That darn fool Ohiska! I thought it would be relatively easy work with few complications; Go in, acquire a few objects with fairly little effort, and then collect on my reward. Such is the price I pay for trusting people at their word!

It was at the ruins where we spied him: the former Jin perched high atop a crumbling edifice. Scant were the chances that the Loa would topple the building and break the man’s neck for my amusement, so it was inevitable that after a small skirmish with the Naga he would come down and meddle in our affairs. I urged Ohiska to leave well enough alone. “The Tribal mother has forbidden it.” But my utterances fail to pierce that thick skull of his on more than one occasion, so we were graced with the eyeless one’s company for a time. Before I left he urged me to listen.
I suppose I should have protested more vehemently. It was the start of something darkly intriguing and mystical. His words were tempting. Small morsels out of a chunk of something more appetizing.

I find myself back in Stranglethorn two days later. This time, it is for myself. But the eyeless one is able to smell me, and easily. Not only is his sense heightened by blindness, but on that accursed day in which I exercised poor judgement by allowing him to live, he drank from me. He drank deeply and came to know me intimately.

It is dark and I walk alone, unconcerned by danger. He insists that he follow. He doesn’t realize that for me, he is the danger.

When he learns of my true intention for being there, he offers to play a part in my thrillseeking. After tiresome, irritating small talk to which I am unaccustomed and indifferent, we find my target. A small Alliance encampment built out of a marvelously… flammable type of local driftwood. The stupid pinkskins are not the issue. He slaughters them with ease and grace. He quickly takes his own pleasure. I watch him marinate in their blood and turn to me. His face is quizzical, bemused at my lack of pleasure. He smells my frustration. Why are you different from us, girl? he seems to ask.

After we have drunk deeply of their blood I urge the both of us to scurry away. From safety I can watch something marvelous. And so I raise the fires high, I set it all aflame from afar and sink to my knees and let the splendor overtake me.

Two unlikely cohorts crouched in the bushes, pressed up against one another, each aroused by something else. He by blood, and I by fire. After the stupor wears off and the smoke replaces the flame, I come back from irreality. I am slumped next to a dangerous man, allowing him to observe my lack of self-control. Although fully clothed, I feel naked next to him. He has stripped me to my very core, and gazed at the most intimate part of me. He no longer considers us as being different. I am terrified of this discovery. This is foolish, Dzivah. You must get away now.

And so I thank him curtly for giving me my release and I scamper away.

But the eyeless one, blind as he is, has seen too much.

What have I done?