Silence + Diana - an exchange of blades
Who: Silence and Diana
When: after this
Where: an alleyway
Ratings & Warnings: PG-13 for violence and blood.
The cold night air was a slap in the face as Silence waited. Deliberately, he had made his way out into the alleyway in question before the contact had delivered her inscribed piece of parchment. There had been nothing to recognise of her, wrapped as she was against the winter chill, but he paused for a second to curl his lip at the gall of her wearing glittering finery to the bowels of the marketplace. He might not have recognised her, but that would not have stopped someone else. In truth it was amazing she’d made it in and out without being robbed blind.
After she’d left, he’d departed only long enough to thaw out his fingers and respond in the ledgers, and then he was out again, waiting. An assassin’s remit involved a lot of waiting, a fact he’d learned early on in life. Those without the patience to wait for their target killed nothing but themselves. He installed himself in a nook that was largely out of sight from the alleyway’s entrance, although from its vantage he could see the entirety. The scars on his palms ached from the cold, and he stuffed them deep within the recesses of his cloak, breathing into his scarf to avoid misting the air.
Diana had meant to seem bumbling and stupid, a minor noblewoman who loved showing off the possessions she had and who didn't know what she was doing other than hiring an assassin. She tried to come off as jumpy and sneaky as possible, but any thief who met her along the way would get a glare or a smile that promised pain.
After the second contact, the lieutenant changed into something of less apparent quality. It was still a dress that the lowborn wouldn't be able to buy easily but not as glimmering. Under her cloak, she was armed with daggers and shortswords alike. Anything that wouldn't stick out obviously. Cautiously, she made her way back to the meeting spot after ordering a few guards in civilian clothing to keep watch near but not close enough to be of notice.
She looked around the alleyway as carefully as possible, making sure most of her face was shrouded. In her left hand was a pouch full of rocks.
The second time the woman entered the alleyway, there was something a different about her. The dim lighting barely allowed Silence to acknowledge that her clothing had changed, but it was more than sufficient to announce that her reappearance was more cautiously done than the first. That was to be expected to a degree, but her manner as she looked around the alleyway spoke more of someone who was accustomed to noting small details than a nervous noblewoman.
Instinct and habit had him check his weapons and loosen them within their sheaths. He had his swords belted across his back, their hilts poking ominously over the top of each shoulder. One was poisoned, one was not. His daggers sat comfortably at hip and calf, a snakelike garrote circled his right wrist, a small collection of drugged darts rested inside the pocket of his cloak. He had not come unprepared, he knew, and yet it was cold comfort.
"Stop where you are," he said, without raising his voice.
Diana started like she wasn't expecting to hear him, though she was. Of course, the assassin was lying in wait. Of course. Her right hand fingered the hilt of her sword, and her left hand readied to toss her pouch.
Turning slowly to face him, she asked, pitching her voice higher, "Are... are you Silence?" She wanted him closer, or at the very least, more visible.
The woman's had vanished inside her cloak. No doubt she had a sword hidden there, but that was not a crime, and Silence would not hold it against her. Not unless she attempted to use it on him. Nonetheless, a suspicious feeling gnawed at his gut. Something was wrong. His eyes dropped to the hand that he could see. It looked like she was holding a pouch - full of money, or full of something else? The light was too poor to tell with any accuracy how the weights fell, and Silence cursed inwardly. The darkness was customarily his ally, yet here he was blinded by it. Mari was likely right; the years were not passing any slower.
"The instructions," he demanded. "How do you want it done?"
"I want him to seem like he dies of natural causes," she said, trying to sound hesitant but determined, like she wanted someone dead but wasn't sure this was actually happening. Diana was not the best actress, but she did a passing act. "Can you do... that?"
She shifted, wanting to seem like she was shuffling because she was nervous but was really moving into a defensive stance. The lieutenant wanted to catch him as off guard as possible.
