#and thus concludes using xivwrite to continue character plots

[shroudandsands]

Prompt #30: Amity

She’d found it. It took interrogating two unwilling duskwights and a number of nights crawling club after bar after venue after concert- But she found it.

It was a name at first. Two names. The first she didn’t care about. The headliner of the two, sure, and probably the more vocal- Was that on purpose? Was that a game? What was he doing out here? Apparently music... no matter how little that fit the man she knew. How little it fit Walker. He was meant for more. To waste it playing tunes to people half-drunk in the dark... It didn’t make sense. And that was the only reason she gave the first name any glance at all. ‘Sif.’ The woman who she had seen reports for alongside him. Various minor, unrelated things. Unimportant things. Unfitting, unbecoming, and most definitely uninteresting. So why? The shows, the shadow of a nobody, the usage of a name that wasn’t his. Something wasn’t adding up. This wasn’t like him. Not one bit.

It took her more days than she’d like to admit to track anything down further from there. The two of them had seemingly dropped off the face of the star. Whether that was distinctly Walker acting as he always did or something else having gotten to them she wasn’t sure. But they would have to resurface at some point. They were, likely, reliant on this for income... If Walker was acting that deeply under his cover, at least. O’noh frowned as she stared out at the musicians, as she stared at the crowd. They weren’t here tonight. Not attending, not playing. But this was one of their normal haunts. Their names on lips, their mark left behind in the presence. She couldn’t quite believe some descriptions of the two. Two homeless vagabonds. Always together. Always inseparable. Except for the late of the night, except for some of the days. When Sif was alone. It was likely her chance. It was her only chance. She had to find him. She had to.

--

Dugald sneezed as he settled in for the night. As Sif settled in for the night. It was a warm enough night piercing through the encroaching autumn that they could forgo some of the niceties. Just them, just a blanket, just a tent. The rest set aside. A welcome relief in the midst of long nights. They were tired in the way that one might fall into a haze. One without words or thoughts or anything beyond the bare minimum. The automatic. Sif was in his arms and she was laid up against him.

His head would jerk back upright every so often in its futile fight against sleep. No following smoke trails into the stars, no nightmares to push their way into the space between, no crawling legs to force him to move. Just a calm, warm night. Just the two. Just this. He wondered when it happened. Not how. Not why. Just when. He dimmed that lantern as he held it close. She kept him warm. He slept dreamlessly that night. A mercy after all of it. A mercy before all of it.