Behind Those Golden Eyes

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Tal staggered back a bit, having honestly been completely unprepared for her to shove him. He snapped out of his daze quickly, leaving her to cool down while he rubbed his face with an irritated sigh. Spending all this time in close contact with Aisha without doing anything was surprisingly wearing. He moved back over to his bed and quickly slipped into his new set of clothes, doing his best to forget the fiasco had even happened and especially not to remember how her words stung. He would definitely have to take this opportunity away from her to release some pent up frustration. "I'm leaving." He called in as normal of tone as possible. "Make sure to lock the window after I've gone." Because of course he was leaving through the window. The innkeeper might find it a bit odd to have someone he had not checked in come down from upstairs.

With that Tal popped the window open, climbed out and jumped down into the alley behind the inn once he determined the coast was clear. He straightened and took on a more confident stride and stance, though by no means the tall and proud one he did as himself. He looked more like a business man in a hurry as he strode through the streets towards the docks where he was figuring his target would be.
 
She waited for a couple of minutes before she opened the door, not completely trusting that he actually had left. A small blush was still covering her cheeks, but at least her heart was beating normally. When she was certain that he wasn't trying to trick her, she walked up to the open window, closed and locked it. "Idiot." She mumbled to herself, still angry over what had happened. Though once he came back she would probably try to act as if it had never happened.

As the evening went on, she slowly calmed down. She tried to pass the time by reading the book she had with her, but found herself too restless to actually be able to focus on it. She eventually ended up just pacing back and forward, wondering if Tal was okay or not, which then lead her to think about what he had done earlier that evening. That lead her into arguing with herself about how she shouldn't bother worrying over that wolf. If he got into trouble then it was his own fault. And that lead her into thinking what an awful person she was for thinking such things. Eventually she laid down on the bed, and just let her mind wander as she started to doze of.
 
Tal was almost disappointed to find his target pretty much exactly where he expected him. To make up for that however it seemed he was a paranoid man and actually had a pretty good guard set up. His house did not have many windows, and none in his room. There were several plain clothes guards lurking around seemingly doing completely unrelated business that might have given a less observant assassin some trouble. Their aura's clearly marked them for the killers they were to Tal though. He sat in his hiding spot for several hours while he memorized routes and assessed the number of men.

Once he was satisfied that he would not have too much trouble tomorrow night he considered going back to the inn. He then immediately dropped that idea. He was still a long way from the calm he needed to be around Aisha at the moment. So instead he went to the brothel he occasionally visited here and spent the rest of the night with his favorite there, Raleigh. By the time morning rolled around Tal was sated and in a far better mood. He left the sleeping Raleigh with a fond kiss and snuck out. He moved quickly through the still-sleepy city back to the inn they were staying at.

He had no problem picking the lock he had been so insistent Aisha remember and let himself inside to simply fall onto his bed and pass out. He looked (and smelled) very much like what he had been up to for the past few hours and really did not care.
 
When Aisha woke up, Tal was still sleeping. At first she didn't notice anything odd with him, since she pretty much just took a look to see if he was back, but then she thought she should check so he didn't seem to be hurt. She watched from a bit of a distance, so she would wake him up. He didn't seem to be hurt, she didn't see any blood nor bandages. But his messy look did tell her that something had happened the other night. Then suddenly the pieces fell perfectly together. "You damn pervert." She muttered, trying hard not to scream. Having lived with an older brother had made her a bit familiar with noticing how they looked, and smelled after 'having a night out'.

But why did she feel so worked up over it? It shouldn't be such a surprise. Tal was a man, and with his personality he would probably never care to get a family, so it wasn't like he had to save himself for the right person. Not because most men, nor even women did save themselves even though they knew they would probably get a family in the future.

Still, she felt a bit.... Jealous? She shook her head. No way she would be jealous over something so stupid. It wasn't like he were close to them just because he slept with them. She were his friend, she was the one that got to travel with him, and he had even told her (some of) his secrets. But still, she did feel a bit upset.

She moved away from the room Tal was sleeping in, and tried to move around so to not wake him up.
 
