Like Her Hair [Arno Victor Dorian]

II - Ange Malin

They couldn't bother waiting for Arno at the Cafe Theatre. Hearing his morning voice and watching his groggy expression slowly drink away every last drop of his dark coffee would only make them fall more in love. According to their doctor, that's exactly what they should try not to do.

It couldn't be all that bad. They weren't coughing up any petals yet.

Another recommendation was to keep their body temperature low. Plants need heat to grow, and the cold would make it harder, so today they wore only two layers: their dress shirt and their coat. It was odd not having their vest, but these were dire times.

They felt bare, somehow. The top stings of their shirt had been left loose, and they wore the shortest coat they could find, which still fit them down to their mid-thigh. A thick belt fit them snuggly around their waist as too make sure that they wouldn't be seen so indecent.

They were freezing. This was good, painfully good.

Arno dropped down from the building above them, landing on the rooftop they had been standing on. "I missed you at breakfast."

"I got a bite on the way here," they lied. They hadn't been able to eat since their diagnosis. "I didn't want to be late."

He grabbed onto their shoulder, giving them a quick look up and down. "It's the middle of fall," he chuckled with an exasperated huff, "I think the doctor might have misdiagnosed you."

His leather clad hands were so gentle with them. Thumb always seeming to massage them, his palms applying a light pressure to assure them he was there, even when he was right in front of them.

"I could only hope," they said, a somber tone befalling the two.

Arno ignored it, clearing his throat at his student's odd behaviour. He pointed to a house two streets across his social club. "There is a spy in that house watching over one of the Templar's stronghold," he said, "head that way, while I begin surveying the perimeter."

They didn't need to be told twice to leave his side, not anymore at least. Leaping across the buildings and running on ropes, the air running across their ears like water in a stream, their legs carried them as fast as possible.

They needed to know the new limit of their strength. The flowers would soon make it harder to breathe, but luckily, nothing seemed to have changed yet.

Their boots landed silently on the wooden terrace, the small pivot of their feet silencing all noise of their landing.

"Madame Laurent?" they called out, looking inside the open glass doors, "it's me, Arno's protege."

A woman in a pretty blue dress pulled them away from the window. "Goodness, darling," they whispered, "you must be more careful. Master Dorian would be upset if anything happened to you?"

They smiled at her softness. "I'm only here to pick up the plans. There's no way of getting hurt."

The spy hummed, "It isn't so simply anymore. The Templar presence gets bigger by the day."

"We are always careful," they responded to her, "let's get to those plans. Master Dorian expects me back soon."

She nodded quickly, pulling a scroll of paper out of her pocket and unfurling it, red markings covering almost every corner of the page. "They've been anticipating your arrival," she explained, "we've almost tripled in guards in the last week.

"They've begun to steal our food, as well," she continued, "they stop all food carts, and the snipers make sure no one escapes."

"Snipers?" they asked, incredulously. That's why she pulled them from the window. That's what the open circles were on the map, the billions of open circles placed on every rooftop.