Hunted

[Ran Azshmatha]

Ran took a moment to let Saruna's story unfold before him, and reveal to him a deeper image of the woman before him, as stories were wont to do. How can one describe the way a story can change the static world? Imperceptible, but undeniable. Saruna was drawn in gray until this point, but now color had begun to creep along her wrinkled skin. Where once there was an unfamiliar blur, there was a sharply drawn face. The story was everything to Ran, a Hamil Kha alchemist; Saruna's story struck a familiar chord with him. Falling victim powerlessly to injustice--he understood this feeling well.

In some corner of his mind, he smiled. He silently whispered to himself: z'ur. It was fitting. He wanted to right the wrongs committed to him. That chance was gone--taken from him--and here was another wrong and the woman who had saved his life and shown him an unusual sort of kindness asked from him only to help her settle this in return. Fitting indeed.

He wanted to tell her his story. He owed her that, owed himself that. He couldn't help but grimace as he thought this last bit: he owed it to Oruhan. And suddenly, Ran was tired. So what if he did tell Oruhan's story? There was no Oruhan to give color to, not anymore. Live forever on in a story, yes; but in his head Oruhan lived only one story, in which he died, a world away from the desert they called home, in front of Ran's eyes. No wisdom, no peace, no resolve in that face from which life passed; nothing but surprise. Dumb, meaningless surprise.

"Ok," Ran said, finally. It wasn't exactly a telling of his story, but he wasn't ready for that. Not here, not now. But he needed to escape the tormenting thoughts that pushed against him from within. "What now, then?"

[Saruna]

No one had served them, and since Saruna had no immediate plan of action she turned her head and saw the barkeep turn his face away, as if he'd been caught staring. It gave her pause. Of course they'd be watched in such an establishment. She lifted a hand, and one of the sluggish waitstaff headed for them. Saruna twitched the Paragon out into the middle of the table, its headlines bold and obvious. The waiter, when she reached their table, did not look down. It was impossible for her to not have seen it.

"I - I would like some beer," she said, all too aware that something so simple as water was not likely to be available, and if it was, not likely to be entirely safe for drinking. She gave Ran a sort of you too glance, and then spilled too much coin onto the table.

[Ran Azshmatha]

Ran was momentarily confused, but got a quick read on the situation when he saw Saruna quickly and nervously flick the Paragon out of sight. He had the advantage of simply responding to events, so his speech was even as he asked for a beer after Saruna. Seeing Saruna unnerved, Ran himself began to feel slightly paranoid. He took a quick look around the establishment, being as inconspicuous as he could while doing so. He unknowingly rubbed a hand around the wound on his torso. Funny how it suddenly started to ache. Fear was a potent substance.

[Saruna]

The girl tipped her head to the side. She had such hard eyes for the youth in her smooth skin, yet despite that Saruna still couldn't help but feel herself as being the least experienced person in the room. The girl slid a hand over the table, to flirt her fingers among the bishani that piled there. Too much bishani for beer. Saruna watched as the girl's fingers trailed over bishani that had scattered over the worn copy of Vitiable Paragon that was spread like an accusation over the table. The girl's fingers stayed there as if to aggressively display possession of those bishani, though she made no move to scoop them up.

"What kinda beer?" The girl asked in her low-town accent, still not looking at the paper. She looked at Saruna, and then Ran.

"What kind. . .?" Saruna echoed after a heartbeat too many had passed. She looked at Ran as she spoke, clearly out of her depth.

[Sindaria]

She'd been watching them since they'd entered the city - though they'd had little way of knowing that. After all, the woman had thought she'd paid Sef's friend Cal to gather information on the government, not herself; but the action in itself screamed of the kind of desperate blatancy that few people, other than government spies themselves, perpetrated. So Sef had called in yet another of his endless favours on Cal's behalf, with the promise of significant coin should she succeed in revealing the woman to be a government-planted fraud - an unlikely siren luring dishonest men into the rocks.

It had taken a day's preparations to ready herself for the trip to Shim: a morning in the market district using her own coin to buy a cloak and dress more suited to the countryside, along with travel rations, and an afternoon convincing Sef to accompany her on the road to Shim. True, it was unlikely that she would run into trouble in the woods on the way there, but she had no skill with a blade should such trouble materialize. In the end, Sef only agreed in return for an advance on her as yet unattained reward, leaving Sindaria to question whether the entire venture was a fool's errand concocted by Sef and Cal to extort money from her as revenge for her relatively recent success in her ventures when compared to their criminal setbacks. Her suspicions in regards to this theory were heightened when their early morning departure (after exchange of coin) was disrupted by the sight of her intended mark entering the city's main gate with a stranger on the very hour she and Sef were to leave.