"As you wish." She was fidgeting. A typical reaction for a first-time murderer, and Silence suggested to himself that he believe it. No, that was not possible. There was, yet again, something odd about the way she moved. It seemed uncomfortable, but there it was, a layer of practice. In supposed accident, Mistress Adelaide had positioned herself in a suitably defensive pose. His eyes narrowed, attempting to pierce the darkness around her face. Something was off about the whole situation. Fortunately for her, Silence wasn't in the habit of putting himself within reach.
"Leave the pouch on the ground and go," he ordered.
If there was a time to attack, it was now. There was mounting suspicion and a dismissal. "As you wish," she said, slowly holding out the hand with the pouch while her right hand reached for a dagger.
As she knelt to the ground to put the bag down, Diana readied her weapon and let it fly surely in Silence's direction. Hopefully, it would cut him but not in a spot to kill; she wanted him alive. Just as soon as she released the dagger, she flung the pouch of rocks right after it before dodgerolling to the side in case the assassin decided to return throwing dagger with throwing dagger or any other weapon.
Instinct, not skill, saved him. He dropped sideways, rolling into the still darkness of the alleyway. When Silence came to his feet, he had a sword in his right hand, the hilt balanced for throwing. His left pulled a sedative-coated dart from within the pocket in his cloak. He didn't throw either immediately, for no assassin, not even the most raw, would attack and then stay put to be slaughtered. Silent and still, the assassin focused on the silhouette ahead of him and cast the drugged dart towards it. It would do no good to kill her offhand, for he would then forgo the knowledge of who sent her. A little snooze would do her good.
Her eyes were adjusted to the darkness as well as they could be, and she watched carefully for any shadow out of place or shifting. Diana saw the dart almost too late, but she dodged all the same, hearing it hit her cloak, more than feeling it, barely missing her arm. That was not a blade, she judged, as her hood fell off her head. She dared not move to put it back on; she needed to make another snap judgment of how to attack next. There was one throwing dagger left, and she had two shortswords.
Not wanting another sedative thrown her way, she guessed, Diana quickly drew her swords and dashed towards the dark silhouette, ready to slice to disarm and disable.
Something about the woman's profile jangled alarm bells, and as 'Adelaide' rushed, the same thought occurred to Silence. The second of his swords rasped into his hands, he took one, then two steps forward, and dropped into a low, sword-crossed spin, one going high, one low. They met with a clash of steel, the gimlet of the assassin's glare boring forward.
"Stark," he murmured, tone tense from the locked pressure. "I hope you won't miss Edward too much."
Diana would not reply with words. Her expression determined and her eyes narrowed, she pressed her blades harder against his for a moment before breaking the lock to aim an edge at his legs, wanting to keep him low and as immobile as possible.
It was a shame he was masked as he was but not unexpected. All she'd have to do was catch him, and that problem would be solved.
He melted out from beneath her like water. Without any real grasp on upper body strength, Silence's advantage lay only in speed. Up close and personal as they were, his only hope was to stay mobile, stay fast, and stay ahead of the force the Stark brought with her.0
He cut left, hopped back, lured the Lieutenant into extending her reach more and more. Her sword caught his cloak, his caught her dress. Her blade whistled close to the scarf on his neck with only a hair between it and the fabric; he snaked sideways, his blade ducked beneath her outstretched arm and lanced towards her unprotected ribs.
His speed while crouched surprised her but alarmed her more. Twisting to follow the assassin's movement, she belatedly realized her arms better served closer to her. The cut to her dress was nothing; she wore breeches under just in case her skirt hindered her more than she liked. Jumping back, Silence's sword caught her abdomen shallowly, but she paid the wound little mind.
Running on adrenaline, Diana tried another tactic, swinging her blades quickly and fervently, aiming high, to his sides, anywhere to get him to move and block often. She was known for being cool and orderly; hopefully, this would take him a little off guard. It would wear on her endurance, but she hoped it'd wear on his as well.
Certain things Silence could not avoid, and so as she wished he blocked often and moved more. As with most sprinters, his energy flushed high early on, and the whirligig of his blades reduced in favour of retreating into the alleyway one begrudging step at a time. The leather of his armour bit as she caught him on the leg, an overhand she produced thwacked the shoulder injured by Cosimo's dagger a few months prior. The resulting ache made his knees buckle, the hesitation costing him the requisite lump of flesh as her second sword carved low into his hip.
