18: Well, shit.

Lili's dreams are fitful and hardly chaste at all. Hardly chaste from the seductive wiles that come from rebellion, that is. She is whole and all-encompassing, and yet she is no bigger than a speck—if someone were to take a duster and a dustpan, they could sweep her off the universe with one quick scour. It was unbelievable how easily the taste of rebellion could rip you from the world and displace you onto a new layer of existence. She's never felt this great. She feels like she could eat the world, whole and uncooked, like a bite-sized canape on a clean, hot plate.

Something blares over the intercom. Lili knows that it's the intercom even in her sleep, because the voice is heavily distorted and sounds like shit. As expected of a commercial junker, she supposes.

She rolls over. Avett is covering his ears with his hands and groaning.

And then she really, really starts to tune in on what the guy over the intercom is saying.

"This is the IRC convoy, requesting that you land now before we are required to use lethal force. Once again, requesting Commercial Liner, license plate 09MK of the Hive sector to land. This is the IRC…"

Well, shit.

17.5:

On the occasion that Ava let Lili out of the shed, she would teach her the way of death. Not of how to kill dragons, should the need for it arise (it never did), but in the way of slaughtering her best friend. That was what she meant.

“When you want to behead someone,” she starts, and she takes the axe she’d pilfered from a nearby Bunnings when she says this, “you want to be quick about it. No second thoughts.”

Lili is nineteen. She’s never had to think about the possibility of killing her best friend, nor does she have the means to do so—Lili has never managed to use ether as Ava does. She hopes that she’ll never have to put any of today’s lessons to practice, but she knows that this is fruitless to think about. Ava had to kill someone out there just the other day; she puts people out of their misery all of the time, and now it’s time for Lili to learn the same.

Ava demonstrates her technique by swinging her axe into a wall. She’d chosen a neighbourhood close to them, one where the houses were old, weatherboarded and likely infested by roaches. The street runs adjacent to an overgrown soccer field, and over that field sits their makeshift home: a shed that struggles to stand even during the windless summers. Lili is never far from home; Ava makes sure of it.

She watches the wood splinter under her axe. The white paint comes off in flakes and sticks to Ava’s blade. Then she hands the axe by the handle over to Lili. “Your turn. Show that house who’s boss.”

When Lili does take up her blade, she drops the head of the axe into the grass and in between her feet. It digs into the dirt by the edge, which causes Lili to jump back a bit. Ava makes it look so easy.

She grits her teeth and hoists it back up—her core and biceps strain in protest. If she can’t even lift a weapon as small as this, then how is she going to defend herself when it matters? She should stick to kitchen knives and keychain-multitools, but she knows that only axes can kill a person with the precision and speed that she needs.

Ava speaks up again. “The world isn’t made for weak women. It’s a man’s world out there, and to be strong you can’t be a woman. So be a man.” She’s spent most of her free time reading feminist literature as of recent, and this is what she’s gotten out of it, that she’s been handed the short end of the stick by being born a woman.

“What does that have to do with killing someone?”

“Just be strong. Think like a man. Be angry.”

Lili hasn’t seen a single man in a year. The last one she’d seen, she’d seen from afar, and he was ambling around in such a way that made Ava place a finger to her lips before approaching him. She’d re-emerged with blood on her sleeves, and she’d told Lili that he’d lunged for her like a snake at a bird’s nest. Lili remembers that evening well—Ava’s fingers had still glittered with ether as they made the trek back to the safehouse. She later confessed that there was something strange about him, that his eyes had glowed like uranium in the dark, and that she was scared and wasn’t sure of whether or not she’d made the right choice in the end. This was one of the only times Ava was really vulnerable around Lili. She hasn’t been vulnerable since.

So in short, she has no idea of how to ‘think like a man.’ The midday sun makes everything all the more worse, and the outfit Ava picked out for her—a long sleeved undershirt and a loose knit cardigan—isn’t helping at all. She feels like she could drop the axe into the earth again. It can’t be like that. It has to weigh less.

Lili teeters back. Her legs wobble, her arms shiver—and then she swings the head of the axe into the house. She leaves a scratch and exposes the wood from the paint, but not much else.

“Again,” Ava says.

Her arms will be sore by morning, Lili thinks. She swings it again anyway. Then she swings it again. Again. Her arms need to be sore, they need to be non-functional tomorrow because that’s how it all works, because pain is the only way she’s come to know growth.

By the sixth swing, she slices cleanly through some sort of pillar that was resting inside the walls, and the house teeters on its foundations. Lili doesn’t quite remember what happens next, but Ava has her by the shoulders and by the axe—in fact, she’s holding the head with her bare hands, closing her fingers around it and catching her skin in the edge of the blade. “Lili, look what you’ve made me do,” she's saying, and Lili isn’t quite sure of what she’s done nor the scale of disaster that she’s inflicted upon this poor house, but she what she does know is that she’s smashed right through the wall and that there’s blood—Ava’s blood—on this person’s abandoned lawn.

The house doesn’t fall.

Lili looks back at Ava, hoping that for once in her life she’s done something right. But then Ava lets go of Lili’s axe, and she winces as the metal leaves her hand. “Nice work, Lili,” she says. “You could’ve killed us today. You’re useless and a fucking hack. I’m going home.”

Lili doesn’t bother staying. She patters behind her friend, making sure to step lightly as to not disturb her. When she stops to wipe the side of the blade against the grass, she notices that the axe is as light as a feather.

And Ava’s fingers, though they remain by her sides, are glittering with ether.

17: the turnover

Neither Ysh'vanna nor Avett attempt to speak with Lili after Alexei's departure. Not sincerely, anyway. Ysh'vanna hides her emotions behind a mask as she consoles the rest of the team about how she'll negotiate matters with the officials back on Therius, and that it's not Lili's fault in the slightest. It’s obvious that the former won’t work out.

Avett is a little more 'mask off.' He avoids Lili's gaze often, though the moment she takes her eyes off of him she can feel his smouldering stare on her back like a brand. The third repeat of this has him whispering to himself, "come on Avett, get mad at something else." Lili pretends not to hear. He excuses himself out of the ship at three.

It's around five in the evening when Auren invites Lili out into the hangar. He's got a bottle of green-glass wine in his hand; the label depicts a golden icon that swirls and curls into itself a thousand times over.

She says the obvious. “I thought you didn’t like drinking.”

Sitting on the asphalt with their backs against the hull of the Winnow, it’s hard for Auren to look taller than her in the moment. He gives up midway and slides the bottle over to Lili.

“You would be correct.”

She accepts it anyway. When she examines the bottle more closely, she sees the name of the wine that he bought her: Classic Gallian blue wine—blue? She tilts the bottle towards the overhead lights, and finds that the supposedly ‘blue’ liquid inside is black against the tint of the glass.

“A major export from Gallia’s Eldrakian regions,” Auren clarifies.

“You guys have blue grapes?”

He nods. “A slight discrepancy between realms, though the ‘discrepancy’ is more akin to an endemic plant. Not quite endemic anymore, however—Eldrakian grape plantations are commonplace on Therius in the present day. ”

Curious to see whether or not the wine is a true blue or a deep shade of purple, Lili twists the bottle cap off, tearing away the seal. She pours the wine out into the cap after, and sure enough, it’s blue—a dye-thick, sky-deep, midnight blue. It’s clear enough for her to see the bottom of the cap, and when she swirls it between her fingers she can see several dusty tannins suspended in the liquid.

