I initially didn't intend for this to continue, but my mind wouldn't let go of the questions, "what did happen when Kyria approached Qara? How off-kilter did that go?" And then... well, there was more. Kyria is my intellectual property, and all other characters belong to Obsidian.

--

Chapter 2: Assurance

The day that Kyria had set her first plan into motion, she had been especially careful to time her ploy with a fight of grand proportions. Small bickerings occurred daily, but she needed near-fisticuffs. A week's worth of careful observation, and careful disguises, had finally yielded fruit.

"But of course, a princess too busy with her own imaginings of power couldn't be bothered to learn such trivial things as basic history. Believe me, I sympathize," Sand had landed his parting barb. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to check on my shop while we're in town and it's still intact."

He'd glided from the room and out the door of the Sunken Flagon with a smug half-smile on his lips, and though fuming, Qara had merely stormed across the floor to sulk in the corner instead. Kyria had waited until the common room had cleared before approaching the sorceress, to state simply, "I saw how that elf treated you earlier-- why didn't you just hit him? He certainly deserved it."

Qara's eyes had blazed for a moment. Then she'd spat, "Who asked you? You don't even know what I go through day to day with these cretins. They wouldn't know true power if it crawled down their throats and hatched!" She'd looked away, drawing her legs up to her chest, and then laid her face on top of the shelf her knees made. The picture in Kyria's memory was the very model of a petulant child.

"Their loss, then," Kyria had kept her statement short, closely watching the sorceress's reaction. The edges of Qara's had mouth turned up in a faint smile that caught the shadows from the firelight. Seeing this response, Kyria had pressed, "But you're not the type for hitting, are you? That's for people who haven't tasted magic..."

Qara's thoughtful look had not quite matched the sorceress's next words. "Yes, you're right. If I had my way, I'd bring that prick-eared book-slave's shop down around his head in a blaze that would light the city for weeks."

Kyria mirrored Qara's smile. "So what's stopping you?"

Something odd had played across Qara's face, then. Like a little girl, her arms had gone around her shins, and her face went back to resting on her knee-shelf. Kyria had assessed the damage. The little fire-flinger had obviously wanted the conversation to be over-- her entire body was closed, drawn in. Kyria had wondered how she had missed the mark on this one.

Another chink in the armor perhaps? "I see. Everyone feels conflicted, sometimes."

"I won't feel conflicted about torching off your eyebrows!"

She'd been so sure of this one. "I'm sorry. I'll leave you to your thought," and she'd retreated to the bar, then, to order a drink which she never actually touched. Better not to chance it. Not in the place they were strongest, no with their allies all about.

--

She paced the floor of her room. Everything was a disgusting shade of pale green-- the bedding worn, the curtains frayed; they all looked as though they had once been a richer hue, but time and moths had taken their toll. She was staying at a seedy inn just before the bridge to the Merchant's Quarter so that she wouldn't attract attention. She'd had changed her base of operations twice since she started this job. Twice she had been thwarted not by force of arms, but by her own misjudgement of her foes. Garius would not be pleased.

She ceased her prowling. Kyria was, after all, a visual thinker. She pulled her sand board from her pack and into the center of the floor before tipping a bag full of sand onto its surface. Writing anything down was far too risky a thing in her line of work. Even enchantments of secrecy on a parchment could be broken. But a monk had taught her something long ago, perhaps inadvertently. In sand there is impermanence. Ever since, she had had but one simple tool of planning, her sand board. Dirt and sand were plentiful-- the board was merely a tray to contain them. Her finger sufficed for a quill. Her hand erased all evidence.

She crossed off Qara/Sand after scrawling it in the dust. Then Casavir/Bishop. She circled Sand and Bishop next. She'd tried each attack from only one angle... Sand may yet be receptive. Bishop would not. He had made it plain he had seen her, and he had hit directly upon her affiliations. Would he warn the others? Unlikely. But taking too many chances was always bad business.

Qara was truly beyond Kyria's understanding. What had caused the girl to bristle so, at the merest suggestion she follow through with her desires? The sorceress was impulsive, uncontrolled, bursting with misplaced confidence. She should have jumped at the chance. Was it fear that held her back? Kyria could only speculate, and she realized that unless such speculations yielded another course of action, they were in vain.

Who else, then? Neeshka/Elanee. She added a question mark to that dichotomy. Grobnar? Perhaps... perhaps she could kill Grobnar, but that wouldn't create any tensions, or strain any relationships. Duncan. There was a thought. If Duncan were killed, to whom would the inn revert? She circled his name... and the hairs on her neck prickled.

She turned before she heard the words, her knives ready. A familiar form was framed in the doorway. "Well, well, who do we have here? I seem to remember a certain woman following me through the streets, and then running into her again while she was assualting a paladin. Now I bump into her when she seems to have taken up residence in an establishment I frequent. I think we're running out of coincidences, don't you?"