Dissonant Melody

[Gavin Etheridge]

The King of Carraig was uneasy, to say the least. It had been some months since that festival in Amestris, and on paper it had been a huge success. After seeing Toss' demonstration flight and his rather spectacular landing, sales in Creig technology were booming. Everyone wanted a piece of what the tiny, rocky nation had to offer. On paper, it was all good.

But the general public in Amestris and Carraig didn't know how horribly wrong it had all nearly gone. The damage could have been devastating, and while Gavin was incredibly thankful the bomb had been disarmed, he was left very, very concerned. Everything seemed quiet for now. Nobody had made any moves toward Carraig or made any public threats. Hue had said the explosives and rigging were military-grade and nicely done, but they were a neutral country.

If it had been RIOTE, they would have made a move by now, surely. They were much too flashy to strike and run and take no credit. And Hans had been more than a little pissed about it; Gavin knew that Hans wouldn't have dared attack an ally like that. But whom, then? Creta? Dietrich was awake and in Parliament once more, so maybe he still wanted Carraig as his own personal vacation home.

Gavin sighed. These matters were delicate and important and he had no answers, from his own intel and from Hans since Amestrian investigations weren't turning up anything helpful. His hair down and loose and a circlet on his brow, Gavin walked quietly though the palace and stopped in the sunroom, taking his cello with him. He needed some nerve-calming. Wordlessly, Gavin walked out to the garden that he loved being in so often, especially now that the roses were in full bloom. He rosined his bow and stationed the massive instrument between his thighs, and without music or a stand began to play Dance Of The Dying Swan. It hardly seemed to fit the lush and blooming garden, but the melody soothed his mind and he hoped would either let him think or find some peace.

[Roarke Moray]

It was good to be a beast. Sometimes. Today was definitely one of those days, though. He was hanging around the castle, spending part of his day messing with some new recruits. It was always a good joke to the senior officers to introduce the newest Creig militants to Roarke. Their looks of horror were priceless, mostly because of the laughter by Roarke and everyone around him. The horror usually turned into wonder and then they spent a lot of the morning, peppering Roarke with questions and requesting feats of strength. Roarke was usually happy to oblige. It was nice to be accepted, even for a little bit of time.

Roarke had finished with the recruits for the day and was wandering the castle grounds, primarily because he felt like it. There was probably something he could've been doing, but he was bored. So when he heard music coming from behind a walled garden, Roarke could only satisfy his curiosity so far. And when the wall blocking his way decided to annoy him rather than stop him, he climbed up it. He strained upwards and grasped the edge of the wall firmly between his front claws and hoisted himself up. The wall on the garden was broad enough that he could stretch out along it, balancing between certain death on both sides. Well, not really. But Roarke was amused nonetheless as he stretched out, his back paws and legs hanging off each side of the wall. His front paws he rested against the wall, resting his head down on top of them. From there he could see Gavin playing his cello.

Roarke waited patiently until Gavin had finished playing to speak. It had been beautiful and Roarke would've been an absolute boob to interrupt. “Wow. Most cool, your Kingly-ness. What was that?”

[Dunstan Hue]

The hot summer of Carraig was best enjoyed outside the city, Dunstan thought. Drive somewhere remote and distant, with just a bag of sandwiches, a radio and a book, and your afternoon was made. That was the plan for Dunstan. Revelations had ruined that particular plan, but the revelation itself was enough to lighten Dunstan's mood. It had felt only minutes ago since Dunstan made the u-turn before leaving the city centre, back to his own home, but now he was standing at the foot of the castle gates. It was kind of surreal. Usually, his instincts for where to slip a 'package' would kick in, as it always did when he saw a new building. Hell, his own flat was constantly rigged to explode if Dunstan took a step out of place, but more and more he felt the instinct fall away. The interest in sheer destruction slipped out of his mind. His main business for the past few months had been in disarming bombs rather than making them. Ever since the festival. He had been on edge all this time, waiting for the next attack, but nothing came. It was the nothingness that confused him for ages. It still confused him. Where were the flames? Where was the attack? The few who knew of the attempted sabotage of the Fallacy were content to be relieved that nothing had happened since, and until recently Dunstan was the voice of pessimism who brought sense to their worlds whether they wanted it or not. Now, though, he had tangible evidence and, most importantly, a name, and he felt he could relax a little.

