Snippet #1746608

Lamya's journey back home took a lot less time than she had anticipated and the rest she had when she got back turned out to be longer than anticipated. If one was swayed by their anticipations, the world would get nowhere. What humans called the most important moments in their history were all spurred on by the lack of anticipations. Big upsets in war were all based on a simple fact that the winning army had anticipated their foes to be stronger and the other side anticipated their opponents to be weaker than they turned out to be.
"You're here sooner than I expected." A voice came from the end of the hall. The voice of a woman whom every assassin in the Shadow's Conflict seemed to hate. Lamya understood, but at the same time could wrap her finger around the idea. This woman knew what she shouldn't and Lamya had given her a position of power. To anyone else it seemed ridiculous. The only other one who was able to warm up to her was Rick, but that was because he always believed that keeping one's enemies closer was the best solution to the problem.
Lamya didn't walk any closer to the woman down the hall. She ignored the comment that seemed to directly relate to her thoughts. "Hello Rita. How's my less pretty counterpart?" Lamya knew she hated that.
Rita gave her typical sneer and response. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I thought you of all people would recognize that."
"Oh I do Rita, but I like to see you get worked up over such a petty topic. Now how are the armies doing?"
"They're fine" Rita said. "if you were to restrict them as much as you have."
"It's up to them to stand up to their beliefs no matter what restricts them my dear. For example, I understand that you think killing me and all the other assassins would be good for Blackpond. You believe that killing me would end all of Blackponds troubles and the war with Newhaven would be over." She laughed as loud as she could. The high pitched screeches echoing through the halls. "You see, I've already solved that problem. The last time we've fought with Newhaven is when we took those prisoners. That is almost three years ago."
Lamya walked away. She had more to say, but she just didn't feel like continuing on. There was no reason why she didn't continue besides how she didn't feel like it. There would be more time to talk if she was interested. Rita knew that there was no point in talking any more. She just let Lamya walk out of sight.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Newhaven
Alex sat in the inn for a while longer after everyone left. Based on the movement outside, he knew exactly how dreadful the site would be. He much rather preferred to wait it out and maybe have a moment to relax. He sat atop his barstool and stared down the drink that had been left unattended by a patron after the ruckus scared them away. A drink seemed like a nice thing to have. The soothing feel of losing one’s self while the tingly tonic burned its way down to his stomach would feel so great at that moment. His eyelids pressed down and he shook his head a few times before reaching into his pouch to grab a cigar. Placing it in his mouth, he got out of his seat and made his way to the door.
“The money’s on the counter.” He explained the girl before leaving.
He had a feeling that something fishy had been going on inside the Salamanders’ camp. Things just seemed to be going too well for the past while. People seemed to be sucking up to one another too much. Some people were acting too kind and others a little more hostile. He should have seen the signs and been able to interpret them given how he had seen it happen a few times on smaller scales.
The streets were full of guards and soldiers who seemed to be franticly wandering back and forth through the city. The townspeople could tell that something was happen and were all on edge. People were all on the edge about it all. He didn’t blame them, but the fact was that there was nothing to worry about anymore. Soon things would subside and people would forget about it as if nothing happened. That’s how everything worked in Valcrest. One day it is big news and the next it is forgotten. Nothing would last forever. Not in their mind or anywhere for that matter.
Alex moved his way down, exiting the city to see a group of guards and workers all around. They were all working on individual things. Some were keeping guard of the bodies while others were rushing around to make the bodies look presentable. That would all be easy enough to slip by. He had slipped by a few things in the past while.

After getting past everyone, he had managed to find what he was looking for. He seemed stupid for not looking in the most obvious spot. Knowing the relationship between Grim and Mageria, she would want him to be placed closest to the Pyre. Grim was laying there under the shade of the trees that weren’t too far off. He had seen many dead people in his days, but this one struck him in particular. He had only felt this feeling for a dead body once before. He wanted to go find the person who did that immediately and find the person a dead man. It defiantly wouldn’t be pretty if he did find that person. There was way too much revenge on his mind already to deal with more. He would sadly have to put it aside.
He walked up closer to the motionless Grim. “Ha! Even dead you still look better than I do… Well, I guess it doesn’t help with the lame eye that I have, does it?” Alex felt like a complete idiot talking to a dead body, but he found himself unable to stop. “Now I know that anything I ever told you was safe. Like that time I accidently told you about stealing some of Morrigan’s stuff and burning it in the camp fire that one time after she had cut my eye out. She can be a bitch sometime, you know. I don’t know how you could handle her.”
He looked down at the body for a little while longer. Soon enough the commotion in the town would die down and people would forget about the day that the Salamanders died; the day their great leader of the group had died. The moment everyone who personally knew him dies, he would become just another person in the history books, but people can’t believe everything that is written in those things. People wouldn’t know about the fine details of a very complex man. And eventually, even those history books, with the little details about the man would disappear from time. Grim would disappear from time. He would just become another shadow of the forgotten.
With all that he had to say over with, he left the area. He wasn’t sure where he was going to go now. So he just went off to the treeline and walked for a while until he found a distant place to stop. He was alone, like he wanted, but being lonely could be such a burden.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[The Desert]
There Evin was in the middle of the desert. Time seemed to go by slowly in this place, even for someone who had control over the speed at which time went by it seemed slow. The funeral that was being held for the Crimson Shadows who had lost their lives in the most recent attack with the assassins had started to devolve into their second for of respect that Evin liked to call “the forgetting period”. They would all get completely drunk until they forgot what it was they were getting drunk for. In the morning, they wouldn’t remember anything about the previous day. The only indication that they would have that the lost comrades were no longer with them would be because they wouldn’t be able to find them anywhere in the camp. Sometimes they’d have a second and even a third party over it because they would forget that they had already partied for their deaths. The morbid comedy moved on.
Soon enough, he noticed Crystal walking by.
"Hey Crys. You wanted to talk?"