Much more of this, and the woman's stamina would win out. Evidence showed clear that she could stand stolid ground longer than he could flit. He had to finish her, or get out.
With a reserve of energy summoned, Silence jumped back out of reach, spun, swapped the poisoned sword from right hand to left, from weak hand to primary. No more running, instead he pressed forward, employing not just sword but elbow, fist, and ultimately a well-placed kick to her solar plexus.
There was a gleam of accomplishment every time Diana landed a strike. It was not enough to make her think foolproof success but close. When his knees buckled and she managed to get at his side, she made the mistake to pause. That was a mistake she would regret when the assassin gained a second wind and moved back.
Careful but without her endurance waning, Diana's defense was far from impenetrable. Having to block more than just blades wore her down, an elbow hitting her wrist in just the wrong place, the poisoned sword cutting along her forearm, and then the kick to her abdomen that she couldn't stop. That last hit sent her staggering back, one of her swords dropping to the ground as she lost her balance with most of the wind knocked out of her.
There was enough reflex that even on one knee and slightly hunched over, she held the blade she still grasped up to block what would come next.
Her mistake was pushing the blade up and not watching the floor. It was a common mistake, Silence found, and one day he knew he'd be stumped when someone thought ahead of the game. Not this time, though. Not this time. His foot swept in beneath her, knocking the support of her leg out. His swords fell with a discard clatter, and he took up position behind her. A gloved fist knotted in Diana's hair, unceremoniously lifting her up until she hung from it. The icy edge of Silence's dagger pressed motionless to her throat. He said nothing.
When her leg was knocked out and she went down, she kept her hand on the hilt of her sword even as it cut across her thigh and clamored on the ground. Ignoring the pain as much as she could, she slid her own blade around her side to point at Silence behind her as he lifted her by her hair. How crude, she thought. She would not die doing nothing.
"What will you do?" Smiling grimly, she felt the dagger bite into her throat. If there were to be a next time, she would not make the same mistake again.
Silence spared the reversing of her sword with a flicker of contempt. If she was extremely lucky, her death throes would slice his leg open. Still, there was something to be said for people who refused to resign themselves. Stark was, in many ways, an attractive constant in his life. Kill her, and he'd have to spend time getting to know someone else. Silence was nothing if not a creature of routine.
"I like you," he said, distantly. "I like the idea of knowing that you live only because of my generosity." As he spoke, his eyes cut through the darkness at the end of the alley. It was highly unlikely that Stark was stupid enough to enter the lion's den without backup. The dagger retreated from Diana's throat, tilted to a precise angle, and bit deep into hjer left shoulder. It was a serious wound, and one he hoped she would not forget easily, but the plug of the blade would keep her from bleeding out until she reached safety. "You may keep it," he told her, deliberately magnanimous, and let her drop, hopping backwards out of the reach of the blood. The last thing he wanted was a line of footprints.
Diana gasped and dropped her sword when the dagger slid into her shoulder, collapsing forward when Silence let her go. Gritting her teeth, she reached for her last dagger and threw it with all her might in his direction, knowing it'd be more like to miss than hit. With the last of her strength, she whistled the signal for the guards in wait to give chase, hoping she managed it loud enough.
Lying on the ground, she groped at the dagger hilt above her shoulder, wanting to pull it out in disgust but knowing it was better left in for the moment. Letting her hand drop away, she focused on breathing and not blacking out from the eventual loss of blood.
The assassin's so-called generosity could rot in hell.
The dagger landed with a thunk, pinning the assassin's cloak to the wooden wall behind it. He ducked, grabbed the hilt, and hauled it out of the deep furrow. With the sound of running feet closer than he would have liked, there was no time to engage in any kind of banter, and so he left her there to be found, scarpering up the walls to the rooves. Escaping a bunch of armor-weighted pastry-bags would be no difficulty at all. Silence took flight, having exchanged a dagger for a dagger, but if blood were currency, he was by far the richer.
