Topic: Indra

Alain DeMuer

Date: 2012-05-20 01:56 EST
Saturday May 19th, 2012 - 4:00 p.m. RST

Saturday dawned too early and too quietly, as it did whenever Ali had the children and Fio was left to her own devices. She was a dervish of activity designed to squeeze all the air out of every second: yoga, her cello, tending to the poultry and prepping the pond on the roof so the koi could be relocated from the big tanks in the living room. Lunch, when she finally paused long enough to think of it, consisted of a glass of wine and some olives.

And then she called Alain.

"Fio." Alain kept writing for a moment, circling the idea most worth investigating before flipping the journal shut. "What's up?"

"I could ask you the same thing," she dropped onto the couch, regarding her chipped nails with dismay and wondering if she should just go ahead and go into the office for a while. "Where were you yesterday?"

"Running a country," was his wry reply. "What'd I miss?"

The quality of her attention grew more focused in proportion to her confusion. It led to a moment of silence. "You don't remember? Alors, you must be busier than you're admitting if you forgot our appointment less than a day after we'd agreed to meet. I'm hurt. I really am." Mostly teasing.

"An appointment..." Paper turned, then stopped. Silence. "...We agreed? Fio, when was this? And where?"

The frown settled into her voice. "Thursday night. At the inn."

"What time exactly?"

"I got there about nine or a little after. Maybe a quarter past? I think you came in shortly after I did. Stayed for a drink and left - you don't recall?"

He paused. "Fio, this is extremely important. I need you to tell me everything you can, as well as you can remember. What was I wearing? What did I say? If there's any detail you can recall, I need to know it."

She sucked in a breath through her teeth and got thoughtful for a moment. "You came in the back, from the alley... Shirtsleeves... I remember ebcause you rolled them up. It was ... dark blue? Dark green? Gray? I don't remember precisely." She paused. "You were smoking one of those thin little cigars."

"Huh." More papers shuffled around his desk; he wrote something down.

"We had a drink together. Iseult came in and it was just small talk. Greetings. We made some joke about never taking time from our work and you decided to leave. It couldn't have been more than five or ten minutes. You said you were going to go find Sophie." She shook her head, "I don't know. It wasn't a long conversation."

"He mentioned Sophie?" Alain hissed something very rude in Newbreton French, something to do with a whoreson. "Listen, Fio... that wasn't me. I don't know who it was, but it can't be good."

A pang of alarm and guilt caught at her chest. "I mentioned her first. I said you weren't really leaving to go back to work. I said you were leaving because you were still a newlywed." The claim that he was being impersonated didn't faze her after her meeting with Ed and Darien.

"Sophie's been out of town for a few days, but she's getting back any minute. Not sure how she's coming in, but I think from the docks in WestEnd. Merde." He sucked in a breath. "Listen... I need you to put out a BOLO on me. If I'm not in the company of a squire named Saleh Numiir, it's not me. Maintain the BOLO until Saleh himself tells you it's over. Any officers who see this man need to report in immediately but keep their distance. Can you do that?"

"I can, yes. Can you send me a description of this squire and some certain way they can identify him?"

"Five eight, young - sixteen?" he asked away from the phone. Someone gave him an affirmative. "Short dark hair, brown skin, hazel eyes. He's wearing a dagger with the Order's seal on the pommel. Goddamnit..." He removed the clip from his Makarov pistol, checked it and slapped it back in. "I need to go find Sophie."

"I'm home. Five minutes from the docks. Do you want me to run down that way?"

"I don't think you should. He might recognize you from before. If it's who I think, he's extremely dangerous, highly unstable... there's no telling what he'd do if he saw you down there." Alain made a gesture to Saleh, mouthed a few words to him, then continued to Fio: "We're contacting SPI now. They're close."

"I won't keep you. Go collect your wife and stay safe. Call me, please, and let me know everything is fine?"

"I will." He hung up. They were running out of time.

