Solo The Blade in the Dark

[Kaie]

85th Day of Fall, 516 AV
10th Bell



It just. Wouldn't. Stop. Not when she slept or when she walked dazed through the waking world. No solace was given when she was alone or beating her fists against the face of an adversary. Kaie was a prisoner to the burdens that came with her bond to Skyard. As much as she loved the Kelvic lion, there was no sugar-coating the agony that plagued her night and day since he disappeared without warning from her life. The Myrian had searched Riverfall high and low for her lover to no avail in the days that had followed. When she returned the third night empty-handed, she moved onto Syliras where she knew he had a past. The desperate search had brought her as far as the far eastern coast of Mizahar to the most miserable, chaotic, deadly city she'd ever known. And still there was no sign of him.

In the absence of their bond, the answer would've been obvious that he'd simply up and left her. Perhaps he'd gotten bored of her. Maybe he found someone else. Those were the types of rationalizations Jeida had parroted in her ears since their departure from Riverfall. However, despite their physical separation, the Myrian woman could feel Skyard. Somewhere out there he was suffering, too. His pain, hopelessness, anger, and depression were hers to share without reprieve. The emotions felt more intense with each passing week, and they were taking their toll. Years living among the barbarian people had conditioned Kaie to understand certain sets of acceptable norms and behaviors. Yet the psychological anguish had beaten her down like a seal beneath a club. So much as a wrong look could send her into a frenzy, gladius drawn from its sheath and all. Sooner or later it was going to get her killed. Perhaps this second time she'd see it lucky if she remained dead.

The Myrian woman wrapped her cloak tightly about her body, cursing in her native tongue as she strolled up the street toward the Sunset Quarter against the cold fall wind. A thick fog had rolled over parts of the city, somehow making her foot travel even more miserable. Bloody petching bastards, her mind reeled when another gust of wind sent a shiver across her skin. The bloody pit tournament she'd sold herself to shackles to get into had certainly lived up to its hype. For a tournament mostly enrolled with amateurs, the matches were well-set. Each of her own victories were hard won, and when the fighters weren't enough of a challenge, fatigue stepped in as a formidable adversary when hers battles ran back-to-back. Bruises spotted here and there upon her flesh. Soreness crept quietly into her muscles.

It had been a couple days since she'd left the pits. When she exited the Blood Pits to receive her share of Mizas to ensure upkeep of her sister's apartment, she was greeted with refusal from that shyke-eating, low-level loan shark she'd shackled herself to. That two-faced petch had screwed her out of their agreement, and after a lengthy argument, the Myrian walked out on him. Kaie procured a rusted key from her cloak pocket and jammed it into the keyhole of the apartment she shared with Jeida. After a bit of play she finally managed to get the damned thing open. Hasty to get out of the cold, Kaie stepped inside and shut the door firmly behind her. Another turn of the key ensured it was locked. She tossed the key upon the small, molded table awkwardly placed in the center of the room. The bed across the room all but cried out for her.

Finally!

Just as she began to make her way for the comfort of her sheets, a shadow emerged from the darkness to rush her. So numb had her mind become with the day that her ability nearly warned her all to late. Feeling the malevolent force, Kaie pivoted just in time to back-step from the swing of a dagger slicing through the darkness. Shyke! Gnosis on her neck burning to life, the Myrian sent a front kick into the attacker that slammed them against the near wall. Her brow furrowed. Another. Foot steps echoed behind her back and already did her body feel the inclination to move from it's place. She unsheathed the gladius at her side and turned to swing the blade. The ambushing figure dropped when the edge drew a thick line across their torso.

The first attacker had recovered from the wall and moved against her once more. The Myrian danced backward, body moving this way and that to avoid the aggressive cuts of the blade that diced through the shadows. Her back bumped against the far wall. Shyke, shyke, shyke! The gladius-wielder went on the offensive to avoid the corner. With the much bigger blade, the attacker was easily backed up by her wild, deterrent swing. A body tumbled over the table she'd tossed her keys. Kaie curled her lip. "Alright, you petchs! Come get me!" She challenged with a snarl in Common. The two shadows seemed to glance at one another before they rushed.

