“Okay, I know Eir is a perverted little slut, which is one of the many things I love about her, but I am so mad that she thought of enlarging herself for sexy times before me.”
“Honestly, I’m shocked you didn’t ask about it first, too,” Syd nodded along to Kerr’s unserious whining. “You’re slacking.”
“I know!” Kerr groaned as she flopped her body halfway out of her seat as she slumped to a ridiculous degree. “I mean, I was the first one of us you made big on the battlefield! And I was there when you first started making Sorcha big! How did I not make the leap!?”
Syd chuckled softly at her lover’s antics. The pride that Kerr took in being the most salacious of their number was silly but also endearing. It wasn’t as though there was an actual contest; it didn’t matter who came up with a lewd idea, so long as they all got to benefit from it. But Kerr had her mind set on being the sluttiest one of the bunch, and Jadis wasn’t of a mind to dissuade her horny lover from her goals.
“Maybe if I suck your cock midflight while the Hero and his minions are up there, I’ll make up some points,” Kerr pondered aloud as she let her head fall into Syd’s lap. “If Jocelyn notices, I can teach her some techniques. Most of them hold true, regardless of size.”
Okay, there were some limits Jadis did have to enforce.
“No,” Syd swatted Kerr’s hand away from where it was creeping. “We’ve been getting along really well with Wilhelm and everyone for the past couple of days and we’ve got to work with them for the rest of the month at least. I don’t want to make things awkward between us. Not immediately, anyway.”
That sentiment was true enough; Jadis already expected that there would be some awkward moments just due to the nature of the rituals she and her lovers practiced. She didn’t see any need to deliberately perform lewd acts out in the open, just to provoke a response from some of the more innocently prudish passengers aboard the ship. There was another reason for rejecting Kerr’s plan, however. One that she was inwardly stressing over while doing her best not to give away her worries to the oblivious therion.
“Alright, well, what else are we supposed to do while we wait?” Kerr asked, still not removing her head from Syd’s lap. “Thea and Bridget are taking forever. I’m bored.”
“They’ll be here soon,” Syd patted Kerr’s side. “It’s just a short delay—oh. I think that’s them now.”
“Finally,” the archer whined again, though she still didn’t raise her head from where she had chosen to put it. “What were they doing, anyway? I thought we had all the supplies we needed already—”
“Spasibo za vash radushnyy priyem.”
The foreign words uttered by a man’s voice came from right behind where she and Kerr were sitting in the middle of the airship cabin, just to the fore of the midship entry doors. The moment the words were spoken Kerr shot up in her seat, her whole body as tense as a drawn bow. Her long ears stood up in a way that was reminiscent of a rabbit, and would have been cute, if not for the expression of shock that was painted across Kerr’s face.
“Thank you for joining us,” Jay made a decent attempt at repeating the hand gesture that Vadim, Kerr’s brother, had made. “We appreciate you joining us. It shows a lot of courage. Please, make your way to the back of the cabin. There should be enough seats for everyone.”
Ever since Jadis had spoken with Kerr’s brothers and sister in Glanum, at least before being interrupted by the Playwright’s insanity, she had been worrying about her lover’s connection to her family. Something had happened between Kerr and her father, who was the head of Clan Nox, and whatever had occurred had led to the archer cutting all ties with the man. Not only had she left home, she had fled from her entire nation, refused to speak with any of the rest of her blood relations, and she had even gone so far as to stop wearing what Jadis had since learned were the traditional symbols of her clan on her horns. Going with bare horns was the equivalent of declaring that she was a bastard who no clan had wanted to claim, which was apparently a serious deal according to the books about the Verdant Sea’s culture that Jadis had been reading.
Jadis had tried asking Kerr directly about what had happened in her past, but she had brushed away all such attempts. Aila, Eir, and the others had done so as well, though no one had gotten much more out of the woman than deflections and airy denials insisting that there was nothing to talk about.
Except, there was something to talk about. Jadis knew her lover. More than anger or dismissal, there was a pain in Kerr’s eyes that she was doing her best to hide whenever talk of her clan came up. There were unresolved issues in her past and ignoring them wasn’t going to make things better. Especially since Kerr was likely going to miss her chance to find resolution: Her father was dying.
