(2022-12-06) They Burn Faster When You Keep Them Lit

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Author:	Athena
Summary:	Syarra shows up for Past Contemplation Candle Tuesday Night in Roper's cage-room, with a strategy that gets the Frost Death Knight's attention. They discuss their growing team, the need for a spy to have a core identity, and the benefits of accessorizing to impress. 11.400-ish words.
Rating:	M for Mature 17+

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contains death knight, romantic overtones, flirting, dark humor, romantic touching, possessiveness, jealousy, mentions of torture, mentions of consent violation, mentions of attempt to drug someone

It's Tuesday night, so anyone in Acherus who's been paying attention for the past month would not be surprised to see a dark-haired Sin'dorei death knight making her way over to the now-curtained cage. Just as she was the week before, her hair is down and she's wearing a dark purple cloak. At the door to the cage, she almost just reaches to push it open, but then hesitates and jangles it once as a knock.

There's a faint sound of something getting knocked over, an uttered curse, the sound of someone patting something repeatedly and blowing loudly, as Roper says in a dark rasp, "It's open."

Syarra pushes the door open and steps into the cage, closing it carefully behind her. She looks up curiously to see what Roper's broken.

The chairs have been moved away from the crates, opposite them, placed fairly close together, although everything else in the cage remains the same.

Roper is kneeling by the two crates with several candles lit around him and a pile of papers, most of which are stacked neatly. One of the candles has clearly recently fallen, and there is spilled white wax on the crate near Roper’s right arm. Some of the candles are purple, and seem as though they weren’t made by humans – there’s a significant amount of decoration on them that seem kaldorei like.

He looks intensely focused on what he’s doing, which seems to be rapidly copying a map of the Hellfire Peninsula in a light hand moving at an almost blur of speed. “Hey,” he says, not pausing in the slightest as he continues to sketch out the western mountains on the edge of Zangarmarsh.

He’s dressed in a black formal shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, a light gray vest that is tailored to him perfectly, form fitting black mageweave pants tucked into black and gray spider silk knee high laced boots, and black gloves that end at his wrists. His hair isn’t styled, falling over his forehead in a softer look, but there’s something almost rakish about his appearance.

Syarra unties her cloak and slides it off her shoulders, draping it over her arm in a graceful gesture. Underneath, she is again wearing a dress, maybe one a little less suited to her current situation than last time. The dress is the deep blue of the sea off the coast of Eversong, and the shine and flow of it indicates some form of silk. The fabric twists in simple knotwork at her chest, and this time she is wearing a delicate silver icicle necklace rather than the usual moonstone. Her arms are bare, and a ribbon that looks like it was meant to be some sort of tie for the dress is wrapped instead around her right shoulder.

"Should I hang this in the wardrobe?" she asks Roper. "Or…"

Only after he finishes the last section of what he was working on does he look up – but he looks first at the curtain ahead of him, and there’s almost a sense that he’s bracing himself for something before he turns his head to look at Syarra. Even with this, there is clearly a reaction, as Roper takes in her appearance, eyes moving rapidly up and down.

His hand tightens abruptly on the pencil, breaking it in half.

He looks at his hand like it betrayed him, blinking repeatedly as he drops the pencil. "Fuck." It's barely vocalized as he turns back to the map, his face in profile looking almost angry at the map as he picks up the half of the pencil with the tip. "If you want. It's open. There's hangers in there. The ghouls could fit a few swords in there, if they wanted." His voice sounds like a harsh scrape of sound, the husky note almost painful in his voice.

Syarra smiles faintly, turning away to hang her cloak in the wardrobe. Over her shoulder, she says, "I hope you have more pencils."

Roper makes a sound of amusement as he drawls, "Not as many as I have fucking candles. Weirdly, not as many pencil sellers among the Cenarion Expedition, although I'd pay a real fucking gold coin to see if they could make one out of a mushroom out there." He uses the stub of the pencil to sketch out another part of the map, and rises to a stand in a single fluid motion without touching anything as he tosses the pencil back onto the crate.

Without looking anywhere near Syarra he says, "It's a good look. If you were actually thinking of tempting the frost instructor, that would be the one to do it in."

"I'll remember that, should the situation ever arise." Syarra takes one step toward him, and then stops. "You're planning our Outland missions? You were right, the concrete plan was what convinced Forge."

Roper moves to sit on the chair closer to the door, sitting on it with a lazy sort of sprawl, his gaze on some middle distance of the curtains. "You got him then. Good work." He immediately starts leaning back in the chair, lacing his fingers together and setting them on the back of his head. "Kiekel — that's the actual name of the gnome — is in, but he'll want Outland. Mourn's pending, assuming I can get Alaisa to find me someone to take over the protection detail, but he likes the idea, and he's willing to work the Argent Crusaders harder."

"Icaros doesn't believe in the vision, but he's willing to join for the work," Syarra says, her gaze following Roper's movement with mild confusion. She shrugs, and moves over to the other chair, sitting and adjusting the flow of her skirt. "Provided, however, that his living asset doesn't veto it. An ex-lover who is a schoolteacher. A draenei."

That gets Roper's attention enough that he sets the chair back down, looking at Syarra with his brows raised high. His eyes catch a little on the movement of her skirt before he flicks them back to Syarra. "He needs to get permission from Teacher? Well. I'll admit I didn't see that one coming. Do the Draenei like apples?" Roper drawls.

"That, I don't know," Syarra leans forward slightly, her hands on her knees. "I did get her name, though, if you want to look her up. Paluuva."

Roper mirrors the lean, crossing his arms over his chest, his left hand beating out a slow tapping muted by the glove. "I'll see what I can get, but I'm not expecting much," he says with a shrug, his voice a soft burr of sound. "It'll depend on what she says. If she stops him, I'll look a little harder. But, if he's already been working on establishing some sort of positive working relationship with a living person…he's already doing half the work all on his own."

Syarra nods. "Perfect for the publicity effort, as long as it goes well. And he seemed confident it would. So… that makes five, possibly six, for our team?"

"For now, yeah." Roper nods as the crate. "I've got three or four leads for shit. What I wanted was to get in good with the big powers of Outland — the Scryers, the Aldors, and the Sha'tar. But ran into a classic problem of being a little too recently affiliated with the Scourge to get anything useful. So. I've got Honor Hold with some shit that we can do. And I'm working on the Cenarion Expedition. They're not either Horde or Alliance."

Roper makes an elegant gesture with a twist of his right wrist as his lip curls in a wry, bitter smile. "Problem is they all sort of hate us, but the Kaldorei out there are the worst of the lot. And there were notably no fucking Forsaken among their little group coalition."

