His gaze, aqua and glowing, stared through the amber courage poured into clear glass, sloshing up along the side every time he turned it gently. His thoughts weren't with it, however. He couldn't really remember the last time he had been. Maybe he hadn't ever been. Drinking had just been a way to numb himself to thought. To feeling. To memory. To circumstance. Losing himself in a bottomless pit that it felt like he couldn't claw his way out of.

He had fallen so far down. No sunlight to find him. And Soryk had, he could admit, just resigned himself to that. Stopped trying. Stopped giving much of a fuck, really. A man who had nothing more to lose became the most dangerous kind of man. There wasn't some kind of moral compass to keep him in check. No ounce of self-preservation. Wasn't going to matter if he died on a job. He wouldn't, but even if he had, he would have made so little impact.

Had he ever really been capable of feeling anything outside of resignation? As he stared past his drink at a fire whose flames had gradually died down, he wondered if even he had in days when Ei'riya had been ever so gently at his side. She had been all gentle and sweet things. He had been sharp and serrated, cold and unwelcoming. An amusing and yet, necessary contrast. He had been just the same with Ahtay. She had been neither gentle nor sweet. Sharp in her own way. High maintenance, he would have called her, though he didn't see that as a bad thing, really. She'd known what she wanted and she'd known exactly what buttons to push to get there.

His tongue swept along his bottom lip, picking traces of scotch that left a subtle burning impression, infinite. Like the memories that left a hole in his person.

Did he ever want to be a different person? He didn't think so. He was, perhaps, the result of his circumstances, which sounded like some lazy excuse for being a bad, self-interested man, but there was an undeniable truth in it. With a different mother, with a present father, with a different background, there was no doubting that he would been Parnis instead of Soryk.

His face twisted up. No. He didn't miss that either. Parnis. He hated that name. Sounded like way more than who and what he actually was. Flowed too nicely from the tongue. If he'd ever had grace, and perhaps once he had, it was long gone, replaced by whatever he'd become.

Whoever he'd become.

Shaking his head, he sat back a little, gaze finally focusing on his glass. What was it he wanted? Was it the same thing as what he deserved? Did he know what he deserved? Death was probably too lenient for a man like him. Death was a convenient way out. Surely that was how he'd survived so long. He couldn't say he tried to go out of his way to expose himself, but it wasn't for his life that he kept others beyond an arm's length of him.

What was he even doing anyway?

Licking flames told him nothing. Just the crackle and pop and soft roar that he couldn't hear over the intensity of his thoughts, of disembodied voices belonging to a past that he couldn't claim to be his. Just ghosts of a bygone era that haunted him. Pursing his lips, he drew in a breath, realised he desired for nothing he was worthy of, and abruptly drained his glass.

He'd need a few more of those before the night was over. Just like so many other nights when he was left to his own devices.

"You have the look of a man who feels utterly betrayed," Marint chimed in, amusement laced in his tone. "But we've come in here hundreds of times and you've ordered the same thing. There's no way you're just starting to get surprised now."

"It's not the ale," Soryk rolled his eyes as he sat back, uncomfortably pressed against the wooden chair he was propped in. It dug at him, just another reminder that the seating arrangements weren't made for comfort. But in a run-down, seedy tavern, when one had enough drinks in them, the seating arrangements didn't matter. Eventually they wouldn't anyway.

When he noticed how Marint eyed him so patiently, so expectantly, Soryk paused for some moments more, and once he'd propped his soft leather boots on the table's surface, he crossed his hands atop his lap, resisting every temptation he had to reach for one of the silver coins on his person to fidget with it. "You're so nosy."

Marint grinned from ear to ear, that display of sharp and even teeth alike. "I didn't say anything."

"You didn't have to, shitheel." Clearing his throat, he found his voice again, and with it something like a seemingly delicate resolve that felt considerably more fragile than it probably was in reality. "I was thinking about this woman I saw a couple of days ago."

As Marint leaned forward, elbows on the table, that grin grew all the more. "Oh, hey. My little buddy is finally taking notice of girls. I thought you'd never get there."

Soryk's right hand slid down his thigh, over his knee, across dark trousers, and he snatched at the dagger tucked into the back of his corresponding boot, swiftly sending it into the table's surface. Definitely no mark intended. Just a warning. "Fuck off, that's not what it is."

Although maybe it was. He hadn't known the woman. Didn't even speak to her. Just saw her from where he'd been standing shortly before he was approached by that merchant—Vaelon Violetveil, the man he was almost positive was just using some alias and probably causing a lot of trouble behind the scenes with his collective of artefacts and need for escort and protection.

