* * *

Mishke poked at the campfire with a stick. Starting the fire was just about the only thing she was allowed to do. Well, that and blow up anything that attacked their camp, but really, as responsibilities and work went, it wasn’t a lot. Arconius seemed to want to do *everything* else. He wouldn’t even teach her how to do stuff, just gave her a hairy eyeball and said he didn’t live this long by living dangerously, only by fighting in an unending war. Then he laughed. She had to say one thing, Death Knights had very weird senses of humour. Or maybe it was just him, it wasn’t like she’d met another.

“Not that I object to the company, of course, but what’re you doing here anyway? I mean, I’d have thought you’d be off on the front lines.” Mishke looked up through her pink lashes to where the soldier in question was carving into a stick.

“A priestess of Elune said my soul was heavy and dark and I needed a rest.” He replied with a roll of his eyes.

“Elves!” Mishke agreed in disgust. It didn’t matter if it was the magicless Night Elves or the ravenous Blood Elves, they were all stark raving nuts. Trees didn’t have souls, birds didn’t talk. One you used for fire, the other was dinner cooked over the former. Elves had to make a big deal out of everything and they didn’t even think it was funny when you asked them to pray for the soles of your boots.

“So, I got kicked to the rear, then kicked to guarding Ironforge, and then told to go guard the tavern, then you found me and dragged me off to Gnomergon.” Arconius continued, not looking towards her.

Mishke flipped a coin between her knuckles and fingers. It was very hard to sit still, even though she knew her fidgiting annoyed the dwarf to no end. “How long were you guarding that tankard?” Mishke teased, hoping to lighten the dour mood. She knew he could laugh, she was just not sure what would make him laugh at any given time.

“Seventeen days.” He replied.

“Ohhh.. so just after the tertiary explosion of the secondary mago-energy conduit in c sector.” Mishke said, knowingly. “That’s about when I got to Ironforge.”

He gave her a hairy eyed look with one eye closed, “As you say,” he agreed warily.

“So what’re you gonna do now?” Mishke asked, “I thought about heading up to the front myself and seeing if I could help out. As you know, I’m pretty good at making things go boom.”

Arconius’ knuckles clenched around the hilt of the knife, “Lass, you wouldn’t last a minute up there.”

“Hey..!” Mishke started to protest and then saw the grey tinge to Arconius’ skin, she scampered around the fire to stand behind the knight, wrapping her arms around his neck. “I can take care of myself y’know.”

He looked down and kissed her clasped hands, “No, no you can’t.” He said with a smile. “You’re the most helpless, and hopeless, dangerous person I’ve ever met.”

Mishke rolled her eyes and started to remove her hands in a sulk, but he was quicker taking her hands in his own and pulling her around him to sit across his lap. “I mean no insult, but you’ve a lot to learn before you wade into that depths of darkness.. and I’d rather you not learn them.”

Mishke wasn’t quite sure what any of that was supposed to mean, sometimes Arc got off on weird tangents and she just had to humour him. He’d not touched her, nor let her touch him, since that kiss in Gnomergon, he’d just kept muttering ‘one problem at a time.’ So, she wasn’t going to rock the boat if she actually got snuggle with him, putting her cheek against his collar bone. Well, at least, it was where his collarbone probably was buried under all the layers of armour. Strangely, the metal wasn’t cold, but warm against her skin.

Arms around her, Arconius went back to his carving, humming tunelessly under his breath as he worked. Mishke just closed her eyes and listened to him breath. For a man who said he didn’t know how many pieces his soul was in, he seemed awfully strong. Or maybe that’s why he survived when so many other paladins hadn’t.

* * *

Mishke woke, hand grabbing her staff in reflex. She blinked and rolled over, realizing she was alone in the tent. She could hear gruff voices outside. She felt the bedroll beside her and it was cold. Stupid chivalrous knight, he’d obviously slept out in the dirt. If he was going to be so silly, he should have just bought a second tent! She was about to go smack him with her staff when she spotted his carving on her pack. A polished wooden rose on a necklace made of links of wood. She marvelled at the craftsmanship, wondering not only how he’d managed it but how he’d managed it in one night. She also wondered at his sanity of giving something that burned so easily to a fire happy mage.

She managed the clasp and to get the necklace on before shrugging into her robe and pulling on her boots. It sounded like dwarven was being spoken outside and her dwarven wasn’t the greatest. She got the feeling Arc spoke half a dozen languages easily, but her ability only went as far as reading and writing languages and glyphs long dead and moldering. She’d been very surprised to learn Arc couldn’t even read Dwarven very well and didn’t write at all. Apparently, only dwarven nobility learnt that stuff, and he was a knight chosen by the priesthood from the commonborn. With male dwarves outnumbering the females three to one, it wasn’t too surprising that so many became warriors of one sort or another. She chewed on her lip before opening the tent, if it WAS dwarves out there, what would they think of one of their greatest heroes hooking up with a gnome? Not that they’d *actually* hooked up, damn stubborn sod, but still..

She hopped from foot to foot in indecision, the human sized “pup tent” leaving her plenty of room to do so. In the end she decided it was just too much to figure out and stepped out into the sunshine to find a small patrol of dwarves munching their way through rations. The Captain of the patrol, a fierce, bristly fellow with one eye, was punctuating his story with waves of his eating knife.

Arconius nodded to her as she stepped out, surprised that the sun was several finger lengths above the mountains already. He’d let her sleep in quite late, unusual since he seemed to want to race the sun most morning. The new dwarves turned to look at her and then obviously dismissed her as irrelevant. She would wham them on the heads with her staff for that, but they were wearing helms and besides, they might be friends of Arc’s and she didn’t want to start a brawl.

Arc seemed to be explaining to them the defenses of some fort and really didn’t look happy doing it. It was weird, he’d talk about his childhood, and his adolescence, but anything after he was picked to be a paladin to a few weeks before his return to Ironforce he refused to discuss. Mishke didn’t want to press, after all, who’d want to remember all that stuff anyway? But it seemed to her, these dwarves were grinding the knife pretty deep in old wounds. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and make that pain go away.. but knew it wasn’t that easy OR that he’d particularly appreciate such displays infront of his kin folk. Dwarves could be pretty silly about that stuff.

The discussion continued, growling, gruff voices. She could pick out a few words here and there, but they were going much to fast for her. Arc finally snarled something and slammed his hands down on the ground before standing and stomping off. She stared after him, wide-eyed. She turned back to the patrol. “What the fire did you say to him?” she asked in trade-tongue.

The captain mumbled into his beard while the others just continued to finish their rations.

“Well?” Mishke asked, thumping the end of her staff against the hardened, frozen, ground.

“It’s none of your business.” The Captain said, getting to his feet and brushing crumbs out of his beard. He gestured for his patrol to follow suit.

“Damn straight it’s my business!” Mishke said, jumping in front of the leader. “That’s MY friend that just stomped off and I want to know why.”

The Captain looked down at her from under drawn brow, “Then I suggest you ask your friend.” He finally said and walked around her.

Damnit, didn’t anyone take her seriously? That is what she got for being so gosh, darn, cute!

She watched the dwarves continue on down the road and sighed. She wanted to go after Arc, but abandoning the camp didn’t seem too smart. Besides, she probably couldn’t find him anyway. And if he wanted company, he could find her.. and.. She sighed and picked up one of the ration packs the soldiers had left behind. She didn’t want to sit her, Arc needed taking care of whether he knew it or not, she just wasn’t quite sure how to go about it.

It seemed hours before he returned to find her going through a tome on the history of humanity. He grunted and sat down on the log beside her. Mishke stuck a feather in to bookmark the page and looked to him. “You okay?” she asked, not really sure where to start.

He wasn’t one to preamble. “They are planning to invade Kiragard Keep.”

“Yeah?” Mishke said warily. She was pretty sure where this was going in a hurry and she didn’t like the destination!

“They’ll get slaughtered.” He said, studying his boots.

“So you want to wade in and help them, but you want to ditch me to go do it.” Mishke finished for him since he’d probably take five years to get around to the point at the rate he was going.

“Aye.. no..” He sighed. “You’d get slaughtered too.”

Mishke grabbed his beard and tugged his face around to look at her. “Arconius, I am an adult. It is my choice where I go, what I do and who I do it with and why. My home is destroyed, my race half-slaughtered, and for whatever reason you need me and I need you. So if you think I’m going to just let you dump me off by the side of the road while you go off and try to kill yourself, you’re not thinking at all!”

He blinked at her and took a deep breath in. Mishke was preparing arguments for the counter argument when he just let the breath out again and took her hand. “You’d just follow me anyway, wouldn’t you?”

Mishke grinned, “Damn straight I would! You need me.”

He looked down at her hand and kissed it, “Aye, I suppose I do.” He turned her hand over in his, “But I’ve lost so many that matter to me.. I don’t want to lose you too.”

Mishke put the book on the ground and clambered over Arconius’ leg to straddle across his lap - mostly. He was a lot wider than she was. “Put me in a tower, wrap me with silk and try to prevent me from being with you when you risk, and you’ve already lost me, because that’s not who I am or want to be.” She wasn’t quite sure that made sense, but he seemed to grasp it.

“Aye, I suppose.” He said and wrapped arms around her to pull her against him, mouth seeking her’s. It was almost a kiss of desperation as much as passion, but Mishke was more than happy to return it, her hands digging into his beard.

Just when things were starting to get interesting and she was wondering how exactly one undid plate mail anyway, he broke off the kiss and stood up, putting her on her own feet. “We’d better get on the road and catch up with Captain Myur.” He said, voice gruff, the strange echo reverberating more than usual. His eyes were hooded, but the smolder deep within them seem stronger than usual.

