---- "Are you a good man, Father?"
The question rattled around within his great helm. Amell clipped it to his hip and drew his ragged hood further. The thing stank, hood and helm alike, and, though it disguised his face, it made him no less conspicuous. Any who saw would surely assume him a disgraced knight. Disgrace for a man so grand always invited questions he couldn't afford to answer.
-- Amell managed upon a tailor, hidden in some dour nook of foreign and strange origins. Where the tavern had been in the dwargon and rugged fashion, this palace of cloth wore a crown of crystal chandeliers and spiralling glass stairways. It seemed all too grand for such a stony and forgotten corner of the Crossing. A dozen mannequins of marble, and two dozen of dark oak, dotted the shop. Some stood upright, though their feet were nailed to the walls, while others hung from the roof and dangled from the stairways.
The place was still undersized, though saying so wouldn't be entirely fair. The doorways would have skirted over a typical man's head but barely reached Amell's chest. "Ah!" a strange rasp sounded from behind a cloth cabinet twice Amell's size. A ladder rolled out from behind – a strange woman atop it.
"Welcome!" she cheered. Her voice carried illness, as though she hadn't stopped coughing for near on a decade.
"How can I help yo-" the woman cut herself off as her eyes bulged out to accommodate the knight before her. "Brilliant," she grinned. "Oh, gimme' something good, big boy."
--"Good- good morrow, my lady."
"Yeah, yeah... Can I take your measurements now or are you not a fan of foreplay?" she said with a smirk.
-- "I- think myself thrice your age, my lady."
"You'd be surprised," she scoffed. "But I hardly see the relevance."
Her twinkling crimson eyes darted across his armour. "Your cloak pains me, sir," she noted. "Am I to assume that is why you're here?"
Before he could answer – before he could blink – she was behind him and tugging on his cape with power enough to drag him back a step.
"I- Yes," Amell said, rubbing where the cloak had chaffed. "You are the tailor here?"
"No, big boy. I'm the spider in the attic," she said, her tone sardonic.
-- "Fair point. So, may I contract your employ?"
"I'm not trying to contract anything from you," she chuckled. "But yeah, I'll stitch you up."
-- "Thank you. I require a cloak. I will pay well if it can be made quickly."
"A cloak?" she pondered, checking him over again.
It humoured him to see her sanguine gaze. There was something familiar in them: adoration. Not of him, naturally, but of her craft, her art. It was a gaze he had shared too, many years ago, as he swung a blade, or battled a foe.
Her raven black hair leapt from her haphazard bun. She pulled free the seamstress' pin that held the bun together and allowed a tumble of black. Five silvered rings chinked against his steel flesh, as did her overlong nails.
"I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name," Amell said.
"Names are words; words are just wasted breath. You couldn't catch your breath even if you tried... It'd slip right through your fingers, regardless of common sayings," the girl laughed. A girl she was, surely no older than twenty, or twenty-one: yet her eyes... So much passion within. Fire that couldn't have been so young as that. She held herself as though tempered and trained for decades beyond her lifespan. Not to mention the deftness of her craft. The girl must have held a needle still wet from the womb.
"What are you?" he plainly asked, his sense leaving him for a moment. The question froze her, but her needle still seemed all too lively.
"That's a rude thing to ask of a lady," she dreamily replied, still wrapped imagined designs for his new cloak.
"It would be, aye," Amell grimly said. He took a heavy step away, his hand caressing the pommel of his blade. Smoky sanguine met fierce cobalt as soon as his fingers met the steel, and half a threat passed each's wordless lips. "A Daem?" he guessed. "Or... Some mutant childe of a Vampris."
"I already told you," she purred. Violet crystals sat beneath her skin, glistening in what little of the dawn pierced the shuttered windows. "I'm the spider in the attic. A big man like you wouldn't be scared of some little ol' spider, would you?"
-- "You know that the Conclave is coming? The streets will crawl with Veytor's inquisitors. You need to flee. This shop is not worth your life."
-- "Aaw, you sound worried. Haven't even had to work my magic yet, and you're already falling in love."
-- "Whether you are Vampris, Daem, or any other thinking thing, I hold no hatred for you just for your nature."
"A rare attitude," she scoffed.
"Why haven't you fled?" Amell pressed.
"I'm... waiting for someone." Her eyes darted between his dagger and his sword; his throat and the chinks in his armour.
-- "Someone like you?"
"Oh, gods no," she giggled. "Devils - 'like me'- make for such dreadful company. No, I'm waiting for an angel."
Her eyes fell from his and returned to her work. Only then did Amell realise that she hadn't blinked since he met her.
"I'm thinking lapis," she finally muttered. "it'll match your eyes."
"You'll meet the angels soon enough when the Veytors catch wind of you," Amell insisted.
-- "-Maybe a white link chain to hold it in place. Something mild for the trim. Teal? No, grey."
"Child, they will find you!" He took her shoulder and tried all but shaking sense back into her, though he quickly thought better of himself.
"Don't touch me, soldier boy," she calmly – though strongly – ordered.
