People you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley

[Voidus]

Just breathe Laurelai. She reminded herself. Slow breaths, let muscles tense and relax. Get rid of the tension.

Laurelai was actually rather proud when she managed to collect the files that Lita gestured to without her cheeks bursting into flame and without using the files to bludgeon Azim to death. It was truly a show of refinement and poise beyond what could be found in even the grandest of Scadrian ballrooms, a display of rationale and calm that would draw the envy of Teoish philosophers.

"Come Laurelai." A cool voice said as a warm hand grabbed her wrist. "Let us go and settle your debt."

The grip was firm, inexorable and felt like white-hot lightning against her skin. If it had been dragging her to her own execution Laurelai wasn't sure that she'd be able to summon even the slightest resistance against it. And indeed, given the nature of the Dark Alleys and those who lurked in them it very well might be dragging her to exactly that. But there was also a chance that Lita was dragging her to her salvation.

Damnation or salvation? Laurelai wondered. Punishment or reward? Pain or pleasure?

The Alleys had truly so many of these to offer, and often it seemed they blurred the lines between them. But it mattered not, Lita's grasp was insistent. It might have felt like Laurelai could, with a little work, pull herself free. The grip was not so tight as to cause pain, after all. But somehow she felt she was as unlikely to succeed in that contest as she would if she tried to hide from those exceptionally observant green eyes.

Instead Laurelai became intoxicated on a heady feeling of powerlessness, to know that she had no choice in the matter. She could only wait to see what fate had in store for her and pray to whatever gods might listen. That sensation of drifting without resistance was almost enough to carry her all the way back to Lita's office. But even this immensely distracting situation was not, it seemed, enough to fully focus her mind on the here and now.

Instead she recalled what Lita had said, the morsels of information that she had made a great show of divulging. She had mentioned many thing. A storm, a choice, and a god. Laurelai struggled to try to connect those threads to herself, tried to think of some connection that made sense beyond the two coins. But there was nothing, no whisper of echoed remembrance from Laurelai's own mind. But it was also impossible to imagine that the coins could simply be a coincidence.

"I don't remember a storm." Laurelai said as they arrived at the door, shaky voice cutting through the quiet of the Alleys. "But I remember rain. Quiet and gentle and dangerous as all the Alleys."

They were through the door before she could even process it, and somehow Laurelai found her hand was her own again as she stood face to face with Lita. Laurelai's breathing was ragged and her heart raced so fast it was a miracle it hadn't burst already. Radiant heat threatened to climb from her chest, up her neck and to her cheeks but it warred with the strange memory of coolness that Laurelai was struggling to hold onto.

"I remember whispers and promises." Laurelai said, so close now that she could count each lash. "Promises to break my mind and fill it with secrets."

Laurelai let her eyelids flutter closed and almost she could hear those whispers still, promising that if only she could find their source she could have everything that she wanted again.

"I remember a need so strong that I would gladly have died of thirst rather than risk leaving it unsated." Laurelai's voice moved faster as the memories came quicker. "I remember a pool, a cave, a plant that glows, a woman with..."

She opened her eyes again to meet Lita's. Green eyes, the exact green eyes that she had just been remembering. Was she going mad? Her current reality and the hazy memories seemed to blur together, all tied with that same desperate need to do... something. Something that she couldn't remember even now. She would scream in frustration but knew already that it would bring no catharsis. Her tension rose with every breath, and as her breathing accelerated so had her slide into insanity.

@ZincAboutIt

[+ZincAboutIt she/her]

They took the long way back to Lita’s office, ostensibly because Laurelai was in no shape to Alleytravel. But in truth, Lita simply enjoyed towing Laurelai alongside her. She watched the blonde drift like a kite, blue eyes fixed on a point far away, fevered and drunken.

Lita kept her hand on Laurelai’s wrist as they walked, feeling the staccato beat of her pulse against the tips of her fingers. Tin burned comfortably in her stomach, and as Lita neared the door of her office she allowed herself to revel in the feeling. She could almost taste the need in the air, could almost hear Laurelai slowly fracture. Lita grinned, and it was sharp, and cruel, and beautiful. 

“I don't remember a storm." Laurelai said, speaking at last as they stood before the door. "But I remember rain. Quiet and gentle and dangerous as all the Alleys."

Lita unlocked the door, and Laurelai’s words dripped in through her ears, collecting until they fell like fat drops of ink into the water of her memory.

Rain, rain falling hundreds of feet below the earth. The smell of wet stone, the crunch of powdery dust beneath her feet. And the reflection of blue light off the walls of a narrow grotto.

Lita closed the door, sliding the lock with more force than strictly necessary as the strange phantom memory began to move out of the shadow of her mind. She dropped Laurelai’s hand, turning to look at her, and though Laurelai’s eyes were fixed on her face Lita knew that she wasn’t truly seeing her - she was seeing something else. 

And Lita could see it too. Laurelai continued to speak, her words conjuring more than a vague imagining in Lita’s mind. She was there. She heard that whispered beckoning, the screaming danger warring with a powerful urge to step forward, to reach out. To take and be taken in return. An urge stronger even than hunger - a deep and rending thirst.

