Roofrats 29

Nico had a quick look at the knife Weft had slipped her. Well, I could skin and cut the eyes out of any potato that got the idea to attack me. After pocketing it - carefully - she hurried to a few last sales and purchases, and to fetch her luggage. It looked a bit unwieldy for her, but she could handle it.

She did arrive with time to spare.

"Come, come!" Yavu called, hurrying up to Nico as soon as he saw her reappear. He had a carpet-bag as skinny and threadbare as he was, and he was pleased with himself. "You'll want to see this," he elaborated, indicating in the direction of one of the lower aqueducts that ran above the docks.

She followed his gesture with her eyes as she sped up to walk next to him.
"See up there, or from there?" she asked curiously.

"Under there," said Yavu, still self-satisfied. It was much less busy in that direction, and even, when they got close to the foot of the bridge, quite dark underneath its arches.

The Instarrian youth didn't hesitate but went right ahead into the gloom. From the sound of it, he immediately started digging around under some loose bricks or rocks or something.

Nico fell back a bit, both to let her eyes adjust, and to avoid getting in the way or having a brick thrown on her foot, or something. She first had a general look around, then tried to see what Yavu was up to exactly.

Yavu was searching under some rubble. It was a specific section of rubble, and he'd made a beeline right for it, but he didn't seem to be finding anything.

His scrabbling became, by small degrees, more frantic and unfocused, and he muttered something rude-sounding.

Nico made to lean against the brickwork, but stopped the movement, just in time to avoid having half of her pack and back covered in bits of mortar and dirt.
She watched, trying to look more sympathetic than worried about missing the ship, and waited for Yavu to say something she understood.

Yavu looked up at her. "Shit. It was here last time I checked."

"Something important?"

"My stash," Yavu said with a nod. "My shooter," he elaborated. "Left it here when I arrived."

And back to waiting for him to say something she understood.
"What?" Nico concentrated to catch the meaning of his answer.

"My piece. My old banger. But, I mean, I had to hide it somewhere? You can't take them in the city, not if you don't want to be searched..." Yavu was too upset to be making the most amount of sense right now.

"Ah." If nothing else, her cheating here helped her slang vocabulary. Such a loss was aggravating for sheer monetary value, sure, but Nico's memory also offered ideas of striation mark "fingerprints" and gun registries.

"How big is this problem?"

She'd finally managed to snap the lad out of it. He shrugged, relaxing a little. "Well, someone makes a profit, if some police didn't find it first. I prefer to be protected but... nuaow. Not such a big thing unless we run into trouble."

Yavu straightened up, kicked his luggage into the air with a foot and simultaneously dusted his hands off in time to catch it. "Well, we should go to the barge. I was going to impress you, now I just look dumb," he said.

Shrugging in turn, she said, "Not much."

It would have been interesting to have a closer look at a local firearm, as long as it wasn't aimed at her, but she had a feeling that she might be more familiar with the things than Yavu expected.

Yavu seemed rather more concerned that she might become so. But it wasn't enough to spoil his mood as he swaggered lightly through the docks.

Outside his favourite haunt Yavu stopped and waved to the owners' daughter through the window. She shooed him with a hand.

A grinning Yavu mouthed "I'm going home!" She responded by leaning out of the window and lobbing a couple of screwed-up cloths at him.

Yavu caught both rather than dodging them. He blew her a kiss. The young woman turned a disdainful back to him.

"She'll miss me," Yavu said as they hurried off to catch the barge.

While the sailors cast off, Nico was primarily interested in keeping out of their way. Yavu gazed at the docks and the city beyond as they, almost imperceptibly slowly, began to retreat into the distance.

"And that was Offwhite. I wonder if it will remember we were here," he said softly.

---

Elsewhere: There was a light noise that might have been a bird's wing clipping a brick, but was instead Brother Triviality climbing onto the roof. The little ginger assassin was followed shortly by the taller, darker Snags.

Weft didn't need to turn around to identify them, so he remained with his elbows on the wall, eyes turned down towards the boulevard. Triv appeared at his side, snuggled him and leaned over to see what he was looking at. Snags materialised at the other side and briefly touched temples with Weft before also resting his elbows on the wall. He made the pose look cool.

"That madwoman Wirin spat at me, then tried to scratch me," said Snags.

"I told him I think he must have one of those faces," said a beaming Triviality.

"Any real trouble?" asked Weft. No need to ask if Snags could handle one annoyed criminal, even a woman like Mios's lieutenant.

"Not a smidge," said Triviality.

"All bluster," said Snags.

"They knew we had them under a bush," Triviality said.

"And they're going to be real quiet now," Snags concluded.

Weft sighed. "Thank the Divine for that."

"How's the target?" asked Snags.

"I like her!" Triviality said.

"Out of their sights, hopefully for good," said Weft, and rubbed a finger up and down the plasterwork.

"That'd be why you're jumping for joy," Snags said ironically.

"She got on a boat to the colonies. Like, deliberately. For fun, or she was curious about them, or something."

"Weeeeird!" opined Triviality.

Weft ruffled his hair affectionately. "Oh, and she picked up a skinny piece of swoon to keep her company on the trip."

"And to keep her hammock warm?" Snags's lopsided smile always looked like a smirk, even when it wasn't one.

"I don't want to think about it," snapped Weft.

"You know why local boys like alien women, right?" said Snags.

Weft gave a slight shudder. "I said I don't want to think about it! I'll... see you back home." He turned around and made a sprint jump to a nearby, and somewhat higher, rooftop. He kept going.

Triviality looked at his other brother. "Race you back home, Snagsy!" he said, and dashed ahead.

Snags glanced at the horizon, smiled his crooked smile then set off at a run.

---

END

(with some input from Anke in this post)