Chapter Text
The dark season peaked wet and cold along the southern Cape of Storms, bringing with it copious driving rain and wind that lashed through the rigging of the ships at harbor in the port of Gerhae with a sound like the crack of gunshots. For the next five perigees, the Alternian sun would be little more than a wan ghost on the horizon, barely strong enough to blot out the moon and the stars with its light. This was the height of prime business season in commerce-minded Gerhae, the merchants and traders that represented its lifeblood now able to operate without fear of their crews being scorched in the light of day on the exposed, shadeless seas. Goods would flow aplenty through its markets and warehouses until the onset of the light season once again rendered trade the realm of the dauntless and foolhardy. Though tonight in particular the rain had driven the crowds indoors. Empty stalls lined the streets, abandoned by their peddlers, fishmongers and curio-hucksters in favor of a warm tavernblock and stiff drink. Flickering lanterns cast pale circles of illumination through the downpour on the nearly deserted boulevards.
Emphasis on “nearly” deserted.
A solitary figure in heavy oilskins moved through the soaking night, hood pulled down low over its face. Its footsteps were accentuated by the sharp tap-tap-tap of a dragon-headed cane against the stones. Though the figure apparently used the cane to search out obstacles in their path, careful observation would show that the figure didn’t really seem to need it — potholes and uneven places in the street were avoided regardless of whether or not the cane found them. Even closer observation, dangerously close observation, would reveal that the figure made a steady, regular sniffing noise as it stepped neatly around too-deep puddles and ducked under low-hanging rope and pulley assemblies.
Up the long, winding main drag and into the hilltop sprawl that sat above Gerhae’s port the figure wandered, pausing at regular intervals to study the placards hanging in front of tavernblocks and inncreches. Studying these signs involved moving its shrouded face to within a few inches and issuing a deep, long sniff, usually followed by a frustrated noise and a shake of its head that scattered water from its hood. It seemed to be searching for one establishment in particular and having little luck.
It continued along the main drag, over the crest of the hilltop town and down the other side curving back around to the port, repeating its little ritual of peer-sniff-shake. Finally, in a dingy district of disused warehouses and questionable businesses with shrunken heads and mysterious dried bits of animals featuring prominently in their windows, the figure found its quarry — a beat to hell place with a sign out front bearing the legend “The Hag’s Fancy”. The figure, upon smelling these words, let out a triumphant little cry and tossed its cane in the air, snatching it smartly in mid-spin. Now no longer even pretending to need to implement to navigate, the figure tucked it under its armpit and sauntered up the stairs to the door.
Once inside the tavernblock, the figure pulled its hood back to reveal the face of a younger female troll, not far into adulthood yet, with short cropped hair and a pair of deep red-tinted glasses, fogged with condensed breath, covering her eyes. The work of a few moments saw her divest herself of the oilcloth entirely, leaving her in the teal and black garb of a midblood functionary. She tossed the heavy, sodden coat over a rack in front of the fire and surveyed the room. Some of the patrons were staring at her in a vaguely hostile manner — members of her caste not being a common fixture of the neighborhood — but the vast majority were deep in their cups or otherwise engrossed in games of cards or dice. In the far corner of the room a conspicuous empty space had been left open, a few tables and seats left vacant. At the center of this void, a single troll was sitting, lying almost, tipped back in her chair with her feet on the table and a bottle dangling loosely from her fingers. A black greatcoat inlaid with blue was draped over her like a blanket and a bicorne hat was tilted low over her face. The visitor seemed to fix on the dozing troll in the corner, moving confidently through the press of clintele towards her and settling into the chair across the table from her.
A few scattered murmurs ran through the room, the trolls closest to the two began to pack up their cards and relocate. Drunks and degenerates though they may have been, they could sense trouble approaching. A few moments passed, the two women seeming to hardly notice each other. Then, the dozing troll spoke.
