Annora rested her troubled head in her pillow; she was alone with all her friends trying to find a way to rescue Gretel. Malorin had left to seek an audience with higher powers to try and secure her peaceful release, an act that seemed to have little hope. Nunu on the other hand had decided that the mechanical squirrel would have an excellent idea where to go and swiftly set off after that.
"So that leaves me here… unable to do anything…" She thought aloud as her eyes ran over the wood grain in a large oak ceiling beam. For the first time in months she placed her hand on her head and peeled off the leather cap she usually wore. It had been so long since Annora had been able to run her hands through her ratty brown hair the feeling sent shivers down her spine. But the awkward feeling of uneasiness and vulnerability began to take hold and she replaced the cap. Annora hated her head.
When she was only a young girl growing up in the bowels of this city there where never any friends and now lying with her face in a pillow and no one to talk to reminded her of those times. She had known her father for a while but he seemed to see her as more of a chore than a daughter and Annora was glad when he died in the war. However things only got worse as she was forced onto the street, because unlike the other orphans charities didn't like Annora and her head.
So Annora stole things; small things at first in the name of survival. However as time went on and things didn't improve, the developing you girl was forced lower into degradation. She was only thirteen when she killed a person, stabbed them in the back of the neck and her innocent victim was still making a spluttering gurgle as Annora made off into the night with her gold pouch.
Those had been bad times and she would have done anything to survive but then one night she met Malorin in Goldshire. She stopped stealing, she stopped drinking, she stopped killing people, it was like someone flicked a switch and she became a different person.
"Now I'm alone again… even if it's just for a bit…" Her eyes scanned the roof for something other than the plaster clad thatch to look at but didn't find anything so she decided to just shut them instead. Trying to ease her nerves Annora laid her left hand on her chest and gently groped herself to little success. "I need a drink…"
She sauntered solemnly downstairs and into the front area of the tavern before draping herself over the counter, lazily demanding a pint of whatever will get her drunk the fastest. Out of the corner of her eye, past a small group of hopefuls she spots someone familiar go past in the street and with a scattering of several coins she is off after them.
"Hey!" She yells as she closes in the distance and Janus turns around.
"Yes my lady?" The small man gracefully replied.
"You where the one talking to Mal right?" Annora talks in a hurry as she catches her breath a little and he nods politely. "You where offering to save Gretel right?"
"That I was, however our dear Malorin decided that the price that had to be paid was to great." He explained in a miraculously unpatronising manor.
"Well what if I hired you instead? How much did you want?"
"As I explained to our mutual friend its not so much what I am to be paid as how many people she is accepting that I have to kill. However if you are to save her any grief this must of corse remain our little secret. Additionally I already know that you have no qualms about letting a few or possibly a dozen throats be slit by your command so might I ask a… special favour as well?" Janus spoke quickly, it would have been hard for any person to follow and Annora seemed lost until a smirk crept onto his face at the end of her short speech.
"Wait… no… what… Oh you little perv." She stammered, finally figuring out everything he had just said.
"I am as mortal as any man in more ways than one and I only asking this favour in that hopeful regard."
"Umm… aren't you and Mal engaged?" Annora's voice was shrill and worried, desperately searching for a way out of having to grant this favour. Inside she somehow felt that if she turned him down he would still help but behind that there was another voice. A niggling voice that sunk its hooks into her brain 'Do it' it said 'If you don't he will go away and you will never see Gretel again.'
"That is true, however what love there once may have been evaporated long ago. We have grown distant and I do not judge her for any action she chooses to take, the same way she does not judge me. Though we are both bound by our words neither of us wish to hold the other back."
'You've slept with men for less, even mere copper and a night in a bed.'
"What if she finds out?" She pleaded, trying to get him to release her from having to grant this favour.
"I doubt it would be a shock to my betrothed that you are human enough to sleep with another, who it is matters not in her eyes." His voice reacted instantly to hers and became a comforting whisper.
'If you don't you are murdering Gretel.'
"I don't have a choice do I?" Annora hung her head in defeat.
"There is always choice, the real question is do you have the strength to do what needs to be done?" They both knew what was going on and Annora was powerless to stop it.
"I…" She grit her teeth together and her arm shot out and dug its fingers into his shoulder involuntarily. "I'm not Malorin… I know what is right but… I…" Janus smiled unflinchingly even though her nails where drawing his blood "I accept…"