Topic: A New Alliance...

Issy · Date: 2006-02-13 09:41 EST

Fondling the small rectangular card that she had obtained last night at the Inn, Isuelt looked out the snow-frosted window. The man had been dark and eye-catching, yet not for the usual reasons. He was trouble, she could smell it. She knew that scent so well....she had so often smelled it in the past, even on herself. But trouble was something that never scared this Scathachian off. In fact, she craved it. She had craved it for most of her life; trouble, coupled with danger was something of an elixir for Isuelt. She rarely felt that she had enough of it.

He had said that he was looking for someone to aid him in the running of supplies. Somehow, this man who attracted nothing but negative attention from most of the patrons in the Inn, had made the black market seem even darker. Isuelt was growing tired of her quiet little life as of late. Truth be told, she was a stranger to harmony and tranquility. Isuelt had always felt much more at home being precariously perched on the edge of destruction. She had been itching to reenter the fray. And this man, Talomar Longden, as he called himself, promised to give her the ticket back to the arena.

Issy · Date: 2006-02-16 12:02 EST

?No way. Couldn?t be this easy,? the Scathachian thought to herself. She was sitting in the Inn, as she often did as of late, when her target waltzed in, alone. She was a small and unassuming creature, her petite frame posed little threat to anyone. Still, Talomar Longden had promised her a rich and rewarding career revival if she were to abduct this slight young woman, not to mention ten thousand gold up front. For a moment, Isuelt wondered what the Count needed this young woman for. Surely, she wasn?t an enemy, she looked too benign. Perhaps she was the daughter of an enemy, meant for a negotiation or parley session. Perhaps the Count would use her in some element of revenge against this unseen enemy. Isuelt blocked that last option from her mind as she replaced her drink back down onto the tabletop. A Scathachian surely would never be involved in helping an innocent meet their end. For that was what they strived against, at least that was what she told herself. ?To defend the defenseless, fight for those who cannot fight for themselves...? she trailed off into thought for a moment. ?Besides, who among us can truly be defined as ?innocent???

Isuelt blinked and her dark gaze found the girl sitting near the fireside with some sort of creature in her lap. She scoffed, probably some dragon ?pet? as the people here seem to be so fond of. As she mused, another came to join the small party. Bandages covered her eyes, Isuelt could tell that this second young woman had been robbed of her sight. Her target addressed this new addition as Moonlyght. ?This will be easier than suckering a man into bed...only to slit his throat later,? she smirked as her blood began to race. Her business sense began to kick in, as it had so many times before. She appraised the situation, took in the minimal amount of patrons, the early hour of the day, the absence of weapons on her target?s person. It was then that she saw her ?in?. Her head tilted lightly, her dark locks spilling past her shoulder, she recognized the girl. She was the young thing that had spoken hotly to her several weeks back, thinking that the attentions lavished on Isuelt were unfairly robbed from her. Jillian was her name....she was after Hanzo. A light smile touched her lips and she saw her target in a new light.

Leaving her empty glass behind, she stood up and began a slow saunter to Jillian?s table. The young girl?s eyes were tempted by the movement toward her and Jillian looked up to see the tall Scathachian swathed in black closing in. Isuelt smiled lightly to rebound the definite frown shouldered her way from Jillian.

?Jillian, right?? Isuelt nodded lightly.

?Yes,? a tentative reply welling up from the suspicious girl, as she was interrupted from her conversation with her friends.

Isuelt eased herself into a stance with one knee cocked and a hand on her hip. ?Thought so. You are with...Hanzo, right?? Isuelt knew the reaction this would incite.

Jillian squirmed lightly in her chair, her mouth taking a decided downward turn, ?No. I actually have nothing to do with him.? Isuelt could see the look in Jillian?s eye, she was trying to place her. ?Have we met??

?Yeah, cher. You were makin? eyes at ol? Hanzo and then you gave me a few harsh words when last I saw you,? the trap was being set. ?Too bad about that though...I thought that you two would be sort of cute together.?

?I have no need of the likes of him. Besides, I?m leaving this place. I?m going off to school.?

?School? Well, that?s very...enterprising in this day and age. That?s great.?

Jillian nodded a stiff thank you and returned to her allies in their conversation, all but shunning the woman who stood nearby. Isuelt turned on a pivot and started for the door, thinking that this was indeed much too easy. ?Leaving for school...then no one will even know she?s missing,? she thought as she reached the heavy oaken door. Just then there was a bit of a commotion behind her, turning to look over her shoulder, Isuelt saw that the dragon creature in Jillian?s lap was having something of a fit, a spasm of some sort.

