Sadly Sings Destiny

6

Queen Andretti the Silver stood in the basement of a dingy shack in a nearly abandoned section of Rachedale where a plague had recently swept. Andretti was not decked with her usual gallium makeup and hair staining, she was in her black cloak with the hood pulled over her head, shading her visage from the eyes of the Butterfly, the slight assassin standing next to her. In the dancing light cast by the torch in the Butterfly's hand was the hunched and tied form of a woman. The woman wore the uniform of a soldier, and the silver hawks on her shoulders marked her as none other than Andretti's top Generals, though the woman's face was covered by a burlap sack and her voice was blocked by an unseen gag. Nikki knew this day would come. She knew it from the day that the corruption in her government was first exposed. General Tiffany was a greedy, rat-like creature masquerading as a human. When the Sabbistahni investigators had marked the general as a criminal, Andretti had offered an ounce of Sabbistahni gold to bring the General in alive.

Andretti stood, wishing to every god she could remember, that she was dreaming and that she would wake before she would have to sentence Tiffany for her transgressions. Andretti spoke in a quivering voice as fear and anger and regret mingled in a nauseating tempest in her stomach. Andretti told the General what she was accused of, how she had been found out, and of what was to come. Andretti couldn't help showing her emotion as she spoke. The young Queen had known Tiffany for years, more years even than she had been Queen. Andretti felt betrayed, and she was not afraid to tell her betrayer. It was only a concerned hand placed on her shoulder by the Butterfly that calmed her enough to be silent. Silent though she was, she still shook with rage with her vision clouded by a red mist.

The Butterfly stood a handful of paces away, holding the torch to give light but still providing a safe, healthy distance from the Silver Queen. The Butterfly had her suspicions as to the identity of her employer, but now she had no doubt. What still filled the hardened killer with fear was the motivation Andretti had for the use of her services. The Butterfly had killed many in the name of saving face for an equal number of clients, but never once had she dreamt of working for a Queen. There was something to the idea of working for a queen that made her feel unclean. Should Andretti decide she no longer needed an assassin, then she could have the Butterfly removed as quickly as one could destroy the insect she was named after. For her to have one of her most trusted advisors, an advisor her mother had trusted, betray her, it was an insult beyond comparison. Andretti went on, letting her emotions cover both her voice and now the words she chose. The Butterfly flinched as she realized what she had been drawn into for the first time. The Butterfly watched her Queen as the monarch continued to rant and scream, her body shaking with rage and drops of spittle flying from her lips.

When Andretti had screamed herself into a hoarse voice, she turned and gave the order. The Butterfly nodded and looked at the creature kneeling on the floor. The former General seemed to have accepted her fate, she no longer quivered before the unknown, nor did she slouch. The ex-commander sat with her back straight and waited what she knew was coming. The Butterfly almost took pity, and had to admire her resolve, but this was another job. The only pity she took was the same as a trapper capturing the perfect fox. There was a hint of tragedy to killing the prize, but one needed to die so the other could survive. The Butterfly mumbled the killing hex, a painless magic word that was akin to switching a lever in the brain that told all essential functions to stop, including consciousness.

The assassin turned away from the limp body, that was a chore for later. For the first time in her career, she needed answers if she was going to continue her grisly work. She followed the path Andretti had taken and went into the adjoining room where the Queen was dashing her face with cold water from a washbasin. The Butterfly stood, watching, waiting, sizing up the other woman. She regarded her client in a new light. Through the ranting, the assassin had learned much of the cause she had been unwittingly serving, but she needed to hear it for herself, directed to herself.

"Queen Andretti the Silver?" the Butterfly said in a soft, timid voice. It was unusual for the assassin to speak in a voice she described as her 'victim voice' with genuine feelings of timidity.

"Yes." the other replied in a soft voice. The assassin didn't need to ask the question that was lingering in her mind. With that one word, much was confirmed.

"So, these people you're having me kill are thieves? Is that all? Why not have a public trial and make an example of them?" She asked, stepping forward.

"I can't do that." she sighed, looking at the dirty floor under her feet, "I fear that uncovering so much corruption and inefficiency would only upset more people. People who become upset in large groups are nearly impossible to calm down without shedding one's own blood. I want to avoid widespread violence like we are seeing in Albion. I am hoping that keeping these crimes hidden will make it easier to avoid more deaths."

"It is better to be honest." the assassin said quietly, still watching the Queen, waiting to see what the other woman would say or do.

"If I'm honest, I'll appear weak. It will look like I do not have control over the situation."

"Do you have control?" the assassin asked, raising her eyebrow. Andretti replied with a glare sharp enough to cut, but the killer didn't flinch. Andretti looked over the stone-faced girl standing a couple of paces away. The Butterfly stood with her arms crossed, her brown eyes reflecting the torchlight. Andretti did her best to stare down the girl for her disrespect, but there was something unhealthy in those cold, brown orbs that made her falter.