* * *

Indra represents Chaos, and while he lacks Sarva's "creative" nature and Druj's cunning, his incredible capacity for violence is not to be underestimated. Of the three he is easily the most aggressive and destructive, and can employ subterfuge under the direction of his creator the Architect or either of his two "siblings."

Remember that he spent a year in SPI posing as slain agent Reynard Sainte-Just. Given his unstable and violent nature, he poses risk of inflicting massive damage if such a security breach is ever allowed again.

~ From the SPI Division Summary on Indra, Agent of Chaos


((Linked to this post. Adapted from live play with Fio, with thanks!))

Sofia DeMuer

Date: 2012-05-20 13:05 EST
Saturday, May 19th, 2012 - 7:00 pm RST

Negotiations with the reformist faction from the Halban Empire had taken place over the course of nearly an entire week in complete secrecy: Sophie and her small entourage, consisting of a knight, a lawyer and two aides, had departed from and returned to in RhyDin in different vessels, each of them falsely named. It had the benefit of throwing Imperial spies off of their trail. Unfortunately it meant that communication was impossible for the entire return journey, and the ship's passengers had no way of knowing the danger awaiting them in RhyDin, nor did any of Alain's people have any way of knowing when or where they would arrive.

Their host had arranged for them to take the final leg of the journey in the lap of luxury on a yacht named (or so named for the journey) Night Crawler. Because what would be less suspicious than an ostentatious yacht bearing a young baroness moored in harbor? It would only raise the eyebrows of socialites and gossip reporters. Had she returned to port in some nondescript cargo ship every foreign dignitary with an even halfway decent network of spies in RhyDin would have known that DeMuer had sent his wife on an important errand.

Like a teenager sneaking out after curfew, Sophie had waited until word came from her aide that Sir Hadrin had disembarked before changing into her running clothes, not wanting to give him a chance to prepare his argument. Thus, with an innocent grin, the rubber of her beloved running shoes hit the wooden dock as she made her way towards where Sir Hadrin was standing on the docks, recalibrating his communicator to the Order?s local frequency.

"Please tell Alain that he must get me a yacht with that many bathrooms for my birthday," Sophie announced with a playfully affected accent as she approached, adjusting the strap on her watch.

"What...?" Hadrin rasped, blinking his one good brown eye (the other milky and unblinking) at Sophie, and scowled sharply. "Milady, no. Captain Morvan said specifically to get you home first. He doesn't want you running alone at night, especially not from WestEnd. It's too dangerous," he added, folding his arms.

Amusement poured over her expression as her blue eyes lifted from the face of the watch to Hadrin's. "Captain Morvan can tell me what I can and cannot do now? You simply must show me the chain of command in chart form sometime because I find it incredibly confusing."

The pause at his side was brief before she was extending her stride once again to slip past, reaching for her ear buds. Although he could no longer see her grin with her back to him, it was ever so obvious in the sound of her voice. "You tell Captain Morvan that I am a god damn Rhovnik and I eat danger for breakfast. Tell him just like that, would you?"

Hadrin scowled deeper at her answer, and was about to hurry after her when his communicator began to buzz, spewing garbled words. "Damnable Nexus interference... a BOLO on the Baron...?"

This stretch of WestEnd was almost empty this time of night, too late for the diurnal and too early still for the nocturnal. An eerie quiet had momentarily settled over the streets she ran and was broken only by the sound of the rubber of her shoes striking against the pavement but that noise was drowned out by the pulsating music in her ears. In fact the last straight stretch of road before the city wall was empty save for a single figure leaning against the archway, head dipped into the collar of his leather jacket.

She'd barely had an opportunity to stretch her legs when she spotted the man. The face, the clothing, the body language, all were unmistakable: it had to be Sophie's husband.

