Tidus was beginning to get tired of the silence and one-sidedness of this conversation, "You may think I am bluffing... but I suspect not." He took a deep breath and nodded slowly, "I see that the only way to really make you believe and perhaps get a few answers is to show you..." The mage, tired of always being on guard and fearing for the life of his friends, prepared the spell.

His lips moved quickly as words came out, strange words, but they were less than a whisper and nothing could be defined or picked out for certain. Soon Dazrath would feel bonds holding body and soul together weakening, it would feel almost like a drunkenness but his mind would be clear. Once Tidus saw the man physically waver in anyway a word of immense power was uttered and the slightly weakened bonds would give and the corporal and spiritual portions of the man would be torn asunder. Excruciating pain, blinding even would rack the body probably making a person cry out in agony only surpassed by perhaps the fires of what afterlife the evil went to.

Tidus would give the assassin's spirit time to take in the sight of his own body but only just enough. Then a second word came and threw Dazrath's soul back into his body with the likeness of a cannon ball hitting a brick wall. Tidus then stood there waiting to see the life flicker in the man's eyes, "Why am I to be killed? Who ordered it?!" the last question he shouted much louder than he had intended. Tidus' rage was boiling over, his exhaustion, injuries, and stress of the past days were building and adding to it and it took quite a bit of effort not to simply kill the person before him. Then the question came into his mind, could he really kill the man?

Bianca jumped, startled by the sudden ruckus outside of Tidus's chamber door. The sound of the chosen watch woman trying to hush and cast the boy away was enough reason for Bianca to release Donovan's hand from her own and begin to swing her legs from under the sheets and over the edge of the comfortable bed. The bed ridden young woman lept up from the news that was loudly shouted, "Oh my, what could have happened?!" she said, her eyes darted about the room for something to throw over her chemise. Instantly she was quite worried about her and Donovan's dear friend the house mage, Bianca too much in a hurry to find out what could have happened to start dressing herself fully. "Oh my God, Donovan, what if Tidus was attacked by that assassin you told me about?" and if the horse was bleeding, it was more than likely whatever attack struck the horse would have more than likely struck the house mage too. One of Tidus's robes were hung off to the side, Bianca rushing over and began to clothe herself with it. "Donovan, we have to go down at once!" Tidus had aided her many times before when she was ill or injured, and she would be damned if she would allow her recent state to hold her back from aiding her friend. Her hands flung her raven mane over her shoulders, green-gray orbs filled with immense worry glanced over to her lover - she knew he too would want to rush to Tidus's side.

Dazrath's mantra did not eternally recur. At first, he began to feel the meaning of the words slipping, his mental grasp upon them lessening, their meaning dwindling. It was almost like he had consumed too much ale.

Disorientated, almost floating in a void, his mind slowly began to negotiate and regain equilibrium. What would come next however would uncloud his mind fully, and bring him straight down to earth with cataclysmic impact. It would even take him deep beneath the ground and into a hell he never knew existed.

There were no twinges, no prior warning of what was to come. There was simply pain. A moment of pain where none before, white hot and acute, jagged and loathsome. It overrode his senses and felt like a saw cutting through his naked heart. Amid the devastation of the explosion he could see nothing, hear nothing else. His mind could not parley with that—could not try and mingle with it. Dazrath’s scream was a cacophony of noise.

After that wrenching sensation, the pain seemed to subside and his sight faintly return. But it felt like he was cautiously opening the curtains because the pain . . . well, he knew it could quite easily break out on him again. He had no wont to experience it a second time. Dazrath did regain enough awareness to realise that he was moving . . . but it broke beyond all rationale. He wasn’t really moving. This was a movement felt keenly outside his body.

The suffering assassin found himself moving around the room, through alien eyes. The wizard was there, the store room surrounds. But then he glimpsed a familiar form splayed over a crate. It was himself! There was more pain then—nothing to what had come before though—as Dazrath’s spirit resumed his corporeal body.

Dazrath's mantra was lost. He heard the wizard’s questions, felt his growing anger, and knew he needed to answer them. The fabrications he had made up in his mind were null and void.

“Sunetra ordered me to do it,” his hoarse throat revealed. “She was working for a member of the Quartet. I don’t know who.”

Tidus listened to the screams and did not flinch but watched as the body went limp and the spirit came forth and then when it returned he could see it rattled the assassin he was very please that some answers began to flow.

