#deviser gaines

Night had fallen by the time that Sonja finally emerged from below deck to the boat’s bar. Though it was covered from the elements, it was still mostly open to the cool air, giving her a much-needed change from the heat that still lingered in the guest rooms. She hadn’t intended to stay quite so long below deck, but the Warden – or Alister as he had now introduced himself – had turned up and made everything take far longer than necessary by being the ass he always was.

Why the man had decided to come along on the expedition was beyond her. It seemed beyond idiocy for him to trust her with his safety as he would be doing the moment they were in the desert. Though, from her far too long experience of him, idiocy was quite in character for the man. He just thought he was a genius, which made him both more obnoxious and more dangerous.

At the very least, he was a headache she could deal with. Not that she wanted to when he’d already caused an hour’s worth of annoyance over the room arrangements and continued to leech her attention and sanity for multiple more afterwards. She could only imagine the number of arguments he was going to cause once they were off the boat. Maybe she’d get lucky and he’d fall overboard and she wouldn’t have to deal with that. She could only dream.

Still, he wasn’t her focus right now. Nor was he ever going to be. She was glad to be far enough away from him to not hear his voice anymore. Though the bar she had entered wasn’t precisely quiet.

There were only two expeditions on this boat – her own and the other comprised of four men – so even with the crew, the boat was quite quiet. However, all but two of the travellers were currently in the bar. Sat around one, slightly crowded table were all four men from the other crew and Redbeard playing poker.

“Gaines, quit cleaning your glasses and cut the deck.”

“If I don’t clean them then I won’t be able to see the deck to cut it.”

Though she had no intention of joining the game, she did allow her eyes to wander over as she walked over to the bar to grab a drink. With them currently between rounds, it was easy enough to tell who was winning. Though none of them seemed to have gone completely broke yet, it was Redbeard who had by far the most money in front of him. He seemed to be utterly fleecing the other men. Sonja wondered if he was actually good at the game or simply knew some way to cheat.

Well, as long as he kept himself out of trouble that she needed to get him out of, she didn’t care how he kept himself occupied. It wasn’t as if more money was ever a bad thing.

She intended to just leave them to it, grab a drink and head somewhere quieter to check through the weapons currently contained within the canvas bag hanging from her shoulder. Maybe she could find Capsize…

Before that thought could go any further, her presence was noticed.

“Hey, Foxx!” One of the members of the other expedition, Tom, called her over. She could’ve pretended not to hear and just continued about her own business. But they were going to be stuck together for a few days at least. No reason to give a bad impression of herself.

She walked over to the table. Though she didn’t sit down. Rather she stood behind Redbeard, giving her a good view of the other four men. “Care to join the game? We could do with another player.”

The table they were sitting at begged to differ, already straining to host its current number of players. Even if she wanted to play, there didn’t seem to be any room for her to do so. It was quite lucky then that she didn’t have any interest. Mostly because she had no intent of losing any more money to the ginger pickpocket.

Though, rather than admit that to a bunch of strangers, she gave a brash smile.

“I’m good. I only gamble with my life, never my money,” She said. Though his three friends rolled their eyes, this comment only caused Tom to smile wider. He lent forward in his chair.

“Never? Not even if I were to wager five hundred pounds that we get to Hamunaptra before you?” His tone was quite purposefully goading. Despite the game he was playing, it seemed the man had no poker face. Sonja could tell when someone thought they were taking her for a fool, which in this instance, she found rather amusing.

It’d be so easy for her to take the bet. It’d be all but stealing the idiot’s money. However, she had no interest in being as open about her hand as he was about his. Instead, she quirked an eyebrow.

“Who says we’re going to Hamunaptra?” She asked. Her tone was such that it could’ve convinced the lot of them that this was her first time hearing about her apparent destination. Unfortunately for her attempt to play dumb, asserting that the groups shared an end goal hadn’t just been a bluff on the man’s part.

“He did!” All four of the men spoke at once, each nodding to or outright pointing at Redbeard.

Sonja scrunched her nose in annoyance, glaring at the back of the man’s head. Despite not being able to see her, Red could feel her burning eyes on his neck. Though this didn’t bother him at all. He picked up his drink and began to swirl it.