"The Cenarion druids are going to be difficult to convince," Syarra sits back, thinking. "The Scryers, I could try, but I'm fairly certain I won't get any further than you did with the Aldor and the Sha'tar."

Roper's eyes linger on Syarra's dress and hair for a long enough moment for it to be obvious that he's caught on some thought. Something tightens in his jaw before he looks away, glaring at the curtains. "I bet you could get further than I did, not in the armor," Roper rasps.

"By the way, Kiekel was a tailor, before. But, he's fucking chucked it into the bin of 'the past.' Not sure if he's a case yet for forcing him to have a hobby to give him something to do or better steered into focusing on his 'new unlife.'" For the last one, Roper makes the quotes with his fingers, his eyes drifting back to Syarra's face.

Syarra touches the ribbon around her shoulder, a little self-conscious under the scrutiny. Then she raises one eyebrow and says, "We already have a tailor, the Lady Cressidha. Or you do, at least. And as a warning, don't talk about it that way with Icaros. He isn't 'filling time' with study, he's a scholar. He seems to be embracing the 'unlife'."

Roper raises his left brow. "For fuck's sake," he mutters, and deliberately inhales just so he can give a decent, vaguely annoyed sigh. "Okay, so the scholar gets assigned to the fucking Hellfire weird Death Knight problem, that's for sure. I'd put the gnome with him, but I'd rather you test that water out for yourself to see if they'll work together or not. Kiekel's got that gnome literal thing going on. Weird fucking humor."

Roper leans forward, uncrossing his arms as he reaches out his left hand closer to the ribbon, leaving a decent space before he'd touch her. "From what was left from what she did?" He asks in an oddly soft rasp, looking seriously at Syarra.

"I told you I was not entirely unmarked," Syarra says evenly, not pulling away. "Maybe it's pointless to cover it, but I did think it rather ruined the style."

Roper meets her eyes, something in his expression, his voice growing darker. "You really think I would flinch from some fucked up marks?" His right hand on his knee moves in what seems to be an unconscious gesture, the wrist turning inwards, so that even in the glove the worst of the scarring on the back of his hands would be hidden.

"No, but…" Syarra falls silent, her jaw tightening, and she doesn't finish the sentence. "I can leave them, next time."

Roper's eyes narrow and he moves his tongue along his teeth as he sits back in the chair. Without missing a beat, he very deliberately and slowly strips off the gloves on his hands, tossing them onto the crate with the maps. "If you decide you want to see what a fucking immortal bullet hole looks like, all you have to do is ask," Roper drawls, looking at the gloves on the crate his right brow raising. "It's not as interesting as it sounds. But it's Tuesday, so if you want to know…today's the day to ask for it. Tomorrow it's back to fuck the past."

"I know what a bullet hole looks like," Syarra says quietly, almost angrily. She reaches over in a sharp motion to pull the ribbon loose, revealing the gashes that will never, now, heal.

Roper looks over, and it's clear when the mild interest turns into a sharp inhale that contorts his face in a show of rage, the temperature of the room dropping a degree or two, the candles flickering in a gathering wind before Roper exhales and clenches a fist, halting the building powers in their tracks.

"She's going to suffer," Roper purrs, his eyes on the immortalized gashes as he reaches his now bare left hand out to her shoulder as though to touch it.

"It could have been worse," Syarra says, her brow furrowing at Roper's reaction. She shifts her shoulder slightly toward him, not hiding the damage. "Much worse. But then, I probably wouldn't be here." She leaves it open to interpretation as to whether that might be a good or a bad thing.

Roper's mouth moves in a slight smile, his eyes hard, as he sets his fingers on the edges of the wounds. His hands are almost freezing cold. "Her fucking mistake." Roper tilts his head. "Our gain." The smile grows, a cruel light in his eyes as he exhales a huff of amusement. "Maybe I'll thank her for it someday, when I know it'll really fucking get to her to hear it, rub it in her fucking face." There's a dark venom in his words spoken in a low rasp.

Syarra doesn't seem to notice the cold of his hands. "I think she does intend to keep the treaty. We could invite her to a mission sometime, to offset whatever else she's doing. I bet she'd just love working together with me." Syarra gives a brief, cold smile.

Roper chuckles, a lopsided grin on his face, his eyes still burning cold. "Not with you," he corrects, as he sets his knuckles against her shoulder. "For you, on your command." He makes a tsk sound. "But that's…several steps away. When we know the others are solid behind you, that's when we push it, from a place of power and control. Right now, she's keeping a low profile out there, but the rumors of what she's like make her dangerous long term. So, one way or another, we'll eventually have to deal with her."

"For me, then," Syarra says slowly, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. She moves her hand to place over his, where it rests against her shoulder. "If we could get her to agree, but that's a problem for another day. With a low profile and keeping the treaty, she may not be too dangerous for us. If she can keep it up."

Syarra takes a breath and changes the subject, "Of the current group, then. I should meet Kiekel sometime soon. Mourn, I know, but maybe I could make a better impression now."

Roper's attention seems to stall out for a moment, his eyes on Syarra's hand. He blinks slowly. "He didn't even question it, when I told him you were leading it. All he wanted to know was what we would need from him, and how far we'd gotten with the Argents. So, the impression is pretty fucking good already." There's something in his eyes for a moment before he works his jaw and looks up at the curtains. "But you could figure out who he's gonna fit with."

Syarra nods, turning her head as if to follow his gaze. "Small group missions. Even if this grows, we don't want people to look out and see a legion of us marching across the landscape. That would be the wrong image."

Roper looks back at Syarra, a lazy sort of smile on his face. "Exactly. We do want to know who can work with whom, because we want to score the bigger jobs that people think are gonna take a fucking ten person squad of people, and we'll do with just two or three. That's how we show them that we're useful…and that they really don't want to fuck with us."

"Doubly useful," Syarra says, nodding. "Though I hope the people we recruit have enough control not turn on one another."

"Yeah, well, dissension in the ranks is a given, but these ones all have at least one thing in common that we're looking ahead more than five fucking minutes." Roper makes a sound in his throat that sounds vaguely annoyed, his hand unmoving on Syarra's shoulder, which has slowly started to warm. "You can put me with any of them, as you need to. I'll work with anyone, and if I fucking have to I'll let the lies into me long enough to make sure everyone stays focused on what matters. I won't jeopardize a mission just because I don't want to watch my fucking mouth."

"That's good to know," Syarra smiles faintly, and then drops her hand from his, back to her lap. "Speaking of missions, I haven't retrieved your cache yet, though I did scout out the area. It's difficult to get to the cliffs, but they seem mostly intact."