She casts a look towards Auren. “Would you mind?"

He shakes his head. “Extraordinary circumstances require extraordinary mindsets.”

Down the hatch then. She regrets it immediately after her first sip. Not only does it sting going down, but it’s also offensively sweet to the point where she’d prefer downing an entire cup of honey.

“Your expression speaks volumes,” says Auren.

Lili tries her best to smooth her features to no avail. “Was I supposed to mix this with something?”

“Traditionally, no. However, the mass commercialisation of such an exotic product resulted in the degradation of its taste over time.” He looks at the label wistfully. “Therian wineries are Draconian owned, and often share a facility with other wine types—there is not a single Eldrakian on Therius who would care to work in such an industry. And Eldrak… cares very little for the matters of inter-realm trade. In this day and age, you would drink your Gallian wines with tea and milk.”

“You said you didn’t drink.”

“I am a first generation immigrant from Gallia. It would be a crime for me to not know my realm’s history.”

She tips the wine back into the bottle and screws the lid back on. In the distance, the hangar gates rattle open slowly, revealing a stained sky and a stretch of cotton-candy clouds. A ship taxis out from the corner and onto the runway; Lili watches it take off with nary an effort. It leaves behind a blue trail of flame as it sails into the sky, further and further, until she can no longer see where it is. At some point in time, the gate shutters down again, hard and fast enough to shatter eardrums.

The hangar deck is now completely empty, save for the Winnow.

“Was that the C ranked crew Ysh’vanna mentioned?” asks Lili.

“Yes.”

“Overnight mission?”

“They are to act as bodyguards to the environmental workers that were displaced during our prior mission.”

She toys with the dirt in her nails.

“Will we be ok?” she asks.

“We—” Auren stops himself. It’s the first time Lili’s really seen him this disgruntled.

“No?”

He coughs. “There are plenty of residential districts for Humans on Therius. The housing is free, and they will give you various job opportunities should the need for extra money arise. You will be catered for in Therius as a refugee."

"What about you?"

"I anticipate a fine and a mark on our records should Ysh'vanna fail to convince them of our innocence." Auren picks himself up from the ground. When he does, Lili can't help but notice how stilted his movements are. "I must prepare for dinner. You should not worry about me."

"Should I help?" she asks.

"Your efforts would be better spent on finding our arms specialist," he says as he heads up the stairs. "You two have gotten notably closer within the past two missions. Spend your time with him wisely."

When the doors to the Winnow slide open, Lili can hear Ysh'vanna's aggravated shouts as she negotiates her crew's circumstances with the official on the other side of the line. These shouts become muffled again once the doors reshut.

Lili really doesn't want to be a refugee on Therius. She can't imagine herself in such a place, can't foresee a future in which she's expected to sit down and live out the rest of her years in gratitory peace. If she can fight, then she should be fighting. She doesn't know what she'll do to herself if she ends up sitting in a shoddy—by Therian standards—communal prefab, where she'll be doing nothing but living. She doesn't know if it'll be easier or harder. If she'll enjoy her days of peace at all.

She doesn't get up. Instead, she pulls her knees to her chest and buries her head in her hands. She stays like that for god knows how long.

Lili supposes that she could use a drink. But one look at the bottle in her hand is enough to drag up all sorts of unpleasant memories. There might be a bar down in the Hive if she's really desperate.

"I am really desperate," she says to herself. Besides, Avett is probably there, and Auren's asked very nicely for her to go down and drag him back to the ship in time for dinner.

She leaves the bottle at the bottom of the staircase and makes for the Hive.

—

Lili finds Avett at the first bar she visits, probably because it's the only bar available. 'Finds' is a bit of a stretch—she'd asked for an Avett Ironsturm at the counter, and the bartender had given her a weird look and pointed to the stairs. Those stairs had led up to the inn rooms.

Lili knows better than to poke her nose where it doesn't belong, so she orders a fizzy drink and sips it in the corner. In the time between making the decision to come to the bar to actually arriving, she's completely swapped sides on the matter of whether or not she should be drinking tonight. If she can't get drunk, she might as well drink something she'll like the taste of.

What is she doing here, if not to drag Avett kicking and screaming back to the Winnow?

It could have been hours, maybe even days, in that little sulk corner of hers, but when Avett makes his merry way downstairs Lili feels as if she might snap inwardly. She's expecting a signature upper-lip-upturned scowl, or a rightfully deserved lashing. So it comes to her as a shock when he slaps both of his hands onto her shoulders and says, with a bounce in his voice, “We’re gonna run away.”

Lili takes a moment to respond. “Auren said dinner is ready soon.”

“Who cares what Auren thinks?” His face is flushed, though not from embarrassment. He’s clearly toed the line between buzzed and smashed a little too enthusiastically. “We’re running away. They can’t catch us if they don’t know where we are.”

He pulls away from Lili, sending her teetering on her feet. He continues, “It’d be so easy. We grab a commercial junker, I dismantle the tracker, then we fly out to New Therius or the Afflatus or somewhere shady. You could cook for us, you’ve already got years of experience with living off the grid—”

Lili follows him as he spirals out of the bar. He’s clearly riding off some sort of high, or some kind of short-lived clarity. “The authorities will come for us tomorrow,” she says.

Avett stops in front of a sign. The Hive doesn’t have the same day and night functions as the Afflatus; even though it’s seven in the evening the flood lights stay on, and the starkness of the ivory-bright corridors remain. Everything here is so corporately white. Maybe this is what’s driving him mad.

He proves her right when he says, “Then we’re going now.”

“No—no.” Try as she might, Lili can’t think of a proper reason in the moment as to why this might all be a terrible idea. “We’re having dinner now.”

Avett doesn’t care. He starts off in a random direction with a decisive stride, leaving Lili with no other decision but to keep up. No matter what she brings up—“We can’t just leave Ysh’vanna and Auren behind, we’re gonna be in so much worse trouble if we go through with this, they’re going to find out, how are we going to rent a ship without using our IDs?”—he doesn’t stop walking, doesn’t stop until he’s standing in front of a storefront that’s started to pack up and roll down their shutters for the night.

The renter is a Draconian man of short stature, and when he sees Lili he looks like he might just faint on the spot. He has to put down his sign to stop Avett from storming right through the doors.

“We’re closed, sir,” he says. “You can’t be here—”

This actually does stop Avett in his tracks. Lili is silently pleading with the boy to straighten his back and call somebody, anybody to escort Avett out of this mess, but for all she knows her glances are being taken by him as a threat. Which can’t possibly be helping at all.

“It’s an emergency, kid.” Avett lies easily to this stranger, but Lili can tell there’s panic in the way his voice has hitched. “Urgent business. Our ship broke down, and we need something to rent quick. So if you’ll excuse us.”

Avett steps past him easily. Doesn’t bother with payment either, because it’s an ‘emergency.’ At this point, Lili has given up convincing her partner otherwise. She hopes that this is all a phase, that it’ll pass once he’s gotten the ship above the clouds, and he’ll be heading back to the Hive when he’s done with himself.

She apologises to the boy as she stumbles past. He nods vaguely, as if dreaming.

Avett leaps over the counter and swipes a random cardkey off the rack. He throws it over to Lili, who juggles with it in her hands before she manages to get a hold of it. “Third ship from the left. Get to it, princess. I'm opening up the hangar."

She slaps the card against the lock panel of the corresponding ship. When Lili looks back at the entrance, she finds that the boy has already left. He’ll be contacting someone soon by the looks of it.

