool closer to the desk in order to get any benefit from it at all.
"If there's unusual movement in the woods, he should do something about it," she argued absently as she scanned the rest of the short note in her hands. "Isn't that what he's posted there for?"
The Dragonborn, Greyscale, didn't even bother to look up from the scale with which he was working.
"He's doing what he's posted there for. Dealing with a handful of two-bit crooks is my job."
The Human woman, Cypher, prepared herself for an argument. "The heists are too clean," she pointed out. "No casualties; little bloodshed at all. That tells me they aren't just two bit crooks. I'm thinking someone hired someone to run a sabotage job. If Shiv can't do anything but watch, maybe Cloud can-"
Greyscale chuckled in spite of himself, and peered at Cypher through the cords that held the left side of the scale together. "Cloud barely wants the projects she has now; I can't give her more."
"Then Mishka should be working, shouldn't she?" Cypher suggested, just a touch too sweetly.
"She is working," the Dragonborn countered, refocusing his attention on the coins he carefully placed on the scale opposite his weight. "Legally, to boot."
The Human woman shook her head. "I don't see what makes that Tiefling bitch's feelings so precious. What is she, related to the one in Urmlaspyr?"
Greyscale left such a dry, empty pause between the question and his answer that for a few seconds, Cypher feared that she'd accidentally tripped on a piece of truth.
"Sure, Dark's related to Mishka. In a kind of abstract, cosmic, philosophical way."
Cypher failed to perceive both Greyscale's humor and the point. "Oh come on- Cloud is refusing to do what used to be her job because now it should be Mishka's job, and..." She sighed deeply, the questions she really wanted to ask burning her tongue. "Maybe I can set up some kind of magic alarm? Like the ones you have for the office?"
"No," Greyscale muttered. "And I can't risk Rasha trying to tinker with the wards she knows, because last I heard, she's being very closely watched. I guarantee you, if you think Mishka is tightly wound now, let her find out that we put Rasha in danger."
"What is so different about this project?" Cypher complained, glaring at Greyscale. But Greyscale continued weighing coin as though Cypher hadn't said a word, so she sat back in her chair and grunted disgustedly. "And Mishka-"
"Explained her reasoning very clearly," Greyscale reminded. "She's not going to do anything that benefits Rancid Rancie, even casually. Topping that, it'd be insane for her to take gigs while her law-abiding elder cousin is sitting right in the same city."
"That has exactly nothing to do with anything," Cypher retorted bitterly.
Greyscale looked up from parsing out gold coins again. "Are you that jealous of how close she is to getting what you want?"
Cypher blinked at Greyscale and tilted her head slightly. "I don't think our- my and her- life goals are in any way similar."
Greyscale quietly loaded the gold he'd weighed out into separate cloth bags and tied them securely.
"They're not, Yuli," Cypher argued, as though he had spoken. "I want to marry you, to make a life outside this... this, and... somehow find a way to... to give you..."
"She wants almost all of that too, just with Rasha instead of that giant, half-green, pseudo-surrogate father the pair of them seem to actually enjoy having around," Greyscale replied with a gentle chuckle. "Rasha, like me, doesn't seem to have family to speak of, at least not close by. Mishka's cousin is all the natural family the two of them seem to have, so it behooves them to keep him happy, and not suspicious of their... ahem... employment. And here's a problem we absolutely share, even if the reasons are different: the two of them can't breed either."
And Greyscale picked the scale up to put it away in his desk. He began meticulously putting his weights in the small leather bag to which they belonged. Behind him, the clay-colored leathery tendrils that held back his whisker-like hair relaxed, resting along with it on his back.
Cypher fumed silently for a few moments, irritated at the blithe and blunt comparison between the two couples. A quiet pecking sound gave away the fact that someone was headed for the office. Cypher sharply got up, gathered the pay purses that Greyscale had prepared, and made her way out of the office. On the way, she nearly bumped into a copper colored female wood Elf.
"Oh, hey, Cypher- great!" the wood Elf enthused with a smile. "I've got your samples, finally. Turns out somebody was warding the area- still not sure I didn't set some kind of alarm off somewhere. Anyway, it was hard to pick what to snatch because it's all... it's amazing, for an outdoor, makeshift workshop. Just the dried goods could fetch good prices at market, and-"
"Excellent timing, Ratshit," Greyscale commented lightly. "Thanks for the goods. Did you any leave payment for the samples you took?"
"You didn't send me with anything, so I thought you forgot," Ratshit answered with a slight frown. "I left a few of my own silvers in a reduction vessel. She's gonna be pissed when she has to clean it; looks like she's running low on water."
