Perfect Murder
Apr. 18th, 2004 04:55 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}
yraeAUTHOR Annarti
DISCLAIMER All mine
NOTES Would you believe this was supposed to be a Yamin-focused fic? Yeah no.
~ ~ ~
Midnight eyes rake midnight waters. Sharp, starlight birdsong scrapes dusted air. Scarred face, once sighted, twice mirrored, squints ahead.
Yamin stared at the words scrawled across the parchment, blinking a few times to rid herself of the daze she always fell into when the ink-tipped quill touched the paper. Time and again her eyes scanned the three sentences, the words turning over and over in her mind, but as always, the cryptic nature of them lost her completely. Only the words ‘scarred face’ meant anything to her. That, at least, could be taken literally.
She sighed quietly and drew the portrait of the woman she had just written about towards her, smoothing a finger lightly over the scar that ran over the woman's right eye. Her high forehead was topped with a high-arching hairline. She may have been quite a nice looking young woman a decade ago, but now the faint wrinkles of age touched the corners of her eyes and mouth.
Closing her eyes, she spread one hand over the portrait, the other over the writing, and whispered a few silent words to Aeia, praying that the woman be well looked after in death.
Sighing again, Yamin rolled the two pieces of parchment up and tied them with a piece of string, then pushed herself away from her desk and slung on her red cloak. Silently, she pushed her bedroom door open and made her way down the spiralling staircase to the base of the tower. She scanned the surrounds with eyes, ears and magic before slipping across the red, dusty courtyard to the scribes’ rooms.
Three scribes were in there, intently studying numerous scrolls at the carved wooden desks that lined the walls. Two murmured quietly with each other, pointing and gesticulating at one particular piece of parchment.
Yamin sought out the third scribe. He said nothing, but patted the corner of his desk with one hand, not looking up from the flowing script that ran over his own piece of parchment. Yamin lay the drawing and short paragraph on the corner of the desk and left without glancing back.
The next morning, the woman with a scarred face, one sighted, twice mirrored, would no longer walk the earth.
Nimay lounged on her bed and took another bite of her prickly pear, frowning at the words on the page she held above her. She had figured most of the passage out in a few minutes, but one small detail still eluded her.
Midnight eyes rake midnight waters. The woman lived by the Ra-Lin, specifically by the docks, where the water was deepest and darkest. She liked to stay up late at night, or possibly even work at night, giving her midnight eyes.
Sharp, starlight birdsong scrapes dusted air. The woman had a pair of blades, more likely for the same purpose as Nimay’s own than for cooking. The dusted air meant the floors of her house were dirt, so she lived in a rather modest home. Those two phrases narrowed it down to two, maybe three houses in Ni-Yana.
Scarred face, once sighted, twice mirrored… Obviously the woman was blind in one eye, her right from the looks of the picture, but twice mirrored? Nimay’s frown deepened as she bit again into the fresh fruit. Once mirrored, that would indicate she was reflected in the water of the Ra-Lin. Maybe she had a twin sister?
Nimay sighed irritably, knowing somehow that wasn’t the answer. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and finished off the pear, sucking the juice thoughtfully from her fingers.
She shook her head and strode across the room to get changed. If all else failed, she could wait by the docks until she heard the sharpening of blades. The ‘twice mirrored’ would have to wait.
With only starlight reflecting off it, the Ra-Lin shone dimly below her as she glided effortlessly along its length. Obviously the waterfront villas did not hold the woman she was after, and neither did she live in a dock. Only three houses that lay on the Ra-Lin’s banks were inhabited by less well-off people.
Nimay dropped catlike to the roof of one of the three houses, drawing her wings close to her body and crouching on the slab of mud brick that made for the house’s roof. She held her breath and listened intently. As stated in the short paragraph that had been given to her, the sharp sound of sharpening blades reached her ears in the dark night.
A malicious grin made its way across the assassin’s lips, and she glanced across at the single-storeyed house to her left.
On its roof sat a woman, her back turned and arms moving rhythmically with the scraping of her blades. She paused momentarily, holding one dagger to the sky and examining it intently in the weak starlight. Not happy with the result, she grunted and gave it a few last touch-ups with the other blade.
Nimay leapt silently with the aid of her wings to the low roof of her victim. She could see the woman’s scarred right eye reflected dimly in the dagger’s smooth blade as she held it again to the starlight.
