#jodhan

Slowly, the duo set off into the woods. The lights of Semeka's eyes ebbed and surged as she scanned the forest around her; in the darkness, things that made their home here chittered and scuttled. In the distance, something hooted softly, and the wind rustled the branches high above them.  The trees seemed to glow a pale gray under the dim moonlight, and a few red leaves came fluttering down in the breeze, whispering of the coming winter.

"This place is beautiful," Jodhan said quietly.

She nodded, trying to stay focused on the task at hand. Leaves crunched beneath her feet - and satisfying as that was, it also made it a royal pain to find anything that might have been a path. She pressed the soles of her feet into the ground, tapped at it with the claws of her toes, trying to feel for anything that wasn't topsoil.

Eventually, she felt the ground grow firmer; the wind brought the distant scent of smoke to her. She knelt down and scraped away the leaves beneath her to reveal a narrow, pressed-dirt path, then focused into the distance; around a bend and nestled amongst the trees, there was something that might have been a home. She gently prodded Jodhan in the side, and he nodded and stepped forward.

As they walked, the wind sang around them, a mournful, wandering sound.

"Listen, Jodhan. This might get a little complicated when we get there."

"It always does. What's the problem this time?"

"Remember how I said the mayor wasn't your average Toa?"

"I thought that was a little vague, even for you."

"Well, she's not exactly your average Makuta, either." She heard Jodhan inhale. "That - could be bad."

"If we're lucky, we won't have to fight her."

"And here I thought I was the optimistic one."

"Maybe you rubbed off on me." She glanced up; the treetops swayed gently in the night breeze. "You ever meet a Makuta before?"

"I have now."

"Very funny."

"No. No, I haven't. But I've heard tales. Not pleasant ones."

"Sounds about right to me."

"And you're telling me Iren and Johmak were..."

"Lovers, probably, yeah."

He shook his head. "I've never known Makuta to be the selfless, loving types."

"Sure you hadn't heard the same of Skakdi, either."

"No, but I had heard they had egos the size of a small island."

She grinned. "And big sharp teeth to scare smart-ass Toa with?"

"Only the finest."

The home was so simple as to give one pause; it seemed to have been on its way to a landscape painting, gotten lost, and decided to settle down in the next best thing it could find. Smoke rose slowly from a plain stone chimney, and in the window the light from a fireplace flickered slowly. Jodhan glanced back at Semeka, and she shrugged.

The two approached slowly, listening for any sign of movement. None came.

"So," Jodhan all but whispered, "what do we... do?"

"I was planning on knocking."

"Honestly?"

"Well, you were going to be climbing in the back window in the meantime, but yes, that was the main idea."

He nodded, looking almost relieved. "You got your knives?"

"Wouldn't call myself a bartender without 'em. You got that crossbow of yours?"

He reached onto his back and drew something from a pouch there. She shook her head. "I dunno how you Toa always manage to carry so much stuff around without anyone noticing. Alright, head around to the porch. In the unlikely event of yelling, do your thing."

"Rush in head-first?" he said with a smile.

"That's the one."

He squeezed her hand briefly, and then slipped into the shadows. She watched him go, then turned her attention back to the cabin. If she was lucky, Johmak would answer. If she was unlucky, Iren would. If she was extremely unlucky, they were both already dead and a Barraki or five were waiting on the other side of the door. She'd already hit that lottery more than enough for one life, but it never hurt to consider possibilities.

She slinked up to the door, leaned against it, listened. Two voices, hushed and warm, were bantering back and forth in the room beyond. Semeka paused. She couldn't make out the words, but - there was a rhythm to that sound, familiar and friendly.

She sighed. No, knocking wasn't going to do at all.

And a one, and a two...

It was to both Johmak and Iren's immense credit that they seemed totally unfazed by their front door flying open to reveal a dirt-covered Skakdi, knife at the ready, grinning like a madwoman, and looking generally very pleased with that particular kick.

"Hello, ladies," she said chipperly. "Mind if I interrupt?"

Johmak looked away, clearly embarrassed. Iren smiled and stood from the armchair she'd been resting in. "Why, you must be Semeka. I've heard so much about you. Do come in."

Semeka let herself swagger a bit as she crossed the room and splayed herself across a plain wooden chair in the admittedly quite tasteful breakfast nook. Casually as she could, she crossed her legs atop the dining table. "Having a good evening, are we?"

"Just catching up," the Makuta said with all the cheer of a hawk that had just spotted its latest meal.

Semeka gave the Makuta a once-over. She still looked mostly the part of the noble Toa guiding a little village; her midnight-blue armor was a muted grey, the mask atop her face a weathered old Faxon.  She was wearing a simple green robe; it had been stitched back together so many times that one could make the case it was no longer the same piece of clothing it had started as. But her eyes - now, those were different. They glowed a dim crimson, sharp as a knife's edge and just as thirsty.

The Makuta blinked, once, twice. "Oh, do excuse me. Charging up the heat vision just in case is an old habit. Hard to break. Made for some very awkward trade summits, let me tell you!"

Semeka simply nodded and leaned back in the chair. "Happens to the best of us. And how 'bout you, Johmak? You having a good time?"

"Why are you here, Semeka?" Her voice was flat, the way one got when they were secretly hoping that the past ninety seconds would prove to be a waking dream.

"Ah, you know. Just happened across a lead or two in a funny old bombing case, thought I'd do my due diligence and take a look-see. Can't help it, I'm nosy."

"You most certainly are," Iren said pleasantly. "By the way, what about the Toa who's been trying to force the lock on the back door for the better part of the last three minutes?"

She raised a brow. "Forcing it? Seriously?"

"Stone-iron deadbolts. Not as pretty and a sight more expensive, but I’ve yet to meet the Toa who can handle two elements at once.  I never got around to installing them back at the village, unfortunately."

"I told him to use the window anyway," Semeka muttered. Johmak shook her head and went to open the door for Jodhan, presumably just to get out of the room for a few seconds.

Semeka glanced over at the Makuta and raised a brow. The Makuta returned the gesture, her eyes once again glimmering. A cat-shark grin made its way across her face. Won't this be fun? it asked.

She returned the grin with one of her own. As fun as you care to make it, Makuta.

Johmak returned with a somewhat bashful Jodhan in tow. Iren gestured for the two to take a seat on the sofa; they did so with the practiced discomfort of two people who have been thrown into a difficult situation entirely by dint of mutual acquaintance.

"Now then," Iren said cheerily, "I suppose I should thank you two for coming all this way to check on us. We must have given you quite a scare."

"You framed me for murder."

Iren waved a hand dismissively. "It happens to the best of us. By the way, just so we're all on the same page - how much has your darling girlfriend told you about me, Toa?"

Jodhan spluttered for a moment, then managed: "that you're a Makuta."

"Splendid! Then there's no need to waste time on introductions. Though I have to admit, seeing a Toa here is a bit surprising. Your kind don't usually get wrapped up in this kind of trouble." She smiled her sharkskin smile once more. "You must be very trusting indeed."

Jodhan glowered at her, and Semeka coughed impolitely. "That aside, I think you two've got some explaining to do."

"All in due time. Would anyone care for some dinner? I know it's a bit late, but I imagine you two haven't eaten if you've come straight from town."

Jodhan stiffened. "As though I'm going to eat-"

"-Sure thing," Semeka said. "That sounds just lovely. I'm sure a proper host such as yourself would be all too happy to go whip something up for us, am I right?"

"You are indeed," Iren replied, and stood.  Semeka noticed that her feet were not actually touching the ground. "I imagine you all have some catching up to do, in any event.  I'll be in the kitchen."

With a whistle - an honest-to-Mata-Nui whistle - the Makuta left the room.

"What the hell," Semeka said.

Johmak put a hand to her face.  "I could ask the same of you, Semeka.  I thought I made it clear I had this handled."

"You made it clear that you were running off with a Makuta.  What, was I just supposed to not go after you?"  

She sighed and rubbed her temples.  "Tell me you at least didn't... pass this information along."

"'Course not.  You really think I wanted to drag King K into this? We'd never hear the end of it."

Jodhan coughed politely.  "Can I interrupt and point out that I still don't know what's going on?"

"For once you're not alone on that front," Semeka muttered. "Seriously, Johmak-"

"Well, what was I supposed to do?" the Order member seethed. "The place was literally exploding! It was either hitch a ride on the teleport or get blown into a million pieces - and not be able to put myself back together for once."

"Oh, and I take it the fallout from this traumatic teleportation was so terrible as to require shacking up at your old anniversary date for the better part of a week?"

Johmak groaned.  "You looked through my journals."

"'Course I did.  You'd do the same."

"If you didn't burn yours, yes."

"You keep diaries and burn them?"

"Quiet, Jodhan.  Also, everyone needs a hobby."  

"Both of you, just - shut up."  Johmak's hand was shaking once more.  "Listen - I'm very touched that you felt the need to come after me and all that, but this is my business, not yours."

"Your business nearly got Jodhan framed for murder," Semeka snapped. "Oh, and you're apparently dating one of the few people in the world who might know where my sister is, so if you're looking for the personal rationale, there's that."

"More than that," Jodhan said quietly.  "Are you all right, Johmak?"

"I told you, I'm fine."

"There’s a Makuta making dinner one room over.  You'll forgive me if I think this is a bit suspicious."

Johmak's eyes narrowed.  "Oh, hell.  Semeka warned me about this."

He blinked.  "What?"

"Sorry to disappoint you, Toa, but this isn't a case of the evil Makuta kidnapping the hapless victim.  Iren and I go back, alright? And that means I have every right in the world to take care of my relationship issues personally."

Semeka whistled.  "Points for getting to the heart of the matter quickly."

"Look," Johmak fumed, "just go.  Get up, leave, tell Kychell you couldn't track me down."

"And what happens to you?"

For a moment, something flashed in the other woman's eyes.  "I'll be back," she said after a pause that was a little too long.  

Semeka looked at her closely.  "...That so."  Johmak nodded.

She shrugged and stood.

"Where are you going?" Jodhan asked.

"Just thought I'd see how dinner's coming along."

The Makuta was making tea.

Semeka watched her from the doorway for a while; in turn, Iren made no acknowledgment that the Skakdi was there save to fetch an extra cup from the stained-wood cabinet above the counter. With the calm grace of someone who knows they're setting the timetables for everyone else in the vicinity, she reached into another one of the cabinets and withdrew a small sugar bowl. Slowly, carefully, she tapped its contents into the boiling kettle.

"Aren't you supposed to wait for the tea to finish brewing, first?"

Iren didn't turn around. "I find adding sugar and other condiments early in the process lets them infuse a bit more strongly."

"And if the person you're drinking with doesn't like sugar?"

"I can't imagine why I would have tea with someone like that. They sound wholly unpleasant." There was a whistle, and she removed the pot from the stove. Calmly, she filled the two cups to the brim, then moved them to a small tray. "Shall we sit outside?"

Semeka nodded; the Makuta turned and walked through the door to the porch without so much as a backwards glance.  The back of the house looked out over a forested hillside leading down to Kanno Bay in the distance.  There was the slow melt of the first rays of dawn spreading across the sky, and a few birds were warbling through the semi-dark. Probably Gukkos, if the universe had any sense of thematic appropriateness.

Iren had seated herself in a small, cushioned chair; its wood was worn with the passing of seasons, nearly rotted through in places. Putty had been awkwardly applied to a few spots, masking the worst of the damage. Semeka sat herself down in the chair's twin. The bay stretched out before them, still and purple-dark in the predawn.

Still, the Makuta did not look at her. "Try the tea."

"Pretty sure taking tea from a Makuta is way up on the list of fastest ways to die."

"Considering I'm drinking it right now, I imagine it'd be quite difficult for it to be poisoned."

"I dunno. Could be you're immune to whatever you've slipped in there."

The Makuta took a long, slow sip. "Could be."

For a few moments, they sat there, listening to the world.

Finally, Iren placed her cup back on the table and turned to Semeka. She sized her up silently; the Makuta had a half-smile, the kind that usually ended in one member of the conversation bleeding out on the floor. "It's quite nice to have a chance to sit down and talk at last, Semeka Tantarus. Johmak's told me all about you."

"Can't say the same about you, Iren."

"Perhaps I should be offended."

"Maybe."

Semeka reached out and picked up her cup, then downed it in one swift gulp. The Makuta's smile didn't move the slightest.

"So," Semeka said, "shall we get down to business?"

"Business, business, business. It's all anyone ever seems to want to talk about." She shook her head in exasperation. "If I never have to sign another trade agreement, I can die happy."

"Got some bad news for you on that front."

"Yes, I suppose you do." The Makuta picked her cup from the table. "Jodhan, was his name?"

"'S far as I know."

"Hmm," Iren said, and took a sip of tea. Semeka hadn’t ever met a Makuta face-to-face, but she put good money on Makuta dialect translating "hmm" as "you know I can kill everyone you care about."

"So let's start with the obvious. Care to explain why you faked your death and pinned it on him?"

She tutted. "The framing wasn't my idea at all. Polonious tends to get ahead of himself, I'm afraid. I admire his dedication to the job, but sometimes you wind up with too much of a good thing."

"I take it the two of you go way back."

"Far enough, yes. He was working for some Barraki when I met him. I convinced him there were... better opportunities elsewhere."

Semeka pulled out her usual toothpick. Shame there wasn't a counter she could lean on; the closer she could get this conversation to a friendly chat across a bar, the better she would feel. "Funny. I heard he and his group were freelance."

"Even freelancers have their loyalties. Besides, you could say we helped guarantee each other a clean slate."

"How many bodies'd it take?"

"About ten."

"About?"

"He took care of the last few. There may have been multiple pieces involved by the time he was through."

She began to work the toothpick through the gaps of her front teeth, slow and easy. "Sounds like a pleasant guy."

"I imagine he was, once." The Makuta took another long drink.

Semeka shot another glance at her. The armor on her fingers was burnt through, and the hem of her robe was wearing was ratty with age. The Makuta met her glance pound for pound, as though daring the Skakdi to make a comment.

"So, some cover story you've got going here.  I gotta say, if I were a Makuta trying to keep a low profile I wouldn't have started trying to make power plays in the quietest neighborhood this half of the continent's got."

The Makuta laughed softly. "I'm afraid it's in my nature. I may have... underestimated how much the day-to-day of a little town could wear on one without other ways to pass the time. I suppose I'll have to ask Johmak to find some place a bit more lively next time. Where I can blend in."

"Come to Zakaz. Last I heard, it was a great retirement spot for power-mad nutjobs who need a bit of violence every now and then to keep themselves fresh."

Iren smiled with the poise of an old predator. "I hear you have quite a lot of experience there, Miss Tantarus."

Semeka flicked the toothpick away, kept her face neutral as she pulled out another. Careful now. This conversation wasn't going to end in either of them pulling a weapon, which meant it was going to be a cold war.

"Now, what does a Makuta like you care about someone like me?"

The smile deepened. "Oh, I pick up on things here and there. Johmak let a few details slip when she was gushing about how dependable you were. And I have ways of getting news up and down the continent. Word gets around, after all. Something about a crime lord in Xia turning up dead in one of her cargo ships?"

The toothpick slid back and forth, back and forth. "Senn wasn't exactly a crime lord. More of a moron with too much of an ego. Hey, I'm seeing similarities."

"And then that business down in the Southern Islands. Very timely, that a whole population would decide to pack up and move to the mainland before any - shall we say, resource gatherers could stop by."

"Jodhan's a resourceful guy. I'm sure he saw the writing on the wall."

"Of course. But someone had to put it there in the first place." Iren took another long sip of tea.

"It's funny," Semeka replied. "You're not answering my question."

"It pays to keep an eye on anyone that might come in handy someday. And a former merc-turned-bartender-turned-Order-agent certainly fit the bill."

"So you profiled me just out of habit."

"Of course." The Makuta's voice was honeybee-sweet.

Semeka removed the toothpick, poured herself another cup of tea, and took a long, slow drink. So that was how it was. All that was left was to find out if it was going to be the carrot or the stick.

"You still haven't answered my first question, Makuta."

"'Why did I blow myself up?' Is that it?"

"Something like that."

Iren's smile returned, now tinged with just a bit of sorrow. Semeka watched it warily.

"For Johmak's sake, of course."

"Now that's funny.  Last I heard, you two were on the outs."

"Don't be so dramatic. We had a temporary case of opposing viewpoints, is all. Do remember she was the one who helped me get set up in our little town."

Semeka took another drink. "Bet you were over the moon when that happened. The minute she agreed to hide you, her hands were tied. Can't turn someone in when you were the one to squirrel 'em away in the first place."

"And Johmak knew that very well. Don't try to paint me as such a manipulator, Semeka."

"Don't need to try when you're doing such a fine job of it yourself."

"I'm wounded. Johmak helped me of her own free will, and I am grateful for it."

The toothpick danced along her fingers, back into her mouth. "Grateful enough that you needed to kidnap her?"

"Please. Once again, Johmak came with me freely. We care about each other."

Semeka took a moment to chew on the pick.  The Makuta sounded sure enough of that last bit.  Wonder what Johmak would have to say.  "Y'care about each other so much that it takes a mountain of cloak and dagger just to take a lakeside vacation?"

"I don't think you're the best person to pass judgment on that sort of thing, Semeka."

"That so."

The Makuta's smile widened. "Tell me, how much have you let your little Toa friend in on? Very little, I would imagine. It always was a flaw of yours."

Semeka worked the pick up and down.  "If you've got something you'd like to say..."

"I'm just reminding you that you can't play both sides forever, Skakdi. Sooner or later, you're going to have to commit to the Order, or turn tail and run."

"That what this is? You trying to recruit for the Brotherhood after all?"

The Makuta shuddered theatrically. "Don't be absurd. I want nothing to do with those megalomaniacs. All I want is to be left in peace - and for the Order to leave well enough alone."

And now we're getting somewhere. "So, how close were they to figuring it out?"

