#analeil

“Where are you?” The assassin hissed over Aiden’s comm and was met with not more than a laugh. “You’ve messed with the wrong man, Ras’vanae. I’ll end you, I’ll end all of you.”

Lips merely quirked into a smile and the sound of a slow clap rang through a hallway. “Ahh, you know, I was really buying it. I’ll give it a good seven out of ten, the only problem is that you’re lacking something.”

“I lack nothing. My men–”

“Your men are dead.”

“W-what?”

“Your men are dead. I killed them. All of them. Did a little spell, a little magic, and some bombs kinda helped with that too. I took the entire base out. That’s why no one is returning your little distress call that you’re trying to send right now.” The man suddenly stiffened, lowering his comm as he turned around. He was quickly met with the sight of Aiden standing there, fingers wiggling in the entry of the doorway with a large grin on his face. “Hi.”

“What do you want?” It came out almost a snarl as he stared at him like a cornered animal.

It was faster than he could blink, Aiden shadow stepped in front of him and his blade was at his throat. “I think we both know what I came here for. Where is she?”

“Where’s who?”

“The Executioner.”

“You have the wrong man, I don’t know where she is. She’s been gone for year-”

“Well you’re suddenly no use to me alive,” he sang and pressed the blade harder against his throat, it started to break the skin beneath it. Aiden grinned and pushed more until the man before him let out a sudden breath and quickly yelled out.

“Wait! WAIT! Last I heard she was–” before he could even finish Aiden simply plunged the dagger straight into his throat, the blade viciously ripping through until it was sticking out of the back. Blood splattered across his face and a small sigh left his lips.

“They’ve seen her,” he stated flatly to Ceithil on the comm before he released the hilt of his dagger. He watched the man slump backwards with a gurgle and Aiden moved to step on his chest so he could pull his weapon free. Afterwards, he simply wiped it clean on his pants and looked around the office. Fingers moved to trail on various things on the man’s desk before he halted, something instantly catching his eye. A single piece of jewelry rested on the desk, one that was all too familiar to Aiden. It was a necklace, he had remembered seeing it on Pamina during one of their jobs together. It wasn’t anything extravagant, like most of her jewelry, instead it was a pendant on a leather cord. He turned the metal over in his hands, fingers running over the D’athion symbol and he enclosed his hand around it with a small smirk.

“If you had only stayed,” he said before pocketing it. “You were one of the few I enjoyed,” he said to her as if she were there. There was no hint of emotion in his voice, no longing or sympathy, it was just hollowness. He knew Pamina would likely end up dead for betraying Ceithil, especially with he and Analeil as the prime ones tracking her.

Gallaria had been knocked for a loop when a seemingly innocuous beam of wood had decided to unhook from its resting place in the inn and made contact with the paladin's head.

Luckily, she had been wearing her helm at the time, but the paladin had still suffered a rather nasty concussion. Gallaria was barely lucid and it had taken keeping shifts with her to make sure she didn't fall asleep.

It was Ana's turn to sit with the paladin. By this time, the danger of coma had passed and Gallaria was sleeping. But the redhead's subconscious had been bumped too hard and was torturing the paladin with her past mistakes and she was reacting rather violently to a particularly tender memory.

Gallaria came to with Ana holding her down and having a hard time of it. "...Son of a bitch. That son of a bitch." She groaned out and finally stopped fighting the Rogue.

"..Well then." She looked up at Analeil, exhaustion robbing her of a top notch witty remark. "Who'd...have thought."

Gallaria rubbed at her aching head. She looked to Analeil for a long moment. "How...the fuck did that spar turn into sex?" She was still as tense as she had been before she had provoked the sparring session.

"Fuck."

26. Stomach. (Oh boy.)

During their night of drinking in order to cheer him up, the blonde snuggled closely to her old friend. Reli glanced down at her as she talked about her daughter; he loved kids so he always asked how she was doing. “You’re a really good mom you know that?” He whispered down to her and tightened the grip around her form. Ana didn’t know what to really say in response so she remained silent.

His fingers traced shapeless designs against her skin as he held her and his eyes lightly closed. They had both had way too much to drink and knowing Ana she was thinking about his previous strip show during potion’s night. She finally grabbed a hold of his arm to stop him only to slowly crawl her way towards the man and raise his shirt. She looked him right in the eyes before pressing a kiss to his lower stomach; a low groan escaped from his throat as he laid his head back against the pillow. “Ana,” he breathed out. “What are you-“

"Sh," she whispered and cut him off to keep him quiet before pressing another light kiss and biting down on the exposed flesh. What happened from there was a repeat of history.

