2019-04-24: You Don't Need to Protect Assassins from Fiends!
- Log: 2019-04-24: You Don't Need to Protect Assassins from Fiends!
- Cast: Jacqueline Barber, Ivan
- Where: Mi'ihen Highroad
- Date: April 24, 2019
- Summary: Ivan tries to assassinate Jacqueline again, but things do not go as he hoped.
=============================<* Mi'ihen Highroad *>============================= Many years ago, a man named Lord Mi'ihen, commander of a mercenary group known as the Crimson Blades, was summoned by the Grand Measter to Bevelle to answer the challenge that his group was a threat to Yevon. Though his followers suspected he would be executed and begged to follow, Mi'ihen ordered them to stay behind and walked along an old path to Bevelle, without stopping to rest. Moved by the display of piety, the Grand Maester formally adopted Mi'ihen and his soldiers into Yevon as a defensive force, known now as the Crusaders. In recognition of the momentous moment, the path Mi'ihen walked now bears his name. ...except not really, because the original one was wrecked by Sin a few hundred years ago. You can still see bits of it as you pass along the Highroad, on which the Djose Temple can also be found. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8tfe_H7bzw
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
A true merchant's job was never finished, no matter what happened. Even when you still recovering from things that had happened recently, or had an assassin after your head.
She had already wasted plenty of time. She had to keep moving.
And so, Jacqueline makes her way down the highroad, a large bag for her wares on her back. The only sign of recent events is that she's a bit more prepared than she usually would be - rather than her casual dress, she's wearing the outfit she usually wears for exploration, with its surcoat concealing light armor and steelcloth cloak for added protection. Her gauntlets, too, are firmly equipped.
That was not to say that she expected to be attacked, but with the possibility out there, she wanted to be ready.
Still, she can't help but be a little distracted as she paces down the Highroad - her mind wandering. It's a fairly long walk back to Luca, and she's doing it on foot.
She really ought to invest in a wagon sometime. It would be much quicker...not to mention safer.
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Ivan hasn't given up on his mission just yet. Until he tells his father he failed the job, he hasn't failed the job. But Lubov does not assign targets with the expectation that Ivan will kill them when he 'gets around to it.'
Ivan has already been rebuked for taking too long. Does it matter? Should the old man's opinion mean anything to him? Should it be worth a life?"
I assumed your recent competence was a fluke, and you didn't surprise me.
It shouldn't. Not at all. But it cuts to the bone.
And so, Jacqueline Barber has acquired a tail for the second time, and this time she didn't have the good fortune to pick up a friend along the way. As she makes her way down the Highroad, Ivan moves silently behind her, finding cover where he can among tall-growing plants or the rubble of a ruin. She has a decent chance of spotting him if she happened to look over her shoulder at the right moment, but fate doesn't seem to play out that way today. As he follows her, he works on silencing his conflicting thoughts, and choosing his moment; as she rounds a bend alongside a rocky outcropping, he darts over and across it to cut her off. A soft flash from the sky may give her a few moments' warning as he leaps down from above, his aim to drop directly behind her, hook an arm around, and get a dagger to her throat.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
It's only a brief moment of warning. In the end, she only notices it because the flash from the sky reflects off her glasses for a brief moment.
He drops down and she turns. One arm hooks around, but before his dagger can find her throat her hand closes tightly around it, halting its progress.
It's a precarious situation. They might be at a stalemate for now, but he'll be able to overpower her before long - she needs to turn the tides now.
In her free-hand, she does a quick, subtle gesture to invoke an Earth-based Crest placed in her left gauntlet. The earth beneath their feet begins to shift - just enough to cause one to lose one's footing if they aren't expecting it.
That is her goal - to destabilize him enough that she can push him away and put some space between them.
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Ivan's balance jolts as the earth shifts under his feet, giving her the room to slip free and find some distance. In a flash. his dagger becomes a sword, and he darts after her for another strike.
"You'll want me to do this the quick way--you remember, the slower way has a lot more fire..."
On his way to make that follow-up strike, however, something goes wrong for Ivan. His vision doubles and lists to and fro, and a familiar searing sensation flickers to life in his chest, and spreads out into his limbs. Ivan's steps slow before he reaches her, and he lists forward, clutching at his chest with his free hand.
