The onslaught of rain continued to pour pit pattering against the tiled roof. Plip-plip-plip. The sound woke Ari from his sleep. There were leaks in the hallway roof along with many others in different parts of the house.

Thunder clapped sending a small tremor through the house. Normally, the sound would frighten Ari, but he was more tired than anything. The blood he had given him was not enough. "Like water..." Ari muttered with sleep still heavy in his voice. He rubbed his head and rose with careful steps. The head pain and fog was gone, but he felt as though that was the least of his worries now.

Ari searched the room, seeing where Sascha had lain was empty and in its place were pillows. Where had Sascha gone? The black cat came and purred up against his leg causing his eyes to soften. He bent down and scratched underneath her chin.

"Shall I give you name...? Perhaps, a bath too?"

The cat meowed and snuggled up against his hand. He picked up the cat and cradled her pressing her cheek up against his. She slept next to him last night giving him more comfort than Sascha's presence. With her, Ari did not feel so alone and he did not know why. He had no prior friendly interactions with animals before.

"Ah, you are awake, at last," Sascha said as they came through the door with a towel over their head.

"At last... How long was I asleep for?"

"Three days." Sascha put down the towel and shuffled through the drawers until they pulled out a vial filled with black liquid.

"Three days?" Ari exclaimed rousing the cat from his arms.

"It was as expected given your condition." Sascha spared him a look before continuing on what they were doing. "You look much better now. Your complexion is brighter."

"I do feel better. Thank you for taking me in."

"It is the least I could do... after everything."

Ari's eyes met with theirs before they shifted. Were they always that tall? Ari thought they were around the same height but they were much taller with more muscle mass than him. Of course, he was older, Ari thought. He would be bigger.

"You do not have to keep apologizing to me." Ari scoffed. " I am used to being tricked by now."

"I do not want you to mistrust me because of it. You are the first one like me since—" He bit his lip and continued rummaging through his things. "What I mean to say is that it has been a long time since I met another like myself."

Sascha brushed their hair back and let out a weary sigh.

"Where had you gone to?" Ari said as he approached closer wanting to get a better look at the vial in their hand. As if sensing his approach Sascha stowed it away in their pocket and gave Ari their full attention.

"I just had a bath."

"And before that?" Ari asked with narrowed eyes.

"Mars and Lyn and the others had a meeting of a sort I attended."

"I see."

Whatever trust he had in Sascha had long since disappeared and in its place was an emptiness waiting to be filled. He did not want to dawdle in the city for much longer. There was nothing there for him any longer.

"You can come! With me... if you like. Next time."

"... I do not think there will be a next time. I have someone to find."

"Ari." Sascha tried to reach for him but Ari moved away in time. "I would love to say that you should go and find the person who you lost, but it is dangerous and considerably foolish to go after someone like Sin."

"I cannot just sit here and do nothing!"

"If he is an old one, he will be well," Sascha said, disinterested.

"He does not belong with him. He was weak and I abandoned him do to my own clouded emotions and selfishness. I must get him back. I must."

Sascha took his arm and brought him down to their level. "And here is where it lies. Do you think I have forgotten my pain as well? I have not. I am making a plan. I am being smart about it. So should you."

Ari glared into Sascha's eyes before they softened. They were right. He needed to throw aside his emotions right now. They were not needed. Useless things.

"You say you are looking for power, but, Ari, there is no unlocking or finding to be done. It is there right below your fingertips." Sascha brushed the tips of their fingers against the palm of his hands causing Ari to retract his hand. "Do not let lust or a deceitful demon tell you otherwise."

"... I know. I must gain back the confidence I lost to stand on my own two feet, but I feel nothing but weak and helpless in the face of them."

Sascha gave him a small smile while creating some comfortable distance between them. "For now, promise me you will put all of that aside and think only of this. Focus only on you, promise me this."

"Promises are worthless," Ari muttered.