Mishke managed to not quite stare at him open mouthed as he started to take down the camp. Fricken’ knights! Was he going to be spending the next however-many-nights sleeping across the threshold and holding her at arm’s length? Maybe she’d have to spike his ale..

Mishke wandered into the tavern in Ironforge, thinking it looked pretty much like every other dwarven bar she’d been in. She missed Gnome bars with their servos and servers, their flickering mago-energy lights, their chairs that actually fit the behind properly.. She sighed and looked amongst the bearded and non-bearded faces. Really, dwarven women weren’t much better than their men!

Everyone seemed determined to forget there was a war on and find the bottom of their tankards quickly. A group, of what looked to be miners, was in the corner with their own keg. She sniffed, everyone had friends here, but her. Well, sure, she could go up to Tinkertown and drink with gnomes, but drinking wasn’t what she was here about anyway. Not that she’d mind a tankard of the frothy, nutty, dwarven ale, of course.. but only to be social.

Thinking of social, there was a dwarf sitting at the side of the bar by himself. Plate armour scarred, sword in a well worn scabbard, and a scowl on his face that would make an ogre think twice. That looked to be just about what she was looking for alright!

Dwarves had this funny thing about not sitting in chairs with their backs to the room. Maybe it had something to do with how often fights erupted, but it meant she could easily bounce through the smoky room to the bar and smile up at Mister Crankypants. “Hi there!” Mishke chirped, with a bob of cotton candy pink hair as she leaned her precious staff against the aged wood of the bar. She held out her hand, “I’m Mishke Goboom.”

The dwarf turned to look at her like moving was an effort unto itself. He looked down at her, he looked at her hand, then back up to her face, snorted an unimpressed and grumpy snort, and turned back to his beer.

Mishke wasn’t deterred. She’d been living with dwarves for almost three weeks now. They were *always* grumpy. You just had to manoeuvre past their grumpiness. So she grabbed her staff and hopped up on the stool beside the crabby grass before propping said staff up once more. “You look just like the kind of person I’m looking for!” Mishke continued, happily, as she absently traded some coin for a tankard of her own from the harried looking serving wench.

His Most Cantankerousness ignored her.

“You see, I left something very, very, very, very..” she paused and gave it thought and then added, “VERY important thing in my house. I thought that my house had been blown up with the rest of everything, but no, it’s still there according to the damage surveyal team, so I want to go get it. BUT the King is being most silly and won’t let me go!” she looked very indignant about it. “HE says I have to get an escort. Can you imagine that?” The dwarf didn’t look like he was trying to imagine anything. “I’m a perfectly good third circle magi, I’ve passed two of my trials with flying, if explosive, colours, and I’m more than able to take care of my zombified kin. But nooooo..” she sighed and took a mouthful of ale. “Damn that’s good.” The dwarf grunted an agreement without looking at her. She took that as a sign of encouragement, “So, I’m looking for a warrior of skill, talent and ability to put up with me for a week to be hired for a short little trip to Gnomergon.”

The Dwarf turned to look at her once more, raising an eyebrow before looking her up and down. “Good luck.” He muttered, his voice with a strange hollow-echo to it.

“Oh.” She breathed. He was one of THOSE. One of those who’d been corrupted from the holy light, who’d been forced to serve the Lich King himself, slay their own kin, turn on their families.. “COOL!” she added, eyes wide and sparkling with delight. She’d never actually gotten to meet a real live Death Knight before. Though, she didn’t think she could afford to hire one, they were pretty darn powerful and power was expensive.

The Dwarf rubbed the bridge of his nose with one of his meaty hands, looking like he was in pain. “It is not “cool,” no matter what you may have heard.” The echo sent delighted shivers down Mishke’s spine.

Mishke stopped swinging her legs to kneel on her stool. It was a fit of acrobatics that would confuse any who knew how she could trip over dust on the floor. She put a hand on the warrior’s shoulder, and then retracted it at his dangerous glower. “Look, sir, mister.. I can’t claim to understand all the stuff you’ve had to deal with. But I DO know what it’s like to lose hearth, home, and kin. I know what it’s like to find yourself adrift with nowhere to call home and wondering what you’ll do next and nothing feeling or fitting quite right. And I know what it’s like to want that piece of familiarity, that safety and HOME you once had.” She sighed and looked down at her knees. “That’s why I’ve got to go back, you see.”

The Dwarf sighed and finished of his ale. “I’m Arconius.”

“Nice to meet, ya!” Mishke said holding out her hand again.

He looked down at it and shook his head as he got off his stool, “Alright, let’s go.”

Mishke took her turn to sigh, “Well, we can work on the whole friendliness thing.” She hopped off her stool and grabbed her staff once more, “Wait, now?”

He turned, raising an eyebrow, “Do you have better things to be doing?”

“Er, no.. But, I don’t have my supplies or anything..” Mishke said not quite trotting to keep up with the taller dwarf’s stride as he left the tavern.

“You’re a mage, aren’t you?” he gruffed, not looking at her.

“Uh, duh!” Mishke exclaimed. Really, you’d think the big sparkly staff and the pretty blue robes would SORT of hint at that!

“So summon what you need when you need it.” Arconius told her as he shoved his way through the district’s crowds.

“Uhm..” Mishke said, trailing in his wake, “I’m not so good at the summoning stuff bit. I mean, you want something frozen, burnt, or basically blown up, I’m your girl.. but protected, created or fetched? I’m still kinda working on that..”

“Practice makes perfect.” He said to her, “I have everything *I* need.” He added, patting his sword.

Mishke told herself that he was a dwarf, and dwarves were a bit funny upstairs. She told herself he’d been corrupted by the worst evil she’d ever heard of before winning his freedom. That meant he’d be even funnier upstairs than the average dwarf. She’d just have to be patient with him. “Right. Practice.” She hoped he didn’t mind craters from exploding fruit..

* * *

He’d finally taken pity on her panting and stopped his march through the mountains and allowed her to set up camp. Well, mostly it was him building a lean-to after her tent was created the size of a handkerchief, and then him hunting when the soup she tried to summon landed in the snow because she’d not summoned a bowl first, and she didn’t even want to think about what a death knight looked like after he had apple explode over him and his armour. He’d not even let her summon some water. He’d said the snowy, ice covered waters were safer and told her to sit by the fire he’d built and not move.

She wasn’t quite sure how literal he’d meant the ‘not move’ but he’d sounded really, really, cranky when he said it, so she sat by the fire and picked bits of apple off her robes to eat. She’d TRIED to tell him, really she had! But he was like most men, only heard what he wanted to. Dwarven men seemed even worse about it than gnome men. Well, okay, most gnome men had their heads in some contraption when you tried talking to them, this dwarf just sort of looked through her like he wasn’t quite on the same plane of existence as her. Which was kind of creepy, actually.

She was just about to decide ‘don’t move’ didn’t include not going off into the bushes to do a bear impression when he returned with several lumps of meat. He started to give them to her and then saw her mystified expression. “You don’t cook, either, I take it?”

Mishke dug her foot in the snow and shrugged one shoulder, “Well, I can *overcook* just fine..”

She’d never actually heard the full recitation of the prayer of Brell before, but she was pretty sure she was hearing the first stanza as Arconius muttered it to himself, eyes closed, gauntleded fist strangling some very dead animal.

“Uhm.. but I can try anyway?” she asked quietly, hopefully.

“NO!” he not-quite-shouted, and then repeated, calmer, “No, It’s fine.” He shuddered with a clanking of armour. “I suspect it’s safer to cook it myself.”

“I’m good with dishes!” Mishke tried to assure him as she edged towards the woods. She really, really, did need to go potty.

“Watch out for wolves.” Arconius said, not looking up from his preparations. Which, really, was also quite creepy.

* * *

The death knight had stopped even bothering to sheath his sword. The leper gnomes weren’t terribly subtle or smart, but they did tend to wander in small packs. Mishke was still pretty sure she could have blown them all up with a few spells, but since Arconius seemed to be getting some much needed therapy in slaughtering her ex-kin, she was happy to leave him to it. She just burnt the bodies after he was done and wished their souls on to the great machine. Assuming they weren’t already there, that was up for debate in the magus’ guild.

It almost seemed like the little green men were getting more aggressive the further they got into the underground city. “They let you have your house this close to the court?” Arconius asked as he stopped to give her a breather.

“Oh sure.” Mishke replied. “My lab’s outside though. The commute sucked.”

One bushy eyebrow got raised, “Why am I not surprised?”

She was *pretty* sure that was one of the rhetorical questions the death knight seemed so awfully fond of, so she didn’t answer him. Even though she had a darn good answer and everything.

“What the dreth is THAT?” Arconius asked, pointing towards the center of the courtyard with his sword.

“Oh COOL, they DID finish it!” Mishke said with more enthusiasm than sense, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

“Finish WHAT?” Arconius growled, grabbing the front of her robe and pulling her towards him, his voice echoing through Mishke’s chest.

Mishke leaned forward and planted a friendly kiss on the dwarf’s lips, “I don’t think we have time for that, it’s probably seen us if we’ve seen it.”

He dropped her in surprise, eyes wide. Fingers touched lips and then he growled and turned away from her, eyeing the monstrosity of mechanics. “What IS it?”

“Oh, well, it’s from the chicken processor plant originally-” she had to raise her voice because the creation was lumbering towards them, she was fishing around in her pocket for a spark. She wasn’t really good at magic spells, especially in the mana-poor Gnomergon, but fire wouldn’t do much. Hey, maybe some ice underfoot.. No, she’d tried that with the dire wolves and Arc had gotten upset when he’d slipped and fallen on his butt.

