"Stupid idiot," Stare spat at the man as she leaned heavily on the faun's shoulders. "You don't think you could have done that a little more tactfully."

The man in leather, whose name was Albion and was Vitruvion's long-standing assassin, stood there and scowled with his eyes. So Stare scowled back.

"Hey, she was the one who took the weapon out!"

"You didn't have to mention the Hollow now," Stare shouted.

A grunting came beneath her. Then a stillness, then Stare saw a hand move from the temporarily stunned body, the one that still held the white sword. It tightened, muscles began to contract and a whole mighty weight began to shift beneath the kenku's light, tiny body. Even though her knees pressed firmly into her back the faun still was managing to stretch, push upwards in a movement to -

Quickly Stare grabbed the mythril dagger from the right side of her belt. White, like the long blade held in the hand, Stare swiftly brought it to the back of her neck, placing it just where she knew the spinal cord began. One wrong move and Stare could sever her brain from the rest of her body like the clap of a hand.

The body went still. So the faun knew how to fight then.

"Look," Stare hissed, moving her beak lower to be just beyond the faun's ear, right at the edge of the fur ends, "We are here to help, not to harm. I didn't want to step in, but I had to because you won't even listen to my comrade, whose name, by the way is Albion-"

"Stare ..." Albion growled at her.

Stare ignored him. She continued as she faun seemed to begin to suck in her breath.

"We are here to help you rescue your little daughter. Our master is doing it to pay back what happened in the tunnels. He wants an alliance with you, and would never have dreamt -"

Spying a small movement from the doorway Stare looked over to see the figure of a fox slinking into the room. When the two of them joined eye contact he bared his teeth, his golden eyes beginning to glow with a fierce ember. The kenku took one thought to consider all the anger she felt in everyday life and force it back on the being. Immediately the fox fell quiet, mouth hanging open, stunned in a momentary silence.