In Which Our Heroine Time Skips Into The Waiting Arms Of Trouble... Again

"Can I get you something to drink?"

My guest of sorts looked up from the thick stack of papers he held in his gloved hands. He was dressed plainly, a brown trench coat pulled tightly around his gangly frame with a tricorn hat resting on top of his head. His beard was thin and dark, a stark contrast to the pale skin of his gaunt face. His eyes were blue and piercing, his gaze hardened by decades of seeing some serious shit. He wore no decoration of his office, safe for a small silver pin on the lapel of his coat. I couldn't make out the twisting geometric design, which seemed to transform into something new every time I glanced at it--but I knew what it meant. Inquisitor.

I pressed on. "I mean, we're gonna' to be here all night anyway. I may as well be a good host or something."

The Inquisitor regarded me in silence for several moments before returning his attention to his reading. "I'll take a glass of water, if you don't mind."

With a nod, I shuffled off to the kitchen, grabbing a clean glass from the cupboard and flipping on the faucet. As I waited for the water to run cold, I glanced out the window into the nighttime sky. Moonlight glinted off the curved mythril of a face mask, its wearer perched cautiously on a neighboring roof. A soft amber glow came from the mask's eye holes, flaring temporarily in curiosity when our gazes met. I gave the figure the most imperceptible shake of my head as I turned the faucet off. Hyperion nodded in acknowledgment, and continued to keep watch as I turned back towards the living room.

"Thank you very much," my guest said as I set the glass on the table in front of him and took my seat once more. "This is quite the record you have here," he added, tapping the current page he was reading with the back of a hand. "Heir of a family of assassins, years of mercenary work, war criminal..."

The nonchalant way he said war criminal made me wince. It was the most accusatory thing ever; and yet incredibly dismissive, as if he dealt with people who murdered half an island nation every day before breakfast.

Given how much information he was able to dig up on me, let alone how he was able to find me so easily in the first place, he probably did.

"In my defense, I've paid the price for the war crimes," I offered with a dismissive hand gesture. "Three times over."

"Two and a half times, actually," he corrected me. "The boat never did make it to Terrinore, did it?"

A pregnant silence threatened to choke the two of us. A feeling of dread began to fester in the pit of my stomach. I knew the answer to the question before I even asked it-- "How much do you actually know?"

Inquisitor Gideon shifted in his chair and set the pile of papers down on the table with a heavy thud. "Enough to handle your case myself, Miss Freebird." He took another sip of water before continuing. "It's not often that someone like you manages to sneak into our fair country. It's even rarer that someone like you eludes our watchful eyes for two years."

"I suppose it helps that news never travels across the Kebiran Sea," I muttered darkly.

"News doesn't," he agreed, "but trouble does."

I exploded out of my chair. Amber light ignited from my eyes as I was overcome with a sudden spike of rage. "Do you think this is what I wanted? Do you think anything I've done is because I enjoyed it?"

The Inquisitor held up a hand to silence me. "Miss Freebird, please--"

I cut him off. "All my fucking life I've been a tool of destruction! From the day I was born, I was raised to be a cold-hearted killer! It's all I've ever been good at! My life has been an endless cycle of violence and bloodshed! And I'm fucking fed up with it!" I stood there, my breath coming out in ragged hisses, my briar-knit fists balled up tightly. Gideon sat there, emotionless, quiet, calculating.

"Every time I try to leave that life behind, it always finds a way to pull me back in! Eiskalt! The Red Forest! Alerar! What's left of Raiaera! Every single fucking time!"

I fell back down into my chair and buried my face in my hands. "I'm just tired of it. I thought I could just... run away from it all." A stream of tears began to trickle down my cheeks as I continued to unload years and years of pent-up frustration and disappointment on my guest. "I thought I could just come over here and start a new life. A life where I could be left alone by everyone and everything. Open a little bookstore, continue my research and experiments in peace."

"Maybe finally be fucking happy for a change," I said, my voice softer.

Gideon spoke carefully. "And yet, it seems that's not what the fates have in store for you."

The words of Pode and Xem'Zund echoed in my head. That I was the chosen heir to the Forgotten Ones. That I could not escape my destiny. "No," I quietly agreed. "No it is not."