It’s Alright to Go on Living; No, Really

Durroum walked down the secure marbled halls of Urchans & Beggars' headquarters. Although he could finally rest easy with his continued existence no longer in peril, he felt as empty as the echo of his footfalls bouncing off the polished wall. The place always seemed so empty, despite no fewer than 100 agents present in the building at this very moment; they just tended not to loiter in the halls.

Well, another person was passing through the corridors, a dark blue-haired woman who usually kept it tied back while on assignment, but now had it down, floating above her shoulders. Durroum's sister, in fact, though she showed not even a hint of recognition nor acknowledged his presence. He sighed as she walked by. It had been a week, and she still wouldn't even look at him. How long could she remain pissed?

Noel had hugged her brother tight when they rescued him from those assassins, and even after witnessing Amm Par's miserable condition, she had been nothing but sympathetic. However, that had started to change once he gave his BS story to the branch manager—yes, it was the HQ, but it still ran like any other office, mostly. Her eyes had narrowed as he spun his inspiring story of survival in the face of adversity. The manager didn’t believe it either, but decided to let his sister pull out the truth from him. He could never lie to his sister after all—sibling insight or somesuch.

Even still, he hadn't wandered down this hall to see his sister; he had wandered down to see Amm Par, whom Noel still stubbornly refused him access. Something about "knowing how her brother was." Okay, he only pretended not to know what she was talking about; he was fully aware of his reputation, and Noel had helped him clean up after it more times than he could count. However, he had no such intention in mind. No sir. He just wanted to get a peek under that mask. Amm Par wouldn't mind, especially since he had no intention of telling her.

Like the rest of the complex, the door to her room presented a grand facade, with polished mahogany and fine inlays. Locked, of course, when Durroum tested the handle, as expected. He had to check, didn't want to waste your time picking a lock that wasn't, well, locked. He pulled out his lockpicks and made quick work of the tumblers, gently working everything into place, in much the same way he might a woman, though in that case he wouldn't rush.

The lock clicked, and Durroum slipped into the small, sunlight room. A gentle breeze blew in from the window, causing a sway in the white curtains. The room’s intended purpose was temporary lodging for agents—those on a more permanent post would find proper lodging elsewhere. But it worked just as well for looking after the injured. With that in mind, the only other features of note were the bed, a compact desk, and a single wooden chair.

Amm Par herself lay there unconscious, still in a coma recovering from her injuries, or so he assumed; she wouldn't let him sneak up on her otherwise. Though with the blanket covering her, you couldn't tell anything ill had befallen her. He grimaced, knowing that couldn't be farther from the truth. And while he had played it cavalier regarding that day's events, in truth, his former companion’s condition had given him acute intestinal distress; it had improved once Amm Par had stabilized.

And now with her survival assured, no reason he couldn’t have a peek under the mask. He swaggered over to the bedridden Amm Par with an outstretched hand, unable to suppress a smile bordering on vulgar…

"AHH!" He pulled his hand away as it hit some kind of electric barrier that gave out an ear-piercing ping. He ass-planted. "What the Pit?" He said as he caught the last fading shimmers of a sigil fading back into obscurity. "Damn, should have expected as much from Noel..."

Before he could get up, a furious stampeding of boot on stone came crashing through the door, its violent arc failing to take out Durroum by nary a breadth.

"DURROUM!" Noel shouted as if trying to injure him with his own name. "Just what the Pit do you think you are doing!?" She dragged him up by his red shirt collar, demonstrating more strength than one would think possible.

"I... just wanted to visit..." He trailed off, knowing full well she wouldn't buy it, but he put it out there anyway.

"The Pitl you were!" Spittle hit Durruom in the face; she must really be angry. "I should have known Bakson wouldn't have called me away..." She said, looking almost ashamed of herself.

"Can't we calm down?" Durroum suggested. "I haven't seen you this angry in a long while..."

"Calm Down!?" She released him, but flared her nostrils like a dragon ready to incinerate him. "You make it very hard to calm down, Duroum," she said, intentionally refraining from rolling the 'R.' "When I literally have to drag you out of the fire, only to later discover your own foolishness was at fault. Again!" It seemed the cold shoulder had been the only thing holding back the flood of vitriol that now pounded away without mercy. He couldn't even bring himself to condemn the mispronunciation of his name, a rare occurrence indeed.

"And what's worse, you drag some innocent yutsuukitsuu into it with you, only she didn't fare nearly so well!" She pointed an open palm towards Amm Par, and Durroum did feel a sharp pang of guilt. Regardless, he couldn't let that comment go unannotated.

"You will find that she is hardly innocent..." For a moment, he felt like she was going to roast him with a breath of fire. He could almost smell his flesh cooking.

"Life is just one big joke for you, isn't it?" Her temper seemed to have cooled down, but the icy tone that had replaced it was almost worse.

"I'm being serious... Kind of," he said, to which Noel just sighed and turned away. "Why do you think I took her along? She is the only reason I made it back in one piece! You should see her when she is in full swing!"

"And that takes us back to why you needed protection in the first place." He rubbed the back of his head, abashed. After the meeting with Bakson, Noel had dragged the real story out of him. Afterwards, she hadn't spoken to him until now. Perhaps he should be grateful for that.

"Well..."

"You nearly got this poor girl killed for a worthless trinket!"

"Hey! It's not worthless!" He was sure of that.

"Really?" Placing hands on hips, she continued, "because that is not what the engravers are saying."

"Pff, they don't know what they are talking about." He crossed his arms, offended.

"Just a piece of iron with some nonsense engravings etched into it."

"They just don't understand how it works..."

