Death of the Family

Megara rolled her eyes and offered a hand to Eddie, who dutifully took it and trotted beside her as she closed the last of the gap between them.

"Well, chatting has been lovely," she said with all the sincerity of an apology from Briar, "but can we get moving? I would very much enjoy getting back to the land of the living before someone gets a promotion for my murder, yeah?"

Eddie looked at her quizzically but didn't say a word as a frown deepened on his face.

Nathaniel and Asmira exchanged a look behind me, but neither one spoke.

Meanwhile, I was digging through Asmira's bag in an attempt to find something for Megara to wear. It was only temporary, and didn't have to be anything special. So when I turned around with a t-shirt and jeans - something Asmira rarely wore anyways - I knew I had picked just the right outfit.

"Here you go," I said, dropping the outfit into Megara's arms.

She took the outfit and looked it over. She didn't question why someone would want to wear blue canvas. Clothing was clothing.

She knelt down and told Eddie to stay with Skull before vanishing back into the building. A few moments later - barely two minutes - she was back. The jeans were rolled up at the hems and the shirt fit her strangely, being too long and clinging to her here and there where it wasn't made for her measurements.

She, to her credit, managed to look perfectly comfortable in the unfamiliar clothes regardless. It was an act, of course, but there was no way in any hell that Skull was going to get to see her shifting and adjusting herself uncomfortably every few seconds just because the clothing he gave her was so many kinds of uncomfortable.

Now that Megara had gotten her temporary costume change, it was back off to the shops. It didn't take long for us to get her a new outfit - it actually took us less time to find her one than it had taken for Eddie and Natty boy to pick out their new clothes.

Then we were out on the streets again, with nowhere to go and no plan in mind.

Megara held Eddie's hand as they walked, keeping him close and away from Skull.

She didn't think that Skull was particularly dangerous to Eddie, but she still didn't trust him. Not at all. He might not have anything against Eddie, but he definitely didn't like her. She couldn't trust him not to pull something, and she couldn't trust herself not to stab him.

Nathaniel and Asmira were silently watching Megara and Eddie as we walked. I wasn't really surprised by it; we all had our share of trust issues, and I only had the smallest idea of what they did before they died.

But I couldn't sit there in silence.

"Are you two related?" I asked. Megara was definitely trying to keep her distance, but I made sure to bridge the gap between us. "Brother and sister? Mother and son?"

She cringed involuntarily. "How old do you think I am?" she asked, then shook her head, "Nevermind. No. We're not related."

"Meg-rah-rah saved me!" Eddie piped up.

Megara looked down at him, "Stranger rules," she said to him gently. He frowned, his eyebrows drawing together in confusion, then looked ahead, almost immediately distracted by his surroundings.

"How old do you think I am?" I repeated, giving her a look. I didn't look older than seventeen, and I was well into a century. Megara could have just looked young for her age. If not that, adoption wasn't off the table.

Nathaniel groaned behind me.

When I glanced back to give him a look, too, Asmira just shook her head and sighed at my antics.

Megara rolled her eyes and didn't grace that question with an answer. He knew damn well that she wasn't in any kind of situation that could compare to his. The fact that he had insinuated otherwise was rude, among other things.

"Are you going to keep trying to pry into my personal life or are you going to do what you promised and get Eddie and I home?" she changed the focus of the conversation to something that mattered.

I held my hands up in mock surrender.

"I'm still upholding my promise," I said. "We just don't have a lot of leads right now, so a nice little chat seemed like a good idea."

"'A nice little chat'," she mocked, "My life is none of your business, either you learn to understand that or I carve out your tongue, got it?"

Her threats sounded genuine with the real anger behind them, but in reality, she was aware she could never deliver. Mutilating Skull in that manner wasn't something she could reasonably do without him just possessing her or his friends getting in the way.

You would have thought she would be okay with a question or two, considering everything the two of us had gone through together. It shouldn't have been that surprising that she wanted to keep some secrets, in retrospect. But their relationship wasn't exactly the biggest secret, so why would she-

I gave her a long, hard look.

A smirk flickered across my face.

"I see how it is," I finally said, looking back at the path ahead of us.

"Skull," Nathaniel hissed. "She said to stop."

"I know, I know," I said with a dismissive wave of my hand. "I'm not prying into her life anymore. There's not a need to."

"This won't end well," Asmira muttered underneath her breath.

I pretended like I hadn't heard her.

All of us were pretty strict about our secrets; we usually didn't pry unless it was somehow relevant to the situation. Mainly like when we were getting attacked by someone who clearly wanted Nathaniel dead. Which I still didn't know anything about, but I was a little more preoccupied with messing with Megara right now.

Megara eyed him suspiciously. There was no way in hell the Skull she knew would just drop it like that. She'd been half-expecting him to press harder. That would have at least given her an excuse to hit him.

She looked down at Eddie instead, focusing on him. "How are you feeling?" she asked, switching to his native tongue, assuming Skull and his crew wouldn't understand.

The rules of this world were weird. Far as I could tell, it did some kind of translation between most conversations - it was how we could understand Asmira, even though she was from centuries before either Natty boy or I were born. But that rule didn't always apply, and I had absolutely no idea what Megara was saying to Eddie.

So I didn't try to guess.

But, as luck would have it, I soon had something else to occupy me: a building down the makeshift street. It was definitely some kind of inn, but didn't look too active.

They had to have some rooms there.

Natty boy and Asmira seemed to notice it, too. Without really saying where we were headed - just knowing that we were all going in the same direction - we walked towards the inn.

Eddie got the hint and replied cheerfully in the same language, "I'm much better! I wasn't better before, but I got here and Skull helped me!"

Megara glanced briefly at Skull when Eddie said his name, then looked back at the boy, "That's good," she said, taking note of the subtle change of pace and the direction they were going. An inn. If this was a trap, Skull and his gang were not going to have a very good day beyond this.