Aveliene folded her hands behind her head, staring up at the stars. She habitually picked out the important constellations, noting how dim or bright they each were. Her father's constellation was still dim, except for the newly appeared stars representing the bindings on his arms, which twinkled merrily. Her Step-Mother's constellation was just as bright as always, with the speckle of stars across her "brow" brighter than usual. She smiled at the sight, knowing that astrologists would be quickly annotating that the Eternal Elba was involved in machinations involving the mortal world.

She'd ran the last three days, quickly bypassing walled towns, fortified inns, and farms once she'd left the confines of the massive city. She'd been over seventy miles into the city when she'd decided to take the High Roads, and it had taken her nearly two days to make the trip from the Meadows of the Great Gates to the five hundred foot wall that surrounded the city.

Now she was camped a ways back from the highway she'd been following, far enough back to avoid being seen by any passerbys, but close enough that it wouldn't take too long for her get back on the road once she'd gotten a few hours sleep.

The fire she had used to roast a rabbit had fallen to embers, the ruddy glow doing nothing to illuminate her campsite. She relaxed in the darkness, the shifting shadows having less to do with the fires and more with the fact that she'd entered the High Roads earlier that afternoon.

The High Roads were dangerous, even more so with the Lich King War being less than a decade before. The war had gotten desperate and vicious enough that ancient weapons of war had been drawn from vaults, had been brought out from the Astral or Ethereal Core, each side releasing the weapons they'd seized on the other side, and many of them had escaped during the carnage that had swept over the Six Worlds.

The twisting roads of the High Roads led through impossible landscapes, through forests, deserts, hills, and mountain ranges that did not exist anywhere in the Six Worlds, and were dotted with fortifications built to seize control of various sections, with the isolated city here and there founded by those who had become lost in the endless tracts of land.

The High Roads touched each of the Six Worlds, yet existed on none of them. From any point of the Six Worlds one could enter the High Roads, travel for eighteen days, and leave the High Roads at their destination for a total of twenty days of travel. That made it so that anyplace on the Six Worlds could be reached from any other point with only two weeks of travel, no matter what the distance and obstacles between. Before the Lich King War that meant that settlements were scattered about willy-nilly, only in a rare few empires or kingdoms were there highway systems between cities, and only then to connect settlements where it was shorter to travel the normal way than it would be to take the High Roads. Now, since the war, many veterans and former mercenary groups were making a name and carving a reputation for themselves by helping clear the detrius of the war and ensure the safety of the work crews who were building grand highways. The highways of the High Roads were falling into disuse.

With a sigh, half of boredom, half of desire, Aveliene unbuckled her belt and slid her hand into her pants, cupping her crotch with her hand and squeezing softly. She'd been excited by her entrance to the High Roads, but so far nothing had stood in her way, and now she needed to find a way to curb her excitement if she was going to get any rest at all.

She quietly pleasured herself laying next to the fire, the warmth of the coals lapping over her, and she finished with a low gasping moan. She lay bonelessly relaxed, her eyelids fluttering for a few minutes, before slipping into a contented slumber.

* * * * *

"Stop running, it just makes me hungry!" Aveliene called out to the black garbed man, vaulting easily over the alleyway and to the next rooftop. She held a dagger in each hand, and the excitement of the chase had caused the inhuman planes of her face to rise up and replace the decadent softness she normally wore as a mask.

The man ahead of her ignored her, jumping from the rooftop onto a lower one, disappearing from sight. Aveliene grinned, knowing that the man would do one of three things. He would take a chance and jump to the alleyway, providing there was something to break his fall or he believed he could make it without injury. He might keep running across the rooftop, the knowledge that Aveliene was gaining on his steadily gnawing at him.

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When she reached off the edge, aiming for the opposite rooftop, which was a good six feet lower than one she'd leaped from, she knew he'd chosen the third option, hoping she was moving too fast to be able to stop herself.

He was standing there waiting, his sword cocked back, both hands holding onto the hilt. His eyes were narrowed in concentrating, the grim lines of his mouth hidden by the black cloth he had wrapped to conceal his face, and his entire body, swathed in a skin-tight black outfit, was trembling in contained anticipation. She knew the man intended on chopping into her before she could get her balance, possibly even going so far as hoping to catch her with a blow in mid-air.