Laurelai’s breath was coming ragged now, her eyes closed but flicking back and forth beneath her eyelids as though she were in a dream. Or a nightmare.

Lita moved closer, the slightest hint of unease seeming only to amplify the searing heat of her mood. Here was a secret to tease out expertly, a loose thread that had so willingly laid itself in Lita’s hand. If she pulled slowly and carefully enough, could Lita follow it back to its source? These aberrant memories, the flashes of deja vu, the secret department - it was all connected, she could feel it. The lure of that secret stoked the familiar heat of anticipation. Lita wanted to taste it. She needed Laurelai to keep talking.

“Do you know the first rule of interrogation, Laurelai?” Lita brushed a stray lock of silvery-blonde hair back behind Laurelai’s ear, letting her finger trace down the back and along the edge of Laurelai’s jaw. “After all, not everyone is so generous with their secrets as I am.”

”Sometimes,” Lita continued, moving behind Laurelai now, sweeping her long curtain of hair over her opposite shoulder to expose the pale, graceful expanse of her neck, “you will need to be extra persuasive.”

Lita was grateful for the height of her heels, which made them nearly on equal footing. Her mouth reached just perfectly to the hollow curve behind Laurelai’s ear.

”The first rule,” Lita whispered, “is to learn what someone wants. And only when they have given you all the information you require do you let them have it.”

Lita allowed her lips to just barely graze the curve of Laurelai’s neck where it met her shoulder, her skin intoxicatingly soft to Lita’s tin-enhanced senses. Lita felt herself falling into the sensation and pulled back on the reigns of her own wants. A novice rushed a job; an expert took her time. Laurelai was a thread worth winding around each one of her fingers until she finally snapped.

”Let us have a practical lesson, you and I,” Lita said, sliding back into Laurelai’s field of vision. The young woman’s eyes were half-lidded and dark with yearning. Lita leaned forward until only the barest fraction of an inch separated them. “Tell me everything you see in your memories, Laurelai, and then I’ll give you exactly what you want.”

@Voidus

[Voidus]

“Tell me everything you see in your memories, Laurelai, and then I’ll give you exactly what you want.”

The words were honeyed ambrosia to Laurelai in this moment. The jumble of memory, sensations and hunger were all tangled in a colossal ball of tension, she had no way to pick one thread to pull out without unravelling the entire thing. But that didn't matter now, she didn't need to carefully untangle her own wants anymore, all she had to do was remember and leave the rest to Lita.

She let out one slow, shaky breath before her eyes opened again, no longer seeing the room, no longer seeing Lita. Distantly she could still feel the gentle glide of skin against skin but she could focus now and simply let that sensation wash over her.

"A cave." She said, voice a little hoarse but strangely calm. "Under the city, there was a tunnel with strange glowing plants that drank Stormlight. Then darkness, and a sound from up ahead. Water falling, whispering. A beautiful pool that could tell you all the worlds secrets. Someone..."

Her voice faltering for the first time, the vision swam for a moment before she regained focus.

"You." Laurelai corrected. "Were there too, and you walked to the pool but it was whispering to me and telling me to take it instead. So I.. I reached out and pulled you away, and then the pool whispered more. Told me everything, everything there was to know."

And then her mind had cracked, been emptied and then refilled in an instant. Then she had finally had everything that she ever wanted, gentle droplets bringing her more and more knowledge and secrets to sate the gnawing pit in her chest. Everything else faded, and all that was left was the pool. Food was a distant thought, friendship she'd surely never had, sleep a distant memory. Even breathing seemed unimportant.

In a blink she was back in Lita's office, the floor underneath her was polished wood instead of rough stone. And the air was warm and so gentle it felt like it melted into her skin, rather than cool and refreshing. But her mind was the same, still a jumbled mess trying to make sense of the information, still struggling and moving so glacially slowly. The light around her periphery still grew darker and darker and the gnawing in her chest was now being replaced with another burning sensation, another need but whatever it was was far less important than the pool was, she could safely ignore it, even if it seemed to be causing the world to slowly constrict tighter and tighter around her until all she could see was a pair of green eyes holding her in their gaze.

@ZincAboutIt

[+ZincAboutIt she/her]

Lita saw the cave, the memory painting itself over her eyes almost before Laurelai spoke. She saw the tunnel, the strange glowing plants, the sheer drop into endless darkness. They had followed her hearing - tin had let her pick up the faintest echo of falling water.

“ — and you walked to the pool but it was whispering to me and telling me to take it instead. So I.. I reached out and pulled you away, and then the pool whispered more. Told me everything, everything there was to know."

No, Lita’s mind murmured. No, that isn’t right. She had stepped in first; she had nearly fallen in, her foot sliding backwards into the pool to balance herself, and the water had poured down over her head in terrible, glorious rivulets. Time stopped, the world itself stopped what it was doing and slid through the cracks between Lita’s atoms, flooding her with all that she could ever wish to know.

