Kelski still had qualms about the dog. It seemed ill behaved and quarrelsome, even if Kailani seemed to hold a slight affection for the creature. She gave it a wide berth and simply waited for the other woman to decide. She wasn’t thrilled the dog was coming, that was for sure, and she wasn’t sure more so why the dog was coming. But she didn’t argue. Kelski did note Kailani’s glance over her shoulder at her own ship and understood the expression. “Ebon will see things right. Do not worry for your things while he is there.” She said softly. “If anything, he’ll clean while we are gone.” She assured the other woman, not sure if that was a thing Kailani would also worry about however.
When Kailani asked if she was Kelvic, Kelski flinched. She glanced sideways at the woman to see if she could judge her emotion behind the question, and saw nothing hostile on the other woman’s face. She really didn’t look accusing and there was no sneer accompanying the look. “Yes. Thank you.” She said as well, in response to Kailani’s comment about her eagle form. “Birds do have scales… on our legs. They are reticulae… made of the same stuff as our beaks and claws. They overlap across the top of our toes and up our legs.” The jeweler said off-handedly. She didn’t elaborate because she was sure the other woman didn’t actually care and was only making polite conversation.
Kelski wished she could make small talk, the easy conversation strange humans had between each other. Inherently she knew humans liked to talk about themselves, so she supposed she could ask Kailani questions about what she liked or what she did in her spare time, but the woman had also seemed suspicious. Truthfully, Kelski wasn’t certain such things would be welcome. Plus, there was the dog. Kailani was busy managing it and Kelski didn’t want to distract her. She didn’t want bit. And she didn’t want to slit the dog’s throat with Kailani watching, though the dog was big enough to feed everyone at The Gem for days. It was a thought, though not a wise one, and Kelski dismissed it immediately.
It was probably a good dog that just acted like an asshole around strangers. She’d known more than one Kelvic that did that.
They arrived, watched, and planned. Kailani tucked a pillow under her shirt, arranged a baby bump, and assigned Kelski a role. The Kelvic didn’t mind. She just wanted inside, without scaling a wall or climbing the side of the building. If Kailani’s plan got them in, then fine. The Svefra oozed confidence about talking her way out of things, and Kelski knew it was true. The Svefra had shrewd tongues. One had once sold her to Sun’s Birth with a song and a prayer, walking away wealthy and launching Kelski into a new kind of nightmare.
But she did glance at Kailani when she promised Kona could take on old ladies and babies. “You trust that dog that much?” That meant she’d dismissed Kelski’s nature due to her race, most likely, and discredited her ability to fight altogether. The Kelvic narrowed her eyes and wondered why she was doing this again? For a strange human alongside a strange Svefra. Kelski wondered in that moment if Kailani was right. Was she a fool? Strangers were strangers.
The woman came and went from the house, and coin was obviously passed. Kelski followed Kailani’s lead, appreciating her acting. She must have seen many other human’s carrying children inside them. But Kailani almost blew it with her story. Kelski knew it immediately. The women weren’t interested in poor women, scamming them from their babies. They wanted coin… cold hard coin. And if Kailani didn’t have any, would they let her in?
Kelski interrupted. “I’m her friend. The problem is she can’t get a job being so pregnant, and after the baby’s birth she cannot work and care for the infant both. We have a job arranged for her once the birth happens that will bring in enough coin to pay for the child’s care and leave her money to live on. She just has to have someplace to watch the child while she works. You do that here, we are told. And I am willing to pay for the child’s care to help my friend until she can start having coin coming in to pay for it herself. I cannot watch her myself as I work too.” Kelski said, clearly in case the woman was hard of hearing.
Kailani was going to screw it up if she played herself off as poor. The old women were greedy, according to Mercy, and wanted to take all their victim’s funds while holding the children hostage to do it. If Kailani was poor, they wouldn’t touch her or agree to take the child. They weren’t a charity, they were bloodsucking leeches according to Mercy.