They’ve really dug themselves into a hole this time.

In no time flat, they’ve gone into the ship and locked the doors for good measure. Avett stands at the controls, his hands balled into fists as he looks through the navigation panels.

 "You know how to pilot, right?" asks Lili.

He grits his teeth and swipes at the panels. Lili hears a sputter from the engine room when he does, and from there she feels her stomach drop as the ship lifts from the ground.

"Of course." He keeps his eyes on the view outside his windshield. Save for a few runway lights, it's completely dark outside. Lili hopes that Avett's eyesight is enough to make up for it.

She looks at his hands. They're quivering in the air. "You’re sure?"

"It's a commercial junker. They're meant to be accessible." He releases a breath to blow his bangs out of his eyes. "Even a kid could pilot one if they wanted to."

Lili isn't satisfied with his answer. He's still trembling like a twig, and his hands aren't moving anymore. This isn't normal, and it's not like he doesn't know how to operate the navigation panel, because he'd swiped through them just fine earlier. There's something blocking him from doing anything more than turning on the engines. A mental blockade.

The boy could be back with someone any moment now. If they're planning on going ahead with their joyride they need to leave very soon. Lili can't figure out why Avett's decided to lock up now of all times; she can hear his breathing, can feel the way his chest is heaving from all of the extra panicking he's put himself through. He can't pilot jack shit. He's lied straight to Lili's face.

"Avett," she begins. "If you can't—"

"I can, ok?" His voice breaks on the last syllable, and he stops himself by slapping a hand over his mouth. He spends a few seconds like this as he tries to steady his breathing. It doesn't work.

Lili doesn't know what to do. "If you can't, it's ok."

"I can fucking pilot. I can." He braces himself against the counter. Lili can tell from his voice alone that he's started to cry. "What kind of mechanic doesn't know how to drive a commercial? I piloted a mercenary ship full of dead fucking bodies all the way back to headquarters. I know how to fucking pilot."

She freezes in place. Avett draws in a breath and sniffs.

"You have trauma," Lili says slowly.

"No, I don't."

"You do."

Avett doesn't respond to that. Maybe she can get through to him if she tries.

She takes a step towards him. "You need to breathe. Step away from the controls—"

He whirls on her, his features as fierce as a cornered animal.  "No. I. Don't. I don't have jack shit. Look at me; I'm fine. I'm not traumatized, because if I was I wouldn't be working, I would be fucking bedridden, or in a ward, or literally anywhere else but here. I'm not, I’m here, I’m an arms specialist and I’m working. So I'm fine."

She's heard those words before. He is not fine.

"Then go on." She rescinds that step forward and folds her arms. "Go ahead, I guess. Pilot your ship."

Unsurprisingly, this is exactly what he does. He turns back to the counter, and though Lili can’t see his expression she knows that there’s all sorts of shit swirling in those eyes of his. His hands hover over the panel. They hang there for a bit longer. Until he balls them into fists again. Until he slumps forward against the counter, seemingly never to stand again.

Then he screams. It’s a terrible, terrible sound—one that leaves even the ship shivering in its wake. “Fuck. Fuck! Why?”

Lili stays where she is. Maybe she shouldn’t have egged him on. He’s on the floor now, and the only thing keeping his body upright is the fact that he’s refusing to let go of the control panel. And for the first time in a while, Lili is all too aware of just how old Avett really is.

“I just want to go,” he sobs. “We can’t be here. I’ve spent my entire life working just to get here. I even came back from therapy for this, and no merc comes back from therapy, not how I did. I’m not letting some fucking backwater Human, or some red tape bullshit, or—or this—ruin my future.”

When Lili tries to move closer, Avett fixes her with an ice-cold glare. “You know things would be better if you’d just stayed in that shitty shed of yours.”

“I know.” She storms forward anyway. There’s a rattling near the entrance; no doubt it’s the boy and his authoritative figure. Lili needs to make her move now. Even if Avett is going to hate her for it.

Without hesitation, she grabs Avett by the arms.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he screeches.

“Pulling you out of the way.”

With her ether roiling and rioting against her muscles, there’s not a lot Avett can do against her except struggle in vain. He’s strong, yes—but he’s not ethereally enhanced, brutishly strong. He’s not ‘punch-through-a-ward-with-nothing-but-his-rage’ strong.

When she finally puts him up against the wall, it dawns on him regarding what she’s about to do. “I’m getting a real sense of deja vu from this situation, Lilith.”

“Tell me how to pilot the ship.”

Avett scrunches up his face.

Stubborn asshole. "Do you want to get out of here or not?"

He grits his teeth. "...Set the thrusters to manual and put it on 50%."

Lili looks down at the panels. This is all white noise to her. Which one dictates the thrust? Why would she want to tamper with the thrust power in the first place? Is there a reason why she needs to give the ship such a complicated command if it's 'just a 'commercial junker'? Shouldn't it all be streamlined already?

"The blue button on the bottom to your left, princess."

Oh, bottom left. Of course. But when she looks down in that general direction, there's a cluster of tiny boxes and numbers blinking back at her in response.

"There's a million buttons here, Avett."

"Yeah, but one of them says 'thruster' on it. You press that one, princess."

"None of these say 'thruster' on them."

"There should be. Look harder."

"You've never had to work in retail, and it shows."

"Fuck you. Look harder."

She can't physically fucking look any harder, because if she could she'd have vertically slitted eyes and a pair of swivelling cat ears. There is no thruster button. It just isn't there.

Lili moves the goalposts. In a stroke of genius, she actually manages to flick the ship back into basic mode. The panels flicker out of existence before they return as one big rectangle in the centre of the counter. There are little icons for every option; granted, she's not quite sure what the icon with the man kneeling is supposed to represent, but she knows she can at least make use of this. At least, she hopes. Where's the button that’ll make this ship fly?

Avett grumbles in the corner. "Top right. Press it, slide it forward, and you'll send us flying out of here."

"Is that a good thing?"

Her partner lifts his head just high enough to see out of the windshield. "It's a good thing if you want to knock that sanctuary enforcer right onto his ass."

Enforcer? She peers outside. There’s a Palerian man in a smartly ironed uniform, and he’s yelling all sorts of nice things at the cockpit. At least, that’s what Lili thinks he’s doing. The thick glass ensures that Lili can’t hear a single thing from him.

“He’s not going to shoot at us, right?”

He doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, he pulls her down below the window. “Don’t let him see you,” he hisses.

Lili sucks in a breath through her teeth before slamming her fist into the topmost button. A slider appears; she lets it rise all the way to the right.

They’re still not moving.

She waits a bit before trying again. A bit too long. Something foul takes over her head, and she stumbles back from the counter. It’s like there’s a hand reaching inside of her skull, like someone’s taken their fingers and stuck them between her brain folds and wriggled them right through. They’ve started scratching around now—how can she feel all of this? Oh, god.

All of a sudden, it’s Avett standing next to her. He’s rolling down the windows and pointing his blaster outside. Lili can’t tell if he actually fires it, but what she does know is that the pain is gone, and that she has Avett to thank for that.

He flashes a glance at the counter before turning away again. “Auto pilot, top left. The ship’s still in manual mode, so your gear’s stuck on neutral.”

She presses that, and at last does the ship begin to teeter forward. 

They’re leaving.

They’re finally leaving.