Not now, not now! Just finish it quickly and then take a dose...
He whirls, unsteadily, his sword cutting an aimless arc, not quite in her general direction. Where is she?
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline backpedals. She exhales, breathing heavily - but she doesn't have the luxury of resting. The dagger turns into a sword and he's going after her once more.
"I'm sorry. I have no intention of dying for you." She replies, bracing herself to dodge...when suddenly, something seems to come over him.
He slows down, clutching at his chest. Jacqueline gasps.
"W-what's going on...? Are you alright?" She asks, concern clear in her voice as she steps carefully out of the way of that unsteady swing.
She watches him carefully - taking note of the way he moves. This wasn't just an attempt to get her to lower her guard, was it...?
...No, it didn't seem like it...
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
"Of course I'm all right! Don't ask me that while I'm trying to kill you!"
Ivan sweeps his blade toward her again; this time the aim is better because he could point himself at her voice, but he's still several feet out of reach. Maybe he can just set the whole area on fire and hope he catches her in the blaze. Except for how that's completely horrifying.
He folds in on himself further with another flare of pain. Feels like he's breathing knives... all right, dose first. Maybe she'll stay put out of niceness and wait for him to recover so he can kill her properly.
But how could he ever reconcile it with himself if he managed to kill her after that...?
He fumbles his coat open to get a vial out of an inner pocket, pulling the cork with his teeth and drinking the contents down.
All right, there. Should be better soon. Soon...ish, he mentally amends, after tipping over sideways and flopping to the ground.
He hopes he drank the right thing.
"This is normal," he explains, from shoe-level.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
"Oh, sorry..." Jacqueline apologizes, backpedaling away from another swing of his sword. His aim is better, but she's still out of reach - and she makes sure to keep it that way.
But then, he folds over. She takes a note of the way he draws something from his coat, and tries to get a close look at the vial he draws out.
Some kind of medicine, she assumes. Then...this must be a pre-existing condition of some kind. Jacqueline frowns slightly. Why was he doing something so physically exerting with such a condition...?
...Maybe that why he had to.
Jacqueline frowns uneasily, particularly when he topples over sidewise.
"A-ah, I see..." She murmurs in response. It's normal, he says.
She studies him quietly for a moment. Now would probably be a good time for her to leave - to escape before he recovered fully, so that he wouldn't be able to follow her.
But...she couldn't just leave him here while he was in this condition. What if a Fiend came across him? Even though he was trying to kill her, she'd feel awful about that.
And so, cautiously, she makes her way toward him, taking a seat on the ground next to him.
"...Is it an illness?" She asks, looking in his direction, then pauses.
"...Ah, I apologize, if that's too personal." She amends.
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
"Is what an illness?" he replies, obstinately. "No, it's not an illness. You seemed too easy to kill so I thought I would give you a fighting chance by lying on the ground for a while."
He is breathing very carefully, and there are a couple of weird pauses in his speech where he seems to be biting back some manner of pained vocalization. Suffice it to say, he's less than convincing, but clearly committed to his front.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline sighs. She's somehow not surprised he intends to be difficult about this.
"I am an apothecary, specializing in curatives - I can usually tell when there's something wrong with someone. Would you like me to list the symptoms?" She asks with a hint of a frown. She's clearly not buying it - not that it was difficult to see through.
Really, it's only because she's certain he wouldn't accept it that she hasn't offered him any of said curatives yet. That, and she doesn't know how it'd interact with whatever he just took.
"...But you don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to. It's not my intention to pry." She says, then looks at him. "May I at least ask your name, though?"
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
"Ivan," he grumbles. Talia already shouted it at everyone, anyway. Sort of.
"Curatives, huh...?"
Is there some chance that an apothecary from another land might know how to cure this, and not just hold it at bay? But it's not something he can ask, under these circumstances. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to detect if there's any improvement yet. This is an unusually bad flare. Probably because he's been breathing poisons and nearly drowning himself and wore down his system or whatever. But it just figures...
"Are you for real, anyway? I can't believe you're still here."
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Ivan gives her his name, and Jacqueline nods. She must've missed it when Talia said his name earlier, but she has it now, at least.
