Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Life's a joke to Temenos.

As far as Throné can remember, there isn't a single moment he has not managed to squeeze a laugh out of, no matter how tragic, vile or painfully unfunny. His nonchalant smile never leaves his face, sharper than the blades hidden underneath his cloak and impervious to the grim nature of their shared reality. He laughs at business meetings, at torture sessions, at funerals. He cracks jokes while he cracks fingers, skulls or minds. He comes out of Mother's chambers with a manic grin, clamoring that the old mama is losing her touch. He cackles like there is no collar choking his throat, no poison lurking in the vicinity of his skin, no chains binding his soul to this filthy body of theirs.

This is the sort of man he is. This is the sort of man the Blacksnakes create, on accident, while trying to fabricate puppets with knives. In retrospect, it's not surprising he would stroll up to the Diamande's mansion balcony and say:

"Aw, you started the party without me."

Throné has Pirro's head on her lap, one hand in his hair, the other soothing the wrinkles of his shirt. There isn't much she can do to rend his body presentable, drown under the dreary rain that spatters incessantly on New Delsta's gray pavement, torn apart with knife wounds and the gruesome rot darkness magic unleashes, but she tries nonetheless. Pirro has always been vain, the prick, constantly stealing nice, expensive, noticeable shit that got him into trouble. A peacock in the piggery, that's what Temenos called him that one time he showed up at the den with a gold lined coat some aristocratic twat uptown must be missing.

He'd want gravediggers to believe his corpse must have had a good life, at some point. There's nothing sadder than a thief assessing you and judging you've got no goods worth stealing, not even in death.

"Apologies," she rasps out without raising her head. "I was not informed of your attendance. In fact, I thought you out of town."

Mother had sent him to some secret mission Aeber only knew where a few weeks ago. They had a bizarre relationship, Tenemos and Mother, based on mutual loathing and reluctant admiration, on Mother's end at least. She despised him and the untouchable casualness her artful cruelty continually failed to break, but had no choice but to respect his talent in interrogation, intel gathering and psychological warfare.

Among the pack of war dogs the Backsnakes are bred to embody, none can pretend to be a smarter hound than Tenemos. If it's delicate information Mother or Father require, that cannot gathered through their usual brutish means, they always send him in priority.

"That's quite alright, my dear. It was a last minute decision. No offense taken."

Throné gently lets down Pirro's head on the floor, and raises up on her feet. Tenemos leans against the balcony, his back on the railing, as if Scaracchi's and Diamante's corpses weren't laying a few feet away. Rain crashes over the white strands of his hair and the expense of his light green cloak, another of his eccentricities. He hates dressing up with the dark garbs their kind favors.

And he's smiling. Of course he's smiling. To be fair, Pirro would be offended if he didn't. He admired that side of Tenemos, and used to trail after him as a kid, trying to mimic him and his detached, lackadaisical manners.

"You knew what Mother and Father planned," Throné says, conversationally. There's no point getting angry with Tenemos. Fury, sorrow, hatred, it all washes over him like blood's on a naked blade. If anything, getting emotional gives him an edge in the confrontation, a breach for him to slide in and twist. Every Blacksnake can kill someone, but none can destroy a heart the way Temenos effortlessly manages.

"You know me, Throné. I'd never miss a party."

"True, I suppose. Do you intend to participate, then?"

"Do I, indeed?" He muses. "I believe that's the usual expectation when one does show up to festivities. Oh, before I forget, I took the liberty to bring along another guest, I hope you don't mind."

With two thin fingers, he whistles. Throné tenses, her fingers shut tight around the handle of her dagger. A familiar bark responds to the call from the stairs, and a dirty ball of fur runs up on its tiny but enthusiastic legs to crash on Throné's boots. Throné remains frozen in place, unresponsive to the puppy's cries.

And here comes the breach, wide open. There's no way she can protect herself and the dog should he decide to attack. She's not even sure she could defeat him with only herself to save. Objectively, Throné's the better fighter, but she's exhausted, mentally and physically, and he has an enormous psychological ascendant on her. On everyone, really.

Her heart's not into it, either. It wasn't only Pirro who trailed behind his tail as a child, eyes wide with adoration.

"We met by coincidence on the way," he says, his face unreadable as ever underneath his smiling mask. "I noticed some ill-intended individuals bothering your little friend, and taught them a lesson. I could hardly stay still knowing how much you care for him, hm?"

Could be true, could be a blatant lie. There's no way to know with him. Either way, he's weaponizing the specks of affection she allows herself against her, just like Father would.

A laugh blurts out of her throat. Another follows along, then another, another. The puppy has gotten quiet, afraid of the strangeness of her behavior. So much for not allowing Tenemos to get a raise out of her. The very thought was foolish from the beginning. The scent of blood pollutes the air, omnipresent, inescapable, and there are bits of her everywhere, shattered by yet another betrayal. She's on display, ripe for the slay. Throné understands the appeal, suddenly, of Tenemos's way of life. This is absurd. Life is absurd. None of it makes sense. What other choice is there but to laugh at it?

Tenemos replies to her insane display with a chuckle of his own, the corners of his cold, morbid eyes wrinkled with mirth.

"Is this what you want then, Tenemos?" She says softly as she gestures at the emptiness, encompassing the balcony and its meaningless corpses, the city and its crass streets and disgusting bowels. "You want to be the chief of the Blacksnakes? Go ahead. Kill me, and become king of the rot."

"So dramatic now." His knife twirls between his fingers. The big staff on his back is mainly for show. Just like the rest of them, Tenemos has been bred a creature of the blade. "I feel cheated, truly. How come Pirro fights you at your most determined, and I get only defeated defiance? Your will to live has withered so quickly already."

"Live? You call this living?"

She still has Pirro's blood on her hands. It's everywhere, on her skin, on her clothes, inside her lungs, bloated in her heart. She'll never remove it. It'll follow everywhere, for as long as she exists in this cursed world. The puppy rubs its fur against her boot in a heartfelt attempt to comfort her in this sorrow he cannot understand.

Her mental breakdown leaves Tenemos unfazed, his smile unbroken. Madness is a sea he sails smoothly on, when he's not riding the wave or diving in its depths.

"According to common definitions, they are dead." He gestures at Pirro and Scarraci. "And you, my dear Throné, are alive. You must wish to do something out of it if you are willing to kill for your life."

Her fingers raise up to the familiar weight of her collar. Her skin gleams under the moonlight, in echoes to Temenos'. Pirro asked the same thing. What do you want, Throné? What do you want?

"I'd rather die before I become their heir. I want… I want to be free."

Tenemos considers this, his head tilted to the side. "Free, uh? Such big words you have learnt, unfit for an obedient snakeling. Mother would have a conniption to even hear its echoes. Free. And how exactly do you intend to obtain this forbidden fruit, child?"

The response comes ever so naturally to her lips. There was never another option for her. "I'm going to kill Mother and Father."

Of course, he laughs. Tenemos is always laughing, even when he's not.

"My dear Throné, ever such a blast! I'm glad it is you who survived. Between you and I, you always were my favorite, although I was quite fond of dear Pirro as well. He would have never dared to do what you plan to. Keen eyes and nimble hands, but a heart without drive, without hope."

"Don't make fun of him," she whispers, pointlessly. HIs corpse is right there. Perhaps he can still hear from the afterlife.

"I would never." He clasps his hands together, looking quite delighted. "Very well, it is decided. I shall accompany you on your journey towards this mystical freedom. Having never tasted this delicacy myself, I find myself quite curious to witness your ability to obtain it. If you allow it, that's it."

Throné slides back down. The pup climbs on her lap, and she rests her hand on his wet, but warm fur. The rain has stopped now, only the fog remains, and Pirro, frozen and rigid on his pavement linen. She'll have to find a white cloth for him, and put some shoreflowers flowers in it. He loved that scent, the prat.

From the pocket of his coat, she finds his pack of cigarettes and the lighter Donnie stole from an uptown cop on a dare before Scarracci stole it back from him, before Pirro stole it again. She opens the lid to grab one of those tightly rolled fellows. It's the bad, cheap sort of tobacco that fills the lungs with rot and despair and just the hint of pleasure to get you coming again. She puts the cigarette at the edge of her mouth and lights up the end. A puff of life, that's what they're all good for.

"I was not aware you smoked now, Throné."

She chokes on that disgusting smog, and smiles. "Last minute decision."

He sees the humor in that, but once again, he sees the humor in everything. The moment passes, in quietness. The pup whimpers on her lap. Tenemos waits under the moonlight. She finishes her fag, painfully, slowly, but with determination.

Once she's done, she crashes the end of it on the pavement, the way she has seen Pirro do countless times, and stands back on her feet. "Alright, you can come along."

"Oh?" He taps one long finger on his cheek. "So easily? No more questions, no more accusations?"

She shrugs. "What for? Questions and accusations are your territory, Temenos, your battlefield, and I stand no chance to win an inch against you. I'm not foolish enough to believe I can ever obtain any answer you do not wish to give. The way I see it, you'll proceed as you will, like you always do, so either one of us kills the other, or you'll follow along anyway, regardless of my opinion on the matter."

He has the nerve to wink. "I'm flattered you think so highly of me, my dear."