"Ah, sorry on both counts," Greyscale replied thoughtfully. "I'll see what I can do to sneak some more water up there."
"Here," Cypher said curtly, holding out a pay purse to Ratshit.
"Thanks?" the wood Elf said, her face a mask of total confusion. She accepted the purse and watched as Cypher left, then entered the office fully, sitting down in the chair that had been so recently vacated.
"I had no idea she'd sent you to do that recon," Greyscale noted. "Care to put me in the know?"
"That makes sense," Ratshit groaned quietly. "She wanted a few samples to see if Mishka was peddling fake stuff. Seeing as I used to do some alchemy with my clan back in the day, I said I'd know what I was looking at- except I almost didn't. Tiefling alchemy is... I dunno. Obviously far more efficient and effective than Human alchemy, but so different to Elf-work that I couldn't make heads or tails of it. To make things worse, Mishka doesn't seem to keep notes. I can't imagine how she keeps track of what herbs go in what mixture- there are just no letters, markings, figures- nothing. I had to smell and taste everything to figure out what it all was- I was terrified that there would be poison somewhere, but she doesn't seem to make any."
"Well, either that's one less thing we have to worry about, or she knows better than to make poison in the open air where anyone could find it, warded or not," Greyscale smiled, taking his scales and weights back out of his desk. "Anyway, I'll pay you now and work it out with Cypher later. Now for the intel I actually sent you for."
"The first bit of it's kind of obvious now," Ratshit smirked as she toyed with her long dark braids. "Rasha and Mishka definitely intend to get married somehow- the news and the resulting celebration between themselves, Mishka's cousin, and that half-green Dragonborn was loud enough that I'm pretty sure everybody within five miles of the Raibeart place knows about that. But Rasha keeps everything else tighter than a priest's purse," the wood Elf replied. "I've run out of clairvoyance and clairaudience spells due to her near constant cloak and detection spells."
"I'll up your pay or cover the material cost; your choice," Greyscale chuckled wearily. "What about that cousin?"
"His name is Seyashen, and that's it. The documented family name is just as made up as 'Mishka' is, but I have no idea who he's hiding from or pleasing by tacking it on. He's set to head out somewhere north in maybe a day or two. He doesn't seem to have too much urgency about whatever he's going for, but-" the wood Elf shrugged. "I'm blank there too."
Greyscale pondered the information for a few moments. "Sorry that you wasted twelve spells just to get that."
"Look- both Mishka and Rasha are one matter. They've been tailed and eavesdropped upon since they got here, so Rasha's reaction makes sense." The wood Elf bit her lips and sighed. "But over and above Rasha's amazing ability to sustain spells that I know take gargantuan amounts of focus and arcane energy, there is something about Seyashen. It's not just the normal, every day, 'Oh, this is a Tiefling' thing. I get the same feeling from that man, from a living man, that I get in haunted places. He's flesh and bone, but he feels like some ghost, or a wraith, or even a lich is somehow living in him like it would live in some ancient manse or a cursed mausoleum; it's crazy."
"Noted," Greyscale nodded. "It'd be helpful to keep tabs on him, but if his patron takes that much issue with us..."
"No, no, no; he's as far from infernal as he can get," Ratshit said firmly. "Yeah, he's a Tiefling, but he is different. He feels like... like a... a fountain of death, or something. Like his body is hollow, and inside, instead of muscle and blood, there's just... the actual essence of death. I dunno, whatever death is made of, that's what's in there... all gooey and black and able to just rot whatever it touches down to nothing. I just... look, I'm not gonna mess with that. Nobody should mess with that. That man is wrong."
The Dragonborn gave another slow nod, then moved his tendrils to hold his hair back again. That done, he quietly began weighing some gold coins against a few stone and metal weights. Once he'd finished, he removed the coins from the scale and held them out to Ratshit, who looked deeply into his rose colored eyes and blinked slowly.
Greyscale felt the gentle push of her spell ripple over him. "Yes," he finally shrugged when she didn't move to take the coins. "I do think you're overreacting. You don't have to waste perception spells on me; you can just ask."
"Divination spells, you mean. And what's the point of me asking, given how much you ever say?" Ratshit countered. "I'm not overreacting. Don't tail that guy, I am telling you. Don't have anybody tail that guy. We should just focus on Mishka not leaking."
"She won't; with a wedding on the horizon, she's got bigger fish to fry right now," Greyscale smiled half-heartedly. "Here, take this extra coin for Cypher's job. You got anything else to do?"
With a sigh, Ratshit shook her head and accepted the coin, which weighed heavy in her small hands. "No, nothing lined up. Was thinking of picking market duty back up."
