Confidence

by rannadylin

Lenneth was a drifter, a con artist, a survivor. Now she's a Watcher and she's in over her head. Aloth was a dutiful agent for forces whose true nature he never understood. Now he's finding common ground with a girl as broken, and yet as resilient, as he is, as she fights to keep the madness of her Awakening at bay. For two to whom deception comes so naturally, they must learn to t

1. Scene the First: The Bridge

Something had changed since Defiance Bay burned. The Watcher had been a person of interest since she first turned up in Gilded Vale, of course. But Aloth's interest in her had shifted, bit by bit, with every new angle come to light of the Leaden Key's true intentions versus the character of the woman he now followed. For all his years serving the Leaden Key, it seemed he had known its nature far less clearly than he thought he knew Lenneth after just a few weeks in her company. She deserved better than the lies upon which their alliance had initially been founded.

Even so, it had taken every ounce of courage he could muster, plus a generous dose of the panicked, sinking feeling that had risen in him ever since the animancy hearings fell to chaos and took the city down with them, to come clean to the Watcher. Granted, it had been months since he had truly acted on the Leaden Key's behalf, whereas he had spent those months serving Lenneth very well, he hoped. But she might have justifiably hated him for the secrets he'd kept.

Instead, she'd blinked at him, speechless, for a moment as she processed his confession, lit ominously by the flickering flames of the city in chaos just beyond the bridge. Chaos for which Aloth felt a share of the responsibility. And then she'd eyed him thoughtfully for a moment more while the rest of her companions offered their advice - mostly tending towards exactly the suspicious and healthy distrust Aloth was certain he'd earned.

It was Edér's affable vote of what might possibly be construed as confidence that finally yanked Lenneth back into the conversation. "I still feel kinda attached, even with the betrayal," the big man was saying while Lenneth pursed her lips and inspected Aloth through narrowed eyes. "He's got this way of taking offense that I really like. Tough one."

The Watcher's head snapped round to look up at Edér, her chin cocked at an angle of challenge. "Betrayal?" she echoed. "Were any of you listening? Maybe it's a betrayal, but it was never us he was betraying." She stepped forward then, away from her cautious councillors, impulsively reaching for Aloth's hands. He flinched at the contact, but the warmth of her hands and of her sudden smile brought back the memory of Bellasege's chambers. As surely as it had then, the weight of Lenneth's hands in his tethered him, a lifeline through the frenzy of his anxious thoughts, till he could listen clearly enough to recognize forgiveness in her words. "I want you beside me, not behind me," she said, low enough that the other companions, impatiently tapping their feet and casting curious glances at the two elves from across the bridge, might not hear. "I'm not asking you to trade one master for another."

Aloth swallowed, nodded. "That...would be an honor."