Post by kevna on Jan 6, 2022 22:54:20 GMT -5
Priyaanya:
She’d left the door open, the breeze always seemed to help Piros sleep. It also gave her every opportunity to listen to his breathing, the steady rhythm of it. The open door also gave him every opportunity to spy on her if he desired it-she knew he faked some of his naps-if only to know what she was up to. Of course, he would be curious. There wasn’t much else to be curious about out here. It amused her to think he laid there, breathing deeply, snoring, all the while trying to peer through barely closed lids to see her. At least he was resting when he did it, though she’d prefer he actually rest through sleep. Naps were important. Still, she’d take what she could get from the stubborn caprine.
Priyaanya looked over her shoulder at him, her rocking chair in a prime position for sight of his bed. It was positioned next to the door, just outside their little hut. It also gave her a somewhat good position to see the ocean and listen to the waves while she did whatever work was required while sitting down. If only her Ba wasn’t so incredibly suspicious, she would have the trees removed from the cliff top for better sight of the ocean. She studied her Ba for a moment, trying to measure whether he truly slept this nap or not. Deciding he probably was sleeping this day, she turned her gaze back towards the ocean, letting herself get lost in her thoughts.
She had gotten into the habit of dousing some of his foods, or drinks with certain sedative herbs or seed oil in an attempt to help him sleep. She knew how much his joints hurt him, how exhausted he was by the middle of the day. Being in a tropical zone did help somewhat with the severity, but it only did so much. Piros had caught her out more often than not, and it had become a game between them, her drugging him, and him catching her (or failing to and grumpily taking a necessary nap). Though she thought a nap necessary for him whether he was drugged or not. He had even taken his own turn with trying to drug her, and she had woken from her awkward nap on her chair quite embarrassed, and a little annoyed. Then she had started hiding her herbs she used on him, though it never took him long to find her hiding spots. Well, not until she started using the great outdoors to assist her hiding spots. Those had been harder for Piros to find or reach, in some of the higher more difficult hiding spots she had used. His arthritis truly was getting the better of him, for the hiding spot would not have been much of a hiding spot for a younger Piros.
They had come up with all sorts of games, all of which originated in her trying to care for the stubborn fool, and him trying to avoid her care of him. He also had doubled his time in training her. For a man with arthritis, he could still surprise her with his quick and nimble tricks, so much so she had wondered if he faked the pain…. She was pretty sure he hadn’t. Pretty sure. Surely he just pushed himself. Surely those were the days he let her drugging of him, her leaf infusions pass, so he could have some relief and nap. Surely.
The doubt annoyed her though. She couldn’t help but doubt. Piros was one of the best Master Spies in the world, she was sure of it. Priya would be, once he was gone from this world, Faranth willing that was far off still. But his skills, his character, everything about him made her doubt. What did he fake? When did he fake? There wasn’t much she was truly sure of, other then the fact that he loved her, and his other children. That at least she was sure of.
They wouldn’t be here, not if Piros didn’t love her. He would still be doing what he loved, spying, tricking, assassinating, until the day he stopped drawing breath. Probably the day the job killed him. She doubted much anything else could kill him, not even time. At this point, Piros would probably live forever.
Priyaanya smiled at the thought and looked over her shoulder to spy on her father and his sleep again. Yes, he had to be sleeping. They had done some tricky knife maneuvers today, and her steeping her Ba’s beer with hop leaves and then the barest amount of powdered aconite root sprinkled in it had truly tricked him. It was impossible to taste. She would have to try that on a guard at some point, even for all the work it was. It would be worth it.
She stood up quietly and used all of her training to sneak back into the hut and grab the little pouch with in her bag. She glided back to her chair and deposited herself back into it with a lightness that had been trained into her. She didn’t risk looking back one last time to check on Piros. He was either sleeping, or spying, and there was no use letting him think what she did was so important as to look once again at him, doubting his sleep.
She grabbed the letters within the pouch, pulling them out and studying them. She smiled again to herself, a little proudly. Each letter came from a different hold. Multiple different holds in actuality. The first originated from Benden Hold, though it had traveled to High Reaches Weyr, then to Southern Boll, and then finally to Ierne Hold, before it made it last trip to the Ruins of Remath Hold. She doubted her brother knew of her contact with the woman in Benden Hold, but to one had to be careful when it came to her brother and what he did and did not know. He was smart, she could grant him that much, and caution was never a bad thing. The second letter had been much more difficult, seeing as it had been from Mira, her niece by Piruntos, her half-brother. The man that had partially raised her and then had tried multiple times to cause her untimely death. She and Mira had been close. Would still be close if Mira didn’t think that Priyaanya were dead. Her half-brother’s last attempt to kill her, and she had allowed everyone to think it had been successful. Everyone thought her dead, everyone with the acceptance of three people. Piruntos, who never got his assassin back. Asirikai, who had hidden her when she had appeared in his room wounded. And Piros.
