Yeah. But I've got to run a few things by you first.
[Karlach smiles, and commences a walk. Her tail swishes and flicks behind the pair as they go, and she glances around at the store fronts, the empty streets and topped up waste bins.]
Kind of a shite place, isn't it? This town. How did you find it?
[she tries to sort through her memories to find a good explanation for that. the answers don't add up to something that makes much sense, but on the other hand, she can't seem to care about that.]
I think a friend is from here. [except] And I think I grew up here. [she has never really talked to karlach about her past before, about her childhood. how could she have? she doesn't have one.] It was a rather shit place for it, I agree.
I'm glad to see you, you know. [actually, how much did she ever really talk to karlach about anything? she helped her with dammon, she listened to her, sometimes, or at least, found when there was a debate over what to do, what decision to make, she often couldn't bear to make that one that would make karlach disappointed in her, and following that instinct seems to have led her in the right direction. she told her once, offhand, that her favorite flower was a night orchid, and then more than a week later, when they were in the middle of wandering the shadow cursed lands and dealing with death and corpses all around, abruptly, she gave her one, told her she found it and thought of her. it was a purely friendly gesture and a small one at that, but it meant so, so absurdly much at the time.
We don't have time to stop and help everyone. I can't right every wrong the world over. Especially not here.
[an old argument, and one she doesn't even make with much force. their lives became a ticking clock, and she always felt she had to be the one to say so. to point out the stupidity in it. just because a little girl was missing. just because a farmer lost his last memory of his wife. just because the dog waiting by his owner's body will starve. just because a band of refugees pooled what little they had between them and asked. harder to explain what she was and wasn't supposed to do, but straightforward, logical, to just say no. it doesn't concern her. it isn't her responsibility. they don't have time.
karlach's ticking clock ticks a lot more forcefully than hers, so the argument doesn't work on her. she wins, has already won, won because the first time shadowheart reluctantly went along with all of that unbearable softness, it... it did feel important. it changed everything. all of those years of effort to break her, to set in stone who she was, and those small, pointless things they did together undid it all like a wave washing over her.]
[It's tiring work. But it's necessary work. Karlach stops them in front of an inn. Trees on either side, just off the main road, parking in front and back. DERRY TOWN HOUSE is etched on a wooden sign and lit under headlights, in case there's still a weary traveller wanting to check in at oh-dark-thirty in the morning.
She makes a signal for Shadowheart to hold, and reaches behind the sign to produce a spear.]
For you, gorgeous.
[She'll toss it lightly to the other woman, who will find there's a note attached to it with curling ribbon. Like the tag on a present. Written in rounded letters and punctuated with a heart is the following message:
A FORMAL REQUEST FOR MISS SHADOWHEART: PLEASE PAY AN EXTRA SPECIAL VISIT TO THE FOLLOWING:
[she takes the spear, a little surprised to receive it, to see it in exactly this condition. a slightly different light than it had last time.
and then she'll get the message, and she'll smile, slightly amused. she doesn't know what's going on, no. not exactly. she doesn't know why there's a ribbon and a heart and why this message is so extra, but...
if karlach wants her to show up somewhere and kill some people she will pretty much do that without question, yeah. she is not all that shy about killing people, and she would trust karlach's judgment on who needs killing long before she'd trust her own.]
I'm sure I'll get more of the picture once I'm there, but certainly. This does tend to be the specific way people need my help, doesn't it...
[half of those sweet examples i gave did require massacring a bunch of people to resolve.]
Can't help that you're so good at it, Fringe. [Karlach grins, bright as the sun. The moon. She gestures to the entrance and her engine revs again. This time there's a smell to go with it, a fresh singe on old meat. Some of the skin showing through her top blackens.]
See you 'round after, all right? We'll both be quick.
I'm doing my part on a different end. We'll meet in the middle. [She taps her on the shoulder, friendly-like. Have her eyes always had that speck of silver in them? Must be the moon reflecting of them.] Don't get to missing me too much. I'll be right there soon.
[her eyes are famously gold. but it's all the same. it's pretty. she would simply just never doubt karlach. she's known her for about two weeks, but she'd never quite had friends like this before. someone who would be so easy with affection and care for her, but would also put her in her place when she's doing the wrong thing.
she doesn't have to think too hard about it.]
I'll see you soon.
[well, time to go kill some people! she will try to creep her way over there, staying in the shadows, the way she was taught.]
[And so Shadowheart enters the inn. Unseen and in silence, expertly committed. No footfall creaks in the halls or on the stairs as she stalks her way through.
[That it would. She can knock on the door. There's a muted sigh, like it's a pain in the ass, and the lights are clearly on if the shadows beneath the door are anything to go by.
