He walked through the gardens with a slight smile on his face, this was a place where the hostilities of Sirius had yet to touch - a fact that meant much in these troubled times.
Arriving into the grand hallway, he found himself absorbed in the detail of the building, the finesse of the stonework and the soft lines etched into the hard stone.
"Sir?"
A nearby waiter had noticed him simply looking around, no doubt unsure what to make of this new arrival. He was well dressed with a sharp suit in the pre-exodus style, his face cleanly shaven and his complexion immaculate. The only source of unruliness came from his dark hair which was unstyled and untamed but still well kept. Reaching down to the jawline at the back whilst also slightly covering the ears, his hair was a combination of curls and straight lines, a common haircut still. In his early thirties he wasn't a young boy but more a young man and he filled his suit well.
Slightly surprised at the interruption to his musings, he uttered a flew words.
"Oh, yes. Yes, I would like a table for one in your lower restaurant please. Near a window if it could be managed."
The waiter simply confirmed this and asked him to follow, turning towards one of the doorways leading off from the hallway.
He smiled to himself again, savoring the atmosphere in the old style establishment.
It had been a long time since he had ate at somewhere as refined as here, he thought to himself.
"Would this suit sir?"
They had entered the lower restaurant, though it's class in comparison to the first restaurant could easily be forgotten once a person entered. While being the lesser of the two restaurants in the establishment, it was a shining example of high class and attention to detail. Ranging from the roof, covered in old paintings of various noble deeds, to the smallest silk napkin, draped delicately onto patron's laps by the polite and austere waiters, the restaurant shone with elegance.
"Yes, this would be perfect"
Whilst not the best table in the restaurant, this one afforded him with a view of the gardens that he so dearly missed whilst off-planet. The waiter removed the cutlery for the other placing on the table and moved one of the chairs to a more central position, giving a better view of the outside. The waiter then seated him and removed the other chair from the table before returning with a small datapad in hand.
"Would sir like to order a drink?"
"I'll have one of your older white wines please, I'm not too particular at the moment."
Smiling as he talked to the waiter, he remembered the various 'wines' that different merchants had sold to him on his travels. Most were awful, some were dangerous.
"Very well sir"
With this the waiter moved off into the busy centre of the restaurant.
Sitting back in his chair, he began to think about the trip ahead, before he caught sight of someone in the corner of his eye. Through the small crowd of people in the restaurant, one sight was particularly interesting.
Turning his head slightly to get a better view, he saw a strikingly beautiful woman talking to a man in an ill fitted blue suit.
His smile returned once again as he saw the woman drink multiple whiskey's in the space of a couple of sentences.
A beauty that was not tamed by 'noble' boundaries is a beauty able of realising it's full potential, he thought to himself.
He would seem to be worried in the least as she spoke listening to her carefully. "You may have been the youngest directors but, I was one the youngest commodore and what I've learned is if you are respected enough people will hear your voice and listen to you no matter your rank, Even my exile from the order, I am still welcomed back. You don't have to owe me anything, I was just doing what I thought and knew was right because most people think in the short run.
He'd look at the whiskey."I don't really drink at all, mind if I?"
She stopped, noticing something. A man was watching them, sat by the large windows overlooking the garden. Her eyes narrowed slightly, and then she returned to talking to Chris.
"Apologies, here."
She pushed the small glassful of whiskey across the table.
"I shall have a word with people within the IMG, see if I can call in any favours. I'll get back to you."
With that she stood, smoothed her dress and picked up her jacket, sliding it around her shoulders. With her other hand she took the bottle.
"I'll be in touch" she whispered, before seeming to float away, pausing briefly to leave a large sum of credits with the waiter.
The casual onlooker would have thought she didn't notice the man from the window seat get up and follow her into the lobby.
He had been slowly drinking his wine when he saw that the woman had noticed his observation. There was something about her that attracted him to her, he found it hard to not simply stare outright at her. He couldn't figure out why or what it was that was causing it however. He thought it could be sexual but that wasn't it either, it was something else entirely different and entirely more powerful.
When she got up and left so abruptly, he realised that he might have been responsible. Swearing to himself he called the waiter over.
"I have to make a phonecall, could you look after my table till I get back please, thank you."
