The Listener was disturbed from drawing up contracts by a harried knocking on his chamber door. Looking up from his papers but not rising, he called out curiously. "Enter..?"
A flustered looking Danasi hurried in followed by his ghost, coming all the way over to his desk just short of leaning on the opposite side. She was dressed in a loose tunic and trousers as she was earlier that day but, by Sithis, was bloodied at the neck. Her haste did not seem out of distress, however, so he only enquired as to what was going on, setting down his quill.
"Listener, sir, I've just come to say that I pledge myself to the Brotherhood, to help the family. And apologise... for how I was earlier today. I didn't come across as very grateful or positive..."
"You did not," the Listener stood and moved around the desk, waiving the skipped greeting with a brief nod to each of them.
"I am honoured you want to bring me into your family, and I do appreciate everything you've done for me here." She stopped as abruptly as she'd started and seemed to be searching for something else to say. "Oh, I'm sorry. For barging in, and just talking like this. Forgive me. Oh, I must not be making any sense," she added before he could respond.
"This is a little unusual, yes. Your mood has changed so suddenly and I've never heard you speak so many words. You haven't been messing with Babette's ingredients, have you? She doesn't label them, you know." He knew of course Lucien must have actually spoken to her this time. The effect he had on her was remarkable.
She smiled a little at the joke. "No... no, we've just been talking again..." she motioned over to Lucien, "and I just realised what an idiot I've been."
"He didn't say that, did he?" the Breton gave the ghost a questioning look. He wouldn't be surprised if that would be his idea of patching things up. The elf shook her head, looking at the floor. "Better than your last conversation..?" the Breton enquired at the both of them.
She nodded. "Yes. We've sort of worked it out..." Still, she cast a look back at him to confirm, the ghost bowing his head slightly in answer.
"Funny ways you two work things out," the Listener commented, pointing out the fresh, bloody cut on Danasi's neck and raising an eyebrow in Lucien's direction.
She smiled as one would when embarrassed, bringing her hand to the wound and wincing slightly as though only just remembering it was there. "We, er... had a lot to work out."
The Breton cast a dubious look over the pair of them. "Well, that's your business, I suppose, but would you two be able to refrain from taking any other weapons to each other, or anyone else in the Sanctuary, at least for while, please?"
The pair bowed their heads and the Listener put his palm to Danasi's injury, healing it swiftly with his restoration skills. "This is why ordinary people don't give knives to their children," he muttered under his breath.
Danasi blushed a little, just making out the Listener's comment.
"Don't be so juvenile, my intentions are plain."
The newly christened Silencer shyly acquiesced, sitting forward in the bath tub to allow her Speaker, now bizarrely acting handmaiden, to tend the wound by her shoulder blade, cleared by the water of blood. There really was a lot of it.
He had come to her assistance on hearing the commotion as she tried to extricate herself from her leathers, struggling due to the sheer amount of blood which had dried over her, making the task even more difficult than usual. She had become distressed, remembering from whom most of it had come when her closest friend in the Sanctuary had not been caught unawares during the Purification, now trapped in a skin of her blood.
Calming her with warm hands and a voice that brought her back to the present, he cut away the offending articles. She recoiled at the lifting of her red-soaked under-shirt.
"I have seen a woman before. You appear wounded." On brief inspection beneath the epicentre of crimson on her side, he was satisfied the true source of her trouble was not a stomach wound of her own. So much blood, to have soaked through the leathers as she'd held her friend and tried to explain. Was it mere practicality or a message, then, when Antoinetta had sunk the knife into her back?
She withered under the indignity of being exposed as the layers fell away, the blood that made her grey skin appear burgundy a taint that marked her as a liar, a betrayer, one who would bring about more familial treason on Marie, one who did not kill without feeling. She gladly sunk beneath the waters, hiding the imposter in the warmth and silence.
She let her hair conceal her face as her now sole sibling addressed her injury. He seemed unaware of the reason for her shame, implying her state of undress was of no concern instead, but Danasi had never known the man to be oblivious to much. Whether intentionally allowing her some privacy while tending the wound or not, she appreciated that her remorse could remain hidden.
As she finished bathing alone the water was red, her atrocity and her shame washed from her in one, a baptism in blood. She drew another to ensure she was clean and silently promised to leave her regret here, dripping from the iron bars over the rough water outlet with the rest of the bath water. She was his Silencer now, he had ordered this, she was supposed to kill without pity. He had allowed her this moment of weakness but she would do her best beyond the door of this room to make him proud and serve as she was supposed to.
As the woman left, a slight lift in her gait evident as she passed through the doorway, the Listener wondered which one of the men stood in his chambers she was really pledging herself to. She was too wrapped up in her feelings to truly put the family first, not yet.
"Lucien," he called to the ghost who remained, waiting for instructions. "You pledge me your blade but your time will do just as well." He returned to his desk, rubbing his hands together in anticipation as he continued ever-so-seriously. "This paperwork is turning out to be absolute murder. We might get it done before midnight if you help me out."
His elf might be on the mend but he wasn't going to get away with almost slitting her throat unscathed.