"I think highly of your potential as a particularly persistent pest."

"The highest praise indeed, considering your thorough knowledge on vermin control. Say no more, lest my ego inflate to the point of no return."

She chuckles, helplessly. It's disconcerting how easily they fall back on banter even at the bottom of the barrel, in the darkest of night, as if they were fooling around Gil's tavern, Pirro, Scarracci, Donnie and her, with Tenemos occasionally chiming in in-between top-secret assignments, the cool older kid checking up on the juniors that hung up to his every words.

Once upon a time, she would have been so excited to be invited in one of Tenemos' mysterious missions. That time has passed though. Donnie lays abandoned to the gutter, Pirro and Scaracci torn apart by the betrayal of their parents, and the only two left stare at each other under the judgment of the moon, pondering the best spot to strike, searching for where the meat is most tender.

"I don't trust you, Temenos."

She says it more for her sake than his.

"I'd be offended if you did. Creatures of our ilk shouldn't trust anyone, least of all our own kind."

She looks down. Pirro's eyes remain closed, his eyelids shut by her own blood-tainted fingers. She hauls him up her back like she has countless times before. He's quieter now. Won't complain about how much he's craving a fag, or how stiff her back is, and you should really put on some weight, Throné, seriously-

"I'll leave at dawn. Be there or not, I don't care."

"Dawn, uh." His smile turns wistful. "If it does come, then I shall be there."

Chapter Text

Despite his bizarre phrasing, the night does eventually come to an end. It felt like it never would as she crawled her way down the bowels of New Delstea, then crawled her way down Pirro's tomb. The graveyard keeper has not been surprised to be woken up at the dead of the night. In his line of work, he has seen stranger things, worked odder hours and buried worse bodies. Afterwards, Throné lays at their rooftop with Pup resting in the crook of her arm, unwilling to return to her hovel of a room, unable to sleep a wink. It's not like she has material possessions she needs to collect before she bails out anyway. Throné is a thief, and a good one at that, but she has nothing. The graverobbers that will one day expose her corpse will be pretty disappointed.

Eventually, the light rises up, in gold and crimson hues that taints Temenos' frozen smile with warmth.

"Good morning, my dear. Your puppy is coming along? How charming."

She didn't give him any indication on where to find her or meeting point, but he got there nonetheless. Temenos didn't need to be told things, he just knew them. He is wearing the outfit of a priest, white cloak and blue robes and mighty staff and all the holy stuff that comes along to put the fear of Aelfric in heretics' hearts, his favorité disguise. In direct opposition to the Blacksnakes' secrecy policies, Temenos lives under the motto that the most outrageous lies are less likely to get put into question.

"You invited him to the party, didn't you?" she says. "Would be rude to kick him out now."

"True enough!"

The dog is not the only guest Temenos has invited to the party without asking for her input.

"Who's that?"

"Just a friend of mine," Temenos says in the guise of an explanation. "We met on the road, and hit off on the spot, didn't we?"

The giant skeleton of a man Temenos must have scraped off the gutter, a bizarre mix between a nobleman and a hobo, only replies with a grunt: "Hm."

"Precisely. As you can see, Osvald here is on the quieter spectrum of humankind, and he's on a.. how should I phrase it…a similar path to yours. You'll get along swimmingly, I dare say."

It won't be the first time Temenos shows up with some… friends of his. He tends to make those wherever he goes, from east to west, Hailstorm to Topu-hopu, men or women, young or old, smart or dumb, the richest of aristocrats to the poorest of street rats. They all follow along for a time, happy to be led astray, glad to be of service, charmed into compliance until the magic withers away and their paths branch out.

Osvald doesn't bestow upon Temenos the usual dazzled look, however.

"I journey to Conning Creeks". His voice has the precise intonation of those nerdy scholars type, and the raw tone of those who have flirted with death and barely avoided its touch. "I care not for your business, and you care not for mine. I owe this one a debt, but if you refuse this arrangement, I won't impose my presence."

"Oh, but-"

One calm, but unwavering glance from Osvald is enough to derail Temenos off his rant. That, more than anything else, is what convinces Throné to allow this strange man to join the group.

"Fine," Throné concedes. "Until Canalbrime."

He nods, satisfied with their precarious agreement, then proceeds not to speak a word for several hours.

They get on board a ship departing from New Delstea port in direction to Canalbrime. Temenos knows the captain, because of course he does. The man seems to remain under the assumption Temenos is an upstanding member of the clergy despite numerous hints otherwise.

"Welcome back, Father Theodore! Glad to have you back onboard, that we are!"

Temenos strolls on the deck like a thief on a pile of gold. "Likewise, my good captain! Thank you for granting us passage in such short delays."

The Captain waves this false display of remorse off. "Bah, we're always happy to assist clergymen on their holy mission, that we are."

They're probably less happy to assist the scrubs that come along the holy mission.

"Oh dear, did I forget to introduce my companions?" Temenos says, sounding quite forlorn. "How rude of me! Please allow me to present to you my assistant, Thalia."

The Captain looks rightfully skeptical of the sort of assistance scarcely clad young women can provide a clergyman, which proves he is indeed capable of critical thinking, but dares not outright call him out on his bullshit, which proves his survival instincts are honed enough. "Welcome aboard, miss."

"She's a recent convert to the Faith, but I cannot say more on the matter" Temenos says sotto voce. "And of course, my most excellent friend Brother Otto. He has taken vows of poverty and silence. Please do not try to talk to him."

Respect grows on the spot in the Captain's eyes. Suddenly, they're no longer a hobo and a whore but a clergyman's assistant with a troubled past trying to redeem herself and a stoic monk on pilgrimage. Suddenly, they are people, instead of trash Temenos picked up on the side of the road.

Instead of the criminals they all actually are.

"We're not criminals," Temenos says, the salty breeze twisting the hem of his robes into a whirlwind. Two middle-aged ladies stare at him from the cabin, convinced no one has noticed their schoolyard spying on the strapping handsome young priest leaning against the railing.

Throné snorts, breathing in the seaweed scent inherent to the sea. "Sure."

"The key to a good disguise, my dear Thalia, is conviction," Temenos prattles on despite her lack of encouragement. The man does love to hear himself talk, after all. "Hence, we are not criminals, because why would we, Theodore, Thalia and Otto, ever dare to brush the law the wrong way?"

"Keep your lectures to your admirers, Mr conman, I'm sure they'd be delighted to hear all about it."

Temenos sighs. "Should I understand I can no longer count you among the ranks of my admirers then? My, how fast time passes! It was not so long ago that I could remember an adorable snakeling asking for my advice…"

"Do you?" Throné says, her tone perfectly even. "Doesn't ring a bell. Careful, time might be passing so fast your memory is already faltering."

Temenos laughs. The sound echoes over the turmoils of waves crashing against the hull. The sea, in appearance at ease, hides its chaos underneath a deceitful calm Throné finds more distressing than the perpetual agitation of the city. She longs for silence that comes without the threat of noise, and true quietness that hides nothing under. Only then can the manic pace of her thoughts hope to come to a halt.

Mother Father Mother Father Mother Father Father Fath-

"What about Osvald?"

She glances backward. For the past hour, their silent companion has been standing within hearing distance, a book in hand and glasses atop his nose, utterly unresponsive if not for the regular page turning. He doesn't express any sign of interest in the conversation even after being explicitly dragged into it.

"What about him?" Throné says.

"All criminals, is what you claimed."

Ah, one of those little deducting exercises, his favorite game to play. He'd always demand they put their tiny brains to contribution in order to entertain him. Deduce with how many women in this room this man slept. Deduce who's secretly a double agent in Clockbank. Deduce who's gonna end up in Mother's chambers tonight. When he was feeling particularly mischievous, he'd run a betting pool and trounce foolish snakelings who should have known better out of their leaves.

Donnie was better than them all at winning Temenos' games, unmatched in observation skills. Throné was a strong second contender, though. "Technically, he classifies as even more of a criminal than we. At least we never got convicted."

"Oh?" Temenos muses. "Do tell how you came to that conclusion, my dear."

A page turns. She is certain the man is listening closely, though. She can feel the weight of his attention crawl over her spine.

"His body tells it all. It bears signs of years-long malnourishment, mistreatment and regular exposure to frost. Pretty standard state for a former prisoner of Frigid Island."

"Impoverishment doesn't equal incarceration," Temenos argues.

"Might as well do for his sort of folk. He doesn't speak much, but he does, he speaks fancy. Rich people don't end up in the streets by happenstance. And then there's the tan lines. Circular lines on the wrists and ankles, characteristics of prisoners continually subjected to forced labor in chains."

There's also, much less common, the discreet tan line dividing his face into two, or the ghosts of a chokehold bruising around his neck. The remnants of a prolonged use of a muzzle, most certainly tied to a massive shackle circling the throat, to prevent the use of magic. Throné doesn't mention it. She wouldn't want anyone pointing out the contusions her collar regularly inflicts upon her neck for the sake of entertaining a noisy prat.

A path similar to hers, Temenos claimed.

"Excellent, my dear, simply wonderful! You truly make a wonderful assistant!"

Throné scoffs. "I'm not your assistant, you're the one who insists on following me around. If anything, you must be my accomplice."

