by Willow
His hair was a rich golden, like sun-ripened corn. His face
was handsome, too handsome really, despite the scar that ran diagonally across
his face. He was tall, to top it all off, and dressed in rich ornate of a
sorcerer. This was Mendrac. And he wasn't too happy to be pulled out of his
home to go searching for his rogue child-bride. As far as he was concerned,
the streets could have her. But no, he knew that she knew too much. So he'd
followed her to this....sty of a city, tracing the residual magic his hobby
had left on her.
*
Emerald slowly came back to herself, and gained full control in time to stop
herself from hurling herself onto the shoulders of the fair elf below her.
Shit! she thought. Where am I? Well, for starters, she was
in the rafters of a rather archaic building. That wasn't enough. She stayed
hidden in the shadows, till she saw a human pass within her grasp.
Fleece didn't even get the chance to yelp- a gloved hand grinding into his jaw
bone, a leg trapping his own, and an arm trapping his and pressing a knife to
his ribs. He was sure he could get free...but not unscathed.
"Where am I?" a low voice growled in his ear. Fleece kept gathering details
till he realized that the person... the elf... holding him wasn't touching the
ground; he could walk away, if he wanted to chance getting knifed. The hand
shifted just enough to let him speak.
"Let me go," he growled.
"Where?"
"You're in Sanctuary," he said flatly. Laughter bubbled up and he was
released. Fleece whirled to see the short female elf who had poofed in shortly
before, leaning against the wall in hysterical laughter.
Then the whole of Sanctuary converged on her
Exactly how she kept from getting killed or tortured was a point of amazement
to her, and the few members who bothered to think about it. It probably had
something to do with the fact she talked freely and frankly. She'd found an
ankh in the street, put it on because she fancied it, and gotten into a fight,
during which the pendant had gotten yanked off.
Which of course had landed her there.
What Emerald hadn't said was who she'd been fighting with. Or why she'd been
in the right place to find the ankh before the cops. And of course, what she
was laughing at. But she was very good at being
disarming.
*
Mendrac stood in a run-down street, staring at the ground. There was a broken
piece of silver colored chain, obviously not real silver, or it would have
been scavenged before now, lying in the dirt at his
feet. This was where the traces of the girl disappeared, and those traces,
here at least, were tainted with the touch of magic that wasn't his. Mendrac's
rich deep green eyes narrowed. He knew that she (he
would not even think her name, the brat) would never align with a mage. But
she was gone, and by magic. And a magic more powerful than what he commanded.
*
Emerald wanted out of this place. The abeint magic was enough to make her
antsy, but the thing was, if she wanted out, she had to talk to the mage. And
he was more powerful than Mendrac. Nothing would
convince her to get into the same room as him. Em realized she was running a
very high risk of getting herself killed, but this was a compulsion that she
couldn't rid herself of. The assassins were divided, as were the thieves. Half
of each wanted her dead, and half of the part that wanted her alive wanted her
out of Sanctuary by the end of the hour. Nothing that she'd learned would be
any good to the Blood Guard, not that it mattered because she'd already been
paid. If she could just go back, she could tell them that there was no way for
them to get into Sanctuary. Besides, she liked them. Talon was cute. And when
they weren't trying to get more information out of her, well....
Emerald's thought processes jarred out of fancy... why weren't they killing
her? Her head snapped up from where she'd been dozing in a chair. There were a
few others in the room. Evidently to keep her there. Her brain was back on the
proper track, fired up and running on panic speed as she survered the room.
She had to get out.
Suddenly an alarm was raised and everyone in the room snapped to the same
amount of alert that she'd been at.
"I thought this would stop after Lusiphur was gone," she heard a grumble
behind her.
Someone had invaded this place. But how?
Mendrac sneered at the men and women who came to greet him. Like hornets
boiling out of a nest, he thought. But then he remembered that this was a
very dangerous place to be, being close to
another powerful mage- possibly more powerful than himself.
"I mean you no harm," he said. "I seek my wife. She calls herself Emerald."
Emerald screamed. She tore across the room, ripping anyone in her way to
shreds. Fleece barely escaped by throwing himself to the floor. "What the
fuck?" he muttered, raising up to watch her go. She streaked down the hall,
coming to a screeching halt in front of the mage who had stepped out of his
room. She stared, her throat flaring as she breathed quickly in fear.
