bakerstreet | otherwordly.

When you take things that aren't yours, it's theft. Sorry to burst your bubble.

"Petty theft. Really." It's clear from his deadpan tone and skeptical expression that he isn't buying that. Not for a second. "A punishment so harsh they don't talk about it in polite society anymore, and they sentenced a common thief."

She held up a finger. "First of all, not a thief. Good intentions." Ariadne realized, of course, that it was an argument she would never win. Not with Agent. But that didn't mean she was going to admit defeat. "And secondly, there was nothing 'common' about it."

On that point, her chest puffed out a little bit with pride.

"It was the Hegaman's Heart. A rub this big." She made a fist. "And they'll never find it." Valuable and historical though the Heart had been, Aunt Lysia had broken it into smaller pieces to be sold.

The cause needed the money.

"Alright, so you stole something very expensive. And rather than keep you around to see if they could pry the information out of you as to where it went they just...tossed you into the wilds."

It's still not adding up. But then, he hasn't been all that forward with her, either. Frowning, he turned his gaze back to the strange, shifting horizon with its dancing lights. "And intentions don't matter. You take something that isn't yours? You're a thief. You kill someone? You're a murderer. It doesn't matter why."

As was often the case with Agent, Ariadne had the sense that the conversation about her and her sins wasn't really about her and her sins.

They were about his.

She debated whether she wanted to press the matter. But it was really time. She'd handled him as best she could. But the time had gone by and he was still here and he needed to reconcile all the disparate pieces of his life.

Otherwise, how could he move forward?

"Have you murdered many people?" she asked softly.

"I'm a soldier."

Which did and didn't answer the question. A good soldier survived, and did so by killing. A lot of killing, at that. What he'd done for the UNSC, for Freelancer...he didn't regret it.

He just regretted trusting them as much as he did. Trusting the others, the people he thought were his friends and allies.

Somehow, that made Ariadne's decision for her. The problem with being such a well-known liar is that even when she was telling the truth, people didn't believe her.

Not a precedent she needed to set for what would probably be the last and only relationship in her life.

"So am I," she said. "My war is just fought a little differently from yours, I guess."

"I don't know. Stealing things, and getting imprisoned without a hope of escape? I was starting to feel right at home."

Clearly she's got a different definition of 'soldier'. There's no way someone like her would have fought in the war back home. But she's been talking about rubies and fairies and dragons and the like, and he's got no desire to go into how ridiculous all that is, all over again.

Especially not where he's currently sitting.

Ariadne whetted her lips, pulling her thighs up against her chest and setting her chin on one knee. "I think I remember you once saying that you were fighting off foreign invaders." What was the word he'd used? "Aliens? Outsiders trying to conquer your world. I may not know the exact context of it, but believe me, I understand it better than you think."

Actually, she understood a lot more than anyone gave her credit for.

But that was by design.

"When I was ten years old, my home was burned to the ground. By outsiders who did conquer it. Not a day of my life, between then and when I came here, was dedicated to anything other than fighting back."

It's a story he's heard before. Families whose worlds suddenly weren't anymore. Entire planets glassed and left uninhabitable. It's the war he signed up to fight for...just not the one he wound up serving, in the end.

Not that he's bitter or anything.

But it lets him run over what he knows quickly enough to piece things together in a way that makes some kind of sense.

"So you were stealing for the resistance." That would explain why she didn't view herself as a thief. Intentions.

"There's always a resistance," she said. There was such veneration in her voice. Because that was something she loved about people, and part of the reason why she felt they were innately good: They always fought back, they always fought against the darkness. "Conveniently for me, ours was being led by my Aunt Lysia."

Actually, Lysia wasn't her aunt. They shared no blood whatsoever. But there were so few Alastrians left that was hard for them not to use familial terms.

And anyway, she was Tahafra's blood sister.

"And the people who could you worked for the current regime. Decided to make an example of you. That sound about right?"

Wash was studying her now with a very hard look in his eyes. It put a lot of things into context, that was for certain. And now he had some valuable information on her, if it came to needing such things.

She laughed a little, shaking her head. "No," she said. "You make an example of important people. Kings and queens dragged out for public execution. Religious leaders humiliated in front of their flocks. A punishment for 'petty thief,' as you would call me, is really just a bit of fun. I sometimes think a few of the higher-ranking officers took turns coming up with what they thought would be an entertainment punishment, before settling on sending me to Fae."

Ariadne shrugged. It didn't matter to her all that much. Everyone liked to play the 'what if' game now and then. But it was just that. A game.

