General Mayhem

[pirateoftherings]

Kjan exchanged a look with Phaerin, then hurried to catch up with Eledhe, who was already halfway down the hall. This whole turn of events was confusing, really. Not five seconds ago, the woman had been talking about how they should have killed the boys before anyone could find out. And now she was taking them somewhere?

Of course, he realized with a start, she could be taking them away so that she could kill them. This brought up all sorts of alarming new possibilities to ponder, none of which Kjan found very appealing. But if she was going to kill them anyway, then there was probably no harm in asking. "Where are we going?"

Silence.

Kjan made a face that might have been a pout if he didn't consider himself to be far too old for pouting. (He was almost eleven, after all). Eledhe apparently wasn't in the mood for talking. Fortunately, Kjan had never been one to be deterred by technicalities like that.

"Are we going somewhere that has food?" he tried again, this time flashing Eledhe his very best don't-hurt-me-I'm-innocent smile. "Bibsy says I need to eat a lot because I'm a growing boy."

[Meldawen]

Eledhe rolled her eyes expressively. Of all hostages to take. A pair of seemingly fearless preteen boys with never-ending hunger pangs. Liell was an idiot.

This became a somewhat satisfying mantra to repeat to herself down the length of hallway, around a corner into a courtyard equipped with several large targets and what seemed like an outdoor armoury, through another doorway, and into a mazelike series of small cubicles. The Guild had discovered early on that rooming trainees together resulted too often in assassination of precisely the wrong people.

Eledhe picked up speed until Phaerin and Kjan had to trot to keep up, seemingly to avoid undue questioning, and eventually (after they were completely lost) whipped into one of them and shut the door. It was sparsely furnished, with a bed and a chair with a weapons belt haphazardly slung over it. Eledhe turned to survey them evenly.

"I'll make you a deal," she said. "And no, it does not involve food."

[pirateoftherings]

Kjan seemed quite disappointed by the latter statement, but the former made up for it by giving him something else to think about. "A deal?" he piped up, intrigued. "Like a trade? I like trades- I got three marbles and a piece of rock candy from Azmyth last week, and all I had to give him was the dead lizard that I found under my bed." He paused, then added, "Last time I made a deal with Aran, though, I had to close my eyes and be quiet for a whole fifteen minutes, but then he wasn't even there to give me my surprise like he said." Wrinkling his nose slightly as he reflected on that particular occurrence, he cocked his head at Eledhe. "Is it a good deal?"

[Meldawen]

Eledhe waited through his ruminations with poor grace, and ignored the inquiry. Somewhat absently, she untied their still-bound hands. "Right. You keep absolutely and completely quiet about everything that just happened - everything - and you're free to go back to...wherever you came from." She folded her arms. "Or I can just kill you. Not averse to that either."

"No, we'll take the deal, " said Phaerin hastily. Best not to let her wander too far down that train of thought. He likewise appraised her warily. "What if we do talk?"

Oh, you won't, thought Eledhe, and had a momentary rush of ironic amusement. Then she tested, prodding mentally, the fragile enchantment like a soap bubble in her mind's eye. It should be enough to prevent two boys from saying anything especially telling. And besides, they didn't quite seem the type that would be readily believed by their families. Not the younger one, anyway.

She let her lips curve into a rather fearsome grin. "I wouldn't recommend it."

Phaerin was instantly provoked to do that very thing. "My father's one of the most -" he started stubbornly, but Eledhe cut him off. "Your father a sorcerer? Didn't think so. Let's go." She prodded them forward, simultaneously letting the enchantment loose. It settled over the pair with the ease of said soap bubble, only noticeable if you were already well versed in magic. There would be no talking. Especially not if it endangered her career.

[pirateoftherings]

Briefly wondering why Eledhe was so sure they wouldn't talk, Kjan quickly shrugged it off mentally and rubbed at his now-free wrists as they walked. It should be a crime, he reflected, to have to hold one's hands still for such a long period of time. In fact, it probably was. Their captors didn't seem to be the sort that would be overly concerned with how legal their actions were.

