Kathren sat on her stool, sipping on her wine as she eyed the drunken fools around her. Most probably didn't even know she was a woman, as her hood was up, and that was just how she liked it. Which was… strange for her.

In the past, she would down a couple of cups and mingle with the crowd until someone caught her eye. If no one did, she would stagger off to her bed at the end of the night, but it wouldn't have been a waste in her mind, as the attention from the men trying to fuck her had its own appeal, making her believe the night was worthwhile. Right now, those acts seemed so… empty. That the hole in Kathren's life, which she thought she was managing just fine, was only being forced larger by her actions, demanding ever more.

Maybe that wasn't right. Perhaps it was that Kathren had been floating around, searching for purpose. Her job had done it for a time, but eventually, the same nagging thought would reappear in the back of her mind, "What am I working for?"

The answer was to survive. Kathren's whole life, she had been surviving. She was a rat hiding under a table, watching the world without ever participating in it. She snatched what scraps she could, but she never reached for more. Not because she thought she couldn't grab hold of them, but because she didn't believe she deserved it.

Because she thought that the people she reached for would smack her hand away, like all those times as a child when she pleaded for help. That even if they didn't initially reject her advances, they would soon come to their senses, moving on with their lives, and treating their time as nothing more than a mistake.

So she knowingly lived her life without ever putting herself at risk, waiting for the death she had long been avoiding. That shadow that constantly lingered in the corner of her vision, continually lurking and waiting for a mistake or for random chance to claim her life.

Or that was the case. And then Redgenald appeared, and that bastard… "Fuck him!" Kathren hissed, throwing her head back and downing her cup of wine. Slamming her cup down, she signaled the bartender for another, wondering how drunk she could get.

"Well, as I live and breathe. Now that is a face I never expected to see again." Her back stiffening, Kathren turned slowly, realizing that her hood had fallen off when she threw her head back to drink. Standing just to her left side was a large man glaring at the previous occupant of the seat next to her as he muttered to himself and staggered farther down the bar.

Sliding into the chair, the glaring man gave Kathren a bright smile. The man was dressed in a clean olive tunic, with simple trousers. While it was plain, the material was of good quality, and the clothes were clearly well-crafted. At his waist was a belt pouch and a rather long and heavy dagger with a broad, one-sided blade, which was closer to a gladius than common belt knives. His face had some light blond stubble with short matching hair… and Kathren had no idea who he was.

From his dancing gaze and the amused smirk as his eyes flicked to her hand that dropped to her own knife, he must have realized there was no mutual recognition. "It's good to see that you haven't changed much, Kathren. Though it does seem that your time in the legions had taught you some restraint."

"Who are you?" Kathren hesitantly asked, her voice tense as she looked around searching the crowd to see if anyone else was approaching.

"Hmm, so you aren't here for pleasure, no one is that tense for a simple night on the town… A pity." Leaning back and sliding off his chair, the man held up his hands as she twitched to draw her weapon, "Whoa, no one else is coming for you… Not that I know of, anyway. Eh, maybe I should be the one reaching for my dagger, right? Being around you was never great for one's health."

Kathren was tensed like a compressed spring, ready to lash out at anyone who so much as brushed against her, and the man was still smiling like this was all a joke. That this was nothing more than an everyday occurrence, like— Ahh, fuck me. Kathren mentally groaned.

The mental image of a lanky teenager with scraggly hair down to his shoulders flashed through her mind. His face and hands were always dirty, but it never seemed to spread to his clothes. He was quick with a joke and only seemed to come around to laugh at her in her worst moments, but whenever he disappeared, she always found a coin, a chunk of bread, or some other odd but useful item lying about where it shouldn't have been. He was… as close to a friend as she had growing up.

"There it is," the annoying teenager— well, not a teenager anymore. But he was still an annoying man, said, sliding back onto his seat. "I wondered if you would remember."

"Hello Luthren, how have you been?" Kathren muttered in annoyance, relaxing her body and grabbing her refilled cup of wine.

Luthren Froze, his face flickering between a dozen emotions in seconds. Kathren caught his expressions of shame and regret, but missed most of the emotions in between. Not that she needed to see the expressions to know how he was feeling. The scout could guess.

An ex-street rat appearing well-dressed as an adult? Well, that was a man who made choices, probably at the cost of others, to survive and thrive. Not that Kathren had any right to judge. She had made the same choices herself.

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"Good enough, I suppose." His words were laced with a decade of struggle that no amount of talking could fully encapsulate. "Actually, I don't even need to suppose. I'm doing better than most."

"Hmm." Grunted Kathren, watching as a cup was placed before the man without him so much as gesturing for it. "To escaping due to the hard choices and luck." Raising her cup, she looked Luthren in the eyes, offering no pity and showing no condemnation.

"Best cheers I've heard in a long fucking time," Luthren said, raising his own cup to tap against hers and take a drink. After he lowered his arm to rest on the bar, the man asked, "So, can you tell an old friend the reason you came back? Not that I have a problem with it, and I doubt anyone remembers that you were the one to collapse the Yellow Whiskers hangout on their heads, but I didn't take you for the type who would take the risk of a knife being put in your back for a decade-old offense."

