The turian rushed from the common room as quickly as his feet would carry him. Still clearly terrified to be in the same room as me. I smirked despite myself, it often amused me just how much of an affect my reputation had on others. Though to the young man's credit, he'd at least mastered his nerves enough to sit down to a meal with me. And even when it came to it, attempt conversation with me.

I almost had it in me to admire his bravery.

Though his chosen subject of conversation could not have been more poorly chosen. What had he meant by asking me about Balarek?

A red haze threatened to overtake my vision at even the merest thought of him. A spike of adrenaline coursing through me, my muscles tensing and my hands clenching and unclenching as I Imagined my hands closed around his filthy throat, his four eyes bulging, spittle flying from his mouth as I throttled the life from him-.

I tore myself back from my fantasies only with great difficulty.

It had been like this ever since that day. Every thought and every emotion was turned to anger and violence. The impulse was always there. Boiling like magma beneath my skin, the urge to hurt, to rip, to tear, to kill. Something vicious and rabid now howled beneath my thoughts. And I knew that only Sedibus' corpse laid at my feet would satisfy it.

It was becoming like a physical need. As dangerous to my well-being as if I had chosen not to eat or to breathe. I needed to kill him. Needed to break his body and spill his blood and see the light leave his eyes. Only then would I be centered again. Whole, and focused on what was important.

I rose from the table. Shaking myself, as if hoping that would rid me of the subtle vibration that seemed to have settled just beneath my skin. I moved to the window, not for the view. But for the cushion that sat before it. I sat down, legs crossed. And shut my eyes, reigning in my emotions was a fruitless endeavor I knew. So I simply focused on my breathing. On centering myself. Bringing the fire within down to a simmering blaze rather than a raging inferno.

I remained like this for what seemed an eternity. And noticed only after a few moments that my scenery had changed.

I opened my eyes.

It was not an unfamiliar sight. But it had been some time since I had last stepped foot here.

The wooded clearing was as serenely peaceful as it had ever been. A gentle breeze passed through the canopy above me. The sky above caught in the panoply of colors produced by a perpetual sunset.

I did not rise nor turn to acknowledge the presence that stood behind me.

"Why am I here?"

I asked. Merlin circled around my sitting form to sit across from me before making to answer.

"Because you are not yourself welp."

I bristled at that, eyes narrowing.

"I am more myself than I have ever been. If you've called me here with hopes of dissuading me then you will be disappointed."

Merlin shook his head.

"Your passion has overridden your sense, torn your gaze from your duty and made you a slave to your emotions. Surely you do not believe that a quest to avenge yourself upon a single brigand is a worthwhile use of your efforts?"

"He.NEEDS. To die!"

I ground out. The words more growled than spoken. Merlin sighed.

"You are shirking responsibilities in your selfishness that cannot be ignored. Every moment you spend fixated on this preoccupation is one the great enemy can use to gather ever greater strength. You cannot afford to be ruled by the concerns that govern the lives and wills of ordinary men!"

I exploded to my feet.

"I will hear no more of this. You cannot possibly understand-!"

Merlin scoffed.

"The mark of the young and the foolish. To think that they are the only ones to have ever felt grief, or loss, or heartbreak! You are called to higher things than this petty vendetta!"

"Petty?! PETTY?!"

My hand lashed out and a wave of repulsive force slammed into my teacher. Sending him across the clearing and slamming into a nearby tree. Crumpling into a heap at its roots.

"How dare you? HOW DARE YOU!? After all he has done! After all he has taken from me?! I will not be turned from this! I won't! I must kill him, I WILL kill him! And that is the end of it!"

I tore myself from that place. My surroundings returning to that of my ship. I rose, shaking. My breath coming in shallow gulps. Clearly my attempt at meditation had been a failure. There was nothing else to be gained from idleness.

I turned from the view of the void outside and strode from the room. My mind not in the least bit calmed or centered.

As I stalk back toward my quarters. I feel Umbra's presence slither on the outer edges of my awareness.