Now it’s Lili’s turn to slump down against the counter. There’s a stupid, giddy little grin on her face as she watches the view change from machines and metals to night skies and milky ways. She releases a breath. The stars could kiss her silly, and she wouldn’t even give a damn. She’s always belittled Icarus for flying too close to the sun, but now she can see the specifics of why he’d done such a thing in the first place.

They’re free.

Avett sits down beside her. He’s close enough for her to feel his heat against her shoulders, but far enough for him to send a message. That’s ok. He can take as long as he wants, Lili thinks.

Then he shoots right back up again. “The tracker. I gotta take it out.”

Lili peers over as he rummages through his toolbelt and pulls out what appears to be a curved piece of metal. He sticks it between a gap in the counter and pries the surface off; the navigation panel automatically dulls to a soft grey.

More white noise for Lili to get confused over—or black noise, for that matter. The inside of the counter is a tidy arrangement of black wires and black boxes that mean nothing to Lili, but everything to Avett.

“Wow,” he mumbles. “Just my luck.”

“What’s wrong?”

He reaches into the counter and closes his hands around one particular box. “They’ve really upped their game since I last looked at one of these. They’ve started sticking the sonar trackers into the actual navigators, meaning if we don’t want them to catch us—”

With a grunt, Avett yanks the box clean off the wires. Sparks fly haphazardly from where he’s exposed the copper; he slams down the lid and hammers it back into place with his fist. “—We’ll have to pretty much navigate to New Therius in the dark. Shouldn't be too hard; the autopilot already had us in the right direction. I’m chucking this out the trash chute.”

When he comes back to navigation—thankfully—empty handed, he plops back down next to Lili. Same position, same distance… different demeanor.

“Why the fuck did you let me do this, Lili?” he asks.

She shrugs. “I thought it was a phase. That it’d blow over.”

Being ten kilometres above ground and having shot several warning shots at an enforcer, Lili guesses that it’s safe to say none of this will be ‘blowing over’ anytime soon. She slumps further into the ground. How she wishes that the floor would just swallow her up and spit her out into freefall.

Her next words quite literally tumble out of her. “And maybe I wanted to run away too.”

Avett breathes out hard enough to make his bangs flutter again. He’s not exasperated—instead, he’s smiling and biting back what seems to be a laugh. “Why is it that sometimes you feel every bit your age, and other times you feel… I don’t know. Fourteen?”

“What does that make you?” She gives him a lopsided grin. “Thirteen? Twelve?”

He rolls his eyes. “There’s no way you’re older than me.”

“I uh. I am.”

A snort. “Fucking get out. You’re twenty-one?”

“By four years, actually.” She holds up four fingers; Avett counts them with his eyes. “I turn twenty-four this year.”

He coughs and inches away, his ears drooping. “Now you really don’t have an excuse.”

Whatever. Lili goes back to staring at the wall in silence. They sit like that for a bit. The ground hums with energy at her shoes.

Lili is all too eager to rid the ship of that awkward void. "Do they have beds here?"

"Sleeping amenities should be on the right down that corridor. Pretty much the same layout we've got—just missing an armoury."

"Right. Right."

Thankfully, when Lili peeks into the sleeping quarters she's greeted with the delightful presence of two single beds. She flops onto the mattress, pulls out the sheets, and finds that they stick to her bare legs like cling film—these covers have not been washed in a while. At least there won't be any of that bed sharing nonsense, though when Avett steps into the room the first thing he does is—

Lili narrows her eyes. What the fuck is he doing?

He pulls his bed away from the wall, vaults over, then pushes it across so that one side presses up flush against Lili's bed.

"Wait." Lili tries to get up and stop him, but by the time she's sitting up Avett is already lying next to her with a grin that even a court jester would be jealous of. He's effectively caged her in like this.

"What's the matter? We're just two friends sharing a bed." He raises an eyebrow. "Nothing wrong with a little platonic bed sharing."

"Friends."

"Nothing more, nothing less," he says. This is coming from the guy who has no qualms about having casual sex above a bar. Who's had casual sex above a bar, for that matter, while drunk and irrationally upset. It doesn't help one bit when Avett adds, with a bit of a guttural roll to his voice, "Unless?"

Lili flips herself over and presses her face into the wall.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Look, I'll pull them apart again."

The bed frame rattles against the floor. Lili looks over her shoulder, and, lo and behold, Avett is now lying a good metre or two away from her. He's not totally against the wall, but it seems like he needs the company tonight. She supposes that she'll allow it.

"After we're done at New Therius, is there anywhere else you’d like to go?”

Lili thinks on this for a second. “The Human village.”

Avett’s silence speaks volumes.

She continues, “They’re almost defenseless out there. I want to give them any edge against the dragons that I can.”

“You’re forgetting that they’ve got an entire warehouse of firearms at their disposal.”

“Still.” She curls into her covers. They’re too thin to provide any sort of meaningful protection from the cold, and they’re certainly far too thin to protect her from Avett’s overpowering presence. “I don’t want to leave them there. Not alone. Not like that.”

For a moment, all Lili hears is the shuffle of sheets against sheets. Then the lights flick off, and she’s left to stare at the wall in complete darkness.

“Problem with that plan is they’ll know we’ll be there too.”

“There’s no way we’re that important to them, right?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” Avett crawls back into his bed. Lili can feel his gaze boring into her from behind. “The world cares a whole lot more about money than you’d think.”

Lili chooses not to respond. It seems that, as usual, she’s unaware of the scope of the crime that they’ve committed. That, and Avett had taken a few shots at an enforcer earlier—the world definitely did care about things other than money. Avett just doesn’t want to admit to his blunder, and Lili doesn’t blame him for that at all. Admitting to anything would start him down on a long line of dominos, would send him spiralling down regret after regret. He would be forced to watch his carefully constructed world crumble around him, and he would be helpless to it all.

Though Lili wants badly to talk to him about the events that had occurred in the cockpit, she thinks against it. That same helplessness rests in the eye of the beholder, and they’re one misaligned conversation away from total collapse.

Lili speaks to the wall instead. “Goodnight, Avett Ironsturm.”

And of course, he’s already asleep.

16: the blunder

 Alexei doesn't ask for tea, but Auren serves him a special Gallian blend anyway. This is served with a plate of synthetic milk biscuits that Lili knows that Alexei knows are dry as hell. Alexei accepts them and puts one in his mouth without hesitation, because as he's already established during their first meeting he's either extremely polite, or a psychopath.

Lili doesn't mind which one he is. She knows, however, that Avett—who is currently bouncing his shoulder against the wall as he sulks in his corner—does mind. And she's sure that Avett has already made up his mind regarding which one Alexei is.

The way Alexei puts his teacup back onto the table brings Lili back to his attention quickly. He'd done it with enough force to rattle the plate, but not enough to spill his drink.

“I’m rather impressed with your aptitude for ethereal manipulation, Lili," he says.

A flush spreads across her cheeks. "Th-thank you."

Avett groans loudly, but makes no further comment. Alexei continues his gushing unabated: "Hard to believe you're self taught. Most Humans fail to display an aptitude for ether. You're a breath of fresh air."

Good for a Human, but pathetically useless when it comes to the times that had mattered. She shrugs off his compliment this time. What good is being good if none of it applies well on the field? Or when you've lost nearly all capability for it? she adds as an afterthought.

It's here that Auren chooses to butt in. "She has trained under my tutelage for a period of time."

This elicits a chuckle from Alexei. "Sounded tough. Is Gallian theory easy or difficult to work with?"

