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.

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Havelock raises his blade, not risking a glance over at Puck. That's a good way to lose the battle for first blood.

Feet and hands each as fast as the other.

It's easier said than done; but he paces lightly sideways, weight on the balls of his feet, and tries to find the balance before she strikes.

Margolotta watches him regally, only part of her attention on his possible strategy - the rest goes into watching how he makes use of new speed, altered reflexes, different strength.

He is adapting, but still holding back. Because of the boy-creature on the other side of the room? It's a thought, but she can't decide what his reason might be.

She lunges without warning to begin the fight, testing his agility by changing her direction of attack at random.

There is no change in Puck's posture or expression as he watches them attack and counter, though he notes well that despite Havelock's increased speed-- and the skills he has always (so long as he has known him) possessed-- Margolotta has the obvious advantage.

That's what he always feared about Havelock's mortality, isn't it? That someday somebody should have the advantage of him?

(To be quite honest, secretly Puck had never really imagined that anybody could. Inconvenience, perhaps, but not bring to an end.

The fae are not known for their foresight.)

Edited Date: 2010-02-18 08:39 pm (UTC)

It is frustrating to see what you need to be doing so clearly in front of you - the way Margolotta flows from moment to moment with economy and grace - and be unable to follow. Years of training means that he overshoots the mark too often and too instinctively to correct himself.

He grits his teeth, and has to force himself to relax again. Controlling his emotions is harder too - for someone who had always found it easier to be withdrawn, it is very strange.

He ducks a second too late, and feel the whisper of steel brushing his cheek.

(A thin line of dark red blooms, then stops and stays on the surface of his skin.)

Margolotta tuts lightly at him, but only presses harder, watching as his blade speeds to match hers without thought.

Yes. Too much thought, too little instinct. That training will serve him well once he knows himself and his capabilities again, but for now...

He steps too slowly and she slashes downwards quickly-- lightly across one thigh, then deeper across the chest, tearing open his shirt so she can see the blood slowly well.

Havelock hisses in pain, then falls silent as he looks down in time to see the skin heal smoothly before his eyes.

Puck supposes he should find it miraculous.

Instead, it's just another reminder. (His eyes may narrow slightly.)

For whose benefit is this? Havelock's, to be taught a student's humility? His own, to be shown who's-- supposedly-- in charge?

His fingernails may dig a little more deeply into his palms, but he doesn't move.

Havelock.

Havelock is still staring down at his own skin, unnecessary breathing a little too fast.

His blood is entirely the wrong colour, he thinks vaguely.

Are vampires even susceptible to shock? Purely psychologically speaking, perhaps.

He lowers his sword slowly.

Margolotta taps the point of hers on the ground to catch his attention.

"Just vun of the many reasons you must learn to trust instinct again, boy. Permanent damage is hard to inflict upon us. Overthink, and you lose the advantage of your reflexes."

She waves an irritable hand in the general direction of his torn and bloodstained clothing.

"Enough, perhaps. Go and find a new shirt, you look disgraceful."

That gets an irked expression on Puck's face.

Priorities.

(She keeps extra shirts around for him? Does she keep them for stray travelers/meals, or new vampire boytoys, or what?)

His eyebrows arch very slightly once he is done being irritable about the order. Can she really mean to send him away, and leave the two of them here together?

... That might be interesting.

(Well, you know how it is. Stray guests leave things behind them from time to time. Handkerchieves, cigar cases. All their worldly possessions, including their body - it varies.)

Havelock's gaze shifts sideways to Puck, taking in his expression and weighing the odds of coming back and finding him, Margolotta or both dead.

But he would lay bets on Puck's speed against a vampire's any day.

"Fine."

He heads for the door.

Margolotta watches him go, then turns as the door closes.

"Vell," she says with a pleasant but edged smile. "Vhat shall ve talk about?"

Puck's returning smile, on the other hand, reveals only intense amusement.

Though that too has a kind of sharpness to it.

"Oh, any number of things, I suppose," he replies cheerfully, sticking his hands into his pockets and beginning to pace-- not so much towards her as in a lazy loop of something that doesn't quite want to be a circle.

"The weather, which I presume is charming. Who your tailor may be to commission such a particularly fetching blouse."

He finds the spiders on her sweater sort of tacky.

"Was it that Igor fellow?"

"Vhy yes," Margolotta says. "He is most handy vith a needle. And... other instruments, of course."

(Speaking of the weather, there is an ominous rumble on the horizon.

...Welcome to the land of weather that is even more psychosomatic than in Milliways.)

"... Really?" Puck says, entirely straight-faced.

This is a hazard of exchanging bon mots with somebody with the approximate mental maturity of a twelve-year-old.

"How marvelous for you."

As one who has been once accustomed to overcasting the night, the thunder does not unduly faze him; he does, however, admire its narrative timing, and wonder briefly if Margolotta also controls the weather.

Margolotta nods graciously.

"Vhy are you here?" she asks with what is apparently mild curiosity.

As it happens, no she can't - it's just a peculiarity of Uberwald, although it has been known to follow various member of the undead community around just in case they really need a melodramatic audible backdrop.

Strange but true.

Puck smiles faintly.

"You seem more than passing clever, mistress." That much he will give her, especially when it aids him rhetorically. "What do you suppose?"

Margolotta waves an elegant and vaguely irritable hand.

"Yes, yes, you followed Havelock from somevhere or other," she says.

"Perhaps I should have phrased it- Vhat do you think to achieve here?"

"Achieve?"

Puck looks very mild.

"I am not one overly given to accomplishment, I'm afraid ... but in this case, I think I already have."

He comes slowly, as if drawn by the inexorable power of pink, towards a chintzy armchair, and runs a fingertip slowly over the back.

And smiles again, brighter.

"In some small part, at least."

She raises an eyebrow delicately.

"Oh?"

That being to irritate, and slow down her progress in teaching the Vetinari boy?

Hmm.

Puck looks thoughtful for a moment, in the general direction of the armchair.

He seems relaxed enough; but he still has yet to give her his back.

"I seek," he says, slowly, and glances up at her.

"To recall to him who he is. Not that he is in danger of forgetting-- of losing faith, perhaps."

Margolotta snorts lightly.

"If he does that, he vill not be half the man I thought he could be."

She watches his body language in faint puzzlement, but her voice is didactic.

"He is pragmatic. He saw the advantage, and so I did not make him subservient. I vould have done so if there had been no other vay, but that vould truly have been a vaste."

Puck's head tilts to the side, smile absent.

"Beg pardon-- if he does which?"

"Loses any of himself to a new nature," she says, as if this should be perfectly obvious.

"Do you think I turn just any young man to vander past my door?"

"I think it hardly proper to speculate," Puck informs her solemnly.

"... Except, perhaps, on precisely how the lady chooses to define the word 'wander.'"

Does the 'v' make the difference between carelessness and kidnapping, he vonders?