Elizabeth Culmer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
edenfalling) wrote2011-10-25 10:10 pm
edenfalling) wrote2011-10-25 10:10 pm
Entry tags:
[Fic] "Weregild," part 17 -- Inception/Anita Blake
I am, in fact, still writing this story. (Just as I am, in fact, still writing all my interminably delayed WIPs... but let that go. *sigh*) And look! I finally got Anita and Richard on-screen! (1,475 words)
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Weregild, part 17
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The great hall looked much more put together than it had when Ariadne had left the Circus. If she hadn't seen the construction under way, she might have thought this particular arrangement had been in place for months. The Persian rugs on the hastily assembled dais were laid out as if with a ruler, the place settings were equally precise, the napkins folded into elaborate cloth origami flowers, the chandelier sparkled as its crystals caught flickering candlelight from the wall sconces, and the serving table steamed with something rich and French.
The real difference, of course, was the collection of people sitting at the high table. Jean-Claude held pride of place in the center, with the Executioner at his right hand and the Ulfric at his left. Damian sat next to the Executioner and Jason sat next to the Ulfric, which was both a way to allow Jean-Claude's partners a subordinate of their own and a way to reinforce his implicit position as the head of the triumvirate, since both Damian and Jason were members of his court.
The low table was set with four places, the outer two of which were bare save for a single wine glass and the inevitable folded napkin. Cobb stopped halfway between the door and the table, his eyes narrowed as he glanced around the room, not bothering to hide his frown.
"You seem to have been invited after all," Arthur murmured in Ariadne's ear. "Shall we?" He tugged gently on her right hand, leading her toward the leftmost chair at the lower table.
Ariadne flicked a questioning glance toward Jean-Claude. He nodded subtly.
Arthur held the chair for her, only a tiny quirk in the corner of his mouth and a hint of warmth in the set of his eyes breaking the impassiveness of his face.
"Old habits?" Ariadne said softly as she seated herself.
"Mal appreciated the little touches," Arthur said, taking his own seat. He turned, hooking one arm over the chair back, and added, "Dom, stop trying to hold a staring contest with our host's chin. The sooner you sit down, the sooner we get dinner."
The Ulfric, the Executioner, and Jason all laughed. Ariadne studied them as unobtrusively as she could. She rarely saw the other members of Jean-Claude's triumvirate. Her involvement with the other preternatural groups in St. Louis was usually limited to learning the taste of their members' powers, then occasionally locating them so Jean-Claude could send messages to the appropriate places and thus gain the illusion of omniscience. That could be done quite easily by standing on the outskirts of a meeting or working as a servitor -- the way two young vampires and one human hanger-on were doing tonight, standing at attention behind the serving table in artfully slashed gold shirts and tight black trousers.
She had seen them both during the battle with the Earthmover, of course, but that was hardly a good gauge of their behavior in less fraught settings. They both seemed outwardly unprepossessing, just a small, solidly-built woman with curly black hair and a put-upon expression, and a tall, tanned man with loose brown hair and a tired set to his shoulders. She wore a leather jacket over a deep red blouse, while he had loosened his tie to undo the top button of his pale green shirt. They looked like a pair of tourists. Normal. Almost too normal -- which might explain part of why Jean-Claude was so drawn to them. Generally people who fell into the preternatural world accepted its values as their own, or died. It was rare for anyone to survive while still clinging to the notion that they belonged to mundane human society more than to the so-called monsters. Yet the Executioner and the Ulfric had not only lived but risen to positions of power.
Cobb took the seat beside Arthur, scowling down at the napkin on his plate. Asher sat smoothly to his right.
"Be welcome this night," Jean-Claude said, flicking his fingers toward the servers. "Anita, Richard, may I introduce Dominick Cobb and Arthur, lately of Oakland. They are here with information on the Council. Dominick, Arthur, may I introduce Anita Blake, also known as the Executioner, and Richard, Ulfric of the Thronnos Rokke clan. Jason you have met, and Damien you already know."
"It's an honor to meet you," Arthur said, his voice smooth and low. Beside him, Cobb gave an abrupt jerk of a nod.