"Closer than I'd like. Johmak's smart - we both know that - but she's not perfect. Helryx hasn't lasted this long by letting things slip. The minute Johmak requested an out-of-nowhere transfer to a backwater town like Tysen, my days were numbered."

"Explains why they were keeping an eye on you."

"Of course. Which meant simply vanishing would be complicated."

She snorted. "And blowing yourself sky-high isn't?"

Iren smiled sweetly. "It isn't when you've left a criminal trail a mile long for any pesky investigators to 'stumble upon.'"

"Ahh." She chewed on the pick for a moment. "Nice."

“I must say, even if Polonious’s little stunt got you involved, it does make for an excellent conclusion to my little story.  Local mayor with her fingers in too many pies fakes her death and frames an innocent Toa before vanishing.  Plenty of drama, nothing left over to point towards anything too Destral-ish.”

"And there’s the crux of the matter, don't we?" Semeka leaned over onto the table, maintaining eye contact with the Makuta as best she could. "Nothing left over but me."

The Makuta narrowed her gaze. "Indeed. And that's a spot of trouble I didn't quite anticipate."

"Is that so."

"I admit I kept my eye on you during your little stay in our town. And I considered the possibility that you would come looking for Johmak eventually. I simply didn't believe you would track us down this quickly."

"Sorry to disappoint."

"For a certain definition, yes."

The two exchanged glares a few beats longer. Semeka could see a lot of things moving in the Makuta's eyes: frustration, fury, pride, intelligence - but most of all, victory. She thought she had already won, and given Semeka was beginning to get a sense of what game they were playing, that could be very bad news.

"I think we're past the point of playing coy, Makuta. What are you planning to do with Johmak?"

"Offer her a choice." The Makuta took another long sip of tea. "She can come with me and start a new life, or she can keep toiling away as the Order's attack dog."

"You think they won't try to track her down?"

"The universe is a larger place than you might realize, Skakdi. They can look, but they don't have eyes everywhere, much as they'd like to pretend they do."

"So, then." Semeka leaned back slightly. "What happens when she says no?"

Iren's smile didn't flinch. "She won't."

"Oh? Got an offer she can't refuse?"

"My companionship."

Semeka snorted. "Awful presumptive of you. You really think she'll throw away her whole life just to be with you?"

"And you wouldn't know anything about that sort of dilemma, would you, Skakdi?"

"Low blow."

"Oh, is it now? Because the way I see it, you're barreling right towards that same choice. It's just a question of which of you is going to run away from their responsibilities first."

She glowered at the Makuta. "Or it could be that we find a way to make things work."  Ah shit, just ignore the bait.

"Oh? Well, I'm sure that'll go just wonderfully for you two. I rather think you'll be the one to snap, won't you? You never did like being bossed around. And I hear you have a proclivity for cutting and running at the first opportunity."

There was the knife, cutting cold and deep. Semeka kept her face as passive as possible.

"Figure it out, have you?" The Makuta was all but gloating now. "I did my homework, little Skakdi. I know all about your great dramatic estrangement. I hear your sister is quite the mercenary these days. Polonious has nothing but good things to say about her work."

"And I'm glad to hear she's living so well."

"Surely you'd like to see her again?" The carrot was here, and it was bitter.

"Maybe, maybe not. I'm in no rush for a family reunion."

"Hm. Well, perhaps you should make up your mind quickly." The Makuta put a hand beneath her chin. "Because to return to that problem you so accurately pointed out - you're here now. And that means right now there's someone other than Johmak and myself who understands the situation I'm in. That simply won't do."

And now they were coming to the battlefield, weren't they? The stakes were set; all that was left was for each of them to make their offers. Semeka folded her arms and met the Makuta's gaze.

Iren smiled. "Allow me to cut you a deal, Miss Tantarus. You come work for me, in a private arrangement. I'll talk Polonious into letting you join his merry band under an assumed name.  You can even bring along your Toa, if you like.  And I can use the resources at my disposal to erase the two of you from the Order's records permanently."

"Good luck with that."

"Oh? You might be surprised. You all think you're so impenetrable and illusive - but it doesn't take a genius to see how the gears are turning. Teridax was always too caught up in his grand evil plans to figure there was anyone out there with a grand good one, so he never noticed. But people like me - we see. And anything you can see, you can affect."

Semeka leaned back, pulled out one last toothpick. "So that's your offer. Freedom."

"In a word. I've heard Johmak talk about your... occasionally tempestuous relationship with your position. Poor dear. Whose bright idea was it to give a Skakdi the job of playing peacekeeper?"

"Dunno, but they must have been a sight smarter than you."

"I'll overlook that. You must admit I'm giving you good terms. You have everything to gain and nothing to lose."

"That so." She worked the pick up and down. "'Sides, of course, the Toa who'll never go along with a plan like this. And the general life satisfaction that comes with not working for a power-hungry nutjob."

"Don't be so dramatic, please. I have no interest in universal domination or whatever Teridax and his merry men are up to. I'm simply trying to get by in this little world of ours, same as you."

Semeka ran the toothpick across her tongue. "So you say. And yet..."

"Something you'd like to say, Skakdi?"

She grinned. "And yet you're sitting here waiting for me to say no so that you can move on to the next phase: threatening me into submission. I ain't stupid, Makuta. You're playing the leverage game, because that's what you're good at."

"Do go on."

"You can get to Bohrei, which means you can get to me. If you can get to me, you can get to Johmak on one hand, and Jodhan on the other. And if that's not enough, from there the little tree just keeps growing, doesn't it?"

The Makuta took a long sip of tea. "I always did fancy myself a gardener."

"Betcha did." Semeka drained her own cup. "Anyway, though. It won't work."

"Excuse me?"

"I said it won't work, you brain-dead, narcissistic, over-scheming, walking piece of Rahkshi dung. It's a dumb offer and a dumb threat and you're not nearly as smart as you think you are."

The Makuta's smile had frozen into black ice. "Arrogant words coming from a Skakdi."

"Racist! That's the one I forgot. Anyway, nah, not gonna work."

"And why is that?"

Semeka leaned over and grinned. "Because you care about her, and she's about to say no, you big dumb galoot."

Iren's smile twitched for a moment. Semeka's own grin only widened. "Look at you! You bring her out here - to an old lake where what, you used to spend the summers, I'm guessing? - on your anniversary. You give her an out with her life because you assume occasional frustration translates to existential dissatisfaction. You have this chat one-on-one with me instead of letting her be here so you don't have to remind her that in-between the niceties, you're still a world-class jerk." She threw her head back and cackled. "Land's sakes, woman. You're not even the worst sob story I get on a weekend!"

"You impudent brat," the Makuta whispered, the smile long since vanished.

"And proud of it. You want me to go on? Five clacks says Johmak's been damned near mute any time you got even remotely close to the topic of running off. That isn't because she's thankful for you sweeping her off her feet, it's because she figured out her answer was no in about three minutes and doesn't know how to tell you. Trust me, that woman has the relationship finesse of an Ash Bear in heat - which, by the way, I don't recommend running into if you can avoid it."

"Shut up," Iren seethed.

"Why? I'm just getting started!"

The Makuta rose, and the shadows of the forest rose with her. "I said be silent!"

The world flashed, and froze. Chunks of her vision began to shatter into nothingness; the wind danced by on feet of clay. The Makuta's voice was all-encompassing. I have not come this far so that I might be spoken down to by some lowly Zakazian brute! When you burned in the explosion, I should have finished the job! Johmak means nothing to you, and you dare not speak for her! You do not understand my sacrifices -

Semeka took a deep breath, ignored the ranting, and took a hesitant step forward. Then another. And a bit of a slide to the left, and raise the hand, lean back, and-

She shook her fingers as the world returned to sanity. "It's not polite to interrupt people," she said to the stunned figure sprawled across the forest floor. Almost absently, she reached down and picked up the Faxon from where it had gone flying off the Makuta's face.

Iren struggled to sit up. "You - you -"

"Yeah, I did. Now shut up and stay down, because you're about to get another one in words." She crossed her arms. "I don't give a single solitary shit about how much you care about Johmak, how much good you think you're doing for her.  Life doesn't work that way, princess.  You don't get to decide other people's problems for them and then act offended when they don't like your solutions."

"But..."

"But what?"

Iren's voice was quiet.  "Isn't that what you did?"

Semeka took a sharp breath.  You've got to be kidding me. "Okay.  First of all, that's extremely creepy, and I need to have a very long talk with Johmak about girlfriend boundaries."

"But... it's true, isn't it? She told me.  You helped Jodhan - you saved his life -"

"Yeah, and I definitely pulled that off by following my first inclination and never looking back." She snorted. "Get real.  If I hadn't taken two minutes each time to listen what he had to say, I would'a taken Senn's money and called it a day, or damn near turned his island into the world's shortest-lived rebel force.  How 'bout you? You let Johmak in on this little plan of yours? You ever ask her if she actually was unhappy? Or did you just figure you knew it all already?"

"I just-"

"You just what?"

She waited for the Makuta to answer.  A breeze danced through the trees, sending a few ripples echoing across the bay.  

"She just didn't know what to do," Johmak said.

Semeka turned.  Her partner was standing at the entrance to the house, Jodhan awkwardly watching from behind her.  Iren looked up slowly, and for the first time Semeka caught the exhaustion that had been hiding behind the bluster of a life-long manipulator.  For a moment she felt an old, familiar pang of pity.

"No," Iren finally whispered.  "I never did, when it came to you."

Semeka held out the mask to her.  "Get up already.  I don't need to be around for this next conversation."

The three of them made their way down the old dirt path in silence.  Daylight was filtering through the trees now, and any number of shapes that had seemed ominous in the darkness were now shown to be little more than the shrubbery they had always been.  Semeka kicked a stick down the path in front of her as they walked.

"What will she do now?" Jodhan finally asked.

Johmak shook her head.  "Keep running, I suppose.  She won't go back to the rest of the Makuta, that much I'm sure of."

"They didn't exactly seem to be on good terms," the Skakdi muttered.

"They'd kill her if they found her.  Only way she could talk her way out of it, maybe, would be if she pledged to Teridax.  And she's never going to do that."  

Semeka glanced over at Johmak; her mouth was pursed tight, her gaze focused dead ahead.

"You gonna be alright?" she asked.

The other woman chewed her lip for a few seconds.  "I owed her a lot.  Maybe I still do.  But she crossed a line she knew she shouldn't have."

"So, the two of you -" Jodhan ventured.

"She's not a good person, Jodhan.  That didn't stop us from caring about each other, even if we had our rough patches."  Johmak rubbed one eye in exhaustion.  "It wasn't ever gonna work in the long run.  I should've admitted that a long time ago.   But that didn't stop us from trying to keep it going as long as we could."

Semeka exchanged a hesitant glance with Jodhan, then turned back to her partner-in-sanctioned-crime.  "Hey. You know -"

"Not in the mood for bartender advice, Semeka.  Not right now."

She shrugged, and the three continued down the way, the leaves crunching beneath their feet.

"For what it's worth," Jodhan finally said, "At least you got to end things together.  That's got to be worth something."

Johmak's face scrunched for a moment as she tried to find the right words.  

"Yeah," she managed.

That was all they said.

"So," Kychell said with the voice of a man who knows he's about to be on the receiving end of the all-time record for distance covered in a run-around, "what exactly happened out there?"

Semeka made sure to match his gaze, even as she reached out and took yet another toothpick from her stash behind the bar. She saw him twitch slightly, and suppressed a grin.

"Makuta wouldn't listen to reason. She had Johmak - think she wanted to use her as leverage. I did what I had to do."

He leaned forward and steepled his fingers. "You single-handedly took down a Makuta."

"Three-handedly. Johmak and Jodhan were backing me up. We make a good team, it turns out. Did you know Toa of Iron can help her focus that shattering thing she does? Never seen a woman with swords for hands before."

"You're dodging the question."

"Do I ever not?"

The Matoran reached over and plucked a glass from the bar; it was filled with plain ice water. "So you're telling me the mayor of this town happens to be a Makuta incognito, who fakes her death for reasons unknown, kidnaps my operative, and winds up dead before you can figure out anything else."

"Basically."

He took a long drink, then put the glass down with a sigh. "You know I could probably just spend ten minutes grilling Jodhan and get the truth. Or one minute if I call in one of our psychics."

"You could, but the question is: do you want to?"

He dipped a finger in the glass and swirled the ice absently. "No," he finally said. "Plausible deniability is a virtue.  But I need some compensation in return."

"Did you just ask for a bribe?"

"Allow me to rephrase that. The Order needs something to offset my not pursuing this any further.  A sworn statement from the both of you that this incident will not cause any trouble down the line is the starting point, of course. Past that, I expect some information of material value."

"Such as?"

"You tell me, Semeka."

She leaned back in her chair and worked the toothpick up and down.  

Slowly, she began to smile.  "You know something, Kychell? I think we might be able to help each other."

The bartender plopped another mug down in front of the Toa.

"I didn't order this," he growled through his Miru.

"No, but I give you five minutes before you do," the man replied.

Polonious Jishin watched the Matoran shuffle away down the bar with a scowl, then grabbed the mug and began nursing it.  It had been a rough week - he'd received word from a long-time client that their contract was terminated due to 'unforeseen circumstances'.  Least the damn Makuta paid him for the last job; bomb materials that could keep plasma energy in check weren’t cheap.

"I must be a fool trying to keep this group afloat," he grumbled into the suds.

"Most Toa are," a voice said from his left.

He turned slowly.  A Skakdi was leaning against the bar, working a toothpick up and down her teeth.  In the mothball glow of the bar's lamps, it was tricky to make out her armor.  Forest-green, maybe? Plantlife? Air?

He shrugged and returned to his drink, and wasn't surprised at all when he heard her slide onto the stool next to his.  

"Most folks'd take bait like that."

He drained the last of the mug and put it down with a sigh.  "Was it supposed to be an insult? I'm afraid I rather agree with the sentiment."

"Truth be told, I figured you might."  The Skakdi waved her hand; the bartender materialized out of the gloom and took her order silently.  A few seconds later, a mug twice the size of his and overflowing with the darkest ale he'd ever seen was sitting in front of her.  He raised a finger, and a twin magically appeared not long after.  The Skakdi flipped a coin to the bartender and gestured for him to move on.  He obliged, his worn leather soles squeaking against the floor as he did.

"So," the Toa said, "what can I do for you?"

The Skakdi took a long draught of her drink, sighing in satisfaction when she had finished.  "Damn near impossible to find a good stout south of Voya Nui, you know that?"

"Extremely well.  I also know when someone's dragging out a conversation to try and show they're in charge."

"What a funny coincidence.  So do I."  She flicked the toothpick away.  "Name's Semeka Tantarus."

His face didn't move a muscle.  "Polonious Jishin."

"And that sums things up pretty concisely, wouldn't you agree?"

He chuckled, an old, deep sound.  "Bohrei told me she had a sister once or twice.  She was very strong on the past tense."

"What can I say? We're like two peas in a pod."  The Skakdi took another sip and waited for him to respond.

He raised his glass slightly.  "I'm afraid I'm going to need a little more than that if you're planning to kill one of the best sharpshooters I've ever met."

"Do you always assume fratricide?"

"I find it saves time in the long run."

Semeka shrugged and took another drink.  "Sorry to disappoint, but I'm just here to talk.  I figure this'll be either a very long conversation or a very, very short one."

He took a drink in response.  This was the old rhythm, the one he had learned through years of dealing with warlords whose heads were too big for their own good and would-be powerbrokers who didn't realize the world couldn't care less about their little corner of an archipelago.  You drank. You talked.  And you each waited for the knife to come out.

"So," the Skakdi said.  "Tell me where she is.  Or tell me why you won't."

He smirked.  "Fratricide or no, I'm afraid I'll need this to be an economically beneficial transaction.  I'm not in the habit of giving out confidential information to strangers as a favor."

The Skakdi folded her mouth into something that might have resembled a pout if not for all the teeth.  "And after I've come all this way? Surely you're moved by this tragic tale of family reunion?"

"Not at all."

Her face snapped back to a wolfish grin.  "I figured as much."  She took another long drink and slammed the mug down on the bar. "So here's the short version. You blew me up, you damn near got a very good friend of mine arrested for murder, and you got another half-kidnapped by her psycho ex.  It was an extremely long couple of days.  And do you know, there's a bounty on your head that would make life extraordinarily comfortable for me."

He raised his glass in a salute.  "I send a little extra each month to bolster it up myself."  

"Very generous of you."  She turned, her grin widening.  "Now, this is a fine establishment -"

- In the corner, someone continued retching -

"-And I'd hate to get it all dirty.  See, I'm guessing ordinarily a fella like you -"

Damn, she was fast.  The plasma bolt left a sizzling hole in the dartboard.  He squinted for a moment.  Almost a bullseye.  Oh well.

She stood off to the side, turning over a knife that hadn't been there a moment ago.  "As I was saying.  Ordinarily, a fella like you wouldn't object to a good scrape.  But you look like you've had a bad day.  So why don't we make this easy and we can both be on our way."

He smiled back and stretched out leisurely on the stool.  "Well, I am sorry, but as I said, I haven't lived this long giving out freebies.  And I certainly haven't lived this long getting scared of any old Skakdi who feels like waving a knife at me.  So I'm going to need either information or money if you want me to talk."

Her grin grew wider.  "Now, now, Jishin.  You really want to play this game? I've been at it longer than you have."

He raised the mug to take another drink.  "Says who?"

"Says the Matoran you nearly burned to death when the Barraki made you their guard dog ten years back."

The glass folded in on itself, then sprinkled to the floor in a miniature waterfall.  He looked at the pile of shards almost curiously.  "Hm.  You owe me a quarter-mug of ale, Skakdi.  Plus a premium."