"Speak."

I say. As the being that is a species of one falls into step beside me.

"You will be pleased to know, master, that we will soon arrive at our destination."

Anticipation sang in my blood and thrummed beneath my skin. It was the first surge of even remotely positive emotion I had felt in some time. Good…

I altered my course to take me to the ship's small bridge.

"Alert our… guest."

I say.

"I will ensure our transition out of FTL is a smooth one."

Umbra bows, ever obedient.

"It shall be done."

I hear him say.

And then I am alone again. My feet continue to carry me until the door to the ship's bridge is before me. Hissing open and allowing me entrance inside.

In truth. The room I stepped into was caught somewhere in the limbo between being a bridge and being a cockpit. There are two unoccupied command consoles sitting off to the left and right. Their backs to one another. While the pilot and copilot seats sat beside each other. The ship's controls spread out between them.

For the most part I kept the ship's processes automated. By preference and necessity. Since I had no desire to hire any permanent crew. And since it left me free to pursue other interests. But there we're still some things I preferred to do myself.

I slid into the pilot's chair. And let the sticks slide into my grip. I glanced at the screen in anticipation.

Leaving FTL in three… two… one…

The ship rapidly decelerated to a speed within the bounds of conventional physics with a slight but noticeable jolt. And I gently throttled the ship to a more sedate pace. Front facing thrusters burning hard to reach my desired velocity.

"Transition successful. Drive cooldown in progress."

An automated voice supplied. I dismissed the notification with a flick of my wrist and pulled up the local system map. It took a few moments as the ship pinged the local comm buoy. But within a few moments I was looking at a 2-dimensional display of the Usuran system.

Named for the head god of one of the older batarian pantheons. It was, as solar systems went. Entirely unremarkable. Two unnamed hydrogen-helium gas giants and their various moons sat on the outer edge of the system. Five comparatively smaller terrestrial bodies sat closer to the star.

My destination was the fourth world from the center. Jorinda, a fairly bog standard habitable garden world. Oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere. 31 hour day, 1.5G at the surface and the expected levels of biome diversity for a planet of its apparent age and size. It and its large moon Harsana, which orbited significantly closer to its world than Luna did to Earth. were the only two inhabited bodies in the system.

Harsana, a Venusian hothouse. With surface temperatures that could liquify lead, had a limited presence in subsurface tunnels that had been bored hundreds of meters into the crust. Where an old Hegemony mining concern had exploited the slave labor of thousands to extract thousands of tons of usable ores.

Now it was little more than a dumping ground for the system's populational refuse. Anyone too far outside the local regime's graces. Or who simply did not want attention drawn to them. Inevitably ended up in the Catacombs of Harsana.

Jorinda's population was far more conventional. A midsized township surrounded by a smattering of farmsteads. With a now abandoned mining operation in the nearby mountains. It had originally been a colony of the Hegemony. But support had been withdrawn for reasons that the system didn't specify. And so Jorinda had been left to wither on the vine.

The standard of living described, read like the most lurid descriptions of industrial-era poverty on old earth. Education was nonexistent and literacy was a rare gift. Anyone old enough to work did so, working in sweatshop conditions for a pittance of pay that only barely staved off starvation and destitution. And those were the lucky segments of the population.

Jorinda held a not insubstantial slave population. Sentient chattel brought in from offworld by Balareks raids. His crew had over a dozen ships. Mostly converted civilian models, centerpieced however by the imposing two-hundred meter bulk of an antiquated Hegemony frigate. And they all plied their vile trade superlatively.

Warm, unwilling bodies were dragged in from across the Terminus, wherever the Alliance or the Citadel's fleet held no sway. (Which, it became increasingly apparent, was almost nowhere but outside their core systems.) Balareks crews, and others like them. Supplied willing buyers with chained, beaten, bomb-collared flesh to work the jobs that their owners deemed too dangerous, or themselves too good for.