“I imagine it would’ve been rather obvious once we got on the boat,” He said, taking a sip of the amber liquid. Maybe he had just told these idiots because the loudest two were being particularly annoying about their grand adventure, but he reasoned that their shared destination would’ve been realised in a few days’ time anyway. How would they have avoided it when both groups were logically to be headed in the same direction?

Sonja had quite the desire to throttle him as the man had provided these four with the golden opportunity to follow them. Actual knowledge on the city was few and far between, so what was the chance these four knew the destination as she did? It seemed quite obvious to her that, now they realised there was another group headed where they were meant to be going, they’d follow in their footsteps to get their own hands on the mythical treasure trove.

Though, she supposed, that wouldn’t do Tom very much good in his bet.

She gave a look to the four strangers. Though they were all dressed the part of adventurers, they didn’t seem precisely experienced. They were – at least to Sonja’s assumption – tourists. She had absolutely no doubt that she could navigate the desert better than any of them.

Given that she also held quite valuable information regarding Hamunaptra that the man making the wager most certainly did not, she saw no reason to not take the man’s bet and inevitably his money.

“Alright then, I’ll take your wager,” She said with a cocky grin.

Tom laughed, jolting the table and nearly knocking his drink over in the process. There was overconfidence and then there was whatever this was. Suddenly Sonja could understand how at least one of these men was losing so badly at poker.

She huffed her own laugh, shaking her head. It was a far more subdued reaction than the one of the man she was now in contest with, but apparently it wasn’t subtle enough.

“You seem confident,” Gaines, who had finished cleaning his glasses and begun to shuffle the deck of playing cards, said. Sonja would argue that she had seemed far less confident than his own friend, but here was an opportunity to scope out their new rivals. Who was she to reject that?

“You got a reason I shouldn’t be?” She asked, unable to hide the smile on her face. Of course they must, else one of wouldn’t be laughing like she’d walked into a rake.

As the cards started to get dealt to the players, one of the other two – Wag, she was pretty sure – looked up at her with an amused smile.

“We’ve got a man who's been there,” He said.

Though he didn’t quite seem to believe what he was saying, those words jolted Sonja. She didn’t show it outwardly, but it caused all her thoughts to just stop. It wasn’t possible, was it? If what he claimed was true, it was a hell of a coincidence, too much of one surely. Yet, Tom’s reaction had been far too confident for it to be a bluff. Then, who on earth…?

However, despite her want to, she really couldn’t ponder on the mystery guide of the other expedition as much as she wanted. She had her own idiot to keep quiet.

“How interesting. Foxx—” She knew precisely what the man was about to say about her and she wasn’t letting him.

Redbeard was promptly stopped from giving away more information about their expedition as Sonja’s bag hit him on the head. To the four men sitting at the table with him, it looked a genuine accident as the woman adjusted it to be sitting more comfortably on her shoulder, but Red understood in an instant that it wasn’t and to swiftly say anything else. “You should get in on their other wager too. We could bankrupt them before morning!”

If any of the men realised he’d intended to say something else, they didn’t mention it. Rather, the only one that hadn’t spoken yet took the bait to move the conversation away from Hamunaptra.

“Oh, she doesn’t need to hear about that one,” He said, only to immediately have his friend’s arm thrown over his shoulder.

“Come on, Sparklez. The extra competition will make it more exhilarating,” Tom laughed, either ignoring or not caring about the way his friend’s face flattened. He looked at Sonja with the same grin he had given when presenting his first wager. “Hundred pounds to whoever kisses the babe in your crew first.”

Sonja, without meaning to, snorted. She almost considered asking for the money right here and now, but she didn’t quite think it right to earn money from kissing a gal. No, she wasn’t taking this bet as she had the last. Even if it did cause her a laugh to think of these two idiots attempting to get anywhere with Capsize.

Though, even if she found the very idea of it funny, the one who had brought up the bet in the first place caused her a few questions.

“You seriously okay with them betting on your sister like this?” She questioned Redbeard as the man lifted the edges of his cards to see the hand he’d been dealt.