Kelski glanced apologetically to Kailani as the woman forced her to keep the dog outside and let them in after all. The Sea Eagle didn’t disagree with the elderly woman’s decision. The dog looked big enough to eat babies and she wasn’t sure if they walked in on several children, if the children would be safe.
The Kelvic didn’t react to the situation with the dog. She still wasn’t sure the woman’s attachment to the canine. It wasn’t Kelvic so she wasn’t bonded to it, right? Odd. Humans were entirely to strange to the Kelvic for her to truly understand them. The Sea Eagle simply shrugged and followed the woman inside.
Myrtle introduced herself and Kelski blinked when Kailani assigned herself the name Layla and said that Kelski was Ana. What? Why wouldn’t they simply use their real names? The Sea Eagle narrowed her eyes and glanced between the two humans, both accepting of one just lying to the other outright. It was so common among their kind. Kelski didn’t understand it. Nor did she follow the dynamic of subtle words that passed between the two women. She did note that they were sort of entering a type of negotiation, and she knew Myrtle was saying things without saying things as humans were likely to do.
One thing Kelski noted as the two women talked was that in terms of the young children, even the mobile ones, there seemed to be a noted lack of supervision. Myrtle was out and about, escorting them in, giving them a tour, taking payment from the woman of earlier, but there was really no one sitting with the children, watching them. Had Kelski had young, she would have never taken her eyes off them. She would have supervised them until they were old enough to supervise themselves. These children had no one to watch them, and as she glanced around, she noticed things that were subtle. While the kids were on the move, playing, there was no real abundance of toys. They had no things that young animals needed to play with. And while on the surface they looked fine, Kelski thought they were thin. She’d seen many youth in Lhavit, and the babies and toddlers tended to be pudgy, with layers of baby fat that protected them. These children were small, light, and somewhat frail looking.
Her eagle eyes picked out other things. Bruising at the neckline of tunics, skinned knees unattended, and slightly fearful looks the children gave towards Myrtle as if they knew they would be incurring her wrath if they were too loud. Sure, they moved around, but truthfully, they weren’t loud like street kids were. They weren’t happy and carefree either. They were thin, quiet, and stank of uncertainty. Kelski was no expert having no children of her own, but it seemed to her that a healthy child would have the fat, a boldness of new life in a new world, and laughter.
Miserable humans.
Surprisingly, Myrtle decided to give them a tour. Kelski glanced at ‘Layla’ curiously, wondering how she’d convinced her to do that. The old woman bustled them past the main living area, showed them a small study/sitting room she called the visiting area, and then lead them through a virtually empty pantry area. When she called it a pantry, Kelski was definitely surprised. The Midnight Gem’s pantry was full of things – bags of flour, rice and corn. Jars of herbs and preserves and rows of spices. There were baskets of potatoes and onions. But this pantry had shelves that held nothing. Sure, it was clean, but it was suspiciously empty. Someone poor wouldn’t understand that though. Someone poor wouldn’t understand what a true larder should hold. There was no hanging meat, no dried fish or fruit, and no root vegetables or squash gracing its shelves.
Kelski glanced at Kailani and wondered if she noticed. They were escorted into a cooking area, that held a large hearth that had a bubbling pot of what looked like porridge bubbling over it. It wasn’t obviously bad food, holding a normal coloring, but Kelski did note it looked thin and there was no sweetener or milk sitting about ready to add to it. Little bowls lined the counter, each one labeled with a name. There was also a pile of bowls, small one, all stacked up together. Those were labeled as well.
Kelski thought she should say something about how delicious the food looked, but it would be a lie. She hoped Kailani would fill in the dialog for her. The Sea Eagle had been recently introduced to deception, but to bald face lie to someone wasn’t something she was capable of at the moment. Not in this, not when she saw what the children would eat and what some would not. She was certain the piled up bowls were the babies who’s mothers had not paid.
Kelski’s style was more silence. But she was going to have a hard time staying silent. An empty pantry was telling, adding more evidence to Mercy’s own claims.
