Re: MORITURI TE SALUTANT!! [S!4]
03-10-2013, 09:16 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Sanzh.
"How did you know my name?"
A flood of vague memories washed over Sam with Lavi's question, unmistakably foreign and alien but still somehow hers-- of walking barefoot in snow, of curling beside a fire in the cracked-open husk of an abandoned stronghold, of fey woodlands and premonitions and animating magics. Even for the brief moment of contact she had with Lavi's robes, a riotous anarchy of recollections had swum into Sam's mind. The coarse folds of fabric, the dried crumbs of dirt, the stitches holding her adventuring ensemble together, they held memories that Sam fought to repress and push away and exile. Those same memories had given her companion a name, however-- Lavi Lannon.
She turned, looking at the robed woman opposite her. She said nothing, offering nothing but an apathetic, detached silence. Her earlier moment of gregariousness was gone as quiet panic gripped her-- fear that she had exposed herself, let her emotions open new vulnerabilities towards someone she only barely knew. Her light-hearted affection was replaced with cold, forced stoicism-- a half-hearted attempt at hiding my wounds, Sam thought to herself.
Lavi's expression shifted, her head tilting to one side as she thoughtfully pressed a finger against her cheek. She spoke, a faint hint of inquisitive curiosity tainting her broguish accent. "A couple of minutes ago-- you said my name, but I don't recall mentioning it. I was just curious how you kn--"
"It's-- it's nothing, okay." Sam snapped back in response. An eerie calm came with Sam's response. The riotous voice of Venice's population, its troubadours and actors and their ilk, was only a muffled whisper in the city's thin web of canals. The occasional splash of the gondolier's oar, the hushed Italian phrases passed between father and son-- everything else was distant and barely perceptible.
Lavi raised an eyebrow, uncertain and quizzical. "That doesn't explai--"
"Then I don't know. It just happened, now leave me alone about it." With the almost-naked woman's frigid response, the conversation ended as abruptly as it had started.
One of the Italians chuckled and opened his mouth to say something lewd and chauvinistic, but was quickly silenced by another.
Lavi turned away from the woman and the small cadre of revolutionaries, watching the sewer-water of the canals stir in the boat's wake. She began to collect her thoughts; her mind had been racing and only now was there time to think-- about her surroundings, her companions, about the countless other half-formed musings roiling in her head. Everything felt so alien, so unfamiliar and almost imperceptibly hostile-- she had no experience with a city of this size, with its numerous edifices and inhabitants. The faux-cosmopolitan atmosphere cultivated by Venezia felt odd to a woman who had only seen villages and rugged frontier castles. Lavi looked up, towards the roof of the cavern the city was nestled in. Faint pinpoints of light danced along the stalactites and in between the rotting foundations of the theater above them; whether they were reflections of the city below or were seeping in from cracks in the opera house above, Lavi was uncertain. She immediately felt a strong longing for an open sky above her head-- the flickering lanterns and thin haze of smoke were a poor substitute for stars and clouds.
The robed woman shifted uncomfortably. The thoughts of violence that washed over her, the earlier moment of licentious promiscuity-- she didn't know what had come over her since she had awakened, but she felt powerless over herself. She tried to put her mind to ease, thinking about how in time she would discover how she arrived here and how to return home, but that brought no respite. Her thoughts no longer felt like they were hers-- that there was some pervasive mental influence clouding her judgment.
"Antonio. This is the wrong canal, what are you doing?" An Italian-- the older one, the soldier's father-- sharply asked.
Lavi's hand uncontrollably twitched.
Next to her, Sam tensed-- she instinctively knew that something was wrong. Fingers grasped around the frayed edges of her too-large coat, bringing it tighter around her-- entwined in its textile weave were memories of the countless others who had seen a scene all too similar play out.
"Anton--"
"I am sorry, Alfonso." Antonio finally said as he stood up. Light from the torches and lanterns briefly glinted off metal as he drew a revolver-- his finger squeezed against the trigger, hammer struck against firing pin, and with a crack of sound, Alfonso was shot. It all happened slowly, stretched nearly to the breaking point of realism; the wounded father's pained breaths were over-exaggerated, the seconds-delayed blood staining his clothes was far more than any man could have.
