Two Crows Watch from the Gallows Tree (part 4)

“Yeah…” Zander let the breath out, forcing some of the tension out of his shoulders. “I…” don’t like it. “Am trying not to push too hard.”


“I don’t feel good,” she breathed, being careful that Tadaaki was the only person who could hear her.

“I know,” he murmured. “But you’re safe now.”

“No we’re not.” She looked up to meet his gaze. “You know we have to go.”

He sighed and dropped his eyes. “I know.” He tugged her right sleeve off and brought her shirt around her back, being very careful as he slipped it the rest of the way off her left arm. “I don’t know what to do about Aashi and Tasia though.”

“The Loquiturs will keep them here. I’m sure of it,” Ky said. She was. “They can protect them, as long as we aren’t here baiting more people to come after us. We have to get ourselves as far from them all as possible.”

"You're doing well, all things considered." Gaius drummed his fingers on his lap. "It's a pity the day ended this way; it was shaping up to be quite pleasant."

“It really was.” Zander sighed again, rubbing his face. “It’s been three long years of searching for her, fearing the worst, and I finally found relief in her being safe and happy here. Only to see…” He gestured vaguely at his own abdomen, then at the window just as vaguely. “Why the fuck did they come after her?”


“You know we’re the reason they came.”

Tadaaki nodded, sighing. “I know…”

She shrugged off her bra — it was bloody too. They never made eye contact during this part. That would make it weird.

Tadaaki helped her into a clean one. “It’ll take a few weeks before word gets out that they’re missing… we can take time for you to heal, then we can go.”

"I suspect Aleth was a paranoid man with information he considered valuable. Passing that information on to his assistant meant liabilities." Gaius. "That information would have to die with him, should anything go awry. Which something did, in the form of my brother's big heart."

Gaius was right. Zander knew he was right. But he still wanted to lose his cool. He rubbed his face angrily, huffing. “What does it matter to him if she spills his secrets after he died? It’s not like it could hurt him now.”


“That’ll cost us a head start,” Ky said.

“What head start?” He scoffed, smirking mirthlessly. “They’re going to find us no matter where we go. We can run to the Far North and they’ll still come for us.”

Ky sighed, letting Tadaaki pull her night shirt over her head.

“It’ll draw less attention to us if you’re not hurt when we go,” he pointed out. “I know you want to leave — I do too — but the smart move is to stay here a few weeks. Then we can go.”

"I wouldn't know. Perhaps he has some twisted family he's trying to protect." Somehow Gaius doubted it, and if so, he pitied that family.

“God, I wish I could have got to him first.” Zander rubbed his eyes, anger creeping into his tone. He was trying to hide it. For Tomhas. For Ky. Neither of them seemed to be angry about this — just generally distraught. “I could have been very, very patient with it.”

He usually preferred quick, clean kills. But he’d never had someone he’d wanted to kill this badly. This personally. The others had been like the assassins tonight — quick kills to keep them from doing something or hurting someone that they shouldn’t. But Aleth. He wanted to do things to him that would make the devil himself blush.


“Yeah… maybe you’re right,” Ky said.

“I am.” Tadaaki helped her into her fresh pants.

“… and it’d give us time to get rid of Zander.” It hurt to say that. To think that. But he was overprotective and would never let her leave. And she could only deal with one mother hen at a time.

"If it makes you feel any better, his entrails were spilling out and I jabbed my cane into the wound a couple times," Gaius replied. "He took a few minutes to die."

Zander looked up at that. “That does make me feel better, actually.” At least the bastard hadn’t had the privilege of a quick death like these three had gotten. He hesitated. Maybe he was as cruel as Tomhas claimed. “And maybe that’s wrong of me. But it does.”


“And it’ll give us time to strategize,” Tadaaki said. Figure out how we’re gonna slip away. Give us time to start squirreling away supplies and food. We’ve got to be smart if we want to last more than a week out there.”

Ky looked at him miserably. “Do we want to last more than a week?”

"I'm not one to judge." Gaius shook his head. "I'd have dragged out the assassin's death longer if I could, interrogated him if we had the time. But I couldn't, and we didn't." He regretted that; knowing what that assassin knew might help prevent further attacks against Ky, though he hoped that was the first and last of them.

Zander nodded. “Tomhas said Ky warned him this would happen. I bet she has more of an inkling than we do. Well, than I do, anyway. She didn’t tell me shit or I would have checked.”


“Hey, now,” Tadaaki chided. “Don’t talk like that. We didn’t survive the bastard just to let us kill him after he died. The longer we’re alive, the more he loses.”

"We'll talk to her when things have settled down, I'm sure. She probably didn't want you to worry." He'd have told Zander, had he known the man's skill. "Where did you learn to fight like that?"


(Watch Tadaaki and Ky run away and immediately get clocked by the Goat Man)

(Wait which goat man? I feel like I should get this reference but my brain is drawing a blank haha)

“Oh, I, uh…” Zander looked up. Gaius didn’t seem to be the sort of man to fall for bullshit, so he wasn’t going to try. He was, however, going to be vague. “Well, the universe has a way of teaching you things you need to know. I needed to know how to fight. You know how it is.”


“The more we lose, too,” Ky muttered, picking up the necklaces. “He gets to rest now. We won’t. Not until we join him.”

(From Story Circle, the creature that used to be a man who turned into a hungry cryptid who's alone all the time)

"I do." Gaius nodded. "Ky told me an interesting story when I offered to track you down. She mentioned you saved a group of infants from some powerful people. An admirable feat."

(Hahaha Omg goat mannnn he’d just be like ‘damn bitch you live like this?’ xDD)

Zander looked at him for a long moment. His expression was cool, but he wasn’t happy that she’d told him that. He should have known better than to tell her that. He’d done it when he assumed she’d never leave her township. “She did, huh?”


“You just need sleep, not death,” Tadaaki murmured. “Things will be better in the morning.”

“No they won’t,” she scoffed.

“They won’t be good. But they’ll be better.”