[Astraea Olath'barra]

It had been a long time since Strae had stepped back into the city proper.

It was quite easy to get lost in the caverns below...the interconnecting tunnels of Har'oloth were a dangerous place to vanish into. Astraea had done so, however, and with good reason. The Vysstichi had wished to help hone herself against the dangerous nature of the underworld. She wanted to be a top assassin, and so she would be...or she would die trying. She was not one to be taken lightly. Dressed in all black leather, from her tight, formfitting black shirt to her second skin of leather leggings, and protective leather greaves. They had seen some wear in her time down in the tunnels, and were not the fresh, new leather items they'd once been. They were worn, used, and absolutely, perfectly fitted. The shirt came up just short enough to expose the slightest bit of midnight-toned midriff, the rest of her ebony skin hidden except for her hands and from her collar up.

As she strode through the streets, gazing about, she winced. It was her first time back on the surface in quite a while, and the light was almost blinding. Her falchion was strapped to her back with a bandoleer of throwing knives going around her waist and one around each leg. Her Bagh Nakh were still gripped in her hands...in the down-below, she had almost never let them go because they had permitted her to survive. Several creatures had come after her, and several had died on those claws. To not be holding them made her feel almost naked.

Her shock-white hair was pulled back in a ponytail today, her scarlet eyes flickering with annoyance. She'd forgotten how soft the surface was. When she'd been up here previously she'd been a scheming and conniving bitch. Now she was all that plus a large bundle of attitude. She saw one of her racial sisters sitting on the edge of the fountain and began to move towards her. There was soemthing in the girl's eyes...something she recognized.

She'd seen that look before. It was a look that said they were searching for something. Strae had felt it herself. That same pull had been what had led her away from her family to lead her own life rather then serve her elder sister as the new Matron. When she'd been sitting at home, staring at her hands, listening to her elder sister gloat about how she had finally taken the job...she'd worn that same look. Someone who didn't know what they wanted, only that it was something different.

Strae did not have the compassion nor the conscience to walk someone through that stage of their life. Not that it would do much good. If one didn't find their way through that portion of their life on their own, then it didn't matter a damn bit. They would remain worthless and unable to rely on themselves for the rest of their life, however short it might wind up being. People who didn't learn how to rely on themselves became a corpse very quickly in the Vysstichi world, usually a corpse used as a stepping stone for someone far more ambitious and ruthless. Ambition and ruthlessness were things Strae had in spades. Perhaps it would be she who would use the lost little lamb.

A gentle breeze caressed Strae's lithe form, and though she didn't feel much of it through the thick leather, it did play lightly with her ponytail.as she approached. She stared at the woman for a long moment before eventually speaking up, her soft sultry alto voice escaping her throat in a way that made each syllable sound like rough, seductive caress in the same way that her large, violet-rimmed orbs seemed to absorb every detail about the girl, almost as though sizing up a meal.

"If you wait for it to come to you, you'll be waiting forever," she spoke, "what you need to do is go out and seek it." What 'it' even was she didn't know, but she did know that everyone had an 'it'. Some goal that they would drive for, attempt to achieve, even risk death to grasp. Everyone's 'it' was different, and she was curious what this woman's 'it' would wind up being. In nudging her to do something, it was possible to find worth in her...make her worthier of being a stepping stone for Strae to become something greater.

Time to see what this little girl was made of, and if she was even with Strae's time.