"Why? Why, am I to be killed. I'm only looking out for the house and for, the soon to be, new lord!" he shook his head slowly as he began to get more irritated, and sighed, "Now I suppose the question is what to do with you now. Perhaps turn you over to the Inspector? But he would likely be forced to turn you loose by unseen forces and then I'll have a dangerous man out for me and those I care about. So perhaps I should just re-perform the separation, you'd eventually pass and fade." he thought a while "Or perhaps you can tell me more about the Quartet..." The mage stood there watching closely searching for hints of lies, for which Dazrath would likely pay dearly for.

Donovan listened to the boy’s words and his urgency and it set his heart racing. “Dear god!” he exclaimed.

Bianca was rising up, and Dononvan had to casually subdue her, had to steer her back onto the bed by holding her shoulders and gently suppressing her. “I don’t want you going into the thick of it! If there is danger, think what could happen to you, to our child,” he implored.

“Wait here,” he cried.

The advisor swung back around to the boy, “Where is Tidus?”

“One of the store rooms sir,” replied the boy hastily.

“Good lad, no go tell the captain.”

With that, Donovan swept from the room, shouting for guards. “Watch Bianca!” he called to the first he met. To those others he found, he urged: “To the store rooms. At once! Something has happened to Tidus!”

Donovan carried himself down there with little thought for his own safety. He wasn’t sure what was up, but it did not sound good in the slightest.

Her expression slightly softened into dissapointment as Donovan slowly and gently led her back toward the bed.
Lips parted to speak but her lover beat her to it, giving understandable reasons why she should not go along with him.
But a part of her wanted to debate, wanted to give him good reasons why she should follow and see the state of their
friends well being! Bianca's eyes searched Donovan's face hoping to see him have a change of thought, but he didn't.
With a shout he was gone, his voice echoing through the halls of the great Noble house. She huffed in frustration, quickly standing and tightening the robe about her body, "With the guards that are following Donovan's order I do not see what danger would possibly threaten me!" thought Bianca as she swiftly exited Tidus's chamber, sneaking by the watch woman who was busy blabbing with a passing servant about the excitement occurring. As she quickly went about the corner her eyes caught a glimpse of a gaurd rushing to Tidus's chamber, the watch woman and guard leaning in and discovering she was not there. That was her que to get to the storerooms as fast as she could before she was found. Barefeet smacked against the ground as she ran, her black curls bouncing about, her white chemise and robe swaying and swishing against her limbs. Within a minute she would find where Donovan had headed and where Tidus would be. Surely she would hear the ruckus of the guards! Servants lept out of the way as Bianca ran past them.

Dazrath was weary. The whole experience had brought pain and now with it fatigue. His mind, his body, his very soul felt tainted, felt addled-with.

The assassin knew some of the answers to the questions, he knew of Sunetra and what she was capable of, but he really didn’t know much beyond that. He was after all merely a servant working to the ends of his mistress.

“The Quartet . . . Wicked Quartet,” he breathed, swaying unsteadily upon the crate. “I don’t know the members.”

It was unclear from his tone if he spoke the truth or not: the weariness had overtaken his very words and syllables. There was no arrogance or swagger about him now, Dazrath a very different beast from the man during their battle. When the assassin glanced up and saw the look on the wizard’s face, he knew that he meant business, so he responded. “The inspector . . . the constabulary is crooked. Some say he’s a member.”

It was unwitting misinformation this time, Dazrath merely repeating a rumour he had heard.

By the silence that was about the storerooms it seemed as if Bianca had somehow beat Donovan and the guards there. Frantically she looked about, "Tidus!" she shouted out praying that her friend would answer to her voice. She knew all too well that Donovan would be following in tow any moment, "Tidus!" Bianca yelled out again, looking from storeroom to storeroom.
Something stiffened in Bianca for she could smell blood in the air, the familiar smell traveling up her nose. A hand rested against her belly through the robe, a slight queezy feeling creeping up on her. Her voice continued to call out into the storerooms until finally, by luck after searching all the others, she went through the door that held Tidus and surprisingly, the young man who had attempted to talk to her in Variens the other day. A gasp released from her, the man not looking handsome anymore, but bloody and battered. "Y..You!" she stammered over her words, green gray eyes looking to Tidus then to the man.

