oneman_onevote | Havelock Vetinari :: mid-2005 timewarp AU

When Havelock pushes open the door to the bar, it takes every ounce of self-control not to flinch back from the sudden wash of noise and light into the dead silence of the dark alley behind him.

He is dressed in full assassin's black, for once - but it is torn and dirty, and there is blood on one shoulder bared by a rip in the cloth, and on both his hands. His face is covered in dark smudged paint, obscuring the pallor of his skin and making his eyes look very pale under the hood. He hesitates a moment, but slowly enters instead of leaving; glancing carefully about before heading in silence to the door.

Once outside, he heads slowly to the lake, welcoming the dark and the quiet.

The Glorious Twenty-Fifth of May is not, to Havelock, feeling all that glorious.

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Against his better judgment, if such a thing there is, Puck has been outside for some time.

It all feels real, though he knows it is magic-made. He breathes the sweet air; his bare feet pad over the soothing soft grass; he drinks from the water of the lake.

And after he has done these things, giving each his due attention, he turns like a reed swaying in a pond towards the dark forest.

His regrets are louder here, his sense of abdicated duties more insistent. He would almost like for some creature of Oberon's to come and carry him off through the trees.

He would struggle, he thinks. But maybe not too much.

Havelock sees the slim figure just outlined by the moon's light, but cannot make out that it is someone he has met.

It is for this reason that he allows his footsteps to drag just enough to be audible as he passes by a little way behind, on his way to the lakeside.

Sneaking up on people is unwise, especially in a place like thiis, where you can meet anyone.

Puck whirls towards the slight sound, eyes wide.

... All right, all right, so he's paranoid. But it's not as if the dreadful mortal is an improvement over agents of his erstwhile lord.

He ought to be disappearing.

He means to be disappearing.

But he hangs back a moment, staring.

...Oh.

Havelock had looked when the figure had moved, naturally, and now is now staring at the strange creature - with whom, he realised a little while after the fact, he does not remember finishing a certain conversation. And he always remembers details.

He came out here for peace, not- whatever is going on here.

The assassin raises a hand - empty, and wipes his hair back from his eyes (trading a smudge of dark green from his face to the back of his hand) - using the moment to break their gazes.

He has had quite enough confrontation for one day, if more can be avoided.

He is dirtied, and bloodied-- Puck can smell it on him even as the moonlight catches on the red-- and looks, aside from the weeds he wears, not entirely unlike one of Puck's own kindred.

His eyes follow the movement of the mortal's hand, slow across his face.

The fairy flickers out of sight.

Havelock's breath catches, a little sharper than usual after this evening's events.

Adrenaline crash has a lot to answer for.

Cautious still, he continues slowly to the lakeside, feeling as if he is waiting for... something.

Puck may be out of sight, but he hasn't gone away.

In fact, after waiting a moment, and taking care to make no noise, he follows Havelock lakewards at a decorous, sensible distance.

Havelock is sitting when he catches up, feeling in his pocket for something.

After a moment he brings out a small cloth, tangled with a battered and half-crushed sprig of lilac, which he stares at for a moment before setting it lightly aside and trailing the cloth through the water.

Then, quiet and businesslike, he begins to wipe the dirt and paint from his face in complete silence.

Puck is not entirely certain what he expects to see-- some muttered declaration of hostile intent seems unlikely, for instance-- but he watches anyway. He cannot tell whether the wretched mortal, quiet and methodical as a creature of the forest, is allaying his fears or confirming them.

The whole business is altogether too much.

It takes a little while, as Havelock is methodical, but eventually he leaves the cloth by his side. Now free of smeared paint, his face is still as impassive as ever, communicating little more than tiredness and something that might be melancholy.

He leans over to dip his hands in the water and finishes washing the blood from his hands, leaving them pale and clean.

Puck thinks fleetingly that he might have preferred the blood.

He wonders who he has slain, or if it matters.

He also bends invisibly towards the cloth, but doesn't want to get too close, lest the mortal smell or hear him or feel his breath. Puck has difficulty determining what a mortal will sense-- some of them are dull as stones, while others are inconveniently keen.

Havelock tends towards the latter, out of sheer paranoia if nothing else.

In any case, his gaze still wanders even as he sits still, staring uncertainly at shadows as if he can pierce the darkness.

After a moment, slow and careful as if he expects someone to come upon him any moment, he hooks his fingertips under the ragged cloth at his shoulder and turns his head to examine the bloodied skin there.

Puck watches that too, though he has stepped back.

Tending to his wounds is perfectly natural; any mortal man might do it. It doesn't even occur to Puck that there are medics in the bar who could take care of it for him if he wanted. There is nothing, sad to say, particularly threatening in it-- save the fact of the blood itself.

The wound does not seem very bad, but all the same, in a pinch Puck decides he might do well to go for the shoulder. Mortals break very easily.

Havelock seems to come to the conclusion that there is nothing much to bother with, after studying the bared flesh for a few clinical moments - it seems that Palace Guards really don't sharpen their swords as often as they should.

"Standards really are slipping," he murmurs, quiet and sardonic.

His own voice sounds very loud in his ears, although he knows it is an illusion.

Puck claps a hand to his mouth to keep in a laugh, or perhaps just a snicker.

He tugs the cloth back across, covering the blood for the time being, and looks back out across the water.

