29. Audirei
The ship hadn’t come in yet. Obviously, no one at the harbor knew anything about it either.
Tifse and Safraxi were left sitting on their hands, unsure what else to do until Audirei arrived. Replacing Tifse's boots barely burned any time at all “I didn’t think we’d actually beat her here, honestly. What do we do now?”
“Beats me.” Tifse groaned from her back. “Could get food?” She was painfully hungry. Safraxi’s insistence on leaving the temple as soon as Jadali approached her had robbed them both of the delectable breakfast she was sure the priests were preparing for them.
“Mm…” Safraxi growled. Or was it her stomach? She was starving too. She just hadn’t noticed until Tifse had said something. “I don’t think I could put away a whole ox again today… Think we could get a goat or a sheep to split?”
“I could go for lamb chops.” Tifse licked her lips. “I think I saw some farms out around the lake. Could circle around, find one you like, and I’ll ask the farmer?”
“Deal!” The dragon shot off the pier and circled around for lunch.
The two were able to find an amicable farmer and buy a goat off of her without any problem. It was considered an honor to feed a hungry dragon like this. Safraxi was surprised she didn’t offer a discount with how excited she seemed, knowing her livestock was going to a dragon. She even offered for the two to use her fire pit and roasting spit for it.
The pair couldn’t help but notice, though, as they flew back after their meal, that every farm actually built along the river or lake seemed abandoned.
“That eel must really be causing damage. Leave it to Aquixi to half ass it, huh?” Safraxi snorted.
“And Jadali said she isn’t much of a fighter, so I doubt she’s going to handle it herself.” Tifse sighed. “My father’s lands are along this lake too, I hope we’re fairing better…”
The two spent much of the day lazing about, finding excuses for what to burn time with, and waiting for Audirei’s ship to arrive. More and more local problems presented themselves as time went on. Of course fishermen couldn’t go out on the lake with the eel. No one could cast rods or nets from the shore since it was more than happy to snap up anyone standing near the water, as it had tried with Tifse. It had even sunk a fair few fishing vessels coming through.
“Shit, you don’t think Audirei-” Safraxi was beginning to grow concerned the more the two learned of the situation and the longer they sat staring at the dock.
“Fuck. Don’t say that…” Tifse put her face in her paws. “We can’t come all this way just for an eel to-”
“We should go look up river, then.” Safraxi took off without warning. “If I ever see Aquixi again I am totally going to hold this over her stupid head, though.”
Tifse gripped tight to the handles on the saddle as Safraxi rocketed out of the city and began to follow the river north again. “What if she comes back to finish the job? I know you especially don’t want to run into her out of anyone from your family.”
The dragon grunted in response to Tifse calling those people her family. “It’ll be dead by the time she gets here, and we’ll be long gone.”
“Wait, you’re not saying-” Tifse gripped harder as she processed the words. “You and I can’t-”
“Yes. We’re gonna kill that thing, impress your girl, and show up Aquixi!” Safraxi cackled as she pumped her wings harder to find the mouth of the river again.
The pair flew only two hours before they spotted the boat. It had docked at a smaller village up river from the first town Tifse and Safraxi had stopped in the night previous. The village wasn’t made for a ship of that size, but some sort of news had clearly made it to the sailors that the lake to the south was unsafe to pass through, forcing them to dock.
From the air Safraxi couldn’t make out any sign of any red foxes, but there were a fair few buildings, including an inn along the road that wound between the mountains on the Eskany side of the border. She angled her wings down and entered a dive. It was her first one, really, but she’d seen other dragons do it. The mountains didn’t give her the space she would need for her usual lazy spiral down toward her landing sight, it was time to try something new and risky. She felt it was safer overall than trying to spiral down.
She did crash though.
It was a fairly normal, if crowded, afternoon in the inn. The boat trying to reach Lake Suvis had been forced to dock and decide what to do with its passengers, and many of the passengers in question had simply chosen to disembark and walk the rest of the way, rather than sit in place or be taken back to Fellrock. Most of them had chosen to get their bearings and spend the night at the inn before setting out the following morning.
