Christen and I made it back to the inn shortly after. It was very late in the night, dawn would soon break, and I was tired. I hadn't been up long, but I had been unconscious from pain, rather than from just resting. And since I had woken up, I had to deal with Christen, and a new possibility for a job. Possibility, because it was possible that Lady Grisly would change her mind.

I remembered the room that I had come from earlier in the day, even though I wasn't familiar with the different inns in the city. I had one or two that I generally stayed in when I had to visit any city. This one was different. Nicer, but I wasn't as comfortable.

“Where's your room?” I asked Christen.

“Same as yours.” Christen said. I remembered briefly seeing another bed in the room. I nodded. I got to the door, opened it wide and walked in, falling down on the bed nearest to me. “Close the curtains.” I muttered. “I'll be sleeping through most of the day.”

“Are you still hurting?”

“No.” I said. “I always sleep though most the day. It happens when most of your work is done at night.” I lay on my back and looked over at Christen. “Same will happen to you soon, once you become a more adept thief.” I sat up and threw off my boots, cloak, and tunic, then pulled a thick blanket over me. Nothing like the Inns I normally stay in. The ones I stay in have thin, moth-eaten blankets. “How are you affording this room?”

“I picked some pockets.”

“Must have been a lot of pockets.”

There was silence for a few moments, and sleep started to overcome me. However, as my mind drifted, thoughts of Foster rose up. Foster, researching in his little house in Artis. Foster, teaching me how to fight with a dagger for the first time. Foster, the manifold little lessons he used to tell me. There is always another option. Everything is a weapon. Die before you give up. The mentor, Foster. The scholar, Foster. The corpse, Foster. I heard the sound of a snapping neck and my entire body jolted, waking me from a semi-sleep that I had not known I had entered.

“Are you alright?” Christen asked.

“I'm fine.” I muttered. I sat up and drank more wine.

“.... Could I ask you something?”

“If it suits you.”

“Why did you decide to be an assassin.”

For a while, I simply sat there, silent. I think maybe she thought I was ignoring her.

“Stiri?”

“That's an odd question.”

“I know...But... How does one simply decide to become an assassin?”

“Why? Do you want to be one?”

Christen looked at me and then shrugged, “I'm going to become a killer anyway...”

“I offered to take the job for you.” I said. She nodded,

“I know...”

I glanced over at her, wondering what was going through her mind. Why did she want to kill Lord Necanda, even though she seemed to not want to?

“I didn't choose to be an assassin,” I said, “It was something I fell into. Though you may be happy with being a thief now, I am sure you didn't choose to be a thief...”

“No... I didn't..”

“I bet the first thing you stole was because you had no other choice. It was likely food. Am I right?”

“Yes. You're right...” she was quiet a moment. “So... the first person you killed? Why did you...”

She stared at me a moment, then turned and looked into the darkness. “I'm sorry.”

I stared ahead at nothing. “The first person I killed...” I paused for a moment. The story of my very first assassination was not one that was well known, mostly because I was nameless back then, and no one cared much about an unknown assassin.

“A long time ago-” I said, and it was a long time ago. It was a lifetime ago, “-Before I had the name Stiri-”

“... You mean, Stiri's not your real name?”

“No, it's not. It was given to me Almond”

“...What's your real name?”

“Let me finish the story?” I snapped. Christen was quiet. “Before I had the name Stiri, I was simply a nameless youth who had just become an assassin. Nameless youths don't often get hired for jobs. Your father, for example, listened to me, and likely bothered to hire me because...Well, because he was desperate, and also because he knew the name Stiri, and the stories that were associated with it.

“Almond was given a job, a simple job that he couldn't be bothered to do.”

“Why not?”

“Because he, at the time, was a great and famous assassin. He had more important things to do.”

“What about the job?”

“It was a job to kill a lady who had isolated herself in a tower in an old castle. I did some research, and apparently, there were several assassins who had attempted to kill her, but failed. However, Almond had high hopes for me, and he thought that I could do it. I went to the castle, and climbed up the tower wall-”

“Climbed it!”

“Yes. I was younger then, and though there were perhaps a thousand better ways to get in, I wanted to make a name for myself, I wanted to have a great story.

“I made it to the top, and climbed into the window where she was hiding. I crawled in, and there was a woman sitting in a chair with her back to the window.” I remembered that night well. The moon had been full, the sky clear. The woman was dressed all in white, her long what I though to be red hair looking deep purple in the light. My dagger glinting off the moonlight, the gentle caress of the fall breeze.

“What happened then?”

The image was burned into my skull, I continued my story. “She heard me, I suppose. She stood up and turned around. She was with child...”

Christen was silent, staring at me with wide eyes. I realized that she wasn't shocked or fearful. This was just a story to her. She just wanted to know what happened next.

“I had expected that I would just be able to sneak up on her and kill her from behind. I stood there, trying to figure out what I should do next, trying to figure out why she wasn't calling for help. Then she said, 'you want to kill me?' and of course I nodded. She said, 'not now. I know I deserve to die, but please. Please, wait another month: Let my baby be born.'”

“...What did you do? What did she do?”

“I didn't know what I should do. I stood there with my dagger in my hand, trying to figure out what I should do. The woman started begging for her child's life. She came over to me, grabbed my shoulders, fell to her knees and begged... And then I stabbed her.” I tried to remember the last time I had told the story. I stabbed her, yes, but it was almost an unconscious action. I didn't know what to do, I panicked, my training took over, and my dagger set itself into her stomach. I remembered the blood. There was much more blood than I thought there would be, and it poured black in the moonlight, staining the white dress. “And that was it. That was my first assassination. I came back, and Almond was proud of me, and then he gave me the smaller jobs that he didn't want to bother doing.”

“...And after that? Why did you keep killing after that?”

“ After that, I was given more jobs. So I worked as an assassin. That's all.”

“Do you enjoy it?”

“No. Why would I?”

“So.. if you don't enjoy it... Why don't you quit?”

“Because, I am an assassin.” I shrugged. “It's what I do.”

Christen was silent for a few moments longer, and then lay down. Some time passed, but soon I heard her quiet, leveled breathing in the dark. I drained the last of my wine and lay down, staring into the darkness, remembering, seeing the sights, smells and sounds of my first assassination.