[No part of Fitcher's wardrobe selection for the evening is exceptionally black, and the figure she cuts there on the stairwell landing where they've arranged to meet is more sleek than it is rakish. The bottle green draped coat with the sable trim and rich red layers beneath it would appear far better suited to loitering about some Hightown party than they are to robbing one, but one should never disregard the possibility of what might be secreted away under skirts.
This landing is just far enough up that she doesn't much concern herself with the threat of cut purses or Carta thugs. Instead, she is smoking whole she waits— puffing along on her pipe and studying the view through a low section of the retaining wall whuch looks down onto the night-dark smear of the harbor below.
The air is damp but not cold. The season is readying its change.]
[ Sharp sounds carry further in the humidity -- the tapping scrape of claws on stone rings out well before the softer scuff of a leather sole behind them. A skeletal shape prances into view below, forepaws stayed on the bottom stair. Her back is arched, matchstick bones and shining muscle under black velvet. This is a dog with a long snout and longer legs, the cord of her tail stirring into a whip flank-to-flank upon clocking Fitcher far above.
She licks her snout and begins her ascent, fleet enough to take the flight two clumsy stairs at a time.
Her master isn’t far behind, inky cape coat and long legs to match. Even discounting the queer creature goblining its way up the steps for her, he’s impossible to mistake in fine clothes -- high in the collar and hard in the nose, one bony hand steadied to the banister along the way.
The look he crooks up at her on his way betrays him, absent of severity.
[In the lamplight and from a distance, it's impossible to mark exactly what it is that Fitcher's expression does as she marks the sentient spaghetti, allegedly a dog, ascending the stairs. By the time beast and master have climbed high enough to make out the finer details, her eye has already passed to Silas and whatever flicker of disdain might have lived there has been replaced by—
Fitcher quirks both her eyebrows and shows her teeth in an approximation of a smile around the stem of the pipe.]
[ There’s a peculiar flicker -- a facet behind his eyes in the lamplight, there and gone. Surprise, guilt, or paranoia. What does she see?
The dog, obviously.
Realization is as swift as a glance to the noodle dancing around Fitcher’s ankles, steeling out his nerve well before he’s in range to slide a hand under the coat to her hip, a bristly kiss at her jawline. Past the jut of the pipe. Thot snuffles like a nug where she’s picked up a rat’s trail. ]
Some nights ago, [ says Silas. ] I've missed having a lookout.
It's not very polite to tell an old woman that she's going blind.
[This bit of humor delivered with wide doe-eyes and batting eyelashes too close to his face to really be seen as Fitcher takes the pipe from between her teeth.
On a younger woman or delivered with either a shade more sincerity or petulance, the whole performance might grate. Here, she punctuates it with an eyebrow waggle and the production of a cap for the pipe's bowl. Demuring not to nudge the oil slick of a dog away with the toe of her boot, Fitcher instead turns her face at an angle which could easily invite further bristly somethings.]
I'll expect something for severance if you're firing me.
[ Tilt for tilt, he shifts along the path of least resistance to take her up on that invitation -- bristly somethings, close and warm while he’s chided. Not quite listening. Just enough to get the shape of it, his nose at her ear brought back around for him to challenge the sentiment head on. ]
You have other worthwhile skills I’m certain we can find a use for.
[ He’s had a little to drink, quick with a wicked crook to his furrowed brow.
A ways behind him, Thot is licking wet (plap plap plap) around a crack in the stonework she’s followed the scent to, paws dancing while she works. Very normal. Very stiff competition. ]
[When they're trotting along a series of Hightown roofs and walls, working their way diligently through the dark down through the city, when she has turned the reversible coat inside out so that it's jet colored lining faces out and the electric green is made secret enough that anyone looking for a woman matching Fitcher's description in red and green might so be routed.
But in the moment it sounds rather like something else, and that's fine too.
(The scrape of his beard tickles. Fitcher tucks the pipe behind her ear.)]
You may have to hide your little beastie up your sleeve. I'm not sure whether dogs are welcome at this function.
I should have consulted you about more covert alternatives. Perhaps a rat.
[ Definitely unwelcome. He nudges to slot one bony hip against hers as he says so, that same hand testing along the coat’s underside for secrets. ]
Or a giant spider.