“You," she said, “are either really fucking stupid or really fucking brave, sitting down with a known seagrift like you’re at brunch.” She stirred, swinging her coat around her shoulders and tipping her bicorne back with a thumb to get a better look at her visitor. Seven pupils peered out from her left eye.
“The two may not be mutually exclusive,” replied the visitor.
“No shit. So, what brings an upstanding legislacerator like you to my table?”
The visitor cocked an eyebrow. “Ok, I’ll bite. How did you guess?”
“Weeeeeeeell,” the seagrift took her feet off the table and let the legs of her chair bang into the floor, "to start, you dress like a paper-pusher but got the sheer brass globes to walk right up to me. Second, you carry yourself like a lawman. You got that," she pushed her chin out and canted her head back slightly, “self-important look to you. Screams ‘long arm of the law’. And last but not least...”
She shot her hand out, snapped her fingers in her visitor’s face, and noted the lack of response behind her visitor’s glasses with a certain amount of satisfaction. “Last but not least, you’re blind. Cruelest Bar’s the only place I can think of that makes allowances for trolls like you, so long as you can ramble off about precedents and such at the drop of a hat. The revenueravagers don’t need someone who can’t read customs forms.”
“Impressive. What else can you deduce?”
“Let’s see. You obviously ain’t a neophyte, ‘cuz if you were you’d have probably kicked in the door all keen like and started shouting at me to come out with my hands up. Good thing you didn’t,” she reached into her coat, produced an evil-looking flintlock pistol, levelled it between her visitor’s eyes and made a popping noise with her mouth. “If you had, then I’d have to do a little redecorating in pan-matter gray. And it’d be a shame to mess up a pretty face like yours.” She laid the gun on the table, within easy reach.
The visitor leaned forward, grinning like a shark and tittering softly to herself.
“You ain’t a barristerror either, ‘cuz I’m pretty sure those guys are required to be all hoary and shit. Shirereavers and marshaldermen wouldn’t be tramping through a perishing rainstorm personally; they got people to do that kinda scut work for them. So that leaves us with... advocatus. ‘Scuse me, advocata. Gotta decline that old-ass word right.”
The visitor rapped her cane against the floorboards. “Well done! You’re not nearly as stupid as I’ve been led to suspect.”
“Glad to hear it. So, Miss Advocata, give me a good reason not to kill you now.”
The advocata’s grin widened in response. She looked like she was about to lose the top of her head. “As you wish. First, for all you know I have a full flaysquad waiting in the street outside for a signal to come in and apprehend you. Second, you’re trying to lie low. The hunt has been thin lately, fleet escorts have made it difficult for you to find prey. You have released your crew for the moment and are drowning your sorrows in particularly cheap liquor,” she wrinkled her nose, “I can smell it on your breath. Am I correct?”
The seagrift glanced at the bottle in her hand and scowled. “Yeah, spot on.”
“Of course. Starting trouble with otherwise non-aggressive agents of the Upper Courtblock is not high on your list of priorities right now. You want an easy paynight to keep what’s left of your crew in line, should they even return from leave. Third, I happen to come bearing a business proposition for you.”
The seagrift snorted. “Business? The Courtblock must be proper desperate if they’re looking to cut a deal with me.”
“I’d be lying if I said your reputation didn’t precede you. Word is that you’re absolutely insane, that during the Eastern Trade Wars you ran a blockade alone in a dismasted ship.”
“Exaggerations. It was pretty shot up, but not fully dismasted.”
“Whatever. They say that you crashed the heir-consort’s garden party just to glass him in the gills and make off with the silverware.”
“Now that’s just ridiculous. I was invited.”
“But you did rob him, yes?”
“Oh yeah, took everything that wasn’t nailed down. I’m just sayin’, he knew what he was getting into.”
The advocata giggled again. “And I figure the story about you sinking a subjugglator party barge by ramming it with a burning ship is also exaggerated?”
“That one... I have no idea how that rumor got started. Couldn’t pay me enough to get within a league of one of those floating nightmares. I’ll take credit for it though.”
