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Rapiers with rapier wits verseXbathymcbath

Zora pulled up her hood and followed closely behind Sharlan. His stride was long and she paced at double his speed to keep up, taking in their surroundings as much as she dared while remaining cautious not to run headlong into his back. They strolled by the gathered men, really, and no one so much as looked at her. Her dread gave way to thrill and the beginnings of a grin were tugging at her mouth while she thought about how much easier this was going to be than she had imagined.

That’s when Sharlan seized her, impossibly fast and unyielding in a way that she had never been manhandled outside the practice ring. His hand closed over her mouth and it was a lucky thing because the breath punched out of her in what might have manifested as an undignified yelp. Instead, it was a muted hum against his fingers. Her back landed against him, her cloaked head pressed back against his chest, and terror shot through her. Her body went rigid. She sucked uselessly for air with her mouth once, then twice, before she came back to herself enough to inhale through her nose, panicked little puffs that felt too loud to her ears.

It was only when the men passed through the corridor that Zora began to understand. Some of the terror and the accompanying tension eased from her body. Her flaring nostrils relaxed, she forced her breaths to slow, her shoulders sagged. She couldn’t have said exactly what she believed, for that instant of terror, Sharlan was about when he overpowered her. She was simply glad to be wrong.

A moment passed and then another. The men’s footsteps faded. Sharlan still held her, and she began to notice the way his body wrapped hers, the arm banded across her torso, the meat of his finger pressing her lips flat, nearly parting them. A different flavor of fear started bubbling up her throat and she might have wrenched away from Sharlan if he hadn’t chosen that exact moment to release her. She took one unsteady step away, awkward with the suddenly dying impulse to run or scream or possibly even kick, and by the second she was collected again and following his silent instruction to head down into the belly of the ship, careful to place her feet at the secured edges of each step to avoid unnecessary creaking.

The hold was dark, with a single burning lamp hung at the bottom of the stairs. It created an arc of light near the landing of the stairs but did not reach the back. Zora could only see a portion of the cargo, but she stopped short when she did and understood immediately that she wouldn’t need to go any further. As she suspected, there were no pineapples. There were no fruit flies, nor the cloying, sugary smell of bad produce. In fact, it smelled like oil down here, and maybe beneath that powerful scent she could detect leather. Maybe the wood of the ship itself?

It smelled like an armory, which followed suit, because all that she could see just then in the ship’s cargo hold were long, narrow crates. They were familiar to her already, but she walked forward to one such crate and propped her right boot up on it, just long enough to go for her stiletto. She meant to pry it open and look for the longswords she knew would be inside.
 
Her steps had been light beside him, and she was light to pick up and fold into the secret, coffin-shape in the wall where he set them. For a while he got to hold her, as she errupted into all the quiet uproars kept inside by his hands and arms, and her own fear. He knew distrust almost killed her then, but he also understood what thrills infected her. He did hold her tighter, transgressed more than he had to, and needed to remind himself she was not for his plucking yet. A quick mouse's heart, captured and unable to flitter away like she was used to. He was almost mournful of when the guards passed, and he could let her go. By then she'd calmed herself a little, and his necessary and welcome reprieve was at its end. When he went with her, she might have seen the traces of a smile dying.

That smile was deeply buried when they went deeper into the belly of the Sorrow. These scents were familiar to him. He had waited for them. He knew what they meant.

Sharlan looked over her shoulder when she opened the long box and discovered the war-tools inside. He leaned beyond her to pick one up. He curled his wrist and straightened it, and held it up to the open door they'd come form. "This is..." he started. He knew this iron, and the leather binding on the handle, and the finishing details on the rainguard. He sighed and held the sword horizontal. It wasn't perfect, but the sheer number of the boxes here told of its use. "You've seen enough, haven't you?" he asked her as he turned around and took one step toward their exit, preceding the sword he now lent his second hand too. He was ready to swing at any returning guard.

"But if you haven't, open more until you have. There is a ladder at the end of the room that should take you up to the captains cabin, if I'm not mistaken." the rays of the corridor light that found themselves in here were sparse, even anemic toward the end of the room, but he'd glimpsed the first pegs of the latter there. It was just an educated guess, but that particular latter was better kept than the two other access points save from then they'd come from. The King's Sorrow had a history of vain captains. For now no steps were heard coming, but this ship had docked early to unload this, so they were running out of time.
 
Zora was dumb with shock while Sharlan inspected the sword, quite similarly to how he had done with the spear as he browsed that worn down little shop. Her gut was sinking quickly, so quickly she worried momentarily that she might actually be ill. Her eyelids fluttered heavily with the effort to stop it. Many very large, very loud emotions were leaving their small signs on her face while she stood otherwise motionless, piecing together a jumble of half-formed theories and nagging doubts. She arranged them into all the glaringly obvious conclusions.

First, the ledgers were complete and utter horse shit. Top to bottom, they weren’t even clever little bits of fiction, but outright lies. A deception so bald could only also be ... well supported within the leadership. Even her father could not be discounted, in fact. What she had believed to be a simple matter of skimming off the top had escalated rather astonishingly into something quite a lot more dangerous.

Second, Sharlan was not even remotely shocked by this discovery. He knew, or at the very best he strongly suspected what they’d find in this ship and had let her pay him a full bella, promise him two, to lead her through this charade. She’d been very thoroughly played and now found herself in the middle of an idiotic caper through her father’s own docks, still fully reliant upon the man who played her to get her out of it. Her stomach churned again and she looked away from him so he couldn't watch her face while her heart lurched with dread.

Finally, she nodded, turned rather mechanically where she stood, and went deeper into the hold. Where moments before she had felt comforted by Sharlan’s presence at her back while she descended the stairwell, now she felt her every fine hair stand on its end as she went. She was in a strangely docile state of panic as her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she felt for the ladder. Heart in her throat, but what was she to do exactly? She was here. Scoundrel or not, Sharlan was her escort. Until he turned on her outright, she had no choice but to see this foolishness through. With a thick, dry swallow, she ascended the ladder toward the stateroom.
 
While trying to guess the real geographic origins of the sword, down to its mine, he picked up on her distress. Yes. This was a lot. But he didn't expect anything less. He allowed himself the scrutiny of the weapon, because it was dangerous just in its existence and he was fascinated by it as a symbol. He could not be this level of swordsman without a keen interest in these sharpened trinkets. Though, since he was holding it by its forte, maybe it wasn't too sharp. It was odd that they'd not cared to stone these.