"Papa!" Lorenzo screamed, shifting toward to hold his dying father. "Papa, no, no, you can't die here."
"Figlio, I am--" Alfonso coughed, choking as he tried to breathe. "--I am dying. C-come closer, child. Let me see you one last time." His death throes were over-exaggerated and unreal-- it was an act, a farce, but one that the actors of Il Maledicta had fanatically accepted. Alfonso's feigned death carried as much weight and solemnity as a real one, even if he would be breathing and walking on the catwalks of Venezia hours later.
"L-Lorenzo, promise me this before I die."
"Si, papa, anything." Lorenzo was quick to reply.
"Promise me that--" His soliloquy was interrupted again, as in between wheezing breaths he surreptitiously broke another packet of fake blood. "--t-that you'll live to see the dream I didn't. An Italia free from war and strife and the petty games of the borgata dogs. Can you promise me this, Lorenzo?"
"Si, papa, I will." He said, and watched as his father died.
Sam stared blankly as the scene ended, briefly glimpsing to her side to gauge her companion, then to the now-expired revolutionary. The fabric wrapped around her wanted her to forget that his chest still heaved and nigh-imperceptibly rose with each breath, but its influence was weak enough to keep her mind intact and to see the death as a histrionic performance. She glanced to the walkways lining the canal-- a mixture of suited hitmen, ostentatious medieval mercenaries, and Roman legionnaires now populated either side, emerging from the woodwork of the crowded city.
"You are lucky, Lorenzo. You get to live-- our interest is only in the girls, the lovely bambinas accompanying you. And, I ah, need you to send a message to your counter-revolutionary friends-- that the borgata is not be interfered with, or this--"
Antonio interrupted himself with a gesture to the passionate soldier's father, fake blood still pooling in the gondola.
"--will be the result. Now, do I need to make this, how do you say, antipatico?"
"No." Sam replied, her voice barely raised above a soft whisper.
"We'll come quietly."
---
"She is a beautiful city, is she not?" Francisco asked, looking out onto the sprawling architectural mess of a city below.
Lavi fidgeted uneasily in response. She instinctively knew she was out of place compared to the court of this man-- Francisco, she reminded herself, recalling his introduction from a short period earlier. She was a foreigner in his palatial mansion, enveloped by flamboyant patricians and ostentatious dignitaries and the jauntily-suited hitmen Francisco referred to as his family.
Even as he made overtures of hospitality, proffering his kindness with amicable offerings, she couldn't help but notice how deliberately off-balance he had placed her. She was used to the company of nature and fellow adventurers, not the mannerisms and habits common to intricate schemers like Francisco. At best she had entreated with minor frontier lords, rulers of border principalities who were only marginally better-off than their subjects-- but never anyone with the power or opulence that was now commanded in front of her. She folded her arms together, bringing them around her body-- she felt rough bark underneath the coarse fabric, and silently wondered if any of those around her had noticed her transfiguration.
"As beautiful as she is, this city is full of dangers, especially for bambinas as beautiful and, shall I say, delicate as yourselves." The mafioso continued, not bothering to wait for a response that was not forthcoming. A hint of a vulgar tone tainted his speech.
A furtive glimpse danced over Sam, hoping for some reassurance-- yet the woman Lavi had met only moments earlier remained inscrutable, her face emotionlessly gazing forward.
"I brought you here so you could be protected by my family, mi cosca. We are a sort of protectors of Venezia, and exchange for a small favor we would, ah, offer you our services, yes?" Francisco said, turning his back to the haphazard expanse of stone edifices and its web of interwoven canals. He looked at the two women brought before him-- his face composed and benign, but failing to veil the menace intertwined in his diction.
"I think we--"
Lavi paused her retort, trying to gauge her companion's reaction-- whether she intended to stand up to him, or if she would remain silent and impassive. A quick glimpse confirmed her suspicion, as Sam stood there, her face devoid of any reaction to Francisco's extortion. Lavi hesitatingly cleared her throat.
"--we were doing fine without your 'protection', thanks." She finally managed to shoot back.
"Oh, scusa mi for not knowing. Tell me, did those Fettucibaci bastardi tell you what happens to the refugees they smuggle? It is not a pretty fate, especially for attractive girls such as yourselves." Francisco hissed in response.