Crys had gone into the camp to get some food and water and see if any of the Crimson that had been out that morning had important information. After scattering the ashes of their fallen companion the mercenaries had gone back to their usual loud and cheerful behaviour. A couple of years ago Crys would have found them irritating, but she had gotten used to them by now.
Sitting by a place that had become her usual spot, a little more secluded, but still close enough to know what was going on with the general population, she heard Evin's voice and nodded to his question. "Yes, I did. I'm not sure to what point you'll want to listen to this, considering the source, but I'll tell you anyway because it's a serious matter: I spoke to Theron last night and he told me a little of why he's back. He says this man, I think his name was Adrian, has been forming a massive army in the West and plans to conquer, well, the entire continent for what I understand. So Theron tells me he is here to end the war and prepare everyone for the incoming attack. I listened to him, and I really don't doubt there will be an attack, but I'm not sure I believe there is way to get Valcrest in order to defend itself." She sighed. "At least not as quickly as he seems to want it. I told him so too, but he has some sort of plan he wouldn't tell me about." She went silent for a little while, hearing one of the Crimson tell a slightly offensive joke to one of his buddies. "I think he left for the plains." She added.

Evin didn't want to look like he was interested in the topic, but he couldn't not listen to it. The mere mentioning of Theron made him mad, but it also made him interested. While he calmed himself down, he thought of what to say. He was still an assassin and he needed to keep his cool so he could make decisions.
"While I believe what Theron says to be true, I don't believe that the army would attack us first. I don't know much about the outside lands as most do. I have however looked at a few maps out of interest. Valcrest sits in the center of this continent and it wouldn't be strategic to attack in the center where this Adrian would have to fight on two fronts. Odds are he will work his way up the side of the east or west coast before moving to the center. We have time enough." He took a few second to grab some of the food that Crys had taken. "Hope you don't mind." He took a bite. "That can be discussed more at a later date when it becomes more pressing. I've had some time to think and I believe we could use Theron's arrival to our advantage. It may seem disloyal to do so, but if we were to somehow inform Sean of Theron's arrival, he will use all his resources to destroy anything that remains of the man. That could give us ample time to launch our own attack on Sean directly. Our assassins might not yet be able to take on the Pack at full force, but if Sean stretches his assassins, then we have a chance."
He took another bite from the food he had practically stolen, ready to listen.

Crys shook her head as Evin took her food, holding back a chuckle. She didn't mind, but she always found it funny when people said 'hope you don't mind' after doing things. If they actually cared, they'd say it before and wait for a reply, so it was really just pointless. "Huh... Someone should describe that map to me one day." She said absently. "Suppose we do have time to do that, if it can be done." She agreed. "And I thought about having Sean know about Theron's return. The risk involved in this would be that Sean is a coward; he rarely goes after people directly. He could come after us instead hoping that it would affect Theron somehow. The way I see it, he could go either way, and if he decides to throw the Pack at us, we have no chance. If we can make it so he has no choice but to chase after Theron, that would make it easier." She said, going into thought for a moment or two. "If we could know what's going on in the Pack internally, and we made that information public to the clan, in the right time... They'll pressure him into hunting Theron, and he'll have no choice. He doesn't have it in him to go against the whole clan the way my mother always did." She chuckled. "Definitely not after criticizing her so much for it."

"I'd give you the map I had, but I kinda burned it with the rest of the archives." He chuckled, thinking about how he had almost burned down the entire leader’s cabin in the Wolfpack's camp. He hadn't burned down the entire thing, but he had managed to burn down the entire archives of the assassins. All the records, all the history was destroyed in a single moment. Things forgotten forever. There was no chance for finding a way to remember what had happened in those moments in history and so it would be lost in time.
"So you really think that Sean would go after us? What if we convinced Sean that Theron has no interest in us anymore? We could also try to convince him that we have no interest in Theron. That way Sean would go for Theron with even more force than he would think he could give your situation. It would take less time to get that done and we would have even better odds. Theron can handle things himself. Especially if he trained the others following him well enough."

