Bouquet ~ Seven
Nov. 9th, 2006 04:54 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
annarti.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
yrae
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Long fingers ran down the ridge of the kris’s windy blade. They weren’t elegant, but long and bony, rough with calluses. The nails were ragged and chewed down to the quick. Not through fear and nerves, certainly not.
The kris was such a beautiful instrument. There was so much tradition and fine artistry surrounding the wavy bladed dagger that it couldn’t simply be called a weapon. It was a piece of art, perfectly designed for its purpose and yet so beautiful to look at.
The long, bony fingers ground the blade against the whetstone, the gritty sound rhythmic and comforting in the Golden Kris’s ears.
It was the blade used by Kazin’s executioners. The convicted person’s hands were bound in shackles, they were forced to their knees, and with head bowed, the kris was positioned at the back of their neck and driven home with great force. The Golden Kris had no shackles, but the fatal blow was always delivered in the same time-honoured tradition.
In times passed, it had been a ceremonial blade, and Ulzaq, the god of war, was still depicted holding a kris in each hand. The Golden Kris liked to think there was a part of Ulzaq’s spirit in every kris blade.
The Golden Kris lifted the blade from the whetstone and squinted one eye down the newly-sharpened edge, then ran a bony finger over the steel. There was no self-satisfied smirk or nod when the finger came away with a fine cut. The Golden Kris instead reached for the polishing cloth to wipe away residue from the whetstone, then smiled down and ran a thumb over the steel hilt, warmed by the Golden Kris’s hands.
The etchings of a kingfisher, once sharp and defined, had been worn down over the years. The engravings, once the same shining silver steel as the rest of the weapon, were stark black where the polish couldn’t reach. It had character, that hilt.
A pity neither of the two daggers were golden, or even brass, but there were certainly no plans to replace them now. When the Golden Kris was first starting out, it had promised it would buy proper golden ones when the money started rolling in, but the worn kingfisher hilts were so familiar now that losing them would be like losing an arm. And they were so very, very beautiful.
As a dagger, the kris was unrivalled. If two knifemen of equal skill fought each other, the one with the kris would win. It was a perfectly designed weapon, and the Golden Kris doubted that even the famed swordsmanship of the Raykinians could win against a kris in the right hands.
It was a weapon that brought luck, both good and bad, to its wielder. Funnily enough though, the Golden Kris was yet to come across anything bad.
It picked up the two daggers and flipped them around in bony fingers, playing out a deadly dance before flicking them back into their scabbards strapped to each thigh. The Golden Kris was expecting nothing more than a straight execution tonight, but it never hurt to be prepared with dagger skills. It had been caught out on a few occasions already.
The Golden Kris pulled its family Colours over its head, then left the warmth of the fire for the cold, dark night.
It had been a clear day, and there were no clouds to trap any of the sun’s heat. The sky was looking particularly beautiful because of it, and with no moon to draw attention away from the subtle beauty of the blanket of stars. The night was just as alive as daytime. The stars seemed to live and breathe with their own life as they twinkled in the sky, frogs chirped in the hope of rain tomorrow and bats squeaked their high pitched calls overhead as they flitted around catching insects.
The Golden Kris spread long arms and took a deep breath of the chilled night air. Why could so few appreciate the subtle beauty of night as they did the more obvious colours of day?
The Golden Kris sighed contentedly as it strode the beautifully silent streets, familiar but so very different under starlight. It was almost disappointed upon reaching its destination. Almost.
By Suzan standards, it was an impressive building, and why wouldn’t it be? There was no quaint thatched roofing here, no cheap wooden flower boxes outside the windows and certainly no smooth stone blocks. The long, bony fingers ran over the carving of a kingfisher in the heavy wooden door.
‘That is stunning,’ the Golden Kris murmured, then took out three specialised sticks of metal to unlock the door as easily as if they were the key. There were no guards to worry about—it was the main reason the Golden Kris preferred to stay in Suza. Haysyd was quickly learning about guards from the richer states, but in Suza, such an expense was reserved only for the queen. The wealthy of Suza seemed to think a heavy iron bolt would keep out all the unsavouries.
The Golden Kris slipped in through the doorway on silent, leather-soled shoes, pausing momentarily to admire the display of seashells on a desk to one side. It, too, was engraved with seashells and starfish.
