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Sinister eyes watched the procession from nearby, narrowing ominously into thin slits as the coffin was lowered into its eternal resting place. Death. It was the one constant in life, a perpetual occurrence that knew no end. Nimavel Mynendil understood it all too well. It had been chasing him for the past few decades, unable to catch him despite its tenacious attempts. This was because he was intimately familiar with the icy touch of mortality, for his fingers were oftentimes the cause for it.
The raven folds of the assassin’s cloak swirled around him as the wind ripped across the graveyard. His cowl, pulled low over his alabaster-hued visage to ward off the rain, barely revealed twin lavender eyes that peered apathetically at the congregation of mourners. His gleaming orbs betrayed no hint of commiseration, only latent contempt for the fallen shopkeeper. In the game that was life, only the strong survived; apparently, the dead man had not been strong enough.
The Lord of House Mynendil, a clandestine family of elfin spies and assassins, was unaware of the fates that brought him here. His slender carriage, camouflaged within the projected shadow of a towering tombstone, shifted subtly as he folded his muscularly defined forearms across his chest and leaned against the grave. The howling breeze continued to circulate throughout the landscape, reminding the elfin assassin that something was amiss.
Cloaked in the darkness, the Heru Mynendil identified the woman from afar. Her relaxed carriage and light-footed steps betrayed her combative competency. There was another, too, a one-eyed human who wore his swords far too comfortably at his sides. Mildly amused by the scene and subsequently baffled as to why anyone would enter the graveyard armed for battle, the elfin assassin quietly continued to observe. It seemed that something interesting was about to transpire.
Beneath his physique-enshrouding cloak, he poised an elbow atop the unornamented hilt of the sheathed ninja-to strapped to his right hip. His opposite hand, tucked beneath his folded arms, casually fingered the balanced handle of a small throwing knife contained within a miniature bandolier wrapped about his thigh.
And then he heard the raven cry.
Scanning the horizon momentarily and pinpointing the ebony winged creature, the elf lord merely sighed. Was it an assassination attempt? A motion for revenge? Or perhaps unfinished business? Regardless of the case for the mysteriously armed outsiders, Nimavel suspected that it would be an eventful evening after all.
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