Roper hesitates before he pulls back his hand and runs it through his hair, disheveling it slightly. "Assuming it's still at that point, you'll be looking for a bag…" He rolls into a stand, moving to the wardrobe. He crouches by the drawer, and opens it, sifting through the contents briefly before he rises up again, holding a mottled dark brown bag with a double zipper to show her. "It'll look like this. Supposed to be waterproof, but something fucking pierced the one in the swamp and so long waterproofing. You can look inside it, when you find it. In case it's just filled with a bunch of dead scorpions. I'll still want that though. Very aesthetic," Roper drawls.

Syarra rises to follow him and stops one step away, looking down at the bag.

"Mm," she says in a brief sound of agreement. "Cliff-dried scorpions, for the ideal death knight brooch. Water shouldn't be an issue, unless it punctured and fell. In which case, I doubt I'll find it."

Roper shrugs, a twitch of his shoulders as he looks at Syarra, his eyes lingering on her hair for a moment too long. "There's nothing essential in them, so it wouldn't be a terrible loss, even if we'd miss out on potential fashion options. I wouldn't mind getting the lighter if nothing else, but that's just because it's a good fucking lighter and at the moment I only know of two functioning ones, and I can't get the other one, so."

"Where's the one you can't get?" Syarra asks. "Anywhere I could reach?"

Roper shakes his head, dropping the bag back into the drawer, and closing it with a foot as he sticks his hands in his pockets. "Alaisa has it. It's hers. From the Other Roper."

"It's the opposite of my situation, then," Syarra says, glancing down at the drawer, her hands fallen to her sides. "The receiver is unchanged, but the giver is someone else. Do you want it back from her? Or just to find more of them?"

"No. I don't give gifts with conditions to my friends, even if shit's changed," Roper says, with an obvious smirk of a shot fired at a certain priest. "And I'm not a thief either way. It's hers." He shrugs, a dismissive sort of gesture. "There were only seven of those lighters ever made. Five of them went into caches, one with me that's probably lost forever, and one to her, apparently. It's just…a particular thing. I like shit that's just mine." Roper's eyes, for some reason, go to Syarra's icicle necklace before he looks away to the curtains. "Made for me, custom. It's not sentiment or the past. I just want my fucking stuff, because Other Roper and I agree on what the best fucking lighter is, because he had good taste."

"If I can, I'll get it for you," Syarra says, raising one hand to touch her necklace and watching him stare at the curtains with mild confusion. "Oh, there's one more thing I should mention. I'm going to meet with the Aspenwoods, at some point. They agreed."

Roper's attention snaps back to Syarra, a frown pulling down his brows. "The 'Aspenwoods'?" There's an emphasis on the plural.

"He was very specific. Both of them, one of me. Public place, armed guards nearby," Syarra raises one eyebrow. "Not the worst reaction I could have gotten."

Roper lips move in a wry grin, but his eyes are cold. "No. I should have expected it. Colson is smart enough to not trust me. I just didn't expect him to be chained to the fucking hip with his fucking priest when he has the advantage of location and 'Peacekeepers.'" He moves his jaw back and forth as he tilts his head up slightly, looking into some middle distance, moving his left hand out of his pocket to tap against his leg. "What exactly did he say? He's a fucking paladin, so the wording matters."

"About the meeting itself?" Syarra closes her eyes, bringing the letter to mind. "I am willing to meet with you in Shattrath, in a place where we can both be assured of the other’s wish for neutrality." She opens her eyes. "I don't have the whole thing memorized, but I could probably quote more if you want it."

Roper nods. "Keep going."

"He goes on to say he's bringing Mordecai, a priest and healer, and that my being alone is a condition of his presence," Syarra looks to Roper to see if that's a good enough recitation. Whether it is or isn't, she continues, "And then something like 'I give you my word that we'll take no offensive action against you, though we will defend ourselves if necessary.' '"

Roper scoffs and removes his right hand from his pocket to make a there you go gesture. "Alright. I can work with that. Unless things have changed more than I've thought, he'll hold to that. Colson's a 'my word is my bond' paladin." He narrows his eyes and clicks his tongue. "Maybe do me a favor though and don't mention that you know that he's been getting information from me for Aze. He didn't want you to know. I agreed to conceal it. I just never said for how long and he didn't specify." Roper raises both his brows. "But, let me be paladin levels of unsubtle — my loyalty to him ends where my loyalty to you begins." Roper meets Syarra's eyes. "In case you were wondering whose side I'm on, or why Colson knows better than to trust me, even if it's his problem he fucking forgets to be specific about kill orders and timing."

"I hardly need to say I'm not planning on attacking them in the middle of Shattrath," Syarra says, meeting Roper's gaze, "so I should be safe. And I'll make sure that doesn't come up," she gives a brief smile, and adds, "But yes, if he ever asks us for a person to disappear, I don't see why we couldn't do it our way."

Roper gives her a lopsided grin, and there it is again — that too long pause as he stares at her into a growing beat of silence. Just before it can grow into something else, he rotates on his heel and moves to sit in the chair closest to the wardrobe in a smooth motion, plucking a silver coin from somewhere that he rolls across his right knuckles as he sets his eyes on the coin. "What did you think about 'Lady Alaisa.'" The husky note of his voice is barely a whisper on the edges.

Syarra looks like she might be about to ask something, but then the expression fades. She drifts back over to the chairs and sits in the one across from him, close enough to touch. "I am not sure what she expected from me. I did try to bridge the gap between us, as I could. She seemed… very determined to be sincere."

Roper gives a brief chuckle, flipping the coin and snatching it from the air as he looks at Syarra. "She was wearing another fucking face over the real one. You met 'Lady Alaisa.' Not the one I know, which I still can't tell if it's her real one or not. Too much fucking mirroring to trust it completely." Roper flicks the coin up again and catches it. "The enthusiasm though…that was real. But that might be my fault." He gives a one shoulder shrug and the shift in the movement makes it so his right knee brushes against her skirt. "She asked about you. I refused to give her an answer."

"What did she want to know about me?" Syarra asks, her eyes on the coin. "Something about the journal?"

"She wanted to know what you knew about her." Roper moves the coin around his knuckles, flips it, and rolls it back the other way. "It's a good question. She learns what I've told you, what kind of information I think is important, and what kind of person I think you are to tell you it. But that gives away things about you that she could use, could turn to her advantage." Roper palms the coin. "So I gave her what she can use against me instead." Roper looks at Syarra. "That's the thing you have to remember about spies. There's no way to avoid giving us information as long as we're in the room. Refusing to answer, or ask, a question is still information."

"What did you tell her, then?" Syarra asks, returning her gaze to his.