However, this scene was interrupted as a dragon crashed through the ceiling.
Safraxi came down onto the roof, unable to slow herself in time, and her front half broke through the thatched roof and got caught on her wings. Tifse was almost thrown forward off her back until her leg straps caught on her feet, and she was left hanging.
“I’m okay…” Safraxi groaned. The people below in the inn had mostly either fallen over or run to the back wall in surprise as a dragon had appeared in an explosion of wood splinters and straw. “Just… go look for your girl, I’m just gonna-” She tried to extract herself and instead shifted further into the building. “-Oh shit I think I’m gonna fall the rest of the way in!” She wiggled frantically to prevent it. Tifse was rapidly unstrapping and unbuckling herself to avoid being crushed.
CRRAACK! Tifse barely dropped down and rolled out of the way in time as Safraxi broke through and slammed down, back first, onto one of the tables, flattening it. She groaned and laid limp for a moment before shapeshifting down into her fox form. “Heh… my bad. Mountain winds, you know…?”
“Uh- yeah. Um. Sorry, we can pay for this.” Tifse grimaced out at the crowd.
“Tifse?” A voice piped up from the back, and a red fox stepped around some of the other guests piled into the corner to get a better look.
“Audi!” Tifse brushed off the dust and debris and ran over to the other fox, beaming with excitement. “I- I wanted to talk with you, I-”
“Is this your dragon?” The red fox tilted her head and pointed past Tifse.
“Yep, that’s- that’s me!” Safraxi took the helmet off and waved without a second thought.
Audirei took a step back, a look of discomfort crossing her face. “Why do you um… why do you look like me?”
“Huh? OH- UH-” Safraxi slammed the helmet back on. “Idon’tknowI’veonlyseenyouliketwicebeforeit’sacoincidence!”
“R-right. Um. She’s new at shapeshifting. We don’t- we don’t know- her name is Safraxi!” Tifse stumbled over her words. She wasn’t expecting to literally crash into this conversation. “I came all this way because I needed to- to talk to you about…”
“The eel? Yeah, I was thinking of seeing if I could do something about it too.” Audirei patted the scimitar at her own belt. “I have the training now, even if I’m not a rider or a priest. I was going to see what I could do about it, maybe see if there was someone else in the area who could! But with you two here, it’ll be a cinch!”
“Y-yeah! Safraxi and I were just- we’re on our first mission! From the ministry!” She puffed herself up and patted her sword. “S-Safraxi and I already ran into it, b-briefly. But we fought it back, together!”
“Yup! Together!” Safraxi lied.
“Perfect! Then you already know a bit of how it fights!” Audirei clapped her hands over Tifse’s shoulders. “Safraxi, I know Fatima… said I wasn’t fit to be a rider, but- but I still want to do good. Do you have a plan?”
Now that was a good question. Aquixi couldn’t kill this thing. Why would she be any different? “I’ve got spite? Well… I’m not feeling as spiteful as normal right now. Let’s go somewhere else and talk, too. I’m getting stares.” She grimaced and rooted in her bag for coins again. She was burning through these faster than she would like. If she had to start selling gems for more coin she might just die. “Here. Sorry about the roof.” She set a gold on the counter on the way out.
Tifse and Audirei exchanged looks before following the dragon back outside. Safraxi walked out into some of the rocky outcroppings at the base of the mountain and took her full size again once she was out of view of the town. “Okay… plans… yeah, we can make plans.”
“You two really haven’t thought this through, have you?” Audirei climbed up onto one of the rocks to survey the river below. “I heard the eel doesn’t come upriver, it just stays in the lake. The boat just stopped here so we wouldn’t be attacked. What do you two have?”
“It… attacks anything near the water. It didn’t bother us until Safraxi went and washed herself off in the water after eating.” Tifse thought through the previous night. “I was close enough a few times when I went and rinsed my hands before eating…”
“I was washing cow guts off my face after eating.” Safraxi pointed out. “It might have… smelled it? Can fish smell?”
