Title: Not Yet by Lightning
Chapter: Six
Author: Jade Sabre
Notes: Thanks for all the reviews I've gotten so far! I wish I had time to respond to all of them, but I really do appreciate them.
Disclaimer: I don't own Neverwinter Nights, or any of its sequels or expansions, or any of the characters contained herein, aside from my PC, who was created on a Bioware engine and thus probably therefore partially belongs to them too.
6
Laura surveyed the paths before her. One led to the main road, to the Weeping Willow Inn and beyond. If she turned around, she could go back to her house and crawl back into bed, a particularly appealing option in the dim grey light. The sky was overcast, making it impossible to tell if the sun had risen yet or not. The other option was presumably the one that had roused her in the first place—the small, nigh-unnoticeable path to her holy glade. There was no other reason for her to be standing in the middle of the swamp in the wee hours of the morning. She paused, looking around, wondering why the Mere was so quiet. Shivering, she hugged herself and started down the path to the glade.
At first she couldn't put a finger on what was happening—everything suddenly seemed different, as if she had gone to take a step and landed on air instead of the ground, as if it wasn't quite as solid as it had seemed. She wanted to take the step but something was shaking her off-balance, something was—someone was shaking her.
Her eyes snapped open, and Sand peered anxiously down into her face. "Ah, good," he said, sounding satisfied, "you're awake."
Still muddled from the dream—still working through the fact that it was a dream—she sat up and said, "What—?"
"We have a trip to make," he said, sounding particularly pleased. "I've finally figured out what we need from that girl in Port Llast, and I want to speak to her again."
"Again? Sand," she yawned, "the trial's in a week. We don't have time—"
"Nasher promised me as much time as I needed to get the evidence to clear your name. Let him deal with deadlines; we have a trip to make. Up! Dress!"
She sighed and stretched. "Why—"
"As your lawyer, I order you to be quiet and do as I say."
She shook her head and groped around for her ring of light, which she donned, blinking in the sudden brightness. "As you wish."
o-o-o
o-o-o
They traveled light, and as there were only three of them—Laura, her lawyer extraordinaire, and Shandra "Don't even think about leaving me behind" Jerro—they made good time traveling up the coast to the tiny harbor. They bypassed Ember, for which she was grateful—there was something eerie about the place now that it had been cleared of bodies, the dead properly buried and the houses empty and open. She didn't like dwelling on it, and all she could do for them now was expose their murderers, whoever they were.
She dutifully followed Sand into town and pointedly looked in the other direction as he befuddled the guards long enough to gain them entry into Alaine's room. The girl was understandably distraught to see them a second time, and Laura sat as far away from her as she thought possible in the cramped quarters. Shandra succeeded in calming her down, somewhat, and Sand was remarkably restrained, almost downright tactful as he asked his questions. Laura's lips twitched at the carefully compassionate tone of his voice, and while she looked at the wall she paid close attention to everything that they said.
"Well, then," Sand finally said, "I do believe that's everything we need. Thank you, dear girl, for your cooperation. We promise that justice—" Laura raised an eyebrow but said nothing "—will be served, and I must personally thank you for your role in facilitating it."
Alaine looked at him, her eyes red-rimmed and confused, but said, "You're welcome."
Laura nodded to her, once, while Shandra hugged her and promised that everything would turn out all right, or as right as it could be. Sand tapped his foot with impatience, looking at the door, and finally the two farmgirls released each other, and the trio left just as the guard was returning.
"There was no need for that," Shandra said as soon as they were out of earshot.
"For what?" Sand asked.
"Tapping your foot. We take as long as we need—she's not just a piece of evidence like your poison vials or something. She's a person, too."
"Yes, a remarkably stupid one—"
Laura dropped back and let them argue as they made their way back to the inn. She had heard enough to know that Sand wanted to confuse Alaine into admitting that what she had seen wasn't all that clear, rather than to get her to out-and-out say that she hadn't seen Laura herself. Because that wouldn't be true. Or something. She didn't want Sand to cause anyone to lie—and she didn't think he would, as it would be bad to be caught in a lie—but at the same point she didn't follow his strategy for proving her innocence. The affair was entirely straightforward, but he promised her that the Luskans were trying their best to complicate it as much as possible.
