Roofrats 9

"No..." Weft blinked. "If it's not shut off, or obviously someone's house, you can go in."

He wondered what was supposed to have been so scary about that previous comment. Nico would probably like some of his brothers.

"Well, then, I hope you're not late enough to get in trouble. Bye." She waved as she turned to leave.

Weft bowed his head and waved, then headed inside, where he took a quick spongebath, went to nones and sang his feral little heart out, got cornered afterwards by a novice asking for advice, hugged several of his brothers and subsequently found the nearest vacant cell to sleep for a couple of hours. He was happy, as far as he measured such things.

A bit of quiet was what Nico needed. Cosidering the confusion she had found the last time, just hours ago, made her a bit apprehensive, but she refused to let superstition take her over. Slowly strolling through the park and observing as much as possible around her, she let the thoughts run free in the back of her head.

Eventually she would up several metres above ground in a tree, carefully not wondering if her drive to high places was a bad sign.

Now, the situation. She had few problems with liking a killer, at least one like Weft seemed to be, and she might even believe that running a city with the help of something amounting to organised crime might result in good, over all, but she held personal responsibility and free will, as far as possible, in high regard. This led to a visceral loathing of Weft's order. Any organisation taking on only children, and raising them so none of them wanted a different life was automatically highly suspicious.

The big problem would be getting an urge to meddle. Nothing but trouble in that direction.

Arriving at no final conclusion, she supposed she should try to figure out a way to figure out Offwhite a bit better.

After a few hours of rather gruelling relaxation, she decided heading to her quarters and calling it a day would be the better option.

The next day, Nico's tentative enquiries brought a lot of responses.

"What monks?" asked a bored adolescent girl. "Oh, those. They're like, all old and always doing that whole strict lifestyle."

"They make me proud to live here," a father-of-two told her, later elaborating "It's like knowing someone's watching out for you. You know, your soul and stuff? I'm not sure about religion, but I like knowing they're there. I feel safer."

"They're sexy," said an elderly lady, making her friends giggle.

"Well, I think it's creepy. I mean, you hear all kinds of stuff, like they mutilate their followers so they never have sex. Oh, and they can fly. My cousin saw a guy who saw it." The taxi driver who said this followed up by asking Nico if it was true she turned into a half-man, half-ox whenever she got wet, just like all those other aliens.

"I don't trust them," said a small woman. "Sure, they're perfectly polite, but you get the impression they can stop being nice really fast."

A bored woman looked at her nails and said "If they want to live like that, who's stopping them?"

"Them Expressors of Tough, Unselfish Love with Compassion, I won't hear a word against them," said a man she met walking in the park with a single child. "My Tezi was sick and I asked them to say a prayer for him, and one of them even visited and sat with us. Tez recovered -- the doctors said he wouldn't never, and he did. I'm sure it was the monks. They're truly good sorts, ok, I don't care what you say."

"They follow a false god. They're basically harmless, though, just misguided," said a priestess of Jetaujat, who spent most of their conversation angling for a donation and not-so-subtly trying to look behind Nico's ears for gill flaps.

A man told Nico: "I don't care how they do what they do. I feel my children are safer with them around."

"You're in league with them, aren't you?! Don't deny it! I've seen you with your nets in the dead of night!" The beggar ran away and hid behind a sapling about half the width she was.

"They're a bit of a joke, really," said a male whom Nico had spotted surreptitiously pasting up a poster of an unknown man's face topped by the word 'Martyr', and who calmed down quite a lot on finding out she wasn't interested in reporting him. "They're lackeys of the rich and powerful as much as any of the idiots you see on the street. Say what you like about charitable work, it's all about treating symptoms, not striking at the root of the injustice. They're unwitting tools of the state! Pawns!"

A particularly forthcoming young man in a poor part of town looked around and then said: "I've heard they kill people. I've heard they pay the whorehouses for information on their clients. I've even heard they have leverage on some of the aristocrats. But all you ever see them doing is helping people out, supporting local businesses, visiting the sick... I don't know what to think."