Eventually, the door opens. The man's brows pop high as he surveys his late night visitor.]
[she opens the door and wonders what this fuck boy did to enrage karlach. definitely some shit. if karlach says this guy needs to die, that's for sure what's going to happen here.
...though she isn't tranquil, just in this odd, muted state, where she can't quite connect the dots she should be connecting to feel suspicious of all of this. she does feel that he's familiar, somehow. that's not an unfamiliar sensation to her, though always a disquieting one. maybe there's something about him that she finds a little sweet and funny, despite herself. the way he acts jaded and then feels so badly if he ever crosses a line, such a familiar trait.
she isn't going to relish killing him, but that doesn't mean there aren't reasons. sometimes, not everyone can be saved. she's never been good at trusting her own judgment on these things, on right and wrong, but that's why she's learned to lean on her friends. learned to let them guide her, help her find her way.]
No, no. Turn down service. There will be a mint on the pillow for you at the end of this, if you're good.
[...]
No, I do feel badly about this. Sorry.
[but you have to do what you have to do. she will just ram that spear through his gut.]
The guy makes a face of intrigue at the promise of a "mint" on the pillow for good behaviour.]
Oh? That's really forward of you. Who said I was...
[He trails off, eyes caught on the strange weapon in her hand.
The pupils turn to pinpricks. Her apology has him seizing up, realizing a second too late what's really happening. He starts to move back.
She catches him through the gut anyway. His feet lift a little off the floor and he folds forward with a low gulp, hands clutching around the bare length of the spear. He raises his head, paling fast as he looks her in the eyes.
Then he goes slack. Dying, not dead yet but dead soon. Still impaled.]
[her breath catches. she's killed a lot of people, and most of them she did not feel badly about. some of them were evil - murderers, cruel and vicious, planning to slaughter innocents by the dozen, and her sword, or spear, or mace prevented even more brutality from coming to pass. but others were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. the goblins who didn't know exactly why they were following the absolute, only hoped to gain at the end of it, but the amount of blood spilled across the halls and ramparts of that ruined temple was grisly. nothing compared to the githyanki creche, though. declared enemies of the queen, so they simply had to fight their way out against hordes of people who they had no quarrel with, but who would put them to the sword otherwise. she was grateful that the door to the training hall, the school, was so thick and heavy and had stayed closed, and they didn't have to slaughter the teenagers, the young green warriors, too. and many, many people who were infected with the parasite, lost control of themselves. lost all ability to resist.
but she didn't exactly feel bad about these things. it wasn't what the nightsong was. it wasn't a helpless prisoner. these were people who wanted her dead, and she needed to live.
that's why it hurts, to see herself on the other end. a person who wanted him dead, for reasons he doesn't know or understand, and moved first.
but she made her decision. she will grant him mercy, at least. she will twist the spear, pull it out and stab again, make sure his death is a quick one.]
[It is the merciful thing. Claude would have spent ages on the floor, crawling to a phone perhaps and gasping to a 911 operator. He would have waited longer than he thought for an ambulance. The attendant tonight has a funny feeling that she doesn't need to answer much for calls, and maybe it's time to catch up on her book? Or so a little voice tells her. The police are going to be busy, and the ambulance can stay parked for the night.
Instead he falls, knees slamming hard onto a close-cropped carpet, hands dragging over her spear. He curls up like an infant, blinking fast, and simply finishes moving. Blood pools, thick and hot, soaking into the hallway carpet in a shape that is, in a nearly comedic irony, a little like the shape of Faerghus.
[once he's dead, she'll move him. remove the spear, lie him out, close his eyes. she's sorry, sad for him even, but not regretful. there's some part of her that just feels like this was a complicated thing, a thing that she hates, but it had to happen.
she will go upstairs next. 217. but she's a little more unsettled now. this isn't exactly what she thought she was getting herself into, and she wishes karlach had warned her, or come with her. she wishes she didn't have to do this by herself.]
[he opens the door to see a woman holding a spear that is covered in blood so how's that hangover treating him.
this one is familiar, too. that happening once, thinking she feels some sort of connection with the man on the first floor, is disconcerting enough, but now that it has happened twice, she feels her sense of reality starting to cave in around her. the fog her mind is in wants to tell her that something is wrong, this isn't adding up.
but she has a long life practiced at avoiding those moments. she was almost specifically trained for it. this is not the first time she has looked at the face of a person she was told to hurt and thought, no, I know you, don't you? I care about you, don't I? it happened to her again and again, punished every time she hesitated, her mind reset until those moments of familiarity were so tied with the other general confusion, until she stopped hesitating and just did as she was told.
but this can't be the same thing. she's been trying to get away from the person the sharrans forced her to become for so long. she wouldn't have listened. but she can trust karlach.