Maybe whatever had happened between Kerr and her father was unforgivable. Maybe there was no happy reconciliation to be had between them. Maybe they were better off never speaking to each other ever again. But regret was a terrible thing to carry for the rest of one’s life, as Jadis well knew. She didn’t want to see her lover miss her last chance, not without at least having a proper discussion about it. If Kerr talked things over and still chose to reject her father’s dying wish to see her, that was her decision and Jadis would support her in it. The decision hadn’t been made, though. The choice was instead being ignored, and that was simply not acceptable.
So, since Kerr wouldn’t talk to her, or Aila, or anyone else in their not-so-little group, Jadis had taken a somewhat drastic measure that she hoped Kerr would forgive her for.
“What’s going on?” Kerr asked, her voice trembling on the edge between confusion and anger.
“We’ve got a lot to do in Volto,” Syd explained, keeping her voice calm. “I decided that we could use some more manpower to help with our expedition. Fortune’s Favored has entered into a partnership with Clan Nox mercenaries to help us with our operations in Volto.”
As Syd spoke, a line of therion warriors made their way onto the airship. There were fifty in total, a large number that took up all of the remaining seats aboard the airship. As each man or woman boarded, Jadis saw them look at the back of Kerr’s head, though none made any attempt to greet or speak to her. By the time the last therion had climbed into their seat, the deliberate arrangement Jadis had set up had become obvious. All of the Nox mercenaries were directly behind where Syd and Kerr were sitting, except for two, who took the only remaining seats across from them.
“Dobroye utro,” Timur said, his foxlike nose twitching. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” Vadim, the larger of the two brothers, said as he took his own seat.
While Syd gave the two men a pleasant nod of greeting, Kerr stared daggers at them. Slowly, without saying a word, she twisted in her seat so that the full force of her furious gaze was focused on Syd. For her part, Syd kept her cool and expression calm as she waited for either an explosion, or a discussion.
Eventually, the latter option occurred, though it was a close thing.
Still not speaking, Kerr stood up and walked up the aisle towards the front of the airship. She didn’t even glance at her brothers, and neither of them tried to talk to or stop her, though they shared a worried look with each other. With a twist of her lips, Syd held up a single finger, silently asking the two to be patient. A moment later, all three of them jumped at the sound of Kerr slamming the cockpit door shut behind her.
“Why the fuck did you do this!?” Kerr demanded as she stormed up to Jay, who was sitting next to Aila. “And you!” the incensed archer hissed as she pointed a finger at the redhead. “Why the fuck did you let her do this!? Don’t tell me you didn’t know!”
“I knew,” Aila admitted as she swiveled her pilot’s seat around so she could look at Kerr directly. “And I helped Jadis because I agree with her reasoning.”
“Reasoning?” Kerr scowled with teeth bared as she rounded on Jay. “Inviting my former clan to ride with us sounds reasonable? Have I not made it abundantly clear that I don’t want anything to do with them? What the fuck was going through your big fat heads that you thought anything about this is reasonable!?”
“I think it’s reasonable to talk with your family,” Jay replied while keeping careful control of her tone.
“I told you I don’t want to talk to them!”
“I’m talking about us, Kerr!”
At Jay’s declaration, the furious therion recoiled, physically taking a step back as her snarl slackened.
“We are your family,” Jay continued, her voice moderated back down to be as calm as she could be. “I’m your family. And you haven’t been talking to us. I have no idea what happened between you and your father, and that’s because you refuse to say anything to us about it. I care about you. I care about your past. And I care about what happens to you for the rest of your life. Your father is dying and I know that matters to you.”
“No, it doesn’t! It doesn’t matter what happened between me and that shit bag,” Kerr growled. “I don’t give a fuck if he dies!”
“That’s a lie and you know it,” Jay pressed. “How many times have you told me stories about the things that your father has done? Hunting monsters, fighting enemies, just being a big, strong figure in your life. I’ve heard the love in your voice that comes from precious memories. You wouldn’t talk about him at all if you really wanted to cut him out of your life.”
“They’re just old memories! They don’t mean anything! That’s all they are.”
“And that’s all you’re going to have soon enough,” she frowned at her distressed lover. “You’re not going to get another chance to see your father before he dies. Do you really want to leave things the way they are now between you and him before your last opportunity slips away?”
