When the food arrived at last, it was far larger than he expected. It was like some sort of meat and vegetable pancake the size of a banquet platter, yet instead of flaky layers it had the consistency of bread. A great heaping of cheese was used to secure the smaller ingredients to the base, and he could see drippings of the savory tomato sauce escaping from tears in the layer of molten cheese. The only utensil provided for the meal was a knife. Fuxing waited for Jesgil to go first, taking careful notice on how this dish was intended to be eaten. The cheese covered flatbread was meant to be sliced into triangular wedges, then held by the crust along the outer edge. To avoid staining one's hands with sauce and cheese, deft balancing of the piece when eating was required. 

Jesgil's enjoyment of the pizza made a strong argument, compelling him to try himself. After feeling sufficiently prepared, he slid his fingers beneath a slice close to him and pulled it away as she had done. The trail of cheese that refused to part with the rest of the pizza made him frown, but finally it broke so the piece was liberated at last. Taking a bite from the tip of the triangular slice, he quickly learned just how viscous the cheese layer was. Successfully taking a first bite without too many cheese strings, its savory flavor was highlighted by the thinly sliced meat and vegetables. There was a surprising sweetness which he had never tasted before, a contrast to the rest of the slice. There were pieces of small tomatoes, sun-dried like dragon's-eye fruit sold in Karithian street markets and apothecary mixtures. 

"It's delicious! All the flavors and ingredients harmonize well; alhough a bit on the messy side when eating." This dish had made quite an impression on him, he might come by and visit this place again on his own. He would opt to choose a pizza without extra cheese, however. Cheese was not a typical ingredient in traditional Karithian cuisine, so he made sure to savor it while it was warm. "I had no idea that cheese could have this sort of consistency. Here I expected it to be the usual hard slices cut from those great disks of pressed curds." Outside of the old culture of the floating city, there was much for him to learn. Perhaps that was what differentiated him from most men his age, and even men from Karith in the present.

Maybe if Jesgil adapted more of a dragon form in her normal state she would be having a tail swaying back and forth like an excited puppy, but alas, there was none to trip up whoever walked behind her. Still, it did not halter any conversation that came up between the pair, the spiced ale, and the pizza. Talk started with the food itself, both singing their praises, though it seemed Fuxing was not as much of a fan as she was with the cheese battle, making the messy dish even messier. Once enough statements about the food had passed, it was on to their work areas, talking about what an "average day" was for them with Jesgil not being shy about complaining about some of the more ruder guests1. Yes, she did keep her mentality when as if she was a maid, but having to also deal with cruder guests she would have dropped seemed to have built up some pressure she needed to vent. Could blame the ale as she drank it quite freely, but after a sip of what Dalanesca enjoyed, nothing to really compare to real strength. Still, she knew her limits.

Still, by the end, the pair had split the pizza evenly and had a fair share of drinks before calling themselves filled up before summoning the waitress to pay. Since each ate half, it was only fair to split the price down the middle before the two headed out. Fuxing wanted to continue his night's stroll while Jesgil still had to return to her hotel to drop off her work outfit before possibly hitting up the local bath house for a relaxing dip and remove any smell of sweat by being so active. So, without much issue, the two stated their goodbyes before each headed their own ways… though as the Draconian got to her resting place, an uneasy feeling creeped up her spine…. but why?

After their meal they walked together until it was time for them to go their separate ways. Fuxing sent Jesgil off with a goodnight, then took the long path towards his lodgings. There were fewer stores open now as people had begun closing for the evening. The promenade was brightly lit, so he couldn't have expected what occurred next to take place. The waitress who served him and his coworker tonight stepped out from one of the waterfront pavilions Jayou's riverside had. When he noticed, he greeted her with a smile and polite nod. "Good evening Miss. Ah, you must be the young lady who served us tonight. I must commend you for your excellent hospitality. Are you returning home now your working hours have concluded?"

She returned with a coy smile, long dark hair contrasting beautifully against her flowing purple dress. "How did you guess?" Fuxing approached to walk  beside her as she took a path through the residential streets. "Are your lodgings on this street, Miss?" He inquired. "Yes," She answered, "We are almost there. Just one more house…" As she walked in front, her red lips parted into a sinister smile while the man followed unaware. Now approaching a junction of small alleyways,  she stopped to make a turn into a place with a blind angle.

"Thank you for coming all this way with me." She crooned, a dangerous sensual tone underlying her words. "The pleasure is all mine. I was glad to escort you home." Fuxing replied. "You certainly are quite the gentleman. And here I almost thought I wouldn't convince you to come along. After all… I can't drag you here myself." Suddenly the woman's hair lashed out on its own, grasping to ensnare him! He tried to run but he was pulled into the alley with his mouth muffled to prevent anyone from hearing his screams. As he was taken, he knocked over an old unlit glass lantern causing it to shatter on the ground. 

