The orphanage is bustling with life, more than it usually is. The weather outside helped bolster their high spirit, with warm sunlight and soothing breeze passing through the building with ease, delivering sounds of laughter and excited whispers about their morning guest.
Some of them hold onto a project she promises to finish when she's back, others just want to hear more stories of her adventure, and most are promised gifts and souvenirs from her travels.
Whatever the case, whatever the reason: the children are patient, not because it is in their nature to be patient, but because they knew she never broke her words to them. Not once.
So, they eat their breakfast, do their chores, and lie in wait untilâ"Quinn!" One of the children excitedly screams the name of their beloved guest, ruining her poor attempt at stealth.
"René!" Quinn excitedly screamed back in reply, alerting the whole building to her presence as the boy jumped into her arms. "You've grown taller, little friend!" she says as she raises him to the sky.
"Not so little anymore, right?" he questions with a grin.
Quinn chuckles. "Well! You certainly have a big heart." Entertaining him. "Unless...." As she puts him back to the ground with a glint of mystery in her eye.
"Unless...?" René bites the bait.
"Unless all that weight is fat."
"Whaâ!"
Quinn cuts off his outburst with a bribe, a brightly wrapped honey candy. "There's more where that came from, including your gift," she promises. "But! I do need to meet with the others first, you understand?" Straightening herself as she pats the boy on the head.
He pushes her hand away in annoyance, but nods and eats the candy, allowing her to pass undisturbed.
On her way to the main office of the orphanage, she indeed met the others. Each of them greets her differently but with similar warmth, the kind that rivals the kindness of the very sun.
Each time, she replies back in kind. Most of the time, she stays a few minutes to interact with the children, joking and playing with them, asking what is their most recent read and how was the story, before she finally manages to enter the office just before lunchtime.
A thin, tall woman, around sixty of age, covered in a habit greeted her in a cold jeer. "You're late," she says, voice stern, the expression cold.
Despite the tone and the stature of her opponent. "Hazard of the job, I am afraid." Quinn's unrepentant, the opposite of them, in fact. "You understand, or well: you should! If only you're as popular as I am with the children." Her smile grew wider with each teasing word.
The old woman looks at her for a long time, studying her smile, her demeanor, and the fact that she's standing still, waiting for permission to sit down, then: "Come here, you cheeky brat." She smiles and rises from her seat, opening her arms for a hug.
"How are you, Maman?"
"As fine as an old woman can be, Quinn."
"Then, I am glad you're not that old yet."
"Oh, you." She pushes Quinn back with a friendly pat on the shoulder. "Stop trying to court me, I am triple your age, child."
Quinn snorted at the emphasis but didn't deny it as she sat down. "Of course, of course! My apologies, then, Maman." And dips her head low for a moment.
Still shaking her head. "How's your most recent adventure?"
"Fun!" She starts before dramatically sighing. "Not as fun as the last one, though."
"Bah! Fun!" Maman answers. "You and your fun." Admonishing her lightly. "At the very least, you're not hurt, no?"
"Hurt?!" Quinn shoots up, quickly checking herself for wounds she knew full well were never there. After a minute of the theatrics. "No, I don't think so." She sits back down with yet another teasing smile.
Unlike the children, Maman doesn't take the bait. Kindheartedly, she gives Quinn a little laugh before getting to the point in a roundabout way. "So," she begins, preparing herself.
Quinn quickly cuts her off. "So!" By pulling the money she promised out of the magical pouch sewn and hidden in her cloak. "Here's the money for the year." Putting them on the floor to spare the old table the pain of enduring the heavy golds.
With each heavy coin pouch she pulled out, Maman's eyes grew wider and wider. She knew why Quinn never used banknotes for any of her transactions, she simply never expected her to give them this much.
As if reading her mind. "I read the financial and your askance," Quinn explained herself with an almost sheepish smile. "And I think you're asking for too little, Maman! Too little for you, too little for the kids." Her smile turns more earnest now, more open.
"This is...." Maman tries to answer, but again Quinn cuts her off.
"You can obviously return the money!" she adds in a hurry. "If you don't want to, that is." This is the first time Maman sees the confident woman unsure of herself. "I truthfully do not mean to insultâ"
So, without even realizing it. "Hm." She begins to chuckle. A small one at first, until it roars and fills the room with bright happiness, one that Quinn can't help but share with, losing the self-consciousness she felt but a moment ago.
