"You picked last time!"
"That's because I'm older."
"By three minutes! That barely counts!"
Tua didn't bother announcing his presence. If they didn't want anyone to overhear, they shouldn't be arguing in the laundry room.
They turned a glare on him as one, their mouths snapping shut in indignation. Eight year-old girls were not supposed to be able to look that murderous. It wasn't his fault they were loud and the laundry room was the shortest route through the house's backswitches. He didn't say anything to them. They didn't say anything to him either, but as he slipped out the door, he heard one mutter.
"Half-breed still gives me the creeps," she said, obviously meaning for him to hear. It didn't bother him. Twenty years had been plenty of time to get used to them. They were always vicious when they were young. When they were old, it was the same way. At about fifty, they would save him extra spice rolls if he missed lunch. He'd gotten used to it all, even their secret arguments.
The baba was brushing her hair when he knocked at her door. He knew because he could hear her swearing at her brush.
"Ow. A curse on you, stupid thing." What followed was obscene and lengthy and not in any way magical. Tua had to wait for the tirade to subside before she could hear his knuckles rapping at the door.
"Come in," she called, just before, "Oh, motherless son of a -"
Tua took the brush from her as she reached behind her head. He ran the bristles through a hank of her hair. Unbound, it trailed down her back to nearly brush the floor while she was sitting. And it tangled. Horribly.
"Thank you, Tua darling," the baba crooned. "I could do it myself, though. I swear."
"You wanted to see me?"
"Mmm, I need to you run the errands a little early today." She leaned her head back and looked up at him.
o-o-o
"I want you to take Hin with you," she added. Dear boy didn't change expression. She could read him like a book though. He gathered her hair into a tail and tugged at the ends with the brush. So much easier than doing it herself. She fished through several pockets before she found her list.
"Here," she said, holding it up between two fingers as she closed her eyes. "And tell Antonio to double the order next week."
He plucked the paper from her hand and bowed to the back of her head, their reflections overlapping in the mirror so that, for one brief moment, it looked as though he were kissing the top of her head.
"Anything else?" he asked politely. She ran a hand through her knot-free hair.
"No. Be off with you now."
And he was gone. They grew up so fast.
o-o-o
In hindsight, Tua would eventually decide that while actually getting captured was inexcusable for all the trouble it caused in the end, he might have been forgiven for his lack of suspicion. He had known Antonio since he was a toddler. This time, there had been one of the rare double orders and Hin had been there gawking like a bullfrog, but Antonio had merely grinned his giant grin that was too big for the rest of him.
"Double order, eh? I see the baba is planning big things, no?" he gargled through the back of his throat. Tua just nodded curtly. Antonio wasn't offended. It was the way their exchanges always went. And Hin had been there to bully about into slinging limp slabs of fish, wrapping brown paper and tying twine, which gave Antonio no end of delight.
Tua had noticed the fishy smell of course. But it was normal for Antonio's shop. All salt-water and fresh guts. If not a comforting smell, it was at least a familiar one.
So when the sticky pads of tentacles suddenly wrapped themselves around his face from behind, Tua was taken completely unawares. They were cold and slapped over his eyes and mouth with terrifying strength, yanking his head back. He couldn't help the grunt of surprise that came out of his mouth, but he punched his elbow backwards. It collided with scales and fluttering slimy bits and the tentacles tightened around his head. Somewhere, someone was screaming, the sound muffled. Blue spots swam before Tua's eyelids as he flailed backwards.
And then something crushed into the back of his neck and his knees crumpled.
o-o-o
Mayuko was already on the porch when the alarms went off. In fact, she had been waiting for them. One by one, about the perimeter of the house, little bow-shaped mouths sprouted from the ground and began to scream. Together, the hundreds of thousands of them harmonized into one pulsing wail. Mayuko watched them pop up, one after the other, in careful lines that doubled over in a wide spiral, each the same distance apart. How many years in the making had this been? She sometimes lost track of just how long twenty years could be.
Elmo had been asleep under the eaves and she started violently at the noise, falling out of her seated position. Her head whipped from side to side, trying to determine what was going on. When she saw Mayuko, she jumped.
"What is that?" she demanded, still half-sprawled against the wall.
"You've gotten soft," Mayuko scolded in a gentle sigh, the sound carrying through the screams clearly. "Have the years been too long for you?"
Elmo scowled and snatched her staff from the ground. In one quick jerk, she parted it along a seam, exposing a long thin sword.
"Happy now?" she asked, now on her feet and at attention, sword carefully on guard. "What is that noise?"
Mayuko just watched the little lips scream and scream and scream, letting the noise wash over her to drown out Elmo's demands for explanation. She closed her eyes for a moment, and then opened them. The mouths stopped screaming and then like little clams, they burrowed back into the soil. Mayuko looked over at the swordswoman, who was finally figuring out what the mouths were.
"Why do mothers kiss their children?" Mayuko asked. Elmo just glared at anywhere but Mayuko's face.
"You're not his mother."
"It's because they love their children, isn't it?"