"You're right, I wouldn't come anywhere near the Trench if I had a choice. But my associate… has some business with this establishment's owners."

The man's eyes narrowed at Kathren, and then flicked around, his casual demeanor vanishing, as he muttered, "I see."

Kathren didn't know if he did or not, but she didn't want to continue this line of conversation, so she asked, "How 'bout you? Why are you here? And what have you been doing for work?"

"Me?" Luthren asked with a cheeky smile, "This is my work." Seeing her eyes widen in fear, he waved his free hand in an attempt to wipe it away. "No, nothing like what your… associate does, I assume. I act as an intermediary. Let's say… completely hypothetically, that an influential person, or a child of such a person, wants to visit a place with a less-than-pure reputation. They can't send a trusted servant because the family itself is still paying for services at an un-reputable establishment, and whoever gave the obscure order would know that was the case if they were to show up. So someone within my hypothetical line of work would be called to a neutral location, where the influential person could have a thoroughly meaningless conversation full of innuendos and double speak before leaving a large pouch of coins paying for the food."

"And then whoever happened to be at the table," Kathren took over, grinning knowingly, "would hypothetically take those coins and go to the un-reputable establishment. They would then take a small service fee and arrange for one of those booths to be reserved and paid for the entire night. Completely coincidentally, a random individual, who looked remarkably like the man the intermediary had met earlier that day, would appear, and be ushered by the staff to have a pleasant night, where they spend absolutely no coins and vanish without ever saying their name."

"Hmm," the man next to Kathren grunted with half-closed eyes, nodding sagely as a broad smile split his face. "It seems that both of us have heard the same tales… all of which is false, of course."

"Of course," Kathren parroted, sounding affronted that he would even have to bring it up. Turning slightly more serious, the scout continued speaking, "Never got why they need such plausible deniability. Someone could just ask them if they have ever been to the…" Furtively looking around and eyeing all the people in the expensive alcoves, she said in a horrified and breathy voice, "Un-reputable establishment."

"Ahh, now that would be giving the game away." Seeing Kathren's raised eyebrow, he explained, "First off, such straightforward questions are considered rude in more refined company. More importantly, the fact that anyone of a noble rank would even know the name of the establishment would indicate to everyone that he has also visited. Anyone who asked that question and can force an answer would be committing social suicide along with the accused. It happens, but not as often as you would think."

"Not to mention that everyone else of the same rank who has seen each other in this place will be quite motivated to destroy whoever forces the question, to make an example so nobody else follows in their footsteps," Kathren added.

"The more you have to lose, the more of a motivator mutual assured destruction becomes."

"So what's the income of a in—

Whipping around, Kathren's hand dropped to her knife as she turned to face the owner of the hand that had clamped onto her shoulder. Flinching back in shock, the scout looked up at Redgenald. His skin was pale and sickly, his eyes were bloodshot, and he was slightly swaying on his feet. All things considered, he looked worse now than after days of fighting in Southtown.

"Excuse me, but we were having a pleasant conversation before you arrived," Luthren said before Kathren could say anything.

"What?" Hissed Redgenald, his body stiffening as he slowly turned to face the other man, his movements screaming danger.

"I was reconnecting with an old friend, and you are interrupting us. If you would be so kind as to step away, I think that would be best for everyone." The sound of a stool's feet scraping across the floor emphasized his words, and Luthren's hand fell to the hilt of his knife. At the sight of the two men squaring off against each other, Kathren found herself at a loss for words.

No, it wasn't that she couldn't think. It was that the world itself was becoming heavy, slowing down her thoughts as the air around Redgenald thickened with psy. It was as if her mind was wading through water, and that was what she felt from the side, only feeling the periphery of whatever casting Redgenald was performing. Luthren was taking the full brunt of his ire. The man stumbled backward, his hand snapping down and pulling out his weapon. His jaw was clenched from strain, and his arms shook, but his eyes blazed with determination.

Forcing herself to move, Kathren stepped between the two. "Stand down!" She shouted at Luthren before speaking in a harsh but quiet voice, "This is my… associate."

As realization sparked to life within the intermediary's eyes, the scout turned, wrapping her arm around Redgenald's waist and pulling on him to turn and move away. The large half-elf didn't budge at first, insisting on staring down Luthren until he sheathed his blade and held up his hands and took a step back. It was only at that point that the stubborn man allowed himself to be moved.

At the de-escalation, many within the small crowd that had formed around them let out a groan of disappointment. Not that Kathren could pay any more attention to them than to throw out a glare of annoyance. Redgenald had wrapped his arm around her shoulders and put enough weight on her body that she had to use a tendril to support him.

"What the hell happened in there?" Kathren grumbled as she led them back to their horses, a flame of annoyance building up inside of her at the asshole. More importantly, how the hell was she going to get them back to the estate?

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