"Ha! I take it you're not insulted, then?"
"Child! Why would I be insulted?"
"Because I gave you more than you ask for? It feels pretty obvious to me, Maman!"
"Is that not cause for celebration and not injury?"
"But! Some do take it as an insult."
"Well, I am not some people, Quinn."
With that sentence, the topic ended with both of the women smiling at each other for the last time that day as Quinn stood up and made her excuse to the woman. She has two things to do today, after all.
The first was to deliver a story during lunch, one she carries out with great effort and even greater success. The tale she told them is a tall tale of one of her adventures, the continuation of the previous one.
Every word she spoke hooked them closer and closer to her. "And then! With my back to the walls and rows of spears in front, Iâ!" Before the bell that marks the end of lunch cuts her off.
All of the students are disappointed, most begging Quinn to just continue the story, a begging that stops once she convinces them she will continue the tale during their dinner together, for she has an even more important mission to accomplish today: delivering her gifts to the children's bed while they're in class.
Unlike the playful stealth she attempts at the front gate of the orphanage, Quinn marshals all of her resources for this one. The hood of the magical cloak she raises, allowing it to cause her entire body to become invisible as the boots and gloves take care of her tracks well enough.
And one by one, she enters each room and puts a gift upon each bed, never once mistaking one child for the other. She remembers all their names and faces. She remembers what they told her during public and private moments, and also convinced this will be the last time this year she meets them.
She can feel a change in the wind, the smell of a storm not yet coming. She doesn't know the cause. But the feeling stays with her even as she tells the children her stories during dinnertime, which diminishes her skills, causing her to not be entirely herself.
Not out of it, but hyper-focused even while she offered sweet and gentle good nights to each child who spoke to her.
Only when Quinn is finally alone does she know what her senses are trying to tell her. Taking a seat in the now-empty cafeteria, her expression changed completely from the smile she gave to the children as she spoke. "Please! Sit."
It was still a wide smile, yes. But sharper, jagged, and edged: the grim smile of a predator, and her opponent feels it, too.
They hesitate for a moment before fulfilling her order, taking a seat opposite of her, establishing their relationship.
Quinn eyed them for a moment, taking notes of their drab clothing that covered every part of them, of the mask that covered their face, and the expensive gloves that protected their hand before finally noting the lack of a weapon, obvious or hidden.
"A client, then!" she concludes. Her eyes are no longer searching the mysterious person, but her surroundings, noticing a few glints of steel and iron hidden in the shadows.
"... yes, a client." They answer. Their voice has been changed to also become gender neutral and without accents, unidentifiable.
"Now! Why the secrecy, Client?"
"Why the curiosity?"
"Because that's why people came to me."
"That's not why I came to you today, Snake." The emphasis and hostility on the last word make it obvious it is not hesitation nor fear that causes them to stutter, it is hate: Quinn's favorite reason.
"Ah! An adoring fan, I see." She starts as she edges closer to the mysterious person. Trying and failing to notice any obvious signs of identity, she sinks back into her seat and rubs her own chin. "Which job of mine, I wonder...." Her smile's teasing, mocking, challenging.
She's sure if she names it, the person will react. She will know them, then: for she never left anyone alive knowing the things she has done without being aware of their true identity.
The secret client knew it, too. So, instead of taking the bite, they ignore her. "I need you to bite someone for me."
"A grand favor! Are you willing?"
"I am willing."
She laughs. "Good!" Then, cut her own right-hand palm open with a ritual knife. "Who's the target?" Before giving the same ritual knife to her secret client who eyes it suspiciously for a moment before relenting, opening their glove to reveal a hand unmarred by hard work.
As they cut open their own right-hand palm, they flinched, getting a masculine voice out of the spell for a moment. Too distracted to notice the spell's failure, the man spoke the name that gave Quinn her last piece of information "Ana Monte." As they shake hands.
Quinn begins the ritual with her usual smile. "I promise you her death, by the stars and sea, she will die in my hands." Though her tone is professional.
When the man finishes it. "I promise you my help, a favor grand for your help, to be called and decided whenever you deem necessary." Mimicking her tone.
Earnest are their words, no trickery in their oath.
So, the world bends to remember.
And punish.