China and Eliza
She lived for this. She had people waiting on her hand and foot, so she was happy.
With a pile of paperwork in front of her and an endless supply of tea from Tipstaff; life was pretty good.
That was until she heard someone's forced cough at her door. Dragging her head up slowly, she looked into the murky depths of Eliza Scorn's eyes. Since the incident with Darquesse, she hadn't heard of or see Eliza.
"Eliza, Don't you look hideous" she said sweetly, taking in Eliza's appearance. Her once white cashmere jumper was a dull shade of brown, blue jeans caked with mud a dotted with holes. Her hair which was once a vibrant red that drew every eye in the room was now knotted mud filled red. And the smell! She smelt like someone who had been camped out in the sewers for the last couple of days.
"HOW COUD YOU! Eliza screeched clutching her hair and pulling, watching as a clumps of red hair hung from her fingers, and screeched again.
"How could I do what?" China smiled, loving how she was having this effect on the woman.
"You – You brought down the Church of the Faceless Ones!" Eliza screeched again, more hair coming out of her head and landing in a pile on the floor.
"If you keep pulling your hair out you won't left" China told her "and as for the Church of the Faceless Ones, you had it coming"
"How could the Church have deserved that? We were nothing compared to what you have now" Eliza put her hands up and gestured to the room.
"Now you know what it is like to lose something you love" China's eye's turned hard and stern.
"What did I ever do to you?" Eliza started to get angrier, this woman – this woman had destroyed what everything she held dear, everything she worked hard to build up and she sent the Cleavers in and arrested everyone that was in the building for, attempted murder.
"You obviously don't remember what you did to my library" China stood and placed her palms on the desk, discreetly covering the sigils she carved there. "You blew it up and told Skulduggery and Valkyrie about my past. Did you really think I wouldn't get my revenge" China kept her voice as even as possible. "I worked my whole life to build that collection, what you made was a strand of hair compared to my library"
"Who were we supposedly going to kill then" Eliza pulled a face.
"Me, and you almost did once"
"But that was years ago"
"But it still happened"
"But-"
"What sort of leader would I be if I let you get away with that?"
"You aren't going to kill me!" Eliza said jutting her chin out "you wouldn't do that, murder is bad for a leader" China couldn't help but laugh, Eliza thought she cared about what people thought of her? Then she was the fool. Every other mage that had taken the seat of Grand Mage was killed by people they thought they knew or thrown in prison. But China happened to like the situation she was in, she could decide on someone's fate. Normally she would be lax on the accused like she was with the people at the church. She had only placed that order to flush Eliza out and it worked, Eliza had been forced on to the streets and had been there since the order was given out, a week ago.
"Oh, I'm not going to kill you Eliza" she smiled sweetly, making Eliza feel sick to the stomach. "I'm going to make your life a living hell"
"What? I could leave now if I wanted to y'know"
"I would like to see you try Eliza, but I have every Cleaver available outside my office and you just admitted to trying to kill you Grand Mage"
This time Eliza was almost sick,
"I'm not going to prison China, we were like sisters" Eliza pleaded
"Yes that may be so, but you just said a special word in that sentence 'we were'"
"No" Eliza turned to run out of the room, but face planted a cleaver chest.
"Take her to the gaol please" China watched as they dragged Eliza from the room kicking and screaming.
Smiling again she thought Life is good. Sitting down she continued with her paperwork.
Thank you for the review lionsandtrolls.
Sorry I haven't posted in this story for a while, but I'm going to try and upload more regularly now. :)