The lucky ones ended up as manservants and household attendants within batarian space, the unlucky ones, which was most of them. Ended up on worlds like Jorinda. Sentenced to hard backbreaking labor from dusk till dawn without remit, without compensation. And without hope of release. Doomed to die as chattel to beings that held no value on their lives beyond the value in credits they had paid for them.

The cruelty and unfairness of it all forced a rise of bile in the back of my throat. And darkened my mood still further.

It was in this state of mind that the Turian found me when he finally made his way to the bridge. Flanked to his left by Umbra, whose presence I was amused to see unsettled him greatly. He gestured toward the display.

"So We've made it then?"

I nodded, gesturing for him to take the seat beside me.

"Yes, we just dropped in. At current speed we'll make planetfall in approximately 45 minutes."

I had never been a fast study of turian body language. But to my eye he seemed surprised by that.

"That soon? At this distance most captains would cruise in at around half throttle and get there in around 2 hours."

He looked at me, with an expression caught somewhere between fear and fascination.

"You really want that son of a bitch dead."

I said nothing in response to that, I simply turned to look back at the display. Where the pale blue dot that was Jorinda grew incrementally larger.

"Aria sent you to gather information on me."

It was not a question. And he didn't bother to deny the truth of what I'd said.

"I-. Look man, it was just a job alright? I've got nothin' against you personally. And as far as I care you can keep whatever secrets you've got. Aria wanted dirt on you, and she wanted me to provide. It's not worth my life though, even if I do piss her off."

I suppressed an unexpected urge to sigh at that. What reason did I have to care about his fortunes? But at the same time, a small quiet part of me could see the uncomfortable situation he was in. If there was one thing an extended amount of time In the Terminus taught you, it was that absolutely no one was irreplaceable. If this kid returned to Aria empty-handed, like as not she would have the nearest armed thug turn his skull into a canoe and find someone else to take his place before the day was out

And that would hardly be unusual, the Terminus created thousands of such corpses every single day. All manner of uncared for, unremarked, and unremembered faces. He would simply be another, one among the thousands. He was nothing, nobody.

So why did the thought of his pale glassy eyed corpse still turn my stomach?

From Orbit, Jorinda looked like a vision of paradise.

Most of the surface was taken up by the world's oceans, shining like a sapphire jewel in the bright light of the Usuran system's distant blue star. The continents were, by most measurable standards, eden. The planet was considerably more temperate than others of its type. With the exceptions of the poles, and some of the higher mountain ranges, Jorinda's climate was almost uniformly temperate and tropical. In most places, its worst extremes of temperature would have barely been considered autumnal on other garden worlds. As we descended through the world's atmosphere, and I read the limited information available about it. It mystified me that a world like this had gone unexploited for as long as it had.

Where were the thousands of colonists? Where was the thriving economy and burgeoning cityscapes?

We made landfall roughly half a mile outside of Jorinda's most populated settlement. This far out in the boonies most places were lucky to have a spaceport. Jorinda was no exception, and. Like with most places in Terminus space, visiting ships simply made do with wherever patches of sufficiently empty ground they could find.

My ship landed with the resounding thump of landing gear on tightly compacted earth. I had set down in a wooded clearing, with no small amount of wincing as I felt what was no doubt the prow of my vessel knocking over and crushing several trees. The ship's hull was sturdy enough that any damage would be superficial and aesthetic to be sure, but repainting the affected area would almost certainly cost a king's ransom.

The bastards that ran refurb services ALWAYS overcharged. Damn scalpers….

I swept from the bridge without so much as a word to the Turian, who I heard hurrying after me after a few moments. It was somewhat amusing to see him constantly have to master his instincts around me enough to act. I knew I had something of a reputation, but if his reaction to my mere presence was any indication then it clearly was more impactful then I had first surmised. He followed along beside and behind me, Occupying the shoulder not flanked by Umbra.

We soon entered the same hangar bay I had very nearly made the poor fellow soil himself in, I got to work equipping myself.