“This is a lovely kitchen.” It was, truthfully, devoid of good food and all. “But can we see where the babies are kept?” Myrtle smiled brightly at the compliment, and nodded. She beckoned to the ladies, and lead them further into the house. Everything looked in order until she paused at a set of double doors and only opened one.
“I’d let you walk through, but they are sleeping. So, lets just peek in, shall we?” She said, and opened the door to room that was longer than it was wide, lined with cribs. Another old woman sat at the far end, near a large fireplace, rocking what looked like a baby in her arms. There were candles periodically, adding a lovely glow to the dim-lit room that had curtains drawn. The cribs near the door held sleeping infants laid out on fine linen. There were even stuffed rag dolls tucked into the corners in one or two of the cribs. The infants looked fine, thin, but fine. And they truly did appear to be sleeping. There were probably twenty cribs in all, ten on either side, as Kelski took a quick count. The room held a cloying scent of anise and cloves, probably sprinkled over the fire. The scent made Kelski yawn abruptly, suddenly tired.
She frowned, shook her head, and adjusted her vision. Sea Eagles could spot a fat salmon basking in the sun at the water’s surface a mile high. She focused in, checking every crib she could see into. The walls were high and the infants obscured by the swaddling cloths that wrapped them, but several had padded liners to the cribs that had slid down, nearer the fire, revealing tiny forms in worse shape than the ones by the door. Some had even wiggled free of their cloths, most likely due to inattention. None cried. Like Mercy had said, each child had a small slate board at the head of its crib with its name and some cryptic notes below.
The Kelvic glanced at Kailani, rage in her eyes, as she beheld the situation before her. A normal human perhaps wouldn’t see it, but Kelski could. She also suspected the cloying scent of the herb sprinkled fire covered a worst smell, the smell of death or those near death. “The smoke…. don’t breathe it if you can help it. I think it is making them sleep… keeping them from crying.” She said, knowing humans capable of worse things.
She just wasn’t sure how the women themselves weren’t sleepy from breathing it like the babies were.
Her eyes ran across the room and Kelski spotted Caitlyn’s name immediately. Glancing into the crib, she could see the infant weakly squirming and through the bars that held no padding, she saw a bone thin arm poke out.
The Kelvic broke cover then with an infuriated hiss, launching into action. She burst into the room at a jog, stifling a yawn and approached the crib. She bent over it, scooped out the infant delicately, and looked on in horror as she saw its starved condition. Clutching the babe to her breast, she whirled only to face the other enraged old lady.
“Myrtle, what in the Gods name is this?” The other woman said, advancing on Kelski brandishing a cane. The Sea Eagle tucked Caitlyn into the crook of her arm, pulled a dagger from the small of her back, and threw it straight at the woman. The throw held all her rage and anger at small weak things, even horrid things like baby humans, treated like this. The dagger flew true, embedding itself into the woman’s left eye. Kelski hissed her fury, and turned on Kailani and Myrtle, even as Myrtle screamed in horror. She heard the other woman’s body hit the floor behind her.
She had another dagger in her hand in a split second, ready to throw… ready to kill again. Her silver gaze had turned mercurial and so much of the pent up rage she had towards humans surfaced. The Myrtle woman she wanted to tear to shreds. But she held back, knowing Kailani was close to her and close enough to act if she chose too. They hadn’t seen much, but what Kelski saw here was more than enough for her to believe Mercy.
“Are you two cowards the only people here? Surely you aren’t guarding this operation yourselves? How in the world do you have all these mothers fooled? How in the world can you do this to any young… anything as innocent as these babies?” The Sea Eagle hissed, enraged.
The Kelvic wasn’t sure how to do battle with a baby in her arms. But she wasn’t sure the old woman was all that much of a challenge anyhow. How did they keep operating with just the security of a fence and nothing more? Odds are they were under the protection of one of the gangs, probably the Daggerhands or the Night Eyes. Kelski wasn’t sure, and in that moment, she didn’t care. All she wanted to do was see the old woman hurt like she was hurting the children.