“Mm. So yes, ‘desperate’ is definitely a watchword here.”
“Well, that’s a pity. Because, y’see, the hell of the thing is...” she took a long pull from her bottle and slammed it down on the table, “I don’t work with screws. So why don’t you piss off?”
“You’ll be very well compensated.”
“That’s sweet of you. Piss off.”
The advocata leaned in close and spoke in a harsh whisper, “I never said this business was officially sanctioned.”
“So, what? Am I speaking to a rogue agent of the Courtblock? That’s a new one for me; you guys usually don’t live very long.”
“Believe me, I’m well aware of that fact.” Casually, almost absentmindedly, she raised her hand to her collar, reached within, and raised a small icon at the end of a chain into view.
The seagrift went pale, sobering instantly. “Put that away! God’s fucking fangs woman, put that away!” She twisted in her seat, scanning the room. “Ok, congratulations, you have my attention. You goddamn idiot. Not here, though. In the back. The walls have auriculars.”
The back of The Hag’s Fancy was a dark little den set aside for discussions that would be better kept out of sight, hidden behind a door designed to blend into the wall. Furniture too battered for the main room went there to malinger, a selection of ragged chairs and a table that looked like someone had taken an axe to it. The fireplace had obviously not been used for quite some time. Once inside, the seagrift closed and locked the door behind them. It was the first time the advocata had gotten a good look, smell rather, at her — wiry frame underneath her coat, a huge mass of hair that hadn't seen a brush in recent memory, a face made for passing smalltalk at blueblood soirees turned salt-toughened and wind-burned by a life at sea.
“Vriska Serket,” the seagrift said, tossing off a small insolent salute to the advocata. “But I guess you already knew that.”
“Terezi Pyrope,” the advocata replied, returning the gesture with even less sincerity and another little laugh.
“So how exactly did a Sufferite come to be a lackey of the Cruelest Bar? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“I do mind, actually.”
“Whatever. Kind of buried the lede, didn’t you? Would have saved us both a lot of awkward dickering if you’d just sauntered up like, ‘hello, I’m a bloody heretic looking to cut a deal.’”
“I enjoyed the dickering. It’s fun to watch people’s minds work.”
“That’s pretty creepy.”
“You being a bastion of normalcy.”
“Compared to the giggling blind girl with leveller sympathies, I kinda am.”
“You think so?” Terezi hooked her foot around the leg of a chair and pulled it towards her to let her sit. “Serket, Vriska: approximately 13 sweeps old. Raised by one of the few remaining specimens of lusus naturae araneae horribilis. Wanted since age eight for callous neglect of guardian and suspected lususcide. Known telepath, highly unusual for her caste. Disappears from most official records between the ages of nine and ten, reappearing to begin racking up a battery of charges for piracy, wantonness, aggravated dissipation, murder and assault in a whole bunch of different degrees, theft, graft, plunder, pelf, and loitering with intent.” She lowered her glasses to shoot a condescending blind look at Vriska, who shuddered and pointedly avoided making eye contact with her. “Let me know when this stops being ‘normal’.”
“What the hell happened to your eyes?”
“Got into a staring contest and lost really hard.”
“Fine, keep your secrets. You memorized my dossier?”
“It made for good bedtime reading.”
“Ok so on top of everything else you’re an obsessive bureaucratic stalker. That’s tremendous. Obviously this business arrangement of yours is already destined for greatness.”
“So you’ll consider my offer?”
“If you’ll stop flexing your legal acumen at me long enough to tell me what you’re proposing.”
Terezi leaned back in her chair, tipping slightly as the uneven legs shifted underneath her. “Two weeks ago a prisoner vanished from Her Imperious Condescension’s Grand Prison, colloquially known as the Maze, right out from under round the clock observation. It’s a total debacle, the broadsheets are having a field night with the story. Heads have been rolling ever since and will continue to roll until he is found. I need your help to make sure that doesn’t happen. He must be removed to sympathetic parties safely outside the borders of the Empire quickly and at all costs.”