He forgave her her illness but he thought he saw something other in her eyes when she did as she was told. She walked as though she was afflicted, pregnant, with something other than the obvious implications of her father's cargo full of latent war. He was under her when she went up the ladder, and he laid the blade across his arms so he could climb after her. It would be good to throw if they were discovered, but it seemed they'd pressed their window to the utmost of its opportunity, because soon the girl reached a hatch, and the hatch had a double sided latch to allow access from above and below. It was not locked form the other side, and he got to see her ass in cabin light as she got herself up there. He followed deftly, in a choreography that ended with the sword in one hand, and his boot closing the little door.

There was the smell of a well-lived place. Rum, sure, but it was the body odor that cemented it. Candles burnt low, and at least three plates of scraps from meals that might be better than what the rest of the crew got. They'd just be rat beacons now. He pointed to the desk as he stood by the door with the blade resting on his shoulder, ready to swing, though his stance was rather fair-weather. "Use your itty bitty knives." They didn't have time for keys, and she'd shown her hand with the stiletto, he didn't have time to pretend he didn't know. He fixated a while on the window to the dock-side. There was a rope there, tied off to land. That'd have to be their daring flight, if this went bad.

His lips shrunk, irate, at her, as though she was the one conjuring the decided steps coming toward the cabin. He gestured with his free hand at the desk again and grabbed the handle with all his fingers. Two men. Captain and first mate, if he had to guess on the merry of one, and the pandering of the other. Things were getting dire.

And then they were.

There was a jiggling of keys and then a man in a blue jacket stuck his head in, though it was turned toward the corridor where the other conversationalist was. When he turned to enter fully, Sharlan wacked his forehead with the fuller and reached for the first mate. He got to kiss the chappe at neckbreak velocity. They both fell dully to the floor with their boots just outside the threshold still. Sharlan threw her a glance at the two and went to the window. The troupe was down there. They weren't looking, but it'd be hard to come down that rope without calling their attention.

"Quickly, Crawley." he hissed. "We're going to shimmy or glide down, but you better hurry, or we're swimming."
 
Zora's hands shook as she crouched beside the old wooden desk. Her mind raced, grappling with the unfamiliarity of the task ahead. She'd never pried a desk open before. Reaching into her vest, she pulled out her throwing daggers, her "itty bitty knives." She wanted to scowl at Sharlan when she thought of precisely how he knew about her throwing daggers, but she didn’t look at him. She couldn’t, so she focused herself on breaking into the desk.

The lock resisted her fumbling attempts. Panic bubbled in her chest, making her heart pound. She tried to steady her breathing, but the tension was overwhelming. The room seemed to close in around her, every creak of the floorboards amplifying her fear. After what felt like an eternity, there was a faint click. The lock finally gave way. Zora exhaled shakily, a rush of relief flooding through her. She quickly pulled the drawer open and rifled through it with numb fingers.

The jangling of keys was her first indication that something was amiss, but when she jerked her head in Sharlan’s direction she saw that he was already poised to strike. It happened so quickly it was as if nothing extraordinary at all had taken place. In one breath, a man was coming into the stateroom. In the next, two men were falling unconscious to the floor. She glanced at Sharlan with the same terrified eyes she’d been wearing for the last several minutes, then back to the desk drawer, then the open window.

“Dammit,” she hissed with real ire now, lips twisting into an ugly grimace. The overwhelm was chipping away at her nerves and her pretty manners were begging to crack under the pressure. She grabbed blindly for a few papers and one leather-bound journal and shoved the whole wadded mess of it deep into her cloak pocket. Some papers scattered and drifted to the floor, some still sat on the desk, but Zora didn’t have time to pick through clues and escape for her life down a suspicious bit of rope. She was growing more paranoid with each passing minute.

She tucked her throwing dagger back into her vest and went to the window to gaze down the length of the rope. Sharlan wore gloves, but she did not. She did not look forward to the burn of shimmying down the guide line with her bare hands, but she also wanted for a better solution.

“After you,” she muttered skeptically, still looking out the window and everywhere else but at Sharlan.
 
He liked watching her like this. Ever since they collided, she'd been in over her head. He found it intoxicating. She was always channeling all her resources toward a front, and to take the next step in her mission. Noble. But she was stretched thin already at the beginning stages of this march, how could she hope to cope when things got really hairy? Now and then there were shadows of annoyance on her pretty features, that superiority rearing its signature details, but she was too busy to properly express her class, as he class usually preferred.

When the two gentlemen came in, Sharlan was quick and quiet about it, but it excited him to see her reaction when he turned, catching her dread even during their fall. The blade still quivered from its impact against skin-clad bone while he immortalized her ever sinking emotion in his memory. Noble ladies did well in being aghast. She would have plenty of that later, when he tried her sensibilities in other ways. This was violence for her, after all, it should be the one easiest to digest.

Perhaps he should have helped to move things along when she flitted about and faltered with the papers, but he was entertained by her scurrying. And he needed to consider their escape. She played tough but she wasn't used to this kind of thing. Eventually, though, she gathered herself close to him, and his proposed way. He opened the window and reached the rope. It was rather convenient, he thought as he flicked it. Sturdy enough to hold a ship to land. Falling wouldn't be lethal, but it would put them at a severe disadvantage.

He got inside again. When he stood over her this time - backing her into a corner because he knew her feelings about his stature - their discrepancy in build revealed its function. He didn't even ask when he stuck the sword into his belt and lifted her under her arms. He would bet good glint that she wasn't even thinking about her knives now. "Wrap your legs around me. I'm not betting our stealth on the way down on a woman's upper body strength." He'd even shake her if he thought she answered him wrong. He took away her choice by pressing himself against her, her back against the wall. There was killing strength in his arms.
 
To Zora it seemed as if Sharlan grew twice as large just by adjusting his posture and stepping into her space and she moved when he stepped into her, and then again. She felt the press of the cabin wall against the flare of her jacket and understood there wasn’t room for another backward step, so she had nowhere to go when Sharlan reached for her.

“I beg your pardon,” she hissed, eyes open wide. Her feet left the floor and then her back hit the wall, and Zora hung in pure dumb astonishment for one perfect moment while her mind caught up to her. She forgot to breathe. She felt a powerful flush creeping over her.

Wrap your legs around me.

