"The ultimate solutions to problems are rational; the process for thinking them is not" -Unknown

Ewan did not like his opponent in the practice ring. Or, to be more precise, he did not like his opponent there nor what he had been asked to teach. What he liked or did not like was of little matter. He taught as he was compelled, and he did not shirk for the sake of his disgruntled feelings.

The building was vibrant with noise, awake to the sounds of instructors calling out their advice to combatants of varying ages and talents. Pei's own collective of students were in the back room, shielded against their magics escaping the confines of instruction. Others were in the cordoned off sections. It allowed for those new to the school and the art of combat to see the skill of those who have studied longer. It reminded those who studied longer of where they had started.

Ewan's own student, however, did not need such reminders. They were there in the sharp eyes, in the instinctual moves long buried beneath years of restraint. Blades drawn up, Ewan motioned to begin the exchange once more. Strike, block, slash, dodge, cross and counter in the deadly dance. They worked with edges and the danger real. When a strike would have been made, they halted, examined how and why, and continued.

His opponent should have been dead five times over. It was to be expected though. Ewan was an assassin. This was his living and his purpose, now transformed into instructing others. Death was his gift. His opponent's was a knack for living. Threats came and went and came again, in forms unforeseen and troubling.

But weariness was not unexpected in the pale complexion across from him. There were years and worries that had robbed muscles of longevity. There was ability blunted by restrictions. "Tired?" He asked softly as they disengaged from the latest tangle of blades and arms.

"No," Sylvia answered, breathing past sweat and years of suppressing her skills with blades; skills built from younger years of being a mercenary. Skills she would need once more. "Again."

"Of course you realize this is the end. There is no turning back." Ewan sat with his back to the wall of the small room. His arms loose hanging over the raised knees. He watched the man take the six paces to one side of the room and back. Blood caked dirty black along his brow. Ewan's own wounds were bruising annoyances along his thigh and back.

"What do you mean?" The pacing stopped and a too pale face with the hollowing of panic beneath brow eyes turned to him.

Ewan gestured around the room. "Look around you. Smell around you. This place has no windows." Lights from three lanterns sputtered against the walls except the wall with the door was completely bereft. "It smells of the sea. The brine fills your lungs, aching as they do." Ewan also breathed in deep of the salty tainted air. "You are going to die. You choose how to spend your last moments."

To the man's credit, he didn't tremble though it was hard to tell if he went any paler. Grey mixed with the brown of his beard. He had been a wise choice to infiltrate Yearling Brook manor. Caught on his departing by one of Sid's forest dwellers. Ewan had found him trapped beneath the great bulk of a bear's paws. The confrontation to subdue him enough to get him to the room of the Tunnels had been brief with a timely clout to the man's head.

"What if I swear my allegiance to you?" The man rasped out of a dry throat.

Ewan stood with a sigh. "That is not what I seek. I need information, not a turncoat. Who is behind this coup of Nightshade lands? This really is quit simple. You tell me in order to prevent others from dying, and then you die. Or you don't tell me and then you die."

It came down to whether the man thought Ewan was bluffing or not. There was nothing for the man to read or infer from Ewan's expression, though his pinched eyes and hand rubbing, dirty palm to dirty palm continued as he searched for some clue.

The count came in the silence of their breathing, Ewan's slower than the man's so he used his own. Twenty breaths and he asked, "Your decision?"

"I will not betray my last employer." The emphasis caught. He still promoted, hoped that a show of loyalty would save him. Ewan just smiled at him. It was a smile that often sent men into a whirl of panic. The man before him just took one step back.

Ewan opened the door and jerked his head toward the room. "Looks like you get what you want, Jarrod."

The vampire smiled his perfect smile, the fangs showing pristine and prepared. "Always a pleasure doing business with you, Quicksand." He pushed his way past the door. "Hello there," he purred.

Ewan smelled panic, he had known it all too well the stench of it. It was brief before the door closed. Brine took over and the distant surge of the sea haunted the corridors.

The streets were shimmering with the reflections from the world along their rain coated paths. A gloss of red from a store sign twinkled along cobblestones and pale shutters of blue reflected along cements. Puddles formed and were disturbed by the rush of populace determined for their destinations in carriage and on foot.

Ewan walked out among them, avoiding shadows so prevalent on a rainy day. He felt no hurry even as the rain tickled cool drops through his hair to his scalp. The soaking pressed tunic to his arms and darkened the brown of his leather brigantine. Straps of belts and sheaths took on an added weight about his shoulders and his hip. But he had dressed for work, or more precisely to take up a shift or two.

It was good to see the building still in good repair, looking well tended. Whistling Downs Holding House kept its stone facade clean, the front windows, those not barred, showed no sign of abuse. Ewan smiled, as he doubted of all the Holding Houses that it would with Juliana at the helm. Any rocks or other elements thrown through the window would find the glass reformed in a matter of moments. There were, Ewan had to admit with a nerve scratching twinge, magic was handy at times.

Magic was, if there was full truth in the shallows of his thoughts, of use many times. It was simply he could not fight it that made him despise it so. A failing that he still struggled with eventhough in the past four years he had put magic to use for his plans and he had married into the confusion of it.

Pressing the door open, Ewan felt the brush of a breeze cool and dry him and he cringed. "Juliana? You know I hate when you do that."

The scrapping of a chair from the back office coincided with heads peaking out from doorways. But it was Juliana that said anything at all as she strode out of her office, shoving up the long sleeves of her cloak. "And how the hell am I supposed to know you are going to show up after months, nay years?"

Ewan looked about the building and then slid a grin to her. "You could not sense it?"

That got him a glare and the distinct feeling of spiders crawling over his skin. A concentrated thought to fight against the illusion sent the sensation away. Juliana grinned. "You have been practicing. And you have been in trouble." She looked at his hands where the wounds showed, pink and white in their healing lines. "We had heard something of it." She did not ask if he was well, but it was there in her eyes.

"I have come to take on a few tours. I should be on time for a shift change, am I not?" It was as much of answer to his well being that he allowed. Even in his absence, there were things that did not change. He trusted that the need for him not to be explicit was one of them.

"Yes, you are." Juliana looked to the board on the wall, chalk old world style, and called into the room. "Bernard, you have an extra with your team."

There was a general laugh and a few claps as a stocky dwarven man with his full metal disc beard gleaming black came out. "Good. We need long legs."

Two more came from the room, one obviously the runner, and the third the arcane artificer. Ewan knew none of these faces, and it struck him hard how little contact he had with the Holding Houses of late. But some things had not changed, and that was the system of three. He would be a fourth, but it would not matter. He was going to get to know the Holding Houses again. It was time to support what he had started.

"Rain. Makes the armor sound like a tinker's tunebox." Bernard grumbled through a hearty grin as he strode out the door. "Come along, crew. We have sanity to bring to pockets of this city." Ewan smiled and followed out, just one of the team, not the leader, not the expected savior, just one other man with a sword to his back and scars on his body.