The memory folded and shifted, and then Lita saw Laurelai’s pale face tilted upward in rapture, almost worship, as that same cool blue water trickled over her cheeks like tears. Then it faded, and Lita caught the moment when Laurelai resurfaced from her reverie.

The implications of this, a shared phantom memory of the same event, were not lost on Lita. So many new threads to follow, so many complex knots to pull and untangle and slice. New secrets to hunt. But just now, Lita felt her hunger focus on much closer prey. A loose thread that Lita had already begun to unravel. It was time to pull a little harder, now.

”Thank you, Laurelai,” Lita said, voice soft as smoke, hot as fire. “And for your reward…”

Lita let one hand trail down the plane of Laurelai’s abdomen, fingertips pressing into skin through soft silk. She stoked her tin to climb a bit higher, letting her catch the racing beat of Laurelai’s pulse where it fluttered against the thin, soft skin of her neck. Lita wanted to lean forward, to close the distance and feel that softness, that urgent thrum, against her mouth.

And so she did.

@Voidus

[Voidus]

Her body barely even felt like her own as Laurelai straightened the neckline of her Havah, using the mirror in Lita's office to confirm that her former disheveled appearance had been returned to a properly calm demeanor and dress. Neither clothing nor her mind were twisted about themselves any longer, and she was able to regain a measure of control over herself and her surroundings. Enough to finally quash that incessant urge that had been digging at her mind for days.

The quiet calm however, would be wasted if she simply sat here adjusting her appearance. Not for the first time in her life she wished there were a quicker way to make herself presentable after waking or... other activities. But now there was another problem to deal with, her mind was clear enough to actually focus now, which meant she could pay attention to an entire file and work her way through an investigation rather than just trying to devour every piece of knowledge she could. So now she would need to systematically work through all that they could, her own knowledge, what she had gleaned from Forging herself and the files from the department of Records.

"Do you mind if I write down what you said?" Laurelai asked Lita.

She looked up to address her, and ten almost immediately looked away again with a warm pink colouring her face. Rusts what had Laurelai been thinking? This had been such a terrible idea. She was going to need to look Lita in the face every day for as long as she worked here, and every time she was going to remember this. Laurelai wasn't entirely sure what had been happening to her, though it seemed the pool in her flashes of memory had something to do with it. But whatever it was had certainly wound her so tightly that she'd abandoned any semblance of rational planning.

"About the memories." She clamored, trying to cover her embarrassment. "Just to help piece everything together it would help if I could lay things out."

@ZincAboutIt

[+ZincAboutIt she/her]

The room was quiet as Lita sat at her desk and lazily re-plaited her hair, watching Laurelai fidget and fuss with the buttons of her Havah. The heat in her blood had waned, the incessant voice urging her take, to claim, to unravel, had fallen silent. But the echo of that golden thrill still simmered pleasantly beneath the surface. 

“Do you mind if I write down what you said?”

Lita quirked a single auburn brow at Laurelai’s question, but it seemed that the blonde had already realized how it had sounded.

”About the memories.”

Lita let a little smile spread over her lips. “You may write down whatever you like. I daresay you’ll have a sudden increased interest in research should you write down everything I said. The Department of Records could use a bit of livening up.”

She tied off her braid and stood, and if perhaps her steps over to the bar were a bit wobbly and tremulous, well. What of it? Laurelai had a right to take note of her own skill just as much as Lita herself. Lita poured two small glasses of deep, ruby port, setting one on Laurelai’s side of the desk and sipping her own. Then she tapped the file.

”I realize I emphasized work before play earlier today, and I have quite perjured myself. But we have played…” Lita allowed one slow look over her newest acolyte, “and so now must work. The fate of Mr. Darsen rests entirely on what we might discover in this record. His interrogation is unlikely to be as pleasant as ours. Now we shall see exactly to what degree it will be unpleasant.”

@Voidus

[Voidus]

Laurelai gratefully took the glass both to have something to hide behind and to help steady her nerves. And perhaps the flush in her cheeks could be mistaken for one of light inebriation rather than embarrassment. Of course it certainly didn't hurt that it was absolutely delicious, sweet on the tongue and warm as it went down. A different warm burning sensation to replace the one she had been feeling earlier.

She gave a wry smile at Lita's suggestion that she liven up the department of Records with a salacious transcription. The place had certainly seemed like it could do with a little levity, though Laurelai was also sure that she would be very irritated herself if she'd been studying there and someone tried to bring that levity to a place of study.

”I realize I emphasized work before play earlier today, and I have quite perjured myself. But we have played…” Lita said, giving Laurelai a look that sent the blush in her cheeks all the way down her neck again

Focus Laurelai. The voice in the back of her head reminded her. No time to get distracted again. You're finally feeling clearer again don't go and waste that effort.

Laurelai managed to pull her focus back just in time to catch the rest of what Lita said, grateful that the momentary embarrassment had been neither as long lived nor as powerful as the earlier stress that had been pulling her slowly in the direction of complete madness. This was simply a light distraction, and she was more than accustomed to having to work through those. With practiced movements she pulled paper and pen and set to writing, noting all the major points that they had covered, with small lines and succinct explanations linking each.