“I don’t care what it’s from *originally!*” He yelled as he ducked a buzzsaw that tried to remove his head.

“Oh, well, anyway - when the war started, we converted most of the utility stuff into defenses. That’s the .. uhm.” She paused as she tried to think of a good name, “Chickenchopper 3000.”

“How do you turn it off?” He didn’t seem to be listening to the details.. *again*.

“Well, let’s see..” She chewed on her lip as she fired off several explosive bursts. The Chickenchopper didn’t seem to notice. “Y’know.. I have no idea! I never worked with chickens!” Mishke said after careful thought, “I assume you’d turn it off like anything else though.”

“WHICH IS?” Arconius snarled, slashing at the monstrosity.

“Oh, beat the shit out of it or blow it up.” Mishke said with seriousness as she tried an extra large iceball up the exhaust pipe.

Arconius turned to look at her, “Why am I not surprised at that, either?” he grumbled and then got knocked head over heels by the arm attached to said buzzblade. Well, the second arm, the bot had six after all.

Mishke fired off several fire bursts and ran to the dwarf’s side, but he was already back on his feet and charging the robot with a strange cold glow in his eyes. She wanted to help him, she really did, but he was swarming every which way as he seemed determined to chop right through the chickenater. He didn’t even to notice the dents and slices his armour was getting. Mishke hopped from foot to foot trying to decide what she could do besides pull out some pom-poms and cheerlead. The manic grin on Arconius’ face kind of told her he was having fun and she didn’t want to ruin his fun.

She was leaning on her staff admiring the growing pile of scrap metal when the death knight found the power core. She realized she probably should have warned him about it as he was sailing through the air from the resulting explosion. Mishke ran to where the dwarf lay, not quite twitching. He smelt of electrified blood. Mishke started patting him down, trying to find a source of injury to apply medical attention to. He was making the most awful noise.

She stopped her panicked pat down when she realized the dwarf was *laughing*. She stood over him, hands on hips to glare down at him. “You scared the fire out of me! What’s so funny?”

“That was fun,” Arconius said, rolling to his feet and patted her on the head, ignoring her resulting protest at her hair getting messed up with soot and dwarf blood.

“You’re a mess.” She observed.

He turned to look at her, eyebrow raised. “Did you, or did you not, say that one had to blow it up?”

“Well.. uhm,.. sure. But normally we’d employ dynamite.”

“Do you HAVE dynamite?” he asked in what she’d learnt was his ‘endlessly patient’ voice.

“NO! Because you didn’t let me pack!” Mishke said, hauling on his hand to get him to her house before more leper gnomes showed up. The explosion would send them scurrying for a while, but they’d come investigate soon enough.

* * *

Her house was much as she’d left it - a mess. It was clean enough, but scrolls and books were stacked up everywhere. It looked like her cupboards had been scavenged through. She ignored her belongings to scramble over the debris on the stairs to get upstairs to her loft. As she’d thought she would, she found what she’d been desperate for. Her pet rat.

“A RAT?” Arconius spluttered, “We came all this way for a RAT?”

“Not just any rat! Fuzzy McFluff!” Mishke said, petting the squeaking creature.

“Damn, you better be good in bed.” He growled.

“What?” Mishke said, for once startled into near-speechlessness.

He strode across the room and grabbed her around the waist, crushing her against his chest plate to plant a very enthusiastic kiss on, and in her, her mouth.

Untangling tongue, Mishke’s lavender eyes met the dark, “Wow.” She breathed.

“That’s for reminding me I’m alive.” He said, dropping her lightly to her feet. “C’mon, let’s get you and your rat out of here.” He looked over his shoulder at her, “I assure you, MY house is in a lot better condition!”

~Irony, your name is Spanners.~ Michelle thought as she thanks the marine and got into the craft where Rameriz was already going through the checklist. Apparently his squad mate hadn’t said anything that offended him. ~Or he didn’t already know.~

She stowed her duffle into storage and sat down in the co-pilot’s seat while Rameriz hummed to himself.. off key. Michelle was trying not to crawl the walls as he hit flat notes every third beat.

“Okays - so, avoiding da checkpoints and da patrols, we should be in Romulans space in tree days.” Rameriz announced, detached the ship and took off from the station - much to the profanity of lane control over the comm.

Michelle wondered what a tree day was. She knew the humans had a day where they offered presents to trees, but it was only once a sol-year. She didn’t think even Rameriz could get them lost enough that it would take three sol-years to reach Romulan space.

“Heys, do you mind musics?” he asked, and before she had a chance to answer, loud, obnoxious, bass thumping music started to fill the cabin.

Michelle yelped, covering her sensitive ears, and tried to escape the barrage.

She’d made it to quarters before the noise came down several decibles. “Oops. Sorries!” came his voice. Michelle took several deep breaths and decided that Spanners hadnn’t been kidding. If she survived this it would be a miracle of the gift tree proportion.

Her marine friends had INSISTED that Rameriz was the best choice to help her find Paul. Not just because he was currently on mandatory off-duty for blowing up an ambassador’s toilet faucility for ’smelling bad and being an eye sore.’ Spanners had said ‘Trust me, NO ONE will miss him!’ where as the rest of the marines would have to justify their absence.

She sighed and put a paw-like hand on the plasglas view window. “Paul, I’ll find you.” She told the stars.

The racket from the control cabin got worse as Rameriz started singing along to the ‘music’.

Mutiny was a dirty word, and no matter how good your reason for it, no matter what had caused it and that the whole crew was against a Captain, the officers were branded with that word ever again. She`d been let go from Earth Patrol with a hearty pension and wished luck. Luck to find another job, she supposed. She`d drifted home to the island, tossing ideas about what to do. She`d never been one to stay in one place long, and it was starting to gnaw at her she had no where to go and nothing to do.

“Holding the fence down?” a voice asked from behind.

Sanda turned to look up at an old childhood friend smiling down at her. Aran sweater, jeans, work boots were standard uniform, but Chi stuck out like a sore thumb being so tall and lanky. “Still can’t find a boat you fit on?” She asked stepping forward to embrace him in a hug.

Chuckling the Asian man hugged her in return, “The last Captain offered to fold me in quarters with the sail. I’ve decided best to stay ashore and just teach.”

Sanda took a step back, pulling auburn hair out of her mouth in a futile attempt to bring it under control. She should go back to shorter than short. “You? Teaching? Teaching what, artistic pride on protest signs?” she teased.

A few years younger than he, Sanda had been gone before he’d graduated. The stars had been in her eyes. He smiled and took her arm to guide her back towards the town square. “I, young lady, am in charge of middle form.” The school rarely had more than sixty students, they tended to be broken into large age groups. “It’s just me and Ms. Mac-K these days.”

“What happened to Mr Stevens?” She didn’t care she was more than of age to call her previous teachers by their first names, it still didn’t feel right. Sanda allowed herself to be guided towards the pub. At least it would be out of the wind.

“His wife passed of a heart anurism, he went fishing and never came home.” Chi explained, seeming relieved to get out of the wind and autumn cold. He followed Sanda to a table, seeming grateful that she remembered to take the booth by the fireplace so he’d have room to stretch out. “To be honest, your brother sent me searching for you fearing you were going to try and do the same.”

Sanda gave a short bitter chuckle, “That would require me being able to set foot on any sort of ship. Mutineers aren’t allowed that, you know.”

Meela, a daughter of one of the previous waitresses plunked down a coffee in front of Chi and an O’Keefe’s in front of Sanda. She then said “You wanting to eat today?”

“I’m good.” Sanda said with a shake of her head, her stomach was in knots.

Chi gave the waitress a rueful smile, “I was having lunch when I got shanghai’d.”

Meela rolled her eyes and gave Chi a pat on the shoulder, “Well, if you need refills giver a holler.”

Chi waited till Meela was out of ear shot, stretching a leg out. “What happened?”

Sanda sighed, “I was serving as ship’s medic and cook, lowest ranking officer on the ship. I was taking night watches so I was sleeping on first day shift when suddenly the ship’s alarms started ringing.” She could remember waking up the red strobe effect, head already pounding from the unholy noise. “I ran to the bridge to find the door locked at our XO pounding on the access hatch trying to get Captain Lesof to open up. Hartley, our engineering officer returned with a cutting torch, apparently this had been going on for a while.”

She took a swig of the beer, not giving it the proper attention it deserved. Chi just sat, listening. “Well, it seems our Captain had decided to explore a black-rated system.” Chi cocked an eyebrow, something she wished she could do, “It means someone, sometime, considered it dangerous as hell and don’t go near it.” He nodded, and she continued, “Well, the Captain decided that the system hadn’t been looked at in over two hundred and thirty years and there might be prime estate going to waste.. and changed course to investigate. When the XO and engineer protested this, he kicked them off the bridge and locked them out of the computer. What the alarms were wasn’t a mutiny alarm, but gravitational alerts. The system was black-rated because it had an unexplained gravity well that had eaten a few early ships.”

She stopped and fiddled with coaster.

“Then?” Chi finally said over the murmur of voices in the pub.

“Then the XO and Hartley realized I was there and I could remove the Captain from command pending medical review.” She chewed her lip, “The fact of the matter is, I only had their word to go on, I *should* have called up to the Captain and gotten his side and THEN made a decision, but.. I didn’t.” She sighed and looked up at Chi, “I just ordered the computer to turn over the ship to the XO. That probably saved our lives if not careers, but..” she shugged and turned to look out the window, back towards the sea. “But.. it was mutiny all the same.”

