A Hunter's Domain

Ashe’s jaw feathered as she looked up at Kalt with narrowed eyes, weighing, assessing, and considering every word through the sound of her own pulse thrumming in her ears. She let him speak without interrupting, and she even moved her feet to follow him when he beckoned her to, falling into step at his side. She never took her eyes from the man.    She didn’t interrupt him, and her gaze only wavered only once at the mention of the Guild’s fall, guttering and flickering away. She hadn’t meant to have purpose after that. She was meant to die after she sold them all to the King, she expected to be given a quick execution, public to show the kingdom that their precious, beloved king had finally eliminated the wicked Assassin in Blue.    Instead she was sent to a new world. Given freedom. Given a life she hadn’t wanted to keep.    She glanced back up at Kalt as her arms folded over her chest, gloved fingers clenched tight. She forced herself not to snarl a hard ’no fucking way’ at him, to jab him in the ribs and tell him to forget about it, move on, the Guild was gone, dead, crushed. Ashe had sacrificed everything she knew for the sake of revenge, toppling her Master’s empire… and leaving her lover to die in a dungeon cell for something she now knew he never had done.    Once, she had been primed and raised to take Master’s place - a position Kalt himself had held until she came along. Assassin in Blue, prodigy and heir to the Master of Assassins. She had bore the dark titles with pride. Did the idea of running a Guild of her very own get her heart racing? ”Yes, it does,” she murmured without looking up at him, her brow furrowed.    Ashe didn’t speak any further, didn’t look at him, but she worried her lower lip between her teeth with eyes staring intensely ahead of her. ’Leading an assassin guild.’ The words thrummed in her. Still, she remained silent, breath clouding in front of her as she walked beside Kalt.    The wolf girl’s steps slowed gradually, boots crunching in the snow, until she came to a halt once more. Her arms uncrossed as she looked up at Kalt with a heavy breath released through her nose. ”You’re right,” she said plainly, meeting his gaze. She paused and pursed her lips just slightly, gathering her words. ”Maybe I was lost, maybe I haven’t had purpose since the Guild collapsed… but was our purpose there so great that we should return to it?” She sighed softly with a creased brow. ”Our purpose? Was survival. Pain we learned to embrace.”    Ashe and Kalt were broken in ways that would never be repaired. There were parts of them that would forever be monsters. But… Something in Kalt’s words sent something ticking in her head - something connecting somewhere that hadn’t been before. ”You want purpose, silver?” Ashe’s eyes burned as she took a step towards Kalt, pushing a delicate finger into the center of his chest as she looked up at him. ”Then challenge yourself. We start a guild, then it is not to shed the blood of innocent people. Never again. No Master, no need. Only those who have earned it.” Then she narrowed her eyes as a smirk ghosted across her lips. And she went on, as if realizing it herself for the first time: ”We’re assassins. And we are more than that.”    She had spent so much time rejecting herself, still wasn’t sure if she could ever accept herself, not with the way she would never be quite right or enough for anything in this life beyond the Guild. She still didn’t understand it, the world was still so foreign outside of the hyper-controlled world of violence she’d been raised in. It wasn’t until then, Kalt asking her to revive it, asking if it got her heart racing.. She was a monster, a bloodthirsty killer. And she was more.    Her smile left her lips, her face fell into something more serious. She removed her glove in a smooth movement, reaching up to touch her hand to his face, her thumb tracing over his jaw. ”You’re more, Kalt,” she said quietly, firmly, before she withdrew her hand and replaced her glove. It didn’t matter if he believed her yet; he would.    Ashe tossed a crooked smirk up at him before she began walking again, her eyes falling to the crumbling buildings around them. ”If we’re going to be starting anything, then we need a location to start from.” Obviously that was why he was out here, it made sense now. She took her lip in her teeth as she thought, glancing up at Kalt. ”Tell me what you had in mind.” And they would build from there, together.