Caught Wethanded
Rayla gets angry “Are you crazy Scarlet!? What will you do when people notice and flip out?”
“I’ll explain it to them.”
“And if that doesn’t work?”
“Then I’ll fight them.”
“You’ll fight them…?”
“Yep.”
Korra chuckles, “The things you see while traveling sure are interesting. If you need a witness saying that Rose is not a pervert I’ll do it but if you start fighting I’ll leave.”
“What should we do, Sher Aka?”
“We’ll do what Scarlet wants for now. If things don’t work out we’ll figure something out.”
“How can you be so calm in this scenario?”
She gives her a grin, “Well, it’s a pretty low consequence situation that can easily escalate, so I want to see whether Scarlet can be trusted with decision making.”
“Did you…Did you see this coming?”
“Pretty much, yes. Thoma Ahad seems easily exhausted recently and doing physical exercise in his draconic form is bound to make him tired.”
“Wait, so you’re using Thoma as bait to figure out if Scarlet can be trusted!?”
“No, I am not interested to see if she can be trusted. I’m interested to see if she can be trusted with Thoma Ahad or if John and I need to take charge whenever you can’t, Rayla.”
“So…You’re doing this because you care about Thoma?”
“Correct. My little brother finally found a friend that he can trust and won’t outlive. He’s also a good influence on John on top of that. I’m not risking anything bad happening to him.”
“Why do you feel like Thoma’s a good influence on John? To me it feels more like the other way around.”
“I think Thoma is slowly making John believe in others again. Before, John was extremely distrustful and emotionally guarded. Even towards me… But Thoma Ahad is so pure that no matter how many times John’s mind is telling him to distrust him he still isn't able to attribute any malice to Thoma Ahad. That, paired with seeing your close relationship, makes it easy for him to relax and open up to me again. It’s been decades since the last time we were this close…And to be honest, no matter how old John gets, I’ll always see him as that little scared yet extremely kind boy he was when I took him in. The more time he spends with Thoma Ahad the more it feels like he’s returning to his true self he buried long ago under distrust and hatred for this world.” Sher Aka then wipes away some tears, “Excuse me, it seems I became a bit sentimental. Uhum, it seems like the show is about to begin.”
“Show? What show?”
“Uhm excuse me do you mind if we join you?” a Half-Elf woman asks.
Before Rayla can decline, Scarlet answers, “Sure. There is still space.”
Rayla whispers, “What the hell are you doing?”
“It’s a public bath, of course there are going to be other people.”
The Half-Elf, together with another Half-Elf and a Highelf, then enter the bath.
“This place is really nice, I love coming here. Thanks for paying for us mom.”
“Don’t worry about that. I get a pretty big employee discount.”
“Still, you invite us over every year. I just wanted to- Kyaaaaaaaaahhh! There is a guy here!”
People then start looking at Thoma Ahad’s direction and the other Half-Elf says, “Eew he’s creeping on that little girl!”
There is quite the commotion and some of the older women come forth armed with wash basins, scrubbers and brooms. Scarlet then moves Thoma Ahad over to Rayla's shoulder, gets out of the water and whistles loudly, “Calm down. That’s my little sister, not a guy.”
“No way, I totally saw his…His thingie! Also he is way older than you, he looks like some creepy criminal!”
“Sigh She’s cursed!”
“What?”
“There’s a huge curse mark on her back. She turns into this when she falls asleep. Think about it, how did no one notice such a ‘creepy looking man’ enter? Because there was no such man, just my little sister. Also if you’re still worried, she’s blind in her real form so she couldn’t have seen anything inappropriate. Anyone who is accustomed to seeing curse marks go ahead and take a look. It's real. Please just don’t wake her up, she's exhausted.”
Korra partially leaves the bath as well, propping herself up on her centipede body like a snake, “I do not know these people but I did share the same bath. I can confirm that she didn’t look like that when she entered and that she was blind. I can also confirm that she suddenly transformed after falling asleep.”
There’s some mumbling going through the bath and the older Elves check out the curse mark. Many of them have scars similar to Sher Aka’s on their backs.
Keeping a watchful eye, Scarlet tells them, “Please be careful, my sister doesn’t like her back being touched.”
They take a look at the mark and after a bit of talking to each other, one of them tells the younger ones waiting in anticipation, “It’s real. It’s a pretty big curse too so it’s very plausible the story is correct. Let’s calm down and let her sleep. If you don’t go over there you won’t have to see her cursed form.” She turns around and gives a bow to Scarlet, “My apologies. It must have been tough…” and leaves.
There is still some gossiping going on and people looking over to Thoma Ahad or even walking by, ‘accidentally’ taking a peek at him, but otherwise things go back to normal and calm down.
Sher Aka then claps politely, “I’m impressed. Well done, Scarlet.”
Rayla adds, “I did not think that would work…”
“I told you it will be fine as long as I explain it to them.”
Rayla looks around concerned, “I almost feel like this was too easy.”
Sher Aka answers, “A lot of them are women that escaped slavery. They know what curse marks look like. Additionally, Scarlet put forth a pretty convincing argument without needing to lie, so that’s probably why it went so well. Your testimony also helped defuse the situation, thank you Ms. Korra.”
“No need to thank me, I just told them what I saw.”
“You said you were a traveler, right? I assume you are from Tartarus, could you tell us some important things that travelers need to be aware of? We intend to travel south.”
“Hmm, as long as you don’t descend beyond the so-called ‘Humming Cave of Light’ you should be fine. I also recommend that you don’t go around insulting people's appearances, especially if you go down to our capital. We Neris tend to be quite pacifist, but that’s not because we are weak. Many seem to think they can bully us because we tend to be quite good natured. But the reason we are, is because when we kill other people we tend to look through their eyes while it happens. Knowing what it looks like to die makes people not want to be careless about violence. As for the surface…If you are just moving around the rim, I recommend traveling in groups to dissuade bandits from attacking. Otherwise Tartarus is pretty safe.”
“Are there many jobs for adventurers in Tartarus?”
“Oh, most certainly. We have no short supply of dangerous monsters that lurk in the depths. I don’t recommend getting greedy though, most adventurers from outside Tartarus don’t come back from the lower levels.”
“I see, thank you.”
Korra then talks to the group a bit more telling them about her travels and Sher Aka and Rayla also tell her of their travels. Then, after a while, Scarlet wraps Thoma Ahad in a few towels and carries him back to their room.