"Well I hope for Mr. Darsen's sake that we are able to find something fruitful." Laurelai said, one hand pulling over a section of the file to open and read as she writes with the other. "And for my own as well. If we're forced to stay here all night I can't promise I can resist depleting your stores of fine port."

@ZincAboutIt

[+ZincAboutIt she/her]

Lita slid open a drawer in her desk and removed a file of her own, settling down to read opposite Laurelai. As she did so, she waved an errant hand.

”Port is for drinking, preferably with fine company and definitely during the small hours of night. It is not so terrible a fate to consider.”

The words carried an echo of her earlier hunger, but it was faint and cool, more affectation than seduction. Repartee for its own sake - simple, pleasant. She had meant her earlier statement; it was time to get to work, and she quickly lost herself in the web of secrets and whispers surrounding the strange goings-on in the city. Her city. 

She added thread after thread to the growing pile in her hands, so many now, all overlapping and crossing and weaving through one another. Some led off into nothing. And some, she knew, were even tied to her own wrists. Something was playing an entirely different kind of game with them all - even the Dark Alley. 

Her eyes fell to the slender, silver blade that still lay atop the desk, it’s wicked edge catching the ember light glowing in the fireplace. Its presence might have felt reassuring, if it didn’t come with its own list of questions. Still, she could use every weapon at her disposal. And she would likely have to, if her opponent was something - or someone - that could move the entire Dark Alley like a game piece.

Lita took another sip of port, savoring the sweetness, and continued to read.

@Voidus

[Voidus]

Some time later

Laurelai collapsed into the chair of Lita's office. It had been a long day, filled with... many interesting events that she had not anticipated when she first woke up that morning. Reading through the reports had yielded only a little information, the more detailed had been retrieved from the interrogation. For a moment her mind flashed back to that room, of Lita standing over him wearing a smile that could have been either cruel or seductive depending on how someone looked at it...

She shook her head to dismiss the thought. This was no time for distractions, she needed to focus on what they'd learned, not the way Lita had looked when she...

"So." Laurelai said, breaking herself free from a mental loop. "That was certainly... informative. I'm learning quite a bit about interrogations today it seems. Though that one was quite different."

She gave a brief grin at that, testing the waters. She had hoped that the earlier 'interrogation' would help her think more clearly, and it had, but she was still unsure if it would change anything. How did Lita handle that kind of interaction? Would she try to tuck Laurelai away somewhere unseen now that she'd had her fun? Keep her around as a new favourite? Or could she seperate work matters from personal?

So many questions to answer, but more pressing were those that had arisen from the interrogation.

"A hidden department in the DA." Laurelai continued, smile turning into a concerned frown. "What do you make of it?"

@ZincAboutIt

[+ZincAboutIt she/her]

Lita looked up from the open dossier, her mind taking a moment to register Laurelai’s words before she gave a small smile. 

“Yes, rather different. The underlying theory is the same. The practical application is where any number of deviations can occur.”

She marked her page and closed the file, letting out a small sigh. “As for the hidden department… I’m not entirely surprised. There have been odd reports from the entire city for weeks now, and I’ve had a few from within the DA as well. Up till now I’ve dismissed it largely as simple mental fracture among denizens. It’s not uncommon -playing around with too much hemalurgy will do that. But this is too coincidental to ignore. Now if only that rusting girl would get back to me…”

She frowned, tapping the end of a pen against the tabletop for a moment. 

“I will have to think on what to do about this. And I should like you to think on it too.”

She flicked green eyes upward, meeting Laurelai’s.

”And I should also like it if you told me the truth about that cavern with the waterfall. Because I remember it as well, and I definitely went under it first.”

@Voidus

[Voidus]

Laurelai raised a curious brow at the mention of 'that rusting girl' but did not push the question. Doubtless Lita would tell her the things that she needed to know and keep that which she did not. At the end of the day, despite what had happened earlier that day, they were coworkers, not friends. Lita was her boss, not her confidant.

A piercing pain struck her temple and she almost missed Lita's final request, Laurelai needed to blink and look back to the redhead, suppressing a wince, to make sense of the words that she had heard but not quite processed.

"The cavern?" Laurelai asked, trying to jog her own, foggy memories. "It was... you went..."

Like a dam bursting they flooded into her again, a wash of perfect calming blue droplets giving her clarity. She remembered saying something to Lita, a warning, right before... right before she slipped on a lip in the stone and stepped into the pool, Laurelai had watched horrified as the redhead had moved under the waters only to be carried to the other side by momentum.

The piercing headache returned and Laurelai felt that crystal clarity fracture into pieces. Laurelai had been bold, not horrified, and she had grabbed Lita back out of the waters. No, Laurelai had been jealous and pushed Lita out of the way to take her place. Or had it been haughty and she'd chuckled as Lita tripped her way through the pool? Laurelai had been angry. Sad. Alone. Scared. Obstinate. Proud. Meek. Overconfident.

