Roofrats 15

"We're trained and equipped to deal with anything," Weft recited, not thinking anything of making what was apparently a very arrogant claim, or a hopelessly optimistic one.

"Including, say, helping a giant sea serpent give birth?"

"Yes," said Weft with a nod. After a second or two he looked disgusted at the idea, and the skin of his back twitched.

"Do you get them often?" She sounded rather enthusiastic.

"I've never heard of such a thing. I hope they wouldn't allow it around here."

"How does that fit together with being trained for it?"

"Well, I know exactly what I'd do," Weft said.

Nico grinned. "What? Run?"

"No..." he said, "call home and await orders, of course."

"Ah," Nico said, rather less enthusiastically, and fell silent.

"Did I say something else wrong?" asked Weft after a pause. She didn't seem impressed, somehow, and he had no idea how to correct that.

"Nah, just using a different definition of 'trained for', I guess," she answered smiling, and right afterwards shot off the first thing she could think of as an attempt at distraction. "What do you mean, 'something else?"

"I am crammed with an impressive array of methods to make incisions, mind you," added Weft. At her question he blinked. "Um, I don't know. I'm kind of known for saying the wrong thing and leaving the wrong impression. Almost notorious among my family members."

Nico visibly stopped herself before saying something, then started again, head tilted thoughtfully, "Do you mean blood relations, or your order?"

"No, my real family. I don't know my blood relations."

Nico nodded thoughtfully, sure enough he considered his order his real family to not ask for clearer clarification. Nothing particularly unusual about that. But something else seemed an odd fit. "Don't you deal with aliens a lot, compared to most of your brothers?"

"I wouldn't say much more," said Weft slowly. "A lot of us - that's us slasher ranks, I mean - get sent on alien jobs: killing them, escorting them, robbing deserted temples on other worlds... and the diplomats are always being sent to help mediate and stop groups of aliens screaming at groups of other aliens. I don't really understand why they would, it just turns out that way a lot. You'd think they all have something in common." He blinked again, twice.

Grinning, and for now ignoring all but the last point, she suggested, "Might be what they have in common is the problem, when more than one group wants the same thing for itself. A stretch of land, say."

"I can never really tell what --" Weft cut himself off rapidly. A glance at Nico convinced him he wouldn't get away with not finishing the sentence, though, so he continued "-- sorry. What, um, aliens want. And I'm too stupid for politics. I'm better at more useful work. Do you do politics, then? Sounds like you understand it."

"I understand enough to know I should keep out of it." Usually. "Are there any other nations on this world, anyway?"

"Yes," said Weft. "No," he clarified. "There are all the colonies," he concluded.

"And they are always happy?"

"Maybe. I don't know. Should they be?"

"It would surprise me. Colonies rarely are," she said patiently.

"Why? Are they always ungrateful?" Weft asked, horrified.

"Not always, just usually."

"Wow. I wonder why we have them then... well, the people in charge obviously know what they're doing," Weft said, with a contented roll of his shoulders indicating that his 'questioning those in power' phase was over as quickly as it had started.

For a change, Nico ignored the last part. "I don't know. Are any of them known for particular trade goods?"

"Um. Food, maybe?" Weft nodded to himself. "See, I knew there'd be a reason."

"And you figured it out. See, politics isn't that difficult, at least in such basic principles."

"Um. Yyyes." Weft looked at his feet, then his elbow, then at the street light striking a flagstone in a particular way, then at nothing at all.

(co-op)

Meanwhile Nico, half jokingly, took over his part of scanning their surroundings for lurking, well, whatever. Luckily none of the passers-by did anything more suspicious than, in some cases, look ever so slightly freaked out. Eventually she pointed out a three-storey building.

"I'm staying there."

"Want me to check it out?" asked Weft. He had to make amends for inadvertently being clever, after all. That sort of thing wasn't generally smiled upon.

She blinked and hesitated in surprise. After a moment's consideration, she said, "Thanks, but I don't want to freak out the co-habitants. Anyway, if it was just that Wirin-person's personal matter..." she shrugged.

"Up to you. All right, crush linen, then." After a moment Weft added "Er, have a nice sleep, that means."

"I guessed. Thanks a lot for showing me around! Maybe we'll run into each other some other time?"

"Maybe," said Weft. Was he sheepish? He turned to leave with a wave.

Shortly afterwards, he was most of the way up the building opposite. The monk heaved himself over the edge of the roof, still travelling at a decent speed, and was lost from view.

Nico echoed his wave, and did not watch him go. She went inside and, taking two stairs at a time, retreated to her room. It was on the top floor, with a nice view of a wall, and meant for for two people, but the house wasn't busy enough to fill all beds, so she had it for herself. Being able to unwind by herself occasionally suited her fine; it saved her from getting too wired.

