Stepping out from the forest edge, Daithi Ironcoin gives a cursory look around before approaching the two guards watching the front gate of the country estate beyond. Just like himself, both of the guards are lowborn blanks, bereft of horn, wing, or any other particular magical talents. Fighting them would have been a plausible option if he was seeking to break in, but there was no need for that today.

The guards eye the approaching stallion with suspicion, moving to bar his entry. In a cold, professional tone, the senior of the two holds out a hoof, his other forelimb supporting his weight against the spear shaft in his hooves. “Halt! State your name, occupation, and your business here.”

“Daithi Ironcoin. I have an invitation right here.” The teal-maned blank explains in an equally professional voice, removing a small scroll from his saddlebag and handing it to the first guard.

After a moment of looking it over, he nods and hands it back. “You were not seen approaching the premises?”

Daithi can’t help but scoff at the question. “I’m a professional, I know how to be discreet. I took a route through the forest, nopony was around to see me.”

Satisfied, the guard nods, and steps back. “Very well. Open the gates!”

The fine wrought iron gate, a natural extension of the spiked fence that extends around the premises, swings open with only a very short delay, and Daithi Ironcoin allows himself to be escorted inside. Casually looking around, he notes the defensive network around him. Though there are watchtowers with sentries and a suitably well-maintained fence, the estate is certainly not a castle and its layout not optimized for warfare. Just off the top of his head, he can mark out a handful of potential entry and exit points. Always a good thing to note, for future reference.

Another brief delay later, and he is allowed into the front entryway of the estate itself, sitting down in the parlor while he waits. I have to wonder what it’s like to live in such a place. Must be nice to have somepony else do all the cleaning for you. Ironcoin snorts at the thought, looking around at the finery; a suit of armor propped up against the wall, a finely made grandfather clock, exquisitely hoofcrafted furnishings and railings.

This would be the third time in his life he’d been in an aristocrats estate; most of the time, when seeking his services, he would just meet with a representative in a tavern of some kind; or more likely, just read up on the latest bounty listings without ever actually interacting directly with the client at all. There must have been something particularly secretive about this particular job, to have requested his presence in such a place without any details about what the task was.

“Welcome to House Powel, sir. May I offer you something to drink?” A finely dressed stallion in a formal tuxedo asks, prompting Daithi to nod. He felt more than a little out of place in these surroundings, but while he was there, he might as well take advantage of the offered hospitality; it wasn’t like he would get many more opportunities for such extravagances.

“Very good, sir. May I recommend the Powel Carménère? It is the pride and joy of the family's wineries, aged for the past ten years.” The butler professes, presenting a bottle of deep-red liquid.

Daithi glances down at it, skeptically. He certainly isn’t in the know about what is considered good or not, so he might as well just take what was offered. “That sounds lovely, thankyou.” He affirms, allowing the butler to pour him a glass and then leave him be.

Whatever subtleties the flavor of the beverage might have, they are quite lost upon the stallion, though it thankfully for him is a fairly bold flavor. I could get used to this treatment. Daithi allows himself a small smirk as he swirls the remainder of the wine around the bottom of the glass.

Such introspection is halted by the opening of the doors to the side, and the entrance of a middle-aged unicorn stallion, black of mane with pale ivory fur. Though well dressed in a red velvet dresscoat, something about his appearance did not give quite the refined appearance of his servants; perhaps because he was a longfang, possessing the enlarged canines and triangular ears typical to that particular breed of ponies, along with a more predatorial disposition. Daithi knew this pony; he’d met him once before, and seen him from a distance a couple more times. The local lord, Duke Macsen Saberfang Powel.

“A pleasure to meet you again, milord.” Daithi bows his head steeply to the ground. “I came as soon as I received your missive.”

“Quite.” Saberfang replies somewhat dismissively as he takes his place on the opposite side of the parlor table. “I appreciate your discretion in this matter, as we have something of a… delicate situation to deal with. Allow me to get straight to the point; I need a hit performed on this pony, without it being traced back to me. I can pay you five hundred bits for the job. Are you in?”

Daithi raises a brow at the offer, skeptically. Obviously the duke would not tell him who the target was unless he agreed… But was it worth the risk? What if it turned out to be some manner of suicide mission? He supposes he could take the money and run, if it came down to it. At this point, refusing the mission could be more dangerous than accepting, as the duke might simply feel the need to knock him off as a loose end and find a new pawn.

So, with some reluctance, Daithi nods his head. “What’s the mission?”