“I hear they can stink pretty bad, but yes, fish can smell very well too. Eels especially. It’s not so different from hunting regular eel, then.” Audirei clapped her hands. “We could try… well, the only eel trap I know uses a basket or a sack. I don’t think I could make a big enough one.”
“Eh, walk us through it. We can figure something out, maybe.” Safraxi grinned as she watched Tifse. The fox was burning up with embarrassment the more time went on. Tifse was even starting to wonder if the crash was on purpose. Safraxi couldn’t decide if she preferred the embarrassment of an accident or the assumed ill intention of the purposeful ramming. Either way, it didn’t really make her look like a good dragon, did it? Wasn’t she here to help her rider get the girl?
“Yeah, I can try…” Audirei took her finger and leaned down into the dry dirt to draw a rough diagram. “The general idea is you put bait in a container with an opening that’s easy for the eel to move through one way, but not the other, like this.” She drew a container and a funnel into it. “They like to creep along the bottom and hide in the mud, they don’t like open areas, so they have trouble finding the entrance again if it’s off the bottom. I don’t know how a huge monstrous apex predator magic eel would behave, but I only have the baseline of what I’ve caught all my life to work with.”
“No, no. That’s useful.” Tifse nodded. “I wonder how Aquixi got it?”
“Dumb brute probably swam around until she found it and then tore it apart with her claws, and didn’t stop to see if that worked.” Safraxi grumbled. “Whatever she did we don’t want to do, because it didn’t work.”
“Well right, but if we know what didn’t work we know one less thing to try.” Audirei tapped on her chin. “We could fly out and see if we can find a good spot to trap it. Maybe if we could dig a big enough pit…?”
Safraxi shifted back down to get a better look at the diagram. “Fly out? Are you kidding me? I’m not big enough to carry two people yet. I just crashed into a building because I underestimated the weight of Pipsqueak over here. You need to find another way to join us.” Safraxi’s tail whipped. The rat tail was back, but her helmet was still on. Tifse wasn’t completely sure if it was the Safraxi with the glowing green eyes or the sharp teeth. It was still hard to tell just through the bond sometimes.
“What?” Audirei seemed caught off guard by the sudden change in attitude, and the sudden unnecessary shapeshifting. “Well… if I could get a boat I could make it down. You might have to escort me so I don’t get eaten. It would take way too long on foot. We don’t know who all would get killed in that time.”
“Or you could fly me down first, then come back for Audirei?” Tifse suggested. “Just make two trips?”
“Ugh… yeah, I could.” Safraxi wasn’t sure why she was getting so agitated all of a sudden. Tifse seemed happy to see her friend and crush. Audirei hadn’t done all that much to hurt her, personally, just beat her in the ring a few times. Far less than Tifse, and she was getting along fairly well with her rider now. Tifse even thought very highly of Audirei. It wouldn’t be a stretch to call it admiration. She should be able to accept the red fox’s help without too much trouble. So why did she not want to all of a sudden?
“No…” Audirei shook her head. “We’ll want a vessel, too. We never know if we might have to chase it out again if we hurt it, or if Safraxi gets hurt we’ll need a way to get around still. A boat is faster than going on foot.”
“Oh thank Tiamat…” Safraxi fought back a sigh of relief. She didn’t want to have to fly Audirei anywhere.
“Hey, what’s up with you?” Tifse shot a glare across at the dragon-rat. “Why the hostility all of a sudden? This was all your idea.”
“Look, I didn’t expect a third wheel on this escapade. I thought you’d ask her out, she’d turn you down, and we could move on!” The dragon was getting now flustered for some reason. “She’s already slowing us down by worrying about how to move her around!”
“I-wh-” Tifse and the dragon had proceeded to glare at each other from across Audirei’s diagram.
“Is… there something I’m being left out on here? I’m just trying to help.” The taller fox leaned back against a rock and glared at the two of them. “What are you two talking about without me?”
“Nothing!” Safraxi snapped. “Let’s get you a boat. Is there one in town you like and can handle? I don’t know how to sail, and neither does Tifse.”
