Inks
Member
Word Count - [2,238]
Leidan Halbert - Seraph
Eloquii Aequoris - Inks
Leidan Halbert - Seraph
Eloquii Aequoris - Inks
More's the Pity
There were a great many offices in Terminus, and no small portion of the metropolis was dedicated to its appointed police force and the leading armed forces in all of Araevis: the Conexus. Broken into its many continental branches, the heart of the organization remained in its origins of Terminus, no less than twenty different offices dotting the super-city. Each might've been dedicated to the some dozen and a half divisions of the judiciary force, but one neglected avenue continued to skulk in the back rooms of other limelights.
Leidan Halbert was a name that carried no particular connotation to it. He was simply, as many others, a man who did his job to the best of his ability. His peculiar state of dress might've brought a few odd stares, but quirks were quickly forgotten in the haze of everyday life.
Currently, the young investigator was looking more run down than usual. The laicar's eyes had thick bags drug under them, a testament to the stress of the Astra Non Obligant's attack on Terminus. His heavy overcoat hadn't been abandoned, the various pockets that adorned it deep and full of who-knows-what. Underneath, his odd formal dress hadn't changed much. His black suit vest had been changed for a dark gray, his matching tie exchanged for a vibrant red, though his white shirt remained the same.
Breathing deeply, he looked over the files in front of him once more as he stared through the one-way glass of an interrogation room's mirror. On the other side, a vibrantly colored spurii was grinning at a flustered patrolman attempting to question him.
The plain room hadn't much to entertain with, but Eloquii's eyes still seemed to roam over the blank walls and ceiling as though they were hiding something amusing. On his shoulder, a small animal had been... obstinate in its refusal to leave the corsair's side.
Pulling a cigarette from between his lips, Leidan scratched at his trimmed black hair and the thin stubble that dotted his jawline. Standing, he quickly moved to the door and prepared to enter the room himself. Tucking the manilla folder he'd prepared under one arm, he retrieved a lukewarm mug of cocoa from on top of a file cabinet in the hallway. Then, with a heady sigh, the sergeant of Domestic Affairs knocked once and entered quickly.
Eloquii shifted in his seat to face the new arrival, a toothy smile at the ready.
“Ave!” he said, with a brightness to match the gleam in his golden-yellow eyes. “You must be...backup? Relief?” The spurii’s black-feathered arms lay folded on the table, sharp claws tip-tapping an idle beat into the room’s quiet not-quite-tension.
El was still wearing the ensemble he’d had when he first set foot in Terminus - a ragged leather jacket, blue bandana, cream-colored tunic, colorless grey pants, folded-down boots and numerous blue-tinted cloths tucked into his belt. To be fair, he hadn’t had much opportunity to buy or appropriate anything new. He’d swam around in the local lake for a while, though. That basically counted as a wash.
The spurii had taken off his black tricorne at some point and set it on the table, and the two feathery horns jutting from the crown of his head were all the more stark against the bright blue flyaways of his hair. His watercat lay across his shoulders. Although Felo’s quills had been flat against his spine, they bristled, slightly, at the new intrusion, and the watercat fixed Leidan with an unblinking, ocean-blue stare.
El stood slowly, with a blink-and-miss-it glance to the patrolman who’d been questioning him before. He left his hands flat against the tabletop for a moment, then offered Leidan a hand. Previously out of sight, the spurii’s long, whipcord tail curled behind his back.
“Don’t mind Felo,” Eloquii said. “He’s just a big baby...with quills attached. Don’t try to win a staring contest with him, though. Turns out, watercats don’t really need to blink. My name’s Eloquii Aequoris, though, ah, you might already know that! I don’t know how you policing types work, exactly.”
"Surprising, Mister Aequoris," Leidan started, his voice comfortably settling in the middling tone between tenor and baritone, "considering how many run-ins with us you've have."
Easing into the seat opposite El and releasing a sigh of relief, he flashed a wry smirk at the pirate. He considered the pirate's extended hand for a moment, then he gestured vaguely at the spurii as he continued, "you know, I don't know many pirates who'd throw themselves into the fray on another's behalf. Twice, no less.
"Out to save a couple of damsels, are we?"
El twiddled his fingers for a moment more, then sat back down across from Leidan, tail curling itself close around him, looping around the chair legs. Leaning back, the spurii folded his arms over his chest. His alarmingly-jovial grin dimmed to something more casually polite, instead, as he tilted his head to observe the laicar. Like a ghost, there and gone, something darker tugged at his expression.
“Something like that,” Eloquii easily agreed. His grin took on an amused edge, laughter dancing in his golden eyes. “Have you met them in person, yet? They’re very charming young women.”
A click of the tongue was all Leidan gave as an answer, before he turned his attention to the folder he'd brought in. Casually flipping through its contents, he paused only to sip from his cocoa. Seconds eased into a pregnant pause of a minute, before the laicar seemed satisfied with whatever he'd found.
"Eloquii... no, you prefer El, don't you?" He said, raising an eyebrow before continuing as though El had given him consent, "El. You've gotten a fair track record here, haven't you? You must be quite the persistent one, to have dodged the bounty for this long.
"Any particular reason you decided to suddenly give that up for those two?" He queried lightly, fixing the spurii with a neutral gaze.
“Er,” said Eloquii. “The bounty?” His brow furrowed slightly, and his tail twitched. He leaned forward, craning his neck, trying to catch a glimpse of the contents of the folder Leidan had brought in with him. “Which boun– I mean, what bounty?”
A bark of a laugh shook Leidan's shoulders once, a hint of humour that hadn't seemed to exist in the young man. His face broke into a smirk once more, and he retrieved a simple 'wanted' poster from his folder for El to view. His visage was sketched with a sober look, with a neatly printed list of his crimes underneath and the promise of a reward for his arrest.