"Now then, no need to deny-"

The book snaps shut. They both turn around.

"Girl," he rasps out.

"What?" Throné says.

"You use dark magic."

Throné blinks, taken off guard by the abrupt change of topic. It might be uncommon for the rest of Solestia, but among the Blacksnakes, dark magic is the default, for those who manage to master it enough to use it in combat. Father has taught her how to tug the cords of darkness for as long as he has been putting a knife in her hands, so as long as she can remember.

She has been careful not to cast her darkest night during the battles they faced on the way to the port, but has grown the bad habit to play around black tendrils with her fingers when bored or anxious.

Throné's been plenty bored and anxious lately.

"Maybe. What about it?"

"Show me," Osvald says. "I'd like to study it. The potency of your dark magic seems abnormally high."

Study it. Of course. Scholars. "Why ask me? He's a better mage."

She's not half bad at casting, although she could never reach Temenos' level of mastery of the art. Throné's better with a dagger, better with a sword, a better fighter overall, but he has a way around the most obscure sort of magic none can match. When he casts a veil of darkness, the entire room suffocates in cheer fear.

"Me?" Temenos puts a hand over his chest, mouth curved with indignation and eyes alight with mirth. "How dare you! I'm a priest of the faith, Aelfric's own kin, shepherd of lost lambs and keeper of the eternal flame. I would never dabble in malevolent practices."

Flatly, Osvald says: "Too annoying."

"Point taken." Throné nods.

He nods back, then waits for her answer without speaking another word, still as a statue. His patience has a violence to it, an unnatural brutality that testify of the conditions on which it was groomed. Throné can personally testify that if he is left in the corner of a room, he'll remain there until directed otherwise. Not of plain obedience, not out of fear of repercussion, but because he won't see the point in going elsewhere. Space is optional, when you have your own mind to get lost into, when you learnt to make do without any liberty of movement or external stimulation.

Meanwhile, Throné ponders over the idea, ignoring Temenos' expectant, almost hungry stare. Her basic instincts, the snake coiled in Throné's belly, hiss in refusal, ready to strike at the mere hint of an intrusion. She has been grown in a world of secrecy, shrouded in mysteries, veiled in darkness. Her very existence operates outside of the reality of normal human beings, like every fellow creature of her kin. Any attempt of opening towards the outside classifies as treason.

"Fine, study whatever," she says like it's no big deal. "I've got nothing better to do anyway."

"Oh my." Temenos whistles. "Little Throné truly has reached the rebellious age. What would Father say?"

Father would be furious to know she merely considered allowing the secret techniques he taught her to be scrutinized, analyzed and experimented on by a complete stranger, for free. He'd kill Osvald, and everyone around him he might have talked about. He'd punish Throné for weeks, at least, and allow Mother to do whatever on her, if she's not directly executed.

All traitors must be exterminated from the den, after all.

"What does it matter? I'm going to kill him."

"Indeed, indeed, but that's completely different, isn't it?" Temenos says. "Every child wants to kill their father, it's only natural. Flattering, even, by our standards. Father would rather you'd attempt to pop his eyes out with a rusted spoon than find out you shared clan secrets to an outsider."

"You people," Osvald says," are incomprehensible. Come."

Throné follows along to their cabin, where she discovers an entirely new man. Osvald The Researcher echoes Osvald the Avenger in intensity, but differs widely in liveliness. Throné had not considered this husk of a human being, filled only with cold anger and a chilling emptiness, had enough emotional range available to muster any hint of excitement at the prospects of experimenting new things. She must have heard more words from him in the last ten minutes than the past five days.

"That's a magiameter." He explains as he pulls out a small copper device from his tattered coat that must be worth a hundred more than all of his other possessions combined. "Its function is to record magical propriety on a given stimulus: power, density, temperature-"

Throné swiftly adjusts his nickname from Researcher to Professor.

"You stole that, I assume?"

"No. I'm not skilled enough for thievery. I just mugged it from a traveling merchant."

Throné chuckles, shaking her head. "Amateur. Next time, ask me if you want something. Leave it to the professionals."

"Noted. Now, try to create the least powerful flame you can. We'll scale up from there."

She surprises herself to actually find the ordeal somewhat fun. His enthusiasm, sparse at it might be, has an infectiousness to it. There is something riveting to find in exploring the extent of her abilities for other reasons than combat, infiltration, manipulation and other general nefarious purposes. Throné has never learnt anything just for the sake of learning. In the den, every action gets weaponized, one way or another.

The equations are what eventually tipped her off. Osvald calculates at the speed of light, his pen struggling to follow the manic pace he's demanding of his hand. A scholar. A mathematician. Criminally condemned and sent prison. She had assumed he served his time on Frigid Island and got released, without considering another option that seemed highly unlikely.

"Vanstein," she mutters under her breath. "Osvald. V. Vanstein."

Osvald, lost his research, doesn't notice her leave. Puppy, who had been hiding underneath the bed all along the experiments, takes advantage of her exit to escape the strange old man and his bizarre habits to put things on fire for fun and science. He runs in circles between her legs, excited to be out, but not confident enough to explore.

Once Temenos appears within sight, Puppy barks in greeting and rushes ahead. Without Throné noticing, night has already crept down, its darkness tainting the sky in bleeding crimson and bruising purple and lingering on Temenos' smile like a violent lover's kiss.

"Good boy," he cooes when he leans down to scoop Puppy into his arms.

In general, Throné believes Puppy to be a fairly decent assessor of people. Survivors like them ought to be. In the streets, with no one to care for you, it's necessary to be able to accurately guess which stranger might end up giving a piece of jerky and a scratch behind the ears and who might kick you in the ribs just for fun, if not worse.

But even the most cautious of dogs can make mistakes when confronted to the guile of a charming, particularly devious snake.

Throné pulls out of her pocket Pirro's pack and puts her ritual evening cigarette at the corner of her mouth. She'll run out shortly, even at her spartan rhythm of one smoke per day. Pirro had already well dented his reserve.

Silently, Temenos produces at the tip of his finger a dark flame with a surgical precision that would get Osvald running on his equations for hours.

Throné leans forwards to light up the end of her cigarette. "Thanks."

"Those will kill you," Temenos says in a dreary tone most likely meant to mimic hers. "Isn't that what you used to claim, dear?

Throné lets out a cloud of smoke evaporate in the air. "I did say that, didn't I? Guess Pirro was kinda right. I'd be lucky to live long enough to face the repercussions of chain smoking, finances aside."

"Oh? And here I assumed we were planning for the long term. On the path to freedom, wasn't it?"

Throné chuckles. "'If the dawn does come', wasn't it? Until the day that collar is off my neck, I can't plan for anything beyond the following night."

Cradled into Temenos' elbow, Puppy yawns loudly, lured to sleep by soothing caresses along his spine. Throné doesn't blame him. She remembers how comforting those arms felt around her as a child. The only other person she can ever remember holding her was Father, and his embraces always came with sharpness and coldness.

Once upon a time, Temenos used to be the softest, gentlest thing she knew. Such pathetic lives them snakes have.

"You snuck a wanted fugitive on my revenge trip."

"incorrect," Temenos pips, unrepentant, "I snuck a dead man on your revenge trip. Those are rarely wanted."

Life's a joke to Temenos. Because she still clings on to the times she thought he cared for her the way an older brother would, starved for crumbs of affection and desperate for family ties, she tends to forget and needs the reminder.

"Explain."

Temenos slowly caresses Puppy's back. "You haven't heard the news? Professor Vanstein and another inmate have died trying to escape from Frigid Island. Such a tragedy. He was quite the genius in his field, regardless of this whole wife and child manslaughter business. Not that this sordid tale has anything to do with our good friend Brother Otto, obviously."

Throné remembers the trial from five years ago. She had been seventeen, and one ocean removed, but the rumors had plagued New Delsta for weeks until another scandal took over. It wasn't everyday one of them fancy scholars ended up in chains in the courtyard, least of all for murder charges.

His wife and daughter, burnt alive in a house fire.

"Why are you helping him? What's in it for you?"

"The goodness of my heart, of course. A clergyman is duty-bound to assist members of his flock that he finds in distress. I couldn't possibly let a man die on the side of the road like this."

It's always like this with him. Deflect, derail, distract, distort, disappear. It's impossible to understand what's going on underneath the gray, frozen, hostile expense of his eyes.

Throné crashes the end of her cigarette on the railing and lets the rest disappear into the sea. "I loathe violence. You know this."

He blinks. "I do know."

She was seven, and he fourteen. There was blood all over her dress. Father had told her to get changed, but she couldn't do it. Couldn't bear to touch the crimson filth. Couldn't even undo the buttons, not with the tremors twisting her hands. She stood in the closet adjacent to Father's room she called hers, frozen in place, paralyzed in fear and disgust and panic.

His hands had been gentle back then. Steady, certain, but gentle. He was already smiling back then, but sometimes it felt like there was some truth in there, occasionally. Every ounce of trust Throné had left, she had put it in those hands that smelt like raspberries. He gifted her one of his soaps from the Leaflands whose scent could make the stench of blood go away, at least for a while. Verdant and joyful, is how he described this faraway place across the ocean, and she clung to it. Verdant. Joyful.