Even more quickly than before, Eledhe led them back through the labyrinth of dormitories and the rest of the Guild's headquarters, deliberately ignoring any inquiring gazes. Surprisingly, they didn't encounter any of the other three team members. Based on the number of abrupt turns into other corridors that they made, though, Kjan suspected that it may have been deliberate.

Then, unexpectedly, they were out of the headquarters altogether and out on the street. Kjan briefly entertained the notion of slipping away in the crowd, but this was quickly dispelled by both the realization that he didn't know where they were and a sharp glance from Eledhe that indicated that the woman was keeping a much closer eye on them than it seemed.

Finally, their pace slowed a bit as they entered a crowded inn. Kjan wondered why they hadn't simply stayed at the headquarters, but between the noise level and Eledhe's indifference toward anything he said, he decided that he could wait until later to ask. At the counter, Eledhe quickly paid for a room and led the two boys upstairs, then disappeared.

A minute later, she returned, and both boys found a dry loaf of bread and a mug of water shoved into their hands.

[Meldawen]

Phaerin wrinkled his nose. "This is it?" he inquired of the young mercenary, who had sprawled unceremoniously across one of the room's narrow beds. She propped herself up on her elbows and eyed him. "Yes."

He considered complaining. Somehow the slender scimitar at her belt deterred him, so Phaerin sat down cross-legged on a bed with his meager dinner and eyed her in turn. There was a bit of a staring contest (which Phaerin was certain to lose, and therefore broke it off hastily).

Eledhe wondered vaguely what she was getting herself into, and ended with the now-familiar conclusion that she could always kill them anyway. It would be risky, and she'd rather not, but in a pinch...she toyed with a throwing star. "Don't kids like you sleep sometime?" she asked eventually, watching them eat ravenously.

"Not if we can help it," returned Phaerin promptly and somewhat insolently. Eledhe made a mental note not to get employed by this one if he ever became the type to do such a thing.

"Are you an elf?" he inquired quite suddenly after a pause. Eledhe opened one eye, from where she'd been pretending to doze in order to avoid conversation. "Maybe."

"That's not an answer."

She sighed and sat up to eye him narrowly. "I do have weapons, you know."

Phaerin waited.

"Fine. Yes, I'm elvish, a little. Do you have to talk?"

[pirateoftherings]

"We can't very well not talk," Kjan pointed out through a mouthful of bread. "Without talking, you could never say important things like 'Help!' or 'Fire!' or 'If you don't come back here with those pastries right now, I'll smack you so hard, your children's children'll feel it!'" The last of those sayings had been added to his repertoire a few weeks ago by Clarence, though Kjan was still trying to puzzle out exactly how that threat would work.

Of course, he admitted reluctantly, talking was also the main activity that seemed to get him in trouble (Aran called it 'putting his foot in his mouth,' a physical feat which Kjan had yet accomplish). Not that this stopped him, of course. It just meant that he had to learn how to run away faster.

"Are we going home tomorrow?" he asked more seriously after a moment's pause, doing his very best not to sound like a little kid. It wasn't that he really missed home, he reasoned to himself. He was nearly eleven- old enough to spend time away from home without crying for his mother. He'd done it plenty of times at Phaerin's house (though, of course, the Greys had never threatened to kill him, as close to it as Lady Grey might look at times). He just...wanted to be back, that was all.

[Meldawen]

"With luck," said Eledhe, though in Phaerin's mind her definition of 'luck' was very different from his.

"What do you me -" he started, but the mercenary had apparently had enough. "Remind me never to get stuck answering kids' questions again," she muttered, and buckled on her scimitar to stride to the door. "I'll be downstairs, so don't try anything. You might try sleeping in the meantime."

And then she was gone, ostensibly to mingle with whatever shady residents of the inn were downstairs.

Phaerin looked vaguely disappointed. But sleep wasn't a horribly bad idea.

------

Eledhe seemed to have no understanding of how much sleep a person needed once they'd got to that state, because she was getting them up at such an unearthly hour the next morning that Phaerin demanded to know what time it was.

