Discreet Packages: Red Hot Delivery

[Fidget]

Spring, 124PW

Sweet plumage spilled from a very fine hat slipped low, drawing a royal caress across Fidget's cheek. It tried to blind her, to draw her away from her task and into its mossy embrace, but she had her task set before her. She pushed it up, carefully, with one finger. It wanted to entrap her, but she was too canny for that trick.

She was wrapped in spoils, having claimed new things that belonged to her under the cloak of birdsong night, before she had been pushed and shoved from the bowels of her favorite place. Her very very favorite cavernous hole, where she had been told she was allowed to lay her scalding fingers amidst cavorting bodies, and leave smears of life behind. But then she wasn't. They had mouthed loud noises at her, words crooked and distorted, as if wrong was so easy a thing to decipher.

But she had her treasures, and the delivery. The one she had come to Semerkhet to collect. The one that would make her other other collection complete, the one that was used up until only dust and memories remained, and then Asmodeus spilled cold bishani into her hands with orders to move and replenish. That collection, the words pressed close and sleek and dangerous into her ears, was not hers alone and she was to do as she was told.

But she always treated them as precious scarce as she did her things, and it was with reverence that she opened the twine and folded back the cloth that held it together.

Scarlet weave stared up at her, innocent. Unknown. Lost. Her brow furrowed, sending ripples of questions down to her questing fingertips, to her seeking toes. She curled them, curled up, a prickleshiver of icy azhure tickling the nape of her neck.

She delved into the cloth -- how soft against her skin, how perfectly spicy -- but did not find what she sought.

It was not there.

Her lips formed the words, silent, her fingers twitching into repeating signs of distress.

She stood up, carefully removing her treasures, and let her leathers soak back into her skin, holding her in, wrapping around her to claim her intact.

Fidget was going hunting.

[Nedan Sandair]

Nedan liked Semerkhet, or rather he had liked it, when he first arrived on the continent, but after so many weeks and months in country, he was distinctly looking forward to watching it sink into the distance. But, while he had grown to hate the smells of this Changers-forsaken land, that didn't mean that he couldn't use the time here for one last, glorious send off before going home to a life of quiet despair. Or at least, such was the plan when he'd started off this evening, things seemed to have taken something of a turn since then.

Things had been going so well too, he thought; he'd managed to have a convivial few drinks with his fellow officers at the mess, before shaking off the dullest of them and diving into the town proper. It was such a very different culture here, despite the trappings of the empire, but even so, he'd always noted a strange similarity of purpose in the architecture. He didn't like the wealthy districts at all; they tended to be new money villas and businesses trading old world commodities to new world settlers, no, he preferred the outlying districts where the locals dwelt. More authentic, one of his comrades had slurred, before passing out in an alley somewhere. Good times, Nedan thought, even if he was a ponce.

He shook his head, crossing to the strongbox at the foot of his bed, and tried to ignore the way the room spun. It was easier to navigate that way, and after all; a man could go mad if he let a room give him directions. There were the sounds of action and city night life from outside, but he ignored them, concentrating on getting his package into the box. Yes, he'd lost his hat somewhere over the course of the night, but he had managed to purchase a wonderful new doublet in the brightly coloured fashion they sported here, and he was rather proud of it. So much so that he'd kept it with him throughout the night, but now it was time for it to go to bed, just like him. He placed the wrapped package down on the box, abandoning his ideas of getting it inside, with a soft thud, and paused. Clothing didn't thump, he thought, staring at it. Clothing made rustling noises and just lay there.

Feeling that he wasn't going to enjoy this at all, he opened the package rather inexpertly, the complicated little knots refusing to cooperate with his hands. Staring back at him insolently was not his new brocade doublet, but a series of...well...things. Odd. Things. One or two small vials, he thought, chuffed to have remembered the word, a bottle or two, and some small wax coated blocks. How very strange. But, he thought, and this was the important part, they were not his doublet. Had he noted that already? He couldn't remember. He could, however, remember that he was very proud of that doublet, and his hat, and he would very much like to get them back. Damn it.