Lili shrugs again. All Auren has taught her is how to manifest an adequate shield, one that won't pop moments after impact. Gallian theory doesn't sound so bad when she thinks about it in hindsight, but she feels as if she's only scratched the surface of centuries worth of content.

Her mentor doesn’t give in quite so easily, instead choosing to strike where he wants to hit. "You referred to your existence as a 'Human-Hybrid.'" Auren leans forward, his eyes inquisitive. "What would you be a hybrid of, specifically?"

"Chinese and Russian." Alexei's smile is impeccable. Lili tries to hide her own smile.

Auren’s features remain unchanged. It’s the resident sulker that refreshes his throat. "You know damn well that's not what he meant."

“Ah, you were referring to this?” Alexei lifts his hand into the air, and a thread of blue smoke twists out of the air and into his palm where it eddies around for a bit. Then he flicks his wrist, and the smoke dissipates into a fine, scented mist. Strangely enough, it smells of burnt lavenders and smouldering charcoals—not of the fruity aromas she’d expected from such an elegant display.

Auren’s features narrow as he regards the mist with caution. “I suppose that this is the technique you used on Avett, allegedly.”  

“Yes, but I would prefer not to disclose my ‘mixed heritage’ at this time.”

"This isn't important." Ysh'vanna hasn't touched her tea at all. "What's important is that you explain to us exactly why we're not getting our pay, and why it's so important that you have to talk to all of us at once."

Right now, the room is divided between those who enjoy the idea of Avett getting the shit hit out of him, and those who are vehemently against that very same idea. Ysh'vanna is sided with the latter, Lili thinks. This is the kind of response that’s expected after witnessing such nonchalant violence from a man who only knows his way around a smile.

And crap, he's smiling right now. Right at Lili.

Alexei says, “You’re all let off."

It takes a moment for the words to actually do Alexei's bidding. It's like they've hit the surface of the water too hard, and it's taking a comically long while for anything to sink in.

He takes this moment to continue. "You can’t have a Human working onboard like this. IRC licenses don’t count as official personal identification, for one, and that’s not mentioning all of the legal loopholes you’ve jumped through just to have her on board.” His smile turns feral as he regards the blank look on Lili's face. “Cashing in on that 20% Human discount for ship facilities, I’d imagine, hm?”

It's almost comical how quickly Avett jumps at the chance to berate Auren. “You said you got all the legal shit out of the way—”

“We have.” Auren pushes away from his chair, meeting Alexei’s eyes with ease. “We intend to take her back to Therius during our month of sabbatical.”

Below him, Ysh’vanna claws into her stomach, her eyes wide and glazed over.

Alexei doesn’t buy into it and remains seated. “So in other words, you ‘intend’ for her to work without identification nor tax for over two months. An apt idea.”

“Tax fraud? You're accusing us of fax fraud? I implore you to take one good look at that man—” Avett jabs a finger at Auren, who holds his chin just a touch higher upon realising that he’s on the receiving end of his colleague’s insult. “—And tell me that we look like the type of people to commit tax fraud."  

“Appearances can be deceiving. I’m sure you’re already quite well acquainted with that fact, Mr—”

“Ironsturm. It’s Ironsturm.”  
 
Alexei’s smile falters. “...Mr Ironsturm.”

The act of kindness bounces right off Avett; he looks like he might start spitting into the man’s face at any moment.

With a low voice, Ysh’vanna starts to speak again. “You said you didn’t have the money. But now you’re saying that you’re an IRC official?”

“I suppose I withheld the specifics of my position back there. Your team simply no longer qualifies for your monetary reward. I lied because I couldn’t have you throwing an even bigger fit than you already were in public.”

Ysh’vanna visibly shrinks as she considers his words. Avett storms up to the man himself. “So you were lying—”

“For convenience.”

“—Liar, filthy, fucking, Human liar—”  

Auren takes this opportunity to push him aside.

“Suppose we take Lili off our team,” he suggests. “Will you reconsider your choice of action then?”

Lili's heart skips a beat, but Alexei shakes his head.

“Unlikely. What the IRC demands is final. And as of late, they've been demanding quite a bit from me." He shrugs. "I can only ask for you and your crew to make it easier for me."

What the IRC demands. Lili lets the words sink in for a bit before she really allows herself to comprehend what they mean. She’s fucked up so badly that the IRC wants her—and her team—to suffer for it. She doesn't know how it might impact them, whether or not it'll leave an irrevocable marr on their records. They'll be jobless, sure, but what about the future? And how easy would it be for them to find work again? Avett could work for his dad’s friend again, but what about Auren and Ysh'vanna? Hell, if they gave in and threw them all into detainment or whatever they had on Therius she wouldn't be surprised.

As if this wasn't enough, Alexei turns to Lili and says, "A shame, truly. Had your teammates exercised even an ounce of caution, you would've made a fine frontline caster. Alas, this was not the case, and now you are the cause of your very team's disbandment."

Avett folds his arms tightly across his chest, his mouth opening and closing like he has something he wants to say. From the way he's glaring daggers into the general vicinity, she's willing to bet that he's trying his hardest not to choke both her and Alexei out on the spot. She doesn't blame him—she's the one who had to make a nuisance of herself when she begged the team to let her onboard. She's the one who did this.

And yet she still manages to splutter out, "This isn't fair."

"Not many things are, Lili." Alexei looks to the ground, as if basking in his self-mockery. "Not every ending receives a neat little ribbon. You should understand this better than anyone else."

It takes a moment for Lili to recognise who he's referring to. How had he known? She doesn't quite care. The taste in her mouth curdles into a sour tang, and she clenches her fists in retaliation. The way her nails dig into her hands hurts her in a way that keeps all that rising bile and rage in check. And she needs that control right now.

"Lilith," Avett breathes. He's next to her in seconds, but she puts up a hand, signalling for him to stop. As if she needs support from the one guy who hates her the most on this fucking ship.

"Go," is all Lili has to offer to this absolute creep of a Human.

His features turn deadly, but Lili knows that she could be mistaken; all she can see right now is red. "I can see why she chose to leave you that day, Lili."

She strides up to him until he's less than a metre away and, most importantly, within punching distance. She's not thinking straight, but then again, she doesn't want to; her rage rushes through her veins unbridled, sweeps through her arms like liquid ice against metal, culminating, naturally, into something Avett would pull.

A punch.

Her knuckles stop against that same shield. No matter how hard her ether strains through her body, she can't make it through. She doesn't need to, she thinks; she just needs something to exert her strength upon, something to hit without repercussion.

But then she catches Alexei's hardening expression. He looks as if he could start desecrating Ava's legacy at any moment. That's when she realises that hitting his shield isn't enough—she needs to knock that grin right off his face and into the flooring.

Lili's hand shudders against the invisible force. There's something sinister about wishing ill will onto another person, or another Human for that matter, but she shoulders on anyway. In fact, she welcomes this newfound darkness with open arms. Let them see how angry she is.

Let them know.

The barrier shatters to bits under her knuckles. Her fist sails through the air, whistling like a foam dart as it does, and lands squarely against Alexei's jaw. Lili stumbles, but regains that footing easily. Her adversary, however, trips back onto his ass.

Everything after that plays out in blurry stop motion. Alexei is cradling his face, but he's not making any attempt to retaliate. When familiar arms latch onto her from behind she catches the barest hint of black smoke at the edges of her vision, as if she hasn't just punched a hole through Alexei's defenses, but burned through it. It smells like it too, like she's heating coals in a kiln. What she would do to punch him again.