‘My, but you are her favourite, aren’t you?’ The assassin had been into the homes of the queen’s advisors before, both as targets and clients, and while they were clearly the richest people in Suza, no others had ornaments from the beach on display in their homes.
It began walking smoothly and easily through the blackened house, using long bony fingers along the walls to see.
All the rooms on the lower floor were cold and empty, as predicted, so the assassin moved towards the stairs, smiling and almost letting out a sigh of relief—they were stone. There would be no worrying about creaky floorboards, neither on the stairs nor the whole of the top floor. Floorboards were always so tedious to try and keep quiet, freezing for minutes at a time to make sure that one tiny creak hadn’t been heard.
The assassin pulled out the pair of krises from their sheathes as it slunk up the stairs. As it reached the top, the sound of snoring pierced through the still air of the house.
Eyes now used to the darkness of the house, the Golden Kris flowed smoothly along the hallway to the closed bedroom door, almost swearing when it wouldn’t turn. Who in the name of the gods locked their bedroom door?
Bright green eyes narrowed in annoyance, then slipped the daggers back into their sheathes. The long fingers drew out the metal sticks once again, inserting them slowly and carefully into the keyhole. The assassin took a deep breath and let it out with an irritated sigh, then rested one hand on the door handle. The other held the vital key stick.
In one smooth but incredibly noisy motion, the assassin slid the bolt aside with a loud clunk that echoed through the hallway, swore between its teeth when the knob wouldn’t turn, then swung the door open.
The snoring had stopped, replaced by the groggy groaning of a man who didn’t want to be woken up just yet. His silhouetted form had barely moved under the quilt.
The Golden Kris melted across the floor and planted one cold, steel blade at the nape of the man’s neck. The other was pressed lightly against his throat. It wasn’t an added warning, as so many seemed to think, but the Golden Kris liked to know what the victim was thinking.
The advisor’s heartbeat quickened against the dagger’s blade as consciousness gripped him with cold, steely fingers.
‘What do you want?’ he asked desperately, his body tense against the mattress. ‘I’ll give you anything you want, please!’
The Golden Kris’s head shook slowly, and the man’s head tried to shrink back down into the pillow, but the dagger only pressed harder. ‘I don’t work that way,’ the assassin told him, in a voice too husky to be female, to light to be male. ‘Do you know how much your life is worth, Advisor?’
The advisor said nothing, but the heartbeats that drummed through the kris were harder and faster.
‘Two hundred and sixty gold pieces.’
‘Please, no!’ His words were muffled by the pillow. ‘D-down the end of the hall. The room on the left has my safe. Take whatever you need from it!’
Another shake of the head. ‘I wasn’t paid to rob you, Advisor. I was paid to kill you.’
‘No! Please, I’ll—’
Crunch.
The assassin removed the dagger and wiped its blade clean on the pillow. It flicked the daggers around on bony fingers and dropped them back into the sheathes, then drew a small piece of parchment from its pocket and set it predominantly on the bedspread.
But the job was only half completed.
The Golden Kris flowed down the stairs and back out into the street, following the starlit roads to the house belonging to the client.
Another locked door, another bolt clanging heavily aside.
The Golden Kris slipped silently into the fire-warmed bedroom, closing the door with a loud enough bang that the client would wake. It sidled up to the bedside, one dagger crisply drawn so it would be the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes.
Lexa grumbled in groggy half-sleep, rubbing her eyes and yawning before freezing and letting out a faint gasp. Her head turned up to the assassin’s face, her eyes large and white.
‘I’ve come to collect payment,’ the Golden Kris told her, slipping the dagger back into its sheath.
Lexa continued to stare into the shadowed face.
‘Lexa, my dear.’
‘Yes, yes. Of course. But, um… your middle man said he would be back to collect when the job was finished.’
‘It has been,’ the Golden Kris informed her, no humour in the voice. ‘But Rensali won’t be coming to collect.’
‘Did you… Is he…?’
‘The target is; Rensali isn’t. The coin, if you please, Lexa.’
The diplomat, now well and truly awake, tossed back the covers and kicked her legs from the bed, padding somewhat nervously through the dark house with one hand on the wall.
The Golden Kris followed with the same liquid silence as ever, watching as she fumbled with the keys to open her safe, built of heavy jarrah that had silvered with age. She took out three bags and lumped them on the floor next to the Golden Kris’s feet.
