The poet stared at the parchment that they wrote on, namely the fingerprint they had left on the edge of the paper due to accidentally dipping it in undried ink. The paper was crisp with black lettering that read again a cryptic and Jacobinist message. The figure's mouth pulled into a frown as they lifted the paper with their fingertips as if it were venomous, staring at the mark.
This was their print. The swirls on the mark were just their very own. Their's and also the one of someone that people actually knew. Someone that wasn't a shadow-stalking message-bearer. Though there wasn't anyway someone could use the print to track them down, for here was no one in the whole of Regalia who would likely look at the finger of all those in the city to find one person, it still unsettled the poet.
Rising from their seat, the poet paced away from the crate that they had been writing on, leaning out of the alley way and glancing either direction for continuing away. Soon enough they arrived at their destination, a canal that ran through the district. The figure crouched and folded the paper into a little triangle, pausing a few moments to gaze at the still and dark waters of the slums.
Then, the splash of a frog leaping into the waters awakened the figure from their momentary daze, had they'd release the triangle into the waters, watching it drift away on the still water that wasn't as still as they had thought. The poet returned to their feet as the print sank and they nodded, there was no worry now. They knew one day they'd be discovered, but not today.
