An Everyday Errand (Job/Veronika/Ahote)

It was a windy night in River Village and cold enough to compel you to wear a jacket but not so much that you'd shiver if you chose not. The village just against the shore sparkled with lanterns and firelights as the roads bustled with as great a crowd as it would be in daylight hours. But not among these smiling men was a sharp-chinned man in a black trench coat sat idly atop a hill just only minutes away from the bright and noisy village below him. He'd watch not the townspeople, but the brackish waves that lapped over the rocky coasts, shimmering in the reflection of twinkling stars and a full, snow-white moon against a tar sky. The night felt almost romantic to careless minds and well-to-do civilians, but the man atop the hill could only watch indifferently whilst expertly plucking a burning cigarette in and out between his lips and fingers and sometimes winced to cough.

A rushing wind blew across the atmosphere and beckoned a group of leaves to follow, the full, green tops of trees rustling together while the puff of grey death escaped his throat and disappeared into the night sky. With gloves equally as dark as his coat, he'd pluck a small note from his pocket, reading the dark ink scribbled across it. It was nothing spectacular and, if anything, was just an ordinary errand for the infamous man atop the hill. A hearty woman of River Village became a spectacle for his fishing business, and while not fisherwoman herself reaped the rewards of her workers' efforts. Naturally, her underlings were not too keen to this and decided to pay for her life. Yet the most unique detail about the request was that it was a group decision in of itself as if her entire workforce were out to get her. Reading this, Ahote scoffed.

Yet suddenly, Ahote would no longer feel like smoking the cigarette and held it idly between his lips, letting the stream of the smoke drain into the atmosphere and his let his lapse into a frown. How long had it been since he was able to happily and freely cavort about the dirt streets like that, he wondered? - And was he just a typical assassin now? His pale complexion became crestfallen at the thought, wanting his entire being to sink into the soil he sat on at that very moment and would be comforted by its weight and blinding darkness, where not even himself could hear his breaths or thoughts.

Raising his head to the atmosphere once again, he'd resume smoking and heaved a small yet heavy puff of smoke from the depths of his lungs.

WC: 450/7,000