“Of course I’m fine with them wasting their time,” He said with a smirk that could either be from his amusement at the bet or satisfaction with his hand. Given that Sonja also knew him to be a practiced liar, it could just as easily be neither. He looked up at the two men. “Really, I don’t know what kind of girl you lads think my sister is, but you aren’t going to have any sort of an easy time wooing her.”

He began swirling his drink again, then added with a laugh.

“She’s not particularly interested in flirting.”

Despite how he was actively mocking the idea of their activity, his words completely latched both the men’s attention to him. Despite their already close proximity, the two lent ever closer to him as if they might somehow miss what he was saying otherwise.

Sonja similarly found her attention drawn, but hers was held by the two gamblers. As they moved, Tom had taken a hold of Jordan’s arm, all but hanging off the man. Was he actually serious about this bet? It seemed he already had eyes for someone, and it wasn’t Capsize.

Though, unfortunately for Tom’s sake, it seemed that despite all odds, his friend was oblivious to him being anything more than friendly.

“What? A pretty girl like that? Come off it, she must have lads chasing after her all the time,” Jordan insisted despite how his point didn’t in any way contradict what Redbeard had said. It happened quite often that a lad would chase some gal never stopping to consider her apparent lack of interest wasn’t merely apparent. But to think about that would require even a slither of self-awareness that clearly this man lacked.

“Perhaps she does. I’m hardly in the city enough to keep track of every fool that thinks they stand a chance with her,” Redbeard replied with little more than a shrug. He seemed far more focused on flicking through the crumpled bills in front of him, attempting to figure out his bet for the newly started round. “But I can tell you with absolute certainty that Capsize has never shown any interest in men. She says she’s got more important things to be doing. It’d be a miracle if either one of you manages to so much as get her to look up from her book.”

His words, Sonja thought, could be easily taken at face value. His sister might simply be a stuffy academic who had no time for relationships. Nothing wrong with that, of course, though Sonja would find it disappointing. However, his wording had been quite particular. There was more than one way to take the statement that a woman wasn’t interested in men.

Tom, for all his loud boisterousness, also seemed to be quietly considering the statement for all it might mean.

Redbeard, however, just continued on.

“And even if one of you does manage to kiss her, you won’t have the money to pay the other because I have another winning hand.”

“Bullshit!”

“How in the hell is that possible?!”

“What can I say? I have incredible luck tonight.”

“You’re cheating somehow.”

“Prove it and I’ll give all your money back.”

Sonja gave another snorted laugh as the men’s attention was completely pulled back to their card game. She could stand and watch them bicker for hours and get a great deal of entertainment from it. But while they were distracted, she decided to take her leave. After all, there was another person on this boat that she’d very much like to talk to.

𓂀 𓂀 𓂀

Capsize sat in the open air of the deck lost in thought. She’d come to this table with the intent to read through one of the books she’d brought along, taking her own notes on other scholar’s translations and theories on Hamunaptra. Though there was quite the spiteful part of her that resented having to use the research of the very scholars who had rejected her from digs time and time again, she couldn’t reject any knowledge of their destination when legitimate information was so few and far between. For her ultimate goal, she could bite down her pride.

She had managed a good amount of work, having produced a few pages of carefully written notes, but as the sun had sunk beyond the horizon, she’d begun to lose concentration. Not for lack of trying. Even at this moment she held her pen poised in her fingers ready to continue her writings. However, her eyes kept getting drawn to the river.

The calm waters weren’t particularly interesting. She imagined no one else was getting lost in them as she was. Yet to her they represented a certain reality. This reality. She was on a boat travelling away from the city and would soon be on a real expedition. Though she was just about maintaining a professional look rather than allowing her giddiness to come to the surface, she’d be lying if she denied that each tiny wave remaining her that they were moving ever closer to their destination was making her heart pound.

The quietness of the night was interrupted by a heavy weight dropping on the table before her. Capsize startled, jolting her head towards the noise only to give a huffed sigh as she realised it had simply been Foxx dumping her bag atop the table.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” The woman apologised, sounding sincere at least. Though her tone didn’t stop her words from ruffling Capsize.