"I could use that too, yes, but how do you feel about backing up Shiv for a bit?" Greyscale asked. "He's been coming across some oddly organized thugs who are robbing what seem to be packs of petty bandits as they head out toward the northeast."
"Sounds a little more vigilante-ish than I'd like, but." Ratshit shrugged sharply, sending some of her braids tumbling over her shoulders. "I don't mind getting in a fight, as long as it's at a distance."
"Distance fighting is all Shiv ever does, despite the name," Greyscale smirked. "In reality, confrontations would complicate things. What I'd prefer is to sort out where the coin is going. Track it back to wherever the bandits are nesting it, and we'll see what we can do about... sharing the wealth, let's say."
The wood Elf smiled genuinely. "Nice straightforward job, huh?"
"As straightforward a job as you'll ever get around here," Greyscale agreed. "Shiv seems to be spying them twice a week in the early mornings, so go get some rest for now. There should be a positive hit in another day or two, and you should be there to tail it."
"You got it, boss," Ratshit said importantly. She stuffed the coin she'd received into one of the various pockets in her armor, then headed out of the office with an easy stride.
Greyscale sat for a few moments in complete silence.
"You should just tell the stupid bitch, you know," Cloud finally whispered. "The way she looked at you... how she was questioning you. Something's up."
The Dragonborn closed his eyes and allowed his hair to fall loose behind him. "I wish you wouldn't call her a stupid bitch, Thia."
The Gnome, still out of sight, scoffed bitterly. "And I wish you wouldn't call her your wife, but we can't have everything we wish for, can we?"
The Dragonborn moved the scale and weights aside with his forearm, laid his arms on the table, then rested his head on them. The Gnome stepped out of the shadows in the western corner of the room and blew out the candle completely, then turned to shutter the window behind the desk. In the room's cool silence and darkness, she laid her small hand on Yulian's comparatively huge scaled shoulder.
"Did you find anything?" he managed, his voice muffled by his own bulk.
"Nope," Thia admitted. "I went through the safe, the desks, the locked chests- rifled all through his closets, even. Whatever he's got, it's either unwritten, or he's literally got the goods on his person. I can try to tail him closely enough to find that out, but it would cost me some days of watching his routine, and... it sounds like everybody's running a little thin. You're running a little thin, even. And we're clearly running out of time- I mean, dull as she is, she's probably at least smarter than a nearly feral werewolf."
"The whole trouble was that Thom was, and is, plenty smart, but I... I'm no braver or smarter than Kylsohn," Yulian breathed wearily. "Unlike him, I knew the blowback was coming, but... well... if I'd had been able to just... prevent this-"
"Oh stop with the 'I'm the weak link' bullshit act; you've been easily doing for years what Bann has been awkwardly playing at for a handful of seasons," Thia laughed half-heartedly, playfully rubbing at the Dragonborn's shoulder. "Worst comes to worst, we can always just kill the filthy vermin. I doubt even the rest of his family would miss him."
"Don't say that," the Dragonborn urged. "That's on his level; we can't stoop to becoming murderers over old secrets..."
"Secrets that can still strip Darkwater of its charter, brand everyone you've ever hired as a criminal by association for life, and land both you and the stupid- I mean, Dortana- either in prison or exile. The trouble is that you're always looking for the high road," Thia said stoutly. "It's insane for you to look, but you usually look until you find one, and- look, there isn't a high road in this situation. There just isn't one. You have to pick a low road to take- and murder should be on the table. As a last resort, of course, but-."
Yulian picked himself up off his desk and glared directly into Thia's eyes. "I said no. No murder." Thia shrugged without saying anything, and after a few tense seconds, Yulian decided to continue. "Go ahead and take the time you need to study his movements; see if you can figure out whether or not he's got the paperwork on his person."
The grey-skinned Gnome grunted in frustration. "Fine; how about you finally tell me what the fuck I am looking for? There's a big difference between picking a few locks in an empty house and rifling through a nobleman's pockets."
Yulian sighed and relaxed his posture again, the weight of the day resettling itself quickly on his athletic frame. "Could be one of two things- the purchase logbook, or... admittedly more likely... a bill of sale. That matches the one I have; the sale half to the receipt half."
"Why do you still have a receipt for that place? Destroy it!" Thia demanded fiercely. "You're lucky it hasn't been stolen, copied, published-"
"One hell of a fight to get it off me," Yulian answered, pulling a small chain purse into view for a moment. "We... both like my having it here, right next to my chest, my heart- it's... perhaps a bit strange, but-"
"You are walking around with a receipt for a person," Thia said coldly, watching him tuck the odd purse back under his simple, loose-fitting linen shirt. "You can't make that romantic; it's disgusting."