"You went in and then... I went.. no, there alone? Fighting?" Laurelai murmured, trying to answer the question and sort through a cascade of memories that assaulted her simultaneously. Her eyes shut as even the dim office light felt suddenly piercingly bright. "Tripped... stepped... pushed..."

The pain reached a peak, piercing through the entire core of her being, some aching hole where something was supposed to be but wasn't. Something fundamentally important that she'd lost. But after reaching that white-hot peak, the pain began to slowly subside again, taking the memories with it.

"I... apologize." Laurelai said, realizing she'd been hunched over and straightening immediately. Opening her eyes to look Lita in the face even as the light still burned a hole in her brain. "It seems my memories aren't entirely clear still, perhaps some difference in how quickly they return?"

Even as she apologized, Laurelai felt that pain in her head be replaced with twin aching needs. One, the cause of the headache, that she still wasn't sure about, and the other... that pool. If she just found that pool again she would have everything she needed. She would have all the answers at last.

@ZincAboutIt

[+ZincAboutIt she/her]

Lita was not ready for the panic that seized her at the sight of Laurelai hunched forward in pain. It reached out with icy fingers and gripped her heart, squeezing hard, and she was out of her chair before she knew what was happening, reaching across the desk.

This was Laurelai, her friend, her closest ally, her confidant and comforter. What was she doing sitting opposite and unfamiliar? Why wasn’t she already at her side, checking to make sure she was alright? She felt a moment of deep confusion at their encounter earlier in the day - she had never felt that way toward Laurelai before, had she? 

Lita blinked, and the world slid like quicksilver beneath her feet in a moment of brutal vertigo. Lita was the Head of the Department of Counter Intelligence. No, she was just an agent, just a spy - a denizen with tin and brass and pewter and - 

No, not pewter. Copper. Copper of course, Mac had given her copper to remember, a perfectly logical spike. What would she do with pewter? Copper is…

Copper. A copper ring she hadn’t seen all day. Some creeping horror lurked behind Lita’s conscious mind and breathed cold dread down her neck as total nightmare overtook her for a moment. Laurelai was not wearing her copper ring. Her Laurelai. The real one. The one who was inside that ring.

“I…apologize,” Laurelai said.

Lita stopped, hand outstretched for Laurelai’s fingers, and blinked. What was she doing? What had she been so worried over that she was leaning halfway across the desk like a fool, simply due to an acolyte’s slight headache?

”Please,” Lita said, her voice eerily steady and soft in her own ears, juxtaposed wildly with her racing heart. “You have no need to apologize. Dealing with memory is a delicate and finicky art even for those experienced in the field. Take your time.”

She sat again, hoping Laurelai had not caught her own odd behavior, and rubbed at one temple. Her eyes kept straying to Laurelai’s hand - though what she was looking for, Lita could not say. After all, her hand was bare. There was nothing to see.

@Voidus

[Voidus]

It took Laurelai a moment of blinking through the pain before her vision cleared and Lita's face resolved into sharp focus. She didn't seem overly concerned, though she had been staring oddly at Laurelai's hand rather than her head. Likely in an organization such as this Lita could scarcely afford to care about a subordinate being suddenly wracked with pain, the woman had likely seen and administered enough of it to numb her completely.

"Thank you." Laurelai replied, voice slowly steadying. "I... don't quite know what to make of it. Like dozens of images all-"

She cut off as another flash of images set her head to aching. And along with the pain every flash reignited that sense of need just a little brighter. But now instead of a sourceless, unsatisfiable impulse, Laurelai knew exactly what she needed. She hoped that would make it easier to manage, but hope is a fragile thing, easily shattered.

"Apologies." Laurelai repeated, forcing herself not to close her eyes again or look away. "It feels very strange... like a bad Forgery almost where the memories can't quite snap into place correctly."

That was impossible of course, such a poor Forgery would not last long enough to matter. Or at least, not if she was its intended recipient. But whatever it was, Laurelai struggled to understand the intention of it. Was someone trying to have her and Lita visit this... cavern? Likely to spring a trap, but then someone capable of implanting memories and impulses into them surely had an easier method of either entrapping or killing her than this. More likely Lita would be the intended target, Laurelai just an unfortunate piece of collateral.

She rubbed her hand a little nervously as she saw Lita's glance drift there again. Laurelai hadn't noticed any residue from the copper on her finger but perhaps Lita's keener senses could. Still, it hardly seemed worthy of being stared at like this, even if copper was certainly not her colour.

@ZincAboutIt

[+ZincAboutIt she/her]

“Apologies. It feels very strange... like a bad Forgery almost where the memories can't quite snap into place correctly."

Lita tore her eyes away from Laurelai’s hand at those words, resolving her face into a cool, attentive mask. Something about that suggestion tickled the back of her neck, but she put it away.

”I will write down my entire memory of the cavern. Then you should cross-reference it with your own memory. This is important, and if we both remember it, then… I don’t know. Perhaps it’s actually real. I will look into my own records.”

Lita sighed, very suddenly feeling the weight of the day. She longed to lay down to sleep, close her eyes, and forget the strangeness for a few hours. 

