You're as charming as ever,” he says to me with a smile on his lips and malice in his eyes. With Marrant every compliment is actually criticism.
“That's true,” I reply and beam a giant grin at him that I hope is so brilliantly charming it fucking blinds him. “Which is why you went out of your way to contact me. You've missed this,” I motion back and forth to the “this” between us; it's nothing but animosity.
We stare at each other for what feels like a lifetime, neither of us blinking. I just come around to the idea that this interaction is intensely stupid when he sighs (and, notably, blinks first).
“Look, Lika, I need your help,” he finally says.
“Oh, is that all?” I ask cheerfully, “Great! No.”
Ah, that felt good! I just sat down at this bar and now I'm getting back up again. I love a good exercise.
I'm out the door in a heartbeat, but he's right behind me. He grabs my arm to keep me from disappearing into the night. I slap his face for having the audacity. The sound echoes through the empty alleyway we now stand in. Wow. Great acoustics in this spot!
A storm crosses his face, darkening every feature and tensing his jaw. I love storms. I especially love them on his face because it means I've pissed him off. If we fight here, anybody in proximity– tourists wandering the city at night, patrons in the bar, the asshole wine vendor parked right outside the bar selling overpriced bottles to the already drunk patrons exiting said bar– will need to run for cover.
It's been so long since I've seen that expression on his face that I almost welcome it. Let's have it out here. Let him tell me how I ruined his life all those years ago. Let me tell him he hasn't seen anything yet.
But the storm passes almost as soon as it arrives. I'm surprised. And mildly disappointed. I pretend I'm neither and return to the earlier game of staring bitchily at him and not blinking. It's still stupid. Oh, well.
“I need you to rob a rival of mine,” he finally says after a breath to gather his senses again.
Here's another thing about Marrant: He always hated when I stole things… except for when I'd steal them for him. Seems nothing has really changed.
“Fascinating,” I reply. “Tell me more. Who is this rival?”
Relief softens his features. “His name is Audr Shade. His home is in Lavender Beds.”
“Audr Shade?” I repeat thoughtfully.
“That's right.”
Great!” I chirp. “I'll just go off and let him know you wanted to hire someone to rob him. Maybe he'll give me something nice for being an upright citizen! But even if he doesn't it'll still be worth it because I did something good and moral.”
He used to say shit about how I wasted all my talent doing pointless, petty tomfoolery instead of something ambitious, moral, and good. I hate the me that dated this blowhard. I also hate the me that remembers anything he said to me during that time.
He smiles at my response. His inner monologue is probably something like: “She used to pretend what I said didn't bother her. When she responds by repeating my words back at me I see that it did. I smile because in that moment I know I've won.”
Forget all the mes that I hate. I hate this asshole most of all.
“Fuck you, Marrant.”
“Mature as ever, Lika. Listen, I know you despise me. And you know the feeling is mutual. So consider for just a moment that if I've come to you that, sure, yes, I'm desperate. But there might also be something you can get out of it that is even better than my desperation.”
Obviously I want to say there's nothing better than his desperation but that lends itself far too easily to a sex joke. And there's really nothing that would repulse me more than associating sex with this guy ever again.
Better, I think, to say, “I don't care. This is boring. I'm going home now.”
He looks annoyed before replying, “But you do care about something and I have information about it. I will give you that information if you first rob Audr Shade and then rob me immediately after.”
Then rob him immediately aft– what the hell? No. Don't fall for this, Malika. You don't care.
“I don't care. Good luck with the self-sabotage or whatever the fuck, you absolute fungus.”
“The Tempest Tapestry,” he says quickly. “I know where it can be found.”
I'm speechless. It's not because I'm impressed by what he's said; it's because I'm pissed. If I open my mouth to say anything at all it will open so wide that I will swallow him whole. I look like a 5’4” miqo’te standing in a dingy alleyway, but I’m actually a swirling vortex of rage. How dare he try this on me? How dare he even say those words?
He takes my silence as a good sign because he's an idiot. “It wasn't easy,” he says with a self-satisfied preen and smile.
“It's impossible,” I correct him as levelly as I can, “Because it isn't real. I already looked into it. You didn't find shit because there isn't shit to find, Marrant.”
There’s a legend that there is a book so old that only luck and spite keeps it held together. I admire that. The cover is said to be sewn together by thousands of threads, all a different color. That book is said to hold the answers of how to find the first item ever spun in the Spinner’s loom: The Tempest Tapestry. The book is named the same. I’d told Marrant years ago that finding and stealing that would be the ultimate job. I'd stop stealing after that.
I didn't mean it, of course. That's stupid. Might as well tell me to stop breathing. But if the book existed– which, again, it doesn't because I've fucking looked– I'd still want it.
“There's no such book,” I say, my voice low, hot and full of barbed wire. I'm saying this to myself more than to him. I can't get obsessed looking for this again. I can't. It almost destroyed me the first time.
“I'm not talking about the book,” he counters. “I mean the actual tapestry, Lika. I can tell you where it is.”
No, he can't. That's stupid and offensive.
But I'm in trouble. I could and should say no this. Whoever has told him they know where this tapestry is is lying because there isn't one. It isn't real. It's a story.
But someone believes they have something they are pretending is the Tempest Tapestry. That's 1) blasphemy, I suppose and 2) fucking intriguing. Of course I want to see what someone thinks they could pretend is a legendary artifact.
And even when it's nothing but trash I'm going to want to steal it. Stories are more important than truth. People tend to believe in stories more than they believe the truth, too. Stories have power.
I'm so dizzy with wanting to do this, I think I might throw up.
This is a trap. It's so obvious. I go to steal from this Audr Shade guy and then from Marrant as he's requested and there are guards waiting at his place to apprehend me– that's GOT to be his plan. That has to be why he wants me to rob him. There's no tapesty. He is making it up. Say no to this, Malika. Walk away. Walk away. Walk away.
"My heart will go on" est une chanson de Céline Dion, iconisée par Titanic => cette chanson apparaît sur l'album Let's talk about love, produit, notamment, par Goldman => "Let's talk about love" est une version anglaise de "Puisque tu pars".
