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

[oneman_onevote]

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.

Comments

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

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.

[oneman_onevote]

...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.

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

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.

[oneman_onevote]

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.

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

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.

[oneman_onevote]

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.

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

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.

[oneman_onevote]

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.

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

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.

[oneman_onevote]

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.

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

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.

[oneman_onevote]

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.

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

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

[oneman_onevote]

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.

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

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.

[oneman_onevote]

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?"

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

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.

[oneman_onevote]

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.)

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

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?"

[oneman_onevote]

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.

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

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.

[oneman_onevote]

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.

[puckishly.livejournal.com]

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.