Darkened Skye

[Ash]

Barsig sat at the bar in the Limping Lenny tavern, the day was young and his only company was the barkeep and the drunk in the back booth. He was nursing a glass of bourbon and staring deeply into the space between the present and the past. He’s been there all night, drinking deeply and thinking slowly, but while he was indeed distracted, he stayed just sober enough to keep his wits about him.

“Another one?” The familiar but gruff voice of a large and heavily scarred man asked again, probably the fifth time since he sat down. He had the bottle at the ready, already uncorked and prepared to pour. However, with a glance behind him at the light breaking through the dark wood doors, Barsig finally raised his hand as a sign of ‘no more’ and fished out some money. “Aye, as well as you did.” The man pushed the cork back into the bottle and then pushed it aside. “You looked like you were in a trance most of the night.”

He placed several silver coins down on the table, then pushed his coin purse back into his deep dark cloak. It was made of heavy material, the kind that doesn’t let the sun in. “I tend to do that, when I don’t have anyone keeping me company.” He explained, with a smile that seemed impossible to muster a minute ago. His cool blue eyes shining with a clarity that also seemed out of character from just a moment ago. “It’s good stuff, old man.” He said, pushing over the amount for his night, and a tip. “See ya around..” He said, sliding his gloved hand back and into the shadows of his cloak. The bartender gave him a nod, and Barsig pulled himself off the stool.

In the bright light of day, he pulled the hood over his dirty blond hair, it was shoulder length but he left it in a ponytail at the nape of his neck. He took a moment to recalculate his day’s agenda, and then slowly begins his way north. His boots leaving slight prints in the hardened earth, overlapping several that were already there.

As he began his travels, only a few seemed to care that he was even there. The hood tended to make people suspicious, but as someone who used his fingers to get in and out of trouble, Barsig has always been looked upon with caution. That said, he was just making his way through town. He merely needed to stop for a rest. He had intended to sleep, but he’d gotten lost in his own thoughts and therefore couldn’t make good on those intentions. He would sleep later it would seem.

-

Among the people in the crowd, was another cloaked figure, pressing her body against the side of the building and watching him leave the tavern and head north. They had told her where to find him, told her that it was to save her time and trouble. Apparently whoever this guy was, he was super valuable to these people. Enough to put research and resources into it, and to enlist someone who owed them a lot to bring him in. They did almost everything for her, and yet they skipped on a precious piece of information. How on Volta was she supposed to get him to follow her?

Skye let out a sad sigh before she began to follow her target. She was smart, at least that’s what Alton told her, she’d think of something. Hopefully before he reached the edge of town..

The woman moved through the streets, pressing her body into building after building, pausing to watch where he was going, and trying to come up with something clever. Which on the fly was a little hard. The idea of seducing the attractive man would be a valuable option, until she found herself face to face with a mirror. She looked like she hadn’t slept in a week, and she honestly couldn’t remember when her last bath was. She could go jump in a river, but how long would that take? Besides, she was dressed to kill, but not in a sexual way.

Threatening him might have been another great option, but they kept her daggers. If she got close enough to him, maybe she could use whatever weapon he had on him, but she’d have to search his body before she could make a plan that elaborate.

She considered a combination of both as she passed a few blocks rather quickly. Get up and close to him, before he realized she was three days from looking haggish she could get a quick pat down. That was a reasonable plan, one that made sense even to her sleep deprived mind, but she wasn’t used to shaking a man down in the bright sun in the end of morning. She liked to do those things at night, as did anyone who was a little roguish in nature. If she was going to do it, she had to lead him. As it is, he was leading her.

And worse, leading her right into the busy bustling world of the marketplace. This left her with so much more dread than she had been in moments before. Where would she strike in a place like that? Maybe he was only going in for breakfast? She should wait for that.. She hasn’t eaten all night, maybe even the night before. Actually, she couldn’t remember the last time that happened either. In fact, she chose to stay a little further behind than normal when tailing someone, in order to keep her stomach from giving her away. She really needed this.. As soon as she got him into the cage she could spend what little bit of money she did scrounge up for a good meal and a way out of this place.

There was a point when she realized he wasn’t just passing through the place, it was about the time the sun was high and the place quickly started to get more crowded. As the sweat began to roll down her back, she bit her lip and headed into the waves of people just to keep him in sights.

Maybe that was the point. Maybe she should have known he was onto her, but even as he kept inside the larger crowds and forced her to swim after him it never occurred to her that she’d been found out.

Suddenly he darted the opposite way he’d been traveling, and she struggled to follow before losing complete sight of him. Her heart began to leap against her chest as she spun around in place to look for him. Her hood eventually even fell off her head with how hard she was whipping it around to find any sign of that dark cloak.


Skye panted heavily as the natural heat and the combined bodies around her suffocated her, she felt the world moving without her as the busy people knocked her around lightly. Some part of her must have been calm, though, because as soon as she realized he could have taken the hood off to talk to a merchant she could see his dust blond ponytail bobbing behind him as he was walking away from her and east. “Shit.” Skye cursed, and then in a blind panic began to run after him.

