<span style="font-size: 12px">A dismissive hand was cast toward the balcony, her master's voice lethargic and barren of its usual warmth. "For now."<br/>
<br/>
Reyr nodded before silently padding to the location she was meant to wait, her mind a mural of Pytha Oraido's last thoughts - though she had no way of knowing at the time how precious these articles of information were. Navigating his psyche was a dark path to tread, phosphorescent in ways no other light source might achieve, inverted and full of negatives. The cartel and their holdings were always in the forefront, signified by countless names and faces the Auroun had never known personally but knew intimately through their connection, and while she waited, those images blurred in a messy slurry of twisted rage. The distortion was a sign of anger - and something akin to fear. Her hands gripped the railing as she overlooked Bayonset'rai, Cariot'lo's capital city. The sounds from inside the chamber were muffled, growing louder, but there was no hope to access her master until he wished it so.<br/>
<br/>
It wasn't until their connection was severed that the woman slowly sank to her knees, beating her limbs to the punch before they buckled on their own. Fresh in her thoughts like an epiphany and clear as the new day, a face hovered beyond the disjointed sea of dissipating thoughts. Yan Buscheveski stared at her, hands bloodied by the knife he had plunged into her once owner and protector. There were too many emotions to truly know which was felt most strongly, but the expression playing the face of the betrayer was nothing short of triumphant. His satisfaction at finding his liberation through his own devious machinations; he smiled. <br/>
<br/>
Thus Pytha was no more - extinguished without even a passing farewell for the Auroun who had served him faithfully for several years. Only a face and the violent aftermath she would stumble toward some moments later. Yan was nowhere in sight, but she expected that would change in due time. He would connect the dots, put together the pieces of the situations and, ultimately, seek to find her to tie up his loose ends. Reyr found her own hands bloodied when she lowered to kneel with the body, seeking comfort from the corpse as some misguided attempt to will his existence back into the body he had recently departed, but she would find no such possibility by the state of his slumping physique. If only kisses and whispers and thoughts could wake the dead. They would never reach Pytha, and Reyr knew it best not to suffer the same fate.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Oh, but how she wished she stayed to see her life ended.</i> By whatever greater cosmic powers there may have been, she wanted only to be taken so quickly as he had been, if only to ease the transition into freedom. Some might appreciate their start at a new life, but for a creature created solely to serve, it was a terrifying awakening of fears she never once considered prior to Pytha's death. Eternity in the great slumber of death seemed preferable to living without an anchor.<br/>
</span><br/><div style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 12px">---</span>​</div><span style="font-size: 12px">A seemingly endless sea of gunmetal grey and ship slate blue made up the majority of the underground sectors of Cariot'lo. Tourists were told to avoid the native districts due to their labyrinth-like design so most of the foot traffic remained topside while those who weren't vacationing kept their distance from the extravagance of the cartel run leisure resorts. Reyr sought the refuge of the underground with the same hesitation she had felt toward leaving the estate which encompassed such a large portion of her life. Other options were less obvious, though entirely too dangerous to persue. The flesh boutique from which she was ordered was now part of a larger chain of stores, and beyond that, she knew only the staff that resided on site and the workers from various cartel owned venues. <br/>
<br/>
If she was meant to start again, it would require completely erasing what remained of her life with the Oraido trust. <br/>
<br/>
Perhaps by some divine form of intervention, she was quickly brought into the folds of a minor street gang known for hustling tranquilizers to the less cautious tourists. It wasn't entirely pointless to assume her appearance had much to do with their willingness to keep her around, as the Auroun was one of the most attractive specimens for far from the upper echelons of Cariot'lo society. Made to order often meant something closer to "without noticeable imperfections" and for this, she earned the favor of all variety of men while nestled within the presumably safe drug den. After a few weeks, it was almost like she belonged there - treasured by the street trash, protected by the muscle they employed, and genuinely respected for what she could offer the clique rather than what she was made of at a base level.<br/>
<br/>
But Reyr never managed to shed that collared mentality, following the directions of the Rasmodian leadership because they dictated it rather than in view of the fact that she actually agreed with their methods. For every bit of kindness she was given within the Kult'han, she bore witness to the levels of their cruelty. Incongruity in their ranks was cause for violence, and there was no judge and jury so deep underground. It was a macabre sort of justice to end the life of those who slighted you, yet time and time again, Reyr watched on as a silent observer as men and women were slaughtered over misunderstandings and accidents. One such event happened that evening, the altercation involving a towering Roth Khaanian and a discarded Auroun splice such as herself. As expected, the fourteen foot tall Roth disemboweled the Auroun, spraying onlookers in pulpy entrails and the hot splash of crimson vitae.<br/>
<br/>
Too ill to continue accepting what she had seen, Reyr fled into the night. Down alleys and through narrow corridors of durasteel until she found an uninhabited block to haunt. Shaking, she could taste the copper of bloody remnants tinging her lips. The splice had been there longer than she had, a friend to the Kult'han - so why was he dead? Why now? On the eve of the gang's greatest sale, in the midst of laughter and celebration - why was Reyr now wearing shades of her acquaintance?<br/>
<br/>
Gasping, a wave of nausea wracked the pale femme, leaving her doubled over to choke out the contents of her last meal. Her vision wavered, hazy behind a veil of impending tears that refused to shed, and upon finishing the final breathy gag of her stomach being emptied, Reyr wobbled away to the opposite wall. With her back to the aged metal, she sank low. So low, her shapely rear found the ground before long, allowing her to appropriate that outward advertisement of how she felt inwardly. <i>Discarded. Waste. The thrown away, forgotten, unloved plaything.</i> Heavy, her lids closed and the tears finally found their release from her lashes.</span>