OOC: Tags
@LostSoul Mature rating for death and blooooooood.
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Everyone in this city was guilty. It was just a known fact. Even the innocents had the unfortunate side effects of blame from their town's brethren, for it seemed in one way or another, there was an interlocking system of treachery and all sorts of colorful and illegal activity in Selevea.
A wedding was one such example. A lady from a very prominent family was being wed to someone of a lesser standing, bartered on the family's debt as some means of repayment. The marriage would grant Stannis Culle a great grant of land and a dowry unmatched by many of those of Lady Tarwin's standings. And though most unions were very political this day and age, the young Lady Tarwin's betrothed was anything but some knight in shining armor, or a prince girls of her age dare dream.
She was at marriageable age, barely fourteen, when she was delivered to Stannis's home in this city. It was before a royal judge the orders and contract were finalized and the agreed date of the next morning was decided. The young lady Tarwin was then escorted with her family to prepare.
Her nerves were shot and unending, her plea with her father to change his mind easily cast aside. Her fate was sealed, and the wedding would continue-
But Stannis Culle had better ideas. His knew wife would be a burden, and he had eyes for a bigger prize than she. And he made sure that int he paper work it was noted that, in the event the young bride should die well before an heir is sired, he was still entitled to all of the gains the contract provided. Naturally, he was able to convince the young lady's father, due to her frail health. It was perhaps that reason the man was okay with the arrangement, since his eldest daughter, who was much healthier and more beautiful, was promised and to be married to another, as she easily would have been Stannis's first choice.
As it was, the eldest sister was a bit upset when she found out her younger sister was to be wed well before her. Her engagement, she naturally argued, was meant to last two years! She still had at least four months on it before she could make her vows, yet here her sister was, just having met her intended through scandalous promises her father should never have taken- never mind how it kept her family afloat and she, and her extravagant life style, still maintained.
Even still, on the day the wedding bells tolled, it was a solemn afternoon, where duty shone bleakly in Lord Tarwin's eyes as he and his family entered the church. Up in the bell tower, his daughter was being prepared for the wedding, and he just wanted to make sure things were going as planned. Once his family was seated and situated, he made his way up to the bell tower, and was surprised when some strange man was sitting there, smoking a cigar on the stone steps.
His brows dipped sharply as he demanded, "Who are you and what are you doing here in the North tower?" He moved for his blade, the other man, unflinching. It was easy to see he was of foreign blood. No serenian had skin so dark a tan! Nor hair so black or eyes so deep and careless. But the stranger sat there, wearing his deep, wine colored suit and puffing casually away at his cigar.
With the man's ignorance of his question, Lord Tarwin growled and stepped closer.
"I demand you tell me what you're doing here! Speak now, or I'll have your head!"
The man didn't rise, nor seemed to be at all startled by the blade pointed at his head. Rather, he lazily looked the man over and asked through another puff, "Are you Stannis Culle?"
Lord Tarwin was taken back."Lord Culle? Why do you seek him? This is his wedding day," Lord Tarwin went on, defensively. "If you are friend or family, you are to be seated down below in the church."
"So, you're not Stannis Culle?" The cigar smoke wafted between the man's lips as he asked, sounding almost bored. Lord Tarwin was losing his patience.
The man's face went red with anger as he shook.
"It's Lord Stannis Culle to you! Out of my way!" And he moved to strike the man down at around the same time the door was thrown open to his daughter's preparation room on the opposite side of the room the men now stood.
"Father!"
His sword fell short as it clanged against the stone. His daughter gasped.
"Father!" And she rushed towards him, holding onto her lacy white skirts as she approached. "What on earth are you doing!? And who are you?"
By now, Jarrett's lanky form side stepped the blade aiming for his throat,a nd had moved to stand beside the girl, much to the chagrin of her father, who was still shaking with anger.
"Step away from my daughter! Now!"
Jarrett didn't move, but the bride cowered away once she realized the man was no friend.
"Father,- who is he!?" she asked, rushing to her father's side and clinging to his arm. But before her father could even wager a guess, her breath was caught in her throat, and as her father turned to see just what was going on- she had a bolt jutting out from her neck, and was gargling over her own blood.