"Sorry, what was that? You want me to go on? Hm, okay - how about some messages from a few old friends? Got one from a Matoran named Enea, very resourceful I hear, it came through an intermediary but rumor has it she's on Artakha these days-"

He stood, and quite coincidentally the furniture in the room shrunk.  The Skakdi looked up at him, defiant, and the thought of repeating that old experiment - how long does it take for plasma to melt Skakdi teeth - was sounding increasingly appealing.  

"Touched a nerve, have I?"

"If this is your way of convincing people to work with you, it's a small miracle nobody's given you what you deserve."

She nodded, eyes closed, a pensive look on her face.  "I agree entirely.  Which is why that's not how I convince people to work with me.  This is."

The room moved.  There was a crossbow at his back, at perhaps the height of a Matoran leaning over a bar counter.  The soot in the fireplace exploded into form, revealing a rather lethal-looking woman clad in black.  A sword he couldn't see pressed itself against his neck.  And the damn Skakdi just kept smiling.

He shrugged, slowly, and raised his hands.  "You could have been up front about wanting the bounty."

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that," said the Matoran behind him. "Our organization isn't particularly in need of money.  Consider this a recruitment drive."

The woman from the fireplace made a facial expression that was close to a smile. "You come highly recommended."

He looked around slowly.  "The Brotherhood's goons?"

"Hardly," came a voice from thin air.

The Skakdi stepped forward, twirling her knife as she did.  "Consider this an opportunity to get back to being a Toa... with a slightly more flexible work schedule."

Polonious smiled bitterly.  "I'm afraid I'm not interested in that line of work anymore."

"You might surprise yourself."  The Skakdi raised her knife and flicked the tip of it absently.  "Now, before my good friends here take you away for the recruitment speech - oh, you'll have a choice, don't worry about that - I figure you may as well let me know where my sister is."

The Toa let his smile unfurl into a wicked grin.  Nobody had any patience anymore. "Well, that's going to be difficult."

The knife twirled around once more.  "Really."

"'Fraid so.  Bohrei left the company six months ago."

He was going to savor the look on that Skakdi's face in the months to come, on the nights when he asked himself why he'd signed up for the Order, the days he considered making a break for it and damn the consequences.

"Johmak," she said, her voice clipped.

The woman in black pressed a Suletu to her face, and he felt something tickling in his mind.  "Psionics?" he asked to the room at large.  "Really, what was the show back there for, then?"

She ignored him.  "He's telling the truth, Semeka."

The Skakdi turned away, but not before he caught a flash of the snarl on her face.  When she looked back, she was cool as could be again.  "Alright.  No idea where she went?"

"No," said the woman, as he said simply, "Nope."

The Skakdi watched him a while longer, something approaching hatred in her eyes.  "Fine," she finally spat.  "Get him out of here."

The crossbow behind him poked insistently, the sword he couldn't see tapped against his neck, and he took one step - then another - then another.

He felt her watch him the whole way out of the bar.

Jodhan was futzing with the lightstone in his house's excuse for an office when he heard a window below him open and shut.  

He came down the stairs slowly; Semeka was curled up on the couch, a bitter look on her face.  Quietly, he crossed the room and sat down next to her.

"No good?"

She shook her head.  He reached out and put his arms around her, and gave a gentle squeeze.  "I'm sorry."

"Join the club."  

They sat there a while, unmoving, Semeka gazing into the fire he had left burning for her.

"Thank you," he finally said.

She grunted dismissively.  "It was the only way to shut you up."

He said nothing, just drew a little closer.

Eventually, she leaned her head back against him; in turn, he ran his hand gently down her back.  Even after all these years, her spines were the strangest things his fingers had ever felt.

"You really are a pain in the ass, Jodhan," she finally said.

He smiled.  "Oh?"

"Somehow you got me thinking life was meant to be fair once in a while."

"Yeah, well.  You got me thinking the opposite sometimes.  May as well balance each other out."  

From the deck of the ship, she could see Zakaz growing smaller and smaller in the distance.  

And on it, nestled amongst the rocks, a single black speck.

She looked out past the window, into the cool night.  

"May as well," she said quietly.

---------------

Third time was the charm, probably. She brought her hearing to bear like she was pouring a drink to the top of the cup.

Silence - or at least, close enough. There was the distant minutiae of a town, but that was all.

So that left one option, and damn was it going to be an unpleasant one. Slowly - slowly - she opened her eyes.

A ceiling greeted her with all the smile it could muster, which was to say nothing, because it was made of stone. That was incredibly funny to her, but she had the strangest feeling that if she started laughing her lungs might collapse. Instead she settled for swiveling her eyes. Sensation made a brief comeback to grab some papers it had forgotten, and since speech was only slightly above 'death' on her current list of priorities, she settled for thinking the appropriate curse words in response.

In the corner of her vision, she could see Jodhan slumped in a chair, asleep. Okay. That was something. She slowly turned her eyes back the other way; there was a bedstand in the other corner, so she was probably in a bed. That made quite a bit of sense.

Having exhausted all physical options, it was time for the mental ones. At the moment, "memory" didn't seem like a great candidate. So, deduction. She was in a bed, and everything hurt. The logical conclusion: she was injured. Excellent reasoning. Bohrei would have been proud.

Memory poked her anyway, and she would have stifled a groan if her throat was capable of producing noise. Alright, memory was next, then. A few words floated to the surface: Gukko, Makuta. Explosion. Bohrei. She closed her eyes again. No, that wasn't quite right. She hadn't seen anyone other than Jodhan before the place had blown sky-high. What else? Mission. Jodhan. Johmak.

Johmak?

Shit.

When she woke again, the town was silent, and she felt slightly less dead.

She risked opening her eyes again and was rewarded with the same blank ceiling as before. Slowly, painfully, she lifted her head and looked around; she was greeted by an old wardrobe, a window with a pillow beneath it, and a snoring Toa in a chair. Her mind assembled the pieces slowly, then grappled around in the dark for an answer to fit the final picture.

She was back in her room above the bar. That made sense.

Jodhan looked no worse for wear, at least; most likely he'd been too far away for the explosion to do any real damage to him. Which would also explain why she was swathed in bandages and back home instead of dealing with theological concerns in a practical manner. She opened her mouth to speak - damn, was her throat dry - and managed a weak, "hey."

There was a cough from the other side of the room. "'Hey' indeed."

She turned to the voice slowly, barely stifling a growl as she did. Kychell was sitting next to the window, a book open on his lap and only a thin veneer of pleasantry on his face. She scowled at him, or at least tried to. "Piss off."

"Not likely, I'm afraid."

She bared her teeth and was somewhat miffed to feel one of them rattling in the back of her mouth.

"I don't care how scary a face you make. I'm afraid you have an awful lot to answer for, and I don't intend to let you go running your mouth off to uncontrolled variables."

"Speak like... a damn machine."

"I've been called worse. Now, let's get the sappy business done with." He cleared his throat. "Jodhan!" he barked.

The Toa jerked awake. "Wh - is something -"

Semeka turned back to look at him, and he gasped. Before she could even register him getting up, he was across the room and at her side. "Hey," he said, and put a hand to her face. "It's okay. You're back home-"

"I got that much."

He seemed to flinch, and Semeka realized through the haze that the look on his face was one of sheer misery. She shook her head lightly. "Sorry. Not your fault."

"Yeah, well -" he sighed. "When you see someone you care about nearly get blasted to pieces, it doesn't really matter whose 'fault' it is."

She managed a ghost of a grin at that. "You're always so negative - y'know that?"

He returned the smile a bit. "I thought I was the naive little Toa?"

"That too." She coughed, and her lungs responded by pouring half a pint of acid into her nerves. The cough turned to a growl of pain, and Jodhan reached out for her hand and squeezed it; she could feel her own tighten in return. "Claws," she tried to warn.

"I know. I've got armor, don't worry. Just rest now, okay?"

She took a shuddering breath as the pain faded. "Johmak?"

He furrowed his brow. "Who?"

Kychell's voice was crisp and clear. "Just a friend of hers. I think she's out of town at the moment. Semeka's a bit confused, I think."

She could feel her mind starting to slip away. Screw this. "Jodhan?" she managed.

"I'm here."

Slowly, painfully, she lifted a hand and uncurled a finger at Kychell. "Don't trust that lying bastard."

She managed to hold on to consciousness just long enough to see Jodhan's expression shift from worry, to confusion, to pain, and finally to anger. She was almost sorry she wasn't going to be around to see what it did next.

The next time she woke, she was alone. A shudder of pain ran through her, but she shook her head and tried to clear her mind. Outside, the moons were shining down. How long had she been out - a day? Two?

Slowly, she eased her legs over the side of the bed. The blankets fell away as she did so, and she grimaced as she looked down; dressings were packed in and around her natural armor, and as she moved she had the sense that she was oozing perhaps more than was strictly necessary in one's day-to-day life. Standing was an adventure in and of itself, one which involved a quest to the legendary Fountain of Profanity; once that particular odyssey was cleared, she took a step, and then another, and then another. Nothing broke when she did, so that was a good sign. Now, where did those two get off to?

As she reached the door out of the room, she stopped and jimmied open the top drawer of the desk next to it. A small knife was inside; she slipped it into the bandages wrapped around her arm as best she could.

Out on the landing, she stopped and looked down over the bar.  It was silent as could be, the furniture still where it had been when she'd closed up shop before their little misadventure. Slowly, she made her way to the stairs, and hesitated when she reached the top. Sucking in her breath, she took one tentative step down, then another. It was only when she reached the bottom that she noticed the claw marks she'd left in the banister. One more thing to fix later.

The bar itself was empty, and when she looked into the back room, nobody was there, either. Where the hell'd you take him, Jodhan? She didn't know if the Toa would actually get anything out of the Matoran - he had never been very good at intimidation - but if there was the ghost of a chance Kychell was going to cough anything up, she'd be happy to lend a hand in loosening his lips.

Grumbling to herself, she made her way behind the counter and looked over the bottles there, leaning against it to support herself. Drinking to forget wasn't an option tonight, but drinking to take the edge off of mild agony was a pastime she'd spent too long away from. Slowly, she leaned down and opened one of the cabinets nearest to the ground, then blindly fumbled around inside until her hand closed over a bottle. She pulled it out and smiled triumphantly.

Zakaz might have been a hellhole, but there was something to be said for its whiskey.

"Semeka?"

She opened her eyes groggishly. The bar was dim and fuzzy, which made sense given it was still nighttime and she'd been sleeping just then. Okay, the old internal monologue still needs tightening up. Groaning, she rubbed the sleep from her eyes the best she could.

Jodhan was standing on the other side of the counter, looking down at her with an expression she was nowhere near awake enough to decipher. "Evenin'", she managed.

"Do I even want to know how you got down here?"

"Walked, mostly."

"Think you can manage some more?"

"Depends. Where to?"

"Back upstairs so you don't pass out on the bar this time."

She pushed against the countertop and slowly lifted herself up on her arms. "Much as it bristles my legendary pride and all that, I don't think anythin' vertical's happening without some help."

Without a word, the Toa stepped around the counter and ducked down to help her stand. The room spun a bit, but not enough to send her sprawling, so that counted as a win in her book. "Come on," Jodhan said, and they slowly began to make their way towards the stairs.

"So," Semeka managed. "Have a chat with Kychell?"

"...Yeah."

"What'd he say?"

"A whole lot of bullshit," Jodhan replied, and that sobered her up. There was an edge to the Toa's voice she hadn't heard in years - not since Xia.

"And how much of it involved me?"

They reached the stairs, and stopped to let her catch her breath. The Toa looked at her, exhaustion smothering his face.

"...More than I like."

She just nodded, slowly, and they started making their way up.

He sat her down on the bed, and then joined her. Unconsciously, she fumbled for a toothpick, only to remember she wasn't carrying any.

"Well," she said. "What'd he say?"

Jodhan put a hand to his face. "Nothing good. That he's... been giving you jobs, the past couple years. I tried grilling him for more, but he's slippery. Wouldn't give me a straight answer what the hell for. Just told me it was important."

"Seems like that's all he says."

Jodhan dragged the hand down his face and let it fall. "And he says tonight you were supposed to go guard the mayor, and that's why you were slinking around up here."

"Did he say why he sent you that letter?"

"Says he never did. He got a look in his eyes when I showed it to him, like - the only word I can think of is murderous."

"Damn." She tried to laugh, but all that came out was a weak wheeze. "Guess he doesn't like being impersonated."

"Just -" Jodhan looked to her again, and she looked back. The exhaustion on his face was beginning to give way to pain, basic and real. "For once in my life, I'd like the people around me to not be hiding more secrets than I can count."

Her breath caught in her throat, and she forced herself to look away. "Then I'm sorry, Jodhan. But you're gonna be disappointed."

"What is this, Semeka? What in Mata Nui's name have you two gotten wrapped up in?"

Mata Nui's name, indeed.

She almost told him, then. She saw it run through her mind's eye: the sorrow on his face when he understood how deep Kychell's lies ran, the determination that took its place as he offered to join the cause, the confusion when she asked the two of them to run, instead.

The pain when she would have to abandon him again.

She said nothing.

"Sorry. Right." He put a hand to his forehead and looked up at the ceiling. "Damn it all, Semeka. Just - damn it all."

"What do you want me to say?" she snapped back. "I am sorry. And you know me well enough to know that if I'm keeping quiet, there's a good reason."

"No, I don't," he replied. When she looked to him, there was anger burning in his eyes. "All I know about you is that you do whatever you think the situation calls for, because you always know just so well."

"Is it my fault that I do?"

"No, but is your fault for treating me like a child!"

She scowled. "I'm not treating you like a child, I'm treating you like someone who doesn't want to acknowledge the world's not so nice and black-and-white as-"

"Will you cut that crap already?" He wasn't shouting, but there was a controlled vibe to his voice, and it took Semeka a moment to work through the fog of her brain to realize the Toa was burying tears.  "If you want to talk about black-and-white, then listen to yourself! In your mind I'm just some Toa who's out of his depth, who needs rescuing and advice and someone to do the dirty work for him.  Someone you can run circles around and then come back to and act like it's all just a pleasant little romance."

She found herself snarling.  "Screw romance - I'm trying to look out for you.  Or is your Toa pride just too thick to trust me?"

"No."  He paused for a moment and just looked at her, pain running through every inch of his expression.  "But I wish I could say the reverse held true."

"You think I don't trust you?"

"I know it."  For just a moment, his voice wavered.  "I just wish you did."

The break in his voice hit her harder than she'd been expecting.  "But - hell, Jodhan -"

"Look," he managed.  "If you've got some secret mission, or some awful past, or- please, Semeka. You've been there for me whenever I had to deal with those exact same problems.  But now you won't let me return the favor."

"I'm doing this for you!" she snapped back.

He looked away again.  

"No, you're not," he replied quietly.

The moment went on and on.

When the Toa spoke again, it was barely above a whisper.  

"You told me that you don't feel like you can love me because you need time, that things are too gray for you.  I think that's true.  But I also think that you aren't doing anything to change that.  You pick my brain whenever you get the chance, but the minute I ask you to tell me about yourself you shut down.  You dole out advice before even being asked, and then you refuse to take any."  He shook his head.  "You can't love me because as soon as anything gets near you, you push it away. You're just too smart to let yourself be obvious about it.  You know by now that a sympathetic ear and a helping hand will get people on your side, and that's good enough for you."

She couldn't bring herself to look at him.

"So now - now that something has gotten close to you, all you can do is double down.  You crossed a damn ocean to solve our problems for us, Semeka - do you really think that's just a bit of fondness? Is that really what you tell yourself?"

"I don't tell myself a thing," she muttered.

"Because it's easier that way.  To just let your actions speak louder than your words."  He sighed and leaned forward in exhaustion. "I'm scared for you."

"Scared?"

"Are you going to go the rest of your life like this?"

"It's worked so far."

"No, it hasn't."  He looked up at her, his face unreadable.  "If it had, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

Silence descended on the room.  Semeka found herself looking for anything else to focus on - any movement in the street, any part of the room that might be out of order - but she found nothing. Not even a toothpick.  

"Why?" she finally managed.  "Why are you pulling this card now?"

"You nearly died two days ago.  And as I carried you back here, as I did my best to stop the bleeding, talked your ear off in the hopes of keeping you awake - I realized I didn't know anything about you.  You could have died, and I never would have known what kept you going in the morning, or what scared you at night.  Nobody would have.  You would've just... vanished."

She found herself starting to edge away from him and forced herself to stay still. "...Do you honestly know what you're asking, Toa?"

"Yeah."  He reached out a hand and took hers.  "For you to try looking at a part of yourself you haven't looked at in years. Maybe ever."  He smiled.  "I'm asking you not to run away for once."

But I'm so damn good at it.  The retort jumped to her tongue like a thousand others.  

She swallowed, hard, and forced it away.  "I can't tell you everything.  That's not just me being... haughty, or whatever shitty adjective you want to use, that's out of basic safety.  If I told you everything, I couldn't guarantee you'd be able to walk away from this."

"And it's better you deal with this alone?"

"For now, yeah.  But I can tell you some.  I can tell you as much as possible.  Maybe that ain't enough, but..."

He squeezed her hand.  "It's a start."

"It's like you heard.  Kychell and I have been working on... complicated jobs together.  Not merc stuff.  Bigger than that.  It's for good reasons, I promise you that much."

"...Can't say you needing to promise that in the first place paints a very good picture."

"It shouldn't.  There's been some rough patches in this."  She leaned back and stared up at the ceiling.  "I've been working with the woman you met - Gali. Johmak's her real name."

"Thought that was a bit on the nose."

"Hey, I don't keep a dictionary of generic Toa names.  Pretty sure Kychell does, but that's beside the point. Johmak and I have done a lot of wet work together for Kychell.  Now, a couple of days ago, you and he roll into town, and because I'm pretty sure that little runt is a Makuta in a Matoran's mask, he had a job to go along with letting the two of us say hello.  Someone was gunning for the mayor."