“The whole crew got washed?” He asked, brow furrowed in concerned.

She waved a hand, “Just us officers; the enlisted had no clue. They were just broken up and sent to other ships. I got cashed, try to find a berth on a private vessel, failed miserably and came home to regroup. Then I couldn’t even get on a harbour crew, and I’ve been moping ever since.”

“Seems a bit rough to punish you for one bad choice.” Chi said.

“Captain is captain, the law is the law. He could have had orders we didn’t have, he could have had information we didn’t. As it was he’d gone bug nut crazy for whatever reason, I wasn’t exactly in a position to get a copy of his eval, but.. I should still have followed the book. Even if I had never thought to need the proper procedures, I still knew what they were. ” She took another mouthful of beer, this time appreciating it properly. “And I don’t even know what all the danger was about.”

“The gravity well?”

“Yeah. It’s not that Earth-far, I’m surprised it hasn’t been investigated long before this. I’m damn curious as to what’s going on in that system.”

“Maybe you should just hire your own ship and find out,” Chi teased.

Sanda looked up at him with a smile, “Maybe I should.”

* * *

Jaana stood at the border and looked towards the horizon and it’s lights. She could see a group of teenagers around a bon fire on the desert floor. Wasn’t that against the eco rules? Didn’t fires on the sand leave marks that would be there for hundreds of years? She shook her head, raven hair settling in the still air, it wasn’t as if she followed the latest round of ’save the planet’ the breathing were so fond of. The world seemed to get smaller and smaller, perhaps her own kind just needed to start feeding more often.

The form that came out of the night’s shadow was big, very big. Jaana had been considered short even when she was alive in an era where malnutrition was common and height rare. She was used to looking up at people of the newer generations, but at this new comer she wanted to take a step back to get a feel for all of his being. She wondered if he were playing intimidation mind games, she would no longer be able to sense them. His skin was similar to her’s in that it was pale under colour, but where her’s was a light olive, his was the red of the native people of this continent. Ancient times past, their people may have been cousins, but it was a distant relation now.

He seemed perfectly happy to stand under the starlight and stare at her. Was this some sort of status game of chicken? She’d never been good at politics. “I’m guessing you’re the representative from the ruling Lord?”

“Sometimes.” The deep voice rumbled. “Tonight I am. Tomorrow I might not be.”

~That’s bloody helpful.~ Jaana thought darkly, probably not hiding her irritation any. She was a dancer, not an actress. She was supposed to show others the joy she felt, not hide it away behind false personalities and created roles. “I’m Jaana.” she finally said into the silence.

“John.” came the reply.

Silence ruled once more, Jaana could almost imagine she could hear the music from the party below.

“What do I have to do to get permission to enter his domain?” She finally asked, giving up on her limited abilities at tact and subtly.

White teeth gleemed in the darkness, the shadow shifted to remove a pair of sunglasses, revealing pale blue eyes that gleamed red in the pupil. “Ask nice. Which you did. Promise to behave. Which you will.”

“I promise to obey the laws of our kind and the laws of the city as given to me. If I disagree with said laws, I shall leave before the next sunrise.” She agreed.

“And if you break those laws, you’ll leave with a hunt on your tail to the next domain. If you’re coming from the north and you left friends at your back, that’d be your best way to go. Of course, I’d know that and it’d be to your disadavantage to have me know where you’re going.”

His voice seemed to fill her bones with its vibrations. “You’re the huntmaster.” It wasn’t really a question.

“I’m the huntmaster.” He agreed. “Welcome to Las Vegas.” He turned to walk away then turned to look back, “If you ever need me, I can be found at the Cafe’ Loco, most nights.”

“Right.” she echoed and watched the dark shadow disappear into the ink of the desert at night. She was jealous of his night sight. Her new father had the gift, but she’d yet to learn it yet herself. Complications, complications.

She turned back to her bike and kicked off the stand before wheeling it back across the sand. Probably a good thing there wasn’t a mortal anywhere nearby, that even the highway was empty, a four eleven little thing pushing a Triumph Bonneville across sand without breaking a sweat would probably come under the heading of ‘things not credible.’ It wasn’t a big bike, but it was still big for her.

Soon enough she was on the black top and braiding her hair. She dragged leathers out of the saddlebags and untied the helmet. The full face had a few advantages over those that had the ‘cool factor’. No bugs in her teeth, harder to recognize her facial features, and the cops were less likely to hassle her. Though, she still seemed to get pulled over by the bored bike cops wanting to talk shop. They were always in for disappointment, she liked her ride, but she couldn’t quote stats or name parts. But then, they probably couldn’t name the parts of the boots on their feet. Swinging into the saddle was always more of a hop than a smooth operation, but soon enough the engine was purring and she was on her way.

City of lights, city of nights, city of sin, city of .. well, who knew what really. She had permission to be here, but she still had to earn her way. As long as she managed to avoid Reynald, all would be golden. She didn’t think the Lord of the City would be particularly happy with her if she started a full out fight with a Mage in his city.

* * *

~If we could fly, would we?~ Jaana wondered as she sat in the snarled up traffic of Las Vegas. She supposed it was better than Los Angeles, but still, as idiots weaved in and out and got nowhere in a hurry she could only wonder what a mess humanity would make on transportation if everyone had access to three dimensions. On the other hand, a sudden impact with the ground would potentially solve the idiot gene pool that seemed to be spreading across the lands.

She pulled her bike into the parking lot of the apartment building that would have seemed ancient to mortal kind. To her it was as young as everything else in this land. ~I know my family came here for opportunity, and I came her to dance for their fiddles, but really, it still ripples my sanity that I, and they, are still here.~ She parked the motorcycle easily enough and grabbed her saddlebags. She fished around in the left one for the keys to the apartment she’d rented before she’d even known if she would be allowed into the domain of the Vegas lord.

The lobby smelled faintly of lemongrass and ginger. She’d smelled more irritating things in worse places, she supposed. She ignored the elevator that seemed to consider refusual of movement every time a button was pushed and took the stairs. Stairs rarely trapped you wondering if you should force your way out or risk the rising sun. Her apartment was on the third floor, facing a courtyard that had since been covered. The realtor she’d hired had been very doubtful she could possibly want it ‘You’ll never see the sun!’ the woman had protested. Jaana had said she’d be sure to not bring any plants. The woman hadn’t seen the humour. But then, she’d yet to meet a realtor who would work by fax and phone with a sense of humour.

The apartment was as she had been promised; hardwood floors and high ceilings. Her steps echoed faintly as she closed the door and walked into the living room. There was no balcony, but she couldn’t imagine anyone ever wanting to be out in the desert heat during daylight hours and by the time the sun went down, you were probably better occupied with other things. Her impression of Vegas was that no one really sat down and appreciated the outside world.

Jaana dropped her saddlebags by the door to the master bedroom and dug out the theatre drapes. Everything else she could want was easy enough to buy or steal, but the risk of new housing without a way to block light was not an option. Hanging curtains didn’t take more than few minutes. She should have less questions than usual if she should actually bring anyone home with her, she doubted it was unusual for people to work nights in this city. Her existence would be much easier if she had less morals than most of her kind, just eat and kill anyone who gave you problems. But, she’d come into the darkness at death’s door due to plague and a burning need for revenge, she wasn’t the average of her kind.

Glancing at her watch, she decided she had more than enough time to go cruise the casinos and find some dinner before there was even a risk the sun would start its journey across the sky.

* * *

Jaana couldn’t say she’d ever really understood gambling. The games changed over the centuries, but the general principal seemed to remain the same - he who could cheat best won. People flushed away more money than they could afford day after day chasing a star of a dream just out of reach. The more even the game, the less she understood it. She watched people put coins in machines for hours, just sitting there hoping and praying to the money gods for hope of a payout and maybe breaking out even. There were plenty of entertainments she thought much more cost effective and even more than were actually entertaining.

The lights spiralled and the music of money chimed and she moved through the herd. If anyone had designed these places she’d have thought the ancients of her kind not humanity. It seemed a place designed to take advantage of the prey and most humans were piss poor hunters. She got asked her age by security regularly, hadn’t they ever met a short person before? Of course, that she’d been sixteen when she died and her age froze probably didn’t help but money provided all things including an identity that said she was twenty-three. They all thought it was fake ID, as it was, but couldn’t prove it considering it had come from the government agency that issued the real ID. She knew they could ask her to leave, but the lust for money seemed to overcome common sense. Jaana couldn’t say she’d ever had money woes, when she hadn’t had money she stole what she needed and once reliable banks came into the picture she took the long view for investments. While often she was paid for dancing, she danced for the love not the money.

She spotted a male being obnoxious to one of the staff. Obviously she wasn’t allowed to plant a knee in an uncomfortable place to make him let her go, so she was forced to try and play nice while he grabbed her arm and tried to drool on her cleavage. Jaana spotted the security staff who should be protecting the woman giving directions to an elderly couple who looked like they should have been buried five years before. ~Thank the gods that will never be me.~ She stifled the shudder at the thought of being that old and broken.

“C’mon darlin’, just tell me when you get off shift..” the man was slurring his words but his grip seemed solid enough.

“Forget her,” Jaana said with a twist of mental force to her words. The man turned to look at her, eyes starting to glaze over, “You can do better. You can find willing.”

The man let go of the waitresses arm. The waitress immediately started rubbing her arm and said “Thanks!” quietly. She slipped off, obviously to go get security to rescue her rescuer.

Jaana didn’t need rescuing and she didn’t want this mortal rescued either. “Come with me,” she told him.

