oneman_onevote | Extremely melodramatic AU: The revenge!

The castle is chill, in the hallways, and dark apart from pools of light created by torches placed at wide intervals on the walls.

Havelock is moving, if possible, even more silently than usual. He'd be twitchy if that wasn't a surefire way to mess up your stealth. The shadows are blending obligingly around him, more strongly here than they had in the bar.

Puck can take care of himself, he knows that, but also holds out no hope that any of this is going to be particularly pleasant.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Havelock looks vaguely mutinous, but turns automatically. There is a rack beside the fireplace filled with various forms of elegant weaponry.

He looks uncharacteristically hesitant about choosing one.

Margolotta examines her fingernails calmly.

"Automatic control vill come in time. Precision and subtlety is more difficult. And you vill need those, yes?"

She extends a haughty hand for a sword hilt.

Havelock exhales slowly, and nods, drawing two blades from the rack before turning and offering one to her, hilt first.

"I will."

Margolotta nods once.

"Good."

Her attack is sudden, a quick stab to the chest that he would have missed last time they tried this.

He deflects it almost without thinking, a classic parry that matches her speed, and she smiles at him.

"Yes."

She lunges again, to begin the fight properly.

She is very good.

And so is he, but... his training and his speed and strength don't mesh yet, because he hasn't tested them. It shows.

Margolotta halts them after a few minutes, her hand catching the wrist that holds his sword, her own laid flat against his throat.

"You don't know yourself anymore. You need to forget the past, or you cannot make use of the present."

His jaw is set, but he says nothing, waiting to be released.

Puck has been watching.

He's been very good about watching, in fact, with his spider-hands folded neatly in his spider-lap (metaphorically speaking). It's the proper thing to do to leave Havelock to it; he has made quite the good start, and he is-- even as he is now, after his transformation-- a thrill to see with a weapon.

It wouldn't do to interfere.

It could quite spoil his confidence.

But Puck hates Margolotta so, so much.

There's not a great deal he can do about the sword itself at the moment, cold steel being constituted in a large part out of iron, but all at once, the grip and the guard and the pommel of her sword--

Turn into grape jelly.

Havelock's ability to remain expressionless has been tested before.

But suddenly it is far more of an effort than it usually is.

He stands perfectly still - the sword is still sharp, unhilted though it may be, and raises one polite eyebrow.

Margolotta's head inclines slowly to one side, regarding the gently melting handle.

"Vell now," she says, accent slightly more pronounced than usual, and looks up at him as if to read the thoughts behind his eyes.

"That vasn't you, Havelock."

The idea had been that with its handle rendered viscous, the blade would slip free and clatter to uselessness on the floor, but Puck admittedly does not have the universe's best grasp of physics.

The spider has disappeared mysteriously off the mantel, by now-- but when Margolotta speaks, bright laughter echoes throughout the room, quickly stifled like somebody putting their hands to a ringing bell.

He can apologize to Havelock later, if need be.

Oh dear.

Ah well, work with what you have.

"No," he says softly. "It wasn't."

"Hmm," she says, lowering her own sword, and releasing his wrist. She leans the sticky weapon* against the wall, and pulls out a handkerchief to dry her hands.

"And who might you be?"

* There is no way to write that without it sounding like a euphemism, sadly.

"Oh, I might be any number of whos, I suppose."

Between the fire and the weapons rack, there manifests a short, slim fellow with tousled hair and bright, reckless eyes.

His arms are folded over his chest; he looks very amused.

"I'm terribly sorry-- you did seem to be in the middle of something."

As Havelock silently lowers his own sword, resting the point on the floor, she turns to watch the newly-appeared Puck.

"Barely begun, as it happens," she says, with a light voice and a slight smile.

"And yes, you might indeed. I vonder vich?"

"I shall give you three guesses, I think."

He runs his fingertips absently over the handle of the nearest sword, pointedly not looking apologetically at Havelock. He doesn't like to give the lady anything more to go by than what cannot be avoided.

(For the moment.)

"More than that should be terribly profligate."

"Three guesses, then vhat? I have no firstborn child to offer, I regret."

She watches him, face soft and pleasant but with a strange hunger in her eyes, and not for blood. Power has always been, at the core, what a vampire craves and Margolotta knows well that knowledge is power.

(She hunted the Vetinari boy for a reason.)

He laughs, soft and unamused.

"Fortunately for you, mistress, Rumpelstiltskin is not my name."

Puck has seen looks such as hers before.

"Three guesses," he sighs, rolling his eyes, "and I suppose I shall simply tell you. But you shall be considerably lowered in my estimation."

A sniff.

"If such is possible. You might crawl on your belly as a snake will and hardly manage it."

"Ah, but guessing is so imprecise," she says, with a disapproving shake of her head.

"Perhaps one of you should tell me."

The command is soft and testing, like a warm mental haze that drags slightly in direction of answering.

Havelock's eyes shut and his head drops forwards, frowning hard.

He takes a breath as if about to speak, then grits his teeth and shakes his head slightly, as if to clear it.

Puck hisses sharply.

One of the advantages to having a general, innate knack for power is that one can see such influences as these coming a mile away.

This does not always mean that one can stop them.

In this case, Puck's eyes narrow as he shrugs off the command easily enough, letting it slip sideways like surfacing from a pool of water-- but it's when he catches sight of Havelock that he gets truly angry.

"Have you not meddled with him enough, mistress?"

His tone's politeness just barely covers his rage, which is probably visible anyway in the set of his shoulders and a sudden clenching of his fist.

"'Tis I who is your mystery, just at present. If you cannot unriddle me on your own, I shall be delighted to better instruct thee."

The vampire holds up one hand imperiously to him, gesturing for him to wait, and her gaze slides sideways.

"Split the thoughts apart," she instructs Havelock coolly. "Remember. Mine from yours. You have done this before without knowledge, now do it consciously."

Yes.

Havelock's head comes up again, eyes still distant but clearer, and looks back at her thoughtfully.

...Seeing the expression of sheer outrage on Puck's face helps his focus on reality, too. It doesn't really mesh with the warm haze of hypnotic thought that he is rapidly shaking off.

Edited Date: 2010-02-15 08:21 pm (UTC)

It's sort of a no you DI'IN'T kind of expression.

Puck arches his eyebrows at Margolotta, folding his arms over his chest with an air of indulgent and expectant patience.

The magical boy is rather entertaining, really.

Margolotta nods, then drops her hand again.

"Good," she says. "You vill grow less susceptible, Havelock. Then you vill learn to do it yourself."

Puck rolls his eyes.

And clears his throat.

(He may not look it, but he's ready to disappear at an instant's notice.

Havelock warned him not to underestimate her.

... But maybe, if he's lucky, that's precisely what she'll do to him.)