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skyrimkinkmemeANNOUNCEMENTS: UPDATED 12/16/2017
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A Shadow in Solitude Tullius/F!PC [1b/?]
Date: 2013-04-09 08:29 am (UTC)Adara was annoyed. There was no chance to slip in her smart little line now. She left the anonymity of her shadowed self, revealing a small, strong body and clever black eyes. The two of them tilted their chins slightly, in greeting perhaps, but also in challenge.
“I don't go by Adara anymore,” she told him, coming to stand at his side. She had a slow, husky voice, thick with a true Hammerfell accent and only slightly blunted by a new life in the Imperial City.
They shook hands very briefly, before stepping away from each other. Tullius preferred to keep things distant, and it was a rule of hers to defer to preferences of the one with the gold. They made a sight, the General and the little shadow that knew gold and secrets and little else.
Adara was annoyed. There was no chance to slip in her smart little line now. She left the anonymity of her shadowed self, revealing a small, strong body and clever black eyes. The two of them tilted their chins slightly, in greeting perhaps, but also in challenge.
“I don't go by Adara anymore,” she told him, coming to stand at his side. She had a slow, husky voice and thick with a true Hammerfell accent, only slightly blunted by a new life in the Imperial City.
They shook hands very briefly, before stepping away from each other. Tullius preferred to keep things business-like, and it was a rule of hers to defer to preferences of the one with the gold. They made a sight, the General and the little shadow that knew gold and secrets and little else.
“What do you go by?” Tullius asked. “Safie? Rona?” He was a little older than she remembered, come to think of it. He looked sleepless, and worn around the edges, but the same stubborn pride remained. All soldiers were the same with their pride, but she admitted that Tullius was smarter than most, if a little impatient.
“Shae,” she said. It was true. Another rule of hers, Adara or Shae, to change her name with her location. “I'm late by a week. How did you know to wait?”
“I had soldiers posted, looking for you. You might even know a few of them. There's a doorway down by the archway in the marketplace. I want you to use that entrance from now on.”
“I don't make a habit of befriending Imperial soldiers. Oh, and I stopped in Windhelm,” Shae, yes she was Shae now, couldn't help but tease the man. Could anyone keep themselves from teasing a man so serious? She watched in amusement as General Tullius' eyes shot to hers, and how he subtly laid an old, calloused hand against the hilt of his sword. Dwarven make. It seemed the General was moving up in the world. “My reason for lateness. Thought I'd scout out the competitor. See if the Bear of Markarth had a better deal to make.”
“This is not the time to make jokes, Shae.” Shae, he said. Adara was a name he had never heard of now.
“Don't worry yourself, General,” she smiled. “The city is crumbling and I heard this True High King spends all of his gold on the war effort. There was nothing for me there. I presume this war, is what you contacted me about. Is the General getting tired of fighting fair?”
“What news of the Imperial City?” He ignored her taunts with ease. Irritating, and Shae was not irritated easily. But, the General had always possessed the uncanny ability to get under her skin with his complete disregard. It was as if, he bypassed her sex, and saw her only as another soldier to be moved and ordered as he saw fit, only this one he paid. He had none of the coyness, the flattery, of many of her other clients, only distance. It was both liberating, and stifling in a way, to Shae to be seen only for her affinity with shadows and secrets. A frown unfolded itself across Tullius' face. He paced as he spoke, his hands clasped behind his back once more.
A Shadow in Solitude Tullius/F!PC [1c/?]
Date: 2013-04-09 08:31 am (UTC)“You will have gold.”
“Very well. Motierre paid me to put out the word that he was retiring to his manor in the Jerall mountains. He and the Emperor argued daily for a week beforehand. In actuality he has gone to Skyrim, though I do not know why.”
“Aumand Motierre,” Shae watched General Tullius stalk to a table and begin counting out coins. She counted fifty of them, and smiled to herself. Tullius paid generously, even if he was hard to deal with sometimes. He snorted, always so cynical and never surprised.
“Yes. I expect he plans to kill the Emperor.”
“If the Emperor had a septim for every man who plotted to kill him, he could personally fund an army of mercenaries to sort this whole rebellion mess out,” Tullius told her. “I will see that Aumand doesn't succeed.”
