By and By

1st of the Month of Orange Harvest, 601 K.D.
19:03

Yarriel and Knife bursted in through the front doors of the black
bilge tavern, hardly able to stand, the dwarf and the elf each
doubling over in laughter, trying to use the other for support.
"This wide!" Yarriel roared, holding his coarse hands up to
demonstrate, his vision completely blurred by his tears. Knife
then did fall over onto the tavern floor, trying to gasp in breath
between her laughs but finding it impossible. Yarriel slammed
himself down onto a table, tried to compose himself, but then
caught a glimpse of his elven friend red-faced on the floor. He
fell down onto the floor with her, likewise unable to breathe.

At the bar, Gustav blew out a puff of air, shook his head, and
lifted his pint glass to his lips. "This new generation of
assassins is certainly something different," he said to the
innkeeper, and then took a long sip from his drink.

The innkeeper, Hatchet, nodded. He stood drying a washed glass
with a white cloth.

By and by, Yarriel and Knife got themselves together, stood, and
made their way to the bar.

"A pint," Yarriel ordered, and Knife ordered after him, "A cup of
tea," and then both fell into a giggling fit.

Hatchet got their drinks, set them on the counter, and kept his
slender hands on each refreshment. "Is the Earl of Wimfast dead?"

Yarriel sat upright, eyes deadening from joyous to somber for but
a moment long enough to utter the solitary word, "Aye."

Hatchet released his hold on the drinks.

Knife snorted, which broke the brief somber hold that Hatchet's
question had put on Yarriel. Yarriel and Knife clinked their
glasses together, and then the two each had a sip of their drink.

As the two settled in, the black bilge tavern became quiet again.
Outside, the bustle of the city could be heard. A horse-drawn
carriage rushed by outside. Knife's pointed ears twitched as she
listened to the cadence of the hooves, the deep airy nasal
vocalizations of each horse's breaths. Yarriel's head bowed in
thought as he listened to the clanking of the metal bits on the
horses' harnesses, and the creaking of the carriage.

1st of the Month of Orange Harvest, 601 K.D.
13:30

Before sitting down to work, the Earl of Wimfast stood and looked
out of his office's large window. Below outside, his slaves moved
through his orange fields, stooping down to the bushes and picking
off the tiny rind-covered fruits. He watched the drivers making
their patrols, shouting their orders, turning what would be a slow
labor into an efficient machine-work. Satisfied, the earl turned,
sat down at his desk, and began at a stack of parchments that
needed his attention.

The door was kicked open. No sooner could the earl look up than
was his neck struck with a dart, and he felt the strength drain
from his every muscle; his body tingled as though every part of
him had fallen asleep. At the open door stood two figures from the
lesser races, a rock-eater and a knife-ear. The knife-ear lowered
a blowgun from her mouth and stowed it in her black garb. The
rock-eater retrieved a dagger from his black garb and stepped
slowly towards the collapsed earl.

Graciously, the poisoned dart worked as something of a painkiller
to dull the senses, and the earl could not entirely feel as his
fingers were cut off, though he did have to watch as the dwarf and
the elf then ate the digits one by one. As the last of his fingers
was eaten, he lost consciousness. He came-to only momentarily as
the dwarf's dagger pierced his heart, and he felt every brief
instant as his mortal term atop this spinning planet came to an
end.

1st of the Month of Orange Harvest, 601 K.D.
14:52

Yarriel and Knife sat atop a tall outcrop, watching ravens peck at
the earl. By and by, wolves came, and the ravens fled. By and by,
a bear neared, and the wolves fled. By and by, the bear lost
interest, and lumbered away, and the ravens came back. Yarriel's
stomach rumbled, and he felt want of a proper meal. The dwarf and
the elf slid down the steep sloped side of the outcrop, and began
making their way back to the city.

