The fire pit was quiet that evening, the way it had been quiet most evenings since the supply groups started arriving. A handful of people scattered around the flames—someone busying themselves mending damaged clothes well two others talked low about the ent walls and how anyone would go about repairing them, the usual evening drift of a village trying not to think too hard about what was coming, Oswin had called the new arrivals 'motivation' for Chris, that it gave him a reason to fight even harder to keep the village as a whole safe. Sera hadn't believed it, rather she felt he had some other reasons behind the new additions, right now she was sitting at the edge of the light small fires light, far enough back that the flames cast her in shadow well close enough to watch them, or rather one person specifically.
She'd been watching Ren since he arrived that morning. Saw how he moved through the village with the kind of invisible ease that suggested they'd been here for months instead of hours. Brown hair. Average build and the kind of face that was easily forgettable. But She had felt the absence of emotions and feelings from them, like a smooth blank spot where emotions should have bled through like heat off a fire but instead seemed muted or smothered.
That realization was when she made the connection. The specialist program. It had a way of training people to be like that, pressing them down, sealed them and either making them into vessels for function rather than feeling or detectors such as herself that had to learn to filter out what they felt.
She watched as they moved with that same measured confidence before settling onto a log not far from her yet close enough to be deliberate without it being obvious.
The cloth-mender excused herself after a few minutes, soon followed by the others till the make shift fire pit emptied only had the two of them around it, the crackling wood now nothing but a faint red glow.
Sera waited with her eyes locked onto him, watching as he pressed their left thumb against their index finger and rubbing it in slow circles, that automatic habit that suggested actual muscle memory beneath the careful calm he seemed to project. They seemed to stare into the flames and ignore her.
"You're here for a reason," Sera finally said.
"Everyone's here for a reason." Ren's voice was soft and quite conversational. The kind of voice someone used when they didn't want to be heard as a threat. "But i suppose some people are just better at understanding what that reason is than others."
"You're from the program." She accused.
Ren's thumb stopped moving at that, turning slowly to look at her and for just a moment—barely long enough to catch—Sera felt something from his gaze. A flicker of a cold edge but tightly controlled. Like touching a knife made of ice.
"The Directors send their regards," Ren said causing a cold feeling to run down her spine, he said 'directors' as in plural, not the singular one she had known. "They wanted you to know that the door is still open. That you could come back if you wanted to. There's always work for someone with your particular skills. Work that matters and could be extremely valuable for there cause."
Sera's hand was on her sword hilt before she'd consciously decided to move. The blade coming free with a whisper of sound as she pointed it at him, already moving towards him to make sure her answer was clear.
Ren didn't flinch though, he didn't even look at the blade. Instead he just sat there with his hands on their knees and that practiced calm, the embers of the dying fire throwing orange light across both of them in a way that made it hard to see who was still breathing normally and who wasn't.
"Don't," Sera hissed.
"Don't what?" He asked with far to much innocence.
"Don't tell me about work that matters. Don't tell me about the door. Don't tell me anything that Ashworth is selling because I already know how that ends."
Ren tilted their head slightly. his left hand was pressing those circles again—thumb and index finger, slow and automatic without even noticing he was doing it. "You're fast. Faster than the reports suggested. That's good. You'll need that."
"For what?"
"For when they come," Ren said simply. "For if the Directors decides that your particular situation has become untenable or you try to step out of this... Place. For if they decide you're too much of a liability to leave breathing. Ashworth has long since been replaced with his replacements far more patient and less kill first and ask questions later, far less forceful."
His words where a warning, meant to put her on edge and make matters clear and where delivered with a cold, calculating calmness.
What she didn't expect was how much it seemed to work.
"I'm just here to let you know that we know where you are," Ren continued with that low, easy conversational tone. "They've always known since you fled. The Director likes to keep track of their investments and sometimes they're curious enough to reach out." He told her with a shrug and a relaxed smile. "I'm the curiosity."
Before she knew what was even happening her blade had been pushed to the side and his hand had found its way to grip her wrist, his movement taking her by surprise as they flowed like water. She didn't idle, her first cutting through the space where their center mass had been just a moment before. She adjusted, dropping the blade before grabbing it with her other hand and swinging it into a strike from a different angle, using her momentum to carry the weight of it as she tried to pull him into its path. Ren let her go and seemed to twist, blocking with their forearm, the impact hard enough to push him back and the faint sliver she saw showed he had prepared for her blade, bending his body and taking her by surprise as he slid into her guard.
Sera tried to counter, bringing her arm around to try and strike him only for Ren to lean back from it, the strike barely missing him as they brought their hand up to try and strike back but Sera was already stepping back to create some distance to reset the fight on her terms. Spacing was something many seemed to overlook and yet it was something that had kept her alive through many battles, a reflexive, bone deep understand that had her body move before her mind did.
"You are fast," Ren said with something almost like approval in his voice as he dropped the knife that would have stabbed into her had she not pulled away.