"So, are you going to keep helping me manage the situation?" Nikki asked as her eyes darted to the floor. As much as she wanted to believe she still had control, she knew the criminal across from her had always been in control.

"Yes, but I want a different payment," she said with a hint of a smile coloring her voice, but not reaching her face. When Andretti didn't say anything, she continued, "I want legal immunity for all crimes, past, present, and future, I want a salary of a thousand crowns a week, an estate on the river, something nice you know? And finally, if ever this situation becomes precarious, or if I am arrested, or if I simply grow tired of living here, I want to be given a faked death and a free, secret trip to Sabbistahn to start a new life with a decent amount of money. This is high risk work, your highness, and should I be caught, or feel the urge to write a letter to certain people, it could be quite bad for you."

"Are you blackmailing me?" Andretti asked, crossing her arms, her voice tinted with anger.

"I am, aren't I?" she said with a smile, "But this isn't much more than I'm worth, and it would probably be cheaper than what we're doing now. Last week I took down four targets for you, that's a month of money now for the same amount of work. Just call it extra security for myself."

"Fine, I'll make it happen. But don't think that this means you can walk all over me either. You're not the only one who has secret contacts." Andretti replied sharply. The Butterfly scoffed and shook her head, but she still stepped forward with her hand extended to seal the agreement. Andretti took the other girl's hand and grasped it firmly. The two locked eyes and Andretti did her best to maintain a hard composure, but it was difficult against the enigmatic and experienced killer, especially while she was still raw from the confrontation that was only minutes old.

Over the coming weeks, Andretti stayed faithful to her end of the bargain, and her private holiday estate five miles up the Rass River from the city was offered to the Butterfly. True to the killer's words, the work was much less expensive, and that detail did much to extend Andretti's supply of Sabbistahni gold. The investigators from the bank continued to hand her names of people who had been illegally making money off her welfare systems, and she kept passing the names to her assassin, who no longer asked questions or for details. As for the disappearance of the venerated General, there was much discussion. But it was well known that the woman had many enemies from around the world from her long and violent career. Andretti made a speech on the topic and did her best to feign ignorance and the pains of mourning, and she even launched an extensive investigation into the disappearance.

The mistake Queen Andretti made, however, was in allowing her investigators to be entirely independent and ignorant of her unwholesome and clandestine operations. Within a month of the investigation beginning, her investigators began making public reports about the disappearances of other government officials at lower levels and that they had reason to believe that all of them were connected. Andretti was not shocked at this, but she did begin to regret not placing her own special investigators on the case who she could have instructed to ignore specific evidence or to close the case on a scapegoat. After another meeting with her secret right hand, the assassin assured her that nothing could ever be traced back to the crown.

It was not from the investigators that the turn for the worse came. It was from the Head Minister of the Welfare Agency that the accusations began to occur. With the ongoing unrest in Albion and the threat of the unrest spreading, all of the members of Andretti's cabinet were looking for a way to distance themselves from the turmoil and from any blame the citizens would cast on the upper echelon of Lotherania's government. When the minister made her claims, there was no way she could know how many facts there was in what she said. Andretti even had to have a spy confirm that the advisor honestly didn't know what she was talking about.

The Minister of Welfare, Elena Thatcher, revealed that her ministry was dealing with an amount of embezzlement, but she was, in fact, dealing with the issue and punishing those who were found to be committing crimes. Elena went on, rather publicly, to accuse Andretti of silencing the criminals just to give the impression of efficiency in government. Elena Thatcher would lament at any chance she got at how she had been facing unjust and impossible pressures from Andretti, she told anyone who would listen that the Silver Queen would fly into a rage at the slightest suggestion of an underlying issue in her agency.

Andretti, Vixen, and the Butterfly found themselves meeting together in the assassin's estate. For a week, Thatcher had been plaguing the Queen with her accusations, and it had left her at a point where she could no longer continue in her old method. It was clear from the Sabbistahni reports that Thatcher was using this as a chance to increase the amount of money being stolen as if to prove her point home to those who would investigate her words. Andretti gathered the only two Lotheranians she felt she could trust. Two people who were wholly uninvolved with the ongoings of the government.

"The answer here is obvious enough. Thatcher had spent every chance she got over the last few days talking about how depressed she is and how she feels guilty about what's been going on under her watch. She may commit suicide." the Butterfly said over her cup of tea. Andretti sipped hers, watching the assassin, expecting this answer, and Vixen's color drained slightly as she continued her first night knowing that Andretti did, in fact, have a personal murderer.

"You're a carpenter who only owns a hammer, aren't you?" Andretti said, getting only a shrug from the other woman, "Not everything is a nail, you know? But how convincing could you make it?"

"Even you'll believe it." she smiled with the pride of a skilled tradesman. Vixen interrupted with protests against further violence and the three of them spent the better part of the night arguing about the best way they could proceed. When the sun rose, Andretti and Vixen returned to the Swallow's Nest with a plan in mind.