I'll take you there, one day, he promised.

The tip of her knife presses into the skin of his neck, and a pearl of blood rolls over the sharp line of the blade. "Whatever it is you're plotting ought not to get in my way. Don't make me hurt you."

Please. Please.

Temenos hand raises up to curl around her wrist, a feather-like brush, without attempting to stop her. His fingers have the coldness of the dead. They don't smell like raspberries anymore.

"No trust in-between creatures of our ilk, my dear. That's the agreement we have."

Chapter Text

They part ways in Canalbrime, as planned. Puppy is the first to leave the ship, eager to stand on land again instead of those bizarre swirling floors. Throné, Temenos and Osvald trail after him, at an efficient, lazy and brisk pace respectively. The air is clear in Harbourlands, salty and fresh, and the sunlight warm despite the oceanic breeze.

"You should give him a name." Osvald says as in guise a goodbye. "Every creature that is cared for deserves one."

Makes sense. Beloved ones ought to have a name to carve on the tombstone. "I'll think about it."

He nods, and that would be the end of the conversation if not for Temenos.

"Do keep in touch, friend. I find myself quite curious about the rest of your journey. How unfortunate I shan't witness its resolution."

Throné turns her head sideways. "You can go with him if you prefer."

"Good try, my dear Throné," Temenos laughs, "but you shall not get rid of me so easily."

Osvald shakes his head. "Mine journey is meant for solitude, in the end. Thank you for your… guidance, priest."

Throné can't help but snort. "You do know he's not a real cleric, right?"

"Hm. Good luck on your own quest, girl."

They immediately set out northway. Temenos swaps his cleric robes for a less conspicuous traveler outfit when they reach the wildlands, not without regret. "They're not overly fond of the Church up there. I do love to dress up appropriately, but it wouldn't serve me well in this instance, I'm afraid."

His bizarre fascination with the Faith of the Flame and its scions long precedes his first thievery of the ceremonial garbs. Back when Throné and the gang were children, he would sometimes reenact in secret mystical battle scenes through his hands before bed, casting shadows to the wall and mimicking all the voices.

Eventually, Scarracci ended up spilling the beans to Mother. There was no more evening shadow theater afterwards, and no more mention of the faith, until he showed up dressed as a priest for the first time coming back from a widely successful infiltration mission.

Mother punished him for the principle of it, but couldn't deny the efficiency of the method.

Throné shrugs. "Whatever."

In Orerush, Tenemos takes a backseat to the whole investigation. Throné observes, deduces, bargains, steals and threatens on her own, with a knowing snake slithering by her side with his hands on his pockets, an overly excited puppy following his every movement and no apparent intention to participate. So much for never missing a party.

"You're doing so well by yourself, my dear. I wouldn't want to… how do you kids say it again… throw off your groove, with unnecessary interference."

The horse coin twirls between her fingers. He's testing her, obviously. It's one thing to claim her will to earn back her freedom by any means necessary, another to actually pull it through. "Sure thing, old man. Wouldn't want you to risk dislocating a hip by pulling your weight or something."

"Much obliged. What a thoughtful child you are."

Oddly, the town appears abuzz with a tension that precedes their arrival. Anger and worry suffocate in the dusty air of the wildlands. As strangers, they are regarded with more suspicion than warranted. The crisis reaches a peak when men and women gather by the tavern to organize what seems to be a search party.

"Hm. You see this man?"

Following the direction of his eyes, Throné spots an older man she immediately identifies as a leader figure of the community. He has an air to him that betrays natural authority, and the others blatantly look up to him for guidance. At the same time, some among the townsfolk appear specifically worried for him, rightfully so. Underneath the veneer of collected leadership, there is a distress boiling up, the stench of fear obvious to the trained noise.

"That's Papp Yellowill, one of the founders of Orerush," Temenos explains, rubbing his chin between his thumb and index. He has this fareway look that indicates the depth of his thinking process. "It appears that a few days prior to our arrival, his son… took upon himself to overthrow the clutches of capitalistic dominion upon their city and its silver mining business."

"Meaning?"

"Mr Yellowill junior kicked out the landowner' minion and tore apart the proprietary contract, more or less."

Did he now? An interesting move, but ultimately a pointless, foolish one. Throné wishes she could simply reach out to her collar and just… tear it apart. Unfortunately, the world doesn't work like that. The system enforcing the chains is stronger the rage of the enchained, who's more likely to strangle himself in his attempt to break free than anything else.

Powerful men usually do not appreciate riots and their instigators, nor do they like losing their cash pigs to the wild. "He's the one missing, isn't he?"

"Hm, right," Temenos says, still lost in thoughts. Any further and he might lose contact with reality, as he's occasionally prone to. "Since last night, allegedly."

He has an inkling of what might have happened. This is the kind of shit Temenos thrives on. Throné doubts he'll share his theory for free, though.

"Hey, you." She calls out to the nearest local.

"Uh?" the boy says. "Whadya want, miss? We're kinda busy"

"What does your friend look like?"

His weary face lights up briefly. "Ya can't miss him. Big tall guy, always smilin' and laughin', talkative as all get out. Never seen without his golden coat and red shoes, that's our Parti.

Throné nods, before taking her leave of the conversation. "I'll keep an eye out."

Temenos follows along, a knowing smirk already in place. "Oh? Can you afford to play good samaritan now, Throné?"

"Didn't say I'd actively look out for him, did I?"

At the edge of the old foundry neighborhood, Puppy starts showing signs of anxiety. He must feel the putrefying atmosphere that permeates the place. A tingle of guilt runs across her spine. She drags him to the worst places this world creates, and yet she still hasn't found a name that fits him.

Nonetheless, they must move forward. Failure is not an option.

"Drink from the cup with your left hand," she finishes the gatekeeper's sentence with a bored drawl, and they're all in.

Hidden in the depth of the old foundry, the Slaver enforces an establishment equally repulsive as his name. A gambling house of sorts, throbbing with the excitement of the spectators and the abject fear of the players, in which the objects of the bet appear to be human lives. Throné has known more than a fair share of disgusting gambling practices, having grown up in the biggest game house of the continent, but this Slaver would prove a serious contender for the title of worst scourge upon the earth.

At the center of the organized chaos, a table, and two men. Not the players, those are inconsequential, just like the bloodthirsty spectators or the cadaver lying on the floor.

The first, tall and grim of face, cold and haughty in manners, holds the reins of the room in his gray, claw-like hands. The fear of all present aligns to the axis of his emaciated figure, to the unfeeling curve of his mouth. His attention however, instead of focusing on the ongoing game, the fascination of the public or the terror of his victims, gravitates towards the second man.

He is not smiling, laughing, or talking like all get out. His alleged tall stature has been reduced significantly by the position he's been forced into, hands and feet tied to a chair, his face bearing the marks of a dedicated beat up. His golden coat and red shoes have been misplaced, scattered around the room for the enjoyment of the spectators. A classic move from slavers and their ilk to destroy morals, reduce chances of escape and dehumanize the product to the eyes of the buyers.

What's a man without his clothes, without his shoes, without his dignity? A beast on the market, with a collar on and a tag priced attached to it.

It is true, however, that Throné couldn't have missed him nonetheless.

"I'm feeling generous today," the Slaver drawls. "I'll allow our honored guest to play against me to earn back his freedom, from one tradesman to another. What do you say to this proposition?"

"That so?" Partitio Yellowill rasps out. "Thought you were plannin' to sell me or somethin'".

"Indeed, but profit comes second to the thrill of the game."

The merchant glances down at the unfortunate sod who lost his life for no reason but the entertainment of a cruel master, and the crowd of hollow-eyed ghouls. "Gee, thanks but no thanks. I'd rather see ya disappointed of how few leaves you'll manage to squeeze for little ol' me."

The Slaver smiles. "On the contrary, I believe I shall earn back more than tenfold my bet. Businessmen do not like to have their projects derailed by populist movements, first of all my employer. Good old Giff and I had a fair mutually beneficial arrangement before you ruined it all with your teenage tantrum."

An earnest, raw expression of horror flashes on Partitio's face. Here's the face of a man who just realized how deep the mass grave his city of ore and dust stands on goes. "An arrangement?"

The Slaver sips on his outraged disgust like some vintage wine. Men such as him thrive off the negative emotions of others, like leeches, like vampires. They survive off the thrill of standing among the ruins of catastrophes they have caused.

"Naturally. Delicate organizations such as mine cannot operate without the support of local government, not on that scale at least. Surely an experienced tradesman like you ought to understand this."

"You… you're sickening, old man."

Throné decides now might be the best time to walk in, before the merchant gets disciplined again for his disrespect. The fragile balance of the room shifts one again to include the new weight that rolled in.

"I haven't seen you before," the Slaver says, assessing Throné with a sterile glance.

He has seen Temenos before, though. And he's not pleased with his uninvited intrusion in his hovel, if the pinch by the corner of his mouth is any indication.

"Oh, please don't mind me," Tenemos says, in the periphery of the show, Puppy obediently following his lead. "Your business is with her. I'm only here to observe."

"You're the Slaver, I presume," Throné says, right on cue.

