My mind is so devoid of inspiration, but alas I have squeezed out the last bits of brain juice I had left. Which does not mean they are good, but they are done, and that is the standard that makes me happy. This is the sentiment of someone who has given up. :) I also have more coming up soon, but I didn't want to clump them with this chapter because the other idea has a theme so hopefully I'll get it out soon.

Aspen's is rushed because he only deserves stale biscuits and lemon juice in his eyes at the moment.

The woman was a half-faerie, but dignified, and well-kept in a way that Aspen appreciated. His own messiness had started to bleed through into his habits, so it was nice to find someone that seemed proper and upstanding, a gentle hand on his arm as she led him to her home.

It was her that approached him and offered to buy him a drink and he did not have to put much effort in keeping her attention, as if her mind had already been made up that he'd be her muse for the night. Then again, he supposed it was a wealthy bar he'd been in and the rich sort of people were more forward in their wants, mostly because they considered everything theirs to obtain. But she was nice and had genuinely kind words, curious to know more about him and where he'd come from. While he'd danced around answers, she didn't seem bothered by it, even going as far as to invite him to her home. He'd expected her wealth based on her dress, but the appearance of her manor had excited him. His materialistic tendencies were not easily quelled and it only took a couple moments for him to settle on the prospect of good pay.

"Do you want a drink?" she asked as she walked into an ornate dining room, pulling out a chair for him to sit. "I have some types of tea that are pleasant."

"If it's no trouble," he said, looking at what the room had to offer, seeing it featured a number of paintings with gold leaf, ceramic vases, and silver dishes behind cabinets. He wondered how much they would sell for before sitting down obediently in the chair.

A different woman appeared at the doorway - a warlock with curly hair, antlers, and the most expensive suit he'd ever seen - and they conversed quietly before the warlock whisked away again. The faerie woman turned back to him with a smile.

"She'll get it," she said, clasping her hands together slowly. "It's a blend from Kenya. Expensive, but lovely."

"Ah, is it?" Aspen didn't quite know where Kenya was, nor did the name sound familiar, but he knew better than to ask. The rich sort of people usually liked to share refined company anyway, and he didn't want her to think he was some sort of petty street rat. He'd been trained better than that.

They engaged in another few minutes of small talk and Aspen found it difficult to be as nice as he should've be. He wanted to negotiate terms and pay, and then maybe he would have something to split with Jai in the morning. It was strange how Jai had been the sole recipient of his patience lately, even if it was sparse.

The antlered warlock returned with a kettle and two stacked cups, giving the faerie woman a quiet whisper and a few nods. She set the cups delicately on the table, pouring out some tea in each before leaving again. Aspen's gaze followed her curiously, but he said nothing of it, thinking that the warlock seemed to be purposefully giving them privacy.

He reached for his teacup when the faerie woman reached for her own, sampling the tea. It was bitter and full, nothing like the usual drinks he was accustomed to, but different was not necessarily bad. Of course, he preferred the sweetness of faerie fruits, but his tongue was used to all sorts of mundane flavours.

"So, do you want to get down to business?" he asked, having wanted to not be crass, but finding no way around it.

"You're very quick to the point, but I must admit you're not really my taste in that sort of company."

He didn't know what to reply with, a little dumbfounded, though she was still looking sweetly at him. "...What? Then what am I here for?"

"I didn't know how to get you here without scaring you off." The woman walked over to where he sat, reaching to put her hand under his chin to lift it, appraising him. "You just look...so much like your parents."

Those were words he had not quite heard before, despite how normal they sounded. He had always expected that he looked like someone, but the faces of those that might have contributed to his looks were long since faded from his memory. Nyx had seen to that, forcing himself into occupied spaces of his mind until his parents and background had been wiped entirely. Belonging had always been synonymous with having an owner instead of having a lineage, and he was not yet sure how to process the reminder that he was once someone's child.

Aspen narrowed his eyes. "So...you don't want-..."

"Ah, no. Don't worry about that," she laughed, smiling and going back to the table to pour herself more of the tea the warlock had made. "I'm more of the sapphic inclination myself, but I recognized you immediately...You're still welcome to a bed here, if that's what you were looking for."

He was not yet sure how to respond, his hands closing tighter around the mug. "I just-...This is not entirely what I was expecting..."

"I know this must be sudden, and I'm sorry about stepping into such matters..." She spoke cautiously, watching him and assessing his reaction. "I couldn't simply ignore you, though."

"I don't really know what to say." Those were the most honest words he could muster up, not yet willing to let his guard down and spill himself to a complete stranger. "I am intrigued, of course, but..."

"Confused?" she offered sympathetically. "I can imagine that. It's been almost thirteen years since you've last seen them...Do you remember at all? Do you remember me at all?"

Taking the time to dip his fingertip in the tea, he traced the rim of the mug contemplatively. "Should I remember you?"