?Icer, maybe I should get you some medicine or something,? Jillian uttered as she sprang from her seat and rushed for the kitchen, even as the creature shook its head and gritted its teeth in pain. ?Uh huh, sure,? Jillian called over her shoulder as she pushed through the kitchen door.

The front door eased shut as Isuelt?s gaze watched the scene unfold from the porch. ?Too easy...? Making her way off the porch and around the side of the Inn, Isuelt was headed for the window that led into the kitchens. On her way, her gloved hands skated over her belt and pouch, checking her ?supplies?. Bindings...check, handkerchief...check, chloroform...check. Climbing in through the window was easier than expected, and her experience lent her the silence she needed. Jillian was busy rifling through the larder and shelves of cookware. Isuelt?s muscled, black-clad frame moved easily through the kitchen towards her target. It was at that moment that Jillian turned around, pot in her left hand. She froze, seeing the form before her. Isuelt?s voice was low, a smile hung triumphantly on her mouth, ?I forgot my whiskey.?

?I?m sure you did,? her meaning not quite grasped by the Scathachian, yet Isuelt did note the faltering limp in Jillian?s voice.

As Isuelt started walking further away from the window, she sniffed to disguise the movement in her left hand, which housed a chloroform-doused handkerchief. She moved just past Jillian, who let out a relieved sigh. Isuelt?s pace slowed, then stopped. She turned around to face the young girl. ?Oh, and Jillian....?

Jillian looked up, her knuckles pale as she held the pot. ?Yeah, Issy??

?Good luck if I don?t see you after I leave,? she started moving toward her target, right hand extended in the age-old benign gesture of friendship. Jillian reached out cautiously to shake Isuelt?s hand, still a bit paranoid.

As if the heavens sought to validate Jillian?s fears, Isuelt?s casual smile simmered into a grim business-like expression as she yanked on her target?s forearm, pulling her closer. Jillian swung her only weapon, the pot, aimed at Isuelt?s head. With a quick duck from the experienced assassin, Jillian?s assault was finished, as Isuelt leveled a knuckles-first punch to her left shoulder. The nerve that was hit sent shock waves of pain mixed with a curious numbness down to Jillian?s fingers. The pot was sent crashing to the ground. Isuelt knew that that sound was enough to send up warning flags, as she quickly pulled the girl?s small body against her own hard frame. She cemented the handkerchief over Jillian?s mouth and nose, rendering any utterings mute. Isuelt held her target in place easily and waited....waited for Jillian?s petite form to slacken, waited for someone to come through the swinging kitchen doors.

Isuelt could hear a voice on the other side of the door, ?Jillian? Are you okay?? Must be the blind one, thought the Scathachian, no problem.

The target was spent, Jillian slumped against Isuelt. The sweet-smelling liquid had proven once again that it was worth more than its weight in gold. Easily heaving the girl over her shoulder, Isuelt closed the distance to the window and after seeing the alley was clear, she unceremoniously let Jillian drop out the window to the hard ground not too far away. The swinging door opened and Moonlyght once more called out, ?Jillian, do you need help?? Her unseeing eyes impotently scanned the kitchens. Isuelt?s features radiated as she nonchalantly saluted the woman, then silently slipped from the window to join her quarry in the alley. Once more shouldering her light burden after wrapping the small girl in her own cloak, she made her way back to the other side of the alley where it emptied out by the stables. Binding Jillian to her horse, Isuelt mounted the animal and gave the mare a swift series of kicks to speed her on. Next stop, Talomar Longden?s castle and ten thousand gold pieces. ?Easiest money I ever made,? gleamed Isuelt. The once famed Pack assassin was back in business.

Issy · Date: 2006-03-03 16:56 EST

"Great, just bloody fantastic!" the tall Scathachian threw her cloak at an armchair as she barreled through the front door. Her stress level had been rising since being at the Inn this evening and seeing her supposed mark, Jillian, make a cute little appearance. Isuelt must have tried cracking her knuckles over two dozen times on the short jaunt home, she was positively fuming. Isuelt was never one for surprises, so when her new employer, Longden, sauntered in with Tara and announced their impending nuptials, it started off something of a chain reaction. Of course, she was elated for her friend (who asked her to be the maid-of-honor) and wished only the best for Tara. It was simply a bit of a shocker, as Tara was already married, and to the best of her knowledge, so was the Count.

