Lainey shrugs. "I couldn't deal with country living. What am I supposed to do out there, look at some rocks? Blog about the weather? No thanks! "But yeah, if we're done here there's plenty of all-day food stores to hit up around here. You tourists like your late-afternoon nibbles."
"Are we done here?" you ask the fluffcheep, who is now so full you're tempted to bowl him across the table. He, being asleep, does not answer. As you tuck him into your hoodie again and sign your room number to your bill, you say, "Looking at rocks occupied a lot of my time growing up, to be honest. Climbing the cliffs around the bay while my lusus flew laps and made fussy noises. Sometimes he caught me when I fell, sometimes I ended up in the surf. So, yeah, rocks and water, martial arts, and books. It always felt like enough. You don't miss what you never had." You swap your reading glasses for shades as you step outside, and shrug your new coat on. The chilly wind feels good.
Lainey leads the way to a store a few blocks away, the kind that caters to the rent-stem visiting crowd: fewer security drones, crisper organization of the bales and stacks, and signs that say MUG A MOTHERFUCKER SOMEWHERE ELSE, THANKS in bold red letters. "Oh my god, they have that infused water here," Lainey says, and holds up a thick glass bottle with a single scorpion bobbing muckily at the bottom. "Look at the price tag! Us little people just put a fancy bug in our own water, you know?" She picks up a basket and two bottles and gives them to Bel to carry. "Buy me this, highblood. I want to literally piss away a double fistful of caegars."
You roll your eyes, but take the basket. "Why not. Turns out Erskin didn't want most of the bells and whistles on his new leg, so it only cost half my sweep's stipend. Don't tell him that, by the way. I'm enjoying visibly not caring how expensive it was, though I'd have a hard time explaining exactly how it's a victory." You pause, stricken by a wall of different flavors of grubcorn. "Oh my god. I need to buy my matesprit every single one of these."
"Right, you were going to tell me more about your matesprit, weren't you?" Lainey asks casually. She helps Bel put one of each flavor into the basket. "What's he like, how'd you meet? Have you been together long? Is it working out? I'm sure you must have dozens of suitors of every quadrant throwing themselves in your way, big lug that you are, so he must be something special. "
"I see what you did there," you say dryly, because you were absolutely not going to talk about Galley, but... well, it's different now. She's a friend, not The Press. "I suppose," you shrug at the 'dozens of suitors' comment. "Trolls like a trophy, and I'm pretty and rich. I know some people like that kind of attention but I don't. Enkidi's different. He's proud and grumpy, but totally genuine. Also super cute. Leggy goldbloods: kawaii as fuck, am I right?" As you continue your shopping -- upgrading from a basket to a cart as you both keep seeing things you absolutely have to buy -- you practice telling the story without dropping any incriminating hints. "He's my friend Lu's moirail. My moirail, Pancho, and I were on a sea trip, going to pick up a friend whose wingbeast lusus died and left him stranded on a little island without a boat. We got in a fight with a seadweller, and we won, but their narwhal lusus punched some holes in my boat. So I trolled Lu, thinking maybe she'd be close enough to help us -- she lives on a tugboat, does cargo and salvage -- and she was passed out because they'd been drinking, but her moirail answered and was like, 'Sure, what the hell, I don't need the captain's permission, I'll just kinda drift off course and coincidentally come save your life.' And then he got all prickly about being thanked because like, sort of, 'I don't need a highblood's thanks, baka!' and also he was still pretty drunk. So I cleaned up his face and carried him to 'cupe and he started purring. I fell in pity on the spot, and he was still like 'No I don't want your fucking sandwich fuck off' for at least another two weeks." You laugh at the memory.
"I see I've been going about courting your favor all wrong," Lainey grins. "I should have started giving you shit a lot sooner, shouldn't I? But you never really know, with highbloods. Here, get this soda brand, it's local and will fuck you right up." "So quadrants," she says contemplatively after a few more items are added to the cart. "It sure sounds like you've shacked up with a really tight-knit family— that's, what, five of you? six? You think you'll crew together after Ascension? I hear it can be great to make a new start but like, you know, a gang like yours doesn't sound easy to parcel back out."
"I don't blame you for being cautious," you say to the remark about highbloods. "A lot of us are nonstop turbo-douches with glass egos and way too much firepower. I feel truly fortunate that my lusus is big on courtesy and never let me get away with acting like an entitled brat. You don't have to court my favor, though, Lainey. In case that wasn't completely a joke. Hanging out with you is fun, I like talking to you. So like... friendship secured." Your grin is kind of embarrassed, and you change the subject maybe a little too fast. "Seven of us if you count Jethro's matesprit. We're sticking together as much as possible. We've got a pretty wide range of skills and we work well together, I think we've got a good chance." A good chance at evading the ascension enforcement drones, that is.
