#yay plot

“Is there any reason why I oughta not plug you full of holes, mister fish?” drawls the brownblood pressing the barrel of a shotgun to your thinkpan.

“I’m too pretty?” You offer up. Knees digging into your chin as your hands press into the old, grainy wood of the floor, you don’t think making reasoned arguments is going to help you here. Besides, what will you say? 

There is no penalty for killing a man the Empire already thinks is dead.

Their skimmers slid on a cushion of air, over rolling sands.  Brown, square, squat shapes appeared in the distance: a village with flags fluttering weakly across an open, unattended gate.  Desiccated body parts littered the sand-strewn stone pathway leading past the gate into a deserted market.

“The elder is said to remain here,” his companion said as she slid off her own skimmer.  Only her dark, wide-set eyes showed over a tightly wound headscarf. “Feed the beasts.  I go alone.”

He wiped down the skimmers and wetted their rubbery skin while she disappeared into the village’s tallest tower.  Hours passed, though that was no new thing.  Zevra’s negotiations with elders and the dead were delicate at best. He’d learned to not question it over the long years of their travel together.

And so her scream was a shock, as was the sight of her sprinting out of the tower with a wrapped bundle held under one arm.  She looked strangely lopsided, with red slicking her beige robes and plastering them to the armor beneath.  He sucked in a gasp as he realized her other arm was gone, torn raggedly away, with a sash tied around the truncated limb to keep her from a quick death.

He rushed forward to meet her and caught her just as her knees buckled and her eyes rolled back.  He threw her over one shoulder, grabbed the parcel, and ran back to the agitated, keening skimmers.  Ahead, the tower rumbled and shook on its foundations.  Stones tumbled, slowly at first, then in a clattering rush.

“Ai!  Ride!”  He slapped his skimmer’s left fin and the beast leapt forward with its mate close behind.  Zevra was a dead weight over his lap.  The parcel under his arm throbbed with a strange power all its own.  He felt no curiosity, not when Zevra’s lifeblood marked the sands and the tower behind them crumbled into dust.  An enraged, disembodied bellow rippled outward from the deserted village.  Sand spun around them, stinging and furious, but the skimmers were too quick, and he was too good a driver to let them panic.

Zevra groaned.  He set a hand on her back and said, “Hold on, sister.  Hold on. There’s more life in you yet.”

Jovan sat upright, gasping.  Sweat slicked his skin, and he looked around his small chamber wildly as if expecting to see the sands and the tower just beyond his reach.  “Fuck me blue,” he muttered.  Beside him, Alissa slept on.  He set a hand on her soft shoulder and let the warmth of her skin calm his panicked breathing.

Cat’s present, the heavy Elonian horn, decorated his desk.  Gods, no wonder he was having odd dreams, what with Cat brought back to his mind.  Moonlight shone in through the window and lent the horn a silvery opalescence.  Fuck me blue, he thought again before slipping out of bed to grab his pipe and a pouch of tobacco.  Might as well sit in the garden.  He wouldn’t sleep any more this night.

Chara: *sits down next to smol endy*

Sans: heh everything is okay

Chara: *looks on the side of endy's head* huh what the uh guys

Everyone: yeah

Chara: there is a scar on endy's head

Sans: *looks* oh my god their right

But why is it there

Endy: *sleep talks* n o s t o p d o n t h u r t m e

Chara: huh?

Endy: *wakes up* NO I DIDNT MEAN T O KIll YOu gah that nightmare again

Any additional thoughts were put on hold as Richard ran up to Justine's table. "You're up, Chef."

Knowing she was in the presence of guests, she bit back her witty retort and just said, "Sir?"

Richard motioned with his head back toward the front desk. "We had a family limp in here and they need something hearty." He grimaced slightly. "I know you don't have a lot to work with, but anything you can whip up would be welcome."

Justine looked past Richard and saw the family. They looked human-ish, though the proportions seemed a little off. The mom--or at least who Justine assumed was the mom--was at the desk filling out some paperwork while the dad and the oldest son were keeping two smaller children occupied. And while they didn't look particularly dirty, the parents especially looked completely exhausted.

"How did they get here?" Justine said, getting up and heading toward the kitchen.

Richard walked with her. "It happens every so often. Sometimes the walls between worlds are weak; other times people find a portal. No matter how, though, lost travelers have a tendency to find their way here."

"Really? Sounds like something out of a story."

"I’d say no possible good would come from that."