She was outraged, first of all, because she was sure she could make the climb, albeit uncomfortably. Secondly, she felt the natural indignation of being manhandled. Her temper flared hot, but even that angry heat was dwarfed by the terrible thrill that shot straight to her core at the sound of Sharlan’s voice demanding such an intimate thing from her, and then the secondary creep of bone deep mortification that she was capable of such a vulgar response.

She hung in quiet outrage long enough that he had to shake her to bring her back to the present moment. Her head bumped unkindly against the wall behind her and Zora found herself quickly hiking her right leg over Sharlan’s hip, crooking her knee so her foot lay snug against the small of his back. She put her hands on his shoulders, eyes fixed hotly on a neutral place beyond his head as she hoisted herself up and clenched her thighs to grip his midsection. Her left foot hooked over the ankle of her right. Zora burned with impotent anger and humiliation. She wanted to fight with him, to spit insults at him, but there wasn’t time to fight to exert her will over his and he knew it just as plainly as she did.

She gripped his shoulders hard with her hands rather than twine her arms about his neck and press in closer. Her knuckles were white with the strain of it, but she kept that bit of dignity for herself and held her head perfectly rigid to avoid collapsing into his chest.

“Get on with it, then,” she bit out with no sign of the fine mannered young lady who had once worn her skin. She was vibrating with wrath.
 
Her body understood when his demanded it back. He didn't smile because things would be dire if he couldn't make her comply. He'd rather this go smoothly. That didn't mean he didn't enjoy how she complied, naturally, however much she'd hate knowing that. He thought all the things men think when he had her against the wall, and his pacing took over. He would not pardon her. Especially not when she flushed so perfectly at it. He'd give her plenty of reason later. At least this was practical.

And there was a very large part of him that felt validated and bolstered when he got to shake her, and she didn't fight him about it. The acute nature of their situation helped, but it was also good that she somehow intrinsically knew to follow his lead, even if her mind would oppose. A warm thing, when she tied her feet behind him, and her legs held on. He let her go, so she could have her arms back, and pushed her against the wall behind her, not with his hands, but with his hips, testing them against the partition of her legs. He had to bite down harder on the smile then. That was why women didn't wear pants in this century. Her womanhood was there, the temperature of her blush. He held her to him with one arm under her rump, gathering up her coat like so, when he departed the wall with her. Her verbal compliance was delicious, but not needed. He adjusted her closer and made her legs hug him tighter when he bounced her once and pulled.

With his arm around her, he could pull out the sword again, none of the blades he'd brought, but the sturdy one they'd stolen. With his boot on the edge, he launched them out into the night, a motion that was just an extension of his three-step sprint, and hooked both his booted feet around the rope, and hung the sword's guard on one side of the hilt on it as well. They descended with increasing speed like this, her staying between him and the rope like some baby mammal in its mother's pouch. He could decide their speed a bit with his incline, but it ended up rather quick. That didn't stop him from thrusting upward a few shallow times, under the guise of balancing her.

When they reached land, he slowed abruptly with engaging both his crossed, booted feet and pressing his thumb against the rope caught at the angle between the guard and the hilt. By dismounting and taking a few steps, and holding her to him, he was able to out-run the momentum, and eventually come to a standstill. That'd mean he still held her to him with one arm, and holding a sword in the other.

In the night, the group had turned. The duelists were behind the 'leadfeet' that had now grown to seven from five. If she looked at her partner she'd see a defiant smile, and a lack of short breath from their daring escape. He would not let her go unless she in some way insisted. Instead he pointed the sword at the coming men. "You're sailors right? I think your next run will be over the river Styx. Here's your mast." he turned the handle to draw their attention to the blade that managed to catch some glitter from either the moon or the gaslights. Their grunts were not so appreciative of his references or humor. "Dock rules, then?" he jested. This could never have been a fair duel, anyway.
 
Zora’s thighs clenched involuntarily when Sharlan pressed her into the wall with only his hips. She inhaled sharply, a little too loudly she thought. Her eyelids grew heavier than she could stand and for an instant she shut them and her head lost a bit of it’s rigidity. Her chin tipped up ever so slightly, as if she were preparing to wantonly bare her throat to the duelist. In all, it was just a little fluttering of lashes and wobble in her neck, but Zora’s blood churned with a dangerous concoction of fear and heat.

With no small effort, her eyes pried open and she looked into his face, certain now that the liberties he took were entirely deliberate. There was a smugness about him, even if he managed not to taunt her openly. He jostled and shifted her more than he needed to, pressing his hips rudely into the apex of her thighs, sending her thoughts scattering every time. She’d never been in a more precarious position, clinging to perhaps one of the most dangerous men she’d ever met as they glided toward the shore below, and she wondered how her body had gotten confused about the nature of her own excitement, but it surely had. Sharlan’s body was pleasantly hard, like the weight of her in a single arm and the strain of keeping them both aloft with the other was nothing to him at all. The observation made her throat go dry.

They hit the ground at speed and Zora bounced in his arm as he ran it out. She tried to ignore how attractive she found his competence and strength, but her overwhelm had been so persistent for so many minutes that she found even simple obedience was testing the limits of her faculties at present. She might have stayed there, clinging to Sharlan for the rest of the night if not for how he called to the approaching men. She broke from her trance and immediately dropped her thighs’ grip on his hips, expecting to drop easily to her feet. His arm banned round her backside had pinned her and she did not fall. Instead, she found her weight settled more snugly against him and she remained suspended.

She heard rather than saw the footsteps pick up, and guessed by Sharlan’s prideful taunt that they meant to cross swords. She was growing accustomed to the feeling of her heart racing, she thought, because this newest grave threat didn’t steal her senses away. The shortness of breath, the fear, the strange eagerness she felt to witness the conclusion of this surreal episode, come what may - it was all coalescing into something manageable, something she could compartmentalize.

“Let me down,” she said, breathless for too many reasons. “You can’t fight them while you’re holding me!”
 
It was as though he was teaching her how to be a woman. The pressure he provided to her, where her legs met, was complimentary. It would not be taken out of the last bella she owed. She called to him, in her small upheaval, and let him know which affects he had. And he had a good grasp on her sensitivity now. He still allowed her the shield of not mentioning it. He wanted to unlace her more, to see deeper into her. To reveal her to herself. He was steady for her, which meant his body didn't falter, but neither would his nefarious intent. He would keep it as a badge of pride to have disrupted the lady Crowley's propriety so.