Nothing too excessive of course. A pistol concealed under my jacket. I decently sized combat knife on my belt to let people know I wasn't entirely helpless. And a couple paper bombs in a small satchel on my back hip.

He watched on in mute fascination as I worked to get myself kitted out for a day on the town. Eyes tracking me as a strode to one of the open lockers, pulled something out. And turned to stride over to him. He made a very obvious but successful attempt not to back away. And looked down at what I was holding out to him, In what I knew just enough about turian nonverbal cues to identify as surprise.

"Take this."

I said, without even the pretense of explanation.

He said nothing, simply robotically held out his hand and let his fingers wrap around the rounded contours of the grip. Accepting the weapon almost reverently.

I nodded and turned away. Striding over to the door controls.

I heard him as he stood stock still, breathing shallow as he inspected the weapon silently.

"W-why?"

I heard him ask as one of my hands slammed the release, and the door began to lower onto the surface and let in a blast of late evening tropical air.

"That thing is almost certainly better than whatever you brought."

I said as I began to make my way down the lowered ramp.

"And I'd rather not have you slowing me down."

I strode down onto tightly packed earth, drinking in the scents of an alien biosphere as I began a westerly heading toward what I knew would eventually be an unpaved dirt road into town. As I walked a part of me wondered why I hadn't simply been Honest with the Turian.

I'd seen him ogling that particular hand cannon with what even I could tell was no small amount of desire a little while ago, he'd seemed to gravitate to it. Almost but only just picking it up to admire it. Before backing away from it to peruse other items of my armory.

Well. I thought.

If he wanted it, why not give it to him? It wasn't as if I didn't have the means to replace it.

It was nothing really.

The humidity of the day made our trek along the main road something only slightly better than miserable. I was no stranger to long distance marches. But the heat was something I had never appreciated. Especially of the humid variety, heat that left the body coated with unevaporated sweat and made heat cling to one like a heavy suffocating blanket.

I said nothing of this as we traveled of course. I was sure the last thing the Turian wanted was to hear my whinging.

Nonetheless I was grateful as we finally arrived at the outer gate. We appeared to be the only people attempting entry this late in the evening. It took an irritating amount of time for the guard on duty to acknowledge our presence. He was batarian, and a lanky thing no older than 16 if I was any judge. Clearly tired and wishing to be anywhere but where he was.

"Who're you?"

He asked dully as he finally saw fit to act as if we existed. I stepped forward to do the talking.

"Just two travelers visiting the colony, can you let us in?"

He looked at us critically, clearly attempting to affect the air of a hardass tired of everyone's, and specifically our shit. Though on a face as young as his, it just looked sullen and petulant.

"What for?"

He asked, clearly hoping to just turn us away. My eyes narrowed, and I allowed a small amount of killing intent to permeate the air around me to lend my next words a little more potency.

"Never you mind that. Just let us in."

He frowned, cowed but obviously still unwilling to allow us entry.

"If you aren't gonna say why you're here then piss off."

I grit my teeth and felt my blood boil, of course the one guard we had run into just happened to be the only one with a spine….

I was a split instant away from simply putting a round between the obstinate little shits eyes, when the turian chose that moment to step forward.

"Look, sorry about my friend here. He's in a hell of a temper, as you can probably tell."

He said, tone placating. As he reached behind him and pulled out a credit chit. Laying it on the table in front of the guard.

"So tell you what."

He said. Laying the schmooze on thick.

"How about I give you this-."

And at this he slid the chit slowly forward.

"And you don't worry about why we're here?"

The guard looked down at the proffered bribe and then back up at us, he sighed. Then swiped the chit off the table and pushed a button under his desk. The gate began to shift clunkily open and he jerked a thumb toward the inside.

We stepped forward, and I heard the boy mutter under his breath as we passed in his native tongue.

"Just what we need, a mudcrawler and a crab."

I shot him a glare as we passed him.

"Watch your mouth."

I hissed as we filed inside, feeling an inappropriate level of satisfaction as I saw him blanch at the sound of someone with two eyes speaking his language.