"I still keep your coin," Sef chuckled, as he pointed out the two travellers, patting Sindaria on the shoulder before disappearing back into the morning. Sindaria cursed the Changers as she quickly ducked into the the nearest doorway, focusing herself to begin stalking the pair to whatever their destination would end up being. It came as little surprise that they'd chosen "The Split Crow" tavern as their destination - a place unremarkable for most things, save perhaps the indifference of its wait staff to paying customers.

Uncomfortable with merely lurking in the shadows given the amount of her own money she already had riding on this venture, Sindaria decided to take a more direct approach. With the barkeep's attention diverted, and no wait staff in sight, she assumed an identity she knew all too well - that of a waitress - and strode over to their table to take a measure of their intent, and was quickly answered with the unlikely sight of a worn copy of the Paragon at the table's center.

The woman spoke with an unmistakeable twinge of anxiety as she ordered her drink, clearly rattled by the attention Sindaria had drawn to their reading material by resting her hand among the bishani piled on top of it. In contrast, the blond haired man spoke evenly and calmly, either unaware or unconcerned with the notion that their waitress had seen the treasonous material. Sindaria decided to stretch the moment out, giving herself more time to take their measure.

"What kinda beer?" she asked in her best low-town accent, purposefully ignoring the paper while focusing on the unblinking eyes of her "customers".

[Ran Azshmatha]

The situation was only just beginning to dawn on Ran. The fact was, he was confused. There were a lot of cues to follow, but no real way for him to be sure about what any of it meant. The man was no stranger to confusion, and being blind to social cues was familiar to him. He took a look at the waitress, really looked at her. The way she was fingering the bishani, the way Saruna was stumbling in her words, everything seemed just a little bit off. The waitress was a young woman, skinny and lean, and not unpleasant to look at. Not enough clues there. The best thing to do when one had no idea what was going on, Ran decided, was to act oblivious.

"I've never been here before," Ran said, doing his best to tone down his accent; he knew first impressions were important, and few appreciated a true foreigner. He turned to meet the waitress' eyes, and asked "What's good here?"

[Saruna]

Saruna, satisfied with Ran's recovery from her own nervousness, too turned her eyes to their waitress. She could only hope the girl would be willing to cue them a little; those who worked in the low-key tavern had to be clued in on the darker rumors and gossip that surrounded it. And Saruna, having spread the Paragon across the table's center so blatantly, really wanted in on what the people of The Split Crow knew.

[Sindaria]

Sindaria gave a withering look at the blond-haired outsider - for she was quite sure now that that's what he was - carefully considering her next words. There was a complete lack of subtlety to everything she'd heard and seen of this woman so far that screamed fraud, but the accompanying nervousness held little explanation save sincere appreciation for the seriousness of the crimes she was committing by even hinting at an actionable discontent with the status quo.

"I find it unlikely that we share the same tastes," Sindaria began, cocking a knowing eyebrow and slowly sweeping her hand across the exposed pamphlet to scoop up the bishani the woman had left there. "However," she continued, pausing momentarily to meet the woman's unreadable gaze, "many here prefer the house's dark ale. It is bitter, but not unpalatable to the average judge."

The coins now gathered in her hand made a metallic chinking sound as she collected them together in her closing fist. A small part of Sindaria's paranoid unconscious shuddered with the resemblance of this sound to that of the chains it was rumored one could find oneself in for even being in the company of someone with a copy of the Vitiable Paragon. It was at that moment that she realized she was more tense than she could afford to be if she truly wanted to reveal this couple as a pair of government spies. She drew a deep breath, attempting to disguise it as a sigh of disapproval. Perhaps the direct approach had been a mistake. She weighed the consequences of disappearing with their coin directly and telling Sef to find some other lamb to send to the slaughter. Yet part of her was already like a fish that has taken its first successful nibble of the bait - wondering if she could get away with just a little more.

[Ran Azshmatha]

Ran smiled, because he wasn't quite sure what else to do. He decided the best thing to do is wait it out. He felt nervous, but he wasn't even sure if he was in danger or not.