The matter settled, he fetched his serious hat, buckled back on his sword belt, after one or two failed attempts, and headed for the door.

[Fidget]

Light finger-crept everywhere it could, touching stone and leaf and cloth alike. It was greedy. Darkness settled soft as silk, but light was demanding. It was why some things were better spent in the dark. But now, now Fidget had use of it, could bear it in return for clear sight to match the purpose that thrummed garrote tight in her ears.

Step, step, guided by smeared recollection and smudged incense thick touch-lick memory. Step, step, faces passed left blurred by the breeze streaming from the tips of her hair.

Step, step, slip and slick, the knowing edges of her fingers crackling with the need of it. Curl dash twist, around and around, pressed into the leather that rode her skin: words that were never spoken. Words that belonged to her. Words like her delivery, which was stolen and lost. She would not have it, lips cracked breath tight. Her hair wavered in front of her eyes as she stepped-signed-followed the path to the place where the things that were hers should have been and weren't.

Hers. He'd said so. Told her clean and cinnamon bright. Prick sharp sizzle, all the way down, through her ears and to the tip of the blade that he carried, always carried, always a slick promise beckoning her attention when she got lost in the way the air shivered over him. She remembered. She didn't like to carry memories; they were raucous and crispy-crunched up against the nice things. Like the things she was supposed to have.

She ignored the puddle of sloppy whores and stringers out by the side door, the sly one, hidden from too many pricker-sharp gazes, greedy like the light, always looking for the wrong reasons. It gave under her fingers, opening to the thick smell of incense and sex, alcohol and clinging-smoke that passed between peppered fingers and bishani, passing in a blur so many times that by the end only the fat overseer knew what was what, and even she went soft and pliant sometimes, when the smoke touched the burning in her eyes and she lost the meanness that got people cut.

Fidget didn't mind when people got cut.

Sometimes it helped.

The focus. Yes...

The wall who moved in front of her was familiar, expected, much the same hand that pushed forward like a charging bull, snake-hit into her shoulder so she went back into the doorframe, soft grunt of sound from her lips sprouting forward to tickle into him. Softquick, the way it made his face move, slight changes. He liked to be rough. He liked to do. He liked it there, where he was met and expected, exulted for the things he could do with his fists and his fingertips.

The reply went between them, ghosting silver and deep, and her lips parted. He made ready, eager, knew her for a stray dog he could kick out into the alley, but hand and lips together sang out the word that kept him chained up in his little den-hole, his whole world.

"Chalice," she said, and she felt it go into his muscles, clutching at him like tar.

He grunted.

"My package," she said, toneless, fingers caressing the needles hidden near the shoulder he'd pushed with such heavy intent.

One of the girls (heavy-eyed and lax from too much, so much that it came off her in sultry waves, perfumed promises of one night bleeding into another) slunk over, a trail of red sparks floating sullen behind her. "Yeah, whadda 'bout it?"

Yes, her. There. Last night, before the promises had been cut off.

Fidget's fingers slid away from the needles, tracing a mimicry of that promise down to her hip; the wall stiffened, but went pliant when Fidget pulled free the token he had given her so long ago. It'd been worn all slip-smooth, but everything was there.

The girl's eyes went lower, down to the floor. "C'mon," she mumbled. "I'll take 'er t' Chalice."

Fidget followed.

[Nedan Sandair]

The night, what little of it remained at least, was hot, sweaty and full of people with more important things to do than get out of the way. While the city did look better with the shit and garbage hidden in shadow, the downside was that the shit and garbage were hidden. Thus Nedan progressed carefully and somewhat erratically, unseen obstacle to unmoving knot of people and on to unseen obstacle. Yes, it would have been easier by daylight of he were sober but that wasn't the bloody point. He was aggrieved, damn it, and he was out to seek satisfaction, and not the fun kind either.