The door locked behind her, she still didn't stop moving, looked out of the window, and through her luggage, gradually slowing down.

The new information about Weft's Order did not improve things; the way Weft was apparently controlled and discouraged from thinking for himself left a very bad impression. On the other hand he had gotten the day off, and there was that whole thing of seeing things in context with their culture. Not that Nico had a realistic chance of causing more than some very minor annoyance for them, and huge trouble for herself, if she decided they needed some difficulties, anyway.

Settling down on the bed with a strip of dried meat for something to chew, she turned to less philosophical problems.

Should she expect another visit from that Mios-gang? As she'd told Weft, if it was just a personal matter of Wirin's, it would probably be over, or at least manageable with a bit more care.

Unasked a memory of an old affair rose to the forefront of her mind. She had had "the gall" to give some minor member of a gang a bill, rather than letting him eat on the house, and not taken him seriously when he demanded his "right". His boss had not taken kindly to a runt of a waitress taking what he owed off him and throwing him out of the door. Not her fault her boss hadn't briefed her on stuff like that, really.

Oh, well. She would be a bit more careful. At least with the general not-very-hearthy attitude towards aliens, it seemed less than likely anybody else would get targeted to get to her; for the locals there probably was no reason to assume she was friends with any other locals. Excluding Weft, who seemed to be safe enough.

She took the knife out of the back of her belt and changed position, leaning against the wall. The blade wasn't made too badly, only the glitter made it look a bit of a toy. Anyway, if that silly little wannabe-murderer was attached to it, there might be a spot of trouble for whoever she sold it to.
Nico gave a chuckle and a thin smile, having an idea for just the place where that wouldn't be an issue.

Arriving home, Weft threw himself at a training wall for a time and then ran through the bridge forms and walking cuts. He emerged sweaty and somewhat dissatisfied, with precisely enough time to clean himself up and change before someone became available to debrief him. Civic criminal matters such as gang squabbles currently held lower priority than the other things with which the order was concerning itself. Slasher brothers didn't mind waiting.

He entered smartly, feeling unaccountably guilty as he always did. The relaxing sounds from the chimes in the window did help a bit. Weft gave his report and answered a few questions. His shenanigan at the box office was pronounced acceptable. He was told off somewhat exasperatedly for somehow managing to make their entire outfit sound secretive and menacing. Weft hadn't realised he had and was very apologetic. He was affectionately called stupid and then forgiven.

Then he happily recounted the plot of the musical for the diplomat brother, who thought it sounded fabulous. They spent a few minutes chatting about the leading actor, who had trained as a dancer, was already a famous beauty and was popularly expected to achieve great things.

After all that, Weft felt a lot better and was able to get a few hours' sleep. Unlike Nico, he had no plans for the next day. Someone else would take care of that.

Nico got more than a few hours of sleep, and felt all the better because of it.

During breakfast, her thoughts circled about trying to pay more attention to her surroundings than she'd done when surprised yesterday. That lead to memories of a friend of hers who was so perceptive he could very nearly hear grass grow. She noticed it distracted her from the here and now, appreciated the irony for a moment, before paying her breakfast and going on her way.

Her reasoning was simple. The weaponsmith opposite whose shop she'd met Weft had protection against the Mios gang already, so he should have no additional problems with that glitter-knife.

Nico found the way again without problems, paying more attention than usual to what she heard behind her and saw out of the corners of her eyes.

"Oh, wow, it's you again!" said a ginger-haired young male from atop a canopy over the road. "It's nice to see you, Nico, and you're alive. I hoped you probably would be. Have you come to buy some booze?"

She stopped, but took inn in stride. "No, to sell a thing. Hello, Triviality. Say, why I would be dead?"

It didn't help matters that Triviality was talking in plebian Instarrian, and quite... animatedly at that.

"Heart attack, illness, momentary blindness on top of a tall monument, spinal injury, anaphylactic shock, mishap with explosives, state execution, poison, exposure, slit throat, blow to the head, blood infection, strangling, untreated gut wound..." Triviality broke off, paused ticking these causes off on his fingers and sighed, continuing in a more-or-less chipper tone: "Broken heart, suicide or wasting away out of grief. Those are some of the ways people die. I have to keep an eye on you if you're selling at Weaponsmith's there. You might be a dangerous criminal. Then I could defeat you and then report about it. Is that likely to be the case, do you think?"

Nico tilted her head confusedly, she got the rough gist of his list, but, the rest, well. She caught "Weaponsmith", though.

Smiling brightly, she said, "Yes, going there," and turned to do just that.

"You don't have to just for my sake," Triviality said, walking beside her.