She'd been somewhat tan. Dark of hair. Pulled right up into a loose, messy bun atop her head. Piercing eyes. Objectively beautiful, though that hadn't really been an immediate observation on Soryk's part. It was simply that the combination of traits made him wonder what an Ahtay of today looked like. Did she grow her hair out? Did she marry someone else? Did she have children? Was she even still alive?

Marint interrupted his thoughts with a hand, motioning for him continue. "Sorry, sorry. I'll stop. Go on. What about this woman? That's not like you. The women here throw themselves at you and it's like you look right through them. Last I knew, you were still alive, and I'm assuming your cock is, too."

"Just." Soryk lifted his hand and with his index finger, he gestured to his nearest and dearest (for the time being) companion. "Stop talking. You're not helping." Even if he did have fairly valid reasoning for poking and prodding the way that he was. "It wasn't anything groundbreaking. Just seeing her made me think of. You know. Things."

"...Things." Marint echoed him, somewhat deflated by the clarification, which really wasn't clarification at all. But then his thin, white eyebrows rose. "Oh." A beat more and he offered a sharp little nod. "Things."

Soryk never had been an open man. He liked to keep most things to himself and even when he spoke, it was more like a plethora of filler. Sometimes there was interesting information laced in what he chose to share, but even then, it seemed more often that he was just creating more questions rather than lessening them. Marint hadn't pried.

Well. Not true. He'd pried a lot, but Soryk was a tight little box, locked, and who the hell knew where that key even was. The most he'd been able to manage was that when it came to certain subjects, the normal somewhat blank, unamused expression drawn across Soryk's face would change to something... ambivalent, maybe. Confused. Uncertain. Marint was good at people, with people, and he couldn't quite pin it down. It did tell him that for all Soryk seemed pretty straight to the letter, there was definitely more to him.

"Is that all I'm getting?" Marint shook his head, leaning back to a more comfortable position, reaching for the dagger Soryk threw into the table to quiet him. With no shortage of effort, he managed to wiggle it back and forth, probably doing no shortage of damage and dulling of the blade before he freed it with a quiet little pop-like sound. "How many times have we sat down like this? For real. How long have we known each other? I think you can afford to give me a little more."

Wariness crossed Soryk's features. Every piece of information could be used. By anyone. By everyone. For him. Against him. Considering the kind of man he was, it wasn't like he was free of enemies either. He'd made plenty, actually. Was going to end up making more. Was it old habit that kept him from speaking up? The potential lack of acceptance? No. He didn't care that much what most thought of him. Maybe he just didn't want to see Marint give him some look of pity.

The weight of a potential conversation that hadn't even happened sat on him and held him down. Soryk had only ever talked to Ahtay about his past. Even then, it'd taken a long time to achieve that and he hadn't even told her the whole thing. He'd mentioned his wife, that she had died, and that was it. Somehow, he thought that the honesty, whilst it made him feel utterly sick, only made her love him more. And in a way, that made him feel even more ill.

What a fucked up man he was. Soryk wanted to scoff.

Finally, he sighed, feeling like this was a battle he just couldn't win. Maybe Marint was right, even if he didn't want to acknowledge it. He certainly wasn't going to say as much. No need to give the man another weak place in his proverbial armour.

"Seeing her just made me realise I am drawn to women with dark hair." Soryk offered up his shoulders, as if to imply that it was as simple as that. He couldn't read Marint's expression particularly well. It wasn't really disappointment he saw. Thought, probably. Marint was like that. Always putting the pieces together, often without needing to be told the whole thing. Soryk supposed that was why he had gotten as far as he had in his line of work.

It seemed like such a simple statement, and yet it was true. Ei'riya and Ahtay had both had dark hair. And given Soryk hadn't even allowed anyone close to him since Ahtay, it wasn't like he could tell if it was coincidence or a pattern.

"Ah," Marint replied, tapping long fingers atop the table's surface. After idly examining Soryk's dagger, he slowly slid it back towards the blood elf. "So what I'm hearing is we should set you up with a dark-haired sweetie. You know, I could probably find someone for you. I know lots of people. Lots of very beautiful women, too."

"Let's not," was Soryk's nigh immediate counter. Reaching forward to snag up his dagger again and slip it back into his boot, he frowned heavily. "It's complicated."

"Yes, yes. I know. You always say that." Marint lifted his hands, like he was both utterly unsurprised, and tired of hearing the same excuse given time and again. "Some women aren't afraid of complication. Maybe you should stop being afraid of it, too. Maybe actually talk to some. And you know, not about work. That's not polite table conversation. Talk about..."

