Snippet #1675077

Scheherazade had finally found the person she was looking for in a rather remote corner of the Guild. She took one look at the prone rat on the work table and resisted the urge to shake her head. She’d been to Etzel’s clinic, once upon a time, and distinctly remembered cages full of rats, all squeaking and rather large, if she recalled correctly. Delta rats, in other words. She supposed this made the most sense for what happened to them.

“Not to… erm… disturb you, but Amon seems to think it might be a good idea if we bothered learning how to defuse a bomb. Just in case something happens to the trained professionals, I guess.” She raised one shoulder and let it fall in a gesture of half-sincere nonchalance, raising an eyebrow before turning on her heel to exit. It didn’t really require more words than that, did it? She was never sure, and anyway, she certainly wasn’t going to force Victoria into doing anything she didn’t want to. No need to end up with a needle sticking out of herself, after all, and she appreciated the damage poison was capable of, even if she didn’t know much about it.

The walk to Taylor Chemicals wasn’t so bad, and it looked as though there were personnel waiting around form someone to show up and ask about what to do, because it looked like there was already some sort of demonstration set up. An ordinary person might have been a little wary of such a display in an enclosed space, but someone who specialized in lighting things on fire and occasionally exploding them was at once more conscious of the fact that such things could be contained and also more wary of letting someone else do it.

Still, it was something she pushed to the side for the moment. Chances were good she was going to die in a couple days anyway; what was the point in worrying too much about it? Why she was so indifferent to this was something she couldn’t really explain, but perhaps when you’d spent so long hating someone the way Zade hated the person responsible for this, well… things started to get a bit skewed, and she knew it better than most.

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“Lux adventum… the light is coming?” The phrase didn’t make much sense to Pandora in this context, but then it was doubtful Amon expected her to even know what it meant, so either it wasn’t important, or it was too important for someone like her to know. Unlike a good number of people, she did not protest this and did not demand further information- she trusted his judgment because she was no longer certain she could trust her own. Ishtar’s words rang in her head, but it wasn’t really letting herself be walked over if she made the conscious choice not to pursue the inquiry, was it?

Duly appeased by his limited explanation, she simply nodded and left without further protest, even if she didn’t have the answers she had sought. She truly doubted anyone did; the question was much bigger than this solitary chain of events, after all. Maybe she was just looking in the wrong places for the answers.

The acrid smell of cinders and sulfur filled her nose, and Pandora watched the smoke billow out into the streets, obscuring her vision. As always, the world of her precognizance was completely silent and murky, and there was no color to it this time, either. She could feel a raw hoarseness in her own throat, and guessed that she had been yelling. Unusual, that she should be in her own body for such an event. It seemed that she would be witnessing this personally when the time came.

Figures moved past her on the crowded street, all indistinct save for the expression they were wearing. Anger mixed headily with grief and loss upon their countenances, and she wondered for whom they wept. Mayhap it was for themselves, the ones they loved; such were the kind that most people would weep for, she supposed. The procession was solemn, but urgent- she realized she could not even tell if she was witnessing fighting or its aftermath. Reaching up to her own eyes, she found them dampened with the same moisture. For whom was she weeping?

”Hey, hold on just a second,” the voice broke her prematurely from her reverie, and Pandora started sharply, surprise etched across her visage as she turned sharply. It was Mister Forgefire’s son… Danterus, she thought. She’d never spoken to him before, being somehow under the impression that he was not at all disposed to look favorably at her in any way, so she wondered why he was speaking to her now.

Blinking, she realized she had yet to say anything. “Oh, um… is there something I can do for you, sir?” She fell back on formality from discomfiture with the situation, not wanting to offend by presuming the use of his given name. She was pretty sure that could be offensive to some, anyway.