#arrha

Arrha, while holding a hatchling and letting it teethe on his primary top claw: It’s a hatchling we found in today’s scrap haul!

Spider:

Spider, sharply: Well, put it back! It doesn’t belong to you.

Petra, shocked and offended: We’re not gonna put it back!

Arrha knew where he put things. Especially his boss’ things. Especially the things his boss wouldn’t hesitate to dock all four of his arms if he misplaced.

Now, however, part of the freshest shipment from one of the hidden caches on Iris was gone, and Arrha had rummaged through the entire storage room three times over and still could not locate it. Cold sweat was dripping down his back. Oh, the Spider is going to be furious. He could already imagine the string of curses he’d be treated with the moment he’d open his mouth to deliver the news, and the beating that would ensue, possibly involving Arc spears.

That thought gave him pause, however. Would the Spider be allowed to give him a beating, here in the Last City? This was not the Reef. This wasn’t the Tangled Shore, where the baron held dominion as its only law, and all who did not oppose him were invariably under him. This place had other laws and other masters as well, and the Spider was but one of many vectors influencing the delicate balance of power. Arrha exhaled slowly, and then drew in a long, shaky breath from his air mask. Even Ether tasted differently here—fresher, crisper. He took another breath, held it for a moment, then graced the storage room with a final look and begrudgingly retreated towards the hidden passage leading to the back of the Ether Tank.

After three carefully measured minutes, something rustled in the rafters.

Ór lowered herself gently onto one of the shipment boxes and put the bundle of yellowish rags back in its place, propping it against an empty Ether canister. Before Arrha returned to the room she would be long gone, a bit of dust shaken off the pipes under the ceiling the only evidence of her presence.

----*----

“I heard Spider’s been pissed more than usual,” Drifter drawled, lifting the bottle of cheap Cabal alcohol to his mouth. “Someone helped themselves to a part of his last shipment and he’s putting half of Botza on lockdown tryin’ to figure out who it was.”

“Oh?” Ór blinked innocently, “What went missing?”

“Well, word on the wind is he’d got his hands on quite a decent chunk of House Devils’ possessions when Eramis went all buddy-buddy with the Witness,” he put the bottle down onto the tabletop with a soft thump, “including stuff they’d snatched from the Iron Tomb back in the day.”

Ór was examining her own bottle, reading into the fine print on the label with a sudden and all-consuming interest. “Oh.”

“Y’know—Iron Axes, pieces of armour, the original Felwinter’s Helm no one’s been able to locate for years…”

“Yeah.”

“Mm.” He regarded her over the rim of his bottle. “You were saying something ‘bout paying the old Wolf a visit, by the way?”

“I suppose,” Ór was pointedly not looking at the satchel hanging on the back of her chair, a sliver of yellow fabric peering out through the half-closed zipper. “Caiatl asked me to check in, and I’d get the chance to see Saladin while I’m there.”

“Mhm.”

Ór took a quick swing of her drink and choked, erupting into a coughing fit and spilling a mouthful across the table.

----*----