Tal slept for a fair while after she did. While he was used to getting almost no sleep while on a mission he didn't generally do any 'extra-curricular' activities either. Thankfully he was still very much in a good mood when he woke up. He sniffed the air lightly and decided he should probably take a shower before he went out to deal with Aisha so he grabbed his usual gear and took over the bathroom for a while.

When he emerged he looked as immaculate as ever, feeling much more comfortable in his fine clothing. He had every pair specially made to be of simple cut but of such high quality that dust, grim and blood tended to slide right off. "Morning." He strolled into the main room and smiled cheerfully at his companion. He couldn't help a little tiny bit of hurt that was still curling around his stomach from last night but he, far better than the average person was not just good at hiding his emotions from others, but even from himself.

"I take it you had an uneventful night?" He moved over to a chair and pulled his sword polishing gear out. "Also, I don't suppose you could go down and get some food could you? They will probably wonder what happened to us if we both just disappear." Not to mention he was hungry.
 
"Incredibly uneventful." She answered him as she rose from her seat. "You seem awfully cheerful today. I suppose your target must have been incredibly pretty. Let me guess, your sword penetrated her with great force, you kept her on the edge until she screamed, and then you left her breathless in the bed." She couldn't help but bring it up when he acted like that. Did he think she wouldn't notice? Or did he just not care? If he honestly thought she was so dull so she couldn't notice something so obvious, then surely she couldn't help but prove him wrong.

"Well, I'm off to get breakfast. You're not the only one who's hungry. Though I guess a hardworking man like you have more reason for it than I." Maybe she was a bit childish, trying to make him feel bad because he had urges. But he had told her he was going to do his already not so decent job, and then he goes out to have sex instead. Of course she wasn't certain what he had been up to, how much time he had spent on what and so on. But a green eyed monster was clouding her judgement a little bit, so who could blame her.
 
Tal blinked a couple times in bemusement before raising an eyebrow and chuckling. "Him, actually. On both counts. Bodi was disappointingly easy to find. And yes Raleigh is always quite vocal about my prowess in bed." He paused for a moment with a frown. "Of course, you can never quite believe what they say, even the 'companions'." He shrugged it off, obviously not too concerned about the opinions of even a high class whore like that. Now that he thought about it, he probably should not have done something as sloppy as go to a place that he frequented as himself. Oh well it was a little late to worry about it now. He ignored addressing her obvious jealousy, since as far as he was concerned she had had her chance. She had no one to blame for the situation but herself.

Tal slid his sword out of its sheath and rubbed the fine cloth in the polish before starting to carefully run it up and down the blade. He stopped every once and a while to buff at an imaginary scratch, focusing on it as if his jealous companion was not even there.
 
She didn't say a word and just left the room after he had finished speaking. He had either completely missed the problem or he might just not have cared for it. Couldn't he at least try to understand that she worried for him when she thought he was out doing something dangerous. She sighed to herself. It wasn't a big deal, so why did she make it into a big deal? "Either get used to it or turn back home Aisha." She mumbled to herself. This wasn't her world, and she shouldn't get angry at him for doing what he always had done.

She walked down the stairs and got the food. It was tempting to just get her own portion and make Tal go get his own. But she forced herself not to sink to such childish behavior. She had already made enough fool out of herself.

Instead of calling Tal once she was back upstairs, she simply balanced the second plate on her arm as she opened the door with her free hand. It seemed like the year she had worked as a waitress had payed off for her balance skills. She put one of the plates down in front of Tal before sitting down in front of him. It seemed like she finally had been able to calm down. For how long would she be in an emotional roller-coaster? Well, with the sudden change of environment it probably couldn't be helped. As fast as she got used to it, it would get better. Hopefully.

"So, are you going out tonight too?" She asked before taking her first bite. It was a very unspecific question, she didn't particularly care if he were going out for work or for.. other things. She mainly just wanted to know if he would go out or not. And if he did those other things, then she would prefer not to know.
 