"I told her what you are to me." Oddly unspecific. "If she fucking knows me at all, and I have every reason to think she does, she knows what it means. She knows she can leverage you against me, and I'll fucking jump." Roper's voice has gone darker, the husky note stronger. "But that's my problem."

"If she knows that we're…" Syarra trails off uncertainly, obviously she means allies or something. "Then she has leverage on both of us. And I did give her a lot of other information… for building rapport, I hope."

"She doesn't know what you think of me, beyond what you give her," Roper says. "But she's an ally. And hey, she's alive, so if it turns out she likes baking…" Roper spreads his hands in an open gesture. The motion moves his leg more to touch Syarra. He doesn't move it away.

"I could probably still manage that, as long as she wasn't bothered by the nature of the baker," Syarra considers, brushing her hair back over one shoulder. "Would it be interesting if I brought her cookies next time? Or some more contested dessert. I don't know what you could get out of her taste in sweets."

Roper scoffs, and puts a hand dramatically to his chest, looking at Syarra with an expression that looks too amused to sell the pretend hurt. "Are you implying that I can't get information like what kind of dessert she likes out of an asset? Syarra. I'm hurt."

Syarra raises one hand, waving off the idea. "I apologize. Actually baking her something is far too easy, it would spoil the puzzle."

Roper laughs, tilting his chin up, as he flicks the coin up to catch it. "Eldritch old gods forbid." He makes the coin vanish and reappear in what seems to be an entirely idle habit. "But if you found some common ground with her…" He taps a rolling beat with his left hand. "What kind of sword was it. The one you had made just for you?"

Syarra blinks at the sudden change in subject. "Same kind, two-handed. But sized better. The one I have now is really made for someone… a little larger."

Roper leans forward, setting his right elbow on his knee. "Do you want it back?" He twists his wrist in a dismissive wave. "I don't mean the same fucking one. If that's gone, it's fucking gone. And it's not for sentiment. I mean do you want the kind of sword that you knew how to wield better. Just because we can use the bigger fuck off swords doesn't mean we have to. I can throw a polearm like it's a fucking knife, but when you get down to it, I trained in wielding two smaller, faster weapons, and it's what I'm fucking good at. So." He raises his brows at Syarra, and repeats in a soft rasp, "Do you want it back?"

"If you're offering," Syarra says, looking into his eyes, "then yes." She breaks eye contact to smooth some invisible wrinkle out of the silk in her skirt, and adds, "I'm not weaker without it. I've gotten used to the new situation, and I can handle it. But… I would like that."

"Yeah, I'm offering," Roper says, using the break in eye contact to look at her hair, his right hand closing into a soft fist under his chin. "You get me the actual plans, or, fuck, even if you just describe it well enough, I'll make it. And then…Theris. He's new to that big sword, and what he can do with it. Someone could train him on how to better use it, with his new strength, and figure out the balance of what he's working with that's different from what he learned how to do. And then tell his sister about that progress." Roper raises his brows, his eyes still on her hair over her shoulder.

"That, I could do," Syarra says, looking back up to Roper. "It was my specialization, for decades. Some things are a little different now, because of the strength, but in principle it's very familiar."

"And that's something in common to talk to Alaisa with, where you could show your strengths, and leverage her feelings for her brother's well being. Assuming that was actually her, and not 'Lady Alaisa.' Which I can't rule out." Roper shakes his head, his gaze almost transfixed on Syarra's hair, a faint twist of his lips almost like a smile. "Fucking dangerous, that. Letting the lies that close in, only half-covering, twisting bits of yourself. That's how you fuck yourself up, until you don't know what's Real anymore. I don't know why the Other Roper didn't stop her from it." A faint exhale. "Or maybe he did, fuck. Maybe this is new, or just for us. Who knows."

"Most people don't create an entire persona to lie," Syarra says, raising an eyebrow. "But maybe you're right. Maybe it does fuck them up."

"You live in it. The lie." Roper drags his eyes off Syarra's hair to glare at the curtains, who really haven't done anything to deserve this odd menace in his face. His voice, however, is soft, almost gentle with that rasp on the edges. "You have to believe it to sell it. And when it's done, you have to be able to come back to the one that's Real. And resist the fucking temptation to 'fix it.' You can see it now, all the pieces. Your tells." Roper holds up his left hand, mimicking tapping in the air. "Your flaws." He moves his hand to touch a place on his abdomen, where an immortal bullet wound rests.

"And you know you can lie. But if you do…you lose yourself in it, until you don't know which parts are you. It's what she's doing, wearing pieces of lies over herself, warping it just a little. Fixing things. For most people, it's just…you're not the same person with your sister as you are with a lover. That's fine. But for people like us, the liars, it's more dangerous than that." He inhales to sigh. "She mirrors me even when I think I'm looking at the core self. I don't even think she knows she's doing it, because if she knew me, she'd know not to do it. That it would make me more suspicious of her, not less."

"So you think she's… lost who she is?" Syarra frowns in thought. "Why couldn't the mirroring be just a habit, like another tell? If she were fixing things about herself intentionally, you'd think it would be to put you at ease, not the opposite."

Roper moves his hand in a wobbly gesture. "It's kind of like asking me how I can spot a Liar. I just…can tell. That habit of mirroring comes from spending too much time lying, until you've lost the parts that are only you. The mirroring isn't intentional, or better to say, she's lost the ability to stop doing it, in the core, but she doesn't do it when she's fully pulled on another self." Roper shrugs, a quick rise and fall of his shoulders. "The fixing though… that's what you saw as 'Lady Alaisa.' It was her, but not quite. The 'better' version, but it wasn't a full lie, just part of one. Not who she genuinely is around other people, but a deliberately created persona. She's let the lies run too close and she's playing too many people under one hat. It's probably taking a toll. And it's probably what she wants from me." Roper looks at Syarra. "Someone she can be the core with, and remember who the fuck that actually is."

"That's… not a bad reason," Syarra says, looking back at him. "If that's her ulterior motive, it's almost like wanting a friend back. But she must realize that we're… the effort to get people to tolerate us… it's similar. I was not creating a persona, but I was not entirely everything I am when we were speaking to Lady Alaisa by the Argent's camp. Maybe I was a little more than I should have been, at points, but not entirely."

Roper grins, and leans forward. "Yeah. But you're working the angle correctly, from someone who goes back to herself fully at the end of it. With her…it's like…" He looks around the room as though there's inspiration to be found in the curtains. "The difference between how anyone can throw a punch vs a prize fighter. Someone makes mistakes with the punch who wasn't trained, you know what you're looking at — they have the idea but they aren't trained."