Amell stepped back, bowing his head in apology. "I'm trying to help. I know what they're capable of: you can't hide."
"So what? I should skulk in the sewers until they deign to leave? Darling, this is Tavei silk; I won't even drink tea in it." She flushed a hand over the burgundy skirts that so elegantly completed her black bodice and floral, netted sleeves.
--"It won't look so pretty burnt on a pyre."
"I can handle myself. Gods, you'd think you were my father," she sighed with a smile.
The tailor parted from him, gliding to a box behind her great cabinet and digging around within.
--"No, you can't. They exist for the sole purpose of hurting people like you."
"People like me, hey?" The strange woman scoffed again. "Well... Since you insist on stealing all the fun away from my life, take your pick."
She held out a bundle of pristine blue sheets. "They were meant to be curtains, but I doubt I've got anything else that'll fit."
Amell wanted to argue with her, insist on her leaving, but he knew the futility of it. His sister had been much the same – almost as stubborn and arrogant as he. No words would budge her; no plea move her.
The great knight simply swallowed and chose the humblest of cloaks on offer. She took herself away without another word into some far dark nook and worked in unbreathing silence. A glance was all it took to measure him whole.
Amell swallowed and drew closer. "I- Thank you. I do not mean to place myself where I am not needed. My name is Colin, by the way."
"I know who you are, Fielder," the girl spat, seemingly offended that he would dare lie. His blood ran cold at the easy confession. "What?"
"I'm Tenpic. Your face was plastered on every wall, in every tavern, on every island. I had your bounty poster on my bedroom wall when I was a kid," she chuckled. "You were much hotter back then, before all the greys."
"You don't plan on collecting that bounty, I hope?" he whispered, stroking his pommel yet again.
She offered a grunt. "I'm a tailor, Amell, not a bounty hunter. I make bodices, not bodies."
"I thought you were a spider," he said. "Be it a cloak you weave, or a web?"
"Touché," she absently smirked. "But a cloak will suffice for today."
The blade rattled against his thigh plate as he let it swing free. The girl's demeanour changed at that. Her smile seemed a little truer to the old man. She sat slouched, her posture straining against her gown. She had drawn her raven black mass of hair over one shoulder. It reached close to her waist.
"Then... What truly brings a Tenpic Daem-"
"-Spider," the girl interrupted.
He nodded, "What brings a Tenpic Spider so far north?"
-- "I'm waiting on the angels, as I already said."
-- "How long have you been waiting?"
"My whole life," was her first mocking answer. "A few days," was her final.
-- "Does this angel have a name?"
"Who could say? Maybe, I suppose she would," she pondered. "But I haven't earned it yet."
The girl, or Spider, wasn't having a conversation, he realised. She was dreaming. She spoke as she might to her own reflection in the mirror – thinking aloud – as opposed to conversing with the man before her.
"So..." Amell began, hoping some inspiration would spring from his tongue and help carry the conversation forth. "You've only been in the Crossing a few days?"
"Mmm," she affirmed. "Adorable, isn't it?"
-- "Yet you've managed to find work here already?"
"Oh, I don't work here." She shifted back and reached high, pulling a box of threads from behind a cabinet.
-- "You don't?"
-- "Heavens, no. The old coot who owns the place could never afford me."
-- "Dare I ask where he is then? Dare I ask why he allows you reign of the kingdom?"
"Depends how brave you're feeling," she glibly answered. It was a moment of odd silence after that. "He's fine," she finally admitted, if only to break the quiet. "Just off shagging his mistress."
--"Is that the truth?"
"It's what I'm telling you. Is that not the same thing?" she said in a strange way. "Fine, this place belongs to Xem Da'ark. It's where all the Vampris in the city coalesce to... I don't know, talk about all the hot spots to suck necks or something? I don't really know to be honest."
-- "So you are a Vampris?"
"Enough about me," the Spider sighed. She leaned forward, forgoing her art for a moment and smirking at him. "Tell me, Don Amell, why did you do it?"
Pale little fingers wrapped around her cheeks as her focus became solely upon him. It was no kind of attention that he desired, but he quickly realised that such was her intention. She wanted to make him uncomfortable. She wanted him to back down. It was a game for her. A game of secrets and drama. One she sought to win.
It was a challenge, a gauntlet thrown at his feet. Amell was still a general at heart, a challenge meant a battle, and a battle meant victory.
"Shall we strike a deal," he grinned. "I'll tell you all, and you shall do the same. Anything you wish, you may ask, and I shall do the same. Refuse as you like, and the game shall end."
"One condition," she grinned. "I get a veto."
-- "Deal."
-- "Very well, my Lord Fielder. Ask away."
"What's your real name," he blurted.
"Veto," she said with a cocky smirk. "My turn. Why'd you betray Queen Vias?"
"I am surprised you would waste your veto so soon. Indeed," he contemplated his answer for a long while. "I did not betray Vias."
"Ooh, intrigue?" The spider laughed. "Go ahead then. Ask."
-- "Why risk your life to meet somebody who didn't even tell you their name?"