“Well, you betcha!” he seemed to be warming up to her, happy to lead her in the direction she wanted him to go.

She supposed she should be grateful that he was staying in the casino, she wasn’t sure she wanted to put up with him long enough to get to whatever hotel he was staying in if it’d been elsewhere. The room was one of the cheapest the casino offered. Once the door was closed and he leaned into her she grabbed his alcohol fuelled mind in her own. “Sleep.” She ordered and he collapsed on the spot. She’d had to jump out of the way to avoid getting fallen on. Grumbling curses under her breath she dragged the sot to the bed and hefted him up. The weight wasn’t so much the problem as his size, he was an awkward mess of jelly. How could she have known the idiot wouldn’t go to bed to sleep like most normal beings would?

Once she had him sprawled across the bed she straddled him. She leaned down and placed lips and canines against his neck to drink deeply. She was tempted to leave him to be found dead of exsanguination but discretion was the better part of valour. Not just because she couldn’t imagine her brand new Lord would be very thrilled if she left dead bodies about to be found. Instead, with a bit of a buzz from the alcohol filled blood, she clambered off and left in sleeping deeply. He’d have one hell of a hangover and probably wouldn’t be good for much for several days if he didn’t visit a doctor, but he probably wouldn’t die.

She had a one sided conversation with the drunk about how he should treat females in the future, but she wasn’t sure how much of it actually stuck in his subconscious. Ah well, maybe he’d apologize to the waitress, or maybe he’d go back to blaming his mother or father or uncle Sid for whatever problems were rattling around in his head.

She checked herself for blood splatters in the door’s mirror. Spotless, she went back out into the hall and made her way out of the casino. Even satisfied and full, she couldn’t say she could understand the attraction of the places any better than before she’d walked in.

* * *

The woman who she followed up the stairs of her apartment building smelt of jasmine and wood smoke. The blonde was taller than her by a few inches and spiked heels, long hair curled around her, Jaana was deliberating whether it was natural or not. Green eyes smiled down at her when she held the door open for her at her floor. “Hey, weren’t you out in the desert tonight too?” the woman asked as Jaana walked under her arm.

The vampire turned to look up, eyebrow raised in a credible Spock impersonation. “I’m surprised you could see me with the campfire at your back.” She stopped in the doorway.

The woman shook her head, “Naw, I was out, y’know.” A biological function of some kind, Jaana assumed. “You and some giant hunk of man. I only remember ’cause of the juxtaposition.” She transferred holding the fire door with her shoulder and held out her right hand, “I’m Sasha.”

“Jaana.” she replied, shaking the hand, trying her best to emulate the strength of a normal mortal. There was something about this Sasha that tugged at the side of her sight and brain.

“Guessing you’re new to town and just took over three thirteen?” Sasha seemed reluctant to let go of Jaana’s hand.

“That’s me,” Jaana confirmed. Was the woman looking for an invite over? “I’m afraid I’m a bit short on furniture at the moment.”

Sasha grinned, “I know how that is. I’m up in five sixteen if you ever need a cup of sugar or company or anything. I’m a painter, I’m home most of the day.”

“I’m a dancer, I tend to sleep the days away.” Which seemed less odd in the winter months when the days were short, she had to be insane to be moving to a place where summer days lasted sixteen hours.

Sasha grinned, “Then I’ll never expect you before I’ve had my morning coffee! I’m right cranky before I get caffiene!” She turned to continue up the stairs, “Welcome to Las Vegas, Jaana.”

Something about the way Sasha said her name was more like a caress than a greeting. Jaana caught the door and watched the blonde mortal sashay her way up. She wasn’t normally one to appreciate females, but Sasha had a form she wouldn’t mind getting naked with.

She shrugged her thoughts back to the sun that was rapidly climbing into the sky and hurried back to her apartment. No signs of light crept in around door or windows as she forced herself to sit through sunrise, yawns becoming more powerful and demanding with each minute.

Satisfied that she probably wasn’t going to burn in her day induced coma, she curled up in the closet of the master bedroom. She’d probably have to get some sort of furniture soon if she ever wanted to .. entertain.

* * *

“C’mon, you’ve been locked in here for days.” Sasha said, glancing around the apartment. Jaana had at least managed to pick up some furniture and had scarves on the walls for colour, but it still looked like a place to pass out, not a home.

Jaana looked up at Sasha. “You have paint on your ear.” She was sitting in the middle of the floor of her living room playing with tarot cards.

Sasha scrapped at her ear and sighed, crouching down behind Jaana. “Not a spread I’m familiar with.” she said, studying the cards that looked like they predated Columbus’ first trip to America.

“It’s solitaire.” Jaana said, trying to ignore the pulse of the mortal behind her. She scented of blood, youth, and jasmine. She took her own sigh and gathered the cards with a swipe of her hand. “What did you have in mind?” She hoped Sasha wasn’t trying to convince her to go to some art exhibition. She barely ‘got’ Sasha’s work, the alternative art of Sasha’s friends was beyond her.

“We,” Sasha said, straightening to her feet with a grin of victory, “Are going to go fly kites.”

Jaana stared up at Sasha. “We’re what?”

Sasha held out her hand to the shorter woman, “Kite flying. Bet you haven’t done it since you were a kid.”

“I don’t think I did it as a kid, either.” Jaana said, accepting Sasha’s hand and got to her feet. It was hard to resist pulling her into an embrace. She couldn’t read the vibes off Sasha at the best of times.

“Even more reason to do it now!” Sasha exclaimed and tugged on Jaana’s hand, leading her to her own front door. A couple of brightly painted plastic kites were propped up by the door.

Jaana shook her head in amusement and reclaimed her hand to pull on here boots. “I don’t have a spare helmet.” Jaana said truthfully.

“S’k, I’m driving.”

She hadn’t even known Sasha *had* a car. Normally the woman was hitching rides with friends. “Alright, but I have to be back by four.” That seemed less blatant than saying dawn and it also gave leeway for lateness.

Sasha gave her a sideways glance before she opened the door, “I promise, not one drop of sunshine shall darken your skin.”

Jaana wasn’t sure how to take that so she just picked up the kites and followed Sasha out and down the stairs.

* * *

They weren’t far outside city limits, but the night sky was filled with the milkyway. Jaana was surprised so much penetrated the light pollution, it wasn’t as if there were high hills between Las Vegas and the two women with their kites. “This is slightly insane, you know.”

Sasha grinned, “Absolutely! But deny it’s fun!” she challenged.

Jaana shook her head, there was something simply and silly about flying a kite in the desert. She’d been surprised by Sasha’s car and driving.

The car was an ancient Beetle in immaculate condition. It had purred when she’d turned the key. “I’m good with the mechanical.” Sasha had offered as explaination. Jaana had to wonder why she wasn’t working as a mechanic instead of a painter.. she didn’t seem to be making much of a living as an artist. Sasha had driven very studiously and cautiously. While others weaved in and around, Sasha stuck to the speed limit and the right lane as much as possible.

The kite tugged in the wind and Jaana let the line out. “How often do you do this?” she asked Sasha.

Her friend was still grinning, “First time!” was the gleeful reply, “I was thinking you needed to get out of the house and do something different, and hey, this is different!”

Jaana blinked at Sasha and was amused. “It is different,” she agreed. She couldn’t say in her hundreds of years of life she’d ever thought to go stand in the sands and fly a kite. The desert air was sharp but not particularly cold. Sasha seemed perfectly comfortable in a pair of jeans and a tank top while Jaana was in her usual t-shirt and jeans. Her leather jacket was in the back of Sasha’s car.

They were silent for almost five minutes, before Sasha said “uh-oh.”

Jaana looked over, “What?”

“Uh. I think we should go.” Sasha said, reeling in her kite.

Jaana looked around but didn’t see anything unusual in the area. She wished she had John’s night sight once again, it was dusky to her vision. Not knowing the dangers of the area, she reeled in her own kite. While she didn’t think she had much to worry from the local hoodlums or biker gang, she didn’t really want to flex her might in front of witnesses. Her last master had suggested she learn a martial art to explain her abilities but she’d never gotten around to it.

Kites in hand, Sasha started hurrying back to her car, but stopped short with a curse in a language Jaana didn’t know. That surprised her, she was pretty sure she’d heard most of Earth’s tongues. It was then she heard the growling and the shapes uncurled from the darkness. “Li’ha’eer.” she cursed as dogs the size of ponies came up behind the humans. Perhaps four dogs, three humans.

“Shit.” Sasha breathed before clearing her throat, “We’re not in your territory.” she said to the foremost of the humans.

“We’re expanding, Fae. What’re you doing with the death eater?” He looked like someone who lived on the side of a mountain and had yet to discover running water, he sounded like he gargled gravel.

“Blood sucker.” Jaana said, getting ready for the fight that was predictable. She could smell their agression even if they were upwind.

“Excuse me?” He turned to her, eyes narrowed.

To hell with the veil, she’d play with Sasha’s memories later. “Blood sucker. I don’t *eat* death, that would be a zombie. I suck idiots who piss me off dry.”

The dogs and their masters were starting to circle. Correction, wolves. Great, freaking werewolves. She hadn’t heard they’d made it over here from Europe. They were supposed to be extinct. She could only wonder what other lovely surprises Las Vegas would hold. “Are we pissing you off, *blood sucker*?” asked a female.

“You’re in my way.” She replied calmly. Sasha seemed to be working her way casually to a weapon at the back of jeans.

“Oh, terribly sorry. And what are *you* doing with one of the fae?” snarled the leader. The wolves were starting to growl louder.