"Only to the ones who break them."

Sascha's words resonated deep within him. All was not lost after all.

"...Not to the ones who make them and keep them. They are precious."

Ari hated that word—precious. It made his heart swell at the thought of Auovin and all the times he used to say it to him. All Auovin meant by those words was his usefulness in his plans to do away with the Greats or gods know what. He no longer knew what Auovin's true intentions were if he ever knew at all.

"What I mean to say, Ari, is do not become jaded. Nothing comes from it but emptiness, hate and grief."

"... I know."

"In time, you will see it was never really love to begin with. It never really is at first."

"For Auovin maybe... Cyrus even... But not Kaval. It is love when I look at him, and love when I kiss him."

Sascha gave Ari a soft smile before rising. "Perhaps it is or was—whatever it may be. What great purpose will it serve you right now? It is a feeling, and a feeling cannot keep you fed and surely not alive. Not that kind of feeling anyway." Sascha chuckled before continuing. "In this world, you will soon come to learn love is something as useless as a barren tree during a rainstorm."

Everything Sascha was saying to Ari made his resolve deepen to do what he sought to do in the beginning. Before those terrible demons wedged their ways into his heart and tore it into pieces. He was childish then just as he was being now.

"And you are saying this town will change everything and make everything right for me somehow?" Ari said as he rose and stared at him.

"It is what you make of it. I have no plans on staying for much longer. When that demon hunter comes back and sees what you made of his shop he will not be very happy."

Ari looked to Sascha's pocket before meeting their eyes again.

"I am going out again," Sascha said.

Staying there wallowing in his emotions and self-pity would do him no good. If this was to be his new home, he would have to start adjusting. However, Sascha was as enigmatic as Auovin. Ari did not want to put his trust in someone that reminded him of the very thing that broke him into pieces. "I did not mean it. I want you to trust me." Ari thought with bitterness. Even though he felt like that, Ari could not ever come to hate him—oh— and so badly he wanted to. Gods, he did.

Sascha stuffed his hands in his pockets and cocked his head to the door. "Care to join me?"

"I see no reason why I should not."

"Your cat, maybe," Sascha joked.

Ari rose and gazed into Sascha's eyes before turning his attention to the black cat perched on the broken top shelf high above them. She stared at them with large yellow eyes and stretched then yawned, paying them no more mind than before.

She needed to be fed and bathed in addition to finding something to relieve herself in while he was away, but something stopped him in his thoughts. She was not the one who needed taking care of. It was he who was being taken care of by her. He searched around for her again and could not find her. Ari smiled at the thought.

"What better time than now to learn the way of things. I also do not wish to be a burden to you," Ari said as he eyed Sascha's pocket once more.

More importantly, Ari had a hungry desire to know what was in that dark vile and where they was going and what they was doing. Demons said one thing but that may mean many other things. Sascha was no exception. There was much power in their touch—in their blood— for Ari to ignore. He could hardly imagine Sascha living in such squalid conditions or living as a minor errand fetcher.

"Hard work betrays none. Is that not one of your old order's sayings?" Sascha mused as they started down the stairs.

Ari soon trailed after them with heavy footsteps. His eyes lowered still unused to the idea of being no longer apart of the Khaeo. With that he should do away with the orders uniform and rules and teachings that no longer held relevance to his life, but that was much easier said than done.

"Forgive me. I did not mean to resurface old wounds," Sascha said looking back as if disquieted by his silence.

"It is fine. They are old wounds and have been old for some time. Scabs."

"Scabs, are they now? What an interesting word choice. Peel them away too fast they will leave a scar."

"You seem to have an answer for everything," Ari retorted.

"No, not everything," Sascha laughed. They had a wistful smile much like the one Cyrus had shown him time and time again. It was full of pretty white teeth with nice-sized lips to match. As with all greats and blood demons, they were attractive. "I wish I did..."