She looked back down to her notes as if she had been working on them this entire time rather than being lost in a daydream.

“The only thing that scares me, Ms Foxx, is your manners,” She retorted, scanning across her notes to remember where she had been.

Sonja lent on the back of the empty chair she stood in front of, a smile playing on her lips. It was so easy to slip into this mood when she was in front of the woman, to smile and want to teasingly prod and flirt. Even more tempting now they were alone.

“Still angry that I kissed you, huh?” She said with a smirk. Of course, she hadn’t actually checked that the kiss had left her angry, but it seemed relatively obvious with how terse the woman was being.

Capsize, without looking up from the notes she was once more taking, rolled her eyes. All this did was add sureness to Sonja’s assumption of her annoyance.

“If you call that a kiss,” She scoffed. Her tone spoke to a certain experience in the matter, despite her brother’s words speaking to her lack of any. Maybe Sonja had been right in her assumption about his true meaning. Or maybe the man had just been lying to annoy the men who had already lost so much money to him.

Though the temptation of even the slight possibility of Capsize having an interest in women just poured on that desire of continuing to flirt.

“I can try again if you want. See if I can give you a real one,” She said as she pulled out her chair to take a seat, putting the two in even closer proximity. It’d be so easy for the soldier to lean across and once more steal a kiss. Though, this time, she resisted the impulse. Hell of an easier thing to do when her execution wasn’t looming.

Still, she was a tad disappointed that the woman was still so focused on her notes.

“We’re already sharing a room, Ms Foxx. I’d prefer to not give our travelling companions anymore fuel for gossip,” She said in a way that itched at Sonja. It wasn’t precisely a no, but it certainly wasn’t a yes. For now, she decided not to push her luck. Better that than pushing herself into a complete rejection.

Frankly, though, the woman perplexed Sonja. She spoke with authority even, and seemingly especially, when she had none. She was relatively easy to fluster going from how she’d been acting on the docks. Yet when she’d actually tried to spook her, the woman had stood strong.

Capsize was an enigma. Cute, yes, but for the life of her, Sonja couldn’t figure out why the woman wanted to do this. She could be having a comfy life anywhere she wanted, but instead she was trekking out into the desert towards some god-forsaken ruins. Why go through this much effort to prove herself?

Still, she imagined bringing that up would cause an argument. She didn’t particularly fancy that on their first night out here. At least not when she was sober.

Besides, there was something else Sonja wanted to bring up.

“If you’re gonna insist on being formal, it’s Miss not Ms,” She started as she unbuckled her bag, unrolling the canvas so it laid flat for her to check her weapons. No point in just talking when she had something she could be doing at the same time. “But you could just call me Sonja.”

The offer gave Capsize the smallest amount of pause. Really, there wasn’t any reason for her to call their guide by her surname rather than her given one. Yet she couldn’t help but worry that if she allowed any barriers to break between them, any attempts she made to keep up professionalism would be doomed to fail.

Now she wasn’t entirely sure that she wanted a merely professional relationship with Foxx. Her heart certainly didn’t, but her head, desperate for this expedition to go well, was resistant to anything that might distract from the task at hand. As was the story of most of her life, it was her head that won out this time.

“I’m not sure that would be entirely—” Capsize paused in her sentence as she finally looked up and saw the unfurled bag of weapons on the table. Everything she had been thinking about was replaced by befuddlement. “Have I missed something? Are we going into battle?”

She couldn’t help but almost laugh as the sheer number of weapons seemed utterly ridiculous. Of course, she had expected Foxx to bring some weapons. Her two empty holsters that she had been wearing since they met her this morning had signalled that she’d brought at least two pistols.

Indeed, the soldier was checking over and loading a revolver, its twin waiting within the bag. However, those were but two guns among an arsenal. There were a couple more pistols, a pair of hunting knives, a rifle that seemed designed for prey far larger than anything they could possibly encounter in the desert.

Capsize had thought the foreign crew’s guns to be overkill, yet Foxx made them look under-prepared. Yet it was what sat alongside the typical weapons that was even more eye-catching to her. Several sticks of carefully wrapped dynamite.

