Work Text:
Yor wakes up early.
(A bell rings softly)
Yor wakes up on time.
(A bell rings softly)
Yor wakes up late.
Her alarm blares loudly, echoing and bouncing around in her skull. That last glass of wine she had last night certainly isn’t helping. She reaches out blindly, slapping her hand over where she thinks it should be. The beeping cuts off, only to be replaced by the sound of shattering and breaking.
Oops. One of these days, Yor swears, she’ll be able to turn off her alarm without slapping it to pieces.
The phone is silent as she gets ready for work.
(A bell rings softly)
The phone rings as she gets ready for work.
“Hello?” she answers, out of breath as she’s jamming her feet into her heels.
“Thorn Princess,” comes the reply. “I have a client for you.”
Yor freezes, straightening up. Even though she knows the Shopkeeper can’t see her, she can’t help it. The motion is all but ingrained into her by now, years of experience guiding her reaction.
“I’m listening, Shopkeeper.”
“The file is ready for you on your desk at City Hall,” he says, and Yor knows better than to ask how it got there. “Your client will be at the gala tonight. You are attending for your other job, correct?”
“I—yes,” says Yor. “I am.”
The charity gala taking place tonight, meant to “capture the essence of Berlint’s vibrant culture and shine as a beacon of hope in these trying times” has been the talk of the entire city for weeks now. As city hall employees, Yor and her coworkers were invited to attend. That reminds her, she needs to bring a dress for tonight.
Her two jobs intersecting like this has happened before. It isn’t often, but it shouldn’t be too hard to navigate. Her coworkers have the potential to pose the biggest risk, but they’ve been talking about this party and everyone they’ll be able to meet there for so long. The last person there that they’ll want to talk to is Yor, and it shouldn’t be too hard for her to slip through unnoticed.
The Shopkeeper, too, always takes a bit longer to coach her during calls for missions like these — and even though Yor is antsy about already being late to work, she still listens. It’s nice of him to do so, and to be honest, they both know that she needs it. Most of the missions she’s sent on are just to get in, finish the job, and get out. She doesn’t have to usually worry about things like keeping up appearances and acting normal enough to not fool anyone — all things, they both know, aren’t exactly her strong suit.
“The client is relatively unknown among the guest list,” says the Shopkeeper. “It shouldn’t be hard for you to get him alone and finish the job.”
(Softly, a bell)
“One more thing,” says the Shopkeeper. “Westalian Intelligence has been making moves lately to hijack Garden. To find out our full list of employees.”
“What does that mean for me?”
“We’ve received intel that the agent Twilight will be at the gala tonight as well.”
Yor inhales. That is a name that needs no introduction, no further explanation.
“Is it…is it safe for me to go, then? If he sees my face, what does that mean for me?”
The Shopkeeper, to her surprise, chuckles. “Oh, what does it matter if he sees your face? You won’t let him survive to see it again.”
Yor and her coworkers get ready for the gala in the City Hall bathroom after work. Honestly, she’s kind of glad she has a mission today because then she has an excuse to wear her signature black dress that she brought along with her. It’s good at hiding bloodstains, but it’s also by far the most formal thing she owns that suitable for an event like this one.
“Oh, wow!” Millie says when she steps out of the stall. “You clean up well!”
Ducking her head, Yor returns the compliment, watching as Millie puts the finishing touches on her own appearance.
She digs around in her makeup bag, before whining out in displeasure. “Oh, no, I forgot my lipstick!”
(Bell)
She digs around in her makeup bag, before emerging with a triumphant cry. “Hey, Yor, I have the perfect lipstick for you! It’ll go really well with your eyes!”
Yor eyes the tube, a bright glossy red, with hesitation. “Oh, I don’t know. Doesn’t that…seem like a bit much?”
“No way! What if you end up meeting your soulmate today?”
Sharon scoffs at that. “Come on, soulmates don’t exist. That’s just a fantasy for children and bored housewives.”
