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RESPITE TRAINING GROUNDS - NOON
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Louma leaves the barracks, pulling the belt on her light patrol armor snug as her wings shake out the dust of hours in office. She slips a folded page into her pocket, looking toward the West mountains with a sigh. Glancing for anyone that may take a wing to the face, she takes off into the open air over the town. Curling over herself, Louma dives in the direction of the training grounds. Minutes later, the guard lands with a bit of scuffling outside the gates, slithering straight inside and looking about.
Gareth stands a little ways into the training grounds, just observing some guards sparring in one of the rings at the moment. He hasn't noticed Louma yet, as he leans against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest.
Louma catches sight of Gareth, not that he blends in too well. She straightens her outfit a bit and puts on a smile, slithering up next to the wolf. As she does, she looks toward those that he's watching, nodding to herself. "They're pretty decent, hmm?"
Gareth nods, having been waiting for Louma after delivering the letter to the barracks not that long ago. "Aye, they've got some skill in them. Noticed a couple o' missteps here and there, but as long as they get those out while sparrin', and not in a real fight."
Louma shrugs, glancing toward Gareth. "I don't expect my subordinates to be flawless. Besides, if his mistake is getting hurt doing that silly parry-" She raises her voice as one indeed does a parry with a heavy flourish to it, which works but would have left him very open to attack if his opponent were actually determined to hit him. "He'd never live down the mockery."
Gareth chuckles as he unwinds his arms and rests a hand on the pommel of his cutlass. "I mean... if ye want, I could show them how silly those fancier moves are."
Louma grins, looking toward the pair as they resume, seeming with a little less flair than before. She lowers her voice again, chuckling to herself. "Ah, I think we ruined their fun."
Gareth laughs a bit and goes back to crossing his arms again. "Heh, a shame, that. It was funny watchin' them bop each other or get tangled when they try to get too fancy."
Louma quietly laughs along with Gareth, settling on her coil a bit. "Oh I do apologize to you for hampering your fun, then."
Gareth shakes his head, smiling. "Nah, don't worry about it, Louma. I can always come back another time for more amusement, anyway." He glances sideways at her, lowering his voice a bit, "So, uh... I'm guessin' ye might have a few questions about a certain disturbance you no doubt heard about yesterday afternoon."
Louma pauses, turning away from the sparring ring to set a palm on the table behind her, looking at Gareth. "Mmh, perhaps a few. So you were involved in that after all, hmm? The alley is unoccupied, but you're still here." She tilts her head, the earlier humor lost from her expression.
Gareth nods. "Strix packed up and moved elsewhere. I told him there were other hunters roamin' the town as well, so he decided to go into hidin' somewhere else around Respite."
Louma narrows her eyes slightly, tapping a taloned fingertip on the table once. "You told him after tying him up and carrying him through the marketplace."
Gareth nods again, a slight smirk quirking the corner of his mouth. "Well, he could have come quietly, instead of tryin' to run away immediately. Better to have the discussion somewhere private than right in the alley, especially if we were bein' tailed by other hunters."
Louma hums, setting her other hand on her hip as her expression softens. "So you had a talk with him and determined his innocence? I'm not surprised he gave you a struggle, though. What did he use on you two that sounded like a gunshot?" She knows better, as long as her desk wasn't set upon by false reports this morning.
Gareth snorts a bit. "That was me own pistol goin' off. Brunilda got cold feet soon as she figured out the target was Strix. She tried to get in the way of us capturin' him, managed to push Fiora away. He gives Louma a bit of a challenging look, "Pulled one o' me pistols on her, threaten her to stand down... but the crazy pachyderm called me bluff and grabbed me hand, then threw me. Gun went off when her grip pushed me trigger finger down."
Louma grimaces, shaking her head. "I was hoping that was wrong. Believe me, I spent a lot of my morning confused and furious that Brun got involved with your operation." She returns his look with one of some venom. "And that you aimed a pistol at her and struck her." The look only lasts a few moments, replaced by a tired sigh. "She's in for some reprimand, I suppose."
Gareth nods. "Aye, aimed at Brunilda, didn't intend to shoot, but circumstance caused it to fire. No one got hit by the shot, but I did hit her with the pommel o' me cutlass. When she didn't stand down after that, I threatened to stab her, but she threw me. She's got some bruisin', at worst, but nothin' concernin'."