“What if I do want that? What if I never want to talk to him or the rest of that fucking clan ever again, huh? What if I want all of those fuckers kicked off this gods damned airship right this fucking instant?”
“Then they’re gone,” Jay said. “I’ll pay them for their time and ask them to leave. That’ll be the end of it, and we’ll never talk about it again.”
Kerr took in a sharp breath at Jay’s confident words. Before she could say anything in response, Jay continued.
“I just want to make sure that you aren’t going to have any regrets about your decision.”
Letting out a snort, Kerr crossed her arms across her chest and glowered at Jay.
“Regrets? What the fuck do you know about regrets?”
“Not a lot,” Jay answered honestly. “But I know that my last memory of my parents is ignoring a call I had gotten from my mother. I skipped visiting them for a holiday, even though I had promised to go, and I ignored my mother’s phone call because I just didn’t want to deal with her scolding me for not attending like I should have.”
As Jay spoke, she felt her throat tighten, an uncomfortable feeling of homesickness tugging at her. It wasn’t the first time she had felt that longing clutch at her soul, but she had always ignored it by not thinking or talking about her family much. However, as she talked to Kerr, she couldn’t help the way her voice caught in her chest.
“I hadn’t seen them in months, and I—I missed my chance to see them one last time because I wanted to go on a shitty date with a girl I didn’t even like that much. It was a terrible decision and now I’ll never see any of my family ever again because I died. I can’t help but think that—”
Jay coughed, clearing her throat as she looked away from both Kerr and Aila. Taking a deep breath, she slowly released it before continuing.
“I regret not spending one last moment with the people that I loved. If there really is no love left in your heart for your father, then I understand. But if there is… I just don’t want you to feel what I’m feeling.”
Jay fell silent, not sure what else there was to say. As she sat quietly in her seat, she felt Aila take her hand, holding on tightly. Jay squeezed her fingers back, appreciative of the comfort that her first lover was offering to her.
“I’m fucking pissed at you right now,” Kerr said after a long and tense silence.
“Understandable,” Jay nodded her head.
“I demand compensation for the shit you’re putting me through right now.”
“Anything you want,” Jay agreed without question.
“I want my cock, I want Mirror Magnification, and I want your ass until I’m completely fucking spent,” Kerr stated, her tone a confusing mix of genuine annoyance and false indignation.
“If it’ll make you feel better, my ass is yours to ravage,” Jay promised her.
Kerr let out another snort, her lips trembling on the edge of a smile. Wagging a clawed finger at Jay, she shook her head.
“I’m still mad at you. And you, too, freckle butt,” she said to Aila.
“I don’t have any freckles on my butt,” the redhead pointed out mildly.
“There will be when I’m through with you.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Not yet it doesn’t.”
The smile that played around the edges of her mouth fled a moment later as Kerr let out a long sigh, shoulders slumping forward. Groaning and shaking her head, she glanced towards the closed door of the cockpit.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Just talk to them.”
“Alright, fine. I’ll talk to them. But I do not promise anything more than that.”
“Completely reasonable,” both Jay and Aila said in unison.
“And you’re coming with me,” Kerr pointed at Jay’s face. “If I have to talk with them, you have to be there to deal with their idiocy when I can’t stand it anymore.”
“I’m already sitting back there with Vadim and Timur,” Jay pointed out. “Did you forget?”
Kerr blinked as she stared at Jay for a few seconds.
“Oh, right. Well. Merde. I’ll see you there, I guess.”
With that, Kerr opened the door and stalked back down the aisle to where Syd waited for her.
“That went relatively well,” Jay sighed as she turned her seat back around to face forward.
“Yes, it did,” Aila shook her head. “I’m shocked there wasn’t more screaming.”
“I told you Kerr wouldn’t do that.”
“Yes, you did,” Aila nodded. “And you were right.”
A few moments passed as Aila began to power up the Leviathan’s engine. Hands running across the controls, she kept her eyes facing forward, though her mind was obviously occupied. Eventually, when she spoke again, it was with a voice filled with quiet concern.
“Do you want to speak about your parents?”
Jay smiled wanly as she continued to stare out of the front window.
“You know, I’d like that. Thank you.”
“You are welcome.”
“…I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
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