Tidus nodded slowly, "I had heard much the same, so I suppose you'll be staying here since I can hardly trust others to properly keep you." he jumped as Bianca popped into the store room. His eyes went wide, "Bianca?! I thought I told you to rest, this is no place for you in your condition. You've over done it once already, now off with you! Donovan obviously doesn't know you're in here so be off before he gets back and leave this man to me."

Turning back to Dazrath he frowned, "What did you do to her?" his anger that had been dissipating until now was instantly stoked, "If you had laid a finger on her I will put your through torture that you could only imagine!" he began bear down on him, "If you come after any in this house or under my protection I swear by whatever you hold dearest that I'll unleash every dark spirit, demon, and curse I know for as long as I draw breath." He was breathing heavy now adrenaline was pumping through his veins.

Flinging himself away before he strangled the assassin with his bare hands he removed the upper portion of his robe and let it hang to the waist leaving a vest and a light shirt that was drenched from his shoulder wound from the battle. He spread the split in the fabric and pressed lightly at the wound and winced. He would have to take some time and treat it properly. He sighed through the pain his mind clearing a little. He realized he was becoming extremely volatile in this setting he didn't know how long it would be before he completely exploded and what would actually happen when and if he did.

Turning back to Dazrath he looked down and began to pace, "Why am I to be killed?" he looked up and shook his head, "You probably don't know, you're just the guy who's supposed to do it... why doesn't help you kill a man does it?" he made a sound in disgust and frustration, "I should get someone to tend your wounds in any event... I'm in no condition to do so."

Bianca was startled as Tidus jumped from her sudden appearance, but her eyes were now glued to Dazrath, their interaction in Variens replaying in her mind. Tidus's warning to her was heard, but her mind was numbed from the realization that came to her. "He was merely trying to get information from me on the house Dilsynia, dear God..He could have killed me then and there if he wanted to." she thought, Tidus's sudden scorn on the young assassin bringing her from her world of thinking. Bianca noticed Tidus's heavy breathing and was not sure if it was from his anger or from his wounds. "Dear God!" she gasped seeing the drenched shirt, red with Tidus's blood, "How dare you ask me to leave you, dear friend, if you are injured so?!" instead of leaving the storeroom Bianca went further in. The raven haired woman stood beside him and bent down, hands tearing the thin white fabric at the bottom of her chemise. Green gray orbs kept taking glances of the injured assassin and then up to Tidus's wound. White fabric was clenched between her fingers as she gently gripped Tidus's arm to stop him from pacing, "So much anger.. It is going to make you bleed more, Tidus." her voice was smooth and calm, both hands wrapping the fabric she tore from her chemise around his wounded shoulder. Bianca felt that queezy feeling again as warm blood smeared onto her hands, "Tidus please sit down!" she asked, her eyes looking up to her friends with worry and distress. "He has not laid a finger on me, Tidus, he spared me any harm I assume. That day I was in Variens he had come up to me in a brothel - I merely thought he was paramored with me, simply flirting.. He was trying to ask me questions about the House, but I brushed him off and left!" she finally spoke of their interaction, hoping Tidus would not be too angry with her for not mentioning it sooner. Oh, she hoped Donovan would not be too angry with her that she didn't mention it to him either! "You were all so busy with matters of the house... I did not want to worry you with such a thing!", she pressed her hands firmly down onto Tidus's wound attempting to stop the bleeding.

Dazrath looked sullenly to the door, and saw the girl of yesterday that he had followed through town.

“The girl from the whore house.” The assassin looked to Tidus, and saw the mounting tension within him. Unflustered, he replied: “I didn’t touch her, but I can’t vouch for anyone else in that place.”

Dazrath said these words as Donovan entered, a company of guards at his back.

“Tidus! Bianca!” exclaimed the advisor. “You’re okay!?” He almost swooned, seeing the wizard was injured, given his bloody shirt. Bianca was attending him. He had told her not to come down here! But a look of worry came over Donovan’s features, that his friend was in pain, but at least Tidus looked well enough and to be surviving. The house advisor then caught sight of Dazrath and he somehow instantly knew that he was responsible for their woe. The command was on his lips for the guards to seize and restrain him, but then Donovan realised the man was already subdued.

“You’ve . . . you’ve got him—the assassin?”

