Narcissus
Chapter 2 - The Smiling Rogue
Dusk found the streets uncommonly empty and a beautiful woman striding into a small inn of no particular feature.
Information networks were not to be scoffed at: even assassins (especially good assassins) needed full information. Her favorite agent, the lad of nineteen with crooked teeth and a sweet, adoring smile, had vouched his life for the accuracy of this piece of information: where the Rogue lived. The beauty smiled at the memory of the boy, so skilled with listening yet so awkward at speaking, who had tried to propose to her the fourth time so far. She liked him—liked him enough to refuse his proposal. Attachment was a tricky thing, easily slipping out of your fingers and cutting either your or his throat.
Quietly slipping upstairs, she frowned at the many closed doors that presented themselves to her. Each one looked very much like all the other in the dim lighting, and the booming laughter and insults from downstairs covered all other sounds. Biting her lips, she scanned the doors for signs of damage: the one on the far left seemed to have the most dents and dagger marks on it. She straightened her back, stiffed her shoulders and looked every bit the girl who was prepared to fight and too taut to move quickly.
She pushed the door and it creaked open.
Not unexpectedly, a dagger was on her neck before her eyes could adjust to the light inside.
"Hav'n't yer ma taught ya to knock?" a voice growled.
"Oh, she did, but I think I forgot later on," she replied coolly, controlling the impulse to fight back.
"Might be high time ya went over ya lessons."
"But she's not there to teach me anymore."
A pause, and "So get a man who'll teach ya."
"I am doing that right now."
The voice chuckled, "And I thought I'd be free of marriage proposals for a time bein'."
"I don't want a husband out of you—I want a job."
"How old are ya, lass?"
She lowered her head, jerking up once the fine skin on her throat broke a little, feigning hesitation and uncertainty. "Twenty summer and winters." And before he asked again, she quickly added, "I was disowned a while ago because the son of a noble told my idiot of a father that I slept with him, hoping that I'd marry him. I want revenge."
The dagger was gone from her neck, but not yet his hand. She touched her neck gingerly and stared into green-hazel eyes, covered slightly by mussed brown hair.
"Why'd ya think I'd take ya in?"
"I'll make a good rogue. I can fight, and I'm pretty." She slipped out a dagger from the fabric on her stomach and threw it. It hit the oak window framed, quivered slightly, and hummed happily as George eyed it with a cocked eyebrow.
"I see."
Silence again while he pulled the dagger out.
"Well consider yerself in, lassie. But this is a hard life ya chose: hunted by law, surviving on others, risking yer neck." Here he gave her his trademark mischievous smile, "But I see you have no problem with at least the last part."
She smiled beautifully, beaming at him with the innocence and confidence of youth, while she smiled even more beautifully inwards, with the smug satisfaction of a jobs well started. For you see, Sharon was still quite oblivious to what the Rogue's smile can do.