Chapter Text
The man before her was a native.
There wasn’t any doubt in Aphra’s mind about that fact; she had gotten to know the natives intimately well over the past few days. The constant, careful game of cat and mouse she’d been playing had left her painfully aware of them – what they looked like, everything they did – as she scrambled to cover her tracks. They were tenacious, but so was she. She would survive this. She would rescue the others, with or without help. She couldn’t get to the outpost, so she had to do it herself. There wasn’t any other choice.
So she hid, and waited, and watched. She’d seen him approach, seen him converse peacefully with the people hunting her down, seen them leave without any conflict. Seen him stay behind, carefully scanning the area. Like he was looking for something. Like he was looking for her.
He was trying to hide it, what with the Congregation clothing and the way he held himself, but Aphra could see it clearly in his face. He possessed the same angular features of the natives, the same olive skin tone, and even sported the odd markings of the metamorphs; a smattering of mottled green hiding beneath a somewhat patchy beard. Anyone with a passing familiarity with them would be able to see it.
So, he was a native. There was no other explanation. There wasn’t anything else he could be. He was a native, presumably trying to lure her into a false sense of security in order to recapture or even kill her, and she could not, would not, let herself fall prey to such an obvious trap.
She didn’t move, other than tightening her grip on the pistol she had aimed squarely in his face as her heart thumped in her chest and she did her best to appear confident even as the panic began to set in.
They’d found her.
They had found her, and maybe if she was lucky, they’d imprison her like they had the others. More likely, she’d simply be killed outright as a threat. She’d escaped them once, she doubted they would leave it to chance again.
The native didn’t move either.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” he insisted quietly in what was admittedly a surprisingly good impersonation of a continental accent.
In that moment, Aphra almost pulled back out of sheer surprise and shock. It was, quite possibly, the absolute last thing she’d been expecting to hear in that moment. He sounded… upper class. Educated. Aristocratic, even. Undoubtedly Congregation, most likely from Sérène. Not exactly the kind of continental accent she’d thought the natives would run across enough to learn how to mimic it that perfectly, if they ever tried.
She’d never thought them this advanced in the art of subterfuge. They seemed far too proud to stoop to deception and manipulation. In her experience, they were generally the sort of people that wanted one to know exactly who they were and what they stood for.
And yet, here he stood, directly in front of her, wearing Congregation colours and sporting a posh Congregation accent, like it was the most natural thing in the world. Except, it wasn’t. Because it couldn’t be. Because his face told an entirely different story.
She hesitated for a moment – one, single, terrifying moment – suddenly unsure what to think. Then she shook her head, as if to rid herself of those thoughts by sheer force, and quickly cocked the pistol’s hammer, keeping her aim carefully trained between his eyes. To scare him, she thought. Show him in no uncertain terms that she was ready and willing to fire at any point. The fact that her hands were shaking didn’t make any difference. She had the advantage here. A frightened hand was only more likely to pull the trigger.
She hoped he knew that. Hoped any of the natives had enough experience with guns to know that.
“Tell me then,” she bit out harshly, taking one faltering step closer, “what are you here for?”
His brow furrowed slightly as he recognised the escalated threat, slowly raising his hands to show her that he was unarmed, or at least not about to go for the rapier that hung at his side. His eyes darted around for a moment, carefully taking her in as she had to him just seconds earlier. Trying to figure out whether or not she truly was a threat to him.
Aphra couldn’t help but bristle slightly at that. Out of the two of them, which one was holding the other at gunpoint?
“I was sent to look for you,” he told her quickly, eyes immediately returning to the pistol, again in that same accent.
She was inclined to believe that, or at least some of it. Problem was, who had sent him? Certainly no one she wanted anything to do with. One of the local chiefs, probably. If not the clan that was looking for her, then one of the neighbouring ones. The village on the south-east coast, perhaps. She’d heard their leader was more manipulative and cunning than the others. Or at least, more willing to stoop to that level.
But it didn’t matter. She wouldn’t let herself be caught by any of them.
“Apologies,” she began scathingly, stepping forward and shoving the pistol directly against his forehead, “but allow me to express my doubts.”
He didn’t so much as flinch. “After this little swim, I suppose you could always try to pull the trigger.”
