The Word of Blood [Seydon]

[Rosa Gunn]

*~The Core Worlds~*​

*~Republic Occupied Space~*​

*~Kuat~*​

[member="Seydon of Arda"]​

A soft breeze tugged at Rosa’s hair and she pulled her jacket around her a little tighter. The Gardens or Tralala were quiet at this time in the morning, their only companions were the softly singing birds who were rubbing the sleep from their eyes. Dew hung like gems from every plant, glittering in the early morning sun.

Her feet padded softly along the cobbled path, saying nothing to her husband, a melancholy mood settling over her. What was she doing here? Why had she made him come with her? Here, was not the Gardens, she knew why she was here. Here, was the Republic. Here was back where she swore she’d never come again. Here was standing once more for something she didn’t truly believe in.

She slipped her hand into his, fingers interlocking, she held onto him like he was her lifeline.

He is.

She slowed her pace as the tree came into view. Old and gnarled, most of it was deadwood now. Some of its lower branches were still trying desperately to cling to life with fresh shoots. When they had landed, Rosa had done a number of things, the first was to reach out to old contacts, get them something to stay in besides their ship. Kay, her mother’s old assistant, had been more than happy to set them up with a lush bungalow out from Kuat city with its own landing pad.

“When Kay told me it was in bad shape, I didn’t think it would be this bad.” She said coming to a halt before it. Letting go of Seydon she stepped forward and knelt, clicking her tongue in annoyance, she pulled back the vines that were covering a stone at its base.

‘In Memory of Sumati and Gareth Mazhar’

There were no words to explain who they were, Rosa had refused to allow it. “The tree was planted when I was eight,” she told Jared “the day mother became Senator. When they asked her if she wanted something to be raised in her name, this was what she asked for.” She sat back on her heels and chuckled. “I remember asking her why she didn’t ask for a statue, she said she wanted to give something back, that having a statue would only serve her vanity and she was vain enough as it was.”

She wasn’t expecting much in return from Seydon, the fact that he was here was enough, he didn’t need to respond to her ramblings of times gone past. Taking a deep breath she closed her eyes and dug her fingers into the soil. The tree was dying before its time, which meant there was sickness in it.

For several minutes nothing happened as Rosa ran her mind along its roots and veins to find the problem and flush it out. Only when she focused on surging its recovery did something begin to happen. Fresh shoots began to sprout all over, unfurling into soft green leaves. Buds began to form and white flowers opened up to fill the morning air with a sweet fragrance. Satisfied, she got back to her feet, dusting off her hands and knees before slipping her arm through Seydon’s.

Today was the anniversary of her parents death. She hadn’t told him that, not because she didn’t want him to know, but because she felt that clinging to it meant she would never move forward. She had insisted on waking him at the crack of dawn and dragging him down here without an explanation, though.

 

[Seydon of Arda]

Dathan Gunn was dust and bonemeal drying under irradiated heat somewhere amidst Tund's hundreds of blanketed nuclear wastelands. Guenyvhar Gunn had been buried neath some six feet of climbing snow, in something like a shallow grave chipped out of the ice, preserved by cold desolation, kept company by iron-eyed wolves and ravens that cawed and howled her name in the night. Seydon gazed a moment down at what remained as tribute to Rosa's fallen kin.

The Dunaan breathed in the Kuat spring; moisture beaded the air, cast with effluence's of fyceline, steelwork detritus, ionized ozone from shipyards raising industrial cloud plumes up over the far city. Sound, taste, scent, touch, were different for him now. It was constant detail and he could not shut it off. But he was reading the gardens as though it were a wide novel, listening to ten-legged ants patter a click away up along a ridge of earth that must have been like a coastal bluff to them.

He was dressed in just his blue-striped jacket, tunic-shirt, slacks, boots, gloves, pouch belt buckled tight on his waist. Armament rested off his powerful frame, most emphasized by the paired swords gleaming pricks of light off their pommel-caps. Seydon stepped in beside Rosa and held his arm round her thin waist, fingers digging in just slightly where he knew here navel was beneath her jacketing.