Really, how was Capsize meant to act when presented with equipment better suited to a militia than anything they would be doing out in the desert?

Foxx didn’t return her tone.

“The last time I was there everyone I was with died,” She said, not judgemental or angry, but the stark reality of the statement was enough to wipe away Capsize’s smile. Sonja slipped the first revolver into its holster, picking up the other to give it the same checks.

She rolled her next words around on her tongue, trying to think of a way to phrase what she wanted to say. It was too late for them to turn back so saying exactly what she wanted would only have a negative effect, probably have the woman back to that annoyed, half-lecturing tone. Still, she needed to say something. “There’s something in those ruins, underneath the sands.”

She couldn’t bring herself to say what she had seen, the monstrous face formed in the sand. She had no wish to be called insane and how could she stress the reality of the encounter without sounding completely mad?

“Well, that is rather the point of this, isn’t it? There’s a certain relic I’m hoping is there, anyway,” Capsize said, trying to ignore the implications of Miss Foxx saying the words as an explanation for her weapons. A rather easy thing considering how ridiculous it was to believe that there could be anything living within the ruins. If anyone was within Hamunaptra, they were long dead. “Of course, Red thinks there’s treasure.”

She added with a slightly entertained smile.

The idea of the place being a treasure trove containing all the Old Kingdom’s wealth was a remarkable legend. It had certainly been helpful in stopping Foxx from being executed as the warden had been just as convinced by the legend as her brother. Capsize, however, wasn’t entirely sure of its reality. While it would be lovely for them as the historical discovery of a lifetime, it seemed like precisely the sort of legend to spread based on rumour rather than fact.

She looked towards the soldier.

“What do you think is down there?” She asked with some curiosity. Whether or not she ended up agreeing with Foxx, she still wanted to know what she believed about the city. It was interesting to see what different people saw in legend and, unlike most people, the woman before her had actually seen the city of the dead.

Sonja put her second revolver in its holster and began examining one of the other pistols.

“Something evil,” She said with a low voice. It was the only feasible way for her to describe what she witnessed. Something evil within the city, desperate to escape.

She looked at Capsize, half surprised to meet her eyes as the woman appeared to be listening intently. “The Tuaregs and the Bedouin think Hamunaptra is cursed, you know. They call it the gateway to Hell.”

“I believe the more accurate translation is a passageway to the underworld,” Capsize corrected in such a way that it was plainly obvious that this was something she knew rather than simply believed.

She gave a smile to the serious looking soldier. “I don’t believe in fairy tales, Miss Foxx. They’re interesting to research, but they have very little basis in reality.”

Her tone wasn’t judgemental, but she was quite clear with her statement. While she found interest in stories for what they represented, she found it important to distinguish them from actual historical fact. All her life she’d heard about the apparent deadly curses placed on tombs, including those that her own relatives had gone on digs through. Not a single one of them had proven real.

No, she didn’t want to think on the stories of the undead guards of Hamunaptra when she had evidence to believe an actual piece of lost history was waiting for them beneath the sands.

“What I do believe is that the most famous book in history is buried in those ruins. The Book of Amun-Ra,” She glanced down at the book she had been taking notes from attempting to conceal her excitement at how close it now was. This was a discovery that she could’ve only dreamt of. “It’s meant to contain all sorts of currently lost knowledge of the Old Kingdom, incantations not recorded anywhere else.”

The more she spoke, the more light came into her eyes, the wider her smile became.

“My aunt told me about it when I was a child. It was what got me interested in history in the first place,” She could still remember Mabel’s stories about the book near word for word. She held a great amount of admiration for her late aunt and all the woman had accomplished. If she could find the relic that she had never gotten the opportunity to… Well, wouldn’t that be a story? “It’s why I’ve wanted to practice archaeology, sort of a life’s pursuit.”

“And the fact that it’s apparently made of gold makes no mind to you?” Sonja asked with an amused smile.

Capsize looked up in surprise, impressed rather than offended. She hadn’t expected Foxx to have any knowledge on the book whatsoever.

“You know your history?” She said, almost itching for further conversation because there were so few people she could have these discussions with who would take her seriously.

Foxx, however, just shrugged.

“I know my treasure,” She said.