The dull throbbing slowly stole my attention away from the pages in my hands and forced me to rub at my temples in an attempt to sooth some of the pressure away. It didn’t help much. With a sigh, I refocused upon the papers I had dropped on the desk. Reports mostly. Listings of inventory stocks, monthly expenses, and future endeavors. I’ve only been looking them over for less than five minutes, they were supposed to be a kind distraction from my other problems. That was it then, there couldn’t be any work done until I figured this out, and the best way for me to do that was…

I looked over my shoulder at the bookshelf that lined the wall behind me. Three books on the middle shelf drew my eye immediately. All three were thin and were bound with a dull red leather covers. They were another something I wanted to avoid. I grinded my teeth together with annoyance and made myself lean back in my chair to pull the three books out from their place and dropped them on my desk, flatting the reports under them with a satisfying plopping sound. My fingers drummed across the wooden desktop as my eyes bore holes into the covers of the journals. They were my life’s story. Shouldn’t they be something I was proud of? I secretly new the answer to that question.

With a huff of expelled air, I leaned forward and opened one of the journals to a random page. Letters and drawings that I had stuffed in between the pages slid out and I quickly jammed them back into place as my eyes scanned the small, spidery handwriting that was my own. The words that I read brought a shiver down my spine. My life was so different then.

I closed the first journal and opened the second, flipping quickly through its content. It was more of the same. I looked to the third journal for a moment. My hand tentatively reached out to open it, but it froze. I couldn’t. Not that one. My hand jerked back and took up the other two journals and placed them on top the third before pushing them all to a far left corner of my desk. Those three books were my life’s story. Starting from my early adulthood up until just a few months ago.

“Alright then… New book.”

I reached down and pulled open the last drawer of my office desk, reached within, all the way to the back, and pulled forth a new book. Like the others, it was thin and bound in red leather. I opened it to the first page and carefully pressed against the book’s spine until it stayed open. My other hand drew out an ink well and pen from the top drawer.

“And here we go…”

I wet my pen and began to write.

* * *

Dear Journal,

Fuck you.

Its been a long time since I’ve wrote anything of my happenings. In truth, I did not want to take it up again, but the headaches started again and I knew I could not avoid this for much longer. There are too many thoughts and not enough wits within me to properly organize them into some type of working order.

Against my better judgment, I have returned to Silvermoon. To the Row. In some ways it is the same, but in other ways it is very different. For one, it isn’t guarded by an insane Death Knight anymore, thank the gods. However, he has been replaced with Blood Knights, open lovers, and the self delusional. I might could be categorized in with that last group.

I have taken up working with Ten and Klo again. Nothing big yet, and in actuality, I’m okay with that. It’s not like I’m hurting for gold. But what I am not okay with is my uncertainties. It is hard, coming back here. My mind does not recall every person’s face and name as it used to… does that mean I’m getting old?

I failed to recall a past employee of mine last night. That bothers me. I should remember her. But after talking with her for a few minutes, I quickly got the impression that she dislikes me. I could see it in between the words she spoke. She is friends with Ten, not me. I think she made that clear enough. What have I done to wrong this woman? Should I even attempt to make it right with her in some way? Yes, yes I should. It is never wise to leave another in such a position.

While I’m on the subject of people who dislike me, the main source of my headache is Klo.

I made the mistake of throwing her drugs over a cliff at the VP club this past Friday. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so furious. But it did confirm my suspicions. So no, I do not regret disposing of the drugs after all. I do not want to see another person in my life destroyed like my mother. I came close to following my mother’s fate myself, and damn it, I will not let Klo do the same.

By me taking the initiative and throwing her drugs away, I subsequently told her that I was stepping up to fill some part of her that A.T. had left. It is now my place to help her with this addiction now that A.T. is no longer there to do it for her. Klo wants the help, she is practically begging for someone to help her. The issue is, I don’t know how.

A.T., Klo’s former mentor and best friend has long since passed away. Her death was news to me when I returned, and I am still unsure as to how it had happened. From what I know of her in the past, she was the target of an unidentified group. They had found and sacked a few of her hidden labs. Are they the ones who are responsible for her fate? Regardless, that is a problem for another time.

