or "Old Heroes Never Die, They Just Show Up In Sequels"
by Willow
Alright everyone, it’s every body’s favorite short, blonde elf chick. Or
at least mine... Em’s got style.
Emerald rubbed the back of her skull. Everything in her brain seemed to fit alot better these days.... men were even starting to look good. "If I'd known it would make me feel so good," she chuckled to herself, "I would have killed him YEARS ago." She smiled and leaned back on the balls of her hands, her legs dangling out over the edge of the roof. She was trolling for Purple Marauders. She took another swig from her bottle of red wine and her eyes searched the roofs below her. She hadn't had any luck thus far, but she wasn't going to let that discourage her. She really wished she could have seen that Lieutenant Vido's face when he was told that her body had disapeared from the mourge. Oh lordy... She chuckled to herself merrily. They hadn't said anything about that in the papers... though they had mentioned that Mendrac's body had shown up. A brief shiver crossed her spine. But he was dead. She was sure of that. His head had exploded from the bullets she'd poured into him. She shivered again. A movement caught her eye and she looked up, then stood up, sending the bottle clattering into the gutter, then to the alley below. Her eyes strained trying to pick out the figure as it hopped from roof to roof....no, not hopping. Those wern't hops. They were long-legged, elegant leaps. Em's ears pricked up in facination. Definitely not her intended quarry. But curious and interesting.
She felt so safe now, there was no purpose to her life. She'd been living for hiding, for being the quarry of her father's hunt, for days, that went to years that went to decades. You could go on doing the same thing for a long time, when you were immortal. Immortal. Heh. She shook her head as she backed up and flung herself across the gully between the two buildngs. She really felt that way now. Not just that she was going live forever in this world, this hell hole of a place, but that she could not die. Roof tiles slid beneath her feet as she leapt down to a ledge, then across another alley to antoher street. Every now and then, she would look up, to keep her direction straight, to see where she was heading, to follow that graceful figure.
"Whoa!!!" Emerald's feet slid across the slanted roof, as she scrabbled for purchase with her nails. ~stupid!! What were you thinking!?~ She had gotten so close... she had begun to see details! Her fingers clutched convulsively as her boots slid out into open space. The roof she'd landed on was smooth and sloped, with few rough places to catch on. Her fingers dug in, there wasn't any time to get a knife out, to dig into the smooth clay finish. She was more than half way over te roof's edge now, her legs swung inward, trying to touch a wall... damn, the eaves were wide, nothing! She didn't want to fall, it was a long way down! There was a shadow above her. Cloudy green-blue eyes looked up, as a white hand reach down to take her wrist ~It is standing? how is it standing?~ Then she slipped completely, falling through empty space.
Her body convulsed as it fell, graceful as a dancer in its plummet, searching for anything to stop her. Her hand clsoed around a wire. After a slighty halting jerk, the wire snapped and she swung now towards the wall, as white things fluttered out of the city-dark at her. And a wall. CRASH!
Emerald groaned, and slid down the last few feet off wall to the alley. Her nose was broken, she was sure of it. Blood was dripping thickly down her face. She dizzily looked up at the roof she had fallen from and saw a black framed white face looking down at her for a moment. Then it was gone.
~Well, that was stupid, Eddie~ His brother's voice sounded in his skull as he joined him a few roofs over.
~Ah, Jaycen... SHUT UP!~ the other black clothed figure clutched his head.
~You're a bastard, you know that?~
~only 'cause mom never married no one!~
~We'd better get back.~
~Since when were you responsible?~ Eddie coughed. He should agree with his brother. It made sense after all. But it irked him to do so. He didn't want agree with his brother. He liked helping people.
~You wouldn't be upset if it was Myst who had needed help!~ the young looking man said, one golden curl escapeing the black cloth that framed his face and held his hair back.
~That's beside the point!~ snapped his brother's mind. Their faces were almost identical, but for the way they carried themselves. Jaycen snorted and leapt across the wide street, ending the conversation, though it could have continued.
Jaycen and Edward, were called half elves. The story was, their father was an elf, a wanderer. As to their mother, they never said, beyond "A bitch". As they slipped into their windowed room, Jaycen pulled off his head cloth and laughed in his musical voice out loud. "Boy that felt good!" More sedately, Eddie followed his twin inside. "You know it was your fault she fell."
"Shut up."
"Your grandstanding is what attracted her attention."
Jaycen sat down on his bed and sulked at his brother.
"Now stop that!" Eddie snapped, and broke into a fit of coughing. The door creaked open, and a petite human woman entered, carrying a small glass bottle and a spoon.
"Ari... no," groaned Eddie, one hand covering his mouth as those word set off another coughing spell that brought him to his knees. She put a hand on his sholder and pushed him upright, then filled a spoon and held it out to him. After a moment of protest, he took it into his mouth an swallowed. Glaring, he kept his mouth shut as she withdrew the spoon. The tips of finely pointed ears were half hidden by his curly blond hair, as he stuck his tounge out in disgust. The human in front of him smiled, and raised up, hands on her hips. Anne-Marie was their caretaker. She made sure she didn't do anything truly stupid, and kept Eddie alive.
"Well Jace. Congratulations, your idea of a good time, once again almost put an end to your brother."
Jaycen looked at his brother worriedly.
~It wasn't that bad. She's exaggerating,~ Eddie assured him. Ari shook her head indulgently. She was dressed modestly by many standards, in a white blouse with a tight leather bodice in dark blue and a long flowing skirt in the same color embroidered in bands around the hem. White lace framed her throat and her finger tips. She was an elegant personality, with high cheek bones and deep blue eyes. She shook her head, causing her mounds of brunette curls to bounce. And uh.. her... other endowments as well. There was never an isolated movemnt on Anne-Marie. She spoke with her whole body. And usually it was nothing Eddie really wanted to hear....
Emerald carefully taped up her nose in the mirror above the wash basin. Now she was going to look awful for days. Damn. She may not care about men, but damn it, she liked looking nice! Drat! Anyway, she would find that black figure. She now had a mission. She frowned at herself. Okay, it wasn't much of a mission, but she felt better now, knowing she had higher goal. Alright, not much higher, but...
Tenth was as uncomfortable as he ever was. A colleague had turned up dead, shot. Somehow this was not comforting, as many other individuals were turning up shot in the same manner. An entire bar had been cleaned out. He wasn't sure if it was the same person (not that he didn't know who was doing the killing). And well, if he'd killed one mage... that man had no love of him.
Eddie woke up slowly. He felt like hell. That was nothing new, he always felt like hell.
"Wake up Eddie," Anne-Marie said softly. He opened one emerald green eye to look at her dubiously. "Your brother wants you at practice."
"My brother can go bugger the land lord...."
"He probably has, but that's well beside the point."
Eddie groaned as she pulled him into a roughly sitting position. "Come on Ari, let me sleep."
"You could have slept last night, but you went out to play games with your brother." Eddie looked at her pitifuly.
"You'd rather I let him out in that city alone?"
"With his luck, he'd find that Fruit-Cake I've been reading about and make friends with him."
Eddie groaned at the thought of that, and climbed out of bed.
"Any way," the brunette woman continued, "I have instructions to get you out of bed, or Jaycen will come in after you." Eddie groaned again, and stripped off his nightshirt, digging in his suitcase. "Besides, your first performance is tonight, and I hear this is a tough city."
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Epilogue