"Time to go," she snapped, discouraging further conversation. Phaerin suspected that her reasoning had something to do with the fact that it wasn't light out yet. She was certainly exhibiting other signs of a spectacular hangover, though even with her explosive temper (and for him to have known her for less than twenty-four hours, he certainly knew she had a temper) she was less formidable than Lord Grey when he was so afflicted. The servants hid when Lord Grey had a hangover.

So he very wisely made a wide berth around the scimitar belted at her hip when they were making ready to be off.

[pirateoftherings]

Kjan mumbled something incoherent from where he was still halfway-sleeping. He had originally been sharing the other bed with Phaerin, but had somehow ended up in a somewhat awkward spot on the floor between the bed and the wall with one leg still up on the bed (this may have been partly due to Phaerin being a good bit taller and thus taking up more than his half).

Finally, after two glasses of water (and a glass of something a bit stronger) being emptied on his head, the forcible removal of the bed, and four threats of death by varying inventive (and painful) means, Kjan was roused into a state of semi-wakefulness. Yawning, he looked out the only window in the room and groaned upon realizing that it wasn't even nearly light outside. "Is it legal to be up this early?" he mumbled sleepily.

"No."

Unable to tell whether or not Eledhe was serious and too tired to care, Kjan finally just settled on the opinion that if it wasn't illegal, it should have been. Being up this early never meant anything good, unless one was planning a certain sister's suitor's wakeup call. Then, and only then, was it almost worth it.


After a good deal more prodding from Eledhe and subsequent grumbling from the boys (mostly Kjan, who had long ago determined that he was not a morning person), they at last were out of the inn and on their way. By the time they'd gone a short distance on the road (not fully out of the city yet), Kjan had started to wake up enough to become acutely aware of one very important fact: "We haven't had breakfast."

[Meldawen]

"Do you want food, or to get home?" snapped Eledhe. "Because the one isn't going to come if you decide you want the other."

Phaerin fell back a little to lean over and whisper, "I don't think we should ask about food."

There was a lot more walking this time than there had been before. So much, in fact, that Phaerin ventured to ask about useful magical underground portals and was met with an icy look that resulted in him falling meekly back to give Kjan a helpless shrug.

Around what he judged to be midday - though it seemed a lot later, given the unearthly hour they'd risen at - Eledhe stopped abruptly in a copse of trees and wordlessly dished out food, which consisted of uninteresting bread and cheese, and then leaned against a tree looking as though she'd like to go back to sleep. Phaerin sympathized. He contemplated asking how much further for a while, wary of a cranky and weapon-wielding mercenary, until Eledhe very conveniently instigated conversation herself.

"You have any siblings?"

He blinked. Eledhe rolled her eyes. "Brothers, sisters?"

Oh, those. "No," said Phaerin. "I'm the only one. Why?"

She shrugged and he wondered if he imagined a grin as she turned to Kjan. "What about you?"

[pirateoftherings]

Kjan nodded emphatically as he swallowed a particularly large bite of food. "Three," he replied, starting to tick them off on his fingers as he talked. "Cerys is twelve like Phaerin. Celeste is twenty-three, and Aran is twenty-eight. Oh, and Aran's wife Ylaine is my sister-in-law, so I guess that's four. Their son Orin's five and really he's my nephew, but he's more like a little brother or something because he's actually closer to my age than Aran is. And the servants all say that Dante's going to be my brother-in-law soon, but I don't think so because I've heard Celeste talking about him when he's not around, and she doesn't really like him that much. And...that's all."

Shrugging slightly, he chewed on his last bite of food and looked thoughtful. "Do you have any siblings?" he asked after a short pause.

[Meldawen]

Eledhe shrugged noncommittally. It was a safe answer to everything. Have siblings, however, no. Had...

She finished the last morsel of bread and cheese and got to her feet, glancing briefly back the way they'd come. It was more of a precaution than anything, because she didn't really think that -

Oh. Damn. "Move, right now," she hissed at the pair of them, motioning frantically for the boys to get up.

Phaerin debated. This had possibilities - if Eledhe didn't like it, it could be good for them. Then again, Eledhe was taking them home. Or she said she was. He paused, contemplating.

Eledhe decided it for him with a swift kick in the rear end and a slew of expletives. "Go!"