She nods at the mention of curatives...but sends him a confused look when he asks if she's for real.
"U-umm...I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you mean by that. But...would you prefer I left? What would you do if a Fiend came across you in this condition? They're not infrequent around here..." She asks. "I can't exactly move you somewhere safe, so this is the only real alternative..."
She is, in fact, for real, it seems.
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
"I'm not saying I want a fiend to eat me," Ivan says, "Because obviously I am not incapacitated at all and would burn the shit out of any fiend that came along..."
Provided he could see it. The pain is dulling a bit to more of a prickly heat, but his head is still spinning, and there's a wave of nausea when he tries to lift it.
"But have you thought about... you know... the possible advantages if I got eaten? Having assassins jump out at you can't be your favorite kind of thing to happen in a day."
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
"I'm sure you would." Jacqueline replies. Her words so she's humoring him, but the frown and her tone suggest otherwise. She shakes her head, then.
"Well, no, it certainly isn't, but...that doesn't mean I want you to die, either! Your life is important, too." She protests. "...Even if it means I have to keep an extra eye out. I'm not a stranger to having to defend myself...it just means I'll have to be a little more vigilant until we can resolve our differences."
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Your life is important, too.
Well, no, it isn't, but that won't stop him from clinging to it, regardless. Even if it was given in some kind of cosmic mistake and it sometimes seems the world is trying to scrub him back out of it again, he has decided there are no take-backs.
"We don't have any differences to resolve, I'm just going to come after you until you're dead."
He feels along the ground, thinking that maybe with some dedication he can push himself up into a more dignified position.
"You're obviously some kind of unusually great person who has possibly never done anything wrong in her life, but that doesn't matter to me at all because I don't care about that sort of thing."
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
"...Then I'll just have to put up with that until I can figure something out." Jacqueline decides. It wasn't as if she'd be on Spira forever - would he even follow her all the way to Filgaia, whenever they found a way back home?
She frowns, going quiet when he calls her 'unusually great person who has possibly never done anything wrong in her life'. It causes her to hesitate for a moment - piercing her far more effectively than his dagger.
"...If that were the case, I wouldn't have an assassin after me." She replies quietly. And she wouldn't be down two friends, but...that's a separate matter entirely.
She recovers after a moment, shaking her head.
"...But, that's fine. You don't have to care." She decides. "...But can I ask why you're doing this?"
She has a hunch.
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
"You might be surprised at the caliber of person that sends assassins after people. It isn't very good."
In Ivan's experience, getting to go after someone who seems to even slightly deserve it is a rare gift. Lubov sees threats everywhere. People who saw the wrong thing, or got something he wanted, or starting to become important to someone he would rather be noticed by.
Or even worse, being sent after someone more vulnerable to get at an untouchable enemy indirectly. It's all generally quite gross and not at all a metric of moral worthiness.
He manages to rise up to a seated position, doubled forward with his elbows resting on his legs. He wonders vaguely where his sword ended up. Or is it back in the ring, now...?
"I'm after you because you're my assignment. I kill people because that's what I'm for."
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
"No...I imagine it isn't." Jacqueline replies quietly. For him to say that much, it doesn't speak well of his employer. Not to mention the way they sent him out, presumably knowing full well what was going on with him.
She takes note of the way he manages to rise to a seated position. He might be starting to recover his strength...she'll want to keep a close eye on that. She isn't sure yet whether or not he'll try to get right back to his mission as soon as he can stand.
"...Is there no other way?" She asks.
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
You could fake your death.
He used to try to offer that bargain sometimes when he was younger. Occasionally, people were willing to dissappear in exchange for not having to look over their shoulder anymore. He even got away with it, some of the time.
But that was when he was still pretending he had some sliver of genuine, worthwhile humanity to hang onto. Not anymore. Now he'd rather win.
"It looks like you're not going to take your shot at getting out of it the easy way, so I guess your only options are die now or die later."
He is not willing to admit, internally, to the possibility that this mission takes him so long that she could be spirited off to a different world before he manages it.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Even if he tried to give her that bargain, she probably wouldn't take it. Her goals required her to be a bit more visible, after all - she couldn't do what she did if she wasn't in the public eye.
