Cohost writing prompt: @spy-thief-assassin-who — Assassin who is just talking — and it's killing you
Content notices for: Implied death of POV character, mind control.
Downstairs, people are drinking and talking loudly, and the evening has reached a point where nobody will notice if you simply walk upstairs, seat yourself in the manor's library, and better entertain yourself with a book.
When the door quietly opens and closes, you don't look up. It's unobtrusive, meaning someone else has the same idea; perhaps if you're quiet enough they won't even notice you. No need for either of you to bother the other.
"Refrangeline Smythe?" says a low, pleasant voice, and you look up sharply at an austerely-dressed young woman, unknown to you. You can't place her, or her particular style of dress. The Ambassador was invited, perhaps some Embassy attaché, but why would they know you—
"Your hands are warm and relaxed," she says. "So relaxed that it's difficult, in fact, to ball them into fists."
"What?"
Her eyes, you notice, are featureless silver. You drop the book into your lap and reflexively attempt to close your hands; they feel cozy and comfortable but also clumsy, as though warmth imbued the same numb unresponsiveness as cold. You try to stand, in alarm.
"Your knees are weak," she says matter-of-factly. "Standing makes you dizzy. Your body feels heavy; better to stay seated, in fact," and you crumple back into the chair under the onslaught of sensation, just as she says.
"There," she says soothingly, and, panicky, you weakly try to kick her in the shin. She dodges handily, flashes you a grin. "No, I don't think so, Miss. Your legs seem unresponsive; your feet are so heavy, you can barely lift them. And your arms, too."
Your limbs obediently pin you down with their own uncooperative weight. You stare at her, and a sob hiccups out of you.
"Oh," she says, with awful sympathy, and takes your book, puts it to the side; arranges your hands comfortably in your lap. She perches herself neatly on the arm of the chair. "No, it's alright, Miss Smythe. You simply feel pleasantly tired. You feel comfortably warm, and too lethargic to get much worked up."
That's not true, you want to exclaim, it's not true at all, you're — but you're not, after all, that frightened. Drowsy. It should make it worse, you know it.
"You have silver eyes," you say. "And you've — poisoned me. With one of the Five Subtle Substances. Veripraxic Serum. Metaphysical poison."
She gently brushes the hair off your forehead. "You are a well-read young lady," she murmurs. "Pity."
"You're from Hell," you murmur.
"Not originally." Her smile goes tight and wry, for a second. "So few of us in the Service are. But there. Hardly your concern. You're so very sleepy, aren't you?"
"No," you protest weakly.
"You are. You're so comfortably warm. It's very nice, a floating sort of feeling. Sleepy." She strokes your hair. "Feel your heartbeat? It's calming, isn't it? And so are you. It's all perfectly alright. You're warm and comfortable and safe and calm, and everything is getting slower and sleepier. Slower and sleepier."
"I don't—" you slur. "No — why?"
"Why is not my department," she says. Her voice is soothing. "Doesn't really matter at this juncture, does it, poppet? Warm and calm and slow. Feel how slow your heart is."
It feels as slow as a hibernating bear's. Slower, perhaps, some patient vegetable pulse; a geological rhythm. Deep and calm and drowsy.
"Now," she says, warm and slow and soothing, like a Saturday morning under a cozy blanket, and gently cradles your head as she whispers a series of things to you which you can no longer quite concentrate on. The liquid velvet dark of sleep is all around you, a silent tide you are about to sink beneath.
You think, perhaps, that of all the things you might like to say, as much as a faint whimper of breath may part your numb and distant lips.