Outside, the air was cold and wet. Rain continued to fall but it was a slow and light drizzle which Ari was thankful for. His eyes gravitated back to Sascha again, not bothering to keep track of where they were going—a big mistake in the eyes of Sanclii.

"Some part of me is glad you do not. If you did, I would only mistrust you more," Ari said.

"So you mistrust me now?"

Ari shrugged his shoulders. "You give me little reason to trust you. It cannot simply be traded for a bath and warm room."

Again, Sascha laughed covering their mouth as they did. A habit of theirs, maybe. "And do not forget blood. Or does that not count because it was from a cup and not my neck?"

Heat rose to Ari's face in a matter of seconds. They were cheeky, but it was welcomed. Ari let out a small titter, rubbing his neck all the while. "No, I just always took from the person directly. It was what I knew."

"I see..." Sascha thumbed their cheek as if in deep thought before they began again. "Old ones have strong blood. Almost acidic, asphyxiating, yet still so addictive and illustrious as they claim it to be."

Ari very well knew what they meant by his words. Auovin's blood could not be described with taste but rather with how it made him feel and Sascha's words painted how he felt in a way he never could. Just thinking about it made his throat itch.

"It is unwise to drink from them without fully knowing all it entails. That is foolish."

And a fool was what he was—what he had become. Ari no longer wished to go back to Freir and Rein because he was too ashamed about the person he had become. Freir would not be proud. Rein would be nothing but disappointed in him. As for Nolan...

The clouds parted just enough to let a little light escape blinding Ari for a moment. He covered his eyes with his arm. When the clouds covered the light again, there was a smell of rotting flesh in the air. Immediately, Ari surveyed his surroundings looking for he cause of the stench but there was nothing out of the unusual.

"Sascha..." Ari whispered.

"I am aware." Sascha continued to walk forward, stepping into puddle after puddle. A flash of shadows rushed between the alleyways and sides of unfamiliar shaped buildings distorting right before his very eyes. Even the ground began to corrode and crumble beneath his feet. Panic shot through his veins. His first instincts were to run, but what sense would that make if there was no ground left to walk on?

"Close your eyes," Sascha said.

"What?"

"Close them," Sascha said close to his ear. They covered Ari's eyes with their hand and chuckled. "So young you must be to fall for tricks like these made by the lessers."

Once Sascha removed their hand from his face, the ground was covered in red rainwater and bodies of misshapen demons with bludgeoned, bulging red eyes that could protrude out of their faces at any given moment. Ari shielded his nose from the onslaught of days old festering flesh. Sharp claws and jagged teeth would have been what greeted him next if Sascha had not been there.

"What was... "

"It seems as though my conjecture was correct," Sascha mumbled and ushered Ari forward.

Ari's brows furrowed as Sascha continued to walk as if nothing happened, however, Ari could smell blood, Sascha's blood. It leaked from the hand Sascha tried to hide back in his pocket.

"The person who I traveled with warned me of demons, skin changers and gluttonous eaters, along with some other demons I cannot remember. Which of them were they?"

"I call them Echoes."

"Echoes?"

"Because they can mirror your sound in order to stalk, corner and kill you. Sneaky little bastards," Sascha hissed cradling his injured hand now. "We must hurry."

Ari picked up his pace and rounded the corner after Sascha. When he opened a door Ari went in after him. It was quickly shut behind him causing Ari to jump from surprise. A figure stood behind him, but Ari resisted the urge to turn around and check. Something in him told him not to. The presence felt too familiar, too dark for him to ignore.

"Have a seat," a voice bellowed. Ari recognized that voice. It sent shivers down his spine.

Chairs scooted across the hard wooden floors. Ari whirled around but soon cold callous hands came and pushed him into a chair facing a darkly lit face. As a candle was lit Ari's eyes widened at the malicious smile that greeted him through the darkness.

"Inge," Ari whispered.

"Well, hello there, kitten."

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