Flashback; 12 years ago. The guards had failed to see through the messenger costume Desmond had worn to make his way up to this tower room to his target. It was, it seemed, just a large bedchamber currently not being used, but he saw his target within the room, surveying the drawers of a dresser, his side turned to the doorway. Without the Talent to shadow his approach, there was a good chance he'd notice Desmond enter. Finally, Gavin Anerath, his deader, made his way across the room and entered the closet, where Desmond took the opportunity to enter and look for places to hide. This room had no dark corners. It was practically a circle. There were rice paper screens, but they were folded and leaning against the walls, unavailable. Pitifully, the only place to hide was under the bed. If he were a wetboy, he might've been able to vault off the wall and onto the chains of the chandelier..too bad that wasn't an option. Under the bed? Master Blint will never let me live this down, he thought to himself. But there was no other option. Desmond dropped flat onto his toes and fingertips and crawled under the bed. It was a good think he was still slight because there wasn't much space. He'd chosen the side of the bed with the view of the closet, and therefore he couldn't see who was coming up the stairs. Gavin stepped out of the closet with a chest and guilt flashed across his face, and a woman's voice carried from the entranceway. "Your leaving." Her voice was accusing, and Gavin sighed tiredly. "No. You can't be here Bev." "You're stealing from them, and now you're stealing from the King. And for some reason, I'm surprised you'd lie to me. Asshole." Gavin dropped the chest on the bed and moved towards the woman in the doorway, and Desmond was stricken with panic. What if she left and Gavin decided to go after her? He'd have to kill them both in the stairwell before the guard came back around. "Bev, please-" "Go to Hell!" She slammed the door in his face. Wish granted. It was the blackest kind of humor. Durzo's kind of humor. He liked to say that the irony of overheard conversations was one of the best perks of the bitter business, though he said that the wisdom of last words was overrated. Wish granted..? Desmond didn't like that he'd even thought that. Everything this man was to be and do, was about to come to an end, and here he was smirking about it. He crawled out from under the bed silently and did everything right. Low, ready stance, advancing quietly but quickly, balanced so that even if the deader reacted he wouldn't be caught flat footed. He brought the knife out of the slit in his pants and up to eye-level, prepared to grab Gavin and give him what Durzo called the red grin-a slash across the jugular and deep through the windpipe. Then he imagined Elise giving him the look she'd given him when he'd taken the biggest piece of bread for himself. What are you doing Des? You know this is wrong. He recovered late, and it was as if his training had abandoned him. He was inches away, and even Gavin hadn't heard him, but the very nearness caused him to panic. He lunged with the knife and must have made some sound, because Gavin was turning. The knife bit into the back of his neck, hit spine, and bounced out. Because of his convulsively tight grip that Durzo would've beat him for, the knife bounced right out of his hand too. Gavin turned and yelled. It seemed he was surprised more by Desmond's sudden appearance then the sharp pain in his neck. He put his fingers to his neck, pulled them back, and saw the blood. They both looked down at the knife, but Gavin didn't go for it. He fell to his knees as Desmond picked up the knife from the floor. "Please don't." He begged, his eyes big with fear at little Desmond, who's disguise made him seem younger, more than he was. There was nothing scary about him, was there? But Gavin's face was white and his eyes were round, pitiful, helpless. "Please," he said again. Desmond slashed his throat in a fury. Why didn't he protect himself? He was bigger than Desmond, he had a chance. Why did he act like sheep. The cut was through the windpipe but barely clipped one jugular. It was deep enough to kill, but not fast. Desmond grabbed his hair and slashed twice more, slightly up so the blood sprayed up and not down. Not a drop got on him. He'd done it just as Durzo had taught him. There was a sound on the stairs. "Gavin, I'm sorry." Bev said before she even got into the room. "I just had to come back. I didn't mean-" She stepped into the room and saw Desmond. She saw his face, the dagger in his hand, him holding the