So, I told myself I’d get the update finished tonight, and then I wrote this instead 
It’s a followup to the Mara piece, which ended up being in first person because, well, Silver isn’t the name they call themself.
[details=Also with mention of female Vin since obscuring the pronouns was just too awkward.]
Mara keeps me waiting so long that I’m starting to draft emergency alternative plans. Maybe the disguise option could work. Of course, to anyone with magic sense I’ll be lit up like the moon on a clear night, but how many could there be? How many could I take?
Not a solution I want, but one I might be driven to if -
Finally! I can hear footsteps; moving at sluggish human pace, but light and sure. I stand up on the statue’s head, peering into the night. The monument is a poor meeting place really, too big, too well-known, but I had to make allowances for Mara.
There. She actually thinks to look up, so I circle round to land behind and shift. Petty, I know, but you’ve got to get your fun where you can find it.
“You took your time,” I say. Only a slight startle. Oh well.
“It was difficult to get in without being noticed,” she says. She looks tired, I think. But she’s reaching in to her pack. “I only got -”
“One book?” The older one, I can tell by the cover. “Where’s the other one?”
“It wasn’t there. I looked everywhere in the room, I swear. Nothing like the one you described. And I didn’t know where else to start looking.”
No, but I can guess who has it, and must be keeping it close. For a memento? A trophy? Considering that mess, both?
I take the book from her. Will this one be enough? It has most of what I need, after all – getting both was more for the surety. It has to be enough, right?
This one’s fragile, the leather binding cracked with age, the vellum browned and ink faded. I’ll have to be careful. I have the sudden image of those hands holding this book, wrapping it and putting it away with scholarly reverence. And at that thought I feel the sudden mad urge to throw it to the ground and stamp it into the dirt, and that thought triggers a warning twinge of pain. No self-sabotage allowed.
“Are you … all right?” says Mara, because right, she’s still here and I’ve been standing here silently talking to myself. That’s becoming a habit. Still, you can’t exactly blame me; I get so little else in the way of intelligent company.
“It’ll do,” I say, as much to myself as her.
Mara watches me, which is interesting in itself. She had the same first reaction as most do: the shock, the awe, the fear. But the next step is usually terrified wariness. The other rebels who see me shrink away from where I stand, crane their heads round to follow my movements as if they think I might explode. As if they think they could do anything if I did.
But she looks … not curious, exactly. Calculating, perhaps. As if she’s putting pieces together and wondering where I fit into the puzzle. She might be smarter than the rest – not that that’s any great accolade.
“Vin said that after this is done she wants to see you,” she says.
Vin says a lot of things, few of which are worth hearing. In this case though, she’s in luck, because I need to see her too. The next step’s going to be a tough sell, which is a pain because it’s vital. But who doesn’t want a wyvern, right? A great scaly noisy beast that drools poison and can eat its own weight in hard-earned meat?
I probably shouldn’t put it to Vin like that.
“Where’s the new place?” The leadership never stays in one place for too long. Got to keep that flame of rebellion alive.
“I can take you there.”
“Or you could just tell me.”
“If I do that, you’ll fly off and leave me here alone,” she says, eyes narrowing.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I protest. Blatant lie. So nice to have that option.
She’s not convinced. Considering my suspicions, she’s no stranger to blatant lies herself. “How far?” I sigh.
.[/details]
And on the subject of our favourite mysterious stranger, I got this commission done by Charles Tan:
