WIP Whenevsday
ty for the tags @weaveandwood & @juniper-and-dragonthorn <3
I have a long one to offer, even though Id' just said this one was on the backburner. Go figure ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Divider from here
He slips through a side alley and comes up on the window to the office he holds at the hideout, locked by his own magical seal. It doesn't take much to break it, only a drop of his own blood and he's slipping through.
Ashur never could decide if Cyri would approve. It seemed just as likely she'd roll her eyes at the pageantry. She seemed to be of two minds always. Traipsing every path at once, sharp eyes that see everything from every angle. He's sure that's why he finds her so fascinating.
There hasn't been one time he's slipped into his office he hadn't thought of her since the last time.
He can't help wondering what would have happened if the door had not—
"Ah, the Viper," Dorian says amiably, closing the door behind him with a quiet snick. "I was sure you'd drop in at some point, you always were punctual."
"I didn't expect to find you here," Ashur replies, unable to quite keep the smile from his voice. Talking to Dorian felt easy in a way it didn't with many people. One of the many reasons, perhaps, that he was such an apt politician. "What do I owe the pleasure?"
Dorian waves a passive hand, "I do work here you know."
Only in the loosest sense, though the same could be said for any of them. So little of the Shadows' work took place in the warehouse. So far as circumstances stood, the place was more a refuge than much else.
"Mae thinks we ought to seek out more supporters, and I agree, of course." Dorian sighs as he flops gracefully into the armchair on the other side of Ashur's worn desk—a recent addition. "I've a list of names for each of us. At least we both suffer equally if the labor is halved—" he offers a lackadaisical smile, "or something of the sort."
Ashur takes up the parchment Dorian has dropped on the table between them. A short list—something that fills Ashur with relief and trepidation—of members of the magisterium who are suspected to be curious if not entirely sympathetic to the cause of the Lucerni. It's as good a place to start as any. Scanning he page, Ashur is surprised to find more than one grand cleric among them. Vasilia is no surprise, considering Ashur appointed her himself—one among many things that made him unpopular in those early months.
"And tonight's dock raid—"
"Returned an hour ago,"
At Ashur's surprise, Dorian offers a wry smile. "I did try to tell her how sorry you'd be to miss it, but I'm afraid the Mercar girl is incorrigible."
Ashur stops cold, his blood resumes flowing a moment later with a painful pulse.
"She's here? In Minrathous?" He can't help asking.
Dorian gives a knowing smile, and the question of what he'd seen that morning is finally answered.
"Returned late this morning at Mae's request," he confirms, and then his brows pulls tight as though he's said something he's not sure he should have. The expression vanishes in a moment, replaced with his usual dry gaiety. "Well, I've got to get back to my lodgings," Dorian folds his own parchment with one swift movement and unfurls to his feet. "Long day of politicking tomorrow,"
He waves the folded paper in the air as he turns toward the door. Hastily, Ashur tucks his own page away and follows Dorian to the door. Behind it, are about two dozen Shadow Dragons, all in various combinations of black, red and turquoise, jovially celebrating with half as many wine bottles.
It'd gone well then.
A short cheer goes up at the sighting of himself and Dorian. Ashur's companion waves off the attention with feigned indifference, though he accepts a swallow of wine when the bottle is passed into his hand.
Ashur searches the room for a familiar face, and finds instead a familiar head of dark waves. Longer than last he saw her, in dark waves that cascade down her back as she drags fingers through, loosing it from its careful braid. His heart starts at a gallop. Perhaps, as with the last time, she'd hoped to surprised him.
She's sat atop one of the long tables at the back of the room, talking animatedly with her hands in a way he's rarely seen. It speaks of a sort of conversancy that feels rare for Cyri. The kind he's only recently become aquatinted—and so the jealousy sparks even before he crosses the room.
It takes him a moment—one filled with elation that rapidly deflates—to note the hand that lingers on her knee and the slightly-swollen pink tinge to her lips. It takes longer for him to put those pieces together, to make sense of them. And if there's any wavering in her expression, he isn't present to notice it.
"The Viper," her companion notes merrily, as if his presence is a welcome intrusion. It takes years of carefully cultivated chains on his baser instincts for Ashur's eyes not to drop again to the place where his hand rests so casually on Cyri's knee—though it's risen slightly higher on her thigh.
Ashur offers Petras a smile—at least he thinks he does—before he turns his attention fully to her.
"I heard you led the raid," he says, stupidly.
Her head tilts just slightly to one side, as though she's observing him closer than he'd like, "I didn't see any reason to wait."
Something passes between them, wordless and sharp. A dagger being pulled soundlessly from his flesh as she blinks unfeeling at his bleeding form. It's a strangely distant realization, that whatever depth lay between them, he was alone in it.
"It would seem everything went smoothly for you," Ashur answers, "caution on my part was unnecessary."
An eyebrow flicks up almost imperceptibly. He'd swear there was just a flicker of something—be it surprise or uncertainty, it's impossible to tell—but it's gone in the next moment.