Mira’s letter was actually addressed to a Renla, would was, by Renla’s account, an old contact and friend of Priyaanya’s from Monaco Bay Weyr. Of course, Piruntos probably knew that Renla was actually Priya-which is why the process of the letters being delivered was far more complex- but the risk was worth it, and she knew her being alive was a secret Piruntos would keep to himself. It’s much easier to kill someone who is already dead. Plus, if he ended up revealing how he knew she was alive, it would bring out his involvement in her actual almost death.
She looked at the letters, considering her life, and what had led her here. Skulking. In the shadows. She should have taken care of Piruntos when she had the chance. Next time, because there would be a next time, she wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. And she wouldn’t make his mistake, hiring someone else. She did her own dirty work. It was the only way to assure the work got done, and done right.
Priya sighed, her eyes moving from the letters to the ocean again. How she missed the work. She would never forgive Piruntos for doing this to her. To them. Forcing Piros to be the coward-being someone that Piros loved enough to force them here. Away from the work. The world. The knowledge. No. The death would be slow. Maybe a poison served over multiple doses, drag out the pain, his death. Mira’s pain would be the only regret his death would cause her. But Mira was a young woman now, no child that would need her father. She would fall in love with some soft man and forget about Piruntos.
“Well, are you going to read them or not?” The growl could have made her jump. She suppressed the surprise, though not the grimace. “Really Ba, you should be sleeping.”
“Hard to sleep when you’re over there sighing.” The growl replied, and she looked over her shoulder to see him propped on one elbow, glaring at her. She sighed again, louder, and rolled her eyes for good measure. She got a chuckle for her effort. “A woman should be proper.” He snubbed, cracking his neck, and settling back into the bed, closing his eyes.
“I’m hardly a woman. I’m a spy, Ba.” She said mirthfully, though she too turned away from him, turning her attention back to the letters. She grabbed the one that had originated in Benden Hold, noting the neat script of the real Renla’s handwriting. Renla was a widower with two small children under the age of seven. The two had been in contact for five years. On one of the rare solo missions Priya had been given before her assumed death, she had assassinated a Benden trader who had gotten in her Lord of Cove Holder’s way. She hadn’t asked how or what he had done wrong, it hadn’t been applicable to the mission. Just done her job. She had only discovered the now widow was pregnant and also had a small child under two, due to her nature of reading letters and documents right before her nose. The knowledge had spurred something in her, and had resulted in a bond between the two women who had never met. She had been helping Renla pay off her husband’s debts ever since then. Renla just thought her a kind, elderly, wealthy woman who had known Renla’s mother, and heard of the tragedy, and had wanted to help.
She doubted the truth would make Renla very accepting of money to help care for her children. Priya didn’t mind lying, it felt natural. Plus, the truth would only hurt the widow more-and Priya didn’t feel guilty about doing her job-only that it had left children without a provider. She had fixed that though, and they were far more secure now. Priyaanya’s fingers itched to open the letter, but she could almost feel Ba’s impatient glare on her shoulders again. No doubt he wanted to know what was in the letters as well as she. But she also knew that once the letters were open, Piros would have a far easier chance of getting to read her letters. No, that just wouldn’t do.
Priya sighed again, and could almost feel her elderly father bristle. She stood, and stretched herarms out, then looked over her shoulder to indeed see her Ba’s dark gaze. “Well, seein as ya won’t sleep while I’m sitting here, might as well go for a walk.” She said with her sweetest smile ever, watching his brow descend in anger. “I’ll be back after your nap.”
She sauntered away, hearing swearing as she went. Not that she was any safer from him. He could always follow her. But she would destroy the letters before he ever read them. It wasn’t as if there was something so personal in them that she would be embarrassed about him finding out. It was just that the letters were her own, and carried her own secrets, and even some of her own vulnerabilities. Her own knowledge. Ba didn’t need to know everything-especially everything about her. Some secrets would always be hers, just as Piros himself would die with his own secrets. It was the way of their family.