"I think they miss you," He said, nodding at the signed stone, simultaneously awed by her bold nudge to re-cultivate the trees ailing health. He frowned slightly. "...Put up the brambles a little around the stone. They'll keep the wind away, so it doesn't wear away at their names.

"...Are you alright?" Seydon asked finally.

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

Rosa nodded at his suggestion, but stayed where she was her hand reaching out towards the brambles to protect the stone from the wind. For some minutes, she didn't answer his question. Was she ok? A frown creased her forehead and she began to chew the inside of her cheek, a habit her mother used to berate her for. Realizing she was doing it she stopped herself and let out a sigh.

"I don't know." she replied finally "Every time I'm here I feel like someone has my heart in a vice and is squeezing with every step I take." she cast her eyes skyward for a moment. "We're so close to it, to the war. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe I'm just feeling out of sorts because this is the first time I've been here for years... I can remember it like it was yesterday...I can hear the reporters asking me if I believed the Balmorra government had been behind the attack...I'd no idea what they were talking about, not till i got home, not till i turned on the news...Eight years ago today, and I still don't know who killed them."

She drew in a sharp breath and puffed out her cheeks for half a second before exhaling and trying to shrug it all of. She turned to face him, slipping her arms around his waist and burying her face into his shoulder.

"It's definitely this place." she grumbled at him. Something shifted in the normal patterns around them, hairs stood on end on her neck. She lifted her head slowly.

"Someone is watching us."

[member="Seydon of Arda"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

Someone was. When the winds coming down off the industrial parks east and north of the garden thickets changed back to a southerly gale winding down from bracken stained mountains distantly away, Seydon paused. He could scent wafts of stiff cologne, sweat, wet cotton, and boot-steps. Something was trying to tread quietly over soft beds of emerald moss, half a click away. Seydon sorted his ears a moment and listened close for a half-sec. More steps, loud as crushing flakes, echoing gently up the gardens.

They waited a quarter of an hour in their standing embrace, pretending to comfort one another as their shadows fell over the carved granite plaque. Clouds of sparrows flew overhead to hunker in the renewed Fressian Oak. A four eyed hare, striped lividly with viridian and dirt, stole about their feet on its hop to his nearby den. The steps drew closer while they still just carefully swayed side to side, nuzzling. Rosa was eying up to her beau: he needed to stroke his cheeks down by a razor, damn his whiskers but they tickled.

Eventually, the steps paused and Seydon looked back, spying on a shape trying to keep perfectly still behind a wall of climbing, blue-leafed ivy and grey lichen. He traced an outline of holstered laspistols, harnessing a portable shield-projector over the left hip, dressed for the country in padded breeches and a dyed long-coat. The person had wrapped shadow onto their features way of an extended rain hood.

Seydon turned and stepped away from Rosa, spike-hawk spinning into his hand, longknife in the other. "Come out. Slow, pace by pace. If I see your hands go for your guns, it's done."

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

For a moment, the figure didn't move, her eyes were not so sharp as Seydon's but she could feel him there. He was shrouded in fear, but there was something more about him, something she couldn't place. When he finally stepped forward, hands raised Rosa frowned and move alongside Seydon. "Who are you?" she asked softly. His feet shifted, like he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't.

"Forgive me, Miss Mazhar." he reached up and pulled his hood down, revealing a pockmarked face. A scar ran from his forehead and over his left eye, curving about his cheek, his left eye was milky sight gone, she imagined when he obtained the scar. The other eye flicked from her to glance warily at Seydon then back again. "I ain't givin' you ma name. Not with 'im 'ere." he inclined his head to Seydon. Rosa looked at her husband, for a moment and sighed before looking back at their intruder.

"You can trust him."

"Dunno if I can even trust you, Miss Mazhar. Ya look look like yer old man, y'know. S'how I knew...that an'..." he nodded towards the tree.