"Something's happened to him. What?"
Mayuko just turned to meet the twins as they came out of the door. They were tightening belts around waists that were now lean and adjusting lapels of crisp uniforms. Nu, in her gold pinstripes, raised an eyebrow at Elmo's sword. Mo adjusted her red sash and bowed gracefully at Mayuko. When they chose to be elegant, the twins could put queens to shame.
"I imagine that they will be coming soon," Mayuko said to the courtyard as one by one, tiny explosions burst from the holes where the lips had disappeared.
Elmo tensed then, having finally figured out what was going on.
"They've got him, don't they?"
"Yes."
"You told me they'd never get him," Elmo growled, but it was a desperate growl. There was more to it.
"I promised you I would take in your son."
Beneath the leather skin and the gray streaks beginning prematurely at her temples, beneath the deceptive rags and corded muscle, Mayuko could see the creature that had crawled to her doorstep twenty years ago, all tears and wide eyes and shattered innocence.
"You tried to give up being his mother, but the cavalla are not going to let one so close to Lutrinae get away that easily."
The fearful girl behind the sword and the weathered sneer wavered.
"I can take care of myself."
"Mmm, which is why you are back here."
Elmo snorted and looked away, scanning the horizon outside the house's tiny exterior. Mayuko ignored her and pointed off into the distance. Nu and Mo nodded in unison, backs straight and hands folded behind their backs, and together they slipped off the porch and into the courtyard.
"They're going to find you, Elmo," Mayuko said quietly, watching the twins fade into the smoke drifting up in streams from the explosion remnants.
"What?" Instantly, the bravado was gone and there was only the little girl, the fifteen year old child who only knew that she needed to save herself.
"It was him, Tua - dear boy - that was keeping you safe here. He was a distraction, a decoy, keeping them away from you."
"He-"
"No, he didn't know it, of course. Why would he care? You were just the useless mother who dumped him on my doorstep."
"I was trying to protect him."
"And yet it seems that he was the one who was protecting you. And he's gone now."
"That's your fault! You knew this was going to happen, didn't you? You sent them out there knowing, didn't you?!"
Mayuko broke their gaze and looked over Elmo's shoulder to what was beyond her. Elmo hesitated, then looked as well, as if only then remembering that there was anything beyond the tiny rotted porch.
Approaching from the gate so far across the way, flaunting their gills and fins to the baking sun instead of having come through the water gate, came a string of cavalla, decked in their finest. There were more of them than usual, nearly a dozen, and they swaggered in a synchronized tail-flip. Elmo slunk back against the eaves as they approached, slipping her sword out of sight. The cavalla didn't even glance at her. Yet. For now, the oily rags she was wrapped in would do the task of hiding the scent Lutrinae had left all those. But for now, the cavalla had bigger things on their mind.
"Sehrr baba," the leader said with an affected bow, smug satisfaction sounding comical from his frozen eyes and gaping mouth.
"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Mayuko crooned, letting her voice go cool and gentle as she returned the bow. The twins stood impassively behind the group, hands folded demurely at the small of their backs.
"We have been instructed by our great lord to inform you that our negotiations regarding the son of Lutrinae are at an end."
Mayuko allowed one eyebrow to rise. They likely wouldn't understand the gesture - this group looked young and new - so she put a bit more question into her voice than strictly necessary.
"Indeed?"
"You will, of course, be compensated for the trouble we have caused you."
"Oh, of course. You are too generous."
The ambassador went orange and yellow with pleasure.
"Also, we have come with new business in mind for the baba's consideration."
"Oh?"
"Yes," the cavalla said, practically dancing in place with self-satisfaction. "The negotiation for the release of one of your household who recently found himself in our care."
"I see. You have my full attention on the matter."
The ambassador bristled with pride. They had likely been waiting generations for this change of tables; passing the legend and the task down spawn after spawn - to make the baba beg.
Without a word, the twins sprang into action.
It was over quickly. The lead ambassador barely had time to go from orange to grey before Elmo's sword rested at his huge glassy eye. She had moved without Mayuko asking, her chest heaving more than her little exertion should have caused. Behind them, the rest of the cavalla party lay flapping gently on the hot cobblestones.
"Our lord shall hear of this." The words struggled out between the wet, panicked flapping of his gills.
"He shall indeed," Mayuko agreed.
Elmo didn't meet her gaze.
Spoiler
YWS hates my paragraph breaks for some reason. I'm trying to fix it. Please ignore super-huge spaces for now, eh?
I lied last time about all the background information having been established. There's quite a bit more to come. But hey! Plot happened in this chapter! Off-screen, mostly, but it happened!
The big question: How grounded do you feel in this world? How about in regards to the characters? More or less? I feel like this is coming across incredibly flighty.
I lied last time about all the background information having been established. There's quite a bit more to come. But hey! Plot happened in this chapter! Off-screen, mostly, but it happened!
The big question: How grounded do you feel in this world? How about in regards to the characters? More or less? I feel like this is coming across incredibly flighty.
