Vagabond 609: As Luck Would Have It

As a younger mare, Dinah had been able to stand at attention for hours on end, immobile and patient. She still had that patience all of the years later, her mind and self-control only sharpening with the passage of time... but her body betrayed her. Golden eyes sweeping the territory, Dinah again eased her weight off of one set of legs and on to another. Her expression remained stoic, unchanging as rain collected on her lashes, ran down her chin, but inwardly Dinah was cursing the wretched weather. It made her most recent injury ache, and provided an unwelcome distraction to the mission at hoof.

The Paladin's constantly moving gaze caught briefly on the fidgeting form of Verun, and Dinah's mouth tightened almost imperceptibly. Another unwelcome distraction, this one of worry rather than pain. Not so different a distinction, though, the Paladin thought sourly, eyes already moving away from Verun. There was nothing to be done for it; they could not spare an adult to escort the cadet back, and so she was a part of this.

Dinah breathed in, and out again, and her gaze never stopped moving.

Finally, a small group appeared, and Dinah barely needed to give the signal for silence as the collective attention of the Vindicators sharpened, the silence of the group an almost tangible thing. Two guards accompanying three travelers who looked hoofsore and depressed by the weather.

“This one,” Dinah murmured to her group. They had already passed on hitting two larger traveling groups, but this one… this one seemed right. Dinah did not reiterate the plan; she did not need to. Her team was cold, hungry and stiff, but they would not let her down. Dinah would distract the merchants, allowing Jimmu and Damanius to slip in from the sides, make the hit, and vanish into the forests and make their way to the rendezvous point. And Verun was to stay hidden, slipping away on Dinah’s heels as the Paladin would make her own escape.

The Paladin waited tensely as the group trudged nearer out of the gloom, then she nodded briefly to her group and, with a cry, stumbled out of the brush and into the open, before the travelers. As Dinah swayed on her hooves, hardly needing to feign the affected limp, she hoped grimly that the rain would not wash off too much of the applied mud which covered her spots, or the berry and beet juice that had been used to create imitation blood smears. It was unlikely that this group would recognize the Vindicator Paladin on sight, but. Dinah had not lived as long as she had by taking unnecessary risks.

“Help,” Dinah rasped, stumbling to the side and gasping. She moved not towards the group, not wanting to put them any more on edge yet. Let them come to her. “Please, help… a bear, I only got away…”

Returning to Breim had been a humbling experience. Their tangible hatred for Aodh and the boy-king that had inadvertently slaughtered a portion of their population aside... serving Nariah's royal elite had been a perspective shift that hadn't gently acclimated him so much as it had punched him in the mouth. Though he wasn't a stranger to tragedy, Ichiro had been spoiled and coddled his entire life. It was a self-awareness he'd only recently acquired, one that - if he was being honest - he wished he could forget, for the reality was that he was useless without a menagerie of long-suffering advisors to coordinate damage control. He hadn't been a King. He'd been a blight.

(Sometimes, when he wasn't keeping his thoughts in check, they wandered to the palace servants he'd left behind. Beautiful, talented, and always happy to serve, Ichiro had considered them extended family, and assumed that his familial affections were mutual. But now those memories left the taste of bile in his throat, for he knew: those pristine, pedigree servants had been intimately aware that they were property, and property that did not put on a convincing display of emotional labor did not survive. They had probably hated him. With a lump in his throat, Ichiro acknowledged that that was plenty fair.)

Ichiro was contemplating those unfortunate truths for what must have been the thousandth time when Ming spoke. The boy took a moment to compose his mood before answering.

"Of course!" He assured. Lied, more like, for he had never been less certain of anything in his life. "We'll reach the city soon. A real bed sounds nice about right now, doesn't it?"

Ichiro had thought it'd be easier to run from his mistakes, to vanish into the Labyrinth where life may have been harder, but the threat of assassination was significantly less. He feared death as much as anyone. Perhaps more, for he had watched his mother tear horses apart, yank them inside out as she screamed, and screamed, and screamed. Death had been terrifying, but outrunning it at the cost of someone else - thousands of someone elses - was worse.

He couldn't stop thinking about them. Ichiro's idea of who counted as 'his people' had changed drastically in recent months - just in time for him to lose the ability to change anything.

Pax had been right. He was a idiot.

For a second time in so many seconds, a voice interrupted his private downward spiral. Help, it said. Ichiro's ears snapped forward.