"Mage..." she croaked dryly. "Please... let me go back, where I have a chance
to run." She pulled her pendant out and off her neck, stretching it out to
him. "I know enough about magic to know a focus when I see one....Give me a
fighting chance..."
Mendrac waved his hand and the advancing figures on the right flew into the
wall. "Look, I'm only here to talk, can we do that?"
"Please!" she sobbed. "I can't..."
The mage's eyes flicked over the focus and he gave a half smile. Emerald's
knees and other joints went weak, and she fell to her knees as his hand
glowed. The chain slipped through her fingers and the carved
emerald pendant fell towards the floor.
Gods, she thought. I really hate...
FMPH!!!!
Mages...
Lusiphur found himself tasting dirt. He rolled over to see Emerald on top of
him, looking dazed, but that only for a moment.
"YOU!!" she screeched "You sent me to a den of cutthroats and thieves!"
"They weren't cutthroats," Luse said icily. "They were first class assassins."
Emerald punched him. She went around for another one and he blocked.
"You're a bastard just like the rest of them," she snarled, and brought her
foot up sharply, getting free from his grasp and dancing backwards, drawing
her dagger. "I want you to meet my friend, Mr.Happy!" she screamed and darted
forward. Luse dodged backwards, but the knife sliced through the stomach of
his tunic. "Mr. Happy loves you," she laughed madly. The back stroke wold have
laid his chest open if it hadn't glanced off his chain mail shirt. He
retaliated, barehanded, across her face, the blow sent her flying. Emerald
staggered to her feet.
"Come and get me," she snarled. "Bastard. Afraid to meet your female equal?"
She darted forward and leapt into the air, over his head, and mule-kicked the
back of it, sending him back down into the mud.
Emerald landed behind him.
"Well? Come on, you meant to send me there, you knew he'd find me and I'd be
in a corner, why do you want me tortured... why?!"
"What the fuck are you talking about?" he asked, pulling his face out of the
muck. His equal, he didn't know about...but this girl was good...and pulling
him out of his depression into a killing rage. He
threw a knife...and she took it in her shoulder. Emerald looked at it in
shock.
Then she smiled and tore it out, dropping it to the ground. The short Elvin
girl turned tail and ran. Luse hesitated for only a moment and tore after her.
Mendrac tasted the air... she was gone.
Emerald's lungs burned as she ran. She knew that the slight jump from
Sanctuary to Mandratha wouldn't be enough to lose Mendrac. Her only hope was
to die before he caught her. And death by Lusiphur
seemed an easy way to die...
Lirilith's eyes widened as she watched a short strawberry blonde Elvin woman
streak by her, screaming obscenities and bleeding. Her eyes almost popped out
of her head, as a darker, and still short, though not
quite as short Elvin blur followed her.
"It couldn't be...." she said, looking at the retreating chase scene. A moment
later, she was trotting after them.
Lusiphur tackled her legs out from underneath her and they both landed in the
dirt.
"Why didn't you just shoot me?" she screamed, and spat in his face.
Luse, being slightly better endowed with brains than the average fan fiction
author... what the fuck was a fan fiction author anyway? He was starting to
think like Parintachin talked! Anyway, he came to the
conclusion that she wanted to be dead.
"There's a connection missing here," he growled.
"Oh, just figured that out, did we?" she said, sea green eyes flashing. She
stopped struggling. "Alright- I'll level with you, name's Emily Bålmi." Her
eyes glazed over and she went limp. Saying that name had
sent her into a flashback. Tears streamed down her face, hot and stinging as
they dripped off her cheeks to her chest. "Why?" she asked Mendac. "Why do you
do this?"
"Because it's fun," answered the tall mage. "Because I like it. Because you
deserve it."
"I don't!" she cried. "I don't!"
"You're pathetic," Medrac said. "Absolutely pathetic. You aren't even a decent
thief, let alone an assassin." She bit her lips till blood flowed to keep from
screaming, from laughing. She was better than he
knew.
"Absoutely pathetic, Emily.... you haven't changed."
Emerald's eyes snapped open, and she rolled over. Lusiphur was thrown against
one wall,unconscious, and Mendrac was standing over her. She scooted backward,
clawing muddy red-blond hair out of her eyes, as she ran into the alley wall.
One hand went to her bandler and a knife blank flew out across the
distance.
"Luse, you've gotta wake up!" Lusiphur kept his eyes screwed shut. He didn't
want to deal with Parintachin. But then again....
"If you don't wake up that mage out there will make what the Eye of Lins did
to you look like patty-cake!"
Luse opened his eyes, and struggled towards awarenesss.
Emerald's eyes darted this way and that, trying to think of a way out of this.
"Look, in the end, it'll hurt a lot less if you just come back," the tall
golden mage said. "Oh please,do struggle." A weak whimper rose in the back of
her throat. Emerald put her hands behind her back and
screwed her eyes shut.
"I'm not afraid of you," she choked out.
"Oh really," Menrac laughed. It was so much fun when she tried to be strong.
It gave him the opportunity to break her again. His magic manipulated the kife
and slashed her shirt open. Her chest was bare beneath it, small
underdeveloped breasts not needing support. The exposed flesh was covered in
sickly pink scars. Em whimpered. For half an instant, her eyes closed, letting
memories overtake her, and she remembered the only time she had ever seen
Mendrac hurt.
"Cursed mechanical thing!" screeched the tall blond elf, as he ruthlessly
expended magical energy to heal his shoulder. The body of the bandit lay on
its side by the road, and she sat limply on her horse. Never
had she seen such a weapon. It was a gun, she knew, but where ordinary weapons
and attacks were turned aside by his power, this one had pierced through his
defenses. He waved his bloody hand at her. "You see this? This is the only
blood you will ever see of mine." At his command, his steed rose up on its
hind legs, then came crashing down on the gun, smashing it to bits. "Because
we will never go among men and their horrid mechanical weapons again."
Emerald's eyes opened again, the memory had only taken a second, and Mendrac
had not yet advanced. She bared her teeth in a smile. "Yes! I'm not afraid of
you! I never was! Never afraid!" As Mendrac laughed, dismissing her statement,
Em scrabbled, pulling the gun from its place in the small of her back. She
whipped her arm out with the gun and smiled again.
"Not just afraid, at all. You scare the shit out of me." The gun went off.
Lusiphur woke up to Emerald's mad laughter. "He won¹t bother me any more!" she
giggled. "No more! No more!" She giggled again. "Going away." She cradled the
gun in her lap. Luse stared at her. At some point, the front of her shirt had
been torn, revealing pale flesh. And scars. A lacework of shiny burn marks and
pinkish lines and patterns that covered her completely. The little what-ever-
he-is had been right.
"Good morning, Lusiphur," she said, eyes blinking hollowly. "Run away real
fast." She raised the gun. Dangling from the hammer was a thin golden chain,
and from that, a small round emeraldpendant inscribed with a skull. Above them
someone screamed "NYAR!" Luse looked up, and Emerald was gone.
*
"Hello."
Vido turned to see a sillhouette in his window.
"I have some bad news for you."
He placed the voice- it was the assassin, Emerald. "You're going to have to go
back to trying to catch them yourself."
"What?"
"Poor man," she said in a conversational tone to herself. "He doesn't get it,
does he?...No, he doesn't, Emerald. Explain it to him."
Vido drew back against his desk.
"It was a joke from Sanctuary," she said. "I'm from there. You can try to
catch me if you like, but I don't think that's a good idea."
Vido started to stammer. "But... but...."
"I told you that there was no way you could trust me." The figure gave a groan
and fell forward onto the floor. Blood billowed out like a flower.
Vido darted forward and rolled her over.
"Poor man," she choked. "All you get is another dead assassin...." Her eyes
closed.
That's what they said in the papers. According to the papers and reports,
she'd tried to kill Vido. And he'd killed her instead. Luse snorted, and
tossed the paper into the gutter. A soft singing voice came from behind him.
"Death was only fooling, and she said, please fill my cup, I'm both dry and
drooling...."
"No...." he muttered and walked away to soft breeze-born laughter.
End......?
Poison Elves and associated characters are @ to Drew Hayes. Violators will be
subjected to bad impressions of the Purple Marauder, and fat chicks who think
they're the best Hyena in the contest.
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four