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"To be honest, I'd love to go and check it out, myself," Tristan replied, crossing his arms over his chest in a confident way. "It would be nice to have a little self-experience for writing a story like this, and I've always wanted to explore down there. The truth is I'm scared to death of going there at all." He said this last bit without moving a muscle. He continued to stand like a brave warrior.

He was used to admitting how cowardly he was at certain things, like going into the Cesspit, and he really didn't get bothered by it anymore.

"A true man always admits his fears," his father once told him. "Unless that fear is a fear of bugs, or spiders, and then that's just a sissy boy." His father told him this when Tristan was just a boy, telling his dad that a spider was in the tub, making it impossible for him to bathe. His father told him to suck it up and kill the damn bug on his own. This resulted in a nasty spider bite, and an illness that lasted a month.

((I know, I said it was getting close to one-liners, not that it was. Not trying to blame you, sorry.))

Triandra plodded down the alleys, bare feet passing softly over the mucky cobblestones. She was almost to the cesspit now. The wound in her foot had stopped bleeding, whether it was from the dirt being shoved into the gash or simple scabbing was impossible to tell. The girl brushed dark hair from her eyes in order to glance at the sky. It had begun to tint itself red.

"A sky of blood, how fitting." Tria chuckled darkly and limped slowly towards her house, she could feel the bruise on her cheek fade into nothing, could feel the power pool in her veins. Finally, the time had come. Tria's eyes hardened and became even darker than their original pitch color. Her hair grew slightly, and was bound into a tight ponytail atop her head, held there by a band of shadows. She lips curved slightly into a half smile, filled with darkness.

The sky became redder as the sun continued it's descent. Tria entered her shack, pushing aside rotting slabs of wood. Her body seemed almost transparent as she walked through the many shadows, her feet whispering on the old boards. Termite and ants shuddered in their homes as the woman became blacker and blacker until she was a part of the shadows, and no movement of hers could be detected. The night was arriving, and the night was hers.

Triandra moved through the shadows, parting them with her flesh. She glanced at her surroundings, darkened pictures of people closing their shutters for the night ran through her mind. Tria patted her thigh, smiling in anticipation when she felt her dagger under her dirty rags. Her mind then turned to the subject of her victim. Thoughts processed... and then things went white. White? at night?

Her eyes opened, and she discovered that she had fallen asleep in a back alley. She glanced at the sun, two hours past noon. Her body shook with frustration. She wanted to get moving! But killing in the day was too dangerous, even if it would create more panic, it was too dangerous. She had lived her entire live here and didn't want that to change because of her duty.

Yawning, Triandra stood up and stretched out her legs. Then she set off for the cesspit in a round-a-bout way. Waiting in her beaten up abode was not something that appealed to the young girl. Instead, she locked her hands behind her back and looked about herself with wide eyes as she toured the city.

As she walked, she came upon a curious pair. A girl sat on a broomstick talking to a man. Triandra figured she had a long wait, and decided to go and see these people. Unsure of how they would act (they both were dressed nicely, and that could mean trouble) Tria approached slowly.

Triandra stopped at the right elbow of the man, looked up at the woman with wide, dark eyes, and spoke in a quiet hesitant voice. "How does your broom work?"

Lailia frowned at Tristan's laugh, and then started slightly at the girl's appearance. Her broom bobbed slightly. "It's enchanted with air elemental magic," she answered without thinking. The question was always asked. "Um... Who are you?"

The witch stared at the girl curiously. She had never seen anyone this dirty or poorly dressed in her life. How did she get to the upper city?

[[I think it's bajeezus. Idk.]]

<3

(( What's that supposed to mean? "One of those nobles"? You got something against wussy rich men? >>; Jk xD Poor Tristan.))

Tristan took a deep breath, finally calming himself, and turned toward the girl. He almost cried out again, but flinched slightly instead, at the sight of the rags the girl wore. To be honest, he was expecting her to be a noble child. He repeated the same thought of Lailia's in his own mind. How did she get to the upper city?

But suddenly, a spark flashed in his eye. It was like destiny that this girl should sneak up on him right on the moment he needed an excuse for not going to the cesspit. At this moment now, all he could do was dig into his bag for his pen and some paper, and feel slightly thankful for the murder that would never be.

With his pen, he immediately began writing down the girl's appearence and her description of where she lived. Maybe he could turn this story into a sort of tear-jerker, so people who read this might start a charity or something. At least something good might come out of his words.

"And what of your parents?" he asked the girl, all signs of cowardness gone away from his body. "Do they live in the same conditions as you? Do they work at all? Are they abusive towards you?"

Triandra raised her eyebrows. She looked at the man and saw him scribbling on a piece of paper. She had never learned to read, they just looked like scratch marks to her, but she knew it meant something to others. She regarded this man with suspicion. Tria didn't want to jump to any conclusions, but it was hard to keep her temper under control, especially when he started with the questions.

To keep herself from blowing up, Triandra looked around. It was a nice street, part of the upper city. Large buildings, clean. And then she looked at the couple again. They belonged here, seemed like they did at least. And the boy especially seemed like it. Disregarding her, just wanting information, for his own purposes probably.

Although she wasn't comfortable with the whole idea of them being written down, she answered anyway. "An orphan. That means no parents... I thought you guys had education here, like schools.. My mamma died from lung rot a few years back, and I never had a daddy." Triandra looked uncomfortably at the piece of paper. Being known by people could be a blessing or a curse, but being written about was a topic foreign to her.

Lailia's eyes widened in surprise and concern for Tria. Was the Cesspit really that terrible? "Do you have no one to take care of you?" she asked, her astonishment quite evident.

Lailia didn't have a family either. Not anymore. She was taken away when she was very young and taken to the Witches Academy. But she always had someone to watch out and care for her, whether a mentor, a servant, or a guard. Tria's life was quite foreign to the pampered witch.

<3

Rather than being relieved, Lailia's horror increased. "You have to steal to live?" She looked at Tristan. "We need to do something about..." She broke off.

No... this was the way it was supposed to be, was it not? Weren't the scales already tipping too far in their favor? Helping the girl was her first instinct, but could she risk it?

Triandra raised her eyebrows. Didn't these people know anything about life? It made the watcher in her sad. People were supposed to go through hardships, it helps them grow. And even if they have a very cushy life, once disaster strikes, it strikes hard. Not that this was the case here in this city. Sure, the Cesspit still existed, but the people were fewer and had better pockets to pick. Not to mention less abuse in the way of higher ranking persons, like the ones before her.

Gently, as if talking to a child, Tria answered the witch's question. "Life isn't all sunshine and daisies you know. Even if at the moment it's doing quite well. There has been times in this city where Cesspit children starved to death before they even got to be a year old. The others survived mostly by eating the very bugs that crawled over them. Every winter brang fear, fear of freezing to death. Fear of not finding dead prey or any plants or bugs that were edible.

" People turned nasty. Their minds got warped. Random killings, not even for money, began to happen. Bloodlust, outburst of anger. Dozens of bodies were set out each day for the Dark God's priests to take away. It was not uncommon to pass a child, crying and half dead in the streets, no one willing to claim it because then they would be responsible for feeding it. At least we have something to steal."

Triandra looked over at the man, then nervously at his sheet, She didn't want to be written about at all, especially not a pity article. That would just make the nobles help only to aid their own image. They didn't care. And it would only add to the good, not to the evil. Besides, it wouldn't help when her killings started to get to the royal palace. Then everyone would be suspect. Even though Tria could easily escape the dungeon, she didn't want to have to leave the city because of pursuit.

"If possible," she said quietly "I would prefer not being written about at all.."