4.0
Tokori felt remarkably uncomfortable standing before the qilin captain, Alethea, and his own captain, the orange witch Eradok.
"So you mean to say that you'd like to find this Odelya Quinn and ask for her help as well? A dancing girl?" Alethea, as usual, was exercising her natural prejudice against anything remotely tainted.
"With all due respect, Ma'm, dancing girl or not Notchimine is her brother and we'd like to gather more information on him. Perhaps a weakness that isn't so. . . Difficult to tweak as the Barker woman." Shahryar offered, Tokori envied the elf, he didn't need to worry about any real punishments from these two; Shahryar was officially freelance enforcement, and simply chose to help them specifically.
"It's wonderful that you feel entitled to speak freely here, Silvermane, but in my office you're merely a-"
"Valued help and consultant." Eradok interrupted the qilin harshly, narrowing his dark eyes. "You know that as well as I do, Alethea, so take your pride and swallow it before you lose another asset to my witchguards."
Tokori didn't even have to smother his smirk because of his mask. Then his captain turned to look at him, and he bowed his head.
"Basir." Tokori rose to attention at the use of his formal name.
"Sir?"
"Notchimine is hosting a masquerade in Cerrenon again. One of our black witchguards procured one pass in." Eradok held it up with his thin eyebrows raised. "I want you to go in and secure Barker, Shahryar will be waiting outside, and S'Don will find this Odelya Quinn. After his escalation of course." The orange witchcaptain turned to Alethea, crossing his arms. "Does that sound fair to you, Captain?"
Alethea gritted her teeth and swished her tufted tail, ears pinning back angrily. "Yes." She hissed, then waved her hands, retreating behind her desk. "Off with you hooligans. I have work to do."
Tokori bit down a laugh and backed out of her office, looking up just long enough to catch Eradok's wink. Once the door shut, the trio shared a look, then burst into giddy laughter.
“Tokori.” The laughter stopped when someone actually spoke, particularly when it wasn’t one of them.
The green witch turned and met the level gaze of a black witch, then gulped a little. “Ruth.”
Ruth was rather tall, skinny, and lithe; possessing a narrow, angular face and very large doe-eyes. They’d had a short-lived relationship, the ending of which involved her breaking his nose.
It was still crooked.
“This was you?” He held up his pass to Notchimine’s masquerade, raising his eyebrows, he knew she wouldn’t see it, but hoped she got the gist.
“I’m not called Shadow Swift for no reason.”
He held back a chuckle. Black witchcraft was. . . Heavily male-dominated. There were very few women born with black magic, and even fewer had any real power. Ruth was an exception, her specialty was melting into shadows and concealment magic of living, dead, or inanimate things, or the lack of it. She was very proud of her title among the black witches.
“Thank you. Why’d you do it?”
Ruth folded her arms and leaned her narrow shoulder on a wall. “Because you three needed help and you, Tokori Kinta-Basir, are too stubborn to ask for it.”
Tokori grunted a little, then gestured to his silent companions. “Come on, we have work to do.”
He brushed past her, not even trying to suppress his quite suddenly foul mood. He wasn’t that stubborn, he was just. . . Tenacious. He was sure he would’ve gotten to the Barker woman eventually, even without her help.
Though. . . He was very grateful for it. He’d spent two years of his life trying to snare Notchimine Quinn, and now he was finally able to make some real progress thanks to her.
Still, she wasn’t right. He knew when to ask for help, and he knew when he needed.
Tokori strode out to the crowded streets of Cerrenon, clutching his pass; his only thread that would allow him to capture the Barker woman and bring down Notchimine.