She manages to regain focus. Avett is holding her by the armpits, and he's screaming all sorts of nasty things into her ear, like "calm down," and "are you fucking stupid?" Despite his tone, Lili does find his presence to be soothing somewhat, and soon her heart rate starts slowing into a steady rhythm again.

Alexei is in another world entirely. He blinks at her. He mutters something under his breath about sending the legal specifics of their dischargement from the forces, but it's clear that he's mentally somewhere else. As if he's stuck in an alcohol-induced dream, he hobbles out of the ship and down the fold-out stairs.

The doors slide shut. And Lili realises, with a pounding in her gut, that she's just punched what could be an IRC official, and made him leave not in shame—

 —But in god damn awe.

15: the name

“Hi, we purchased this by accident an hour ago, is it possible if we could return this?”

Too subordinate, too naive. Lili’s fingers go stiff, and her palms tingle with sweat. She curses under her breath and grits her teeth.

“We’d like to return this. With this card.”

No, too stilted, too tough—it's a fast way to land her on the wrong side of the Hive, that's for sure. She needs something assertively mundane, but no matter how many times she rehearses she can't help but notice how her tone is slightly off, or how she's started waffling away with soft platitudes like 'could we' and 'if it's possible.'

This isn’t working. She presses her back against the wall and leans around the corner, watching the general hub-bub of the supermarket come and go. Some of the shoppers give her curious glances—others hide their mouths with their hands and whisper fervently to each other.

A cough from the other side of the hall snaps her out of her reverie. Lili looks up and finds that a Palerian in what appears to be a uniform is staring right at her, his expression hard. She hides the bottle behind her back, but the damage has already been done. If she wants to get anything finished she has to do it now.

With a sigh, she trudges over to the helpdesk and says, "I'd like to return this, please."

The worker leafs through her book and adjusts her glasses. By the looks of it, this off-lander might be a Draconian, though she's unlike any Draconian Lili's ever had the pleasure of scrutinizing—and by any Draconian, she means Ysh'vanna. The worker has the same tell-tale ear fins that Lili imagines most Draconians to have, but they're impossibly long, trailing down to her shoulders like a goldfish's tail. Ysh’vanna’s fins are either hidden really well or really short.

Lili coughs. The worker continues to leaf through her book.

"I'd like," Lili says again, making sure to punctuate each syllable with the tip of her tongue, "to return this. Please."

The worker doesn't look up. "What would you like to return."

Lili blushes—she'd forgotten to show her the bottle in question, and the worker can't possibly see what she's holding back there. She places the bottle on the counter. The clear liquid inside sloshes up against the sides.

Arching an eyebrow, the worker leans forward, keeping her eyes fixed on the bottle and its contents. She reaches over the counter, grabs it by the neck. Gives it a little rattle.

Lili gulps.

“And you would like to return this… to?”

“Right here.” She slides the card over the counter, pressing her middle and forefinger into the table as Auren had done to her.

No reaction.

“My ID’s right here, if you need that.” Lili starts to reach into her pocket, but the worker stops her with an open palm.

“This is water.”

Lili stops, her heart wavering between beats, her tongue on the verge of a tightly leashed lashing. She motions to the lid instead.

“It’s not water. Check the seal.”

“Ma’am, I don’t know what to tell you.” The worker grabs the lid and pops it off without effort. “Seal was broken from the start.”

The bottle cap clatters against the desk.

Lili slams her fists against the table. How had she not noticed? Avett must’ve taken a cautionary swig from the bottle before Auren had even thought to check the contents of the bag. Of course he would—why wouldn’t he? Now that the seal’s broken, all she can do is take it back to the ship, thoroughly defeated by the cruelties of racial profiling and extreme misfortune.

Even worse: when the worker passes the bottle back, Lili can’t smell a lick of vodka. It really is just water, meaning Avett’s taken extra precautions and transferred the contents to another container beforehand. Which is smart—Teeth-grindingly, frustratingly smart.

In her eagerness to leave the supermarket as soon as possible, she screws the lid back on quickly. It takes all of her energy not to thank the worker for her time, and even more to walk away without a word. The worker simply puts her legs on the counter and continues to read, but not without making a show of resting her other hand on her GlassLink. Just in case Lili decides that she wants to be another Saturday news headline back on Therius. The worker could've done it right away, but Lili supposes that inter-realm phone calls to the press must cost a lot of money. Lucky her.

She stalks away, her grip trembling. Avett is going to pay for this, she swears. To hell with alcohol; this stuff has caused her naught but trouble for the past week, and she hasn't even gotten drunk once.

Not that she wouldn't mind. As she storms through the sanctuary with her liquor bottle swinging between her fingers by the neck, she can feel the eyes of hundreds of wary off-landers on her. She'd love to be drunk right now; a shame that the gods have rescinded the blessing of inebriation from her a while ago. She hasn't really been able to properly get blackout smashed after Ava's death. She's not entirely sure that she can anymore.

Once she's walked sufficiently far enough from the market, she slumps down onto a bench. Fuck Avett. Fuck Avett. Why's he always so eager to get drunk? Does he intend to drink it by himself, or does he expect Auren and Ysh'vanna to join in with his debauchery? Does he expect Lili to join in? Would he even want that after how she'd acted while drunk last time, where she’d mentioned something about a hot-headed tall and dark love interest in the middle of her alcoholic stupor?

Her cheeks heat at the thought of him. No one's ever been that nice to her—sure, she's had nice teachers and mentors, but never someone who was her age. Never someone who wasn't obligated to be kind, yet showed affection anyway. She wonders where it'll start to go wrong. Avett can't seem to pick between being openly kind and being a bratty, smart mouthed, impatient mood swinging asshole. Surely if Lili keeps this all up, he'll realise what's good for him and stay away from her.

She toys with the bottle, picking at the corners of the label with her nails. Overthinking about Avett is the last thing she wants to do right now, but it's all she can do. Feeling parched, she uncaps the bottle and starts to drink deeply.

It really is just water.

As she comes to terms with the fact that Avett hadn't chosen to swindle her on purpose, and that she's got nowhere to direct her rage towards, she spots a familiar white-haired Draconian in the distance. Her movements are frantic and irrational. It looks like she might be locked in a heated battle of wits with the man standing next to her.

Lili has never seen this man in her life. This looks more like a captain's feud than anything; maybe they're arguing over who gets to keep the bounty, or maybe he’s the leader of the C ranked vessel Ysh'vanna had mentioned way earlier.  Whatever it is, Lili supposes that it's something she should stay out of or—at the very least—stick her nose into from a distance.

She squints at the duo, struggling to put body language into actual language. Ysh'vanna is small compared to the man, who stands at least two heads above her and wears a cloak with a bulky fur trim that accentuates the size of his shoulders. He's not like any off-lander Lili's ever seen. For one, an off-lander wouldn't be caught dead in an extravagant cloak like that, weird hood and all; for another, he looks… exactly like her.

No ear fins, no green skin, no horns or cat ears. This is a Human.

Lili squints at the man again, making sure to scrutinize every minute detail this time. When he turns to flash Ysh'vanna an easy grin, Lili catches the briefest sight of pale skin before his cloak falls over his arms again. She's about to start making assumptions about his ethnicity when the man reaches up… and removes his hood.