The negotiation proceeds the usual way, although the Slaver never stops paying attention to Temenos regardless of his claim of neutrality. Two adversaries dance at the edge of the blade, landing sparing blows to test the territory and figure out a weakness. Throné doesn't allow the innerent crassness of the Slaver's manners, barely disguised under a veil of refinement, to throw off her rhythm, not even in his unnecessary tangent on body odors. He won't be the first unpleasant man she must engage with, the first man that considers her body like a thing he can freely comment on. He can get off the scent of sweat all he likes, as far as she's concerned.

All the while, that Parititio fellow observes in silence. Searching for an opportunity to seize or strike. The Slaver, of course, takes notice, and finds it amusing.

"Take young Partitio over there. Can you smell what's hiding underneath the bravado, young lady? Fear. He thought he'd already touched the bottom, overcome by mere taxes, thought he had nothing to lose so he might as well do what he wanted without considering the consequences, hm? He's not like you and I, young lady. We haven't been coddled by our daddies a single day of our lives."

"Wadja know of me and my Pops-"

The Slaver slams his fist on the table. Not out of anger, but in frigid authority that demands complete obedience. "Silence, boy. Watch, and learn how businessmen worth their salt conduct their transactions. At Death's Table."

A gamble instead of a fight then. Fine by her.

"Don't do it, miss," Partitio calls out to her. "He's gotta be cheating, it ain't worth-"

The Slaver strikes him across the face like he'd swap away a fly, without apparent emotion. "Did your Pops never teach you about the concept of silence? I truly have to do everything myself around here."

Throné' nails run across the table impatiently. "Get on with it, I don't have all day. When I win, you will tell me where Mother is before that sweet agony you rambled about kicks in. Also, I'll be taking your boy toy with me."

At that declaration, Temenos poorly hides his laugh underneath a cough. He remains silent and uninvolved, as promised, yet Throné can read plain as rain the amusement in his eyes. Good samaritan, uh.

The Slaver chuckles as he pulls on Partitio's hair, forcing his head to bend upwards. "I intended to sell him to a much, much richer man than you could ever hope to be, young lady, but to the victor the spoils. Heard that, boy? The lady took a liking to you, aren't you lucky? Maybe she'll find a way to put that big mouth of yours to good use."

"That's what you was wonderin' all along, old man? You need not fret, I already figured that one out," Partitio says, then spits on the Slaver's face. It only reaches his shoulder, but the point is made.

"Don't ruin the merchandise," Throné says in warning before the Slaver retaliates. "I like my toys intact."

The Slaver's gloved thumb runs across Partitio's cheek, pushing against a bruise that gets the man to wince in pain. "How hasty you are in your claims of ownership to dare lecture me on my conduct regarding my own belongings."

After much stalling, the game finally starts. Throné puts on her best performance for the occasion. Not for the Slaver, not for his cronies, not even for herself, but for her very own special guest. Temenos went through such trouble to witness the spectacle, it wouldn't be right to disappoint him. She wonders what he will do if she does die poisoned. Will he be disappointed? Angry? What would he do with her body? Would he leave her to rot like Donnie, or bury her in a solitary grave like Pirro?

Would he care at all? Grief, like other luxuries normal human beings can afford, remains beyond their reach. Death is omniprésent, tomorrow's only certainty, meanwhile sorrow is too expensive for the likes of them. A smoke in the evening is the only mark of sadness Throné is allowed.

"An interesting hatchling you're monitoring, Inquisitor," the Slaver comments after her stunt with the two cups in a row.

"Why, naturally," Temenos replies. "I wouldn't bother to make such a long journey otherwise."

"Too bad her little rebellious outing ends here. I hope you'll find ways to entertain yourself afterwards." He drinks another cup. "Your turn, snakeling."

"I don't fear for my journey to end here, so long as I don't compromise on the destination. To reach what I want, I'm willing to bet everything."

In the end, she doesn't find out how Temenos would respond to her demise. She does find out Mother's location, though, in Wellgrove, where the raspberries grow, and the snakeling that are not Father's personal protegee hatch, apparently.

"I should have known better than to test the Inquisitor's protegee." The Slaver smiles at the poison in his cup, then drinks it down in one go. "My curiosity got the better of me, in the end. I wish you better luck than I had in the War of Snakes, young one. May the Night favors you."

She nods, from one trapped animal to another. "And the blade guide your steps. Thank you."

Chaos erupts the moment the Slaver breathes his last. Delicate organizations such as theirs, as he put it out, only holds together by a rope. If the head falls, the whole construction follows along pretty fast. Customers, minions and slaves run out in a similar panic fashion.

Temenos looks down on the Slaver's corpse, and kneels to close his eyelids. "Free from the nest at last."

Throné turns away.

"Err, miss, if it's not too much trouble, would ya mind…"

Her dagger smoothly slides from her sleeve to the palm of her hand. "Sure."

A few clear cuts are enough to free Partitio from his biddings. Throné puts her hand on his shoulder to keep him seated while she assesses the casualties. Superficial wounds on the face, rope bruises alongside the wrists and ankles, a minor concussion on the back of the head. The Slave had gone easily on him, aside from the psychological damage, all things considered. He must really have been planning to sell this guy for a fortune.

Temenos waltzes in with a yellow coat, red shoes and a dusty white hat. "There you go, young man! Your hand, please."

Partitio obeys on automatism alone. Shock appears to be settling in, in the aftermath of the rush of adrenaline. All in all, he's behaving well enough for a naive merchant who's been dragged unexpectedly into a den of snakes, threatened, beaten up and sold to the highest bidder. Throné has seen older men with much more embarrassing breakdowns than him. He's trembling still, a vacancy shivering in eyes beyond the relief of tears, but there's dignity in the way he attempts to collect himself. That's good. The Slaver didn't have the time to take that away from him.

"Can you walk back to your side of town?" She asks.

"Err, I think so."

His claim is immediately undermined when his attempt at raising up ends with him stumbling down, caught from his fall by Throné' quick reflex.

"Aw, sorry! Bit more than I could chew, I reckon."

Throné adjusts her hold on his shoulders so he has room to lean on her. "It's fine. We'll drop you by the town's outskirts. Your people should find you there."

Unfortunately, this plan doesn't seem to abide by Partitio's sensibilities. "Wha, wait a minute, you're leavin' already? But I gotta thank you properly! I gathered you folk was only here for your own business and all, but you saved my life. At the very least, let me offer you a drink, or somethin'"

"What a good idea, isn't it, my dear?" Temenos says. "Let's mingle with the locals. Enjoy the scenery. Taste the regional beverages."

Throné ignores him. "No thanks. We're in a hurry."

"After that Mother fella, right," Partitio says, like an idiot. His friend was right, he's definitely too talkative for his own good. "I think I've seen her 'round town before. Never made the connections, but I did notice some orphan kids just…. disappeared, some periods of the year."

At Throné's instigation, they slowly trudge their way out of the old foundry with Temenos strolling by their side, light of foot and worry free, the lazy bastard. Although Throné has plenty of experience dragging wounded accomplices on the top of her back, Partitio has to be heavier than Pirro and Donnie combined. Eeven an impoverished pioneer's son must be better fed than a snake in the nest.

"Oh yes, that does sound like our good old matriarch," Temenos concurs. "Was she very ugly?"

"I ain't the type to criticize a lady on her looks," Partitio says," but yeah."

"Then it must have been Mother dearest indeed."

"Temenos." Throné says, warningly.

He blinks sideways at her with faint innocence, pretending not to understand the reason for her objection at his blablant over-sharing with a stranger. Temenos has always done as he pleased, regardless of the rules, or the punishment he faced for his impertinence, irreverence or plain insubordination. It was a testament to his talents that despite all that, he was still alive and kicking.

There's no point arguing with him. One day, she'll learn that lesson for good instead of falling into the same bad habits. She turns to Partitio instead. "Listen, kid-"

"Kid," Partitio snorts. "With all due respects to my savior, you can't be much older than me, chickadee."

"Listen, kid. None of this has anything to do with you. Stop asking questions, stop being nosy. Our private affairs are no business of yours."

"Kinda becomes my business if I get abducted for it, ain't it?"

Throné shakes her head. They stumble on the sad little street slithering across craven old buildings, into the waning light of sunset casting a reddish hue on the cliffs looming above. "I doubt anyone will come after you now, they'll be too busy fixing up the mess the Slaver left behind. You can return to your old life and pretend none of this ever happened, so do that."

That guy belongs to the world of light, that much is obvious. He carries goodness and honesty on his face openly, like it ought to be a given instead of a secret that should be protected from the outside. He's not meant for the paths in darkness Temenos, herself and the likes treads upon every night.

Still, he refuses to quit. Some people just don't know what's best for them. "I've been raised right, miss. My Pops taught me to honor my debts, and I ought you one giant debt, a life-sized one, really. So please lemme help you on your quest, or whatever it is. You didn't see me on my best side, obviously, but I ain't no slope with the lance or the bow. I know the region pretty well, I can show you shortcuts to Wellgrove, and how to avoid the local fauna. And you might have noticed, but I have a certain talent for bargaining, arguing and the likes. I get a good sense of people. My point is, I'll be useful to you for sure."

"My, how sweet they raise you boys in the wildlands," Temenos says. "Stubborn too."