He slid to the stop he intended, but didn't let her down at first. He bounced her again with his hold. While their enemies were coming, he looked at her with his usual hubris. "I can, but you didn't pay for that." Down she went, and was that a last sneaking squeeze of her behind before he dropped the sword by her feet. It was an intrusive touch that nestled between her cheeks low, and brushed up against her cunt before he let go. He threw a look back at her over his shoulder, the boyish air around his mouth peeling away to a colder and even deeper reassurance.

And then he darted forward.

The art of dispatching many men wasn't just a matter of overlapping duels. It was its own, impossible art. If they encircled him, things would get dire. But they didn't prioritize that. The most eager of the leadfoots came at him with a club that had once been a post. Sharlan twitched down, out of the horizontal orbit of the bat, and drew his sword. The burst of speed spit the rapier out, and the pommel at the end of the extended Barrenger arm knocked on the leadfoot's temple and felled him. It had not even slowed Sharlan's sprint, and the now raised cutter came down as he ducked again, and dragged it along a second man's abdomen as Sharlan passed him and his raised-too-high knife. A third enemy hadn't even drawn his weapon yet, since he had figured he had plenty of time. Sharlan punched him in the neck with the knuckle guard with all of the built-up momentum behind the strike. A cough and a crackle, and the man fell to both his knees.

It was enough to halt the remaining troupe, and only now did Sharlan slide to a dusty stop. Zora saw him nail the unhurt men to the ground with his stare as he drew the hatchet with his free hand. There was promise in that motion. The three who'd been beaten and cut groaned on the ground, neutralized. Sharlan took steps back to them, but didn't even look down as he brought down the small ax, on either of their heads, silencing their complaints instantly, and with wet thuds. It was an unfeeling and deft dispatching. It spoke of his efficiency and disregard. He yanked the hatchet out of the last cranium and had to take exaggerated strides to get over the corpses to come at those who were left.

At least they'd drawn their swords now. But those blades were shaking as the Berrenger menace came for them, arms wide and weapons leaving wounds in the air on his way. This was what her glints had bought.
 
Zora gave a nearly violent jolt when Sharlan’s hand made obscene contact with her backside. She spun around to watch Sharlan go charging into the fray, wide-eyed and mouth hanging slightly agape. She marveled at his arrogance and his recklessness, rushing into battle when he was so steeply outnumbered. But then he also proved himself adequate to the task with spectacular flare, neutralizing three men without taking a single scratch. It happened so fast, she hardly understood how the second man received his injury. She only knew that he had because of how he clutched at his middle and collapsed.

Admiration warred briefly with her ire, but any generous opinions she may have still nurtured for the man were immediately forgotten when he began dispatching the fallen men with his hatchet. Her stomach turned at the sound of the hatchet cleaving into their heads. She wondered if that was a step too far, even for armed fighters. She cringed away from the sight and her mind turned to fleeing.

She understood now that she couldn’t trust Sharlan, not completely, but he’d thrown himself at the danger exactly as she had asked him to do. Without him, she might be stuck up in that stateroom still. She wouldn’t run, despite how her racing heart and shaking hands were telling her to do just that. She slipped a throwing dagger from her vest just for the comfort of having a familiar weapon in her hand and watched the violence unfold with rapt attention.
 
It rung more of a farmer with sick cattle, than a man over three others. Or, it would have, if the low temperature of his cadence wasn't slightly cracked by the energetic anger in his eyes - a small performative lilt to his murder. All of them had been rendered useless by his deadly march through them, but he'd still gone back and ended them with shallow swings from his hatchet. The angle had even spared him from most of the splatter. He looked back at her when he stood straight, hair from the last dead still hanging off the edge of his short, sharpened dealer. A joy, mocking and content, glittered on his teeth in the familiar set - like telling her 'this is because of you' - before he turned away and again came for the troupe.

One of the duelists in their better clothing drew his pistol, incensed, and called out "Don't just stand there, go kill him!" to accompany the ring of his sword. The four who had bladed weapons of their own started at the lonely attacker, and even fanned out when their self-appointed leader shouted at them to do so. Sharlan moved to the side when they did, and their attempt to flank him only drew them in a line in another direction, instead. The furthest of them ended up closer than he should, and when he lifted his weapon to strike down at Sharlan, a quick stab from Berrenger owned steel skewered the leadfoot's eye, now that he was exposed. He fell dumbly when the support of Sharlan's sword was retracted just as deftly as it had been inserted through his pupil into his brain.

The next leadfoot in row might have learned something, but not enough, when he crossed his chest with one sword-holding arm to cut horizontal. Sharlan stuck his forearm to his sternum with a thrust. The leadfoot howled and tried to pull, but the limb was pinned. It gave him time to stare with wide eyes, defenseless, as Sharlan cocked his ax and beheaded him. Sharlan pulled his rapier back as the body fell after the head. The absurd killings had the two remaining leadfeet hesitant, and Sharlan ran at them, leaving the ax in the cheekbone of one and then proceeding to beat the other man down with his knuckle guard, without letting him fall, holding him by his collar until the sounds of the leadfoot's grunts were overwhelmed by the wet smack of brass against gnarled-free facial bone. Only then did Sharlan let him go.

"You're a beast." the still standing, still collected duelist who'd readied his flintlock pistol said. He still had some distance between him and Sharlan, and he bridged it with the single bullet. The sparkling explosion and dust was novel, but Sharlan didn't deviate from his long steps for it. The bullet had missed, and somehow Sharlan had known it would.

"And you're Stanley Brighton. I heard you made your fortune championing for Lurrem House." Sharlan said with a grave-digging voice. Stanley drew his rapier, which was long, like Stanley.

"I have also made a few good investments." Stanley, who favored powder blue fashion, said with a dismissive tone that betrayed a small shiver. These men lived on bravado. Sharlan fenced with him. Zora would see perfect form from Stanley Brighton, but also how it was disrupted by the power in quick, throwaway swaths from the Berringer sword. Eventually the swings from Stanely's rapier became so wide, Sharlan managed to get inside one of them, and plant his sword through Stanely's chin and up through his scalp. Stanley went limp and Sharlan had to push him to the side to unsheathe from his head.

