a toast, then, to mayhem and worse;

“I’m not going to ask you again – and believe me, this is me asking nicely – where is my shipment?” 

Hazaiah, Lasair’s gifted lapdog, strode up the red carpet leading up to a bloody scene in the midst of the Sanguine's lair. Three of Lasair’s men had some poor sod by the scruff of the neck, and bruises sported his eyes and mouth, where a split lip made his whimpering protests more pathetic than it should’ve with blood trailing down his chin. He kept blubbering that he didn’t know, he was just the boatman, not the one who packaged boxes that’d turned out to be empty.

Hazaiah waited patiently on the outskirts of the scene, sighing silently to himself somewhat as Lasair trailed her claws over the boatman’s bruised cheek, making him twitch. “Well...far be it from me to shoot the messenger, isn’t that right?” She cooed, and he nodded hastily, eyes wide. “I think I’ll simply ransom the messenger instead till I get what belongs to me.”

She glanced over at Hazaiah, then nodded her chin to her two lackeys. “Cut something off of him and send it back in one of the empty crates. We need those weapons, and if they’re stiffing us, they deserve a warning first before we strike.” The two men grinned and started pulling the boatman away, his kicking protests falling on deaf ears.

She straightened and took a few steps towards Hazaiah, smiling in that deadly way of hers. “That’s the way we do things, isn’t it? We’re all about warnings here.” 

Hazaiah didn’t reply, but the fresh memory of Splinter’s warning rang over his otherwise stoic demeanor. Rather than give her something to sink her teeth into, he handed her a letter with her full name on the envelope, written in an interesting penmanship. “It was sent to the Andraste House,” He said as she tore it open with little ceremony. “The watcher set on the House intercepted it, but otherwise there’s little news on your cousin.”

“Hm,” She smirked, unfolding the letter. “Beyond his joke of a marriage. Really, he should’ve gotten the hint from mine to not bother.” 

She read the contents, raising one dangerously arched brow. After a moment, she laughed, waiving the letter at Hazaiah, who was in utterly no place to ask what she found so amusing. “A commission of mine is finished, finally,” She answered his unasked question. “Silly anarchist forgot to give me a meeting place.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have heard tales of a tall, masked gentleman with a penchant for rebellion, have you darling?”

-----

It’d taken her a good long while of reaching far into her new grapevine to hear any rumors about the elusive Aleister. He’d been spotted in the Black Jug, bleeding out on her dear friend Azcasu’s floorboards, but nobody evading the Order would stay in one place for too long. She traveled her underground river system, with Hazaiah rowing the boat and playing her 'guard' (asi if she actually needed one), patient as she followed the most recent lead she had on him.

Here’s hoping he would still be there when she climbed the stairway back up to the surface, her pockets heavy with a king's ransom to pay for her commission.