“Good,” she reverted back to cheery, always trying to throw the General off-guard. “I liked the Emperor when I met him— he complimented my eyes.”
“And you complimented his 'pretty purple robes',” his quips always came out of the blue. One never expected them from such a reticent, brooding exterior. “And there were a few jabs about Hammerfell that soured the small talk, if memory serves me right.”
“Memory serves you right, General.” Shae smiled again. She had missed the man in a way. His coin more than his character, if she was honest. “You are not so old as to forget. And you will never forget dear Shae, I expect. Not whilst she harbours all your secrets.”
She isn't sure if she has annoyed, or amused him. He lets the comment slide over his head again, yet not through lack of authority. It is more as if, he feels himself so in charge that he needn't bother chastising her for such words. Instead, he changed the subject. “What did you think of Ulfric Stormcloak?”
“Ulfric Stormcloak?” Shae paused, only for a moment. “His men follow him blindly.”
“What do you think of him Ada--” ah, a slip of the tongue. “Shae.”
“He is far more charismatic than you.”
“You saw him?” He accepted the remark for what it was. A brutally honest statement. Nodded his head at it, as if he knew that, and it couldn't be changed.
“I visited him in his palace. He told me he understood my pain. That the Empire had abandoned Hammerfell as much as they had abandoned him. I told him I knew other Redguards who desired revenge and left.”
“You got inside the palace. You could do so again,” the General mulled, almost to himself. He didn't make any reaction to the hidden resentment that surfaced every time Hammerfell was mentioned. She wondered if he even noticed it was there. The General had only ever known her as a shadow of the Imperial City, not before.
Shae strode towards him where he still stood by the table. She scooped the fifty septims into her hands, and distributed them to a modest purse at her waist. Unlike the General, who's movements were accompanied with the constant rustle of his armour, her own buckled leather made barely a whisper.
“Yes,” she said. He was taller than her by a head, and seemed to glare at her down the bridge of his nose at her. They called it an Imperial nose, one like that. Strong, and slightly crooked. She rose an eyebrow in response to the look. “But you don't want me to kill him.”
Tullius turned from her. “I want this war to end,” he said, blunt as ever. Patience had never been the General's virtue. It was one of the reasons he had been persuaded to hire her, after his job had him spending lots of time at the Imperial Palace. In war, the man looked before he leaped, but he didn't like it. He was an honest man, and that had made him a target at court, years previous. But he had paid well, and Shae-- Adara, then-- had kept him safe.
“You want to kill him,” Shae stepped closer, so that they were near enough to shake hands again. She cocked her head to the side slightly, and wondered if she would vex him if she reached out and touched his arm. If it would ignite some reaction.
A Shadow in Solitude Tullius/F!PC [1d/?]
Date: 2013-04-09 08:33 am (UTC)“Then what is it you've called me to Skyrim for?” Her voice came out a little harsher than intended. Shae was no mere thief. Thievery was only one of her talents, and not one she relied on too frequently. “Just to chat? You forgot the part where you say, 'Shae! I missed you! How have you been?'!”
“I don't waste my time with sentiment,” said Tullius. A strange response. Did it mean, shut up and listen to my orders? Or was it a tacit way of saying he had missed her, his agent. His right hand that could sneak through the dark and keep the shadows at bay, so long as their was gold to pay her with.
Shae was unsure how to reply. This man was even more distant, even more weary and cynical than the Tullius she remembered at court. She wondered what the Queen in the Blue Palace and her own courtiers thought of him. If any of them plotted against him. It was time to change the subject again, she decided, and settled on teasing again.
“Castle Dour suits you,” she treated him to a flash of white teeth. His eyes moved to her lips only momentarily before he began pacing again. It was as if the man was surprised to see a smile. “I've never seen a building so miserable so craggy and miserable, and I live in the Talos District.”
“Legate Rikke will be here soon,”he replied, yet again with that infuriating indifference. “Run through the silly jokes you've saved, now. She's still skeptical of my plan. And you.”
“She?” Adara did just that. “Oh, but what does the city think, this woman sneaking into your rooms at sun-down? I expect they didn't think the old man had it in him.”