"The Conexus is a fan of compiling bounties into a singular number. Makes it more enticing for a single large number, rather than having to tally individual ones, don't you agree?" He mused, before allowing the spurii to take the poster.
Finally, Leidan's face slackened into a small frown, as he rubbed a pair of his fingers together. Setting the folder down entirely on the desk, he fished into his jacket for something, taking his eyes off El.
“Wow,” said Eloquii. His gaze shifted restlessly, from the poster in his hands to Leidan, from Leidan to the patrolman who’d been questioning him before, then back to the poster again. “It – hm. It does make the number much...bigger,” he admitted. His own smile thinned, somewhat. He reached up to scratch under Felo’s chin before settling one hand over his chest, where his collection of keys (the ones that hadn’t been confiscated) hung from his neck. His eyes tracked Leidan’s movements, and his tail had gone perfectly still.
“This is a pretty big list,” said the spurii, carefully. “Not that I’m, er, confessing to anything, but shouldn’t I already be making friends with a cell? Or am I just supposed ta be a, uh – what are they called...? Character witness? – for your two damsels?”
Glancing down at the bounty still in his hand, El tilted his head. “In their defense, the first time we met was because of one of these.” His grin widened again. “The number is much bigger on this one, though. And unless everyone who submitted one of the bounties on here turned out to be a criminal, it might actually pay out. Their luck must be terrible.”
It was a long pause as Leidan continued to dig into his coat pockets for his objects of desire, before he finally sighed. Retrieving the pack of cigarettes and a small ash tray, he deftly produced a match from... seemingly nowhere, before striking it against the calloused pad of his own thumb. Winking at El for the sly parlour trick, he lit a smoke now perched between his lips before considering the spurii's words.
With his shoulders easing with a drag of his vice, Leidan exhaled off to the side in a thin puff of smoke. When he turned back to El, he finally answered, "A good question, really. By all accounts, you should be getting quite intimate with a concrete box about now.
"The reason you're not, is because I have an opportunity for you." Another smirk overtook Leidan's features, and he quickly elucidated, "tell me, does the phrase Inimicus Inimici mean anything to you?"
“Hmmm. Inimicus Inimici, huh?” Eloquii’s gaze drifted off to the side, a faraway look in his eyes. He rolled his claw-tips in a wave against the tabletop – once, twice, three times, then flattened his hand. When El met Leiden’s eyes again, curiosity colored his usual grin.
“...You’re wanting to be my friend?” he asked lightly. The tuft of fur at the end of his tail rolled from side to side. “Despite what you might think,” he glanced down, to the bounty still clutched in his hand, “I don’t really consider myself anyone’s enemy. But,” he added, “I’m quite keen on opportunities. I’m an opportunist, you might say.”
A slow nod seemed to emanate from Leidan, though it wasn't apparent if it were in approval or agreement. Taking another long drag, and giving the cigarette a baleful glare, the investigator crushed the half-burnt object against the ash tray.
Without warning, he launched into explanation, "Roll the clocks back about fifty years ago, that phrase would've meant a lot more. Once upon a time, the Conexus had a reform program prior to gaining enough global traction to stop needing outside resources. We called it Inimicus Inimici. Perfect for people like you. Small time felons and petty thiefs could work off smaller sentences by helping control the more dangerous sorts. It's a little like parole, but more along the lines of getting a job."
Leaning back in his chair until the front two legs began to lift from the ground, Leidan's dark eyes seemed to sweep across the room until they fell on the mirror on the wall. An obvious pane of one-way glass, he glared at it before righting himself. His fidgeting didn't cease, however, as he withdrew another cigarette and rolled it between his fingers.
"There were some interesting reports about the battle you were involved in, El. About one of those two ladies you stepped in to help. Lysistrata, I believe. Laicar, short, temperamental." As he spoke, Leidan finally lit the new smoke and inhaled from it liberally. "We'd like you to tail her, and her partner. Those two may have been instrumental to the apprehension of the Orator, but we can't afford to chalk it up to coincidence.
"Consider this your ticket to have more due reason to save your pair of damsels. We'd like to see them safe until they return next to Terminus. If there's a chance they're involved with ANO, even peripherally, it's a mite difficult to interrogate a corpse. I'm sure yo-"
Leidan was interrupted by a sudden bout of coughing, smoke billowing from his lips as the cigarette fell uselessly onto the ground below. Still coughing, he crushed it with the heel of his shoe and fished for something in his jacket. Standing, he waved back at El as he moved to leave, heaving out the rest of his statement, "Let us know."
“An arrangement like that? How could I say no?” El’s answering smile was sharp. If he had any thoughts regarding the laicar’s smoking habit, or unhealthy coughing fit, it didn’t show on his face. Head canted to one side in a manner very nearly birdlike, El followed Leidan’s movement with too-bright gold eyes. Is that all? he didn’t ask.
Admittedly, Eloquii wasn’t one for being told what to do. Never had been. Even as an undersized, underfed urchin, he’d only ever listened to the Cap’s orders – and sometimes, not even those. Also, El wasn’t looking for a job. Jobs, by definition, suggested the sort of commitment El generally stayed far, far away from. Saying ‘no’ to a job was, in fact, El’s kneejerk response.
It was a good thing this was an opportunity, not a job.
The spurii pulled in a long, deep breath, catching the faint remnants of Leidan’s cigarette smoke in the interrogation room’s air. It tasted bitter, acrid, and comforting in the way of familiar things. His hand stole up again, to stroke at the sleek, oily fur of Felo’s side.
Following miss Keydis Lysistrata and her incredibly-tall spurii partner on their flight from Terminus sounded like it might be his sort of fun, anyway.
.