He gestures to himself, looking at Syarra, something oddly intense in his eyes. "I'm not the same person out there that I am in here with you, but I know how to stay me. With her, it's like watching a fucking prized fighter tucking her thumb into her fist before she throws it." Roper rotates his wrist in a rolling gesture. "But, if I was the only person she was ever Real with…I've been gone for four years. Then it's like she's been undercover for this whole time." There's something almost wistful in Roper's voice, gone deeper. "And she's starting to break under it."

"Then your goal will have to be to get her to break cover," Syarra says slowly, following the argument. "Because otherwise, she might lose the Real her permanently. And then we lose her, and everyone does."

Roper looks at Syarra, and leans forward fully, moving his hand slowly and deliberately to her permanently wounded shoulder to touch it.

Syarra glances to his hand and doesn't move, looking back to meet his gaze with a question in her eyes.

“The same thing goes for you.” Roper's eyes are locked onto hers in an intense look, his voice that husky midnight sound. “You don’t have to fucking pretend, or hide this shit. Not with me.” Roper moves his head in a slow back and forth gesture, as his hand moves in between the unhealing wounds like he's tracing a sigil between the puncture and the cut. “I’m not them. I’m not sitting here looking at you like if I stare hard enough maybe you’ll turn into the Other Syarra, secretly hoping that you can pretend to be alive, hide the monster and the corpse." There's a lopsided smile starting on his lips. "I see it. I like the fucking monster, the corpse, just as it fucking is, the whole fucking picture. I’m not interested in the ‘best face.’ You can pretend with them, when it serves your fucking purpose because that’s what we’re doing, but you don’t need to do it here with me.” He raises his brows in a flick of motion, moving his head without moving his eyes off hers. “It’s what the fucking curtains are for.”

"So that we can be monsters together," Syarra says, with the start of a smile on her lips. "And make paper cranes and whatever else we want, without anyone else to see. I do like what you've done with your cage."

Roper grins and lets his hand fall slowly from her shoulder, setting it back on his knee, his thumb brushing at his fingertips before he starts a slow tapping. "It's serving its purpose. And when people can't see in…they can't get anything from me that I don't want to give them. So, it can be what I want it to be. I chose it because it had a lock on the door. Now it's working even better for having had four walls."

Syarra reaches over, still with that ghost of a smile on her face, and adjusts the collar of his shirt. "I hope you never want to fix anything, when you're here with me. I prefer the Real."

Roper watches Syarra with an odd sort of expression, like he's weighing something in his mind as he leans forward slightly. "I can't be anything else anymore. Even if I wanted to fix something, or hide something…I can't." There's a look of almost anger on his face, as he blinks and drops his eyes to her hands, and his voice is almost a scrape. "The Hunger makes it impossible to hold onto anything for long enough to make it matter. I'd be constantly slipping back into the Real version. So. That's what you get. No matter what I might…" He doesn't finish the sentence as he moves as though to roll into a sudden stand.

"What?" Syarra asks, shifting as if to stand with him.

Roper makes a slight sound, tonguing a tooth for a second before he meets Syarra's eyes with a bitter sort of smile. "No matter what I might rather hide, or what I might rather show you, to fucking stay in control of what I'm showing you," Roper finishes the sentence with a drawl that sounds more like a self-condemnation than anything else. "When I know you're watching, and I don't really know why yet."

Syarra touches her icicle necklace with one hand, meeting Roper's gaze, and says, "By now, I had not thought that was a difficult puzzle."

Roper's eyes narrow as he watches Syarra's face with that look that even from beneath a hood has a heavy intensity to it, and bare of it even more so as everything in him goes tenser. It's like he's looking through her more than at her, studying something. Whatever he sees, makes his lips twitch in a half-smile.

He tilts his head as he deliberately reaches out his right hand for the icicle.

Syarra tries to hold his gaze, though he seems to be looking through her. She doesn't move.

Frost creeps along his hand slowly towards the icicle jewelry, as he looks at Syarra, his voice dark and low, the husky note scraping the edges of his words, his lips twisting further into a lopsided smile. "I like this one on you." The frost on his fingers spreads to the icicle, chilling the necklace as the temperature around Roper drops. "Ice suits you better than the other one." The other necklace? Something else? The tone doesn't make it clear.

He leans in a lot closer, into where it would take very little to close the distance fully, but it's over in less than a second as he continues moving, rolling into a stand with a fluid agility as he lets go of Syarra's necklace, the frost lingering on the pendant. He strides to the crates, his left hand in his pocket as he bends down to pick up a collection of the copied maps, already speaking as he goes.

"I have the locations marked for the places to start the jobs we can do in the armor without worrying about getting stabbed for the crime of existing, and these are the most recent maps of Outland, for the others. When you talk to them, make sure they have it." The husky note is almost gone in his voice as he speaks. He holds out the papers to the side, looking over his shoulder at Syarra in profile.

"Of course," she says, rising and walking over to take the maps from his hand. She looks at him in profile, her brow furrowing slightly. "We wouldn't want them to lose their way."

"Mostly because they don't turn into lost lambs, so much as lost hungry wolves," Roper drawls, and he hands her the maps without even any pretense that he isn't doing it deliberately to touch her, as he lets his hand linger on hers.

"I don't know shit about making groups of people work together, so it'll be up to you to figure out if someone needs to be a leader or not for these that you can't be there for with working with the Alliance on a few of these. Although, if you need tips on how to wear a hood and act like a human…" Roper leans in closer, moving his hand to brush against her hair, fingering a few strands between his forefinger and thumb.

"I couldn't pull it off as well as you did in Silvermoon," Syarra says, shaking her head, but not pulling away. "It's not worth the risk."

"You sure you don't want to miss out on the experience of being around a hundred plus humans who have sat on the crumbling edge of the world for twenty years, still arguing over a single fucking outhouse?" Roper drawls, his right brow flicking up briefly. "I know it's hard to top the fucking semi-sentient brooms, but…we do our best."

"Alleria Windrunner was with them before," Syarra shrugs her damaged shoulder. "One would think I should be welcome without a disguise."

"There's their son wandering around," Roper murmurs, his eyes tracing a line of her hair. "So, you'd think…but then again, we've always been stupid when it comes to your people." Roper winds a lock around a finger. "I could add to the disguise. The sword I can make practically in my fucking sleep? It's the one they're all fucking wearing. It's an old foot soldier sword." He makes a sound of amusement. "Right now though, you could probably walk in there and all they'd see is the armor. For better or worse."

"That's probably true," Syarra says, resting one hand against his shoulder. "There's a lot more against us right now. I'm working on that, Silvermoon-side, at least. I have a few leads."

