*INFIRMARY*<br/><br/>The voice, potent as black-tar poppy, chuckles low as the fingers draw down her shoulders, massaging bare skin of her throat with ebony-stone fingertips.  "Oh, I'll ask the questions... bu you're an ill little girl, so, here.  Let's indulge you.  My memory is a city of grand, unflinching stone, gold leaf and white marble, of streets flowing with coin and feathers and silks like blood through an eager vein.  My memory is of class and wealth beyond measure, of slaves in the streets and decadent silk sheets, of galleys slaving for weeks to craft one beautious jewel to rest at the brow of a paramour... when no scandal was shame, the only shame was being... a bore."<br/><br/>The cool air spills over her collarbone and upper breasts as the heavy blanket turned down one single fold, and it's like her body-- smothered in heat and smoke-- catches a fresh breath of cool air from outside.  "Dear girl, there was no shame in being born poor, only in not making the most of your gifts.  Dressing as a boy might even have been a novelty, then, as you captured the heartlines and loin-strings of the fanciest, spoiled lasses and ladies of privilege.  And a blade that guides itself like yours could have been honed."  The smile of white teeth, too perfect, from the dark as he leans close to smell her hair again, eager, "Honed by a tutor like me..."<br/><br/>The breath exhales, and he seems to ease down, showing disappointment, as if a moment is passing from his grasp.  "The sweat of your body is rich with a world of sins now..."  he sighs, disappointed.  "But sadly, it's... garden-variety.  The homogenized sickness of that... unimaginative fiend.  Let's see about that, comes tomorrow."  He smiles faintly.  "Let him and his fade from you, let what lingers be your own."  Those slender hands cup her face and he bends low, a the glow of the room smoothly eclipsed by his face until there is only darkness.  "And here, remember this."  He kisses her forehead gently like the press of hemlock.  "And if you can't face it... if you're too weak?  This."  She hadn't seen him flinch, but a sleek black shape enters her hand.  A dagger, white... she could swear it's solid bone, ancient and etched with brown veins of centuries, hand-carved, its grip wrapped with leather from... something?  A manta ray perhaps, or some kind of shark.  "This will end your pain in a climax that would make those once-proud aristocrats shiver and choke with bliss."<br/><br/>She does not see him leave, or hear him stir.  She becomes aware he has left only in the sense of absence that slowly creeps.