Amateur Aveliene sneered, giving a little extra push with her toes and arcing forward, her hands held tightly. You forgot I'm not some slack jawed mortal idiot, didn't you?

The extra effort let her sail over his head, tucking into a roll at the apex and twisting in midair so she landed on her feet facing him.

"Oopsie." Aveliene grinned, licking her lips with her serpentine tongue.

Without a word the man jumped off of the edge of the roof, vanishing from sight. With a sigh Aveliene stepped up and looked down to check which direction the man had gone. He had headed right, deeper into the ward where the damage from the Lich King War had not been repaired yet in hopes of losing Aveliene in the ruins.

Idiot. Aveliene thought, racing along the edge of the rooftop, passing the man who was skirting trash and other debris, and dropping from the rooftop to the street below. Two quick footsteps took her to the entrance of the alleyway, and she pressed her back to the wall, listening closely and waiting.

The man exited the alley looking up, his eyes wild, and ran smack into the war-blade held tightly in Aveliene's fist as she swung it out and let the man's own momentum impale him on the blade.

"Looks like you had an accident, Alquezar." Aveliene mocked him as his eyes bulged out and he screamed loud and long. Aveliene cocked her wrist, twisting the knife upwards in his stomach and using it to support him. He'd exited the alley with enough speed, and she'd added enough force with her swing, that the blade was past the sharpened or serrated edge, past the two inches of dull metal, and the guard was actually embedded in his flesh.

Aveliene stepped in front of the man, smiling at him, the twinkling lights from the magically illuminated streetlamps reflecting in her flat jade eyes. He had dropped his sword to grasp her wrist and was trying to push her arm back to pull the knife from his belly.

"What were you thinking, taking a contract on the Starlit Diva?" Aveliene asked quietly, although she didn't expect an answer. "You should know that the fine art of theater is under my protection here in Novak-Eck, and I only I decide which contracts will be filled."

She twisted the blade again, and he gasped and tried to stand up on his tiptoes to relieve his agony, but Aveliene just lifted the blade with him. She shook her head, staring into his eyes.

"Right about now you're wondering why that little magic trinket you lucked into isn't healing your wound for you, aren't you?" She asked conversationally, tucking the other blade into her belt. She gave him a minute to answer, mocking his inability to speak around the agony in his stomach, smoothing a few strands of blood red hair away from her forehead. "What's wrong, you diaphragm still hasn't healed?" She twisted the bladed again, smelling the overpowering fresh excrement reek of punctured intestines. "What's that? I can't hear you."

The man beat on Aveliene's chest with his hands, raining blows down on Aveliene's leather covered breasts, the blows growing weaker by the moment. His mouth was open in a silent scream and he was tossing his head back and forth in denial.

"Did you really think that a trinket like that would save you from me?" Aveliene asked, reaching out and brushing the man's hair from his brow. "Just because it lets you heal from normal wounds doesn't mean it will save you from me."

She could feel the tissues knitting around the blade and wrenched it again, tearing apart just healed flesh and preventing the recently healed diaphragm from allowing him to inhale.

"You shouldn't have ran." Aveliene smiled, the smile quickly turning into something far worse as Aveliene's jaw widened further and further. The man's horrified expression on his brown skin faced realized what was happening as Aveliene's hand snaked around to grab his hair. "It makes me hungry."

He still couldn't scream when Aveliene pulled his head back by his hair, exposing his throat and the pulsing veins of his throat. His hands uselessly tried to push her back as the single row of even white teeth in her impossibly widened mouth blurred and were replaced by a triple row of serrated triangles.

"Yum yum." She quoted, and leaned forward to rip into the flesh of his throat with her teeth. Blood spiced with fight or flight chemicals fountained into her mouth, and his flesh was spiced with hysteria and pain. She relished the taste as she tore free the majority of the soft tissue in front of his spine, chewed twice, and swallowed the huge gobbet. Her neck distended as she leaned forward and bit away his lower jaw and cheekbones, her jaws working as she shattered the bones with her teeth.

"Yum yum."