[Nicolay]

The Siblinghood of Nyad Compatriots.

It was a mouthful and a chore to say but sleepless nights and idle moments had taught Nicolay to memorize it and soon, he spoke it as if it was his name. Often, he referred to it as the Nyad Siblinghood or as Darrell Thornestone said it, the Siblinghood.

Darrell Thornestone was the kelpie wolf he'd attacked and caught in the market and he came to know about him in the months he was confined in the cell until an embittered Azul sent him out to slave labor. Having done that, it seemed to the rest of Alexandria that the case was over and done with -- but not to Nicolay. The two other nyads were still at large and as far as he was concerned, no one was doing anything about it. No one but the Guard who'd helped them, that is. And for that, Nicolay admired him.

But it just wasn't enough. Months had passed and no one had gotten anywhere and to say that it was frustrating was an understatement. It would seem as though the Siblinghood had stopped but Nicolay knew it was only because they had ceased to do any large-scale activities such as what they had attempted the previous year. Azul still received threats and Nicolay often felt some eyes following him from behind and who knew what they were doing elsewhere? And it was exactly because of this that he had decided to do something stupid: launch his own private investigation.

He was on one that quiet afternoon in New Alexandria. He had better things to do, that much was certain, like go to work or drop by Lazuli's place or shop but he had asked for a day off and it wasn't like Lazuli was home yet, anyway...or at least he didn't bother to check. The last time she was away for something epic, it took her about two months and though he had been worried sick, he found that he had been most productive on his investigation during her absence to a point where sometimes, he wished she wouldn't be back yet.

Which meant that no, he never told of his personal adventure to her yet. He hadn't even talked to her about the second star necklace he'd found since...the day he found it. It just didn't seem like something he could talk to her about, he felt.

But those were things of the past. Right now, Nicolay -- in full human form, never mind how dumb that is but he knew he couldn't possibly botch this by turning into a cat and then acting like a dog -- was watching someone from behind a tall fence leave the office of what he knew was the Purifiers' Guild. It made sense that he should work there -- if he was a nyad. If Nicolay was going to be honest, he really had no idea who the other two were but that wouldn't stop him.

When some distance had been placed between them, he began to follow. There was absolutely no one around which made him conscious about his own movements but he did his best to ignore his discomfort and focused instead on pretending that he had a spine. Many times, as they turned in corners or crossed streets, Nicolay was almost sure he had been spotted but he persisted on hiding behind walls should the male nyad glance over his shoulder. At the back of his mind, he found that he was actually wishing that he had not decided on this idiotic move.

But not fifteen minutes later, he found himself led to the private sector of New Alexandria and it was there that he found the nyad descending into the dark cavity that marked an entrance into the sewers. It made sense that he should go there, Nicolay thought, but suddenly, he wondered if he should follow. He considered his options as he gazed around.

The fact that he was alone in the surface of the city had convinced him that yes, it wasn't a bad idea to follow the nyad down.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust in the shadows but he was walking before he even managed to understand how the light worked. In the emptiness, his feet cracked loudly and he worried that the nyad would catch him before he was ready.

Except the nyad...was gone.

Nicolay cursed under his breath. The moment of hesitation must have cost him his lead. That, or there must be some hidden passage of sorts. Stubborn, he pursued his invisible subject further but ten steps and a hallway into his blind chase, he stopped and turned back.

An afternoon wasted, it was a great disappointment. He had a tight frown on his face as he whipped out his COM to check for a text but a tap said no, and he stopped in his steps.

It skittered...and scratched.

His blood freezing, Nicolay lost his heart as he held his breath. The sound wasn't stopping as it drew closer and it was a sound that was all too familiar to him. In and out of his mind, it was dark, he was alone and not even his cellphone could help him, almost exactly like the first time it happened.

Oh God...Oh God...!

His COM must have slipped off his hand as he whirled towards the dark tunnel and in the shadows, he saw it: a pair of menacing emeralds the way he had seen them almost two years past.

Not again... he choked as he pressed himself against the wall, Not again...!!

Caught by the horror, Nicolay could not do anything but scream.