"Quite right, sir. In fact, my temperament 's been frequently compared to that of an ox," Partitio agrees, sounding very proud of himself. "Might as well spare yourself the trouble and give up now."

Throné stops in the middle of the road, and distangle herself from her charge without a warning. Partitio almost falls on the floor, and manages to right himself up by sheer luck.

"Shut your mouth and listen closely now," Throné says, channeling all the coldness she can master. "Those people who abducted you, beat you up and planned to sell you like merchandise on the market? We're exactly like them. I didn't save you, I'm not your goddamn hero, you were just there. You don't owe me anything. That's the end of it."

The only reason she probably doesn't have as much blood on her hands than the Slaver is time. Them Blacksnakes are all the same, a swarming mass of terror, rage, hunger and hatred, drowning on their own fifth with no way out. They only exist to be a nuisance to others, to twist what is already bad into worse, to extinguish the few wisps of good that persist in this dark, hopeless world of theirs.

If she disappeared, no one would organize a search party. No one would mourn her, because Father wouldn't know how to. She'd be lucky to get a tombstone at all.

"Wow, what a nice speech, miss. Can tell you practiced it a lot." Partitio whistles with a lopsided grin. "I ain't stupid, alright, I gathered that whole snakes business is no walk in the park, and you folk are trading in the not quite legal side of customer service. Doesn't mean you're like that Slaver guy. I told ya, I have impeccable intuition about people's nature, and I know you guys are good people."

Throné finds herself devoid of any words to oppose that ludicrous statement. Good people. Good people. Even if she wanted to learn how to be a good person like Partitio, she'd have no idea how.

Partitio keeps going, unbothered by the lack of response to his overly-emotional outburst. "Also, no offense but you ain't the center of the world. This woman and her cronies 've been using our town dirty. She gotta be held accountable for that."

"PARTITIO!"

The local chief and Partitio's father stand by the end of the road. Even from a distance, Throné doubts she has ever seen a man so relieved in her entire life.

Partitio lightens up. "Aiyah, that's me Pops! Heya, Pops! I'm right there!"

"Thanks Aeber, finally" Throné says as she smacks the back of Partitio's neck with the handle of her dagger.

The big oaf goes down in an instant, knocked unconscious on the spot, and Throné catches him in the middle of his fall to ease his meeting with the ground. Temenos sighs as he looks down at the man in gold, red and dusty white, and puts his hands on his hips. "Was that really necessary, my dear?"

She snatches Puppy into her arms and grabs him by the collar of his robe. "Run."

They run. For all Temenos claims to harbor physical activities of any kind, he can relocate away from a crime scene as fast as the rest of them. He might prefer tricking someone to let him in rather than sneak in through the first-floor window, or psychologically destroy a target instead of actually fighting them, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't be able to if necessary.

"Well then," Temenos says as he observes Orerush from their venturing point from the cliffs. "That's yet another town I can never set a foot into for the rest of my life, thanks to your astonishing diplomatic abilities."

Throné shrugs. Too bad they had to bail out without much supplies, but they'll make do. They always do. "You're not that unforgivable, Temenos. Give it a year or so, and you'll be able to waltz in without anyone questioning your presence, as usual."

"Or," he drawls out," you could have accepted his help."

The wind blows over the dry expense of the wildlands. The night covers everything under its thick blanket, from the highest point in the sky to the distant horizon. Two lone figures stand in the middle of nothing, at the edge of the society other human beings get to inhabit. That soft-hearted kid had nothing to do with two outliers such as them.

She opens Pirro's pack, and drags out a cigarette.

"Let's go. We're already late to our next appointment."

Chapter Text

In a great twist of cosmic irony, Throné enters Wellgrove a nun, and Temenos a dancer.

Life really is a joke.

"But why a dancer, of all professions?"

After several days of trekking along the wildlands and its unforgivable cliffs, dry climate and savage beasts, they have finally reached the gentler slopes of the leaflands. Ancient trees loom over the beaten path, casting pleasant shadows on Throné' sunburns. The scent of greenery overrides the remnants of blood Throné can never truly cover up under her shoreflower perfume.

The scenery is verdant. Joyful.

Throné has her argument thoroughly prepared. "I don't doubt Mother will have the town under constant surveillance, so we can't walk in like ourselves. Your priest shenanigans are too well known of Mother, just like your other disguises, so you need to dress up as something she'll never imagine you would pick for yourself." She then adds, with a smirk. "This particular occupation also has the advantage that most people won't be looking at your face, which greatly reduces the risk of anyone recognizing you."

Temenos inspects the outfit Throné stole from a caravan of cheerful but inattentive road artists. It's made of more gaze than actual cloth, in Temenos' regular colors of clerical blue and white, so no one can claim she didn't make an effort for authenticity. Still, every strategic place should be covered, for a loose definition of the word. Temenos' body, like the rest of them, bears scars that tend to attract uncalled for attention.

"A compelling strategy, my dear," he says, in a serene tone, "but slightly undermined by the fact I cannot, in good conscience, count dancing among the ranks of my numerous talents."

"Didn't say you needed to be a dancer of talent," Throné points out. "That's why you need the classes. I heard this town has a famous dancing school, therefore no one will be surprised if another shows up, especially a mediocre newbie."

"I see you thought of everything. Although, have you considered people might be surprised to see a nun arrive in the company of a dancer?"

She did think of that too. "Roads are dangerous to travel alone these days, with all those murderous monsters and filthy, despicable thieves. Makes sense to move in packs, even mismatched ones, safety in numbers and all."

Temenos hums. His thumb runs across the fabric, alongside the stitching running across the bottom of the shirt that leaves ample window to display hypothetical abs that never see the light of the day. Throné realizes, belatedly, that she cannot remember ever seeing his belly uncovered, or anything aside from his face and hands.

They tip at the edge of a decision for a few more breaths. Temenos knows, as certainly as he knows night will fall eventually, that her little stunt is no mere endeavor to embarrass him. This is a test, the same sort he has been putting her through since the beginning of their journey, that questions how far each one of them is willing to go for their schemes.

"Very well," Temenos eventually says with an indolent smile, "it is your journey after all, my dear, and as your trusted accomplice, I ought to follow the plan."

The breath clogged down her throat finally leaves Throné' mouth.

"That being said," he adds in a light, dangerous tone, "if I'm willing to commit to the pretense, so should you."

Throné's eyes narrow in suspicion. She ought to have known payback would come kicking in immediately. "What's that supposed to mean exactly?"

"It means, dearest girl, that dressing up as a nun is not enough. The clergy is a lifestyle, not a mere costume you can't put on without putting up the effort to channel the spirit of the sacred flame."

He spends the rest of the journey nagging her about her manners, her tone, her expressions, and how it all falls short to properly convey the air of propriety, naivety, religious zeal a greenhorn nun ought to exude by the buckets, all the while swaggering in his exotic dancer's outfit like he was born for the drift.

By the time they reach their destination, Throné has to actively refrain herself from beating her accomplice to death with his own staff.

"If you don't shut up about sermons, I swear to your beloved Aelfric I'll-"

Temenos abruptly stops in the middle of the market.

At first glance, no one would be likely to suspect anything afoul in this quaint little town nestled amidst a tranquil forest. Music raises from the upper side of the town, and the scents of roasted pig and pear cakes from the tavern down the path. The streets' pavement has seen better days but lacks the army of beggars Throné is accustomed to in New Delsta. The windows of the cottages have cared-for flower beds, rusted horseshoes nailed to the front door, and grannies who click their tongue at teenagers and offer sweets to children.

From her rapid, practically automatic scanning of the merchant's wares, the local economy has taken a heavy toll, but nothing it can't recover from. If they're getting dried by the nest of thieves hidden in their breasts, it doesn't show. Up to a certain point, Mother knows better than to shit where she eats.

Kids gotta learn the trade though. Throné hears the child before she sees her. Those padding sounds skirting around a step, smooth like a gust of wind rushing through a breach or the twirling feet of those dancers practicing upon the hill. A girl in an inconspicuous dress glides between fat pockets with a nimble hand ready to strike and a mask of innocence nailed to her face.

"The younger generation is already hard at work," Throné says, right as she finally spots the flash of gold that caught Temenos' attention. "Are you fucking kidding me."

"Don't swear. Nuns are always polite."

Puppy choses that exact moment to manifest his excitement and bark a greeting. Partitio turns his head from the animated discussion he was engrossed with a local weapon dealer. His face, still bearing barely faded bruises, lights up when he sees them. Before Throné can make an escape that would not completely ruin her disguise, he sails straight up to them like a warship on a race and tips the edge of his hat in greeting with an ungodly amount of cheer for someone who narrowly escaped enslavement five days prior.

"Oh, wha, Sister! Almost didn't recognize you there! And err…howdy, mister Temenos? Damn, you guys sure ain't kiddin' around, uh? If I wasn't actively lookin' for ya, I might have missed you entirely."

"How." Throné forces herself to unclench her jaw. "How did you get there before us?"

"I told ya. Locals know shortcuts, and the likes."

"He did tell you," Temenos needlessly concurs, just for the pleasure of fanning the flames of discord.

"You were unconscious," Throné stresses out. "I knocked you out."