"What do you want?"

"I know who killed 'em. Sorta."

Rosa blinked, feeling like she'd been struck, for a heartbeat she said nothing, then out of nowhere, recognition dawned and a storm rose within. "What did you say!?" she demanded taking a step forward. She wanted to hear it again, wanted to make sure she'd heard him right. The mans hands moved higher into the air, maybe it was something on Rosa's face that said it was better to play unarmed and innocent.

"I-I think I know who killed 'em. I can' give ya a name!" he said desperately looking between the two of them "Gareth gave i' to me. Trusted me. Told me to keep it safe, an' I did. Was meant to give it back to 'im bu'..." He licked his lips and looked at Seydon. "An' I though' you were the scary one, heh." he managed a weak smile. "Y'know, tha' she ge's from 'er mother. Sumati used to give this look to 'er- see there it is righ' there."

"Hey!" Rosa snapped drawing the attention back to her. "What did he give you?"

"Umm," He dropped his hands, stuffing them into his pockets, rummaging for something. "'Ere." he thrust out his hand, on it lay a datachip. "Take i', damn thing caused me nuttin bu' trouble." Tentatively steeping forward, Rosa reached out a trembling hand and picked it up between forefinger and thumb, dropping it into her own palm. She stared at it, like it was a ticking bomb about to explode. If this wasn't a joke or a lie, eights years of wondering could come to end. The informant was saying something else, but Rosa didn't hear him.

[member="Seydon of Arda"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

Seydon spent the meeting simultaneously pouring over the man's physical character and keeping an eye on the garden lands surrounding them in general privacy. They'd come under the shelter of a local Kuat Evergreen, tall, resplendent, so green on green the colour suffused odd light into their eyes.

"Were you followed?"

"...Whuz I wha - ?" He blinked, then shook his head avidly. "Nah, sir. Not Oi's, I tuuk err'y precaushun. Ain't a soul know's Oi'm out 'ere, swear on the Body o' God."

Gareth Mazhar's once and future informant was pungent with spent lho smoke. Not unlike Rosa's beau, his clothing had seen kinder days, frayed and patch-sewn over the knees and calves, his jacket-cloak worn through in too many places to stitch back. The Informant scratched up across his ancient scar, taking a glean around them. A jitter showed in his knuckles.

"You said trouble?" Seydon pressed carefully.

The Informant bobbed his head once, checking the quickdraw release on his pistol catches. "Nuttin' but one fethin' consp'rcy after anudder. Killin' me wit worry, it has. No more. No more, that's on Gareth's chil' now t'make of it wha' she will."

"You've examined the datachip?"

"Exa - !? I fethin' wrote it, son!" He scowled, punching a finger into Seydon's chest and wincing when his pectoral didn't give. "Ack! ...Yer made o' stanchion's or wha? Yeah, yeah, know what's on the 'chip. ...But Oi's cuuldn't jus' put it out on market, ya know? Too many eyes, always been too many eyes. Don't know how they do it. Loikely as anythink those spooky 'bilities an' all. Anyway!"

They peered up to watch the man adjust and button the collar of his hooded cape, shifting in his knee-high galoshes. "Best Oi be off. Can't be stu - "

"Wait."

...He paused enough to eye Seydon, look up into those outlandish wolf-eyes, bitten with chilly gold and predatory. Against better judgement, one hand slipped comfortingly onto one pistol-butt, gulping generously. "...Aye, sir?"

"Where can we find you? We'll need to: one datachip isn't enough detail for a mind like Rosa's. You know more."

"...Yer can't. Oi'll be findin' you," The Informant pointed, briefly wall-eyed as his left cataract glanced away absently. "...If I got to. Maybe. Rather not, honessly... Thunderstorm's comin' and all, y'know? Word o' advice...?"

Seydon observed him cocking a foot back and slowly stepping out through a break in the treeline surrounding the Fressian Oak. "Dun trust inny shid-eatin' grins y'meet 'long the way. Keep yer nose open, sir. 'Chip there might lead t'more bleedin'."