His companions, well aware of the danger their mission involved, did not approach her. Before they'd left, Balthamel had told Ichiro to do essentially the same. "Stop for nothing, no matter what, and no matter who it is."

Well that was decidedly easier said than done, especially for a boy who felt he'd made a lifestyle of chronically failing the vulnerable and weak. Ichiro came to a stop with one hoof poised to renew his pace, watching the stranger stumble. He frowned deeply, squinted - and saw it.

"She's bleeding!" He cried, horror in his tone. It was enough to satisfy him that the mare's predicament was a real one. Had his companions not been cautious, he likely would have never bothered to question it at all.

In that instant, he made his decision and broke free of the group, cantering to where the stranger wavered on her hooves.

Although Dinah’s captive had frozen like a startled deer when he felt the blade at his throat, he gave a convulsive jerk when the small appaloosa staggered closer and pleaded for his life. Dinah tightened her hold warningly, the blade kissing his skin just short of the pressure needed to break it.

“Fra- Ming, no,” the captive rasped, sounding terrified, but as if he was used to having and fully expected his orders to be obeyed. “St-stay back, do what she s-says.” Tears were welling in his eyes and thickening his words, but the pegasus remained still once more, wings held awkwardly to his sides, his clothing twisted and dirtied from the tussle with Dinah.

Dinah kept her gaze moving between the guards and the surrounding area, satisfied that thus far the group was cooperating as they gave up their food and valuables, but ready for the scales to tip at any moment. Her golden eyes narrowed as one of the other merchants spoke, offering up herself in the pegasus’ place and assuming the guise of an Aodhian noble. But before Dinah could react, her captive gave another shudder, a low sob breaking from his throat.

“Don’t,” he gasped, and though his face was turned away from hers and partially obscured by his hooded cloak, Dinah could hear the tears. “Akahana, you cannot, j-just do what they say and st-stay safe-”

“Silence,” Dinah said harshly, giving the pegasus a sharp shake as he dissolved into helpless tears. Gods, they really were Aodhians. Happy to live a comfortable life built on the exploitation of others, and utterly unprepared for anything even remotely unpleasant that affected them. Her gaze snapped to the guards, who were protecting the remaining Aodhian.

“You do not give the orders,” Dinah reminded Sigrunn tersely, the knife at Ichrio’s throat flashing as she slightly turned it, still not cutting him, only reminding everyone of its continued threat. The guards ears were flat with their fury, but Dinah’s were titled half-way back, constantly twitching as she kept tabs on the surroundings. It was time to go.

“Don’t do anything foolish,” Dinah cautioned her captive. “I’m going to release you now.” Aodhians the group may be, the Vindicators had gotten what they came for and Dinah wasn’t about to compromise the mission for some blood-lust.

Which, naturally, was when a movement in the foggy underbrush caught Dinah’s attention, too late for the Paladin to do anything but watch as the unicorn mare staggered, and fell, a dagger landing beside her in a rush of blood.

Oh shit. Oh, shit.

Before Dinah could do anything, her captive went wild, lunging forwards with a hoarse, primal scream of “FRANNIE!” Dinah swore loudly as her dagger dragged across the pegasus’ flesh, leaving a thin crimson line on his cream-coloured hair before snagging in the folds of his cloak as he stumbled away from her. Dinah leaped after him, her only bargaining chip in this mess, but slipped on the wet road and caught him only a glancing blow, pinning some of his voluminous fabrics and tripping him.

They went down.

“Frannie, Frannie,” the young pegasus was sobbing, each word ripped from him as he still tried to scramble away from Dinah and get to his companion. “You didn’t- you didn’t have to hurt her, she wasn’t doing anything, Frannie-”

Dinah finally managed to get the upper hoof, pinning Ichiro to the ground. So much fabric. Aodhians! They would never learn.

“She’s not dying!” Dinah snarled in his face, as he blinked up at her through tear-flooded, furious eyes. His hood at fallen away in the scuffle, revealing a young face indeed. “She got hit in the shoulder but she’ll live! We’ll leave you a medical kit, keep it clean and she’ll be fine.” Dinah chanced a quick look at the group, teeth bared. Gods damn it! They had been so close.

“Nothing’s changed!” Dinah barked. “Damianus, Jimmu, collect the gear but leave them a medical kit.”