Blood from Stone [AU]

[Coquette Blacquin]

"The definitions of torture get difficult, when you're not dealing with innocents," she allows. "What then? Tell me the worst of it. I suspect you've nothing to fear."

[Shannon zi'Marass]

"I... Alright. Three... three worsts, I think. The..." Shannon worries at a nail, unable to met Cindy's gaze. "The... most recent is that... Gods, this is... This might hit a little close to home, for you. I... poisoned dear old daddy. After spending nearly two years chipping away at his assets, blackening his reputation and eroding his support, both political and social. He's currently in a... an assisted living facility, an abbey near a small hamlet near Nyra. His memory is mostly intact, but his ability to calculate, to plan, to read, even speak with any degree of fluidity is... heavily degraded. I was very careful about the dosage, to make sure he lived."

[Coquette Blacquin]

She holds up a hand, needing a moment. At the end of that moment, she stands, walking away from the table, off to the privy.

Where she vomits.

When she returns, mouth washed out and ready to face her friend again, she sits at the table, takes a deep breath, and meets her eyes. "I assume he deserved it. What's the next thing?"

[Shannon zi'Marass]

Shannon had clearly been crying while Cindy was away. A cloth napkin lays in her lap, a noticeable number of stitches picked free on the edges. "I... did you not... you will just... trust my judgement in his- even though..."

[Coquette Blacquin]

"What was the next thing? That you felt was tied with this one?" she pushes. 

[Shannon zi'Marass]

"I-" Shannon nods shakily, feeling raw and exposed. "Understood. The... second of the... I... caused an orphanage to be foreclosed on. It was being funded by a rival and I bankrupt him. When my agent pointed out about this orphanage, I... decided the resources needed to keep it running to be of more use elsewhere. I..." She flushes guiltily. "I later opened one of my own, to try and help mitigate the... more accurate than not rumors of my ruthlessness. But that was more than a year later so..."

[Coquette Blacquin]

"I see," she says, with a small nod. "And the third?"

[Shannon zi'Marass]

I really wish she would react to this, really react. Tell me what she is thinking! "I... this was..." Shannon loses the battle to met Cindy's gaze again. "The last is not a... single act, exactly. But it.. has a... prime example, I suppose works. I... I have harmed people in my quest for power enough to get revenge, not just for you, but for myself. Mostly rivals and enemies, criminals and the like. Well. Mostly directly. But also innocents and the uninvolved. And also my own allies and... myself. Sentiment, friendship, money, heirlooms, my own body, nothing was out of bounds as an option, a... offering. There are only three things I did not tarnish- my word, my servant Mythil, and my soul, magically speaking. Sins I have stained it with aplenty, but it remains my wholly my own and whole in general."

She goes to pick up her tea to wet her very dry throat but falters as she realizes she had not refilled it after breaking the handle. "All of this is to... preface that... well, as I said, my body was very much on the table in regard sto deals and bargains. I am... clean, medically speaking, that much I can offer. But I have... done things that no lady, no woman of self-respect should do. And done them with... people that... gods curse it, I paid Chainjaw in sex in order to attend your funeral. Twice. Once before, which was... unpleasant. The second, just after, which was... far more than I had agreed to pay."

[Coquette Blacquin]

"I wish you hadn't," she says quietly, "but I suppose the sin for that rests on my soul."

She takes a deep breath, lets it out, begins to speak again before she's cut off.

[Shannon zi'Marass]

"You- what? Why does that rest on you? He and his friends were-" Shannon cuts herself off. 

[Coquette Blacquin]

"My funeral." She swallows. "I should have written to you."

[Shannon zi'Marass]

"Harrod had just tried to have you killed. No, worse. Erased, forgotten and then killed." Just I had done to daddy dearest... and that is something I have to think about, soon. "I think it understandable that a friend you hadn't seen in almost a decade was not on the top of your thoughts, C-in."

[Coquette Blacquin]

"Still." She takes another deep breath.

"Alright. Those are... acceptable. I have done things you would not have been proud of either, over the years. If you have criminal enterprises, I will need you to get out of those lines of work, quickly. I am likely to be already working to dismantle them, so it's in your best interests. But otherwise, I can... I can accept what you've done."

[Shannon zi'Marass]

"Ah." Shannon winces. "That... is a bit... sticky. Ah, is there... are there any... fields you don't bother with? Or... what about foreign, ah, endeavors? I do still need some of those assets. I can afford to dismantle the bulk of them, I don't need the rapid influx of coin and favors anymore I suppose but..."

[Coquette Blacquin]

"For what? You've gotten what you wanted."