“Flying kites, what the fuck did it look like?” Jaana replied. Sasha was so startled she laughed. The doggies looked less impressed. Sasha produced the silver bladed knife she apparently had sheathed.

“Nice toy,” the girl growled and pounced towards Sasha. Sasha side-stepped; or at least that’s what Jaana assumed, one blink Sasha was there, the next she wasn’t. While she could probably take on two or three werewolves an entire pack was suicide and she wasn’t going to let the one friend she had be eaten by them either. She hadn’t wanted a friend, but apparently Sasha hadn’t been willing to give her a choice.

She hoped she could do this, she’d never had to do it before.. but her master could, so in theory, so could she. She felt within, felt for the chaos and wild, and expanded it. She felt herself disolve, a very disconcerting feeling, and then reform. Her vision seemed flat, but wider, her senses of smell metallic. She pawed a hook, sparks of fire coming off them into the sand. ~Sweet.~ Hellhorse, there worse other shapes. She charged a very startled wolf that was getting ready to pounce on Sasha and gestured for the woman to clamber on.

Sasha grabbed blade in teeth and with both hands in mane, hauled herself up. She barely had her seat when Jaana was off in full gallop, wolves baying at her heels. Holding on with one hand and legs, she shoved the dagger back home. “Holy shit, I didn’t know you could do this.”

“Me neither,” Jaana replied, her voice sounded hoarse, like it was coming from the depths of a grave. “Learn something new in the face of adversity.”

“UH.. yeah.” Sasha shuddered and turned to look over her shoulder. “Can you outrun them?”

“Of course.” Jaana replied smugly, “But I don’t want to.”

“Hope you have a plan,” Sasha muttered, grabbing onto Jaana’s mane with both hands, trying to ignore the smoke coming from the equine’s nostrils. Jaana could see her sideways glances every time she breathed out. Jaana felt closer to mortal since she’d been taken into the night the second time.

She reached out with her mind and sensed what she was looking for and turned in the direction she wanted. The wolves and their masters were baying at her heels. The werewolves in human form had shifted to a less human form to run along on fore-knuckles and back feet. Dog met ape with big huge honking teeth. She’d love to find the mage that dreamed up werewolves and have a long and painful chat with him.

Minutes passed and they came up on the SUV that was parked on the highway. As she came up, she saw the humans inside swearing and grabbing their rifles. They sighted past Jaana and her passanger to shoot at the wolves chasing them. Two went down with yips of pain before the rest turned and fled. Jaana seriously doubted the downed wolves would be injured for long, it was unlikely the state patrol would be packing silver bullets.

“Oh thank you officers!” Sasha breathed as Jaana danced, doing her best to look like a freaked out horse. “I don’t know where they came from.”

Jaana tuned out the airheaded busty blonde routine from there on out, she could sense Sasha was doing a mental weaving of some sort. Soon enough they were circling back to Sasha’s car.

Once back at the VW bug, Jaana felt within and returned herself to two feet. “We so have to talk.” She said flatly to the supposed-to-be-mortal woman.

Sasha gave her a weak smile. “Yeah, I guess we do.”

* * *

The drive back had been done in silence. Sasha had just said “Later. Driving through the possibilities is hard enough without deep conversation.” Jaana had just added it to the things she wanted to talk about.

They retired to Sasha’s apartment. It smelt of green tea, paint and wild rice. Jaana stood at the window at the front of the one bedroom apartment and looked out at the city lights. Sasha’s scent swirled all around her as the woman approached from behind. Jaana’s head was swimming as the scent wrapped her, she was losing track of the hear and now in the pulse of desire. Realizing what Sasha was doing, she stopped breathing and excelled the scent.

“I hadn’t thought it would work, but I had to try.” Sasha said with no apology and gestured for Jaana to choose a seat.

“You knew what I was.” Jaana said taking the seat across from the couch. Sasha curled up on the couch with her mug of tea and her house cat.

“From the moment you entered the building. What I didn’t know was who you were aligned with.”

Jaana raised her left eyebrow, “What are you?”

“I’m a satyr. One of the troops of the Fae Lords, also known as the Tuatha Dé Danann, or the Sidhe.” Sasha peered at her through blonde lashes.

Jaana looked back at her blankly. “All I know about the Fae is what the bards have written and popularized.” She’d danced to the fiddles of Irish kin often enough, hard not to know the stories.

Sasha sighed, “Guess I should start at the beginning then, huh?” She took a swig of her tea. “Okay, way back in the annuals of time, when humans were still using copper for jewelry and rocks for weapons, a group of beings called ‘Fae’ came through a portal from their own time and world. What they left behind, I have no idea, but it was apparently worse than what they found. The Fae being the arrogant sons of bitches they’ve always been found the humans great servants and immediately put them to work building the kingdoms they wanted.

“The Fae Lords aren’t known for getting along with one another. Back home they’d have had the lesser Fae,” she gestured at herself, “fight their battles for them, but why risk the immortal when there’s plenty of humans breeding to die for them?” She sighed and swirled the tea in the mug, “Anyway - humans kind of got sick of this treatment for some strange reason and rebelled. Their mages produced warriors to battle the humans loyal to the Fae Lords and the minor Fae. They mutuated humans with animals, they inflicted spirits into flesh, they did all sorts of stuff. That’s where the were creatures, vampires, et all, came from. Of course, you all rebelled eventually too and now some align with the mages, some don’t. I’m guess you’re a ‘don’t’.”

“I am definitely a don’t.” Jaana agreed as she chewed over the information Sasha had provided. For her own part she didn’t know a whole lot about the origins of vampires, she’d not stayed with either of her two creators long enough to learn the lore. She’d be interested to hear what Sasha’s view was of the families and their origins. “And you came through this rift gate?” she asked finally.

Sasha laughed merrily, “Heavens no! I’m only thirty seven! You’re definitely older than me!”

“Mm.” Jaana wan’t sure if Sasha’s youth was a good thing or a bad thing. “And you lust those you want to bend to your will?”

The blonde twirled a lock of curly hair around her finger, “Well, and those I want to lust.”

“And you want to lust me?” Jaana asked with some skepticism.

“Since I first saw you in the desert.” Sasha replied honestly, setting her mug on the floor. She uncurled from the couch to approach Jaana’s seat. “And a little more each day there after.” she said as she settled hands on the arms of the chair, either side of the vampire. She leaned forward to press her lips against Jaana’s, licking her lips as she pulled back. “But I didn’t know your allegiance and I didn’t want you to think I was some sort of spy.”

Jaana looked up Sasha for several moments before leaning up to press her lips against Sasha’s once more. She supposed there were verbal answers she could give to the revelations of the evening, but better to open her lips and lick Sasha’s with her tongue. Better to entwine her tongue with the younger woman’s while she pulled her across her lap. Better to slip her hands up under Sasha’s crop top to slide hands across breasts. She was not surprised to find Sasha wasn’t wearing a bra even though she was well developed.

“I wish you had longer,” Sasha said pulling back before moving to lick and nibble on Jaana’s neck, “We can barely get started with no finish.”

Jaana rubbed Sasha’s nipple with her thumb, “I can give you a finish easily enough, but I understand if you don’t wish to feed me.”

Sasha moaned, the hand that wasn’t supporting her entangling in Jaana’s hair. “You saved me from the were-puppies, the least I can do is feed you.”

Jaana smiled and removed her hand from under Sasha’s shirt to behind her thighs to lift the woman off her and carry her to the couch. She ignored Sasha’s murrph of surprise at her display of strength. Sasha wrapped her legs around Jaana’s waist and wriggled against her as Jaana lowered her to the couch. Her cat mreowled it’s irritation at beingd displaced.

Jaana kissed Sasha’s mouth, pressing up against the taller woman, and released Sasha’s lips to lick and nibble the ear before working her way down to the pulse in Sasha’s neck. Sasha’s hands were under Jaana’s shirt by this point and a hand covered each breast. She was not even close to as well endowed as the satyr. Jaana breathed in the perfume that was Sasha as she sunk her fangs into Sasha’s neck. She let her powers wrap the breathing woman into lust and completion.

Sasha’s back arched against her as she drank. Sasha’s hands moved around to clutch at her back as Jaana drank the heady fruit that was Sasha’s blood. Jaana hated to rush, but Sasha’s blood was more potent than any she’d tasted before and she could feel herself getting light-headed with power. She rolled Sasha’s mind and body to orgasm as she sealed the wound with her tongue.

“Oh, god.” Sasha mumbled into Jaana’s shirt. “Wow.”

Jaana wouldn’t have kissed her again, her mouth tasted like her blood after all, but Sasha pulled Jaana’s head down to her’s once more to give her a long, lingering kiss.

“We’ll have to pick up where we left off tomorrow night.” Sasha said, looking up into Jaana’s deep brown eyes.

“Night after, I’m afraid,” Jaana said with genuine regret, “I have an appointment with a very large man tomorrow.”

Sasha sighed, “Yeah, I guess you better report werewolf territory infraction to the big guy. But if you finish early..”

Jaana smiled down at her, “If I finish early, I know where to find you.”

Sasha grinned, “Goodie. Now go to bed.”

Jaana laughed and climbed off the other woman, “Yes ma’am.”

Sasha licked her lips and smiled winningly, “Dream of me.”

“Have I a choice?” Jaana asked teasingly as she left Sasha’s apartment. She closed the door and leaned against it for a moment before shaking her head. Goddess, potent woman, potent blood. She didn’t think John would be too thrilled to learn of the metaphysical players on the stage.. assuming he didn’t already know.