Jodhan furrowed his brow.  "What? But... I mean, I spent the better part of the past two days working with her. She seems like your average Toa. Who wants her dead?"

"Search me.  But she ain't exactly an average Toa, I hear.  And it sounds like she and Johmak go way back."

He put a hand to his chin.  "So if we're looking for who might have planted that bomb -"

"Hang on, Toa.  We can get to playing detective later.  There's -" she hesitated, then plowed forward "- there's part of this story that's got to do with me.  And I'm hoping that once you hear it, that'll count at least some towards... trusting you."

He simply nodded and squeezed her hand once more.  She took a deep breath.

"Merc group that had its name on the contract was a bunch of jokers called the Gukko.  I never heard of 'em, but it sounds like Kychell has.  He got Johmak and me a list of their active members.  One of the names was familiar."

"How familiar?"

She sighed.  "I have a sister."

The Toa blinked, once, twice.  "That's... never come up before."

"Well, as you so brilliantly deduced not five minutes ago, I'm a bit of a private person, Toa.  And Bohrei was long in the past.  'S what I thought, at least."

"She's part of this group now?"

"Yeah.  Which means for all I know she just blew up a good friend of mine.  Which means this week has gone from mostly good to unthinkably shitty."

He reached out with his other hand and rubbed her shoulder reassuringly. "...Tell me about her."

She looked back at him and swallowed once.  

"Fine.  But get me a glass of water and a toothpick first."

She rolled the toothpick back and forth along her teeth with her tongue. Outside the window, she could hear someone stumbling down the street, and the distant clink and clatter of the workshop a few blocks over.  

"Okay," she finally said.  "You get to hear this, but you don't get to use it, alright? You don't go looking for her, you don't try to play hero."

"Seems I remember a certain Skakdi who got involved in my business without me asking."

She scowled and looked back at him.  "Cut the jokes, because I am asking.  I'm asking that you don't go after it.  All of this... it's mine.  I'm telling it to you because I've been in the business long enough to know when something needs sharing.  But that's all."

If the sharpness of her words startled him, he didn't show it.  Instead he simply bowed his head. "Alright."

She looked back out the window.  A few patchy clouds were rolling across the night sky, humming in the moonlight.  

"Bohrei and I aren't sisters in the total sense.  We had the same mom, different dads – hers was an Onu-Skakdi, mine a Bo.  'S how Skakdis work; we take after our dads, and neither of ours stuck around.

"Our mom wasn't exactly a model of parenting.  I mean, this is Zakaz we're talking about, nobody was all that great to their kids, but at least they usually pretended to make an effort.  She left the two of us see-through vision and bigger than usual claws, and Bohrei picked up the rest of the slack."

She paused for a moment, chewing on the toothpick.  Funny how it worked – you could have all these thoughts swirling around your head for years, and when it came time to explain them you didn't have the faintest idea how.  

"Sis was... not an optimistic person.  She looked after me, which was damn nice of her, but that was it.  Early on she taught me the rules: the only way to stay ahead on Zakaz was to stab the guy in front of you in the back.  When I was a year old she brought in a whole pile of weapons, told me to pick one, and we got to work.  I was knives, she was blasters.  We each left a couple scars on each other that first day, and a few more the next.

"We got pretty good at getting by.  We partnered up with one of the slop-holes for a couple years when it turned out she wasn't half bad at catching fish.  As for me, I learned the ins and outs of making a good drink quicker than most, and that went a long way.

"But..." she sighed, pulled the toothpick from her mouth. "Y'know, with all that time I spend listening to saps spill their life story, you'd think I'd be better at this."

"She didn't want more, and you did," Jodhan said.

She gave a half-smile, empty and sour.  "If you want to get to the core of things, sure.  Bohrei's idea of moving up in the world was making enough - or getting dangerous enough - to take over a few more crappy buildings, start making a little chunk of town we could plaster a 'keep out' sign on.  Said it was safer than trying to play warlord or pirate.

"She wasn't wrong.  But... I never felt like she was quite right, either.  All Zakaz was was a slag of rock.  What was the point in staying there? Why not go on out and find something for ourselves?" Semeka looked away, far past the walls of the room. "She said it’d never work. Everyone knew what a Skakdi was - a freak mutated by some Makuta, bred to fight and kill.  What the hell else would we do?"

Jodhan rested his hand on her back.  "A whole damn lot."

She didn't smile.  "I dunno how many times I tried to convince her.  Say we were better off just about anywhere but there.  But she wouldn't leave.  One night I called her a coward to her face and she nearly took off half of mine in return.  The next day we were back to scavenging like nothing had changed.

"She started getting savage about keeping us out of trouble.  Used to be I could go take a hike across the mountains, spend a few days doing a few dirty jobs in Nektann's territory, and bring home enough dough that we could close up shop for a week.  Then one day I tried it and she caught up to me 'fore I got half out of town and dragged me back."  Semeka snorted.  "Hell, come to think of it, she probably just had a business deal go south around there and wanted to keep them from trackin' back to our little abode.  Way I saw it then, she just had a bigger stick up her behind than usual."

"You sure she wasn't just looking out for you?"

She scowled.  "I said listen, Toa.  Not give advice.  I've had years to turn this all over in my head; hell if you're going to give me some big revelation I never thought of before."

The Toa fell silent once more, and for a few moments the two simply laid there.

Semeka sighed.  "Sorry. It's just - if I had my way, I'd leave this all behind where it belongs.  So you'll excuse me if I get a bit Skakdish from time to time."

"I can't imagine what that's like at all," Jodhan muttered, but she could hear the smile in his voice.

"Yeah, yeah.  Anyway. A couple a' months later, we got word there were some traders making port at the nearest settlement.  Bohrei was riled up.  Said this was our chance to sell as much as we could catch, but we had to be careful not to let the outsiders get the upper hand." Semeka snorted again.  "Fish, Jodhan.  Fish.  First foreign faces we'd seen in I don't know how long and she was worried about the fish.

"'Traders' turned out to be a bit of a generous term.  They were pirates, a good old-fashioned motley crew. A couple of Toa, some Vortixx, a few boys from down south - they pillaged and plundered for the highest bidder, and they made their home wherever the waves took them.  So they came ashore and got to the very important business of getting absolutely smashed soon as the restocking was done.

"That night, half the damn ship's in my bar.  I'm serving up drinks fast as I can - and by the way, with Zakazian liquor that’s a dangerous job - and the place is livelier than it's been in years.  I've got a dartboard carved into a chunk of wall, and this Steltian with a bow is just going to town on the thing while everyone else cheers him on.  

"So Stelt-boy notches half a dozen bullseyes and takes a bow.  Turns back to the bar, gives out a big old roar. 'None can match the skill of Vanshir, king of archers, god of' blah blah blah blah.  Now me, I'm having a pretty good night.  We're making enough that we'll have to hide it whenever one of the warlord's boys stops by, and I'm getting the positive feedback of dozens of drunks relying on my bartending.  So when Vanshir starts his yelling, I reach under the bar and grab a few of my knives.  Take aim -" she lifted a hand and pulled back the fingers - "and thwip.  I plant the thing dead-center in the board, nearly shave the feathers off his arrows to boot.  He turns around, and he's got this look on his face.  Bar goes dead quiet for a minute.

"Then the big bastard just throws out his arms and gives the biggest cheer I'd heard in ages.  Practically leaps over the bar to shake my hand.  The rest of the place just explodes, and after that the evening's pretty much a blur.

"I wake up in the middle of the night, and my head feels like it's about to flip inside out.  I peel myself off of Vanshir and climb out of bed to get some fresh air.  Step outside, and wham: Bohrei's there, having the biggest shouting match I've ever seen her get into with some Le-Toa.  Now, my brain's still running at half power at this point, so it takes me a bit to remember he's the damn captain.  Only guy who wasn't drinking that night, to boot."

Jodhan frowned.  "What were they fighting about?"

"Money, what else? Turns out the cap's merry little band did a number on the bar, and on top of that they'd hauled off more fish than they'd bartered for. So Bohrei and the captain are just going at it over the numbers, and I'm standing there like an idiot until she turns and sees me."

Semeka shifted and shook her head.  "The look in her eyes - they were just ice, Jodhan.  Pure ice.  She tells me to get back to bed.  And I dunno, but - something in me just snaps."

"You started fighting?"

Semeka shook her head again and hesitated.  She really didn’t want to say what happened next.

"Not exactly, no.   I wasn't half as good at reading people back then as I am now, but I'd had a whole life to get to learn Bohrei.  And right then I just couldn't take her any more.  Best night of my life in years, and she was yelling about fish.  So I did the one thing I knew would -" she closed her eyes.  "I knew would break her."

"What?"

"I showed her she wasn't the only one who could be responsible.  Kept my voice calm as I could, ran down the list of anything broken in the bar, then rattled off the tally for drinks. Explained to her that I'd made enough that night that her fish didn't make a smidgen of difference.  Then I turned to the captain and apologized for her. 'She's always like this.  You wouldn't believe how hard it is to keep her in line.'  Cap's just nodding.  He's had this kind of trouble before, he starts to say, and somehow we wind up chatting about the difficulties of open trade, of dealing with late-night crowds.

"Bohrei's just standing there, I can see her out of the corner of my eye, and she's just sagging.  Now, I - look, I'm not proud of this, okay? But I was just tired of her crap, and seeing her shut up for once just kept adding fuel to my fire.  So I twisted the knife.  Told the captain we'd been thinking of expanding off Zakaz if the chance arose.  Maybe he could find room for two on his ship? And the cap's just nodding, he's just nodding, and then Bohrei speaks again.

"'Get your things', she says, and honestly it throws me for a loop so bad I lose the patter for a minute.  Tell the guy I need to talk with her for a sec, and drag her aside.  Ask her if she's serious.  She nods.  I just give her this smirk, because damn, it felt good, you know? I'd gotten through, I thought.  I'd won. I head back into the bar, grab an old rucksack and fill it with cash and weapons and pat Vanshir on the snout as I go back out.

"And she's gone.

"I ask the cap, and he just shakes his head.  She headed off towards the road out of town, he says.  Said she wasn't interested, that I should just go on without her.

"Now, soon as I hear that, I take off down the road as well.  But I never found her.  She always was better at moving silently than I was, and she was a damn sight harder to spot at night, to boot.  I spent a good two hours searching, and then I just... gave up. If she was going to throw a temper tantrum, that was her right, I figured.  So I head back to the ship.  Dawn's breaking, crew's pretty much on board by now, but the Cap's been waiting for me.  Offers me a berth, tells me I can pay my way with the bar tab from last night.

"Part of me wants to tell him the deal's off.  I figure if I wait around a day or two Bohrei'll come slinking back.  I'm starting to shake my head, even, and then Vanshir clambers up from belowdecks, sees me, and just lets out that big ol' whoop of his.  'The queen of blades and booze!' he yells, and the rest of the crew joins in cheering as well.  Vanshir was a popular guy.

"Just... you understand, Jodhan? Close your eyes and see what I saw then. A whole ship of folks who might be friends someday, a wide open ocean, the rising sun... how could I turn away from that? I stepped on board and didn't look back.

"I spent a few months with the crew, then struck out on my own.  Hopped from bar to bar, started picking up some wet work on the side.  Eventually I wound up on Xia, with a place of my own and a damn fine living."  She smiled softly.  "'Till a Toa with a death wish came waltzing through my doors, of course."

Jodhan said nothing.  She sighed. "Look, I'm not proud of it, I told you as much.  But it's just the way things turned out.  I couldn't take that island anymore, and I sure as hell couldn't take a life where living well meant selling a few extra fish.  Bohrei's tough, alright? If that was what she wanted, I knew she'd be fine."

"But now she's here."

She felt her body sag.  "...Yeah.  Or close enough, anyway.  It's not a friendly group she's hooked up with, Jodhan.  Sounds like they've got a body count that would make my old crew blush."

Jodhan cleared his throat.  "You don't have any idea why she'd join them?"

"No."

"Yes, you do."

The moment stretched out between them.

"Yeah," she sighed.  "She never could leave well enough alone."

They were awoken by the sound of someone pounding on the bar's door.

She peeled herself away from the Toa slowly, groaning as she did, and made to rise. He put a hand on her shoulder. "Not happening."

"Happening."

"You got blown up."

"And I see no reason that should keep me from a productive, happy life. Maybe not the happy part."

The Toa rolled his eyes, slid out of bed, and went to support her. She waved him away to little avail.

"I'm fine."

"Your legs are shaking."

"Natural for a Skakdi. Helps keep the muscles flexible."

"Uh-huh. How long does it take to buffer out claw marks in the banisters, again?"

She grimaced. "Fine. Lead on."

They made their way downstairs slowly; the knocking at the door only grew louder. As they came down into the bar, she looked wistfully at the rows of alcohol. "We could just not open the door. I've got wine. Have you ever tried drinking wine while ignoring someone desperately trying to get your attention? It's a true experience."

"Semeka."

"Fine."

When they reached the door, she peeked out through the peephole and groaned.

"What?"

"Sure you don't want that alcohol?"

His Ruru tightened into a frown. "Kychell?"

"The one and only."

He reached out and yanked open the door. The Matoran was standing there (Semeka noticed quite a bit more dirt on the Akaku than had been present the night before), and to say he looked unhappy was to say lava was occasionally a touch too warm.

"What in Mata Nui's name have you two been up to?"

She grinned lazily. "Interested in that lecture after all?"

"Now is not the time for jokes. There's a damned manhunt out for you, Jodhan."

That woke her up. "The hell?" She looked over; Jodhan seemed equally perplexed.

Kychell pushed past them into the bar. "Close the door. What a mess you've made of this."

She shut the door behind him, then limped over to a seat and lowered herself onto it tenderly. "Not my fault the damn building blew up. What manhunt?"

The Matoran grimaced. "The manhunt for whoever blew the damn building up, of course. The village guards received an anonymous tip about a Toa of Iron making his way up towards the mayor's house two nights ago."

Jodhan blanched. "But - that's not - the only reason I went up there was because of that letter!"

"Oh, the letter I didn't write? That letter? The one that perhaps you should have thought was a touch suspicious?" He shook his head in exasperation and looked to Semeka. "I don't know how you got him off Xia alive, I really don't."

"And I'm about to wonder how you're getting out of this bar alive if you don't watch your mouth, Kychell. Lay it out for us."

He put a hand to his face. "I've reached out to as many sources as I can and turned up nothing. The best guess I have is that one of the Gukko caught wind of this trade meeting and decided to use it as a cover for the bombing. Who'd go looking for an anonymous merc contract when some Toa with a grudge is right there?"

"I don't have a grudge!"

"Be a dear for a moment and shut up, Jodhan. If you get arrested I am not defending you in court, so we'd better get this solved now." She leaned forward. "Any idea which of them might be behind this?"

"They've only got one Toa on their active roster, so odds are he's the one. Plasma, to boot, which makes bomb-making a very possible specialty." The Matoran ran a hand down his face for a moment, then suddenly stiffened as though he'd remembered something. In the careful tones of one who knows the answer to the question they were about to ask would determine whether or not their life became a living hell for the next month, he asked: "How much did you tell him?"

"Everything but the who and why."

The Matoran let out a breath and looked the two of them over carefully. "...Fine. That's more than I'd like, but at the moment I'm in no position to refuse help."

Jodhan folded his arms. "I'm trusting the two of you on this. And you've given me almost no reason to."

"I can provide the names of no fewer than twenty Matoran still alive because of the work Semeka has carried out in the past six months, if that will convince you."

She raised a brow. "Seriously?"

"Simply because I don't give you an exhaustive debrief of every consequence of your work does not mean I do not keep that information in mind, Semeka. Back to the topic at hand: Jodhan, smuggling you out of the city will be difficult, and possibly make matters worse. It's one thing to be a suspect in a crime; it's another entirely to be on the run in the process. Believe me, I know."

Semeka reached out and plucked one of the usual toothpicks from a cup on the table. "So what's the plan?"

"We move quickly. Jodhan, lay low for the moment. Semeka, you come with me. You're better known around these parts; a familiar face will help back up my credentials."

Jodhan gave a disbelieving snort. "What kind of credentials?"

"Whatever is most convenient at the time. If we can find any proof to link the Gukkos to the explosion, we have a good chance of clearing your name. And once that is done, we can pursue this issue in earnest."

She scowled. "By which you mean teach whoever did this to Johmak a very permanent lesson."

"About that." The Matoran looked at her with an inscrutable expression. "Johmak's body was not recovered from the building. Nor, for that matter, was the mayor's."

"What?"

"I don't know the details. They found what appeared to be a limb or two, but no whole bodies."

"At the risk of sounding macabre," Jodhan cut in, "isn't it possible the rest of them were... I'm sorry, Semeka-"

"Nah," she cut him off without looking over. "That was a hell of an explosion, but a bomb never leaves only the arms lying around. Sounds like Johmak got to our mayor and gave her a heads up, and they improvised a way out."

Jodhan blanched. "So whose-?"

"I'm guessing we really don't want to know the answer to that question."

"No," Kychell agreed, "but as for the general problem of why the mayor of Tysen has mercs on her back and body parts ready-made to fake her death with, that's a question I would rather like an answer to."

Semeka worked the toothpick up and down. Part of her wanted to come clean now; Makuta were bad news. But there was something picking at the back of her mind, and if it was on the money, then she wasn't quite ready to let Johmak's secrets spill to a man who could leak it to the rest of the universe in ten minutes flat. "Suppose we ought to find out."

"Precisely. Jodhan, stay here; I'll send word when we've got something."

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Yes. Not get arrested."

The mayor's house wasn't quite a smoldering ruin, but it was certainly making an attempt at earning the title. A few local guardsmen were standing near it, boredom plastered across their faces; standing in the same spot for hours on end tended to suck the drama out of a situation. Kychell hailed one as they approached.

The guard looked from the Matoran to Semeka suspiciously. "Aren't you the lady who runs the bar down on the south side?"