“You may go home, Laurelai. Get some rest. Our tasks await us on the morrow. And the next day. And the next… Perhaps I have pushed both of us too far today. Sometimes I can be a bit… relentless.”

The faintest smirk flirted over her mouth before she sighed again, sliding another file out of a drawer and flipping it open. “You did well today; I’m impressed. But everyone needs respite. I shall see you back in the morning.”

She could not help but look at Laurelai’s hand one more time as she spoke, a hollow feeling deepening in her gut. 

What is the matter with you, Lita?

Sleep. She just needed sleep. And some wine. Possibly a lot of wine. Very certainly a lot of wine, actually.

@Voidus

[Voidus]

Laurelai returned Lita's smirk, though with some hesitancy underpinning her satisfaction, and below even that hesitancy she felt the weight of exhaustion pulling at her. The momentary flashes of pain kept it somewhat at bay but Lita was certainly correct that she needed some respite if she hoped to still be useful come the morning. Laurelai had seen spikes that allowed one to remain conscious almost indefinitely if the R&D denizen was to be believed, but she had not received one yet. Nor was she sure that she'd accept one if offered, there was nothing quite so marvelous as a hot shower and a warm bed at the end of the day. Or maybe a cooler shower to help clear her mind.

"Of course, thank you." Laurelai replied, giving a small respectful bob of the head. "I'll compile a report of any differences I notice promptly. And I'll be sure to note what I can down once my head clears up a little, I'm sure some rest will do the trick."

She gave a polite smile and another nod, cutting herself off before she lapsed into needless small talk. Lita surely had more on her mind than such trivialities with a new employee, and Laurelai was already looking forward to that shower. She could almost feel it already, gentle water cascading on her head and back, bringing calm with it.

"Until tomorrow." She said, moving to the door and stepping into the cool air of the Alleys.

She spared one final look through the closing door for the tired redhead, something twinging in Laurelai's mind again at the sight and sending a lance of pain through her. Taking the hint, Laurelai closed the door and moved through the shortest route she could find back home.

@ZincAboutIt

[kenod]

At night, while the two of them slept, a small fox crept through the night. When it arrived at Lita's place it fell apart into thin vines which crept under the door, until finally materializing back into a fox in her room. Similar vines appeared, weaving themselves into a sealed letter. Nodding to itself, it then departed again the same way.

An hour later the same fox appeared outside Laurelai's place, entering the same way, again leaving a sealed letter. Both letters bore a white seal, with an impression of a small, three-tailed fox.

When the letters would be opened they'd both show the same message: If thou seeks enlightenment, follow the three-tailed fox.

@ZincAboutIt@Voidus

[Chaoslink]

Amethyst did not think. He just did as MIND told him to do. MIND always knew what was right. MIND could guide him. And so he followed. Actually, MIND wasn´t the only living piece of neurons in his head. There was this other part that sometimes had a little discussion with MIND. This piece... it knew what had happened. It knew what he was doing now, and it did not like it. But MIND said what he needed to do and so he did. There was one thing Amethyst knew for certain: MIND wanted him to acquire a weapon more potent. A shardblade. And for that he needed him to join... the Dark Alley, even though he knew nothing about so called "Hemalurgy". And cookies. So now he stood in front of the door of the Guild House, and knocked.

[MacThorstenson he/him]

Ives was resting in a building deep in the alleys, paused from his daily hunt, when suddenly a door that wasn't quite there before rattled with several knocks. Mysteries, bysteries, lysteries, lysterine. Listerine, that would be nice. I could use some Listerine, he half mumbled half thought to himself. Carefully he moved to the new door, grabbing his serrated cleaver he had been using earlier, the only sound he made was a brief grunt as the spikes that lined the inside of his grinning metal mask slid into his face, securing it. Yeah, I could use some Listerine. Wait, no I couldn't. Listerine blistering. I'm allergic to it. No Listerine for me unless I stop listening to me.

There were no windows or glass on his side of the building, and he had no way to know where this door went to. Eyes, no matter how many of them you had, routinely had difficulty seeing through doors. He stood behind the door and after a deep breath, he opened it a crack. On the other side there simply was a person, and the sun. Now that, that was odd. The sun wasn't usually in the alleys. They kept it in the physical realm for most things after all. Almost unaware of the person, he stepped out of the door, staring at the sky. Yeah, this definitely seems to be the Alleycity. But why would the door, ooh- knocks.

He started half muttering half thinking a rhyming verse as he tried to process the fact that he wasn't in the alleys, and quite suddenly too, Knocks and blocks and blocks and knocks, with no more knocks we see the blocks, with all the blocks we need more knocks so when the knocking starts, the blocking stops. 

Ives turned back toward the person, and with the spoken words feeling almost foreign in his mouth he asked "Are you uh, the one who knocked on the door thingy there?" 