When: after this
Where: an alleyway
Ratings & Warnings: PG-13 for violence and blood.
The cold night air was a slap in the face as Silence waited. Deliberately, he had made his way out into the alleyway in question before the contact had delivered her inscribed piece of parchment. There had been nothing to recognise of her, wrapped as she was against the winter chill, but he paused for a second to curl his lip at the gall of her wearing glittering finery to the bowels of the marketplace. He might not have recognised her, but that would not have stopped someone else. In truth it was amazing she’d made it in and out without being robbed blind.
After she’d left, he’d departed only long enough to thaw out his fingers and respond in the ledgers, and then he was out again, waiting. An assassin’s remit involved a lot of waiting, a fact he’d learned early on in life. Those without the patience to wait for their target killed nothing but themselves. He installed himself in a nook that was largely out of sight from the alleyway’s entrance, although from its vantage he could see the entirety. The scars on his palms ached from the cold, and he stuffed them deep within the recesses of his cloak, breathing into his scarf to avoid misting the air.
Diana had meant to seem bumbling and stupid, a minor noblewoman who loved showing off the possessions she had and who didn't know what she was doing other than hiring an assassin. She tried to come off as jumpy and sneaky as possible, but any thief who met her along the way would get a glare or a smile that promised pain.
After the second contact, the lieutenant changed into something of less apparent quality. It was still a dress that the lowborn wouldn't be able to buy easily but not as glimmering. Under her cloak, she was armed with daggers and shortswords alike. Anything that wouldn't stick out obviously. Cautiously, she made her way back to the meeting spot after ordering a few guards in civilian clothing to keep watch near but not close enough to be of notice.
She looked around the alleyway as carefully as possible, making sure most of her face was shrouded. In her left hand was a pouch full of rocks.
The second time the woman entered the alleyway, there was something a different about her. The dim lighting barely allowed Silence to acknowledge that her clothing had changed, but it was more than sufficient to announce that her reappearance was more cautiously done than the first. That was to be expected to a degree, but her manner as she looked around the alleyway spoke more of someone who was accustomed to noting small details than a nervous noblewoman.
Instinct and habit had him check his weapons and loosen them within their sheaths. He had his swords belted across his back, their hilts poking ominously over the top of each shoulder. One was poisoned, one was not. His daggers sat comfortably at hip and calf, a snakelike garrote circled his right wrist, a small collection of drugged darts rested inside the pocket of his cloak. He had not come unprepared, he knew, and yet it was cold comfort.
"Stop where you are," he said, without raising his voice.
Diana started like she wasn't expecting to hear him, though she was. Of course, the assassin was lying in wait. Of course. Her right hand fingered the hilt of her sword, and her left hand readied to toss her pouch.
Turning slowly to face him, she asked, pitching her voice higher, "Are... are you Silence?" She wanted him closer, or at the very least, more visible.
The woman's had vanished inside her cloak. No doubt she had a sword hidden there, but that was not a crime, and Silence would not hold it against her. Not unless she attempted to use it on him. Nonetheless, a suspicious feeling gnawed at his gut. Something was wrong. His eyes dropped to the hand that he could see. It looked like she was holding a pouch - full of money, or full of something else? The light was too poor to tell with any accuracy how the weights fell, and Silence cursed inwardly. The darkness was customarily his ally, yet here he was blinded by it. Mari was likely right; the years were not passing any slower.
"The instructions," he demanded. "How do you want it done?"
"I want him to seem like he dies of natural causes," she said, trying to sound hesitant but determined, like she wanted someone dead but wasn't sure this was actually happening. Diana was not the best actress, but she did a passing act. "Can you do... that?"
She shifted, wanting to seem like she was shuffling because she was nervous but was really moving into a defensive stance. The lieutenant wanted to catch him as off guard as possible.