Tidus winced and almost swore as Bianca pressed his wound which had indeed started to bleed again. He brushed her hands off of himself and looked at her being all the more frustrated, "Bianca?! You should have said something sooner... you knew that a man was killed here... I thank whatever spirits are looking after you that you were not harmed for Donovan's sake." he moved and shook his head slowly calming down giving a glance to the assassin as Donovan and a good number of house guards came close behind. Donovan's shocked question probably all the more distressed that he himself was injured and Bianca obviously came here without his knowledge, "Bianca go... I will follow shortly," he spoke softly and calmly and looked at Donovan, "Yes, this man is responsible for the death of the monk and my injuries... he has also told me that he received the contract for my head from the Wicked Quartet." he paused a long while his elixir he had taken prior to the interrogation was wearing off and his body was feeling the extreme fatigue.

He pulled his cloak up again with some effort and a good amount of pain, "The killer needs his wounds tended to... and probably some rest I have interrogated him thoroughly... I... I need to rest..." he started to head from the store room and he paused leaning on the door, "I want my saddle bags in my room so I can go over them... after I rest of course." he glanced back and smiled a little, "Don't worry Donovan, you and yours are safe..." he nodded slowly and began to head back to the house hoping to make it to his room.

Bianca De'Amionette Bianca jumped a little from the tone that Tidus suddenly acquired, his hands gently swatting hers away from his wound. When she had first decided to not inform the House Wizard and her darling Donovan it had seemed the wisest idea to not inform them on the man that asked her suspicious questions on the Grand House itself. Now the raven haired beauty now questioned her common sense for a moment, her eyes looking away and avoiding Tidus's face. Oh, and she did not even to dare to see Donovan's facial expressions - she knew he would be at least a little angry with her for disobeying him and coming down to the storerooms. But her downspirals of green gray did look to Dazrath one last time before she finally turned and this time obeying an order and taking her leave, torn hem of her chemise

swaying against her legs, same with the white fabric of the robe. As Bianca reached the outsides of Tidus's chamber the watch woman swarmed her, two guards following. "Oh my! Lady Bianca, are you injured?" gasped the watch woman, the guards quickly looking over her, "There is blood!" said a guard. The young raven haired beauty did her best to explain to them that she was tending to the house wizard and it was from his wounds, but they still had a sense of panic to them. Ushered into the room, the guards closed the door, the watch woman rushing her over to a wash pan to help Bianca clean the blood from her sun-kissed skin, not so flushed anymore.[end]


Donovan Konvarc'h: Dazrath realised the wizard was giving him fair treatment and did not retaliate with further commentary. He could have needled the man further, could have played on his rage—he could even play on his friends and try and get them flustered and angered, too—but what good would it him? He would simply be tortured further. Besides, Dazrath felt tired, his soul and strength diminished.

Donovan nodded to Tidus, “Get some rest my friend,” he called. Bianca moved out of his range then, but in any event Donovan had to attend matters of security. The captain of the guard had by this stage appeared at the storeroom door. Donovan beckoned him in, “This is the man who killed the monk yesterday, the man who attacked Tidus.”

“His contract arose from the Wicked Quartet. Can we get his wound cleaned up? And watch him at all times.”

Donovan discussed a few more matters then left the room to approach Bianca . . .

Bianca De'Amionette Once her hands were washed well and no traces of blood could be found the watch woman ordered someone fetch a new chemise and robe for the Lady. The guards were cast outside as stripped down from the clothes she wore, another order from the woman to the sun-kissed Lady. Bianca was ordered to sit and stay on the bed, and she listened, one hand upon her stomach and the other on her lap. It was rather soothing as the woman began to bath her legs and arms with a clothe, "Poor Lady, you must be exhausted!" cooed the watch woman, Bianca disagreeing in her mind. "How could I be tired with what is going on? she thought, the watch woman beginning to blab away on how she should have listened to Donovan and stayed in the room.


Donovan Konvarc'h: Donovan left the store room but found his enervated bride-to-be Bianca gone, rather conveniently displaced to evade his reprimand. He had suspected she would still come down here. He should have just taken her with him. Donovan had hoped to be first on the scene but had been forced to step-in and prevent a number of loud, bickering nobles from fighting near the entrance antechamber.

The advisor trudged upstairs to Tidus’s quarters. Did the weight of the world need to be upon their shoulders?

It didn’t, he decided.

