Travel was the very heart of Aivon's existence. He was all too eager to throw himself from province to province, narrowly avoiding the clutches of people who would seek him undone. He imagined the terror of another prison cell, a shallow unmarked grave that might be the end of him, and laughed. Their efforts to contain him were met with guile, their presumptions as to his identity an easy enough sway. Money came and went, and the life of a scoundrel lulled him back and forth, between the lofty heights of wealth to the grumbling pits of starvation. Everywhere in between was just the product of circumstance.

This day, he had it rather easy. The province of Thesnia was bountiful, with both plentiful harvests and beautiful women... it was his kind of place. Dionysus was praised in every swig, Aphrodite with every distant moan he heard from the bustling to provincial back alleys. He'd taken a glimpse more than once, if only to swipe coinpurses and be on his merry way. Harlots going without pay were the least of his concern, particularly as he counted out the owls in his last acquisition.

"There's at least a drachma in here," he calculated, his lip curving in an easy grin just as he turned a corner to find a bustling marketplace. With poultry searing and goats baying in the distance, it wasn't exactly Aivon's cup of tea. He preferred music to this, but the rumbling in his stomach and the full purse in his hand denoted the need to enter. The elderly littered the streets like insects, whipping around with floppy old lady tits in the wind, barely concealed by their chitons. Old men? Their sagging testicles could be seen through the divide of their chiton, nearly causing Aivon to wretch as he looked up and tried to forget the wretched view he'd lulled himself into.

It was awkward, how the moment went from the few young men spending their dime at the Marikas whorehouse to wrinkled fossils at the verge of death in the next, but he wasn't concerned. He'd found his for the day, and had every intention of making the most of it. With little consequence to fear, he wondered exactly what he could get up to. He'd finished his commitment, his hand still sore from the repeated bashing he'd given a middle-aged pervert. The odd jobs were a nice, if unsteady boon to his activities, but not without consequence.

Too many, and you become visible. Too few, and you risk starvation again.

Especially in a place like this, there was only so far larceny could take him without being strung up by his pretty little neck. It was as he thought of his neck hanging from a rope and a tree that he caught sight of a woman staring at him. It wasn't the first time it'd happened, but one could hardly count the wrinkled hag or the low-class harlot he'd had to smack before she whipped out his cock in public.

Either her face or her tits. One of them needed to be better, he lamented, rolling his eyes until he focused on the staring woman only to find a vague familiarity in her eyes. He scarcely went back to that dreadful epoch in the arcus, where he'd fought for his life again and again. But, he'd met a slave-whore there who'd shown him exactly just how much he needed to win. He'd fucked her good that night, and he'd wanted her, again and again. He'd nearly earned his freedom before that riot, and took the opportunity to escape.

But, he still fondly remembered that girl, Demi of Arcana.

That name...

When detached from a face, it meant nothing to him, but now that the memories came flying back he became all-too-aware of the woman's reputation. She'd moved up in the world, earning her freedom on her knees and her back. He could respect it, and often considered the notion of whoring himself out to older women for exorbitant sums of money.

Thesnia's the right place to try that, he mused, just before he blended right back into the crowd. He followed her, weaving past grandpa after grandpa until he took to the woman's back. An arm curled delicately around her waist, deft fingertips seeking to slide between the crease of her chiton and smooth against porcelain skin.

"Oh ho ho, is that the famed Demi of Arcana? I think, if memory serves, I knew you before you got all glamourous and famous. Look at you, they grow up so fast when they leave the nest," he teased her. His wandering hand took hold of a breast, toying with her for just a moment longer before he placed a kiss on her cheek and gestured towards a nearby tavern. Seeing the same sort of patronage, decrepit men and women who blushed at the sight of the young and beautiful, he grimaced before he offered,

"It might be better if we took this elsewhere. Where do people with both feet out of their grave go and wash down their dinner? Do you know?"

Thesnia was just a stop on the path throughout Athenia. He'd always enjoyed it here, at least, the sight of it through the bars of his pit in the arcus.

"Let me buy you a drink or five. Least I can do after that greeting, yeah?"

"Shavi."

Now that was a name he hadn't heard in several years. He'd nearly forgotten it, so completely unattached to the life he'd led in the outer reaches of the world that when it withered away in the de-humanization of slavery, he didn't really care. Demi was one of the few who knew him as a name and not a number, and he'd correct that later. But for the moment, it didn't matter to him. He met her scowl with his own grin. Her words did little to dissuade him from the grasp on her body, quite intent on maintaining that proximity.

Even back then, Demi was a strikingly beautiful woman, one that elicited the deepest fantasies from a fighter imprisoned in the pits of the arcus. She'd served him well, and he saw it fit to, when given the time, to return the favour. Coaxing this whore into release had proven a fun enough diversion, and the pair had hit it off well enough to consider one another friends in the pits of despair. Now? Both of them were freed from their bonds. One embraced her skills and garnered a reputation for being the best at it. The other?

"It would've been perfectly fine here if you didn't decide to do completely inappropriate things, you know."

The retort held a fondness in it that wasn't missed, her rolling eyes belied by the smile that cast upon her lips. He rather enjoyed it, seeing this woman smile. Others he wasn't so sure. Their misfortunes and the accompanying lament often served his purposes well enough.

Ahhhh.

Aivon imagined this young and beautiful harlot having to gargle some old man's testicles and promptly began to retch until she answered his invitation to drinks.

"You'd be fleecing... whomever this belonged to," he answers, shaking the sack of coins in his hand. He tossed it up, allowing the coins to roll in their sack against the back of his hand before he flicked his wrist, letting it fall into his free hand. Demi's sashay had the tilt of practised confidence in it that only made Aivon more intent on catching up with this particular woman. He followed her path through the streets of Thesnia until they found a tavern with at least... a few less old, wrinkled prunes in it.

He intently avoided the gazes of the elderly and decrepit, focusing the entirety of his attention towards Demi as he shifted his chair until they were right next to one another. To passerby, they might seem lovers, or she seemed the whore she was, garnering attention. Either way, it would deter people from looking at him and allow him to focus properly on answering her question. As he spoke, Aivon's hand wandered, playing along the flesh of her thigh. She'd berated him earlier, but clearly, because he was touching a different part of her, she'd have to beat his hand back again.

"Here? Never. Not enough going on, but it's pretty. I'm finishing up a job before I head back to the capitol. If you're looking to leave, I can take you back if..." he waggled his eyebrows at her just before he took a large swig from the pint that was brought with him. He ordered two more, grinning at his companion as he said,

"You said the wrong name, by the way. Shavi's dead. I call myself Aivon, now."