Kaiden felt his vibrations pick up, amidst the tremors of lumbering footsteps, drunken skipping, and leisurely walking, the presence of his wooden cane he thought he had lost earlier during his small moment of complete vulnerability. He dodged all the drunks and inattentive passerby and swept the wooden handle off of the cement floor. He gestured for Lenard and Tran to follow while pretending to be “legitimately” blind, but not entirely helpless by tapping the end of the stick around his surroundings. 

A few disgruntled people lobbed rude comments and mildly irritated, one word warnings towards him, but he paid them no attention as he pursued his goal forward. [i]We must deliver these goods and make way with the gold back to base.. I don’t want Irene giving me an earful again.[/i] The thought sent shivers down his spine, as his mistress Irene had more… unorthodox ways of punishment. He looked back on the many times she’s pounded men into submission through her intimidating yet seductively dexterous ways; he couldn’t imagine the kind of shame and humiliation his comrades at home would feel if she publicly announced their masochistic pleasures. 

If there was one thing that he admired her for, it was her resourceful and indiscriminate cunning that put her thousands of miles higher than most bandit leaders. He smiled in her memory; she was a harsh and emotionally inept woman, incapable of showing any generally accepted form of affection or warmth. This posed as a surprise for many who come to know her, as she possessed the feisty, arrogant, and blatant lack of awareness for personal space or privacy. “From the time you join until the day you day, what’s mine is mine, and what’s yours… IS ALSO MINE!” She bellowed the moment eleven year old Kaiden proved himself worthy of Leviathan enlistment. He flashbacked to his young, innocent self’s thoughts and feelings of strong yet hesitant defiance. [i]What a big meanie.. I can’t believe I’m going to be here for life![/i] He thought back then while his eyes stung with the initial onslaught of tears. She looked down at him with this unbelievably deep scowl and furrowed, scarlet eyebrows, and snarled threateningly, “What? Got a problem with that, midget?” The boy hesitated at first, his mind blank with intimidation and heavy fear, and mouth violently quivering in an almost sob. He missed his home, his family, his friends, everything, everything he just wanted to leave and run away and never return and…

There was a sudden calm that quelled the rise of his intense emotions. He looked at her with the pitifulness of a suffering child, letting their eyes lock gazes for a good couple of seconds, before he asked meekly, “Can I at least keep the candy..?” She looked at him with an expression that spelled offended astonishment: unquivering, curved lips, hardened, condescending eyes, and an upturned chin that towered her pride and might. The child feared he asked too much and stepped out of line too early when his pings painted a set of unforgiving features, but then she let out a small sigh, and he could almost physically feel the lines of her face morph into a more relaxed yet exasperated expression. 

“Fine, the candy stays with you.. We can even make a contract, a bandit ‘code of honor’ you could say.” Kaiden pondered upon the apparent irony of this, wrinkled his nose in confusion, and tilted his head to the side in natural, child-like curiosity. “You guys have ‘honor’? I don’t think it’s very honorable to threaten to kill someone, or steal their stuff.. I think you guys have that word wro-“ And there it was, that signature steely, “no bullshit or I will rip you apart” glare that remained a fairly obvious sign of Irene’s deadest serious mood. He felt the sudden shift so strongly that immediately clamped his mouth shut and didn’t bother saying another word for the rest of the night unless spoken to. “Everything has honor, as long as you do it OUR WAY, the Leviathan way,” she enunciated with the utmost, exaggerated clarity, and let her sword gleam under the moonlight for extra assertion. [i]If our way means being a bunch of lying, cheating scumbags, I don’t think I want to be a part of all that..[/i] he thought glumly to himself as he felt the tremors of her footsteps take their stride back to her throne.

[i]Ah, how the times have changed,[/i] he said to himself in a non-chalant, oddly fond tone with a gentle, reminiscing smile. If it seemed like he didn’t possess any sort of attachment to his crew, he could at least say that he somewhat cared for his lady boss in this sort of chill, subordinate way. So much did his mind float about in the land of remembrance that he accidentally bumped into a lady of absolute, golden beauty – almost in the literal sense, too, with her wavy, golden hair. “Watch it,” she growled fiercely, and slid her arms across each other in an act of unapologetic defiance of petty social norms. He liked that, that fiery, deviant attitude that gave him thrills and excitement all over. “Oh, I do apologize. I didn’t quite see you there,” Kaiden said in a deep, breezy voice that he intended to ooze with charm, and leaned backwards while putting his weight on one foot to position himself in a more cool, charismatic light. He tightened the red band around his eyes, hoping that she would appreciate the humor in his statement and take notice of his attempts to charm her. 

He had the portrait in his mind now: a voluptuous, sensual body, clothing that hugged yet teased at the sensuality of the bare skin… He knew better, however, than to open his mouth and complement her appearances right off the bat; that would give away some pretty suspicious notions. He set his wooden baton to the side and reached out a hand slightly towards Lavika in a small offer of friendship, companionship, and maybe more in the future. “My name is Kaiden, and these are my two lumbering nannies, Lenard and Tran. You’re free to ignore them, as they like to do their own things on their own accord.” He leaned in closer, purposefully closing the distance a little too much as their noses almost touched and their lips a mere two inches away. “Stuck in their habits, these boys are, y’know?” He straightened himself up and smiled, knowing his invasion of her small, personal space will spice her up even more. [i]God, I really love feisty women like this..[/i] He thought as a slight hint of a daring smile curled up on his lips as he faced her way. Suddenly, Tran called over from the entrance of an alleyway, hollering about some inhuman snarls emanating from deep within. Lenard expressed his concerns too, shuffling over to the side of his companion, but Kaiden simply waved it away, and laughed. “Just relax guys, we’re here to celebrate, trade and have fun, so I’m pretty sure some hound masters are getting their pets into shape. Don’t worry about it so much, you pansies, you’ll get your booze fix later.” Damn, did he hate it when new recruits ruined his smooth moves by interrupting with stupid, asinine shit that were none of their business.