[ It occurs to him for the first time that he could attempt to form Thot into a nug. It’s an important enough thought that he turns his nose down from Fitcher’s to study the cursed creature skittering humpity bumpity around a rathole. She vanishes in a dark twist of vapor when he refocuses up at eye level.
Hours or minutes or an hour and some minutes later, Thot the dog is splayed spindly-legged over an open jewelry box on the dresser as she scarfs down the contents.
The master bedroom is dark, curtains drawn, the sounds of the ongoing party close for comfort. ]
Edited (the dumbest edit of all times) Date: 2022-03-09 06:00 am (UTC)
[The drape of Fitcher's pale skirts on the dark, richly brocaded duvet of the grand bed in the chamber paints a soft shape in the dark. And very like a cat who knows she's in a place she ought not to be, Fitcher has made herself perfectly comfortable there as she sorts through the contents of the compartment which has lived behind the familial crest above the mantle.
The packet of sensitive letters with their tell tale yellow ribbon has already been separated out.]
[ Partway to sliding a finely-carved comb from the vanity into one of his many pockets, Silas pauses to look back over his shoulder in the gloom -- first to Fitcher, and then to the dresser playing host to his familiar. A chunky necklace is squeezing its way slowly down her gullet, drawn inexorably inward. Strands of drool loop like silver through her snaggled fangs.
Thot is occupied.
He finds a candle at the mantle that will suffice -- thick enough to balance itself on the bedside table he transfers it to without a holder. The rune of his lighter glows after a flick of his thumb, once, twice; the wick is waxy and slow to take a spark. ]
Anything promising?
[ Light doesn’t fill the room so much as it warms the one side of it in shades of muffled red. ]
[Fitcher's 'Thank you' comes easily; she shifts closer to the fledgling light with the papers.]
Other than my friend's romantic poetry?
[She hasn't opened the letters, but maybe Fitcher's friend has told her something of their contents. Maybe this really is the petty vengeance of a spurned wife—I want him to have nothing of me, including all the kind words I ever wrote to him, and so on.]
Trading contracts. Deeds and the will. He'll have copies filed with his solicitor. There's a pretty ring in that little black bag that's too large for me.
[She wiggles a thumb in Silas's direction. Yes, she'd tried it.]
[ Thot’s jaws chew themselves back into shape, popping wet back into their sockets for her to lick her chops over the emptied box. She scuttles to the edge of the dresser and looks down to the floor, far below for her spindly legs.
An anxious tremor of her tail sees her looking to Silas for help.
But he’s sliding stoat smooth into bed beside Fitcher to better see what she’s dismissing, and also the little black bag with a pretty ring, plucked out from her shuffling with a deft turn of his wrist. He has fingers. ]
She must be a good friend, [ he remarks, very casually, as he upends the bag over his palm. ]
[Fitcher's makes an agreeable humming noise as she flicks through a few pages drawn free from a thin protective leather folio.]
Or I am.
[is a belated punchline, underscored by the sly look she shoots his way over the edge of the papers.
The ring is pretty and its setting distinct enough that it might risk identification were it to go missing. But nothing six months spent cooling in a pocket wouldn't fix. Maybe it's enchanted. Who can say? Definitely not me who would never think ahead far enough to spend AC points on a rando magic ring but always kind of wishes I was that person because that would be fun.]
Supported on his elbow, he draws one knee up as he turns the ring over in the light, something uniquely fiendish about pulling one’s boots up onto the duvet of a stranger. It looks like it might fit -- sized up against his gloved knuckles.
Back into the bag it goes, and the bag behind his lapel with the comb, just as Thot fumbles herself off the edge of the dresser and lands with a sound like a coin purse hitting the floor. Silas ignores her shaking off the impact (jingle jangle, she’s fine) in favor of the papers Fitcher has drawn out and a flask he’s produced from the region of his belt. ]
[Thot spilling across the floor briefly draws the eye, but prompts no glance toward the bedroom door. No beat of quiet to listen to approaching footsteps or to wait for some alteration in the murmuring sounds of the not too distant company. If that were all it took to spoil the evening, they'd have bigger problems to concern themselves with.]
I'm not much for heights.
[Fitcher turns a few pages further through her current sheaf and then, with a dismissive flick of the wrist shunts them back into their folio. This she folds in half and tucks under the packet of letters as if out of obligation. Other documents must go missing alongside the letters, after all.