Marint snapped his fingers and gestured to himself. "Talk about me—"

"Talk about you?" Soryk cocked an eyebrow.

"—I've got those statues up in display in the city. Talk about those. Maybe take a lady out to see them." The Shal'dorei gesticulated idly with his hands, "Eh? Eh?? It's a good idea. Never know. Cultured women are great."

Soryk squinted at him, the man across the way on the other side of the table. Sure, maybe Marint had a point. He'd liked that young lady on the stoops. Liked all of them, actually. At least, he'd found them favourable company. Acquisitions. He found himself amused, but not quite laughing over it. He knew what 'acquisitions' really meant.

Maybe Marint was onto something. It'd be something worth considering. If he could get over himself.

Well. Marint used that word in the loosest possible way. Soryk, or ‘Val’, as he preferred to be called, was less like a friend and more like a coworker. Even that didn’t feel particularly appropriate, though. With sharp and even teeth alike clenched together in his dreadful focus, every so often, he cast a look up to his immediate companion. Another job done. Another satchel of coin passed between hands. And eventually, he’d be giving the sin’dorei yet another.

It sure felt like all of the days were blending together into one big melting pot where time didn’t mean anything. Marint couldn’t even remember how old he was. Old enough to remember what it was like before he and the others got isolated in Suramar. Old enough to remember that once upon a time, his features had been slightly different. Now, he was just chisselled and undeniably changed by the touch of the Nightwell and its complicated arcane ley line energies.

He wondered at what point in his life, what pivotal decision or action taken, had put him where he was. There were a few, he supposed, though tried not to linger on it for too long. There was no changing the past. No need to. He was too old to learn new tricks and it was way too late to start backpedalling. If ever he had the temptation to.

I bet you never think about that. Bet you don’t even care.

He studied Soryk for some moments. He probably never had internal turmoil like that. If he did, he certainly didn’t act like it. The Soryk Marint knew had only ever been cocksure and straight forward. Like he never questioned anything he did. Never had a moment’s hesitance. Never questioned himself. Almost like he was made for the kind of work he got himself into. But the two had only known each other for maybe a handful of decades. Maybe Soryk hadn’t always been like that.

“Hey,” Marint began as he put his dagger down after running a dark thumb along its edge curiously. Pleased by its sharpness and satisfied with the efforts, he could give it another go in a week’s time, maybe. If even that. He so rarely used weapons. He was pretty sure his true talents involved the use of his tongue. “You ever think about how your life could have been different? Like, maybe if you’d done something else other than what you’re doing now? Could’ve joined those Farstriders. Been a ranger or something.”

“No.”

After a moment’s pause, waiting for Soryk to continue, and when he didn’t, Marint cocked an eyebrow. That was it? He wasn’t going to offer anything else? Wasn’t going to clarify? Wasn’t going to maybe expand? The nightborne didn’t know why he expected anything different. Of course he wouldn’t. Soryk was always tight-lipped about pretty much everything. Marint didn’t really know… anything about him. Being on a less-than-friendly side suddenly felt a little more dangerous.

“Really?” he asked, carefully trying to prod further without provoking ire that he might not be able to get away from. “I don’t believe that. We all think about what our lives could have been like if we’d made different decisions. I’m not saying you should have. I’m just trying to figure out if you had other paths you could have travelled. Why you chose this one.”

There was a beat of quiet. Heavy. Maybe a little more intense than was expected. It was interrupted when Soryk suddenly sat back in his chair, swinging his legs up onto the table with a loud clunk, nearly causing Marint’s pint of pale beer to spill, something he only just barely managed to catch.

“Nope,” Soryk weighed in, lifting his arms and folding them behind his head with his gaze fixed on the ceiling of their favourite tavern. “Doesn’t matter, even if I did. What’s done is done. There isn’t a redo button that fixes everything.” Cracking a grin, he continued. “Well. Guess there could be if a goblin made it, but it’d just blow up and be useless. You know the story. Goblin technology—built to blast. Point remains the same. There’s no reason to get caught up in the details.”

It was a terribly cavalier way of approaching the situation. Marint didn’t think he could employ the same thought process, but that was probably why he was just a hands-off informant. A little spy bird servant who spread information, bought, and sold it. Soryk’s approach was probably an easier way to handle everything he got himself involved in. It wasn’t like Marint’s hands were clean, either. Before he decided he didn’t want to get that deeply involved in things, it’d only taken a first kill for him to realise that was not for him. The regret was too much and whilst he didn’t consider himself to have a bleeding heart, it was just a little excessive to handle.

