Scar left in the middle of the night to settle some things. Mainly one thing. He sent some thugs to meet Boren Deramus the next day. Meet him, and then beat the shit out of him.
He wished he could do it himself but alas he had to be back in the morning to be ignored utterly and completely by Nadine.
Was he moping?
He thought as he walked up the first staircase to do the second thing. Tell his father he had the nobleman's daughter so he could get back to work.
Scar Sylvador moping about one woman shunning him. He chuckled at the thought.
***
He walked into the Sylvador Manor' second floor and went in the dead of night to check up with Carver before meeting with his father.
He was suprised to see another guard at the door. A sneer covered his face in dissapointment. He nodded at the guard sitting on the floor as he stepped in the room.
His brows rose in suprise as he saw Carver on the floor.
Ghost woke as he came in the room.
"Sorry to wake you." He whispered.
"Its okay. I'm a light sleeper these days."
"Is he always here?"
Did she just blush?
"Yeah, he's like loyal puppy." She giggled.
He smirked at her word choice. He hadn't heard her laugh like that in a long time.
"How are you feeling?"
She looked at him, "Much better. I'm grateful for your part in my recovery."
All the sudden he had a knife pressed to his neck.
The knife came down just as quickly as Carver recognized him.
"Sorry boss."
He waved it off and turned to include them both.
"Clearly you two are doing fine. I just wanted to check in."
They both smiled at him.
He ducked out of the room with farewells and headed down the hallway, gloomy. He slipped a handwritten letter to his father under his office door and turned to walk away.
A door opened and the old man himself stepped out. Was everyone awake tonight?
"What are you doing outside my door Scar?"
Scar stood up straighter.
"I finished the first step of my assighnment."
He turned and stepped back into his office to sit at his desk. He was rifling through papers.
"Who do you have holding her?"
He sighed internally before replying, "Myself."
His father's eyes narrowed, "Send a lackey for the job."
His chest constricted, "No, I want this job. She's a fiesty one."
The man's eyes glimmered amused, "I see, just don't take any less money from your devaluation of her."
He felt his jaw tighten at his father's assumption. In the end it didnt matter what he thought, he flashed a smile, "I'm adding to her value in other ways," He did a slow walk up to the desk, "She's revealed to me that her father is indebted for some large amounts. The wait might be longer than anticipated. I need a lackey to deliver the randsom."
His father scowled but nodded, he produced an envelope at last. "There's your new job. Glad to see you back on track Scar. For a while I was worried you needed motivations."
They stood both their hands on the envelope. His father's meaning was clear. He had received 'motivation' before.
***
He walked back to the cottage tapping the envelope against his other hand, lost in thought. He threw the envelope in the fireplace when he got home and fell asleep on the pile of blankets in the corner by the fireplace. The hard planks of wood beneath his back made it hard to find sleep but eventually it came like an old friend and swallowed him into a blissful oblivion.
The next morning he put a new plate of food out and sat in the hexagonal living room on the floor smoothing out a board for a rocking chair he was making. It was one he'd been working on for a while. He was working on the little raised vines and leaves that wound around the dowels when the door opened and a plate rattled out onto the wooden floorboards.
He smirked. At least she was eating today. He got up and made more food in the late afternoon, and when he was done he stepped through the door. The room was empty. He turned to the wash room to find her at the looking glass. She was brushing her hair. Her little laundry basket sat in the far right corner.
"I brought dinner." He walked back and sat the little platter on the bed before coming back to the archway. She turned her nose up and pursed her lips.
He stepped past her up to the bath rim and told her.
" You can take a bath if you want theirs some wood in the pit." He pointed to a hole in the wall. A hatch opened to a small flew as he pushed it aside. He opened the door above the hole to reveal a highstanding water container. It was full.
"Rain water," he muttered before closing the closet and following a pipe to the tub.
" Turn this knob after you heat the water and the tub will fill."
She had been watching. Their eyes caught and she jerked her head away.
He left the room, but a few hours later he heard the water filling porcelain.
She didnt talk to him for two days. He spent those days building her a rack to hang her clothes. He was installing two wooden pieces straight onto the wall beside the door and another six feet away. The wood had little bird with their wings spread. They were smaller than life size but the detail was impeccable. He was nailing in the second block when she finally spoke to him.
"Its beautiful."
He tried not to act so suprised as he hammered in another nail.
"Thank you."
He turned a long wooden bar that had little flowers and leaves between the wood stands and tested his weight on it. There was little give but not much. Perfect.
She came closer and ran her fingers over the tiny details of a butterfly at the bottom of the second block.
"You could make an honest living out of this. I bet people would pay a lot for custom work this detailed."
He shrugged his shoulders.
"I never thought about it like that."
"Well maybe its somthing you 'should' think about." She dropped her hand and crossed the room.
He pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it in an empty bin next to hers. Her eyes went wide for a second before she turned away clearing her throat. He walked past her to the bathroom, "I'm going to take a bath. Unless you want watch you should probably leave."
He went to the bathroom and started lighting the wood.
"I bought some paints and needle work for you last night. It's by the little fireplace if you get bored."
He heard the bedroom door close and walked back to the empty room. He stripped down to nothing in front of the basket and went back to the bath. He picked a bottle of oil to hydrate his skin. The oil was from across the waters and the drops were infused with a herb known on the streets as silk magic. It made you feel like you had lotioned yourself all week and kept your skin so well people that you were an halfling elf with longer life. In fact it did prolong aging but only the rich could afford it. It was very expensive; even by the standard of the rich.
Luckily he had bedded a few rich girls in his time and had a giant supply of the stuff. The oil was extremely soothing on the nerves as well. He always used the oil after a kill in his younger days. Now he was trained against letting these things make him feel so fragile.
He blinked. It'd been ages since he'd thought of such things. He put a few drops in the tub on the boddom of the bath where the water would hit and stoked the little fire.
Too bad the elves were all but extinct. As the forest had been taken over by city so had the elves been by humans.
During the War elves of noble blood had been slaughtered and their was very few left. Now most elves were only peasants. Last he had heard the one of the elvish princes had started a campaign to preserve his forest and it had been accepted by all the major rulers of the city.
He reached into his basket beneath the washbasin and grabbed a small white orb. The water steamed as it filled the porcelain less then a half hour later and he turned it off, smothering the fire before stepping in the water after it cooled enough. He sighed as the water swallowed his body. The scent of oils mingled in his nose and each breath lingered longer in his lungs. He felt all his worries melt into the back of his mind. The oils seeped into his skin with fluttering warmth.
The water had started to go cold as he dropped the white orb into the water and it went about bubbling. There was a pleasant tingle as it cleaned ever surface of his body beneath the water.
He felt the tingle rise to his neck and took a long breath and relaxed his face under the water. A few seconds later he threw a black orb in the trash and relaxed in the cool clean water.
He toweled off his body and realized the sun had gone down. Time to go to work.