She looks at him—slightly up at him, given her lounging.]
I suppose we can't stay for the rest of the party.
[ He agrees down into the act of working the cork out of the neck of his flask, murmured, distracted. The acrid stink of rotgut marks his success, sharp in the air. He swigs before he offers it out to her, eyes lifted to fine moulding around the ceiling, furniture they haven’t yet turned over in search of hidden compartments and probably won’t.
This is just fallout from a bad breakup.
The bed is a nice bed, though. And the duvet is a nice duvet. He draws his second boot up onto it to straighten himself out where he’s propped up, luxurious. Comfortable.
And quiet, for a moment, apart from a muffled jingling amidst the tippy tap of little claws. ]
[The liquor from the flask goes down with all the ease of chewing gravel. Fitcher sucks in air to follow after it. She takes a second, smaller swig before returning the flask.]
I didn't, did I.
[As if somehow this is a thing one might forget as easily as leaving a shirt with a laundress. With a rustle of papers, Fitcher idly shifts the spoils from raiding the mantle compartment aside. There is a jaunty good humor to the angle of her chin as its propped on her knuckles. In the meager candle light, her eyes are very dark.]
[ The scruffy lines around his mouth take on a wry twist, shadows folded in around a smile that never quite surfaces once he’s turned his notched ear to face her. Her eyes have a way of catching in him, a barbed hold on his attention.
He thumbs the cork blind back into his bottle. ]
No.
[ Thank you, courtesy borderline in its obstinance. Mister Dickerson won’t hazard a guess. ]
[In that warmed darkness with her chin propped on her long hand, Fitcher watches him for just the narrowest moment—not the study of dissection or some measuring pause, just looking. Click, click, goes the scratching pad of little feet elsewhere in the room.
[ There’s some cost to his asking -- the desire to know finally weighed over the more sensible need not to. Serafine feels true, in the low light and with her looking at him. ]
[ It would be an ordeal for them to have sex in this room. They are both in layers. The host could over-indulge or find someone of his own to retire early with.
His study of her warm beside him fogs his calculation, dry humor faded in his distraction.
He leans to kiss her, a muffled creak from the mattress under the sink of his elbow. There’s restraint to it -- a reasonable compromise. Very responsible. ]
[Extremely. That's why she slips her long hand up to idly scratch her fingernails at bristle of his cheek rather than setting it on his thigh. She doesn't even question the discipline, though it would be easy to do it with just her mouth. They're incredibly reasonable, the pair of them.
And here, Fitcher does laugh—a low gravel sound sliding into the space that follows after all this responsibility.]
[ Silas shows his teeth into her laugh, breath into breath, his free hand coursed light down her midline. Ostensibly neutral territory. ]
I would never pass by the opportunity for a burglary in Hightown.
[ He means it, arch, and a little sinister, and -- Thot flings herself up at their feet in a scribble of legs and tail and pinched teeth to test the duvet out for herself, her eyes flashing copper in the candlelight. The scrape of her claws at the brocade is a real mood killer, forceful enough to rattle the spoils in her gut. Very helpful.
With a glance by way of apology, Dick rolls back enough to fish his dropped flask out from beneath his seat, contact broken with the magic. ]
Is there anything else you want to investigate before we abscond?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2022-02-23 07:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-05 06:18 am (UTC)This landing is just far enough up that she doesn't much concern herself with the threat of cut purses or Carta thugs. Instead, she is smoking whole she waits— puffing along on her pipe and studying the view through a low section of the retaining wall whuch looks down onto the night-dark smear of the harbor below.
The air is damp but not cold. The season is readying its change.]
no subject
Date: 2022-03-06 10:06 pm (UTC)She licks her snout and begins her ascent, fleet enough to take the flight two clumsy stairs at a time.
Her master isn’t far behind, inky cape coat and long legs to match. Even discounting the queer creature goblining its way up the steps for her, he’s impossible to mistake in fine clothes -- high in the collar and hard in the nose, one bony hand steadied to the banister along the way.
The look he crooks up at her on his way betrays him, absent of severity.
Keen for mischief. ]
no subject
Date: 2022-03-07 01:37 am (UTC)Fitcher quirks both her eyebrows and shows her teeth in an approximation of a smile around the stem of the pipe.]
