A few weeks later…
Bounty hunter contracts were usually boring. But today Gunslinger had managed to snag herself a contract to kill trolls in Wraithmarsh. Heh-hey!
She wandered over to Brightwood Tower and up to the platform with the cullis gate on. She gazed at the blue sky, sighing. It was going to be a while until she saw this again. She was about to step forward when she heard footsteps and swivelled around.
Roran. Right.
"You're here too?" Roran asked, confused.
"It's a contract," she sniped, "surely you're used to them?" He rolled his eyes.
"Let's behave like adults, shall we?" he suggested. "And we can start with trolls."
"Those guards probably didn't think I was strong enough," Gunslinger muttered, quite thoroughly pissed off. "Honestly, you defeat a madman, tear down his brutal Spire regime and return several thousand people back home, but that doesn't qualify one as strong enough to fight trolls, oh no."
"Are you talking to yourself?" Roran asked, almost amused.
"Yes I am! And I'm damn good company too!" Gunslinger replied.
"Right," he muttered, hiding his laugh. "Oh, Hero?"
"Yes, cold-blooded killer?"
"I can't just keep calling you Gunslinger or Hero. Gunslinger is too long. Hero is too…disrespectful. Don't you have another name?" He asked.
She was silent for a while. Then- "I used to be called Sparrow, once. But that was a long time ago. I haven't called myself that since I won the Crucible."
"Can I call you Sparrow?"
"If you're going to call me anything," came the cross reply, "call me Birdie."
"Birdie. Okay, I can deal with that," Roran told her. "Shall we?" he asked, proffering his arm to her. She took it, and they stepped through the cullis gate.
Okay, this was why she hated Wraithmarsh. Trolls she didn't care about. Blades to the various nerve points could kill them. Banshees, however, and their general demoralising behaviour and acts of cruelty towards hapless adventurers, she could not tolerate. Which was why she loved pulling the trigger on them and loading their non-existant heads full of bullets.
An assassin who killed them like he'd been doing it all his life and kept calling her Birdie did not help the situation. Then again, he did appear to be exceptionally good-looking.
Agh! Don't think about the ginger like that! Birdie berated her brain for the eighth time that day. He tried to kill you! Twice! At least he's not Reaver…
Immortal, sex loving deviants with a penchant for betrayal, she could kick in the crotch. Handsome young assassins who were aiding her on a contract, she was not allowed to. Damned morality…
"Your sister weeps when she sees what you have become," a Banshee informed her. Okay, that was just stupid.
"Rose happens to be dead," Birdie replied, "she doesn't have working tear ducts." The Daichi slashed through the Shadow Children almost carelessly.
In the background she could hear the Banshee mercilessly banging on at Roran for being born out of wedlock and having bright red hair. She caught his indignant reply about at least somebody had actually loved him and anyway, red was the colour of love and passion, and oh, look, that Banshee had red robes, so surely the colour was beside the point?
There was an awkward silence while the creature turned to Birdie, thoroughly stumped for an insult. Then-
"Lucien keeps the gun with which he shot your sister!"
"Oh, this is just getting crappy," Birdie moaned, "Lucien's dead, you uninformed floating tent! Can't you go bugger off and find someone else to wail at?"
"That assassin will slit your throat!" the Banshee warned her.
"I'd like to see the prick try," was all it got in reply, before the Shadow Children were melted into black jelly and the Banshee found her face covered in bullets. It dissolved into the air, screeching something about changing her robes to black, and Birdie sighed.
"What was that about tents?" Roran asked casually, walking up to her.
"It's ignorant of reality. And it floats. Nuff said," Birdie replied, and walked away to the bridge that lead up to the way out of Wraithmarsh. Roran chuckled.
"You have a very short patience span," he noted.
"I don't like dealing with morons, Banshees especially," she informed him. He raised a brow, but kept quiet. Then-
"For a gunslinger, you really like your katana."
"The Daichi is not just any katana. The Daichi belonged the Zuna Daichi, a warrior monk from Samarkand who died in Albion and left her katana in the Archon's Knot. And for your information, it's one of the best katanas you'll ever find," she corrected him. "Besides, I have the Red Dragon, which I frequently use, and pretty much prefer. Why attack something and get covered in its blood when you can blast its brains out half a kilometre away?"
That seemed to sate Roran's curiosity for now, and they continued over the ground into the passage to Bloodstone.
A million and four things were whizzing through Roran's head, most of which complimented Birdie, her clothes, her voice, her body, her fighting style, her eyes, her lips…before long Roran was having irrational, erotic and downright dangerously lemony thoughts concerning Birdie. Life was giving him lemons. And oh Avo, was he desperate to eat them.
Birdie shivered as the cool air of Bloodstone hit her on her bare arms. She had spent fifteen hours in a warm tunnel, with the air close and musty and almost humid. Having Roran three centimetres behind her breathing warmly on her neck had not helped. As they stumbled into the sunshine, Birdie stretched, ligaments popping, and then turned to Roran.
"So I'll be off then," she began, "and I'll go get my reward."
"Is that it?" he asked lightly, almost smirking.
"What do you want, a medal?" she replied, confused.
"No. I do, however, want to pin you against the nearest rock and kiss you until you can't stand up," he informed her.
And the silence that followed he took for a yes. Which was why Birdie found herself pinned against the nearest rock and being kissed with the kind of driving force and passion that could move storms. Which was why she found him grinding into her without going in, and making a little 'ah!' sound as he finished.
Roran tasted masculine and musky and dangerously good.
"Until we meet again?" he whispered to her, pulling away and beginning to walk off.
"You…you kissed me…" she murmured, and her fingers traced over her lips, tongue feeling across them for that flavour as he winked at her and walked off.
Oh Avo, sexual tension or what?
