Face Behind the Mask..

[Harlan]

It was a small, nondescript hovel, perfect for an evening outing and a center point for planning and scheming--at least, as far as this night was concerned.

With a small candle burning, a circus of light and shadow played against the scarcely-furnished room, embellished only with the simplistic forms of a table and two chairs. Beyond that, there was nothing..

Just silence..

[Inajira]

Silence followed in his wake, the wake of every carefully planned footfall that led skirted the outermost reaches of Myrkentown's slums. The distant smoke from rendering plants and smithies whose furnaces vomited the remnants of the day's work burned quietly into the evening sky like funeral pyres. Myrkentown was a bloody place, he had been told before his arrival. There would undoubtedly be threats in the shadows as well as the constables, knights and others who swore to protect their land from the long history of monsters who had troubled the nights and days.

Twenty paces, then forty, a turn and onward...

Inajira peered out from beneath a dark, pine-green hood at the huts and hovels that squatted restlessly amongst eachother. Deeper in lay the Hollows he had recently learned, a labyrinth of strangling alleys and streets undoubtedly in the control of criminals and worse. The worse would most likely not involve the law, he considered, but they might enforce their own laws themselves.

Sixty paces, and the third one on the right...

The door gave way beneath a lightly sand-hued extremity. Darker tones within dusky flesh darkened beneath the candle's flickering shadows, drinking them in and nurturing them, as he crossed to one of the chairs and seated himself. Procuring a tiny length of slender chain from the inner folds of his cloak, he set it carefully upon the table's center and waited.

[Harlan]

Silence... and it was a crushing thing that reigned for several long moments.

The dart of a shadow broke the serene kiss of the suffocating dark, tendrils of light wavering as the candle shifted; as if a light and carefree swirl of air danced with it, teased it. Hypnotizing, as it was, the sudden presence of a tiny feline, black and with eyes piercing, would shatter any long concentration transfixed on the gallant waltz of the shivering dark, and the effortless gliding of light.

Meow.

The black creature strode in from the door that had not fully closed, slinking this way and that as if it owned the small hovel in a neighborhood that did not appreciate weak beings. Thankfully, it wasn't weak at all...

The cat leapt from the dirty floor to the chair, and settled majestically as it had been a panther instead of a tiny thing. And then, something extraordinary happened. The form of the tiny beast shifted, elongated, changed until it was no more; until, in its place, rested a young and beautiful woman with tresses the shade of blood and eyes the brilliant color of amethyst. Lips painted gold smiled and parted to say.

"Well, well.. Inajira. How fine it is to finally meet face to face."

[Inajira]

A few moments in silence spent for this intrusive cat, this bold cat, this... shape changing cat. The display of some supernatural potency leaves a distinct flavor in his mouth, one that sets his lips pressed into a firm and decidedly full line. Gypsy heritage added a fullness to his features that had begun to crumble away beneath some secretive malediction that had set hungry hollows to the lines of a dusky jaw.

"I have heard much," he offered in the expected response as emerald shaded eyes swept across her form, lingering upon the spilling crimson locks that flowed in bloody river about her features. Ebon hair, possessed of kinked curls, dared a few twined up strands that fell just within the scope of one of his eyes. A muttered ward against the evil eye turned his thoughts to business.

A nervous glance towards the entrance before it flickered back to her.

"I suppose this is our welcome party to Myrkentown."

[Harlan]

Seemingly disinterested, the fiery-haired woman produced a small mirror from the pouch at her side and held it up to her face, lifting a finger to smooth the under carriage of her eye. After a long moment, she finally glanced at him, to the door, and then to him again, only to lament. "Yes, I suppose it is."

Standing to her full height, she strode over to the door to close it securely, threading a blood red lock behind an ear. "From one dirty hovel, to the next, and to the whim of our master, hm?"

"Shall we get down to business, then? I have -such- plans for Myrkenwood."

Her grin, wide and haunting, couldn't have been more wicked.

[Inajira]

Soft leathers creaked beneath the splay of a hooded green cloak the color of pine trees at sunset, while both swarthy hands lay their fingertips upon the edge of the table in a precise row, hands a small distance apart from one another. The candle casts a long, pyramidal shadow against the sun-kissed color of carefully bronzed skin as a rake of long eyelashes obscure a gaze that never leaves the Red Queen as she makes their meeting place secure.

"He pays well, in coin and opportunity," he offered in a nearly-fragile whisper, as if offended that even the walls of the candle's tamed, flickering flame might overhead.

"Tell me, then," he continued in a slightly louder voice as her excitement settled against his tongue and bid him speak. "Tell me what you have planned."