Disappointment welled up in her gut. She had wanted so badly to feel the road slapping beneath her soles, to stretch her legs until her muscles burned angrily, to let her mind escape into the desperately fast beat of bad European techno that was pumping out of her earbuds. Maybe he'd tracked her through the watch. It had been a gift from him after all and she was certain that along with tracking her distance, her husband could use it to find her position within ten yards. Maybe he had just known that she couldn't resist the urge to run home. None of those would have been very surprising coming from Alain DeMuer.

The least he could have done, though, was be dressed to run back with her. Her pace slowed to a walk as she approached. A smile formed as the desire to see him drowned out the disappointment of the ruined run.

"Hoped you'd be coming my way," he said, a smile forming as he pushed off from the wall to approach, holding out his scarred right hand for one of hers.

"Hey." The smile brightened further as her hand reached out automatically but her tone was stern. "You know you shouldn't be out here alone. I hear it's a dangerous place."

"Then it's a good thing we're dangerous people," he grinned, and beckoned with his left hand as he leaned for a kiss, slow and passionate. "Missed you," he murmured through their kiss.

Passion. There was a lot of passion in Alain and Sophie's life. Their lives were almost overly full of issues and people that they were passionate about. It wasn't as if that there wasn't enough left over for one another but that it was saved for the time and place in which it was needed. These moments -- the quiet, stolen brushes with solace, companionship, comfort -- were slow, lingering, and full of meaning. Passion was easy. The oneness that they shared was exceptionally hard to find and impossible to mimic.

She should have returned the kiss even though the realization that something was wrong had been made. Alain would probably be disappointed in her for not having a better poker face in the moment. Particularly when it could save her life. But the shock was too great, the violation too severe. Immediately, she pulled back, eyes widening as she took in the man before her anew.

The man who had lately let himself be called Alain DeMuer, who before that had been Reynard Sainte-Just, and before that the evil Indra, was already changing by the time she stepped away. His skin grew paler, his eyes two pools of blood red as he gave her a broad grin. "My, my... that was delicious," he snarled, lashing a clawed hand out at her middle.

Sophie was incredibly lucky that he hadn't caught her a handful of miles further into town when her muscles had begin to complain and her breaths came in tired huffs. He'd miscalculated. He'd caught her just as she had begun to warm up. Hopefully, that miscalculation would give her just enough time that Seamus Morvan wouldn't be able to stand up at her funeral and announce that he was right.

As the clawed hand came in at her, she twisted off to the side away, at least momentarily, from the fear of evisceration. The knee of her front leg was brought in towards her chest and then the heel was launched out trying to catch the changing figure off guard. If she could just get one blow in to give her a head start, just maybe she would stand a chance of running away.

"Guh!" he coughed as her heel caught him in the chest, but even as he stumbled back out of reach he had another swipe in him. Flesh split and bled as the claws in his other hand grew longer, slicing across her turning hip in a backhand swing. "I'll send you to Hell with your sister, Sofia," he growled through grinning fangs as he staggered back to his feet.

Which hurt worse? The torn flesh twisted with ruined fabric at her right hip or the searing pain of the breathtaking words that had paired with the blow? There was no mistaking who was before her now. Indra. Gone was any thought of running. As the initial adrenaline passed, she slumped back against the brick wall of a looming warehouse but even it wasn?t enough to keep her on her feet. She slid down the brick wall, leaving a streak of blood from the vicious wound that had opened her side from waist to hip.

In that moment, all her drive to keep on fighting burned to ash and vanished with a gust of wind. Morana had skinned Yaya and now Indra was about to disembowel her.

A Watch whistle shrilled, while the officer's partner pointed and cried, "You there! Stop!" Both men were reaching for their weapons, but Indra was faster.

By the time the demon turned his face was once more that of Alain DeMuer. The claws, the fangs, the bloody eyes, all were gone. A knife materialized in his hand and the first officer to draw, going for his pistol, had only a moment to register the weapon whizzing through the air before it was buried in his neck.