I turned to the turian as we entered the town proper.

"I had that handled."

I bit out. He huffed, clearly not willing to let a little thing like mortal terror get in the way of him being right.

"Like hell you did, that kid was about 5 seconds from just telling us to get bent. That little stunt just cost me 400 credits."

He even had the temerity to glare at me.

"You're welcome by the way."

I turned away and stalked deeper along the unpaved dirt road, into the rows of dilapidated prefabs and sheet metal shacks. Not responding, partly because I had no desire to waste time by arguing with him. But mostly because I knew he was right. I simply motioned for him to follow.

Reading about Jorinda's poverty had been one thing, being confronted by the creaking, rusting, collapsing fact of it was quite another. It confronted you wherever you dared to let your gaze fall, hollow cheeked glassy eyed faces peered at me from every doorway and window, some staring at us. But mostly at nothing.

It disgusted me, horrified me, and yet something in me forced me to look. To see the pain and the apathy and the despair on every face we passed. That people, any people. Could be living like this in an age of interstellar travel galled me.

Eventually I found the building along the main road that I had been keeping my eye out for, almost every large gathering of buildings in the Terminus had one.

The local watering hole.

It was a hole in the wall by any standard, and the building would probably have been condemned by any inspector in Citadel space. But I wasn't here for the luxurious accommodations. I was here for info, places like this always had those willing to flap their gums about the local goings on as long as you kept them supplied with booze and credits. Hopefully it wouldn't take me too long to find one..

A sign bolted above the door frame written in scratched batarian script told me I was entering "THE VARREN'S HEAD." As I swung open the creaking door and stepped inside, the turian close behind me.

The inside was dimly lit, and in only a slightly better state of repair then the outside. The main counter sat to the right of us, where I could see the proprietor, an older batarian woman with a slight paunch. Absently polishing an empty glass. Which, to her credit. Appeared to be for the most part clean. And seemed to only have a few chips taken off the top of it.

She took note of us as we entered and I held up two fingers. She nodded absently and motioned noncommittally to the gathering of empty tables and chairs. I made for one along the back wall and settled into the chair with a huff.

The proprietor turned towards the door that led further inside the building. And cupped her hands to yell to someone within.

"Vatrya! Customers!"

A maiden aged asari filed out of the door, looking around briefly. She saw us, and headed over. Small datapad in one hand and a half finished cigarette in the other.

"What'll it be fellas?"

"Cheapest stuff you've got on tap for me."

I said.

The turian thought for a moment before speaking.

"Dextro mix Jacky D. On the rocks."

She nodded and punched in our orders, before walking back up to the proprietor and handing her the pad, who in turn looked at it nodded and headed into the back. A few minutes later the waitress had arrived back with our drinks. The turian wasted no time and gulped back his first mouthful of whiskey with an appreciative hum.

I took a moment to take a whiff of what was in my mug. Whatever it was, it was damn strong, a fruity scent almost overwhelmed by the strong scent of alcohol. It was precisely what I expected from a place like this.

Drinks like this were all over Terminus space, made from locally sourced ingredients by local brewers and moonshiners, it was some of the most toxic rotgut you could ever let pass your lips. The kind of drink that could strike a man dumb deaf and quite possibly dead. And I had admittedly made something of a hobby of sampling local varieties when I got the chance. I knocked back a mouthful and allowed myself to enjoy the strong burn as it traveled down my throat. Eventually settling in my stomach and warming me through.

All in all, far from the worst I'd ever had.

I was just finishing my second sip. Savoring the taste of what might have been a local fruit. When I heard them. The sound of loud conversation. And the heavy tread of feet in work boots. Soon enough the door swung open and a troop of a few dozen men filed inside. Laughing among themselves and jawing enthusiastically as they quickly and easily slid into seats that must have been their usuals. Evidently they were working men, just released from the evening shift.