Yet she held back, waiting for the Svefra to act, to come forward, to see what Kelski could see. If Kailani did nothing, then Kelski would act again… if she could.
When Kailani asked if she was Kelvic, Kelski flinched. She glanced sideways at the woman to see if she could judge her emotion behind the question, and saw nothing hostile on the other woman’s face. She really didn’t look accusing and there was no sneer accompanying the look. “Yes. Thank you.” She said as well, in response to Kailani’s comment about her eagle form. “Birds do have scales… on our legs. They are reticulae… made of the same stuff as our beaks and claws. They overlap across the top of our toes and up our legs.” The jeweler said off-handedly. She didn’t elaborate because she was sure the other woman didn’t actually care and was only making polite conversation.
Kelski wished she could make small talk, the easy conversation strange humans had between each other. Inherently she knew humans liked to talk about themselves, so she supposed she could ask Kailani questions about what she liked or what she did in her spare time, but the woman had also seemed suspicious. Truthfully, Kelski wasn’t certain such things would be welcome. Plus, there was the dog. Kailani was busy managing it and Kelski didn’t want to distract her. She didn’t want bit. And she didn’t want to slit the dog’s throat with Kailani watching, though the dog was big enough to feed everyone at The Gem for days. It was a thought, though not a wise one, and Kelski dismissed it immediately.
It was probably a good dog that just acted like an asshole around strangers. She’d known more than one Kelvic that did that.
They arrived, watched, and planned. Kailani tucked a pillow under her shirt, arranged a baby bump, and assigned Kelski a role. The Kelvic didn’t mind. She just wanted inside, without scaling a wall or climbing the side of the building. If Kailani’s plan got them in, then fine. The Svefra oozed confidence about talking her way out of things, and Kelski knew it was true. The Svefra had shrewd tongues. One had once sold her to Sun’s Birth with a song and a prayer, walking away wealthy and launching Kelski into a new kind of nightmare.
But she did glance at Kailani when she promised Kona could take on old ladies and babies. “You trust that dog that much?” That meant she’d dismissed Kelski’s nature due to her race, most likely, and discredited her ability to fight altogether. The Kelvic narrowed her eyes and wondered why she was doing this again? For a strange human alongside a strange Svefra. Kelski wondered in that moment if Kailani was right. Was she a fool? Strangers were strangers.
The woman came and went from the house, and coin was obviously passed. Kelski followed Kailani’s lead, appreciating her acting. She must have seen many other human’s carrying children inside them. But Kailani almost blew it with her story. Kelski knew it immediately. The women weren’t interested in poor women, scamming them from their babies. They wanted coin… cold hard coin. And if Kailani didn’t have any, would they let her in?
Kelski interrupted. “I’m her friend. The problem is she can’t get a job being so pregnant, and after the baby’s birth she cannot work and care for the infant both. We have a job arranged for her once the birth happens that will bring in enough coin to pay for the child’s care and leave her money to live on. She just has to have someplace to watch the child while she works. You do that here, we are told. And I am willing to pay for the child’s care to help my friend until she can start having coin coming in to pay for it herself. I cannot watch her myself as I work too.” Kelski said, clearly in case the woman was hard of hearing.
Kailani was going to screw it up if she played herself off as poor. The old women were greedy, according to Mercy, and wanted to take all their victim’s funds while holding the children hostage to do it. If Kailani was poor, they wouldn’t touch her or agree to take the child. They weren’t a charity, they were bloodsucking leeches according to Mercy.
Kelski glanced apologetically to Kailani as the woman forced her to keep the dog outside and let them in after all. The Sea Eagle didn’t disagree with the elderly woman’s decision. The dog looked big enough to eat babies and she wasn’t sure if they walked in on several children, if the children would be safe.