"You'll let me know how it goes with the noble who wants you to hunt someone down?" Roper asks, a trace of a smile on his face. "I'll be sorry to miss it. But, I'm pretty sure I can't just stoically [yes] and [no], and [she's the commander] my way through everything, and eventually someone would notice." Roper's accent is clearer, closer to a natural sound, but there's still something of his native Stormwind accent in it. "Not because of the accent, but because I'll do something plebeian like try to find some fucking stairs instead of looking for an orb," he drawls.

"Yes, I'll let you know how it goes," Syarra says, looking down at her hand on his shoulder. "I should be able to handle that one on my own. But still, you must admit the orbs are convenient."

"Not when you're trying to find a place to eavesdrop and you realize you're going to need to scale a 70 foot building outside because nobody put in fucking stairs, they aren't," Roper drawls, tilting his head. "But that's not really a problem I have to worry about anymore." He narrows his eyes and moves his hand from Syarra's hair to the necklace still covered in the slightest bit of frost that isn't melting.

“You call your sister ‘Aze.’” That is both true and completely unrelated as a statement. Interesting. “Did she call you something? A nickname?”

"Yes," Syarra says, her eyes focusing on something distant. "Yara, she used to call me." She refocuses on the present, on Roper. "Why?"

Roper makes a faint 'tsk' sound. "I'm curious," he answers, which sounds true, if unlikely to be an entire picture of why. “It's a good detail to remember, to know." Also likely true, if not necessarily a full reason. "Anyone ever call you ‘Sya?’ It seems like the more obvious choice."

"No, it was only ever her, with nicknames," Syarra says, narrowing her eyes. "But why does that matter?"

Roper chuckles, a lopsided open smile on his face, and he seems amused as he looks at the pendant, refreshing the frost on it into a deeper cold from an icy touch. "I told you. I like things that are made for me that only I get to use. I don't like sharing nicknames." Roper flicks his eyes to Syarra's, raising his brows.

Syarra nods after a moment, accepting this explanation. The frost on her necklace doesn't seem to be causing any notable discomfort. "No one has ever called me Sya. But if we're doing nicknames, what about you? I think calling you by a different name might just feel less true."

Roper shrugs. "I had too fucking many names. None of them felt Real enough to keep. This one…" Roper's eyes go a little faraway, the usual animation of his face bleeding into a lack of emotion, his voice going more hollow. "It was the last one. The one I chose to be in the end. I wasn't any of the others. Just Agent Roper." He refocuses on Syarra. "The thing that matters is that you know that when you call me it, that it's not a fake name with you. I'm me under it. Alaisa knew me as 'Tibault.' But not the one Theris knew. I was me, under it."

"Still Roper then," she says with a nod, sliding her hand down and off his shoulder as she turns back to the chairs. "I had another idea in Silvermoon, but I don't know yet if its likely to work."

Roper watches Syarra, remaining where he is as he lets his hand fall from the pendant. "What is it?"

"There's a woman I used to know, in the blood knights. A noble," Syarra sits in the chair closest to the wardrobe, setting the maps neatly in her lap. "She's leading a mercenary company now. If she remembers me, I thought… maybe a good connection."

Roper steps to the other chair, his hand going to the back to flip it from its position next to the other one until it's facing almost directly across from the other, as he sits in it backwards, crossing his arms over the back and leaning forward as he looks at Syarra with a calculating expression in his eyes as he weighs this information. "How good a mercenary company?"

"If I remember the leader clearly, she's self-absorbed but influential. Political." Syarra shrugs, lifting one of maps absently. "As to how good they are… they're not Cobalt, but they're building reputation, I think."

"Look into the rep first. If they're too fucking…" Roper waves his right hand vaguely, as his left starts tapping a fairly rapid beat on the chair. "The cleaner their rep is, the better it'll be to attach to ours. Too good though, and they won't have anything to do with us. So." He does a balancing gesture with his right hand. "You see the opportunity, take it. Either way, any influential noble brings you more power in the end, if you can turn her into an asset."

"I don't have a real network for information, but I should be able to find something out," Syarra says, setting the map back down. "Just wander in likely places and listen. Even if they're too clean, I could try. With an exit strategy, and the armor."

"Worst bar, best bar," Roper says, ticking his fingers up in a count. "Mention to the bartender that you thought you saw a bounty for the name of the company, loud enough to be overheard by a few people. And then listen to what happens, watch people for what they do after. If there's only positive things in the best bar, but they're unheard of in the worst bar…you're dealing with elitists, and they're unlikely to touch us with a fucking enchanted broom. If the best bar gets you sneers and the worst bar gets you a fucking sketchy offer to undercut them as competition…" Roper shrugs. "They're not big enough to be worth the trouble beyond the leader."

Syarra nods. "Ideally known in both sorts, with reasonable reactions. Either way, I could still try the leader as a contact."

Roper nods in agreement, watching Syarra's face. "Do you know which ones are the best and worst bars?" He asks it in a light rasp that sounds genuinely curious, not accusatory.

"I did live there," Syarra says, as if this is an answer. She doesn't smile, but she looks vaguely amused as she elaborates, "The best are likely in parties that I am not invited to, but there are some public, between the Bazaar and the Court. The worst, Murder Row."

Roper's lips move in a quick half-smile of amusement. "Parties you're not invited to now, but you were before?" He raises his brows in a quick motion.

"Invites, sometimes," Syarra says, leaning toward him, with a conspiratorial air. "I had a few connections, back then. I didn't go, though. Usually."

"Not your scene?" Roper asks, leaning in closer, as he sets his chin on his arm, his left hand slowing into a tap. tap. tap. as his voice dips into a lazy sounding drawl.

"No, not really," she admits. "If it had been, I might have made more connections that would be helpful now. Why, were you a fan of invite-only high-class parties?"

“I have no fucking clue,” Roper rasps. “I know…fuck, so many dances. Songs, even. I know how to deal with a bar fight, and I know how to manage a fucking drive by appetizer on a plate with a drink tray in a four piece suit." He looks at his right hand, turning it over to look at his palm.

"But I can’t tell…which parts are me, and what were identities. It’s all…jumbled and there’s no context for so much of it that it feels like trying to read something off a napkin someone’s spilled a drink on. I know how to go to a party, any party. But I also know…” He looks at Syarra raising his left brow with a sharp smile. “How to pretend to be drunk. And just…so many fucking tricks to make it looks like I’m drinking more than I really am.” He lowers his voice into a whisper, the rasp stronger as he says, “The big secret is ice.” He drops his right lid in a slow wink.

