Snippet #2647118

"He's a child."
"Looks can be deceiving."
"I've killed children before."
"He's not a child."
"He looks like a child."
"Well, not all things that quack are ducks."
"I don't have time for your riddles, Simon. If I wanted your apothegms I'd bloody ask for them."
"...it wasn't really an apothegm."
"You're an ideograph."
"...I'm not sure you're using that word correctly. It's a malapropism."
Elysabeth narrowed her eyes. She leaned over the little wooden table, pointed elbow stuck between slats with enough force to make it groan, letting Simon know it wasn't sufficient cover. Not much was, when dealing with an elf-woman scorned. Regardless, he sat, passive and not paying attention. His eyes were over her shoulder, and his mind far from the festival. "You're staring at the hassassin."
"I'm not convinced he's a hassassin, Elysabeth."
"He has a garrote in his sleeve and a ceremonial knife on his belt. I've killed many of his kind, before and after entering your employment." Elysabeth lowered herself back into her seat and crossed her arms. "And I recognize his accent."
"...doesn't look terribly much like a hassassin."
"What did you say about ducks and quacking?"
"That's different. I was talking about the dragon-boy."
"He doesn't look like a dragon."
"Yes, Elysabeth. You've made that very clear."
Simon finally turned his eyes to her. She had her hair pulled into a tight ponytail, the only effeminate feature on her body. Mud coated her boots and shins, and there were still a few specks of bled on her stomach and fists. He, on the other hand, wore a simple wrap-shirt tucked into coarse pants sinched by a leather belt. He wore animal-hide shoes and a careful haircut. He'd even shaved. First impressions were important.
The arcanist smiled and scratched his bare chin. The faintest twinge of sadness was felt with the loss of his beloved facial hair. She narrowed her eyes again and bared her teeth. "I don't like when you stare at me."
"I can go back to looking at the hassassin."
"No you can't. He crossed the street and entered that bakery." She gestured with a twitch of her eyes. He nonchalantly twisted and turned to look. "I just said you can't. No window."
"...what's behind the bakery?"
"An alley. I think it's one-way. There's... a..." She looked for the name, failed, and settled: "Building. At the end. One exit."
"I think we should go introduce ourselves."
"You said no more fighting today." Elysabeth tried to sound disappointed, but she was out of her seat and halfway there before he could reply.

It was a simple, if risky, play: Simon entered through the front door, stood a safe distance from the suspected hassassin, and made some accusatory remarks. The hassassin, not wanting to draw attention to himself before killing his target, would try to escape through the back door. Elysabeth would be waiting on the other side of that door to punch him into a hospital bed, if need be.
Fortunately, need was not be; she caught him in the temple with her elbow and knocked him to the cobblestone ground. She pinned him with a metal boot-heel to his shoulder and pointed her sword at his face. Simon came around, clicking his tongue and berating the hassassin for running instead of feigning evidence. "I'm quite the gullible man, Mr. Hassassin. You could have said 'Sorry, you have me mistaken,' and we wouldn't be having this conversation."
Simon rifled through pockets, sleeves, and trousers. There was, as Elysabeth said, a cord garrote tucked into the folds of his left shirt-sleeve, and a dagger that appeared to be incredibly fragile because of its chipped design, which was intentionally hammered in to cause more jagged wounds and hold poison.
"No, no, stop struggling. Seriously. She just has to lean forward, and you have a hundred-and-ten pounds precisely placed to separate your pectoral girdle." He stole the man's shoes. "See, I'm a physician. I once took an oath, saying I'd never use my knowledge to harm my common man. I taught her everything I know about how to break a body, and the only oath she's ever taken is to do exactly that to anyone who would otherwise threaten me. So stop struggling and answer some questions, or she'll demonstrate how easy it is to detach your radius from your ulna." Simon reached out and grabbed the man around the wrist, then touched the bones in turn.

Unfortunately, the hassassin didn't speak the same language Simon did, and while he easily could have repeated his message in a dialect a few steps removed from sharing the same tongue, it was easier to let Elysabeth break his maxilla after a sufficiently incriminating writ was found in his pocket. "...so he was a hassassin."
"I told you." Elysabeth stuck the garrote in her pouch. She turned the knife over, removed it from its sheathe, shrugged, and tossed it aside. "I've seen sharper rocks."
"I think we should go see the dragon boy."
"Only if I get to fight something bigger than..." She gestured to the unconscious hassassin, whose body was in a race to see whether it would die of blood loss or asphyxiation first, like it sufficiently made her point. Then she decided better, appending a fitting expletive title. "So, are we going?"
"Yes." Simon stood, dusted himself off, and started walking. Elysabeth fell in step beside him. "Now we just have to find him again."
"He's right over there." Her ability to spot a child in a crowd never ceased to amaze Simon. He looked carefully to see what she was pointing at, then asked that she lower her arm and stop being so suspicious. "Maybe we should wait a minute. He looks like he's having fun."
"I'm not paid to stand around."
"No, I suppose you aren't. Still, it's a big crowd." Simon had to stop her from drawing a sword. "No no, I wasn't asking for you to make it smaller."