Louma crosses her arms, glancing toward the two fighters as they wander off to the benches for a water break. "She's lucky that's all she got, as are you. Perhaps you'll think poorly on me for this, but I may be a bit annoyed that she was in the wrong and I can't fine you for striking my friend."
Gareth shrugs a bit. "Fine me if you want, Captain. I've been penalized fer far less from less reputable guards in the past." He gives her another look, a glint of amusement in his eyes, "Besides, I'll get me money back one way or another."
Louma sighs, looking towards Gareth and taking a moment to register his expression. "What do you mean by that?"
Gareth laughs a bit, his smile becoming more obvious. "Well, let's see... fer one, I've got a background as a privateer, so stealin' and pickpocketin' aren't exactly unknown to me if I need to. On the other hand, I could always just tack the fine onto the bill fer retrievin' this for ye." He turns away from Louma, and grabs hold of a long, cloth-wrapped package that had, up until now, been cleverly concealed in Louma's blind spot. He smirks, holding the object out to the swan-snake while watching her expression.
Louma stares at the wolf, then the bundle, her eyes widening as she seems to clue in to what Gareth's gone and done. Her tail thumps on the ground in apparent nervous excitement as her eyes dart back from the bundle to Gareth. "You did it? You really did? I'd heard a rumor, but it's right here, isn't it?"
Gareth shrugs as he offers the package to Louma. "I don't know. Why don't ye tell me yerself? Fer all ye know, this could just be a quarterstaff with some bits o' metal strapped to it." He eyes her for a moment, his hand clenching tight around the cloth, "But don't think ye can pull a fast one on me. Worst thing to do is backstab a bounty hunter."
Louma takes the bundle, pausing as Gareth's grip briefly tightens on it, her eyes meeting his. "Is that the worst thing? I'll keep it in mind." She feels the weight of the weapon through the cloth, slipping the shaft free first, eying the familiar pommel. "Oh Gareth, what a gift~" She lets the cloth fall from the other end, eyes travelling up the shaft to the spearhead, her grin clear as she immediately finds the balance.
Gareth lets go of the spear as Louma acknowledges his statement. "Aye. we may not be the most reputable sort, but we know how to get after others in entirely legal ways, too. Just because we hunt doesn't mean we can't issue our own bounties, after all." He hums and takes a step back to let Louma admire the spear, "Now, just be careful with who you show that to fer now. Hatnay was pissed when he found it missin', but he doesn't know who took it."
Louma hums, nodding as she listens, nodding. "I'm sure he would have been." She doesn't seem as happy about misfortune befalling Hatnay as she might have. "Well, you held up your end." She looks to Gareth, drawing a heavy bag of coins from the back of her belt and setting it on the table top. "I do have a couple more questions while you count out your pay, if you have a few moments." She looks back toward the spear, trying to contain the excitement she feels looking at the familiar weapon again.
Gareth accepts the bag of coins and surreptitiously starts to count out the agreed-upon pay, arranging the coins in clean, concise stacks with practiced ease. "'Course, I'll try to answer them if I can."
Louma nods, slithering back a few feet to give herself room to try swinging the spear, almost immediately moving into a training pattern with a little rust. She grunts in affirmation, pausing to speak. "What convinced you to let Strix walk?"
Gareth snorts in discontent. "Feh... damned researchers up in Sarn apparently lied on the bounty. Strix didn't steal the tech from them, but just wanted the knowledge he has, best as I can tell."
Louma enters a second stance, shifting the weight of the spear with ease as she practices a few thrusts at an invisible target, interrupting two guards as they try to enter the training grounds. "Hm. It can't be good for their future business to put out false bounties. You've got a plan to cover the fact you warned the kobold?"
Gareth shrugs as he continues to dutifully count the coins out for the payment. "Don't see any reason to. Far as anyone else knows, the bounty was maybe here, but isn't anymore. "Last seen in Respite Falls, Aephix" doesn't mean much if the target isn't found."