Lavi gritted her teeth, trying to push away the horrid-tasting thought now racing through her mind; the same loathsome, foreign notions that had continually and assailed and roiled through her mind were now doing so once more-- and this time she didn't have the luxury of isolation to keep them at bay. "You're lying." She finally managed to choke out, her words thickly accented under a stressful brogue.
"What's the favor you want from us." Sam finally said, her voice barely raised above a dour whisper.
Francisco turned his attention towards the almost-naked woman, ignoring the irate adventurer in favor of her new show of interest. "Ah, she speaks! My family, we wish to put on an opera performance, you see-- In Compagnia Degli Angeli in Pausa, the unperformed epic." He said, nudging himself suggestively close to Sam.
Sam looked up, a glimmer of recognition crossing her face as she tried to remember.
"She is familiar, yes?" The suited racketeer rhetorically asked, moving almost-intimately closer to her as he continued-- attempting to ensnare her attention as he spoke. "An operatic tale of life and death, good and evil, of friendship and betrayal? Well, there are two roles we need filled, and the two of you are perhaps the only ones in Il Maledicta who can play the role of the Ange--"
"Shut up." Lavi said, her brogue almost completely suppressed.
Something in Francisco's speech had been enough-- the loathsome thoughts she had been fighting to contain had overwhelmed her in a single, roaring instant. The mental influence crudely inserted into her mind burned through her, its parasitic thoughts exerting themselves, ensnaring her psyche as they took control. Her voice and her actions were no longer her own; they were more confident, more aggressive and rapacious and cruel. Whatever worry she had was eradicated as her mind was overcome. She stood up straighter, no longer concerned about her disguise or trying to hide her transformation or obscuring her powers-- that would have to wait until there wasn't a pathetic, sniveling insect of a man in front of her.
Francisco turned, livid at the interruption and the flagrant impudence of this woman. "What is--"
A flick of her wrist, a twinkle of blue light coruscating across the room-- and Francisco stopped moving, his body paralyzed by Lavi's animating magics that now bound and worked upon his skeleton. Muscles still twitched, his chest still heaved with delirious, panic-stricken breaths, his eyes flitted in their sockets with a new-found primal fear for whatever was yet to come-- but he could not move, could not escape. The helpless mafioso tried to bark out an order, a sound, anything-- but his jaw remained fixed, immovable to the strain and tension of his muscles.
"You don't seem to understand your position, do you." Lavi sadistically taunted, stepping forward to regard her immobile prize. The rest of his court did nothing to stop her, whether out of fear or out of captivation with the unfolding drama-- a play more real than anything they had experienced before. "You're nothing more than a servant. A slave, a pawn pretending to be a king, impotent outside of your own shrinking realm." She continued, idly twisting her hand-- watching as the suited thug squirmed and contorted as he captively walked, unable to control his motions.
Francisco could only feel searing pain as he moved against his will-- ligaments tugged against muscle and tissue, working in reverse as Lavi's magic made a perverse mockery of biology.
A cruel smirk etched across Lavi's face as she continued. "A petty thug, living through his delusions-- a pathetic insect, king of his anthill and nothing more. Tell me, insect, do you wish to see just how insignificant you really ar--"
"Lavi!" Sam finally shouted.
The robed women froze. In an instant the mental influence subsided, leaving her paralysed and in shock at what she had done. Her magic weakened, leaving the broken body of Francisco to collapse onto the floor-- still barely alive after the ordeal.
"Guardie! Seize her, take her away, the rest of you-- uscire!" Antonio yelled, taking control of the situation immediately. A handful of guards unhesitatingly grabbed Lavi-- she did nothing to resist as they dragged her away. Francisco's court dispersed just as quickly, its dignitaries and criminals leaving as the drama they had watched ended. Save for the consigliere, his crime lord, and Sam, the palatial quarters were empty and silent.
"S-she-- she should be killed." Francisco finally sputtered, his breath hoarse from the experience and wet with the blood of wounds torn under the torture.
"And tell me, where will we find another?" Antonio responded, kneeling down to examine his employer's injuries-- as a loyal servant would do. " Allow me to handle this, Francisco." The crime boss paused, locked in thought-- and finally nodded in acknowledgment, too weak to respond in words.
Sam took a hesitant, faltering half-step forward, her soft foot pattering against the floor.
Antonio looked up towards Sam, examining her attentively before he spoke. "Go. Bring your fidanzata to heel. I think it is clear what will happen if she does not behave, yes?"
Without a word, Sam left-- heading into the criminal's mansion to find her companion.
---
Lavi looked at the pile of ragged robes-- there was no point to wearing them anymore. They weren't an adequate disguise, and the heavy fabric would weigh her down. She felt exposed without it, even with what she had on underneath-- tunic and trousers and fur waistcoat-- being more than enough. She was without the layers of fabric to better obscure her transfiguration, but she was left with no choice.
She had to escape. She had to find out what had happened to her-- what was possessing her, what had controlled her and malevolently twisted her mind. She had to escape from this prison, from the mansion it was a part of-- her answers were in the theater above. They had to be, she thought.
She extended a hand towards the barred door, blue-tinted bark nearly visible as it crawled up her arm. The door opened, its crude lock bent to the animating magics, and in abrupt flash Lavi had escaped.
---
"What will happen to them?"
Francisco looked at his consigliere, raising an eyebrow at the question. The crime lord sat in a spacious chair, half-convalescent but recovering from the torture of earlier. He was still weak, only barely capable of standing on his own, still wounded on more levels than his pride-- but his clandestine instincts and subconscious lechery had already returned to him. They were alone now-- Sam was gone, as were the assortment of other figures and players in Venice's acted-out, over-dramatic politics.
"The girls-- they're something special in this play, isn't there." Antonio added-- a foreign, inquisitive tone marked his speech.
Francisco chuckled, leafing through the script in his hands-- a faded and smeared seal almost perceptible against the cover as he skipped through countless yellowing and crinkled pages.
"In the final act, they will die, Antonio. It is the dramatic flourish that has kept the Angeli from being performed-- something we will right, mi amico. When that act is performed, we will be masters of this theater. We will have put on a performance-- no, the performance-- that no one has ever done." He finally said.
"How did you know my name?"
A flood of vague memories washed over Sam with Lavi's question, unmistakably foreign and alien but still somehow hers-- of walking barefoot in snow, of curling beside a fire in the cracked-open husk of an abandoned stronghold, of fey woodlands and premonitions and animating magics. Even for the brief moment of contact she had with Lavi's robes, a riotous anarchy of recollections had swum into Sam's mind. The coarse folds of fabric, the dried crumbs of dirt, the stitches holding her adventuring ensemble together, they held memories that Sam fought to repress and push away and exile. Those same memories had given her companion a name, however-- Lavi Lannon.
She turned, looking at the robed woman opposite her. She said nothing, offering nothing but an apathetic, detached silence. Her earlier moment of gregariousness was gone as quiet panic gripped her-- fear that she had exposed herself, let her emotions open new vulnerabilities towards someone she only barely knew. Her light-hearted affection was replaced with cold, forced stoicism-- a half-hearted attempt at hiding my wounds, Sam thought to herself.
Lavi's expression shifted, her head tilting to one side as she thoughtfully pressed a finger against her cheek. She spoke, a faint hint of inquisitive curiosity tainting her broguish accent. "A couple of minutes ago-- you said my name, but I don't recall mentioning it. I was just curious how you kn--"
"It's-- it's nothing, okay." Sam snapped back in response. An eerie calm came with Sam's response. The riotous voice of Venice's population, its troubadours and actors and their ilk, was only a muffled whisper in the city's thin web of canals. The occasional splash of the gondolier's oar, the hushed Italian phrases passed between father and son-- everything else was distant and barely perceptible.
Lavi raised an eyebrow, uncertain and quizzical. "That doesn't explai--"
"Then I don't know. It just happened, now leave me alone about it." With the almost-naked woman's frigid response, the conversation ended as abruptly as it had started.
One of the Italians chuckled and opened his mouth to say something lewd and chauvinistic, but was quickly silenced by another.