That being said, it was not the best foundation for our Isuelt when Jillian Briar waltzed into the Inn. Albeit, Jillian looked petrified when she made eye-contact with both Longden and Isuelt, and pushed her escort to take her home rather suddenly, our Scathachian couldn't help but feel she was being played as something of the fool. In confronting Longden, she found that he was just as surprised to see Jillian alive and well. Apparently, he had not kept her, but had acted as something of the middle-man as he handed her off to someone called "The Professor."

Still, Isuelt was a perfectionist, she had never botched a job and had always kept her nose clean. With Jillian being free and clear, and having had seen Isuelt's face, it was just not a favorable combination. Jillian could identify Isuelt and expose her for what she was, what she had always been: an assassin working for the highest bidder.

She stood in the dim room, silence sulking around her, staring at a pack of Trixie's on the front room floor near the armchair. Letting a sigh push past her lips, realizing only then that she had been holding her breath for the better part of a minute, she cringed. She knew that if Jillian was planning on talking to people about her abduction, she had to be silenced. If there was one thing Isuelt hated, it was cleaning up messes, in particular, messes that were not her fault.

Issy · Date: 2006-03-25 21:44 EST

Memory loss. That's what they said it was. No one was sure as to why, but Issy wasn't complaining. Jillian Briar had been spotted once again, much to Isulet's dismay. But upon confronting her failed target, she came to realize that Jillian had no memory of the incident. In fact, as Isuelt was threatening her, Jillian was acting as if she didn't even know who Isuelt was. Again, that was just peachy with her.

After asking around, she found that Jillian had had some sort of run in with a man and since then, she had been acting a bit mad. In fact, she had much of her memory taken from her. All that Isuelt cared about was that the knowledge of Jillian's abduction was wiped out. Jillian certainly would not be able to identify the Scathachian now.

Isuelt's mood soared greatly over the next few days. She even figured she might let Tara talk her into wearing a dress on Sunday for the nuptuals. But let's just take that one step at a time, shall we?

Issy · Date: 2006-04-14 07:55 EST

Isuelt leaned back against the trunk of the sizable tree she had claimed and let one leather-clad leg swing freely below her. Watching the sun aiming for its zenith, she remembered her younger days when she would climb trees to witness the morning sun breach the mountains which shadowed Po'ert Sound. Everything seems simpler in youth, and sunrises were no exception. Waking before dawn, she would rush to throw on her warmer clothes, usually borrowing something from one of her brothers in the process and race outside to the forest just beyond her parents' home to scale a tree and pretend that she was one of Nature's creatures greeting His Morning's Majesty along with the rest of the world. No other thoughts bothered to enter her conscience.

Now, as the sun perked its face abreast of the landscape there was an overflow of mental activity that threatened to exhaust her before mid-morning. Bad, Isaac was still nowhere to be found. And though she had made peace with the fact she could never give him what he wanted, she still hoped that he was okay. Worse, Scorpion was still too far away. She had toyed with the idea of throwing in the towel here in Rhydin and returning to Metro, and she physically ached every time she thought of him. Worst, though Tara and Talomar's wedding had surprisingly gone off without a hitch, there were these nasty rumors abounding that the two of them were plotting some coup to gain control of Rhydin. Most probably for trade purposes, on Longden's part, she thought.

Still, would it be so bad? Being employed by someone like him, not to mention a friend of Tara's, if this whole thing went through? And if it didn't....would that be so bad either? It was not common knowledge that she was working as Longden's "errand girl", and her association with Tara...well, let's just say that no one would hold a failed coup against her. Isuelt shook her head as she marveled at how Tara always seemed to land on her feet. In essence, she was jealous of her friend. Envious of the fact that Tara, indeed, seemed to hold the right cards at the right time. Mrs. Rynieyn-Longden, or whatever she was going by these days, was allowed so many luxuries and mistakes, all seemingly forgivable.

Plucking a nearby leaf from its home, Isuelt mentally knocked herself for wallowing. "Nails don't wallow...they spear, my dear," she grinned as she quoted Scorpion Wraitharan. He had been calling her "Nails" almost since their first meeting; "tough as nails," he'd said, and it stuck. She would allow herself the modest prize of inhaling the clean spring morning air a moment longer before hopping down from her perch and going in search of some breakfast. Perhaps it was the warm thoughts of Scorp that softened her heart that morning, or perhaps it was one of her momentary neighbors, a little bird, that had whispered today was going to be a good day.