Aphra blinked.
For so long, there was nothing but dead silence as he watched her impassively and her eyes narrowed, trying to figure out what exactly he’d meant by that.
Then, slowly, the realisation dawned on her.
“Goddamn it,” she hissed as she pulled back, clutching the pistol to her chest with one hand as the other went straight for the arquebus slung over her shoulder, only to immediately realise that was of equally little help. “Goddamn it!”
And all the while, he just watched her, eyebrows raised slightly in what she could only assume was amusement at her situation. He clearly did know a thing or two about firearms, in that case. Certainly more than any other native she’d ever had the misfortune to run across. And yet, he stood there, doing nothing despite knowing he had the advantage, never once even bothering to move from that one spot in the middle of the marsh. He wanted to talk, she could tell that much. What he wanted beyond that, she couldn’t begin to say.
Her lips twisted into a grimace at the thought. Hadn’t this been what she wanted, when they first set out on this expedition? A native who was willing to converse, to share knowledge and help them understand the island, and lead them to a potential cure for the malichor? Someone who might actually be able to answer her questions about this place, and the local culture? She suddenly found she had a thousand questions then, even if she wasn’t confident he’d ever answer. If he even could. The natives had a fairly… loose grasp of the actual mechanics behind their magic, after all. To them, everything was a gift from the land itself.
And if she wanted inane conversations regarding mysticism and spiritual exchanges with divine powers, she’d go to bloody Thélème.
Finally, she let out a loud groan and straightened, resigned to the fact that no amount of wishing would immediately dry her powder, and glanced up to meet his gaze.
“Who sent you to find me?” she hissed impatiently, quickly dropping her pistol back to her side, though she still gripped it tightly, ready to bring it up once again at a moment’s notice. Her powder might be wet, but she could, at the very least, club him over the head it if it came to that.
He took a step back and dropped his hands back to his sides – which apparently was his version of relaxing, though his expression never changed.
A stoic, Aphra thought to herself viciously. Great.
The natives usually wore their hearts on their sleeves, letting their emotions drive every action. If she didn’t know any better, she’d start to believe that he really was from the continent after all.
“Not you in particular,” he said, shaking his head ever so slightly, “but the entire expedition.”
Aphra’s jaw immediately clenched, still gripping her pistol, still itching to pull it on him. “And you were sent by whom?”
Were the clans planning to ransom the others back to the Bridge Alliance? Was this man – this odd, utterly bewildering man – supposed to be their go-between? A mediator? Someone to handle the handover and make sure it went smoothly? More likely they planned to enslave them all. Or kill them outright and leave their mangled corpses up for display as an open warning.
“Governor Burhan,” came the response, his voice slicing smoothly through her thoughts, all while giving her a long, meaningful look. Like the fact that he knew the man’s name would mean anything at all to her. “He’s worried about you. You haven’t been reporting.”
“We were attacked,” she snapped back at him harshly. “We didn’t have guards, and most of us have no way to defend ourselves. One was killed, right in front of us. And you’re telling me Burhan only cared because we haven’t come up with a convenient answer to all his damn problems yet?!”
That sounded harsh. Maybe too harsh, but Aphra was beyond the point of caring. She was frightened, frustrated; and though she knew exactly what had been meant by the remark – that the governor had realised something had gone wrong when they appeared to go silent – she couldn’t help but loose some of that on him. The past few days had been some of the worst of her life. She’d never been particularly attached to any of her colleagues, but to witness what she had…
A man being brought down in an instant from an axe strike to the back. The look of shock and fear plastered cross his face before his eyes rolled back into his skull and he collapsed. The terrified screams as they frantically gathered together, trying to regroup, to figure out what was going on. The prickle of magic on her neck as monstrous vines burst from the ground to ensnare them. The feeling of her heart hammering in her chest as she managed to slip away into the night, unable to save anyone but herself. The tension and fear that dominated the past few days as she failed to find the Alliance outpost. The twinge of panic she now felt every time she heard someone barking in the natives’ language.
She shivered at the memories, shoving them as far down as they would go.
“Why didn’t you say so sooner?” she demanded, clawing her way back to the present. “I thought you were- …nevermind. You’re clearly not what I thought.”