"I can say that the people I knew would say that defeats the entire point of a party," Syarra says with a brief exhale of laughter. "But they were not spies." She pauses, a thought occurring to her. "Or if they were, I guess I wouldn't have known. But… then again, maybe the point of Stormwind parties is different."

"Depends on the party," Roper drawls. "Fucking mages — " He breaks off, his expression corpse like so suddenly it's like someone cut the power to him, as he stops moving, beginning to literally freeze in place as frost twists over his hands, moving towards his heart.

"Roper?" Syarra's eyes widen in surprise, and she reaches over to put her hands on his shoulders, shaking him gently. "What's happened?"

Roper snaps to attention, a rune pulsing in the blade by his armor, and several candles go out in a sudden brief wind before he catches himself, breathing in and out.

"Syarra." There's an uncanny echo in his voice, but there's relief in the tone.

In the darker room, his eyes seem even more intensely blue, flashing on and off as he blinks repeatedly. "Fuck." That sounds more like his usual voice, although the husky note is harsh, as though he's been screaming for hours. "A…fragment. Piece of…memories that didn't make any fucking sense."

"What was it?" she asks, not letting go of him for the moment.

"Someone…I must have known. A mage?" Roper shakes his head slightly, blinking slowly as the frost slowly recedes. "I don't know. Hazel eyes in a smoky haze. I'm watching my drink because I know he's put something in it and I'm trying to…guess what it is, listening to the laughter in the room to know what to mirror. Letting him think it's hitting, and there's shadows pulling at me." Roper almost slurs the last few words and he drops his head back, closing his eyes. "It didn't make any sense. Fuck. That hasn't happened since…Alaisa."

"This has happened before?" Syarra shifts forward, closer to him. "The same memory?"

Roper opens his eyes. "No. Then it was…I remembered a piece I must have…missed. Of her. It was burned so badly that I almost sent myself off a fucking edge catching it. She said something to me, in my voice, something I must have said and I just…remembered this fucking meaningless snippet of a memory, and it felt like if I kept looking at it I was going to go insane," Roper rasps, and he looks at Syarra. "This was like…looking into the same fucking kaleidoscope, where the longer I stared at it, the worse it fragmented and I couldn't…" He inhales, and doesn't finish his sentence.

"Can you not chase it? Just look away, when it happens?" Syarra holds his gaze. "If we were still alive, I'd say try to remember who he is, this man who tried to drug you, but… "

Roper makes a sound like a piece of a laugh as he gives her a tired, wry smile. "I'm not chasing it now. I didn't know it was there. Now I do, so I won't fucking touch it. But it just…didn't make any sense. Part of the memory…" Roper narrows his eyes. "I was amused. There was…like fucking fond exasperation. But there was also…rage, so dark and the shadows…" He breaks off, and presses his right hand to his face, almost as though he's trying to manually push a tension headache out of his forehead. "I'm probably not selling you on Stormwind parties," Roper drawls, a bitter sort of amusement in his voice.

"They don't sound entirely to my taste, no," Syarra says with a touch of amusement. "Hers or mine. Fondness and rage… some kind of… ploy, taking a bad turn? Were the shadows part of the memory, or part of the remembering?"

"I don't know. I went sliding towards the edge before I could…" Roper shrugs, a bare shift of movement that doesn't seem aimed to dislodge her hands, something made more obvious as he moves his right hand to cover hers on his left shoulder. "But hey. It's Tuesday. If I don't occasionally go spinning into insanity looking at my fucked up past memories, I'll get banned from Candle Contemplation. And then what will I do with all these fucking — " Roper frowns as he seems to finally realize how much dimmer the room is. "Fuck."

"They do burn faster if you keep them lit," Syarra says lightly. "It's still enough to see by."

"I bought fucking twenty of these candles from the Kaldorei in Zangarmash, I can't afford to conserve them," Roper drawls as he pulls away into a stand, his movements a controlled sort of agile. "I need space for metal for a new fucking sword."

Syarra sits back in the darker shadows of the room, the brightest point her burning blue eyes. "Trying to win them over by being a valued customer?" She asks. "It sounds like progress, if they were willing to let you buy them."

"Not quite," Roper says, and he sounds amused. There's a click of his lighter, as he bend to re-light the candles. "Got some sketchy fuckers desperate for money to buy them for me. Usually I'd use a street kid for it, but there’s weirdly no fucking kids around these places." He straightens and turns to Syarra, his hands in his pockets. "And in the meanwhile, I got the information I wanted on how well off the trade is there, how much they could use more money, and hey. Candles. I actually need them now. Downside of the curtains."

"They need money?" Syarra looks up at him curiously, not moving from her chair. "That is not the lever I would have thought to use with Kaldorei."

"They're trade posts, but there's not a lot of things they're trading, and the land is fucked up. They're out there working to 'heal' it," Roper’s brows bounce as a stand-in for his fingers with the quote. "And in the meantime, not a lot of cash flow or variety in goods. There's not even an inn. So. Eventually if we can work our way in to having them actually talk to us, hey. Our coin spends as much as anyone else's and it forces them to interact with us with a fucking social script, even if they're cold with it." He nods his head side to side. "At least, hypothetically. It's worth a shot, even if it takes longer."

"It makes a certain amount of sense," Syarra agrees. "I think we would have more pull if we could heal the land in some way." She looks down at her hands for a moment and reluctantly says, "Though I think simply healing the land may be one goal in which the end will not justify the means. At least not my means. Maybe if there is a particular thing to do. Something to kill."

Roper strides back over, reaching out to flip the chair back to the side of Syarra's, and sits into it in a single graceful sprawl. "I was never going to be a fucking paladin. My hands were never clean." He snorts as he pulls them from his pockets to lace them together as he leans forward. "There's always going to be someone who wants something done, and is willing to do whatever it takes. And always someone who wants to live in some perfect fantasy of morality that cares more about purity of means than solving the problem, no matter what it costs to let the problem continue." Roper looks at Syarra's face, a faint smile on his lips. "We watch for the ones who know that sometimes, you don’t question how the job got done. All you should care about is that it is fucking done."

"If there are any of those, among the Cenarions," Syarra raises an eyebrow. "I trust you to find them, if there are. We may have more luck with the Scryers. I expect that they, at least, know the value of looking away when needed."

"We don't need the Cenarions to be friendly," Roper drawls. "Just take it down a notch from 'murderous hostility' to 'wary agreement that everyone here walks away every time.' Like with your Kaldorei priest." Roper flicks his eyes to Syarra's necklace, and something goes tight in his jaw before he looks away. "As long as we've hit 'people' it doesn't matter how they feel about us." He glances back at Syarra's face. "How bad would it be for your goals with your sister to show up at the Scryer's with a room near hers?"