Jaana looked up at Sasha. “You have paint on your ear.” She was sitting in the middle of the floor of her living room playing with tarot cards.

Sasha scrapped at her ear and sighed, crouching down behind Jaana. “Not a spread I’m familiar with.” she said, studying the cards that looked like they predated Columbus’ first trip to America.

“It’s solitaire.” Jaana said, trying to ignore the pulse of the mortal behind her. She scented of blood, youth, and jasmine. She took her own sigh and gathered the cards with a swipe of her hand. “What did you have in mind?” She hoped Sasha wasn’t trying to convince her to go to some art exhibition. She barely ‘got’ Sasha’s work, the alternative art of Sasha’s friends was beyond her.

“We,” Sasha said, straightening to her feet with a grin of victory, “Are going to go fly kites.”

Jaana stared up at Sasha. “We’re what?”

Sasha held out her hand to the shorter woman, “Kite flying. Bet you haven’t done it since you were a kid.”

“I don’t think I did it as a kid, either.” Jaana said, accepting Sasha’s hand and got to her feet. It was hard to resist pulling her into an embrace. She couldn’t read the vibes off Sasha at the best of times.

“Even more reason to do it now!” Sasha exclaimed and tugged on Jaana’s hand, leading her to her own front door. A couple of brightly painted plastic kites were propped up by the door.

Jaana shook her head in amusement and reclaimed her hand to pull on here boots. “I don’t have a spare helmet.” Jaana said truthfully.

“S’k, I’m driving.”

She hadn’t even known Sasha *had* a car. Normally the woman was hitching rides with friends. “Alright, but I have to be back by four.” That seemed less blatant than saying dawn and it also gave leeway for lateness.

Sasha gave her a sideways glance before she opened the door, “I promise, not one drop of sunshine shall darken your skin.”

Jaana wasn’t sure how to take that so she just picked up the kites and followed Sasha out and down the stairs.

* * *

They weren’t far outside city limits, but the night sky was filled with the milkyway. Jaana was surprised so much penetrated the light pollution, it wasn’t as if there were high hills between Las Vegas and the two women with their kites. “This is slightly insane, you know.”

Sasha grinned, “Absolutely! But deny it’s fun!” she challenged.

Jaana shook her head, there was something simply and silly about flying a kite in the desert. She’d been surprised by Sasha’s car and driving.

The car was an ancient Beetle in immaculate condition. It had purred when she’d turned the key. “I’m good with the mechanical.” Sasha had offered as explaination. Jaana had to wonder why she wasn’t working as a mechanic instead of a painter.. she didn’t seem to be making much of a living as an artist. Sasha had driven very studiously and cautiously. While others weaved in and around, Sasha stuck to the speed limit and the right lane as much as possible.

The kite tugged in the wind and Jaana let the line out. “How often do you do this?” she asked Sasha.

Her friend was still grinning, “First time!” was the gleeful reply, “I was thinking you needed to get out of the house and do something different, and hey, this is different!”

Jaana blinked at Sasha and was amused. “It is different,” she agreed. She couldn’t say in her hundreds of years of life she’d ever thought to go stand in the sands and fly a kite. The desert air was sharp but not particularly cold. Sasha seemed perfectly comfortable in a pair of jeans and a tank top while Jaana was in her usual t-shirt and jeans. Her leather jacket was in the back of Sasha’s car.

They were silent for almost five minutes, before Sasha said “uh-oh.”

Jaana looked over, “What?”

“Uh. I think we should go.” Sasha said, reeling in her kite.

Jaana looked around but didn’t see anything unusual in the area. She wished she had John’s night sight once again, it was dusky to her vision. Not knowing the dangers of the area, she reeled in her own kite. While she didn’t think she had much to worry from the local hoodlums or biker gang, she didn’t really want to flex her might in front of witnesses. Her last master had suggested she learn a martial art to explain her abilities but she’d never gotten around to it.

Kites in hand, Sasha started hurrying back to her car, but stopped short with a curse in a language Jaana didn’t know. That surprised her, she was pretty sure she’d heard most of Earth’s tongues. It was then she heard the growling and the shapes uncurled from the darkness. “Li’ha’eer.” she cursed as dogs the size of ponies came up behind the humans. Perhaps four dogs, three humans.

“Shit.” Sasha breathed before clearing her throat, “We’re not in your territory.” she said to the foremost of the humans.

“We’re expanding, Fae. What’re you doing with the death eater?” He looked like someone who lived on the side of a mountain and had yet to discover running water, he sounded like he gargled gravel.

“Blood sucker.” Jaana said, getting ready for the fight that was predictable. She could smell their agression even if they were upwind.

“Excuse me?” He turned to her, eyes narrowed.

To hell with the veil, she’d play with Sasha’s memories later. “Blood sucker. I don’t *eat* death, that would be a zombie. I suck idiots who piss me off dry.”

The dogs and their masters were starting to circle. Correction, wolves. Great, freaking werewolves. She hadn’t heard they’d made it over here from Europe. They were supposed to be extinct. She could only wonder what other lovely surprises Las Vegas would hold. “Are we pissing you off, *blood sucker*?” asked a female.

“You’re in my way.” She replied calmly. Sasha seemed to be working her way casually to a weapon at the back of jeans.

“Oh, terribly sorry. And what are *you* doing with one of the fae?” snarled the leader. The wolves were starting to growl louder.

“Flying kites, what the fuck did it look like?” Jaana replied. Sasha was so startled she laughed. The doggies looked less impressed. Sasha produced the silver bladed knife she apparently had sheathed.

“Nice toy,” the girl growled and pounced towards Sasha. Sasha side-stepped; or at least that’s what Jaana assumed, one blink Sasha was there, the next she wasn’t. While she could probably take on two or three werewolves an entire pack was suicide and she wasn’t going to let the one friend she had be eaten by them either. She hadn’t wanted a friend, but apparently Sasha hadn’t been willing to give her a choice.

She hoped she could do this, she’d never had to do it before.. but her master could, so in theory, so could she. She felt within, felt for the chaos and wild, and expanded it. She felt herself disolve, a very disconcerting feeling, and then reform. Her vision seemed flat, but wider, her senses of smell metallic. She pawed a hook, sparks of fire coming off them into the sand. ~Sweet.~ Hellhorse, there worse other shapes. She charged a very startled wolf that was getting ready to pounce on Sasha and gestured for the woman to clamber on.

Sasha grabbed blade in teeth and with both hands in mane, hauled herself up. She barely had her seat when Jaana was off in full gallop, wolves baying at her heels. Holding on with one hand and legs, she shoved the dagger back home. “Holy shit, I didn’t know you could do this.”

“Me neither,” Jaana replied, her voice sounded hoarse, like it was coming from the depths of a grave. “Learn something new in the face of adversity.”

“UH.. yeah.” Sasha shuddered and turned to look over her shoulder. “Can you outrun them?”

“Of course.” Jaana replied smugly, “But I don’t want to.”

“Hope you have a plan,” Sasha muttered, grabbing onto Jaana’s mane with both hands, trying to ignore the smoke coming from the equine’s nostrils. Jaana could see her sideways glances every time she breathed out. Jaana felt closer to mortal since she’d been taken into the night the second time.

She reached out with her mind and sensed what she was looking for and turned in the direction she wanted. The wolves and their masters were baying at her heels. The werewolves in human form had shifted to a less human form to run along on fore-knuckles and back feet. Dog met ape with big huge honking teeth. She’d love to find the mage that dreamed up werewolves and have a long and painful chat with him.

Minutes passed and they came up on the SUV that was parked on the highway. As she came up, she saw the humans inside swearing and grabbing their rifles. They sighted past Jaana and her passanger to shoot at the wolves chasing them. Two went down with yips of pain before the rest turned and fled. Jaana seriously doubted the downed wolves would be injured for long, she doubted the state patrol would be packing silver bullets.

“Oh thank you officers!” Sasha breathed as Jaana danced, doing her best to look like a freaked out horse. “I don’t know where they came from.”

Jaana tuned out the airheaded busty blonde routine from there on out, she could sense Sasha was doing a mental weaving of some sort. Soon enough they were circling back to Sasha’s car.

Once back at the VW double, Jaana felt within and returned herself to two feet. “We so have to talk.” She said flatly to the supposed-to-be-mortal woman.

Sasha gave her a weak smile. “Yeah, I guess we do.”

The vampire turned to look up, eyebrow raised in a credible Spock impersonation. “I’m surprised you could see me with the campfire at your back.” She stopped in the doorway.

The woman shook her head, “Naw, I was out, y’know.” A biological function of some kind, Jaana assumed. “You and some giant hunk of man. I only remember ’cause of the juxtaposition.” She transferred holding the fire door with her shoulder and held out her right hand, “I’m Sasha.”

“Jaana.” she replied, shaking the hand, trying her best to emulate the strength of a normal mortal. There was something about this Sasha that tugged at the side of her sight and brain.

“Guessing you’re new to town and just took over three thirteen?” Sasha seemed reluctant to let go of Jaana’s hand.

“That’s me,” Jaana confirmed. Was the woman looking for an invite over? “I’m afraid I’m a bit short on furniture at the moment.”

Sasha grinned, “I know how that is. I’m up in five sixteen if you ever need a cup of sugar or company or anything. I’m a painter, I’m home most of the day.”

“I’m a dancer, I tend to sleep the days away.” Which seemed less odd in the winter months when the days were short, she had to be insane to be moving to a place where summer days lasted sixteen hours.

Sasha grinned, “Then I’ll never expect you before I’ve had my morning coffee! I’m right cranky before I get caffiene!” She turned to continue up the stairs, “Welcome to Las Vegas, Jaana.”