Vriska stared at her for a long time, then turned and left the room. From outside came a brief, loud conversation, and she returned bearing a pair of bottles and two thick-bottomed mugs.
“Sorry, the tavernkeeper was giving me shit about my tab,” she said as she arranged the alcohol on the table. She bit the cork out of one of them, filled the mugs, and slid one over to Terezi. “Drink. It’s swill.”
Taking a sip, Terezi was inclined to say that Vriska was being generous with her description. She pulled a face as her palate was inundated with a taste of chemical anise that went straight up her sinuses like a length of barbed wire.
“How do you stomach this crap?” she said between coughs.
“Very carefully.” Vriska replied, downing her entire cup in one go without so much as flinching. “If I have this right, you want to hire an entire ship to smuggle one troll out of the Empire.”
“Not just any troll,” Terezi said as she grudgingly accepted a refill, “he represents an existential threat to the Empire just by continuing to breathe. He’s a symbol, a rallying point for thousands. His survival is of the utmost importance.”
“And you trust me of all people with this guy’s life.”
“I’m as shocked as you are, believe me. But yes, I think so.”
“Why?”
Terezi laughed, high and sharp. “Why, Miss Serket, because you’re absolutely atrocious! Leaving aside the nitty-gritty of your individual offenses, your profile betrays a complete lack of hemopiety, contempt for social niceties, and a personality that I can only conclude runs entirely off sheer bloody-mindedness. Suffice to say, you are not the type to turn state’s evidence.”
“Maybe I’ll decide to kill him just for the hell of it.”
“Possible! However, unlikely. I believe you view a job like this as a challenge. Why did you run a blockade in a crippled ship?”
Vriska shrugged. “It was there and I could make a killing unloading the cargo if I survived.”
“Exactly, because you’re insane. I’m not just offering you a job, I’m offering you the opportunity of a lifetime,” she leaned across the table towards Vriska, her seared eyes fairly glowing in the dim light. “I’m offering you the chance to spirit Karkat Vantas away from right under Her Imperious Condescension’s cartilaginous nub, to spite the Head Bitch in Charge worse than anyone has ever spited her before. And I’m offering to pay you for your time. How does that grab you?”
Vriska looked stunned. “The Militant himself... They’ll double the bounty on my head for that alone. Hell, triple it even.”
“Your name will live in infamy forever. Right thinking, conscientious trolls the Empire over will spit it like a curse.” Terezi’s smile could have cut a bolt of silk in midair.
Vriska seemed to turn the idea over in her head. Finally, she raised her glass for a toast. “Pyrope, I think I can do business with you. To spite.”
“To spite,” Terezi agreed, clinking her cup against Vriska’s. They drank, one with aplomb and the other with hesitance.
“So what’re we talking about in terms of payment here?”
“Fifty thousand, twenty up front and thirty upon completion of the job.”
Vriska choked on her drink. “God’s fangs! Where’d you scare up that kind of money?”
“Confiscated assets, mostly. Turns out the answer to the question ‘who watches the watchtrolls’ is ‘not nearly enough people’.”
There came the resounding bang of the tavernblock’s door being kicked open and the sound of feet tromping in out of the rain. A voice shouted, “Advocata Pyrope, you are ordered to surrender yourself and submit to the judgment of the Upper Courtblock!”
Vriska was out of her seat like a shot, producing her flintlock from within her coat. She pressed herself to the wall by the door and opened it a crack, peering out into the main room.
“Oops. Seems that you’re busted,” she said, “a neophyte and a passel of heavies, six of ‘em. Looks keen. I fucking hate keen.”
“Impossible!” Terezi replied, her smile vanishing, “I was so careful! For all they should know I’m on the opposite side of the Empire.”
“What’s your call, Pyrope? Advance or abscond?”
“I... I don’t know. They have me cornered, but I don’t know if I’m ready to kill a colleague.”
“Ain’t your colleague no more,” Vriska smirked wickedly at her, “you’re wanted now, babe. Welcome to the club.”