The aristocrat across from him slides an envelope filled with a handful of papers over to him. “Take a look.” Glancing down at the papers, Daithi raises his brow even more. A curious way to do business. Flipping open the envelope, a number of details are printed out in bold ink, along with pictures of the target. But one detail immediately stands out to him; the name printed for the target. “Elias Rosewine Powel.” Another member of the Powel dynasty? That was certainly a new one.

“I’m afraid that my nephew has put our family in a difficult spot. You see, he has made something of a habit of…. Harassing mare’s at formal events. At first, he only took maids and the like; things we could easily enough cover up. But as of late he’s seemingly gotten more ambitious, and he’s started to pursue members of the other houses. At the last event, he was discovered poisoning the eldest daughter of House Cadenza, and attempting to bed her under her suggestible state.

“Since the only witness was her younger brother, we were able to cast doubt on the allegations, but at the current rate it is only a matter of time before somepony comes forward with irrefutable proof. I don’t think I need to explain how that would affect our families reputation. At worst, it could risk direct conflict with House Cadenza, conflict which would be very… Inconvenient.” The aristocrat explains, while Daithi continues flipping through the pages of the dossier. “If he was to simply… Disappear, however, we should be able to sweep the whole situation under the rug. Your place in this should be obvious.”

Daithi frowns, looking up from the dossier back to Saberfang. “Shouldn’t I have a whole team for this? He’ll have bodyguards, servants, not to mention his magical talents… I don’t know how I can be expected to handle this on my own.”

The duke shakes his head. “No. The more ponies we tell of this, the more likely that somepony will leak the truth. You were selected due to your past track record of success and our history of working together. As far as security, there is no need to concern yourself; on his way back from the promenade, we've arranged for him to be placed in a rather compromising position. His only company will be his chauffeur. You may do as you like with him, alive or dead it does not matter to us. All that matters is that Rosewine is taken care of.”

Daithi leans back against the couch, pondering. As a perfectly upstanding bounty hunter, most of his tasks involved capturing outlaws and rebels or harassing tenants behind on their payments. Outright assassination is not exactly in his wheelhouse. Still, it does sound like the stallion in question had it coming…

Just as long as they don’t decide to bump me off after the job is done to tie up loose ends. Ironcoin contemplates, looking back up at the impassive expression of the duke. He had done work for him before, multiple times; Really, most of his jobs are technically in service to the duchy, sometimes above the board, sometimes under it. He hadn’t been asked to assassinate any other assassins before, so it didn’t seem likely that was the duke’s modus operandi. So Daithi nods his head. “Alright. Just give me all the details and I’ll see what I can do. Where exactly is this ‘compromising position’ in question?”

----------------------------------------

Clear conditions, little breeze. Ideal weather. Daithi notes. Not too bright to where it would obscure my vision. Should be an easy job. The blank stallion muses, nestling down into the long grass to the side of the road. Automobiles are still rare, but the aristocrats who used them had begun connecting their estates to the cities with them. Personally, Daithi has to question what the point was when a train line would fulfill the same purpose with much less maintenance and more reliability.

Patience, patience. The bounty hunter checks the sights on his weapon, a Firehoof 9 falling-block action, 9mm scoped rifle. Despite what he’d told himself regarding the ease of the job, he can’t suppress a growing feeling of anxiety. He is used to that; Any time his job entails actually fighting and not just apprehending and dragging back some lowlife to prison, is a job he might not come back from.

But this time is different. His target isn’t just some criminal, but an aristocrat; a unicorn, with all the magical powers that entails. Sure, he is unarmed, but that doesn't mean he isn’t dangerous. An aristocrat is never defenseless.

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All those thoughts leave his head as soon as he hears the distant hum of an engine, and he immediately settles back into position, practiced professionalism overcoming the jitters of the mission. One forehoof places itself upon the lever at his side, the other holding his rifle steady so he can continue to see the road carefully through his scope. He had laid down in the best vantage point he had been able to locate along the road, near a bend which would force the target to slow down.

It's only another moment before the vehicle-a two-seat, luxury coupe, all glossy black and obviously well maintained-speeds around the bend in the road, swerving back around as it nears him, scarce eighty meters from his resting spot. Timing would be everything here. There would be a short delay between when he slammed down on the lever and the detonation; if he got it wrong, the car would simply speed off and he would be back where he started. Worse, because his target would be on high alert. For a brief moment, he almost considers not slamming down on the lever; It did feel like something of a shame to destroy a fine piece of engineering like that, didn’t it?