His eyes went wide.
"Elena!" he cried, grabbing her suddenly as she grabbed at her throat and swooned over her own choking blood. "Elena! Gods!" He cried out. "Where.. how..."
Jarrett, the strange cigar smoking man, wasn't holding a crossbow. Lord Tarwin's eyes went up to the rafters and spotted someone in the shadows and snarled, "You will pay for this! I'll have you hang!"
The man with the crossbow only smirked and said, "I'd like to see your corpse try." And he nailed a bolt clean into the man's head. Lord Tarwin's eyes went cross and down he went, crumpling to the floor.
The assassin's eyes then looked over towards where the young bride was bleeding out, then over towards the man in the wine colored clothes. His lips twitched.
"Jarrett L'isson." He aimed his crossbow. "It seems it's my lucky day."
Jarrett moved quickly, dragging the bleeding bride as she was choking out over her last breaths. Jarrett had to walk with a limp, not coming out of his scuffle unscathed, nor without a corpse. But the wedding guests below were none the wiser that two assassins were making chase of one another while the bride was bleeding out.
He hadn't come for this body, nor that of her father's, but knew his mark would show up, and just before the vows. He just hadn't realized he'd show up this soon. Then again, he knew not much ont he tactics of men who plotted an assassination at a wedding. He just knew enough to hunt down his own mark and knew exactly where he'd be.
And though the other man had managed to get out of the scuffle, though perhaps barely alive, it wasn't without a very potentially lethal mark left on him by Jarrett L'isson. And from the shadows of the church overpass he hung back, left eye dripping from his socket with blood as the man panted and looked down at the church's unscathed scene.
They had no idea their bride was dying, or the lord who was the host, dead on the steps. Never the mind, the second L'isson came crawling out with the dying girl, he'd make sure both she and the other were quite dead. He did so love dead bodies, and dragging the corpse of such a pretty young bride along with that of Jarrett L'isson? Well, it was enough to get the fire going in his blood.
Fortunately for this hunter, he knew a bit of blood magic himself, in which he recognized Jarrett L'isson was also known for. It was perhaps why he liked the idea of taking on this new mark. Not only would it fill his pockets plenty, but his standing as an assassin would go up ten fold-
and his blood lust would be very, very sated.
So imagine how large his smile must've been as he watched Jarrett L'isson limp out from the tower door, a woman on his arm, and the veil covering her face, the wound, and the blood.
Oh yes... This is why he loved his fellow assassin L'isson. He worked in such a magical, eccentric way that ticked him- and Jarrett did it with such a natural ease.
Everyone in the church was startled to see the bride with some strange man on their arm, and exchanged glances and whispers as the church bells began...
And Jarrett lead the corpse bride down between the line of pews.
By the time Jarrett made it to the end of the aisle, the old priest had to adjust his spectacles, peering over the altar, then down at the limp form of the bride where Jarrett deposited her form with an unceremonious thud.
Another thud had followed, and a few others for sure, as women fainted away at the sight as an exasperated groom shot out of his seat to point,
"Murderer! How dare you enter into this holy sanctuary on my wedding day, throwing my bride onto the altar covered in blood!"
It was the picture perfect scene of a crime, and Jarrett turned to wipe off a smudge of blood on his cheek using the back of his hand to do so, and the entire front of his suit was ripe red from blood. But his eyes weren't upon the angry groom, but were searching the pews for any sign of the other.
And that's when he dodged a bolt that almost shot through his brains, barely missing it by mere inches as it hissed through his hair and sunk into the pulpit. Still enraged and baffled, the groom turned around with an angry growl and pointed up at the balcony.
"YOU!" But the second his finger was pointing at the smile from the shadows- a bolt shot through his mouth and splattered out brains and blood from the other side.
And down went the groom, a gurgling, soon to be corpse beneath the freshly dead form of his bride. And soon, a panicked stampede of people were racing out of the church. The bells soon now ringing with alarm rather than for that of celebration. After all, instead of a wedding, it seemed it was the start of a funeral.
