Inside Blue Dream a young woman pats a black cat.
At their table rests a few plates half eaten and two empty cups.
As the constant murmur enters her ears her hand stops mid air for a moment and her eyes turn to the door.
An instant later a young man walks in, hands on his knee, hair filled with sweat and breathing ragged.
'He looks kinda cute.'
The boy's blue eyes jump around the restaurant, clearly searching for something for someone amidst the dozens of customers.
'Is he the rich guy I'm meeting today?'
With a slight smile the woman takes her cat and merges into the shadow of her chair.
Moments later she pops out by the door between the reception and the restaurant.
With silent steps she walks behind Zatu, the black cat now sitting on her shoulder.
"Are you looking for someone, Mister?" She says in the same clear and cheerful tone the waiters and waitresses used in this place.
"Yes, I have a meeting with a woman that goes by Night Fang, but something happened and I'm really late, do you know if she is still here?" He asks without looking back, his eyes desperately searching for a woman he didn't even know the appearance of.
The playful smile on Illya's face grows wider.
"Oh yes, she is still here." She says cheerfully before getting on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear. "Don't ogle her too hard, but she is that woman o with dark green leather clothing and a black cat on her shoulder."
Zatu's eyes zip around faster, hunting for such a description.
Again and again he looks at every table in the restaurant and finds nothing.
'Am I going blind?Where the fuck is she?'
"I'm sorry, where is she exactly seated? I'm not really seeing her anywhere."
The woman giggles, hesitating for a moment whether to keep the joke going.
"Oh, she is not seated, Mister." With each word her voice grows quieter and quieter. "She is right behind you."
Zatu jumps a little, then turning around he freezes in place.
Looking behind she sees a laughing girl with a black cat on her shoulder.
With hair black as a starless night and emerald eyes that felt like vines entangling his mind, he stood frozen, unsure whether to apologize for his tardiness, say his name or ask for hers.
'I can't just stay frozen here, just say ANYTHING.'
"Sorry your tardiness name, I'm Zatu?" Came out of his mouth all at once, in a word soup that made no sense.
The girl laughed even harder, falling and rolling on the ground as red covered Zatu's face.
'Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!' He cussed internally, wishing he could bury himself under the inn's floor.
*
A couple minutes later the two sat at a table, with Zatu still flushed from the earlier situation and hesitant to open his mouth again.
"Hello Zatu, I'm Illya and this is Sir Howard." She started, while taking the cat from her shoulder and dropping it on the table.
"Hi uhm, sorry for…" He stopped there, not even knowing what to apologize first.
Illya chuckled.
"You're pardoned alright?" She said before her face morphed from a playful girl to a serious business woman. "So, I was told you were looking for a quality guide for the outer south and you were willing to pay my above market price for it. What exactly do you have in mind?"
Sighing in relief from the change of topic Zatu repositioned himself on the chair.
"I'm currently tier 1 and level 6, I do not know or understand how guiding works, what I know is, I want to reach tier 3 before the beast wave and I'm willing to pay any price for that."
Zatu lays down all his cards on the table, much to Night Fang's amusement.
'He must be either naive or really really loaded to not even try to negotiate.'
Feeling this much, she decides to prod and poke a bit.
"It's… not impossible, however doing so has very high risks so the prices go up a lot, how much can you really afford?"
She shoots back raising an eyebrow, a jab one that could easily provoke most rich kids' egos.
A jab that Zatu didn't even register as he stared at her vibrant emerald eyes.
"Name your price, I should be able to match it."
Seeing how assured he seemed on his answer, the playful smile threatened to come back to her lips.
'Let's rattle him a bit.' she giggled in her mind, before making the most serious expression she could muster.
"For the best results only the highest prices, I'd say we can start talking with a platinum a day."
She said with expectant eyes, ready to laugh her ass off when his face turned to shock.
But what Zatu said next killed her laugh in her throat.
"Deal." He answered instantly, no doubt, no hesitation.
To that Night Fang froze in place, not even working under the Darkblade lady paid such an absurd amount.
"You do understand that to reach your goal we are talking about hunting beasts almost daily right?"
"Yeah, why?" He answers with an oblivious look.
"Cause that would be at least 20 platinum."
"Is that too little for you? If your work is good and you really want it I don't mind doubling it." Zatu answers with very little worry.
In his mind even paying 100 platinum a month might be better, since that way he would only have to hand out a single bar of platinum instead of having to count coins.
Night Fang on the other hand, felt cold sweat drip down her back.
To have so much money as to not bat an eye to what was thousands of gold coins while being tier 1 meant Zatu was someone very important to someone tremendously powerful.
'If this guy dies while we are in the outer south…' She was dead, no ifs, buts or ands.
And when added to the insane time goal he set, that situation was not out of the picture.
Granted, most rich kids always came to her with some absurd goals before experiencing what it really meant and changing their minds.
"Who are you?" her voice trembles and Sir Howard hisses at Zatu.
At that the young man tilts his head.
"What do you mean?"
Sewing his confusion Illya frowns, taking hissing sir Howard to her lap.
"I mean, a Tier 1 with this many coins is either lying or someone I should already know about. So are you lying? or what's your family name?"
"Oh, it's Rainfall." he states matter of factly, knowing that's not really what she wants to know. "But I was adopted a decade or so ago, so my old man is kind of a big deal." Zatu brags a bit.
'Old man? Rich enough to give piles of platinum to an adopted family member… wait could it be?'
"Your High Councilor Greensword's disciple." She said in shock, her eyes growing wide like a deer in headlights.
Illya is old enough to remember the last beast waves and she remembered quite clearly.
An eagle so large it covered the clouds, a screech so louds it shook her bones and throbbed her scars.
Fear caused through her veins even though she believed to have lost the fear of beasts many years before.
Then a bright green light emerged from the top of the tower pulling her eyes into a trance, she wasn't even awakened at the time but she could see the sword intent from in the air.
In a flash a cut flashed through the sky then the next second the Tier 5 beast fell down.
"High Councilor Greensword." she heard her handler mumble quietly with a respect the asshole rarely showed.
Guiding the kid from such a powerful individual was a heavy responsibility.
And for a moment the idea of walking away from this deal crosses her head, before another realization clashes her mind.
Zatu is not joking about the payment, an amount that was more than a hundred times the normal rate she went for.
An amount so large she would make more in a year than she had made her whole life, both as a guide and as an assassin to Seraphina Darkglade.
'I just need to make sure he won't die. I can do this.'
"So, two platinum a day, however many days you need a week?" She extends her hand to Zatu, raising an eyebrow.
"Deal, warn you I expect great results though." He shakes her hand, quite satisfied with how easy this talk had been.
'See, I didn't need Schalt to negotiate it.' He thinks with his chest puffed proudly.
Now calmer Illya puts Sir Howard back on the table.
"That will depend more on you than me, big boy." She winks. "Ready to go see the outer south?"
She gets up readying herself to give the best tour she has ever given in her life.
"More than ready!" Zatu says with excitement.
But just then, a small grumble echoes from his tummy.
Sitting back down, Illya giggles at him.
"Didn't eat yet?"
Zatu nods with a serious face and reddening ears, signaling for one of the waitresses to come to the table.