Though she hadn’t meant to be dismissive, that was precisely how Capsize took it. A greater part of the woman just felt foolish for allowing her excitement to build up at all. An itching feeling of idiocy, making her unable to keep sitting here. She needed to get the chastising thoughts from her head. Even if there weren’t many places she could go on the boat, she was sure that merely walking around would aid her in clearing her head.

However, as she grabbed her two books and went to stand, she hesitated. There was that question in the back of her head. The utterly foolish question that she didn’t want to ask but hadn’t been able to rid herself off no matter how she’d tried. Without standing from her chair, she finally worked up the nerve to voice those words.

“By the way… Why did you kiss me?” She asked so, so carefully. She allowed herself to betray nothing more than curiosity, as if this was an academic question rather than one causing her heart to beat in her ears.

Sonja didn’t look up from the gun she was checking as she rolled the answer over her tongue. Perhaps if she had, she could’ve actually answered.

“You already kissed her?! Jesus, you two weren’t kidding about driving us to bankruptcy,” Tom, who had appeared behind Capsize, loudly bemoaned as he pulled out his wallet to pay out the apparently won wager.

Capsize’s eyes widened, her shoulders cringing inwards before her initial embarrassment turned to a seething rage. With a disgusted scoff, she stood from the table and stormed off down the deck.

“Hey wait, don’t—” Sonja started, but gave up with a heavy sigh, running a hand over her face. She turned to the man who had interrupted them as he was now leaning his elbow on the newly vacated chair. He held a couple of crumpled bills in his hand.

“What did I say?” He questioned as he looked after the retreating woman, as if that wasn’t paternally obvious. To him, it somehow wasn’t. He then looked to Sonja with a smile, somehow also oblivious to her annoyance. “I’ve got to say I’m impressed, but I’m not like Sparklez, I could tell she had eyes for you. Still, how’d you even find time for it?”

“I kissed her yesterday,” Sonja said flatly, choosing to ignore the rest of what he’d said for her own sanity.

This time it was Tom’s eyes that widened. For a moment, it seemed that he thought he might’ve been conned. He hadn’t, Sonja hadn’t actually taken his wager, and she was currently making no move to take the money from him. Nor was she sure that Redbeard, who had brought the idea of her taking the bet on, actually knew about the kiss.

She didn’t need to give him any reassurance on the matter though. Quickly, he settled on the emotion he was going to hold, and it appeared to be some form of horror. He began his own dash down the boat.

“Wait! Miss, I didn’t mean—” He began calling after Capsize and Sonja laughed under her breath thinking of the attitude he was going to receive if he actually caught up to her.

She would’ve been satisfied to keep checking over her weapon while contemplating where the man had gotten the idea that the woman had any sort of feelings for her, maybe keeping an ear out for whatever yelling at the man got. However, there was a pause in the man’s flight. A single moment where his footsteps skid to a halt. “Tucker, why on earth are…”

Though the man continued talking, she could no longer hear him.

One single word was enough to make Sonja go rigid. A single word that she couldn’t have heard but knew for certain that she had.

As Tom continued his dash down the boat, Sonja rose from her seat. She walked as if she was in a trance the handful of steps down the deck to where he had briefly stopped.

She truly thought she must be leaping to conclusions, that it’d be far too much of a coincidence for him to be here. She turned, looking into a gap between a stack of equipment and a wall. There was no reason anyone in their right mind would be squeezed into that space.

However, as Sonja looked down into the narrow space, she found herself facing a man she hadn’t seen in three years. There, alive and well and apparently just as much of a coward, was Tucker.

“Sonja! You’re alive! What a surprise!” He said with false cheer attempting to cover his terror at seeing her. It didn’t quite work as he intended as his nerves shone through clearly. His smile was faltering as Sonja’s stare bore down on him.

The soldier looked down at her old companion, blinking at the impossible sight. Then, in an instant, she grabbed him by the throat, ripping him out of his hiding place and slamming him against the wall. She pinned him there against it with her arm locked against his chest. Her other hand grabbed one of her now loaded revolvers and shoved the barrel under his chin.

