#mayday62022

Warnings: none Summary: Iranji picks up a new crew member. @mekandawn for encouraging my character to adopt a cat @raevenbehindthemuse for him assuming he has permission to bring a cat on board @daily-writing-challenge

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Iranji left the market, humming thoughtfully, long legs doing their best to keep from tripping over his persistent kitten companion. The little white cat mewed and scampered after him as he slipped into the Dalaran sewers, following a path he’d memorized ages ago. Walk, turn, walk, straight, and so on. The cat remained with him the entire time, as she had for the past week,  meowing occasionally and batting at the back of his foot. 

Soon, he arrived at the familiar turn-off, absently running his thumb along the small diamond carved into the tunnel wall, and stepped onto a room stacked with boxes. He checked the card table for crew, as well as the hammocks strung along the back wall behind a makeshift barrier of crates, and found that he was alone. Good. He preferred the quiet. He nudged open a crate by the card table, retrieved a dark glass bottle, and grabbed one of the chairs, turning it so the back was facing his front. He straddled it as he pulled the cork from the bottle with his teeth, then leaned his arms along the backrest and sighed.

“Hm.” He looked down at the cat, who immediately hopped onto the chair behind him. He reached back with his free hand and picked her up, setting her on the table, completely ignoring someone’s now-ruined game of solitaire. “What to do with you, cub?”

She rolled onto her back and started grooming one of her paws, wiggling back and forth like only the young and uncoordinated could. Iranji had a thoughtful sip from his bottle and hummed a few more notes as he pondered what the tarot reader had said. He’d been a bit distracted, because it had been wonderfully easy to make them blush, but as far as he’d gathered, the gist of it was that it was a good thing the cat was following him.

He sneezed into his elbow and tried to keep himself from rubbing his watering eyes so soon after touching the kitten. Why in the world would he have been sent a cat of all things? The Loa had senses of humor. He reached into his pocket and thumbed free the contact information for the alchemist who could make potions to control his allergies, and looked down at the cat again. She gazed up at him with bright blue eyes and began to purr. He tentatively stretched a hand out, and she immediately flopped against it, closing her eyes and purring harder.

“Gotta admit, you’re cute.” He chuckled and petted her with his thumb, stifling another sneeze as he did. 

“Cap’n wouldn’t mind,” he decided, voice low and slow. “Great for rats. Quz might give you problems, but could manage that fine. Scared of me.” The little imp’s mouth was big, but his desire to remain whole was bigger.

He made a thoughtful noise. “Grog’ll hate you. But he’s small.” And also adaptable; his monkey hated everyone at first, but was too simple to keep it up for long.

The kitten blinked up at him, still seeming very sleepy, and he made his voice stern. “No going after my birds when you’re big. They came first.” And, honestly, they’d probably kill her.

As the kitten curled into a full ball, he kept his hand out for her, quietly making a plan. Tell Razz he’s got a new pet. Get a good stock of potions and pet supplies. Hope that tarot reader took his card for the suggestion that it was and reached out. They seemed to like cats. Strange stalker-kitten updates could be a great conversation starter.

Well. He needed to catch a portal or two, then, because he could feel his eyes getting red and itchy. Iranji rose, but realized as he did that the kitten was bonelessly heavy against his hand. He scooped her up carefully and held her to his chest as he left the Trading Co hideout and walked for the portal to Orgrimmar. “Don’t scratch, little girl,” he warned. She barely responded.

As he walked, humming quietly again, he started trying to think of names for his new charge. He could hear the crew in his head now: “Another pet, Iranji?”

Word Count: 800 Warnings: Syya is a bitch. Summary: Syya works for Rethea. She was the one who so helpfully stole her portion of the Emberlight fortune back. Now, she’s, hm… holding down the fort while the boss is MIA?

@daily-writing-challenge

To see Syya's debut, go here.

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The innkeeper was staring up at Syya, sweating faintly. “I-I really shouldn’t–”

Syya cut him off, smiling broadly. “The boss just wants me to get some contracts so we can keep the business running while she’s on vacation.”