[Maaike]

It was still dangerous for Maaike to be in Alexandria, but she had things to do. With one eye and ear on the lookout so she could avoid the guards and her orange-tipped hair hidden under a hood, she swanned through New Alexandria on her way to the portal but was drawn up short by something most everyone else either ignored or didn't even notice: A would-be thief following his victim into the sewers.

She followed, quick and quiet, but the only signs of their passing into the tunnels were ripples in the dirty water. Had she been mistaken? But no, she definitely saw them descend into the tunnels, and she hadn't been too far behind them.

A scream had her darting toward the source of the echoes without a thought for her own safety, her boots splashing as she turned a corner to come face to face with a spindle-legged monster. She didn't have time to assess the situation, to determine which man she'd be saving if she intervened. She didn't have any gear to combat a kumo, either, and daren't risk being caught in its sticky webs. Lifting her hand, she aimed Finnbar and let fly with a whoosh of flame that singed the enormous spider's hairy body and sent it screaming into the depths.

The smell of roasted flesh was becoming all too familiar to Maaike's nostrils, but she still felt like throwing up. She didn't have time to wallow in the nausea, though; that kumo wouldn't stay scared for long and Finnbar was a one-use defense. “Let's go!” Grabbing the guy by the arm, she hauled him back the way she'd come, her plan to bring back help to look for the other guy in case the kumo had already got him.

[Nicolay]

Everything passed Nicolay in a blur. In his mind, he was so sure those gargantuan legs had gotten him this time but his feet were moving before he realized that the sewers had turned light and the sun's glorious warmth surrounded his otherwise pale skin. His eyes remained close, but the confusion of...well, everything that had just transpired in those five minutes or what had had taken its toll on him and with an insensible noise, he tugged his arm away from the grabber and he was surprised to find the ground on his side when he clattered down to it. Great, his limbs had given way and he was going to shift again--

But he didn't. Whimpering helplessly on, Nicolay tore his eyes open and scratched his sleeve up so that he could see the wound he had just been dealt with-- but there was none.

All there was was the old scar from years back -- and it was dry and healed, there was no blood or sting.

“Oh God,” he said in his own language as he grabbed his hair and curled forward, as though he was going to attempt to shift into a hedgehog, his body shaking from the recent scare he'd had.

[Maaike]

“Wha-” Maaike stared, dumbfounded, as the Therian collapsed in on himself. Even without her wolf nose, she could scent his fear and stress, and anything she'd been about to say evaporated on her tongue. He really didn't deserve it — he was a thief, a mugger, someone who preyed on others — but his meltdown pulled on emotions normally reserved for Sammy.

Dropping to her haunches beside him, Maaike kept her hands to herself and fixated on a cobble next to his head, scouring through the words in her brain for something appropriate. She didn't recognise his mumblings; maybe he was Dardanian, his accent too thick in his fear to make sense?

“Yeah. Scary, those kumo.” Maybe she'd become desensitised to that sort of emotion. She threw herself into danger every time she stepped out the door, and there were moments that made her question her sanity in doing so. Times when she realised she was probably going to die, and that it should matter. She rarely felt actual fear, though, not since Ashton took his last swing. “You're okay, kid.” He didn't look much younger than her. A decade, maybe — she felt momentarily ancient at the thought — and well into adulthood by Therian standards. His defensive posture and the stink of fear made him seem another decade younger, though — closer to Sammy's age than her own — so the "kid" seemed completely natural.

And then the bounty hunter in her twitched, and said something he probably wouldn't want to hear right now. “I won't take you in for the attempted mugging.” Coming face-to-face with a kumo was probably enough punishment already. Besides, his would-be victim was probably kumo food by now, anyway. She planned to go back in there and track the cocoon, but she wasn't about to leave a kid like this, vulnerable now himself to being robbed.

[Nicolay]

It took Nicolay some time before he could grasp his senses again, each second that past making swallowing his own spit all the more difficult. The sun and the solid ground soon became friends of his own sanity and soon, his color would be coming back to his skin although his fingers still shook.

He choked, as if fresh from a sob but his eyes were dry as he crossed his legs on the dirt and hid his clammy hands by the folds of his arms and the side of his ribs. He still rocked back and forth, still a bit of a mess, but one deep breath later, as he listened on to the stranger who was suddenly there (she must have saved him but he didn't have a really solid recollection of it) talk to him, he suddenly found his form stopping and he looked up to the other Therian with arched brows and parted lips. What...