"Bastard!" The other officer fired his musket and the bullet tore through the demon's side. He jerked back, whirled on Sophie with a warning snarl, but with the officer collecting his fallen partner's weapons for another shot and Indra wounded he had no more time to fight. Some damage had been done after all, and a message sent.

He backed into an alley, nowhere to be seen by the time the Watchman hurried over.

If only she had listened... The flash of gold on the left ring finger of the dead Watchman glittered as it caught the failing light. Had she let Hadrin escort her home rather than insisting on this foolish run, he would be headed home to his wife tonight. Please God let him not have had kids.

And what of her own husband? Had Indra killed him while she was out of touch with RhyDin and then assumed his form? The black hole in her pit grew wider, taking more of her with it.

Her eyes left the corpse and became fixated on the growing pool of his blood around her. No, not his blood. He was too far away. Her blood. The sticky pool of blood was her own. Through the bewildered realization, her eyes lifted to the Watchman left standing. "Please contact Captain Morvan at the New Haven Lodge," she whispered hoarsely, surprised by just how weak and thin her voice sounded. "He'll come for me."

Sophie's voice snapped the officer back from his rage, and he stared as if seeing her wound for the first time. The name she mentioned seemed to click with him as he stooped to put pressure on her wound. "Sophie DeMuer? Yeah, we'll tell him."

His other hand unfolded from around a floating blue orb that shimmered with every word he spoke to it. "Base, this is Officer O'Neill. Officer Barth is down. Tell those knights we've found Lady DeMuer, 6th and High... and send healers."

Sofia DeMuer

Date: 2012-05-20 15:35 EST
Saturday, May 19th - 8:45 pm RST

A deep, dark slumber had come for Sofia DeMuer before the knights had arrived. The world came as if through the lens of some sort of horrifying kaleidoscope in flashes of color too bright and too confusing to be able to make out reality from nightmare. So often her life seemed such an extreme mixture of the two but never in her life had that been more true. The nightmares were reality. Reality was a nightmare.

Doctors, healers... That?s what they reassured her they were as they cut her favorite t-shirt and compression capris from her body. In her head, though, they were not. In her head they were the Farbul tribe of Jaljam set to punish her for the assassinations of five of their greatest warriors during the Minor Wars. But that couldn?t be true. That was six years ago. The Minor Wars were long since over.

They begged her to stop struggling. Was she struggling? She hadn?t realized it.

The images gradually grew worse. There she was pointing a gun at Seamus in Dalibad intent on killing him and then herself before the Prince could take them. A flash of the sensation of her head being shoved under water as her mind drew her back to the torture she had undergone in Ustavo when she?d been caught behind an enemy lines. Colt and Chase's faces lit by explosions as they tumbled through the underbrush of some foreign jungle. Then the burning in her side and she was in Chester once more when the Slavic working for Fawsett put a bullet in her ribs. They were scenes from her life. No nightmare. Her life. A sickening actuality. Her mind cycled through the images faster and faster as her blood pressure dipped dangerously low until...

Until it got stuck on a single image.

There was a photo of Yaya?s body in the file on her death. It had been a file that Alain had pleaded with her not to open but he had provided her with it because he knew that if he did not, she would only spend her time struggling to get her hands on it. That image is the one on which her brain could go no further. Yaya. Dead. Not just dead but her baby sister had been skinned alive.

And then a face appeared before her. Her husband. Alain. He was reaching for her hand and whispering words that she couldn?t understand. No. No, it wasn?t Alain. Alain was dead. This was Indra. Morana had killed Yaya. Indra had killed Alain. Alain had killed her.

She didn?t let him take the hand. She would die but not without a fight. With a sudden ferocity that even she didn?t know that she had left, her hands reached out for Alain?s neck with an inhumane growl. An IV in her arm ripped at the skin as she tried to escape it. Fingernails dug into his flesh before she was pulled back down onto the bed by unseen hands.