Lavi turned away from the woman and the small cadre of revolutionaries, watching the sewer-water of the canals stir in the boat's wake. She began to collect her thoughts; her mind had been racing and only now was there time to think-- about her surroundings, her companions, about the countless other half-formed musings roiling in her head. Everything felt so alien, so unfamiliar and almost imperceptibly hostile-- she had no experience with a city of this size, with its numerous edifices and inhabitants. The faux-cosmopolitan atmosphere cultivated by Venezia felt odd to a woman who had only seen villages and rugged frontier castles. Lavi looked up, towards the roof of the cavern the city was nestled in. Faint pinpoints of light danced along the stalactites and in between the rotting foundations of the theater above them; whether they were reflections of the city below or were seeping in from cracks in the opera house above, Lavi was uncertain. She immediately felt a strong longing for an open sky above her head-- the flickering lanterns and thin haze of smoke were a poor substitute for stars and clouds.
The robed woman shifted uncomfortably. The thoughts of violence that washed over her, the earlier moment of licentious promiscuity-- she didn't know what had come over her since she had awakened, but she felt powerless over herself. She tried to put her mind to ease, thinking about how in time she would discover how she arrived here and how to return home, but that brought no respite. Her thoughts no longer felt like they were hers-- that there was some pervasive mental influence clouding her judgment.
"Antonio. This is the wrong canal, what are you doing?" An Italian-- the older one, the soldier's father-- sharply asked.
Lavi's hand uncontrollably twitched.
Next to her, Sam tensed-- she instinctively knew that something was wrong. Fingers grasped around the frayed edges of her too-large coat, bringing it tighter around her-- entwined in its textile weave were memories of the countless others who had seen a scene all too similar play out.
"Anton--"
"I am sorry, Alfonso." Antonio finally said as he stood up. Light from the torches and lanterns briefly glinted off metal as he drew a revolver-- his finger squeezed against the trigger, hammer struck against firing pin, and with a crack of sound, Alfonso was shot. It all happened slowly, stretched nearly to the breaking point of realism; the wounded father's pained breaths were over-exaggerated, the seconds-delayed blood staining his clothes was far more than any man could have.
"Papa!" Lorenzo screamed, shifting toward to hold his dying father. "Papa, no, no, you can't die here."
"Figlio, I am--" Alfonso coughed, choking as he tried to breathe. "--I am dying. C-come closer, child. Let me see you one last time." His death throes were over-exaggerated and unreal-- it was an act, a farce, but one that the actors of Il Maledicta had fanatically accepted. Alfonso's feigned death carried as much weight and solemnity as a real one, even if he would be breathing and walking on the catwalks of Venezia hours later.
"L-Lorenzo, promise me this before I die."
"Si, papa, anything." Lorenzo was quick to reply.
"Promise me that--" His soliloquy was interrupted again, as in between wheezing breaths he surreptitiously broke another packet of fake blood. "--t-that you'll live to see the dream I didn't. An Italia free from war and strife and the petty games of the borgata dogs. Can you promise me this, Lorenzo?"
"Si, papa, I will." He said, and watched as his father died.
Sam stared blankly as the scene ended, briefly glimpsing to her side to gauge her companion, then to the now-expired revolutionary. The fabric wrapped around her wanted her to forget that his chest still heaved and nigh-imperceptibly rose with each breath, but its influence was weak enough to keep her mind intact and to see the death as a histrionic performance. She glanced to the walkways lining the canal-- a mixture of suited hitmen, ostentatious medieval mercenaries, and Roman legionnaires now populated either side, emerging from the woodwork of the crowded city.
"You are lucky, Lorenzo. You get to live-- our interest is only in the girls, the lovely bambinas accompanying you. And, I ah, need you to send a message to your counter-revolutionary friends-- that the borgata is not be interfered with, or this--"
Antonio interrupted himself with a gesture to the passionate soldier's father, fake blood still pooling in the gondola.
"--will be the result. Now, do I need to make this, how do you say, antipatico?"
"No." Sam replied, her voice barely raised above a soft whisper.
"We'll come quietly."
---
"She is a beautiful city, is she not?" Francisco asked, looking out onto the sprawling architectural mess of a city below.