The Kelvic didn’t react to the situation with the dog. She still wasn’t sure the woman’s attachment to the canine. It wasn’t Kelvic so she wasn’t bonded to it, right? Odd. Humans were entirely to strange to the Kelvic for her to truly understand them. The Sea Eagle simply shrugged and followed the woman inside.
Myrtle introduced herself and Kelski blinked when Kailani assigned herself the name Layla and said that Kelski was Ana. What? Why wouldn’t they simply use their real names? The Sea Eagle narrowed her eyes and glanced between the two humans, both accepting of one just lying to the other outright. It was so common among their kind. Kelski didn’t understand it. Nor did she follow the dynamic of subtle words that passed between the two women. She did note that they were sort of entering a type of negotiation, and she knew Myrtle was saying things without saying things as humans were likely to do.
One thing Kelski noted as the two women talked was that in terms of the young children, even the mobile ones, there seemed to be a noted lack of supervision. Myrtle was out and about, escorting them in, giving them a tour, taking payment from the woman of earlier, but there was really no one sitting with the children, watching them. Had Kelski had young, she would have never taken her eyes off them. She would have supervised them until they were old enough to supervise themselves. These children had no one to watch them, and as she glanced around, she noticed things that were subtle. While the kids were on the move, playing, there was no real abundance of toys. They had no things that young animals needed to play with. And while on the surface they looked fine, Kelski thought they were thin. She’d seen many youth in Lhavit, and the babies and toddlers tended to be pudgy, with layers of baby fat that protected them. These children were small, light, and somewhat frail looking.
Her eagle eyes picked out other things. Bruising at the neckline of tunics, skinned knees unattended, and slightly fearful looks the children gave towards Myrtle as if they knew they would be incurring her wrath if they were too loud. Sure, they moved around, but truthfully, they weren’t loud like street kids were. They weren’t happy and carefree either. They were thin, quiet, and stank of uncertainty. Kelski was no expert having no children of her own, but it seemed to her that a healthy child would have the fat, a boldness of new life in a new world, and laughter.
Miserable humans.
Surprisingly, Myrtle decided to give them a tour. Kelski glanced at ‘Layla’ curiously, wondering how she’d convinced her to do that. The old woman bustled them past the main living area, showed them a small study/sitting room she called the visiting area, and then lead them through a virtually empty pantry area. When she called it a pantry, Kelski was definitely surprised. The Midnight Gem’s pantry was full of things – bags of flour, rice and corn. Jars of herbs and preserves and rows of spices. There were baskets of potatoes and onions. But this pantry had shelves that held nothing. Sure, it was clean, but it was suspiciously empty. Someone poor wouldn’t understand that though. Someone poor wouldn’t understand what a true larder should hold. There was no hanging meat, no dried fish or fruit, and no root vegetables or squash gracing its shelves.
Kelski glanced at Kailani and wondered if she noticed. They were escorted into a cooking area, that held a large hearth that had a bubbling pot of what looked like porridge bubbling over it. It wasn’t obviously bad food, holding a normal coloring, but Kelski did note it looked thin and there was no sweetener or milk sitting about ready to add to it. Little bowls lined the counter, each one labeled with a name. There was also a pile of bowls, small one, all stacked up together. Those were labeled as well.
Kelski thought she should say something about how delicious the food looked, but it would be a lie. She hoped Kailani would fill in the dialog for her. The Sea Eagle had been recently introduced to deception, but to bald face lie to someone wasn’t something she was capable of at the moment. Not in this, not when she saw what the children would eat and what some would not. She was certain the piled up bowls were the babies who’s mothers had not paid.
Kelski’s style was more silence. But she was going to have a hard time staying silent. An empty pantry was telling, adding more evidence to Mercy’s own claims.
“This is a lovely kitchen.” It was, truthfully, devoid of good food and all. “But can we see where the babies are kept?” Myrtle smiled brightly at the compliment, and nodded. She beckoned to the ladies, and lead them further into the house. Everything looked in order until she paused at a set of double doors and only opened one.
