Chapter Text
I’d made an executive decision, without Eleanor’s consultation or permission. She was off making dinner and Lettie was just napping and Rusalka was just sitting there and I figured it’d be for the best if I ripped the scab off…
The shouting was expected.
“Can we keep her?” I asked, “Ple-e-e-e-ease?”
“For the last time, niña, no!” Lettie snapped, massaging the bridge of her nose as she beheld Neci… or what Eleanor’s bizarre clothing choices had turned her into.
“Look, I’ll admit it’s not the best look,” Rusalka admitted, crossing her legs as she sucked juice from a foil pouch, seemingly clad in nothing but an oversized shirt, “But it’s better than being naked.”
“That’s my final word, niña,” Lettie huffed, crossing her arms. “We can’t keep her.”
“I promise I’ll take care of her, mom!” I squeaked, “I’ll even take her out for walks!”
“Mom!? H-! Wh-!? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Kiddo!” Rusalka squawked as Lettie sputtered. “Here, Leticia,” she rolled from the ragged couch Eleanor had dragged from one of the unknowable rooms, deep within the mall’s bowels. “I need a place to stay…” She crushed the juice pouch, tossing it onto the floor. “I can’t remain on the streets because at least thirty percent of this planet’s population knows what I look like, I’d be turned in within the hour. Besides… Scaldra wants me dead, Scaldra wants you dead, it’s not as if your position in this changes at all.”
“Acting like having an even bigger target on our backs ain’t gonna affect anything,” Lettie muttered under her breath.
Neci adjusted her hat. “I can assure you, it won’t, Leticia. Considering the fool I was replaced with, your odds of survival will increase dramatically with me here.” She lifted her arm a bit, scratching at the back of her neck, kinda lifting the baggy shirt Eleanor had thrown at her.
I hadn’t seen the shorts, which was a bit shocking since they were the most garish shade of pink I’d ever seen. So bright that I’d be able to see them with my eyes closed. There was writing on the back of ‘em… a bit hard to make out considering how her ass was stretching them.
“Princess…” I whispered, needing to squint a bit as I read.
“Ay!” Lettie brushed past Rusalka, scooping me up, giving me a few shakes for my audacity.
“Oh, they have writing on them,” Neci whispered, trying to look back, “that’s class.”
I was hanging upside-down, just kinda staring at her as all the blood in my body rushed to my head. “Yeah, I gotta admit, you’re really weird.”
She gestured rather broadly at herself with her remaining arm. “Child, look at me-”
I didn’t let her finish. “I am, which is why I’m saying that.”
She deflated a bit, rolling her eyes. “And you- you live with her?” she asked rather pointedly, staring straight at Lettie. “She’s a menace.”
“I live with her quite happily,” Lettie grunted, getting me right side up again, good gods, she was sweaty! “Though I think things’ll be a bit on edge with you hanging around.”
“Already decided to keep me?” Neci asked.
“Nah, I’ll send Arthur and Quincy down here and have ‘em drag you out,” she adjusted her hold on me as I began squirming again. “You’re just lucky they aren’t here right now…”
Neci threw her arm out, shrugging. “I believe I heard them snogging quite viciously on my way in, I always knew they were right for each other.” She sighed, sitting back down. “How adorable, are you all some flavor of gay?”
Lettie set me down, which was worrying. “Cora, go help Eleanor for a bit, I need to talk with the Major without you butting in…”
“It’s not my butt you need to worry about,” I sniffed, shuffling toward the door. “She’s gonna rip those things.”
“What on earth are these people teaching you, Kiddo?” Rusalka asked as I stepped into the hallway.
“Nothing!” I declared, “I merely learned through observation!”
“That doesn’t answer my question!” she called as I began running, leaving her at Lettie’s sweaty mercy.
...
“Ah… just who I wanted to see…” Eleanor’s happiness at seeing me swiftly dwindled into nothing as she absolutely scoured my mind. “Cora, what have you done?” she asked flatly.