Lavi fidgeted uneasily in response. She instinctively knew she was out of place compared to the court of this man-- Francisco, she reminded herself, recalling his introduction from a short period earlier. She was a foreigner in his palatial mansion, enveloped by flamboyant patricians and ostentatious dignitaries and the jauntily-suited hitmen Francisco referred to as his family.
Even as he made overtures of hospitality, proffering his kindness with amicable offerings, she couldn't help but notice how deliberately off-balance he had placed her. She was used to the company of nature and fellow adventurers, not the mannerisms and habits common to intricate schemers like Francisco. At best she had entreated with minor frontier lords, rulers of border principalities who were only marginally better-off than their subjects-- but never anyone with the power or opulence that was now commanded in front of her. She folded her arms together, bringing them around her body-- she felt rough bark underneath the coarse fabric, and silently wondered if any of those around her had noticed her transfiguration.
"As beautiful as she is, this city is full of dangers, especially for bambinas as beautiful and, shall I say, delicate as yourselves." The mafioso continued, not bothering to wait for a response that was not forthcoming. A hint of a vulgar tone tainted his speech.
A furtive glimpse danced over Sam, hoping for some reassurance-- yet the woman Lavi had met only moments earlier remained inscrutable, her face emotionlessly gazing forward.
"I brought you here so you could be protected by my family, mi cosca. We are a sort of protectors of Venezia, and exchange for a small favor we would, ah, offer you our services, yes?" Francisco said, turning his back to the haphazard expanse of stone edifices and its web of interwoven canals. He looked at the two women brought before him-- his face composed and benign, but failing to veil the menace intertwined in his diction.
"I think we--"
Lavi paused her retort, trying to gauge her companion's reaction-- whether she intended to stand up to him, or if she would remain silent and impassive. A quick glimpse confirmed her suspicion, as Sam stood there, her face devoid of any reaction to Francisco's extortion. Lavi hesitatingly cleared her throat.
"--we were doing fine without your 'protection', thanks." She finally managed to shoot back.
"Oh, scusa mi for not knowing. Tell me, did those Fettucibaci bastardi tell you what happens to the refugees they smuggle? It is not a pretty fate, especially for attractive girls such as yourselves." Francisco hissed in response.
Lavi gritted her teeth, trying to push away the horrid-tasting thought now racing through her mind; the same loathsome, foreign notions that had continually and assailed and roiled through her mind were now doing so once more-- and this time she didn't have the luxury of isolation to keep them at bay. "You're lying." She finally managed to choke out, her words thickly accented under a stressful brogue.
"What's the favor you want from us." Sam finally said, her voice barely raised above a dour whisper.
Francisco turned his attention towards the almost-naked woman, ignoring the irate adventurer in favor of her new show of interest. "Ah, she speaks! My family, we wish to put on an opera performance, you see-- In Compagnia Degli Angeli in Pausa, the unperformed epic." He said, nudging himself suggestively close to Sam.
Sam looked up, a glimmer of recognition crossing her face as she tried to remember.
"She is familiar, yes?" The suited racketeer rhetorically asked, moving almost-intimately closer to her as he continued-- attempting to ensnare her attention as he spoke. "An operatic tale of life and death, good and evil, of friendship and betrayal? Well, there are two roles we need filled, and the two of you are perhaps the only ones in Il Maledicta who can play the role of the Ange--"
"Shut up." Lavi said, her brogue almost completely suppressed.
Something in Francisco's speech had been enough-- the loathsome thoughts she had been fighting to contain had overwhelmed her in a single, roaring instant. The mental influence crudely inserted into her mind burned through her, its parasitic thoughts exerting themselves, ensnaring her psyche as they took control. Her voice and her actions were no longer her own; they were more confident, more aggressive and rapacious and cruel. Whatever worry she had was eradicated as her mind was overcome. She stood up straighter, no longer concerned about her disguise or trying to hide her transformation or obscuring her powers-- that would have to wait until there wasn't a pathetic, sniveling insect of a man in front of her.
