Waking up in strange places wasn't completely alien to Theo -- though he didn't typically drink enough to black out his memory of the night before -- and, since no one was yelling at him to move and nothing seemed about to stab or hit him, he took his sweet time getting up. Huh. His clothes were unfamiliar too ...
He glanced around the room, registering its contents. Hmm, lots of containers to rifle through for valuables -- or just breakfast. And he wasn't alone.
Oh. Oh, shit. Theo's eyes widened as he recognized Morgan Aristomache, captain of the Halovian guard, the woman he'd spent much of the last 10 years avoiding, as her guards inevitaly proved unamused by his shenanigans and petty thefts and especially the beyond-petty thefts. Hadn't she recently been promoted to Warden, too? Great. What was she doing here? What was Theo doing here? What were they doing here together? Also, where was that glow coming from? (It was coming from Theo himself, or rather from Ronin's body, but he was too alarmed to put that together at the moment, or even notice that his body was not his own.)
Play it cool. Keep it under control. She probably doesn't know who you are. He didn't think his exploits had ever quite come to the attention of the guard-captain, and they were definitely below the Warden, especially since he hadn't been back to Halo for a while.
"Hey," he said, trying so hard to play it cool that he barely even noticed that his voice didn't sound like him -- and brushing it off as due to the stress. Why were they here? Drunken tryst, his mind suggested, but that couldn't be right ... could it?
Theo wasn't much for prayer, but he found himself thinking, Ludo, if you're listening, I'm going to need a miracle to get out of this one.
He glanced around the room, registering its contents. Hmm, lots of containers to rifle through for valuables -- or just breakfast. And he wasn't alone.
Oh. Oh, shit. Theo's eyes widened as he recognized Morgan Aristomache, captain of the Halovian guard, the woman he'd spent much of the last 10 years avoiding, as her guards inevitaly proved unamused by his shenanigans and petty thefts and especially the beyond-petty thefts. Hadn't she recently been promoted to Warden, too? Great. What was she doing here? What was Theo doing here? What were they doing here together? Also, where was that glow coming from? (It was coming from Theo himself, or rather from Ronin's body, but he was too alarmed to put that together at the moment, or even notice that his body was not his own.)
Play it cool. Keep it under control. She probably doesn't know who you are. He didn't think his exploits had ever quite come to the attention of the guard-captain, and they were definitely below the Warden, especially since he hadn't been back to Halo for a while.
"Hey," he said, trying so hard to play it cool that he barely even noticed that his voice didn't sound like him -- and brushing it off as due to the stress. Why were they here? Drunken tryst, his mind suggested, but that couldn't be right ... could it?
Theo wasn't much for prayer, but he found himself thinking, Ludo, if you're listening, I'm going to need a miracle to get out of this one.
Theo
"Poker" by ND Strupler is licensed with CC BY 2.0.
