Board Thread:Role Plays/@comment-5999656-20190205035159/@comment-5999656-20191215032249

The hug was unexpected, and Lustra stiffened within the grasp of the motion from a veritable stranger. There was no warmth in the gesture. How could there be? He didn’t even know her name.

Dust’s logic still didn’t make sense to her, and she watched her plea fall on deaf ears as the cowboy rushed after Diaboli with Jett in his arms. That man was already leaving, she wanted to say. Why did you have to follow him too?

When people went off and did dangerous things by themselves, they get hurt or killed. She’d watched it happen herself, seven years ago, and the fallout it caused. When you get hurt or killed because you went off by yourself, refusing the help of others, you’re telling people: you shouldn’t have trusted me. I couldn’t handle it myself after all. But there was no use debating tactics with empty shadows.

For the first time that night, Lustra found herself alone, truly alone, with a burning yacht at her back and a dense thicket of trees obscuring the black horizon at her front. In the absence of human presence, she found herself acutely aware of the sounds surrounding her: the crackle of the smoldering wooden boards, the gentle lapping of the waves on the wet surf, and the rustling of the trees – so innocuous in daylight, but in the absolute gloom of the early dawn, they seemed to conceal an immense evil lurking within.

As the minutes ticked past without anyone emerging from the woods, Lustra couldn’t shake the feeling that she hadn’t done enough to stop Dust. If she’d had the energy left, she would have run in front of his path, or brandished a weapon and addressed Diaboli directly. What was the word for that kind of risky thing again?

Ah, right. Escalation. She would have escalated the issue into a violent one.

But that would have been if she’d had the energy left for a fight. And as it was now, having busted a massive illegal auction, flung herself into the ocean, killed a giant squid, and been attacked and then rescued from drowning by a former friend, Lustra didn’t want to fight anymore. So she’d used her words instead, but that wasn’t enough. Was it because she didn’t come off as reliable? Despite her better instinct, Lustra found herself wondering if she was someone who seemed somehow untrustworthy. Why else would Dust have ignored her words when they seemed so sensible, to herself at least? In doing so, he’d almost certainly doomed himself and Jett along with him. And Lustra wasn’t able to stop him.

Lustra sighed, and slowly sank to the ground. She pulled her knees up close and hugged them, letting the sword fall to the wet sand as she did so. There she sat for a few moments, letting the heat of the flames lick at her soaked back. Despite the tumultuous series of events which had led to its dramatic demise as a pile of floating charcoal, she found the warmth comforting, and the flickering light of the flames kept the encroaching darkness at bay.

…

She was so tired. So, so tired. Tired of concealing things, tired of killing and keeping up a strong front and finding out her friends were fake. No one was what they seemed tonight. Mob bosses were self-sacrificing, commanders were scared teenage girls, Huntsmen didn’t listen to their teammates, and friends were ready to kill her without a second thought. Something was wrong as hell with this kingdom… but even in her tiredness, Lustra knew she wasn’t done with it yet.

Lustra’s hand strayed to her shirt, from under which she pulled out a small amber-studded pendant on a gold chain. She held it out between her fingers, rubbing a few stray droplets off the stone, and then squeezed the side of the necklace. In the illumination of the blaze behind her, she could make out the tiny photographs of her closest friends on either half of the open locket, people who, for all the faults they had, were people she knew she could trust. Young women who, after all the trials of the night, she missed more than ever. After all that she’d seen, she was going to need their help to finish the mission that had started in the auction house.

Lustra closed the locket with a click and returned it beneath her wet blouse. She took a deep breath, and cast around the empty strip of beach once again. As expected, no signs of life could be found, even as the flames started to die behind her and the shadows of the trees began lightening. After she confirmed that she was truly alone, Lustra took ahold of her blazer and spared a brief glance inside.

A small hidden camera was affixed to the inside of the inner pocket, a white square small enough to fit easily within the palm of her hand, with a rubber wire running through the fabric all the way to the second from the top button of her blazer where its tiny lens was concealed. Everyone she’d crossed paths or weapons with that night had had their image captured in its waterproof memory card. With this and the other recordings captured by her allies, the VPD had enough evidence to pursue several large criminal factions which had long festered in society’s shadows, always suspected but never concretely implicated. Until today, that was.

They shouldn’t have taken their masks off, Lustra thought solemnly. Now there was nowhere to hide.

Countless lawbreakers had died tonight, swallowed up by the ravenous beasts that feasted on the fallout of human conflict. But many more had escaped, fleeing with their lives and allies back into the wretched depths of the city to resume their villainous scheming shortly, no doubt bolstered by the knowledge that many of their rivals had abruptly relieved themselves of mortal trappings. They thought their identities were secret, and the only guilt they would have to face was their own. Criminals were always so confident, Lustra mused. They thought their secret empires could keep them safe.

Well, they were wrong. The hunt had just begun. A burning boat, Lustra thought. A burning boat wasn’t a bad way to start off the story of what she was going to do. And this time, she wasn’t going to do it alone.

As the first rays of sunlight peeked shyly through the trees, and the beating of choppers drew near, Lustra let her hand fall. She knew who her first target was going to be. Easy – the one who’d treated her loyalty like a tool and a plaything for her own amusement.

How fitting it was – that her true friends would be the ones to aid her in hunting down Brunhilde Engelnacht.