Ah, so it's a meeting to establish a Fighters Guild to keep the city from being sacked.
[X] "Well, of course we're going, right?" You intend to attend, as a working pair with Steele, if she's up for it. You work well together, not to mention all the other, more personal motivations.
Any organization that has grail in it immediately becomes lower class,and we can't have these fighters getting too hifalutin and up their own ass.
[x] "Well, of course we're going, right?" You intend to attend, as a working pair with Steele, if she's up for it. You work well together, not to mention all the other, more personal motivations.
[X] "Well, of course we're going, right?" You intend to attend, as a working pair with Steele, if she's up for it. You work well together, not to mention all the other, more personal motivations.
[X] "Well, of course we're going, right?" You intend to attend, as a working pair with Steele, if she's up for it. You work well together, not to mention all the other, more personal motivations.
[ ✔️ ] "Well, of course we're going, right?" You intend to attend, as a working pair with Steele, if she's up for it. You work well together, not to mention all the other, more personal motivations.
watch steele say 'it's a date', killing us instantly
but like
war's comin', and soon
And Ilya's right, we really can't afford to *not* make friends.
Also, like, gotta flex on them other nerds about our chad gf tbqh
in all seriousness, though, we're cute enough to make lots of friends, and it's in our best interests to do so!
i happen to be an esper on this subject
[X] "Well, of course we're going, right?" You intend to attend, as a working pair with Steele, if she's up for it. You work well together, not to mention all the other, more personal motivations.
[X] "Doesn't seem like either of us has much choice, right?" You intend to attend, but separately rather than as a unit. You're wary of getting too linked, or maybe you just want to see someone else for a while.
[X] "Well, of course we're going, right?" You intend to attend, as a working pair with Steele, if she's up for it. You work well together, not to mention all the other, more personal motivations.
[X] "Well, of course we're going, right?" You intend to attend, as a working pair with Steele, if she's up for it. You work well together, not to mention all the other, more personal motivations.
There was never really any other answer you possibly could have given. Quite aside from the fact that your agility, your senses and the way you fight meshes quite well with a knowledgeable wall of magic and meat like her, or from the fact that you find her stunning in a very dangerous and competent way and want to look at her and watch her punch through walls, there's a third reason to stay by Steele's side. You owe her still. You want to be able to repay that hanging debt as swiftly as you possibly can, and sticking by her to be available when it comes time to fight and strive, or to potentially save her life and so discharge the favor just seems like the wisest thing you could be doing with your time. To that end, your answer is clear, and you give it with confidence and a grin at her, eyebrow arched and hands on hips.
"Well, of course we're going, yeah?"
To which she replies, with a grin and a glint of her eyes, "Of course! You and I make a halfway decent team, if I do say so myself, and I don't think we're quite done with each other yet, do you?"
She sobers up a little, sprawling back against the stone, looking up at the cavern-ceiling lights as she continues. "Quite apart from matters of me liking the cut of your jib or you hitching your wagon to whatever star gives you time of day--cynicism's part of the profession, you might have shinier or baser motives than that--whoever's organizing this shindig has a point and a half. War can be very good or very bad for independent city-states, and it can make or break the coin soldier. If anyone's got a plan which puts them ahead of the newspapers or the conscription offices, keeping us free and fed throughout the coming conflict, then we owe it to ourselves to at least see what they're asking for the boon of their support and their company. Separately or together, it's gone well for us so far, and I see no reason why we should part ways now. Does that about cover what you were thinking?"
You nod soberly, impressed as ever--all that makes perfect sense and lines up with what you were thinking yourself, though of course she has more of the details re: how life works here.
"Plus," she continues, "those two days give me plenty of room to follow up on some business--some of which is actually something I think you'd benefit from a ride along with. I'd be trusting you, but only a little bit--and a little bit of trust is good for the liver. If you can behave yourself, of course. Sound like a plan?"
You nod, trying not to look as baby-ratwolf-eager as you feel. "Sounds like a plan! Lead the way."