What did she say?

It must have been the recent fright, Nicolay's Elysian must have garbled itself again. For all the years he'd lived in this place, one snap of something terrible was still enough to send his vocabulary a-scattering. “P, pardone...I'm sorry?” he said instead.

[Maaike]

Maaike forced herself to stay in "mama" mode, imagining that this was Sammy so her patience wouldn't run out. She encountered few Elysians like this guy, though, and definitely fewer Therians. “You should be sorry, kid. What makes you think it's okay to rob a guy? You can't be that hard up.” She raked him head to foot with a pinched stare, noting that — sewer aside — his clothes were not rags. He was on the skinny side but he didn't look malnourished. All that meant he was thieving for thieving's sake, and she had much less sympathy for a guy like that.

She began to regret offering him the stay of execution, as it were, but he was still in a sorry enough state that she didn't change her mind. Instead, she stood and glanced around for someone she could trust to run off to the guard to fetch help. She had to go back in there and at least try to rescue the kumo's victim.

[Nicolay]

What was she saying?!

There was a battalion of words, of thoughts that threatened to spill out of his mouth but of them all, what he did spit out was an indignant, “You know nothing about my business!” Mug? What was she talking about?!

To say that Nicolay was placed in an awkward situation was not even enough to begin describing his circumstances. The water's perfume was fast reaching his nose but he knew he could be human and he forced it off his mind as he pushed himself off the ground and glared at the female Therian. “Y, you should watch the words that comes out of your mouth before you even spit them out! How dare you accuse me as a mugger just because you saw me...creeping around the sewers?! How--” he would have gone on.

Except the kumo's emerald gaze flashed at him from the depths of his memory, and he shuddered where he stood, as if a sudden wintry chill had blown through his figure.

Nicolay was quiet for a moment, breathing as he chased his heartbeat. He frowned at his savior...but the angle was in a way that directed the frown at him and not the woman.

“I apologize,” he muttered in the formal dialect. “I didn't mean to be rude after you just saved my hide,” he added in the normal Therian context.

[Maaike]

“Too late, then, kid.” Maaike huffed at him, her arms crossed under her breasts and her lips pursed. Honestly, do a guy a favour... Two, in fact! He had apologised, she supposed, but Maaike didn't appreciate being railed at just because she'd caught him in the act. Although, to be fair, he might have had a point — if she hadn't also seen him following his prey to the sewers in the first place.

“Look.” She thumbed the skin between her eyes. “If I were anything but a bounty hunter, I might give you some tips on how to stalk people properly. Being Therian and all that. But.” Pinning him with a frank stare, she let her lips curl in a sardonic twist. “I am a bounty hunter, so it's probably not the best idea to piss me off.” Clapping her hands to her hips and holding her arms akimbo, Maaike got on with the real issue.

“Since you're here, though, you can tell me what you saw before the kumo attacked.” He looked faint again, but Maaike's patience, and time, had run out. “Which way did the guy go? I don't have my azani and my wolf nose isn't sensitive enough to filter through all that sh...tuff, so anything you give me will help. And who knows, you do this for him, maybe Xanth won't smite you where you stand.” Maaike didn't actually think Xanth gave a damn about a petty would-be thief — or a mass murderer, for that matter — but it might scare something useful out of him.

[Nicolay]

“Like Hel she would,” Nicolay muttered under his breath before he said more audibly, “That nyad can drown in a sea of kumos for all I care, and just as well. And if you think this makes me a murderer, then by all means, pray to yo-- to the goddess for her divine intercession to deliver justice.” Because last he recalled, the world isn't too cruel yet as to punish those who are spited.

He let a breath through his nose as he turned and looked again at the entrance to the sewers. “If I knew where he went, I wouldn't be standing out here alone with you.” He'd have dragged the nyad out in the open and demanded the truth from him and if he was one of the guilty party, he'd haul him all the way to the Guard on all fours if he'd had to. “You won't find any help from me looking for that man. And it's probably just fair to leave him in mortal danger there...”