"Ah! Excellent choice." Tal was very hungry indeed from all the things he had been up to the past night. He put his sword aside for the moment and picked up his plate, getting 3 very neat bites in before she had even finished asking her question. "Hmm? Oh yes of course. Now that I have the information I need there is no reason to wait. After all if I take too long my pay will start being docked." He had until the end of the week after all, and depending how you calculated it he only had one or two days left to finish the mission on time.

Not that he expected any problems. He saw himself finishing the job before the next night was over and returning to the frustrating and confusing thing that was his life now with Aisha following him around. He hadn't expected things to go entirely smoothly but every time he turned around there seemed to be more things he needed to work out. If she had issue with him going out for 'fun' then things were going to go downhill quickly.

Tal chowed down on the rest of his food and sat back with a content sigh before grabbing his sword and polishing it until it was an excellent mirror. He then returned it to its sheath and absently ran his hand up and down the sheath, once again treating his sword almost like a pet or something other than just an inanimate object. "We will probably leave tonight. I don't expect the rest of this mission to take very long." He continued the conversation from almost 10 minutes ago as if almost no time had passed.
 
So she would be alone another night. Should she be worried? Or just assume that he would be fine in some woman's, or mans, arms. Of some reason, that though worried her even more. One part of her knew that he just used them for his urges, they didn't mean anything. But what did she knew? Maybe he had some kind of relationship going on. What if he would throw her away somewhere and get a companion that wouldn't be so unreasonable and whom would just give in if he felt like having 'fun'. But that was nonsense. He hadn't had anyone with him since he left home all alone, so it's not like he would just take anyone. Or maybe he just did it on a whim and now started to think that it was a mistake.

Tal woke her up by continuing on the conversation that she thought had ended minutes earlier. She had already finished eating her food without even realizing it.

"Why not leave in the morning?" She asked a bit confused. Even if it didn't take long, wouldn't he be tired? She had never done that kind of work, and she would never even think about doing that kind of work either, but she could imagine that it should be a bit energy consuming.
 
Tal flashed an amused grin that was probably quite disturbing considering the subject matter. "Never be in town when the body is found if you can help it." He stood up and stretched languidly. "Well, we have a few hours to kill before I need to go hunting, what would you like to do?" Going out and about would honestly just be asking for trouble, but no one had ever said that Tal wasn't the kind of guy who liked the adrenaline rush of taking risks. After all, he made a career out sneaking around and getting himself into high risk situations. And while he had Aisha to worry about now he felt fairly confident that that word had not gotten around just yet of his current location.

Besides which, if word had he would rather go out and get the things they needed now so she at least had a bit of a fighting chance when things went down. At the very least he needed to get her a sword so he could start training her in fine art of sword-dancing. For a moment he winced. Well it would either improve her balance and control by thinking of it as fighting instead of dancing or she would accidentally cut a hand off or something. "There is at least one thing we need to see if we can find in the market today."
 
Aisha tried to imagine that Tal was going to go out and hunt deer's or something like that, because it sounded too macabre to talk about a human in that kind of way. As she sunk deeper and deeper into Tal's world, she started to wonder if she really belonged in it. But at the same time, she couldn't imagine herself turning back home. Not without answers. And once she had all the answers she needed, maybe there would be no more doubts to why she should stay.

"As long as I won't have to try more clothes, then I'm fine with whatever." She told him. There was no way she would go through the same procedure as she did some days earlier when they had to find her male clothing.
 
Tal chuckled softly. "Well I don't think you need to worry about that unless you really want more." He felt the unusual nagging of responsibility and sighed heavily. "I'll be right back." He left the main room for the bedroom and pulled out another set of towns clothes. He didn't feel like inviting another fight by wearing what he had come back in this morning or changing in front of her again. It was probably going to come up again at some point soon but he was happy to leave it in its hole as long as she was.

He set a wide-brimmed sun hat on his head and returned to the main room. "Alright, let's see if we can find a sword for you." And some passable training swords he supposed. The luggage was starting to pile up by the minute. He shrugged it off for the moment and led Aisha downstairs. The innkeeper was sleeping at the moment so his daughter was at the desk and simply nodded at them as they walked by without knowing Tal looked little like the dirty farmer's son who had come in last night with her father.