"Well, it would have been nice if you had," she said, some hesitation in her voice. "I suppose you don't know what happened to your family when you left. It is a miracle that you're alive."

"...Is it?"

Sympathy crossed her expression, though Aspen's remained unaffected, and her words were tentative as if to not harm him. "It is perhaps not a pleasant thing to bring up the past. If there's anything that-"

"You don't have to speak gingerly with me," he said, setting the cup down on a coaster and letting his hands fall into his lap. "I don't have any recollection of them. It's not like I can feel much sadness about the whole ordeal."

"I see..." Still, she sat down in a chair and thought about her words for a long moment, whether it was to soften them or to remember things that had happened so many years ago. "Your parents parted ways soon after you disappeared. No one here has heard from them since, which is rather disappointing. I knew your mother for a long while, even when she still lived in the Faerie. We were...close friends. Ophelia - that was the name she went by."

There was no instinct in his body for how to react to such words. He supposed most normal people would have been upset and nostalgic, but he could only feel curious and mildly angry at the situation. His parents had been stupid, he deduced, to let down their guard, and it was undoubtedly their fault that his life was not spent with them. He would have turned out far different, he imagined; he might've more dignified and faerie-like without all the rough edges that kept him sounding mundane and lowly.

"...And my father? What was his name?"

"If you asked the people that knew him, they would all give different answers, although I knew him as Soren. He was a finicky faerie, and was not very good at having a single identity," she said and the way she spoke of him was different to how she spoke of his mother. "He wanted to raise you in the Faerie, but your mother refused. She had not lived an easy life there and your family was well off in the mundane world."

"Maybe, but we can see how badly that turned out." His voice was flat, if a little bitter. Sentimental words didn't come easily for people he didn't even remember.

"Your mother loved you. So much. When you disappeared, she was inconsolable and things just fell apart after that," the faerie woman said, reaching out to take one of his hands in her own, whether it was to comfort him or herself. "It is a miracle you're alive and-" she laughed slightly, lifting a hand to set it against his cheek in the only motherly gesture he'd felt that he could remember, "-you're so handsome. You take after her."

He couldn't help but flinch away from her hand and she removed it from his cheek to put it on his hand again. "I don't know what sort of reaction you're expecting. My emotional attachment to my parents is...indifferent at best." That was what he'd convinced himself, at least. It was easier to not have interest in them, as that eliminated any longing for family. He'd had his own sort of family with Nyx, anyway, and even if they were not the good kind of people, they still had looked after him.

"I...understand." She nodded, though didn't yet let go of his hand as if holding it was some substitute for the company of his mother. "...There is not much I can offer you but my hospitality and guidance. Unfortunately, your family's estate was seized by the state after it was vacant for a period of time. I'm afraid you don't have anything to inherit that I know of."

"It's fine." His tone grew flat and unbothered. "Nothing lost, nothing gained. Honestly, I don't think I deserve anything at the moment anyway."

"Things have been hard?"

Now that he was not concerned with doing business with her, he did not have to be so careful with his words, though she didn't seem to be hurt by them. "Don't have that look of pity. Most bad things in my life are my own fault."

"You are you father's son. He liked to complicate matters, and how your mother would get angry at him for it." She had on a sorry sort of smile, releasing his hand so he could pull it away. "I'd already inferred you'd come into a bit of a rough patch...given the context of our meeting. I won't judge, of course, and I once told your mother that I would help you if you ever needed it, and perhaps this is all too late, but it's the least I can do in her name. In the name of my friendship with your mother."

"Look, I am-...This is just all a little much." He was not easily overwhelmed, but a discomfort tugged at his chest, needing to think on the situation and think on her words. Alone. It was easier to be more honest with himself if no one was watching, especially with no one to provoke or impress. With her eyes on him, he could not force away a feeling of defensiveness.

"I understand." She looked disappointed, but not enough to push him any longer. "I will be ready to talk more about it when you are."

Blake's trying to keep up a conversation with the Unseelie girl that is checking up on him, but he's tired and distracted, finishing his drink so she can see that he's trying to go. It's mostly politics she's speaking about, as well as new territory that they're exploring. When he's back there, he'll be as caught up as he can be, but he knows he will still have to prove his worth there with a vengeance. Others won't forgive him. They don't know how much he's done to be let back in, after all.

"We gutted a Seelie sympathizer that hid in an Unseelie village," she says in their mother tongue. "There's been more of them lately."

Flicking a hand to signal the usual bartender, he pushes his empty drink over on the bar. He figures he'll ask for the check and go back to his place to finish up on some poisons, but the bartender speaks before he has the chance.

"You're lucky to be in touch with a pretty girl like the one that keeps leaving these," the bartender sighs as he takes the glass, simultaneously giving the note to Blake. It happens plainly, the slip of paper pressed into his palm, slightly unfolded, the eyes of the Unseelie training on it. Room numbers in neat writing. His breath catches but he tries to brush off the incident, curling his fingers around the note to put it in his jacket pocket. There is an uncertainty in his movements that is difficult to hide and a nervousness that starts to gnaw at him.