‘There’s fifty in each.’ She sighed and straightened her shoulders, then stood. She was trembling slightly, but there was a strange calm on her face, of a woman who had had a great weight lifted from her shoulders. She frowned up at the assassin, no fear in her eyes, only curiosity. ‘Who are you, really? I feel I know you already.’
The assassin nodded. ‘Oh, you do. Everyone in Suza knows me. I’m the Golden Kris. That’s as true a name as anyone has ever given me, and as true as I’ll give anyone else.’
Lexa sighed and shrugged in acceptance. ‘I figured as much. It was worth asking though.’
The assassin drew one dagger, inspecting its smooth silver blade in the starlight. ‘A beautiful weapon, wouldn’t you say? It brings luck to its wielder.’
Bright green eyes looked past the blade at Lexa’s, still wide and flicking between the Golden Kris and the steel blade in its bony fingers.
‘Luck both good and bad.’ The long, callused fingers gripped the hilt firmly. ‘I’m no different.’
The kris’s wavy blade struck out like a coiled silver snake, barely leaving time for Lexa to gasp before she dropped to the floor.
The Golden Kris wiped the blade clean and sheathed it, then took a second note from its pocket and placed it on top of the heavy wooden safe. It picked up the three bags of gold, slung them over its shoulder and headed back out into the night.
Assassins are fun. I just had to say that >3
no subject
Date: 2006-11-12 02:31 pm (UTC)You wrote this really well, it flowed nicely despite you having to keep the Kris' gender a secret =3
And you can tell you have so much fun with your 'sins.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-12 02:36 pm (UTC)I mean... yes. 'sassins are fun to write >D Even if I had to keep writing 'it' instead of [insert correct gendered pronoun here] XD; Almost as bad as writing bloody Llayan speech. Hoi xX;;
no subject
Date: 2006-11-14 09:09 am (UTC)Crunch.
-- *is daft* What crunched? X3
She frowned up at the assassin, no fear in her eyes, only curiosity. ‘Who are you, really? I feel I know you already.’
I had two questions here when I read through, but I think I can only remember one now. XP No, wait, got it.
1. What's the Golden Kris wearing? Can Lexa see a face, or is she just talking about familiar voice/feeling?
2. Is Lexa not at all worried by the fact that assassins generally don't like people to know their identity?
Drama! Aiee! *moves on*
no subject
Date: 2006-11-14 09:41 am (UTC)His NECK >D Didn't really want to go into detail with shoving the dagger into his neck tho, cos that's not the kind of feel I really want for this fic =/
1. I swear I put that in there, but reading over it I totally missed it XD; Oh the joys of confined writing time XD;; Golden Kris has family colours on, but Lexa wouldn't recognise them because "Oh yes, I'm very proud of them. I designed them myself, you see." Can't believe I forgot that >< I had that line in my head most of the time when I was writing the chapter, then didn't put it in. I suck. But yeah, she vaguely recognises the voice *nods* Just unable to match it with the family colours =3 And being an assassin, the Golden Kris is veery careful about keeping face in the shadows >) Also, no moon, so pretty damn hard to see anything anyway.
2. ....Apparently not. Oops. I think I'm letting a bit too much of my "mmm, assassins X)~" thinking into this chapter XD;;
no subject
Date: 2007-02-12 07:20 pm (UTC)To be honest, I'm more than a little disconcerted by the use of 'it' in this, even if I can see the reason for it. It's just... awkward somehow. English should have a proper non-gender word for cases like this.
nd there were no clouds to trap any of the sun’s heat. The sky was looking particularly beautiful because of it, and with no moon to draw attention away from the subtle beauty of the blanket of stars <- two things. It's night now, yes? So shouldn't it be 'had been no clouds to trap'? That just sounds odd. Second, 'and with no moon ... what? Can't have an 'and' there if you don't have a main clause to go with it.
same liquid silence as ever <- I like that phrasing. I really do. (And assassins are fun, yes!)
Gah! My plan was to read two chapters at a time, but tell me how am I supposed to do that with an ending like that? (I liked the green eyes reference too.)
Very, very, very nice, me dear! One more then. *twitch*
no subject
Date: 2007-02-13 06:06 am (UTC)We really, really do. I did my best to avoid using 'it' early on, but you can only say 'Golden Kris' so many times before it gets repetetive. I'll go back over it and get rid of as many as possible later on. Didn't really have time to when I was writing it tho XD