Sevika

Heavy footfalls sounded through Zaun’s dark streets as Sevika all but strolled toward her familiar haunt. Exhaling a plume of plum colored smoke she eyed the shimmer addled passersby’s with mild distaste, it wasn’t likely that they would try anything to her. But desperation had done odder things to better people.

As the brothel’s lights came into view the woman rose her one remaining hand to her lips, plucking the burning Cigarillo from them with a languid movement. She paused at the bustling entrance, stretching like an interrupted cat, watching with a critical eye as the crowd parted giving her a wide berth. Drunkard, obvious thief, disgruntled customer, and yet another drunkard. No one she obviously had to worry about, but that was where the danger was, in the threats she couldn’t see. She wasn't a naive newcomer—Sevika knew the politics that thrived within those walls, the tangled web of favors, debts, and alliances. She’d seen the way people came and went, each with their own agenda, and she had no illusions about her role there.

Knocking the ash from her stogy, she pushed her way to the entrance. Taking a deep breath Sevika inhaled the heady scent of burnt shimmer, cheap liquor, and stale sweat; her mouth already starting to water. The night was young, practically heavy with possibilities. Setting out with no particular room in mind Sevika prowled through the brothel, boots stirring the thin haze of pale purple smoke with every foot fall. A masked man passed with a tray full of rattling glasses, and without missing a beat Silco’s right hand man plucked a shot and downed it. The all too familiar heat of cheap liquor meant to liberate one from their coin spreading through her frame, dropping the now empty glass back on the tray she saw it.

Movement.

Out of the corner of her eye, so quick she might have missed it if not for the moving fog in its wake. Head snapping towards it like a hawk honing in on its prey, Sevika found herself instantly setting off towards it her body moving purely on instinct. Half closed doors, a shadow slipping out of sight, and the quick flash of hair as the figure darted around a corner. A woman was obviously trying to hide from her, and doing a shit job at it. Long legs easily eating up the distance between them, the great wall of a woman shouldered into a dark room. A single broken window casting a halo of light on the woman’s back, her face still stubbornly hid from view.

“Three.”

Sevika rolled the still lit cigar to the other side of her mouth, the ember casting wicked shadows on her angled features. She didn’t voice what she wanted the figure to do, but she didn’t have to.

She knew.

Sevika knew.

What was the point of wasting breath?

“Two...”