He personally liked being able to sleep at night. He wondered how Soryk managed to, especially given that he never even seemed to blink when his targets wound up being full families. Where there should have been, perhaps, guilt for murdering a man, his wife, his children, it sure didn’t feel like Soryk had any room in his person for that. Maybe it was a front. Maybe Soryk actually had more to him than his exterior presented. And if that was the case, the man was a masterful manipulator.

“I… guess?” Marint began, unable to disguise the uncertainty that danced about his tongue. “That seems oversimplified. Things generally aren’t. I guess if you’re got secrets, you can keep holding onto them. Might not hurt to at least think about how different things could have been. A little.”

‘If you’ve got secrets.’ No. Soryk definitely did. Marint could have done investigation on him. Had tried to once or twice in the past. The information wasn’t very easy to obtain, though. ‘Soryk’ wasn’t an elven name at all. Maybe ‘Val’ could have been. And without knowing his family name, Marint had to assume that maybe everything Soryk had ever told him was a lie. Yet to be fair, it wasn’t like Marint had ever shared much of anything with him either. Never mentioned his family. Never mentioned that he still lived in Suramar, though that probably could have been surmised. Just in case he ever wound up on the other end of Soryk’s target practise, it was always better to draw that line between them.

But some days, he thought, he might have wanted a better life. A different life. To redo his life. Some days, it might have been nice to truly be Soryk’s friend. If a man like him could even have them.

Improperly sunk down in a chair that was balancing on two legs, it hadn’t taken him long to swing up a leg to prop a boot on the edge of a table that had likely seen things far more disgusting than him. The second followed shortly after. On a ground that was littered with visible crumbs of bread and places where drink had been spilt right beside where his chair teetered, held in place by his weight, was a seemingly nondescript brown leather sack. In one hand, a small, modest dagger, the blade itself no longer than the length of his hand from palm to middle finger. Every so often he threw it with an expert precision that caught it in the table, eventually forcing him to reach down, pluck it up, and repeat the cycle.

In a section of the tavern beneath lighting he could only describe as poor stood a flamboyantly dressed man with lyre in hand, strings that were too warm and tight, accompanied by a voice that was just as much out of tune. And for all that he thought it wasn’t great, Soryk knew he wouldn’t be any better. There was a comfortable familiarity with it, in the end. The bard with his bawdy stories and poetry meant to titillate the senses and inspire a taste of humour. He’d gotten so familiar with it all.

“He was dirty and lousy and full of fleas~”

About as familiar as he did with the pert rear that slid into his lap, an elven woman with skin kissed by the sun and fair short hair that followed the slope of her jaw line. He knew her as Raeneth, though whether that was her real name or not he couldn’t say. He imagined that like him, it would have been downright stupid to wear herself so transparently in a seedy little place where others could have taken advantage of her when her work hours had been exhausted.

She smiled when she saw him, looping one slender arm over him, barely covered in all of the right places, meant to be just as enticing and taunting as the lyrics that were poorly crooned out. Her other hand traced the hairs lining Soryk’s chest where his leathers had stopped protecting him. “I missed you, Val,” she told him then, even when he was so distracted, his gaze trained on something that clearly lingered past her. “Why don’t you come visit me more often?”

“But he had his women by twos and threes~”

In time, he granted her his attention, though went out of his way not to touch her. If he’d been a different kind of man, he would have had few issues with spreading coarse fingers atop her thigh or supporting a handful of supple flesh that she so openly offered him, just as she always had every time he came in. Studying her in his quiet, he considered saying nothing at all. He hadn’t come to make conversation, after all, and certainly not with her or any of the others who were inclined to offer companionship for a night.

Perhaps it was a saving grace or maybe it was simply coincidental. Before he was subjected to any additional conversation he wasn’t interested in having, Soryk’s attention turned onto the set of heavy approaching footsteps. He knew those well, too. They belonged to another man who dressed finely. Long of ear and sharp of feature, an elven man with skin as dark as twilight sky. He called himself Marint, but like Raeneth, Soryk had to assume it was just an alias. He doubted any of them used their real names.

“Gods bless the bastard king~”

“I have business,” Soryk finally said to the woman who’d grown exceedingly comfortable in his lap. He drowned out the bardic tune in the background. lifting his hands, and he waited for her to remove herself, as if a show that he had no intentions to force her from him or any other potentially hostile action on his part. “It’s not a discussion for a woman’s ears. Get us mead.”