“Oh god, shut up.”
“You’re a Sufferite, how many lowbloods you think this prick has strung up for nothin’ more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time?”
“How many have you?”
“I don’t string people up. I just kill ‘em, and I don’t pretend I’m doing it for any higher reason than than the law of Better You Than Me, Pal. What about you? How’s your conscience doing?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Ooooooooh, not too well then? You got regrets, Pyrope?”
“I said it’s none of your business, Serket!”
“Ah c’mon. Don’t think of it as being a hunted troll. Think of it as liberating. You get the chance to start paying down some of your debts.”
More shouting from outside trickled into the room as the neophyte and his enforcers started tossing patrons out. Literally tossing. A window smashed as someone exited through it at velocity. “Advocata Pyrope, you will surrender!”
Terezi rose slowly, face burning with anger. “I have no debts to pay.”
“If you say so. I ain’t passed the Bar but I know a little bit, and no one climbs the ranks without stretching a few necks.”
“What you don’t know could fill a fucking codex.”
“The clock’s ticking Pyrope, advance or abscond. This guy looks like someone who has it coming, and nothing seals a contract like a little blood. Preferably someone else’s.”
“I...” she felt helpless. This was a line that she knew one night would have to be crossed, and now that the time had come she was unable to summon the courage.
Something flickered across Vriska’s face, her awful smirk wavered for a moment and faded away. “You want me to handle it?” she said.
“What?”
“I’ll take ‘em out and then you can bail when the coast is clear. They’ll just be a bunch of overzealous morons who got all hopped up on authority and decided to walk into the wrong goddamn tavernblock.”
Furniture smashed in the main room. A gunshot rang out and someone started screaming.
“I don’t need your protection.” Terezi said, but her heart wasn’t in it. An out was being offered and she was inclined to take it.
“Ain’t protecting you. We’re partners now; you wanted a spiteful lunatic and you got one. Be at the harbor at moonrise in two nights time with your cargo. Gonna have to leave in a hurry after this. Ask for the Chelicerate Incarnadine. Be discreet — this one’s a freebie, but if you drop more trouble in my lap I’ll be pissed.”
She adjusted her bicorne, threw the door open and stepped out into the tavernblock.
Neophyte-Tipstaff First Class Macrov Vigile was having a bad night. Pursuing a sighting of the renegade advocata had led to him stomping across the entire blasted city in the middle of a sopping downpour. His boots were full of water, his enforcer cadre were slow and stupid, the idiot tavernkeeper he had just shot was starting to really get annoying with his screaming, and he’d run out of drunks to bounce off the walls. One of his hirelings returned from the upstairs respiteblocks, shaking his head.
“Nothin’, boss.”
“Advocata Pyrope, things are going to go very poorly for you indeed if I have to come pull you out of your hole!” he shouted, relieving some of his frustration by smashing a few bottles at random with the flat of his sword. When the door to the back of the tavernblock opened he almost cheered. Perhaps the traitor did have some sense left.
Except it was not the traitor that emerged. Instead, he found himself staring down a blueblood in a naval greatcoat. She strode casually across the floor towards him, arms folded behind her back like a ship’s captain inspecting the watch. Macrov’s enforcers looked at each other and began readying their weapons. Pistol hammers clicked into place and blades hissed as they cleared scabbards.
“Gentlemen! Are we having a problem here?” her tone was loose and conversational, as if she was addressing her crew rather than agents of the Upper Courtblock.
“We will be if you do not remove yourself from the premises instanter, woman,” Macrov didn’t like the way she was smiling.
“Hah, wow. You seem like a barrel of fun. I’m just asking because you guys are putting a major damper on my night. And if there’s one thing I can’t stand, its a bunch of jackasses interrupting my ‘me’ time.”
“You can file a complaint with the Cruelest Bar. They may even deign to scoff at it before pitching it in the trash.”
She tilted her head to one side. “Nah. I think I’d like to register it with you in person,” her arm swung around, discharging the pistol in her hand and putting a hole through the face of one of the enforcers.