Partitio raises back up his feet, wincing, and rubs the back of his head. "Yeah, I remember. I didn't stay unconscious, obviously. If you were looking for, err, a more permanent solution, you should have let me die, to be honest."

Throné' hand hovers on the pocket underneath her robes, where she has hidden her knives. "Don't tempt me. I can still correct that mistake."

"What a persistent little fellow you are, young man," Temenos says. "I'm surprised your family and friends would agree to let you gallivant by yourself in the wilderness so soon after your abduction, though."

Shortcuts or not, he must have raced out as soon as he woke up to reach Wellgrove before them, considering the advance they had on him.

Partitio gets on his knees to greet Puppy with an offering of beef jerky and a pat between the ears. "Eh, let might a wee bit of an exaggeration. Didn't exactly ask for permission. Twas already agreed I'd go on a journey of me own anyway. I left a note, packed my things and I just. Went on my merry way, ya know?"

Throné closes her eyes, the ghost of a migraine pounding by her temples. "Why."

"I told ya," he repeats. "I'm stubborn."

"He did tell-"

"Shut. Up." Throné hisses.

Partitio raises up on his feet with a huge grin. "You guys must be starvin'. How about we settle down at the tavern, uh? You ain't willing to include lil ol' me to the fun, fine, that's your choice, but surely you'd be interested to learn what I've found out 'bout that sketchy orphanage of yours."

Throné glances sideways, underneath her veil. A handful of locals are observing them, most likely out of boredom. One of them might be an agent of Mother's. All of them might be agents of Mother. "You've been babbling about the Garden in public?"

"I've asked 'bout everythin' in the city, not just your actual target. I ain't that dumb. People just assume I'm noisy, not that it ain't true, mind ya. Come along, fellas."

As far as taverns go, on the New Delsta alehouse scale, Wellgrove's is somehow located in between the uppity bar uptown where aristocrats like to mingle up with the middle class and Gil's rathole in the bowels of the city. Simple in design, furniture and service, but warm and clean enough and occupied by a wide array of customers, most of which Partitio seem to be acquainted with to some extent, if the warm reception they receive is any indication.

Throné and Temenos sit with their backs to the wall, within direct sight of the door, while Partitio slides in the bench on the other side of the table. It probably would never come to his mind to be wary of his surroundings, even if he wasn't already pals with everyone in the vicinity.

"I ain't pals with everyone," he says. "Gimme time, I only been here for less than a day, Sister."

"Heya, Partitio," the tavern keeper welcomes them with more enthusiasm than Throné has been greeted with by any of his counterparts. She's more accustomed to slithering by the walls and keeping a low profile, listening to conversations, occasionally trouncing a drunkard out of superfluous material possessions and bailing Donnie and Pirro from whatever trouble they managed to create for themselves.

"What can I get you and your…" the tavern keeper hesitates, but soldiers on, "friends?"

"Pint of ale for me, Freddie."

"Just a glass of milk, please, kind sir," Throné simpers in the meek tone Temenos drilled into her.

"The same," Temenos says. "I noticed you had raspberry pie on the menu?"

The tavern keeper beams. "You've got an excellent eye, mister. Lil' Agnea baked it this mornin', and ain't none that can make raspberry pies like those gals from Cropdale."

"Wonderful! Three slices of that, please. And whatever rests of meat you have for the dog."

Throné's eyebrow raises upward, skeptical of Temenos' sudden interest in regional sweets. As a rule, blacksnakes are taught better than to rely on a steady food supply. Mother knows how to beat the gluttony out of someone like no other. Temenos in particular is an exceptionally bad case, a sparrow has a bigger appetite than him. He's more likely to forget to eat for two days than demonstrate any kind of heartfelt enthusiasm for local food.

Then, it hits her, the moment the tavern keeper returns with their commands.

Raspberry.

Throné pushes a plate away the second he has his back turned. "I don't want it."

"Wha?" Partitio chortles. "It'sh sho good though?"

Temenos' awful smile has a softness Throné finds unbearable to look at. "Don't be rude, dear. Try a bite."

"Enough chit chat. Tell me what you know, merchant."

Despite the similarities of their professions and shared interests in obtaining wares, a merchant sees the world differently to a thief. Relevant intel for the Blacksnakes comes mainly in the shape of numbers: value of goods, quantity of guards, hours of rotation, size of the place, amount of locks on the vault, and estimation of the escape routes.

Partitio, on the other hand, approaches the description of space from another angle that of cold mathematical analysis. He tells a story of people instead. That one old lady that used to work in the kitchen of the orphanage some decades ago, that young man who brings new cuttings to the old guard every few weeks, that sweet little dancer who teaches the art of music to the children in secret and wipes away their tears.

Temenos, a fellow connoisseur of people albeit for completely different reasons, makes interested noises at all the right places, his fork tiptoeing around his slice of pie like a cat playing with a mouse it just caught without ever going for the kill.

"Everything's alright over here, Partitio?"

A young man wearing bland clothes and a brown hat has entered the tavern, spotted Partitio and taken upon himself to intervene and check if the merchant is getting eaten alive by this bizarre duo of strangers. Throné instantly shifts back into the posture of a demure, easily awed girl, while Temenos pulls out a charming grin in greeting.

"Howdy, Al!" Partitio says. "We done peachy over here. I was just catching up with some pals I met on the road."

"I see" Al says. "Welcome to our town, we're delighted to have new visitors. I was hoping to have a word with you regarding those ideas you expressed about the market, but it can wait. My apologies for the disturbance, I'll leave you to your meal."

Throné watches the man leave.

"Say." She rests her chin under her palm. "Doesn't the wealthiest man in the continent live in the area?"

"Sure does," Partitio says. "Name's Lord Alrond. That fancy mansion up the hill belongs to him."

Throné watches Lord Alrond in a subpar disguise leave. Amateur. "I see. So you're telling me Mother established quarters right next to the guy who sleeps with literal bags of gold under his pillow."

"Well, the Garden most likely predates Mother, so I doubt she established quarters herself, but I see your point," Temenos says.

Throné smiles. "Must drive her insane. All that gold, so close, ripe for the taking, yet out of her reach."

Temenos smiles back. "Oh, it certainly does."

Dreamily, Throné says: "I bet she has nightmares about it."

"Bold of you to assume she sleeps at all. My theory is that she recharges on people's negative emotions."

"Now that you mention it, I don't think I've ever seen her so much as rest her eyes."

"Of course not. Snakes don't blink, my dear."

Throné chuckles behind her hand. There is something so freeing in openly making fun of Mother. For Blacksnakes, criticism of any form can only exist in secrecy, in thoughts and dreams. Even sighing under one's breath is a risk. Who knows who might hear in the den and convey poisonous words to Father or Mother in order to get ahead in the race?

Partitio has a queer expression on his face.

"What?" Throné snaps.

"Nothin'!"

"That's not nothing. Spill."

He scratches his cheek, sheepish. "You probably ain't gonna like it, but I was thinkin' you guys were kinda cute, is all."

"Cute," Throné deadpans.

"Cute," Temenos purrs.

Throné is no stranger to compliments on her appearance. She knows what she looks like, Mother made sure of that. There's no small advantage to get ahead, and beauty is only one of those. No one's ever called her cute before, however. Cute is for sweet girls with sincere smiles, adorable puppies and the likes, not weapons, snakes or Temenoses.

"Still scary, o'course," he adds hastily, as if her fragile ego needs reassurance. "But in an, err, endearin' kind of way? Like bickerin' siblings, or somethin', i guess-"

"Partitio."

She stands up abruptly and drops a couple of leafs on the table. He raises his head, somewhat flabbergasted by the use of his first name coming from her. "Yeah?"

"You still can't come with us," she says, then nods once, deeply. "But thank you. If you need the assistance of an… agent of the not quite legal side of customer service one day, do not hesitate to ask."

Temenos slithers out in her wake in a flutter of gauze, raspberries and knowing smiles. Outside the tavern, the afternoon sunlight gleams brightly. The robes covering her frame from head to toes itch uncomfortably, like an old skin she needs to shed away.

"Oi, Sister!"

A coin flies up in the air. Throné catches it in the middle of her palm in one agile move.

From the frame of the door, Partitio gives her the thumb up. "That's pure Orerush silver. Keep it, in sign of mutual assistance?"

Throné tucks the coin in her pocket. "That's a deal."

The path down to the Garden lies in greenery and deception. Its road slither through clear rivers and tall trees, projecting an air of warmth, inviting, welcoming, like a mother"s embrace after a long, weary journey. The mansion of the orphanage imposes its presence in the midst of the forest, mingling oddly with the charming scenery.

Throné stops by the bridge. "You can't come in with me."

"Don't worry about it, dear, I've concocting a plan to crawl my way in," Temenos says, unbothered by the rebuttal. "Don't get the party started before tonight, though, or I'll be very upset."

Throné shrugs. "Fine by me. Tonight."

"It's a date."

Their ways part by the bridge without further ado. Lingering and emotional goodbyes are a foreign concepts to the likes of them. Throné walks alone into the hell of Mother's making without meeting any resistance, easy as a knife into butter.

In the distance, a bell sings.