"If you're not here to cause trouble, I'm glad to welcome you," the Ulfric said. His smile was full of implied teeth, though he projected more tired determination than actual threat.
"Yeah. About that. Why are they here, Jean-Claude?" the Executioner said, leaning forward with her elbows on the table. "More to the point, why are Richard and I here? Since when do you need us to play happy families in front of people who aren't vampires?"
"The Council's decisions concern us all, ma petite, as you may recall from the Traveler's and Beastmaster's visit," Jean-Claude said as the three servers carried over cups of French onion soup and bottles of red wine. They set soup before those who could eat, and poured wine for everyone. Ariadne raised her glass to her face and breathed in the scent. Then she ventured a tiny sip, barely enough to wet her tongue and ghost against the roof of her mouth.
Her throat tightened in protest, and she set the glass down, knowing she could not try again for a quarter hour at the least. Vampirism made the body violently incapable of ingesting anything but blood, but fluids could be tricked past the guard-posts a trickle at a time if one was careful. Red wine was the most popular choice -- its color could help trick the mind into suppressing the gag reflex, and if one could only taste pale echoes of true flavors, it was best to drink something that was already strong and complex.
At the high table, the Executioner was frowning at Jean-Claude. "Point taken," she said, "but we can't be all that important to the Council, no matter how much Padma hates us. I bet they make all kinds of decisions that don't mean a thing to you and your position."
"They do," Arthur said before Jean-Claude could answer. "However, neither Dom nor I would waste Jean-Claude's time with that sort of information. Our news concerns you all, Ms. Blake, whether directly or indirectly, and I am sure you understand the importance of being forewarned in potentially unstable situations." Beside him, Cobb grimaced into his soup.
The Executioner switched her glare to Arthur. "You're saying trouble's coming to St. Louis. Great. So why do you know about it, and what makes you care enough to warn us? I doubt it's out of the goodness of your hearts."
Ariadne tensed, but Arthur simply smiled. "I never said it was. We traded our warning for favors."
"Those being?" the Executioner asked, leaning forward with a suspicious expression.
"None of your business," Arthur said, still calm and smiling. "As for how we know... Dom and I may not have any official place in vampire society these days, but we know people who do, and some of them still owe us friendship or favors. We find it useful in our line of work."
"Arthur is, among other things, what you would call a bounty hunter, ma petite," Jean-Claude said before the Executioner could ask. "But he works within the community instead of from without, and thus can often resolve issues without unnecessary violence or disruption of territories. Since the death of his wife, Dominick has joined his friend."
The Executioner continued to glare at Arthur. "So you get paid to kill monsters, but you just help them be more careful or go rampage in other places? Nice. And if you don't have any official place in vampire society "these days," what place did you used to have? What dirty work did you do for--"
"I'm sure your little display of dominance posturing is very important to you, Anita," the Ulfric interrupted, setting down his spoon, "but I'd rather hear what these two people came to warn us about. The sooner we know, the sooner we can plan how to react."
Arthur's smile widened, though his pulse remained steady and his scent unruffled. "A man after my own heart," he said. "In brief, then: the Council has had an empty seat since the Earthmover's death. When Jean-Claude officially abdicated his claim on it through right of conquest, others began jockeying for position. It's come down to two claimants, and the Council has decided that their contest should take place where the Earthmover died. Fisher and Saito will arrive in St. Louis on Sunday night. The choice of challenge venue is yours."
Silence.
Arthur picked up his spoon and began to eat his soup.
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End Part Seventeen
continue to part 18
back to part 16
read the final version on AO3 (Trust me, you want to read the final version. The journal version is a beta draft, with all the errors that implies.)
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...I have a suspicion that my frequent annoyance at Anita (and often Richard) is bleeding through a bit more than I would prefer. Then again, I think if we weren't seeing the series through Anita's eyes, she would come off rather unpleasantly there, too. So this is mostly Anita without the mitigating effect of seeing her emotions and motivations from the inside... but yeah, some of it is just that I want someone to call her on her shit sometimes.