She hated them. There were a lot of reasons to hate them, but at the moment, that was the most striking.
She pushed open the door to the inn and pushed away her displeasure, choosing instead to focus on ordering dinner for her companions, as they were too deeply involved in discussing the merits of human farmers versus elven wizards (a discussion that seemed to involve the repetition of words such as "completely ignorant" and "disgustingly arrogant") to fend for themselves. Guiding them to a table, she signaled the innkeeper for food, and then moved to the fireplace, away from the incessant sound of their voices. She hadn't slept enough recently to tread the careful line required to keep any of her companions happy, and didn't trust herself to deal with them fairly.
There was only one other person by the fireplace, a young half-elf woman. Laura recognized her from their last stay in the inn, though she couldn't recall her name, and nodded politely to her, receiving a shrug in return. She sat in one of the fluffy armchairs and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands, staring into the fire and trying to rest her mind. She released herself from obligations to time and space and simply stared, following the blankness of her thoughts in a hazy circle of nothingness.
"Hey," said a voice, a bit scratchy, flat. Laura looked up to see the half-elf standing next to her chair, looking down her nose at her.
"Hello," she said, her voice just as flat.
The young woman hesitated, sending a sour shade to her expression, and then said, "I've seen you in here before."
Laura sighed inwardly, guessing at what would come next. The question, the accusatory stare, the isolation. It had become a familiar game over the past few weeks, and she hated the Luskans for it as well. She didn't like being the center of attention, and doubly so when that attention was gruesome fascination.
"You're the one who's traveling with Bishop."
Laura started and failed to hide it, glancing up in surprise. She smiled, a bit twisted, and said, "You thought I was going to talk about Ember."
"Yes."
She waved it off, a pragmatic gesture. "If you're traveling with Bishop and the Luskans are blaming you…well, let's just say there's bad blood between them. Besides, you don't strike me as the murderous rampage type."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. That's not what I wanted to talk to you about."
Laura studied her, a slender wisp, but tall, her expression tight, arms crossed, leaning against the back of the chair, and said, "Bishop?"
"Yeah. Bishop." She looked around and finally perched on the arm of the chair; Laura shifted in order to give her more room. "How long've you been traveling with him?"
"A little more than a month," she said. "How long did you travel with him?"
"Ages," the young woman said, her gaze going out of focus, and then she shook her head and said, "I mean, it was ages ago. It wasn't—it's hard to keep track of time out in the wilderness. Especially if you're ignoring deadlines in favor of…other things."
Laura waited for her to come back from the land of introspection, a place she was quite familiar with, but after a moment she prodded, "What's your name?"
"Malin," she answered, without thinking, shaking her head again. "Sorry. I just—it was—do you have any clue why he's traveling with you?"
She considered this, and shook her head a little, not wanting to let this stranger know how much this worried her. "I asked for his help in retrieving a friend from across the Luskan border on the understanding that he had experience with that area, and after that he's…stayed." She shrugged. "Though if he hates Luskans as much as you say he does, maybe—"
"Oh, he hates them." Malin shuddered. "The things I've seen him do to them…I…it's bad. I couldn't watch—I couldn't stay and let him do it."
"So you left?"
"Yeah."
"And he let you leave?"
"Doesn't mean anything," she said. "And it wasn't like we just—look, if you're going to ditch him, do it to his face. And if you're not, well, all the luck in Faerûn won't help you, but take it anyway. Just—just don't turn your back on him, all right?"
Laura filtered through a myriad of responses—"thank you for the advice," or perhaps "I wasn't planning on it," or "he's done a good job of protecting it in the past"—but rejected them all as failing to give a precise definition of her plans on the subject. Unable to define them in her own head, she shifted tactics. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because he's good at what he does," she said. "And I got burned on it, and I hate the idea that he's still getting away with it."
"It being…?"
"Taking people and using them until he's done with them. He finds people and waits until he's figured out how to win, and then you're stuck and he's gone—"
"I thought you said you left."
"I did. But that didn't mean he was done with me." She shook her head, scowling. "And now look at me. Just the merest mention of him makes me sound like a bitter old—I don't even know. But I saw him with you and saw you and thought…I couldn't not talk to you, all right?"
"All right," she said. After another moment of watching the other girl sniffing and staring into the fire, she added, "Thank you."