?You destroyed Yaya! I will kill you! I?m taking you with me you horrible son of a bitch!?

Her voice ripped through the room even as one of the Farbul tribesman -- or were they doctors? -- injected a warm substance into her veins. Words were thrown around over her head again by the healers to... Alain? Indra? Her husband? Were they one in the same? Words like ?shock? and ?sedation? echoed in the room as the injection caused her breathing to slow, her heartbeat to even out, and her eyes to feel heavy.

They seemed to think that time and healing could make her mind right again. Sophie wanted to laugh bitterly at them but nothing was responding to her commands anymore. Who could ever be of right mind again after seeing those images? No, this wasn?t temporary disorientation caused by blood loss. This was her finally seeing the full picture of her life, of the legacy she had been born into.

?Seamus. I want Seamus.?

The words slipped out between parched lips at some point through the night. Someone must have been there to hear them or maybe Seamus had been there all along. The time between her uttering them and the warm hand grasping hers had no meaning to her anymore. With the knowledge that Seamus was on guard, she finally stopped fighting against that warm tide they had introduced into her veins. She let go and it took her away for within its depths there were no nightmares and no realities to face.

Alain DeMuer

Date: 2012-05-20 15:47 EST
Sunday, May 20th - 2:30 am RST

Alain massaged his bruised throat as he listened to his analysts' findings and perused the reports in front of him. The hospital conference room across the hall was as far as he went - he had no choice but to leave his wife's side, but he refused to leave the building. This would have to do. He rubbed at the back of his neck with two fingers, grimacing...

"Sir, perhaps we should get this looked at?"

He shook his head. "Show me the image orb again. Friday, 9:07 a.m. On the screen," he added hoarsely, gesturing, and the orb projected onto the screen across the room. What appeared to be his face up close, offering a junior agent at SPI a wry smile and a common Newbreton joke. It still chilled him, but he fought them down and looked closer...

There. "Pause it," he croaked. "The next four frames, slowly." And there it was, two frames long, a fiery flicker in the creature's eyes. "Image 4 of Indra-form Reynard Sainte-Just alongside." One of the analysts tapped a few commands into a laptop, and the slain agent's face appeared beside "Alain's." It was a perfect match. "Just to be sure. I'm not the only one who sees this... we all agree, it's a match?"

Every other head in the room nodded, and Alain continued. "Fast-forward ten seconds. While Agent Ilduri checked for tails, Indra stepped into the arcane cartographer's office. Based on the receipts and the copy we acquired - onscreen, please - we can see he purchased a cross-realms map indicating a Class-1 leyline realignment between Drasill and Earth-34, or Newbreton Earth."

Agent Ilduri nodded - the young woman was not formally a part of the Division, but after what she had witnessed, her future was set in stone. There was no walking away now. "As we can see from the coordinates and energy readings here, it's a perfect match for previous connections with New Brittany. A more exact time-frame should become evident as the date approaches and we run the numbers ourselves, but based on this... with the appropriate amount of power at his disposal, Indra could open a Class-1 portal using the connection between New Brittany and Drasill."

"Do we know where in Drasill yet, Agent Ilduri?"

"No, sir. Not until we do more of our own calculations."

"Which you'd find an awful lot easier with the Division's resources." Alain's gaze coolly assessed her for a long, silent moment before he nodded to the other analysts. "Take Agent Ilduri to see Harper. She'll get her up to speed."

"Regarding our ongoing security concerns," one of the analysts began, but Alain shook his head.

"I'm already taking care of it. Need to think over things, determine our next step..." His eyes slid away from them, staring over folded hands at the images on the screen. Something to focus on beside the imagined pictures of his wife locked in mortal struggle with Indra... "You're dismissed."

