31_days | [Nov 17th] [original] Unconventional Methods

Title: Unconventional Methods
Day/Theme: 17. has many hidey-holes and accomplices
Series: The Tragic Adventures of Iridian and Mirdre
Character/Pairing: Iridian, Mirdre
Rating: PG-13

Iridian's search for those, who had seen it fit to go on a killing-spree and target his nearest and dearest, was proving to be arduous and very frustrating. But he trudged through. He had to. His life had been frivolous and care-free until the moment he had realized what had been happening. That horrid night when he had seen it all clearly, the pattern of it, realized that one last victim whose death should drive him over the edge.

Not all had been lost. For he was not hunting those responsible alone. He would avenge Mirdre's corporeal death even if it would take the rest of his life. He owed that to her. They were both happy of the outcome of his mad dash to save her, even when the trail had run cold during the weeks and months they both had to take in adjusting to the new kind of life they both had. At first Iridian had really honestly thought that he was going mad. The flashes of Mirdre's voice, her very being reaching out to him, had felt like a deception of his mind.

In time, he had calmed enough to realize the awesome truth. Mirdre was not entirely gone, but lived on as a soul attached to his. It was frightening and very very confusing, but in time they both made it work.

Yet when Iridian finally got in the trail of Mirdre's assassins, the trail had run cold. Her assurances that it was fine did comfort him some, but not enough. He had vowed to her, as she lay dying, to hunt those responsible, and he would do so. Iridian realized the danger still hanging over Mirdre's death. Who was to say that when all of those dearest to him were now ostensibly gone, that his opponents would not go forward and kill him personally, in doing so breaking Mirdre's last grasp to the mortal plane. Iridian was not so sure that his sister realized that. Or if she did, she hid it very well. At least she had not thought much about it in those early months when their thoughts had intermingled before Mirdre had found her own corner in his mind where she could both have her own privacy and he hold onto his own.

Even so, neither of them would have thought that there would be so little to no information on whom Iridian's opponents were. It was... disconcerting, to say the least. It was not the issue of people not wanting to share any information with Iridian. After those initial months, during which he had secreted him away from the world to cope with his loss, Iridian had realized that who he was and had been, Iridian, the care-free young metamorph mage of questionable repute, had to disappear. A death was easy to fake. And a new persona, glad in the attitudes and skills of his old self, was devised.

Iridian called him Miss Scarlett. Mirdre thought that it was terribly funny. He, too, saw the mirth in the name.

Miss Scarlett soon became a name on people's lips. An androgynous courtesan with a changing face, who could fulfill your every desire. None apart from Iridian knew that she was a cover for him to do a little sleuthing. Once needs and desires were fulfilled and the body was drowsy and fell to slumber... that was Iridian's chance. His somewhat questionable practices started to bear fruit after some time. He was on the trail. And it did not grow cold this time. As time went by and information became more abundant, Iridian grew a little terrified... for the scale of it all began to unveil.

There was one person in the center of it all, the leader of a bigger organization. But information on him was scarce. Some, even those involved in some way with the organization, knew nothing at all about the elusive leader's whereabouts. He seemed to be moving from place to place, at least according to the intel Iridian had managed to gather through his whoring his body for a worthy cause. Only one thing was for sure, the leader was definitely the one responsible for the decision to cut Mirdre's life short.