Ah, well. A job was a job. Around half a second after he switches the detonator, the TNT carefully buried in the gravel of the road erupts into a blastwave of smoke and fire, a deafening bang sweeping across the environment. Well, it would have been deafening, had he not been wearing his hearing protection. The explosion happens right underneath the car's front left wheel, blasting the tire off its hinges and popping the other tire, leaving the back wheels to spin out of control as the entire vehicle slams towards the side of the road. With any luck, that would be all that is required, and he won’t even need his gun.

But as the door is enveloped in magic light and bursts open, leaving the way for a coughing stallion bleeding from the base of his horn to stumble from the wreckage, such hopes are dashed. Ah, well. Looks like I’m getting my hooves dirty after all. Closing one eye, Daithi focuses down the scope of his rifle.

Bang. It wasn’t exactly a difficult shot, considering the short range, ideal conditions, and his target's disorientation, and the shot rings through the air as the bullet thuds into the stallion's side. But rather than dropping the unicorn, he merely recoiled and grunted in pain, staggering on his hooves before looking around in a manic frenzy.

Guess I should have expected that. Daithi snarls, ejecting the spent casing and hastily raising the block action to insert the next round. He knows that mundane methods of attack are less effective against magical creatures, but it's certainly something else entirely to see it in action, a shot that would have dropped an ordinary pony only fazing the stallion. Unfortunately for him, by the time he was able to reload his rifle, the unicorn had projected a shield around himself, holding one hoof up to cover the bullet wound, while his chauffeur stumbles out of the car's other door.

Trying to take that down was a lost cause; even a machine gun would struggle to wear down a unicorn's shield. A more direct approach would be necessary. His target was still woozy, dazed, staggering about barely able to stay on his feet, and his attention distracted between his injury and the shield; He would never get a better opportunity than this.

Sliding his rifle back into its holster, Daithi Ironcoin charges towards the roadside, brandishing his sidearm; a double-sided knife held tightly in his mouth, blades curving forwards on either side of his muzzle. The only way to counteract magical protection like this was to back up your force with your own strength.

Staggering back on his feet, Rosewine is just barely able to make out the form of his approaching assailant, his vision blurry and hearing muffled by the explosion from moments ago. Blindly firing off magic from his horn, the beam of concentrated magical light scorches a path across the gravel and into the woods, severing leaves and foliage like a hot knife through butter but entirely missing his actual target.

Daithi is almost on him by the time he manages to focus enough to fire another beam. The blank stallion darts left, avoiding the magical beam before lunging with the double sided knife held tightly in his mouth, the tip of the blade ripping through the well-maintained coat of the stallion and triggering a spurt of hot blood.

Rosewine stares at both the wound and his attacker aghast, as if in disbelief. “A mere commoner? You dare attack Me?” Stomping his hoof down, he emits a surge of magic, stinging Daithi’s skin and sending him skidding back on his hooves.

Silently thanking his lucky stars that his target was not a more skilled practitioner of the magical arts, Daithi merely snarls and charges in once more. He had to finish this quickly, before Rosewine could recover from his shock. Jerking his head to one side, he lunges with his knife directly at the bullet wound. Rosewine just barely conjures a shield to protect the area, and the knife skids off the flat, circular barrier, instead piercing Rosewine’s flank.

The aristocrat emits a howl of pain, swinging his hoof haphazardly like a club for Daithi’s head, who ducks under it. “As if I could be killed by somepony like you! Do you have any idea who I-”

Daithi has no interest in engaging in that particular line of dialogue, as he bolts up from the low position he had taken from dodging under Rosewine’s hoof, headbutting his opponent in the abdomen. The wind is knocked from Rosewine’s sails, halting his haughty speech in an instant.

Now’s your chance. Before he recovers. Unslinging the rifle from his shoulder, Daithi rams the barrel into the soft place below Rosewine’s jawline, and pulls the trigger.

Bang.

Magical resistance or no, a firearm fired in close contact with the skin was going to do some serious damage; doubly so, fired directly upwards into the skull. The bullet ricochets around inside the skull of the unfortunate noble, liquefying his nervous matter. For a brief moment the body stumbles like a headless chicken before flopping to the ground, deader than dirt.

With a clatter, Daithi’s rifle falls to the ground as he staggers back. That was it; Another job done. That makes the third pony I’ve had to kill in this line of work. Daithi notes with a hint of remorse, before his gaze strays over to the other pony present, the chauffeur who was currently backing up down the road, nervously glancing backwards as if pondering whether his best bet was to run or stand his ground. Shall that make four, in a minute?

Lifting the rifle up again and ejecting the spent casing, Daithi ponders his choices. The logical thing to do would be to kill the chauffeur as well; the fewer witnesses the better. But, strictly speaking, the pony hadn’t done anything wrong, and he hadn’t been part of the contract… And, of course, Ironcoin had entirely covered up his identity, black bounty hunter garb complete with goggles to mask any identifying features.