“I expect they think that the General and the Legate keep very long hours,” the General replied, stoically. Oh, he didn't like that particular joke. Adara opened her mouth to reel off another, but he interrupted.
“Stop,” suddenly, she caught a glimpse of an exhausted man beneath the stoic bearing of General. “I take it back. We'll leave the word games for after I've won the war, shall we?”
“If you wish it,” she said, but it was hard for Shae to keep herself from riling him. “We can exchange witty repartees over Ulfric Stormcloak's head on a platter. I'll find a Thalmor for dessert.”
That didn't amuse Tullius either. She felt that if a civil war wasn't raging about them, and so-called dragons tore through the skies, the General might have laughed at that one. Might have. Probably wouldn't have... Smirked perhaps, or grimaced his amusement. That was the Tullius equivalent of a laugh.
Instead, he cut to the chase. “I'm in a foreign land,” he said. She heard his voice gear up into speech mode. They were never charismatic his speeches, always blunt and down-to-earth, with none of the idealism that many other leaders used to generate morale. In Tullius' own words, he hadn't climbed the Imperial ranks by making pretty speeches. That in itself, was Shae's inspiration. “Thalmor on one side and Stormcloaks on the other. I'm only half sure the Gods want me to win.... Now, I need your word that you will stick by me.”
“So long as I get paid,” she told him.
Shae thought she might have seen a hint of dislike, or a slump in Tullius' shoulders at her words. But business was business, no matter how much she liked the client. But “yes,” he said, curving his dour mouth into a close-lipped grimace. “Your word that you will stick by me, so long as you are paid.”
He extended his arm, to seal the pact. In businesses such as this, a written contract was useless. Shae could only guess at the number of notes and letters she had burned before now.
For a few moments, she stared at the weathered olive skin, the bumps and callouses of his hand and the dirt beneath his nails. Then, Shae leaned forwards, and clasped it tightly in hers. An odd sight, Redguard and Imperial, smiling grimly at each other.
“It is good to be working for you again, General Tullius.”
A!A
Date: 2013-04-09 08:36 am (UTC)A!A apologies for any discrepancies in tense. Other fills that I'm filling are in present tense, and it's hard to switch between styles. There will be more in-depth Tullius things in later parts, when I get a bit more into the swing of it. I hope OP enjoyed. I was also a little put out at the lack of Tullius fill, come to think of it. It's the uniform, dammit. No, I don't know what it is. I never thought about it before this prompt. Glad to be filling it. :p
Re: A!A
Date: 2013-04-09 11:47 am (UTC)I didn't even know this was what I wanted until I read it. Shae is awesome, you've really brought her to life in so little time, and I love the little war of words she and Tullius have going on. I also think the way you wrote Tullius is perfect.
I really look forward to reading more.
I'm also not sure why so many Tullius prompts go unfilled. I think he's a really interesting character (obviously, since I prompted this). Maybe it's his age? Or how old he looks anyway, I'm fairly certain a number of those gray hairs and wrinkles are premature.
Anyway, I'm thrilled to see that this is not only being filled, but that it's being filled by such a talented A!A. I can't wait to read more!
Re: A Shadow in Solitude Tullius/F!PC [1d/?]
Date: 2013-04-09 02:28 pm (UTC)*Pitches tent and camps out*
Re: A Shadow in Solitude Tullius/F!PC [1d/?]
Date: 2013-04-09 03:21 pm (UTC)Shae and Tullius's interactions really remind me of Bronn and Tyrion (especially given her name. ^_~)
Re: A Shadow in Solitude Tullius/F!PC [1d/?]
Date: 2013-04-09 07:56 pm (UTC)Re: A Shadow in Solitude Tullius/F!PC [1d/?]
Date: 2013-04-09 04:27 pm (UTC)Re: A Shadow in Solitude Tullius/F!PC [1d/?]
Date: 2013-04-28 05:11 pm (UTC)Re: A Shadow in Solitude Tullius/F!PC [1d/?]
Date: 2013-05-03 01:18 am (UTC)Re: A Shadow in Solitude Tullius/F!PC [1b/?]
Date: 2013-04-09 08:41 am (UTC)