"It might help," Syarra tilts her head toward Roper, considering. "Make me something she sees every day, or however often she's actually there. I don't think she would run. And I don't sleep, so she couldn't kill me in my sleep, which would be my main concern."

There's a look of rage on his face that Roper doesn't bother hiding. "If you think it'll work, then it's worth a shot, once she's finished fucking cooling off from attempted murder number one," he says, and there's a midnight darkness to his voice despite the mild words.

"I won't let her kill me," Syarra says, a warning note in her voice. "And she stays alive, unharmed, whatever else she pulls."

"I know. I've written to Colson, pulled what I can. I won't touch a fucking hair on her head as long as she doesn't destroy you. I just…" Roper inhales and exhales in a harsh sigh, glaring at the curtains. He rolls back up to a stand to walk to the crates, his back to Syarra. His voice is even, and tightly controlled. "You'll need money, if you're staying in the fucking city."

"Maybe some of the threads I'm pulling in Silvermoon will provide," Syarra says, with a shrug. "Not every job pays only in pain and influence."

Roper nods, his back still to Syarra. "If you find yourself short, you tell me. The legal paperwork end of that goal is worth the cost sunk into it."

Syarra looks down at the maps again, and asks, "Your contacts have been proving lucrative?"

Roper makes a sound of amusement. "Not at the moment, but I haven't been prioritizing money. If I need to shift focus for fucking cold hard cash, I will, but. I have to know. Otherwise, not being locked into money is an advantage." Roper tilts his head back, sticking his hands deep into his pockets. "But it's just money, and that's always easy to get. 'Metal detector,' and all that."

"I'll let you know," Syarra says. "First, though, I'd need to get the Scryers to be willing to rent me a room. Or someone to rent it for me. So… money isn't urgent."

"I'll take a look into Shattrath. Find out how bad it is, and I'll get the information on how you get the room." Roper sounds confident of that. "But, that's also a good lead for your sister, because she's gotta be doing something to afford that place. Which means she might be bleeding money she made, or she might have someone paying for it for her. If that's the fucking Aspenwoods…" Roper inhales and exhales in a long sigh. "Either way, you'll have another possible leverage on her, or it'll tell you how long you have before she looks for something she can use to stay in, when or if the money runs out."

"Knowing her, it could be any of the above," Syarra says with a sigh, moving toward the wardrobe. "It would be good to know, though, for my next move. I'll need to actually make it, soon, but I don't want to ruin anything by rushing."

There's a hmph of amusement from him. "Don't look at me. Patience is a virtue and I'm a fucking sinner," Roper drawls, as he turns in place to watch Syarra.

She opens the wardrobe and pulls out her cloak, turning back to him. "We've burned down enough candles tonight. I'll see what I can do with the Silvermoon connections, and I'll wait for your word on Shattrath."

Roper takes several quick strides towards her, hands going out as though to help her put the cloak on, a faint smirk on his face. "And with any luck, scorpion brooches," he says in a slow drawl.

"With any luck," Syarra nods, shifting to allow him to help in an obviously familiar gesture.

Roper takes the cloak and settles it over Syarra's shoulders, fastening it with slow, dexterous movements, leaning in closer. His voice is a soft rasp, almost a loud whisper. "I like that you wear this. It's another curtain." He shifts a hand to her hair to settle it against the cloak. "I like knowing I'm the only one who knows what's under it right now. That the rest of Acherus doesn't get to fucking see you, because it's not for them." With that, he steps back away to the crates, the rasp fading to the edges of his voice. "Get me the sword plans sooner rather than later. Even if they're clear, it'll take me a bit to make sure I've got the perfect materials."

Syarra closes her eyes, leaning back toward Roper as he speaks. Her eyes snap open when he moves away, and she turns toward him.

She looks at him for a long moment before she finds the words to say, "Of course. I'm not a smith, but I expect I can reproduce the plans, at least. If I can't find them at h… at the house in Silvermoon."

She walks toward the door of the cage, casually touching his shoulder as she passes. At the door, she touches the clasp of her cloak with one hand, and reaches to push it open with the other.

Roper turns his head as she brushes by his shoulder, and there's a beat before he says, "Syarra."

She pauses before opening the door, and turns to look at him in profile.

Roper crosses to the door, and fully telegraphing his motions with the lazy amusement of someone who could move fast enough to surprise her and is deliberately choosing not to, he sets both hands on either side of Syarra, bracing against the bars of the cage holding the door, leaning in close enough that she can see the bits of light on his eyelashes. Does he need to be this close to talk to her? Absolutely not. Is he though? Sure is.

Syarra turns more fully to face him, looking up into eyes without hesitation.

The sense of amusement and something else more intense grows stronger as Roper watches her. "I have to meet with Alaisa soon, to talk about that protection detail for Mourn, and get the rest of the supplies for Cressidha to enchant your armor," he tilts his head as he deliberately looks down at the cloak covering the sea blue dress and back up to Syarra's eyes. "And to make you some more pretty things for when you want to be a weapon and make people stupid with it." The rasp is closer to a purr, and he is still very close. "I don't show up to those meets fucking Hungry. So. I'm headed out tomorrow for that fucked up temple with the candles. Living Amani still show up in there, among their restless fucking dead."

He moves his right hand off the cage to Syarra's hair, letting it flow over his open palm as his voice dips into a lower rasp. "It's in the middle of a fucking lake in the Swamp of Sorrows, sunken into it, where no one…" He gives Syarra a lazy grin, something soft in his expression. "No one can hear them screaming, no matter how loud they get. Great place for a picnic, if you want it. I don't mind sharing. Not with you."

Syarra raises one hand, the cloak parting to reveal a slash of blue, and brushes back his hair, her fingers just touching the side of his forehead. "That sounds wonderful, Roper. Let's have a picnic."

Roper's smile tugs up into a lopsided grin, something in his eyes that seems almost dangerous if not for the sense of amusement that surrounds him, his body language held tense and coiled, and there's an almost too long pause before he pulls back, releasing her hair and opening the door to the cage. He doesn't mention the ribbon from her dress, still in the room by the chair Syarra was sitting in. "I'll see you tomorrow then. Sya."

Syarra nods, a shadow of a smile crossing her face at the nickname. Then, she steps out of the curtains and back into the Hold.

Roper closes the cage door, reaching to the armor stand next to him to pluck a key from an open pouch, locking the cage again, a look of intense concentration on his face. He returns the key to its place and walks in silent steps to where the discarded ribbon remains on the floor, bending over to pick it up before running it through his hands repeatedly, sliding it over his fingers, an echo of the way he touches Syarra's hair, almost as though he's weighing it.