Alone In A Tavern

The tavern was practically identical to thousands of others the Bounty Hunter had stopped in over the years.

From the corner, a man stood up to approach them. The Hunter kept their groan internal. Women who took up the Hunt were rare, and there was always someone who had an ego big enough to try to flirt. Even if Victoria hadn't seen her husband in two years now, after her horse went lame and forced a delay that made her miss the rendevous, (then he'd been late, and sent a letter ahead to go on without him, and then...) she was still married, and those vows meant something.

She just wanted dinner and a drink and to miss her spouse in peace! Was that really so much to ask? Her tone was as unfriendly as she could make it without being threatening enough to start a fight. "Do I know you?"

The man sat down. "No, but I knew your husband."

Victoria's flat stare sharpened into a deadly glare. "I've signed no divorce papers and accepted no annulment decree. Benjamin is my husband."

Their line of work meant that it wasn't always easy to meet up, even when things went perfectly according to plan. Ben was a Tracker, an Intelligence Agent whose hunting ground was financial records and whispered rumours, until he found something for bounty hunters like Victoria to act upon. Her love worked in the shadows, and sometimes those shadows were darker than first glance made them seem, and one had to lie low until the light returned.

But Victoria had loved her husband since their first meeting, in a tavern much like this one, both young and desperate to prove themselves. Seperation was a small price to pay, if it meant seeing the other safe. Ben had taught her enough of his tricks; she would have known if something had happened...

The man nodded affably. "Is, then. I'm sorry to tell you that he was involved in the Sunset Incident."

Victoria stood up fast enough to knock over her chair, drink forgotten. The Incident at the small town of Sunset, so named because the ice-capped hills that surrounded it reflected the light so that it always appeared to be sunset there, was already becoming legend, despite being barely six months past. Several bands of Lawless had joined forces and launched a strike on a conference of Trackers. The Trackers had made it out, with only one Fatality. The Lawless hadn't been so lucky, losing seven out of every ten people.

Victoria and several of her comrades had spent the intervening time sending the survivors to join their fallen. "Where is he?"

She had enough saved to pay whichever hospital was nursing him back to health, and food and lodgings until he was ready to move on again. A gentle hand on her arm stopped her. "He was the One."

Grief crashed down upon her like a great wave, so overwhelming that Victoria thought she might drown in it. The One who saved his fellows. The One who fought to the bitter end, who would live on in song and story and legend.

But never again in her arms.

Victoria bowed her head, all the display she would allow herself here, and forced the grief down deep, until she was somewhere far away from the eyes of those who had no right to witness her pain. "Thank you for telling me. I have work to be getting on with."

Her beloved's work, bringing Lawless ones to Justice, that Victoria would carry on in his name.

If Victoria had nothing else left, she still had Vengeance