@Chaoslink

Edited September 17, 2022 by MacThorstenson

[Chaoslink]

Someone opened the door. The… man? thing? Amethyst didn’t know. He (or maybe it?) asked him:  "Are you uh, the one who knocked on the door thingy there?" Amethyst answered: „Yes, that was me. I want to join the Dark Alley. We will both benefit from it.“

@MacThorstenson

[Voidus]

Laurelai sat up in bed as the early morning light hit her, rubbing her temples. The headaches had been getting worse each day, starting in the mornings and only becoming exacerbated as the day wore on. Likely just the strain of pouring over records and paperwork looking for information and discrepancies, though she had never experienced similar headaches when she worked at the hospital.

Shaking her head, she stood with a groan and headed immediately to the shower. It always helped to ease the pain, but less and less each day it felt. The cool water hitting the top of Laurelai's head send a pleasurable shiver down her spine as she stood there, letting the water cascade down blonde lengths and cling against her skin. It took the edge off, even as it brought about a series of new, flashing images into her mind. Each image was, again, a different version of the same scene. A different Laurelai. Only a few things were consistent across them all, those things felt... important somehow. More real than the rest perhaps. But she still couldn't quite make sense of them. Why did her name feel important? Or the fact that she and Lita had always arrived at the Chapel because of the DA?

With a disappointed sigh, Laurelai turned the tap, halting the flow of water and provoking a sharp, burning pain behind her eyes almost immediately. But the shower was only barely helping now. Every time all she could think of was how lacking it was in comparison. Of how little comfort these mundane waters provided. Of how much she needed to find the Chapel again and sit underneath those droplets forever, finally comfortable.

Laurelai practiced smiling as she towled herself dry and began to dress for the day. She had started doing so days ago in the hopes that she could at least perfect her facade enough that it would be less obvious how tense she was beneath it. Laurelai didn't precisely regret her emotional snap and subsequent burst of poor judgement the other day, but it would not be professional to repeat it. And unlike then, Laurelai now knew precisely what she needed to do. All she needed was to find the Chapel, and everything would be right again. It would help her, calm her, tell her what she needed to know with a whisper more intimate than that of any lover.

"Blue today." She muttered as she picked a dress for herself. "Something Scadrian perhaps. Nothing unprofessional about dressing to impress after all."

She had just slipped into the fine exported Elendel silk when she glanced at her bedside table for the first time that morning, spotting a letter sealed with white wax and her name written atop it. A letter that had most certainly not been there when Laurelai went to sleep last night.

A trap? She mused, examining the letter from a distance. But if it was placed while I was sleeping that seems an inefficient way to cause harm. So the most interesting kind of trap then, the kind of poison that is also sweet honey. Information.

Pulling a pair of gloves on just to be safe, Laurelai snagged the letter, leaving the wax sealed as she left the house swiftly and began her morning commute into the Alleys.

@ZincAboutIt@kenod

[MacThorstenson he/him]

On 9/18/2022 at 11:02 AM, Chaoslink said:

Someone opened the door. The… man? thing? Amethyst didn’t know. He (or maybe it?) asked him:  "Are you uh, the one who knocked on the door thingy there?" Amethyst answered: „Yes, that was me. I want to join the Dark Alley. We will both benefit from it.“

@MacThorstenson

„Yes, that was me. I want to join the Dark Alley. We will both benefit from it.“

"Heh"  Ives muttered, the Dark Alleys would benefit from him joining? That was, in fact, a bold claim. "Well then, I suppose they would want me to do some form of job interview." Thinking back to his own hiring he remembered something about it not being outside and something or other with spikes? Ehh the specifics probably weren't important. "Come inside I suppose," He said over his shoulder as he made his way to the shadowy alley next to the bakery, as opposed to the front door. "Don't lag too far behind. Don't worry about where we are going. Don't make eye contact with things in here, and don't eat the cookies until we get you all spiked up. "And as an afterthought, he added "Also probably don't look up. Like eyes level with the horizon or down toward the ground."

With that, he disappeared into the darkness, while shouting "So what makes you think you're qualified for this position? Also how did you hear about us I thought we were covert?" over his shoulder.

[Chaoslink]

What in Damnation is this guy?, Amethyst thought. But then, who am I to judge over mental illnesses.  The man asked him: “So what makes you think you're qualified for this position? Also how did you hear about us I thought we were covert?" 
“So, for the first question, I am an assassin. That is something you can always use. But I am not only an assassin, but also a melee weapon expert. And also, I have some strengths that I will tell you, when you take me into the Guild. As to the second one, seems like it’s useful to kill some citizens.”

@MacThorstenson

[MacThorstenson he/him]

On 9/23/2022 at 1:07 AM, Chaoslink said:

What in Damnation is this guy?, Amethyst thought. But then, who am I to judge over mental illnesses.  The man asked him: “So what makes you think you're qualified for this position? Also how did you hear about us I thought we were covert?" 
“So, for the first question, I am an assassin. That is something you can always use. But I am not only an assassin, but also a melee weapon expert. And also, I have some strengths that I will tell you, when you take me into the Guild. As to the second one, seems like it’s useful to kill some citizens.”

@MacThorstenson

As the sounds of the city disappeared, the walls of the alleys stretched up toward the ever present void. Ives turned his attention away from the sweet smells of bakeries and blood, refocusing on his new friend. 

“So, for the first question, I am an assassin. That is something you can always use. But I am not only an assassin, but also a melee weapon expert. And also, I have some strengths that I will tell you, when you take me into the Guild. As to the second one, seems like it’s useful to kill some citizens.” The self proclaimed assassin said.

"An assassin? Why would we need to kill people and let their beautiful spirits fade off into the beyond? No no no NO NO," he cried "we need their souls in spikes you two eyed imbecile!"  He paused briefly, then spun around with narrow eyes, "But you can use a sword right?" Continuing slowly, he reasoned "A sword is like a spike, and spiking is good. Seems good to me." With that he resumed his fast pace, sparing only the barest of glances to ensure that his new friend knew which way to follow him.

"As for being inside the guild, well, where do you think we are?"  He glanced over his shoulder, gesturing down the infinite expanse of cinderblocks and downspouts that made up this particular alley. Their endless repetition broken up only by the occasional door or T-junction.

He led the way to one of the few doors that lined the empty alley, and opened it, revealing a bloodied room with an operating table in the center. Stepping over a corpse, Ives grabbed an instructional book off of the wall. It seemed to be missing several pages, but there were enough of them that he was reasonably sure he could place the loyalty spikes in. 

"When you're ready, step inside and I'll give you the loyalty spikes, then I'll run you over to acquisitions where they can give you paperwork and alley travel trainings, unless you have more questions that is."

[+ZincAboutIt she/her]

Lita had already been at her desk for the better part of an hour when Laurelai arrived, bearing a sealed letter in a pair of gloved hands. She took notice of the blonde’s blue dress - something cut closer to what Lita had once worn back in Elendel than anything she favored now. It was rather fetching on her, which Laurelai doubtless knew already. Lita let her eyes flick up and down the woman’s statuesque form approvingly, obviously enough that someone not burning tin would notice. The outfit was a calculated move, though perhaps riskier than Laurelai knew. Lita was not overly nostalgic for Elendel, but she did appreciate subtle cunning. And she also appreciated that shade of blue against Laurelai’s skin.

”If thou seek enlightenment,” Lita read aloud from her own letter, “follow the three-tailed fox.”

She had found the letter on her nightstand when she’d awoken - from a nightmare, this time. The dichotomy of dreams was beginning to take its toll on her; some mornings she would wake in such blissful satisfaction she’d swear she hadn’t spent the night alone. Other times she was plagued with a sense of deep horror and confusion, a sense of wrongness so profound and physical that she’d actually been ill over the side of her bed, feeling as though she was trying to see through two sets of eyes at once. Both of them her, but only one surviving whatever was coming. 

The letter was a welcome distraction, though how anything had slipped through the warding on her chamber door was a mystery all its own. She’d taken it to R&D - they loved opening strange mail - and when it hadn’t killed any of the interns or the lead researcher Lita had felt comfortable taking it back herself.

She slid the wax seal, which she’d cracked off with a thumbnail, off her desk and held it up to Laurelai.

”This being said fox rendered in wax form, I imagine. We can take your letter down to R&D as well, or you can just open it. I’m eager to compare notes. And then we will need to conduct a bit of a fox hunt, I should think.”

@Voidus @kenod

[Voidus]

"Placed while I was sleeping." Laurelai said, frowning at her own letter. "On my nightstand. I thought it best to be prudent but if whoever placed it wished harm there were certainly easier methods."

Hesitating only a moment before unsealing the wax with a careful flick of her fingers, Laurelai unfolded the letter to read for herself, finding an identical text to that which Lita had read out. She sat opposite the redheaded woman and placed the letter on the table, one gloved hand swivelling it to be easily read.

"Do you know if anyone else received one?" Laurelai asked cautiously. "Just that, 'enlightenment' sounds like it could be those waters. But who could have overheard that?"

She resisted the urge to scan the office nervously for eavesdroppers. Certainly Lita would do a better job at detecting any than Laurelai could ever hope to do herself. But if not then how had someone known? Or was this indeed something more widespread, something that only seemed relevant to their recent revelations? These were the first two thoughts that had presented themselves to Laurelai on her walk through the Alleys this morning but there was one even more disturbing than an unseeable eavesdropper in Lita's office. 

Someone who has already found the Chapel and entered it. A voice whispered from the back of her mind. Someone who could know everything you do, everything you have done. Every secret moment of your life.

She was not quite able to suppress the slight shiver down her spine at the thought. When engaging in a war of words with someone two things were key, presentation and information. Laurelai rarely felt someone gain the better of her in the former department, barring very tense circumstances, but someone entering a conversation with more knowledge than you was always dangerous. Someone who already knew exactly what to offer you, what to tempt you with, was terrifying indeed.

"I don't believe I spotted any foxes on the way here. Except on the sign for the goldfox tavern, but that one had only a single tail." She continued, speaking more to direct her thoughts away from the prospect than any real need to convey information.

 

@ZincAboutIt @kenod