"To you, of course," Yulian replied. "I can't explain why it became what it is to us. It's not going to seem 'right', and... that's because it's not. Nothing we are is right, but... it works. For us. And, Dori and I just... work."
Thia leaned her back against the wall with her arms crossed. "Once upon a time, so did we."
"We still do," Yulian frowned thoughtfully.
"Do we?" Thia huffed. "She's worked you over so thoroughly that now you're stuck in her fantasy of playing house for the rest of your lives. I've always been more practical."
The Dragonborn raised the scaly potrusions over his eye sockets that served as eyebrows. "And I've always appreciated that. Not sure why you're choosing this moment to throw it in my face."
"You're throwing her 'romantics' in mine." Thia turned a glare of her own to the scowling Dragonborn. "She's Human; she's going to have the weird little dreams and goals that Humans have. I'm realistic. I think responsibly. Especially about this mad little bunch of bandits we've got- how can she think of somehow giving you more kids when you have twenty-odd problem-child mercs?"
"Part of loving her is investing as much into those 'weird little Human dreams' as I can for as long as I can," Yulian said in a low, breathless tone, as though he'd been winded by her words. "I don't make any pretense about the problems that love can't solve."
"You're continuing the pretense every second that you're with her, because explaining basic impossibilities to her when you know she's choosing not to believe you is exactly the same as not saying anything at all," the Gnome argued. "You are literally about to marry a woman who doesn't listen to you. Hells, you don't listen to her either- do you realize that marriage is for life for her? Did you think that through? Because last time I checked, you weren't that kind of lifer."
Yulian sat up straight and turned in his chair so that he could face Thia straight on. "You know what? Since we're talking about impossibilities right now, do you think that if I stop 'playing house' with her that I'll suddenly decide to return to you?" he asked pointedly.
"Watch it, you overgrown lizard," Thia growled.
And Yulian slowly rose from his chair, easily towering over the small Gnome before him. "No, you watch it, you little flat-faced rodent, because- surprise!- I'm just as sick of your shit as you are of mine. You cannot say I don't care about the company when what you mean to say is that you're afraid that I no longer care about you, and you cannot use this or any other situation to convince me that I should break things off with Dori. What you can do is either spare yourself further disillusion and heartbreak by leaving me right now, or buckle down and help me get that evidence out of Illance's hands, which by extension, will save Darkwater's charter. Those are the choices; make up your mind. Right now."
Thia leaned off the wall and pivoted to look up at Yulian with eyes that, at first, flashed fury. But the anger faded into highly-charged embarrassment after about a minute and a half, and she looked away. Yulian, as close as he had ever been to truly ending his relationship with her, fought with himself to continue looking straight at her until she finally met his eyes again.
"I'm staying, but... don't trivialize how I feel or how I think," Thia whispered. "Of all the things you do because your father and grandfather did them, you know that having back-to-back 'monogamous' relationships is the one least convenient to the rest of your life. Just admit that it's a lack of self-control, that we're basically all paying a very steep price for your lack of self-control, and I'll stay."
"It's not just tradition," Yulian answered, nearly as quiet as Thia had been. "I loved each of you in your turn, and still deeply care about you even when the romantics are over. Gnomes are different, and I understand that now better than I did when I first got involved with you. For what it's worth, I never intended to hurt you. Not ever. Had I known that you'd hold it so deeply or for so long... I might have made different choices."
Thia snorted. "The inward torture that daily you must shoulder- for fuck's sake. Going to audition for the drama that the court players write up next ten-day?"
"That is the only kind of dodging at which you truly suck," Yulian scoffed softly. He sat back down, leaned forward in his chair, and rested his elbows on the table before him. "Answer me."
Thia pursed her lips together until they had lost even the barest flickers of pink that usually haunted the very center of them. "I'm staying, of course; you'll never make it out of this mess without me."
Yulian made no move, and didn't speak, but from experience, Thia knew that he was relieved.
"Now, did you at least get anything out of the break-ins that I jobbed out to the rookies?" Thia asked, walking to the side of the desk opposite the scale and hopping up onto it. She positioned herself close enough to his right arm that he could reach out and take hold of her if he chose to.
"Unfortunately, that's how I've figured that the logbook is at least still extant, if not in the city," Yulian admittted as he leaned back in his chair. "Meegan has been leaking pieces of her former job to the highest bidder- I guess trying to make a name for herself in intelligence gathering or something. According to two pages of her personal ledger, of which I now have cleanly-written copies, there have only been two bidders."