She had her scimitar - which looked very sharp - out, and Phaerin wisely decided to cooperate. He grabbed Kjan's sleeve and hastened in the direction she was ushering them. "Why? What's coming?"

Eledhe's only answer was to shove them both in the nearest hollow, somewhat sheltered by a fallen log, and pause to say - "If you move an inch or make the slightest sound, I will hunt you down and personally make sure you never aggravate another - "

She broke off, hastening to find her own cover. Too late.

"Eledhe! What in the bloody seven levels of the underworld are you doing?"

Phaerin had to admire her acting skills. She gave Liell a look as though something particularly nasty had just passed directly under her nose - despite that fact that he was on a horse and therefore significantly higher than her - and sheathed her scimitar quite as though he was something annoying that had happened to surprise her. "Looking for our ransom, dimwit. It's run off."

[pirateoftherings]

"This far out?" Liell inquired dubiously as he dismounted from his horse. "Either you are capable of far greater speed than you exhibited throughout the entirety of our mission, or you discovered their absence exceptionally early."

"No earlier than you," Eledhe shot back.

"I was on horseback," Liell replied almost distractedly, casting a shrewd glance around. "Jair says you were the last of our team seen with the boys. And no one in the Guild reports having seen you since last night. I'm not inclined to pass it off as coincidence."

Kjan, for his part, was practically flat against the ground as he observed the exchange. As hostile as Eledhe was, what he'd seen of Liell wasn't much better. Though it was kind of entertaining when they argued...but then they wouldn't get home for at least another week. And the horse smelled funny, too. Kjan took a deep sniff, and thereby came to a horrible realization.

He had to sneeze.

[Meldawen]

"Your expeditions aren't exactly constructed to maximize my abilities specifically," Eledhe returned coolly. "Only reason you didn't see me was that you were off in a huff, thereby relinquishing any responsibility you might have held beforehand."

His horse stomped skittishly and snorted, at the very moment Phaerin practically smothered Kjan in an effort to keep him from giving them entirely away. Liell did nothing more than look around suspiciously, but Eledhe looked (and felt) briefly quite alarmed. She had herself instantly under control, but despite that, Liell shrugged and glanced at Jair and Cain. "Right. There's three of us and one of you. Where are they?"

"What are you suggesting?" Eledhe fired back hotly, thinking very fast. "Why would I want to hide them? Pair of brats - and I want ransom money as much as you do."

"Want it all to yourself, you mean." Curse it. Mistake. Eledhe whipped out her scimitar seconds before Liell had his blade at the ready, thereby avoiding being immediately at his mercy. She swiftly weighed the possibilities - give up the boys in the hollow and get a fourth share in the random money - if that - or insist she knew nothing and -?

That had its risks. But it wasn't as if Eledhe didn't like risks. Besides, she had too big a pride to surrender right off the bat.

"You know I can beat you swordfighting," she told him coolly.

[pirateoftherings]

Liell scoffed and was about to advance when he was suddenly stopped by Jair.

"Liell, about that three-to-one aspect..." the younger mercenary began uneasily.

"It's no longer our problem," Cain finished bluntly. "A new assignment came up. Very urgent, called for a pair of mercenaries."

"They were looking for you two-"

"-But you were nowhere to be found. We were available and not considered personally responsible for the botching of the last mission, so...there you have it. Our paying assignment just happens to be down this road. Have fun hunting the noble brats." With a jaunty wave, both mercenaries spurred their horses and took off down the road.

Liell stared after them for a brief moment, his expression the closest to shock that Kjan had ever seen their long acquaintance of a few hours. Then, resolutely, he turned back around to face Eledhe. "I still have the advantage in battle."


Kjan appreciated Phaerin's noble efforts to suppress the sneeze - he really did. It was just that in suppressing the sneeze, he was also suppressing other vital processes. Namely, breathing. Kjan had tried squirming a bit, but Phaerin seemed too wrapped up in the proceedings above them to really notice, and he didn't dare make noise for fear of attracting attention.

Finally, however, the need for air became impossible to ignore. Not too hard, but hard enough to get attention, he bit down on Phaerin's hand.