Within the hall, a deathly silence reigns. Dozens of children hush like mice in a hole, under the hollowed-eyed surveillance of their veiled keepers. The atmosphere weighs upon its inhabitants, their shoulders curved unnaturally and their mouths twisted down. Light itself barely dares to come in, kept at bay by tiny windows and thick curtains, and shadows cover everything under their suffocating veil.

Throné has visited graveyards more lively than this purulent nest. The rotten stench of fear is everywhere, it crawls on grayish skin, slips into empty eyes, twirls along trembling hands, and rests into rabbit-paced heartbeats. Eventually, it thickens to the point the air becomes barely breathable when Mother marches in and her voice echoes in cavernous space with the subtlety of a whiplash in a mausoleum, its out-of-tune sweetness leaving a taste of overripe fruits under the tongue.

"My hatchlings," Mother cooes to her gathering of children, "have you been good little girls and boys?"

Little Mira, whose talent in larceny Throné witnessed first hand on Wellgrove's market, gets her reward: a compliment from Mother on her thieving skills, a collar on her neck and an invitation for solo quality time with Mommy dearest. For once, Throné is grateful for the nun uniform covering her from Mother's cruel stare. She has an irrational, despicable longing for Temenos to have remained by her side; he's unbearable but no one could redirect Mother's attention away from others and to himself like him. He made it look so easy, a game of cats and mice where each one thought they were the cat.

Life's a joke to Temenos, even Mother. Especially Mother. He would have made the whole ordeal funny somehow.

He made it funny when Throné got her own reward, so many years ago.

"On your bread? Haha, kid, that's hilarious."

His hand applied herbal paste on her red gash slithering down her back. It smelt gentle, of eucalyptus, sesame and shoreflower, as removed from the blooded black alleys or the suffocating gamble room as possible. The Blacksnakes didn't hand over medicine for free, so it had to come from his personal stash.

"Listen, it's easy to call her what she wants," he advised back then. "You just have to imagine 'Mother' means something else. I, for instance, often swap the word in my mind for 'witch'. Suits Mama just fine, doesn't it?"

"-hurts a lot, Mira! What if I can't visit big sister Agnea anymore-"

"Sh," Mira urges the younger boy as she glances backwards and spots Throné lurking by the door. "Don't worry, I'll fix you right up."

She doesn't have herbal paste, or anything really, but she tries nonetheless. Throné has been in her place too before. She lost count of the numbers of 'punishments' Pirro and she helped one other survive.

This circle of pain, violence and abuse, it would seem, never stops. Eventually, they all get used to it, or they die, whichever comes first.

Afterwards, Throné rests her head against the window, Morozov's key dangling between her fingers. The sun dwells downwards, and a crimson light bleeds upon the forest in a sea of gold. The mansion spirals down further in unnatural quietness, not in slumber but in vigilance. Like any other thief, it must sleep with one eye open and a knife under the pillow.

She waits, until she hears something. The sounds of chaos precedes its arrival by a few minutes. Music that cheers through the thick blanket of dullness that covers the orphanage, soldiers on in the midst of the forest, growing louder and louder as dozens of torches gleam through the evening. Eventually, a colorful horde of scarcely clad people marches on the doorstep of the orphanage, quickly overwhelming the poor guard with their feminine wiles and unstoppable determination to party.

Dancers. That's the plan.

"What is going on there?" one of the sister gaps at the balcony. "What are they doing?"

Even without any intrusion so far, the crisis seems to have set the mansion alive with excitement. Children press their face to the windows, eyes wide and cheeks pink, while sisters ruffle feathers like upset chicken.

"Err, I think… I think they're setting up a scene?"

"Good gracious, right in front of the house? Whatever for? My lord!"

They all look away when two of the entertainers start engaging in a belly dancing contest, or pretend to at least.

"I'm going down," the mother superior declares. They all gasp. "And I'm telling them to leave, before Mother takes notice."

She is not successful in her efforts, and returns with a crown of flower on top of her veil and the mark of red lipsticks on her cheek. Another attempt at pourparler is made with the reinforcement of Morozov and two other sisters, just as unlikely to bear fruits.

Meanwhile, Throné waits by the window adjacent to the kitchen, the easiest to climb, that she has the good grace to open for intruders to conveniently stagger in.

"Hello there, my dear," Temenos, still in dancer's garbs, says as he does exactly that. "Wonderful evening, isn't it?"

"Sure," Throné drawls. "You're late."

"My apologies, I got delayed, but I dare say the size of the operation vastly compensated for a minor tardiness in delivery. Ah, hold on, I'll assist… or not."

A whirling of orange and brown saunters by the windowsill through leg strength alone, and heels click soundly on the old, craven wooden floor of the orphanage. A young woman stands proudly with her hands on her hips and a massive smile on her face.

"Oh, don't worry, mister Temenos! I'm a big girl, I can manage by meself just fine."

Throné studies the newcomer. "And who might you be now?"

The girl bows in greeting, one hand twirled around the ruffles of her skirt, one leg bent backwards, her spine curved but head held high: a dancer's reverence. "Agnea Bristani, at your service, ma'am! I'm one of Mistress Seraphine's students, up until tomorrow at least. Pleasure to make your acquaintance!"

Her face, clear, open and bright, is to the image of her sunset colored skirts: radiant in sincerity. The innocence of her girlhood, instead of getting ridden off as quickly as possible, shuffled away deep down where other delusions go to die, or honed and weaponized against those most likely to abuse it or be abused by it, shines unabashedly, basked in kindness and earnesty.

Throné looks away, pointedly. "And shouldn't you be out there wrecking havoc with your fellow dancers then, Agnea Bristani?"

Her smile does not wane, merely flicker. "Well, there's some folk I gotta say goodbye to before I leave town. Mister Temenos was kind enough to allow me to join his mission to satisfy my own pursuits."

"His mission," Throné repeats. "How generous."

"It's the least I could do, considering Miss Agnea's pivotal role in the speedy unfolding of our enterprise," Temenos says in a magnanimous tone. "Her talents of persuasion are truly quite a marvel to behold. In less than two hours, she had convinced half the town to come along."

That compliment means gold coming from him, who've been convincing halves of town of the most improbable tales from years now.

Agnea chuckles, sheepish. "Ehe, you flatter me, mister Temenos, but you know I didn't do much. You came up with the plan, and talked Mistress Seraphina around it, and that's the hardest part! Partitio convinced as many people as I did, if not more, and he's been around for like, a day!"

Through the window, Throné spots a flash of gold amidst the chaos.

"As for me…" Agnea's smile turns tender instead of overtly bright, dim but warmer. "Most people already want to help others, although sometimes they hide it deep down. I only appeal to that side of them, it ain't nothing special."

Such a statement only makes clearer the extent to which Agnea Bristani and her fellows exist in a parallel world, entirely removed from Throné, Temenos, and their ilk bred in the darkness. They, unlike her, also know how to appeal to the hidden sides of humanity, the sides that are crassest, basest, vilest. If they resort to compel the goodness in people, it is only to twist it for their own gain.

"Nonsense, it is very special indeed." Temenos waves her dismissal off, before staring pointedly at Throné with a mischievous glint in the eye. "In fact, I suspect the young lady's charm might even manage to enthrall the likes of you, my dear."

Throné remains impassible, thoroughly impervious to Temenos' shameless teasing. Unfortunately, the little dancer doesn't share her experience at dealing with such nuisances. Her cheeks warm up and color in tones echoing her skirt. "B-b-but I would never… A sister of the f-faith!"

"Ignore him," Throné says as she opens the door to the hall. "Focus on what you came here for."

"Big Sis Agnea!"

Three children barrel through the moment they catch sight of Agnea. Due to the current circumstances, the nuns have utterly failed to maintain order among their charges. An unstoppable liveliness is crashing through the morbid stillness of the orphanage. The previously empty eyes of the children fill up with excitement and adoration as they press by Agnea's side.

In the distance, still audible despite the music, the panicked shrills of the nuns and cheerful laughters of the kids, the bell rings again.

"How did you convince the dancers to help in the first place?" Throné asks in a casual tone, from one professional to another.

"I only told them what they wanted to hear, and voila!"

"And that is?"

"What everyone wants to hear, of course," he says. "A love story. I, a humble dancer, was desperately enamored with my childhood friend, who just entered the orders before I could confess my feelings. Why, I only wanted a chance to talk to her, but alas, the awful, terrible, no good at all mother superior stands in the way of True Love. If only some charitable souls could come up with a distraction so I could sneak into the orphanage and speak my piece…"

Throné hums in interest. It is, although risky, impossible to use again and much too noisy for her tastes, a brilliant strategy to come up with on the fly. "That girl didn't think we were lovers, though."

Temenos chuckles. "Indeed. As it turns out, the lovely Miss Bristani already had concerns regarding this establishment that ally more closely to ours. She did not require a fantastic tale to agree to an improvised partnership."

They slither by the walls, silent as the deepest night. The wooden floor barely creaks under their footsteps when they reach the backdoor no one can afford to keep an eye on currently. The key clicks with ease, and the lock turns to let them in. If only opening her own collar collar be so simple.

"Ready, my dear?"

The sharp cold of her dagger bites the palm of her hand. "Of course. We can't keep mother dearest waiting any longer."