Villainy and Flattery

It was that kind of spring night that couldn’t decide what it wanted to be. Cold and grey in the morning, warm in the early afternoon when the sun broke through the dismal clouds, only to trick you and fall back into spattering rain once the sun set.

Here, in the forgotten parts of Faline that’d never seen the coin from the Hagia restoration effort, the rain pooled in cracked cobblestone, amongst rotten boards that wouldn’t patch an open hole in the ground, let alone a crumbling wall. This part of the city lacked eyes on them, and there were some benefits to that, when Witchfinders had started patrolling the streets in the face of the new ‘Mage Court’.

Benefits such as the way no one batted an eye when a door burst open from one of the taverns of foulest repute in the entire city, and man was tossed out into the rain. Three individuals calmly followed, and the one in the middle, with furs casually around her arms for the warmer night air, leaned over the poor sod on the street.

With a voice far too melodic for the dark scene, she leaned over him and continued without missing a beat: “....and we all know how that goes, don’t we, Meister Halloway.” She raised her foot and carefully trapped the man’s throat between her shoe and high heel, making him choke and thrash as she put her weight down and leaned over her knee. The two men behind her, tall and no less intimidating, crossed their arms and watched, well used to this kind of show. “Now, I can be agreeable if the situation calls for it. Would you like that, or would you like to call me ‘a girl far out of her league’ one more time?”

The man tried to answer, but was starting to go purple instead. Her foot was so petite, it must not’ve given him enough room to breathe, which only made the woman grin. “What was that, sir? Wheeze once for the former, twice for the latter.”

She theatrically held a hand up to her ear, pausing as if to listen, nodding occasionally as if he was waxing soliloquies under her heel. “Mhm, yes...ah, good to know!” She smiled prettily, lifting her foot – and before he could take a deep breath in, she swiftly gave him a violent kick in the ribs, making him choke on his desperate lungs.

“Now get up and get me my money, Meister Halloway, while I’m still amused. Get it to me by midnight, and I’ll generously let you live. Miss the deadline, and, well....” She watched him scramble to his feet, slipping under the wet cobblestones in a disgraceful tangle of limbs. “They don’t call it a deadline for nothing.”

The man took off, clutching his ribs, and the woman chuckled to herself, looking around the narrow street (more of an alley, really), before eyeing one unlucky individual who’d been watching the show.

Oh, she did love a wrong-place-wrong-time situation. Especially for someone else.

“See something you like, darling?” She curled her lips in a mockery of a smile, revealing a wink of fanged teeth no nonmage should have as she took a few steps towards them.