The group was almost uniformly batarian, and none seemed to give us any more than a cursory glance, evidently more interested in their drinks and their company than in two newcomers. For my part I simply observed, wondering which among them would be willing to play informant. My question was answered a few moments later, when one of the last to file in, a batarian man of somewhat shorter and stockier build than his fellows, looked to us and raised a hand as he sat down.

"Hello! You are new, yes? Come, sit with us!"

The others looked at him, but none made any objection to his invitation. I shrugged, picked up my drink. And walked over to an empty seat. The turian hesitantly followed, settling into an open seat a few places removed from me. Looking rather ill at ease.

"Welcome, welcome! We do not get visitors often. What are your names?"

The turian looked around before haltingly supplying:

"Names Avreus."

He pointed a talon in my direction.

"I'm with him."

The batarian nodded and turned to me.

"And you are?"

My response was quick, quicker then I had perhaps intended.

"Can't say."

He laughed, seemingly unfazed by my caginess.

"Well can't say, I am Valak. And this sorry bunch-."

He raised a hand to indicate the gathered men.

"Are my colleagues, we are employed together at the local scrapyard."

We continued to speak as drinks were ordered and delivered, and despite myself I found I quite enjoyed the company I was in. Valak was as far from the common stereotype of his people as could be imagined. He was jovial, open and warm. And his mood was infectious. Soon we were all conversing among each other as if we had known each other all our lives. It was an unfamiliar situation, but I found myself enjoying it all the same.

As we continued to speak, he took a sip of his drink and looked at me.

"So what brings you to Jorinda? I can't imagine it is the nightlife or the people. Lovely as they might be."

He chortled quietly to himself at his small joke. As I was about to answer, hopeful to finally slide the subject of

Balarek into the conversation organically. I heard the tavern's door creak open.

I turned to look at the newcomer curiously.

He was tall, broad shouldered, barrel chested. And had a face that seemed set in a permanent scowl. He scanned the inside of the room as he trudged inside, and when his gaze settled on me. All four of his eyes narrowed.

Immediately he made a beeline straight for me.

"Well."

I thought.

"fuck."

When he reached me, he simply glared down at me for a few moments. Before he finally spoke. His voice brimming with the eagerness to start something.

"You're sitting in my seat, human."

I made a show of reclining back and looking around.

"Plenty of empty seats."

I said, he snorted at that.

"Yeah, well that one's mine. And your kind ain't' welcome here in any case. So why don't you fuck off back to whatever pool of muck you crawled out of and-."

Before he could say anything else, Valak rose. Hand's already raised placatingly.

"Come, Garown there is no call for this!"

Garown, now named, whirled and stuck an accusing finger in Valak's face.

"Not a word Valak, you xeno loving fuck! What do you think you're doing sitting at the same table as that filth!?"

Valak seemed about to say something else when the turian chose that moment to interject. He approached the volatile batarian and reached out a companionable open palm.

"Look, look, I think we all got off on the wrong foot here."

He said. Tone suggesting he was speaking to a slightly perturbed drinking buddy.

"Tell you what, how about you let me buy you a drink and-."

Wherever else he had been about to say was cut off as the burly batarian pushed him away with a forceful palm to the chest, sending him sprawling to the floor in a heap.

"Fuck off crab!"

He said, voice full of something rabidly hateful. There was a manic dangerous light playing in the corners of his eyes that set my senses on edge. I could feel the situation deteriorating with each passing second, and I felt my hand slowly inching toward the knife on my belt. Almost of its own accord.

"You hingeheaded freaks aren't any more welcome here then the fucking mudeater!"

His jacket shifted and for the first time I saw the unmistakable protrusion of a pistol grip rising from his beltline. Immediately my instincts were screaming for me to act. But Valak, bless his heart. Had approached to make one final attempt to defuse an almost certainly fucked situation.

"Garown please! This has gone far enough!"

Garown was in no state now to be placated, and backed away from Valak.

"Get the fuck away from me!"

He screeched, Now seeming truly unhinged.