"The one and only," she said, trying to her best to hide the snarl her back pain was trying to force onto her face.

The guard's eyes narrowed behind his Kakama. "Seems like you took a spill."

She forced a grin. "Got blown up, actually."

"Is that so."

"If you're about to accuse me of having something to do with this, I'd like to remind you that I'd be a rotten bomber if I burned my own face off in the process."

Kychell raised a palm before the situation could deteriorate further. "Sir, I've asked Miss Semeka-"

"-Miss?-"

"-to accompany me for the duration of my investigation. You should have already received word confirming my credentials?"

The guard looked uncomfortable. "Well, about that."

"Is there a problem?"

"Only, it's - we usually leave any trouble to the local force -"

"Really." Kychell's voice was ice. "The local force which is, currently, standing around doing nothing."

"We're ensuring nobody approaches the scene."

A thought occurred to her. "Guardsman, can I make a guess? Was the mayor the one who usually handled any trouble like this?"

"Well - we've never had a bombing -"

"Answer the question."

The guard visibly wilted.  "Yes. Mayor Iren would... oversee the rare occasions a crime was investigated."

"Well then," she said with infinite patience, "given that that may be a somewhat difficult procedure to follow at the moment, perhaps you should allow my friend here from -"

"-The Metru Nui Inter-district Ministry of Investigation-" Kychell said smoothly -

"From the Minmi or whatever to take a look around."

The guard's face darkened.  "We don't like outsiders in our business, Miss Semeka.  You know that."

"Yes, I very painfully do.  And you know that I don't particularly care."  She pushed past him and towards the hollowed-out structure. "Come on, Kychell."

The Matoran flashed a grim smile and followed after her.  The guard watched them as the two climbed over the foundation and into the house.  "What pleasant people your neighbors are," Kychell muttered.

"Don't recall yours being much friendlier."  She clambered onto what had once been a chair and looked around. A few walls were still standing through what she could only assume was good old-fashioned resistance to change, but most of the home was occupying a number of piles.  "This might be tricky."

"Let me handle most of the work."  The Matoran brushed past her, and she saw him drawing what looked like some extremely delicate tools from a pouch on his belt.

"You always carry that stuff with you?"

"Only when I expect to visit a crime scene.  Which is about three times a week, unfortunately.  If you'll excuse me?" The Matoran began sifting through the rubble, muttering to himself.

She shrugged and turned away.  She had her own questions to look into.  If I were a Makuta, where would I hide my evil plans?  And if I were a bomber, where would I hide my bombs?

She squatted and peered at the rubble beneath her.  Odds were, the answers were one and the same.  Humming to herself, she began to pull the wood and stone away, working her way down towards the ground.  Because here's the thing: if the answer to both is 'in the basement', then that was probably one very-well protected basement.  And if someone managed to get in there with a bomb, then that means-

She pushed aside what had probably once been a very regal painting and found a suspiciously undamaged hardwood floor waiting for her.  She knocked on it briefly; something hollow echoed back. She grinned.  "Hello there."

A little scratching around (who needed a utility belt when you had claws?) found the latch, fit almost to be flush with the surface.  A click later, the panel slid away; a gloomy hatch was waiting.  She whistled to herself, and Kychell looked up. "Find something?"

"Maybe.  You keep on over there."

The Matoran watched her a moment longer, then returned to his work.  Quiet as she could, she lowered herself down onto the ladder lining the cold stone wall and made her way down.  As she descended, she felt her eyes warming, and the outlines of the walls around her began to shimmer into focus.  Might not have a shiny mask like some Toa I could name, but being able to see through things can do the trick in a pinch.

She stepped away from the ladder and squinted into the dark.  Lines danced across the floor, chaotic and transient, and she realized she was looking at yet another pile of rubble.  Joy. Slowly, she made her way across the chamber.  Most of the debris was pushed to the edges of the room (several had shattered what appeared to be rather large glass tubes in the process, which she decided were better off left uninvestigated), which suggested the explosion had originated near the center of the room.  She glanced around once more, her eyes straining as she did, and saw now that there were air vents embedded in the walls.  Put the bomb in the hidden basement, the force flows up the chutes and levels the house, no inconvenient traces left. Clever, assuming there's nobody around who can see through walls.

She turned back to the ladder to call Kychell down - as far as she could see, everything in the room had been destroyed in the explosion, which meant odds were there was nothing left to show Iren's true identity.  She paused; something was shimmering in the corner of her eye.  She turned back and peered at a corner of the wall.

A few seconds of prying later, and the brick came away in her hand.  A note was crumpled up behind, written in hasty, but recognizable handwriting:

Semeka - situation complicated. Fake bombing.  Going with her for now.  Don't tell Kychell.  Eat note.

"What, don't trust me to burn the thing?" she muttered, then stuffed it in her mouth anyway.  And last I recall you were just planning to tip off your ex, not go running off with her.  

She turned back to the ladder.  She'd figure out what to do about Johmak later; for now, there was a Toa to exonerate. She cupped her hands to her mouth -

As they climbed back out, Kychell shook his head.  "With the acoustics down there it's a miracle you didn't deafen yourself."

"Believe me, compared to some of the crowds I've served, that was nothing. And it got you over here, didn't it?"

"Talking to me in a normal tone of voice would have also accomplished that," the Matoran grumbled.

"Whatever.  You get what you need?"

"Enough pieces of the bomb and enough forensic evidence to show it was primarily plasma-based, yes.  Perhaps not definitive evidence, but in conjunction with our profile on Polonious and our intel on the Gukko's contract, I should be able to talk some sense into the city guard."

"Who's running that operation, anyway?"

"A Vortixx, I think.  Probably trying to line herself up to take over as mayor.  Local politics are so dreadfully boring."

"Maybe I could run.  I think I'd make a good mayor."

"You wouldn't last a week."

"Really? I've been told I'm excellent at flaunting how much I know better than everyone else."

"That's not the problem.  You wouldn't get ten minutes into a Concerned Citizen's meeting."

"Or we could just switch to a gladiatorial system."

"Are we going to clear your boyfriend's name or not?"

She smiled and gestured for him to lead the way.  "That reminds me - I never did give you that lecture -"

"If you say two more words I swear I'll frame you both for this and wash my hands of the situation."

"Calisthenics."

He shuddered.  

"That was one word, you know."

It took a long and brutally anticlimactic meeting at the bar to clear things up (this new mayor-in-waiting or whatever the proper title was seemed to think it was her job to make a big first impression by heroically bringing the corrupt Toa to justice and showcasing her virtue to the town, which lasted about as long as it took for Semeka to literally throw Kychell's evidence at her), but cleared they were.  As the door closed behind the last of the guardsmen (he glanced back once, a bashful look on his Kakama), Semeka shook out her hands.  "Don't get framed again, Jodhan.  It takes way too much digging to clear these things up."

"I wasn't planning to," he muttered.  "So did you learn anything else out there?"

Kychell frowned.  "Whoever the mayor was, she wasn't your ordinary stateswoman.  Her basement was practically a bunker, and she was careful to destroy her records."

Semeka raised her brow.  "Sure that wasn't just the explosion's doing?"

"Explosions don't etch a tablet with acid, last I checked.  In any event, the fact the bombers were able to gain access to the basement in the first place suggests that she was cooperating with them."

"Why?" Jodhan asked.

"I don't know.  But the fact that Johmak's gone with her has me concerned.  Perhaps she didn't appreciate having her plan exposed and decided to cover her tracks."

"Kidnapping doesn't leave a body behind," Semeka added without missing a beat.  Her stomach gurgled.

"Precisely.  I doubt she has any idea who we are - and Johmak is not the type to tell her."

“Well, glad to know I’m not the only one in the dark,” Jodhan muttered.

"We all make sacrifices.  Now then, you'll allow me some time to do some more digging.  See if I can find anything on this Iren - past affiliations, current criminal ties, anything."

"You know," Jodhan said thoughtfully, "something's been bugging me for a while.  Why were you tracking this assassination in the first place?"

Kychell's face tightened.  "I'm afraid I can't tell you the details.  But the short version is that, as a rule, order is preferable to chaos, even on the small scale.  It would do no good for the region to have a mayor with fingers in so many pies drop dead in the middle of the night."

"No," Semeka drawled, "she blew up in the middle of the night instead.  Much better."

Kychell sighed.  "If you're quite done with the jokes, I have work to do.  The two of you stay here for the moment; I'll return in a few hours."

"Wait," Jodhan said.  "Shouldn't we be out looking for them? Johmak could be in danger."

"I don't make a policy of hiring incompetents, Jodhan.  Wherever she is, I'm sure she has things under control."

And with another shake of the head and something muttered about 'no sense of situation', the Matoran was gone.

Jodhan looked to her.  "I presume we aren't staying here?"

"'Course not.  Wanna go find our missing person?"

"Work for me.  Besides - that mayor hasn't signed off on these shipment orders yet."

She laughed at that, a warm and full feeling, and she rubbed the Toa's shoulder affectionately.  "Never change, Jodhan."

Johmak's home was as Semeka remembered it; on the table, the fruit they'd shared a few days prior was still sitting out in a bowl, browning slightly in the warmth of the day.  She picked one up as they stepped inside and began tossing it up and down.  

"What exactly are we looking for?"

"Clues."

"That's not really helpful."

"Hey, I was just trying to be concise.  Want some fruit?"

"I'll pass, thanks."

The two of them split up; Jodhan went to the study, Semeka to the bedroom.  She heard him give a low whistle.  "This place is practically bare."

"Johmak isn't into interior design, let's just say.  Or in getting too attached to a place to live."

"How far back do you two go?"

"Not very.  I met her right after the fracas back on your island."

"And I'm guessing that's when you started working with Kychell?"

"Yeah."

A silence.  She brushed aside a stack of dust-covered books.  

"It's frustrating, is all," Jodhan said from the other room.

She was quietly thankful they weren't face to face.  "You're telling me."

"You remember back on Xia, when we first met?"

"Sure hope so.  My memory's not that shot."

"I remember just going on and on about how I wasn't really ready to be a Toa, and how Azak and I were just getting by.  Now... I feel like we're doing better now.  And then something like this comes along, and I'm back sitting on the sidelines."

"You're helping now, ain'tcha?" She turned over a frame that was face-down on the desk.  It was an old light-graph; Johmak was standing there with a grin, her arm around what appeared to be empty space.  Semeka shrugged and tossed it aside.

"I'm trying, at least.  And I get that whatever you and Kychell are up to, you honestly think it's too dangerous for me to get involved in."

"But?"

"But it seems like the list of what a Toa can handle is getting smaller and smaller by the day, is all."

She paused, a leathered old journal in her hand.  "...It's like I told ya back then, Jodhan.  The world's not a nice place.  You just gotta hang on to what you are in spite of that."

He chuckled.  "You know, where did you learn all that bartending psychology anyway?"

"Bohrei taught me," she muttered almost to herself, and flipped the journal open.  Sorry, Johmak, but I guess fair's fair.

Most of the entries were day-to-day nonsenses, momentary ruminations; it went without saying that there was nothing related to the Order.  Semeka scanned the pages carefully, looking for any mention of Iren, and found none.

As she flipped through, something caught her eye.  One page was slightly torn, as though someone had looked it over too many times.  She peered down at it carefully; it was dated three years ago tomorrow.  

Another year.

Keeping an eye on the dates in the corner, she began scanning forward, until she hit that same day.  A blank page that time.  Another scan, and - there it was.  

I'd like to go back to Kanno Bay someday.

"Yo, Jodhan," she called over her shoulder, "you ever hear of some place called Kanno Bay?"

There was a pause as the Toa thought.  "Yeah, I think so.  About fifty kio north of here, actually.  Supposed to be absolutely gorgeous."  

Semeka tapped the page thoughtfully.  "How long do you think it'll take us to get there?"

"If we borrow a cart? Probably not more than a night.  Why?"

"I think it's someone's anniversary day tomorrow.  And I'd like to see them off."

They didn't manage to find anything solo, but they did find a Bo-Matoran with a piece of straw in his mask and a north-bound produce cart, and that was good enough in their book.  As they trundled out of town (up front, the driver was gently urging the Mahi to stay on the beaten path), Semeka looked over at Jodhan and grinned.  "How pissed do you think Kychell'll be when he finds out we didn't invite him?"

"Somehow, I get the feeling you might know better than I would at this point."

"Good point.  Answer: very. At least we left a note."

"Only after I asked you to."

"Details."

Night was beginning to fall, and soon what few sounds of the town there were gave way to the slow, rhythmic bumping of the road beneath them.  Semeka yawned and leaned back against the wall of the cart.

"Tired?" Jodhan asked.

"A bit.  Been a busy couple days."

"Go to sleep, then.  I still feel bad I'm even letting you walk around after a bomb went off in your face."

"Wasn't in my face," she murmured as she closed her eyes. "Was adjacent to my face.  There's a difference."

She felt him slide up next to her.  "Oh?"

"Mhm.  You want me to explain the details?"

She felt something warm press against the top of her head for just a breath. "I think I could do without."

"Did you just kiss me?"

"Yep.  You might have to get used to it."  

"Fine.  I can think of worse things."

The few that did live there came from, if not all walks of life, then at least two or three: guardsmen, vagabonds, mercenaries.  There was a pair of Ta-Skakdi who had been arguing with each other longer than most of the buildings in town had been standing; there was a Po-Skakdi who occasionally took time out of his day to lift the younger Matoran up on one arm, and then their parents if there were complaints. 

And then, of course, there was the scar-pitted, forest-green Bo-Skakdi who would vanish for days at a time, then stumble back into town grinning and covered in dirt and less pleasant substances some midnight, be drinking a troupe of traveling Toa under the table by midday, and be throwing out her more fire-aligned brethren by nightfall.

Which was to say: Semeka Tantarus had been running the only decent bar in Tysen for nearly two years now, and she still wasn't sure if she liked it.

True, in her time here the worst trouble she'd had to deal with was a bar fight that would’ve barely qualified as marking the start of rush hour back on Xia.  There was never any worry that the mixers she ordered were tainted with some half-wit distiller's attempt at making a protodermis shake, and the tools of her trade were actually in working condition whenever she needed to buy replacements for them.  The customers all paid their bills on time instead of running up tabs, and the local economy was not dependent on the outcome of the most recent turf wars.  Plus, her second line of work guaranteed her steady, only moderately dangerous jobs to supplement her income, and even came with a small amount of legendary destiny to really look good on the resume.

On the other hand, it turned out that Xia and Zakaz had perhaps mislead her about what 'civilization' and 'local municipal services' considered 'acceptable standards of sanitation', which was why she was spending her afternoon going to town on each of the fifty-five shot glasses behind the counter with something that could charitably have been called a cleaning cloth.

There was a light clang as the bar's door opened behind her.  She pushed the rag into the bottom corner of the glass – damn, how had someone managed to actually solidify their drink? – and started scraping at the residue there.  "With you in a sec," she called back.  "Have a seat.  Peanuts are on the house."

There was the clatter of something falling to the floor, and she paused.  Too small to be a barstool, too metallic to be a glass.  A weapon? Who the hell came in guns blazing and dropped it the moment they got through the door –

She turned.

The Toa standing in the doorway opened his mouth, then closed it, his eyes all but popping out of that old brown Ruru.  His crossbow lay where it had fallen, slowly wobbling back and forth.

For a good ten seconds they stared at each other.

"Oh," she managed.

Jodhan opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again, and that was when a Matoran in a gunmetal-grey Akaku stuck his head around the Toa.  "Do excuse me.  Am I interrupting something?"

Semeka tore her gaze away from the Toa and to the Matoran. Kychell was the picture of innocence.

"Jodhan," she managed, "could you flip the sign to 'closed', and then could you lock him in the storage closet?"

Without so much as a backwards glance, Jodhan reached up with one hand and flipped the sign, then looked down at the Matoran.  "Well, now," Kychell said, "let's not be so hasty-"

  The Woman with the Other Face

  A clink, a clank, a pop, a hiss, and two glasses of the finest Onu-Metru rum were waiting for them.  Jodhan picked his up and downed it in a single go.  She raised a brow.  "Not bad.  Should I be worried you've been practicing at someone else's bar?"

As a general rule, Skakdi weren't the type to consort with Toa on a regular basis - and while there was no love lost between Semeka and her native heritage, it was a rule she didn't go out of her way to break.  The Toa of Iron sitting in front of her now was what she considered an acceptable exception to the usual flow of things.  They'd met back on Xia, when he'd tried to play the hard-boiled PI in her bar and she'd nearly laughed him out of the place.  But she'd kept an eye on him, and while he'd proven to be about as naive as he'd looked, there'd been something good in him as well: a determination to do what he felt was right, and a belief in justice that wasn't nearly as cloying coming out of his mouth as it was for most Toa she'd known.

One thing had led to another had led to a shared target and an impulsive night, and if she'd had any sense that would have been the end of it.  Instead she'd caught wind of a few overeager Barraki guard-dogs on his trail, and a few months later she'd wound up on a dinky backwater island playing messenger.  They'd parted on good, if hurried, terms, and again things should've ended there, if not for a certain Akaku-wearing Matoran who'd made her a job offer. 

He put the glass out, and she filled it once more.  A few seconds later, she filled it one more time.  "Okay, starting to go from amusing to concerning, Toa."

He put the empty glass down onto the bar and took a deep breath.  "Do you want to start, or should I?"

She leaned back against the shelves and plucked a toothpick from her stash.  "Well, I imagine Mr. Clever back there could probably fill things in better than either of us could on our own."

They each tilted their head to listen to the muffled pounding coming from the back of the bar.

"Eh."  She slid the pick down between two of her side teeth.  "Guess I'll start."  It would be easier to get the lying out of the way. 

"Where did you go after – last time?"