“I know a few of the basic concepts!” The desert fox retorted. “You’ll have to guide me through parts of it, but I can help with the boat. Safraxi can fly overhead while we bring the boat down. If the eel attacks then she can drive it off again. Ok?”
“Right…” Audirei climbed up onto the larger stone to check the boats docked down at the bottom. “We’ll want something fast and small enough for two of us to handle alone. Rafts are out, too flimsy and slow, no way we could take the whole passenger vessel…” She hopped down and made her way down to the docks. “What are you two doing, come on!”
Tifse and Safraxi exchanged a brief glare and followed after.
“So, we’ll want a triangular sail. Square is good if you have the wind but if we’re hunting we need something a bit more agile.” She pointed out some of the different vessels and began going over pros and cons of each.
“How are we going to get anyone to agree to let us use it?” Safraxi grumbled as they followed along with her. “And how do you know so much? This is a lot of detail for a fisherman’s daughter.”
“My dad used to serve on a military vessel in the Hovis War, before I was born.” Audirei shot a glare back. “He was more than a fisherman, he was a sailor. Boats were his passion.”
“You didn’t answer the first question, fluffy.” Safraxi jabbed again. “How are we gonna get one?”
“I don’t know, buy it?” She sighed. “Look, there’s a boat at the end that’s the right size for Tifse and I, with a lateen sale, and I can see from here it’s reinforced. It’s probably some sort of patrol vessel for the Northern Reach’s chief’s river guard. If we talk to the chief or whichever of his men are in charge of the town, maybe we can convince them to let us borrow it?”
“Yeah! Let’s go!” Tifse gestured to follow.
“Boat’s chained to the dock. If we got a key we could steal it. I don’t have my lockpicking kit with me.” The kit was, unfortunately, still sitting in the abandoned farmhouse in Tanenville.
“We are not stealing it.” Tifse informed her without room for misinterpretation. “Let me do the talking, my father is the chieftain of the Shaded Oasis, only a few regions over. With any luck they might know each other.” She swapped back to mental communication again for one last command. “Safraxi, take your dragon form, it’ll make me look more official.”
The dragon grunted in annoyance, but complied. “Are this guy and your dad allies or friends or something?”
“Well… no. A lot of the chieftains are sort of rivals. The king doesn’t exactly discourage infighting. The borders change sometimes.” She scratched her cheek in thought. “But this problem probably affects him too.”
“It’s as good a plan as any.” Audirei patted Tifse’s shoulder as they ascended the steep stone steps up to the largest and most official looking building in the town. Safraxi could feel the tingles of excitement shooting through her rider at the touch. “We can always figure something else out.” As she reached the door at the top of the steps she held it open to Tifse.
The door was far too small for Safraxi, though. “Can I come inside at least? I can’t fit as a dragon.”
“No, no. Just hang out in the doorway. Show we mean business.” She turned and put a hand up as if she were saying ‘stay’ to a dog. “We shouldn’t be too long. Just… watch through my eyes.”
“Sure, let’s send the least convincing person ever who can’t even get jewelers worked up about a thief in their midst.” She grumbled and hung her head in the doorway for a moment, but pulled back out after a moment. This was just insulting.
“I heard that.” Tifse then proceeded to ignore her as she attempted to enter negotiations.
Safraxi held out in the doorway and listened in for a few moments, but quickly grew bored. It was all diplomatic bullshit. She could just tell it wasn’t going well. Once she heard “Your father and I are not allies, why should I help?” She decided to just take things into her own claws.
The dragon stood back up and changed back to her rat form, before sneaking off. She had seen a few guards or soldiers coming and going from another building a tier below the chieftain’s house. Perhaps their key was stored there?
Tifse was so involved in her intense back and forth negotiation with this self important petty tyrant that she hadn’t even noticed Safraxi beginning her own plan. The dragon ducked behind a building and stripped off all her armor before changing into her more casual clothes. Rider armor drew a lot more attention, and the clinking metal plates made too much noise to really sneak in. Not to mention, at this point her coldmark had grown so large it was barely recognizable as one anymore, it looked more like an oddly large birth mark.