Yor doesn’t believe in soulmates.
(Bell)
Yor doesn’t know if she believes in soulmates.
(Bell)
Ever since she was little, Yor has always believed in soulmates.
Not the love part, necessarily, but more the idea of someone being there for you. Knowing all of your flaws and loving you — not in spite of them, but because of them.
There are plenty of rumors floating around about soulmates, differing slightly in different parts of the world too. The one thing everyone agrees on is that meeting your soulmate bends the very fabric of space and time itself, and that it’s almost as though the universe conspires for you to meet them. But how that manifests itself, no one really knows. Some people who have already met their soulmates, though, love to talk about how the experience went for them — though there are always just as many nonbelievers as well.
Case in point: Yor’s coworkers.
Camilla has been much nicer to Yor lately, and that’s mostly due to the fact that she’s met her soulmate recently. She told them all about it right after it happened, the next day at work.
“It just felt like I could have kept making all the wrong choices that day,” she’d said, “but it felt like something was kind of guiding me in the right direction, to do everything I had to do in order to meet him that very day and take me to the exact moment that we would meet!”
Yor was transfixed by that, more than she thought she’d be. “How did you know he was your soulmate?” she asked. She’s heard people talk about this before, about how it felt like the entire world was changed.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” said Camilla. “But I just knew. It was like…like we’d known each other forever, like I already knew everything about him even though we’d just met.”
Now, Camilla rolls her eyes, drawing Yor out of her musings. “Millie, if the universe wants you two to meet, then why does it matter if you’re wearing lipstick or not?”
“You can’t rely on the universe to do everything for you,” says Millie with a wink. “You have to help it out however you can!”
Yor reaches out and takes the lipstick — partly because she likes the idea of helping fate out, and partly because she wants to do whatever she can to stay on her coworkers’ good sides. It’ll be more beneficial to her if they like her than if they hate her. This is her first step to blending in, to being normal.
Millie was right: it does match her eyes.
As a final touch, she puts her hair up with her needles. The best place for easy access.
And then they all deem themselves ready for the gala.
There’s a lot of traffic, and it takes them far too long to get there.
(Bell)
There’s barely any traffic, and they get there quickly.
It seems like her coworkers are happy about this gala for a few reasons: it’s a break from work, those of them who don’t have soulmates yet hope that they might meet them tonight, and they also think they might be able to do some networking and maybe be able to get a better job, or at least move up a bit from where they are right now.
Yor doesn’t care about much of any of that. Not when she’s here to do her other job.
There’s no line at the coat check.
(Bell)
There’s a line at the coat check, which is good. Yor half listens to her coworkers chatter on about how excited they are and half studies the room, standing on her tiptoes. Scanning the crowd to see if her target has arrived yet.
Part of the reason she also hates missions like this one is because it requires her to talk to her targets, to look them in the eyes, to smile and laugh and do everything she doesn’t want to do in front of them. Waiting in line, at least, gives her some time to prepare herself.
As soon as they’re inside, her coworkers all split up, heading to different sides of the room.
“Want to come, Yor?” they ask.
“Sure,” she says.
(Bell)
“I’ll catch up with you later,” she says.
Yor finds the quietest, darkest corner of the room that she can and stands with her back to the wall. It doesn’t take long for her target to walk in; she occupies herself with studying him.
He’s a traitor, she thinks as she watches him sip at his champagne. He sold weapons to the other side, she thinks as she watches him flag down a passing waiter. Thousands of innocent children are dead because of him, she thinks as she watches him chew on a cracker.
She’s wondering how she should even begin to get him alone. She doesn’t know much about the other employees of Garden, but she’s heard bits and pieces, just enough to get an idea of how they work, what their methods are. Enough to know that the main method they operate with, male and female alike, is seduction.
It makes sense, Yor supposes. It is the best way to get a target alone, to get their defenses down. But if there’s one thing she’s certain about, it’s that that method will not work for her; even the mere thought of it is enough to have her cheeks flaring with heat.