Her panicked dash was cut short as a the ocean of people blocked her path and made it difficult to make any progress. Despite this, she kept her eyes locked onto her target. He stopped at some point, probably to buy something off a merchant, and then continued moving. Her heart calmed as she was lead to believe he was just going about normally and hadn’t actually seen her. When she finally had some room to move, she ran as fast as she could after him, trying not to let him leave the market without her.

There was a high pitched whistle behind her that she might have thought was odd, but was too focused on him to even care.

She saw him turn a corner slowly, and realized this was her chance. That this alleyway he entered had an exit, but if she could get there fast enough she could rob him of his weapons. Or even of his gold.

Actually, in hindsight, that's a better plan. If she took all of his money, then he has no option but to chase her! Yeah, that’s the plan, and threatening him would be a solid plan B. Except none of it would matter if he got away. She scanned the place, seeing a wagon full of crated goods, she shoved through the last of the crowd on the edge of the bazaar, then ran right at the cart. She had to jump off the face of a wall to reach the crate’s height, then bounced from lower crate to higher before she reached the very wall she had used to get up there.

Very near the alley, she dropped down and into a roll, where she pushed back onto her feet and then slapped her body into the wall. Gasping for air she tried to catch some breath before holding it and scanning the alley way. It was empty!! Her eyes widened! She rushed in, knowing the alley took two sharp turns. This mattered not for she knew he could get away, so she rushed around the next corner as fast as she could.

Only to smack right into a body. His solid chest and precise balance held firm. Like an uban street rat after a guard’s gold and being confronted, she was aware she was in hot water at this point, and so she tried pushing off him to escape.

If only..

-

Barsig reached out with the reaction of a cat, and grabbed her own cloak. Then with a strong yank he pulled it, and her, back and around the corner until her body slammed into the wall with a force that has been mastered over years.

She was wise to try to struggle, and he could practically see what she was thinking as her wild green eyes darted up at him and then straight away from him. Before she could leap off the wall, he planted his hand right on her chest and shoved her back into the wall. “Stop.” He commanded.

She seemed to have understood that he meant it, because she did. Her chest heaved under his hand and her breath painted against the bare spot on his arm, her eyes met his with fear. On top of that, he could hear the voice of panic in her chest. It had been the loudest heartbeat in the crowd for a long time, and it followed him wherever he had gone. If this girl was supposed to be a hardened killer, she was doing a bad job at it.

“Why are you following me?”

“What? Me? Following you?” She said, trying to fake innocence.

“Don’t lie to me.” He said, pushing her a bit harder into the wall. “I don’t know how long you’ve been following me, but I saw you in the market.

She was silent for a long time, apparently deciding on whether to test him or not. He could hear her heart getting ready to lie, but the solid beats of a truth passed through when she finally did speak. “Okay. Fine. I was hired to find you.”

“By whom?”

Again, she debated on lie or truth, but finally settled on something. “By a guy I know. He wants me to bring you to him. That’s all I know.”

Barsig eyed her up with suspicion. Even without his ability to hear her heart, he could tell she wasn’t telling the whole truth. Except she wasn’t lying either. He was about to ask why, but she already told him that’s all she knew. She struggled under his stare and looked away from him. He could only believe her. Whatever the story was, he guessed she needed the prize for this. Probably desperately..

“He could have just sent me a message if it was that important.” He explained, then with her still at his hand’s mercy, grabbed her cloak again and lifted it. He spotted the empty sheaths strapped to her back via belts. She was armored with the basic leather’s, thicker than normal leather clothing, but definitely someone who can fight and has been in some fights. He scanned her over for more insight.

She had a decent body, more built for quickness than strength, her armor pinning the breast down for speed and everything was covered in some layer or another. It implied she needed the protection a lot, or she was hiding. Honestly, if it weren’t for her pounding heart, he might not have noticed her. Perhaps they were cut from the same cloth.

From her blue hair, which seems to darken a bit as it grew, told him she was from Ista - a land in the upper west of the world, where the common people were as tough as the starting out fighters in his own home land. It also seemed to stem from their past as being slave labour for the Marce Kingdom. History lessons aside, between her blood and her evident equipment, he could tell she needed to be watched out for. “You’re unarmed, why?”

“He didn’t want me to kill you.” She lied. But he guessed it was to look tough, not that she needed it when someone as educated as him was around. “If you are done stripping me with your eyes, can we be off?” He wondered why her heart beat was so clear when there was so many people around..

Eventually he let her go, and let the cloak close around his body, but he was very ready to take her out again if she tried to run. “You assume I will go with you.”

“Well.. Do I assume correctly?” She asked, straightening out her own cloak and pushing her hair back into the hood.

He could tell she was just faking confidence. She was scared that he would turn her down, and she’d have to come back empty handed. Maybe it was his past with Seth that made him unable to walk away, but he inhaled deeply and exhaled from the nose before standing up straight and nodding. “Lead the way, Miss.”