“Detain her!” Macrov shouted.
The first thug to reach her caught a vicious crack across the temple from the butt of her pistol. She held him by the neck, hauling him around to shield herself as Macrov’s cadre unloaded their pistols at her while she freed a heavy saber with a hooked blade from its scabbard and let her spent flintlock fall, still smoking, to the floor.
“Five to one, guys,” she said, shoving the corpse away, “pretty good odds for you. Why don’t you stop pussyfooting around?”
The enforcers obliged, surrounding her as Macrov held back. The two behind her moved first, attempting to take her while the two in front held her attention. To their surprise she countercharged the front enforcers, catching one with the point of her blade as she plowed through them. Stepping over the dying troll, she caught a chair up in her hand and whipped it at her attackers, knocking one senseless as it smashed into him.
“Four to one,” she said, “still got time to beat the spread.”
They rushed her again, drawing an exasperated sigh from the neophyte. He found himself wishing that his cadre had been selected for qualities other than intimidation factor. The woman fell back from the goons, hopped neatly on top of one of the tavernblock’s long communal tables and started kicking flatware into their faces. She was beginning to get on Macrov’s very last nerve.
Having run out of plates to annoy people with, the woman dropped onto the far side of the table from the enforcers and, seizing it with both hands, upended the entire thing at them.
“C’mon! You guys tryin’ to bore me to death?” she cackled as she pulled a second pistol from her coat.
One of the enforcers broke ranks, howling with rage as he leapt over the overturned table to throw himself at her. His foot caught on the edge and she stepped aside as he toppled inelegantly to the floor. She dropped her arm, not even looking at the man, to blow the back of his head off with her flintlock.
“Three to one. Hey neophyte, your boys are garbage.”
This time it was her turn to leap the table, stepping on the edge to propel herself forward and dropping in between the remaining enforcers. One fell instantly, her stomach pierced by the seagrift’s sword. The other stumbled away from her as she turned, dropped his weapon and bolted for the door. She let him go.
“One to one, neophyte. How lucky you feelin’ right about now?”
“I don’t think I need to be ‘lucky’ to put one seagrift in the ground.” Macrov fell into a fighting stance.
“Killed your heavies easily enough, didn’t I?”
“They were idiots. The Courtblock thanks you for clearing out some dross.”
“My pleasure,” she lunged at him and he parried easily.
The two exchanged several blows inconclusively, not so much pressing for an advantage as attempting to take the measure of their opponent.
“I’ll have you know that I went top of my class in the academic dueling societies,” he gestured towards a long, ruler-straight scar on his cheek.
“That’s nice. I didn’t have to get schoolfed on how to kill people, personally. And I got meaner scars than that just from trying to duck out on the bill at a brothel,” she arced a cut towards his face, was parried, fended off his riposte and followed with a thrust that caught the fringe of his coat.
The two locked into the melee, hacking away at each other with a great ringing of steel on steel. Macrov knew himself to be more technically proficient, but his opponent fought with savage efficiency nonetheless. She had no form to speak of; she should have by all rights left herself open to attack with every wild strike. But the openings simply never appeared. Macrov would parry a blow that left his arm stinging from the impact and attempt to capitalize, only for her to twist herself away from his attack at the last second and come right back at him. It was the brutal, chaotic style of someone raised in the knowledge that form was secondary to not being the one who ended up dead at the end of the fight. She threw herself at him, laughing in accompaniment to the clang of their swords. He opened a wound on her arm and she didn’t seem to even notice, taking advantange of the opening to return the favor. Their blades clashed together and they pressed against each other, trying to force each other back. In the end, the seagrift won. Macrov stumbled, found his footing, and prepared for her to follow on her advantage.
Her follow-up never came. She moved to attack but trod upon a bottle rolling around on the floor. Her leg shot out from under her and she landed flat on her back, her sword imbedding itself in the floorboards. In an instant, the tip of Macrov’s blade was at her throat.