Louma lets out a single, short laugh, turning in her next stance, drawing the hook across unseen targets until she's facing in Gareth's direction again, her stance relaxing... But not completely. The other two guards have moved to set their things up a few tables down from Gareth, though they've stopped to watch the pair. As have the two who were training when she arrived. "One more question. What did you use to cinch the neck of James Hatnay two days ago?" Her eyes are cold, staring Gareth down. Though her body is primed to move, she's not holding the spear point toward the wolf.
Gareth blinks and looks up at Louma, a raised eyebrow and a slight frown being the only real outward marker of his confusion. "Come again, Louma?"
Louma huffs, tapping the pommel of Hatnay's spear on the dirt a few times. Her voice is flat as she recites a report she herself had to read over multiple times out of shock. "One James Hatnay, found on his back in front of his rented lockers at the baths. Claw marks on the face of the lockers, one standing wide open and clearly rifled through. Neck injuries indicating strangling." There's murmuring from behind Gareth, between the two new arrivals.
Gareth stares at Louma for a few seconds, then sets the bag of coins down and turns to face her. He leans lightly against the table, with his free hand resting against a hip. "And ye mean to accuse me of this, hm? Interestin'. About what time was the body discovered, then?"
Louma sets the butt of her spear down, examining him for a few moments. "You have to admit, it does look terrible. The desk clerk found him three hours after he'd checked in." She tilts her head slightly, "Which was roughly half an hour before you checked in, according to their log."
Gareth furrows his brow, his confusion getting even more evident. "...So yer sayin' his body was found before I even showed up? So if Hatnay was already dead, then who the hell was I talkin' with in the pool?"
Louma pauses, then sighs. "N... No, Gareth. He was found dead two and a half hours after you checked in."
Gareth scratches his head thoughtfully. "Ye might have to run that one by me again, Louma. Not sure I'm understandin' the timeline, here..."
Louma gives Gareth a look, tensing slightly. "Are you just trying to buy time for something? Hatnay checked into the baths, then you checked into the baths. About an hour after you checked out, Hatnay was found in the locker room."
Gareth shakes his head. "If I was buyin' time fer somethin', ye would have known by now, trust me." He narrows his eyes a bit, "Ye want me whole alibi, then?"
Louma nods, tapping the spear on the ground again. "Yes, I would very much like your side of the story. Trust me, I would prefer to know this spear doesn't have his blood on it, metaphorically or otherwise."
Gareth works his jaw for a moment, then shakes his head in resignation. "Fine. Aye, I checked into the bathhouse to use the facilities at the time the logs say. I met Hatnay in the main pool, where he'd been soakin' fer a bit, and we spoke for a good while. Eventually, he dozed off, because really, who doesn't like soakin' the bones in hot water after a long day?" He gestures towards Louma, "Once he'd dozed off, I went into the locker room and picked each locker to find the spear for ye. Had a bunch o' traps set in each one, but I disabled them while searchin'. I found the spear, took it out, relocked all the lockers, hid the spear, then rejoined Hatnay in the pool until he woke up again. I left around the time he found the spear missin', while he was busy yellin' at one o' the clerks fer not payin' attention."
Louma hears renewed whispers as she's mentioned among Gareth's explanation, glancing toward the other guards. Her move is to try for dismissing it quickly. "Yes, our contract." She shakes her head, pausing. "Hold on, he was yelling at a clerk when you left? Did you talk with anyone else on the way out?"
Gareth shakes his head. "Other than the clerk actually managin' the log, nope. No reason fer me to stick around listenin' to some poor sap gettin' chewed out. I could hear Hatnay complainin' about security all the way out of the bathhouse, though, and I'm pretty sure some o' the folks that wander near the bathhouse heard him yellin' too, come to think."
Louma breathes a visible sigh of relief, though she doesn't cheer up any. "So we need some testimony, but you might be okay, then."
Gareth scoffs a bit. "I should hope so. I might be a former pirate, but I follow contracts to the letter." He pauses, shaking his head as he mutters under his breath, "...And folks wonder why bounty hunters deal poorly with guards, I swear..." He gives Louma a bit of a sharp look, "...Price of the spear went up fer that, by the way."
Louma gives Gareth a bit of a glaring look as the other guards return to their own tasks, though she finds a solitary chuckle after a few moments. "It's not my fault you chose the day of his murder to make a move."
Gareth sighs and shakes his head. "Well, unfortunate all around. Which locker was the one that got searched, though?"