As the remaining duelist, who dressed in crimsons and whites, drew, Sharlan turned and pointed his bloodied blade at Zora. "That's two bellas worth right there!" he shouted, amused and hectic, and pointed at Stanley with a finger, the body crumpled without the dignity he'd treasured in life. She may be worried for her duelist when he didn't turn as the crimson-clad, last opponent came at him. Sharlan could hear by the rhythm of heels on the dock stone, though, and only had to step aside when the song said he should.

"Antonio. Of Bellini." Sharlan said as he finally twisted and pointed with his weapon at the man who'd lost some balance in his first attack. "We drank together as late as last week, didn't we? You asked me about the heritage of my saber, and then you insulted my breeding under your breath." It was all for Zora's benefit. Antonio came at Sharlan with a similar thrust as before, and Sharlan met it by turning his body and punching forward into Antonio's gut with his blade. Zora would see a disconcerting and sudden relaxation in Antonio's legs, as though life had left them before it had gone from the rest of his body. If she'd seen the perfectly centered protrusion of Sharlan's sword out of Antonio's back, and heard the sound of bone during insertion, she might guess Sharlan had separated vertebra to achieve this effect.

Antonio wailed in horror and surprise more than pain when he found himself clawing at the rocks while Sharlan went back through his road of destruction to pull his hatchet out of the cheekbone of a cooling leadfoot. Sharlan met her eyes then. They both knew what would come next. Sharlan returned to Antonio and beat his head in with three strikes from the blunt end of the hatchet, turning it into a mallet, and turning Antonio into a bag of shattered bone.

There was only silence left on the docks when the Berrenger son sheathed his sword and locked his hatchet into place by his sides. He waved at her with the same hand that had made this battlefield. "The boat crew are coming. I did this quickly, but they're not stupid. Would you like to talk or are we going, m'lady?" he called, a bit annoyed.
 
As Sharlan’s carnage unfolded, Zora’s heart sank lower into her stomach until she physically clutched at it, willing herself not to be sick. She hadn’t meant for anyone to die when she began this inquiry, and now the bodies were stacking up rather quickly. Sharlan looked to be in his element, she noticed with unwilling fascination. When he turned and pointed his bloodied blade right at her, standing among bodies and moments away from dropping more, her knees wobbled unsteadily.

“Look out!” Zora called reflexively as Antonio of Bellini - evidently - charged toward Sharlan’s back, but she understood in short order that her interference was unnecessary. And perhaps that’d been the entire point. To show off. For Zora herself, or for the pure wicked delight of it? She thought perhaps it was the latter, considering the savage glee she saw in his eyes. He was terrifying and beautiful. She wanted to look away but she couldn’t make herself. She kept wondering to herself what she had unleashed.

When he beckoned she went to him, picking delicately around the worst of the blood pools and the carelessly spilled innards. It was horrific. She wanted to gag, but she held her head still and willed her churning stomach to cease its spasms. There were human brains littered across the ground and it was her recklessness that put them there. Only adding to her mortification, she felt she might cry soon if she didn’t find a place to sit and a very strong drink. She was desperate not to cry in front of him. She bit savagely at the inside of her lip to forestall it. Her hand was still clutched tightly around the handle of her throwing dagger, half forgotten as she went mechanically where he directed her. She did not try to have her typical last word now.
 
He had seen her there, where he'd left her, a wayward streak from the sword he'd dropped by her feet cutting her jaw and cheek. Beautiful, pristine daughter of Crowley, one of the King's adored houses, standing there, adrift from the reality he'd carved out for her with his sword and hatchet. She looked like the last fibers of a worn string. Like her final note would be false and broken before her taut legs broke. But she called out pretty well to save him. How kind of her. Not that it did much for him or Antonio.

Here was his birthright, filling up the spaces between the rough cobble. Here was his heritage, the one that the times could not take away from him. A Berrenger Banquet, laid out fresh before its rot.

He liked that the noble woman came to him when he told her. He met her outside of the worst of it, but deliberately did not spare her all. She was so lost among the gore. Like a white lily sprung out of a butcher's drain. He wondered if he could have broken her then.

"Scchhhh..." he started and pulled his bloody glove off, and touched her cheek. She'd be too petrified to move, surely. Or would she insult the creature who'd cut through so many men? But there was something in her fawn body that reacted otherwise to seeing him best these men, too. He'd infected her with something. Violence turns into something else, in a girl heart. He would not let her retreat, at least not far enough to escape his reach. He cupped the side of her face. "It was no trouble at all. It's what I do. And if they couldn't stop it, then they weren't worthy to live on." it was to torture her, of course. Duelist logic is maddening when you're wading through the aftermath. "I'll get you out of here. We'll hurry." The stirring on the boat ushered them onto the shadows.

They were walking back soon, him with the cargo of the sword, but also her arm, to make sure she came along. It was late, but not too late for the Lantern District. At the edge of it, Zora got her seat, in a booth, led there by a waitress who called Sharlan "Sharry". Brandy, but not as fine as she had given him. He wasn't in a position to pay with the bella coin, after all, but the Berrenger lush wouldn't be caught without means to acquire drink. He sucked on the bottle and put it down, and let her have the glass. The waitress had assumed. Without his gloves there was barely any noticeable traces of blood on him when he played the side of the bottle like keys.

"Or we can go upstairs for privacy, of course." he suggested and gave a raise of his eyebrows, jovial and dastardly again, as though he'd not built half a graveyard in the docks. The lightness in his audacity was as before, and the lighting was kind to him, it made his monstrous angles and valleys a little softer, and more mysterious than frightening. A creature of this kind of establishment, then. "Where you can give me the rest of my payment?"

He'd play all manner of games with her if she let down her guard. In fact, he meant to, anyway.
 
Zora’s eyes tracked Sharlan’s hand while she held herself unnaturally still and let him lay it against her face. It was warm from the glove, and she was disgusted by how his mocking comfort was a real comfort nonetheless. His serenity, though she was sure he brandished it like a tool to play with her, did provide a counterbalance to her own unending panic. She was also certain he was a monster. The contradiction made her head ache. She eventually put away her throwing dagger and accepted Sharlan’s arm to lead her away from the nightmare of seven broken bodies.

I’ll get you out of here, Sharlan had promised her, and she tried to cling to that thought as she clung to his arm as they went through the Lantern District. She watched the buildings and the oil lamps and tried to capture memories in case she needed them later, but as soon as one thought rang in her mind the others all scattered and vanished. She would see a sign that ought to have been easy to remember, but then she’d think of Sharlan in the cargo hold, or Sharlan in the stateroom, or Sharlan’s arm in her grip at that very moment and her head would go empty and ringing again.