Thia's eyes widened for a moment, then gained a wicked gleam. "Tell me the ledger names those bidders."
Yulian smirked at Thia's excitement, a little disappointed that he'd have to let her down about that as well. "The first items of interest were sold years ago, and Meegan herself doesn't know who precisely she sold them to. A lot of coin showed up with someone who claimed to represent the buyer but refused to even give their own name. The other went for much less coin to someone with a surname from Sembia, right around when I started setting up the original Sunfire sting in response to Thom's first failed attempt at turning a partner. Meegan must have sold because she believed I wouldn't have paid her more. Which, given what I knew even back then, I very much would have."
And predictably, Thia's face went from excited to confused. "First of all, how many items does she have?"
Yulian nodded as though Thia had correctly answered a question that he had asked her. "She had, past tense, two items that pertain specifically to Dori and I- the purchase logbook, the bill of sale, and... one item that only involves me. An active duty roster."
"Wait," Thia said stopping Yulian's trip down memory lane with an upraised hand. "You hired some other slut from that shack?"
"No, I..." Yulian sighed deeply and folded his arms tightly over his chest. "Well, this was a long time coming. When I started out, before we met, I... took some work over there."
"You what?" Thia shot back, just barely keeping herself from screeching aloud. "And why?"
"I had to do something. Papa went from going slowly and pleasantly mad... seeing his old clan, commanding long-lost squadrons, talking to his dead first wife... to suddenly forgetting Common. It just... vanished, as though he'd never spoken it a day in his life. He wasn't in good condition to work before, but after that- well. I had to be Yulian Fedotyev Atlasovich again, and we both had to speak mountain Draconic to him- Sofiya loved that. She had always been the better Dragonborn, of the two of us, but the expectations she had for each of us as a part of a clan- that started getting to her. It even had a literal effect on her archery. I stalled, making do with some awful day labour bullshit, and finally, she and I had this huge argument about family and belonging- why I boxed and wrestled instead of choosing a weapon, why we were still living basically outdoors, whether or not she should serve and protect people who could treat us the way we'd been treated over the years, whether or not she should even want to do that. She finally said that she felt it was up to her to find our clan and get us home, that someone had to be responsible for our family, and that I was clearly satisfied with being some kind of second class citizen here, totally okay with us living the way we were, because I wasn't doing anything demonstrable to change our conditions. The very next day, I got the hell off my ass and made bad choices. Just about all of them, almost all at once. A few truly desperate women hired me to get out of marriages that had gone badly. A few fetishists hired me to feed their fantasies of having sex with what they saw as a beast or monster. And a lot of people hired me to beat or choke the shit out of somebody under cover of night for one reason or another- can't say I minded getting paid to take my aggression and frustration out on people who at least might have deserved it. Handed all the coin to my sister, never let her ask too many questions. Only had to last a few years. She got into the Dragons, got shipped to the border just about as soon as the last word of the oath left her mouth. And Papa passed on as comfortably as he could have. With his son next to him, saying goodbye with his native language, fed, clothed, lying on a real bed, inside a real house. Weird little Dragonborn dreams, right? But if you were wondering why you had been hearing some people who already knew me before you'd come on the rogue scene with me in tow... that's why. Turns out it's possible to choke someone beyond a healer's ability to fix, and that when you do that once or twice, people start noticing and remembering."
In the moonlight that seeped through the cracks in the window shutters, Yulian could see Thia's face soften.
"I'm sure she's grateful."
"Maybe she would have been," Yulian said knowingly. "She and Papa... who knows?... maybe they're... wherever our spirits go, waiting for me. I know for sure that they won't forgive me if I don't die an honorable death. Can't just get hanged for being part and party to illegal prostitution; Papa'd whoop the scales off my ass without even saying 'hello' first."
"Yuli," Thia admonished with a weak, but playful laugh as she scooted over on the desk, then reached out her small hand toward his sinewy upper arm. The Dragonborn simply leaned foward and scooped her up into his arms, taking her off his desk and into his lap.
"Let's rest for now. We're all- how'd you put it? Wearing thin? Can't afford that. Nothing worse than a handbag with a hole in it; lets all the coin out."
"Fuck's sake," Thia breathed, ashamed and vaguely annoyed at herself for being amused by Yulian's jibe. "You never get tired of making yourself the butt of all your jokes?"
"What makes you think it's a joke? I'm literally the company paymaster," Yulian replied, his face empty of recognizable emotion.
And the Gnome rolled her eyes so hard that the backs of them hurt.
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