Alain DeMuer

Date: 2012-05-21 18:22 EST
Sunday, May 20th - 4:15 pm RST

Ad Lucem Directors always seemed to move in pairs cloaked heavily by agents. They were, for the most part, an unimpressive looking group of men and women. They often looked older than they were and preferred the anonymity that a common appearance gave them to the point that there were rumors that their faces were altered by magic to give off a pedestrian air.

Directors Biciaeus and Jonager were no different. Her graying hair was pulled back in a low, stern bun and with her frumpy clothing that was a size too large for her already large frame, she appeared a professor who concerned herself with matters other than looks. Jonager, on the other hand, was tall but not remarkably so and thin but, again, not remarkably so. They were faces you could study at length and then forget several minutes later. Their guards who had been eying the knights cautiously closed ranks as the pair of directors silently stepped out of Sofia DeMuer's hospital room.

Someone not much less concerning than the knights was waiting in the hallway for them. Alain stood almost - but not quite - in the way. They'd have to edge past him, and he did not budge, arms folded, though he greeted each with a slow, cool nod while he assessed them. "Directors."

A smile slowly spread across the face of Director Biciaeus for the Baron. It was slightly daft and absent but deceivingly so. Director Jonager was not nearly as coy in his greeting. His bottom jaw hardened into a firm line and he gave a terse nod. The pair brushed past with Ad Lucem agents in tow, marching down the hallway towards the stairwell and then disappearing through the heavy door.

Alain watched their retreating backs until they disappeared from sight; then he entered Sophie's room. At first he lingered in the doorway, watching her closely. Assessing every detail. Lately watching was all he felt he could do in this fight...

Seamus stood to speak, beginning to offer a grin, but Alain shook his head slightly. The knight looked over his shoulder at his Baroness... then bowed his head and left the two of them alone in the room.

Sophie's eyes followed Seamus out of the room, waiting for the door to shut behind him. Only then did they leap over to her husband. Alain, not Indra. She knew that now but the battle with consciousness and clarity had left her exhausted. The proof of the battle was there on Alain's neck.

"Come. Have a seat. If I have to listen to one more bad joke from Seamus I may strangle him." Her joke was weak but it was an attempt at least.

Alain smiled for the first time in twenty-four hours, a small one but there, and sat beside her on the bed. "It can wear on you." Fingers drummed lightly on her pillow, then picked up a few strands of hair. "What'd they want?"

"They wanted to make sure I could still bear your children." His smile gave confidence in her own. It remained small but grew increasingly steady. Her eyes sank shut briefly at his touch. "I thought Seamus was going to toss them out then and there. It's not as if I don't know that everyone is asking behind my back. It was rather refreshing to have the question asked to my face. Once I reassured them that the wound was nowhere near any reproductive organs, they were back to wanting what they have always wanted - me."

"Kids still scare me," Alain admitted with a kink to his smile. "So they're still offering you that seat? Why? You're a DeMuer now..."

Now more than ever the idea of them bringing children into this world scared her. It was so vague and formal when the directors had mentioned it but when the words slipped out of Alain's mouth it served as a reminder. Gone was any false notion of safety. Her eyes reopened and her smile faded. This was no longer a world she could close her eyes against. She could no longer fight the sadness that sank into her words. "Don't you see, Alain? That's what they always wanted. A DeMuer. They manipulated me into meeting you, they forced us to work together, they encouraged me to continue seeing you. I'm their good Rhovnik soldier. Controllable. I will be the mother to the DeMuer heir."

Alain frowned darkly, looking away from her, staring out the window... Then he looked back at her. "We need them. With what," he looked over his shoulder at the door before uttering the next words, "the Division has figured out, we're going to need Ad Lucem more than ever. We think we know what they're planning, one of the Architect's classic attacks..."

He breathed a sigh, fingers moving across her scalp again, as much to comfort himself as her. "Soon, within the next six months, the old portal between Drasill and New Brittany will realign. Indra, maybe Sarva too, intend to use some power source to open a rift to the planes of Hell. Send in an army, wipe out both worlds, and use the Seed from... their sister, to grow a corrupted Tree of Death to wipe out countless others."

