She stood alone at the edge of the lake, her jacket tossed off to one side and her old broadsword on the ground, leaned against her right leg. Zeir glanced about, peering at the lake through the darkness the night left in it's wake. Hazy eyes of steel hue slowly shifted from side to side, as Zeir pondered over her own relfection. It was said that this was a dangerous place; a place where a monster dwelled beneath the surface of the slight waves. She laughed at the thought, and the warnings she'd been given. She'll surely be killed...it was what the people she passed by had said to her. Zeir scoffed. Her...killed. If only that were possible.

Twenty years had passed, since Zeir last counted her years of existance. She could barely remember now her real age. But she told those who'd asked, that she was merely twenty-one. After all, Zeir was only a humble mercenary. Lies...she had so many. And she never regretted her dishonesty. Few knew her as Zeir...in fact there'd been only one person she'd told straight out what her name was. But he was dead now, just as dead as the rest of them. Lovers...ha. Zeir laughed at herself. Why had she even bothered with such things when she knew they'd all see the same fate. It was a haunting past Zeir held, and no matter what it caught up to her. No, never again was she Zeir Taylor. She was simply... Renegade. It was the only real word to describe her and so that was her name now. Some might think it childish or presumptious to call herself that. But a renegade was what she...was.

She knelt, picking off her boots and tossing them over to her jacket. Slinging the old broadsword to her back, she drew her cutlass, the one of the moonsea. Removing gloves of leather she tossed them aside as well. Running her right hand over her blade she stained it crimson. Replacing the weapon back in it's sheath she flicked her wrist, flinging blood across the calmed waters. "Monster...lurking under the surface....If you exist then show yourself. Unless you're afraid. I wouldn't blame you for that." Arms outstretched, she waited. Deathwish? Maybe...Masochistic? Perhaps. Confident? You bet.

A quiet laugh echoed across the still waters of the lake. The laugh did not come from the depths of the water itself, but instead from the surrounding landscape of twisted trees and unpenetrable mists. "You, my dear, are either extremely foolish... or suicidal."

From one of the twisted trees dropped a tall, thin figure, the mist swirling around his darkened frame. As he approached Zeir the mist parted in front of him, although it was not apparent if it was from magic or just a byproduct of natural means. His footsteps were completely silent, as impossible as it may of seemed on the dead grass that crackled in the wind and small round stones that surrounded the lake. In deed, his approach to the woman was so silent he seemed like an apparation of the mist, an illusion, a shadow of the mind.

Perhaps it would of been for the best if he was.

The man stopped out of sword's reach, pitiless golden eyes looking Renegade up and down. His face was thin and angular, almost feminine in it's beauty and softness. However, there was a hardness in the golden eyes that instantly destroyed any belief that he was as soft as his face implied. A twisting arcane tatoo twisted up the left side of his face, crossing through the eye and disappearing into his hair. A crooked hat with a wide brim balanced precariously on his light-blue hair, a small pendant of a skull dangling from the tip of the hat. The blue hair framed his face, brushing against his shoulders and all-but hiding the long pointed ears that revealed him to be a pure-blood elf. From the neck dwon his body was covered in a black velvet cloak that had definately seen better days. The fine material was torn and tattered, holes revealing what lay underneath. They also allowed Zeir to see the midnight-black chains that were wrapped around his body like a second skin, holding him in a grip tighter than any lover's.

His golden eyes moved from her face to the still water's of the lake, looking at the liquid that stayed as flat as a mirror. "You gave blood to the beast... You call out your challenge... No one is that foolish." His face, usually twisted int he grips of madness, was now seriously calm, almost expressionless. "My dear, there is a difference between being bold and having a deathwish. You have just stepped over that narrow line."

But his eyes found themself drawn back to her impassive face. "What is your name, little one?"