dying Gavin by the hair. She was a plain young woman wearing a white serving dress. Wide hips, wide-spaced eyes, mouth open in an O and beautiful raven hair. Finish the job. The training took hold and Desmond was across the room in an instant. He yanked her forward, swept a foot in, pivoted, and flipped her onto the ground. The woman was beneath him, face down on the carpet. The next move was to slide the knife between her ribs. She'd hardly feel it. He wouldn't have to see her face. He hesitated. It was his life against hers. She'd seen him. She'd seen his face..she was just collateral damage. An ancillary fatality, Durzo said. A wetboy would do what needed to be done. Blint only allowed him to live as long as he could do everything a wetboy did, even without the Talent. And yet here she was, face down, knife pricking the back of her neck. His left hand twisting her her hair. Life is empty. Life is meaningless. When we take a life, we aren't taking anything of value. I believe it. I believe it. There had to be another way, could he tell her to run? To tell no one? No, of course not. "You're going to kill me aren't you?" She asked. "Yes." He replied, and even though the knife was moved to the correct spot on her back, he knew he was lying. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a shadow shift on the stairs. He didn't move, didn't acknowledge that he'd seen it, but he felt a chill. It was the middle of the afternoon and no torches or candles. That shadow could only be Master Blint. He'd followed Desmond, this was a job for the Shinga and it would not be botched. Desmond slid the knife between her ribs and felt the shudder and sigh of her dying beneath him. He stood and pulled the knife from her flesh and wiped it on her dress, sheathing it along his thigh and checked himself for blood in the rooms mirror. Just like he'd been taught. It was all the sorrow in the world to him that he was clean. There wasn't any blood on his hands. When he turned, Blint stood in the doorway. "Not great, but acceptable. The Shinga will be pleased." He purses his lips, seeing the distance in Desmond's eyes. "Life is meaningless. Life is empty. When we take a life, we take nothing of value." Desmond stared at him blankly. "Repeat it, damn you!" Durzo moved and a knife thudded into the dresser behind Desmond. He didn't even flinch, only repeating the words mechanically and numb. Was it so easy? Was it so simple? You just pushed, and death came? Nothing spiritual about it..nothing happened. There was no Heaven or Hell. They just stopped. "That pain you feel," Blint said almost gently, "is the pain of abandoning a delusion. The delusion is meaning Desmond. There is no higher purpose. There are no gods. No arbiters of right and wrong. I don't ask you to like reality. I only ask you to be strong enough to face it. There is nothing beyond this. There is only the perfection we attain by becoming weapons, as strong and merciless as a sword. There is no essential good in living. Life is nothing in itself. It's a place marker to prove who's winning. We win because it's an insult to lose. The means don't justify the ends. The ends don't justify the means. There is no one to justify to. There is no justification. There is no justice. Do you know how many people I've killed?" Desmond simply shook his head. "Me neither. I used to. I used to remember the name of every person I killed outside of battle. Then it was too many. I just remembered the number. Then I remembered only the innocents. Then I forgot that. Do you know what punishments I've endured for my crimes, my sins? None. I am proof of the absurdity of men's most treasured abstractions. A just universe wouldn't tolerate my existence." He took Desmond's hands and told him to kneel at the edge of the woman's blood pooling at her body, pressing his hands into the blood. "This is your baptism. If you must worship, worship like the other wetboys. Worship Nysos, god of blood and wine. Nysos is a lie like all the other gods, but at least he won't make you weak. Today you've become an assassin. Now get out and don't wash your hands. And one more thing: when you've got to kill an innocent, don't let them talk." Desmond was 13 years old. (Closed. Open to critiques and thoughts.) ~~~ Desmond was sitting atop the roof of the Dojo, sitting and thinking to himself. Well, himself and the bottle of scotch he was drinking. He couldn't get drunk, another by product of the Ka'kari, but he was still having a grand old time with his thoughts. Dangerous thing, thinking. Perhaps someone could sidetrack him from it. (Open^)