Louma rubs her chin and hums, recalling the report. "The third one was standing open, and there were electrical arc marks across the bottom on the middle locker door, as well as claw damage that matched Hatnay's own claws."
Gareth nods. "Sounds like whoever it was was also searchin' fer the spear, or somethin' in the same locker as it. I'm not sure about the electrical marks, since I disabled all three traps before I opened the lockers up the first time. Maybe Hatnay reset them after findin' the spear missin'."
Louma nods, thinking on it. "Perhaps he did, I wouldn't blame him." She hefts out a sigh, shaking her head. "Keep the whole lot for the contract if you like. I'm sorry you've been accused. I know you understand why you're a suspect, though." She taps the spear a few more times, looking at it. "I thank you for this, though."
Gareth nods and finishes counting out the coins, setting aside another fifty or so for the accusation before he cinches the bag shut and tosses it (and the remaining money inside) back to Louma. "Eh, this'll do well enough. A shame Hatnay died, since he seemed fairly upstandin' fer a bounty hunter." He sighs after a moment, nodding at Louma, "Take good care o' that thing, and be careful. If someone else is searchin' fer that spear, ye havin' it makes ye a target, too."
Louma accepts the remaining money with a nod, though she nearly winces at the idea that Hatnay could be upstanding. "I'll keep that in mind, thank you." She grins weakly after a pause, looking to Gareth. "Though I recall a promise of an armed sparring match. I do hope that this conversation hasn't thrown that out the door."
Gareth shakes his head and chuckles. "No, that offer's still standin'. I figured I'd give ye a bit o' time to practice though, or it wouldn't be a proper match-up, since I know ye've not had that sort o' spear for years." He pauses, then adds, "Also, it'll give Fiora some time to get better, because she wanted to see us sparrin'."
Louma tilts her head, curious. "She's ill? Or... Is it something to do with the bounty incident?"
Gareth hums. "Yeah, durin' the hunt, Brunilda pushed Fiora against the wall, which gave me time to get away with Strix to talk with him. I'm guessin' Brunilda gave Fiora a couple o' good hits to the gut, though, from how she was movin' when I checked in on her at the Minnow last night."
Louma sighs, shaking her head. "Alright, noted. We'll see what comes of all this. Hopefully the other bounty hunters will take the hint and head off... After Hatnay's killer is found." She pauses, giving Gareth a bit of a look. "You wouldn't be opposed to discreetly asking a few questions if the opportunity arises, would you?"
Gareth shrugs again. "If ye need me help, sure. Anyone in particular ye think I should start with?"
Louma hums, shaking her head. "Not in particular, I suppose. Probably not the best idea before your name is cleared anyways, thinking about it. I'll have someone check in on your story, please stay away from the baths for the time being. The waterfall is very relaxing, if you need to take a soak."
Gareth chuckles a bit, nodding. "That won't be a problem. I need to head out that way to see a friend, anyway, so it works out just fine. Any idea how long it'll take before me name is cleared up?"
Louma crosses her arms, giving him a bit of an exaggerated look. "I couldn't tell you that if I knew, depends on how fast the forms move."
Gareth smiles, knowing a bit of how much Louma needs to work through. "Fair enough, I suppose. Hopefully the giant piles of paperwork don't swamp ye."
Louma lets her spear-arm go limp as if just thinking about the paperwork is draining her energy. "It always does, Gareth. Always. But at least now I can truly and properly unwind. I'm going to put this spear through some practice dummies, perhaps I'll see you at the Minnow in a few days."
Gareth nods as he takes a moment to sweep the coins he'd counted out into his own money pouch. "Aye. Whenever yer ready fer the sparrin' match, let me know. I'll be sure to get Fiora as well, since I know it's not somethin' she'll want to miss."
Louma grins, giving a shallow bow to Gareth. "Hopefully next time we meet will be less muddled. Good day, Gareth."
Gareth gives Louma a slight bow in turn as he tucks his money pouch away in his jacket pocket and turns to head out with a wave. "Good day to ye, Louma. Be seein' ye in a while."
Louma waves to Gareth as well before turning toward the dummy range, testing the weight of the spear as she goes. Her stress is shifted to the back of her mind as she starts familiar exercises, the old movements returning to her quickly.