"We can also pick up anything else you're interested in while we're here. So long as it's not too pricey anyway. I don't look like that much of an affluent townsman."
 
His sudden sigh confused her a bit even after he had come back. There was nothing in their current conversation for him to be so disturbed about so he had to sigh about it. Oh how she wished she could read his mind and figure out what was going on in there. But if not even he could do such a thing, even though he came damn close with his aura trick, then how could she?

As he came back he reminded her of the sword training they had spoken about days earlier. She had completely forgotten about that. And quite frankly, she weren't too optimistic about it. If it was so much like dancing as he had told her, then she was afraid that at least one of them would loose body parts. And it would probably be her.

"I don't expect you to buy me stuff Tal. If I want something I can always work for a few hours. It's not that hard to find people whom need help just for a day or so." She told him. It didn't feel right to make him buy her stuff when she pretty much had forced herself into his life. "By the way, isn't it a bit homicidal to give a sword to one of the clumpiest people in the country?" She then scolded him jokingly. "I'm a bit concerned for our safety."
 
"Hmmm." Tal found himself torn at the thought of her going out and working. It's not like he thought she couldn't do it, but the more she moved around on her own the more vulnerable she was. He saw her working as a dangerous situation with all sorts of bad things to follow. On the other hand, his more calculating side whispered at him that if she wanted to work, perhaps he should put her to use in some of his infiltrations which would actually be less dangerous in some ways than her just going out and working for random people. He would always be close by then.

He grimaced a bit. He didn't like either situation really and put them both out of his mind until they had to come up again. "We'll start small. And practice makes perfect. Or at least skilled enough to keep bastards at a distance without hurting yourself while I take care of them." He glanced over at her and smiled languidly. "And don't worry about costs on my end. You know how long I've been doing this, and you've heard how much I get for it. I assure you it did not take long at all to be able to start charging those prices." Within a year almost. He had to work on his infiltration skills but those were more for special assignments and his own fun than necessary. "It's more money than I could ever spend on myself so I might as well put some of it to a good use for once."

And wasn't that a mind boggling thought. Him doing anything that could be classified as 'good'. It made him cringe a little and pick up the pace. Thinking about 'good' and 'bad' just brought up memories that made him want to start hurting people and that would not be good as they made their way through crowded city streets.
 
She already knew that he had more money than he ever could spend, but that didn't make her more willing to actually make him spend it. At least not on her own selfishness as most girls in the upper class would do if they got the chance. Actually most girls in general would do that if they got the chance. Aisha on the other hand just felt bad if someone bought whatever she pointed at for her. It was one thing to receive a present once in a while, and another to tell them what to buy. It would feel as if she was using him.

"You should be careful. Tell a girl that you'll give her what she wants and she will eventually become spoiled enough to ask you to give her the whole world." Aisha warned him with a grin. "Lucky you, I'm just your brother."

It had already started to feel pretty natural for her to call him brother, maybe because that's how she had always viewed him. Calling herself a brother felt slightly less natural, gender bending had never been her thing to begin with, but she were getting more and more used to it the more it was brought up.
 
An odd light came into Tal's eyes and he chuckled darkly. "We had better hope no one does then. I might just give it to them." He didn't have any delusions about being a 1 man army. Okay, so maybe he did. But anyway if that person just happened to be one of the select few that Tal held in high enough regard he may very well conquer the world just to hand it to them on a platter. You wouldn't think it of a lone assassin known for ditching jobs if he didn't like them but he had an exceptionally strong sense of loyalty to those few people. His father had raised him to think like a knight after all. Not your usual knight, but a knight nonetheless.

Tal hummed a soft tune under his breath, his mood greatly improved from before. He was already planning the whole trip, though he had to keep reminding himself they definitely did not need to look like a guy taking his special other out. It was probably too late though. He sighed a bit and shrugged it off, leading them down a meandering route to the blacksmiths. He went past several shops before stopping at a smaller shop, but to one with a good eye the quality of the work was much higher. He nodded at Aisha. "See if there's anything that suits your fancy." He then went over to speak with the blacksmith, asking about what he had as far as training swords went. He spun a quick story about Aisha being the son of a cousin who wanted to see 'him' taught all things by Tal, the successful relative.
 