Jacqueline shakes her head.
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to decline both of those options." She replies. "I don't have any intention of dying - not for a long, long while, at any rate.
There was still far too much she had left to do, after all.
"I imagine we'll be at this for quite some time, then." She comments.
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
"Will not," Ivan grumbles, without providing any supporting evidence. He's not so great at making compelling arguments, even under healthier circumstances and about less touchy topics than how quickly he expects to be able to kill someone.
The flare may be ebbing, though. He finds that the world is not quite as dizzying as he expects when he tries to lift his head, but he puts it down again anyway, finding that he's kind of unmade his mind about his willingness to attempt to murder her today. Doing so immediately after being the recipient of a truly uncalled-for act of compassion feels... appalling? Cowardly?
But isn't the whole business of killing people when they aren't expecting it appalling and cowardly? Why should he bother to draw the line here in particular?
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
"I suppose we'll see." Jacqueline replies evenly. It's a pretty neutral statement - not outright challenging him, but the meaning is clear.
She goes quiet after that. She's already done a lot of prying, after all, despite saying that she wouldn't. It wasn't her intention to pester him with questions.
It's starting to look like he's doing a little better, at any rate. With that she stands up, brushing some dirt off of her clothes.
"Will you be alright now, do you think?" She asks. She's not expecting a proper answer, but it's worth a shot.
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
"I was going to be all right from the beginning."
Yeah, giving a proper answer to that sort of question would probably kill him. Ivan stands, too, so her overactive conscience won't trouble her. It's a little premature, but not so much that he can't keep on his feet, though his limbs feel heavy and his weight seems to slide too much back and forth.
"I remembered something more important I need to do than killing you today, so I'm going to save it for later. So you've at least got the evening. Get a nice dessert or something?"
He looks around on the ground for his sword, and then looks questioningly at his ring, although it doesn't give any visual indication of its contents.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
"Of course." She replies with a nod. "My mistake."
She watches him as he stands. He's swaying a little...but it looks like he'll be able to move. That's good. She breathes a sigh of relief...
...and then turns away, so he can't see her smiling at his decision. She's still paying attention to him, though.
"I see... Well, I wish you luck with that endeavor of yours, then. And thank you - I'll be sure to take good advantage of the extension." She replies. She looks back, though - taking note of the way he seems to be looking for something, and keeps looking at his ring.
She spots the sword lying nearby, and hazards a guess. It had been fallen into the grass nearby - it's no surprise he hadn't caught it, with the way the grass was obscuring it.
"Ah, over there - are you looking for this?" She asks, gesturing to where it lays.
...Should she really be telling an assassin where his weapons went?
...It's fine.
...Probably.
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
This particular assassin has hangups nine miles deep, and as he follows her guesture to the sword lying in the grass, he gets a look of chagrin on his face and actually spends a short time considering abandoning his sword rather than accepting his target's help in finding it.
But after a few beats of hesitation, he angrily retrieves it, albeit in slow motion. Once it has been reclaimed, he vanishes it back into the ring with a small flash of light as it warps and is pulled into the stone.
He looks at her, and nods. "Okay, have fun being weirdly nice to people until I come back for you. Try not to get killed by a fiend because you feel bad for it being hungry or whatever."
Ivan she explicitly stops short in her niceness at accepting violence from others! (he noticed but is feeling too petulant to aknowledge it).
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Ah, so the ring could store weapons...Jacqueline can't help but be curious about it, but she feels that now probably isn't the best time to ask any questions.
She has to fight back a chuckle at the hesitation he shows, though. That probably wouldn't help anything, either.
"Don't worry, I'll be careful." She says, turning away once more with a hint of a smile. She starts to walk away in the direction of Luca before pausing, taking a moment to look back at him.
"You be careful too, okay, Ivan?" She asks, before resuming her journey.
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
"Be weirdly nice at other people!! Not me!" he calls after her.
He sighs as she walks off, shoulders falling. What a complete wreck of a situation that was. And now he's down a vial of medicine... it's not the last, but he'd still better start thinking about how he's going to save up for more, at the rate he's going through it, especially if it may have to be shipped across the ocean.
Is there really treasure in some of Spira's stupid ruins...?