"As you wish." She was fidgeting. A typical reaction for a first-time murderer, and Silence suggested to himself that he believe it. No, that was not possible. There was, yet again, something odd about the way she moved. It seemed uncomfortable, but there it was, a layer of practice. In supposed accident, Mistress Adelaide had positioned herself in a suitably defensive pose. His eyes narrowed, attempting to pierce the darkness around her face. Something was off about the whole situation. Fortunately for her, Silence wasn't in the habit of putting himself within reach.
"Leave the pouch on the ground and go," he ordered.
If there was a time to attack, it was now. There was mounting suspicion and a dismissal. "As you wish," she said, slowly holding out the hand with the pouch while her right hand reached for a dagger.
As she knelt to the ground to put the bag down, Diana readied her weapon and let it fly surely in Silence's direction. Hopefully, it would cut him but not in a spot to kill; she wanted him alive. Just as soon as she released the dagger, she flung the pouch of rocks right after it before dodgerolling to the side in case the assassin decided to return throwing dagger with throwing dagger or any other weapon.
Instinct, not skill, saved him. He dropped sideways, rolling into the still darkness of the alleyway. When Silence came to his feet, he had a sword in his right hand, the hilt balanced for throwing. His left pulled a sedative-coated dart from within the pocket in his cloak. He didn't throw either immediately, for no assassin, not even the most raw, would attack and then stay put to be slaughtered. Silent and still, the assassin focused on the silhouette ahead of him and cast the drugged dart towards it. It would do no good to kill her offhand, for he would then forgo the knowledge of who sent her. A little snooze would do her good.
Her eyes were adjusted to the darkness as well as they could be, and she watched carefully for any shadow out of place or shifting. Diana saw the dart almost too late, but she dodged all the same, hearing it hit her cloak, more than feeling it, barely missing her arm. That was not a blade, she judged, as her hood fell off her head. She dared not move to put it back on; she needed to make another snap judgment of how to attack next. There was one throwing dagger left, and she had two shortswords.
Not wanting another sedative thrown her way, she guessed, Diana quickly drew her swords and dashed towards the dark silhouette, ready to slice to disarm and disable.
Something about the woman's profile jangled alarm bells, and as 'Adelaide' rushed, the same thought occurred to Silence. The second of his swords rasped into his hands, he took one, then two steps forward, and dropped into a low, sword-crossed spin, one going high, one low. They met with a clash of steel, the gimlet of the assassin's glare boring forward.
"Stark," he murmured, tone tense from the locked pressure. "I hope you won't miss Edward too much."
Diana would not reply with words. Her expression determined and her eyes narrowed, she pressed her blades harder against his for a moment before breaking the lock to aim an edge at his legs, wanting to keep him low and as immobile as possible.
It was a shame he was masked as he was but not unexpected. All she'd have to do was catch him, and that problem would be solved.
He melted out from beneath her like water. Without any real grasp on upper body strength, Silence's advantage lay only in speed. Up close and personal as they were, his only hope was to stay mobile, stay fast, and stay ahead of the force the Stark brought with her.0
He cut left, hopped back, lured the Lieutenant into extending her reach more and more. Her sword caught his cloak, his caught her dress. Her blade whistled close to the scarf on his neck with only a hair between it and the fabric; he snaked sideways, his blade ducked beneath her outstretched arm and lanced towards her unprotected ribs.
His speed while crouched surprised her but alarmed her more. Twisting to follow the assassin's movement, she belatedly realized her arms better served closer to her. The cut to her dress was nothing; she wore breeches under just in case her skirt hindered her more than she liked. Jumping back, Silence's sword caught her abdomen shallowly, but she paid the wound little mind.
Running on adrenaline, Diana tried another tactic, swinging her blades quickly and fervently, aiming high, to his sides, anywhere to get him to move and block often. She was known for being cool and orderly; hopefully, this would take him a little off guard. It would wear on her endurance, but she hoped it'd wear on his as well.
Certain things Silence could not avoid, and so as she wished he blocked often and moved more. As with most sprinters, his energy flushed high early on, and the whirligig of his blades reduced in favour of retreating into the alleyway one begrudging step at a time. The leather of his armour bit as she caught him on the leg, an overhand she produced thwacked the shoulder injured by Cosimo's dagger a few months prior. The resulting ache made his knees buckle, the hesitation costing him the requisite lump of flesh as her second sword carved low into his hip.