“She didn’t say anything about a–”

“But she’s paid for the room six months at a time, yes? She’s clearly going to be back. It makes sense that she wants one of us to help out while she’s on her break, yes?”

Syya’s empty, uncovered fel-green eyes bore down on the innkeeper, and he took a step back to the key rack, retrieving one and offering it out. “If it turns out that she doesn’t actually want to–”

She cut him off again as she reached for the key, gravelly voice amused. “You’ll what?”

She turned away from the bar and stomped up the steps without waiting for an answer. She knew what it would be anyway. Time to see what bosslady was up to in her spare time.

The key turned reluctantly in the lock, showcasing that the door hadn’t been used in weeks. When the door creaked open, she sniffed, and could smell her boss’s perfume faintly in the room. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then focused on a chair at the small table in the corner. It was covered in lingerie.

Syya snorted. So was that what she wore under her robes? 

First things first. She did a cursory search for the chest she’d brought her employer a few months back, and was mildly disappointed to see that it was nowhere in sight. Smart of her, to bank it, but not ideal for Syya. It was always good to have more money.

She looked around the room for a moment, then did a lap, floorboards creaking under her boots as she moved through the space. She kicked them off and did a half-flop onto the bed, landing on her back with a loud sigh and stretching out. Her bed felt so much better than Syya’s own– how much was she paying a week?

Her attention turned to the side table, where a leatherbound journal sat, pages very ruffled. She reached for it immediately, chuckling quietly in the silence of the room. “What do you have to say, huh Rethreth?” The nickname sounded rude coming from her voice.

Most of the book was full of boring experiments and notes on results, but there were a few pages that caught her interest. “Can’t control your hair, huh? And you present such a cool exterior.” She grinned at the pages as she kept flipping, then tossed it aside completely when it became more journal and began lamenting that the group’s officers had gone missing. 

That’s why she was here, after all. Syya took one more long, deep breath, splatting out on the bed, before rising and moving to the table in the corner, where she’d seen her boss at work so many times.

Sure enough, there were stacks of potential contracts. She flipped through them, rolling her eyes at the ones Rethea had rejected, and then set about pulling out ones that seemed promising. The rest of them still had to work, after all. When the bosses were away, the underlings would play. Hopefully these were still valid; last week, she hadn’t been certain enough that Rethea was gone to risk doing this.

Briefly, she flashed back to the time she’d tried to extort Rethea for more money after a job, and the cool and calm way the woman had threatened her life. This was a calculated risk, but she had money on the power vacuum not sorting itself out. Either the group was going to implode, or new people were going to step up.

Good things came to those who waited.

Contracts sorted, she turned to the lingerie on the opposite chair, digging through it idly. Fuck, she’d had the worst sense of color. She found a black thong and corset that smelled like perfume and shimmied out of what armor she had on. She tried them on, but quickly found that Rethea’d had a much more generous backside than she did. Conversely, when she worked her way into the top, she found her ribs and shoulders too broad for the corset to fit properly.

“We’re being led by a pear,” she laughed into the mirror, doing a twirl for the drama of it.

Well. She had what she’d come for: the contracts. Syya put her clothes back on, tossing the clothes she’d tested into a corner, and gathered the papers up again. Time to go. 

She had envied them all through her school years. The ease of their lives smoothed with gold and power. She had not had it easy in Silvermoon. Outsider. Accented. Wild. She had not fit with the Good Girls or Bright Boys. She had the uniform and the enrollment. But not the depth. Her nobility was skin deep. Flat and static like a shrubbery stand-up used in the school play. She felt like a prop, most days. Her aunt tried to push her into a variety of molds, seeing if she might work. Her aunt wanted her to dance. It was the only thing they agreed on, though the decision wasn’t made together. Ballet and ballroom were pushed, but no one ever told her to stop doing the others. What she had never realized was the envy aimed at her. Free to fail. Free to laugh and tease. Ditching classes and racing away from rules. They had smoldered with their sharp envy, and used it to needle her with unhappy unkindness. Everyone but Bellani was an enemy, in those days.