Sera didn't respond, instead She came in again, this time with a series of quick cuts meant to test their defense to try and find an opening. Ren blocked each one with economical, precision, his knife blocking what he couldn't dodge with what seemed like boredom before she realized he was actually feeling out her rhythm well pulling her into his own and building his own picture of how she moved, where her weight shifted, what her patterns were and doing exactly what she had bee trying to do to him.
once she realized that simple fact she tried to change it up. pulling a low Feint well using the moment when Ren's attention shifted to come in high instead, a cut aimed at the side of his neck to end things fast and clean only for him to slip into it before turning it into an opening, suddenly far too close for her cut him down and forcing her to once more adapt, using her shoulder this time to drive them back away from the fire pit and away from the light, his knife cutting across her shoulder. She needed distance. She needed room to work and the makeshift fire pit provided none of that so she tried to lure him away.
Ren wasn't allowing it though, his free hand coming up fast but not a strike, rather to grab, as he went for her sword arm. Sera twisted in response before using the momentum to spin and bring her blade around in a wide horizontal arc meant to give her the space she wanted.
Ren simply dropped under it. The blade passed close enough to shear through the leather tie holding back his hair and letting brown strands fall loose across his face as they came up inside her guard once more where, for half a second they were face to face and Sera could see recognition flash across his eyes, like they were seeing her clearly for the first time.
Then Ren's palm struck her sternum.
It wasn't hard but It was precise and designed to knock the air out of a person without doing lasting damage. Sera had used that exact same move dozens of times when she was in training. She knew the counter, had practiced it until her body knew it better than her conscious mind did. She should have been able to slip it, should have been able to counter and yet it landed and pushed her back.
Ren wasn't done yet though, he pulled her close, creating a vacuum with their suppressed emotions to disorientate her for a brief moment and by the time Sera's body recognized what was happening her lungs were already seizing, her diaphragm collapsing and the window she needed to counter having been lost.
His next blow landed harder, causing her to stumble back as her foot caught on something as she landed on her back with enough force to drive the remaining air from her lungs. Before she could roll, before she could recover, Ren was already on her. Their weight settled on her sword arm as they pinned it to the ground, there knife her neck before he seemed to let go and stab something else into the side of her neck.
Sera glared up at him even as her her ribs scream, clearly bruised but thankfully not broken, her lungs burnt well her her eyes began to burn and water, and her mind running through the possible poisons he had just used as the world seemed to spin around her, her focus swimming as the chemical started to work. She could feel it washing through her system, making her limbs feel heavy and distant even as he released her. It wasn't strong enough to stop her thinking but it was more than enough to slow her down and make it clear he could end her whenever he wanted.
Ren stood over her now, the syringe clutched tightly in his grip. She could faintly make out how themask had slipped just enough to see the exhaustion underneath, the bone-deep tiredness of someone who'd been wearing a face that wasn't theirs for too long. His left hand hanging loose at his side with it's thumb and index finger once more pressing together and making those slow, meticulous circles again only they seemed to catch themselves doing it this time because he clenched the hand into a fist and shoved it into their pocket.
"You're out of practice, sorely so." Ren said quietly. Not mocking but rather as if he was just stating a fact.
Sera's answer was a hard glare as she tried to spit at him.
"No need to be so rude, I think were very much done here now after all." Ren didn't move. "But before i leave let me make sure you understand this message. The Directors wanted you to understand that should you overstep they can end you whenever they want, but for you to still understand that the opportunity to get rid of all that rust and return that sharp edge you once had will remain open. You could come back any time you want, even now if you want. You could stop playing at whatever this is." They gestured vaguely toward the village with their free hand. "You can stop pretending this is what you want and return to being what you know you are meant to be."
"It's not a pretense." She bit out.
"No," Ren eventually said, sounding almost sorry about it. "And that's the problem I suppose. That's why I'm here instead of them, because they wanted you to understand what happens to people who forget what they were trained to be and for you to understand what can and will happen should you leave here for any reason other than rejoining us."
Ren stepped back slowly, walking slow and steady towards the edge of the village as Sera tried to move only to find her body was sluggish, the chemical still working its way through her system. She could do nothing but watch as they moved with that same measured efficiency they had throughout there fight, her frustration burning hot and sharp in her chest because she could see he was about to leave and there was nothing she could do to stop him.
Ren reached the wall and began to climb up to the rampart without hesitation, their movements were smooth, confident and clearly showed he had been trained not just to fight and blend in but on the smoothest way to leave a location. As They reached the top they seemed to pause for just a brief moment, there form silhouetted against the darkening sky and then they were gone.
Sera slowly continued to try and force herself up, her breathing slowly returning to normal as the chemical began to fade from her system. Her lungs still burnt and her shoulders still ached from the impact. But her vision was clearing and her body was slowly returning to how it was before, she tried to burn every detail of what just happened into her mind, form the way Ren had moved to the way they'd read her. The way they'd been careful not to truly hurt her and had been in complete control the entire time.
It was a hour later, once the chemical had left her system that she found and informed Chris about all that had happened, noticing the simmering anger in his eyes and the way he seemed to clench his fist tightly.
He listened without interrupting and when she was done, he looked at her for a long moment before simply giving her a slow, small nod.
"Okay," he eventually said. "Then we will sure you don't have time to think about going back and ensure that should they try something like this again we will be ready, I dont like how they managed to slip through the plants awareness but i also dont like that you tried to take him on your own, next time draw him over to the constrictor vines or try to avoid the fight, you told me to fight smart so next time do the same."
His words seemed to sting a bit more than she would have liked to admit but she knew he was right, and next time something like this where to happen she would use her mind instead of her emotions, she wouldnt allow herself to be toyed with a second time.