He arched an eyebrow at that. “What did you think I was?”
What an odd question to ask. He couldn’t genuinely be that naïve, could he? Surely he understood who and what he looked like. What was he, fresh off the boat? Had he somehow never seen the natives before? Never seen the metamorphs before? Or had it simply never occurred to him that he shared any similarities with them?
Aphra found herself circling him then, her gaze trailing up and down his form, making careful notes on just about every aspect of him, suddenly unsure how to answer his question. She didn’t know what she thought anymore. He didn’t act like a native, certainly. He didn’t stand there with silent confidence as she circled him – in fact, he turned with her, his gaze never leaving her even as she moved around him. Careful. Critical. Oddly self-conscious. Analysing her as much as she was him. Trying to figure her out. Very typical behaviour of just about anyone hailing from the upper echelons of society.
And yet, the way he looked… his face…
More questions. Too many to count, really. Who was he? Were there others like him, on the continent, and she’d simply never noticed? Suddenly, the notion of successfully integrating the natives into civilised society didn’t seem so far-fetched. Perhaps it had already been done. Maybe not with these people in particular, but others, out in the uncharted wildernesses of the continent.
“I’m not sure,” she began quietly, pausing where she was for a moment, just long enough to give him one last critical once-over. “I suppose I was hoping for a rescue of a… different nature.”
His brow creased as the words left her and his lips pursing into a thin, unimpressed line.
“Do you have a name?” she pressed when he said nothing.
“Adélard de Sardet,” came the stiff, almost mechanical response. “I’m from the Congregation.”
De Sardet. She’d heard that name. The Congregation’s legate on the island, and nephew to the prince of Sérène. That explained the clothes, and the accent. And even still, she hadn’t expected to run into such a person here, looking like… well, the way he did. There had been rumours, of course. Murmurings of something, some age old scandal that had probably been carefully covered up long ago, but she cared little for gossip.
Suddenly, she found herself wishing she’d paid closer attention.
He was, what, in his mid-twenties? That would make him older than knowledge of the island. Older than all of the colonies by a few good years. And yet, it couldn’t be a coincidence that he looked so incredibly similar to the people that lived here. The mark on his face, obvious despite his attempts to hide it with facial hair, couldn’t simply be there by chance.
So who was he, really?
“The new governor’s cousin,” she recalled distantly, gripping her pistol tightly and pressing it against his cheek, pushing his head to one side and forcibly exposing the mark, “…who wears an islander’s face.”
He flinched back the instant the words were out of her mouth, swatting her away out of what seemed to be irritation or frustration. Aphra barely responded, too completely consumed with the countless questions plaguing her mind to care. There was clearly a story there, whether he wanted to acknowledge it or not. It was one more question regarding an island and a culture she was beginning to realise was nothing but questions.
And he knew it too, given how awkwardly he shifted and shuffled around, clearly self-conscious under her gaze. He was evidently more aware of what he looked like than he let on. Aware of it, and doing everything in his power to ignore it.
“There have been quite a few stories about you,” Aphra remarked somewhat dryly, finally opting to put her pistol away, turning her attention to their surroundings. “You didn’t come here alone, did you?”
He shook his head, sensing the implicit criticism in her tone. “The others are scouting out the marsh. We should find them, and the rest of the expedition.”
He began to move off, presumably in the direction he believed his people were. Aphra remained precisely where she was, rooted to the spot as she watched him carefully, even as he stopped dead in his tracks and turned on his heels to face her.
“You know where they are?” he asked. “The expedition, I mean.”
Aphra nodded. “They were taken to a native village not far from here. I can show you – we are oh so very close.”
He nodded, and seemed to briefly consider moving off again, only to once again turn back to face her. “I don’t suppose I get to know your name?”
She blinked in slight surprise – though it was a natural thing for him to ask. And even still, some part of her was screaming not to say anything, to tell him absolutely nothing, because he was clearly not who he claimed to be, no matter how good his act ultimately was.
Even still, she sighed. She had aimed a gun in his face, after all. Maybe she owed him that much.
“…Aphra.”
“Aphra,” he repeated, nodding slightly. “Could we, perhaps, avoid pointing guns in each other’s faces in the future?”
She smiled crookedly. “I could, perhaps, consider it.”