Kaie chose to commit the the dagger-wielder first. He swung his dagger high from above, only to find the attempt blocked by Kaie's free forearm at his wrist. Then she plunged her sword deep into his middle, backing him up to the wall again while he sputtered blood. The other! The gladius refused to slide from the man's body as swiftly as required. The shadow approached the back of the Myrian with rapier held high. Then they crumpled to the ground with Kaie's neighbor Damon standing over them with a club. With a yell he brought it down once, twice, three times upon the skull of the potential killer. Kaie blinked and pressed her foot against the wall as leverage to tear her gladius free.

Damon's chest heaved and he looked up at Kaie in the dim light. The Myrian stared at him with wide eyes. "What? I saw some assholes break in so I came to save your sorry ass," he explained with a shrug. He watched her eyes waver over to the back door of her place, which had at some point been forced open during her scuffle. "You locked the door!"
"Petch the door, Damon. Where's my sister?" Her neighbor's lips pressed into a line, and before he could make so much as a guess, Kaie was shoving past him and out the back door into the fog. Damon hustled after her with his bloody club.

[Kaie]

Kaie's amber eyes searched in vain through the fog that hovered like a ghost over Sunberth's streets. Damon paused beside her with narrowed eyes. Both their heads snapped about. She had half a mind to call out into the night. "You didn't see her go anywhere?" she tried to coax from Damon, who merely shook his head. He ran a gory hand through his dark hair. "I saw her a few chimes before you got here. She can't be far." She grasped his shoulder suddenly with wide eyes. "What?" The Myrian's brow furrowed and she pressed a finger to her lips. Her hand gave his shoulder a shake and her voice fell to little more than a whisper. "Can you hear that?" Realization seemed to come over Damon's expression and he nodded firmly.

Kaie moved into the center of the street with sword in hand, staring into the white cloud in the direction she swore she heard some sort of struggle. A single pair of slow foot steps echoed from the abyss. A shadow was making their way in her direction. "Jeida...?" Kaie called out in the Myrian tongue as her sister stumbled out of the fog, bloodied short sword clutched in her right hand. Jeida's dark eyes seemed distant and her jaw set. She didn't meet her sister's gaze at first. Kaie wasn't even sure Jeida had heard her name. Jeida lowered her head and pulled her left hand away from her leather jacket, staring at a palm slick with bright red blood. Her distant gaze rose to meet Kaie's and the short sword slipped from her fingers to clatter upon the ground. The bloodied hand reached out as she stumbled backwards.

Kaie sprinted to cross the space between to seize her forearm and cradled her while she lowered toward the earth. "Kaie," Jeida breathed with blinking eyes that seemed to see her older sister at last. Blood seeped up through a small collection of stab wounds that punched through the black leather Jeida had loved to wear, tainting it with spilling red. "You're alright, you're alright. I've got you," Kaie murmured to her with a rattle in her voice. She pressed her hand upon the wounds. Her sister yelped at the pressure, eyes squinting momentarily closed as she tried to take the pain in silence.

"I'm sorry," Jeida began with strain. Kaie shook her head, preparing to silence a silly apology for falling upon a dagger, but her sister quickly thwarted that attempt. "I didn't mean those things I said. Earlier. Especially in Riverfall." Blood seeped around Kaie's hand pressed to Jeida's torso. "All these years...I thought you were dead." Her younger sister's voice broke, and Kaie had to clench her teeth to keep her veil of calm from collapsing. "All this time...I've been so angry at you...I never told you how much I missed you. That I love you. That I forgive you for not coming home. She seemed to slip further with each word.