Richard too. Hamilton punishes him a lot, but mostly for things that aren't really his fault, while the issues he ought to deal with are either ignored or kicked down the road. Maybe this gets fixed after... I think I stopped reading around Cerulean Sins, maybe? The last book I clearly remember is Narcissus in Chains, but I must have read one or two beyond that to get fed up enough to quit the series. So Cerulean Sins or Incubus Dreams. (I KNOW I didn't read Danse Macabre, because I am sure I'd remember Jean-Claude opening a dance club. *wry*) Anyway, maybe Hamilton gets over her problem with Richard later in the series, but she was still treating him very awkwardly last I knew.
But enough of my blather.
Dreamwidth poll for quick responses!
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Weregild, part 17
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The great hall looked much more put together than it had when Ariadne had left the Circus. If she hadn't seen the construction under way, she might have thought this particular arrangement had been in place for months. The Persian rugs on the hastily assembled dais were laid out as if with a ruler, the place settings were equally precise, the napkins folded into elaborate cloth origami flowers, the chandelier sparkled as its crystals caught flickering candlelight from the wall sconces, and the serving table steamed with something rich and French.
The real difference, of course, was the collection of people sitting at the high table. Jean-Claude held pride of place in the center, with the Executioner at his right hand and the Ulfric at his left. Damian sat next to the Executioner and Jason sat next to the Ulfric, which was both a way to allow Jean-Claude's partners a subordinate of their own and a way to reinforce his implicit position as the head of the triumvirate, since both Damian and Jason were members of his court.
The low table was set with four places, the outer two of which were bare save for a single wine glass and the inevitable folded napkin. Cobb stopped halfway between the door and the table, his eyes narrowed as he glanced around the room, not bothering to hide his frown.
"You seem to have been invited after all," Arthur murmured in Ariadne's ear. "Shall we?" He tugged gently on her right hand, leading her toward the leftmost chair at the lower table.
Ariadne flicked a questioning glance toward Jean-Claude. He nodded subtly.
Arthur held the chair for her, only a tiny quirk in the corner of his mouth and a hint of warmth in the set of his eyes breaking the impassiveness of his face.
"Old habits?" Ariadne said softly as she seated herself.
"Mal appreciated the little touches," Arthur said, taking his own seat. He turned, hooking one arm over the chair back, and added, "Dom, stop trying to hold a staring contest with our host's chin. The sooner you sit down, the sooner we get dinner."
The Ulfric, the Executioner, and Jason all laughed. Ariadne studied them as unobtrusively as she could. She rarely saw the other members of Jean-Claude's triumvirate. Her involvement with the other preternatural groups in St. Louis was usually limited to learning the taste of their members' powers, then occasionally locating them so Jean-Claude could send messages to the appropriate places and thus gain the illusion of omniscience. That could be done quite easily by standing on the outskirts of a meeting or working as a servitor -- the way two young vampires and one human hanger-on were doing tonight, standing at attention behind the serving table in artfully slashed gold shirts and tight black trousers.
She had seen them both during the battle with the Earthmover, of course, but that was hardly a good gauge of their behavior in less fraught settings. They both seemed outwardly unprepossessing, just a small, solidly-built woman with curly black hair and a put-upon expression, and a tall, tanned man with loose brown hair and a tired set to his shoulders. She wore a leather jacket over a deep red blouse, while he had loosened his tie to undo the top button of his pale green shirt. They looked like a pair of tourists. Normal. Almost too normal -- which might explain part of why Jean-Claude was so drawn to them. Generally people who fell into the preternatural world accepted its values as their own, or died. It was rare for anyone to survive while still clinging to the notion that they belonged to mundane human society more than to the so-called monsters. Yet the Executioner and the Ulfric had not only lived but risen to positions of power.
Cobb took the seat beside Arthur, scowling down at the napkin on his plate. Asher sat smoothly to his right.
"Be welcome this night," Jean-Claude said, flicking his fingers toward the servers. "Anita, Richard, may I introduce Dominick Cobb and Arthur, lately of Oakland. They are here with information on the Council. Dominick, Arthur, may I introduce Anita Blake, also known as the Executioner, and Richard, Ulfric of the Thronnos Rokke clan. Jason you have met, and Damien you already know."
"It's an honor to meet you," Arthur said, his voice smooth and low. Beside him, Cobb gave an abrupt jerk of a nod.
"If you're not here to cause trouble, I'm glad to welcome you," the Ulfric said. His smile was full of implied teeth, though he projected more tired determination than actual threat.
"Yeah. About that. Why are they here, Jean-Claude?" the Executioner said, leaning forward with her elbows on the table. "More to the point, why are Richard and I here? Since when do you need us to play happy families in front of people who aren't vampires?"
"The Council's decisions concern us all, ma petite, as you may recall from the Traveler's and Beastmaster's visit," Jean-Claude said as the three servers carried over cups of French onion soup and bottles of red wine. They set soup before those who could eat, and poured wine for everyone. Ariadne raised her glass to her face and breathed in the scent. Then she ventured a tiny sip, barely enough to wet her tongue and ghost against the roof of her mouth.
Her throat tightened in protest, and she set the glass down, knowing she could not try again for a quarter hour at the least. Vampirism made the body violently incapable of ingesting anything but blood, but fluids could be tricked past the guard-posts a trickle at a time if one was careful. Red wine was the most popular choice -- its color could help trick the mind into suppressing the gag reflex, and if one could only taste pale echoes of true flavors, it was best to drink something that was already strong and complex.
At the high table, the Executioner was frowning at Jean-Claude. "Point taken," she said, "but we can't be all that important to the Council, no matter how much Padma hates us. I bet they make all kinds of decisions that don't mean a thing to you and your position."
"They do," Arthur said before Jean-Claude could answer. "However, neither Dom nor I would waste Jean-Claude's time with that sort of information. Our news concerns you all, Ms. Blake, whether directly or indirectly, and I am sure you understand the importance of being forewarned in potentially unstable situations." Beside him, Cobb grimaced into his soup.
The Executioner switched her glare to Arthur. "You're saying trouble's coming to St. Louis. Great. So why do you know about it, and what makes you care enough to warn us? I doubt it's out of the goodness of your hearts."
Ariadne tensed, but Arthur simply smiled. "I never said it was. We traded our warning for favors."
"Those being?" the Executioner asked, leaning forward with a suspicious expression.
"None of your business," Arthur said, still calm and smiling. "As for how we know... Dom and I may not have any official place in vampire society these days, but we know people who do, and some of them still owe us friendship or favors. We find it useful in our line of work."
"Arthur is, among other things, what you would call a bounty hunter, ma petite," Jean-Claude said before the Executioner could ask. "But he works within the community instead of from without, and thus can often resolve issues without unnecessary violence or disruption of territories. Since the death of his wife, Dominick has joined his friend."
The Executioner continued to glare at Arthur. "So you get paid to kill monsters, but you just help them be more careful or go rampage in other places? Nice. And if you don't have any official place in vampire society "these days," what place did you used to have? What dirty work did you do for--"
"I'm sure your little display of dominance posturing is very important to you, Anita," the Ulfric interrupted, setting down his spoon, "but I'd rather hear what these two people came to warn us about. The sooner we know, the sooner we can plan how to react."
Arthur's smile widened, though his pulse remained steady and his scent unruffled. "A man after my own heart," he said. "In brief, then: the Council has had an empty seat since the Earthmover's death. When Jean-Claude officially abdicated his claim on it through right of conquest, others began jockeying for position. It's come down to two claimants, and the Council has decided that their contest should take place where the Earthmover died. Fisher and Saito will arrive in St. Louis on Sunday night. The choice of challenge venue is yours."
Silence.
Arthur picked up his spoon and began to eat his soup.
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End Part Seventeen
continue to part 18
back to part 16
read the final version on AO3 (Trust me, you want to read the final version. The journal version is a beta draft, with all the errors that implies.)
