Private Tales Clean Up Your Mess

[Khari]

Dornoch - Central Throne Room

"WHAT?!" She bellowed incredulously. Breaking the demure face that she had put on just a few seconds ago before stepping inside. "You can't be serious mother!"

There was a loud echoing sound, someone clearing her throat. Khari's eyes darted towards the Speaker, lips pressing to a thin line as she immediately bowed her head and corrected herself. "What I mean, Dynast."

She still, after all this time hated saying that. The woman had treated her like a child!...as much as someone like her could. There was no doubt though that the Dynast cared about her, Khari knew that. Otherwise she probably would have been dead instead of being put on a mission like this. At least...maybe, this didn't seem like a punishment.

Just weird.

"I'm not qualified for something like this..." Her voice sounded somewhat broken. "I mean I'm a demon...not an administration gnome."

She said, and there Dynast simply stared down at her in Silence. A moment passed and for a second Khari thought that would all be it, but the Speaker interrupted before she began her bow and took her leave.

"You will not be going alone. Your companion will see to the cities Administration, your duty is to quell the insurrection and criminal enterprise." A frown touched Khari's lips for a moment. "Is that understood?"

Her head tilted. "Whose my companion?"

She asked curiously.

 

[Ichika]

"Part of being the heir to our house is taking responsibility for your actions," Yuna Tsuri, the matriarch of the clan that had served Dornoch's dynast for generations, walked with several attendants following her. Reviewing documents, signing parchment, then passing one scroll to an attendant as another handed her a new offering to sign, review, or dismiss.

Ichika followed, growing more impatient by the second. "I understand mother but I've been reading the reports," she paused for a moment before blurting out what she was truly thinking, "there are brigades causing a ruckus in the streets. Refugees calling for reforms. Gangsters and mafioso pass as the authority figures."

"Mhm," her mother said idly as two of the attendants broke away to deliver one document or another.

"Nira is a festering shithole."

For the first time since the conversation had begun her mother turned to look at her. "A shithole you and that demon-child created. Now the Dynast wishes you to fix it."

---

Ichika stood on the docks in front of the Whimpering Cricket, the high-speed raft they'd be taking back to Nira.

She wasn't certain who the Dynast had permitted to accompany her and Khari on this voyage but she knew her own mother had assigned exactly zero bodyguards. Almost as if she wanted one of her sisters to take her place as eventual head of the family.

But Ichika had come prepared for the warzone that Nira allegedly had become. As always she had her katana strapped to her hip but she also carried a small wakizashi blade on her. Strapped to her boot was yet another dagger, affixed to her back a large arbalest with a hefty bolt ready to go, and on the back of her waist a hand crossbow.

If her inexperience with many of those weapons wasn't enough to make her look foolish the heavy platemail she'd insisted on wearing caused her to walk a glacial pace.

"Khari," she said in a muffled voice underneath the thick metal mask that obscured her face, "it's good to see you." Ichika tried to gesture for a hug but the armor limited the movement of her arms so much that it looked more like she was demonstrated how large the sandwiches at the sailor's bar were.

 

[Khari]

"ICHIKA!" Khari had practically bounced up and down when she'd been told who her partner would be in this venture.

She still thought the whole thing was a doomed failure and they would have been better off simply burning the city to the ground, but she felt better with Ichika at her side. Her friend, at least that was what she would call her, was smart and competent.

The Assassin figured her pal could handle the numbers while she took care of the rougher side of things.

Though she supposed they would discuss that on the way.

Happily skip-stepping over towards her friend, Khari beamed wide. The red lines of her face softly glowing as she threw her arms around the hulking armored form of her friend. "It's so good to see YOU!"

The daemonette exclaimed, half pulling away from her friend and glancing up and down.

"What are you wearing?" She asked quizzically.

 

[Ichika]

"It's great to see you too," she said, trying her best to return the hug despite the heavy armor.

They were friends even if they'd not gotten to spend much time together since their return to Dornoch. Ichika's mother disliked Khari, believing the girl to be a spy for the Dynast that would be used to 'ruin Clan Tsuri' despite Ichika's own protestations. And it was difficult for Ichika to visit Khari, generally inappropriate for the heir of a major house to go and visit the Dynast without an invitation.

But the only good thing about this entire voyage was going to be spending time with Khari again. That much she was certain of.

"We're going to Nira, Khair," Ichika answered as if it were an obvious reason for the get-up. "It's a den of thieves and sexual deviants and the murder rates are the highest in all of the Erdeniin Empire!"

She looked at her friend with pupils wide, like a child being told they'd get no dessert.

"I'm going prepared."