Kaie's facade broke and she pulled her sister in tight to her chest, inhale shaky with the threat of tears that would cascade if she let him fall. "Don't. Don't. I just got you back. You're not going anywhere. You are not dying here, do you understand?" Kaie asserted with breaking voice and lump in her throat. "Damon!" She called to her neighbor in Common, who knelt before the pair of Myrians with a sympathetic, hopeless expression. "Help me!" He shoved his hand through his black hair again and bit his lip, expression apprehensive. "Kaie, I don't know if--"
"I can't. Please!" Damon hung his head for a tick before slowly nodding. "I know a place...but you're not going to like it."

[Kaie]

In a flash Damon had sprinted to his apartment to collect the old stretcher he once pedaled his dying father to and from appointments with. Moving at a speed that could be reached only with the wild influx of panicked adrenaline in their veins, Kaie and her neighbor managed to set Jeida upon the contraption before they took off down the street. In a few chimes Damon brought them to a wheezing halt at the edge of the Wolf's Den. The building before them was practically ancient. It was the sort of place that would give nearly any passerby the chills and for good reason. Kaie knew it to be the place of the infamous Doctor Petricious.

The mad doctor was only a recent acquaintance of the Myrian. After her first day at the tournament, her loan-shark master took her to his place to see a wound properly cleaned and sown. It was afterward that one of her master's little minions whispered her some of the more nefarious rumors about the doctor's darker activities. One horrifying ones they were indeed. Damon rapped his fist against the door. "Come on, come on," he prayed, knuckles rapping louder the second time. The door swung open to reveal Petricious. He stood there in his typical, bizarre uniform. He was clad in black and sporting a strange mask that reminded the Myrian of a hungry, scavenging crow waiting for the next poor soul to pick at. Her hands wrapped tighter about the handles of the stretcher.

The doctor peered down at the wounded novelty presented to him, leaning his creepy mask inward with cocked head. "Bring her in," Petricious instructed before he disappeared into the depths of his home in a hurry. Damon turned back with questioning eyes. Kaie nodded her uncertain approval and the two hustled behind the mad man. "Put her on the cot by that window," the doctor instructed with a hand outstretched to direct them before disappearing down a hall. Gently, Damon and Kaie worked together to transfer Jeida from the stretcher to the open cot. The doctor returned and rolled out his tools upon a nearby table. With a knife he cut away the fabric obscuring his direct view of Jeida's wounds. A rag was set to task to sop up the blood.

"Alcohol," the crow-like man squawked while Damon and Kaie stood by as though paralyzed. She blinked for a tick before her panicked hands flew down to remove the flagon that seemed to never part from her side. The elder sister held it out toward the doctor, who snatched it from her hands without missing a beat. He uncapped the flagon and spilled it upon the punctured flesh. Jeida, whom Kaie had thought was rendered unconscious sometime during the city sprint, let out a shriek that drained the color from Kaie's face.

"She's your sister, yes?" Kaie nodded dumbly. The doctor went back to cleaning away blood. "Use that rag on the table to keep her from biting her tongue." She obediently followed his cue, sticking the layered rag between Jeida's teeth just before more alcohol was poured over her injuries. Kaie knew not what to do but sacrifice her hand to Jeida's iron-like grip while she let out another muffled scream. A lesser warrior would've surely passed out by now. For her own good, part of Kaie wished her sister had. "Hold her still." Damon glanced at Kaie before he did his part by placing it weight upon Jeida's legs. While Kaie doubted even her stubborn, wildfire of a sister had the energy to resist much, she braced a hand against one of her shoulders.

Doctor Petricious began to stitch the open wounds with a practiced grace. Jeida seemed to hardly stir to the sensation. Each and every work of the needle felt like an eternity to the anxious Myrian. When he was finished, the doctor topped his work off with a set of bandages that wrapped about Jeida's torso. Then he stood up and eyed his patient with a reluctant sigh. His words were muffled behind the ridiculous mask. "She lost a lot of blood. I did what I could, but don't expect her to make it through the night." He cleansed his hands and tools with a rag upon the table. Then he began to roll the tools back up and nestled them beneath one of his arms. "For now you are welcome to wait and see. I'd recommend putting that blanket over her. In the morning we'll discuss payment." With that the mad doctor disappeared from the room and down the hall. A door shut and locked behind him.