Finally satisfied with her accomplishments, the woman stood to make her way down the ladder back to earth, but she froze as soon as she saw the black-winged warrior standing between her and her exit.
The momentary look of shock in her eyes was soon replaced by one of contempt. “I had my suspicions,” she said hoarsely. Both eyes ran along the span of Nimay’s wings, but only one took in the black shapes silhouetted against the sky.
Nimay shrugged modestly and swung her sword around with startling speed, but instead of the fluid motion being met with the slick sound of the blade through flesh, it hit with a resonating clash that its bearer was not prepared for.
In the split second it took for Nimay to arch her sword around, the woman had crossed both daggers and caught the flashing blade barely a hair’s breadth from her neck, yet no fear showed in her eyes.
“I will not ask you why you have come,” the woman told her, “I know already that we are not told why we are to sent to kill someone, we just obey without question.” Her blades still crossed, she brought Nimay’s sword down to a safer level.
Nimay’s eyes widened at the woman’s use of the word ‘we’, suddenly understanding the ‘twice mirrored’ that the writings told her about. She was mirrored once in the waters of the Ra-Lin, and again in Nimay herself. This woman was an assassin.
Now that this was out of her way, Nimay’s eyes hardened again, and she stared coldly at the woman who had been hired to kill her king.
The scarred assassin smiled and shook her head, laughing softly. “If I gave you the name of he who hired me, I don’t suppose I could escape the bite of your blade?” She asked incredulously.
Nimay shook her head, a smirk playing in her deep blue eyes.
The scarred assassin sighed wistfully and glanced down at the blades in her hands, dropping them clattering to the mud brick rooftop. She sighed and looked back up at Nimay, closing her once sighted, midnight eyes and tipping her face towards the stars.
“Please take my life cleanly,” she asked simply, as though she were asking for a drink.
Nimay blinked down at her sword then looked back up at the woman. This was why she never liked to let her victim speak before she drew her blade through their neck. She preferred to kill a killer rather than a person.
Closing her eyes tight and bending her face to the floor, she flung her blade up, the familiar slick sound as it glided through the woman’s throat deafeningly loud now. Without opening her eyes, Mithé’s personal assassin flapped back up into the night, drops of salt water and red blood dripping behind her.
DISCLAIMER All mine
NOTES Would you believe this was supposed to be a Yamin-focused fic? Yeah no.
Midnight eyes rake midnight waters. Sharp, starlight birdsong scrapes dusted air. Scarred face, once sighted, twice mirrored, squints ahead.
Yamin stared at the words scrawled across the parchment, blinking a few times to rid herself of the daze she always fell into when the ink-tipped quill touched the paper. Time and again her eyes scanned the three sentences, the words turning over and over in her mind, but as always, the cryptic nature of them lost her completely. Only the words ‘scarred face’ meant anything to her. That, at least, could be taken literally.
She sighed quietly and drew the portrait of the woman she had just written about towards her, smoothing a finger lightly over the scar that ran over the woman's right eye. Her high forehead was topped with a high-arching hairline. She may have been quite a nice looking young woman a decade ago, but now the faint wrinkles of age touched the corners of her eyes and mouth.
Closing her eyes, she spread one hand over the portrait, the other over the writing, and whispered a few silent words to Aeia, praying that the woman be well looked after in death.
Sighing again, Yamin rolled the two pieces of parchment up and tied them with a piece of string, then pushed herself away from her desk and slung on her red cloak. Silently, she pushed her bedroom door open and made her way down the spiralling staircase to the base of the tower. She scanned the surrounds with eyes, ears and magic before slipping across the red, dusty courtyard to the scribes’ rooms.
Three scribes were in there, intently studying numerous scrolls at the carved wooden desks that lined the walls. Two murmured quietly with each other, pointing and gesticulating at one particular piece of parchment.
Yamin sought out the third scribe. He said nothing, but patted the corner of his desk with one hand, not looking up from the flowing script that ran over his own piece of parchment. Yamin lay the drawing and short paragraph on the corner of the desk and left without glancing back.
The next morning, the woman with a scarred face, one sighted, twice mirrored, would no longer walk the earth.
Nimay lounged on her bed and took another bite of her prickly pear, frowning at the words on the page she held above her. She had figured most of the passage out in a few minutes, but one small detail still eluded her.
