Durza, much like children, was startled by the sudden thunder caused by the oaken doors being slammed open by a very disgruntled Zara.
However, unlike them, he didn't show it.
"Ah Zara, good to see you."
Gentling shoving-pushing-brats to the side, he glided over to her.
Beautiful, even for a fellow shade. Still looked like she had a bewildered show bird for hair. Also, it looked as if she had gained a few pounds more than from the last time he saw her. She looked like one of those slightly housewives humans were so fond of.
To be fair, she did behave like one at times. She was clumsy and short, almost nothing like him save for the red of her hair and pale skin.
Muscles clenched, persistently glaring at him like a hawk, Zara rushed past him. She began to hustle her prizes from the slave shops away from him, down the hallway like a wounded mother cat. At that description, he might have unconsciously touched the former scars at his jaw-line. He had to make sure that his every move mocked her. So he smiled.
Zara moved even faster until she reached a corner and disappeared. The sound of oak moved almost soundlessly across the marbled floors of the small mansion. Zara scurred back to him in an almost unmasked fit of rage.
She glared at him even harder.
The words echoed the last time they had met: "What. Now."
He continued to smile at her.
Zara continued to get angrier.
Durza crossed his arms and loomed over her until his shadow covered her. Her face flustered under him, like the first time they drank together.
Durza opened his mouth, to boast about the next mission he had been given.
But before he could, Zara viciously pointed one leather-clad finger at him.
To get anger across to him, she seethed, "This better be quick." She did not attempt any physical contact, instead, stomping across the hallway towards the "backyard." To add to his uninjured pride at her rather sad attempt to dismantle him, he simply walked down the hallways.
Durza was the first to slide open the door, out-pacing the woman by ten steps, or whatever was her equivalent of ten steps.
He examined the dark, walled-in yard. Carved marble depicting the fearsome battles from history books, and the ever wistful and sad hopes of those who were too pathetic to live through these events. Ivy and various other plant life entangled an old shack, unmanaged and left to run wild. If Zara had sharp ears and inky black hair like the objectives they were supposed to hunt, she could have fit right in with those arrogant, foolish elves.
Zara's angry huffing interrupted the silence of the garden. Out of the corner of his maroon eye, he could make out her smudge in the background.
em"Close the door"/em he barked. The smudge grew larger until Zara was in view, rushing across the doorway and into the garden, but not fast enough. The door slammed on the heal her foot.
He could practically her attempt not to curse.
Zara's figure moved in a jolt of energy, as she bumbled out into the garden.
He didn't even bother turning around. He admittedly made a mistake at that moment.
Durza suddenly felt a rough hand on his cloak and was yanked down until he could feel Zara's breath on the scalp of his head.
He could almost hear the gears in her brain working away at how to insult him. As if she could-
"You're still wearing the King's leftover drapes?"
pNevermind/p. He reached out and elbowed her in the stomach. Unlike himself, Zara, he knew, was not fast as he was. Only thick leather stood in his way, and it fell apart like paper. He felt the soft interior of her stomach, or rather, her tummy as it was now.
A sudden pressure was applied to his right ankle, and he moved his foot out of the way. The presence met his other ankle, and he fell.
Almost.
Zara's hands shoved him upright. A mistake on her end.
To show he was still the one in charge, he slid his sword out of its sheath, and swing it at her. She made a desperate attempt to block it with her forearms. With little effort, he stopped just a hair's brush away from her arm.
To her credit, she wasn't much of a warrior, huddled away in this hovel, hunched over like a dwarf and acting like a crazed cat lady with those "ex-slaves". They were still very much just toys in the hands of unkempt creatures.
In defeat, Zara put down her arms, although defensively. She glared at him, peeling off her worn gloves, unveiling sharp, hardened nails. His jaw pulsed as a reminder of what happened last time.
Though she was smaller, her muscles were also compacted from all the time she spent fumbling in the ember-lit forges. The wounds inflicted by those nails could make quick work of a mortal man. Durza was a shade, so there was just a ghostly reminder of that incident.
Taking her unintentional sign of defeat, he gripped a strand of her feathery hair and sheathed the sword in the other. It seems she had managed to collect what little wit she had, as she pressed a nail to the red sheen of the tendril and the rest against the flesh of his hand.
It was silent at first, both of them visually taunting the other. Then Durza spoke, "The ambush is tonight."
Zara looked surprised at first, then she scowled.
"Tonight?"
"Tonight." He let go of the strand. He started to walk around her. Zara proceeded to sit down on the steps of the garden doorway, back against the door. So, he sat in front of her, grinning.
"You have the weapons ready?"
She glared, barely aware of his request for her weapons was just a way to mock her. As if they would work well in the hands of the krulls, who were just as stupid as she was ignorant.
Zara huffed, "Yes, much faster than you can finish kissing the King."
His anger flared and he stood.
"Just get them out."
Fixing him one last glare, Zara stood up as well, and walked down the hallway, back to the forge, where her inventions were. The only truly admirable thing about her.
He still laughed internally. Even as an important asset to the war, she was such a coward, always hiding in the shadows of even the most laughable inanimate objects.
Although, these objects of hers were not very laughable. At least, for the elven princess and her two-person guard.
Only confusion and death awaited them.
The plot, he knew, was unstable in some parts, but it was in place. Not too far away, an egg was traveling through the Broken, the only spot the Empire was able to claim in the Spine, Zara's territory. And in Zara's house, a possible, controllable young rider. If one died, well, there was the other.
The king would reward him greatly. And maybe Zara, if he wasn't careful. But in his reality, most likely not.
He twisted the pommel of his sword and sauntered back into the halls.