Calilla seated herself within the comfortable confines of one of the white wicker chairs. The day had been a quiet one so she had spent the last few hours running through her fighting forms over and over. A light sheen of sweat caused her dark skin to glisten like polished obsidian in the glow of the fire but as interesting as that imagery might be, her attention lay fully upon the wicked talon blades of her karambit. Plump lips twitched upward into a pleased smile as she ran her finger along the sharp inner edge of one. They were as beautiful as they were simple, as perfectly weighted as they were deadly. Of course, what else would she have expected from Tzynch? As gruff and contrary as the man might be, he was certainly highly skilled in forge craft.
"Just stay alive," he had told her when she had queried the price of the pieces.
His concern should have been touching, she supposed. For anyone else, it might have been. For her, it raised questions. There was no affection between them, nothing that could truly be thought of as friendship. True, they were both strangers in a very strange land and both remorseless in their kills. He had hinted at such long ago but even if he hadn't done so, she still would have known. She knew the type. She was the type. That was where their similarities ended, however. He may have softened toward her since she had found him injured and confused in Bree some moths back, but she doubted that he had truly put aside the disdain he had always felt for her past as a slave and regardless of his claims of seeing her as culturally important to him or that he owed her a debt, she doubted that this was the truth behind his sudden altruism.
Her thoughts turned to his employer, Demlemoth or, Moe the Monster as he was more colourfully known. He had offered her "employment" also, something she was reluctant to accept. There was something about him that she could not bring herself to trust. Certainly it was not that he, too, was a killer or that he peddled information. It would be deeply hypocritical of her to be distrustful based on the sheer amount of blood upon a mans hands. No, it was the way he spoke. From their first meeting he had been open and honest about himself, about what he did and why, about his family and his needs. In their subsequent meetings, he had told her ever more, holding little back. Why? Such knowledge could be very dangerous in the wrong hands. As one who dealt in it, he knew this very well. A fool might assume that he trusted too soon and too fully, but Calilla was no fool. This was not about his trust of her. This was his way of trying to gain hers. Again, why? What did the man really want? Just another "bird," another set of eyes and ears to pass rumour and heresay his way? There were too many people in Bree who would jump at the chance to make coin from so simple an assignment. There was something more at play here. That he had warned her so soon and so freely of the potential danger coming her way, that he had offered protection from it in the shape of his network of contacts without question of recompense only added to her suspicions surrounding this man.
Calilla had long since been given the moniker of Spider Queen because of her preference for feeding the corpses of her enemies to the Great Spiders of Chetwood, but Demlemoth was another manner of spider altogether. He sat in the centre of a web of his own making, pulling or twitching the gossamer strands to his liking but to what end? Calilla had no clue. Yet.
Her gaze fell to the large sack of rabbit pelts beneath the window, gifted to her by Emdhir, the assigned guard of Arelienbur and, as it transpired, another "bird" of Dem's. White teeth bared in a grimace as she mulled over the matter of the Rohirric healer. What was she to do about him?
He had expressed a fondness for her, going so far as to ask her if they may formally court in the Rohirrim fashion. She had been flattered, intrigued and amenable. He was an attractive man, thoughtful, funny and although he accepted that there was a deep-seated violence within her, he did not encourage her to indulge in it. She wanted to trust in him, in his motives and his honour. She wanted to believe that he was what he appeared to be, that the words he spoke to her were truth. She wanted to, but the discovery of his connection to Dem had called all of it into question.
Was there some ploy here? An agenda hidden from her sight? Was she over thinking things, seeing conspiracy where there was none? Could it be that Emdhir was innocent and that she was simply too jaded and suspicious to believe in him? Where should her doubt truly lie?
For a moment only, Calilla missed her old life. It had been so simple. She had done as she was bid without question, shedding blood or clothes at the whim of her master. All that she had needed to concern herself with was obedience. It had been harsh, bloody, violent and oppressive to an extreme degree, but it had also been pure.
She snarled, rising sharply from her seat. Karambit in hand, she danced through her forms again and again and again. Her anger at herself for thinking such a thing, even for a heartbeat, knew no bounds. She knew that it could not be excised by simple motion. The sweat of preparation would never wash away her new-found self-loathing. Only blood would do.