And then he was gone, footing it quickly back through the unkempt shrubbery.

Seydon didn't hang up his axe, nor his knife, stepping in beside Rosa while she pawed a finger over the chip, hesitating to lock into her datapads 'port. "...Ashla?" He toned softly, kissing the crown of her hair.

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

"...Ashla?"

Rosa was trembling from head to foot, she wasn't entirely sure when her datapad had gotten into her hand, but it was there. She didn't answer Seydon, because she couldn't, her voice was caught in her throat, her mind reeling with the possibilities. Her fist finally closed over the chip, and she slid the datapad back into her jacket. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best. That was what she did, but what was the best outcome in this?

"Lets go back to the house." she managed to say. She didn't say anything more as they walked back along the cobbled path and hailed a speeder cab. It was a half hour's journey from the gardens to the bungalow. She rested her head on Seydon's shoulder but still said nothing, chewing the inside of her cheek again. What would be the worst outcome? To find out that the whole thing was a lie? Some sick joke to be played on someone who'd dealt with their grief and moved on? No, there were worse things that could happen, but she couldn't bring herself to think of them.

Best case scenario? She came away with better closure on the matter.

When they reached the house, Rosa left Seydon to pay for the speeder and headed inside, fist still closed around the datachip. She set it on the tabletop in the dining room and pulled of her jacket, dropping it on the back of the couch as she passed. She gestured with her hand and the patio doors slid open ahead of her. Her mind was reeling out of control. She needed to make it still again, only with a still heart and mind could she see any of this clearly.

She stopped pacing when Seydon caught up with her and looked at him, utterly lost for the first time in the years since they crossed paths on Void Station.

[member="Seydon of Arda"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

They shared a modest bungalow some seventy five clicks north of the nearest industrial city-pool, where a river mouth strained to brilliant azure by nine kinds of differing pollution filters up-stream snaked out widely into a long delta. Scores of ruby-flecked Orion's Condor's took off at their speeder approached, spooked by the repulsor-engine growl. The delta waters slowly expanded into wetlands, mangroves scaled tall by saltlick birches and willows, loud with fauna.

It was an hour out from twilight. Seydon looked across at a fiery sunset that ruptured the north-west skies bright with strokes of gold-orange and vibrant, hot pinks. Low clouds gathering weight as the lands cooled floated placidly. He and Rosa were idling in the kitchen, she on her toes pacing, he by a mullioned window, striped with shadows from the pane. The patio decking was creaking under her furious toes.

"Rose...?" He asked, striding forward to catch her before her nervous legs ran Rosa away. "We can read the chip, burn it, bury it, toss it into the waters and wait for the vine-cods to eat it. If you can't chose now, tomorrow is waiting, and the world seems a little easier after breakfast."

His touch was kneading up the skin of her back beneath her shirt. "We can relax..."

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

Rosa looped her arms about his neck, tiptoed so she could bury her face into his neck and clung to him tightly. The choice was not what worried her. She'd already made the choice. It was the outcome. She was going to rip open old wounds and risk tipping the balance she worked so hard to maintain and for what?

"I need to know the truth." she spoke up, her voice muffled slightly. She lifted her face from his neck and sank so her feet were flat on the floor again. "I am afraid of what the truth might be, of what it might..." she trailed off. Hands slid from the nape of his neck round to stroke his cheeks, his bristles soft beneath here fingers. "I'm not sure if I am strong enough to go through all of that again."

[member="Seydon of Arda"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

He blinked, stretched between looking doubtful and incredulous, taking her cheeks between his worn palms until Seydon had leaned himself forward over his waist. They were touching by nose and brow, painted by indigo and scarlet light glowering haughtily over the glades; the sun was bowing for the eve.

"You gambled your happiness in marrying a vagabond," Seydon said. "You've kept company with Giants, matching if not overtaking their strides. You risked your future, your station, coming out to the Vagrants to heal.