Damn it. Damn it! When it hit her on what the chill she felt was, Jesgil was already in a rush, leaving her work bag in the middle of the lobby. Hoping staff would not peer into it and send it to her room was the least of her concerns as she darted down the empty roads, eyes glowing a golden red and ears already ridged up with prongs. It was her dragon instincts that kicked in, most likely from the meal. After their brief chat and sharing work relations, that bit of kinship seemed to have triggered her maid tendencies… which were in fact her dragon tendencies. Everyone I work with is a treasure, she reminded herself, which meant the chill down her spine was someone after that treasure.

The obsidian shard that decorated her neck was shining in the night light as Jesgil hurried through the streets, following her dragon instincts towards the "threat." Normally, she would be using it to suppress it and gain control of herself, but with the threat of someone's life rumored through the streets, she deemed it better to fuel it instead to help remove the chaos. Strange thoughts, but all things considered, it meant making sure the man was still alive and safe.

With each step, the feeling grew stronger, both in terms of the "treasure" and to what threatened it. "Awaken, my blood, and grant me thy steel," she forced through her running breath, forging a two-handed axe into her hands. The weight of it seemed non-existent as the priority overrode whatever changes occurred until she found herself in an alleyway: Fuxing wrapped up in hair by the one who served them, though her face seemed much more distorted. "So it seems you were sizing him up for more than one reason," she quipped before dashing towards the woman.

Had he been in a different situation, Fuxing would have been able to defend himself with an array of spells. However, he was unable to move. The coiling locks of hair had their barbed tips dig deep into his flesh, his limbs feeling like they were about to be rent asunder. Pain, terrible pain–like he was going to be torn apart. The last thing he saw was Miss Jesgil appearing around the corner, with a weapon in her hands. His hand reached as if to call out as the barbed tendrils tightened around his neck. The hook-haired woman then raised her victim up as the prehensile hair ripped him apart. As soon as it happened Fuxing's entire body collapsed into a pile of ivory tiles, clattering to the floor. Instead of blood, there were pieces of an old antique mahjong set littering the alley. He lost consciousness as the magic which held his humanoid form was disrupted.

The fiendish female spirit's face went from bloodthirsty to a blind rage. How dare she be deceived, even though she had done the same to all her previous victims! With a hateful shriek, the barb-tipped locks lashed out in all directions, clawing the walls of the buildings and scraping through the ground. Hair standing on end, she turned her attentions to the one who dared to interrupt what would have been another successful lure. With murderous eyes, she rushed forward as her hair lunged at Jesgil with a frightening speed. All the barbs could tear right through a body without resistance, turning it into a mangled mess. This and much more were what she had in mind for the interloper. She should have dragged away the man when she first saw him, but because she was there–she had to wait. Did they think they could get away with that petty trick?! Once she was done with the woman, she would find another target and take her sweet time peeling him part.

While seeing Fuxing turn into a pile of tiles was confusing, for sure, there was no time to really worry about it as the woman began to lash out against her. A flurry of hair was being sent against her now, growing out like a wildfire as if it grew at an unimaginable speed, and if Fuxing's condition was not a thing, it certainly was not for fashion, either. No, she had to use her axe to keep it at bay before the hair wrapped around it and tossed it aside, disarming her to ensure she would be the next victim.

"Grant my thy ICE!" flicked out of her mouth in dragon's tongue before she shot out a frozen breath from her mouth to further hold back the attacker and get a thin layer to coat her hair. As she did, she felt the coldness fill her body before slowly seeping out and around her, layers of ice forging on top of her skin a layer of armor so that when the ice breath was done and she went to latch on, it would not catch flesh and encase any hair that got onto her.Of course, it was as effective as any single-plate mail, meaning she did need to thin out or completely ignore the joint areas so she could still properly move.

With bundles of her hair frozen to her arms, she summoned her axe back to her side before chopping down on the frozen strands that tried to hold her down. All she could do for now, as she hoped that whatever trick Fuxing used to escape with the tiles would be handy to get the slip on her. Other than that, she had a demon that needed to be removed…

The brittle frozen locks were cut with ease, removing several barbed tips in the process. The she-fiend shrieked when her attack was thwarted, and withdrew to plan another incoming attack. The shortened hair began to regrow, and new barbed ends formed. The process itself was not instantaneous, which alluded the hook-haired woman had her limits. Ever since people began growing wary of staying out in the evening hours finding prey had been less convenient. How easy had it been in the beginning! This was her feeding ground, she had claimed it before anyone else. She wasn't going to let silly rumors or foolish mortals get in the way. 