“I’d let you walk through, but they are sleeping. So, lets just peek in, shall we?” She said, and opened the door to room that was longer than it was wide, lined with cribs. Another old woman sat at the far end, near a large fireplace, rocking what looked like a baby in her arms. There were candles periodically, adding a lovely glow to the dim-lit room that had curtains drawn. The cribs near the door held sleeping infants laid out on fine linen. There were even stuffed rag dolls tucked into the corners in one or two of the cribs. The infants looked fine, thin, but fine. And they truly did appear to be sleeping. There were probably twenty cribs in all, ten on either side, as Kelski took a quick count. The room held a cloying scent of anise and cloves, probably sprinkled over the fire. The scent made Kelski yawn abruptly, suddenly tired.
She frowned, shook her head, and adjusted her vision. Sea Eagles could spot a fat salmon basking in the sun at the water’s surface a mile high. She focused in, checking every crib she could see into. The walls were high and the infants obscured by the swaddling cloths that wrapped them, but several had padded liners to the cribs that had slid down, nearer the fire, revealing tiny forms in worse shape than the ones by the door. Some had even wiggled free of their cloths, most likely due to inattention. None cried. Like Mercy had said, each child had a small slate board at the head of its crib with its name and some cryptic notes below.
The Kelvic glanced at Kailani, rage in her eyes, as she beheld the situation before her. A normal human perhaps wouldn’t see it, but Kelski could. She also suspected the cloying scent of the herb sprinkled fire covered a worst smell, the smell of death or those near death. “The smoke…. don’t breathe it if you can help it. I think it is making them sleep… keeping them from crying.” She said, knowing humans capable of worse things.
She just wasn’t sure how the women themselves weren’t sleepy from breathing it like the babies were.
Her eyes ran across the room and Kelski spotted Caitlyn’s name immediately. Glancing into the crib, she could see the infant weakly squirming and through the bars that held no padding, she saw a bone thin arm poke out.
The Kelvic broke cover then with an infuriated hiss, launching into action. She burst into the room at a jog, stifling a yawn and approached the crib. She bent over it, scooped out the infant delicately, and looked on in horror as she saw its starved condition. Clutching the babe to her breast, she whirled only to face the other enraged old lady.
“Myrtle, what in the Gods name is this?” The other woman said, advancing on Kelski brandishing a cane. The Sea Eagle tucked Caitlyn into the crook of her arm, pulled a dagger from the small of her back, and threw it straight at the woman. The throw held all her rage and anger at small weak things, even horrid things like baby humans, treated like this. The dagger flew true, embedding itself into the woman’s left eye. Kelski hissed her fury, and turned on Kailani and Myrtle, even as Myrtle screamed in horror. She heard the other woman’s body hit the floor behind her.
She had another dagger in her hand in a split second, ready to throw… ready to kill again. Her silver gaze had turned mercurial and so much of the pent up rage she had towards humans surfaced. The Myrtle woman she wanted to tear to shreds. But she held back, knowing Kailani was close to her and close enough to act if she chose too. They hadn’t seen much, but what Kelski saw here was more than enough for her to believe Mercy.
“Are you two cowards the only people here? Surely you aren’t guarding this operation yourselves? How in the world do you have all these mothers fooled? How in the world can you do this to any young… anything as innocent as these babies?” The Sea Eagle hissed, enraged.
The Kelvic wasn’t sure how to do battle with a baby in her arms. But she wasn’t sure the old woman was all that much of a challenge anyhow. How did they keep operating with just the security of a fence and nothing more? Odds are they were under the protection of one of the gangs, probably the Daggerhands or the Night Eyes. Kelski wasn’t sure, and in that moment, she didn’t care. All she wanted to do was see the old woman hurt like she was hurting the children.
Yet she held back, waiting for the Svefra to act, to come forward, to see what Kelski could see. If Kailani did nothing, then Kelski would act again… if she could.
