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For Honey to Feed Them
Jedao only somewhat resembles himself. All the footage of him as Heptarch, even the live feeds for the Heptarchs in conference, is edited into a composite of all his doubles, and none of them look quite the same either. Instead of being surgically indistinguishable, they switch variations around from time to time. He rarely attends his official duties in person at all. He gets copied on everything, and his doubles know to cede to his secretaries or to communiqués when necessary.
Instead of forgeries, the Shuos seat under Jedao is a shell game.
When he was twenty-two and terrified out of his mind, it was a way to let people who had a clue what they were doing handle the day-to-day management. Now that he knows exactly what he's doing, it means he can move around with more impunity than most of his predecessors. Jedao could have sent a dozen agents for this. But for a piece this important, he likes to see who he's dealing with in person.
The garish neon-speckled dimness of the bar conveniently obscures everyone's shadows. He isn't even a Shuos here, let alone the Shuos, and Vidona Sinjir doesn't have to be a ray. Something he's needed more and more, lately.
Jedao slides into the seat next to him to puncture that inadequate sanctuary slightly, stealing a sip from Sinjir's drink and making a face.
"Hard day?"
Instead of forgeries, the Shuos seat under Jedao is a shell game.
When he was twenty-two and terrified out of his mind, it was a way to let people who had a clue what they were doing handle the day-to-day management. Now that he knows exactly what he's doing, it means he can move around with more impunity than most of his predecessors. Jedao could have sent a dozen agents for this. But for a piece this important, he likes to see who he's dealing with in person.
The garish neon-speckled dimness of the bar conveniently obscures everyone's shadows. He isn't even a Shuos here, let alone the Shuos, and Vidona Sinjir doesn't have to be a ray. Something he's needed more and more, lately.
Jedao slides into the seat next to him to puncture that inadequate sanctuary slightly, stealing a sip from Sinjir's drink and making a face.
"Hard day?"
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No: Velus Sinjir was not a murderer. He was young, and crisp, and loyal, and cold. Like mother, like son, he became Vidona. Crisp and loyal and cold, he rose in the ranks. Crisp and loyal and cold, he mastered the touch, that particular touch, the cleanest sort of murder. Hardly even murder at all: don't we all die, at one time or another, our lives consigned to electronic noise, rippling consequences, maybe a clumsy splash of genetic legacy? At least these people, when they die, are preserved in true, smooth paper. In some distant prehistoric past, paper might have been the only way to preserve someone after they die.
So what if the Vidona hurry them on their way...?
To die by this touch isn't painful, after all. (But Sinjir has inflicted pain, so much pain. He is an artist of pain.)
Crisp and loyal and cold. But he's always seen deep to the cracks in the heart of the Heptarchate, and now those cracks are eating away at him, breaking through to some inconveniently warm core, disloyal, disorganized. To say that he doubts is an understatement. To say that he seethes is more like it. Stingray shifting in sand -- once he thought that meant that he would always dig for the truth. Now he thinks it means he's caught in an ever-changing tide, the ground dissolving even as it buries him.
Once, he wasn't a murderer. Yesterday, he drew his fingers up the cheek of a dissident, and felt the texture of soft skin turn to soft corpsepaper. He folded it into a bird, halfway in flight, wings mid-beat. It isn't quite appropriate for the Remembrance, but it's not far enough off that it will cause anything but a bit of gossip.
He stares moodily at the glass.
Then, suddenly, he's staring moodily at a bit of bar formerly under the glass.
He shifts his moody stare at the culprit.
"No," he says. The day wasn't hard, it was... sharp. Wobbly. Sharp and wobbly, yes. He reclaims the drink. "Go away." He sort of hopes the man disobeys, and sort of hopes he doesn't. Apparently Sinjir is a bit sharp and wobbly as well.
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"What happens if I don't?" He's not quite smiling, except with his eyes, playful more than amused.
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"I'm here for this," he says, indicating the drink, "not... this," wiggling his fingers in Jedao's direction. "If you'd like a convenient orifice and/or appendage, that pretty young man over there seems to be interested in you."
Though, previously, said young man had been eyeing Sinjir, not this newcomer. Sinjir is, somehow, a bit wounded by this defection.
He tosses back his drink.
Something a little bit familiar about the newcomer's voice, he thinks. He glances sideways. Oh, but he can't really blame that young man, can he? The newcomer's eyes are so alive, and the curve of his mouth promises a dozen filthy, glorious things.
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"You seem to be out of this -" he traces a fingertip along the rim of Sinjir's glass. "But if that's all you're interested in, I could get you another. For the inconvenience."
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"Am I to sell myself for a dram of liquor?" A tightness at his lips, a dangerous surging of tight warmth in his belly. The problem, he thinks, is that he wants to be seduced. It was the liquor doing the seducing, and Sinjir responding ably and capably, but now something else is offered.
"Or perhaps I'll just make myself too convenient to bother with," he says, dryly. "Take me now, you gorgeous stallion. Let's find an alleyway and have at."
