A Thousand Lies and a Good Disguise

    Scarlett’s eyes narrowed at the voice that came out of the darkness. Harmless or not, the bounty hunter didn’t enjoy being watched; but then, she supposed that made her a huge hypocrite all things considered. Scarlett had been guilty of watching people all the time before she’d left to come here, and not just those she’d been hired to kill. Not to mention, she and Skaði weren’t exactly the most conspicuous pair in Paris. Though the streets might have been largely empty at this hour, it would have been kind of difficult for anyone on them not to notice. And yet, that wasn’t going to stop her from holding it against her observer.

    The red-haired huntress squinted, this time in an attempt to see her approacher through the dark. He was dressed strangely, clearly hailing from a land she’d never been too, and looked a little on the young side of adulthood. His placating gesture did little to ease the huntress or her dragon, who continued to scrape at the ground as if prepared to charge.

    “Easy, girl.” Scarlett muttered under her breathe. She didn’t know who this was or what he was capable of and wasn’t about to let her only friend run straight at him without an idea of what he might do to stop her. His words did more than hers to calm the dragon, however.

    "Raaaaaagharouuu" Skaði grumbled out, still sounding rather grumpy despite her meaning. Scarlett would have rolled her eyes if it didn’t require her to take them off of him for a moment, but if one looked closely they might see the smallest hints of a smirk on her face. Truthfully, his interest in her dragon didn’t worry her as much as it might have once upon a time. Skaði wasn’t going to leave her willingly, and the idea that he could take her against her will was laughable to say the least.

    She relaxed, finally, when he mentioned the Cursed Thorns, the knowledge that this was technically an ally and not some weirdo off the streets of Paris causing her to take her finger off the trigger. For the moment, anyway.

I suppose I was bound to meet my comrades eventually.

    “No, believe it or not this oversized pest isn’t native to this…sleepy little city.” She replied finally, her tone making it clear that she was less than impressed with Paris thus far. Skaði nudged Scarlett slightly in response to the dig, but there was clearly no malice in either the nickname or the shove. “But they’re all around where I come from.”

    Perhaps that was a bit misleading. Dragons were everywhere back “home,” but Rumblehorn’s were notoriously elusive. They weren’t exactly Night Furies, but their heightened senses made it incredibly difficult to sneak up on one. Generally, if you managed to locate a Rumblehorn in the wild, it was because they allowed you to. 

    “We just arrived today, actually.” She clarified, holstering her weapon once again. “Figured we’d explore friendly territory.” She wasn’t going to tell him that they’d left because of Skaði's dislike for castles and confined areas. That was something she generally tried to keep to herself out of respect for the dragon’s insecurities, and honestly she still didn’t trust him enough to give up one of Skaði's biggest weaknesses, ally or not.
    
    “Scarlett.” She said simply when he prompted her to give a name. “And this,” she began as turned to Skaði. She was who he was really interested in, after all. “Is Skaði.” Again, the faintest upturning of her lips could be detected as she ran a hand up the length of the dragon’s horn in an affectionate gesture. Skaði gave something of a purr before her rider turned back to the man and crossed her arms.

    “And you? You’re clearly one of them as well.” He certainly wasn’t a Parisian native if his garb was anything to go by, and he had to be here for some reason. “You look a little young to be tangled up in a war.” She observed in what was probably an unfair remark. After all, he didn’t look that much younger than her. Still, the huntress clearly recalled the utter disaster she’d been in the early days of her adulthood. He seemed far better put together than she had been though. He carried himself with an air of superiority that, if nothing else, told her he was confident in his ability to handle himself.

Scarlett fixed the young sorcerer with an unamused look at his flattery, sharing a brief look with her dragon who wore a similar expression. The human had never been one for flattery, and while Skaði was usually a sucker for hearing about how great she was even she could tell when someone was laying it on thick. "Cute." Was all Scarlett said in response.