"I'll be back. Whatever you do, don't leave her alone with him," Damon said in a low voice with a hand upon Kaie's shoulder. She started at his touch and turned, nodding. Damon gently placed the blanket at the end of the cot over Jeida's resting frame. Then he departed back into the city with the stretcher in hand toward the Sunset Quarter. Amber eyes gazed down upon Jeida's resting, pale frame. A chair was retrieved from across the room so that she might seat herself near her sister's head. Kaie took her nearby hand again and leaned down to press her forehead against it. Lips began to silently murmur prayers to literally every god or goddess the Myrian people recognized. Kaie never believed in miracles, but she would've sold her soul right then to see one come to fruition.

[Kaie]

Hopeless prayers could only go so far. After a bell or so, Kaie rose without warning from her chair, gripping the piece of furniture with both hands before she flung it across the room. It shattered against the far wall. Splinters flew every which way. "Petch!" She roared in her native tongue as she took down a bookshelf, sending fluttering parchment of Petricious's nefarious anatomy sketches everywhere.

"Gods dammit, Jeida!" Her fist punched into the hard surface of the wall. The skin covered her knuckles burst open. She dug her palm heels into her skull above her eyes. "You just couldn't petching help yourself could you? You just had to petching get involved." Once of her bladed boots sent a piece of chair zipping across the floor into the crackling fireplace.

"Why couldn't you have just been happy to stay in Taloba, hm? You got to serve our Goddess Queen and do your time in the military. You got to be there when our clan needed us. What did you think this world had to offer you that you didn't have in the jungle?" The table that once held the doctor's tools was promptly flipped with a yell. Kaie crumpled down to the ground with her back against the cot. Her amber eyes stared forward and the rage in her voice withered. The real truth was sobering. "You were trying to protect me...I should've never walked away from that bastard." A tear carved its way down her cheek. Her next inhale was more like a rattle.

She could hear something from the cot behind her head, prompting her to force herself back into composure as she turned to check on her sister. Small beads of moisture had since collected on Jeida's forehead. Her brow was tight and lips odd in color. Her body shivered. Something broke in Kaie's eyes and a knot tangled in her middle. The anger died a quick death and was replaced with something else entirely.

She slipped into the cot beneath the covers to embrace her sister, pulling her clammy frame in close. Another shiver wracked Jeida's body. Kaie rubbed her hands along the outside of her sister's leather jacket to create friction. For the rest of the evening she remained at Jeida's side, combating the shock with the warmth of her own body when the blanket seemed to fail.

[Kaie]

"Kaie. Kaie, wake up," a voice whispered from what seemed like a world far, far away to the sleeping Myrian. The heels of her hands came up to rub the sleep from her tired eyes. Her face pinched with disdain, but before she voiced a threat toward whoever dared wake her, reality struck her harder than any killing blow.

Jeida.

Amber eyes flashed open and she turned to the still body beside her with unconcealed panic. Her younger sister's flesh was as pale as the night before. Kaie hovered her hand beneath Jeida's nose, and when she felt breath hit her skin, she nearly crumpled with relief. Only with reassurance her sister was still alive, even barely, could she care to investigate the source of the initial voice.

Damon stood at the edge of the cot peering down at her with an expression Kaie couldn't quite read. Her brow furrowed. "What's the matter?" she asked cautiously. Her neighbor pressed her lips together and fiddled with the club in his hand. He gestured with his chin toward the window. Kaie sat up and followed his gaze. Immediately something fearsome ignited within her.

Standing just a few paces away from Doctor Petricious's infamous abode was a small collection of loitering men. At their head was an all-too familiar figure. The angry red of his hair was like fire-like in the dawn sunlight. His arms crossed authoritatively over his chest.