"Ok, the dark ale for me, then."

[Saruna]

Saruna had no idea what the words meant, but they had to mean something. She had to do this right.

"I am afraid I have had years of bitterness already, though I am not much of a judge of anything. Do you have anything lighter?" She wasn't quite looking into Sindaria's eyes as she said it.

[Sindaria]

"You're looking for a mead then? Or perhaps you've had one here before ...." Sindaria's voice trailed off, letting the statement hang in the air. The truth was, she had no idea if Cal had met the woman here previously, but stirring the pot a bit to see what rose to the surface with this line of questioning suddenly seemed important. She was betting on the fact that a government spy would know no paranoia, whereas a true conspirator might balk at the thought that their meetings were being successfully monitored. Moreover, Sindaria was willing to risk having this stranger implicate her in Cal's machinations if it gave her a sense of just how old this conspiracy was. Had the woman contacted other potential conspirators before Cal? Had she shown a similar lack of subtlety? More importantly, was she smart enough to have learned better since then?

The hair on the back of Sindaria's neck began to prickle with an as-yet unfelt draft of air as someone prepared to open the door to the tavern - or was it with fear for the game of cat and mouse she was playing; a game in which she was still unsure whether she was the cat or the mouse? A half-second later, the door now ajar, she had something of an answer. A short, black-bearded dwarf with a limping gait made his way to the bar, drawing Sindaria's attention to the fact that the bartender was now inspecting her with a look of suspicion. She glared at him, and he quickly averted his gaze again. There was no way he could overhear their conversation from this distance, but she knew she would have to place an order soon before another waiter arrived and blew her cover.

[Saruna]

Saruna glanced towards the dwarf, and the bartender himself. Then, Sindaria. Mead? Drank in the place before? Was it code for something? If things could be simple for just once.

"I've never been here before, but I hope to be introduced to all that this place has to offer, in time. I am quite capable of being a loyal customer."

[Sindaria]

Sindaria's face darkened somewhat. "Only time will vouch for that, my lady. Let me see to your drinks."

Sindaria turned abruptly and headed over to the bartender, who made a conscious effort to ignore her until the sound of her coin landing on the counter 'caught' his non-distracted attention.

"I'll take two pints of the house ale, and any information you have on the two patrons I was just talking to." The barkeep muttered something unintelligible under his breath while collecting the coin, then turned his back to pour off two mugs of a weak-looking pale ale that frothed only slightly at this disturbance. Sindaria's lip curled almost imperceptibly at the weak suggestion of cat's piss that this local brew gave off in its aroma as the two mugs were handed back to her.

"Never seen 'em before," the barkeep said noncommittally, staring threateningly into her eyes, as if to challenge any further questioning of his truthfulness. "For that matter, I haven't seen you before either. Should I be concerned?"

Sindaria shook her head. "I'm just the tail on a dog that's bought itself a case of fleas. I'll be outta here just as soon as I figure out which way I'm wagging ...." She looked over her shoulder once again to the strange-looking party of two, unsure of what she saw in their posture and demeanor.

[Ran Azshmatha]

Ran watched the waitress walk away, and took the chance to lean in close to Saruna. He whispered, although he wasn't sure why he was doing it. He thought he had an idea of what was going on, but he wasn't quite clear. The alchemist had committed himself, at least initially, to whatever endeavor Saruna would have him do. However, he was distinctly uncomfortable with how clueless he felt.

"Saruna, what's going on? Why did we come here?"

As he asked her, he casually glanced around the tavern, noting the dim lighting, its rather quiet ambiance, everything muted as if there were things being suppressed just under the surface. Perhaps it hinted at the true state of things.

[Saruna]

"I was directed. . .here. . ." Saruna watched the waitress nervously. She didn't mean to be obvious about it, but if there was one thing Saruna was not it was stealthy. She had her doses of subtlety, but espionage was not her strong suit no matter how she might wish it to be. On the other hand, that the other patrons and the real staff of the place also watched her in kind was something that did go over her head; they were practiced in the art and nervous in their own ways for government interference to mark her. That they did it in a way that was not unkind wouldn't matter in the end, for Saruna's wishes. She mattered little to them one way or another. What resources had she to offer them beyond a body to incite when the time came for that? Until then, she was nothing but a liability.

Saruna turned her gaze back to Ran. "I need more information," she whispered, "and I think this is the place to get it."