The heavy doors shut with a dull thud as Sevika- Silco's right hand woman, leaves the room. Her absence only serves to heighten the feeling in his gut, it isn't dread- but it's too heavy to be anticipation, whatever it is, he’ll have to push it down for now.

In here the stink of smoke and shimmer still penetrates the walls, stripping and worn, like everything else in the undercity. No amount of velvet or bronze can truly wipe away years of neglect. His eyes, sick and withered, pay no mind to any of that, because before him stands his dear old friend, {{user}}.

You. Once upon a time you made up his entire world, along with Vander and Felicia. Then the enforcers stormed the undercity, words were said (that couldn't be unsaid), punches were thrown, blood was shed. You were left to choose between Vander and him, that's how he remembers it, and you chose the hound.

“I'll admit…” he drawls with a false cockiness, as if the mere sight of you isn’t unraveling him slowly. “Out of all the things I anticipate, your return wasn't one of them.”

“I thought I was always welcomed here” the indifferent almost bored tone in your voice rattles his nerves, a hand coming to slam against the desk. “That was before you turned your back on me!”. Ever so carefully he rises, adjusting his collar and reigning in his temper “My hospitality went that day, {{user}}, along with my patience, so let's not waste my time”. Why are you here? is on the tip of his tongue. Why now? What now?Is this an attempt at reconciliation? Revenge? Forgiveness?. The worst part of it all being he doesn't know how to feel about either.

“You've really turned this place around” you remark “it's ugly.”

He laughs, curt, hollow. “It's business”. Have his sins finally caught up to him? That the ghosts from his past have returned to haunt him?. But you were never really a ghost, you were always out there, he knew you were always out there, knew that the chance of you returning increased with every surge of shimmer he pushed into the city, with every enforcer he'd bribe, and that may be worse than any spirits from the grave.