Well, well. I see Warden Ellis has returned.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-07 04:16 am (UTC)The dog, obviously.
Realization is as swift as a glance to the noodle dancing around Fitcher’s ankles, steeling out his nerve well before he’s in range to slide a hand under the coat to her hip, a bristly kiss at her jawline. Past the jut of the pipe. Thot snuffles like a nug where she’s picked up a rat’s trail. ]
Some nights ago, [ says Silas. ] I've missed having a lookout.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-07 04:53 am (UTC)[This bit of humor delivered with wide doe-eyes and batting eyelashes too close to his face to really be seen as Fitcher takes the pipe from between her teeth.
On a younger woman or delivered with either a shade more sincerity or petulance, the whole performance might grate. Here, she punctuates it with an eyebrow waggle and the production of a cap for the pipe's bowl. Demuring not to nudge the oil slick of a dog away with the toe of her boot, Fitcher instead turns her face at an angle which could easily invite further bristly somethings.]
I'll expect something for severance if you're firing me.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-07 10:18 pm (UTC)You have other worthwhile skills I’m certain we can find a use for.
[ He’s had a little to drink, quick with a wicked crook to his furrowed brow.
A ways behind him, Thot is licking wet (plap plap plap) around a crack in the stonework she’s followed the scent to, paws dancing while she works. Very normal. Very stiff competition. ]
I like your coat.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-08 08:25 am (UTC)[When they're trotting along a series of Hightown roofs and walls, working their way diligently through the dark down through the city, when she has turned the reversible coat inside out so that it's jet colored lining faces out and the electric green is made secret enough that anyone looking for a woman matching Fitcher's description in red and green might so be routed.
But in the moment it sounds rather like something else, and that's fine too.
(The scrape of his beard tickles. Fitcher tucks the pipe behind her ear.)]
You may have to hide your little beastie up your sleeve. I'm not sure whether dogs are welcome at this function.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-09 05:54 am (UTC)[ Definitely unwelcome. He nudges to slot one bony hip against hers as he says so, that same hand testing along the coat’s underside for secrets. ]
Or a giant spider.
[ It occurs to him for the first time that he could attempt to form Thot into a nug. It’s an important enough thought that he turns his nose down from Fitcher’s to study the cursed creature skittering humpity bumpity around a rathole. She vanishes in a dark twist of vapor when he refocuses up at eye level.
Hours or minutes or an hour and some minutes later, Thot the dog is splayed spindly-legged over an open jewelry box on the dresser as she scarfs down the contents.
The master bedroom is dark, curtains drawn, the sounds of the ongoing party close for comfort. ]
real lol at thot eating a bunch of jewelry
Date: 2022-03-12 06:14 am (UTC)The packet of sensitive letters with their tell tale yellow ribbon has already been separated out.]
Find me a candle, would you?
ding dong magic dog
Date: 2022-03-12 09:26 am (UTC)Thot is occupied.
He finds a candle at the mantle that will suffice -- thick enough to balance itself on the bedside table he transfers it to without a holder. The rune of his lighter glows after a flick of his thumb, once, twice; the wick is waxy and slow to take a spark. ]
Anything promising?
[ Light doesn’t fill the room so much as it warms the one side of it in shades of muffled red. ]
no subject
Date: 2022-03-12 06:37 pm (UTC)Other than my friend's romantic poetry?
[She hasn't opened the letters, but maybe Fitcher's friend has told her something of their contents. Maybe this really is the petty vengeance of a spurned wife—I want him to have nothing of me, including all the kind words I ever wrote to him, and so on.]
Trading contracts. Deeds and the will. He'll have copies filed with his solicitor. There's a pretty ring in that little black bag that's too large for me.
[She wiggles a thumb in Silas's direction. Yes, she'd tried it.]
Nothing scandalous. Mores the pity.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-12 09:40 pm (UTC)An anxious tremor of her tail sees her looking to Silas for help.
But he’s sliding stoat smooth into bed beside Fitcher to better see what she’s dismissing, and also the little black bag with a pretty ring, plucked out from her shuffling with a deft turn of his wrist. He has fingers. ]
She must be a good friend, [ he remarks, very casually, as he upends the bag over his palm. ]
no subject
Date: 2022-03-12 10:51 pm (UTC)Or I am.
