A Matter of Approach

“That was useless. A completely waste of time,” Tienne fumed. These were not the first words of anger that Tienne had spoken since leaving Noctus Concoctions, nor were they likely to be the last.

Ash hadn’t bothered responding, or even really even listening, since the beginning. It all registered to her as a sort of mildly irritating background noise. Mostly, Ash was too bust thinking about her conversation with Noctus. She kept on replaying it in her mind, trying to tear a deeper meaning from it. Ash was absolutely sure there was something more there, something the alchemist had meant for her to understand. But whatever it was, Ash couldn’t find it, and that failure was turning into a hard pit of frustration in her gut. With success seemingly impossible, Ash tuned back into Tienne’s ranting as a distraction.

“How was that a waste?” Ash asked. The question was prompted specifically by Tienne’s last statement as much as it was anything else she had said in the last few minutes. “We know about the map now, and that the guys from Gerred’s place are called the Emerald Hand. That seems helpful to me.”

“And what are we supposed to do with any of that?” Tienne snapped. She wheeled on Ash hard.

The sun was setting and darkness was encroaching on Mearn, but Ash still got a good look at the mildly crazed look on Tienne’s face. Only then did she realize how much of a mistake engaging with the Valkyrie’s anger was. But it was too late to take things back, and Tienne had jumped fully into the opening Ash had given her.

“Careful planning and preparation are required before making any decision. Rash action is no better than foolish action,” she said. It sounded like a quote. “The map’s existence and the name of this supposed group are meaningless without further information, so yes, I do believe meeting with that woman was a waste of time.”

Ash staggered under the speed and intensity of the verbal onslaught. Coming up with an immediate, useful retort was flatly impossible, so Ash fell back on being annoying to buy time.

“Did Solenia teach you that one?”

“She didn’t have to. I had tutors of exemplary quality well before I became a Valkyrie, as well,” Tienne said, entirely seriously.

“…Okay then. Well what are you going to do then? Just give up and wait for something to happen?”

“Of—of course not,” Tienne replied, dismissing away any concern with a wave of her hand. “I simply don’t have sufficient information. I will return to Lady Solenia and find out what she has learned. She will have uncovered something.”

“Well that isn’t a plan,” Ash protested. “Is that really the best a Valkyrie can think of? Come on, we should be out there cracking Emerald Hand heads, or crawling all over those hills.”

She summoned her best, friendliest, most conciliatory manner for those words, in the hope that it would at least normalize the tone of the conversation. People were starting to stare, and Ash suspected that outside attention would not be particularly welcome to the Valkyries. Such had worked well in the past for most members of her gang, when they got a little overeager or scared: give them something else to think about, preferably something they already wanted to do, and they stopped thinking about the bad thing. Tienne, as it turned out, was not most members of Ash’s gang, and appeared to be immune to her charms.

“This is precisely the problem. You have no experience with this work. You have no idea what we do, or why we do it! We never, ever simply run off without thinking. These sort of investigations take time.”

“Well I’m sorry for being in a little bit of a hurry,” Ash retorted. She could feel herself digging her heels in, and knew it wasn’t helpful, but didn’t let that stop her. “But you did hear what the nice lady back there said, right? About the whole city being in danger? So yeah, maybe I do want to get moving a little bit, but that’s only so that everyone I’ve ever known doesn’t die!”

At last, Ash seemed to have found something that Tienne didn’t have an easy counter to, because the girl feel silent, and even momentarily glanced away with something that certainly looked like embarrassment. While she recovered quickly, the young Valkyrie had lost a noticeable measure of her previous conviction when she next spoke.

“Even so, there is nothing else to be done now.” Tienne tried to make it sound like a final, definitive decision, and even mostly succeeded. “We can not very well run around the city, looking for men in long cloaks, nor go to the hills ourselves. We must wait for further instructions from Lady Solenia.”

Even as Tienne spoke, Ash had been readying some manner of withering retort, but it was forgotten instantly when Ash caught movement at the very edge of her vision. It was sheer luck that she had seen the dark blur of a figure moving away: night was well and truly falling over Mearn, and the majority of the streetlamps were yet unlit. Even where light was available, the chaotic shadows cast by the many hills and valleys of Mearn made sight an uncertain thing. But despite all the advantages that secretive people enjoyed, Ash had still spotted the person. She too had grown up in Mearn and had learned every trick of survival there was. To let someone slip past her notice would be a grave wound to her pride.

“Good news, I don’t think we have to ‘run around the city’ to find our mystery men.”

“Were you not listening to anything I just said,” Tienne sighed, voice pained from exasperation. “There is—”

“No, I mean we’re being followed, and I can make a pretty good guess by who,” Ash said, dropping her voice to a low whisper.

To her credit, Tienne reacted instantly, dropping her annoyance and adopting a serious expression. Beneath her cloak, her hand went to her sword, ready for action.

“Where are they? I will not be humiliated a second time,” she hissed, eyes casting about wildly.

“Okay, no, my turn to tell you what we’re not doing,” Ash said, only a little more smug than was necessary. “When you’re being followed, you don’t just confront the person. You have to let them follow you a bit more then, when you’re ready, you jump them and make them tell you everything.”

Ash had expected Tienne to protest, and had been ready to continue the lecture for some time, but to her surprise the Valkyrie quickly relaxed.

“…And how do you propose to ‘jump them,’ Tienne asked, warily.

Ash grinned, and told her.

…

A few minutes later, a man in a large black cloak darted past a dark alleyway. The lower levels of Mearn were dotted with streetlights, but this high up the lamprunners were still working. Dusk therefore cast a long shadow over the twisting street of the storage area above the shopping district. That darkness was aggravated by claustrophobic stacks of crates and windowless warehouses, making the whole street appear as if it existed in some sort of deeper night. The spaces between the buildings were an abyssal maze. Even so, the man carried no obvious light. He moved quickly, never staying in one place for more than a handful of seconds. His head snapped to track every sound and shift in the gloom, no matter how small.

Just as he finished his circuit of the storage area, something crashed loudly into a lamppost behind him, audibly breaking. He whipped around, gaze instantly locked on the source.

He realized this was a mistake when the lamppost exploded with blinding light.

The radiant burst lasted only an instant before fading away into nothing, but the man stumbled backwards, clutching at his eyes. It was a miracle that he kept his balance. He was not given the chance to recover before a person jumped out from another alley and hit him squarely in the head with a fist-sized rock. The man went still, wobbling in place, his body unsure which way it should be falling.

But the man did not fall. Rather, after only a few seconds, he righted himself and turned towards his attacker. By the time he was staring down at the small girl sheepishly holding the rock, it was as if nothing had ever happened.

“Well this is unfortunate,” said Ash.