Much more of this, and the woman's stamina would win out. Evidence showed clear that she could stand stolid ground longer than he could flit. He had to finish her, or get out.
With a reserve of energy summoned, Silence jumped back out of reach, spun, swapped the poisoned sword from right hand to left, from weak hand to primary. No more running, instead he pressed forward, employing not just sword but elbow, fist, and ultimately a well-placed kick to her solar plexus.
There was a gleam of accomplishment every time Diana landed a strike. It was not enough to make her think foolproof success but close. When his knees buckled and she managed to get at his side, she made the mistake to pause. That was a mistake she would regret when the assassin gained a second wind and moved back.
Careful but without her endurance waning, Diana's defense was far from impenetrable. Having to block more than just blades wore her down, an elbow hitting her wrist in just the wrong place, the poisoned sword cutting along her forearm, and then the kick to her abdomen that she couldn't stop. That last hit sent her staggering back, one of her swords dropping to the ground as she lost her balance with most of the wind knocked out of her.
There was enough reflex that even on one knee and slightly hunched over, she held the blade she still grasped up to block what would come next.
Her mistake was pushing the blade up and not watching the floor. It was a common mistake, Silence found, and one day he knew he'd be stumped when someone thought ahead of the game. Not this time, though. Not this time. His foot swept in beneath her, knocking the support of her leg out. His swords fell with a discard clatter, and he took up position behind her. A gloved fist knotted in Diana's hair, unceremoniously lifting her up until she hung from it. The icy edge of Silence's dagger pressed motionless to her throat. He said nothing.
When her leg was knocked out and she went down, she kept her hand on the hilt of her sword even as it cut across her thigh and clamored on the ground. Ignoring the pain as much as she could, she slid her own blade around her side to point at Silence behind her as he lifted her by her hair. How crude, she thought. She would not die doing nothing.
"What will you do?" Smiling grimly, she felt the dagger bite into her throat. If there were to be a next time, she would not make the same mistake again.
Silence spared the reversing of her sword with a flicker of contempt. If she was extremely lucky, her death throes would slice his leg open. Still, there was something to be said for people who refused to resign themselves. Stark was, in many ways, an attractive constant in his life. Kill her, and he'd have to spend time getting to know someone else. Silence was nothing if not a creature of routine.
"I like you," he said, distantly. "I like the idea of knowing that you live only because of my generosity." As he spoke, his eyes cut through the darkness at the end of the alley. It was highly unlikely that Stark was stupid enough to enter the lion's den without backup. The dagger retreated from Diana's throat, tilted to a precise angle, and bit deep into hjer left shoulder. It was a serious wound, and one he hoped she would not forget easily, but the plug of the blade would keep her from bleeding out until she reached safety. "You may keep it," he told her, deliberately magnanimous, and let her drop, hopping backwards out of the reach of the blood. The last thing he wanted was a line of footprints.
Diana gasped and dropped her sword when the dagger slid into her shoulder, collapsing forward when Silence let her go. Gritting her teeth, she reached for her last dagger and threw it with all her might in his direction, knowing it'd be more like to miss than hit. With the last of her strength, she whistled the signal for the guards in wait to give chase, hoping she managed it loud enough.
Lying on the ground, she groped at the dagger hilt above her shoulder, wanting to pull it out in disgust but knowing it was better left in for the moment. Letting her hand drop away, she focused on breathing and not blacking out from the eventual loss of blood.
The assassin's so-called generosity could rot in hell.
The dagger landed with a thunk, pinning the assassin's cloak to the wooden wall behind it. He ducked, grabbed the hilt, and hauled it out of the deep furrow. With the sound of running feet closer than he would have liked, there was no time to engage in any kind of banter, and so he left her there to be found, scarpering up the walls to the rooves. Escaping a bunch of armor-weighted pastry-bags would be no difficulty at all. Silence took flight, having exchanged a dagger for a dagger, but if blood were currency, he was by far the richer.