“I know you. I know your face,” he said. “I think this might not have been a total waste after all.”
“You must be new to the job if you’re only just now twigging onto who I am.” The back of her head was pressed hard into the floorboards. Her horns dragged against the grain of the wood.
“Forget the traitor. You will make me a very rich troll indeed, Miss Serket.” His face was all cold delight.
“Oh, indeed?” she sneered. “Goddamn pencil-neck! Can’t believe this ignominious shit.”
“They’ll make me a full advocatus for presenting your head to the Courtblock. What luck.”
“Poor form, neophyte! Should have spent more time reading up on your Grigor Felbrief!” came a voice from behind him.
Macrov turned just in time to catch Terezi Pyrope’s dragon-headed swordstick through his chest. He sank to his knees, his breath rattling wetly in his ruined lungs. Jerking her weapon loose, Terezi knelt beside him.
“To wit: ‘gloating is the vice of the imminently deceased,’” she said.
Macrov Vigile was having a very, very bad night.
“So,” Vriska said, propping herself up on her elbows, “no debts to pay, huh?”
“None whatsoever,” Terezi said, helping Vriska to her feet.
“Keep telling yourself that, maybe it'll stick.”
Terezi didn’t offer a reply. She felt nauseous. The line had been crossed, and she could never come back from it. She was well and truly adrift. Somehow, she managed to make herself touch the neophyte's coat long enough to wipe her weapon clean.
“It’s going to get worse.” Vriska was looking at her in that odd way again.
“I know.”
“Do you? Did you actually think about any of this shit before you did it? Did you think it would just be as easy as walking away?”
“Again, Serket, we are wandering into territory that is none of your concern.”
“I believe you’ll find it is very much my concern,” she was looming over Terezi now, uncomfortably close, a note of hardness replacing the previous flippancy in her voice, “because I need to know that this is a ride you’re prepared to take. I don’t extend offers twice so, if you’re having doubts, here’s where you get off.”
“You’re pretty ungrateful for someone who just had her life saved,” Terezi said.
“Gratitude is kinda taking a backseat right now to figuring out whether my partner in this little endeavor is going to have the guts to see it through.”
Terezi jabbed her cane at the dead neophyte. “This isn’t enough proof for you?”
“You hesitated. You waited until you didn’t have a choice but to step in.”
A prickling sensation started at the base of Terezi’s skull and began working its way slowly upwards. It felt like a fingernail being dragged lightly over the surface of her thinkpan. Combined with the discordant scent of blood coming off the neophyte and Vriska’s wound, her head was beginning to swim.
“I could have let him kill you.”
“No, you couldn’t. If I go down, your ass is in a real bind,” Vriska’s awful smirk returned, “not to mention that you’re obsessed with me.”
“This is a dominance thing, isn’t it? I caught you in a compromised position and now you’re trying to take me down a peg to soothe your ego. And incidentally, if you don’t stop trying to read my mind, I’m going to hurt you.”
The prickling sensation in Terezi’s head disappeared.
“Wow! Sensitive much? Lighten up, Pyrope,” she rapped Terezi between the horns with her knuckles, “you got your shit locked down tight. Need to shove a lit grenade in your auricular if I want to crack that place open.”
Terezi caught Vriska’s wrist in a tight grip. “First proviso of our agreement — never do that again.”
“Fine. Here’s my terms — don’t dither on me. Ain’t got time for ethical quandaries where we’re going,” she yanked her hand away from Terezi and went to recover her discarded pistols from the floor, tucking them safely away inside her coat. “You should probably get moving. We sail with the tide, with or without you.”
Terezi nodded. “Two nights, moonrise, Chelicerate Incarnadine, discreet.”
“I’ll want my goddamn money too. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go pull a crew out of thin air.” She paused at the door to the tavernblock, looking over her shoulder for a moment like she wanted to say something. Whatever sentiment she had in mind was left unsaid, however, and she stepped out into the rain and wind.