dogsitting rn so i can’t play touys at computer 😮💨
but the whole prey system and Alastor had me thinking about how that kind of work is directly up Zari’s alley, so i wrote a little something about her when she’s in Work Mode 😇
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Misunderstood~
“I’ve hired a Death Knight,” Molly announced, holding her head high. Nobody else looked very impressed.
The barkeep, for one, balked like she’d walked in and proudly proclaimed that she’d made an appointment to get her head chopped off. “You what? Are ye outta your damn mind, Molly?”
[[MORE]]A girl mopping the floor mopped her way straight into the kitchen and out of the oncoming argument, and the cook closed the kitchen door.
That wasn’t the reaction she’d been hoping for, but the dwarven girl continued. “You said yourself somebody’s got to do something! It’s not just the shipments of ale going missing anymore. It’s the people too.”
The barkeep ran a hand through his hair. “Right. We’ve got a maniac harassin’ people on the roads, so ye went out and found someone even worse to get involved, is that it?”
“Who better to put the blaggard in the ground?”
“Oh, I dunno, maybe a city guard? A regular piece o’ shite mercenary? Twistin’ nether, anyone but one o’ them plague spreadin’, undead abominations!”
“Ye worry too much.” the girl waved him off, pulling out one of the inn’s many empty seats. All of them were empty, in fact. She put her shoes up on the table in front of her and looked at her brother between her crossed feet. “They’ve been fightin’ our wars with us since King Wrynn pardoned ‘em, right? The one I talked to seemed nice, even. Said it’d be her pleasure to help, and all that. They didn’t ask to get turned into what they are, ye know. I bet they’re just misunderstood…”
~~~
“Struggle,” Zari snarled, grinding the nameless man’s face into the dirt.
The man scrambled and tried to lift his body only to get a heavy knee to the back for his effort, slamming him down prone.
She put her full weight onto him, driving the pyramid shaped spike that sat atop her knee-cop into his spine. She could feel a satisfying crunch as she did.
The man cried out once, a gutteral noise from deep in his chest, unmolded by lips or tongue. Then the pain was so bad he could only gasp for air. Dirt scraped at his teeth and got into his mouth and eyes. It was under his nails too, from where he’d scrabbled and tried to grasp for something, anything on the ground to hold on to or use in his defense. His bare fists were useless against plate armor, and his dagger was out of reach– still plunged to the hilt in the strange knight’s arm. He blinked the grit out of one eye and tried again to escape, but he was pinned twofold like a fish on a trident.
Zari jeered down at the helpless man, still holding him by the hair and dragging his bruised face to and fro in the dirt. “Can’t escape? Too tired to keep trying?”
He let out a pained noise.
She leaned down over him, hovering above his ear. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. She paused for a moment, then spoke:
“Do you think that merchant you were following would have fought harder, when you caught up to them?”
The man’s face paled, and in a creeping instant he could feel all his hot blood and adrenaline evaporate; in it’s place his stomach dropped like he’d swallowed a cold leaden ball.
Zari continued. “What about the boy who went missing? Did he thrash and bite? Did he get the chance to?”
He began to sputter, trying to speak through the snot and blood turning the dirt on his face into a muddy paste.
Zari pulled on his hair, jerking his head back to allow him to speak.
“Please,” he tried, “I’ll d- I’ll do a-anything-!”
“Oh, good,” She smiled. “Then scream.”
