“I see,” Lung rumbled in his low, accented voice, “Allfather no longer leads the Empire.  He died and was succeeded by his second in command, Kaiser.” 

“That’s some consolation.  Still, I worry.  He might have made arrangements.”

“Perhaps.”

Dang it, Lung, that’s what I was gonna say.

“I suppose I will have to wait until another villain from Brockton Bay comes here to hear further news, yeah?”

Lung’s response was unintelligible.

“Tell me of my daughter?  What did she look like?”

It’s clear that Marquis does care about Amy and her safety.

A slow smile spread across Lung’s face, but it did not reach his eyes, “This no longer interests me.  If you wish me to say more, we should negotiate.”

Aaand there we go.

“Hmmm,” Lung spoke, “The healer.  A young heroine in New Wave.  Brown haired, like you.

There we go.

When I was in custody, my flesh blackening and falling off, they had her come in and mend the worst of it.  As I understand it, she does not patrol as the others do.”

SKITTEEEEER!

😉

I wonder if Panacea is aware that Skitter was responsible for that. I mean, they wouldn’t have told her, but maybe she would’ve recognized some of the characteristics of the injuries, at least in retrospect.

Marquis leaned back, sighed.  “Good god.  A healer.”

Not quite what you had imagined for your daughter, huh?

Lung did not respond right away.  “Is this simple sentiment?  A father caring about his daughter?”

Marquis shook his head, “Not entirely.  I have some reasons to be concerned.  In one of my fights with Empire Eighty-Eight, I executed one particularly irritating young woman.  Iron Rain, I think her name was?  No matter.  It turned out she was Allfather’s daughter.

Ouch. Yeeah, if the Empire finds out about Amy’s origins, that might cause some trouble.

The man called a meeting, and swore he would wait until my daughter was of similar age, that I grew equally fond of her as he had his own daughter, then murder her.  So I knew how he felt.”

Yeah… let’s hope they don’t find out. Allfather doesn’t seem to be around anymore, but some of the former Empire members might still want to carry this out.

“I do not know anyone by such a name.”

“The group of heroes who put me in here… While I was awaiting my court date, I heard they had custody of my little girl.”

At least they seem to have taken good care of her.

“I would not know.”

But I suppose Dragon would.

“No?” Marquis put down his tea.  “This is disappointing.”

Lung didn’t respond.  Instead, he took another drink, reached for the one remaining croissant and tore off a piece to dip in the butter at one side of his plate.

“The Brockton Bay Brigade.  Are they still active?”

At this point, Wildbow seems to be pulling out the references in part for the benefit of those who didn’t get it at “Amelia”. On top of it being what the character of Marquis is naturally inclined to ask about, I mean.

“I do not know this group.”

Marquis frowned.  “My daughter, she would be… what year is it?  2010?”

Almost.

“2011,” Lung replied.

“She would be seventeen.  If she had powers, they might have something to do with bone?”  Marquis raised his hand, slashed his thumbnail across his index finger, and a needle-thin rapier blade of bone speared out of the wound.  The blade retracted into his finger, and the cut sealed shut.

Huh, that’s a pretty neat power. Seems Panacea primarily got the “cut sealed shut” part, though, and the ability to make other people’s bones stop hurting.

Marquis picked up his tea and held it in both hands, but he didn’t drink.  “True.”

“Tell me,” Lung said, “And you may find I do not desire much.”

“My daughter,” Marquis replied, his tone not his lackadaisical usual.

…was I right?

“Have you heard of her?”

“Her name?”

“Amelia.”

Amelia.

Amy.

Holy hell, that’s one prediction I wasn’t really expecting to come true.

“Can I not say you are a kindred soul?  Someone who fought against the Empire Eighty-Eight, in a different era?”

I see, so there’s been some animosity between Marquis and the Empire, too.

Dragon knew Marquis had come from Brockton Bay, as Lung did.  It was why she had placed Lung in the cell block – there was little chance Lung would cooperate or band together with others, so she’d grasped at straws.  Now it seemed there was something else at play.