"It won't even draw mana innately; they had to force mana into it, and even then, the rune only glowed without effect."

"They are just missing the effect." Durroum had no choice but to defend the medallion’s worth; otherwise, he really would look like a fool.

"You think so? We employ some of the best engravers around, and they think it might be a failed experiment. They are calling in a hozenlo specialist, though, but they don't seem hopeful."

"Do you really think she would go to such lengths to recover ‘just a piece of iron’?"

"Maybe it has sentimental value," she offered.

"Who would go to such trouble for a keepsake?" He huffed, throwing up his arms.

"I don't know, DURROUM. Who would sleep with a girl to steal her medallion!?" A plume of smoke escaped her lips

"Hey, screwing the girl was the main objective! And not just any girl, a hozenlo girl! How often does an opportunity like that come around? Once in a lifetime, I'd wager."

"And then you repay her by stealing her medallion?"

He frowned. "I don't think repay is the right word; she enjoyed it at least as much as I." Eyebrows flashed. "Judging by how vocal she was." He put a thoughtful finger to his lip. "And she took such special care to safely stow that 'piece of metal' away before we got to it, that it has to be worth something, though why she refused to take off that oversized hat I couldn't say..."

Noel dug her fingers into her hairline, a vein beginning to surface. "And this is why I can't leave you with this woman unattended." He looked over. The fact that Amm Par hadn't stirred confirmed that she would be out for a while.

"Hey! That's not fair!" He tried to draw up the same fury his sister had come in with, but fell far short of the mark. "I traveled half a continent's distance with Amm Par." He thought invoking her name would give their relationship more weight. "And I'll have you know, I never tried anything!"

"Well, considering she was the muscle, that only means she has good taste, and you might not be as stupid as you sometimes behave." That wasn't fair either. In truth, it had never crossed his mind, except perhaps for a moment at the border tower. "Now that I think about it, just why was she traveling with you?"

"Oh... well..." He had somehow managed to omit this detail in his original draft of the truth, and with good reason.

"Durroum..." She crossed her arms, narrowing glare demanding an answer. He couldn't hide this from his sister. They had a policy to always be honest with each other, and it had seen them through some hard times, though he might withhold details sometimes. But if pressed, he had to come clean.

"She is looking for some children. They were enslaved." Noel's eyes flashed understanding.

"That would explain the bloody drawings I found on her." She rested her chin in her hand as she contemplated. "yutsuukitsuu slaves... I've never heard of that happening. They must have been taken in that raid in the Everglow Forest... I haven't heard anything about slaves, though." She looked up at Durroum. "You heard something?"

He would have preferred it if she had immediately doubted him, and now he would have to disappoint her. "Well, not exactly..."

Her face lost all expression, and her voice dropped into a hard tone. "What do you mean 'not exactly'?"

This wasn't good. He liked it better when she was overtly hostile. "I mean, I heard something about a caravan maybe going to the Sparto desert." Her eyes hardened. "But I needed to go North, not west." More silence. "When I first saw her, she was single-handedly holding off a full unit of soldiers. In return for pulling her out of that situation, and showing her around human society, it seemed a small thing to ask for her protection."

"And did you ask?"

"She wasn't exactly linguistically inclined. Communication proved... difficult."

"And did you lead her to believe you could help her locate the children in return for her protection?" Durroum sweat bullets.

"...More or less."

"Durroum." Her lip quivered. "You nearly got this woman killed, based on a lie."

The air went out of him as he deflated, nearly caving in on himself. "I suppose I did."

Noel didn't say anything more; she only walked over to Amm Par, checking on her condition.

"How is she?" he said with genuine concern, the confrontation draining any desire to see under the mask.

"She lost a lot of blood." She examined the bandage around her abdomen. "It was only because we had medically trained scribes stationed here that she survived. They managed to close everything up. Say she should make a full recovery."

He let out a relieved sigh. He knew she was okay, but this was the first time he had been given a prognosis. "That's good to hear. All's well that ends well."

She turned and slapped him, jarring his head, a single pointed fingernail leaving an inky red line across his face.

"I guess I deserved that—"

She followed up with a backhand, only this time it held a metal bedpan that sent him kissing the ground. Luckily, it was currently empty.

"You know, I have half a mind to let her kill you when she wakes up." The terrifying fact was, Noel would probably be unable to stop her, regardless, "You need to make this right, Durroum." He wanted to protest, but she had more to say. "This isn't the same as simple thievery or a fair scam." Yes, in their minds, they differentiated between fair and unfair scams. "You took advantage of someone in their time of need, put their life in jeopardy, and took something that cannot be replaced."

"What can't be replaced?"

"Time. Every moment you took from her will only make her task that much harder."

Damn, he really did feel like a piece of shit now. Why did Noel let him go off on his own? His conscience was too lazy to think over these things properly. Well, he knew what he had to do, the only way he could repay her. It would require making certain sacrifices. For starters, he would have to get that little she-goblin off his back if he wanted to get anything done and felt it would require more than just returning that medallion at this point. Well, if they regarded it as a lump of metal, then at least they probably wouldn't insist on holding it as collateral for his protection.

He stood up straight, formal even. "Okay, I'll do what has to be done."

She knew what he meant; they were siblings after all. Her face softened. "How did you ever get to be so stupid?" She stuck a fist lightly into his chest. "I would say you have a hougen for a father, but that would be an insult to hougen."

"You are probably right." He laughed.

"At any rate, I will have to put off my assignment in Sofuton." She rested her hand on her hips and looked back at Amm Par. "I can't leave this girl in your hands now, can I?"

He smiled ruefully. "That is probably for the best."