In most situations she would dispose of the witnesses, then move to a different part of the city. But she couldn't take the chance of leaving the woman alive. Forming that disguise as a waitress was her most successful tactic yet since the thinning out of people staying outside. With her hair she pulled up to higher ground, slipping out of view to jump out onto Jesgil from behind. Sharp nails and barbed tips out, once that annoying protection of ice was gone she would tear her up and feed her to the fish in the river.

The ivory tiles had been motionless all this time, lying on the ground as they were. Fuxing was slowly regaining consciousness with time; this was the second time his human form had been destroyed. Slowly but surely, the enchanted mahjong tiles began to gravitate towards each other. They were congregating into one large pile as the magical energies that held him were being restored. Such movement went unnoticed by the hook-haired fiend. She was too focused on Jesgil with rage to give what happened earlier a second thought. Driven by bloodlust, her attentions were strictly limited to her base desires of cruelty.

The woman before her vanished into the dark, eyes filled with panic and fury towards the Draconian.While a simple person could deem this as a successful retreat, the air felt too tense to even think about dropping one's guard. Sure enough, the woman's rage and bloodthirst made her jump for Jesgil from behind, using her hair to lash and scrape away at the ice armor, most likely wanting to dig into the fleshy bits underneath herself. Bad move, was the only thought in her mind as the other forgot they were in an alley way and she took no effort to try and bind her movement,

Shifting her footing, Jesgil took the brief moment to charge backwards into the stone wall that forged the alley, sandwiching the hair-controlling demon between her and the wall, making her lose breath and grip, slumping off her back and onto the floor. It took a simple moment to use this to her advantage and, after forging a layer of ice upon her palm and inner fingers, turned around and grabbed at the base of her hair, pulling her up.

She is the base of this chaos, dripped into her mind as the obsidian shard around her neck shimmered. Remove her, and peace and control should return once more.

She was sure to lift her head up by her hair so that the demon's eyes met her Draconian pair, glowing in the golden-red blend of the two bloods, as ice spread from her hand and over her hair, working its way to her scalp. "Listen here, little one," Jesgil spat, eyes sharing no shimmer in care, "Tonight will be the last night you dare threaten anyone in this town ever again. I am going to send you to a new place for you to repent for all that you had done." Tightening her grip, the ice shattered, along with the hair that was inside, leaving a bunch of frozen, uneven fringes left over on her head. "If you see Lady Dalanesca when you get there, then be sure to let her know that I, Jesgil Yamar, was the one who sent you." And with one final motion of the arms, the Draconian used her axe to behead the demon.

The air was still for a while as Jesgil worked to catch her breath, the light from the volcanic glass dimming down to nothing before she finally headed over to the pile of mahjong tiles that rested on the floor. "For such a messy vanishing act, the tiles used certainly seem much cleaner…" she muttered to herself as she reached down to collect them.

With a scream soon cut short, the hook-haired woman's body dissipated into miasma and faded away once she was beheaded. Like a foul wind, the miasma was taken up towards the sky, then out of sight. The frozen remains of her hook-hair also vanished without a trace. That night would be much more peaceful, moreso than it had been for weeks. Silence and tranquility returned to the alley now that the fiend was banished by force. Jayou would have a respite from the bloodbath it had endured in the evening hours, and the likelihood of the fiend returning was slim.

The tiles were being picked up, one by one. His consciousness was returning but his physical form was not yet reassembled. Someone was bringing back together his pieces. A small collection of tiles still left ungathered began to merge to take the shape of a hand. A little more time, and Fuxing would be fully awake and in order. The skin of the hand still had numbers and markings resembling what was on the ivory mahjong tiles, and was searching for more of its parts. His head still wasn't formed yet, so he couldn't see or speak to whoever was now carrying a sizable number of what were parts of him. The tiles still on the ground began to move more noticeably, the pull between them growing stronger with his conscious awareness.

Jesgil's body froze in place as she reached down for one of the mahjong pieces: a One Dot, to be more specific, as the color had certainly tanned up quite a bit… but she could swear an eyelid was actually forming around the marking on it! IN face, looking around, all the tiles around her began to change in color and alter in shape with some smaller tiles even taken full forms of bodily limbs. This of course made her question and look down, only to see the tiles she had formed into that of a chest!

"Gyah!" she shrieked as as she leaped back, arms thrown upwards, which in turn caused the chest to fall onto the alleyway floor, rattling with both the sound of tiles and meat. It was certainly an odd thing to occur… but then again, she was also attacked by someone who fought with hair. Maybe this was the trick he used to escape such a fatal blow from being ripped apart? Well, it certainly affected her ties of treasure towards the man as what was only one simple being now turned into a board game.

Still, it seemed the tiles were trying to get back together, so hopefully that would bring him back? If it was any other kind of escape replacement technique, there would be no reason to gather everything back together to return… right? She gave her cheeks a couple sturdy slaps to psych herself back up and shake off the sudden shock before working  to push the tiles back together instead of picking up individually. Should speed up the process… right?