It was no surprise then that Mira and Trin (left and right) have gone into currier and investigative work. Mira works closely with the leades of Blackstone, while Trin tends to throw herself outdoors and run information from Dawnlight and back.
Mira is the older sister, at 23. She has a strong voice and an even stronger will. She stands up to leaders and burly men, whiners and wimps all getting the same treatment from her. If she doesn't like something, or some one, she'll say so. She's never backed down from a good verbal battle.
Trin on the right is 20 years old, and is a bit more sedate and observant. Her words are chosen carefully, and she rarely speaks in anger. Sometimes it's hard to get her to say anything. She's more apt to write notes down, and hand them off to their right recipients.
"And take it right back," said the man behind his mountain of paperwork, "thank you. Yes." He opened the packet and his bushy eyebrows furrowed. "They didn't happen to give you a box to go along with this, did they?"
It was Trin's turn to furrow her eyebrows. "... No sir, they did not. I hope everything is all right."
"No... No, it's not. Now, who was it that you got this from again?"
"He said his name was Myx, sir." Trin said. He didn't look surprised, but then the man asked another question.
"What did he look like, then?" He sat back, folded his hands, and quietly listened to Trin's careful description. She got the build, height compared to herself, his state of dress, hair color and his hat's markings, coat and boots, even the way his breath smelled a bit of fish. "Ah. Then that explains it."
"Sir... Don't tell me that wasn't really mister Myxilan."
"I'm afraid not. Someone ought to have warned you. This other man, I think I know who he is, though. Not a savory type."
"Didn't smell too savory to me," Trin said, making a small attempt to lighten the man's mood. But whatever had happened between Myx and this other guy can't have been good. "Sir, perhaps I could locate him and see what happened. They don't usually expect the currier to know any better. And they don't usually expect the currier to come back."
The Holder tilted his head forward, leaning his bulk over the desk. "I can't ask you to put yourself into danger for me, Trin. Your family has worked for me and my business in the past, and I wouldn't dare do that to you. Or them."
"But... I want to. My job was to retrieve the package -- or packages -- which mister Myxilan handed off to me and bring them to you unopened. So, my job isn't finished, the way I see it." The holder sat somewhat numbed by this. She was usually such a sensible girl, her father had spoken highly of her ability to make sense.
She wasn't a weak girl, though. She was old enough to hold her own. "Don't you have a sister?" He asked, and she nodded. "I'll ask you to take her along then. I've heard about Mira."
"Oh? Our father boasting too much again?" Trin laughed, and turned to leave. "If you could write up a good sound description of the REAL Myx, I'll be back with Mira shortly and we can go find your package."
She left the door to swing shut behind her. The Holder did what she asked, wishing that he was a bit more of an artist than he had been...
***
Mira smiled broadly. She handed her spyglass back to her sister. "The guy's down there all right. He's chuckling over something. Doesn't look like he's sober." The sun had barely gone down, made it very hard to see, even with the spyglass.
"Even better," said Trin. "That way you can distract him and I can get the box." They saw everything they needed to: the box which the Holder described, and a pair of lackeys which belonged to the big laughing smelly man. The smelly man himself would possibly be the easier target. The two lackeys looked relatively well paid, and they would probably put up a bigger fight.
Mira smiled and patted the pair of short knives at her hips. "I've got your distraction right here."
Trin gazed at her sister. "You've got your distractions right there," she poked one of Mira's rather large breasts with a quick finger, "they don't have to know you're a dangerous broad. Only that you're female and nearby."
"Ugh." Mira said. "You don't want them looking at me like that. I don't want them looking at me like that."
"Get used to it. Let's go." Trin gathered her wits, put the spy glass away into her long coat's lining. The two of them were dressed for success tonight, and both of them loved the thrill of this kind of 'spy work'. They knew that Alabaster's people were much better at it than Blackstone, but in a way it didn't much matter. Alabaster was all the way on the other side of the island, and their prey probably never knew the difference.
Both of them dropped to the ground and scuttled down the rolling cliffside hill, their little boat was covered and tied down on the beach below it. This side, there was a finger of land which they observed, surrounded by crashing surf. It was usually an ideal meeting point for merchants headed to the Protectorate Isle. The very end of the mainland of Paniya. Tonight, it made for an interesting if dark playfield.
"Heyo, can you help me? I'm lost!" Mira called out, her voice beguilingly false. The trio of men looked up from their pile of stuff, and the leader of them stood. He glanced around until he saw Mira, her hands waving. "I've tripped, and look, my foot's twisted! Ow!" She hopped about for effect.