She didn’t respond to Sharlan’s teasing about the room. She thought she ought to be exasperated or angry or even embarrassed, but she barely heard him. She didn’t look at him as she pursed her lips like she had an unsavory task ahead of her and did not relish beginning it. She took the glass of brandy, tipped it back and swallowed it in three long pulls. She set it down and began filling it again.

“You should know,” Zora said as she filled the short glass to within an inch of the rim and set the bottle down heavily. Her voice was breathy with the burn of the rougher liquor. “I didn’t bring the rest of the money with me. I’ll have to pay you later.” She watched him carefully as she delivered this news, unsure how Sharlan would receive it.
 
When he got to touch her, like she was something wild without sharp teeth, warming to him, he looked at himself through her expression. He liked the mix he saw in there, but not as much as the texture of her skin on his fingers sans his fencing gloves. He was going to eat that skin, and he would have her moan about it. He had killed all these men for that. He Hm'ed some approval for her when she unbraided her fingers from the knife. She relied on his arm, and there were pangs of tightness from her as they went. Her mind was being torrential, while her body let itself be tamed by him. How delicious she was being, in her own disintegration. Death did strange things to beautiful women.

The Last Lass was a good haunt, because there was some ambition in the owner. Not to make something better out of himself, like Samuel Torrick and his Scara, but rather to serve the needs of those who came here. The furniture was sturdy, good quality still, though scuffed. And many nooks and hiding places. Contrary to the Scara, there was better under worse, here. Ezekiel Norman would give out favors and libations to add to the debauchery, if he thought it lacked flavor. Maybe this was the kind of Wonderland most fitting to dismantle the dear Crowley princess. And she'd sat herself down so easily.

Just looking at her taking the drink made him anxious to have her. He'd stirred her up so much - it'd be his duty as her nightly guide, right? It would be a waste to let her upset wan before sampling her now. But how? While she was kicking and screaming? He had to think about it. She was his now, in here, under the moon. She was too deeply ensconced with his bad element to ever be free again. This duelist economy was just as poisonous as the rest of the ways for the poor to advance.

He did love her for worshipping the brandy like she did. It wouldn't quench her, but it might tenderize her for him. She was losing parts of herself on every leg of her journey down to his world.

And then, when he had a handful of plans how to release his own tension into her, she offered it up herself. A quick sizzle through his blood, out of reflexive insult at the implication, but he knew she was new to all this, and used to her word being priced at the same value as the glint she promised. Of course he could trust her. But she didn't have to know he did. These were night rules. Not the kind of trust she could rely on in her padded salons and bright teahouses. He stiffened his body and looked at her with a warning on his brow as a shadow grew under it, until it ate his eyes.

"That's not what we agreed." he breathed like one of her small daggers had found one of his lungs and it smarted. He tried to be insulted that this woman was talking of ripping him off for half his payment, and now also drinking his brandy. "However small the threat to my life, I still risked it for you, tonight." he explained as though he had many times before, and he was reaching the frantic kind of frustration, held down with a whisper only. His wrist snapped hers up. He pulled her closer, to the edge of her own seat. He stuck his face into her hood and his lips past her cheek. "You'll need to prove yourself trustworthy, Crowley." he stated with vibrating surety. "So we will in fact go to a room upstairs."
 
Zora flinched back when Sharlan took her wrist, but his pull was stronger than hers and she slid forward in her seat as if she hadn’t struggled against it at all. She adopted that careful body language again, holding herself motionless while he leaned into her ear. His breath gusted warmly against her cheek and she could still smell the burn of the brandy on him. Or was that her own? She blinked heavily, and stared wonderingly into the middle distance while she put together his practical meaning with her limited theoretical knowledge.

A powerful heat rolled over her. She pressed the balls of her feet inside her boots firmly into the floor to bolster herself against the overwhelming urge to move her legs. It was anger and fear and bewildered desire all working together to send her blood everywhere but her mind. The brandy would hit her soon and slow down her thoughts, but it was no help to her yet.

“That’s absurd,” she told him, jerking her face away from his. She lifted her chin, a little bluff of courage. “That wouldn’t prove anything.” She glanced nervously at her wrist in his hand, how it easily wrapped her forearm. She wished she knew what exactly she was arguing against - what would happen in a room upstairs. She had a vague notion that it would be like the stateroom when he’d pinned her with his body and she’d put her legs around him, and that prospect wasn’t entirely without its allure.

She was being silly. Zora twisted her wrist experimentally to see if she could break his hold. “And between the two of us, my trustworthiness is not in question. You, on the other hand, knew exactly what we would find on that ship. Do you deny it?”
 
The still state of actively hunted prey was particularly rewarding. This close, a man of violence like himself had myriad options. Her pulse was everything she didn't say, with his fingers around her wrists, even through her clothing. He had been smiling when he delivered the sordid sentiment onto her earshell. She was built of impulses to flee. But she also had a base of pride to stand on. It ushered her forward like the vanity of a king will spend his soldiers on already lost causes.

The hand on her arm did not move for her. It pulsed instead, with playful, destructive demonstration, cuffing her tighter and then looser. He poorly feigned being impressed with the tilt of his head. "It would reveal certain things." if not prove. "I can tell a lot about a woman from her-- skin." Little blushing noble. He'd eat all her secrets. But his pace slowed a bit, when she tested him on his transparency. "Would you like more secrets from me, Ms. Crowley?" He knew some of the plot against her family, possibly. It wasn't well guarded, and tongues were loose when the lanterns were lit. His thumb bore into her pulse when he pulled her hand closer to his face.

"Do you think there is enough knowledge in this head to save your family?" he brushed her fingertips to his temple and then filled her palm with his cheek, never looking away. "I've already given my skills and nine deaths in your name." He took a step outward from the table, and its booth, bringing her along in the unforgiving grip. "Now you'll pay for that, or at least have the decency to reassure me." he spat.

Ladies being brought along upstairs in The Last Lass wasn't something new. Sometimes they were kicking and screaming, sometimes they were giddy, most of the time they were just complacent. While it was a bit irregular that they wore fine cloaks, it wasn't out of place. The stairs were sturdy, but the boards were worn in the middle. The landing spread out three different ways and he chose the middle path. First room, and the way he twisted the knob left slightly, before turning it the correct way, suggested he knew its mechanism, since it opened perfectly for him. He danced her in with a forceful hand and locked the door behind them.