Stopping at a handy corner, he took a moment to collect himself and looked about, trying to remember the path. Half the damned city seemed to be brothels and dives, and while he prided himself, sort of, on being able to tell the good from the bad, remembering where they were was a different issue, and it was precisely that issue which concerned him. That and the fact that he couldn't remember what it was called. So he was in a quandary; to ask for directions was to admit one's failure as a man and as an officer, but even if he was inclined to part with his dignity, he had no solid information beyond that it was a brothel and that his hat was there. Maybe.

Pushing himself from the wall, he thought he recognised a signpost and headed in that direction, the pleasures of the night calling out to him from almost all angles. Where in the hell was it?

[Fidget]

Too many promises had been given to the air for keeping, and it moved most sluggishly, dribbling over her shoulders and through her hair. She pressed her fingers into it, gave it reassurances in-between the twitches of her fingers. But no, no, she wasn't supposed to tarry, not even when it flowed down her mouth and down deep into her, reminding her of the things she was supposed to needed to do, to have, to be. Sound built up deep in her throat, scant hairpin trigger pressure away from release, but the breeze of an opened door stole it from her.

Her regret wavered from her fingertips in a curving, slow trail.

The girl was looking at her, a message rotating within the bright fluid of her eyes, bidding Fidget step closer to peer in, down deep, sure that it contained something she might like, if only she could pluck it free. . .

The girl swatted at her reaching fingertips, nails flashing carmine and final as they sliced the air. "She's inside," she snapped, voice all certain and full of knowing of things.

She did not belong to Fidget.

But there was something tremblingwary in that voice, in the way those eyes flickered secrets and sharp, sweet lemon. It passed like smoke in the moving skin of her face, passing so thick and heavy that Fidget wanted to feel what it meant. She was certain she could read it, if only the girl allowed her to press her fingernails into the hollows of her cheeks.

She had turned away, and Fidget waited, watching, feeling the pull two ways: two women she was bade to meet. In the end, the remembered shiverprick of his blade pulled her away from that roiling fog bank, and she assigned it to her memory, a promise kept from the curious air.

The room tried to keep her out, such was the claim of its owner. Chalice. A woman who held the sweetest honeys, and poisons so clear and bright and savage that Fidget might have begged at her knee if someone else had not already taken her begging. If only she hadn't ordered her cast out, the night before, that oil-slathered and music stinking madam of such a twisted up, heavy-lidded place.

"You're not supposed to be here." The voice came, as expected, sultry and sure, the voice of a noblewoman or rich merchant, the sort that always used Fidget until Fidget used them back. It was a game, the sort that carried bloodied tallies. The kind that ended ownership and began it all the same. The kind that tasted of sweet marsh grasses and deep, deep violet.

The face was well worn with care, lines traced deep and spread with time. The hair was shimmering: white with ebon sparks that fizzed and spat, curled up in oiled ringlets. Chalice tasted of aged earth, and looked of well-used manacles.

"Package," Fidget spoke, the repressed whine catching on her tongue like a net pulled too tight.

Chalice tipped her head, new lines forming at the corners of her mouth and between her brow, like a scattering of spider's legs. Fidget drew nearer.

"Aye, you left with it once I had you tumbled out."

"I left. . ." she repeated, thinking of the teeth that had left an imprint on her arm. She touched it, and the air pressed close to her fingers, giddy. "That was other than what he sent me."

The legs wobbled around Chalice's face. "You got your package, girl."

"It was meant for another."

Darkness spread out from those lines, until it entered Chalice's eyes. "You telling me there was some mix-up? You got someone else's package?"

Fidget nodded. She wanted to breathe in that sooty temper.

Chalice swore, and rose. She brushed past Fidget to go downstairs, and like a piece of ribbon tied to a child's wrist, she pattered along behind, trailing in the dust.

[Nedan Sandair]

Alright, Nedan thought, shouldering his way into another dive, this was starting to get irritating. He had to shoulder partly because the doors were heavy and blocked by people but mostly because his hands weren't quite cooperating with him. Ordinarily, of course, he would have put this down to being a side effect of too much drink and expensive powders, and he would have been right. Of course, as another side effect of too much drink and expensive powders, he was presently unable to make that connection, and indeed a great many others. So, he paused inside the doors, taking a moment to lament the state of the world when a man couldn't trust his own arms to go where they were told, or his legs to stay where he'd left them. It was a deplorable state of affairs, truly, and one which he deeply deplored.