Trin meanwhile silently crept behind the camp, where there was a low shack of a building and a rubbish heap. There was a donkey and a pair of Skirr, none of them making any noise. But something inside the shed was, and Trin had a feeling she knew what it was. While Mira limped about and stayed just outside of reach of the smelly man, Trin carefully snuck around to the shack.
The pair of lackeys were intent on watching how their boss was going to treat this little lost girliegirl. She had two-tone hair, looked kind of freaky. But then, one of them commented, "if she's freaky like that, I'll take a little piece!" They laughed, and their boss adopted a wide, black-toothed grin.
"Aye... Yessss. Lost, are ye? Well... Come along here and I'll find ye something to pass the time away, while your foot -- heals." The man's voice was followed by coarse laughter, from him and his lackeys.
Mira grimaced. The guys were just hideous. It was why she vastly prefered her men to be, well, women. At least most women she knew bathed... She'd stand a man's presence, in fact some of them were quite talented and she truly appreciated attention from higher ranking (and therefore quite clean) ones. H'lis even looked yummy enough to bed, but right now the thought of the man wasn't enough to stop her stomach from turning. The fish-catcher and his men wanted to surround Mira, but she knew the little hilly terrain she had was just enough to keep them unable to do so without being quite obvious.
Trin scooted down near the ground, and made a little tap-tapping sound on the shed, followed by a "shhhhh," noise. The sound of the waves below drowned out her words at a few feet away. "Mister Myx? It's the currier. Are you in there?"
A muffled sound and a bit of clunking assured her that it was him. "Shhhh.... I'm going to lift the door lock, try not to make too much noise. Don't knock things over in there."
It was obvious that he was trying hard, but he was an older man, stiff in the joints and a bit hard of hearing anyway. He managed to get near the exit of the shed without much sound, but then he flopped down on his side half-in and half-out of the door, his feet kicking out under him and knocking over a pail and bunch of net-fitting tools. The clatter immediately woke the slumbering Skirr, which then woke the donkey.
Which of course alerted the fish-man and his guys. Mira swiped her hands behind her body and pulled out the two knives, hurriedly using the butt-ends of the handles to knock the fish-man on the head. It was hard enough that he slumped, dazed, to the ground. The lackeys bolted toward the shed.
Mira followed. Trin was busy untying Myx, and threw the pail over one of the skirr, causing it to rear up a bit and make the lackeys back up a bit. It danced on its hind legs and threw its little forelimbs out sharply, and they stayed clear. "You can't get away! We're faster than you!" Said one of the men.
"But you're not nearly smart enough," Mira grunted, as she threw one of the knives into the second man's arm. He shrieked, turned, but didn't see the woman. She'd already moved out of their vision. Mira came up behind the shed, behind the man whose arm held her knife. "You don't get to keep this," she said, yanking it out of his muscle. He shrieked again, and his partner tried diving at Mira to no avail.
"Too fast for you," she said, dancing near his dusty head. The ground was filled with salty sand, and it got kicked in his eyes by her feet.
Trin had unhitched the more calm skirr, helped Myx onto its back, and told him to head to his offices. He did so, not even looking back. This was almost too much excitement for an old man! Then, Trin looked at the booty on the ground. The lackeys were staggering around, one blinded and the other bloody. In the darkness, they could barely make out anything let alone their enemies. So when one large dark shape rose out of the grasses in front of them, they both tackled it.
"Get off me! You oafs!! You're going to pay for this!" The fish-man bellowed, throwing off both men but then dropping back down to his butt with the effort.
Between Mira and Trin, they kicked out the fire so the camp was left in complete darkness -- the stars didn't help much, and the pair of moons weren't up yet. An ideal night for payback. The sisters took Trin's long coat, doubled it, and each grasped a side. They loaded up everything they could from the ground and pile of loot, put it onto the coat, and hefted it side by side around the cliff-ridge.
They waddled toward their boat, silent except a bit of grunting with the effort. They dumped the stuff into the skiff, pushed it off from the beach, and began paddling it out into the surf. The lee of the cliffside here was pretty calm, and they made it into open water quite easily, with no pursuit from the gang of men.
***
"I don't know how you did it," said the Holder, "but Myx sent me this to give to you. A bonus for your extraordinary work!" He held up a pair of pouches, and when the girls caught them neither looked in them.