"I hate him."
"I can tell."
"Don't let him get you. He only serves himself."
"I've noticed."
"Yeah." She sighed and dropped her feet to the floor. Standing, she said, "Look, I know it's none of my business—"
"No," she said, "but thank you anyway."
"Yeah. Well. Tymora be with you."
Laura watched her walk away, trying to organize her thoughts in her head. She found herself focusing on facts that had no bearing on the situation—such as Malin's accusations of…of, well, something. Something bad. And if Bishop had been doing bad things to Luskans, who may or may not have deserved it (she wanted to say they did, but it was rarely as simple as that), then she was obliged to investigate. The thought of asking Bishop about his past was as appealing as the thought of asking Qara and Sand to have a debate about the finer points of magical theory. At least Bishop couldn't make anything explode.
"There you are," Shandra said, and Laura looked over her shoulder to see the other woman approaching from behind her. "Are you going to come eat or not?"
"Coming," she said, and as soon as she sat down Sand attacked her with enough legal jargon to distract her from everything but the fact that in less than a week she was going on trial for her life.
o-o-o
o-o-o
She told herself she was asking because she needed a break and because Sand didn't need her help in putting together the last bits of evidence for submission. The fact that she had chosen to take this break near midnight on the last night before she surrendered all of her freedom to the Neverwinter legal system was simply incidental, as was the fact that everyone else had gone to bed early to prepare for the day ahead. The Flagon had closed early in order to allow Sand to spread his work across all the tables in the bar, so naturally the others, lacking anything to do, migrated towards their own rooms, making it the perfect time to have a private conversation.
She knocked on his door and then leaned with her back against the wall, crossing her arms and waiting. The door creaked open, and then he stuck his head out, looking for the intruder. She glanced at him, returned her gaze to the opposite wall, and said, "Put a shirt on. I need to talk to you."
"It's kind of late, don't you think?" he said, though he went back into his room. She heard him rustling around and forced her mind onto a calm, neutral train of thought. "I mean," he said, coming back out with the shirt half-pulled over his head, "if you wanted to talk, all you have to do—"
"I didn't think you wanted to have this conversation with the others around," she said.
He finished tugging on his shirt and glanced up at her, eyebrows raised. "If that's all you wanted, we don't have to—"
"It's about Luskan," she said, continuing as if he hadn't spoken. He froze, and glancing at him again she could tell that he was coiled to strike. She pushed off the wall, still pretending not to notice him, and said, "Where shall we go?"
"Is the elf still in the bar?"
"Yes," she said, somewhat surprised at his apparent willingness to talk.
"Then where were you planning to have this conversation?"
"It's up to you." She gave him a look (your room isn't an option) to forestall any comments, and waited.
He looked back at her, his expression innocent, and finally said, "The front porch. Should be empty, and if it's not, then anyone loitering out there right now deserves to have their skull bashed in."
"I didn't say that," she said, automatically leading the way out there.
"Hm," he said, falling into her footsteps as he always did, and that was all they said until they went outside. It was summertime in Neverwinter, warm and humid, with a cool breeze coming off the sea to mitigate the worst of the sticky air. Lamps shone on the street, and a lone City Watch patrolman wandered by on his rounds; Laura smiled a humorless smile to see that the district was still under control as she turned away from him, leaning against the railing to look out at the street.
"Proud of yourself?" he asked, crossing his arms, watching her. "Bringing peace and prosperity to a criminal district?"
"Perhaps," she said. "It is…good to see that something, at least, is still working the way it is supposed to."
"Unlike the trial?"
"Yes." She didn't want to say anything further on the subject; she was tired of the trial, and she had a different reason for coming out here.
After a moment, he said, "So what, exactly, was so important about Luskan that you felt the need to drag me out of bed in the middle of the night? You already know I've spent time up near there. Was there something else you wanted to know?"
"You hate them," she said.
"Well, yeah."
"Why?"
He shrugged, though she still wasn't looking. "It's not really so much hate as it is…there's not much there to think about. They're despicable, worthless excuses of existence—waste of space, if you ask me. They're not worth wasting the energy hating them."
"But you do hate them." Before he could answer, she turned and tilted her head to the side, causing a few loose strands of hair—a rare sight with her careful coif—to drift across her forehead. "Enough to torture them?"