[Maaike]

Maaike's eyebrows shot right past her scalp and took off for a flight to Neme. For long moments, all she could do was gawp at him, and then words shrieked out of her mouth like wraithsong. “Are you serious?”

She wasn't startled by his callousness. She'd had the misfortune of encountering many people like him, and most of them had a bounty on their heads already. (The rest soon found one tacked between their metaphorical shoulder blades if she "discovered" enough evidence to turn in.) She probably would have just glared at him if she hadn't spent the past ten minutes faking a maternal instinct, but the fact that she had likened him to Sammy... The thought that her son could ever be this cold...

But then his actual words sank in beyond her prejudice of them. She stepped back, her eyes narrowing as she considered. “How exactly does he deserve a kumo to the face?”

[Nicolay]

Nicolay wouldn't lie, he was stunned to know that this stranger cared enough for....well, a stranger and he did find it a little off-putting. His face wrinkled as he entertained the Therian's shriek, leaning back a centimeter as if to flinch but he kept his silence until she delivered her inquiry.

He breathed through his nose. At the back of his head, he wondered if it would have been much wiser to have just...postponed the chase until the next day or even the next week. But then Lazuli would have already been around -- maybe...well, the chance was bigger -- and he wouldn't have this much time in his hands to stalk people with again anymore. Nicolay wondered where to begin.

“I owe him a piece of vengeance,” was what he said and it stunned him how hateful that sounded. Nicolay wouldn't be caught admitting that he wasn't even sure that the nyad was one of the nyads who attacked him, though. Shaking his head, he said, “He and his friends...wronged me and mine. I, it's the one that happened in the glass shop. Gabel Glasses.” He really wasn't sure he wanted to talk about it all over again.

[Maaike]

“Wronged you, huh?” Maaike couldn't answer to that, not with the way she'd dealt with her own wrongs. Still, she couldn't take him at his word. But then he mentioned Gabel Glasses. Of course she'd heard of the attack: She kept her ear to the ground even in Alexandria with an eye for new jobs, and there were wanted posters all over the place for information about the Siblinghood. That didn't mean he was telling the truth, only that he'd also heard the stories, but she was more inclined to believe him now. One of the victims had purportedly been Therian, but some of the rumours had suggested he wasn't local — which might explain the strange accent and linguistic slips.

“Trust me, kid, revenge isn't all it's cracked up to be.” She hadn't killed Ashton out of vengeance but a driving need to protect her son. That didn't stop his death mask from haunting her nightmares, though. “But what do you say I help you out? I can't just leave him down there, anyway. Let's get him away from the kumo, and then you can decide what you want to do with him.” She hoped, for his sake, that he decided to turn the guy in.

[Nicolay]

What--

“No!!” Nicolay couldn't have stressed that enough. He took a clear step back away from the Therian as if a river of lava had just appeared right in-between them and he stared at her as if she'd just come crawling out of it. “No!” he said again with a shake of his head just in case she was deaf. “I'm not going back down there! Not with the kumo! I don't want the guy to live, I don't even care about him! I am not going back down there, no!” She can go back down for all that matters to him and as for him, well.

He knew a number of ways to disappear.

[Maaike]

“...” Eyeing the kid with a single arched eyebrow and her lips pulled back in a sneer, Maaike nevertheless took a solitary step back to let him know she wouldn't push it, and snarled. “Fine.” She said nothing else, but turned away, not far enough for him to get out her line of sight but enough to give her some semblance of privacy, to draw out her COM. It was one she only ever carried while on the job and it had no personal information in it whatsoever so nothing could ever tie her back to Sammy or Graeme.

It did, however, have Aiden Roy's number in it, the only man in Alexandria she could trust to help her with a kumo in spite of the trouble. If anything, they both had stayed in town too long, but she couldn't turn her back on this, and she wasn't in a position to hand the problem over to someone else.

“Sweetcheeks, hi! Didja miss me?” She found herself smirking at the guard's predictable response, and her eyebrows twitched when she realised it. She glared at Nicolay as if it was his fault.

“No, nothing about that.” Of course he'd assume that would be the only reason she'd call him, and she put on her most saccharine voice for what came next. “You like helping little ol' damsels in distress, right? Well, I found an enormous spider in my room at the inn and I'm afraid I was so scared that I panicked and flushed it down the loo.” Her smile widened considerably. If Aiden Roy thought she was afraid of spiders (or that she'd been slacking off in some inn), he'd believe anything. “So now, I'm so worried that it's going to cover everything in webs. You want to come help me kill it, right?”

[Aiden]

“Sweetcheeks, hi! Didja miss me?”

He'd wanted to hear her voice for a while, actually, but he wasn't going to let her know it, especially not after that nickname. “Like a common cold,” he responded, though his tone was affectionate. Sandwiching the COM between his shoulder and ear, Aiden handed xanthos to the vendor at the docks and accepted a stick of fried squids. “How've you been? Any news on the Hesia thing?” It had been a few weeks since their trip up north, so it was reasonable to assume that she had intel to share. Just like how he'd done his homework in studying the texts they'd brought back.

When it became clear that the call was for something else entirely, Aiden paused mid-bite. Out in the marina, it was almost tedious to hear Maaike's voice over the din of the crowd, but he managed to catch most of it as he wandered toward a quieter area. “Flushed it down the loo.”

Gulping the rest of his bite, Aiden tossed the remaining squid into a nearby trashbin. He'd gotten used to Maaike's riddles by now, and it didn't take long for him to realize and mutter flatly, “It's in the sewers?” Hel, and he couldn't call the Guard for backup. He sought the West Road and burst into a run. Maaike stayed on the COM for only a while longer to give directions, and then the call ended. A kumo, dammit. The fight would be tricky in the tunnels' closed walls and wet ground. What was Maaike doing in the sewers, anyway? As he zipped up the intersection that went every-which-way, he worried briefly for Maaike's sake. What if she'd given up on waiting and gone ahead to save the guy the kumo caught. Then again, she was a seasoned hunter and would know what to do with the kumo.

As he neared the alley beyond the Le Bon Cafe, Aiden glimpsed a familiar figure standing next to a stranger. “Hey. What's happening?” And upon realizing that the stranger wasn't really a stranger, Aiden's eyes widened with surprise. “Nicolay!?”

((Not sure what might have happened between Maaike's call and Aiden's arrival, so I purposely kept it vague. Feel free to GM Aiden if you guys have started the fight. ))

[Nicolay]

Nicolay could not have been happier to see him, though. “Aiden!” It was clear on the color in his cheeks, the stretch of his smile and the jerk of his muscles that he could not have wished for a more convenient addition to their troop of Therians. For a moment, he forgot that there was a malicious gargantuan arachnid waiting (or writhing in pain?) just beneath his feet as he lifted his right arm and waved to him and stupidly, he was about to ask him what, for all that it mattered, he was doing out there.

But then he pieced the story together when he glanced at Maaike, and then at Aiden, and then, “You know each other.”

His mind was running wild with ideas.

[Maaike]

Taroch crap. Maaike realised it was a bad idea to call Aiden as soon as she saw his face and felt her heart skip a beat, but it was the kid's reaction that really made her regret it. “You know each other?”

Her gaze shot to Aiden's and she wished briefly that they were telepathic so she could have the conversation her face was trying to tell him. I'm sorry, I didn't know he knew you. I didn't mean to put you in this position. Does the kid know you're a guard? Can we get away with this? Pretend you don't know me. But it was already too late for that. She couldn't take back the "sweetcheeks" without looking even more suspicious.

Might as well run with it.

“Babycakes, you made it!” She threw her arms around Aiden's torso and rubbed her cheek affectionately against his pecs. When she pulled back, she offered him an impish grin. “I knew you couldn't resist the damsel-in-distress thing.” She'd given him an out if he wanted it. Let the kid think she was just using him. It wouldn't be too far from the truth, anyway. “And here I thought I was going to have go back in there alone. Even Finnbar's abandoned me.” He might not get what she meant, and she wasn't sure she wanted him to. She usually did a pretty good job of looking like she could handle anything, but she didn't normally take on stuff like this without at least Cailean or Magda along for support. The sewers compromised her sense of smell, stealing away her one advantage over a creature adapted for the dark, and only her naga form would stand a chance down there. She wasn't the type to go it alone if she could get the muscle.