A day has passed since you and Steele took the invitation from the Crow Brothers on the sunken tower. In that time, Steele told you she needed to make preparations, and so left you briefly to your own devices, and so you used the hours to catch four of sleep, to eat until your stomach bulged for the sheer pleasure of it, and to purchase ammunition for your Dissian rifle. You'd opened the envelope, finding a letter written in a language you do not speak and a bundle of Nostrian paper currency, which was easy enough to stash securely along with the brooch. +1 Untranslated Letter
+100 Stavrata
-5 Astrels
+ Ammo for Dissian military-issue bolt-action repeater
The newspapers are speaking of more of the same as the other day--war and rumor of war, with no two papers agreeing on the sides of the war besides your home being set against the Confederacy. You don't bother buying them--you'll get all the intel you need at the upcoming meeting. Speaking of things upcoming...
Your lease on this here bat will expire tomorrow, and the idea has you feeling a little regretful. You hope they'll let you rent it for three more days directly after. You like this thing. It's friendly, and fluffy, for all that it's too damn small and insufficiently spiky for a proper riding bat. Even Unchosen animals are somewhat of a letdown, aesthetically. This one, though, you'd like to hang onto.
That in mind, you ride it down to the place Steele said she'd meet you at, a nondescript pier on the side of the Rise facing a part of the city you haven't been to yet.
"There you are!" she waves cheerfully as you land next to her. "Come on, follow me."
You take off without hesitation. You want to go ahead and see what's about to happen, and you're not sure how wary of bodily harm you should be.
Soon, you and Steele are descending to the island of Halfbright. The sun from the ceiling hole makes the trees, small farms and terraces of buildings gleam, while the rest of the island blazes with artificial light. You alight onto a pier near an assortment of circular buildings with plaster reliefs and painted statuary built into the walls, colorful glazed tile roofs making your eyes hurt from the bright way they send sunlight arrowing across the hillside, and follow Steele to a tiny plaza around a well. A woman emerges from the largest house abutting the plaza, dressed in layers of white and black robes with elaborate red and blue embroidery, and wearing a red-enameled white ceramic mask of a smiling feminine face with a headscarf. Her voice is as cheerful as her false face.
"Archas, sokar! It has been far too long! It is sunlight on my heart to see you, child."
"Hey, Maryam," Steele laughs, hugging the woman tightly. She dwarfs her--Maryam is at least two handspans shorter than you. "I missed you too."
"Who's this?" the little Yasaali woman asks after breaking the hug, brilliant silvery eyes focusing on you through the mask's upturned eyeholes.
"Uh, hi, I'm Grail?"
"This is my, uh, colleague, Grail! She's along with me on our way to the thing I came here to tell you about."
"Well, if that's so, then there's nothing worth talking about that can't be talked about over tea." She steps forward and takes your hand, unafraid. "You'll be joining us, of course."
You Will Sit For A Little While.
[] Just tea.
[] Just coffee.
[] Tea and little cakes.
[] Coffee and little sweets.
[] Nothing for me, thanks. This is important.
Tea has been offered, tea is what we shall drink. Besides, tea is really more conducive to sitting and talking, I think. Calmer.
Also, cakes. Grail's a Vesakh, Vesakh gotta eat. Given that she obviously is one, it'll probably be expected and presumably not begrudged as long as we don't eat her out of house and home. And if I might be a little cynical, playing to the common stereotypes is good social camouflage and might get us a more genuine gauge of her attitude to us.
Mask and robes and headscarf say she's Yasaali, like Steele, but, oh no! Grail is Vespergrenite! She has earbuds in and doesn't know to ask for mata to impress Steele's not-mom!
also
>My, uh, colleague, Grail
steele: hey this is my new gf she's a funky lil creature, she'll do tricks for little sausages, watch this, also 'this is important' after a vote about drinks and snacks is such Sang energy and i love it so much
anyways i think it's definitely
[ ✔️ ] Tea and little cakes.
asking her to make us coffee would be hella rude, but Yasaali culture is about being extra af, also known as extravagant in vocabulary-having circles, but i blanked
so definitely little cakes, if'n she prepared them
more importantly i just realized that to a yasaali a relationship between steele and grail would actually be taboo maybe? since steele is trans and grail is cis, and therefore there can be baby
perhaps that's why steele did the funny little 'uh, colleague' maneuver, rather than simple, cute 'she's not my girlfriend!' reasons
Somebody's gotta vote for the coffee, and it wouldn't be an option if it wasn't going to be available/offered anyways. Besides, little sweets > little cakes.
[X] Tea and little cakes.
