Elsewhere [ Sarkany | Viktoria ]

[jarahamee]

“Why wouldn’t you?”

The tone was playfully accusatory, though Cassius only blamed himself for liking the old snake so much. He enjoyed his attachment to people, but he tried to limit it. Tried being the keyword. There was nothing that could prevent him from having feelings, he had come to realize.

He snuffed again and glanced at Viktoria. Retrieving Sarkany had been her number one priority as his friend. It was a choice that he respected, but obviously had not taken to heart.

The scarred man raised his eyebrow at Sarkany’s response. He was not here to ask questions or to investigate possibilities, but it did seem like his sly friend had been up to something. Whatever it was, it was not his business.

He reached out to take Viktoria’s armored hand, and pressed his lips to her knuckles, as if she was a fair maiden, before smiling up to her toothily.

“If you can. I brought a lot of gear, but no breathing apparatuses.”

[MP]

The prospect of the terrine entering a burning building didn't seem to worry Sarkany. He watched her as if this were the most natural thing in the world. After all, he'd seen her brush off much worse. But his expression when he glanced at the officer seemed almost sheepish.

"You didn't need to kill him. I mean you specifically. Did you?"

The tone was all false innocence. Sarkany's eyes slid off toward the woods with the sly abashment of a dog caught with its nose in the trash.

[tsukikoko]

Viktoria flickered an ear and slowly blinked at Cassius, one of her distinctly feline shows of affection. Then, as she turned towards the cabin threshold and glanced a final time in Sarkany's direction, the scarred humanoid hesitated, for just a moment. Her packmate was most certainly dancing around something.

But, she'd already offered to retrieve the body, so another moment later she ducked her way inside, needing to turn slightly sideways in order to fit through the gap with her armoured bulk. Before long, Sarkany and Cassius were left to her own devices, as she disappeared into the encroaching gloom of building smoke, her nostrils closing themselves off.

[jarahamee]

Cassius nodded, watching Viktoria go without turning his head. His eyes followed her form as she moved past and away from him into the smoke and dust. They then refocused on Sarkany.

“Then…he is dead, and you have killed him. Is that what you mean?”

Agent Lucidus stared at Sarkany, then scanned his hands, as if that would answer all of his questions about what exactly had happened here. The last time they had seen Sarkany had been the moment before his abduction, but what had happened since then?

He had built himself a home on the island in all this time? Clearly there had been some kind of fight, but a fight with someone other than Atol, who lay dead in the field behind him. But what else?

“My job is to recover the body, but I was here for you. It is fortunate that, for whatever reason, you are in the same place.”

[MP]

Sarkany relaxed at that. The kill had not been claimed, and that meant no trouble with the WDSA. He didn't think he could handle human regulations just now.

"He sort of just..." Sarkany waved a vague hand. "Landed in my lap. I can't say where he came from, but he appeared while I was inside."

He avoided mention of what exactly he'd been doing in the cabin. Viktoria could be trusted to leave the papers be - they weren't her objective, after all. And while the agent was talking, the last of the evidence burned.

"Someone had just about done the job for me - your handiwork, it sounds like." Sarkany nodded to Cassius. "But it seemed safer to make sure."

Inside the cabin, the body lay in a pool of its own blood. Compared to the man who had singlehandedly raided the WDSA and laid waste its crucial operations - at least in one timeline - it made for a pitiful sight. Battered, torn, and broken, its only remaining dignity lay in the way it had propped itself against the wall. A final, futile image of defiance. Atol was well and truly dead.

There was blood in plenty, but to the feline's sensitive nose and experienced eye, there was something odd about it. The wounds smelled older, the blood scent devoid of that first vital flush. Atol would surely have died of such injuries in time, but they shouldn't have been enough to kill him yet. The cause of death could not have been blood loss. Internal, perhaps? Or something else entirely?

Nonetheless, the body was harmless and easy to retrieve. The fire, though roaring from the confines of the tub, was contained, and only the smoke hampered the Terrine's retrieval.

[tsukikoko]

Having assessed that the fire threat was not an imminent or concerning, Viktoria took a moment to examine the body more closely; she crouched down in front of it, head tilted and attentive feline eyes casting their reflective gaze over each little detail. Even through the smoke, her senses were so attuned to that most specific of scents, she detected the incorrect blood odor near immediately.

The Terrine's head tilted to the other side, blinking slowly, before she let out a soft snort.

Sarkany could create all manner of strange effects that seemed to break the laws of physics. She'd seen and even been on the receiving end of a few of them. This could be similar. She could always ask and what mattered was the Magus was dead, that much was certain.

With a soft whirr of gyros and creak of wooden floorboards underfoot, Viktoria pushed back to her feet. One large hand took hold of the dead man's head, her massive hand near enveloping it, before she hoisted the body from its resting position and destroyed whatever vestiges of dignity it might have had left. The feline held the corpse aloft in front of herself, turning it first one way, then the other, checking for other oddities out of curiosity, before making her way out of the cabin with Atol's body in tow.

[jarahamee]

Cassius nodded idly, his expression one of neutral alertness as he scanned Sarkany’s face. The truths were interspersed with lies, and even he was not dumb enough to avoid picking up on it. Still, again, none of this was his business; getting Sarkany back safely and recovering the corpse was.

“Yes. We… badly injured him. By my calculations, fatally, but I don’t trust those magic types.”

He suddenly grinned broadly, showing his teeth;

“They might be like me, and find some way to wiggle out of their doom. Better to have a corpse, and to be even more than doubly sure.”

The scarred man watched Vikoria return with the body with a mixture of satisfaction and confusion. While he lacked her sense of smell in human form, he could also see that the state of the wounds and the state of the body were mismatched. He offered his arms to her. He could hold the corpse, if she wanted to help their limping friend.

“We’re heading towards the extraction point. Do you have everything you need, Sarkany?”

[MP]

"I do."

Sarkany smiled, the set of his shoulders serene. His eyes went to the body briefly, appraising. Speculative. There was nothing binding him now. He couldn't explain how he knew it, but a strange kind of weight had slipped from his shoulders, faint as a cobweb. There was no geas, no vow, no threat held over his head. The paper tucked in Sarkany's jacket pressed at the back of his mind. Perhaps it would have been better if it burned with the rest. The prophet was dead, and Sarkany owed him nothing now.

But then, this wasn't about what the prophet deserved.

"Yes, I do," he said again, nodding.

His gaze moved between them, the feline and the old wolf.

"Will you need to rejoin the fight then?" He asked them. "I can make my way out, if you tell me where to go."