Chapter Text
It started a few weeks ago. Iorveth loved it. Roche ended up in an embarrassing situation, so Iorveth loved it even more.
Breaking in somewhere unseen was nothing new to the Scoia'tael commander. Usually there was a lot of strategic planning involved, but for the activity he was up to nowadays, he just had to make it work. It strengthened his improvising skills, he justified himself.
Pressed to a house wall, Iorveth watched the Blue Stipe men on patrol disappearing behind the next corner. With silent steps he moved over to the opposite wall. His target was almost in reach. Then he stopped under a second story window. The area in front of it was plain, neither a tree nor rock could help Iorveth to climb up, but that didn't bother him all too much.
He secured the bow on his back so that it wouldn't swing around and put his dagger in his mouth while his hand grabbed for a hold in the stony facade. With inhumanly ease he balanced his weight and held onto edges no one would believe possible until his right arm reached the shallow wooden board underneath the window and with a quick movement, he pulled his body up. His feet still placed on the wall, he dropped the knife from his mouth into one of his hands. In the meantime, the other one steadied his hold.
Iorveth silently counted the seconds it took him to crack the window open. Two seconds less than the last time. He could hardly hide a grin. Even the chair that had been put in front of the window as a barricade didn’t take him long to overcome.
He didn't need to worry about being seen. By now he knew that Vernon Roche had an unusual deep sleep, he could have had murdered this man so many times. Roche was rather uncreative in his ways of keeping Iorveth out. A chair in front of the window, really? It wasn’t even placed to block the handle. One could almost think Roche wanted him to break in. His nemesis made it too easy for him.
Iorveth wasn’t going for easy. Although he could have immediately gone to work and left again as quickly as he got in, during this late - or early - hour, he wouldn’t face many of Roche’s men and what was the fun of that? It all would have been in vain, so instead, he waited. Iorveth grabbed the chair and turned it with the back pointing towards the bed and sat down to face Roche, legs sprawled and the backrest between them.
“Sleep well little whoreson!”, he murmured.
***
Hours had passed. Surprisingly the time Iorveth observed his arch nemesis sleeping never became boring. Seeing him, the Temerian hound, lying peacefully and vulnerable gave Iorveth a special kind of adrenalin rush. That man killed dozens, and sooner or later Iorveth would show him his place and he would die by the elf’s sword.
The sun was rising and soon stood high enough it rays would shine directly onto Roche’s face. Iorveth stood up. Time to set his plan into action. He sneaked over the remaining meters to the bed in which the Blue Stripe commander started moving, soon to wake up and Iorveth was about to make damn sure that he did so with a knife to his throat. After seeing the shock and fear in Roche’s dark eyes, after proving his point, he could peacefully depart.
More or less peacefully at least. Iorveth took to his heels and ran, only slowing down when he reached the middle of the corridor and nearly crashed with a Blue Stripe soldier. Quickly he caught himself again, smiled smugly and pretended to fix the fly of his trousers. There was nothing like spreading some rumours. It would freak Vernon Roche out, and how was he about to explain himself to his men?
“It is not what it looks like. The elf just broke in and did nothing, just to disappear again in the morning.”
When Iorveth had left the building, he allowed himself to slow down and start laughing. This never got old.