"No." Again words were slipping out of her voice with unexpected emotions attached. This single word was heavy with desperation. A hand tightened into a ball around the sheets on the bed. She could feel her chest immediately rising and falling at a faster rate. "No, I won't do it. Don't ask me to become one of them. No more demons. No more Ad Lucem. No more Trees of Death and planes of Hell. Yaya is dead. I almost had a chance to be with her last night. Almost. And you know what was scary? I didn't really mind."

"No, Sophie... I don't need you there with them," he said, his hand wrapping around hers suddenly, forcing her fist apart to lock his fingers between hers. "And I won't have you leave me... I won't let them. I love you. I need you," he pleaded, his eyes searching hers, seeking to make her understand.

"...but no. I won't ask you to become a Director. You did say," slowly, tipping his head, as a sinister thought took root, "that they asked for a DeMuer, right?"

At the admission of weakness, the failure of her drive to fight, her eyes had fallen to their clasped hands. Her fingers rolled over the tops of his knuckles, brushing over the scars that made them look so much older than they were. At the question, her eyes lifted to him, the flare of rebellion firing anew. A surprised laugh escaped her - short and dry. "They need a DeMuer."

"Last time I counted, there's two of us." There was the crooked grin, and the devious light in his eyes. "I'll do it. I'll reforge my House's ties with Ad Lucem... as their newest Director."

Her smile warmed further, reaching her eyes finally as they lingered on his. That spark of fire could bounce between the pair of them, encouraging the other when one began to falter. She had gotten too comfortable and tripped, falling flat on her face. He was reaching down to help her up and taking some of the load off her shoulders. "I'm not sure if I love you because of the man you are or because of how much trouble you are," she teased in a soft, intimate tone.

"Can't see why it can't be both," he replied, corners of his eyes crinkling in a warmer smile. "...But I can't do this alone. It's not enough for me to meet Indra and Sarva head-on. Unless I do something, whatever's left of my people in New Brittany - they're all going to die. Last report I heard, local warlords had sprung up and foreign forces were beginning to withdraw as nuclear war spread across Europe and East Asia."

He rubbed at his jaw, considering. "Ten thousand people, at the very least... Jesus Christ... If we're going to see them safely into our world, we need to pacify those warlords by any means necessary, then get them whatever supplies we can and organize an evacuation. The closer we get to full realignment, the more people and materiel we can teleport between worlds."

"Talking warlords down from the brink of war? It's not exactly what you do well, baby." Her tone was gentle, her smile soft. The pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. He had his place and his talents, she had her's. "Let me go play good cop. It makes sense. You tell the Directors that they have to work with you because I'm to busy dealing with the refugee crisis."

"I don't see that they have any choice," he laughed, giving her hand another squeeze. "Whatever happens, Soph... we're taking this thing on together."

Alain DeMuer

Date: 2012-06-05 16:54 EST
The message arrived within hours of the primary election results being posted. It was sealed in an envelope marked with the following words:

The ALBERION INSTITUTE of SOCIOLOGY
for ALAIN DEMUER, 1ST BARON ST ALDWIN

It arrived at Greyshott Place in WestEnd, carried by a courier about two years Saleh's junior, a girl who didn't seem all that put off by the Watch officers observing her progress through the courtyard up to the front door. She seemed only a little surprised by the way the door popped open when she was about to knock, and greeted the face on the other side with a cheerful smile. "G'affernoon!"

Saleh Numiir blinked back, seemed to find her dull and uninteresting in spite of his scrutiny. She seemed quite pretty, but he was learning to notice that detail later, compiling a number of others first. What color were her eyes, and did they change any? Anything familiar about her? Body language - too nervous or too comfortable? "Good afternoon," he replied before too long a pause, and while he continued to assess her, added, "What's this?"

