To the Exquisite and overtly finespun Robert D'Autoine, good day to you.
My name is Fenryka Wyrdmake, or Ryka (pronounced Reeka) for short. In case you are wondering, yes... that Wyrdmake. My older brother Skarsi has told me much about you. Somewhat of a trustable, albeit strange, fellow.
So when i said i wanted to travel around Sirius and learn, he suggested i start with the commonwealth. So here i am "applying" for your unique and unusual group.
If there is anything you want to know, feel free to ask. Big Brother Skarsi did say "be careful with him. He could confuse a computer with the way he speaks". He also warned me about a guy called achille or some other strange name. Big Brother Skarsi said to shoot him if he tries anything with me. Maybe Big Brother is just being over protective, i dont know. Maybe you could tell me more.
“Amusing – perhaps Skarzi never donated you a photograph. Mind you, it is hard to discern the occupant of a cockpit via a guncamera.”
*Achille Augustain Nadeau, for a reason known only to himself, shrugs; plugging his jaws with a corpulent cigar. He does not strike you for a Zoner, apart from the alarmingly telling accent, he dresses with all the enterprise of an IND executive. His hair lies flaxen, flat and full, flowing down against the tapered, edgy lines of his shoulder blades, appearing ill-suited for a flight suit, or even any helmet at all. Perhaps he simply doesn’t wear one.*
“So what if I try to recruit you? Will you shoot me then?”
*He lights the cigar. His lighter is equally sizable, delivering a sculpted, purple flame that looked halfway between a work of art and some form of bunker clearing device. As with everything else in the transmission, larger than life. You wonder how rapidly he would immolate if he dropped it in his lap.*
“…Shooting my person often chances to be an onerous act, you see. Situational High Energy-based Intelligent Defence Solutions (or S.H.I.E.L.D.S.) are marvellous apparatuses, after all. Especially when every thread point of my apparel happens to be laced with innumerable Schottky diodes. Of course, lacking the odd pecowatt of electrical power, the damned contraption would barely stand up to more than the first direct deflection, and the resulting thermal bleed would almost certainly melt the entirety of my torso to a fine, flaming crimson jam, but the coroner would write my death off as suicide. You see…”
*Achille grins, inhaling placidly through the burning contrails of his cigar, sniffing eddies of turbulence through the narcotic haze. He’s smiling; a thin, tapered line that left small, dapper creases at the corners of his mouth, stretching against the dermatologist’s product. Perhaps he likes you. Perhaps.*
“...The act of your gun would still end me, but it would not be your gun which would bore a hole through your chest. Rather, my expiree would be a fault of my own irrationalities, and not that of the avenger. Suicide, but with more tact to it. More purpose, if you will. Like the much dramatized LSF operative taken captive by the BDM, I choose to crunch the little pill rather than satisfy those that wish my undoing.”
*He stops talking, mouth sealing for want of relief as he creaked back, reclining laxidasically against his chair, taking respite, mid speech, trailing the lip of the cigar free from his lips, revealing the bite-weary end.*
“After all; what is the point of freedom if you cannot make your own life choices, hm? Especially those pertinent to life’s end. They are, after all, rather inevitable.”
*The smile widens – he’s almost amiable.*
“…So let me toss out a query, cheri. Just a little one, and please, do not be noneplussed if it hits you offguard. Answer only at your own volition. Think of me not as a prospective collegue, nor an interviewer, but a confidant. Note, I am not your confidant by any synonym of the word, but entertain me. Just for this instant.”
“My name falls from Achilles, an inconsequential character from an inconsequential, dead mythos of an equally inconsequential ancient classical culture of Earth. A trifecta of uselessness. The hero, for, in irony, that was how Achilles was commonly viewed, found himself dipped in the river of the dead at an age so diminutive as to render himself utterly incapable of protest, by an enterprising parent. By some divine quirk, this baptism chanced to be enough to render him all but impervious to the weapons of humanity, the heel used to hold him under excepted. Hence the Achilles’s tendon.”
“…Gives a new meaning to ‘shot myself in the foot’, doesn’t it? Vanity is my Achilles’s heel, or Achille’s heel, if you prefer. Vanity will one day kill me – my own hand; or shield, but not the gun of others.”
“So cheri – you’ve seen my Achille’s heel; what’s yours?”
“…Pleasant to make your acquaintance, ami. Give your brother my regards – I’m sure he’ll know what I mean, I am sure.”
“…Till your reply.”*He salutes – a casual curteousy.*"A pleasure to meet you, Ryka Wyrdmake."
THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's outlawed trade unions, determined to take the underworld for themselves.)
I do remember seeing something about that old fable in some old records that are held in Baffin.
I would think such a "learned" fellow would know that a gentleman never asks and a lady never tells. You do seem vainglorious though, so vanity being your downfall is apt.
It also seems that expressing your Achilles heel is a result of said flaw, which is quite curious. it almost seems like you want to die.
Oh yeah, one last thing....
*she looks at Achille's photo.*
you look like a barking toad, and thats an insult to the toad.
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