The Stead Wolf

Victor laid drowsy and sore in a pile of warm sheets and rugs, folded in their depths and thankful for their gentle cradle. His head pounded, and the inside of his mouth felt thick and raw. With a soft wince, he drew his tongue over the places his teeth had been broken, and the ulcers against the inside of his cheek. He took a breath in, the sharp cold of the air burned the inside of his nose, and his broken ribs screamed in protest of the movement. God, being right was painful. A hard, but necessary process of events to push forward his agenda. He wondered if Dorian would pick up on it, how obvious it had all been. He thought back to the man's face as he told him they needed to talk. Victor had followed him around in the hours after like a lamb into the slaughter as if it weren't obvious what was looming.

He had warned the great Varran and her smaller companion of what was to happen, knowing full well what Dorian's apathetic "We need to have a talk" meant. Victor didn't find the man competent at subtlety, thank god, else setting things into motion in the minutes and hours after would have been a great deal harder.

"boys." the voice echoed in his head as he recalled the interaction, the sudden scramble and pounce upon him, the searing pain in his back, and the numbness that overcame him despite hearing the crunching sound of fists and boots belt against his own skin and bone.
From there it all went hazy. He recalled feeling the cool night air on his open wounds, hearing muffled voices, he recalled the feeling of his feet dragging over gravel...And then there was a moment, just a brief, glimpse of a moment, where he felt cold, weightless. He felt like he was drifting downwards, sucked into a void.

And then he woke up.

What met his eyes was the white light of the sun glimmering through an open window on a perfectly ordinary afternoon. For a long while, he could only hear his own breathing, he could only blink his eyes and watch the world around him in silent, searing pain.

Slowly, however, he came to. Where he awoke was where he stayed, bruised, welted and stiff. It had been some time since he was last bedridden, and thus the boredom overcame him. He took the time to meditate, reflect, and pass the time with maths, as he often did when bored witless during long voyages on his ship: adding, subtracting, going over multiplications and divisions.

"Staltwel?" a soft voice halted his inner clockwork, and he rolled his head painfully to follow the sound. Aside his bed was a boy, red-haired and green-eyed. His clothing was worn and soot-ridden, and his face was grotty and unclean.
"Et's in de fron' inside pocket ov me coat." he croaked in return, his voice barely audible. The boy fetched Victor's coat from the end of the clinic bed and dug around in said pocket, producing a small scroll, sealed with red wax, but no signet.

Victor looked the boy in the eye, his tone serious. "You remembuh wot I told ya?" he stares down the youngster, who nods in return. "And call upon Atticus before yuh deliver et. Can't be rottin' 'ere when shit goes down. Gotta gather da rest up. Oddvar, 'Matsu, all of 'em."

The child nodded once more and was off.

Wherever Dorian was, whatever he was doing at the time the boy found him, the small child would shove the scroll into the mobster's hands, before turning tail and sprinting for his very life, vanishing into the canals, much as victor had done himself, little to his knowledge.

Unraveling it would reveal an image printed in ink and watercolor.
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@Pauleen @Jovee @Yigit @Llatzerus @Rinus @Honeyrnoon

De plot thiccens................. O:

 

[Yigit]

The leader of the Black Mares, Dorian Ardelan, sat in the dimly lit office of his lavish estate filled with rich decorations, the blue tinted windows striking the light of moon into his otherwise dark and quietened room. He held the paper between his fingers, his occasional sigg hanging from his lips, the smoke from it painting the air with a grey cloud. His half lidded, stone cold eyes, looked over the depiction of a black horse being fed on by a white wolf. As usual, emotion was unreadable from his colorless, blank face, conveying no thought, no opinion. He didn't fear, for sure. He didn't panic. Receiving death threats had little effect on him after nearly losing his life in the Songaskian War. He dipped his sigg into an ash tray, burying the ashes, before he reclined into his boss chair and sent the ceiling a glance.

"People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones." he thought. Somewhere in his frozen heart, he felt sorrow. Not because his life was under threat, not because war was declared upon his organization, but rather that he lost valued friends. He thought back on Atticus, and then Tomatsu. Remembering their silly moments made him chuckle silently. Now, they were enemies to him. And sooner or later, he had to shed their blood. But that was the wicked way of their world, after all.