1st of the Month of Orange Harvest, 601 K.D.
16:52

From the rooftop garden of their apartment, Knife picked potatoes
out of the soil, as well as taking some herbs from a variety of
flowering plants. As she picked these things from the places they
had grown, Knife reflected on the journey they had been through,
the culmination of matter from the soil composed of the dead of
plants and animals and all sorts, imbued with energy to grow from
the light of the suns shining down from the heavens; someday, more
would grow yet from this same matter, imbued with energy from the
light of the same suns; Knife was five hundred years old, Yarriel
four hundred, and both were but newborns compared with the planet,
and her layers of dead laid in the soil who would later be the
dead composing that soil.

Returning inside with the small picked harvest, Knife found that
Yarriel had gotten the wood-burning stove started. The two cooked
their dinner, and ate.

1st of the Month of Orange Harvest, 601 K.D.
20:03

Yarriel finished the last sip of his pint. He had been sober going
on one hundred and seventy years, and as he sat there in the black
bilge tavern having finished his pint, he remained sober still;
with his physiology, it took far more than a pint in an hour to
have even the faintest of noticeable effects.

Outside, a drumbeat began, and a clapping crowd kept time as well.
By and by, flutes and horns began to play a waltz.

Yarriel leaned over to Knife, and laid his head against her
shoulder. "Would you give me the pleasure of a dance, dearest?"

"Of course, dearest mine," Knife said, and held out her hand.

Yarriel took the slender hand, and together the two embraced and
began stepping to the time of the song outside. By and by, Yarriel
led their waltzing steps out of the inn's doors, and into the
street. There outside, the fluters and trumpeters and drummers
stood atop a cart, playing their song. On the street, several
couples stepped together in waltz. Yarriel and Knife joined the
others, moving about here and there as the songs went by. By and
by, Yarriel and Knife shared a kiss. By and by, Yarriel and Knife
retired up to a room in the black bilge tavern and shared more
intimacy, and Knife tried to stifle her laughter as Yarriel kept
time to the rhythm of the waltz outside.

1st of the Month of Orange Harvest, 601 K.D.
05:00

Knife stood in the forest, her head bowed, her palms pressed flat
against the bark of the tree before her. Yarriel sat cross-legged
in the grass nearby, chin planted in his hand, idly examining a
rock. In time, the tree would become rock, and the rock would
become tree.

1st of the Month of Orange Harvest, 601 K.D.
06:45

Yarriel and Knife descended the stairs into the cellar of the
black bilge tavern. There behind a counter stood the innkeeper
Hatchet. To his left on the counter was a black candle, which lit
the features of his elven face from below. To his right on the
counter were three scrolls. As Yarriel and Knife arrived, Hatchet
was handing one of these scrolls to Gustav. Gustav took the
scroll, opened it to see the name inside, bowed, and left, passing
by Yarriel and Knife to ascend the cellar stairs.

Yarriel and Knife stepped forward to the counter. Without a word,
Hatchet reached down to one of the scrolls, took it, and presented
it to the couple. Knife accepted the scroll, opened it, and held
it before herself and her partner. On the scroll was the name of
the Earl of Wimfast.

On the first of each month, the assassins of black bilge were
tasked to reap the three most egregiously cruel souls from the
city and its environs. To Yarriel and to Knife, to see the Earl of
Wimfast's name written on the scroll was only surprising in that
it felt so long overdue; the fact that his harvests did bring
nourishment and pleasure to many had likely bought him time, but
not an eternal wealth of it. Yarriel and Knife bowed, turned, and
ascended the cellar stairs to go about their undertaking.

1st of the Month of Orange Harvest, 601 K.D.
23:01

Yarriel and Knife sat in a meadow, still as a stone, still as a
tree. By and by, a squirrel came and leapt onto Yarriel's head,
then leapt off of Yarriel's head and scampered up Knife, and then
leapt off of Knife and began scampering up the tall birch beside
her. By and by, a hare came through, grazed on some grass between
the dwarf and the elf, and then continued along once again. By and
by, a herd of deer came to the meadow, and nested down around the
rock and the tree for a spell.