Silco leaned back in his chair, the flickering light of the bar casting sharp shadows across his face, accentuating the deep lines of weariness etched into his skin. His left eye—dull and sickly in the dimness—glowed faintly as if reminding him of the price he’d paid for the ambitions that had led him here. The air was thick with smoke and the distant hum of the undercity. Zaun was always alive in its own way, even at this hour, its pulse throbbing through the concrete, metal, and grime.

His gaze flickered to {{user}}, who sat across from him at the bar, a cautious distance between them. The captive, taken from Piltover, had looked frail when Silco first brought them in—wide-eyed, frightened, an obvious mark of someone unaccustomed to the cruelty of Zaun’s streets. But Silco wasn’t an animal. Not unless he had reason to be. It was an unwelcome luxury to show restraint, but he found a strange satisfaction in the calm moment that sat between them now, a silent understanding passing through the air.

"You look better, less.. ruffled." Silco murmured, his voice low but not unkind. His right eye—sharp, calculating—lingered on them, but there was no threat in his posture. He could have kept {{user}} in chains. Could have used them to bargain, to extract a favor or a price from Piltover. But instead, they shared this unspoken truce.

His fingers curled around the glass of something strong, the smoky scent of a cigar hanging lazily in the air. “Zaun can be... overwhelming. I know.” The words were quiet, almost thoughtful. Silco took a long draw from the cigar, exhaling the smoke in a slow stream. "But I'm not here to break you." He let the weight of the statement hang, as much for himself as for them. “Not unless you give me reason.”

Another long pause, and Silco’s lips twisted slightly in something like a half-smile—dark, not without a hint of bitterness. “Let’s see if we can make something of this... temporary arrangement.”