You motherpetcher.

"That fat petch has eyes everywhere. They were gathering here just as I made my way back. They want you," Damon enlightened her with an even tone, eyes tight as he eyed the thugs outside. He fiddled with the club in his hand. "Stay the petch inside." The Myrian carefully slid out from the covers and off the cot with eyes toward the door. "The petch are you talking about?" Damon stepped firmly in her path with a stone-cold face. Kaie looked up at him. His jaw visibly tightened. She turned back toward her resting sister, brushing a stray strand of her jet black hair from her face. Kaie leaned down to plant her lips upon Jeida's forehead before she pulled away, soft gaze lingering before it turned to wildfire that burned into Damon's bright blue eyes.

"Get out of my petching way and do as I asked." Kaie ripped the club from his hand and dropped it behind her. Damon grasped her left forearm tightly in response. Without hesitation, Kaie wrapped her right arm around his waist, turned to set her hips against his, and sent him slamming into the ground on his back behind her. She moved swiftly forth to put her hand on the door handle. "Watch out for my sister," were her parting words before she threw open the door and walked into the morning sun.

[Kaie]

With Damon's groans muted by the closing of the door, she was alone. Two men flanked baby-faced Steven where he stood with Syna's morning glow brightening his bright red hair. A smirk crossed his expression as he caught sight of his quarry with a toothpick between his teeth. "Ya made short work o' me boys last night, but word's they gut one o' yers too," he gloated with a dark chuckle. Kaie's fingers curled into white-knuckle fists at her sides.

"Yer sister, ain't it right?" Steven tsked and slowly shook his head at her. "If only ya kept yer mouth shut and did as yer told. None o' this would'a ever happened, ya know." His smirk turned especially wicked. "Such a fine piece o' ass. Is she dead yet? Maybe when I'm done with ya she can take my knife next." His hands dropped so he could grope himself to the amusement of his companions. "Jeida, is it?"

Composure broke and the righteous rage was set free to wreak havoc. Kaie charged the trio with a flurry of Myrian profanities, teeth bared. The men standing behind Steven startled and took a step back to ready their weapons. Even Steven's brow raised with shock before he withdrew a menacing dagger from its scabbard.

He lifted his free hand and snapping fingers turned to an index finger pointing at the rushing savage. His two men loyally obeyed and jogged ahead of him. The first held a battle ax in his hands while the second twirled a simple short sword. The Myrian procured her gladius from its prison moments before she engaged them. Myri's blessing burned upon her flesh. Her unique ability began its warning bells within her mind.

The battle ax-wielder stepped first. He swung his weapon in a wide, two-handed arc that forced Kaie to ducked low while it sliced through the air. She came out the other side and turned on her heels with a shriek. The edge of her sword lashed against his leather-armored back, dicing through the material to yield bloodshed. The man fell forward onto the ground with a cry but his short sword friend stepped to his defense.

The man cut at the air diagonally, narrowly missing the Myrian dodging the blow with a shuffle to her flank. His eyes went wide and her gladius howled through the air overhead before he managed to knock it away with his own blade. He attempted a counter with a forward thrust toward her middle. Kaie answered by side-stepping, knocking the sword downward, and then circling it to her other side to lunge in past his defenses.

Her left hand balled in his hair and yanked his head backward. The gladius sheathed itself down behind his collar bones at the base of his throat. Blood flowed freely down from the fatal wound, thick rapidly being swallowed by his linen undershirt and dying the leather armor that protected his chest. Halfway to the hilt, Kaie ripped the gladius free. A series of retching, gurgling, and helpless gasping followed as the man sunk to his knees with wide eyes fixing on Steven before he fell. The battle ax-wielder had just finished finding his feet. Steven's freckled face was bright with anger. "Kill her!"