“Well, if it isn’t my old friend,” She spat, all that bubbling resentment of the man leaving her for dead coming to the surface once more. Her finger was itching for the trigger, to get revenge for the little weasel leaving her to her fate. “Give me one reason I shouldn’t kill you.”

Tucker squirmed in her grasp, quickly realising he wasn’t getting anyway from her. Running away wasn’t an option at this point. He needed to actually talk his way out of this, a horrifying prospect with how intense her glare currently was.

He half-considered using their current location to dissuade her. After all, if she shot him then it wasn’t as if she’d get away with it. Everyone would hear the gunshot so, even if she killed him, she would be immediately caught and punished. However, he was staring at a woman with a clear bruise blossomed across her neck that he could only imagine one source for. The idea of her fearing the potential consequences of his murder when she’d clearly faced the worst possible one and survived it felt laughable.

However, there was a pressing need for him to say something given that he wanted to remain bullet free. But the gun at his throat truly impeded his ability to think. The words that therefore spilled out were simply the first ones to come into his thoughts.

“Think of my children,” He said as he shrank back into the wall, wishing he could melt into it.

Sonja narrowed her eyes at him.

“You don’t have any children,” She growled with absolute sureness. Sure, it was theoretically possible that he’d had some in the years between now and their last meeting, but she’d travelled with the man for long enough to know when he was making an excuse. His reaction only confirmed her suspicions.

“Someday I might,” He squeaked out as he tried to shrink back even further, despite how impossible that was.

It was an absolutely terrible reason to give to the rightfully vengeful woman. It should’ve done nothing but cement her decision to pull the trigger. However, though her expression didn’t soften and her anger certainly didn’t fade, the idiotic words pushed Sonja into remembering that there had been more to Tucker than that last moment of betrayal.

They had, before that last battle, been friends. They’d travelled together as part of that garrison for years and had been close as people tended to be when stuck in close quarters. She knew more about him than she did most living people. Maybe that made his abandoning of her worse, but the reminder left Sonja unable to shoot him in cold blood. As much as she doubted that he’d give her the same grace.

Though she didn’t lower her gun, she relaxed the weight of her arm from him. He didn’t dare breathe a sigh of relief, but Tucker knew he’d dodged a bullet. Still, even if she wasn’t going to murder him, that didn’t mean Sonja was particularly pleased to see him.

“I should’ve known it was you leading the foreigners,” She said with unhidden exasperation. Her luck had been in the shitter lately. It only seemed right that she’d once more run into Tucker. How many people outside of their garrison could’ve actually been to Hamunaptra? Who other than Tucker could’ve really survived that battle?

Still, him being here as an expedition guide stank wrong. The man, beyond most else, wanted to keep himself safe. There was no way he was willingly walking back to the ruins where he nearly died. So the question existed: what game was he playing with the men who thought he was taking them to Hamunaptra? “So what’s the con? You take them out into the middle of the desert and leave them there to rot?”

Her initial aggression was gone from her voice, but she was clearly judging him. She didn’t quite know why she cared. She certainly didn’t feel any need to protect those four idiots. But, though she’d never admit it out loud, she couldn’t help but think of Capsize.

Sure, she was mostly concerned for the woman because this was her job now, but it rubbed her the wrong way to think of someone scamming her. With how excitable she was about the city and the book she thought was there, it was so easy to picture the worst sort of person taking advantage of her.

Sonja suspected that Capsize had the smarts to avoid a completely obvious scam. Yet still, she couldn’t shift the sickening thought of the sort of guide the siblings would’ve ended up hiring if they hadn’t gotten her out of prison. Someone like the man in front of her.

Tucker, despite how he had no right to be, found himself offended by the assertion.

“No. Tom’s my friend. I wouldn’t leave him to die in the desert,” He said with real offense in his voice. He couldn’t hurt Tom like that.

Sonja’s anger returned at full force. If looks could kill, Tucker would’ve been bleeding out on the deck. Her glare was so intense that he feared her actually pulling the trigger still pointed at his neck.

He skittishly admitted the rest of the truth. “And his friends are smart. They’ve only paid half of my fee and won’t pay the rest until we get back to the city. I’m stuck going all the way.”