"Letter, innit?" she replied with a tilt of her head and a laugh. There were bells in her hair and on her pierced pointed ears.

Whatever the rest of the test was, Saleh seemed to decide that she passed. He motioned for the letter, which she seemed hesitant to surrender until she saw the flash of copper in his palm, reassured that she would be tipped. The squire studied the envelope closely, holding it up to the sunlight.

"What's your name?" she ventured with another tip of her head. It had been a long, boring day up until now. The boy was about her age, living in a house guarded by the Watch, taking a letter from a college and acting like a much older person: she couldn't help but be curious.

"For your trouble, miss," Saleh said suddenly, lowering the letter (and finally noticing how very pretty he found her) and pressing the coins into her palm. He bowed his head politely. "Thank you, and travel safe."

Well, that wasn't very informative for her. She managed to fight back an eyeroll at least until her back was to him, gave a little curtsey and hurried back through the gate. Saleh waited until she was gone, until it looked like the Watch officers stopped looking after her also, and stepped back inside.

"I'll just leave this on the table," he announced to the parlor, but its sole occupant punctuated it with a different command:

"Read it, please. Out loud."

Saleh stared at the Baron DeMuer's back as he opened the envelope. Two weeks he'd spent in this man's company, and it didn't look like stopping anytime soon. Even when the be-on-the-lookout order had been suspended, a deal struck between the Baron, the Governor and the local Watch that left DeMuer under house arrest at this place, DeMuer retained Saleh's services -- whatever those were. As far as the boy could tell, it consisted of fetching his mail, reading it out loud, penning replies while the Baron dictated, minding the telephone and minor household chores.

His station as a squire was low, but not this low. He knew where he should be: with his old comrades Sophie and Seamus, preparing for the final journey to New Brittany, laying his life on the line for their safety and fighting beside them once more...

DeMuer's silence interrupted Saleh's angry musings better than any stern word could have. He cleared his throat and began:

Dear sir or madam,
As requested, we have enclosed the results of the 2012 RhyDin Gubernatorial Primaries. The summary immediately follows, with available demographic details on the following pages.
Thank you,
Your friends at the Alberion Institute of Sociology

Alain's lips twitched, faintly amused by something. Saleh considered another protest, but once more admonished by the Baron's silence, continued on:

Fionna Helston al-Amat, 49%
Audrey J. Horne, 23%
Kruger Allen, 16%
Fiona O'Neill, 6%
Ander ConColor, 1%

"Hm," Alain replied and shifted in his chair, turning his head to glance at the newspaper sitting on his armrest.

"Excuse me, milord... my pardon, but... what are we doing?"

"Reviewing the election results," Alain answered. He turned slowly and caught the pointed look from the squire; he elaborated, "We're teaching you."

"I could do with a rifle for a better lesson, milord."

"You're a crack shot," Alain admitted, regarding him more fully now, "but that's not your best weapon, Saleh Numiir. You're a spy." He took the words like a blow, and Alain quickly rebuked him: "Is Sir Malcolm's station so low? Good spies make good protection for their lords. I need more eyes, good eyes, near me. Indra's still out there, and Sarva too."

Saleh bowed his head, silenced for a moment by the alternating rebuke and praise. "But milord, if I can protect so well..."

"The Baroness has Sir Seamus," Alain replied. "And who do I have?"

Saleh raised his eyes to his Baron, then bowed his head again: "You have me, milord. You are set upon all sides by enemies here, milord, but I am proud to stand between them and you."

That made Alain begin to smile. "Proud, as always, to have your service... but we're not in this corner by accident. We're here on purpose, our purpose. If you've just cornered your quarry, what's your first instinct?"

"To strike, of course."

"And if you're chased by a predator, what moment are you most likely to see them?"

"...Until they strike," slowly, the smile grew from Alain's face to Saleh's.

"Precisely. We're here because we need to be, Saleh Numiir. Let them think we're weak. Let our enemies show their faces."