Forgotten Goddesses

The bar is crowded, especially for a Thursday night. Drunk men blabber loudly, barmaids pretend to laugh at jokes and women offering a less professional service grin in the corners. The young man stands, the few drinks he's knocked back making the room spin slightly.

He will not be leaving with a woman tonight - even though he has before.

The young man usually works as a guard for a local crime lord. Even though his position is low - not even high enough to warrant much of a question if he were to go missing - he feels as though he is invincible.

Someone calls goodbye to him, wishing him - Rowan - a good night.

Rowan leaves the crowded bar, avoiding puking men and the greed-filled eyes of the women who have yet to get off work.

The alleys of the slums are barely lit, but he's lived in between the streets his whole life, and Rowan has no trouble navigating the back alleys he feels he knows so well.

He's convinced himself he has superior senses - the Laers would be jealous of his eyesight, dragons envious of his sense of smell.

Rowan is completely human - it's just a coincidence he's also arrogant.

Despite his unparalleled senses, someone is watching him silently on the rooftop above.

Rowan doesn't notice, humming slightly to himself, resting a hand on the old sword at his hip.

Even with the dim light, the tattoo on his hand of his specific gang is unmistakable, a cross entwined with leaves and thorns.

He relies on the comfort of knowing he has an army behind him - but the assassin on the roof knows that the so-called army behind him wouldn't blink to see his guts on the floor. He doesn't matter enough to them yet.

He's a guard - a wannabe.

So as Rowan cuts into an alley, the assassin jumps down and drags the knife across his calves.

He barely has time to draw his blade before he's been disarmed, falling to his knees into a black liquid on the alley's cobblestone floor.

Rowan whirls to find the back of a sword hitting his nose with a crunch, blood spurting and running down his face into his mouth.

He swears, looking up at his attacker. She's tall, a hood covering the majority of her face, looking down upon Rowan with a face of utter indifference.

As if he were a mild detour, or a minor inconvenience.

Rowan whimpers slightly, throwing up his hands. Although arrogant, the need to survive overrules everything else when an assassin is staring in his face. She takes one hand and removes the hood, and Rowan is able to survey her face.

She's beautiful, a round face and firm eyebrows, full lips. She's blonde, and as Rowan's gaze meets her eyes, he realizes who she is.

The gangs speak her name on the streets - stories of her victims are whispered in bars.

More than her gruesome crimes, the tales of the Angel of Death include her eyes. The darkest grey, stormy and ever moving. The legend goes that if a person should see those eyes, they would be smart to slit their own wrists.

Rowan wonders what he did to cause the Angel of Death herself to visit him. But he doesn't have time to ponder the thought before she speaks.

"Any prayers?"

Her voice is higher than he expected - she couldn't be older than twenty. "Prayers?" He tries not to let his voice tremble.

"Any words to the Gods or Goddesses before I kill you?" She aims her blade at him, and her face hardens. The face of the Angel of Death.

Rowan whimpers - a sound he couldn't hold in. He wasn't religious - the Gods a mere myth compared to blades and spears. But he remembers one from when he was a child, and he starts murmuring it.

"May darkness take me, may light recieve me, and may water carry me into the land of eternal youth and honey."

Rowan closes his eyes, a dark stain spreading across his pants. He's thankful the light in the alley isn't good enough for her to see-

And the Angel of Death leaves Rowan's lifeless body bleeding in an alley, the words of forgotten Goddesses on his lips.