“I’m not good at keeping secrets,” I sniffed, grabbing an empty milk crate, pushing it toward the counter where Eleanor was working. “So I decided not to even try.”
“And you… just… left them alone together?”
I took a deep breath as I clambered atop the crate, still needing to crane my neck to meet her gaze. “Y-y-y-y-yes.”
Eleanor did not look happy about my statement. Quite the opposite actually. Which… considering how well we’d all gotten along when we got ice cream.
“Cora, this situation is entirely different. Cripplingly, devastatingly, unfathomably different. She cannot live with us.”
“Why-y-y-y?” I asked, kinda itching to get to work on making dinner.
“Wash your hands first,” she scolded, chain of thought getting broken.
“But I wanna build up everyone’s immune systems,” I muttered, hopping down from the crate, “I got diseases they can’t even conceive of.”
“Wash your hands, or I’ll not allow you to help,” she sniffed, “You can simply watch me prepare my delightful fried chicken.”
“You’re torturing me with your wretched statements,” I grunted, kicking the crate across the floor, toward the washbasin. “Much as you tortured me with your wretched choice of pants for Neci.”
She snorted. “Oh gods, you saw that…?”
“Princess… I think, her ass was in the way.”
“Forever terrifying to hear words like those come out of your mouth little one.”
I washed my hands, begrudgingly, kicking my crate back across the floor and clambering up.
“Now, you dip the meat in the egg and then into the breading,” she instructed, “not the other way around, for the love of Sol.”
I waved her away. “Look, it was one time. I’ve learned since then, I’ve been educated…”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Hmmph, I hope so, it takes forever to collect this much…”
I stared down at the pale reddish meat… chicken, an animal I had no concept of. Well, I think it was chicken, whole meat was still kinda a new thing to me. The sounds of the deep fryer buzzing broke me from my meat-based trance. I carefully picked up one of the lumps of meat, dipping it in the egg wash and rolling it in the breading, handing it over to Eleanor.
“I’m guessing Lettie is very much not on board with keeping Rusalka around,” she sighed after a while.
“Very much against it, so against it she got all sweaty and flustered… though that mighta been from the shorts.”
“Even when clad in pajamas, that woman still manages to grab the eye and not let go,” Eleanor muttered. “Alas… I’ll probably have to tell Arthur, you know how he likes to butt his nose into things.” She placed the last of the meat into the basket, the oil beginning to sing as she lowered it.
“Well… Considering she has blackmail on him, he might agree to let her stay,” I said oh so very casually.
“Bl-” her brow furrowed. “What exactly do you mean?” Her face went slack as I just projected the thoughts at her, unnecessarily adding some conjured up images of what I thought it looked like. “Ough… hrk!” She backed away, “No! No! I don’t want to think about that little one!” Her back hit the wall, tongue sloughing form her mouth as she gagged.
It looked freshly shaved.
“Get those thoughts out of your head, Cora, please, they’re… Houugh!”
“I can’t!” I wailed, “I can’t stop thinkin’ about it!”
“Think about something else! Anything!”
So I did, I thought about the brightest, loudest, most eye-catching thing I’d seen recently.
“Princess…” I whispered…
“Cora, no that’s worse!” she howled.
Lettie barged into the kitchen, the pair of us screaming. Me because Eleanor was screaming and Eleanor because I couldn't stop thinking of increasingly stranger things. Look, you try not to think about things when being explicitly told not to think about things! She put the ideas in there, I was just as helpless as she was!
I was subdued with a rat.
“Hehehe, squeezies,” I whispered, giving Vaquero some well-earned squeezes.
He earned them because he existed, and I liked that about him.
“I was told you’d be up here,” Neci groaned, clambering over the railing, apparently having scaled the whole wall with just one arm. “I thought you lived in that dismal little furniture store.”
“I do, I just like relaxing up here though.” I laid back, Vaquero all too happy to curl up on my stomach. “For a creature of the night, I enjoy the sunlight.”