"Someone's a bit full of himself." Aisha mumbled while laughing as she followed Tal through the town towards the blacksmith. As if he could ever take over the world. Even as a demon he couldn't be that powerful. Or could he? Well, even if he were he didn't seem to be interested in doing anything with those powers. Except for murdering people, probably really bad people as he had hinted at some days earlier. But he hadn't really given her a straight answer about that. Who those people were.

"See if there's anything that suits your fancy." Tal told her and turned around to talk to the blacksmith, leaving Aisha alone for some moments. "Yeah, great idea. Cause I'm such a sword expert." She scratched her head as a sigh escaped her lip. "Something less lethal would definitely suit my taste." She grumbled a bit as she looked around. The thought of actually having to use a real sword, or even owning it, made her feel more horrified than safe. Get used to it, she thought to herself.

She picked up one sword after another, trying to figure out how much weight and what length she would be able to handle the best. After a few minutes she got the same feeling as when she was trying on new shoes. Once she found something that would fit for her then she knew it immediately.

As she picked up a decently light sword that was around as long as she was from foot to stomach, she was fairly certain that it was something she could handle. She might even have gone so far as to think it was perfect. Though she wouldn't dare to say it before she had actually used it. Or before Tal had actually said it was alright. After all, she only knew what she might be able to use while being as non-clumsy as she possibly could. She had no idea if the sword itself was in a good or bad shape.

She went to Tal, whom had been doing who knew what during her shoe... Sword searching time. "You know, just for future references, letting a complete novice try to find an instrument that is meant to save their life, or take others, might not be the best idea. But I think I might have found something that might not kill me while I'm using it." She said as she walked up to him, reminding him that she had no clue what she was doing.
 
Tal glanced over at her and flashed a familiar grin. "Well then, let's see what you've found." He took the sword from her and then took a few steps back into the open area of the shop. He held the sword in one hand, testing the weight and seeing where the balance was between blade and pommel. He nodded to himself and gave it a few light swings, finishing up with flicking the blade to test the quality of the steel. As he expected it was all within quite agreeable parameters. For something not made for her hand specifically, it would do quite nicely.

"You underestimate yourself. This is a fine choice." He brought it back over to them and handed it to the blacksmith who put it in a fine leather sheath and handed it back to Aisha. "Since you had felt my sword and were going to be the one to use it, I felt it best you find what suited yourself. While you know little of sword craft, your body knows what it would work with best." He bought two practice swords he had been haggling over when she had come up as well as the blade and parted with the blacksmith with some fond words. He had had fun talking with the man, a true practitioner of his craft.

"Now that wasn't too bad was it?" Tal smirked over at her as she walked beside him. "I think the two of you will work quite well together." He had an odd habit of referring to swords as people themselves. "If we had the space where it wouldn't draw a crowd I would start teaching you right now. Unfortunately in the meantime you'll just need to keep her on you and try not to hurt yourself as you get used to the weight and having the sheath on you."
 
Even though Tal was out of reach, Aisha couldn't help but back a few steps as he swung the sword a couple of times. It seemed like she had done a good choice. That was the first in some time. It wasn't to be expected of someone that chose to run away with a demon.

"Better than trying on dresses." She confessed to his question. If only she could walk into a clothing shop and everything she wanted was automatically the right size. That would have made cloth shopping so much enjoyable. But reality was cruel, and her dream of a getting the right size on the first try would never come true. Though at the moment she would probably not wear dresses for a while, so that wouldn't be one of her worries either way.

It took her a small portion of time to process that he was talking about the sword as he said 'you two'.
"I think Stephan will be very offended if you call him a she again." She joked. She had never understood why some people called certain items he or she, or even gave them names. But when people around her did it, she couldn't help but say something like, 'what if he's a she?' or vice verse.

"The longer we stall training, the better. Even with a training sword I bet I can bring myself close to the other side. I can almost feel death breathing me in the neck. It's just like when my mom forced me to go to those stupid dance parties. What was she thinking? I could have killed someone."
 
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