"Atop of surviving a war. More than one," He mentioned while kissing up the bridge of her nose. "If it's worth anything? You ought to give your courage a chance to show all its merits. Either you know now or never, Ashla..."

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

Rosa's eyes fluttered closed as he kissed the bridge of her nose, a sad smile tugging at the corners of her lips. Oh she'd survived the war, but she had lost so much in the battles. The war ahead would be no different. For each light in her life that was snuffed out, Rosa felt that little box of darkness in her heart grow. She danced along the lines between light and dark. The timing of this was imperfect, but Seydon was right; She had to take a chance.

She nodded slightly, then kissed him gently. "Tomorrow." she murmured. Opening her eyes she lost herself for a moment in his amber eyes, before drawing away from him and heading for the bedroom, tugging her shirt off as she went. Having a vagabon for a husband meant she needed to take advantage of him while he was here, and there was no better distraction from the rest of the world.

[member="Seydon of Arda"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

Her dress-shirt snaked through the air sinuously. Her pants were fast to follow, though Seydon saw she had to pause by the bedroom jamb and bend to wrestle where her pant-legs caught round her ankles. Air caught around the bulb of his Adam's apple. Then, bright eyes flecked with autumn hazel, fire, and chocolate stared up at him and through him. Seydon strolled into a run, picking Rosa up by her waist over his shoulder and slamming the auto-door closed with a quick piston-kick.

She was softer than the satin and cotton beneath her pinched shoulders...

Flesh stronger than the wood of the bed posts, the steel and ceramite framing their bungalow; strong as stone, time, stronger than him...

He prayed at the altar of her femininity, the greatest believer in Rosa's status as a private deity...

Together, they chased the wind, breathlessly flying from moment to moment, tugged up and down as spring breezes turned to lashing hurricane gales around them...

Rosa had him. His skin was a map, all scrawled with deathly secrets, which she read aloud one by one as she charged flush with colour and spasmed.

Such was the moment when Seydon arose, chaining her down with manacles of tight fingers and bodily weight, transforming her world from doubt to confidence before she began tasting the dark fire that had wrought itself through his muscle for seven days and seven nights.

It was Heaven and Hell: intensely perfect...

Come the morning, they laid engrossed in bunched tangles of conveniently strewn bedsheets cast across their skin. Seydon was the first to wake; a quale-beaver was up and sauntering beneath the bungalow foundations, chewing at left over wood so her mighty quad-buck fangs wouldn't ache so terribly. The animal's wood gnawing grated in his ear loud as a boatswains whistle. The Dunaan focused the noise away, rolling gently and 'bumping' into Rosa, kissing down the cleft of her breasts so she'd wake.

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

Rosa didn't want to open her eyes, she didn't want to face the day. His kisses were insisted, his bristles tickling her skin. She giggled as he reached her stomach, hand swatting at him gently. "Alright, alright. I'm awake." Drawing in a deep breath she sighed gently and opened her eyes. Her beau was looking at her now, those wolf like eyes gave her a smile that was solely for her. Mischief glinted in her eyes "Gosh you're an ugly sight to wake to, love." she teased.

Propping herself up on her elbows she leaned and showered his face with kisses before he could respond to her cruelty, slowly pushing him back into the pillows her kisses becoming hungry seeking to distract him. She drew back slightly "I love you." she murmured before gifting him with one final kiss and slipping away from him. The wood floor was cool beneath her bare feet. She cast a glance back at him as she reached the door of the en suite before disappearing inside and heading for the sanitizer.

[member="Seydon of Arda"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

He made preparation for the breakfast meal while she doused her skin in hot, blanketing water. Seydon soothed himself listening from time to time the patters of waterfall bouncing off her skin, forming a patterned impression in his thoughts of her nubile physicality standing tall, muscles compact and tight beneath her skin, rubbing absently with soaps and brushes until her pores were suitably scuffed. The Dunaan dressed in a cream shirt and slacks, carrying Razorlight and Winterfang into the kitchens to keep him company. They ever rarely left his side. Their scowling hilts observed them in their throes last night. Though inanimate, Seydon was wont to wonder if there weren't vestiges of anima cackling in their alchemical steel.