Thankfully for him, although he was in no state to appreciate it, his present state of inebriation did not draw too much attention from the other patrons, most of whom where similarly inebriated, if not so similarly dressed. People from these parts of the city tended to be big on opportunity and small on forethought, and a drunk of Nedan's background looked like easy prey until the blades were drawn. Opinions were often and swiftly revised at that point, and were often followed by a snap decision to run for one's life. Or stumble, as the case may be. He paused again, having straightened, so to speak, and put a hand to his brow, confused. Why was he here? He was nearly certain that he'd been looking for something.

Someone brushed past him, and he turned to give them a piece of his mind, then stopped, looking for the bouncers. How rude of him to just barge in, he realized, adjusting his clothes. Barged in! Just, hey there, out of my way, I want in, bold and brazen as you please. Not so much as a by your leave sir, he thought, growing slightly worried. He hadn't been raised to display such poor manners had he? Of course, that had never stopped him before, but just then it was a very pressing concern. Never Mind that these thugs and wastrels were all shit-heels that he didn't care to look at twice; he had his family's honor to uphold! He very much did. How could he call himself a Sandair, nay, call himself a man, and not spare a moment to greet the help with even just a tip of his... His... He stopped, groping for the word. He could see it, floating there in the ether, all soft and plumed and... Hat! That was it! A tip of his Hat! That's what he was after!

He looked around the room again, his courteous resolve forgotten in a fresh wave of vim and vigor. That was it! He'd lost his good hat, and his good clothing, and he'd been palmed off with a parcel full of cheap perfumes and snake oil like a rube. Well, that would not be allowed to stand, would it? Not it most certainly would not! A Sandair could ill afford to be made a fool of by these sand worshiping heathens! No, he had to put this right and find it, he reminded himself for the umpteenth time since he'd stepped outside, lest the shame cast a pall over his house for all time. But then, he thought, stopping again, why had he come in here? He'd been wearing his hat when he'd left this dive, so all he was going to find here was cheap booze, in both senses of the word, and disappointment, just like before. Not even a shapely pair of legs to keep him warm. No, he'd have to keep looking, that was all. Shaking his head, he shouldered his way back outside, lamenting the state of a world where a man's own hands couldn't be trusted.

So, if that dive wasn't the place, then where was it? He could almost be forgiven for giving up hope. Almost. But a Sandair could never give up and still call himself a man! What were their words, after all? Well, actually, he couldn't recall them through the haze of drink but he was sure that they were very inspiring and would have encouraged him to keep going. So that was exactly what he would do. It had to be here somewhere. So, straightening his second best hat and adjusting his second best set of evening wear, he squinted at the signs that were visible in the guttering torchlight. He couldn't quite make the words out, and he was about to curse his eyes for failing him when his nose came to the rescue. Now, that smell, he recognized.

Yes. he thought, stumbling on, it all made sense now. It was that little gash with the plump hips, damn her! Oh, yes, she'd been content enough to take his money and ruin his silks at the start, but as soon as some other client arrived, off she hopped. He'd taken quite considerable offense at the idea that someone else's money was better than his, as he recalled, and rather more offense at the second rate replacement they tried to pawn off on him while snickering behind their hands. After getting back the money he'd paid for the time he'd been robbed of, he'd taken his parcels and headed for home. That was when the little shit stains had swapped them out, he was sure of it. Well, he'd show them.

The Cup That Runneth Over was a dive and a half, even in a good light. Still, the wine was palatable, the beds soft, and up until tonight, he would have said that the staff were reliable. No longer. They had decided to make a fool of him, damn them, and he wasn't going to let them get away with it. Settling his hand on the pommel of his sword, he squared his jaw and headed for the door. He was so angry, he didn't even lament the betrayal of his arms when he shouldered his way in.