If he had seen the damn spear from the peephole, you bet your ass he wouldn't have opened the door. Wouldn't matter how pretty she is or how stunned she looks. Richie's brow furrows as she catches on her words, eyes flicking down.
And then snapping wide, shoulders hitching up. He backs out of the entry at once, both hands up and mouth dropped open.]
Look — look just hold on now, I don't...
[He's not sure what to do. He'd been suspecting something might happen, one of the usual spooks. Moving pictures, monsters under your bed. Maybe a police officer with strangely glassy eyes, coming to inspect a bogus claim and getting a "funny feeling" he ought to shoot first, ask questions later. That's the Derry way.
What he couldn't have expected is a woman whose face turns a slow rotation in his mind's eye, who comes armed with a fucking spear of all things, and one that's gotten a warm up in at that.
What he doesn't expect is her. It clicks. Half gasp and half declaration, he blurts it out.]
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holyspirits) wrote2025-03-09 04:46 pm
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[Karlach smiles, and commences a walk. Her tail swishes and flicks behind the pair as they go, and she glances around at the store fronts, the empty streets and topped up waste bins.]
Kind of a shite place, isn't it? This town. How did you find it?
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[she tries to sort through her memories to find a good explanation for that. the answers don't add up to something that makes much sense, but on the other hand, she can't seem to care about that.]
I think a friend is from here. [except] And I think I grew up here. [she has never really talked to karlach about her past before, about her childhood. how could she have? she doesn't have one.] It was a rather shit place for it, I agree.
I'm glad to see you, you know. [actually, how much did she ever really talk to karlach about anything? she helped her with dammon, she listened to her, sometimes, or at least, found when there was a debate over what to do, what decision to make, she often couldn't bear to make that one that would make karlach disappointed in her, and following that instinct seems to have led her in the right direction. she told her once, offhand, that her favorite flower was a night orchid, and then more than a week later, when they were in the middle of wandering the shadow cursed lands and dealing with death and corpses all around, abruptly, she gave her one, told her she found it and thought of her. it was a purely friendly gesture and a small one at that, but it meant so, so absurdly much at the time.
she never told her that, or much of anything.]
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[That tail comes to brush along the low of her back. A fond gesture.]
I think you can help this place though.
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[an old argument, and one she doesn't even make with much force. their lives became a ticking clock, and she always felt she had to be the one to say so. to point out the stupidity in it. just because a little girl was missing. just because a farmer lost his last memory of his wife. just because the dog waiting by his owner's body will starve. just because a band of refugees pooled what little they had between them and asked. harder to explain what she was and wasn't supposed to do, but straightforward, logical, to just say no. it doesn't concern her. it isn't her responsibility. they don't have time.
karlach's ticking clock ticks a lot more forcefully than hers, so the argument doesn't work on her. she wins, has already won, won because the first time shadowheart reluctantly went along with all of that unbearable softness, it... it did feel important. it changed everything. all of those years of effort to break her, to set in stone who she was, and those small, pointless things they did together undid it all like a wave washing over her.]
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Come on Shadowheart, you've got nowhere else to better to be. Not while we're here.
[Her engine flares. It's a warm light in all this dark. Maybe a too on-the-nose metaphor for how bright her love burns.
It's a bit searing, though.]
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She makes a signal for Shadowheart to hold, and reaches behind the sign to produce a spear.]
For you, gorgeous.
[She'll toss it lightly to the other woman, who will find there's a note attached to it with curling ribbon. Like the tag on a present. Written in rounded letters and punctuated with a heart is the following message:
ROOM 217
ROOM 116
ROOM 303
MUCH OBLIGED, XOXO
Karlach laughs.]
You catching my drift, there?
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and then she'll get the message, and she'll smile, slightly amused. she doesn't know what's going on, no. not exactly. she doesn't know why there's a ribbon and a heart and why this message is so extra, but...
if karlach wants her to show up somewhere and kill some people she will pretty much do that without question, yeah. she is not all that shy about killing people, and she would trust karlach's judgment on who needs killing long before she'd trust her own.]
I'm sure I'll get more of the picture once I'm there, but certainly. This does tend to be the specific way people need my help, doesn't it...
[half of those sweet examples i gave did require massacring a bunch of people to resolve.]
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Can't help that you're so good at it, Fringe. [Karlach grins, bright as the sun. The moon. She gestures to the entrance and her engine revs again. This time there's a smell to go with it, a fresh singe on old meat. Some of the skin showing through her top blackens.]
See you 'round after, all right? We'll both be quick.
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she pushes that thought away, something too sad in it.]
You're not coming with me?