Like Lili's hair, his is long and black, reaching all the way to his elbows, though the comparisons end there; the tips of his locks have greyed into pearly whites.  Not dyed—greyed.

She wonders if she should at least say hello to her captain, or inform her that Avett's recovery went swimmingly. But then Ysh'vanna pulls back, her mouth open as she gawks at the man's sudden reveal. Her features turn narrow again in a heartbeat, and though Lili can't hear a lick of what they're saying, she knows it's not something she should be involving herself with.

Maybe she should hang back. The man's mouth moves quickly as he raises both hands in protest. This gives her an idea.

With a careful eye, she starts speaking over the silence, putting on her deepest voice for the man.

"No, it's not my fault." Lili coughs and uncaps the bottle again, preparing to drink from it. "It's not my fault I'm impossibly handsome and therefore entitled to being an impossibly annoying piece of shit."

Ysh'vanna jabs a finger into his face. Lili speaks over that too.

"Oh yeah? Explain why I caught you spending the rest of our savings account on a Dual Action Aurorean Syntax-plus 3000F e-reader instead of paying the bills—again?" She’s got no idea why she chose an e-reader, but if it’s a couple’s spat in public, she imagines that their choice of discourse would be pretty petty.

She drinks from the bottle, pauses, then takes another cautionary sniff at the lid. Maybe Avett hadn't emptied it entirely. Then she remembers that she's not quite able to get drunk, and that she's just this stupid normally.

The man cuts Ysh'vanna off. "Let's not forget who brings home those said bills—"

"Let's also not forget who warms the bed at night."

Lili grits her teeth as she watches the man snipe back. "You?"

"No, you, dear."

Lili puts down the bottle and screws the lid back on slowly.

Then she whirls it back by the neck like a makeshift club; it stops mid-swing behind her. When she cranes her neck back, she sees that Avett has caught her attack by the body of the bottle.

He snorts. "I thought you'd at least try to hit me a little harder than you normally would."

Lili narrows her eyes and pulls at the bottle. All she manages to succeed in doing is dragging Avett's arm with her, his grip not wavering in the slightest. It's his dumb catboy strength—all she can muster is a spark of ether now and then, maybe more if she’s properly motivated. If she wasn't still recovering from her previous exploits in the engine room, she would've yanked it clean out of his hands by now.

"Whatever happened to that affinity of yours?" His smile reminds Lili of an expression Auren would make while 'treating' her partner's wounds. Scary.

She scowls and lets go. Avett relents and plops down next to her.

"Stop following me," Lili mumbles.

"Auren said you'd gone out to return my 'liquor'. Naturally, I had to go out and save you, but it looks like you've already got it all figured out… and you've found a bit of popcorn entertainment on the side too."

Ysh'vanna has most definitely seen them by now. She continues to argue with the man by herself anyway.

Lili shrugs. "Who is that?"

"Beats me. He's not really that handsome."

Her cheeks heat. This whole situation is stupid. "I know, he's not."

"I'll be frank with you, though." Avett folds his arms over each other. "He's Human—but he's not from the other spires. Doesn't look like he's here to cause trouble, either… not in the, ahem, ‘traditional’ sense."

"How do you know?"

"His cape's fur trimmed—with B10 hairs. The cloak itself is definitely reptilian leather, though it's not immediately obvious to me what kind. It's not everyday you see a Human that's squared off with a high ranking dragon and lived to tell the tale. I'd imagine that there are even less of his kind from the Hive, maybe none at all. Wouldn't be surprised—they're all bark." He toys with a stray seam on his glove. "No bite. Dogs like him don’t need to cause trouble to bite."

She gulps. This is what a warrior is supposed to look like—or what she’ll end up looking like soon enough… allegedly. She can’t imagine herself turning into someone like that, because this guy is literally squaring off against Ysh’vanna, and she’s sure something like that takes at least an impressive amount of bravery.

Their captain puts her hands on her hips and lets out an eardrum-rattling groan. Lili can hear her from all the way over here. Ysh’vanna throws an arm up and beckons the two of them over a second later.

“Quit watching and get over here!”

“I’ll pass, actually,” Avett calls back.

Lili bites. With her eyes fixed onto the man, she walks forward. He doesn’t turn, not right away anyway; instead, he offers Ysh’vanna a reserved smile. He’s got that smug aura to him, but it’s hidden under several layers of diplomacy and chivalrous mannerisms that Lili almost misses it. This guy is definitely enjoying the fact that he’s won, one way or another.

She offers a greeting to her captain, but it’s the man that turns and waves back at her. Lili immediately dislikes the way he looks at her, because he’s a head taller than her, and that means that his eyes are downcast and judgy. Not in the way a kid from school might look at her, thankfully enough, but in the way a scientist might regard an ant farm, which is probably worse.

Lili straightens her back anyway. If she's going to die an ant, she might as well die standing.

“You’ll never believe who this guy claims he is.” The captain puts her hands on her hips. “Lili, meet the overseer."

She blinks—once at Ysh'vanna, once at the man. Then she asks, "What's an overseer?"

"Exactly, my point, exactly." Ysh'vanna throws her hands into the air. "Here he is, walking around, claiming to be some omnipotent underground force that's in charge of the sanctuary, but clearly his claim's got some meat to it because apparently he's the one who gave us our mission. Anyway, I did as you asked.”

“As he asked?” Lili echoes.

“He wanted to see you up close, but quite frankly I don’t think he’s worthy of our time at all.” Ysh’vanna leans close, and Lili bends down slightly to hear her. “We’re not getting our paycheck for our last mission. He says he doesn’t have the money. Never did.”

Lili's focus snaps back to the man again. He smiles and shrugs, unaffected by her captain's abrasive and secretive nature. "It's true," he replies. "I'm as poor as a peasant."

It's now or never, Lili supposes. Narrowing her eyes, she states the obvious: "You're a Human."

He withholds his response this time, instead choosing to circle around Lili with his hands behind his back. Now that she’s up close and personal, she can see that this man is Asian—probably. A little like her, a little entirely different. She can’t tell if this is because he’s an esteemed dragon hunter, or if she’s all too eager to look for camaraderie in a place where she’s not meant to. Then she remembers that even seeing a Human is a miracle in itself, and that what she’s doing is really stupid.

When he’s finally made his way around to her front, he nods at her, as if he’s gotten a hold of her character and insecurities and flaws and whatever makes her vulnerable enough to warrant a nod from this guy. He holds his head far too high for a Human standing among off-landers. It's natural he'd look down on her as well.

Her back feels a little too stiff at this point. Ysh’vanna looks like she might start wailing on him at any given moment, which probably isn’t the best for a situation as delicate as this; ergo, Lili should probably say something. She’s going to do just that.

But then the man rests his eyes upon hers. They’re a standard brown, but mantling his pupils is a ring of explosive molten gold. Seeing this has punched the air out of Lili’s lungs. Humans don’t have eyes like that. Is he blind? Is he even Human at all, or is he something else that’s merely assumed the shape of a Human for convenience?

She doesn’t get her chance to speak at all, let alone to draw judgement from what little she’s been given. With the ease of a well-mixed cocktail, he bows and says, “Lili Wang-Rosales. How comforting it is that we meet at last.”

—

There are no words for how fucking flabbergasted Avett is. He’d chosen to hang back during the initial encounter on purpose, remaining out of sight from the Human, though staying just close enough to eavesdrop on whatever the man had to say about his partner’s wet-sock attitude. As it turns out, he had a lot more to say than he’d originally expected. For starters, he’d dropped her name. Not her full, legal name, the name he so lovingly regifted to her during their first meeting—her real name. And he’d dropped it hard.