"Don't you think so?" he asks.

And waits.

If Puck were visible, his expression would be rather like a child who, convinced the teacher's back is turned, is in the midst of constructing a spitball trebuchet, only to be abruptly asked the year in which Charles II took the throne.

In an ideal world, the mortal would simply be mad; but it seems a little much to hope after.

A pebble picks itself up and skips across the surface of the lake.

If possible, Havelock would both relax and tense in the same instant.

Sadly, this is impossible, and he simply stays as he is.

"One does hope for an adversary that is competent, at least," he continues, to hide the urge to smile. "Is that such a task?"

The fae may not always be subtle, but they are quick to anger.

The next pebble sails towards Havelock's chest, from a different direction.

Havelock catches it, one-handed.

Reflexes gained from school... acquaintances are apparently easily applied in many a situation.

Oh, the temptation to taunt the creature further - but that would be foolish, knowing what he could do. Better to seek peace, no matter how hard that may be.

(He stays silent. It may be the wisest course.)

The leaves of a nearby tree rustle in a curiously local way.

And the wind whispers, familiarly, "Do you make an adversary of me, then?"

There is a moment of silence; then Havelock casts the stone out into the waters.

"I seek to make an adversary out of no-one," he says.

Not entirely true.

But true enough for Milliways.

There is no reply to that, but nor does the wind still.

Puck should take comfort from the response-- perhaps, at any rate. There is nevertheless a niggling, gut-deep dread that murmurs that reassurances, however solemn, are too easily cast aside.

He has done it himself, after all, and he shouldn't be able to.

He of all creatures was meant not to.

Well.

Havelock never sought to make friends, either.

It's never been something for which he has a particular talent.

He leans back on his hands - favouring the right one slightly, easing his weight onto it carefully before letting it take any strain - and doesn't look around, letting the silence grow instead.

The little breeze hangs in the air for a moment, swirling this way and that and rustling a few swaying grasses by the water.

Puck is not sure what more he can learn now. And there is something about the trees, something that seems somehow blacker than the night should be able to make them.

He ought not to stay.

Puck's only hope, as he zips invisibly away, is that the wretched mortal will spend quite a bit of time after he is gone staring fruitlessly across the lake or into the trees, trying to determine whether he has really gone.

As jests go, it leaves something to be desired.

He didn't intend to come here.

He's never come here on purpose, and only rarely come at all. But the boy (perhaps twelve, perhaps thirteen) was only intending to go into his tent for the last time. He has gear there.

It doesn't matter.

Any place is as good as another to a soldier with no name, no comrades, no captain. He feels hollowed-out, distant from himself. He's moving because he's trained to, and because the alternative is staying still, and because he's leaving Middie Une no matter what else he does.

But the bar is full of bright lines and chattering civilians.

Outside looks quieter.

It is certainly quiet out here, and dark.

It's the same reason Havelock came out - that and the clean cold water of the lake.

For this reason, there is a tall slim figure folded up beside where the water laps at the banks, not moving.

[...THANKS FOR THE NOTIFICATION, LJ. *facemakes* Sorry, I did not mean to tag in and instantly drop it!]

[OOC: <3 No problem! I'm really spotty access-wise this weekend in any case, so I will just keep checking back when I can. :D]

The boy slips through the door, unavoidably but briefly silhouetted by the bar's lights, and immediately slips sideways into the shadows beyond. He waits there, breathing slowly, letting his eyes adjust to the moonlight.

He sees, gradually, the lake; the shapes of rocks and trees, a broad lawn for immediate visibility but plenty of outbuildings and copses for cover beyond; a shape by the lake that could be a human, unmoving. It could be a rock, too, at a deceptive angle, but the boy doesn't remember that from when he came last (months ago, and who knows how long here), and more to the point the boy is professionally paranoid.

He doesn't move yet. His eyes aren't fully adjusted. And he doesn't have any urge to go anywhere in particular.

He's wearing a dark green jacket open over a lighter shirt, a dark cloth draped around his neck, brown drab pants, sturdy battered boots. Fatigues, sturdy and well worn. There's a gun holstered on his hip, and a couple of knives (one utility knife in a multi-tool, one rather more single-purpose) stashed elsewhere. They blend into the darkness somewhat, but not perfectly. It's afternoon where he came from.

Havelock tilts his head slightly to glance at the source of the light when the door opens, but stays still otherwise.

He isn't exactly feeling sociable - and who else would be, coming out here alone? The fact that the person is coming no closer yet would bear that out, it seems - so he stays quiet and waits.

He still can't be sure if that's a person or a rock, but it doesn't matter. He knows how to look at the world: Assume an enemy's there if you haven't proven otherwise. Then assume you could have missed something.

The captain says-- The captain used to say that.

The boy doesn't have any enemies in Milliways, as far as he knows, but he doesn't have any friends, either.

It doesn't matter. And he's not under orders anyway. Not now.

He moves, finally, a slow deliberate pacing towards the lake. He can still hear everyone inside until he's some yards away, even though the closed door; it's too many people, too many civilians he doesn't care about, too much chance someone might come out the door.

The spot of lakeshore he's aiming for has several rocks for cover, and it's not very near Havelock.

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Havelock Vetinari

December 2012

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Havelock Vetinari :: mid-2005 timewarp AU :: Milliways

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