Sanchez.

"You keep looking at him. Do you know him?"

Amanise looked away from the person she had been staring at across the room for a while now. She might have been intentionally staring to get the attention of the person sitting beside her who was now questioning her.

Luckily, she had made somewhat of an acquaintance. Who was according to 'her' only a month old sworn in member of a cult she was yet to know the name. It was a queer woman who donned the mask of a doe. Her cold, shrewd gaze a direct contrast to her animal choice.

Her code name was Sanchez.

The doe masked woman met Amanise's gaze unflinchingly. For a moment it felt like a battle of wills on who would look away first. Sensing that Sanchez tilted her head sideways exposing her frail looking neck almost provocatively, the corner of her lip curving up slightly.

"No I don't. He just seems like an odd duck in the crowd of nobles. Those kind of strangeness incites my curiosity."

She replied coolly, taking a slow sip from her glass of wine. Never for a second breaking the eye contact. "Well Sanchez... Do you?"

After an hour of staying here, Amanise recognized that information could be bought and exchanged for a high price. Because one of the primary quotes of the cult was knowledge was indeed power. The one who garners information of all kinds and deals was the most respected and revered. Doing quests for the cult made you rise in power as well as your access to information.

Being a member wasn't all that bad. Though it wasn't something she garnered she would ever do in the future but hey who was she to judge if life threw her wherever it wanted. She had to just flow with the tide and adapt quickly so she won't drown

Sanchez leaned forward, the table in between them, separating their contact. Her gaze now intense. Whether it was because she didn't care about her ominous ruby gaze or she was too familiar with it to be comfortable or was simply oblivious is unsettling. Amanise was getting used to people being unable to look at her in the eyes, now she couldn't help but look away because of the intensity Sanchez stared at her with. Like she was an art hiding an underlying message.

"Not quite. What exactly attracted your attention to him?"

Amanise reined the need to roll her eyes. Wasn't it fairly obvious. He was the only one in the room without a mask. And his disposition was out of place. She looked back at the man she stared at not a while ago. After Alaric who was probably the Phoenix finished the introduction. She discovered that her earlier thought about this being the Monsters Syndicate was dismissed.

It was only logical that nobles who wanted to scale up in the hierarchy of power under the king's rule needed to be part of secret societies that help them with their goals. It was the fastest surest way. That and the Nobility's need of always finding ways to belong perhaps because it's human nature after all. They had the money they weren't peasants who struggle daily for livelihood so consequently they were left with boredom and constantly searched for things to excite them on a whim. Like little children attracted to new toys after playing and discarding their old ones they childishly pursue things they don't need for things they fool themselves into wanting so they can escape their boring mundane lives just wrapped with a bit of silver.

Maybe gold too, depends.

Concentrating, she studied him once again. He was lean, thin in fact under those costly attires he donned. The expensive clothes were loose on the body. Like that of a slave in borrowed king's robes. No one was around him. She could feel the stigma surrounding him. No one wanted to be near him or seen close to him. The few miscalculated gazes that slipped into the strange man's presences left with a startling look of disgust and recoil. Amanise could see it in their gazes she could also feel the threads of the complex emotions connected to him and every noble around him.

An Outcast.

That was what he had become. He's status whatever it was has been destroyed.

Forgotten.

Her sharp gaze didn't miss the slight tremors of his bony grip. Nor the blank look in his eyes. Unfocused, distant. Dead eyes. Once in a while it dilated as he leaned to the side like he was listening to someone speaking.

But there was no one there. The dark bags surrounding his eyes made him look much older than she suspected he was. There were also premature wrinkles accentuated on his face under the dim lightening of the chandelier's lights.

His certain oddness and energy, a thick dark energy soaked to the pores of his skin and leaking from him was suffocating. and that intrigued her to no ends.

Miss Sanchez hummed in somewhat approval. Nodding slightly as she looked down at her meal. Somewhat reluctant she lifted up her glass of expensive wine to her lips, sighing in satisfaction from the burn at the back of her throat.

"Do you want information from me, Harbinger?", She eyed her, mischievously.

"Information?", Whispering softly, Amanise leaned in too. Wary.

"Yes. I can arrange info on the man's background... Everything."

"So, what's the catch?" Amanise's brow rose at Sanchez's chuckle. Watching her dark gaze lit up in amusement and appreciation. "For a kid you are surprisingly smart. I like you already."

"Should i be insulted by that 'observation'?"

"Certainly not. Harbinger. Instead you should be pleased as I am. The women of the noble society...An enormous percentage of them are riddled with stupidity as though their skulls are continuously stuffed with cotton. Nevertheless you..." Her lips curved out a coy smile. Her words slow, deliberate. 

"You, Harbinger are amongst the 1% of the population of the female nobles. An incredibly small population I tell you. The lethal ones. Too smart for their own good. Decisive and dark. In books of literature they are the ones to bring the fall of an empire. They are cunning, ambitious and dont let the concepts of morality to restrain them. Unhesistant to stab their lovers in the back if it meant achieving their goals... I see that in you. The flame."

"And you assumed that in only one conversation? Just because I asked you what you wanted in exchange for information?" Amanise laughed.

Whatever Miss Sanchez was talking about was absolutely ridiculous. It's common knowledge that nothing was ever free in the world. Whatever you recieved from a man something else would be taken in return. Quid pro quo. That was one of the basis on which Amanise thought upon. Her very own small philosophy.

Miss Sanchez paused in sipping her wine. Her gaze narrowed for a moment before relaxing. Pouring more wine into her glass, herself.

"Of course not. Don't insult my intelligence. After all it is the only thing that truly belongs to me even if every other was taken away from me. I keenly observe and analyze my surroundings. I try to figure out people's motives in their action then I stack my analysis up only for it to compound into a being that's truly reflects you. Call it facts. I have observed quite a few things from you. Your code name. The sharpness of your too ordinary eyes..."

'Was this supposed to be a joke or something? Ordinary?' One of her eye brows rose up at Sanchez words. The thought of her eyes being ordinary somewhat irked her.

"...that does not fit your disposition. You may call that intuition. Your mask of choice and the underlying message to it. The choice of people you choose to focus on and now but not the least... your company. He would never bring a bird brain to this event not to talk of the fact that he never brings anyone to begin with. So you are recognized by the nobility factions that you have equal footing to him or terrifyingly higher. So the questions racing in everyone's minds at this very moment here are 'Who is the mysterious lady to Skin Walker?' And many will lean to many assumptions but the most common three will be... she must be one of the leaders of the famous Underworld that is recently buzzing in the high society, she must be the rumored forerunner from the prophesy... Harbinger or to reduce your level to one that they maybe able to contain and control they would lean into the fact that you are his lover."

"What?" Amanise choked back on her drink at the conclusion of Sanchez's analysis.

"I'm his lover?" She looked around her feeling the subtle gazes from all sides.