AUGH Y'ALL I'M SORRY
Classes have started up again so, while I'll do my best, updates might be a little thin on the ground for a while to come. The executive dysfunction has been INSANE. If you got any tips lemme know! Love you, see you next time, BYE
T/N: Sokar: sugar
Alsabaar: cactus
Before you can really parse what's going on or properly frame a response, Maryam is leading you across the plaza and through the largest home's intricately carved doorway. Tiny engraved bells tinkle as you brush through the dangling chain and bead, Steele chuckling lightly as she ducks in behind you. The space beyond is a circular entry hall, lavishly decorated with tapestries, wall hangings, and metal statues that mostly seem to depict naked women with weapons.
"Between every few jobs or missions or contracts or whatever it is they are this week," Maryam is saying as you're dragged past far too many metallic, unclothed torsos for anyone's good, into a similarly decorated room with low couches, tables and cushions, smelling of hospitality and hidden dealings, "Archas takes the time to visit me, but she rarely brings company! Tell me about yourself, min alsabaar. Archas, the kettle's already on! Go get the tea!"
Steele's face and scent are full of repressed mirth, but her voice is nothing but polite as she bows. "Of course. Sugar in the same place?"
"I moved it behind the honey!"
"Why?"
"Because the coffee is behind the tea!"
Steele just shrugs her shoulders, tucks a stray dread behind her ear and sets to. You don't know why she's confused, that makes perfect sense to you.
"Please, sit," Maryam continues, turning her back on Steele and waving you to a cushion. You take an exceedingly careful seat, but the soft fabric still catches on your spurs. Chitte. Maybe if you just sit very, very still for the rest of your life, or at least this meeting, it won't tear and then Steele won't need to throw you into the sea.
Maryam takes a seat on a low cushion across the table from you, and moves to the sides a small lamp and a game board you don't recognize, dark wood inlaid with brass in the shape of a hexagon with a triangular grid across it, just in time for Steele to set down a silver tray with the tea service carefully balanced atop it right in the middle, pot and cups and sugar and a plate of little cakes topped with slivered nuts and golden glaze. It has the feel of a practiced double maneuver--clearly they've done this many times before. The scent of comfortable knowledge of each other hangs thick in the air. You feel out of place, a prickly grey-green burr clinging to a silk skirt. Even Steele, in her leather jacket and partial armor, has the metallic eyes and effortless beauty to make her look like she belongs in this place of fine fabric and metalwork.
You chase the thoughts irritably from your head by accepting the small glass cup in its ornate metal holder from Maryam, who has poured the tea while you were grumbling to yourself.
"...Thanks. Oh, right! Myself! A subject I definitely know about." Both Yasaali chuckle. Why is your face hot? You take a sip to rally yourself--strong and dark, with spices you don't recognize, save for cinnamon and pepper, a bitterness underlying the sweetness of sugar. You drain the entire cup to bolster yourself, and grab a cake--almonds and honey, mmm. Tastes homemade, too.
"Well, uh. I'm Grail. I'm down here from Vespergren for work. I met Steele on a job, and we're working together for now." There. Simple, straightforward, plausibly deniable--if only you weren't so Rhakui-shat tongue-tied! It's like you're a hatchling before your First all over again.
"She's being modest," Steele loudly whispers to Maryam. "For someone who's clearly raw, she's got a lot of potential, and we've already traded life debts at least once."
Maryam's mask is always smiling, but you can tell by her eyes and scent that she's smiling under it, too.
"Our Archas does love to worry me, but she knows what she's doing--whether it comes to getting in trouble or finding people to share that trouble with her. If she sees fit to invite you here, then you are always welcome in her company." She turns and asks Steele something in Yasaali, to which she replies with a quick but lengthy response. There's a little back and forth before they return to Continental.
"Sokar," Maryam addresses Steele, "you had something to tell me?"
Steele coughs, drains her cup, and begins. "With all these stories of war on the horizon, a few local guilds and unions are trying to set up a meeting between the local powers, including any sellsword with a Name and a Face. The whole game depends on Iash Qoma's neutrality on the world stage, and empires tend to get even greedier when there's a war on. So someone's decided that a united front is the key to keeping us free when the big lasses start rattling their sabers. Grail and I are attending--it's my life, after all, and it's looking like it's hers too. We barely squeaked through the last two jobs--Grail throwing herself into the way so I could clean up both times--and I wanted to come here, make sure you knew I was okay, and all that before we went in."