"Hang on, like, friendship not secured, you haven't even started courting my favor!" Lainey says, putting her hands on her hips. "I expect some special treatment from you and your buddies if you want me to keep putting up with you all!" She puts a box of chocolate-chili crickets in the cart. "The very nerve of some people!" she announces, and snorts out twin plumes of smoke with regal disdain.
"Fancy bug water doesn't count as special treatment? You better pick up some ice cream too, then," you tell her solemnly. "Okay look, here's an adorable picture of my matesprit, now you'll have to be friends with me in hopes of meeting him." You show her on your phone: "Even his lusus is adorable. I think all of us who know him are semi-adorable now just by osmosis."
Lainey's gaze flicks over the photo, cataloguing each detail with the practiced eye of a gossip hound: build, scars, hands, smile, the constellations visible in the background, the details of lusii anatomy. She lingers over the horns in particular, a crease forming between her eyebrows, then looks up at Bel, back at the picture, and smiles a bright and dazzling interviewer's smile. "I'd say he looks delicious but it looks like someone's already chewed him up and spit him out!" she says. "There's a hell of a story there— I can see I'll have to be friends with you just to hear it!" (she's thinking: does he know the guy's an adult? does he mean for me to know?)
You stick your tongue out at her fakey overdone smile. "Yes, fine, I know he's not everyone's idea of a heartthrob. But I think he's wonderful." You look down at the picture, and your expression goes soft and faraway. "He's really sweet."
Lainey laughs. "Aww, you dumb sap. I'm gonna assume you two of all your gang are going to stick together like exceptionally lovestruck glue." She looks at the picture again, the out-of-focus scars, then looks up at Bel a little calculatingly. "So okay, what are your plans for his Ascension? He got enough juice to helm for you?"
It would be dumb to deny that's his imperially sanctioned fate, Gemini that he is. "Juice isn't the issue. He's been through some rough times, I'm not going to let him be taken by someone who's going to treat him like a thing. Between me, Lu, and Erskin, he's got three highbloods to protect him. That should be enough."
"Aspera's in on it?" she asks, surprised. "I mean, with— crewing with you lot. I didn't think he was—" she waves a hand "—a team player, exactly. I'd have guessed his plans were something along the lines of, like, a free agent, a roguerilla or something. A hunterrogator."
Okay, she suspects something, but hopefully just dibsing a helmsman before Ascension. You wish you hadn't talked about Galley at all; now you have to see it through. "He's really not. But when he saw how messed up Enkidi was from what happened to him before -- which I'm not going to talk about, by the way, it's not my story to tell -- he was like 'Surely with my rank I can keep him safe!'" You can't help smiling at the memory. "He may be a douchebag in many ways, but Erskin's got a sense of honor."
Lainey looks a little star-struck all over again, and busies herself with sorting through a display of candied popgrubs. She chews her lip as she messes with the packets, thinking. "How far, would you say, does that sense of honor stretch?" she asks slowly. "I mean like. He does seem to like, get... like, he gets along with Arguus. Right?"
Oh. Oh. "I don't fully understand where he draws the lines. That's part of why I hate him -- he's inconsistent, he won't be pinned down or explain himself, even when people's lives are at risk. But yeah, he does seem to like Arguus, and he definitely likes you, and sticking by his friends is a thing he does." You set a package of fresh salmon for Jethro's lusus in the cart, and look around. It's not crowded in here, but it's far from private. "Let's pay for this and then go walk in a park or something. The fluffcheep's been eating since he was hatched, I figure an epic poop is imminent."
"Hang on, the squeaksnacks—" Lainey says, and trots off to fetch them. She returns with a faintly rustling box, tucks it in the cart, then chatters brightly about local events and tournaments all through checkout and a walk to a nearby public lawnring. "Okay," she says abruptly, watching Bel ease the fluffcheep down on to the thinest patch of snow he can find. "Okay, so, what."
"So," you agree. You're kneeling by your new pet, clearing some snow with your gloved hands so he can at least reach the ground with his paws, and you don't look up at Lainey while you talk; you don't want to make her feel scrutinized. "If you and Arguus need anything, if he needs help, I'm offering. I don't know how much I can do, but I'm offering to try, and to keep my mouth shut. What the Empire does to psionics is wrong. It's unworthy of us as a species. We have these amazing people among us, with these amazing abilities, and we treat them like engine parts? It's not right." God, you hope you haven't misread her.