She’s just wondering how else she can get his attention when a hand extends into her vision, fingers wrapped around the stem of a wineglass.
“Drink?”
Yor curses herself for not noticing someone else approach, letting someone get this close into her personal space.
“No, thank you,” she says without even looking at who it is.
(Bell)
She looks at who it is.
Blue eyes and a warm smile stare back at her. It takes her a second to tear her gaze away from him, to focus on the champagne he’s offering her.
She’s on a job and she doesn’t really hold her alcohol well — even the mere thought of this morning’s hangover returning to her is enough to have her shuddering.
“No, thank you,” she says.
(Bell)
“Yes,” she finds herself saying. “Thank you.”
He introduces himself — Loid Forger, he says — and doesn’t leave. Her companion has his back to the wall next to her, and he people watches with her — and as he does, Yor takes the opportunity to study him. She sees his clothes and the way he’s dressed and his hair is styled. One thing is clear: he definitely did not do what she did and get ready in a hurry in the bathroom at work.
That begs the question, why is he over here standing here with her?
“Not here to network?” asks Loid.
Yor looks away from him quickly, trying her best to hide the fact that she had been staring. “Maybe later,” she says.
(Bell)
“Not really,” she admits. “I’m…not much of a fan of parties.”
“Me neither,” he says quietly, conspiratorially, like it’s a secret.
Yor tilts her head, this time studying him openly. “Really? Somehow, I can’t really see that.”
Loid laughs. “Usually, it’s me alone hiding in the corner here. At least this time I have company.”
“No networking for you?”
He thinks for a moment, taking a sip of his drink. “Not particularly,” he says. “There’s only one person I’m here to meet.”
“That sounds important. What do you do?”
He’s a psychiatrist, he tells her, before turning the question back at her.
“Nothing nearly that impressive,” she says with a small giggle, eager to turn the conversation back onto a topic that isn’t her. “I just work at City Hall.”
“No, that’s a noble job! You must be an extremely hard worker.”
“That’s…nice of you to say,” she says.
(Bell)
“You’re speaking as though you know me,” she says.
(Bell)
Yor takes a rather large sip of her champagne, relishing in the immediate rush of confidence it gives her, enough so to get out her next words. “Why are you being so nice to me?” she asks.
Loid looks taken aback, and Yor would feel a bit more bad for being so upfront if she weren’t so on edge. It’s hard to have half of her attention focused on her target when this man seems to outwardly demand it.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I just saw you standing here, and…I don’t know. I felt like I had to talk to you, that’s all.”
There’s a surprised look on his face, but it isn’t directed at her. If Yor were to guess, she would say that he hadn’t been expecting to say that out loud — and that’s how she knows that it’s without a doubt true.
She looks away from him, because she just now notices that the two of them have been leaning close to one another. Her eyes fall on her Camilla; against her will, her mind flashes back to the conversation that they’d been having about soulmates.
Yor puts that out of her mind, with difficulty, and instead, she looks over at her target again. He’s talking to someone else — a woman, one Yor doesn’t recognize. But it looks like he’s still deep in conversation, and there’ll be no interrupting him and cutting in for her any time soon.
“Do you know him?” asks Loid, breaking through her thoughts. “Dr. Heywood.”
Yor tries to hide the immediate surprise on her face, but she doesn’t know if she succeeds. She feels a bit stupid for having such an oversight, because she’d seen in Heywood’s file this morning that he’s a doctor.
“No, I don’t,” she says.
(Bell)
“Yes, I do,” she says.
(Bell)
“I’m like you,” she says. “There’s one person I came here to meet.”
Loid seems to consider something for a moment. He drains his glass in one smooth motion before he places it on a side table and offers his hand out to her. “Then come on.”
“What? What are you doing?”
“Asking you to dance,” he says with a smile.
Yor doesn’t know what her face must look like right now, but she certainly feels like a deer in the headlights. She just stares at him and gapes, but his smile doesn’t falter at all.