"Fucking mudcrawlers and crabs and xeno loving race traitors! You don't belong here among decent people! You hear me?! None of you!"

And then Garown did something very stupid. He reached toward his beltline and pulled his pistol, pointing it shakily at Valak. Valak yelped and tried to duck away. And the others who had been watching suddenly exploded into motion, some attempting to flee themselves. Others moved to stop Garown.

None of them would make it in time.

In the next few moments, several things happened at once.

There was the sound of metal scraping, a rapid series of footsteps. The sound of honed steel meeting flesh. The resounding crack of a gunshot, an exclamation of surprise. A dull thump followed by a clatter, as two things hit the floor at around the same time. And then finally an instant of perfect silence.

The first thing to break it was the sound of shocked screaming, Garown's screaming. As he held the stump of his severed hand, pain and fear warring with shock across his features as he stared at the missing hand and five inches of forearm I had just relieved him of. I stood close to him, having crossed the space between in an eyeblink to reach him. My knife unsheathed and still held high, my stance still held in the place it had ended when I had moved to act.

Garown fell back clutching his stump and wailing. And I returned to a neutral stance, bending down momentarily to wipe the blood from my blade on his pant leg. Before straightening and returning it to its place sheathed on my belt. It was only then that I had the presence of mind to turn and look at the rest of the room.

Every occupant of which was staring at me in stunned silence.

For lack of anything else to say. I jerked my head to the fallen, whimpering Garown.

"Get him to a doctor."

To my surprise, they actually moved to obey. Gathering him up so that two began to carry him out of the tavern. One even took a moment to grab his severed arm. They filed out, careful not to meet my gaze. A part of me wondered why they were suddenly so furtive. And then I mentally slapped myself.

"You just cut someone's arm off in front of them."

I thought, self reproachful.

"Of fucking course they're terrified you idiot."

I felt regretful as I looked at their expressions. I hadn't meant to take such an extreme action. But my body had moved before my mind had. And I knew that Valak had been a heartbeat away from a messy and pointless death. I didn't regret saving his life, I only wished I had shown more restraint.

In any case, I almost certainly wasn't welcome here again. I turned slowly from the room and strode toward the door. Wherever I would find my information on Balarek it certainly wouldn't be here.

I was an instant from opening the door and striding back out into the cooled night air, when I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder, I turned slowly only with great difficulty, my instincts still keyed up from the tense situation I had just resolved. It was Valak, short of breath.

"Th-thank you!"

He said, stumbling over his words. Evidently the dump of adrenaline in his system was still making him shaky.

"You saved my life I-, I can never repay-!"

I raised my hand, I had been expecting fear and suspicion. Heartfelt gratitude and thanks was almost worse.

"I didn't do it for thanks. You needed help, that's all there is to it."

Valak however, seemed insistent.

"I can never truly repay you, but let this be a start. Come, come to my home and share a meal with my family. A little hospitality is the least I can do for you!"

I tried to back away. Feeling rather sheepish, this man had just watched me permanently maim someone in front of him. I supposed that there was nothing that could penetrate that jovial manner.

"That's really not necessary, I have accommodations outside of town. I would hate to be a burden-."

"Nonsense! Nonsense!"

Valak said, clapping me on the back.

"I am in your debt my friend! And let it never be said that Valak Togulsa lets a debt go unpaid!"

I simply hadn't the heart to tell the man no. And I was more or less dragged from the Varren's Head, Struggling to keep pace with the jovial batarian man that had apparently decided that an arm was worth a meal.

"Well."

I mentally shrugged.

"At least I won't be cooking for myself again,"

BOOM!

Surprise biatch! Another chapter within a week of the last one! Bet you weren't expecting that shit were you?!

Chapter 19 is probably gonna be a bit longer in the tube. But I'm gonna try to minimize the instances where y'all are waiting six months to a year for another heaping helping of my literary junk food. More like, 3 to 5 months. Or better If I can manage it. Anyway, review and tell me you hated it. And thanks for reading.

-The Guarding Dark