"Because she made my heart beat," she plainly answered.
"How sweet," he teased.
"My turn," the Spider sang lightly. "Why did you kill your men?"
-- "I- I gave everything for my men. I gave them every chance to live. I watched them cheer as I burned an innocent city. I watched those dark flame crackle. I felt nothing, but in my heart, I knew, I would never see paradise again. They cheered the name of the woman who had taken everything from me... And I wanted to burn them all."
"Damn," the Spider giggled, light in his grim face.
"Are you Vampris?" Amell quickly asked, allowing her no time for thought.
"I'm a spider," she mocked.
-- "Yes or no."
"No," she sighed. "But yes."
"You are or you aren't. One cannot be half undead," Amell insisted.
"You are absolutely correct, sir," she huffed. The girl pursed her lips, sucked her teeth and wrapped him in her sanguine focus. "But how the world seems to hate absolutes."
Amell gave her a strange look but could say nothing more against her. There was no falsehood in her. What she said couldn't be, and yet, it simply must be.
She tore a piece of grey fabric and brought it to the hem of his new cloak. "Why come to Maester Veil? You're no safer here than I."
"It came to me in a dream," he simply answered.
-- "Come now, Don Amell. Be more specific than that."
"You were no less vague," he protested.
She waved her needle towards him. "No, you simply don't understand my answer. It's not the same."
-- "Fine. I dreamt... of a mountain of jet. She spoke to me, said she needed help, so I came here to help."
"The black mountains are to the south, darling. You're half a world away." She smiled again, though it didn't reach her eyes.
"I think the mountain was a metaphor... At least, I hope it was," he chuckled.
"T'would be a touch awkward. Destiny calls, and you're on the other side of the continent." She joined his chuckle before continuing, "Fine. I'll accept your answer. Your turn, make it a good one, I'm nearly finished here."
--"Very well... How old are you?"
"Twenty-eight," she said with a laugh. "But that's a secret you'll take to the grave, understand? Else I'll bring the grave to you."
"Truly? I expected you to be much older!" He laughed. She did not.
"I- what I mean to say is... Well, a Vampris can be any age and still look half juvenile," he stammered beneath her bloody leer. "You look much younger, naturally, but I just assumed that to be a part of your condition!" Even a bead of sweat found his brow as he stammered out his appeasements.
"Well," she slowly breathed. "I was going to ask your greatest regret. But now I know; I'll settle with your second." She returned to her stitching, though each time she pierced the cloth, he couldn't help but feel a touch more menaced than he had before.
"I, err... I slept," he quietly answered after a long while of thought. The old knight unclipped his helm and settled it atop the table.
"That's all?" she grunted. "An oaf like yourself must have done much worse than that."
The hollow and scarred metal burned through him. He could hear the screams rattle around within.
"No crime could be so terrible," he whispered, his voice weighed low by the memory. "It is a regret I doubt you'll ever suffer. A terrible burden of the human condition. For twenty long years, I spent the night sleeping, when I ought to have been wide awake... Admiring her."
"Your wife?" the spider guessed. "I've heard the stories."
--"When she was... Alive, I never wanted to sleep because as I dreamt without her, I missed her terribly. Now that she's gone; I never want to sleep... because she's always there."
"Stop talking," the girl said sharply. "Your cloak is done. Be on your way, sir."
-- "Oh, I- my apologies."
"None are necessary, my Lord. Please be on your way now," the girl urged, dragging him from his place. Frantically, and with a voice pitched for cats, she thanked him for his time and forced him to the door.
--"Wait, just... what do I owe you?"
"Me? Nothing!" she squeaked, her hand on the door, ready to throw it shut. "You might think about compensating the owner for his fabric, but I doubt he'll notice."
"But-"
-- "-Bye bye now! Fare well!"
"Chi- Spider!" Amell blurted as she slammed the door. "What?"
Resigned, but already fond of his new cloak, he sauntered away.
"-My Lord," came a meek voice from behind the door. "I- Good luck."
"Thank you," he hesitantly said. "To you also. May you find your angel before the Veytors find you."
-- "I don't think I will."
-- "No?"
"You're right, they will find me. Twas' wishful thinking which kept me planted. Foolish. I- I think I just needed to hear someone else say it." She sounded so much smaller than she had, especially through the doorframe. "I- I have a favour to ask. Call it payment for the cloak."
Amell tried to move closer, but she threatened to seal the door at his step. "Of course."
-- "Your mountain... She is the new Champion, no?"
-- "I- I believe so. How did you know?"
-- "The whole world seems to spin at her heels. I cannot imagine that any lesser woman could drag the great Lord Fielder from his hidden hole."
"Very well," he offered. "What is your favour?"
Her eyes lit up at the words. A deep, bloody glow that saturated what little of her shadowed face he could see. A single, shimmering fang glistened against the sun.
"Tell her," she considered in her previous – dauntless– tone. "Tell her that her friend is proud of her. Tell her that when she needs me most, I'll be with her. Tell her to kick some ass."