"You know, at least they aren't like some of those sects who barricade themselves up being holy and never talk to outsiders. You always see these ones out and about. It's how you can tell they don't have anything to hide," said a young woman, shortly before apologising for spraying a crumb on Nico's shirt.

"I want to be one! Powpowpow!" said a small boy with a spinning top.

Nico might have not found out anything conclusive, but it had been interesting. Either the impression she had gotten from Weft was worse than his order deserved, or they did a pretty good job at hiding the part of their business he was involved it. They could be well-meaning both in their charity as well as in their murdering, rather than using the former to make people trust them. Why were things hardly simple?

To cool her heels and refuel she settled at a tiny cookshop, sitting at a counter at the street, feet dangling in the air. Over the stewed something or other which was dark with spice she distracted herself from thoughts of a manipulative storybook-villain at the heart of Weft's order by considering if she had put any new rumours about aliens out there.

Well, there was no telling what the taxi driver would come up with. She shouldn't have grinned quite that mischiveously when inviting him to a swim, which he declined. But mostly she had kept herself in check.

On the other hand, in a quick decision she had met honesty with honesty, and told the young man who hadn't known what to think that she had heard from a monk that they killed people, if it was in interest of the city and order and didn't go against the divine plan.

Her imagination drifted off, coming up with things she might tell the people here about aliens...

"Oh great. I finally catch up with you again after you give me the slip all morning, and you're sitting eating chunks in gravy. Just perfect," complained an adult male voice, lower than Weft's.

The speaker sat down next to Nico, elbows behind him on the counter, facing outwards towards the street. He was the auburn-haired thug from yesterday, and his fancy knife was still in his sash-bandolier. Close to, his eyes were amber and he looked younger than he had at first glance. His teeth were rather pointed.

Aw, crap. Really should have changed gears yesterday... Nico gave him a smile nevertheless.

"It's good. I don't invite you, though."

"You're the one who wasn't invited, alien. Causing me extra work, making Miss Wirin look stupid..." He held up his hand, palm facing away, and looked at his nails.

The owner of the place decided there was somewhere else he wanted to be for a few minutes.

"How's anyone supposed to get paired under these conditions? Bannat's going to ditch me if I break another date." The slim young male scowled at Nico.

Nico gave him a long look, trying to figure out the meaning of what he'd said. Unfortunately, she failed.

"What?"

"You. You ruined my breakfast date by not being where you were supposed. Miss Wirin's really irritated, by the way. Your monk friends are bad for business." He was watching people pass by in the street, without much interest.

"Wirin did bad job, you helped fixing, were late for something else, now you mad at me?" Nico asked flatly.

"Not just something else. The most wonderful, crazy woman in the world, I'm lucky she even..." The man looked at Nico again and crossed his eyes exasperatedly. Obviously the dumb alien didn't understand.

"Yes, we a little mad at you, mostly mad at your monk boyfriends," he said exaggeratedly clearly. "Heh, at least someone's getting barbed."

"Aww." Patting the boy's arm she added, "Do not give up, you are lucky some time."

He looked down theatrically at his arm, across at Nico and wriggled his shoulders disgustedly.

"Kha! Oh, that is going to make the next part a lot easier."

Nico smiled sweetly and waited for the "next part".

"Which is the part where I kill you?" He shook his head. "You outwitted Wirin how?"

Good-humouredly she answered, "Idiot's luck." Leaning a bit towards the boy she added, in a similar tone, but more quietly, she added, "That's what you need."

The young man didn't believe what he was hearing. "Are you threatening me?" he said, running a thumb down his sash - but not yet reaching for the dagger handle. The gesture seemed mainly intended to reassure himself.

"No." She looked rather amused, because she was. Her main worry had been the boy not being alone, but she didn't think he was clever enough to bluff as to claiming "he" would kill her, rather than "they".