“I’ve heard whispers about him in the hospital, which means”—he breaks off to take her glass from her hands and set it aside as well— “I know how you can best get his attention.”
Yor hesitates, and it’s mostly because she doesn’t really know what reason she can give to refuse him. It feels too fortunate, almost, that things seem to be working out for her like this. This isn’t who she is. Things aren’t usually this good for her.
She’s desperate to look at anything that isn’t Loid, so she looks at her wineglass, rimmed red with her lipstick.
“No, thank you,” she says.
(Bell)
“Oh, that’s all right,” she says. “I’m sure there’s someone else you’d rather dance with.”
(Bell)
“I’m not a very good dancer,” she admits quietly.
She’s never much had the chance to practice — there were always other things on her mind, other things that took priority, and when she did have the time, it was always to find that dancing was never quite as important as she thought it was.
But still, her words are not a rejection. Her hand raises, almost as though by someone else — something else — and she watches it land in Loid’s outstretched one.
“That’s all right,” he says. “Lucky for you, I’m an excellent one.”
Hand in hand, he leads her through the sea of dancing couples — pairs, she means; no one would ever go so far as to mistake them for a couple, of course — which parts for them as though by magic.
His hands find their way around her easily, hers mirroring the motion. Yor realizes Loid was right: he is an excellent dancer. He leads her effortlessly, to the point where it’s almost as though he isn’t leading at all. Instead, it’s just the two of them in sync, as though they have always been — as though it’s easier to be together than not.
He’s so close to her and the smell of his cologne is almost overwhelming; Yor searches for something to say, something, anything, to distract herself from how close he is to her right now.
“How,” she asks, “is dancing supposed to help me meet Dr. Heywood?” She softens her words with a smile, a hint of teasing — this, too, comes easily to her.
“I figured the easiest way for us to get his attention was by dancing.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because I’m dancing with the most beautiful woman in the room.”
And more than his words, it’s the way he says it — again, almost as though he didn’t quite mean to. As though his words couldn’t possibly be anything other than genuine.
Embarrassment heats Yor’s cheeks. “Oh, I’m sure that’s not true,” she says.
(Bell)
“Oh, but you’re helping me meet Dr. Heywood,” says Yor. “The least I could do is help you in return with whoever it is that you’re trying to meet.”
“Trust me,” he says, spinning her. “You’re helping me more than you know.”
It’s a strange phrase, Yor thinks: trust me. Trust is something that’s never come easily to her, not with the way she grew up. Not with her profession. It isn’t rare that her targets fight back, and it’s even more common for them to be able to land a hit back on her, whether big or small, even if she always does manage to take them down in the end. Letting someone get close means death, and that applies both to her targets and to her.
But here she is, letting Loid spin her around, letting him put his hands on her waist and pull her ever so slightly closer with each passing minute.
Loid leans in, then, so close that his breath tickles her hair and her ear.
“Looks like the plan is working,” he whispers.
He pulls back — too quickly, she thinks, lamenting the loss of his presence — and the only indication she gets that someone is coming is the way his gaze flicks to something over her shoulder.
“May I cut in?” comes a voice from behind her. Heywood.
“No,” says Yor, holding on tighter to Loid as though afraid she’ll be ripped away from him.
(Bell)
“Of course,” says Loid. He drops her hands, almost regretfully — though she’s sure that’s just her imagination. Before he steps away, he throws Yor a glance, full of meaning that she doesn’t think she’s able to fully decipher.
But this is good, isn’t it? She wanted a way to get closer to her target and here it is, all but arrived on a silver platter. And if fate is going through the effort of doing all this, the least she can do is help it out, isn’t it?
Switching gears, she begins to dance with her target.
Heywood’s hands on her make her skin crawl, make her itch for her needles and want nothing more than to drive them into the side of his neck.