"Oh sir, we really shouldn't," Trin started to say but Mira elbowed her.
"Actually, hazard pay is extra. But this was the first time so I guess we won't charge you for it." Mira said, with a slick grin on her face. The Holder chuckled.
"As long as you all made it out, and Myx got home fine, which he did. And the contents of the box were all still accounted for, that's what really counts. Good work girls. I hope -- dearly -- that we can work together again."
"Me too," Mira said. "Make more interesting enemies, okay?"
He gulped back a bit at that, but laughed as they left his office. On their way back to Blackstone, though, the girls both unloaded their new haul in their little cart. Mira sorted it out, while Trin urged the pair of skirr to a jog.
"Look at all this stuff they had! Gems, and pearls and stuff. Nice worked metals... And coffee, lots of it."
"Give me that!" Trin yelped, laughing. "I need it! I'm the one who got us this job! You give that to me!"
"As long as I get to keep the bracelets, and this..." She held up what appeared to be some form of restraint gear. "I wonder who was supposed to be getting it..." Then she shuddered, "no I don't. Heh!"
They laughed all the way back to the caer.
***
Rolling in loot, Mira and Trin almost didn't hear the knock at their den's door. Their father had news.
"There's a search dragon, from a pretty new weyr, outside. I thought you both might want to see about standing."
"But father," Mira said, "we're not rider-material. I mean, I like dragons and all. But we aren't a rider's family."
"Aren't we now? Well, don't you want to change that?" Said their mother, from around her husband's elbow. She shooed the pair of utterly disreputable girls out into the courtyard. There, a leggy young woman and her green dragoness prowled back and forth around the potential candidates.
When Mira and Trin stepped onto the stone courtyard, though, both of them perked up and looked at them. The girls, while enjoying most forms of attention, seemed to shrink at this. Were they really serious? Did this dragon think they could--
"You two! Don't go anywhere! I want to see about getting you transferred to Keandyn!" Naeda called out, and both girls stood, mouths agape, as she bolted past to get their transfer papers.
Someone said something about Mira, hinting that she was more 'mature' than any other girl on the sands... They'd like a taste of that maturity -- but she gave such a scathing response that he shut the heck up for possibly the rest of his life on that subject!
It took most of the hatching, and the adult dragons digging out several other eggs which had been completely hidden, before any dragons even looked the girls's way.
But when they did...a deep blue hatched at the same time as an elegant pink blossomed from her shell.
Hello, Trin, I am Luyuth. I think you are perfect for me. The pink-shaded dragoness said. Trin laughed, and scooped up her new bond.
The other, midnight blue with markings, watched the pair leave, and then approached Mira. We are very different, aren't we, Mira? My sister and I, I mean.
"Perhaps so, Fearghusith, on the outside you are like night and day. Inside, I do not know yet!" The feel of the blue's voice inside her mind was beauty and strength, to Mira.
"I'm getting ready for the gather. You can watch," Trin tapped her forehead, "but you can't fly around down there. The dragons always cause damage and I don't want anyone blaming you for something."
I would never!
Yes you would! She wants to steal something, and you'd only get in the --
"I do NOT want to STEAL something! MIRA!"
But you said --
"No I did not, you assumed!" Mira chided her dragon. Trin groaned and rolled her eyes.
"At this rate, the whole darn place will know what we're doing, before we even get down there." Trin said, looking at the pink and blue dragons. "Look, you've got to be quiet about what we do down there. I know you're curious, but you can't come and we'll tell you all about it later anyway!"
Sullenly, the pair of siblings draped over each other and onto the ledge, where they watched their bonds go have fun stealing and distracting and whatever else was their fancy. They'd get their turn, some time. They would be flying soon. Then they'd never stop!
"That is too bad," her sister Trin said, "it's a good thing we found our little beauties when we did, then."
Who are you calling little!? Cried Luyuth. I am not little! I am a bit small, yes, but I'm still enough to have a queenly flight!
The sisters looked at one another, and Trin gulped. "You're not serious, are you? Oh... you are, I can tell. Well, wait until we at least make it back to Blackstone, and then we can find you a place to fly. You're not going to mope around here."
I am not mopey! I am ... hungry. I want to find some fish, and Fearghusith will help.
I will? YES. Oh. Okay, fishing. We're fishing.
Mira waved at the marked blue and his pink sister, as they darted off to the cliffsides. They would have to arrange another trip back to this world, but when? And where? Those questions would be answered later...