She raised an eyebrow when he gave his name. It was an interesting moniker, not one she'd ever heard in her travels. It sounded like a powerful name, and Scarlett had to wonder if he'd chosen it himself. She nodded when he spoke of his desire for power as though she understood, but the truth was that Scarlett had never yearned for power. Simply a place and a people to call home had been her deepest desire, but she wasn't about to tell him that. She gave wry chuckle and said, "Well, I suppose the old adage that youth is wasted on the young ain't always true." Whatever else could be said about him, the kid clearly knew what he wanted and wasn't afraid to take it. Scarlett could respect that on some level.

Her eyes widened in surprise slightly as he revealed himself to be a ruler of the land he hailed from before they quickly settled back into a look of neutrality. "Ah, royalty." She said, more to herself than him. "I shoulda figured." The air of superiority she'd sensed suddenly made sense. Skaði gave a rumbling chuckle as if reading her thoughts, and a faint smile appeared on Scarlett's lips in response.

Where she came from places were ruled by chiefs and chieftesses, but she wasn't unfamiliar with the concept of a monarchy. She pictured the kings and queens of foreign lands not unlike her new acquaintance: finely dressed, power hungry, smug. Perhaps the royalty she was familiar with wasn't exactly the type he was, but how was she to know? "And the people in your land won't be missing their leader?" She took the opportunity then to relax slightly, no longer sensing a threat in the boy. She crossed her arms and leaned casually up against Skaði's large form. The dragon gave a grumble in response but made no move to shake her off.

Scarlett frowned slightly as he began fishing for her motives. She supposed she owed it to him, he'd given his after all - no matter how shallow she believed a lust for power to be - so she answered as best she could with the help of a subtle nudge of her hand from Skaði .

"Money, I suppose." She answered honestly. It was the answer to every decision she'd ever made since she was sixteen. "Hunting and killing are about the only things I'm good at." She admitted, no trace of regret in her voice as she spoke. She'd resigned herself to that fact long ago, and even if she hadn't she wasn't about to bare her soul to Mozenrath. "Well, that and dragon riding." She chuckled wryly.

Skaði huffed as if to remind her of the fact that she hadn't always been good at that. Scarlett pointedly ignored her and kept talking. "So, when one of your officers recruited me to your cause and offered the right price, I couldn't think of a reason to say no."

"Perhaps it's not quite as noble as offering your assistance to like-minded folk out of the goodness of your heart," the huntress smirked humorously, the idea that there was anything noble about this man or the army they both served amusing her slightly. "But it's what got me here, all the same."

    The red haired huntress tilted her head ever so slightly. He didn’t seem to entirely agree with the label of royalty, but if he truly ruled the lands he came from, what else could he be called? She didn’t question him about it, mostly because her experiences with royalty were nonexistent and she trusted his knowledge more than her own on the subject. If he felt it an ill-fighting label then she wouldn’t be the one to contradict him.
    
    Azure eyes narrowed momentarily when he spoke of his subjects, his quip about braindead subjects going over her head. Things like zombies and other forms of the walking dead weren’t a familiar concept for her, but the tone of his voice told her that he meant more than his subjects simply being slow. While she didn’t quite know what he was implying, it sent a shiver down her spine nonetheless as it occurred to her that she really didn’t know what this man was capable of. Skaði seemed to feel it, for she spared her rider a brief look of what might have been concern.

    She didn’t ask his meaning, though the curious part of her begged to, the cautious part whispered that there were some things she just didn’t want to know about. Instead she put on a smirk, and focused on the latter half of his statement. The boy certainly liked to talk about himself and his accomplishments, but she was far more comfortable with that than someone asking about her own life. “Ah, you’re a conqueror.” It wasn’t a question. There was no shortage of those where she came from, but they tended to look very different from Mozenrath.

    The brutish and violent conquerors of her home world were far more intimidating figures than the boy in front of her, but then that only confirmed her suspicions that there was more to him than meets the eye. To be able to take land you either had to be extremely strong or extremely clever, and the boy in front of her with his thin frame and delicate features certainly wasn’t what Scarlett would call physically strong.