Francisco turned, livid at the interruption and the flagrant impudence of this woman. "What is--"
A flick of her wrist, a twinkle of blue light coruscating across the room-- and Francisco stopped moving, his body paralyzed by Lavi's animating magics that now bound and worked upon his skeleton. Muscles still twitched, his chest still heaved with delirious, panic-stricken breaths, his eyes flitted in their sockets with a new-found primal fear for whatever was yet to come-- but he could not move, could not escape. The helpless mafioso tried to bark out an order, a sound, anything-- but his jaw remained fixed, immovable to the strain and tension of his muscles.
"You don't seem to understand your position, do you." Lavi sadistically taunted, stepping forward to regard her immobile prize. The rest of his court did nothing to stop her, whether out of fear or out of captivation with the unfolding drama-- a play more real than anything they had experienced before. "You're nothing more than a servant. A slave, a pawn pretending to be a king, impotent outside of your own shrinking realm." She continued, idly twisting her hand-- watching as the suited thug squirmed and contorted as he captively walked, unable to control his motions.
Francisco could only feel searing pain as he moved against his will-- ligaments tugged against muscle and tissue, working in reverse as Lavi's magic made a perverse mockery of biology.
A cruel smirk etched across Lavi's face as she continued. "A petty thug, living through his delusions-- a pathetic insect, king of his anthill and nothing more. Tell me, insect, do you wish to see just how insignificant you really ar--"
"Lavi!" Sam finally shouted.
The robed women froze. In an instant the mental influence subsided, leaving her paralysed and in shock at what she had done. Her magic weakened, leaving the broken body of Francisco to collapse onto the floor-- still barely alive after the ordeal.
"Guardie! Seize her, take her away, the rest of you-- uscire!" Antonio yelled, taking control of the situation immediately. A handful of guards unhesitatingly grabbed Lavi-- she did nothing to resist as they dragged her away. Francisco's court dispersed just as quickly, its dignitaries and criminals leaving as the drama they had watched ended. Save for the consigliere, his crime lord, and Sam, the palatial quarters were empty and silent.
"S-she-- she should be killed." Francisco finally sputtered, his breath hoarse from the experience and wet with the blood of wounds torn under the torture.
"And tell me, where will we find another?" Antonio responded, kneeling down to examine his employer's injuries-- as a loyal servant would do. " Allow me to handle this, Francisco." The crime boss paused, locked in thought-- and finally nodded in acknowledgment, too weak to respond in words.
Sam took a hesitant, faltering half-step forward, her soft foot pattering against the floor.
Antonio looked up towards Sam, examining her attentively before he spoke. "Go. Bring your fidanzata to heel. I think it is clear what will happen if she does not behave, yes?"
Without a word, Sam left-- heading into the criminal's mansion to find her companion.
---
Lavi looked at the pile of ragged robes-- there was no point to wearing them anymore. They weren't an adequate disguise, and the heavy fabric would weigh her down. She felt exposed without it, even with what she had on underneath-- tunic and trousers and fur waistcoat-- being more than enough. She was without the layers of fabric to better obscure her transfiguration, but she was left with no choice.
She had to escape. She had to find out what had happened to her-- what was possessing her, what had controlled her and malevolently twisted her mind. She had to escape from this prison, from the mansion it was a part of-- her answers were in the theater above. They had to be, she thought.
She extended a hand towards the barred door, blue-tinted bark nearly visible as it crawled up her arm. The door opened, its crude lock bent to the animating magics, and in abrupt flash Lavi had escaped.
---
"What will happen to them?"
Francisco looked at his consigliere, raising an eyebrow at the question. The crime lord sat in a spacious chair, half-convalescent but recovering from the torture of earlier. He was still weak, only barely capable of standing on his own, still wounded on more levels than his pride-- but his clandestine instincts and subconscious lechery had already returned to him. They were alone now-- Sam was gone, as were the assortment of other figures and players in Venice's acted-out, over-dramatic politics.
"The girls-- they're something special in this play, isn't there." Antonio added-- a foreign, inquisitive tone marked his speech.
Francisco chuckled, leafing through the script in his hands-- a faded and smeared seal almost perceptible against the cover as he skipped through countless yellowing and crinkled pages.
"In the final act, they will die, Antonio. It is the dramatic flourish that has kept the Angeli from being performed-- something we will right, mi amico. When that act is performed, we will be masters of this theater. We will have put on a performance-- no, the performance-- that no one has ever done." He finally said.