Midnight eyes rake midnight waters. The woman lived by the Ra-Lin, specifically by the docks, where the water was deepest and darkest. She liked to stay up late at night, or possibly even work at night, giving her midnight eyes.
Sharp, starlight birdsong scrapes dusted air. The woman had a pair of blades, more likely for the same purpose as Nimay’s own than for cooking. The dusted air meant the floors of her house were dirt, so she lived in a rather modest home. Those two phrases narrowed it down to two, maybe three houses in Ni-Yana.
Scarred face, once sighted, twice mirrored… Obviously the woman was blind in one eye, her right from the looks of the picture, but twice mirrored? Nimay’s frown deepened as she bit again into the fresh fruit. Once mirrored, that would indicate she was reflected in the water of the Ra-Lin. Maybe she had a twin sister?
Nimay sighed irritably, knowing somehow that wasn’t the answer. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and finished off the pear, sucking the juice thoughtfully from her fingers.
She shook her head and strode across the room to get changed. If all else failed, she could wait by the docks until she heard the sharpening of blades. The ‘twice mirrored’ would have to wait.
With only starlight reflecting off it, the Ra-Lin shone dimly below her as she glided effortlessly along its length. Obviously the waterfront villas did not hold the woman she was after, and neither did she live in a dock. Only three houses that lay on the Ra-Lin’s banks were inhabited by less well-off people.
Nimay dropped catlike to the roof of one of the three houses, drawing her wings close to her body and crouching on the slab of mud brick that made for the house’s roof. She held her breath and listened intently. As stated in the short paragraph that had been given to her, the sharp sound of sharpening blades reached her ears in the dark night.
A malicious grin made its way across the assassin’s lips, and she glanced across at the single-storeyed house to her left.
On its roof sat a woman, her back turned and arms moving rhythmically with the scraping of her blades. She paused momentarily, holding one dagger to the sky and examining it intently in the weak starlight. Not happy with the result, she grunted and gave it a few last touch-ups with the other blade.
Nimay leapt silently with the aid of her wings to the low roof of her victim. She could see the woman’s scarred right eye reflected dimly in the dagger’s smooth blade as she held it again to the starlight.
Finally satisfied with her accomplishments, the woman stood to make her way down the ladder back to earth, but she froze as soon as she saw the black-winged warrior standing between her and her exit.
The momentary look of shock in her eyes was soon replaced by one of contempt. “I had my suspicions,” she said hoarsely. Both eyes ran along the span of Nimay’s wings, but only one took in the black shapes silhouetted against the sky.
Nimay shrugged modestly and swung her sword around with startling speed, but instead of the fluid motion being met with the slick sound of the blade through flesh, it hit with a resonating clash that its bearer was not prepared for.
In the split second it took for Nimay to arch her sword around, the woman had crossed both daggers and caught the flashing blade barely a hair’s breadth from her neck, yet no fear showed in her eyes.
“I will not ask you why you have come,” the woman told her, “I know already that we are not told why we are to sent to kill someone, we just obey without question.” Her blades still crossed, she brought Nimay’s sword down to a safer level.
Nimay’s eyes widened at the woman’s use of the word ‘we’, suddenly understanding the ‘twice mirrored’ that the writings told her about. She was mirrored once in the waters of the Ra-Lin, and again in Nimay herself. This woman was an assassin.
Now that this was out of her way, Nimay’s eyes hardened again, and she stared coldly at the woman who had been hired to kill her king.
The scarred assassin smiled and shook her head, laughing softly. “If I gave you the name of he who hired me, I don’t suppose I could escape the bite of your blade?” She asked incredulously.
Nimay shook her head, a smirk playing in her deep blue eyes.
The scarred assassin sighed wistfully and glanced down at the blades in her hands, dropping them clattering to the mud brick rooftop. She sighed and looked back up at Nimay, closing her once sighted, midnight eyes and tipping her face towards the stars.
“Please take my life cleanly,” she asked simply, as though she were asking for a drink.
Nimay blinked down at her sword then looked back up at the woman. This was why she never liked to let her victim speak before she drew her blade through their neck. She preferred to kill a killer rather than a person.
Closing her eyes tight and bending her face to the floor, she flung her blade up, the familiar slick sound as it glided through the woman’s throat deafeningly loud now. Without opening her eyes, Mithé’s personal assassin flapped back up into the night, drops of salt water and red blood dripping behind her.