Hm, yeah, but it still seems to tie back to them both being from Brockton Bay, so good work there, I guess.

Lung shook his head, “I do not believe this.  I do not mind sharing stories and passing the time, but you would not be seeking to flatter me if you did not want something.”

I suppose in a place like this, that mentality makes some sense. Especially when there’s been animosity between the two of them before.

Marquis stroked his beard.  “But if I did desire something and I told you what it was, you could withhold it and demand favors from me.”

…good point.

Lung tapped his finger on the table top, “If you insist on being a nuisance, you may never get what you want.”

Better point.

“If they disappeared, then that is using fear.  The ones who remain will wonder what happened to the missing man.  They will imagine the worst.”

He does have a point.

Marquis raised the tea to his lips, sipped from it, and then put it down.  He waited a moment and stroked his close-trimmed beard before nodding his concession.  “True enough.  I never gave it much thought.  Just an easy way to handle any problems that came up.”

But it does seem like Marquis didn’t take advantage of that on purpose. He may have benefitted from fear, but if he didn’t really mean to, did he still use it?

There was a long pause.  Both drank their tea.

Lung rumbled, “I find you change your mind too quickly.”

What, you having a problem with the fact that Marquis is conceding points?

“Do I?”

Lung nodded, then put one hand on the table and began tapping a fingertip against it, hard.  Speaking slowly, with his accented voice, he jabbed one finger in Marquis’s direction.  “I think you are losing this argument on purpose.  You are not so stupid a man.”

On purpose? Why would he?

Marquis took another sip of tea.  “Nor are you, it seems.”

But it seems like Lung’s right.

“You want something from me, yet you insist on dancing around the subject.  Tell me why you seek these meals with me.”

Ahh, that should be enlightening, if Marquis complies.

Dragon pulled up the video and audio feeds for the most recent dialogue.

This should be interesting.

“…I suppose we’ll have to accept that we have different management styles,” Marquis said.  The camera image showed him sipping at his tea. 

“As I understand it,” Lung sounded annoyed as he spoke in his heavily accented voice, “You are saying you have no management style at all.  You have told me you operated without lieutenants to direct, no product to sell, and of the few servants you did have, you did not punish those who failed you.  I do not believe you held control of so much territory in this way.”

They’re being polite so far, but there’s still a hint of animosity, at least from Lung.

“Ah, except I did those things.  If a servant failed me, I killed them.  Whatever it was, they never did it again.”

I guess that’s one way to punish them. Could be a bit of a waste of resources, maybe.

The latent hostility in the room, Dragon noted, was ratcheting up with every exchange of dialogue.  Lung was annoyed, and he had an explosive temper.  Sometimes literally.

Heh.

Lung folded his arms, and put down his own tea.  His tone was strained as he spoke, “Then I believe you were wrong about what you said before.  You do use fear to control others.”

Oh, so that’s what the argument is about? Does Marquis think himself too honorable to admit to doing that?

“Fear?  I didn’t kill my servants in front of an audience.”

“They disappeared?” Lung asked.

The camera image showed Marquis nod.

Ah, I see. Marquis just disposed of defective servants without making a show of “this is what happens if you fail me”.

He put his hand up by his neck and flicked his hand back, to cast his long brown hair back behind his shoulder.

Brown hair, huh.

Any freckles?

Glastig Uaine had revived the girl, but Dragon hesitated to call it life.

Ahh. I see, we’re going more along the lines of zombies, though I’m guessing this is based on some sort of Gaelic mythical undead or tales of resurrections by the faerie, rather than popular zombie lore (which originates from Carribbean voodoo and Night of the Living Dead).

If nothing else, Bakuda was a manageable inmate, now.  She would never leave Glaistig Uaine’s immediate presence, let alone the Birdcage.

Eesh.

Honestly, maybe it’d been better if she’d just stayed dead.