Avett folds his arms as he leans against the pole, making sure to keep his body straight and hidden. He can't see the action from where he's standing but he knows that even now, Lilith can't help but remain flustered against the onslaught of praise this stranger continues to shower onto her. It’s a little pathetic, really, kind of like watching an adult drop packets upon packets of freeze-dried sweets onto a starving kid. He’s asking things he shouldn’t know at all, like how she managed to free the villagers from the dragon’s ethereal hold, or how she managed to defeat the ‘mistress’ of the village, mistress no doubt referring to Mari herself. Because whatever arms specialist Avett Ironsturm did back in the village doesn't exist in this guy's eyes at all, nope, not at all. He feels his ear twitch in annoyance.

Ysh’vanna catches on fast. “Alright, alright. Just who are you, mister… mister…?”

“My apologies.” The man pulls back; Avett watches him do so from his pole with narrowed eyes, no longer giving a damn about staying hidden. “Alexei. Alexei Romanov. Human-hybrid overseer of the Hive.”

Lilith squints at him like he’s just told her his name’s something outrageous. Avett doesn't know what to make of his title. Human-hybrid? Overseer? None of these descriptors phase Lilith nor Ysh'vanna, so he assumes he's just missed an important chunk of their conversation from earlier. Or maybe they're just too preoccupied with parsing apart the exact reasons for why he's here.

He elaborates quickly. “My chosen name. Just like you, Lili.”

It takes all of Avett’s willpower not to immediately start spluttering behind the pole. He’s just rubbing in at this point, this Alexei Ro-whatever. Why does he know all of this? It’s not like Ysh’vanna would disclose to anyone of their exploits, not to someone like him anyway. At a bar with several pints of lager and a loose tongue, sure, but she’s mad as all hell here; she’s not imparting anything onto this creep anytime soon.

His captain latches onto Lilith’s sleeve like she wants to tug her away, but the latter stands firm. “How do you know all of this stuff about me?”

Alexei puts a finger to his lips. “A magician does not disclose the tools of his trade.”

Tools of his trade being your average modern computer and a good search engine. Ysh'vanna bristles visibly at this. "You mean you read the debrief."

"I don't remember anything about a relic being on the debrief," Lili says.

The man claps his hands together. "Right. Without further ado, I would like to meet with your fourth member. The Gallian male, hm?"

Avett chooses this point to step out from behind the pole and loudly proclaim what's on his mind. "And why should we listen to you? For all we know, our checks are already sitting nice and snugly in our accounts. You're clearly bluffing. What's your motive here?"

They hold eye contact for a bit. That bit extends to an uncomfortably long time, but Avett doesn’t yield, choosing to buckle down instead. “You’re not threatening.”

“I don’t intend to be.” Alexei offers him a warm smile. That warm smile, Avett thinks, is going right into the gutter if he keeps this up. “There’s no motive. I’m just interested in seeing the team behind the success of the mission we’ve been struggling with for the past year.”

Before Avett can even begin to retort away his dismissal, Lilith steps in front of the Human and stays there, her expression hard.

Yeah, no. He’s not taking this from Lilith of all people. This act of rebellion is coming from the same person who sniffs male deodorant for stimulus. “Just because you’ve decided to grow a backbone doesn’t mean I’m gonna start agreeing with whatever you’re about to say.”

“At least hear him out,” she replies. “He knew my name.”

At a loss, Avett looks to Ysh’vanna for assistance, staying hopeful that she’ll decline and take them all on their merry way. Lilith does the same.

His faith in her pays off. His captain grumbles and shakes her head, clearly annoyed by the whole conversation. “Sorry. You know how it is on the Hive.”

He watches Lilith visibly deflate in front of him. She looks like she’s either about to start punching the air or Avett, but then Ysh’vanna holds out a hand, signalling that she’s not quite done here.

“If we had some actual proof that you’re an overseer or whatever, however,” she starts, folding her arms against her body, “then maybe I’ll consider it, Romanov.”

Avett hisses, “You’re kidding.”

“Ah, I thought you would never ask.”

The stranger’s grin, Avett realises, is crooked to the side. When he turns to address Avett, he can’t help but feel like a pig fit for the spitroast, apple in the mouth and all. He’s not scared, but he does inch back a little and straighten his stance.

“And what the fuck do you want?” Avett asks. Because, like he’s already said, he’s not intimidated by this fox-like creep at all. He’ll sooner swallow a bag of bricks than indulge this guy in his superiority complex.

The response comes easily. “I’m musing over a way to prove myself that involves you.”

“Anyone who uses the word ‘musing’ in a sentence shouldn’t be allowed out in public.”

The man taps his finger against his chin in thought. Then his features, quite literally, light up.

“Your name is Avett Earlstone, am I correct?”

Avett’s ears flick upwards before he’s actually had the time to process his comment. The name hits him fully about a second later, like a sledgehammer to his cheekbone: he feels the impact of the floor before anything else, and the pain is secondary to the way his head won’t stop spinning, spinning—

He pushes Lilith aside on the way towards the stranger, his fist tense and taut against his side as he drives it right into Alexei’s smug face. He’s not thinking straight, but then again, he doesn’t want to. This guy has lost his right to civilised conversation.

But then his fist stops millimeters away from its target. It's pushing against something hard yet spongy, though as his mind clears he realises that it's more like there's an unseeable hand holding his entire punch back. It contrasts the sensation of punching one of Auren’s shields; at least he actually gets to experience the singing pain of feeling his knuckles crack against his colleague's shield.

Fight back, Ironsturm, Avett tells himself. Using the remainder of his brute Kattish strength, he lets loose a yell and shoulders onwards, his hand straining against the invisible barrier until he's sure that he'll pierce through it soon.

Alexei's smile doesn't waver. Even the way he raises his hand is graceful, and it takes a bit for Avett to register that he's finally threatening him. The Human's fingers curl in such a way that the tip of his index finger is touching the side of his thumb, forming an 'ok' sign that rests on Avett’s forehead. Wisps of blue and grey rise from the ground at his feet; these wisps spiral upwards and culminate into a ball of tightly packed light in his hand.

He offers Avett another comment: "I apologise, Avett."

Then he flicks his finger. From there, it's over in an instant—Avett is sent flying a good few metres away from Alexei. His back hits the ground first, and he goes skidding until he bumps into the same pole he'd been hiding behind. He can taste copper on his tongue, meaning that he must've whacked his head on something—ah, the pole. His eyes struggle to refocus as he stares upwards at the man, of whom makes no effort to walk towards him at first.

Being superior isn't just a fantasy for this guy. It's one step further than that; it's his reality.

Ysh'vanna comes running up to his limp body in no time flat, her expression the pure picture of panic as she lifts his back from the pole.

"I'm fine," he grits out. He bats away her hand and picks himself off the ground with little difficulty, save for the odd stumble when he's upright again. Lilith hasn't budged from her position at all. She's still staring at Alexei like he's descended from the heavens—like he's some blessed messiah carrying the forbidden scriptures in the fold of his robes, the scriptures being written proof that he'd beaten Avett to shit without effort.

He grits his teeth. What the fuck.

Alexei looks beyond his partner and actually has the gall to ask, "Will that suffice?"

"Yeah, yeah," Ysh'vanna replies. "We'll take you."