    “Your old master must have trusted you a great deal for you to be able to steal his land right out from under him.” She pointed out, putting on an impressed tone even though the idea of betraying someone’s trust for power didn’t quite sit right with her. “I’d wager that ended up being a mistake.” She chuckled. Loyalty was a flimsy thing, Scarlett knew that better than most. Her clients tended to know her targets personally more often than not, so even if the huntress couldn’t imagine betraying her only friend, she was certainly no stranger to treachery.

    Skaði grumbled when the sorcerer mentioned her once again, her clubbed tail raising slightly before thumping back down on the cobbled ground. She wasn’t fond of being called a scaly beast, Scarlett guessed, but the huntress was content to let her pout. She’d certainly been called worse before, often by Scarlett herself.

    A humorless laugh escaped her at his final statement. “No you’re not wrong there.” She agreed. “This world ain’t made for the weak-willed.” Perhaps if it had been, she wouldn’t have had to become the person she was today, but it was like Mozenrath said. You did what you had to do to get the things you want in life, and that was that. The people she stepped on for her own gain were never people she knew, but that didn’t make her any better than the man before her, she realized. She was just as selfish and morally depraved as Mozenrath, no matter how much she didn't want to be. “If you’re not willing to fight for what you want then you don’t deserve to have it.”

    The redhead nodded as the sorcerer confirmed her suspicions about betraying his previous master’s trust in him. She put on the face of someone mildly impressed as he elaborated a bit, but raised an eyebrow as the boy spoke of those deserving of loyalty. “And loyalty can be taken away as quickly as it’s given.” She replied matter-of-factly as she spared a glance at her fingernails.
    
    Whether he outwardly agreed or disagreed with that sentiment, in Scarlett’s mind the boy before her didn’t care much for loyalty. She sincerely doubted that someone like him could ever be truly loyal to anyone, or that any loyalty he gave was anything but temporary. Not that she was much better, she supposed, so maybe she shouldn’t be so quick to judge. After all, at least he had friend to betray, Scarlett couldn’t even get past step one.

    She gave a wry smirk at his words, unsure if he meant what he said or was still simply trying to curry her favor. Despite the uneasy feeling he gave her, he clearly bore her no ill will at this particular moment. Truthfully, given the types she imagined she’d encounter among her allies, he was almost on the pleasant side. So long as he kept his mitts off her dragon, she supposed he’d make a decent ally while she resided within the Cursed Thorns army, but only time would tell.

    At his suggestion that they go elsewhere, the huntress could have facepalmed, not at him, but at herself. She hadn’t meant for them to loiter here for so long, but Mozenrath’s presence had sufficiently distracted her. She imagined the sight they were standing in a dark alley at this hour, a clearly foreign man, a woman armed to the teeth, and a whole damn dragon. The thought of some intoxicated fool stumbling upon them was almost enough to make her laugh, but she supposed it was best that they keep it moving.

    A loud grumble that only she would likely recognize as anxious permeated the air and stopped her from answering too quickly.

    She gave Skaði a concerned glance for a moment as she weighed her options. The narrow streets surrounding them weren’t much roomier than the black keep, and giving her dragon a bit of time out in the open had been her whole objective in coming here.
   
    She spared Mozenrath a glance. “Beasty wants to stretch her wings,” She clarified. “She’s not much of a walker.” She chuckled before giving the dragon a few firm pats on her armored shoulder and a vaguely gesturing upward, giving her permission to take flight if she so chose. Scarlett trusted Skaði not to go past the very tops of the buildings that surrounded them, still within calling distance if anything happened. The dragon spared Mozenrath a final look, sizing him up as if debating whether or not to leave Scarlett alone with him, before finally ascending, albeit a bit awkwardly due to the cramped (for her) space of the alley.

“I, however, will take you up on that offer.” Had she trusted him more, she might have suggested they take flight with Skadi, but Scarlett wasn’t quite there yet and, frankly, neither was Skaði. Perhaps that might change in time, but for now she was content to stick to walking with him. “Somethin’ tells me this city has more to offer than this alley.” She remarked, a rare tinge of humor to her tone.