milliways_bar | (no subject)

(no subject)

[OOM: Door in London Below]

Door stumbles in - through the bathroom door, this time. Blood coats the right side of her face, matting her hair and dripping onto her leather jacket.

Beneath the blood, she is pale and scared.

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He nods, with a faint smile for the almost-lie that she didn't say;

"So someone attempts to kill you. This is not acceptable, Lady, and we shall have to find more means to keep you safe than just a warning."

"Well, your necklace works," she says, attempting to keep her voice light, "if that's any consolation. And really, I don't know that they were specifically trying to kill me, specifically."

"I knew it would."

Arithon has just spent six years having people trying to kill him. Specifically. So he just looks at her, with one brow raised and green eyes like pits of pure hell.

"I could have been in someone's way. Someone could have been hungry. Someone just could have felt like a bit of target practice tonight," she says evenly.

It's all true. But deep down, she knows that somebody wants her dead.

"I would request, Lady, that you talk to Lord Ostium."

His voice is soft, and understanding, and he touches the blood in her hair gently.

"Please. If nothing else so that he understands why the e'dal Lady Ingress should not be left unwatched."

"Ingress is never alone in London Below, in any case," Door points out, if a bit lamely.

"And yet I still find myself inclined to keep closer watch on her. It is, I know, a failing of mine."

His voice is terribly dry, pointint out just how much he adores the little girl without actually saying it.

Door sighs.

"Our family should certainly be more careful. You're right. I'll talk to Tom."

"Thank you."

It isn't said in a patronizing voice. It is the voice of someone who has been in a terribly uncomfortable position for...years?...finally freed of it.

"You're welcome," Door says, a bit uncomfortably, as she really has no intention of telling Tom the entire truth.

"He loves you."

He's been gone six years. He's had a lot of time to think,

"He loves you, and he fears that you will never see him as worthy enough. To lie to him....it only gives him more reason to think it so."

"I just... I don't want him to try to keep me from doing my job, and I don't want him to worry. And," she continues, almost in spite of herself, "it's not as if he's going to be around for much longer, anyway."

His brows raise, sharply, at that,

"What do you mean?"

People leaving tends to mean people dying for Arithon.

"He's going on that... mission, with the gunslingers. To the academy."

She meets Arithon's eyes, and hers are frighteningly blank.

"I'm not stupid, and I'm not blind. It's a suicide mission."

"Do you wish me to scry it for you?"

His voice is as blank as her eyes.

"I don't wish to know any more of the future than I already do."

Because if he scries, she'll have proof that Tom will die. And until she has proof, she can hold onto her last thread of hope.

He nods, and then reaches over to touch her hands,

"Then, Lady...do not count him dead yet."

He'll do it anyway. It isn't like he's sleeping much as-is.

"It's suicide," she repeats. "Ten, if even that, against hundreds. It's stupidly heroic. Far more Gryffindor than Slytherin."

"He wishes, even with this that you think will take him from you, to prove that he is worthy of your hand. He believes, Lady, that you look down upon him and wishes to slay dragons to lay by your feet."

The little man pulls back, and shakes his head,

"This is the only dragon he has found."

"Dying won't prove anything to me," she says coldly.

"Thank you for your advice, Arithon, and for the chain. It saved my life tonight. But I really must be going now."

"Good night, Lady."

It is a breath, a prayer, and a spell for peace; complete with a flicker of magic.

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