[she'll do it alone, though she's not sure why.]
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she doesn't have to think too hard about it.]
I'll see you soon.
[well, time to go kill some people! she will try to creep her way over there, staying in the shadows, the way she was taught.]
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[And so Shadowheart enters the inn. Unseen and in silence, expertly committed. No footfall creaks in the halls or on the stairs as she stalks her way through.
Which room will she go to first?]
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Eventually, the door opens. The man's brows pop high as he surveys his late night visitor.]
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...though she isn't tranquil, just in this odd, muted state, where she can't quite connect the dots she should be connecting to feel suspicious of all of this. she does feel that he's familiar, somehow. that's not an unfamiliar sensation to her, though always a disquieting one. maybe there's something about him that she finds a little sweet and funny, despite herself. the way he acts jaded and then feels so badly if he ever crosses a line, such a familiar trait.
she isn't going to relish killing him, but that doesn't mean there aren't reasons. sometimes, not everyone can be saved. she's never been good at trusting her own judgment on these things, on right and wrong, but that's why she's learned to lean on her friends. learned to let them guide her, help her find her way.]
No, no. Turn down service. There will be a mint on the pillow for you at the end of this, if you're good.
[...]
No, I do feel badly about this. Sorry.
[but you have to do what you have to do. she will just ram that spear through his gut.]
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The guy makes a face of intrigue at the promise of a "mint" on the pillow for good behaviour.]
Oh? That's really forward of you. Who said I was...
[He trails off, eyes caught on the strange weapon in her hand.
The pupils turn to pinpricks. Her apology has him seizing up, realizing a second too late what's really happening. He starts to move back.
She catches him through the gut anyway. His feet lift a little off the floor and he folds forward with a low gulp, hands clutching around the bare length of the spear. He raises his head, paling fast as he looks her in the eyes.
Then he goes slack. Dying, not dead yet but dead soon. Still impaled.]
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but she didn't exactly feel bad about these things. it wasn't what the nightsong was. it wasn't a helpless prisoner. these were people who wanted her dead, and she needed to live.
that's why it hurts, to see herself on the other end. a person who wanted him dead, for reasons he doesn't know or understand, and moved first.
but she made her decision. she will grant him mercy, at least. she will twist the spear, pull it out and stab again, make sure his death is a quick one.]
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Instead he falls, knees slamming hard onto a close-cropped carpet, hands dragging over her spear. He curls up like an infant, blinking fast, and simply finishes moving. Blood pools, thick and hot, soaking into the hallway carpet in a shape that is, in a nearly comedic irony, a little like the shape of Faerghus.
Not that either of them would know that, here.
Where to next?]
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she will go upstairs next. 217. but she's a little more unsettled now. this isn't exactly what she thought she was getting herself into, and she wishes karlach had warned her, or come with her. she wishes she didn't have to do this by herself.]
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Who is it?
[Male, a touch annoyed.]
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Then it opens, and man in glasses and a t-shirt and flannel pant combo squints at his early morning visitor.]
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this one is familiar, too. that happening once, thinking she feels some sort of connection with the man on the first floor, is disconcerting enough, but now that it has happened twice, she feels her sense of reality starting to cave in around her. the fog her mind is in wants to tell her that something is wrong, this isn't adding up.
but she has a long life practiced at avoiding those moments. she was almost specifically trained for it. this is not the first time she has looked at the face of a person she was told to hurt and thought, no, I know you, don't you? I care about you, don't I? it happened to her again and again, punished every time she hesitated, her mind reset until those moments of familiarity were so tied with the other general confusion, until she stopped hesitating and just did as she was told.
but this can't be the same thing. she's been trying to get away from the person the sharrans forced her to become for so long. she wouldn't have listened. but she can trust karlach.
her throat feels very dry.]
I'm.
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If he had seen the damn spear from the peephole, you bet your ass he wouldn't have opened the door. Wouldn't matter how pretty she is or how stunned she looks. Richie's brow furrows as she catches on her words, eyes flicking down.
And then snapping wide, shoulders hitching up. He backs out of the entry at once, both hands up and mouth dropped open.]
Look — look just hold on now, I don't...
[He's not sure what to do. He'd been suspecting something might happen, one of the usual spooks. Moving pictures, monsters under your bed. Maybe a police officer with strangely glassy eyes, coming to inspect a bogus claim and getting a "funny feeling" he ought to shoot first, ask questions later. That's the Derry way.
What he couldn't have expected is a woman whose face turns a slow rotation in his mind's eye, who comes armed with a fucking spear of all things, and one that's gotten a warm up in at that.
What he doesn't expect is her. It clicks. Half gasp and half declaration, he blurts it out.]
Jen Hallow?
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