---------------------------------------------
...I have a suspicion that my frequent annoyance at Anita (and often Richard) is bleeding through a bit more than I would prefer. Then again, I think if we weren't seeing the series through Anita's eyes, she would come off rather unpleasantly there, too. So this is mostly Anita without the mitigating effect of seeing her emotions and motivations from the inside... but yeah, some of it is just that I want someone to call her on her shit sometimes.
Richard too. Hamilton punishes him a lot, but mostly for things that aren't really his fault, while the issues he ought to deal with are either ignored or kicked down the road. Maybe this gets fixed after... I think I stopped reading around Cerulean Sins, maybe? The last book I clearly remember is Narcissus in Chains, but I must have read one or two beyond that to get fed up enough to quit the series. So Cerulean Sins or Incubus Dreams. (I KNOW I didn't read Danse Macabre, because I am sure I'd remember Jean-Claude opening a dance club. *wry*) Anyway, maybe Hamilton gets over her problem with Richard later in the series, but she was still treating him very awkwardly last I knew.
But enough of my blather.
Dreamwidth poll for quick responses!
Poll #8368 Weregild, part 17
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 7
What did you think of this section?
I read this section.
7 (100.0%)
I liked this section.
7 (100.0%)
I would like to read more of this story.
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0 (0.0%)
Tickybox!
5 (71.4%)
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And yeah, Jean-Claude is implying that Arthur -- in his freelance days before meeting Mal and Dom, and now again after Mal's death -- has been known to solve problems by getting a rogue lycanthrope or vampire under the control of a more dominant member of the preternatural community rather than by killing the murderer in question. That is guaranteed to rub Anita absolutely raw. (Anita can be hypocritical about her morals, but there is no denying that she has them. In fact, one of her problems is that she is a little too invested in her morals -- she lacks flexibility and a sense of perspective -- and when events keep driving her past her lines in the sand, she begins to consider herself a monster instead of realizing that nobody could live up to the ideals she was trying to set herself. That leads to all kinds of problems.)
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I'm impressed with how well these two fandoms are meshing. You've done a great job. :D I hope you do continue writing this, it's a great story!
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Comment on the post, not the story. (Sorry!)
Well, Richard was based on her first husband, whom she is now divorced from. And from how she writes Richard in later books, it's clear she's *still* basing him on her ex. : /
As I find myself unable to reconcile the Anita from the earlier books with the character bearing the name in the later books, I've come to consider the series over after Obsidian Butterfly.
Wikipedia references a review of the series that ends with, " "Hamilton chronicles Anita's escapades with a growing air of ennui, which longtime readers can't help sharing as sex increasingly takes the place of plot and character development." Which sums up 70% of my problems with where the series went; the other 30% of my grievance mostly lies with how her decision to no longer allow anyone to edit her books affected what remained of the quality of Anita's stories.
My ...disappointment... over what happened to a series/character I once loved has kept me from reading your dabbling in that world, as much as I enjoy your writing. As such, I end with an apology for lack of con-crit for this and the previous parts of Weregild. (I hope to get over my mental block and go back through your posts at some point.)
Re: Comment on the post, not the story. (Sorry!)
Anyway, the focus of "Weregild" is on the Inception characters and the Anitaverse WORLD rather than on the Anitaverse characters. Hopefully that will make it easier to read, should you wish to attempt working past your mental block.
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Short scene, but oh, the clash between Arthur and Anita! Very enjoyable. I also liked the bit of worldbuilding about vampires and wine. and omgeee conflict coming to StLouis ohohohoho~
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The wine stuff comes from a line in Burnt Offerings, where Anita is narrating about Jean-Claude: He couldn't drink wine more than a sip at a time and mourned it. That suggests to me that though vampires can't eat -- which is made much of, since Jean-Claude can only taste food via Anita, and takes great pleasure in getting her to eat lavish dinners -- they can drink fluids other than blood, if only a tiny bit at a time. So for them, drinking wine is like an indulgent drug habit or something. :-)
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The plot reveal at the end is so exciting! I'm excited to see what happens with Fischer and Saito and of course, with our three main characters :)
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I have Plans for this story, oh yes. *steeples fingers evilly*