When Rosa had dressed and made herself present in the small dining space beside the ovens and parted Fressian patio-doors, Seydon had fancied their table. Cloth was laid, atop which were two square-glass plates framed by topped juice glasses, redsteel cutlery, napkins, and perched servings of extra butter, Kashyyyk vine-syrup, Nabooian raspberry and black currants, and rare Krayt-dragon cinnamon. Their morning spread: poached eggs with whites atop Kuat-styled thickbread and bear-ham slices, drizzled in hollendaise sauce, and four-stacked piles of inch-large flapjacks coloured a gentle ochre and swimming in butter-squares and syrup.

Seydon sat by the cooled oven, atop an upholstered stool, playing quietly on his Spirit Ocarina. Morning light played on the gold in his eyes as he glanced up at her padding steps.

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

As the water caressed Rosa's skin, washing away the nights impurities, she will her worries away with it, visualizing them disappearing down the drain with the soapy water. Nothing about this was going to be easy, ripping open old wounds was a dangerous thing to do at the best of times. Here and now, when she was so close to the war she was so much more fragile than if they had been home. Stepping out of the sanitizer she heard his ocarina playing and a smile came to her lips. At least he was with her, with Seydon at her side, she could face anything.

Dressing in a loose dress shirt and slender pants she padded barefoot into the kitchen where the smell of food was intoxicating. Smiling, she planted a passing kiss on her husbands head before flicking on the caf dispenser behind him. Draping herself over his shoulder she nuzzled his neck as the bitter smell of Caf beans began to permeate the room. "Breakfast looks good." she murmured, before disentangling herself from him and slipping into the stool adjacent.

She tucked into the food, contemplative and quiet as she ate, getting up after a moment or two to fill both their mugs with fresh caf, adding sweetener and cream before handing him his mug and settling back down with her own. "I'm trying to imagine what could be on there, what angle there could be that I didn't look at in the years I tried to find out how they died."

[member="Seydon of Arda"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

He spun his fork-prongs through sauce-goo, lathering up a long bite of poached egg-flesh and ham before biting down on the taste. Seydon stilled, briefly, measuring up the taste whilst Rosa softly conversed. After washing down with a few elegiac sips of cinna-juice, he hummed and regarded his wife for a goodly while. Birdsong got withered by swamp-crow laughs and caws, settling their small, fat bodies down upon the bungalow yard.

"It's controversial, dangerous, and worth the price of your parents," Seydon said. "And we will be burning someone with a great deal to lose when we take up the trail. How much is put to the pyre will be up to you. ...Shall we look?"

Seydon peered over the line of his steeped knuckles, gazing gently.

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

Rosa passed a hand over her face and let out a soft sigh. There was no point in delaying it and Seydon was right it was worth the price. Nodding, she slid from the stool and moved to retireve the chip and her datapad from the same place she'd left it last night. Flopping back into the stool, she stared at the data pad for a moment, the ship turning over and over in her fingers, while she battled with the last of her aprehensions.

She finally slid the chip in, and set the datapad onto the counter between them so they could both see. Her hand found his, seeking some form of comfort and she watched and the filed began to upload. One by one they flicked up on the screen, flash previews. Her forehead creased into a frown as names and faces flashed up rapidly, none of which she recognised. Then a file titled gang habits and movements, and finally a voice file.

She kept her thoughts silent for a moment, trembling hands moved for the voice message. For a moment the data pad crackled with white noise before a familiar voice came out through the speakers.

"Hello Rosa." Rosa clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle a squeak. "I know you're busy, kid, what with all this business around Aargau and Balmorra. My money is on Balmorra being at fault by the way, not that you ever listen to me." Rosa let out a small sob of laughter. "I need you to look at this for me. One of my contacts shoved it at me. He claims there's a pattern that's here, but like feth-"

"Don't swear!" trilled a woman.