"I'll let you know, because for some reason your business mind does not apply its taught rules here, even if it should, m'lady." he said and undid his jacket to revealed a vest and its shirt underneath. He didn't have to look when he threw the outwear to fold over the back of a chair. "It is paramount to satisfy your account after the favor. The interests in my line or work are titanic, and oftentimes unsurmountable." he got rid of his neck accessory in the same way. His neck was long, it seemed, going down the slightly unbuttoned shirt. His voice wasn't playful. "Now. For our trust. Take off your cloak."
 
Zora’s mind reeled as she stumbled up from the booth. In her natural state, she was in fact graceful on her feet, but she felt she’d spent the whole evening lurching awkwardly from one untenable position to the next, terrified and tantalized by Sharlan in frequent, rapid turns that disarmed her. She tried for a few steps to drag her weight to slow his progress toward the stairs and up, but she found that it was useless and that she preferred to move by her own volition.

She kept a tension in her arm, as if to break free of him, but she didn’t truly fight his grip. Rather, the tension was a perpetual test against his resolve. If he should slacken, she meant to wrench free and run. But he didn’t soften his grip all the way up the stairs, and before long they were alone in that room upstairs, whether Zora still found the idea of it alluring or not.

Her dread returned. She watched Sharlan toss aside his jacket and vest over a chair like he was home. She didn’t even really know where she was. Meanwhile, he was perfectly at ease and taking full advantage. She took a backward step from him and very pointedly did not reach for her cloak. She thought about reaching for her knives. It would be suicide, but she still thought of it. Her mind raced while he unbuttoned his shirt. The more of his own skin that he revealed, the tighter Zora’s tension coiled.

“I’m the only Crowley heir,” Zora tried, because Sharlan did seem to like to trade logic at times. “If I’m ruined, then you haven’t helped me save anything at all. Our agreement would be void, in which case ...” She took a steadying breath. “In which case, why would I pay you at all?”
 
She was cornered. She knew his abilities, she thought, and she wasn't foolish enough to test him on them. But she wouldn't be complacent because of that. Still she ended up here. It was too bad she couldn't be practical about this. He liked the way she was laden with tension the more comfortable he got. The shirt was fully parted soon, hanging on either side of him, telling of the center line of his body, and how it was framed by muscle on either side. Not dock-worker kind of mass; if Sharlan was any weapon, he looked as though he was a collection of spears put together to imitate the shapes of a man.

He followed when she took steps back, and his smile ate up the shadows in here. He only had eyes for her, and now those eyes, that used to be dark, revealed to be a deep brown that in this particular candlelight became rust, and then a kind of nightly red. A cruel set of his lips straightened the smile. "I only meant to accompany you tonight. I have done that. You hired a duelist."

His legs were long and their training was flawless, so when they bent and pushed and his arm came out, with so many years of fencing behind him, she could believe the thrust of his palm was formidable. It connected to her stomach, and would force her back. As she collapsed she'd find a bed there to catch her. When she caught her wits again, and looked up at him, he would be closer, and touching one of her itty bitty knives that he'd extracted in the minute touch.

"What if saving Crowley is giving it a new heir?" Even her sensibilities should be able to catch up to that level of crassness. He threw the knife to land by her side, without a bounce, on the cover. "You know, I like the idea that while your price of one bella is rather steep for a Last Lass, it is a bargain for a Loyal's virtue." It was surely not what the king had meant for the title, when he gave them out, at the Edge of evening. "Now, your cloak and your compliance. Or you take up that knife and do something foolish." His expectation didn't give away which he preferred.
 
Zora held her ground when Sharlan approached. It was a futile exhibition of pride and she would have known that if she’d had any time at all to stop and process what was happening to her. Her throat was climbing steadily higher in her throat. Sharlan’s shirt was open and the torso beneath was frighteningly hard and lean, its owner having just killed nine men without sparing even a second for regret. She might have begun hyperventilating if not for the fact that Sharlan struck her down - with humiliating ease, she’d reflect later - and the breath all punched out of her on impact with his palm. She caught the backs of her knees on the edge of the bed and fell back. Her fear crested then. She’d been able to manage it until then, despite all the horrors the night had shown her. She’d been in denial. She believed that her professional association with Sharlan would lend her some measure of protection from him, almost entirely because she’d wanted it to be true. But he had shoved her onto a bed as he was taking off his clothes and there was no shred of delusion left for her to cling to.

Zora’s eyes were wild, her expression still caught between terror and fury. The knife landed quietly next to her and she pushed up to sitting. She hadn’t even realized he’d taken it until he was returning it to her. She was lost.

She looked down at the knife. After a long hesitation, her lip twitched like it might like to quiver as Zora reached for the clasp of her cloak. She swallowed thickly and let it fall back and pool behind her. It was only one of several layers, but she felt like she was already naked. In that one act, she’d shed the protection of her own denial, for the first time allowing herself to comprehend how little control she truly had. Her eyes swept up Sharlan again, and now she didn’t bother to hide that she looked at him, with particular interest in his deadly hands. She wondered if he’d kill her if she displeased him enough. She wiped roughly at her eye to stop a stray tear before it could wet her cheek and sat in sullen but yielding silence.
 
It may be lost in the sounds of toppling a woman over, but he gasped when saw the ages of fear suck life out of her face as she landed. Now that was primal. That was something he'd hunted with rifles and hounds from horseback. But even her fawn similia fell a bit short to express how delicate she was. Perhaps because she wasn't. No. She wasn't fragile in the bed as its cheap sheets settled after having received her body, weighted with small knives and her vain hopes on his propriety and nothing else. She was broken. She suffered the forces of it, in her small body, and he stood there to take it in. An opera, with its high notes of dread and lows of depression, playing out in pretty, well-bred setting - elegant shapes rather than vulgar curves, just as her caste dictated.

"Ah," he rewarded, just a little break of a little bubble in the depth of his throat, when she gave him what he insisted on. The cloak was heavy but still fluttered a bit, thanks to its immaculate make. Nonetheless it had to settle, like her will. None of that cutting responses at the corners of her eyes. She was seeing the man who'd hurt her, and not the one who'd protect her, finally. His teeth dug into his lip when she killed and smeared that tear over herself, as though its glistening coat wouldn't be as telling as its falling pearl. "she learns at last." Just a little violence.