There was a human guard leaning against the wall by the wide open front door trying to get a pipe lit. He was so focused on his task, in fact, that Safraxi was able to walk right by him and into the building while his hands were cupped over the bowl and his vision was obscured. She walked casually and with authority. No one would really question her unless they got a really good look at her or were particularly paranoid.
This time of day it seemed everyone was out and about, and busy. There was no one at all to stop her from silently rummaging around the armory for a key.
“Al amazhi zatu’an ‘atak tahufuela?” A man growled from behind her as she was checking another set of cabinets. She whirled around to find another rat glaring down at her, a hand on his weapon already.
“Um-” She quickly reached out to the man’s mind to see if she could pick up any important surface thoughts before her response. Speaking in someone’s mind would cause distress, but Amjazel had demonstrated in their first meeting that it was quite possible to pick up on things without letting them know you’d ever made contact. She responded in Mercani, hoping he spoke at least some. “-Jazeer just brought me on yesterday, he was supposed to teach me sailing today but forgot the key. He sent me up to find it. Sorry, I don’t speak Stefaian.”
He stared back at her, clearly not understanding. She might as well try the more confusing option as well. “Czeny móxikz w jexylu noci Tiskin?” “Do you speak Tiskin?”
“O! Xat, móxikz yrocie!” “Oh, yeah! I speak a little!” What the fuck, why did this random guard speak her language? Albeit poorly. She barely understood him through the heavy accent.
“O, koxre. Jazeer mxie zetrunis; lam dxisial udkyć szkolunkie a łuazdini.” “Oh, good. Jazeer hired me, I’m supposed to train on the boat today.” She might as well take advantage. The man seemed outright excited to speak the language. She could probably tell him she was his new boss and he’d celebrate.
The man clapped her on the back and got her the key with excitement. He kept yammering on to her about how excited he was to have someone else from Tiskin around, and about how his great grandfather had fled the north as a small child nearly a hundred years ago during the Tiskin revolution, and he had been taught the language through his father. It would certainly explain why his grammar was so terrible. She thanked him profusely and jogged down toward the docks before he decided to join her, insisting she was running late.
Once out of sight she changed back to her armor. Tifse was only just getting out of the meeting now, and not happy. “Don’t worry, pipsqueak. I’ve been working on a backup plan while you were flapping your gums.” She sent a mental image of her twirling a key on her finger.
“Safraxi, absolutely not!” She seemed a bit frantic at the impression. “The chieftain knows I’m related to my dad now. If we steal it-”
“Oh don’t worry, you hate your parents anyway.” Safraxi began her jog down to the docks. “Meet me downriver. I’m not much of a mariner but I can probably figure out how to paddle.”
“Safraxi! No! Get back here!” She was racing to the dragon now. It was too late though, Safraxi was already unlocking the chains and tossing them into the boat. She hopped in and pushed off before anyone could come and try to stop her.
“You’d better get downriver or we’re leaving you behind, master diplomat!” The guards seemed to have noticed her now, and only telling the one guard some bullshit story would not be sufficient to keep them all off her back. “I’ve already been seen!”
“Tiamat’s tail Safraxi what the fuck is wrong with you! I am going to be in so much trouble when my dad finds out!” Tifse’s heart was racing even more than Safraxi’s, even as guards yelled and ran for the docks. One of them drew a bow and shot a few arrows at the boat, but one just flew over her while the other bounced harmlessly off of her armor.
“Oh please, like I’d let him lock you in your room again anyway.” She made a rude gesture at the guards and grabbed the paddle. She only needed to make it out of the sheltered little bend away from the river and catch the current again.
“Gods dammit- don’t you dare bring that up!” Tifse seemed livid at the comment. Maybe, Safraxi had overstepped? Nah. “Audirei says to try to land on a bank half a mile down, you two can trade places there!” The fox directed her, finally accepting that this was the situation now. Maybe even accepting that this was her dragon, whether she liked it or not.