Maryam has raised her mask enough to drink, revealing skin even darker than Steele's, covered with those lines older Unchosen get, like they're about to molt but just never quite do. With that exposed skin, it's easier to tell her concerned grimace for what it is.
"Aie, Archas. Always getting in trouble. Always looking for trouble. Always finding it… but you, Grail. She says you've risked your life for her twice?"
"Well, uh, sort of? Which is to say, yes, but I'm not sure if it was on purpose."
She makes a clucking noise, which has the effect of warding off whatever you were about to say.
"Nonsense. Only the heartless would discount the meaning, the heart of taking a great hit for your partner."
She offers you another cake, and you gratefully accept it in order to not have to answer. By the time your mouth isn't full, you have a question.
"I have a question."
"Go ahead, alsabaar Grail."
You can feel Steele's attention on you, though she's not looking up from her careful flattening of two cakes into a single thin disk of concentrated honey-soaked dough.
"Are you and Steele… crew? You're her contact? Fixer? I don't know what, uh," you gesture vaguely at the room, at the tea service, at how Steele is refreshing Maryam's cup of tea unprompted. The two look at each other, surprised, taken aback, and then they both start laughing. You bristle a little. "What's so funny?"
Steele is the first to sober up. "Right, I forgot. Sorry. Grail, we're family. She's like my mom, she practically raised me after, uh."
Maryam stopped laughing pretty quick after picking up, somehow, on Steele's sudden drop in humor. "Archas grew up somewhere very unkind, Grail. After her escape, I wound up helping her for a while. Though she no longer needs me as she once did, we still care for each other."
"Oh, I see," you reply, not sure you see. "...What's a mom?"
Stunned silence.
"...Grail, that's the saddest thing I ever heard get said."
"No, for real?"
"Yeah, I didn't think you were lying, I just… uh, people are often raised by those as bore them in Yasaal, Noster and Chelqath. 'Mom' is an informal term for a female parent."
"Oh. So she's like someone that raised you? Sort of like a mentor?"
"Uh, yeah, kinda similar, we'll go with that."
"So, did she teach you how to shoot? How to punch?"
Maryam chuckles, pours you more tea. Steele laughs too, but only a little bit. She smells so sad now, it's weird and feels bad.
"She taught me how to make tea and coffee, how to take care of myself when I felt overwhelmed or hurt, where to go when things feel all wrong, how to enjoy my food and take time when the world is too much. There's more important things in the world than just how to fight, all the ways to use weapons and inflict your will, you know?"
It takes you a moment to parse that, and you don't know what to say. It parses with what she said back in the forest, sort of, part of that whole code. Maryam is nodding with approval. In the end, you don't say anything, and the conversation moves forward, both of them still cutting looks at you every now and again. You feel scrutinized… but not threatened. Bizarre.
The next hour passes with conversation you can't make heads or tails of. Steele's career is glossed over, instead focusing on details of Maryam's life--the shopping, the gardening, the subtly vicious wars of insults and quips she has with other residents, the day-to-day events of the neighborhood. You don't say too much, just waiting for the catch, the revelation of violence, the point at which it becomes more familiar, and getting increasingly lost the more it refuses to show up. You leave in a daze, with a small paper bag full of pastry and a lot of questions you have no idea how to articulate.
In the courtyard, Steele gets your attention without touching you. Considerate of her, that.
"You alright there, bud?"
"Just… confused. Processing."
"Alright. Won't press. You wanna talk about it, though, might have something to say. You ready to head down to the meeting?"
"...Yeah. Let's go."
She offers you a comforting smile, and soon, you're off, to take care of the last-minute preparation before attending the meeting. As much as you should be thinking about the meeting, who might be there and what you could get out of it, you find yourself consumed with two things:
Maryam's lifestyle couldn't possibly exist in Vespergren, or that kind of relationship between two people.
Is that a good thing? And why aren't you sure?
Grail manages to clear her head enough to go in with open eyes and caution to the meeting. Whose attention does she attract first?
[ ] Someone with a dream and a scheme.
[ ] Someone with a stack of coins for a heart.
[ ] Someone who's perfected the hunt.
