To snare a butterfly..

I had slipped away from Venor somewhere between the Stadium of Blades and the Teiban Sul Market on our way to find a cafe. Way leading onto way, I figured he'd find me. He had that ability I learned. Finding me in a crowd like a moth to a flame.

But for now I had made my way to the Kalonike Cafe in the Metellan District. The door shoved open, it jingled merrily, ironic given the narrow eyed glances I'd been subject to upon arrival. I was no stranger to this place but the red carpet was hardly rolled out. It is a haunt of business men and the lower but respectable castes alike. It was here I found Kyron.

Kyron and I go back a ways. We traveled from the Sardar together once in the same caravan. Though, we aren't, by any stretch of the imagination friends. To the contrary, I know he loathes me. My existance, my grip on the Anbar, drives him mad. The fact he cannot do much about it, even madder. He's tried to move into the district, and push out some of those that pay me for the privilege of being there. Their dismissal of him and his inert power likely has done nothing good for his arrogance. He hates me, but he doesn't disguise it. In the end, I suppose I respect a man that's not afraid to hate me. It's an honest and pure emotion, perhaps the only one in human nature that can't be tainted nor corrupt. He is one of two men I know, if given the opportunity, would lunge at the chance to see me fall from my throne.

Yet, I had been given a tip that he was here. There were questions I needed to ask and answers I hope he had. There were women missing from my district, many of whom owned businesses, and too a sudden mass of murdering among the High Council. Were the two related? I don't know.

Claiming the chair opposite him, we talked, and I got very little in the way of information I needed. Typical of Kyron, he was going to require more cajoling than I was interesting in dishing out. It was then they came through the front door. The woman from Tendora's Tit. I didn't recognize her at first, she wasn't dressed in pink. She was also accompanied by a man. They talked quickly and heatedly, the woman looking in my general direction more than once, then suddenly left the cafe. I made arrangements to meet Kyron later, and shoved up to follow the duo out into the street. There was something suspicious about her.

Crossing the street, it was then I saw her again. The man she'd originally accompanied with her collapsing abruptly to the cobbles. Before I could get to them, another man had helped her carry her consort down the road. He dropped his dagger, which I retrieved and now wear in my belt.

Then, with his perfect timing, my moth found me again in the crowd. We began to walk through the Metellan, and though I'm not sure why or how, we took a wrong turn and made it into the Trevelyan. The Trevelyan is its own animal. It is not my district, and the small villainous group of men that govern it, there is no love lost between us. They would like nothing better than to murder me in a dark alley in a mob, to take what I've spent so long building. As of now I have monopoly of the majority of import and export to Ar, through channels of corrupt officials. A thing they'd like to see shaken loose.

I told Venor to look less like a Magistrate, and though we were tailed for a while, we made it out and back to the Metellan and ultimately back to Aria Fori. I was ready to go to bed, but he stopped me outside. The discussion we had was a confidential one.

Before we could get inside, a woman in bright ghastly orange appeared. It was none other than the woman from Tendora's Tit, and the cafe this afternoon. If I was suspicious before, I was more so now. Was she following me? Or Venor.

The Magistrate allowed her entry, and I not wishing to entertain went to my room to change. When I returned, Venor had left, and I was alone with the woman. A fact I wasn't over joyed for, but dealt with politely enough. There is a madness in her eyes. One that deepened when she talked of Damos and then heard his music fill the air as if on cue. While she talked, I watched her, manipulated her with button pushing, and there seemed to be a few sensitive subjects. One of which, the most notable, the subject of fear. She is looking for Damos, and too, she is looking for Venor's sister. The woman they call Amanita. He'd taken something from her. Something about vials. She tried to offer me coin to kidnap the musician, an offer I declined and before long she had left.

Amanita. It seems everyone I have run into of late is looking for this woman. I gather there is a reason. One I am simply not aware of at this point. With luck I will remedy that soon.