She dropped her arms to her sides, as a laugh broke through the silence. Zeir barely glanced in the direction of the figure appearing from the shadows and the mist, her gaze still impassive. "Suicidal...never foolish." She was anything but foolish, Zeir was certain of that, if there was anything she was certain of, it was that she was no fool. Her bare feet sinking into the muddy water, Zeir glanced at her cut palm from within the lower corner of her vision. She watched as the wound slowly healed up, flesh and blood reforming to nothing but a faint line etched across her palm. Zeir...Renegade, crossed her arms in front of her. Inhaling deeply the cool, night air. It was a wasted effort.

Taking a few steps forward into the lake, she stopped when the water reached a few inches above the ankle. "Deathwish..." She laughed slightly, though completely devoid of humor and very soft. There was a difference between a simple deathwish and actual death. Zeir always had a deathwish, but wishes were pointless. She was tired, always hurt, but she lived. Ren supposed she could lose her immortality if she were to beg a god to take it away. But Zeir never begged, not for mercy or death or anything. She was a stubborn woman; prideful...though still not blindingly so.

Her gaze swept over the lake again, scanning the still surface for something...anything. But nothing was there, nothing but still-as-glass water and her own blood. Steel eyes shifted over as the voice spoke again behind her. Yes, she remembered him. Back in the city, and she hadn't said her name then either. "Name...names are pointless."

Seele shook his head slightly, face still expressionless. "If suicide is your choice, then there are much easier ways than venturing into the depths of this lake." He swept one open hand over the lake, golden eyes moving from the woman to the perfectly still surface. Even where she had entered the water it did not ripple. He stepped out to the farthest boundary of the water, his boots leaving no impression in the thick mud. He crouched and ran a cupped hand through the black waters. Apart from where his fingers splashed the water it did not move at all; in fact, as soon as he withdrew his hand from it's surface it became lifeless again, showing no trace of his intrusion.

Standing, he raised the cupped hand to his lips, the palm full of the black water. He took a small sip, closing his eyes as he swallowed the water, before letting the rest drip out of his hand into the mud. He once again glanced at Zeir before the golden gaze returned to the lake.

"The beast you challenge sleeps at the moment. No light penetrates it's darkness. Not even your blood will be enough to rouse it..." He stepped forward into the lake, past Zeir. His motion made no waves, no water splashed. "You must not be worthy of it's gaze. The few that are, it wakes up to see." He continued walking until he was waist deep before turning around, silent as a wraith in the calm water.

"Names are only pointless if you make them be. Yours, little one, may hold more power than you yourself know..." His golden eyes bore into her steel gray gaze. "Just as mine does... if you need a guide through this darkness... you need only to ask..."

"I never said I wanted it to be easy." And she doubted it would even work. Zeir had found there to be many ways to die, some worse than others but they always turned out the same. With her waking up in the middle of nowhere either whole again, already or in the process of being pieced back together. But no one knew of such things, and Zeir never revealed such information. She barely shifted her gaze to one side as the other stepped past her and further into the lake.

Leaning forward slightly she dipped one hand into the water, her fingers lightly playing across her own blood that stuck on the water's surface as if it were only glass. "Not worthy..." Giving a light shrug as she didn't care anything about being worthy Zeir straightened. Setting one hand at the hilt of her crimson falchion and the other at her hip she shifted her gaze skyward for the moment. "I don't need guidance from anyone." She muttered, as she had never been one to ask for anything; not from anyone. To her it was a weakness to accept such things. For now her gaze remained where it was, hazy eyes of steel looking at the sky but not really seeing.

Seele let the icy cold water wash over him as he took a few seps farther into the water. His eyes on Zeir had changed. Instead of that calm seroousness a severe madness was slowly worming its way into his expression. However, he managed to hide most traces of this gradual change. While sane, he was actually quite friendly and helpful, although cryptic.

One the madness set in he would kill anyone, anywhere, anytime.

Seele laughed softly and fell backwards, disappearing into the black water. There was no splash to signal his entrance. He turned and begtan to swim downwards into the darkness of the lake, the cold and shadows swallowing him up lovingly.

Little one... You need more guidance than you think...