He introduces himself and starts going on and on about his work, about what he does in the hospital. Yor isn’t listening. She still does what the Shopkeeper told her to do, to act natural and blend in, so she smiles and nods at all the correct times. She doesn’t stiffen up when his hand travels a bit too low along her side.
But what she can’t help is the way her eyes search the room for Loid. Still being mindful to not let her dance partner see the way her interest is straying, she wonders who it was that he came to this party for. She doubts he’s like her, planning to murder her target, the object of her attention.
He’d said that he wasn’t here to network. That really only leaves one last option, but for some reason, Yor finds herself not wanting to think about that.
She will not think about Loid, not if she can help it.
(Bell)
She keeps thinking about Loid.
Annoyance rises up within her. She’s already stayed here for longer than she’d planned to. Time to do what she came her to do.
She leans in closer to Heywood, not missing the way his eyes light up with a kind of sick excitement. She’s close enough now to whisper in his ear, and she can’t help but compare this to Loid whispering in her ear earlier.
“I know about all of your exploits,” Yor tells him quietly. “All of the ways you abused your power, the ways you turned your back on your country. And unless you want me to report you and turn you in to the SSS, then you’ll meet me in the room down the hall in five minutes.”
When she pulls away from him, the look on his face is completely wiped away, only to be replaced with one of fear and realization. Good. Knowing all of the awful terrible things that Heywood has done, there’s something to be said for being able to instill the same fear into him that he has instilled into his countless victims over the years.
And maybe it really isn’t all that hard, as hard as she thought, for her to blend in and act natural.
Speaking of acting natural, Heywood seems to be skilled at it as well; he covers up his shock rather quickly with a smile. She thinks she must be the only one to see it in the first place.
They finish the dance, and he offers her a nod as the string quartet’s song comes to an end, although she can’t help but notice that he’s decidedly more chilly now, holding her almost at arm’s length.
She wonders if he’ll listen to her or if he’ll run. Not that it matters, she’ll find him either way. But she’s kind of tired. In all fairness, she’d prefer to go home and straight to bed. A job is a job, though.
Her dance partner abandons her to go straight to the champagne table, chugging down a glass as though his life depends on it. Not exactly Yor’s first choice of things to do when you know you’re about to die, but then again, she supposes she would never be in this situation in the first place.
Five minutes, then. Six, if she’s being generous. That way they won’t catch attention for leaving the room at the same time. She keeps an eye on him, though. She wouldn’t put it past him to try to tell someone.
People like him don’t play fair.
Yor watches and waits, while trying not to draw any attention to herself — which is easier now. People are getting drunk, but it’s not late enough for the party to end yet, so it’s still crowded in here. No one is noticing her.
She doesn’t look for Loid.
(Bell)
She looks for Loid.
She doesn’t even know that she’s doing it at first; it feels almost automatic, like a compulsion. Like whatever it was that had propelled her to take his hand for the dance was now drawing her gaze in his direction. Or at least, it would, if she could find him in the first place.
It’s better that she can’t, though. Maybe he left. Maybe he found whoever it was that he came here to meet.
When the five minutes pass, Heywood goes out the door into the hallway — discreetly, thankfully. Yor waits a few moments and — after checking to make sure that no one is watching her, of course — follows after him.
The back room is far enough away from the rest of the party that she’s sure no one will be able to hear anything that happens in here. And even if they do, she’s confident that she’ll be able to end things fast enough that people won’t have a chance to come running or find her.
As soon as she closes the door behind her, she’s just got enough time to register the fact that it’s all dark in here. It’s a good thing her nerves are on edge and she goes into the room already having prepared herself, because otherwise she doesn’t know if she would be able to dodge the blow that comes her way.
He’s one that will fight back, then.
Heywood uses the element of surprise to full effect, throwing her across the room before she can so much as land a single hit on him herself.
Slipping her needles out of her hair — and letting it fall down around her face in the process — Yor throws them at him. They stab squarely into his chest—
(Bell)
Before she can slip her needles out of her hair, Yor catches the way his arm moves, the way it slips into his pocket. The way he pulls out a gun.