His wounded henchman went on the assault. He stepped through the puddle his comrade was making on the street and heaved the battle ax up. Another wide arcing swing force Kaie back with a growl. The next attack came from above, moving her off her center. Gotta get inside. A diagonal cut that would've split her in two was thwarted by the warning bells that guided her avoiding movements. The next downward swing was the one in which she seized opportunity.

Just as the weapon struck the ground, Kaie ripped her gladius along the length of his dominant arm. A second scream was elicited from the man but he was undeterred. Though one bicep had been torn apart, his bulging left arm apparently wished to rise to the occasion. The Myrian gave her gladius a twirl.

[Kaie]

The heavy weapon yielded one final wild swing from her opponent before he was brutally bested. The ax swung carelessly at her was avoided with a backward step, and the weight of the weapon commanded by a single hand and the force of the swing was a recipe for disaster. The man spun in place as he attempted to regain control of the ax. He stumbled, and Kaie lunged forth to bury the weapon in his chest.

"Gods! Shyke!" he sputtered with eyes tightly shut and weapon slipping from his weakening grip. The Myrian planted her foot against his torso and tore her weapon from his body with a yell. The wounded henchman fell onto his back with hands helplessly trying to keep the blood from pouring from the injury.

"Petching bitch," Steven spat with a beet red face. The ferocious glare of the Tigress was locked upon him. His arms swung wide and he puffed out his chest. "Well?!" Kaie sheathed her sword roughly into the ax-man's chest where he laid before her as she advanced with a snarl.

"Now there's our li'l Tigress." Steven pointed his dagger at her with a smirk. He plucked the toothpick from his teeth and flicked it sidelong. "Such a beauty in the arena, ya were. Me pockets will be sorry to see yer head on the boss's desk...or maybe I'll keep it for me self. Make a fine glory hole between shifts it would."

A snarl tore from the Myrian's throat again and her bloodied hands balled into fists. Each of her approaching steps seemed to put a damper on Steven's robust performance of confidence. Heading a man hunt for the loan shark undoubtedly lifted his ego to magnificent heights.

Still, the right-hand man had stood beside his boss at the Blood Pits. He'd seen first-hand what kind of slaughter The Tigress was truly capable of. Perhaps he was getting flashbacks of her opponents' glorious deaths as he stood there in the middle of her warpath. Would they break him?

[Kaie]

Steven clenched his jaw and lowered in a fighting stance. The dagger before him did an odd dance between his hands, presumably as a last ditch effort to intimidate the pissed off Myrian hungry for blood. The performance did nothing to deter her advance.

The gnosis on her neck burned fiercely upon her flesh, feeding the righteous anger and giving the edge of speed, strength, and agility in tangent with her unique ability of intuition. Amber eyes glanced from the dagger to Steven's anxious expression. Her next step brought her within his range. Her body seemed to move as his did.

The thrusting dagger jerked passed Kaie's pivoting frame, but its wielder had the sense to rapidly pull it back before the Myrian could get a hold of it. The next attacks were just as quick and without mercy. The dagger slashed and stabbed through the air, forcing the Myrian woman on the defensive with danger intuition-guided dodges and parries. A forward kick between one of Steven's transitions sent the thug on his back.

"You petchs come into my home?" Kaie spoke darkly and rhetorically as she moved toward the grounded combatant. Steven groaned but knew better than to remain so vulnerable. In a tick he was sitting up and scampering for his footing. "Waiting in the dark for me like a bunch of pussies?" He found his feet just before she reached him. His dagger lashed forward in an attempt to drive it into her chest. Her body was moving before the blade could've hoped to have found purchase.

Moving to the side, her right forearm parried and then her fingers gripped him at the wrist. She pulled the arm toward her body while her left forearm slammed just above his elbow to elicit a sickening snap. Steven cried out and the dagger slipped involuntarily from his grasp. "Four petching men you sent to kill me...petching insulting." The Tigress shoved the man away from her. Steven, surprised to be freed from her grasp, stumbled with a wail before he turned with wide, fearful eyes. Kaie's bladed boot struck the knife at her feet to send it toward the unarmed man. "Go on. Petching pick it the petch up!"