Sighing, Daithi shakes his head. Damn him and that annoying little voice of conscience. “You’re not part of the contract. Get lost, and I won’t have to come after you.” He growls out in a threatening tone, slamming another bullet into his rifle and cocking it.

The chauffeur did not need any more encouragement, turning around and galloping down the road towards the nearest town, screaming in panic the whole way.

Well, that’s a job done. Guess it’s high time to make myself scarce. Daithitakes one last look at the wreckage, shakes his head, and melds away back into the forest.

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First things first, Daithi Ironcoin was heading back home. Stashing his weapons and ensuring he didn’t have the clothes worn during the attack took top priority, long before he would worry about heading back to the manor and seeking payment. He would want to stow the evidence before any kind of search warrant could get underway, after all.

You wouldn’t have to worry about this if you’d just shot the other pony. Daithi can’t help but grumble internally. The assassination had been carried out in the countryside, he likely would have had days before it was discovered. But nooo, he just had to leave a surviving witness, and now he had to rush to make sure he wasn’t caught.

The danger shouldn’t be too severe; After all, the Duke would not want him to be caught and potentially spill his secrets, so the investigation would surely be stalled and then dropped. But a suspicious blank strutting through the alleyways of the castle town with a black bag draped over his shoulder… Yeah, that would attract some unwanted attention, so he’d best be quick about it. Trotting down the humid, poorly drained space between an old stone wall and the wattle-and-daub walls of a merchant’s house, he turns another corner sharply as he sees another pony coming from the other way. The less ponies saw him, the better.

Thankfully, he knew the passages back home like the back of his hoof, and soon enough he had reached the trapdoor that led to his family's residence, underneath the old shop his father had run when he was a colt. Nowadays, the space upstairs was all leased out as his folks' business had dried up, and his father found work running supply trips for the guild; They’d have lost their home years ago if not for Daithi keeping them in the green. Pulling the trap door shut behind him and flicking the key back into his bag, he trots down the earthen hallway. “I’m home!”

“Amber? That you?” The familiar voice of his mother calls out from a room down the hall. Grunting confirmation, Daithi does not go straight to greet her but instead pops into his own room, the same bed he’d slept in since he was twelve. The same bed that, presently, his younger brother, Cailleach, is laying on, reading one of the books he kept by his bedside.

Raising a brow, Daithi steps into the room. “Don’t you have your own bedroom you could be doing that in?” He asks, as he steps over to the corner of the room where his secret stash was and sits down.

The colt looks over at the newcomer and, after placing a bookmark in his book, hops up to his hooves, stretching. “Yeah, but you weren’t home, and your bed is bigger than mine!” He justifies. “Where’ve you been all day?”

Daithi lets the bag fall from his shoulders, carefully keeping its contents concealed from his younger brother. “Ah, just keeping us up on our rent. It was a good day of work today, we should be able to afford you a bigger bed if that's what you want.” That was rather an understatement, but if he explained exactly how much he had made that day, Cailleach would surely ask questions. He knew in vague terms what he did, of course; that he often helped catch criminals and the like. But the details… The colt didn’t need to know about that.

“Really?” Cailleach jumps up in place excitedly. “You think so? You must’ve worked really hard! I wish I was grown up already so I could help, too. I’d be like your deputy! Or, sidekick!”

Daithi narrows his eyes, and perhaps more forcefully than he means to, replies with a stern and simple, “No.” His brother instantly wilts in place, discouraged, and leans back to sit on his haunches, pouting.

“What, you don’t think I can do it…? I’ll show you, I’ll grow up to be strong and smart just like you… You’ll see.” Cailleach crosses his hooves, puffing out one cheek, and Daithi’s expression softens as he walks over to the colt.

“No, it’s not that. Just, pursue your own life, alright? I already have this covered, you should just focus on your education. Don’t try to be like me, I’m not.. Not a good pony.” Daithi tries to explain gently, but Cailleach only stares up at him confused. He didn’t have the will to explain to him what he meant-explain the quite literal blood on his hooves, or exactly what being a bounty hunter actually entailed. “Look, just, go wash up, alright? I’m sure Mom will be making dinner. I’ve got to take care of something first.”

Without waiting for his brother's response, Daithi ushers him out of the door and shuts it behind him. One of these days, he knew, Cailleach was likely to discover just how he kept the family fed and housed… But if he had his way about it, that day would be a long time coming. Turning back, he makes for the corner of the room, where his secret storage locker was hidden, underneath the floor. He has evidence to hide.