Mentally, she curses the Shopkeeper, who’d been so sure that this client wouldn’t have any weapons with him, that the last thing he would be expecting was an attack on his life. Guess he’d recovered from his surprise rather quickly.
Heywood’s too far across the room for her to be able to knock the gun out of his hand; she could throw one of her needles at him, but even with her strength, a bullet would be faster — and even if it isn’t, that isn’t really the kind of thing that she feels the need or desire to test out for herself.
When a shot fires out, Yor freezes in place.
(Bell)
When a shot fires out, Yor throws herself out of the way.
She’s been shot before, and though it’s been a few years since the last time, her body still bears the scars of those bullets. She waits for the familiar burning pain to hit her, her hand automatically reaching out for the wound to press down on it and staunch the rush of blood that will no doubt flow out. Good thing she wore her black dress, then.
But, surprisingly enough, nothing comes.
Instead, her ears ring with the sound of a cry of pain — but it doesn’t come from her. Heywood crumples to the ground, gritting his teeth. His gun falls to the floor with a clatter. The lights are still off, but there’s just enough visibility for Yor to be able to see the way that his hands wrap around his leg in pain.
But that gunshot didn’t come from his gun. That can only mean one thing: there’s someone else in here.
A shadow moves in the corner, drawing Yor’s attention. She knows that silhouette, no matter how improbable his presence here may be. She’d touched him, after all. She’d danced with him.
That can’t be him, a voice in her brain whispers. That can’t be Loid.
But, another part of her says, who else could it be? It doesn’t matter how she knows it’s him, how she knows there’s no one else it could be.
She just knows, and that’s what matters.
And more than that, there’s something else that clicks into place in her brain about his identity, something that explains who he actually is, why he’d spent so much time with her. Who was the one person that he’d said he came here specifically to meet.
Yor tightens her hand on her needles, ready to make good on her promise.
Oh, what does it matter if he sees your face? You won’t let him survive to see it again.
“Twilight, I presume,” she says in a low voice. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
(Bell)
“If this is some kind of trap,” she says in a low voice, “you won’t live to see the end of it.”
(Bell)
“Why are you helping me? What could you possibly—“
(Bell)
“Do you feel the same way as me? Like things are aligning to make sure that we meet?”
(Bell)
“Would things have been different if we hadn’t met like this?”
(Bell)
“Was it real? Was any of it real?”
(Bell)
“Loid,” she says softly. “Thank you.”
His gun is still trained down, and even though his eyes are on the target the entire time, Yor still knows he’s talking to her.
“They’ll be here soon,” he says. “He’s all yours.”
“Not going to stop me?” she asks, partly to check, and partly because she’s just curious.
(Bell)
She doesn’t need to ask him anything, because she knows the answer.
So then she, too, turns her attention to Heywood.
“Dr. Heywood, may I have the honor of taking your life?”
He doesn’t answer, but it doesn’t matter. Things were over for him long ago, as soon as he made the decision to turn to treason.
Her needles are nothing but a blur, right up until the moment they’re embedded in the side of his neck. Blood spatters over her, Heywood’s last words.
When Yor stands, it’s to find that Loid is looking at her. She might not be able to see much, but she does see the way his eyes shine in the darkness as he studies her. There are a dozen things she can see in his gaze — a dozen answers, one for every question she has — but he doesn’t speak any of them out loud.
“The window’s unlocked,” he says instead, “for you.”
“Will I see you again?”
Loid reaches out and wipes a smear of blood off of her cheek. She wonders if it’s the same shade as her lipstick.
He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to.
Yor remembers what she’s heard people say before, about meeting their soulmate. About how it felt like the entire world was changed.
They were right.
(A bell rings loudly)
They were wrong.
It’s not really like that, not exactly. It’s something smaller, softer — something for just the two of them, the rest of the world be damned.