“You still staying out here, kid?” She thought him a coward, but better he stay out of her way than have to be rescued again at a critical moment. Turning another mischievous smirk on Aiden, she held out her hands and gave a little bow. “After you, kind sir.”

[Aiden]

“Nicolay! How's it going?” He hadn't expected Nicolay to be here. He hadn't expected anybody to be here at all, other than Maaike. Even so, Aiden would gladly team up with him on the hunt. Nicolay had resolved the Thornestone incident on his own, and Thornestone had been a piece of work. Aiden didn't know if Nicolay chatted with any other guards, but if he did and happened to mention a kumo hunt with Maaike and Aiden...oh man. And so, as Nicolay commented on their relationship and started looking thoughtful, Aiden smiled nervously between Maaike and Nicolay and said, “Don't get too--” 'many ideas', was what he was going to say, but then Maaike practically tackled him with a hug.

His worries seemed to melt away just then. With a laugh, he tightly hugged her back before letting go. She was playing up the cheesiness, so Aiden matched it evenly with a grin. “Well, I've always wanted to be somebody's knight.” The part about Finnbar bothered Aiden though. Who was this Finnbar guy, and how could he have ditched Maaike to the kumo?

Also, Maaike's job took her into all sorts of places, but why would Nicolay, who worked in a glass shop--Ah. The Siblinghood. It was a strong hunch, so as he paused at the opening of the tunnel to look into it, Aiden asked, “So who's the victim? Do we have anything to use against the kumo?” It was always best to go in with some sort of plan. However, the kumo had taken somebody so they really didn't have time to sit and talk. As Aiden decended the first few steps into the sewers, he lowered his voice. “Last time you saw, was the guy still alive?”

[Nicolay]

“Wait!” The word was out before Nicolay caught it and so was his foot -- forward that is, although the damp darkness of the sewer froze his limbs and it was clear in the stare of his eyes that it was the last place he wanted to be in.

It took great effort for him to tear his eyes away from it and place them on Aiden because a friendly face was definitely better than a lair of a monster. “O,” he began, although the tension in his voice was brought about by the need to get things out quickly, “Of course. How could I follow him if he was dead?”

He took a deep breath. Ignoring Maaike, pretending she was a statue, was surprisingly easy. He didn't care what they had, he didn't care if they were husband and wife, what mattered was Aiden was there. “I followed him from the Purifier's office. I, if I'm not mistaken, he's a nyad...” his voice turned a little quieter. He didn't want his uncertainty to be heard or shown, “I think he's a part of the Siblinghood...of the group that attacked me, with Thornestone...” Nicolay almost looked at the guard expectantly.

[Maaike]

“I hear Hesia's hiring. Their armour's so shiny.” She tried not to show that the hug had affected her. She honestly had expected him to shove her away and rail at her under the pretense of not being friendly with her, to suggest to Nicolay that she was a nuisance or even a stalker. Hadn't she left him an opening to do just that? Instead, he'd joined in and painted a big red "I might not be on the up-and-up because I hang with the WANTED" on his chest. She wanted to beat him and grin at him all at the same time.

Damn him.

She was quiet for a while and let Nicolay explain himself. He was more open with Aiden than he had been with her; perhaps the shock was finally wearing off, or maybe she just had that effect on people. At least if he told Aiden the same story, it was a safer bet that it was the truth.

When Aiden asked if they had anything to use against the kumo, she lifted both shoulders in a shrug. “Don't look at me. I already used Finnbar once today.” She held up a hand and thumbed the silver ring on her wedding finger. She didn't elaborate on the details of Finnbar: partly, it was a trust issue, but mostly she just liked to tease him. With any luck, his head would explode from all the curiosity: Was she married? Why was she flirting with him if she was married? Who under Hel would want to marry her?

“But I can take naga form. It's stronger than me, so that should give us a bit of an advantage, at least. The stink down here messes with my wolf's nose and no way I'm putting an archon or a falcon against a giant spider.” It was probably a good thing that she'd left Magda at home. “I don't want to be breakfast.”

In a softer tone, leaning up to blow in Aiden's ear quite deliberately with her hands resting on his arm for balance, she asked, “Is your buddy there up for this? He was falling apart on me a few minutes ago.”