Crys considered the odds carefully, at some point she wondered if she should be concerned that the possibility of sending the entire Wolfpack after Theron didn't bother her at all, but finally she simply forced her mind back to the matter at hand. "I don't know if he'd buy that. Not unless we put on a damn good act." She said thinking it over one more time, and then again. "We'd have to get the information to him, without him knowing it's coming from us and we have to make it so his focus is entirely on Theron. That's a complicated thing to do. If the news came from one of the messengers in Newhaven, or Blackpond, he might be more likely to believe it, I think." She sighed. "I also have to keep a closer watch on Ali or she might just mess it up, and we can't really afford any mistakes right now. Suppose that's a little bit on me though..." She added with a little shrug.
Crys ran a hand through her hair, and took a moment to hear the sounds of the desert camp, so different from what she used to call home, but all too familiar now. So many of the things that happened forced her to think of the past, to relive things that were meant to be dead and buried... And now this. "Can't really believe he's back." She mumbled, still not sure of Theron's return would bring, despite their own plans.

Evin looked around him like Crys had. He looked over two Crimsons fighting over a bottle of beer. A crowd was beginning to gather around them as the fight got 'better'. He could see money passing hands as the fight went on. Eventually, the crowds had covered the fight completely and there was nothing left to distract himself from Crystal's comment about Theron. "Yeah, it is hard to believe." He said with a light tone. The topic to him was like salt in an open wound. It hurt, a lot. Speaking of him as a tool against Sean was fine with him, but personal talk was just not alright yet.
"What we need to do is start a scene between him and the two of us at an Inn. Hell, we could probably do a repeat of the first time we met him, minus the inn burning down of course. The new assassin working there wouldn't even notice what was going on. It would be a great! The informant would report back to Sean both that Theron was back, but also that we have a beef with him. Did you ever learn how to fake an injury? Do you know how to make fake blood?" He asked, not really expecting an answer right away. These questions were shot at her too fast for her to respond to immediately and besides, she had to contemplate the plan before even answering those question.
Soon enough the crowd had died down. Some looked disappointed. Actually all of them looked disappointed. Obviously the fight wasn't what anyone had expected. They had probably come to some sort of compromise and the fight never really had a conclusion. It seemed to have been arguing over who had won the fight. The motions of their hands indicated that they were discussing the highlights and basing their arguments around those moments. All in fun and games, but to Evin, it all looked silly.
Crystal wasn't given a chance to think the whole way through before Evin said another thing. "I have a favor to ask of you Crystal." Long had he stopped calling Crystal by her full name, but in times when he was being extremely serious he tended to fall back to old habits. "I know there is a lot on your plate, but there is something really important that I want you to do for me. It a lead I have on a personal matter. You see, there is a small village about an hour’s walk west of here. In that village, there's a man who owns a small store. It's the only store in the village, not at all hard to find. I'd gotten a lead from another man in that town about a woman around my age that had passed by about five months ago. He had told me to talk to this shop keeper, but you see, the shop keeper had been directed only to speak of her to a woman who is to pass by in a couple of days from now. I couldn't get any information out of this man, but I'm hoping that you will be able to pass off as this woman. Could you do this for me? I need to know about the whereabouts of the woman I've been getting leads for." He took a second more. "It's really important to me."

"Suppose that might work..." Crys said absently, taking the time to think the whole thing through. It would be tricky, but then... What wasn't nowadays? It was clear they needed to start taking action soon, they wouldn't be able to hide from the Pack forever, and this was a very good opportunity to take them down; there might not be another anytime soon. As she was about to answer the question about faking injuries and blood, Evin changed the subject to something else, and this she listened much more carefully to, and that for the mention of her full name and of it being a personal matter.
She sighed softly when hearing what he wanted her to do, it sounded simple enough, and if it was that important to him she wouldn't say no. "I can help, if it's important, but... Are you absolutely sure you want my help? For an assassin, I'm a terrible liar and, well... When I do people favors I do collect. Dastan has been trying to get rid of me for close to ten years now." She stated, with a little grin, thinking that she couldn't really pull the same tricks on Evin, but it'd be fun to try it anyway. "So, tell me... When I talk to this man, who would I be asking for?" She asked, not bothering to pretend she wasn't curious about the whole thing, but leaving it up to Evin to decide what, if anything, he would be willing to tell. People had their secrets, some of them they'd rather keep just to themselves, and she could easily understand that.

Evin listened to her with joyful discourse. “Friends do favors because they want to. Maybe I’ll go back to calling you Crystal again.” He chuckled and continued until she asked him for a name. Immediately he stopped, shooting his glare out into the distance of the desert. “I’m off to the plains now. Hopefully Theron will still be there when I get to him.” He said and walked away. From there, he prepared to journey out to places he hadn’t been for over three years. It would be interesting to see how things had changed in his absence.