Since she was so engaged in looking at him, he rolled one shoulder and pulled with the opposite hand, until the shirt as off him as well. An impossibly intrusive pattern of shadows mapped out his fit anatomy, aggrandizing long muscle and pulled-thin skin. He couldn't afford too much mass for his speed, and he couldn't be too willowy to strike hard. So his body had to be this spring-loaded, young tree. With his weapon belt still around his waist and lower, he still looked that part of someone who might cut to express. Sharlan took a step closer to her. It meant something that she hadn't taken up that knife. It laid there as a reminder that Zora Crowley wasn't trying to get out of this anymore.

"First you kiss the ring." he said. She'd know what it meant if she'd paid attention in her history and etiquette classes. His crest was on the pommel of his sword, which protruded from his hip now, at level with, but not centered like, the very male organ that had yet come into play, even if it dictated what was happening. The round end of the handle was even angled a bit like a cock. To admit defeat, the loser of a duel could be told to kiss the ring, but in the context, it mean kissing the winning opponent's crest, and in Sharlan's case, it'd be the pommel. He was sure she understood the implications if not the imagery.
 
Kiss the ring.

Zora’s eyes snapped reflexively back to Sharlan’s hands before his meaning set in and they settled on the sword hanging at his hip. She progressed rapidly through confusion and understanding, and then at last an outraged kind of resignation. She thought she followed his intent to have her formalize her surrender to him before he finished disrobing. He had her. In every conceivable way he had her, but still he played with her. She realized with a horrible sinking feeling that he had always had her if he wanted, from the moment she went strolling blithely into his booth. It was all a game.

She dragged herself forward on the bed until her booted feet could touch the floor again, fanning the tails of her jacket behind her with the motion. The position left little space between her feet and his. She remembered how mysterious and romantic Sharlan had once seemed to her. Now she was wondering if she could cooperate long enough to cut his throat. Maybe he’d sleep?

Did she even have murder in her? Would she by morning?

She spotted the crest on his pommel easily enough and bent and craned her head to it, moving with a perfunctory crispness. Her hair didn’t move, twisted and pinned securely against her scalp. She touched her lips to the pommel lightly and smacked her lips loudly enough that there could be no question of her compliance. She drew back quickly. Even that brief moment with her eyes turned from him seemed too long and made her skin prickle with the sensation of putting her back to a predator.

She looked speculatively at his neck and her dark eyes glittered with the churn of her thoughts. If not tonight, then definitely later. If she survived, she’d kill him later. Whatever happened in this room wouldn’t matter anymore once he was dead, she reassured herself.
 
She was struck by the suggestion, but women aren't as affronted by this kind of defeat as men. She was more concerned with the toll of it, on her physical honor. But Zora was still a thinking creature, and she showed him that as she came back to the bed's edge to sit. He wondered if she understood, after all, what a woman's lips close to a man's middle like that, might suggest. It was superfluous information to breed, so she may not have been taught that, in her modest lessons from powder-wig scholars. But he got to enjoy all of the pretty implications, when she kissed the end of his sword.

There was something else in her, though, when she straightened herself after another one of her defeats. She was obedient in her soul, growing up a woman of society would do that to you, but she looked at him with eyes that he recognized. Concern, and no small amount of vengeance. In her case, it would only lend spice for him during what would now transpire.

"Good lass." he said and unbuckled. The sword that had received her fealty fell to the floor along with its ax partner. They made beautiful sounds, of course, well maintained and of excellent smithing. "Now stay." he ordered and leaned forward to undo her jacket until her blouse got to billow what little it may, and he could see her velvet vest fully. He undid those buttons as well and pulled out one of her knives to look at, even though he'd already made the acquaintance of one. "Are you good with these?" he asked. He would let her begin to answer before he cut her. From her throat down. She may think it had not graced her, or that he'd wounded her fatally, until only the blouse fell apart, buttons raining down on her thighs and to the floor. The quick blade would also open up whatever she may be wearing under that blouse.

It was a mercy, really. Because with her jacket and vest buttoned over the broken blouse, she could still mend her outfit enough to pass, when she needed to get home. Wasn't he magnanimous?

"You're so grand in society and so small in a whore's room." he commented with unyielding, dark humor. "Stand up and leave your clothes on the bed. Let me see the make of a Loyal." By some honor-standards, she'd be his the moment he saw her breasts, so he'd make sure to backhand her swiftly if she tried to cross her arms over them. But he wouldn't be done there, of course. He was sure she'd measured enough servants by their posture. He'd do the same to her now, in this offensive candelight, and unfitting surroundings. And despite her high born blood, he couldn't help but deduce that the viscount daughter looked somewhat natural in this setting. Maybe there was a harlot in her, after all.
 
Zora dipped her chin to watch Sharlan’s fingers work her buttons, first her jacket and then her vest. She watched another one of her daggers leave in his possession, traded for a question about her skill. She shrugged her small shoulders and said with false humility, “I do my best.” The last word was choked off by the little stutter in Zora’s chest when her own knife sliced out at her and she felt its wind on her skin and its pull on her blouse. She heard the faint snapping of strings and for a moment that was all.

She held her breath and waited for the bite of the blade to pierce her addled senses but the pain never came. She wasn’t hurt. She took a heaving breath that shook her buttons loose all at once and they went scattering. She felt cool air against her abdomen. There was nothing under her blouse, only pale skin, exposed at first only in a thin vertical stripe. She thought for sure she’d been cut and the realization that she hadn’t felt like the ground rushing up to her, a little frisson of freefall low in her belly. It made her gasp.

She hated him thoroughly with her eyes as she stood. She didn’t cower or cover herself, but only because he’d explicitly asked to see her and to do otherwise seemed like a provocation. She let her hands fall to her sides and she shrugged again, this time with an exaggerated dip of her right shoulder first, and then the same with her left. All three layers dropped down the length of her arms as one, leaving Zora exposed from the waist up. Her breasts were small and girlish, scarcely enough to fill a palm, with small nipples the same dusky pink as her lips. Her body was slender and the subtle lines of her muscles and the womanly flare of her hips were darkened and amplified in the candle light. The longer she stood that way, the more she itched to cover herself and the harder her face grew with the effort not to project her discomfort to Sharlan.
 
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