Weeding out the Weak ((Semi-Open))

Mai barely looked up. Only just enough to see Vlad in her peripheral vision. She'd say nothing, her lips instead pinching together with a look of mild discomfort reaching her young features. Her fingers tug at the edges of her kimono, before starting towards Vlad cautiously. Her frame stiffened with tension the closer she drew towards him before finally seated herself in the chair next to him.

"...ok.." she said weakly, half-looking at Talon with those violet orbs, studying him carefully. Her hands folded in her lap, with her shoulders tightened together slightly showing just how uneasy she was being there.

Mai gave him an incredibly uncomfortable glance as she curled her fingers against her lap, feeling her small frame tremble under the man's gaze. She'd focus her eyes on her lap with a growing frown, "M-Mai.." she said just barely audible to both men. She'd not reach out for the wine unless it was offered, being rather skittish and uneasy. Her eyes remained focused downward, ears ever alert to the sounds in the man's home.

Vladimir noticed that she wasn't looking at him when she spoke.
"You know its rude to look down when you speak."
He would move his hand to her chin forcing her to turn her head towards him, gazing into her eyes with his crimson pupils. Only now did he notice the bruises.
"What is this? Was Talon too rough with you?"
He turned his attention to Talon now.
"You must be more gentle next time...ruining such a pretty face should be a crime."
He chuckled knowing that he had done worse to a pretty woman's face in the past.
"Let me help you with that, Mai? Sky?"
He moved his hand he had on her chin all around the bruised areas, repairing the capillaries and ultimately removing the purplish-blue marks from her face.
"There you are my dear."
He would lean back in his chair now, leaving a glass of wine on the table next to her as he drank from his.
"So when do you both plan on leaving?"
He looked to Talon once again.
"Or were you just going to leave her here the rest of her life, hmmm?"
Vladimir grinned at the thought of having his own foreign servant.

"We will be leaving when I have rested. I have much work ahead of me. The footsteps I follow are much larger than my own." Talon brushed his blade almost lovingly, sparing a moment in the comfort of the chair before pushing himself back onto his feet and casting a backward glance at the man whose home they both inhabited at the moment. His working relationship with the Crimson Reaper had always been a comfortable one, professional even. The fact that Vlad would allow the Blade's Shadow into his home was comforting in a strange way.

It felt almost like trust, something Talon had, more times than one, seen broken over little more than a few pieces of gold. Respect, he settled in his mind, was what kept them together. Vladimir had always done what he wished to do, with the strength he possessed. Yes, it was a unique strength, but he was not deceitful about it. The man was worthy of Talon's respect, even if it did not show very often. He took a few steps toward the room Vlad had always kept for him when he'd needed somewhere inconspicuous to lie low, only to stop and give a final address to the hemomancer.

"I do not know what you wish to do with her in the mean time, but she's your responsibility until I awake. Do what you must but if she dies, it's your head, Vladimir." He gave a the man a dark smile, mixed threat and permission, before departing their presence entirely, his lingering laugh echoing off the walls.

Once in the room he'd known for so long, he locked the door. A small thing, but it set his normally sharpened mind at rest, allowing it to relax. The room was just as it had been left every other time he'd been here. Sparse. Perhaps it was because Vlad saw no reason to decorate a room he himself never used, though there was an unspoken understanding that Talon preferred the room with nothing but a place for his weaponry and a cold, hard bed.

Weapons and boots were quickly shed, placed into the only furniture in the room aside from the bed, the chest of drawers, in the lowest of compartments. All but one of the knives, of course, which was instead placed into a worn hole in the wooden bedframe. It was always placed there, on the off chance someone should come. He wouldn't hide it, should someone come, there was no need. Those who would kill him knew what he was, knew what he would do if awoken prematurely. The obvious knife was a warning.

The next was his cape, hung upon the opposite corner of the bed carefully, the blades at the end scraping quietly against the floor. The final removal was his upper coverings, thrown haphazardously into the top drawer without so much as a thought. They were to conceal him in darkness, not to protect him from harm nor for fashion. His skill was what kept his body free of the scars so many other assassins had, no more than two lines marring his torso were obvious now that he had nothing to hide them from sight. It had been so long since last he knew what a blade against his own skin felt like, though he was in no rush to remember.

Dressed more appropriately for sleep, he threw himself onto the bed, tossing for a few moments until he finally settled on his back. There was nothing on the bed besides his body and a single pillow. It felt like ice against him, but it was how he liked it. It reminded him of the many years he spent asleep in the frigid waterways of Noxus, a reassuring time. It contained every memory he'd had that was even remotely pleasant before he'd met the Du Couteau's. It was a time when his life was much more simplistic than it had become now.

He wiped his mind clean with a practiced exhalation and closed his eyes, falling asleep not long after with his hands on his stomach.

Sky looked wearily after Talon as he left to his sleeping quarters. Her eyes squinting with agitation, perturbed at being left to the creepy man's care. At his question, she turned to look at him with a growing frown soon enough averting her gaze to the glass of wine. It didn't take her much effort to simply grab and chug it again, coughing a little at the after taste when it hit her.

"Ionia.." She muttered as she curled up even tighter in the chair. Her eyes remaining off Vlad, uncomfortable at being so near him.

She'd chug the wine again, clearly starting to show a bit of intoxication as she nearly tips the cup upon setting it down, "...ngh.." She looks mildly agitated with a growing frown, "I dunno.." Her voice remaining somewhat quiet when she spoke to him. She was still skittish as heck around him. The wine did nothing to sooth her suspicions.