He was strolling after the woman before the waiter could reply, a water glass in his pocket.
Entering the lobby, he ignored the glorious decorations around him with his attention solely focussed on talking to the young woman and sorting out the mess his carelessness had caused.
Losing her in the immediate crowd, he looked around for her lithe figure. Noticing her standing near the stairs with the whiskey bottle in hand, he moved to come face to face with her.
"Ah, Hello Madam, I must apologise for earlier, I did not mean to put you off or cause you discomfort but I feel that I must simply know your name. Would you do me the pleasure of sharing it with me?"
Smiling as he talked, he tried to keep his usual confidence in his speech but something about this woman unnerved him. He just couldn't place what it was. Something was just odd.
"My name is Linkus Hujuk. I would offer to buy you a drink but I see that you already have one"
He motioned towards the whiskey bottle Syana had in her hand with a smile on his face. The unnerving feeling was still there but yet, knowing her name had felt as if it were receiving a prize for some contest.
"While I can't offer you a drink, I can offer you a glass"
He said as he produced a glass from his pocket and offered it towards her.
After saying good bye to Syana he made his way to the storage where he grabbed his items that he was required to leave there which seemed more like a little armory, he'd slide a compact metal object under the back of his suit placing it in the center of his back watching Syana and the stranger talk before place two pistols in the suit again and then putting on a big bag, making his way to the door after already having payed the bill before him and Syana had started talking.
His smile broadened at the disregard for manners that Syana had performed, she clearly was not going to change her behavior simply due to her surroundings.
"Myself? I can't tell you very much about myself as I'm a relatively simple man. An adventurer if you will, someone who goes where the wind takes them. I follow the currents of Sirius, see the various sights and dip in and out of various things. Enough about myself though, I know everything there is to know about me but I know so little about you. Would you perhaps do me the honour of helping this terrible situation?"
Whilst he had started with a smile on his face, his expression changed at the end to a comically sad one, yet still with kindness in it.
Sme chuckled lightly at that, tilting the whiskey bottle to fill up the glass he still had extended in his hand.
"I was born into a world of fighting, dirty deals and nasty men. My father was an alcoholic and my mother was a bit of a waste of space, too lazy to do anything except bitch about how pathetic her situation was..."
She sighed lightly.
"It was a hellhole called Freeport 4... trust me, it's awful. I had to learn damned quickly how to stop the rapists getting me, as I was a small pretty face..."
Her face clouded for a second.
"But I got out of there, managed to get work onboard a smuggling vessel that moved between Bretonia and Liberty, which allowed me to earn some credits.
A few weeks after I started on the ship, we got caught entering Liberty by that Dreadnought, the San Francisco... I was in the engine room, and I managed to fool their sensors with a masking program that swapped the engines rotational frequency so quickly the sensors saw it as all over the place."
She smiled at that.
"My reputation spread, the 17 year old who managed to outsmart and evade a start of the art dreadnought. I had always understood and loved technology, and so I headed back to Freeport 4, and applied to join the main IMG.
I was accepted, and rapidly rose through the ranks to the position of Director, at one point I was director of all of the various divisions except defence..."
She looked slightly glum here, and took another swig of the bottle. She had drank straight almost half of it, and yet still seemed clear and alert. Her face was curled into a cute and sly expression, something that could make most people want to stare openly at her.
"Then people started to hate my success... jealously spread, and I was blocked from doing things, I was trying to do my job with my hands tied behind my back. I couldn't take it, and so to get back at all the miserable bastards who had tried to make my life hell, I quit."
She giggled, another move that made mens heads swirl. Was she cute and innocent or hard and tough with her giggles and whiskey? The balance between small, sweet, cute and tough, confident and beautiful was what kept the men off balance... she found it hilarious and enpowering.
"It had the desired effect. The IMG fell apart in a matter of hours. I felt bad for Hargreaves, he had his own troubles and all of a sudden he had to find replacements..."
She smiled.
"Strangely enough, all of those blocking me never got the director positions... well, maybe a couple did."
She shrugged.
"Then the Outcasts came for me. I'm guessing someone within the guild paid for it to happen, and I shall find them, and they will regret ever doing it..."
Her eyes lit up in a flash of fire, and the man opposite her shuddered.