"What do you mean you're scouting ahead!?" I demand to know as Pops pats his paws clear of splintery dust. He gives me a quick look and shakes his head. A paw comes up, stopping me from moving with the weight of consequence. I take a step back.
"Don't worry, Heiya. We'll only be gone a minute." Hrurim tells me and my wide eyes shift to him, a narrow edge coming to them.
"That's not the point!" I let out, annoyed that I am being left alone when there's a task I am far more suited for right in front of me. Not only do I get to watch them head that way, I get to linger around doing nothing. As if Pops is going to let me look around a wreckage like this on my own.
"You have Nin to keep you company." the human shrugs and a bark escapes me as I spin around. My feet scrape along the ground and I make myself comfortable on a dragged out piece of furniture.
"I have Nin to keep me company..." I mockingly repeat in my native tongue as my eyes go over our primary pay cheque. The 'sib waves some of its claws and my tongue clicks. I watch Pops and Hrurim vanish out of sight and the bitterness brews. Scouting the path ahead my backside... Someone's keeping something from me.
If the road ahead is blocked, it won't matter none. It'll be a piece of cake and many treats to get ourselves loaded up on one of the lifeboats. Just a slice of cake to put in the effort to repair one if we need to. River heads to a town, anyway.
The body ahead shuffles and I glance up, paw already wrapping around my weapon. Nin raises his six claws and my grip lowers to the trigger guard. I loop in a finger and knock the musket forward, aiming it at him. It keeps bouncing and I slap it still, a hiss catching in my tight jaw.
"So... Nice weather we're having?" Nin asks, his wrists testing the bindings we have him caught up in. If he wants to keep testing his luck, I can easily find something stronger. Something more rich with the arcane. Not a whisper of the Wind Mountain is in him right now, Sudden Induction or not.
"Shut up." I click, patting around for my weapon maintenance kit. I find it and jumble it in frustration against its locks. It comes off and my digits drum the container.
"See, I'd rather not." Nin shrugs and my eyes close as burning breath scolds my tongue.
"Fine, samething ta da aaanywaaay." I complain, still going along with the polishing and cleaning of my weapon to keep my paws occupied. Quicker the other two get back, the better.
"Well... Fancy seeing you two again, right?" Nin laughs and I glance up, hoping just for a moment he'd die rather than fill my pockets. His words repeat through my head and a scoff escapes me. Nin here is certainly something, isn't he? Bad luck charm for me and Paps.
First, I have to drag his human backside from the shores of the Molten Sea because he wandered off. Then, we get attacked by an osibindah hive right as we're in the last stretch of our journey by all accounts. Somehow, I then run into him at Suhurlodst and he holds me and Paps hostage to Tobaballe and then back from its ruins. Certainly got out with our lives even if we lost some dignity in the process.
Being held hostage by our goods, how damn embarrassing for the pair of us... Held at claw point by some buggish freak that not even the gods and goddesses know what to do with. We come down here underground to finally get back at Gamtambo's lot and here comes Nin! Damn heroics cost us a simple job on an already too long affair.
Slaying a giant taller than the mountains with a skull-shaped head, ridiculous. Who'd ever get it into their heads to do something like that? Apparently this damn bug that never learned to take the hint from everyone else. And... How can I ever not admit we could do real nicely with someone like him?
My attention shifts to the jewellery box, and I pick myself up and go to it. I flick it open and pull out the piece I want, rattling its mixed colour chain in my hands. Copper, silver, gold. Copper, silver and gold. All the way around until the fiddly lock awkwardly breaks the pattern, taking it out of synch.
"You found a piece that you like?" Nin asks, his claws going over something on his wrists. A pearl bracelet...?
"How do you even still have that?" I ask, though I only say half of what I mean to say. Either way, I'm sure he'll understand now that my gun is back in my paws.
"Of all the things I have, this is all that survived." Nin answers and I press the end of the barrel to his shiny bug head. His mandible things continue to click away, almost giving his nervousness a sound. But I can see in his eyes that is not the case. Been around this look too long to know it as something else.
"Give it." I order, my finger tap-dancing a song between the trigger and its guard. Nin shakes his head right on the barrel, scraping a pale tone into his shell. I pull the gun back and huff, propping it at my side instead.
"Don't think you'd be able to take it, anyway. It's not meant for you." Nin says and I throw a paw up in mockery, shaking above and below my hips around. A snide giggle escapes me and I smack my free paw along my feminine curves.
"Yaur girlfriend give it ta yau?" I mock with a pout and he seems to smile. It's hard to tell with a bug face like that.
"A very special someone, certainly." he explains rather vaguely, a distinction that only makes him laugh a bit more.