Still, it would be remiss of not to let the king know. Besides, it would certainly make him a good friend of the king; the bearer of good news rarely goes unrewarded, after all. Dunstan smirked, sneaking by the guards with practised ease. The King of Carraig didn't really cross paths with Dunstan all that much, but the guards and various authorities of Carraig did and knew him to be bad news. If he was seen in sniffing distance with the king, even without malicious intent, he'd be toast. But Dunstan knew too well that, despite his portly stature, he could simply run rings around the hapless guards. The only one who usually came close to noticing him was Artemis, and she hated him for completely different reasons.

Music. It took a while for Dunstan to recognise it, but he eventually placed it. Something from Camille Saint-Saens' Carnival of Animals. One side of Dunstan's lip curled up, as if he had tasted some especially sour cheese. He was not a classical man, modern or not. The only guy he came close to tolerating was Gershwin, and how much of a classical composer he was was often contested by elitist pricks who thought that anything that smelt of jazz was pop music and therefore not worthy of their attention.

The music came from the garden, and so Dunstan clambered over the wall slowly, looking for a foothole every step of the way. He didn't want to fall and set off the nitro-glycerine he had strapped to him (for insurance reasons, he claimed. Because he was insane, claimed everyone else). He was very slow, and didn't want to drop too fast, easing himself down in a dark corner. And then he looked up.

... if there was one guard he didn't mind never bumping into, it was Roarke. The bear-wolf-minotaur-thing... Dunstan didn't know, he just knew that he could use one hand to pop Dunstan's head like a pimple if he felt like it. And Dunstan had inadvertently climbed past him and was literally standing right under his back leg. If he startled the beast, then the... thing... would probably rip his head off. Dunstan decided against that, moving a little to the left, off the flower bed (he succeeded in not crushing the roses, though the forget-me-nots suffered for this achievement). “Wow. Most cool, your Kingly-ness. What was that?”

"Saint-Saen's Carnival of Animals. Given your looks I thought you'd know that, Furby." Dunstan said, unable to hold back the snark. Yes, he knew it was a stupid thing to say, but with an opportunity like that it had to be taken. Dunstan winced a little, looking to the king of Carraig and deciding to change the subject before he was torn limb from limb. "Afternoon, gaffer, got some good news for you at last." He then walked a little further into the garden centre, partially so he could give Gavin some printouts he had, but mainly so he was out of paw's reach of Roarke. "I've found our would-be saboteur."

Dunstan fed a hand into his coat pocket, before pulling out a block of TNT. Realising his mistake, he sheepishly grinned to Roarke as he quickly put it back. "Wrong pocket." He explained hastily, before getting out a handful of crumbled sheets of paper, before looking to the top, reading the information on it. "He's a contract killer. Born either in or to Cretans, raised in Aerugo, currently operating in Drachma. He's one of RIOTE's lot, but I'm fairly certain he wasn't acting on their behalf at the festival. It does explain where he got the military grade equipment for his bomb, though. He works mostly in assassinating single targets, a gunner not a bomber, which does explain a lot of stuff that confused me about the bomb; way too high tech for the kind of bomb it was, the fact that nothing else on the Fallacy was sabotaged, plus the fact that we've not had another bombing since. I initially thought that it was an army or international crime ring waiting for the right time; now I know it's an gunner with a contract and a shitload of bomb-making equipment that he doesn't have enough knowledge of to use properly. Thank your stars that he didn't, too, if it worked then we'd be in trouble."

He walked a little closer to Gavin, taking a seat next to him as he handed a photo of said bomber to Gavin; white hair, tall, built like a brick shit-house, holding a huge gun. An intimidating sight, certainly, but nothing Dunstan couldn't handle. "I'm flying to Drachma tomorrow. I'm not going to kill him, because otherwise RIOTE might take it personally and then we really WILL be in trouble. Besides, if he dies, we never find out just exactly who hired him, and before you ask I don't know that. I'm just planning to put the fear of God into him and his employer." His singular eye darkened as he looked to Gavin, radiating malice and danger, as if a lost menace was coming back to Dunstan. A lost voice. A cruel one.

"You know, just show them what a real bomb looks like."

[Csilla Angelis]

{BUMP}

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