If she pouted, he didn’t notice. Like a serpent, she uncoiled herself from him, and moved with all of the curving grace of a creature who could strike at the most improbable moment. She gave Marint a polite smile before she wandered past tables to check on other patrons along the way towards the back.

“You’re late,” Soryk began when Marint lifted his hands in a muted apology.

“I don’t know how you do it, my friend,” the shal’dorei began with a toothy grin. He seated himself across the way from Soryk. “I think she’s got a thing for you. If I’d waited any longer, she would have started riding you in front of the gods and everyone. Maybe I should be taking my time.”

Transparently annoyed, either by Marint’s inability to ever be on time or the subject matter and quite likely a bit of both, Soryk pinched the bridge of his nose, his mouth pulling tight even as he spoke. “Yes, well. If she makes the offer, I’ll point her in your direction.” Claiming his dagger into hand again, to give his hands something to do, he pinched at the blade, somewhat restless. “Do you have something for me or not?”

Marint laughed, loud enough to catch some of the other tavern dwellers by surprise. His smile widened and he shook his head, “Such impatience.” But he didn’t seem terribly put off by the demeanour. Rather, if anything, perhaps he found Soryk’s general terse and clipped companionship entertaining. With some effort, he relieved himself of the heavy coat that had weighed upon his shoulders and from within it, plopped a sizeable satchel on the surface of the table that by sound betrayed its contents.

Coin.

Soryk leaned forward to swipe at it but before his touch could connect, Marint drew it protectively towards himself. “Ah-ah. I know we’re friends, Soryk, but you know how things work. Did you bring what was asked?”

Scowling, Soryk grit his teeth, reached down for the bag that rested near the legs of his chair, and with an effortless toss, it landed on the table, a somewhat wet and sickening plop. Where it had been resting, a mass of something that smelt of iron and copper. “We’ve been at this for how many years and you still think I’m not good for it.”

“That’s not it,” his companion protested, eyeing the bag with interest and a moment’s suspicion at the slight trail it left on the table as he pulled that too, closer to himself. “It’s nothing personal, I assure you. We both know how these things go. My mistress will want confirmation and there is no one better at confirmation than her ever-so-loyal servant, Marint.”

When he began to open the bag in question, Soryk cocked an eyebrow, feigning disinterest as he stared at the blade he held in his hand and fiddled with. “I wouldn’t, if I were you. I know how weak your stomach gets.”

“Oh, pish posh, I don’t see what the issue is. I’ve—” Marint’s words locked in his throat when he found himself faced with the contents and for all that Soryk had seemed focused elsewhere, he carefully took notice of the transparent shock that crossed his dear, old friend’s face. And he smirked. “Well!” Marint continued, trying not to sputter as he abruptly closed the bag and tied the entrance to fight against any additional temptations to peek again. “That certainly does look like a job most excellently done.” As his glowing bright stare passed across the table and he lifted the bag in question with aims to hide it in the rest of his things. “You couldn’t have been bothered to package it in some other way? It’s going to get all over the place.”

“Not my problem,” Soryk replied without even a moment’s hesitance. “I’ll assume that meets expectations.” Without waiting for confirmation, he suddenly jerked forward, all legs of his chair meeting the floor in a loud snap and he retrieved the coin he had so earned. “If you’ve got another lined up for me, now’s a good time to share it. I’ve got restless hands and not enough to do with them.”

Marint was still looking at the bag with a fair amount of disdain before he finally stashed it away, loosing a sigh that spelled a familiar displeasure. But then as Raeneth returned with two mugs of cold mead, it melted into something considerably more joyous. “My friend, have you considered you spend too much time working? Lately you put those blades to the test. They’re surely becoming dull. Should use some of that coin to take them to a smith. Get them sharpened. Maybe develop a cleaner way of delivering the product.”

With something that was like fondness, Soryk found himself turning the blade of his dagger every which way, watching how light reflected off of it in even the most subtle fashion. “I could,” he humoured Marint who watched him with interest. He probably would, even, though he wasn’t inclined to say as much. “I prefer it messy. There’s something…” With his other hand, he lifted it and gestured absentmindedly. “...more alive about it. Messy, warm, wet, and sticky.” As he spoke, he was reliving it, moment from moment.

Flesh was such a soft thing. So easily torn. So pleasant to rip. So soft and malleable.

“You’re disgusting,” Marint chimed in with a sharp laugh, breaking Soryk out of his dark reverie before he could be claimed by the mire that reached for him.

Soryk’s gaze, like a water that wasn’t quite clean, shot across the table. “No. I’m an artist.”