"Just hopped along the archipelagos for a bit.  Found a few other islands in the same situation as you, actually, but most of the folks there had the good sense to get out while the going was good.  Didn't even need a scapegoat to push them along."  She saw his hand tighten around the glass.  "Hey.  Thought we got over the angst back when we settled on our little plan."

He smiled weakly.  "I'm afraid it wasn't quite that simple.  But go on."

"Nothing too fancy after that.  Made my way up to the continent eventually and wound up here.   Town like this's small enough to avoid any major trouble, but does enough trade that occasionally folks in need of my skillset come through."  She nodded to a simple wooden case that lay along the bottom shelf.  "Keeps me occupied."

"Something you probably shouldn't be telling a Toa."

"Hey now, I've got rules.  You know that well enough."

"I do," he said a little wistfully.  "So... you're doing well, then."

"Well as can be expected.  The bar business here ain't up to Xia's levels, but that ain't always a bad thing.  And I've got a partner of sorts for the other work.  Nice lady, name'a-"

There was a particularly sharp knock from the back room.

"-Gali," she said pleasantly. 

Jodhan frowned. "That's the name of one of the legendary Toa."

"Oh, is it? Well, can't blame someone in the field for using an alias or two."

"She's reliable, at least?"

"Pretty reliable.  Maybe not Toa-with-something-to-prove reliable, but I make do."

He smiled again.  "I'm glad to hear it.  I really am." 

He looked away, and the two of them fell into a rough silence.  She worked the toothpick up and down absentmindedly; fibbing to him was no fun, but the Order wasn't the kind of secret he was likely to be able to keep.  And while Johmak was a hell of a partner in more ways than one, she'd made it very clear to Semeka that the moment the Skakdi let word leak, she had a one-way trip to the Pit waiting for her.  She wasn't entirely sure what "the Pit" was, but it was the kind of name that didn't need a lot of further explanation.

"How 'bout you, Toa? How's life been treating you the past few years?"

He looked down, brought a hand up to rub weariness from his eyes.  "It could be worse."

"Everyone got off that island okay?"

"We did. Physically, at least.  It hurt them to leave their home behind, Semeka.  And damn if it didn't hurt me too."

"But you got out clean, at least."

"Thanks to you."  He sighed, pushed the glass back and forth on the counter.  "Not that anyone knows it."

"I take it nobody's going to be inviting me to Naming Day dinner."

"You're a demon in their eyes.  I have to step in and keep the tall tales from getting too out of hand.  Semeka, the great warlord Skakdi.  Semeka, seductress who steals away a hero's heart.  Semeka, stands twelve bio tall and can turn invisible."

"Tell me more."

He didn't laugh.  "It's been a long two years, is all.  I – at least Azak and Kychell understood, but damn me if I didn't want to just shut the rest of them up once in a while.  Which – I know, I know.  I'm a Toa, and they are my people.  All of this is for their sake.  But that doesn't mean I liked listening to your name get dragged through the mud."

She sighed.  "Look, Jodhan.  You done good.  They're safe, and that's what matters.  And hey, you even managed to bump into me again.  That's gotta be worth something."

He smiled and looked up.  "Yeah.  I'm glad to see you."

"And it's been too long since I had an idiot Toa around," she said, more than a little affection lining her voice.  It was nice to get back to a bit of truth-telling.  "What brings you to these parts, anyway?"

"Kychell's says the mayor of this place is a local mover and shaker.  He thinks she might be able to help us with the construction we've got going on."

She raised a brow.  "What, you're making a whole new village from scratch? Plenty'a cities around here you could've settled in."

"Not exactly.  We met another group of refugees – Po-Matoran, mostly – not long after we made land, and we set up camp together.  Things kind of snowballed from there."

"Least you got a place you can put down roots."

"Yeah.  We do.  It's taken some getting used to, but – we're getting there.  We're close enough to a good vein of sandstone and iron that we've managed to get some industry started.  Nothing fancy, but at least we're back to trading."

"Which brings you here."

He nodded.  "We need a few resources we can't get our hands on easily.  What we could really use is a Toa of Stone to help us build, but it turns out most Toa are pretty busy."

"Speakin' a Toa – how's Azak?"

"Better.  It took him a little bit to get over everything that happened, but he's moving forward."  Jodhan fell silent for a couple of seconds, then went on, "Senn hurt him, you know, and that doesn't go away easily.  But whatever you told him last time seemed to help."

She rolled her eyes in mock exasperation.  "I swear, I should start charging for the advice, not just the booze.  I could skip the merc work altogether."  She chewed absently on the toothpick.  "But then I'd be stuck listening to Toa with no sense of scale all day.  Merc work sounds more fun."

He chuckled, and the room fell silent again.  She took a good look at him; he was trying not to look back, at least not obviously.  She smirked.  "Didn't ever find a missus Toa, then?"

He started.  "No, I – I mean, there wasn't time – I mean, it's not like I was looking – but that's – er –" he took a deep breath, then sunk in his stool.  "I mean, if you found a nice Skakdi to settle down with, congratulations –"

Semeka chuckled.  "Cool it.  I'm just tweaking you.  Gali made a pass or two, but that was all."

She could practically see him trying not to ask the question.

"One time, Jodhan.  Decided it wasn't what I was looking for, she agreed, we went back to being work partners.  Nothing special."

"I mean – that's your business, not mine – if you found someone who makes you happy –"

She chuckled again – or, no, this was a full-fledged cackle.  "Great Spirit, Jodhan.  If you weren't making me feel as good-looking as I know I am, I'd almost feel sorry for you."

He groaned and looked down at the bar.  "I – well, I don't really know what to say – I know you're not –"

"Hey."  She reached across the counter and put a claw beneath his chin to tip his head up.  "Don't rush it.  This kind of situation doesn't get solved in twenty minutes, and I'd say it's a bit early to try and figure out where we're going from here."

He forced a smile.  "Yeah.  Yeah, you're right.  Sorry."

She looked into his eyes.  They were honest as ever, flustered, weary, but – there was happiness there, too, and she felt a smile come to her own face.

"That said," she went on, and leaned in close to him, "if you haven't got any plans for the rest of the afternoon-"

His eyes went wide, and before he could reply, she pressed her mouth to his.  He did the best he could in response.  The size difference was always going to be a spot of trouble –

There was a sharp set of pounding from the back room, and she broke away grinning.  "Damn.  Hardly two sentences into the flirting.  You'd think your master tradesman'd never heard a healthy Skakdi-Toa relationship before."

Jodhan was still staring into the space where she had been a few seconds earlier, and she patted him on the head.  "Back to reality, Toa.  I'm sure you and Mr. Clever back there have work to do."

He blinked a few times, shook his head.  "Uh – yes, yeah, definitely.  I'll go let him out."

He made to stand, and as he passed by she leaned over the counter.  "Of course," she whispered, "even if the afternoon's booked, nobody said anything about the evening." 

Now, that was interesting.  She hadn't even known Rurus could change color like that.  As the Toa scurried off to the storage room door, she leaned back against the counter and flicked her toothpick away.  Yeah, it was good to see him again.

  "You're so full of shit, you know that?"

Kychell shrugged.  "You have a very odd way of saying 'thank you'."

"For what, setting me up to have to lie to one of the few folks who actually kind of cares about me? Spiriah’s spines, Kychell, couldn'ta been a bit more subtle in sending him my way?"

"No," he said simply.  "I had to be around to see if you'd try to tell him the truth."

She growled and took a sip of her drink.  Jodhan had left to go gather up his things, and now she and the Matoran were sitting alone, the first rays of the setting sun coating the back of the bar in burnt orange.  It wasn't the first time she'd had this kind of back-and-forth with her Order handler over a bottle, and she doubted very much it would be the last.

"Like, what's the game here, Kychell? I've gotta put up with your little cover story as long as he's around.  And are you planning to stay here tonight to make sure I don't let anything slip? Because if so, you’re gonna be hearing quite a bit more than you bargained for."

"Please don't do that."

"Skakdi-Toa romance for beginners, a special lecture series.  You can have front-row seats."

He bristled.  "This was my way of trying to thank you for all the work you've done for the past few years.  Johmak gives you absolutely stellar reports, you know."

"Johmak also has me play wingwoman for her whenever work takes us to any actual cities.  She better be giving me good reviews, because that woman has no game whatsoever."

He put a hand to his forehead.  "Please stop alluding to the love lives of my subordinates."

"You know what she can do with that shattering trick of hers?"

"I'd really rather not."

"It's almost a shame she's not interested in the other team, I used to know a fella named Zaktan who could do the same-"

"This is your way of tormenting me, isn't it."

"Not very fast on the uptake, are you, mister master strategist."  She took another sip of her drink.

"Look," he said with a heavy sigh, "I understand your frustration.  But it's the price all of us pay.  You knew you wouldn't be able to talk when you signed on."

"Hey," she snapped back, "your recruiter pals did enough digging into my brain that I couldn't even drink straight for a week, and then they told me that my options were 'yes' and 'mind wipe, possibly imprisonment'.  Just because we do good work doesn't mean you get a free pass for this stuff."

"Would you rather I had not brought him here at all?"

She leaned over the bar and glared down at the Matoran.  "I would rather you don't pat me on the back with one hand and punch me in the gut with the other."

Kychell shook his head.  "Look, it's not just about you.  Jodhan misses you, he really does."

"That I gathered."

"The past few years have been rough on him.  I thought helping the two of you to meet again would be good for him.  Get him to... move on, maybe."

She looked down at the Matoran a few seconds longer, swirling her drink in her glass.  "You want me to break it off with him?" 

"Semeka!" the Matoran's voice grew sharp.  "I realize it amuses you to paint me as some heartless machine –"

"- Mostly because you make it so easy –"

"- But Jodhan is my Toa, and I care about his well-being.  I'm glad the two of you make each other happy, but be reasonable.  He's chasing a dream he can never achieve."

"What, a house, little rock fence, two Matoran-Skakdi kids?"

"I think so."

She snorted, took a swig of her drink.  "You don't give him a lot of credit, do you?"

"I'm asking you to find a better way, Semeka.  That's all.  If you want to... keep doing whatever it is you do at night, fine.  But it's best for the both of you that you decide what that means now.  After all–" he stopped abruptly.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"It's never nothing."

"I seem to recall the solution we settled on last time worked out precisely because the two of you were little more than a fling from your perspective."

She took a long sip of her drink and resisted the urge to spit it back in his face, more out of a disinclination to clean up the mess than anything else.  "Oh, I don't even know where to start with that.  First off, what I do or don't feel for Jodhan is none of your damn business.  Second off, have you ever considered I let myself take the fall for all that crap precisely because I cared about him?"

"Enough that it was worth separation?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, at the time I didn't realize I was going to be working for a secret society within the month and playing dumb for the rest of my life."

The Matoran's face grew dark.  "Is that what this is about, then? You want out?"

She snorted.  "You sound like a bad Xia crime boss.  We both know I couldn't get 'out' now even if I wanted to, not 'less I wanted a few dozen hunters on my back for the rest of my life."

"You aren't answering my question."

She downed the rest of her drink, then held the empty glass up to the light.  Still dirty.  "It's nice to fight on the side of the good guys for once.  There's no love lost between me and the Dark Hunters, and I never was a fan of Makuta.  And the pay's a lot steadier than picking up bounties.  But if you think I'm in this for your grand old Mata-Nui worshiping ideals, or that I'm going to take the way you treat your folks without complaining, you're going to be sorely disappointed."

He drummed his fingers on the bar and stared up at her.  She didn't bother to meet his gaze. 

"As a friend –"

She coughed.

"As a friend, I'd like to make something clear.  This little town is not the whole world, and the missions we send you on aren't just for fun.  There are dark days coming, and the Order needs to be prepared for them.  There will come a day when someone with greater authority than myself will ask you to come to Mata Nui's aid, and on that day you must not turn away."

"I ain't planning to 'turn away'.  Get that through your mask."

"A few words today mean nothing tomorrow."

"You got anywhere you're going with all this?"

His fingers stopped their tapping.  "I brought you to the Order because I wanted to offer you purpose, and you have begun to find it.  Do not underestimate the weight such a thing carries, and the sacrifices that will need to be made along the way.  But if you embrace it, you will find a better life waiting for you.  I can promise you that."

She reached behind her and grabbed the rag that was still lying on the shelves.  She dipped it into the glass and scrubbed away at the spot there for a little while.

"So," she finally said, "how's that working out for you?"

Kychell smiled just a little too wide, and for an instant Semeka saw the fury the Matoran spent his days hiding.  "Better than you might expect."

There was a clatter as he hopped from the stool.  He looked back at her, his face returned to its usual impassivity.  "One more thing.  There may be... complications with the trade I've come here to do.  I'll have Johmak get in touch with you as necessary.  Jodhan should be involved only if there is no other choice."

"Only use the Toa of Iron who'd probably follow me into Karzahni if absolutely needed.  Got it."

He smiled slightly.  "Too much sarcasm is bad for your health, you know."

He turned and left the bar.  Semeka watched him go, sighed, and put the glass away.  What did you even say to that?

"Semeka?"

She looked up; Jodhan was standing in the entryway, a pack slung over his shoulders.  "I bumped into Kychell outside.  Everything all right?"

"Peachy," she said.  "Just clearing the air a bit." 

  "So," she said later as the Toa curled up to her, "how long you planning to stick around?"

"Not long," he murmured.  "Kychell says the negotiations should only take a couple of days."  Smiling, he looked up and added, "But I can probably tack a few more onto the trip if you're interested."

"Well," she said, "we managed to get the pillow halfway across the room this time.  It would be fun to see if we can get it through the window at some point." 

"And the sheets?"

She held a tattered piece of cloth up.  "May as well hold off on replacing them 'till you leave."

  She didn't even bother opening the bar the next day.  Jodhan left not long after dawn – "negotiations", he explained in the same tone one might say "executions" in – and she stepped out herself soon after.  The sun was dipping in and out of a few clouds, and the streets were bustling with a lazy afternoon's mess of shoppers and strollers.  A few food vendors called out to her as she walked, and she ignored them.  In her opinion, if someone really wanted to make a killing around these parts they'd open up a Zakaz-style food-hole and charge by the plate.  Back in Xia there had been one half a district over that had been the source of many a blissful post-job meal. 

But here? She was one of about six or seven Skakdi in the town, as far as she could tell, and only about half of them she was on speaking terms with.  Part of being a Skakdi was rivalries, and apparently her family had pissed off another family and now they were enemies unto death and yadda yadda yadda.  She tried to avoid her fellow immigrants; there was a reason she'd left Zakaz, and it sure as hell wasn't so she could deal with family issues.

She stopped at an unassuming house on the south side, closest to the main road out of town.  It was barely a story tall, made with the kind of overly-ordered brickwork that suggested a Toa of Stone had passed through during construction.  She knocked once, twice, three times.

Johmak opened the door, dressed as sharp as ever.  "You're up early."

"Taking the day off."

She nodded but raised a brow.  "Taking the day off, or taking the day off?"

"Actually just relaxing for once, though king K'll be changing that in the next few days."

"Figures.  Been a bit too quiet around here lately."  She threw the door open.  "C'mon in."

It had been a long time since Semeka had had a consistent partner for her work - in all its myriad forms - but whatever boxes that position needed ticking, Johmak marked them off and kept on going.  She was razor-sharp and more than able to tangle with foes twice her size (which was to say foes about Semeka's size, to the Skakdi's constant amusement); the fact she could disassemble herself into thousands of tiny pieces and reassemble at will was another plus.  The other Order member had been at it for years, maybe decades, before Semeka had joined up, and there was the tacit understanding between them that part of the reason she was there was to make sure the Skakdi didn't try to cut and run at the first opportunity.

But Johmak never seemed to let that bother her, and pretty soon Semeka learned to do the same.  Over the past few years they'd travelled up and down the continent handling whatever wet work the Order had lined up for them: an infiltration here, a finger on the scales of local power there.  She respected Johmak, for whatever that was worth: the other woman could be humorless and almost unnervingly dedicated to her work at times, but she'd yet to let her down on the job.  The two had even briefly flirted with attempting the whole "girlfriends" tack (in several definitions of the word), but soon enough had realized to their mutual relief that keeping social calls limited to one or two a month was about the right level of interaction between them.

Which wasn't to say that the Skakdi wasn't familiar enough with Johmak's home to be able to silently judge it whenever she stopped by. The Order member kept the house clean and orderly – "helps when you're away for months at a time" – and Semeka was always vaguely irritated by it.  She was no slob, granted, but there was clean and then there was sterile, and Johmak had always leaned a little too far towards the latter.

Breakfast was seared fruit seasoned with spices that were conspicuously local.  Semeka chowed down as best she could.  That was another point in the old food-pit's favor: two years of veganism was really starting to wear down on her. 

"So," Johmak said – no food in her mouth, of course.  "How's life?"

"Could be going worse.  Only had to throw out one farmer with very loud opinions about society this week."

"Impressive.  I thought your record so far was three."

"I'm still aiming for the perfect score, but you can't always get what you want.  And you?"

"Got a surveying trip next month.  Shouldn't be difficult, but at least a map a year, that's the minimum to keep the Onu-Metruans from getting too suspicious." 

Semeka took a sip of water.  "You'd think for all the intrigue, they could manage to get someone to pay off a few archivists to not look too closely."

"Believe me, I've asked.  Too obvious a traceback, they say.  And besides, those guys are obsessive.  Never seen anyone that into data."

"Might be fun to show them your actual maps one of these days."

"That's my exit strategy, actually.  I figure if my cover gets blown I'll just show them Zakaz topological survey 7-G and their brains will overload." 

Semeka grinned.  "Have you considered a new day job? I could use a rival establishment.  I haven't got any enemy barrels of wine to pour seawater into.  Gets boring."

"I'll have to decline your generous offer."

"Shame." 

Johmak returned the smile and downed her own drink - a Voya Nuian juice that seemed innocuous but was apparently quite capable of doing a number on one's organs if one wasn't capable of disassembling and reassembling them at will.  "I hear we've got visitors."