Still, Donovan’s stance mellowed and his shoulders relaxed a little. Bianca cared for Tidus as a friend just as much as Donovan did. Poor Tidus looked drawn out, but at least he was safe. He had encountered that vile assassin—but under what circumstances? Had that foreign-looking man attacked the wizard? Had they battled? They would only know the particulars later.

The mention of the Wicked Quartet was a chilling and sobering thought. The look on Donovan and the guards’ faces as Tidus had revealed that titbit would have commissioned a priceless canvas worthy of Bianca’s measured hand and eye. The ‘Quartet was but a rumour of yesteryear, a surreptitious cult of supposed villains and evildoers who were alleged to actively discredit and disrupt the Monarchy—at the time around its establishment, in 251.

In stark competition to these claims, the monarchy survived without major incident. No-one knew of any Quartet in deed, anything concrete about its members, and there was no evidence to suggest contrary or that such a group existed. Nobles laughed it off that the Quartet was just a conglomerate of senile dock workers angered at the one-sided flow of wealth and affluence within Variens city. It was true that the rich got everything and the poor . . . well the poor got very little at all. That resonated clearly in the ears and hearts of the citizens.

That this group existed, then, should probably not come as a surprise. But what interest did they have in assassinating a wizard from a reputable trading house? There was no question that they saw Tidus as a threat. Donovan pondered contacting Inspector Farishel, but almost immediately discounted the notion. Who could they trust? No-one outside House Dilysnia seemed inclined to help, or to offer assistance with their apparent issues.

Donovan opened the door and glided into the room, his mind filled with many thoughts, his wolf-shaped earring baying in motion. Bianca was being bathed. Her back was to him, so he skipped gently back around the door frame in quiet modesty. Tidus was not there yet. Bianca was listening to the mild-mannered rants of the old maid, something about her son returning from a long journey in weariness and in need of some good warm broth.

Donovan knew Tidus would want to recoup, refocus and gain strength. “We should retire to my room once you finish bathing Bianca, and we can extend Tidus some peace and quiet,” he spoke softly. “I promise to look after you.”

Tidus was indeed stretched thin, he took the protection of the house into his own hands and didn't trust another to the task. Sure the house guard were skilled but he had a feeling before and knew for certain now that the house guard weren't likely to get much action the assassin didn't seem to have any trouble getting around them.

Perhaps now this mysterious and dark force, the Wicked Quartet, would lay back. Tidus shook his head as he came up the stairs, "Should I be so lucky..." he sighed and turned into the room barely registering Donovan and Bianca. He walked behind a folding curtain and began to tend his wound. Soft swears and a couple of crashes punctuated his efforts as he sat stripped to the waist using a basin, herbs, needle and some silk thread. Between stitches he called across the barrier, "Make sure she rests... and no arguing Lady, or I'll make sure you sleep through the day." his tone sounded a little lighter and not as harsh as it did down in the store room. After the stitching was finished he laid back on his bed and simply collapsed falling asleep. Sleep he would until midday not the following but the day after due to the side effects of the elixir he drank just prior to the interrogation.

The click of the door knob caught her attention away from the watch woman's bickering, piercing green gray hues looking up to see the handsome figure of her soon to be husband. She took in a nervous breath, scent of the oils the nurse maid rubbed onto her lovely skin, "Alright darling.. I will come right to your privy chamber at once." said Bianca, her voice as soft as creme, smooth like the tickling of a goose feather. "The Lady will leave once I am done with her," piped in the maid, "blood all over her, that is bad for the child!" the maid continued to scrub whatever limb she hadn't scrubbed, brush whatever hair she didn't brush. Donovan's soft response warmed her heart, oh he had always taken care of her, loved her! Bianca began to slightly fidget, becomming restless, wanting to leave Tidus's chamber now and go with her husband to be. She felt a yank at her raven hair, the maid beginning to finely braid it, tieing the end with a white ribbon.

Suddenly Tidus came into the room, her muscles stiffening as she caught glimpse of his wounds, clothing bloody. Smell of blood quickly overcame her perfumes, the led scent strong in her nose. Bianca felt that queezy feeling as she did down in the storeroom. "Yes Tidus." Bianca said, responding back to his cool tone that delivered the order.

"Now off with you!" said the maid, after ushering Bianca to stand and placing her royal blue silken house robe around her and tying it tightly. Instantly she was by the door with Donovan, eyes bashful and lashes lowered, hand lovingly brushing his.