He gave a deep sigh. He hated how well Sonja could still read him after all this time. She had him dead to rights and could completely screw him if she so wished. He was prepared for her to just do that.

Instead, she took a step back. She shoved her gun back into its holster, finally giving Tucker room to breathe. He rubbed his neck, glad to still have it intact. Not that he could complain when the state of Sonja’s left him surprised she could still speak. Though, he had more confusion than just her physical state.

“You never believed in Hamunaptra, Sonja. Why the hell are you headed back?” He questioned because she didn’t even believe in the treasure. He couldn’t imagine stumbling back into the ruins that might as well be hell if he thought they were empty.

Sonja opened her mouth, ready to give a slightly sarcastic answer. But before she could, a yell carried across the deck, pulling both of their attentions.

“Then go kiss him and leave me alone!” Capsize’s annoyed voice pierced the air.

She had wandered over to the paddock of horses that they were going to use for their travel through the desert. She’d had all of two seconds of peace with the animals before Syndicate had come blundering over, attempting to apologise for betting on her when ‘she already had a partner’.

Normally this would’ve been a gesture she would’ve appreciated. It was so rare for her to be given any sort of an apology for anything that hearing one, regardless of its contents, was pleasant. But her mood was already one laced with so much frustration that nothing was going to soothe her.

So, she had interrupted his wittering with an explosion, not waiting for a response before storming below deck.

Tom opened his mouth, but this time thought better of both speaking and following after her. He lowered his shoulders in dejection and turned back to the horses.

Sonja watched Capsize go with a soft smile. It was neither an expression suited to the scene she was watching, nor one that she would ever typically wear.

“That woman saved my life. She wants to go to Hamunaptra, she’s getting there and I’m keeping her out of trouble,” She said as she rubbed a hand across her bruised neck. There was a softness to her tone that she wouldn’t allow herself to use in front of Capsize. When actually talking to the woman, she felt a need to stress the danger they were headed into. Maybe because it was a way to try and protect her. Maybe she just found the woman standing up to her funny.

However, when she wasn’t here, she was allowed to fall into this wistfulness. Though, this time it was ruined by the man next to her.

“You always did become an idiot when you saw a pretty girl,” Tucker laughed. Frankly, he couldn’t believe Sonja could be so damn stupid. There had to be a girl she could crush on that wasn’t making her trek into the devil’s clutches.

Sonja’s glare returned, though this time Tucker missed it.

“Let’s get even, shall we?” She said, her annoyance very much back.

“What?” Tucker questioned, having no opportunity to properly process her words before she had grabbed him and tossed him over the boat’s guard rail.

She watched with a satisfied smirk as he fell into the river with a great splash. He rose back from the water coughing and spluttering as he began to tread water.

“I’ll kill you, Sonja!” He yelled, much to her amusement. “I’ll get you for this!”

“I’ll look forward to it!” She called back with a laugh. She wasn’t particularly scared of Tucker. If she was, she would’ve actually killed him.

She was quite sure her old friend would survive this. With how slow they were going, he should be able to get back on the boat. If he couldn’t, that wasn’t really her problem. She’d left him to his fate, just as he’d left her to hers.

She pushed away from the railing with the intent of just going back to checking over her weapons. She thought it best to do so now, before they had to be used, and the task would give her some time to think.

She was, despite all her expectations, sharing a room with Capsize. Different beds obviously, and she didn’t exactly feel it close quarters with how cramped the cells had been in that prison. Still, though, she wanted some time to mull things over by herself before she went down there. She didn’t want to walk into a conversation that might well lead back to the kiss without having time to think it through.

Sonja didn’t have a reason for why she’d kissed her, other than it had seemed a good idea at the time. She’d been five minutes from execution; she hadn’t been acting with much forethought. But god knows that wasn’t the answer she wanted to give.

However, she wasn’t going to get the time to think that she desired. In the few short steps back to the table, she caught sight of them reflecting in the lamplight. Wet footsteps headed straight down on a route below deck.

Had she spotted them at any later point in the night, she would’ve assumed them to be from Tucker scrambling back aboard. But the man was still audibly in the water.