Semeka took another bite to keep her face neutral.  "That so."

"Couple'a Matoran and a Toa from down south.  And a control freak, but I figure he spends enough time checking in long-distance that it doesn't make much difference if he's here in person."

"That's for sure."

"The other ones are more interesting, though.  We don't get a lot of Toa of Iron around here."

"That's for sure."

Johmak looked across the table at Semeka, the hint of a smile curling her lips.  "There's no need to be coy."

She took another drink of water.  "'Fraid it's my natural state'a being these days."

"As we're all very well aware.  But you wouldn't have stopped by if you didn't want to dump your brain.  So?"

Semeka finished the glass and leaned back in her chair.  "Kychell's a jackass."

"Duly noted."

"Were you in on this?"

She rolled her eyes.  "Please.  If you hadn’t noticed, nobody's ever 'in on' anything in this organization.  We just get our marching orders and carry them out before we can get thrown in the clink for asking why."

Semeka plucked a toothpick from a pocket and began to work it up and down an incisor.  "Makes me wonder why I ever signed up."

"It helps when said orders save the world from time to time.  But no: I didn't know Kychell was planning to set up this romantic little reunion."

She snorted.  "Yeah, romantic.  He gave me the whole song and dance about how it's really a favor to the two of us."

"You don't believe him?"

"I believe that the day Kychell shows actual altruistic concern for another being is the day your Mata Nui drops from the sky and does the tango with a shoulder-beetle."

"Tell me that wasn't one of your metaphors."

She grinned with her whole mouth in response.

"Classy as ever.  Anyway, I wouldn't complain if I were you.  Kychell might be a cynical, manipulative bastard, but he's at least giving the two of you the chance to clear the air."

"'Clear the air', hah.  The air was clear, give or take the world's most convoluted evacuation plan."

"You're glad to see him, though."

The toothpick stopped for a moment, then clinked as it dragged across to the next tooth.  "Yeah.  I think so, at least."

"Not certain?"

"Look, I'm happy I met Jodhan back on Xia, and I don't regret going to pull his behind out of the fire back on that island of his a few years back.  But I don't like something like this getting dropped in my lap.  I would've preferred to track him down when I felt like it, not have him turn up at my doorstep one day."

"Wow," Johmak deadpanned, "it's almost like you can't control what other people do with their lives."

"But I'd prefer if I could keep some over mine, is all."  She flicked away the toothpick.  "It's been an interesting couple of years with you lot.  And before you start giving me the evil eye like Kychell did, I'm not planning to go running off.  But I miss the days where I was in charge of the stupidity in my life, not some micromanaging Matoran."

Johmak tilted her head to the side.  "And we both know what happens when you feel like you need more control in your life, hm?"

Semeka scowled.  "Watch it.  Just because I acknowledge that you know about my past doesn't mean I give you permission to talk about it."

Johmak shrugged and stood to get another bottle of juice from the kitchen.  "So, what are you going to do now?"

Semeka plucked another toothpick from the pack.  "See what happens, I suppose.  Jodhan's happy as a Manas with a new shell to see me, so who am I to deny him that?"

"I thought I heard a bedstand break last night."

"You know it.  'Sides that, though, I figure I'll give him a tour of the town and then deflect a bunch of questions about why I'm living in this podunk little place."

Johmak returned, bottle in hand, and gave Semeka a sad smile.  "Everyone's favorite part of the job."

"Yeah."  She bit the end of the toothpick gently and began to flick it up and down with one finger.  "I'm getting mighty sick of lying, is all.  And it turns out it's a mite harder when you're doing it to someone you give half a toss about."

Johmak sighed.  "You have no idea."

"That sounds like a story."

"Not mine.  You remember Jerbraz? Old friend of mine.  He used to do the whole double-life thing: Order agent by night, dork with a little mining operation by day.  Then he wound up invisible.  Turns out that's a bit hard to cover for."

"So what happened?"

"He died," Johmak said simply.  "The Order blew his house sky-high one night and let word get around that he'd been inside it when everything had gone up."

"Hell."  She glanced out the window; outside, a few of the townspeople were going about their day, hauling baskets of who-knew-what.  "Did he have a family?"

"A few good friends.  They gave a terrific eulogy at the funeral, he tells me." 

"That's just messed up."

"He wasn't too happy about it, no.  Truth be told, it wouldn't surprise me if he slipped word to them one way or another that he was still out there.  But I'm not going to be the one to drag him in on that if he did."

"Yeah." 

Silence descended on the room.  Johmak sipped her drink, and Semeka kept bobbing the toothpick between her teeth. 

"See," the Skakdi finally said, "that's what I'm talking about."

"Sorry?"

"If someone wants to tear up their life, maybe only tell a few folks where they're headed - that should be up to them.  Not some higher-ups who decided they needed to cover their tracks."

Johmak chuckled.  "Yeah.  But hey, that's why we do what we do.  So all the idiots out there have the chance to tear up their lives when they want."

"That in the official Order charter?"

"No, but I'm petitioning for it."

Semeka looked back and grinned.  "Fighting for the right to be an irresponsible idiot everywhere.  I like it."

  She was scrubbing away at a day-old beer stain when Jodhan got back to the bar.  The Toa looked like he'd had the mental equivalent of a run-in with a rather temperamental Tahtorak, so she flashed him a grin.  "Diplomacy going well?"

"You try debating contracts with a Ce-Toa for six hours," he grumbled. “How did I wind up a Toa who spends his time on trade agreements?"

"If I was the kind of person to make terrible puns, I'd say it was because you're so agreeable."

Jodhan blanched.  "That was terrible.”

"Claws and knives are getting old.  I figure weaponized words are the next big thing."  She tossed the rag back and hopped over the counter.  "So, care to see the town outside of a dive bar and the mayor's house?"

The Toa perked up, then suddenly froze.  "That's - are you asking - I mean, would this be-"

Semeka grinned mischievously.  "If you start freaking out over the definition of a 'date', I'm telling Azak."

"Great Spirit, anything but that." 

"In that case -" she swept past him, grabbing his arm as she did and jolting him towards the door - "we'd better get moving."

Jodhan stumbled once before he managed to match pace with her.  As they stepped out into the street, he glanced down at her hand on his arm.  "Not worried the locals'll ask questions?"

"Let 'em ask.  Or even better, let 'em speculate.  I wanna hear what stories they'll make up about me this time."

He smiled a strained smile at that, but made no comment.  Outside, the sun was shining, the breeze was flowing, and had there been any birds around they probably would have been chirping.  Instead, the warm hum of the village filled the air.  As they made their way down the winding road, half-known neighbors nodded to the pair; most didn't manage or didn't care to keep the curiosity from their faces, and Semeka grinned back at each and every one.

Jodhan's head was turning at each new building, surveying them with a glint of nostalgia in his eye.  She nudged him in the side.  "Not bad, huh?"

"Reminds me an awful lot of home, to be honest.  What's keeping this place afloat?"

"We're close enough to the coast that we can do trade up and down the archipelago, and there's decent farmland out east.  This place ain't ever gonna be Xia, but for a backwater, you'd be surprised how much happens here."

"Hopefully not the same kinds of things that happened back at your last job."

She chuckled.  "Nah.  Like I said, I still take the occasional job inland, but not a whole lot of intrigue happening around here.  The mayor's got a good eye for business, but not so good it gets the attention of anyone important."

"I dunno about that," he said as they passed a storefront with a dusty old Vortixx sweeping out front.  "She can drive one heck of a bargain, if today's talks are anything to go buy.  I thought we were offering a good price, but now we'll be lucky if we get away with paying twice as much as we hoped."

"Should'a sent Azak up to help you out.  You two could do good Toa, bad Toa."

He shook his head.  "Someone had to stay and look after things.  Besides - how did Kychell put it? - Azak's not exactly a stabilizing element at the best of times."

"I seem to recall a lot of hammers being involved whenever I spoke with him."

"That's funny.  He recalls a lot of knives."

Semeka grinned.  "Well, they do always say no two people remember the same thing.  I guess the truth is lost for all eternity."

They stepped over a gully that ran through the street - somehow it had never gotten plugged up - and began to wind their way up and out of the town.  Beneath them, the cobblestones of the road were beginning to show signs of damage or were simply missing, never worth replacing.

"What made you pick this place, anyway?" Jodhan sounded genuinely curious.  "I thought big cities were more your style."

She shrugged.  "Once you rule out Xia, 'big city' shrinks to Metru Nui and whatever they're calling the League's capitals these days.  Neither sounded tremendously appealing."

"Still."  He gestured to the houses around them - simple structures of straw and stone, with only an occasional wind-cycle leaning against a fence to hint at grander technology.  "Place is a lot quieter than I'd take you for."

"Are you calling me a loudmouth?" she teased back.

"Well, that one's a biological fact."

"Not my fault you Toa haven't got any lungs on you."

"And it's not my fault you could huff and puff and bring half this village down."

"They don't seriously still tell that stupid story to Matoran when they're growing up, do they?"

They wandered and chatted a while longer, the houses around them slowly beginning to thin.  The whisper of fall was in the air, and in a few spots the grass had already begun to fade.  Winter wasn't going to be fun, but it wasn't going to be unmanageable, either.

In time, they found themselves sitting down beneath a gnarled old tree on a hill overlooking the village.  Semeka sighed in contentment and stretched out, listening to her joints pop and creak.  "Nice to take a day off once in a while."

"Work keeping you busy?"

"For the most part.  Not as bad as I used to have it, back on - not as bad as I used to have it."

He tilted his head a bit, and she waved him away.  "'S nothing."

"You know, you never did get around to telling me what exactly it was you did back on Zakaz."

A sour knot twisted in her stomach, but she forced herself to keep smiling.  "Might be there's a reason for that."

His own smile vanished.  "...Ah."

For a few minutes they sat without speaking.  Down in the village, Semeka could see a few Matoran chasing what looked to be a very unhappy Mahi through the streets.

Jodhan's voice was quiet when he spoke again.  "I really am glad to see you, you know."

She looked away.  "...So, are we doing this now?"

"'This'?"

"Come on, Jodhan.  You're dense, but you're not that thick."

"And you're not as good at hiding nerves with insults as you used to be."

"Guess I'm losing my edge."

A few more beats.  Damn if she hadn't forgotten how irritating it could be to know someone who could catch you off guard.

"Okay," Jodhan finally said.  "You want me to give it to you straight?"

"Better than the alternative."

He reached out and laid a hand on her should.  "Every time I meet you, it's just… it's the strangest thing.  There’s always some crisis to deal with, but every time, I'm just happy to be with you."

"That's a total of twice, you know."

"I do."  She glanced back and saw he was looking up at the sky, a look of resignation on his face.  "So I know how dumb it is to say this, but: I care about you, Semeka.  Not as a friend, or as a one-off partner, but I think as -"

"Yeah," she said quietly.  Hesitantly, she reached up and laid her own hand over his.  "I know."

"And -" he closed his eyes and sighed.  "I know that you don't feel the same way about me."

She tightened her grip on his hand softly.  "I don't think it's that simple."

"Nothing ever is."

She shook her head.  "Nah, that's just it, y'see? For you things are that simple.  You're a Toa, and that means you've got baddies to beat up and people to protect.  You know who you are, and where you're going.  So this's got to be easy for you.  Falling in love, I mean."

"I don't think the usual legend-tale romances involve Skakdi, if that's worth anything," he replied, the ghost of a smile on his face.

"I'm hurt," she replied mockingly, then squeezed his hand again as she dropped the cheer.  "Look, it's - I like you, Jodhan.  Great Spirit knows I enjoy talking with you like this, and -" she lightly bit her tongue for a moment, working through the words in her head - "you're probably the most supportive person I've known in... years.  All my life, maybe."

"Semeka."

"But it's not that easy for me.  I can't just look at you and go, 'yep, I want to be with him'.  I'm built for change, alright? I spent most my life drifting, and you - you're an anchor."  She let out a shaky breath.  "That was awful.  Tell me I don't talk like that when I'm giving advice in the bar."

"Well..."

"Oh, shut it."  She realized she was smiling again, and forced it away.  "Look, my point stands.  I care about you, Jodhan, but if the question is if that goes beyond spending a day together here and there, the answer is just gonna be 'I don't know'.  I don't think I can know, at least not yet."

He closed his eyes.  "...That's fair."

She turned to him and moved her hand to cup his face.  "Look, I'm sorry.  I really am.  You didn't pick a very romantic person to fall for."

He shook his head.  "To hell with romance, then.  You've helped me when nobody else could, Semeka.  That's worth a lot more to me than a few old clichés."

"That so."

He nodded.

She closed the distance between them, moving her hand away to wrap her arm around his chest.  She felt his own do the same to her.  When they broke away, she was grinning again.  "Good, because you realize the mouth sizes are just never going to work out."

"Well," he said in a voice that was all resigned cheer, "we're both going to have to make sacrifices if we want to give this a shot."

  Johmak was waiting outside when they got back to the bar, idly scratching away at a tablet.  Semeka whistled a sharp tweet as they approached, and motioned for Jodhan to step out in front when Johmak looked up.  "Gali, this is a friend of mine.  I may have mentioned him once or twice."

"The infamous Toa Jodhan, I take it?" She offered a fist.  "Gali.  Semeka and I have worked together."

"And slightly more, I hear," Jodhan replied, dead-serious.

Johmak shot a glance at Semeka.  The Skakdi in turn managed to keep a straight face for about two seconds before she had to turn away to stifle a cackle, and Jodhan's own face split into the smile he'd barely been restraining.  "Sorry.  Somehow my urge to be a smartass goes up around her."  He returned the offered fist.

Johmak smirked.  "Happens to all of us.  I think she's a bad influence."  She looked back over her shoulder to the bar.  "You're staying here, I take it?"

"Already worked one night.  I don't see much of a reason to change things up now."

"That's fair."  She looked back to the two of them.  "Semeka, could you swing by my place later? I've got the latest figures in, and I could use some help deciphering them."  Translation: Kychell had work for them.

Semeka kept her face neutral.  "Asking a Skakdi for help with math? It's a miracle you're still in business."

"Well, you know.  When time's a-wastin', beggars can't be choosers."  Translation: in-the-very-immediate-future kind of work.

Jodhan was watching the conversation with a look of curiosity.  "Sorry - what was it you did again, Johmak?"

"Geological surveys," she said, "with occasional mercenary work on the side.  Tonight's related to the former, I'm afraid.  Quite boring."

"I don't know, survey work can be interesting-"

Johmak took a step forward and put on her best pained smile as she dropped her voice to a stage whisper.  "These invoices are from a joint Onu-Metru and Ko-Metru research team.  The sums on them alone could drive lesser men mad, and that's before you get into the actual work."

Jodhan took a step back in return and put up his hands.  "Oh.  Alright then."  He gave Semeka a quizzical look.  “When did you get into extreme accounting?”

Semeka just smiled back.  "It's no big deal.  I'll pop over later tonight - shouldn't take long." 

"I'm sure I can keep myself busy."  He seemed to remember something, and put a hand to his forehead as he sighed in exasperation.  "Come to think of it, I've got my own paperwork to deal with before I go back to talk to Mayor Iren again tomorrow.  When did becoming a Toa start involving paperwork?"

"Welcome the real world," Johmak said chipperly.  "I’m afraid there’s not as much grand adventure as you may have been lead to believe."  Semeka stifled a snort.  "I'll see you later, then, Semeka."

With that, the Order member strode off down the street.  Jodhan watched her go, curious.  "So, you two really -"

"Yep."

"I can see why it didn't work out."

She let a wolfish grin come to her face.  "Oh, don't worry, it was strictly personality.  Did you know she can disassemble herself at will?"

He blinked.  "What?"

"Oh yes.  And reform herself just as easily.  She was very creative-"

He shuddered.  "For my sake, don't finish that sentence."

She leaned over and nipped his shoulder affectionately.  "Well, you'd better start getting creative too if you want to keep up."

"Since when was it a competition?"

"Since I decided it would be more fun that way."

  A single light was on in Johmak's house when she arrived.  She rapped on the door - knock, knock knock, kno-knock - and Johmak opened it quietly.  "Come on in."

Semeka stepped inside and was greeted by a table covered in Johmak’s sizable arsenal.  "Mission?"

"And soon.  While you were out stargazing or whatever it is you two were doing -"

"-It was the middle of the day-"

"-Our favorite Matoran dropped by.  Seems there's going to be an attempt on the mayor's life tonight."

Semeka blanched.  "Iren? Who gives a toss about her?"

For an instant, she thought she saw Johmak miss a step, but then her partner was crossing the room as natural as could be.  A stack of tablets was piled up next to the weapons.  "Search me.  But Kychell seems certain of the info."

"What's the situation?"

"Merc group's been hired to do the job.  I've got a list of dossiers the Order's compiled on them.  Take a look."

She leaned over to see, and that was when ten years came screeching to a halt.

The name on the tablet stared back up at her, seemingly oblivious to her attempts to make it change by re-reading it a dozen times.  This can’t be right.  Here? Now? It doesn’t make a lick of goddamned sense.  There’s no way she could be here. 

Look who's talking.

"Semeka?" Johmak's voice was concerned, but as always there was an edge of suspicion beneath it.  "What's wrong?"

She cleared her throat.  Bit too obvious with her body language just then to play it off as nothing.  Think fast.  "Polonious."

"I'm sorry?"

"This name –" she tapped a tablet distinctly different than the one she'd been staring at.  "Polonious.  I know it."

"Where from?"

"There was this island out east, from what I hear.  Mostly Po-Matoran.  One of the Barraki took it down."

Johmak frowned.  "What's so concerning about that?"

"Rumor has it they didn't just do it for the resources.  Used to be a mighty powerful Toa of Plasma there, name'a, well, Polonious.  They took him away, stuck him in a cell for two years, threw everything in the book at him.  He came out different."