He couldn't quite make out her expression, and the tone of her voice was, as usual, absolutely no help in figuring out what she was feeling. "Now who told you that?"
"Malin."
"You met Malin, did you?" He snorted a laugh. "She still in Port Llast?"
"You saw her when we were up there?" Her tone wasn't so much curious as it was awaiting confirmation of previous suspicions.
"Of course I did. Went and got herself gored by a dire boar or something. Unsurprising. She's useless." He shifted his weight and said, "So what'd she say again?"
"Luskans. Torture thereof."
"What about it?"
She stared at him in that way that made him wonder if she was actually looking at him or through him, as though she was looking in his direction because she was thinking about him, but also as if her focus was completely inward and she wasn't really seeing him at all. He gave her his best lewd stare, but she was adept at ignoring that, and now was no different. He hated being ignored, and he was beginning to wonder if he didn't hate her. Not that it really mattered.
"Torture is…" She blinked, coming back into focus, and said, "It is not honorable. It is not fair play—"
"Maybe not," he said, "but it's not like the Luskans have ever been about fair play themselves."
"Did you kill them?"
He stared at her. "What do you think?"
"You didn't let any of them go?"
"Hells, I don't remember," he said. He'd long ago discovered what a valuable skill lying with a straight face could be, and he employed it now. "Why does it matter?"
"It matters because," and she cocked her head and took on a peculiar expression, confusion mixed with apology, "I just might have to kill you."
"Huh," he said, not doubting for a second that she could, even if she currently looked more like a confused girl than a capable warrior. "Why?"
"You tortured people," she said. "That's not something I can overlook."
"Well, hell, how would you get revenge on me? Killing me? Ripping out my fingernails first? Revenge is torture—"
"That would at least be torture for a reason—"
"Oh, don't go around thinking I was unprovoked," he said, his fists clenching before he remembered himself and plastered a smirk on his face. As he came back to himself, he realized that he'd succeeded in his goal of hearing the cleric speak in something other than her normal unhurried, unworried voice. It rose in pitch, and her expression had changed as well; and she, too, was clenching her fists.
"Were you provoked?"
"I don't think that's any of your business," he said.
"It is if you don't want me to kill you."
"Don't you want to kill me?"
She opened her mouth and abruptly shut it; amused, Bishop watched as she warily pulled into herself, regaining her composure and saying neutrally, "There's no reason to—"
"You're avoiding my question," he said, grinning, uncrossing his arms and taking a step towards her.
"Why do you hate Luskans?"
Her lips twitched as he paused. He took a long, deep whiff of the air, and said, "Well, if you don't want to kill me, then I clearly haven't been doing my job."
"Which is…?"
He shrugged, but she answered for him. "To alienate yourself from the entire group and then insist on following along to watch their reactions. Because you think it's amusing to watch a cadre of professionals reduced to bickering children because of one lewd remark?"
"Close enough." He grinned at her again. "Why Farthing, I didn't know you were listening."
"I wasn't," she said. "But you're not the only one who's watching."
He met her gaze, then, and immediately cursed himself for doing it—there was something alluring in the darkness of her eyes, something she probably didn't even realize was there. Duncan's niece was capable of immense charm, but seemed content to be aloof instead, to the point of being downright hostile if you didn't realize she wasn't being serious. Come to think of it, he'd never seen her so much as bat her eyes at a member of the opposite sex—but then again, Duncan, being her uncle, would probably beat off any would-be suitors. Because Duncan was her uncle. And he, Bishop, hated Duncan.
Funny, but her eyes were still doing a number on his better judgment.
He had to do something to make her stop, or at least realize what she was doing—so he gave into his overwhelming instinct and closed the distance between them. She stood her ground, looking up ever-so-slightly—she was a tall girl, unlike her pathetic half-elf excuse of an uncle—and so he didn't bother stopping until the space between them was less than a handbreadth wide. "And what have you been watching?" he asked, looking down ever-so-slightly, observing that her eyes only looked better upon closer inspection. He ran his tongue along the inside of his bottom lip, watching for her reaction. This close, he could see the tension in her face as she pressed her lips together, maintaining an expressionless mask as she held her ground against him.
"I'll have to mark you," she said, her voice very quiet, but steady.