"They never connected me to Aunt Lysia. Or else it would have been much more of a spectacle."

"Jesus."

He shook his head. What a sorry place she'd come from. Probably better off not going back. "Sounds like this place is damn near paradise in comparison."

God knows they wouldn't have had the option of exiling him. He'd have gone down swinging on assholes like those. Assuming he had the good fortune to get killed, this time around.

"It's a lot less noisy," she replied.

Actually, if Ariadne was perfectly honest with herself, there were days when she really valued the fact that she'd been removed from the whole situation. Mostly because she knew, if she hadn't been, she would have run herself ragged trying to fix it all.

And had to watch more than one loved one die.

"It is that."

And he drew himself to his feet, turning away from the majestic sight in front of him, back towards her. Something real, and right in front of him. Too much of this was going to be bad for him, he already knew.

"Ready to head down yet?"

"I get the sense that you do," she said.

Which was fine, really. Ariadne could climb up the cliff-side any time she wanted. But spending time, face-to-face with another person? That was more precious.

Frankly, more precious to her than she ever would have admitted.

"Really? What gave it away?"

It was less mocking than it was teasing, and he offered a hand down to her in order to help her to her feet. Miles better than how things had been between them at the start. Not that he trusted her, no. He'd made that mistake too many times before. But he was at least relatively sure that she had no motive to stab him in the back right this five minutes.

"I get that this is probably relaxing for you, but...I'm not really a fan of seeing things that aren't real."

Ariadne reached behind her head and pulled her hair into a knot at the base of her skull. She'd braid it back later.

She was about to get up to her feet when she saw him offer his hand. It gave her pause. More than a second or two. Of course, she'd been around Humans long enough to know that the offer of a hand wasn't as intimate as it was for Alastrians. That part didn't throw her. The surprise was just how much of a shift it seemed to be for him.

Was this place changing Agent? Or was he finally relaxing a little bit?

No way to know just yet.

In the meanwhile, she reached out, taking his wrist to pull herself up. She bounced to her feet, giving him a gentle smile, right in the face. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it."

His eyes trailed to the edge of the cliff face before his nose wrinkled, creasing the freckles laid across the bridge from exposure to the sun. "Please tell me there's an easier way down than just...falling," he muttered, before stepping closer to the edge.

Climbing down was trickier, in some ways. But she'd been up here before numerous times. Surely she'd know a few tricks.

She laughed a little, letting go of his wrist. "The other side is a little bit easier going down. So I guess, instead of falling, I'd say climbing. If you're nervous, I can go first and spot you."

Not that she could support his weight, if he fell. Not for long. But if worst came to worst, she could ram her nails into the cliffside. Just long enough to pull him up and hope he could catch a handhold.

Just long enough to expose herself.

"Me? I'm not nervous. No one's saying that."

Straightening and clearing his throat, Wash started to make his way to the other side of the plateau, as she'd indicated. Maybe there would be familiar footholds to follow. Regardless, he wasn't going to have long to contemplate any mistakes, should they be made here.

With a grunt, he lowered himself down past the edge and began to climb.

Snarly male.

With a bit of a shrug that no one could see, Ariadne followed after Agent, swinging herself over the side and following him down.

It had been different this time. Less snarly, more sheepishly reluctant to admit weakness. Which was also progress, in its own way. Less teeth shown meant that he was getting tired of always being on his guard...

Or maybe it was just a relief to be able to do so without immediately paying the price for it, in some way or another.

Never mind that now. Focus. One grip after the other, working his way down. A sudden stitch in his side, however, and one grip slipped unexpectedly, leaving him dangling by one arm for a split second.

"Shit--"

She should have paid more attention to the probabilities. The problem was that her life of isolation occasionally made Ariadne careless.

Not careless, no. She wasn't careless.

Just used to being alone.

She heard his slip as much as she saw it and smelled it. And as she'd been trained, acted immediately and on instinct. Without thinking about facades or the many prejudices she'd faced most of her adult life, she let go of the rock face and let herself fall down to his level, expertly ramming her fingernails--her talons--into the cliffside just in time to stop herself beside him. With her other hand, she pressed his back, forcing him against the stone.

It happened in the blink of an eye. But was accompanied by a truly awful noise. Stonecutting noise. Cracking and breaking.

He didn't think twice about it. Instead he grappled for his grip once again, seizing hold as quickly as he could and finding footholds once again. His face was all but smashed into the stone, but he didn't move for a good second or two. When he did?

A strangely high-pitched laugh escaped, thin and gone in a second.

"Okay. We're...not doing that again."

otherwordly.

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