[is a belated punchline, underscored by the sly look she shoots his way over the edge of the papers.
The ring is pretty and its setting distinct enough that it might risk identification were it to go missing. But nothing six months spent cooling in a pocket wouldn't fix. Maybe it's enchanted. Who can say? Definitely not me who would never think ahead far enough to spend AC points on a rando magic ring but always kind of wishes I was that person because that would be fun.]
no subject
Date: 2022-03-12 11:54 pm (UTC)Supported on his elbow, he draws one knee up as he turns the ring over in the light, something uniquely fiendish about pulling one’s boots up onto the duvet of a stranger. It looks like it might fit -- sized up against his gloved knuckles.
Back into the bag it goes, and the bag behind his lapel with the comb, just as Thot fumbles herself off the edge of the dresser and lands with a sound like a coin purse hitting the floor. Silas ignores her shaking off the impact (jingle jangle, she’s fine) in favor of the papers Fitcher has drawn out and a flask he’s produced from the region of his belt. ]
Are we using the window or the front door?
[ No reason. ]
no subject
Date: 2022-03-13 02:10 am (UTC)I'm not much for heights.
[Fitcher turns a few pages further through her current sheaf and then, with a dismissive flick of the wrist shunts them back into their folio. This she folds in half and tucks under the packet of letters as if out of obligation. Other documents must go missing alongside the letters, after all.
She looks at him—slightly up at him, given her lounging.]
I suppose we can't stay for the rest of the party.
[Ha ha.]
no subject
Date: 2022-03-13 08:15 pm (UTC)[ He agrees down into the act of working the cork out of the neck of his flask, murmured, distracted. The acrid stink of rotgut marks his success, sharp in the air. He swigs before he offers it out to her, eyes lifted to fine moulding around the ceiling, furniture they haven’t yet turned over in search of hidden compartments and probably won’t.
This is just fallout from a bad breakup.
The bed is a nice bed, though. And the duvet is a nice duvet. He draws his second boot up onto it to straighten himself out where he’s propped up, luxurious. Comfortable.
And quiet, for a moment, apart from a muffled jingling amidst the tippy tap of little claws. ]
You've never told me your name.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-13 08:35 pm (UTC)I didn't, did I.
[As if somehow this is a thing one might forget as easily as leaving a shirt with a laundress. With a rustle of papers, Fitcher idly shifts the spoils from raiding the mantle compartment aside. There is a jaunty good humor to the angle of her chin as its propped on her knuckles. In the meager candle light, her eyes are very dark.]
Care to hazard a guess?
no subject
Date: 2022-03-13 09:18 pm (UTC)He thumbs the cork blind back into his bottle. ]
No.
[ Thank you, courtesy borderline in its obstinance. Mister Dickerson won’t hazard a guess. ]
no subject
Date: 2022-03-13 10:40 pm (UTC)Well, then. If they're being candid:]
It's Serafine.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-13 11:14 pm (UTC)Serafine. [ He tries it out, just as watchful.
After a pause, he confesses: ]
My most promising guess was ‘Siobhan.’
no subject
Date: 2022-03-14 12:21 am (UTC)[It prompts some impression of a smile—residual warmth felt through making contact with a thing left in the sun. She doesn't laugh, but could.]
It's not bad.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-14 06:53 pm (UTC)His study of her warm beside him fogs his calculation, dry humor faded in his distraction.
He leans to kiss her, a muffled creak from the mattress under the sink of his elbow. There’s restraint to it -- a reasonable compromise. Very responsible. ]
no subject
Date: 2022-03-14 09:02 pm (UTC)And here, Fitcher does laugh—a low gravel sound sliding into the space that follows after all this responsibility.]
It was good of you to come with me when I asked.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-14 09:38 pm (UTC)I would never pass by the opportunity for a burglary in Hightown.
[ He means it, arch, and a little sinister, and -- Thot flings herself up at their feet in a scribble of legs and tail and pinched teeth to test the duvet out for herself, her eyes flashing copper in the candlelight. The scrape of her claws at the brocade is a real mood killer, forceful enough to rattle the spoils in her gut. Very helpful.
With a glance by way of apology, Dick rolls back enough to fish his dropped flask out from beneath his seat, contact broken with the magic. ]
Is there anything else you want to investigate before we abscond?
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