A Hunter's Domain

Since Northwind, there was a piece of him that had never felt right and it was about time he did something about it. The assassin was just that, an assassin down to the last breath he would draw. He had been part of the Assassins’ Guild for seventeen years, the others had been his family, provided a sense of camaraderie that was truly difficult – if not impossible – to find anywhere else with anyone else. Thieves, bounty hunters, guards, spies… There was a different kind of bond within a family of assassins, and it was a bond that his body ached for.       Kalt walked, the hood of his grey uniform dropped against his back, as crystalline eyes moved ever vigilantly through the people and the buildings. He had the idea in Northaven to revive the Guild, but with Master around every corner and Ashe not having known he was even there, the time just wasn’t right. Now…it was time.       Ashe would likely be in support of the idea once he talked to her about it. Like it or not, the Guild was just as much a part of her as it was of him, so it wasn’t like either one of them could just walk away.       To restart the Guild, however, Silver Wing knew that they had to find the right building – or at least one he and Ashe could fashion into the right building, considering most of the buildings he had seen so far were subpar at best.       He had time, though. Nothing, especially something as complex as building a guild of assassins, happened overnight, so he was fine with having to come back two, three, four more times if need be. Of course finding the right building on the first try would be pretty damned wonderful. KALT I'm breaking down these walls we built in vain Shine your light, show me everything.

ashe    Ashe was not following Kalt. She wasn’t. No, she had been padding through the ruins and sniffing around in the decrepit buildings she hadn’t been in yet when she caught his scent. The wolf’s nose lifted to the air, eyes narrowing as she pulled in that familiar smell that had started become a part of daily life. She tilted her head - Theea wasn’t with him, she couldn’t smell the little girl… so what was he doing?    She followed his scent easily through the ruins, into the settlement of odd shops. Ronin’s Guildhall was here in this little district of civilization, Remi’s shop too. What was Kalt doing around here? Shopping didn’t seem to be something he needed - his magic could take care of most any material thing he could want, and she could very well laugh at the idea of him joining anyone’s guild. It was with ears perked forward that she tracked him, expecting to need to watch the rooftops or sniff her way into the shadows… but there he was, strolling down the middle of a half-ruined street.    Consider her curiosity piqued. She snuffed and kept her eyes locked on him, as she padded after him. She didn’t try to keep her footsteps quiet, claws crunching into the ice on the streets with surprisingly nimble steps for such a large canine. Ashe swished her tail and snuffed she reached him, and then before she came into his line of sight she shifted. As she stepped up beside him, the raven-haired girl pulled her cloak closer around herself, tossing a mild smirk up to Silver Wing. She was starting to realize how fucking tired she was of fighting against being with him, tired of the vicious reminders that she was terrible, that she was everything that was wrong, that she didn’t deserve to want anything.    And so she smiled at Kalt as her shoulder brushed his arm, let that tightness in her chest unwind. ”I don’t think you’ll find any good drug dens around here, silver,” Ashe said mildly, turning her gaze to the buildings he scanned.

He was being followed. That wasn’t an unusual feeling for Silver Wing, and he was an expert at shaking the tails that have managed to follow him in the past, but this one he didn’t need to. He recognized the sounds of the footsteps as Ashetta in her wolf form.       Kalt didn’t turn to face the wolf, a slight smirk on his face as the sound of paws smoothly changed to the sound of boots. As soon as she stepped next to him and gave him that small smirk, it was returned, as he brought his eyes back to their surroundings with a slight chuckle at the comment. ”Come on, blue, you know I make my own,” he chided lightly.       That was at least true. Ever since Northwind, he didn’t trust others to give him drugs or make them for him. Kalt might have enjoyed partaking in the mind-altering substances every now and then (surprisingly often for an assassin such as he), but he always made sure that he knew exactly what the drugs included. Only way that was possible was for him to use a little magic on it to make sure it was perfect.       He flashed another grin to Ashe, as they walked side by side down the street. ”Glad you joined me actually because I wanted to discuss something,” Kalt said. ”What do you think about reviving the Guild here?” After all, they would need to be in it together. No way was he going to do this without her. At one point or another, both of them had been heir to Master to take over the Guild, so they knew what they were doing. They were assassins without a true purpose, and that was enough to drive someone mad. KALT I'm breaking down these walls we built in vain Shine your light, show me everything.

ashe    Ashe rolled her eyes. ”No, I didn’t know that actually,” she muttered, keeping her eyes ahead of them. ”Mr. I-Hid-My-Magic-From-Ashe-For-Eleven-Years.” She knew why, of course, he’d explained it, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t still sore that he found out about her magic before she ever found out about his. Prick. He very well could have been making whatever shit he got himself on from scratch, but she wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to rib him for anything. For a moment she wondered if he was still dabbling in things, remembering the time he came sliding into her room and raved about some new enchanted substance he’d gotten his hands on.    Ashe’s hand brushed against his and her heart stumbled. It was instinct to curl her gloved fingers away, to glance about the buildings around them with a jumpy wariness. Old habits and all that. While to anyone else simple gestures of affection were easy, where she could do it freely with others… with Kalt it was different, it would always be different. He’s dead, she reminded herself, forcing herself to relax. He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead. Master was dead.    The wolf girl turned her head to look up and Kalt, but what he said had her stopping dead in her tracks. Electricity flickered in a ripple from her chest and down her arms, down the rest of her, through her hair - a wild imitation of the rhythm of her heart. Revive the Guild? Was he fucking insane? Over a decade of torment for Northwind’s Guild of Assassins, and he wanted to revive it?    Her expression reflected her thoughts, eyes crackling with a lightning storm as she stared hard up at Silver Wing. ”Explain, Kalt,” she ground out, and said nothing more.

Kalt grinned at Ashe, as she muttered her snarky little response, but he didn’t comment. If he had the option, there was no way he would’ve kept it hidden from her, but there was no choice. Orynth was the only one who knew about his magic in the Guild besides Master, and that was only because Kalt had been slightly reckless when he was younger. Hence why Master had him wearing an anti magic cuff for the majority of his teenage years. He was still pissy about that anytime it crossed his mind.       As Ashetta stooped short, Kalt smirked to himself, taking a few more steps before stopping and turning around to face her. He watched the flickering veins of electricity dance along her body, in her eyes, and he lifted his brow at her. Subtlety had never been his strong suit, and he had never seen the point in dancing around a topic to cushion the blow of it. In his experience, direct was just generally better.       Taking a slow breath, which clouded upon its release, Kalt stuffed his hands in his pockets and raised a brow, stepping towards her. ”Ashe, we’re lost,” he said plainly. ”We’re in some brand new world...we have a past that we can’t escape from, no matter how fast we run... Bottom line, we have no purpose.”       He jerked his head in the direction they were walking, encouraging her to continue with him. ”You can’t honestly tell me that you felt at home in Northaven. I don’t care who you were with because that’s not what I’m talking about. We’re assassins, blue. It’s just who we are. We need purpose, and I know for a fact that you can’t look me in the eye and tell me that you had real purpose after the Guild fell.” Her purpose was keeping the people she loved safe, but that wasn’t enough. She had been crumbling in Northaven, trying to be something that she wasn’t. She was an assassin, same as he was.       ”No Master,” he said. That much was clear. They wouldn’t be Master. They might have both been in line to take over the role once upon a time, but it was different now. Things had changed. ”But tell me the idea doesn’t at least get your heart racing.” He flashed her a grin. ”Leading an assassin guild.” KALT I'm breaking down these walls we built in vain Shine your light, show me everything.

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.