Emissary - I

For Celine, the less said the better.

1. Reason

The brown eyes were so intense they seemed to vibrate in their sockets. His long dark hair lay matted to his forehead with sweat. He kept staring at the fan; his mind was a maelstrom of emotions. Nothing was justified. He couldn’t blame her no more than he could blame the sky for being blue or the grass for being green. In an instant his mind focused, like a pinpoint of light, on a face and on a name. Her sister. In a defining second everything fell into place. He got off the bed and took of his boxers. They were black. Like his room; like everything he owned. Like his mind, like his life. He stepped through a door and into his bathroom. The gleaming black shower taps turned under his gaze and cold water sprayed forth. He stepped under the ice-cold jets of water and stood still for fifteen minutes. Finally, he stepped back. The splashing water going down the drain reminded him of his life. He glanced at the taps and they turned violently, cutting off the supply to the showerhead above.

He opened his closet, trying hard not to look in the bottom. Failing. Again. The cards, the presents, the wrapping paper still there. He forced himself to look up. A fortune in clothes greeted him. All black. He took out a shirt, pants, a tie and a suit.

He opened another closet and took out the scabbard. It held Rune: his katana. He slid the blade out and ran a finger along the edge. Satisfied that is was as sharp as it always had been, he put it down. It was black steel and chrome with Emissary forged into the blade front. He took out his gun-belts next. These held the Implements of War: his two Revolvers. Rose and Aces. They were identical but for the designs on one side of their butts. Rose had a rose inlaid into the chrome while Aces had four cards. Four aces. He broke the chamber and spun it. The dull rattle soothed his mind as it always did. The Implements of War also had Emissary stamped on their barrels.

He started to dress. Slowly and methodically, he put on his shirt, buttoning it with one hand. With the same steady actions he pulled on his pants, knotted his tie and slid into his coat. He didn’t need a mirror. The knot of the tie was immaculate, the coat fit perfect and there were no creases in his shirt and pants other than the ones he had ordained. The Scabbard he hung around his waist, and the gun-belts he tied around his hips with the holsters coming to rest on his thighs. They completed him, on anybody else they would stand out. He stepped out into the night pulling the hood of his coat over his head.