A.T. had a method of some kind that allowed her to cleanse Klo of her drug addiction. She had kidnapped Klo, strapped her to a table and… Did something to her deep within one of her hidden labs. Whatever the process was that she did, she had taken the drugs out of Klo’s system, which greatly diminished her withdraw symptoms. That is what I need to learn about. How did A.T. do it? What was the method she used? I snuck into the office A.T. had in Silvermoon to search the numerous paperwork in the hopes that I’d find clues to the mystery, but most of it didn’t make the slightest of sense. I did not get to search for long for Klo came in and I quickly excused myself.

I have not seen Aeda in close to a week now. After that letter she sent me, along with the bag of gold, I haven’t even received another letter. I think it might be time to look for Jayy or Pamina or someone who’s with Ravenwood. Perhaps they know where she is. Until then, I’ll have to start keeping vigil.

  I have never been this worried before. I can’t shake the feeling that something is terribly wrong. It feels like someone has punched me in the gut and my insides are screaming for my attention. There is  nothing to do but wait though.

  I ran into Analeil and her new…boything. Nikki’s brother again. I know I was piss drunk but I know I’ve met him before. He played dumb. I still think Nikki is the better Shadecross. He can be a fucking brat but I know he cares. Somehow I think Analeil cares for me in her own messed up way. Only time will tell.

So what about me attracts crazy? Is it that opposites attract or that it takes one to know one?

These were the thoughts that troubled the engineer after her "brush with death" in the Row the other day, if one could really call it that. Melada always tried to be respectful about her growing bloodthistle habit; she only smoked during breaks or when her work was done for the day, she kept her smoke away from polite company and generally kept it to her home or the Row where she knew she wouldn't be bothered about it unless it was late enough to smoke in the other parts of town. So why is it that she, the seemingly respectable businesswoman who only needed a little something extra to help her unwind after all the hard work that she frequently did, nearly got stabbed in the neck by some madwoman who claimed that people who smoked thistle were the problem with Sin'dorei society? 

The redhead let out a sigh. Maybe she was pushing it just a little bit by saying she nearly got stabbed. She did have a plan ready and would have taken that woman to the ground after deflecting the blade with her genuine Gnomish Harm Prevention Belt. But, the Row was feeling generous that day and she was whisked away to safety by a rogue woman she'd never met before while some kind, pour soul mauled her hand grabbing the blade while another soul she'd offered one hundred gold sliced her attacker in the back of the legs. So, she hadn't really been that close to dying since four people each had their own plan to save her but someone drew a weapon on her in Silvermoon for smoking bloodthistle and attempted to stab her with it and it was a little bit more concerning then she let on, albeit not for the right reasons.

She wasn't going to press charges or file a report with that new Magister Legist, whatever he was. The common folk had enough problems from the nobility and the higher ups in society without needing to turn on each other over something as trivial as this. What happened happened and frankly, Melada thought she came out on top in this situation and hoped that the limp the madwoman would have while her wound healed would help teach her her lesson. The real problem here is that with all the thistle smoking Row Rats in the Row, why was she the target of an attempted intervention killing? Instead of taking it at face value like she should have, she'd decided that there was some deeper reasoning for her being the target and that it was meant to lead to the long conversation she'd had with Analeil immediately afterwards just feet away from her attacker's bloodstains on the pavement.

See, the thing that made it seem a little too coincidental to just be a coincidence was the fact that Analeil was a little bit crazy, too. Well, maybe a little bit more than just a little bit crazy but in the good way! Sort of? Melada didn't exactly know what Analeil did but she knew that it was the kind of work that one couldn't talk about and that Analeil's daggers and leathers weren't just for show. Now, a part-time mercenary couldn't look down on an assassin, though the weekend soldier took pride in knowing that what she did was legal. But the fact that Analeil operated outside the boundaries of the law only made her particular type of crazy all the more perfect. While Melada took her "craziness" as an abnormality, something that she hated herself for and thought would always make her lesser than everyone else, Analeil was empowered by it. They'd both learned the harsh realities of life one hard way or another but they both handled it and lived their lives in totally separate ways. Two sides of the same coin, Melada said. Analeil didn't object to that analogy or at the very least, she didn't care enough to voice her objections.