Something about the way Sasha said her name was more like a caress than a greeting. Jaana caught the door and watched the blonde mortal sashay her way up. She wasn’t normally one to appreciate females, but Sasha had a form she wouldn’t mind getting naked with.

She shrugged her thoughts back to the sun that was rapidly climbing into the sky and hurried back to her apartment. No signs of light crept in around door or windows as she forced herself to sit through sunrise, yawns becoming more powerful and demanding with each minute.

Satisfied that she probably wasn’t going to burn in her day induced coma, she curled up in the closet of the master bedroom. She’d probably have to get some sort of furniture soon if she ever wanted to .. entertain.

The lights spiralled and the music of money chimed and she moved through the herd. If anyone had designed these places she’d have thought the ancients of her kind not humanity. It seemed a place designed to take advantage of the prey and most humans were piss poor hunters. She got asked her age by security regularly, hadn’t they ever met a short person before? Of course, that she’d been sixteen when she died and her age froze probably didn’t help but money provided all things including an identity that said she was twenty-three. They all thought it was fake ID, as it was, but couldn’t prove it considering it had come from the government agency that issued the real ID. She knew they could ask her to leave, but the lust for money seemed to overcome common sense. Jaana couldn’t say she’d ever had money woes, when she hadn’t had money she stole what she needed and once reliable banks came into the picture she took the long view for investments. While often she was paid for dancing, she danced for the love not the money.

She spotted a male being obnoxious to one of the staff. Obviously she wasn’t allowed to plant a knee in an uncomfortable place to make him let her go, so she was forced to try and play nice while he grabbed her arm and tried to drool on her cleavage. Jaana spotted the security staff who should be protecting the woman giving directions to an elderly couple who looked like they should have been buried five years before. ~Thank the gods that will never be me.~ She stifled the shudder at the thought of being that old and broken.

“C’mon darlin’, just tell me when you get off shift..” the man was slurring his words but his grip seemed solid enough.

“Forget her,” Jaana said with a twist of mental force to her words. The man turned to look at her, eyes starting to glaze over, “You can do better. You can find willing.”

The man let go of the waitresses arm. The waitress immediately started rubbing her arm and said “Thanks!” quietly. She slipped off, obviously to go get security to rescue her rescuer.

Jaana didn’t need rescuing and she didn’t want this mortal rescued either. “Come with me,” she told him.

“Well, you betcha!” he seemed to be warming up to her, happy to lead her in the direction she wanted him to go.

She supposed she should be grateful that he was staying in the casino, she wasn’t sure she wanted to put up with him long enough to get to whatever hotel he was staying at if it’d been elsewhere. The room was one of the cheapest the casino offered. Once the door was closed and he leaned into her she grabbed his alcohol fuelled mind in her own. “Sleep.” She ordered and he collapsed on the spot. She’d had to jump out of the way to avoid getting fallen on. Grumbling curses under her breath she dragged the sot to the bed and hefted him up. The weight wasn’t so much the problem as his size, he was an awkward mess of jelly. How could she have known the idiot wouldn’t go to bed to sleep like most normal beings would?

Once she had him sprawled across the bed she straddled him. She leaned down and placed lips and canines against his neck to drink deeply. She was tempted to leave him to be found dead of exsanguination but discretion was the better part of valour. Not just because she couldn’t imagine her brand new Lord would be very thrilled if she left dead bodies about to be found. Instead, with a bit of a buzz from the alcohol filled blood, she clambered off and left in sleeping deeply. He’d have one hell of a hangover and probably wouldn’t be good for much for several days if he didn’t visit a doctor, but he probably wouldn’t die.

She had a one sided conversation with the drunk about how he should treat females in the future, but she wasn’t sure how much of it actually stuck in his subconscious. Ah well, maybe he’d apologize to the waitress, or maybe he’d go back to blaming his mother or father or uncle Sid for whatever problems were rattling around in his head.

She checked herself for blood splatters in the door’s mirror. Spotless, she went back out into the hall and made her way out of the casino. Even satisfied and full, she couldn’t say she could understand the attraction of the places any better than before she’d walked in.

She pulled her bike into the parking lot of the apartment building that would have seemed ancient to mortal kind. To her it was as young as everything else in this land. ~I know my family came here for opportunity, and I came her to dance for their fiddles, but really, it still ripples my sanity that I, and they, are still here.~ She parked the motorcycle easily enough and grabbed her saddlebags. She fished around in the left one for the keys to the apartment she’d rented before she’d even known if she would be allowed into the domain of the Vegas lord.

The lobby smelled faintly of lemongrass and ginger. She’d smelled more irritating things in worse places, she supposed. She ignored the elevator that seemed to consider refusual of movement every time a button was pushed and took the stairs. Stairs rarely trapped you wondering if you should force your way out or risk the rising sun. Her apartment was on the third floor, facing a courtyard that had since been covered. The realtor she’d hired had been very doubtful she could possibly want it ‘You’ll never see the sun!’ the woman had protested. Jaana had said she’d be sure to not bring any plants. The woman hadn’t seen the humour. But then, she’d yet to meet a realtor who would work by fax and phone with a sense of humour.

The apartment was as she had been promised; hardwood floors and high ceilings. Her steps echoed faintly as she closed the door and walked into the living room. There was no balcony, but she couldn’t imagine anyone ever wanting to be out in the desert heat during daylight hours and by the time the sun went down, you were probably better occupied with other things. Her impression of Vegas was that no one really sat down and appreciated the outside world.

Jaana dropped her saddlebags by the door to the master bedroom and dug out the theatre drapes. Everything else she could want was easy enough to buy or steal, but the risk of new housing without a way to block light was not an option. Hanging curtains didn’t take more than few minutes. She should have less questions than usual if she should actually bring anyone home with her, she doubted it was unusual for people to work nights in this city. Her existence would be much easier if she had less morals than most of her kind, just eat and kill anyone who gave you problems. But, she’d come into the darkness at death’s door due to plague and a burning need for revenge, she wasn’t the average of her kind.

Glancing at her watch, she decided she had more than enough time to go cruise the casinos and find some dinner before there was even a risk the sun would start its journey across the sky.

The form that came out of the night’s shadow was big, very big. Jaana had been considered short when she alive in an era where malnutrition was common and height rare. She was used to looking up at people of the newer generations, but at this new comer she wanted to take a step back to get a feel for all of his being. She wondered if he were playing intimidation mind games, she would no longer be able to sense them. His skin was similar to her’s in that it was pale under colour, but where her’s was a light olive, his was the red of the native people of this continent. Ancient times past, their people may have been cousins, but it was a distant relation now.

He seemed perfectly happy to stand under the starlight and stare at her. Was this some sort of status game of chicken? She’d never been good at politics. “I’m guessing you’re the representative from the ruling Lord?”

“Sometimes.” The deep voice rumbled. “Tonight I am. Tomorrow I might not be.”

~That’s bloody helpful.~ Jaana thought darkly, probably not hiding her irritation any. She was a dancer, not an actress. She was supposed to show others the joy she felt, not hide it away behind false personalities and created roles. “I’m Jaana.” she finally said into the silence.

“John.” came the reply.

Silence ruled once more, Jaana could almost imagine she could hear the music from the party below.

“What do I have to do to get permission to enter his domain?” She finally asked, giving up on her limited abilities at tact and subtly.

White teeth gleemed in the darkness, the shadow shifted to remove a pair of sunglasses, revealing pale blue eyes that gleamed red in the pupil. “Ask nice. Which you did. Promise to behave. Which you will.”

“I promise to obey the laws of our kind and the laws of the city as given to me. If I disagree with said laws, I shall leave before the next sunrise.” She agreed.

“And if you break those laws, you’ll leave with a hunt on your tail to the next domain. If you’re coming from the north and you leave friends at your back, that’d be your best way to go. Of course, I’d know that and it’d be to your disadavantage to have me know where you’re going.”

His voice seemed to fill her bones with its vibrations. “You’re the huntmaster.” It wasn’t really a question.

“I’m the huntmaster.” He agreed. “Welcome to Las Vegas.” He turned to walk away then turned to look back, “If you ever need me, I can be found at the Cafe’ Loco, most nights.”

“Right.” she echoed and watched the dark shadow disappear into the ink of the desert at night. She was jealous of his night sight. Her new father had the gift, but she’d yet to learn it yet herself. Complications, complications.

She turned back to her bike and kicked off the stand before wheeling it back across the sand. Probably a good thing there wasn’t a mortal anywhere nearby, that even the highway was empty, a four eleven little thing pushing a Triumph Bonneville across sand without breaking a sweat would probably come under the heading of ‘things not credible.’ It wasn’t a big bike, but it was still big for her.

Soon enough she was on the black top and braiding her hair. She dragged leathers out of the saddlebags and untied the helmet. The full face had a few advantages over those that had the ‘cool factor’. No bugs in her teeth, harder to recognize her facial features, and the cops were less likely to hassle her. Though, she still seemed to get pulled over by the bored bike cops wanting to talk shop. They were always in for disappointment, she liked her ride, but she couldn’t quote stats or name parts. But then, they probably couldn’t name the parts of the boots on their feet. Swinging into the saddle was always more of a hop than a smooth operation, but soon enough the engine was purring and she was on her way.

City of lights, city of nights, city of sin, city of .. well, who knew what really. She had permission to be here, but she still had to earn her way. As long as she managed to avoid Reynald, all would be golden. She didn’t think the Lord of the City would be particularly happy with her if she started a full out fight with a Mage in his city.