"...Pretty girl, huh?" The Unseelie lifts her eyes from the note to Blake, a glass to her lips as she takes a sip and then speaks. "The tall Shadowhunter girl, perhaps?"

There are a thousand thoughts that pass through his head and it surprises even him at the sadism of them. They are fueled by desperation, but even that does not excuse the overwhelming want to declare his loyalty with all the ways he might be able to covertly kill Savannah. She might not expect it now, with how clumsy and open he's been around her, and that might make up for how rusty he is. How much he's let himself get soft in the Towns, and how his guard has been worn down by Unseelie standards. Maybe he will deliver them her head. Throw it at their feet and speak his praises to his Court just how he has in the past when he has given them Shadowhunter blood.

It wouldn't be his first time breaching all codes of morality to appease them. A proponent and pursuivant of genocide in the name of loyalty has no place to comment on morals in the first place.

"I can explain," he breathes, but the Unseelie girl gives him no time to and he has to narrowly pull back when she swipes at him with her knife.

The tip grazes his jaw and he jerks back into the side of a nearby patron, slipping from his chair to ground himself on his feet, drawing a dagger and instantly moving to defend himself. If there are no words that can convince her, then his blood will force him to fight. She is already moving to swing at him again, lips curled back and eyes narrowed. It's as if she's been waiting for him to slip up. As if she had been waiting for her suspicions to come true.

"You choose your lust over your own faction, you traitor," she spits, matching his steps as she drives her knife in his direction, only fended off when Blake manages to hop back over a table, spilling someone's drink to the floor. A few startled patrons draw to the side, watching, but saying nothing. They know well enough to not snitch or get involved.

"You assume my loyalty is broken so easily," he snaps back, circling the table to keep her on the other side. "Someone as lowly as you cannot even pretend to judge my intentions with her. You know nothing of our arrangement."

"You insult the Court with your associations and you insult me with your words." Her tone remains venomous, finally shoving the table forward to unsteady him and pushing herself over it. He recovers quickly enough to slice at her leg and tug her from the tabletop, though her free hand already knots in his cloak to pull him down with her. Keeping his grip on his dagger, he stabs down to try and pin her, but she's quick and lithe, slipping free from his grip to roll to the side. His dagger sticks in the floorboards and it stalls him just enough so she's already standing and approaching him again with a subtle limp in her step. When he finally does push himself back up, she's already swiping at him again, and he tries to grab her arm to stop her but she yanks her arm back and the blade catches in his palm.

It burns, of course, but he's distracted. His hand is wet and warm, the scent of blood hitting the roof of his mouth, and he's already aiming the dagger at her arm, trying to incapacitate her. She manages to parry it - just barely - and takes a few steps back.

"I could smell her on you. You should have never been given a second chance," she hisses, adjusting her grip on her knife. That gives him enough time to advance on her again.

A fight has never been something he particularly shies away from, but he's not thinking of the repercussions. He's not thinking, currently, of the dozens of eyes staring as they make public their grievances. Loyal Unseelies are everywhere, and his baggage has been spilled for all to see. She's not a bad fighter, as she's scrappy and small, but she hesitates long enough in her movements for him to get the upper hand.

She yelps when he pins her against the wall, the hum of panic noisy around him as various others in the tavern exchange sounds of concern. Again, he doesn't think about who might see, sinking his dagger into her throat and feeling it press into the boards of the wall. Finishing a fight is compulsory, and when he pulls his dagger back out, a spray of blood hits his cheek before the wound weeps until it hits the ground and seeps into the floor. She slumps at his feet and he takes a step back, finally able to catch his breath.

There's nothing within him at first, just the adrenaline slowly quieting down and a realization that his hand hurts. He's not used to feeling horrified or regretful after a fight, but it crashes down on him like a heavy wave. It's a helplessness that he isn't quite sure how to deal with and it quickly manifests into a sharp anger.

He turns to the bar, stalking over to it and forcing himself to not take a swing at the bartender. "This is your fucking fault," he accuses, stabbing his dagger into the wooden bartop. "You mention this to any Shadowhunters and I'll kill you."

"Whatever loyalty mixups you have aren't my business," the bartender says, holding up his hands. He looks like he's trying to be casual and aloof, but his eyes go to his dagger every so often, a hint of nervousness crossing his expression.

"All you had to do was stay quiet." Indignation and disgust flashes in his expression, though he knows he has spilled enough blood that night. When he pulls his dagger back, he turns to the rest of the tavern. He can tell there are prying eyes from outside of the tavern, having seen the events through the glass. It is only time before such information makes its way back to the Unseelie. Somehow, the idea of Savannah finding out is almost a little more frightening, ashamed to have destabilized his only aspiration with such foolishness and that he has to live with the fact that giving into her was the indirect cause.

The streets won't be safe for him that night and he must try to seek out a temporary shelter.