"Oh?" He shifted, leaning closer, reaching around her with one arm to rest his hand against the rail behind her. "That sounds—"
"If you want to stay, I have to mark you." The tension bled out of her face, and she looked at him with a sort of curious detachment.
His eyebrows drew together. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"I'm not sure," she said. "Do you want to stay?"
"I'm not sure," he said. "What's this mark?"
"Hoar," she said. "I have to mark you as protected. Otherwise I'll have to—something. I don't know yet."
"Is this because of the torture thing? Because that's bullshit," he said. "Like I said, they had it coming to them—"
"I don't know that."
"Well, I'm telling you," he said, forgetting himself again, leaning in closer until his chest hit hers and reminded him of where he was. She finally moved, out and around him, and he twisted to face her; she gave him an inscrutable look, but he told himself that he saw a trace of—surprise, or something like it, in her eyes.
"Even if you were justified in your torture," she said, "the chances that—" She paused, picking her words carefully. "You're not telling me why you hate the Luskans—you don't hate them, I know," she said, cutting him off before he had the chance to speak, "but whatever else you're not telling me…"
And she was giving him that look again, the at-him-through-him look, like she knew, but she didn't know what she knew. And she was Duncan's niece, and there was no telling what Duncan had told her. But she wasn't Duncan's niece, because no relative of Duncan's would offer him a way out of explaining every last damn detail.
"Fine," he said. "Mark me, whatever the hell that means."
"It just means that you're under my protection. I can't harm you, and anyone searching for you with vengeance in their heart won't be able to touch you without my permission."
"I thought," he said, watching her as she tugged something out from under her shirt, "you didn't know what this was?"
"It's coming to me," was her answer. She held up what she'd been looking for—it looked to be an old and worn coin, though it wasn't of any currency he'd ever seen.
"So I'll be under your protection," he said. "Are you saving my life?" And he couldn't keep the snarl out of his voice; didn't really want to keep the snarl out of his voice.
"You could look at it that way," she said, her gaze on the coin as she turned it over in her hands. "Or you could consider it a precautionary action." She glanced up at him and said, "It's simply to keep me from having to incapacitate you. You don't owe me anything."
He swallowed, hard, and glared at her. She stared back impassively and said, "Do you want me—"
He couldn't quite hear what else she said, because her words sent a shiver through him that enflamed him more than anything had in…a long time. And she was Duncan's niece and yet Duncan's opposite in so many ways, and it was easy to pretend she wasn't, and he found himself wondering whether her hair would be rough or soft to the touch, and if it was possible for her to make any sound other than a sharp pronouncement or a—oh, gods, he'd been joking before, but now he quite seriously wanted to slam her into the wall and find out if there was an actual woman beneath her aloof gaze.
"Well?" she asked, the flatness of her voice cutting across his fantasies most cruelly.
He shrugged, looking away from her lips. "Sure."
She came closer but still maintained a decent distance between them, reaching out to press the coin against the side of his neck. It was strangely cool, despite having been in her palm (though to be fair, her fingertips brushing his neck were cold, but he was trying not to focus on that—he had no doubt that any attempt to slam her against anything would result in his castration, at the very least). "Where do you want it?" she asked. "I don't know if it'll leave an actual mark or not."
Oh, hells. Might as well enjoy this. "Out of sight," he said. "On my back."
So she went behind him and lifted up his shirt and pressed the coin against his skin and he clenched his teeth against his every instinct as she started muttering archaic words he couldn't understand. The cold burned itself into his back as she put her other hand on his back to steady him and his temperature skyrocketed and he sucked in a breath of the warm air and felt himself shaking, ever-so-slightly.
"Well," she said, and she withdrew her hands from his back. "That's interesting."
"Did it leave a mark?" he asked.
"Yes," she said. "Very faint, though. I doubt anyone would notice it. Good night."
He didn't want to turn around and let her see the exact effect she'd had on him, and so he gripped the railing and waited until he heard the door swing shut before relaxing. He stared at the street, trying to figure out the best way to get what he wanted. Because he wanted her. It was no longer a question of if or maybe or if only; he wanted her, and thus he was going to get her. Somehow. But if her eyes were any indication, then it would be quite worth his while to crack her.
Plus, the look on the paladin's face…
Grinning, he set off for his room and some quality time with himself and his plans.