❛power isn't everything. it's the only thing.❜
[complete]
wattys 2018 winner ❧
Lin is a hunter, one of the magically enhanced witch slayers that roam a flooded world. Under the laws of four Kings and Greymark, who rules them all, Lin is unto...
"On first speaking to the man, his ingratiating smile, his flaxen hair, and his blue eyes would lead one to say, "What a pleasant, good-tempered fellow he seems!" yet during the next moment or two one would feel inclined to say nothing at all, and, during the third moment, only to say, "The devil alone knows what he is!"
―Nikolai Gogol
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Janus was a slender man, wearing nothing but loose shorts and a bathrobe, and approaching his thirties in body more than mind. A mess of blond hair spiked from his head.
"Evening, Janus." Lin smiled and bobbed into a short bow. He seemed intoxicated. Stimulants more likely than alcohol, but those were difficult to find, so there must be some occasion. "Something happen?"
"Yelena's here." His mood fell like a brick. "Punk keeps asking me to sign off on murder. Murder. Me. I've killed five people in my life, and my hard limit is fifteen, so those ten have to be total douchebags."
Lin rolled her eyes. "And you're - "
"Okay, so I don't like Mara that much. But I really really don't like Yelena, she's so - frigid. I don't mean that in a mean way because I'm not mean, but she's just so - evil. I think she's evil, do you think she's evil?"
She watched Janus continue his tirade against Yelena with half-interest. Janus' pupils were dinner plates in his glittering eyes. "I think she's fine."
"Well of course you'd think that. You're a psychopath, you don't have feelings." Janus muttered, sinking to the floor. "I, however, am positively sane and charming."
Lin turned to Hadrian, a smirk on her face, and mouthed jackass. If Janus noticed, he didn't say anything. His arm flung itself across his eyes.
She sighed and leaned against a pillar, crossing her arms. "Thanks. What are you gonna tell her?"
"I don't know. Go away? Something witty."
"She'll make you say yes at some point. She'll blackmail you, threaten you, hunt down anyone you've ever loved, starve your colonies. It's par the course."
He shrugged. "Alright, what do you want me to do?"
"Whatever do you mean?" Lin blinked innocently, even as Janus stood up and stretched.
"You're the one they're sending, aren't you? Even a ditz like me can figure why. They want something that'll make a splash and send a message to anyone who's thinking of getting greedy." Janus swiped his hands over his unshaven face, then over his bathrobe. He blinked when his fingers encountered bare skin, as though he'd completely forgotten he wasn't wearing a shirt.
"Meaning you."
"Hm? Yes, probably," he said, "eventually. They really don't like me. Can't imagine why."