"-can I see it. You're better at this than I am anyway. I'm not gonna pass this to you directly. There's a bad feeling that comes with it, so it need to change hands before it reaches you, so I apologize for whatever stinking scumbag passes this to you. I love you, Rosa. Force be with you." There was a sound of scuffling and a grumbled "Damn it woman."

"We've got the Sanderson family coming over for dinner next week, I'll send you the details. Don't you dare back out of this one, sweetheart." Rosa could hear the sweet smile in her mothers voice. "Take care."

The noise crackled again and went silent. Rosa was sobbing uncontrollably.

[member="Seydon of Arda"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

Rosa Gunn's parentage were always difficult to conjure in imagination. He'd always had her features, beautiful save for the blemish of exhaustion and tight anger, for reference, declining from needling into familial affairs on the understanding it wasn't entirely his privilege to know. But Gareth and Sumati Mazhar looked almost exactingly to what Seydon occasionally imagined: handsome, aristo, strong. They peered out at their child through time, blanketing the luncheon table with holo-grid overlays that shot up incandescent blue-on-white strobes. Her husband looked and kept silent as a stone.

When their visages faded, the chip looped, spinning up holoplates of rapidly scrawling data figures, informational columns, light-pen scrawled annotations in messy scrivi. Seydon was up, coming round faster than a blink or second, pricking the 'pad offline and knocking out of reach from Rosa's trembling fingers. Without word save warm kisses couldn't match the heat in her tears, he drew her up. Her legs he sat on his lap, her rump on his belt.

"I am sorry..." Seydon said once. "I am so sorry..."

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

Caught in Seydon's embrace Rosa fought to get her emotions back under control, fingers digging deep as she clung to him. She hadn't expected that, she hadn't expected to be so caught off guard. The message had to have been recorded only a couple of weeks before their death, so why hadn't the chip come to her sooner? Slowly but surely her sobs quietened, her grip loosened and she was silent save for the occasional shudder in her breathing as her diaphragm shuddered in protest.

Twisting, she kissed her husband lightly before sliding off his lap. "I'm alright," she assured him with a hiccup "I'm okay, it just...caught me off guard. Give me a minute." She left him at the table, moving to the patio doors and sliding them open she came to stand at the edge of the garden and ran through simple exercises. Slowly her breathing, bringing her heart rate back down. Piece by piece, she let go of the emotion that was threatening to engulf her. If she was to look at this, if she was to do what her father had wanted her to do, she needed to do so with a clear head.

Why hadn't this passed through the Order? Was this something he was looking at unofficially for them, or was it a personal project that had drawn him in? Why had the contact only reached out to her now when she had been on Kuat and searching for answers for three years after their death?

When she returned to the house, she was calmer but there was a dangerous glitter in her eyes. Vengeance was not a path to be walked lightly, and it was not one she tended to walk, but her parents had deserved better than this. She would find out who killed them, and she would see that they paid for their crimes. "What do you think, love?" she asked softly.

[member="Seydon of Arda"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

Wrestling through her fugue in the tranquility offered in the marsh gardens outside and beyond the porch-landing, Seydon busied his curiosity replaying through the holo-chip's virtual memory banks. He tapped the audio-feed quiet; a faint drift of parental last-words through the outside yard may have bothered with Rosa's already trying episode. He was knit on his brow, peering with frigid clinical deduction, playing his hand over a slice of paper, darting the holo-quil and taking notation. Half a page finished with neat printing, Seydon leaned away from the paused holo-profile as Rosa rejoined him at the table.

After a pause, he reached, knocking the steel and leather of his idling swords against the warm mahogany grain. Razorlight and Winterfang waited coolly. Fingers played with the silver buckling and lengths of strapping leather harnessing. Something like hungry light played behind Seydon's eyes as he looked to his wife.

"I think we go look," He said. "And see what turns up."

[member="Rosa Gunn"]