Flashback Bend and Snap

[Marion Kay]

12 Spring 514 AV
21st Bell
A Sunset Quarter Apartment

Marion wasn't sure how long she'd been waiting. Perhaps twenty chimes. Perhaps more. Either way, her patience was wearing thin, and the fact that she was in someone else's home certainly didn't ease her frustration. For all she knew, she could have been set up. This could be a trap. And the thought of that only made her blood boil.

She toyed with the dagger in her hands, a short, blunt thing that wouldn't be so menacing if it weren't for its sinister curve and bone grip. The client who'd hired her for this job had been kind enough to lend her his apartment to use, and even used one of his own hired thugs to go fetch the poor bastard she was going to be working on today. But she'd been sitting here in the dark for far longer than she ought to have been, especially considering the plan was for her to arrive after the target. That hired thug must've been bad at his job. Or, again, this could be a trap.

Marion had rearranged the furniture upon entering the apartment, pulling a small wooden table to the middle of the room and arranging a single chair on either side -- the usual interrogation setup, though there was nothing "usual" about her technique. She sat silently facing the doorway, the only sound in the room coming from dagger thumping against the wood of table every now and again as she spun it in her hands. A single long-stick candle stood lit in the center of the table and cast a warm glow that belied her purpose here.

Beside her occupied hands laid a wooden mask, something that almost seemed necessary for these kinds of occasions. Though she could easily disguise herself through the manipulation of her djed, to do so often wasn't quite worth the risk when she could go through more mundane avenues. Besides, the mask had more uses than simply hiding her face. It was a kind of calling card. If she garnered enough of a reputation in her chosen profession, it would become the symbol of her work. And, much of the time, people found a mask far more unnerving than a simple adjustment to her face. With the mask, they knew that there was something hiding underneath it, something unknown to them, and that was sometimes enough for them to be struck dumb with fright.

Not that it was particularly grotesque in its design. The face it presented was clearly human and under different circumstances (perhaps a play) it could almost be comical. Yet here, the both the expression and the proportions were disturbing. The eyes were opened wide, holes cut where the pupils would be for the wearer's own vision, and the eyebrows were arched in a perverse kind of glare. The nose was about as wide as Marion's own palm, and large lips were scrunched into a whistling position. If someone saw it, Marion believed they'd have a hard time forgetting it. And that was exactly the point.

She had been wearing it when she entered the apartment, but had long since set it aside when she realized she was going to be waiting for some time.

Her frustration grew with every passing chime the dagger in her hands catching against the table and leaving scratches as her movements steadily grew more heated; forgetting, for the time being, that this wasn't her table to abuse.

Then there was a knock.

Text "Speaking" Thinking

[Marion Kay]

"About petching time," Marion spat, rising from her chair. Yes, no matter whether it was an assassin or the incompetent thug, it was about time someone showed up.

The blade clattered to the table, her hands releasing it as they grasped at the mask. Before she could move farther, however, the doorknob shuddered and the door swung open, thudding obnoxiously against the wall. For a moment it looked as if no one stood on the other side, until there was a deep grunt and a burly, tattooed, barrel of a man shuffled in looking none too happy. He carried some kind of sword at his waist and grimaced as it smacked sharply against the door frame. A much smaller man was slung over his shoulder. He must've had his mouth gagged beneath the potato sack that had been pulled over his head, because Marion could barely hear his muffled screams from across the room.

"Keep it down," she cautioned flatly, raising the mask to her face while the fellow was otherwise occupied with his squirming quarry. Slender fingers worked on the strings, shivering slightly in anticipation. This was no assassin; the incompetency was too genuine. Once her features were adequately concealed, she took a step towards the man. "Easier said than done, lady," he growled, his reaction slightly delayed. Marion bit her tongue, cutting off a retort before it could leave her lips. This was neither the time nor the place. The skinny fellow in his arms thrashed, and she noticed that his limbs had been bound at the wrists and ankles. The hired thug's eyes flashed towards her for a moment, studying the mask before falling to the table and the empty chair across from Marion.

He rushed to the spot, eager to shed his load, and unceremoniously dumped the smaller man into the chair. The sweet tinge of fear wafted towards Marion, and she flashed a fiendish grin underneath the mask as she wove her way to the other side of the table. The poor fellow's head lolled for a moment in disorientation before he realized he was no longer being held. He shifted forward, naturally trying to stand and flee, but was met with the burlier man's fist shoving him back into his seat. He let out a whimper that sounded something like "Pleeeease", but was met only with silence.

Marion stood next to him now, leaning her hip against the table as she cocked her head to the side. The thug back up to the wall, crossing his heavy arms as he rested against it. His job was done for now. It was Marion's turn to take over.

Text "Speaking" Thinking

[Marion Kay]

She lifted a deceptively gentle hand to the sack, gripping the coarse fabric for a moment before tugging it off with a flourish. She released it in mid-motion, letting it flutter to the floor in some dark corner of the room. Candlelight flickered in front of the man's face, and he had to squint for a tick despite the weakness of its light. His eyes took a moment to adjust after being trapped in the darkness of the cloth, and they immediately flew to Marion's face as soon as they had. There was a sharp intake of breath through his nose (his mouth was indeed gagged). Pupils narrowed, eyelids widened, jaw clenched. In the air, Marion could sense his fear renewed.

She peered back at him through narrow holes, gaze kept even and calm, especially in comparison to his own as it turned to flicker through the room. Every breath he drew in grew more and more shallow. Marion studied him -- his cropped black hair, unkempt stubble, angular chin, surprisingly chiseled nose, the fresh black eye -- and reached for the dagger where it laid on the table. Every movement she made was wordless, but the bone handle of the blade ground against the wood (and their ears) as she dragged it towards her.

The man's gaze locked on the the weapon as soon as her hand had moved, and he now shuffled in the chair, raising his arms to his face as he tried to push himself to his feet once more. Marion sighed in frustration, fingers tightening on the dagger as she prepared to swing it. Another sigh, this time in exertion, and the butt of the handle cracked against the fellow's skull. His head lolled once more, struck into a momentary daze by the blow.

"'Ey, watch it now," the burly thug grumbled from where he leaned, and Marion began to wonder if he could only communicate in grunts and growls. "Not supposed to damage him too bad or nothin'."

"I know that," Marion snapped back, glaring at him from behind behind her disguise. Of course, she hadn't wanted the target to know that, or she'd have a harder time getting him to talk. "But maybe I wouldn't have to if someone had to foresight to actually tie the sod down." There was a biting tone to her words, and she shot him a pointed look. With another annoyed grunt, the thug pushed himself from the wall and strode toward the table, unslinging a coil of rope from his belt. "Can't even keep that little twerp in line..."

"It took you twenty more chimes than it should have to catch the 'little twerp.' Or did you forget?"

He grumbled a number of rude things under his breath as he squatted and wound the rope around both the smaller man and the chair. It didn't take too long, and he managed to fasten a knot in the back before to target regained his senses. The thug rose to his feet with a huff, casting a dirty look towards Marion as he turned away. "I'll be waiting outside," he stated dryly, and Marion smirked wryly because she was about to tell him to do just that.

There was a tension in his broad shoulders as he closed the door behind him, as if he'd wanted to slam it but thought better of it.

"Touchy," she remarked drolly, turning back to the target at hand. He'd come to once more, and shrank away from the twisted mask as she leaned forward, resting her elbows against the table. "Now. Where were we?"

Text "Speaking" Thinking

[Marion Kay]

The man's eyes, finding they couldn't catch Marion's own gaze in the darkness, took a moment to scan over the rest of her. Blonde hair spilled from behind the mask, and her voice was muffled to some degree by the obstruction. The sackcloth shirt she wore threatened to fall off from her left shoulder, hanging loosely from her lean body. The table and the darkness concealed her form from there down.

Candlelight refracted off of the blade as she shifted her grip, casting a beam into his face for a tick. He winced, jerking his face away from her and blinking rapidly. Silence had filled the room again, almost as if Marion were actually waiting on a response to her question.

She let it drag on, taking her seat opposite him and examining him further. A nasty purple mark began to swell where she'd cuffed him, and Marion realized she ought to have been more careful with the strike. She had no idea what she was doing when it came to wielding the dagger; she could have unintentionally caused some serious damage. With that thought, she set the blade to the side and straightened her posture. If she couldn't trust herself to handle the damn thing properly, she'd have to do this the old-fashioned way.

Of course, it would have been much faster to simply use her gift to pry the information she sought from him, but there was no art in that. Half the fun, if she could call it that, came from the mind games. Hunters went straight for the kill, but she was no hunter. She was a predator. She could afford to toy with her prey. This was what she did.

The man followed her every motion, but the alarm had drained from his face to be replaced with a pitiable look of resignation. And yet he still seemed confused.

"Here's how this is going to work." Marion's lilting voice broke the silence, her words slow and enunciated as if she were explaining the rules of a game to a child. "I'm going to ask a series of very simple questions. You will answer them with a 'yes' or a 'no'. If you play along nicely, I'll get that rope out of your mouth. If you don't, well," she nodded her head and gestured to where the dagger sat, "you get to lose a finger. Or two. I'm not very good with a knife, you know."

She was bluffing, of course, and the momentary furrowing of the man's brow told her that he would have liked to call her on it but thought better of it. He shifted slightly where he sat, swallowing hard as he met and held her gaze. First question.

"Do you know where you are?"

The tone of her voice was caught somewhere between "flat" and "amused". She couldn't decide which approach would seem the most menacing in this situation. The man sank in his chair as he anxiously cast his eyes about the room. After a few ticks his head gave a small shake to indicate that he didn't.

"No, I wouldn't expect you to in this lighting."

Text "Speaking" Thinking