Blood Roses

Chapter Two, part Two: Mirza

Mirza peaked out of the room's windows to find a straight drop into the canal. Now Mirza was all one for adventures, but he quite liked the jacket he chose to wear that day and didn't want to dirty it in the nasty canal water. The window not being an option, and the trellis was broken so he wouldn't be able to scale back down, and leaving through the front door would be...suspicious. That left the back entrance, which also meant scaling a wall.

Exciting.

Mirza raced down the house's stairs into a small hallway. He immediately spotted the back door but before he could turn around and rush out that way something on the floor caught his eye. Four pieces of shining golden paper. Without any investigation Mirza could already tell what they were; invitations to the Princess's Ball.

"Don't mind if I do," Mirza muttered to himself, snatching up one of the parchments, before he took off for the backdoor.

He entered Fischer's back garden, if you can even call it a garden. It was a small plot with two single garden beds, a lousy bird bath, and no gate to access it from the outside-since, by people-with-actual-tastes-standards, the east side of Karrion was just east Bakven. The front facing wall led to the street, and to the struggling Akzelle, and was only about a foot taller than Mirza-so easy enough to scale.

Mirza readied himself before sprinting towards the front facing wall. He smoothly jumped up, grabbing the top of the stone wall and pulling himself over. Easy.

Mirza ran out to the front of the house to see that the person confronting wasn't just a nosy neighbour, but an officer. Mirza kept himself calm as he wandered into eye sight-acting like he was just a neighbour who happened to be passing by.

The officer was questioning Akzelle.
"I'll ask you this one more time: Why are you loitering about at an unholy hour of the morning with two horses."

"I, I was just-"

"Good morning officer!" Mirza said in his most cheery voice, before looking over at Akzelle and feigning confusion. "Oh, Andras, what did you do?"

Akzelle looked at Mirza with the same confusion of a child watching someone mug their parents, before he responded.

"I-"

"Officer, is my friend bothering you?" Mirza tilted his head to the side.

"Well I was just asking him about why he was loitering." The officer was short and boxy, Mirza guessed he was middle aged and most likely didn't worry about staying in the best of shape.

"I see why he may come off as suspicious. You see my friend here, Andras, he gets nervous easily. Him and I were about to go hunting this morning but I had to stop back at my home quickly to grab something while he waited out here-with our horses."

It was moments like these where Mirza loved being how he is. A witch. Some could say, but being Vkyuli was far from being naturally malicious. He just happened to use his abilities in a malicious way. No one could understand how it felt to play someone like the violin. To be able to glance at someone and in a moment know exactly who they truly are. And then using that to work out a way to perfectly manipulate them.

"Oh my apologies, you two have a lovely day," The officer started walking back to his patrol.

"You two officers!" Mirza called back.

At that moment Mirza could almost tell something was about to turn south. The way the wind got colder, how the mist seemed to lighten. He could feel the officer's eyes trace over him, one last time.

"Hold on." The officer stopped them as they started to untie the horses. "You look familiar..."

"Hah, I have one of those faces." Mirza chuckled, moving faster now and trying to face away from the officer.

"Turn around." the officer's voice got stronger. Mirza could feel Akzelle shaking next to him. But he complied.

"What's your name?" the officer asked

"What do we do?" Akzelle leaned over to Mirza and whispered

"Run." Mirza whispered back.

"What about the horses?"

"Ditch the horses."

"But-"

"Are you two just going to stand there?"

"Meet you at Gotheriem"

And Mirza sprinted off, Akzelle shortly behind him.