Steven stared bewildered at the dagger kicked toward him but seized it with his left hand anyways. He swallowed hard, teeth grit, and face still nearly as red as his hair. His breathing was labored, which Kaie attributed to his desire to restrain the screams of agony that threatened to break his composure. "I'll still deliver the boss yer head, ya bitch!" The Myrian stormed toward him.
"No. But someone's will be."

[Kaie]

His work with the dagger he so seemed to love was pathetic in his futile hand, and he was severely punished for it. The diagonal cut he tried was paused with the woman's right forearm and her left fist slammed into the side of his throat. The right hand transitioned to grasp the dagger-wielding wrist while the left pulled the man twice into her rising knee. Steven buckled forward. A sharp hammer-fist driven onto the top of his skull dropped him toward the ground face first.

Still maintaining a grasp on the dagger-hand, Kaie turned his own hand toward him and pressed both thumbs downward and inward against the back of his hand. Steven yelped and the dagger was forcefully relinquished from his fingers. She jerked his arm to roll him onto his back before she dropped to mount him. A balled fist cracked against the side of Steven's face. "It wasn't....personal. Business!" Steven sputtered, his arrogance apparently having waned toward self preservation. For that answer Kaie delivered him another fist. "My sister's blood was spilled. It's petching personal."
"We can work something out! Tigress! No!"

The next half bell was spent there with her fists punching a hole into Steven's face. He was beyond recognizable, but still the rain of punishment did not stop. Over, and over, and over, and over did her wounded knuckles crush against the target before her. Blood splattered across her face, caked her hands, and spotted her body. Her arms had tired some time ago and her chest heaved with fatigue, but always did it seem she could find it in her for one more strike.

It was only when a crowd had seemed to pause in their daily pandering that Kaie seemed to finally grow satisfied. She sat up and looked to the sky, taking a few ticks to catch her breath. Then she looked down as she shoved herself up off the cadaver's chest. "For Jeida," she growled in her native tongue before she spat on the body. Her gladius was torn free from her earlier kill before she trudged back to what used to be Steven.

Another moment was taken to recover and then the blade was swung down upon the dead man's throat. After two chops the head was effectively severed from the body. Her bloodied fingers laced through its red hair and she stalked with dark expression back toward the mad doctor's abode.

[Kaie]

The door was opened before she even reached it. Damon stood there but the Myrian did not search his gaze. When she approached he swiftly moved from her way so that she could enter. Blood from the severed head seemed to echo in the silence as it dripped onto the floor.

Doctor Petricious made his way down the hall upon her arrival, still donning the ridiculous bird-like mask that gave him such ominous stature. "The matter of your pay," he murmured simply, peering around the corner of the room at Jeida where she continued to rest on the window-side cot. The mask made it impossible for the Myrian to guess at whatever it was he was thinking. Damon shifted uneasily beside him.

You really are one creepy petch, doctor.

"Yes. You'll get your petching coin," Kaie confirmed with a slow nod. She lifted the Steven's head and made gesture with her bloodied gladius. "A sack and a spot to clean up first?" The crow-masked doctor stood still for half a chime too long before he relented. Wordlessly, he turned and strode down the hallway with a quick gesture for her to follow. Kaie avoided Damon's eyes as she passed him and followed.

The doctor led her into a small washroom with a fresh bucket of water, a bar of soap, and a stained cloth. Some of his stranger tools were scattered about and a simple sack was soon procured for her to drop the head inside. When she was mostly rid of blood, she sheathed the cleaned gladius and turned to the madman.

"What's your price?"
"Ten gold," he muttered, tilting his head while he watched the savage fish through her coin purse. He held out his hands and the proper amount was dropped into his palms. Surely behind his mask his eyes must've been alight. It was an absurd price, but her sister wouldn't be alive without him. That alone was worth far more than one hundred gold Mizas to her.