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He wants out, out of the knots and the poison and the relentless grinding gears. Jedao wants to give him an out. Wants to bring everyone he can -
One step at a time, melonhead.
"Oh, is that how it would go, do you think?" Which necessitates Sinjir thinking about it. The gently amused doubt in Jedao's voice rather intimates it would be the other way around.
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But the laugh bothers him. The way it echoes in Sinjir's chest, foreign and light and fluttering.
His suspicion blooms: he won't be manipulated by an Andan, won't be taken in by a glamour. (And if this isn't the Andan knack, then he... he doesn't know what he will do.)
His hand shifts to his own wrist and there's a sudden, blinding white light, casting shadows in bright relief.
Sinjir, of course, seems as though he has none, as usual. His shadow only shows itself in subtle shifting, the lash of a tail, or a reveal like sand draining away.
But the stranger...
No Andan shadow, here. The glint of clever eyes and twisting tails. A fox.
He snaps the light off, as quick as it came. His teeth are gritted, and he doesn't know why.
Releases a soft breath.
"Very well," he says, with a permissive wave of his hand at the empty glass. "You may bribe me." He is so very generous.
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He catches the bartender's attention with - frankly - an annoyingly effortless gesture. He doesn't need glamour to captivate people. "Another for him, whiskey sour for me," he orders. "Two cherries, no sugar."
And then his eyes come back to Sinjir, gazing quietly at him. It's not an infatuated gaze, or even particularly lustful, but piercing and content at the same time, as though it pleases him simply to look at Sinjir, and to see him.
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He twists around, leaning back against the bar, drink in hand. Lean line of his body, sharp angle of throat and jaw. This man came here for something. Maybe sex, maybe not. Sinjir is short on the patience necessary for a good interrogation.
"Would you tell me what you want," asks Sinjir, "if I let you play a game to get it?" Fair trade: information for a chance that would depend on cunning and a bit of luck. Just the sort of trade foxes like.
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The same deal, almost.
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Sinjir shakes his head.
He has bargaining power, he thinks. This man came here looking for Sinjir. (It's just a guess, but: he didn't see the man look for Sinjir's shadow, or express any surprise at the lack; the man has expressed no interest in anyone else here, nor did he dally with anyone before Sinjir; and he seems quite focused. Fox nonsense, Sinjir thinks, most likely, but Sinjir has nothing better to do, as long as this involves getting himself somewhat pickled, alcohol-wise.)
"I won't take a lie," he says. "A fraction of the truth, sure. Not a lie." That is his condition.
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"I want," he says after a contemplative pause, with a kind of deliberation that makes it more than innuendo, but not too much more, "To get to know you better."
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"I may not like what I learn, but I still want to know." The more eyes the better, after all. And this, too, is the truth. Sinjir might already be too broken to be of any use, might be a willing heart still too full of the barbs of doctrine on one side or the rot of guilt and self-indulgence on the other. Or his agents might have misread the man completely, although he considers this less likely. No matter what, Jedao very much wants to know.
"I saw how you looked at my hands, earlier," he adds, with the faintest of smiles, and a gold button suddenly flipping between his fingers. "Unfortunately, I need those."
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He waves a hand, again. "Pick your game." A half-truth has been given; time for Sinjir to fulfill his side of the bargain.
He doesn't give a damn what game it is. He expects Shuos to stack the deck, weight the dice, what-have-you; at any rate, he's not sober enough to make a good, coherent run at a tactical victory. He expects to lose. May even lose on purpose, just to see what happens.
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He keeps an eye on Jedao's hands. Telltale signs that say a card's being palmed, or kept on the top or bottom of the deck. Not that he'd necessarily draw attention to it or object. He just wants to know if it's being done.
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"So, yes."
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Sinjir is, really, truly, on the scale of things, just easy. But he's feeling cranky and contrary. He's not sure if he'll roll over at one stroke of those lovely long fingers, but he hasn't yet, all right?
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He lays out the cards, one by one.
"Unless you don't know what you want."
He says it quietly, thoughtfully. There's no trace of smugness; even the playful insinuation that's been near-constant until now fades away.
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He is strongly inclined to end this encounter here. It's becoming an interrogation. Disloyalty looms like a spectre over them both; shadow and cold.
"Stepping onto dangerous ground there," he remarks. "Like a swamp. One wrong step, and slurp! Quicksand. What are we playing?"
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"Jeng-zai, unless you have any objections?" Not that they have anything convenient to bet. But they've agreed to other stakes already, haven't they.
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"None."
Sinjir plays well. Recklessly, but well, allowing the alcohol to unbalance a Vidona's natural, precise caution. Which doesn't mean he's without tactics -- his tactics are late surprises, undermining twists.
He even lets the game get his attention. Engages in it as a flirtation, as well, because the more he lets himself be caught up, the warmer Jedao's attention makes him feel.
He probably loses. Perhaps deliberately, if he thinks it will make him gains in a... different way.
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"Well, I've certainly won something." He announces cheerfully, gathering the cards up to shuffle again. "But it was a very good game. I'll let you pick - a question answered, or a kiss?"