"Well, yau certaaainly didn't haaave it when I saaacked yaaa." I huff, remembering quite clearly that there was nothing special about what Nin was wearing during our first meeting. A blank human of the Civil Mountains. Nothing special, nothing memorable other than he was ruining the sight of something that is.
"I got this when I was dead." Nin answers without so much as anything other than plain severity in his tone.
"Huh..." I let out, not sure how to respond to that. Certainly answers the great mystery of how an osibindah like him came to be. I imagine wherever he ended up after me and Paps left turned him.
"You know, Heiya, in a weird way. I owe you a big thank you." Nin huffs out and I frown my confusion as my eyes otherwise crossover and break away.
"Why?" I let out, moving my body about as I find a new sitting position.
"My life has been all over the place because of what you've done. When you sold me- tried to, anyway. That deal you made with the Crown back in Tobaballe. It's been scary, but there are things I've done that I would've never been able to do were it not for you bringing me this way. If I never got involved with you, unwilling as I was, then I would have never done everything I've done." Nin explains with a heavy voice and a sigh escapes him as he looks around at the caves.
I quickly join in the sightseeing and just as quickly uninvolve myself, "Certainly gave a lowlander blank like you an introduction to Jherikra."
"The Greatest Land." Nin says and I blink.
"Whaaat?" I go and he glances up.
"The Greatest Land, it's what Jherikra means. A friend told me that between the moments." Nin tells and I nod along, not really caring what the ancient tongues translate to in modern speak.
"Might aaas well just caaall it Laaand." I mutter under my breath, as there's certainly a lot going on right now that makes me wonder how it ever deserved such prestige. Calling something Great because it's next to another thing called Minor is one thing. Outright going that it's the Greatest is a right hoot. A right big, farcical one at that.
"All the more reason to see the others, then." he says and I turn my focus back to him.
"Aaand haw da yau plaaan an daing thaaat? Yau're being sald." I remind him, and he chuckles.
"I've got good reason to assume you trying to sell me won't work out," he cackles, and sarcasm erupts from my smacking lips.
"Yeaaah, yeaaah. Ane time!" I go, finally doing something with the bit of jewellery and roping it through my weapon's parts and gaps. Taking a piece of fine, good string, I tie it on nice and proper. Holding my musket out, I find my chest quaking a bit and I smile over the moment. A chance to pretend something I will never get.
I love Paps, I really do. For all his flaws and problems, the resentment I have for the unfortunate circumstances of his life. I still love him. He is still my father and I am still his daughter. But I don't like what I am and I most certainly have no love for the skills I have.
He knows I like Preslav's songs because of how... Normal they are! Normal things for normal girls my age and however long I've been involved in this! Kissing a boy on a sweet first date... Going to the cinema and strolling through some geode park or even skinny dipping in any number of parts of the Water-Veins.
Instead, what I get is a life of criminal exposure. I know the seedy parts of towns, where to go and who to look out for. The mannerisms I have to be mindful of and the attitude you need for them. Shooting a gun...? Who am I kidding? That's not for a normal girl.
A shuddering breath goes through my nose. I don't know what to do. I just want this business to all be over and done with. Like, gods and goddesses above, I do not want to be doing this anymore. The dirty jobs and the being away from my homeland because it's too dangerous otherwise.
We're going to sell Nin here, we going to get the money to make up for the lost shipment and give it to the third party. Whoever it is running the show here, Paps leads will turn up our clues to Gamtambo. We'll have him on a spike, along with his family. And it will all end. It'll all be over.
"That's certainly a face I recognise." Nin lets out, pulling me out of my thoughts, kicking and screaming. All I have to offer for a long minute is my scowl.
"So you may, so you may." I answer in my native tongue, and he seems to get the point either way. He gives me a silent nod, and he goes back to minding his business. I look up and spy no father and old human pal. My grip tightens on my weapon and I get up.
Walking away with it in paw, I survey the wreckage some more and all of the washed up mess. Whatever Pops' wishes are, they can be damned for all I care. I'm a grown woman and I know how to look after myself. I don't need him coddling me like I'm still the little girl he was lucky enough to find...
A sniffle charges right out of me, and I become all too aware of my shaking arms. Pops is too careful to have simply left a trail for those mobsters to find us that night. Someone didn't keep their word. Someone broke their word and I know full well I didn't see so much as a crack on Pops' face that night!
This is Pops' fight, it's always been focused around him. However, I am more than happy to play my part and get involved as I see fit. That was my family, too. They were my family too... I don't even know anything about them and I never will. Give me all the names in the world, Pops, whatever divine voice might be listening in my head.
Give me their names and I will have a bullet for each of them!