Disclaimer: I own nothing except my imagination and doubtful skills
Father figure
By your-biohazardous-friend
Vernon never knew his father – it was a well known fact known to every nosy neighbor at Visima's trading quarter, who had nothing better to do than pointing fingers at people and huskily pass forward another fit of gossip from one to another. Vernon's mother tried her best to spare her son the drama and humiliation. Yet he wasn't all clueless as his mother hoped he would be. The small, curious child knew exactly how to ask a question to receive the answer he desired.
For most of Vernon's childhood his mother hoped that one day, he would use his inquisitiveness to become someone great. A researcher for example, who, by constant questioning the reality would improve well being of others or even, maybe, find a way for all races to co-exist. Sadly the fate wanted otherwise – When Vernon grew up, he became famous all right, but as a ruthless interrogator, spy and murderer - 'a non-human hunter'. Someone, who no one would like to meet on the other side of the table in interrogation room.
Yet there was one query which his surrounding had never gave an answer to - no matter how many times Vernon was re-phrasing it. It was his father's name. The last piece of a puzzle that remained hidden. All the other pieces of information Roche managed to husk from his mother and his surrounding over the years were that the man was of average high and build, had sparkly, brown eyes and messy hair. He had a great sense of humor too. Furthermore he was a trader. 'A trader in spices' his mother called him once.
The story of their relationship was simple: the bastard fed her with lies, fairy-tales of better life, not with luxury and wishful thinking – thanks gods! - but a steady life for her and her future children. She took the bait. Gave him more he ever could wished for: her body, faith, love and little money she had. One day, as every day, he kissed her goodbye, playfully threw 'see you soon' and never came back. She had always claimed that he would return one day. She wasn't lying. To her last breath, Vernon's mother believed that one day the trader would come back. She died waiting.
Roche never wanted to admit it, even to Ves, but he had met his father once. Just once. For the first and the last time. It was at the time when Roche was Blue Stripes captain for not even a year. There was this one trader, they met during routine procedures in Flotsam. The man was in his late sixties but he still was groping girls shamelessly, while acting as if he was still a young adult in a body.
Ves was also one of those women on which bottom the old man's hand landed giving her a light pat. The sharpshooter, as resourceful as she was, immediately caught him by his whist, twisted his arm behind his back and kneeled him in the groin. The man fell to the ground moaning in pain.
"what's happening?" Roche asked, checking out the sudden commotion which arose outside Blue Stripes temporary HQ.
"captain-" Ves immediately begun "-this man was harassing me"
Roche only nodded in response, gestured his men to drag the trader inside the building.
The trader was violently showed to the chair. Roche eyed him. During his long vagabond life the captain saw a lot to come to conclusion that the man looked suspicious – as if the sexual harassments were not the only crimes he had on his account.
"Your name?" Vernon immediately asked the trader as he was filling some official letters to Flotsam authority.
"Emyr van Emrise – a spice merchant" the man admitted playfully.
"a trader?" Roche asked with disbelieve
"in spices" the man added prideful
"Bullshit" Roche retorted, anger rising in his voice "your real name or else I'll let the women you harassed to lynch you at the town square rather than turn you to authorities"
The man winced.
"Ves is a sharpshooter, but even if she's the best her hand might slip one day" Vernon added, incidentally gesturing at the blonde solider. The older man automatically darted a look toward her and flinched as she rested her hand on her well kept crossbow.
"well… and your name is…?" the older man begun encouragingly turning back to Roche.
"Vernon Roche – an officer of the king of Temeria" Vernon replied mechanically. Ves immediately left the room, as if complying to an unspoken rule.
"Roche?" The man asked with disbelief "your surname is Roche?" The man laughed. It sounded like a barking of a dog.
"what's so funny?" the captain asked, his voice was far from being nice.
"what a coincidence!- " he admitted after a while. "- I had a lover who's surname also was Roche – she was a washerwoman. Her name was…- uhmm, it slipped from my memory. She was living at trading quarter in Vizima. Do you know her by any chance?"
"No" the captain lied with caution, suddenly realizing how the trader fitted the overall description of his father that, even the years had passed by, Vernon still knew by hart "you've left her, I presume" Vernon's voice was blank when it broke the silence.
"traders are like sailors, Vernon. Can I call you Vernon? I have a gal in every port. Even here-" The merchant said playfully and made eyes at the captain. "I bet you know the feeling. To not to have a home. To travel all the time-" the trader continued
"was the Roche woman… your first?" the captain cut in the middle of the sentence
"nah!" the man waved his hand "she was just a small affair. Nothing serious. As important as a card from a different deck"
That's how the interrogation started and lasted for another few hours. The standard questions were mixed with personal ones. The man surely knew how to deceive. He was as cunning as fox, not as Iorveth, of course but definitely had lot's of tricks up his sleeve. Every time Roche though he had a lead, it turned to be a dead end.
However, the trader didn't knew about real reasons behind those more private questions, he was admitting to everything in that field. Boasting about them like a schoolboy would about newly lost virginity. Just after few sentences Roche was sure the man was really his biological father and that the man was far from being 'playful', as his mother described him. He was simply a sadist. It was hard to believe how any man could be as amused by the poor washerwoman's naive nature as that bastard was. How easily he forgot about her. Or how he saw her several times when staying at Visima but didn't gave a damn. Few times Roche just wanted to raise from his chair and throw a piece of the oak furniture at him.
At the end, however, there was nothing Roche could do about that man. Due lack of any proof of ill deeds against Temeria he had to let the trader go, even though the blood was boiling in the captain's veins.
Yet as they both bid their farewells and the older man turned his back to him, ready to leave. In the spur of the moment the captain gestured Ves to shoot to kill. The gesture was short, almost invisible for bystanders - As if the captain was just warding off a fly. The woman hesitated for split second, visibly surprised, yet released an arrow into the target's back – right between the ribs, puncturing his vital organs. The old man collapsed to the ground, taking few, last raspy wheezes. No-one in Flotsam had turned into their direction. It wasn't that spectacular as hangings held by commandant Loredo anyway.
At following night Ves was restless with a case. Roche had never acted like that - he might be an bastard but when he let someone go, then he let someone go – no matter who or what race the captive was. It was a rare deal, but it happened from time to time. She snuck up to Roche's desk and glanced at the rapport. Seemingly there was nothing suspicious about it - another trader making deals with Scoia'tael. But there was something odd about the papers. The sentences were insincere lacking of Roche's usual boldness and conviction. As if the captain had to come up with them on his own, rather than acquiring the information from his suspect.
Ves turned her head towards the doors of Roche's room.
Little did she know that her Captain was sleeping peacefully like he didn't sleep in months, if not years even.
Vernon Roche spent almost whole of his life searching for his father. At the end he was the one who killed him.
He never learnt his name.
Not that Vernon needed to know it anymore.
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