Fowlhunter [GL]

No one was told anything the next day. In fact, nothing at all changed. To their credit, the supervisors did an excellent job keeping their mouths hewn shut and acting as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Ennanis and her coworkers entered through the main entrance as usual, went to their respective squares of rock to resume mining.

But they could not hide the palpable tension in the air. Uneasy side glances, stiff expressions, whispering in each others’ ears. Hands drifted to belts where tasers were holstered; they claimed to only use them to chase off cavebats and other pests that crawled in the tunnels, but now their expressions suggested they would very much do otherwise. And it wasn’t long before Ennanis’ more talkative coworkers brought it into discussion.

“Did something happen last night?”

“There were an awful lot of guards around the front entrance today.”

“I wonder what happened… I don’t think it’s anything good.”

Ennanis cocked her head and listened. Quit burying your head in the sand and talk to the people around you, Jemi Garen’s message, passed through Asha’s voice, echoed in her head. Perhaps there was some merit to the notion. Even Amanita used to lecture her during their missions about paying more attention to her surroundings, ‘as a hunter would’.

“Maybe it has to do with how there are so many Wardens around here these days,” said the big ginger guy. He was one of the most vocal of Ennanis’ coworkers, with a nametag that read ‘TOSH’. The guy talked so much that Ennanis felt like she knew everything there was to know about Tosh without ever having spoken to him—his family, his three concurrent girlfriends, the gum he kept inside his shoe that he chewed on before each day of mining for ‘good luck’. She honestly would’ve rathered some things stayed unknown.

“Ya think they’re finally investigating the dust down there?” said another beside Tosh.

“Maybe… they can’t hide it forever,” Tosh shrugged. “It doesn’t have anything to do with us anyway. We don’t know anything.”

“Just hope that they don’t shut down the whole mine, or we’ll all be out of a job, dude.”

“Psh, if anyone can shut down anything owned by the Vesuvios, then we’d really have to give it to them.”

“What’s ‘the dust down there’?” Ennanis interrupted.

“Huh?” Tosh and the one beside him startled, turning to look at their coworker with the long pink hair. “You can talk??”

“I thought she was mute, man!”

Ennanis narrowed her eyes. She was running low on patience, and she’d never had much of it to begin with. “Answer the question.”

Tosh frowned at her. “Hey, we don’t take orders from you, recruit. You didn’t hear nothing from us.”

A natural reaction… She would’ve been a fool to think it would’ve been that easy. Ennanis hadn’t realised exactly how much harder it was to get things done when she wasn’t recognised as an angel or a commander.

It was at this moment that their little man of a supervisor passed by, barking, “Stop chittering away like cavebats. Get back to work!”

Right. Here, she was just another worker. And no matter how fast she worked, or how strong she was, she could never break away from her station.

There was a movement, and Ennanis noticed Capri beside her again. Over the past few shifts, Capri had repeatedly attempted to talk to her. She had been instructed specifically by the supervisor to watch over her, but Capri had always looked out for her from day one. She was persistently kind to her in the way that someone who had treated her as coldly as Ennanis had did not deserve. She would say in her soft voice, “Ennanis, what’s wrong?” and “Ennanis. If you ever need someone to talk to about your problems, you can talk to me.”, and Ennanis would bite down a laugh. How nice would it be if she could tell this girl about the Beasts and the Kraken and how badly her wings were aching under this corset? But she’d known the girl spoke out of kindness—however ignorant and wasted a kindness might’ve been—and refrained from shutting her down.

Maybe now, though… was the time to talk to Capri.

But before she could open her mouth, it was Capri who spoke first, as if having noticed her gaze lingering on her.

“A word of advice,” she murmured. “Don't bother about the dust. You're better off not knowing.”

“That seems to apply to an awful lot of things around here,” Ennanis grumbled. Then she turned a meaningful look on Capri. “But I suppose you know something about it?”

At that, Capri’s face turned a little grey under the lanternlight. “Well… I’m not supposed to say.”

Ennanis paused. “Does it have something to do with amethyne?”

“What do you mean?”

Ennanis took a deep breath of the musty air around her. There was no mistake—the rusty-sweet smell was there, ever-present throughout the tunnels. Yet, in all her past days of mining, she had never so much as spied a single ore of amethyne on this level. The carts being filled on this level also didn’t seem to contain any amethyne ores. Only at the end of the day, carts of amethyne joined the marching line of carts heading out of the cave system. The amethyne—and its smell—had to have come from somewhere. From the general direction that the carts emerged, Ennanis guessed that it must’ve come from a lower level. And, just now, Tosh’s words had corroborated that.

Ennanis told Capri this. And the girl stilled her pickaxe.

“...You’re actually smart,” Capri noted.

“...?”

“So why the thickheaded act?” she turned to look at her. Her eyes were still hidden below her goggles, a bar of reflected lanternlight across them.

“The less you know, the better,” Ennanis parroted back at her.

They both fell silent as the supervisor marched past them again, hefting their pickaxes and going at their respective squares of walls. Finally it was break time, and everyone around them rested their pickaxes against the walls and took drinks of water in front of their squares.

Capri slid to the ground beside Ennanis. But when Ennanis turned to look at her, she startled a little; Capri had taken off her goggles.

In contrast to her soot-black hair, her eyes were startling sapphire. Ennanis knew another human like that: Jemi with her dancing violet eyes.

“I’ll help you find the information you need,” whispered this sunblood.

“What do you mean?”

“I go to Amethyst College,” she introduced, putting a gloved hand to her heart. “I happen to know Pelia Vesuvio, the daughter of the man who owns these mines. I know more about this place than anyone else working with us here. I’ll help you learn about the dust, even that case that happened last night, if you like.”

“What’s in it for you?”

“In return, you must help me see my brother again,” Capri said.

“And why me?”

“Take off your goggles too.”

“Why?”

“Why not?” Capri wiped a finger on her own goggles, blowing the dust off the lenses. “They’re blurry, filthy, and carry the sweat-stink of a hundred workers before us. We only have to keep them on during work time; there’s no reason to keep them on during break. Unless…” sapphire eyes rested on her, “you have something to hide.”

Ennanis hesitated.

“Don’t worry,” she promised. “I won’t tell any of the others.”

It didn’t really matter. If Ennanis refused, Capri clearly already suspected something, and could inform the supervisor at any point. And so, making sure that no one else around them was paying attention, Ennanis loosened the straps of her goggles. Capri watched for the few seconds that slitted-gold eyes came into view. Eyes that only an angel could have.

“Just as I thought…” Capri muttered as Ennanis slid the obscuring goggles back on. “Now you see why I would come to you for help.”

Ennanis exhaled. “Well, you said that you had information.”

“I’ll do you one better,” Capri said as she strapped her goggles back on, too. “I’ll get you down there.” At Ennanis’ questioning look, she said wryly, “I know you’ve been trying to get into the tunnels leading to the amethyne mining level. As someone who’s been working here for way longer, I know how to get there easily. Now, do we have a deal?”