AS KAZ BREKKER GAZED METICULOUSLY UPON— Cassian, who wasn't doing best to hide whatever it was she was afraid of; his interest was peaked. Like all who knew well about the legend of the Dragon of the West, he was the one who shifted through all of the clues, he was the one to found the patterns. He was the one that found her drinking away her sorrows in some saint-forsaken pub and may have done the most notorious thing to ask her to sign a contract with the Dregs. But like all things, Kaz Brekker is a planner. He is intelligent as he is cunning. And he doesn't leave any stone unturned.
"You seem nervous," he pipped up as he strolled beside Cassian who only tensed up, throwing her shoulders a little bit higher before pinching the inner corner of her cheek while turning away from him.
"I am not nervous," Cassian clicked as she could feel her long nails sinking into her skin with every passing second that she clenched her nails into the palm of her hands.
They both knew that was a lie. Perhaps for someone so observant as Kaz Brekker himself, the stone-cold expression in her eye when he told her someone was asking to see her was indeed enough for the pressing theories in his mind to be soothed. He had managed to reel out the truth about her those many years ago, a Grisha Inferni who managed to come out of the Fold scathed —but alive. Yet, he never asked why.
He watched her from the corner of his eye. He took note of how her hands were clenched into fists, he could make out her ruby red nails pressing deeper into her skin until sometime sooner blood would pour out of her palms. Being observant wasn't so much of a downfall as to gain information about who this stranger was. Cassian was the answer to the puzzle itself. Whether to determine if this newcomer was a friend or foe to Ketterdam.
"Alright then, you're not nervous. But do you have any idea why you're being asked to see someone in Per Haskell's office? He wasn't too pleased to be evicted by someone of such power," Kaz added on ever so slightly, his eyes watching the older woman bite back whatever words wanted to escape her lips. Yet she could not hide the shade of colour that was making her face look ever so pale.
Someone of such power? No, it couldn't be him.
Not that vile, pretentious man that had left her for dead in that saint forsaken Fold. The very man she would follow to the ends of the Earth, to defend him and Ravka with her very life. No. This couldn't be that fucking bastard. The one that replaced her with some Squaller in an instant, the one watched her sink into the curtains of darkness with a cold smile on his face. But he was a man of power. Even if she didn't want to believe it or not.
"Look, kid. I'm just as confused as you are, okay? The last time I checked I didn't have any powerful friends," Cassian muttered as she proceeded to stop puncturing her skin with her nails. Instead, she found her fingers twisting the rings on her other hand in hopes that it would soothe her. Powerful friends? More like powerful enemies?
"What is it that you're not telling me, Tamura?"
Now he was just being outright rude. Kaz was the only one that knew that Cassian was once a general of the First Army. He also knew that for whatever reason, someone had decided to strip her away of her title and ultimately cast her out into the Fold like she was nothing but meat on a platter for the volcra. All he did was simply connect two dots into one to understand why she scorched so many shipments up into flames that were being sent to the First Army, she was once a Grisha herself. So why turn her back on her people? He was lacking one thing in this mystery. And that was the why?
"Nothing too serious. Just something between Ravka and me. Between having Ketterdam being blown up into flames," Cassian replied cooley as she dared not to gaze down at the young boy who had done nothing but use his knifing tricks to get whatever sort of truth he wanted out of her.
"Seems reasonable enough,"'
"Just take me to him, Kaz,"
So it's a him.
𖤐₊ ˚ .༄𖤐
HER HANDS TREMBLED AS SHE FUMBLED TO TWIST THE KNOB OPEN— of Per Haskell's quarters. Behind that door was to expected the Darkling himself. The very man that had sent her out to die in the Fold, the one who replaced her like she was insufficient, nothing absolutely nothing. He had found her. He found me. And this time, he was going to finish the job he set out to do a long time ago, and watch her blood spill from his hand.
Perhaps not telling Kaz that an all-powerful Grisha who could one day take over Ravka was a good idea. There was no chance in hell that even the Dregs or every gang in Ketterdam could amount to the power that the Darkling had. He was a fucking demon inside the body of a beautiful soul. But to be fair, behind the scenes he was his demise. He let Cassian claw her way out of hell to light every shipment in flames before it even reached Ravka. He was her demise, she was his ruination.
So indeed this encounter must have been for the better. She reassures herself as she twists the knob, straightening her back, ready to meet with her vile maker. Expected to see the dark kefta right in the centerline of her vision, it is replaced with a tall boy about her age with the oddest shade of red hair she's ever seen.
Muddy green eyes, an overly pointed chin and a nose that looked like it had been broken but never put back correctly in the right place. There was something about his smirk as he looked at her that makes her feel at ease. Perhaps it's because he's not wearing that saint-forsaken black kefta, rather some sort of leathery bottle green jacket with some brown breeches. He appears to be calm, anyone who can rest their back on the edge of Per Haskell's desk has to be mad or extremely relaxed so Cassian will go with the second option.
A compass at his side, and what appeared to be two guns in a holster at each side of his hip —a fucking pirate? Considering who she thought would be the first person Cassian would see as she stepped into this room, this pirate seemed like a better option than seeing the Darkling in the flesh.
"Cassian Tamura!" He exclaims throwing his arms up in the air, a jubilant grin crossing his face as he made his way over towards her. "We meet in the flesh! I was hoping to finally meet the Dragon of the West," he remarked as he cocked his head to the side while coming so close to Cassian that their noses were almost touching.
"And just who might you be?" She snapped as she eyed him up and down with an upturned lip of disgust.
"I go by many names, love," he started while his eyes locked with hers. "But you can call me Sturmhond,"
no lies and no deceiving, that is what he loves i keep tryin' to conceive that death is from above —I'M SO SORRY /❛ song by imagine dragons❜