Johmak's frown deepened.  "Now that you mention it – I recall hearing a report to that effect, though I couldn't tell you the details.  Is he dangerous?"

"Next time he saw his hometown he burned it to the ground.  I'd call that a yes.  If he's on this list, he must’ve gotten out of the Barraki gig and gone freelance.”

Johmak put the back of her hand to her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut in thought.  "I need to go collect Kychell anyway.  I'll ask him if we have any information about this Toa that could give us a tactical advantage.  I've fought plasma-wielders before; it's not fun."

"'Not fun'?"

"You ever try to put yourself back together when some of the pieces are melted?"

"Can't say I've ever tried to put myself together in the first place.  But I see your point."

Johmak reached across the table and grabbed the tablet.  "Alright.  I'm going to go find our favorite Matoran-turned-spymaster.  Finish reading the rest of the intel we've got; I won't be long."

Semeka nodded, and the other biomech strode out of the house, deep in thought.  Semeka waited until the door had squeaked shut before she let out the breath she'd been holding.  Seemed like half her time was spent practicing her lying these days, and it was getting mighty sour.

She glanced back down at the list, looked past half a dozen other names that meant nothing to her, to the single word that had knocked her life off its tracks. 

Automatically, she reached for a toothpick, but her hand stopped halfway to her pocket.  With a sigh, she laid it across the name instead, as though blocking it out would erase it. 

"You never could leave well enough alone, could you, sis?"

  Johmak returned with Kychell in tow, and the Matoran shot her a look of suspicion as soon as he was through the door.  "Jodhan?"

"I left him at home just like you asked, sir.  If it makes you feel better, I don't want him involved in this any more than you do."

The Matoran nodded, but glanced at Johmak out of the corner of his eye.  She gave a light shake of the head in return.  Semeka crossed her arms and looked down at him.  "You're wary, Kychell, but you're not dumb.  You really think I'm going to get on the Order's bad side for a little extra backup? I can take a Toa of Plasma or two."

"Let's hope it's just the one," Kychell replied dryly.  "I’m not deeply familiar with the Gukkos, which means I can’t say who they might be sending for this."

"Sure we're not up against all of them?"

"Not likely," Johmak replied.  "A simple assassination? They're not going to waste firepower.  Expect two at most."

"I can work with two.  What's the plan? Head them off outside of town?"

"That'd be ideal, but we don't know where they're camped out.  We'll infiltrate the mayor's house and wait for them there."

"We planning on telling the lady in question any of this, or is she just going to wake up to a few merc corpses?"

Kychell clasped his hands behind his back.  "I'm afraid it's not quite so simple."

Semeka leaned back against the wall and looked closely at the Matoran.  His Akaku was as emotionless as ever.  "You know why they're after her, don't you."

"The Order has a vested interest in better understanding the circumstances behind this assassination attempt.  That is all I can say at the moment.  In addition to protecting the mayor, we ask that you look for any evidence in her home of... unusual or illicit dealings."

"You think she's a smuggler?"

"I can't say what we think she may be.  But the Gukkos aren't cheap to hire.  Someone wanted dead that badly surely has a few secrets worth knowing."

She rolled her eyes.  "Why is it that sometimes I think you'd all read the minds of everyone in the universe if you could?"

"We most certainly would.  It would save an incredible amount of time and effort.  Entrance strategy, Johmak?"

Johmak nodded.  "I'll take point as we enter the residence.  Any sign of guards or other trouble, I can go smoke -" she phased away one of her hands for a moment - "and make my way back to you.  You stay outside and keep any eye out for anyone suspicious.  You see something, handle it.  I'm gonna need time to find anything worth finding."

"'Handle it'.  Glad we've got such a detailed plan."

"We always do."  Johmak looked back to Kychell.  "And you?"

"I'll make myself scarce as usual.  Contact me if things go south; I'm authorized to call backup as needed."

"Great," Semeka muttered, "they'll get here just in time for us to be long dead."

"Positive thinking is the key to success, you know.  Any other questions?"

"Other than the usual 'what do you know that you aren't telling us', not a thing."

  The moon was half-full, giving just the ghost of a pearl glow to the streets below as Semeka and Johmak slipped through them.  "So," Johmak said quietly.  "I got a question too."

Semeka kept her face as neutral as possible.  "Shoot."

"What are you keeping from us this time?"

"No more than normal."

"Bull."  They turned the corner and into an alleyway that snaked between a few old stores.  "Something's got you on edge."

"Just the usual angst over my star-crossed romance, I'm sure."

"See, this is your problem," Johmak said quietly.  "Half the time you don't even try to hide it when you lie, but you bite off anyone's head the moment they try to dig deeper."

"You're really critiquing my character now?"

"I'm critiquing anything that could endanger the mission.  If there's something you're hiding, and it's got to do with what we're up against, we need to be on the same page."

"If this turns into a speech about unity, I'm gonna-"

"Semeka."  Johmak's voice had dropped a dozen degrees.  "You can play the free-spirited loner all you please when you're tending bar.  But you don't have that right when we're working."

"Oh, so I'm just supposed to turn off my personality when we're doing these little missions?" she snapped.  "Sorry, but I don't buy the idea of turning into a block of wood with a knife the minute I get a job."

"The first dossier we compiled on you included a big red warning, you know that? Individual-mindedness a potential risk factor.  Likely to hide information.  Often believes she should be in charge despite all evidence to the contrary.  'Loner who wants everyone to do as she says' was the official one-liner, I believe."

"Nice to know the Order's staying creepy."

"Look, I don't care if you feel like keeping an ego big enough to blot out the sun.  But if you start hiding things from me that could save a life, I can't in good conscience call you my partner.  And if that's the case, I'm better off working alone."

Semeka paused as they came to the end of the alley.  "Is that a challenge?"

Johmak looked back at her, and Semeka saw darkness in her eyes.  "You knew one of the names on that list."

"Plasma-boy's, yeah."

"No.  I know you think you're the world's best people-watcher, but that doesn't make the rest of us blind.  Your eyes damn near popped out of your skull when you saw that list, and it wasn't because you thought some Toa might kick your ass.  What was the other name you knew?"

"Doesn't matter, does it? Odds are they won't even be here tonight."

"Semeka."  Johmak crossed her arms.  "Tell me, or I go ask Jodhan."

Semeka blinked.  Didn't see that coming.  "Am I missing something, or did you just threaten to blow our cover sky high because you're pissy I'm not coming clean about a merc?"

Johmak didn't smile.  "I go find him, I wake him up, I explain exactly what it is we're doing here.  I'm sure he'd even come help on the mission.  Then, assuming we all made it out alive, I'd have no choice but to turn him over to the Order for processing.  The end result of which is either a massive memory wipe for him - and for safety's sake, we would blast the past few days entirely, including that little reunion of yours - or he joins us and gets to go through what you're going through right now."  She brought one of her hands up and looked it over for dirt that wasn't there.  "How do you think he'd handle that? Think he could lie to his whole village again, or would it be easier for everyone just to vanish him?"

Semeka realized her mouth was hanging open, and she shut it with an effort.  "You out of your head, Johmak?"

She lowered her hand and looked Semeka dead-on.  "I'm reminding you that this is the life you chose, and these are the terms you have to live with.  In the morning, I'll be as sympathetic as you want.  But right now, you either drop the bullshit, or I go pinch your pressure point."

The Skakdi scowled back.  "Oh, this is a real pleasant partnership we've got going here, isn't it? All fun and games until something doesn't go your way, and then it's 'pressure points'.  You could try trusting that I know what's good."

"No, I can't."

"And why not?"

"Because the fact you're stonewalling me this hard means you don't trust me either."

The two stood there, glowering at each other.  Semeka weighed her options.  If Bohrei was here, she was her business, not the Order's.  Could she take Johmak down, handle things herself, make a break for it in the morning? Go rouse Jodhan and hightail it out of there?

"Semeka, please." 

Or -

She looked to Johmak again - really looked.  The Order member's face was a drawn line.  All business.

Too much business.

She saw it all, then - how Johmak was standing ramrod-straight, when ordinarily she let herself slouch just a hint; how one of her hands kept beginning to splinter before it reassembled; how, just for a second, her eyes darted down the street, towards the hill where the mayor's house was waiting in the night.

This was a shot in the dark, but she'd always had good aim.

"Same question to you, then."

"What?"

Semeka took a step forward.  "This mission.  What's so vital about it that you're playing paranoid all of a sudden?"

"Don't patronize me.  I'd do the same for any job."

She raised her head and smirked.  "No, you wouldn't."

"What makes you say that?"

"Because you haven't in the past.  This isn't the first time I've kept a few things close to my chest, and it sure as hell won't be the last.  Yet somehow it never wound up in a pretty little standoff like this before.  Now, why is that?"

Johmak's face remained impassive, but Semeka saw her hand shudder.  "Maybe I'm not as perceptive as you think."

Semeka laughed at that - threw her head back in a silent cackle, even.  "Oh, no, no, no.  You're not dumb, Johmak.  You've let things slide before because you don't care that much.  Your pal Jerbraz's proof of that.  So what is it about a little showdown with some mercs that's got you running scared?"

"I could ask the same of you."

"And we could go around in circles for hours.  So let me take a stab."  She grinned as wide as she could.  "You already know whatever dirty little secrets the mayor’s hiding."

A flinch, just for a quarter-instant.  Validation.  Johmak looked away.  "If I do?"

"Then it explains why you were so quick to take point, and it explains why you're so afraid I might muck something up.  Because I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that if you’re this freaked, it’s because the Order doesn’t know you know."  She softened her tone, made it smooth as silk.  "And that means we're at an impasse."

Johmak didn't look back at Semeka. 

"’Cause if you keep pushing me, then after this mission's over, I go tell Kychell you knew the answer to his questions all along.  And I just bet that if you're going to all the trouble to hide it, it's because you never plan to tell him.  Now, that might suggest-"

"Makuta Iren has been a very dear friend of mine for all my life.  She took me in and helped me when a storm wiped out my entire town in the blink of an eye and taught me everything from warfare to mental shielding.  When Teridax came for her, I helped hide her away, and then I volunteered to be stationed here so that I could watch out for her.  The Order does not know.  The Brotherhood of Makuta does not know.  But someone does.  And after I get her out of that house, I'm going to peel those mercs until they tell me who."

Semeka blinked again.  Johmak turned her head back slowly; when she did, Semeka could see the fury dancing below the surface of her eyes.

"That's my story, Semeka.  Now, care to tell yours?"

The Skakdi cleared her throat.  "That's - huh."  She shook her head.  "You didn't strike me as the kinda person with a secret lover."

Johmak didn't smile.  "That's funny.  You didn't strike me as the kind of person who'd ignore a show of trust."

"All right, all right."  Semeka put her hand behind her head and sighed.  "What is it about me that makes people spill out their personal secrets without me hardly askin'? Is it just a natural trait for bartenders?"

The glare continued.

"Okay.  Fine.  You win.  Look, you remember back when I got recruited and your Order folks did that fun little dive on all my memories? You remember my sister?"

Johmak seemed to relax slightly.  "...Damn.  Bohrei, wasn't it? Same name as one of the Gukko.  How'd I miss that?"

"Guess I'm lucky you had your own sordid past to worry about.  Would that we all had Makuta to teach us how to keep mind-readers in the dark."

The Order member pressed her hand to her chin in contemplation.  "Alright.  She was an Onu-Skakdi, correct? I'll keep an eye out tonight.  If she's here, I'll take her alive as best I can."

"Now hold up a minute."  Semeka took another step towards Johmak and bared her teeth a hint.  "First of all, I'm the one who deals with her if she's here, not you or Kychell or whatever brute squad he calls ‘backup’.  And second, 'as best I can' ain't good enough."

"If the only way for me to save a woman I've known all my life is to take the life of a Skakdi I've never met, I won't hesitate to make that choice, Semeka.  That's all."

"Then you better not let it get that far, Johmak.  Because you won't like what happens next if you do."

Johmak's mouth curled into a grim smile.  "Well, then.  I'm glad we've established what might lead us to plant a knife in each other's back before we got into the meat of things.  It's nice having that kind of clarity, wouldn't you agree?"

Semeka looked up for a moment.  The clouds were still streaming across the sky, with the moons peeking through only intermittently.  She returned the grin.  "It actually is, when you put it that way."

"Then let's move along, shall we?"

The two took off into the night.

  The mayor's home was a simple two-story structure with a thatched roof and a weather-worn stone exterior; other than the fact it rested on a small hill overlooking the rest of the village, there was little to set it apart from any other home in the town.  Semeka and Johmak approached it quietly.  A paltry gate lay across the path, but Johmak simply shattered herself and reassembled on the other side, while Semeka scaled the metal in a few breaths.

"So tell me," Semeka muttered, "there's not going to be any kind of devious Makuta traps waiting for us, is there? I'm not really lookin' forward to getting turned into an ice bat if I step on the wrong tile or anything."

Johmak shook her head. "No. Iren's not stupid. Anything too powerful would run the risk of attracting undue attention."

"I'd think that'd outweigh leaving yourself a sitting duck if trouble comes knocking."

Her partner chuckled under her breath. "Semeka, you must never have met a Makuta if you think they're defenseless just because they don't have an evil lair to guard them."

The two made their way up the path slowly. "So," Semeka said, "you still want to take point in the house?"

"Yes. I don't trust either of us to make it far in there without being detected, and Iren's less likely to burn my head to a crisp than she is yours." For a moment, Johmak looked pensive. "Well, probably."

"Not on the greatest terms?"

"Let's just say that Makuta make for high-maintenance girlfriends and leave it at that."

"I'll leave her to you, then." Semeka gingerly stepped over a thorny tangle of vine that had been left to grow out over the path. "But if I hear the earth start to shake, I'm getting out of here."

"I'll endeavor to avoid that." Johmak slipped past her and up the steps to the house's simple wooden door. She glanced back. "Keep an eye out. I'll be back as soon as I tell Iren what's coming, but I'd rather not get any surprises before then."

"Oh, sure, no problem." She drew one of her knives and looked it over. "I hear Skakdi make excellent guard dogs for Makuta.”

"I promise if Spiriah comes knocking, he's all yours. Until then, just keep watch." Johmak turned away and took a breath; in the next instant, she was smoke, filtering through the door.

Semeka shook her head and slowly began to make her way around the house, looking out over the town as she did. The moons had slipped out from behind the clouds again, and the streets were lit with an alabaster hum. Tysen wasn't a bad place, really, just quiet. Wouldn't have been her first choice, but she got the feeling that 'choice' wasn't a big priority in the Order's books. This Makuta must be pretty boring if this is her idea of a retirement spot.

It was a funny thought, really. The town was damn near idyllic, and it turned out to have a Makuta for a mayor. Then again, maybe those two facts weren't exactly disconnected - any real troublemakers had a tendency to vanish, even if she and Johmak never got an assignment. Was that who had hired the Gukko? Some crime boss getting pissy their agents couldn't case a podunk little town?

She continued the patrol, watching for any movement in the shadows below and listening for any signs of approaching footsteps. This really wasn't what she'd signed up for when she'd joined the Order. There'd been promises of action and glory and serving a greater purpose, but mostly she still spent her days tending bar - just with the understanding that she didn't have the freedom to go run off and do something else if she wanted. It rankled her, honestly. Kychell might have hit the nail on the head a bit more than she cared to admit when he'd guessed she was looking for something bigger to do with her life, but calling any of the work she'd done so far 'big' was a bit generous.

Hell, this is the closest to something interesting we've had in months, and Kychell doesn't even know it. That was fun to think about, at least; like all the other members of the Order, she'd been trained in mental shielding, which meant Kychell wouldn't know about Johmak's side play as long as nobody told him. It was probably for the best; the little control freak's head would explode if he knew there was a Makuta living in his patrol beat.

There was the crunch of a foot against a branch.

Semeka slid into the shadows, all thoughts of Kychell gone. She kept her knife close to her and the blade covered with one hand, so as not to risk catching any moonlight, and peered out into the distance. A single figure was making its way up towards the mayor's house. One of the Gukko? She squinted. It wasn't Bohrei, that was for sure - too thin, not enough spikes. Had to be a Toa. Polonious? Or-

The moons peeked out from the clouds once more, and she felt her stomach drop. You've got to be kidding me.

Jodhan seemed to be deep in thought as he climbed the hill, and she could just barely make out that he had a scrap of paper in his hands. A letter? She glanced up at the house. Any time you want to get that Makuta awake and ready, Johmak, be my guest.

She turned her attention back to the Toa. He stopped at the gate and looked around; she caught a flash of guilt on his face as he reached out and the lock undid itself. As he approached the house, she saw him starting to scan the area, and she pressed herself into the darkness of her hiding-spot as best she could. Jodhan didn't seem to see her; instead, he simply looked down at the parchment in his hand once more, his brow furrowed.

He looked up furtively, and then, in a whisper-shout, called out: "Kychell?"

Semeka blinked. What?

Jodhan looked to be at a loss himself. Semeka glanced around furtively - no sign of their favorite Matoran anywhere. What was he doing? Why had he called Jodhan up here?

  What was taking Johmak so long?

  It was a cliché among Skakdi to say your spines stood on end when you got a bad feeling, but as she charged out of cover and towards the door to the house, she would have put damn good money on all of them being directly perpendicular to the rest of her as she ran. And from the way Jodhan's eyes bugged out of their sockets as she went, she'd be able to say she had a witness to boot.

She was two steps from the door when the rest of the house exploded.

The force hit her like a cobble-brick road after a rooftop misstep, and then it just kept pushing. Flames pushed past her armor and into her skin, drinking deep of her flesh. She was vaguely aware of a roar escaping her mouth, an expression of pure Skakdi rage and instinct, but that was all she could manage.

The rest of her mind had to deal with the pain.

  When she managed to push it away for an instant, she saw a torso, a blurred sky, light and smoke.