“Probably not something you got a lot of, where you came from.” She shrugged, adjusting her hat, “Lettie filled me in…”
“Seems she caved then,” I sighed, “You’re gonna have to claim a spot to sleep, the others don’t like sharing.”
“I’m content to remain in that room, with my couch and my mounting piles of garbage.” She settled down beside me, narrowing her eyes. I’d thought they were just shadowed cuz she was really sleepy, but her skin looked kinda scaly. “What a bizarre creature you are.”
I stuck my tongue out at her. “And proud of it. My most redeeming feature.”
“Can’t argue with that,” she sighed, taking a few deep breaths as the smells of the fried chicken finally made their way over to us. “Ooh, that smells lovely, what is it?”
“Fried chicken.”
“Huh…” she looked a bit confused for a moment. “I wouldn't have placed that as chicken…” She sniffed quietly, “Lots to come to grips with,” she whispered, just laying down… on the gross floor.
“You’re gonna get a disease,” I muttered.
“The floor wishes it was as diseased as I,” she said distractedly, staring blankly at the ceiling, hat falling from atop her head. “I assume you felt something like this,” she whispered, holding her arm out, staring at the back of her hand. “The confusion and… stress of being cast from what was once so familiar. No longer in that comfortable place and just... dropped somewhere new.”
“It was hard, yeah…” I rested my hand on Vaquero’s back, looking over at Neci. “But… y’know, just because somewhere was comfortable doesn't mean it was a good place to be. I was laying on a floor with a pair of corpses for years and years, and that was comfortable, that place objectively sucked. I’m sure you… you were probably in something similar to that.”
“Figurehead of what was rapidly backsliding into a cult.” She twisted her arm about, wiggling her fingers. “I thought I was doing what was right. I was fighting back the Techrot, I was… I was being a hero, my face was plastered across television screens, and painted on the sides of buildings and…” Her expression soured. “It all felt hollow, it felt wrong, even after I ran into you. It only felt worse.” She let her hand fall, forearm covering her eyes. “All I want is to live the final years of my life in something approaching comfort, not as some martyr.”
“You’re…” Vaquero let out a little complanitory squeak as I rolled over squirming from my hands. “What’s wrong with you?” I asked.
“Little one, I’m dying, dying of the same rot that’s festering within the Hex here. We are kin in that regard.” She stuck her tongue out, it looked scarily similar to Eleanor’s, just not as long. A braided length of Techrot. “I stopped my treatments, I started fraternizing with the enemy, I left derelict my duties… Figurehead or no, I could not remain in my station. So, make a martyr of me, make a monster out of me, a cautionary tale.” She snickered, the snicker pretty quickly melting into a whine. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared, Kiddo.”
“It’s good to be scared,” I whispered, squeezing my eyes shut as Vaquero began snuggling into the hollow of my neck, his tail slapping against my nose. “Means you can still feel stuff, you aren’t all gone.”
She rolled over, stretching her arm out, resting her head on her forearm. “I’m more worried about what happens when all that’s left is that fear… When all that is me is gone, leaving only a snarling frightened beast behind.”
“We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it.”
She snorted, letting her eyes close. “Fair dues, child, fair dues.”
We weren’t destined to lay there for long. Sadly we were awoken by the sounds of a freshly kissed Arthur and the rattle of rifles, not the delicious scent of Eleanor’s famous fried chicken.
...
“Your balls, old man!” I squeaked, shaking my fist at Arthur, “Imma twist them until I’m making ornate knots with your veins!” He was lucky Lettie was holding me back, I was gonna rip him to bits if I got my hands on him! Neci’s hat fell down over my eyes.
“Hush,” Lettie hissed, giving me a tiny shake. “She’s gotta defend herself, OK?”
My eye twitched. “She’s got nothing to defend,” I growled, “She doesn’t have anything.”
“She’s convinced you, me, ‘n Eleanor,” Lettie whispered, “She’s gotta convince Arthur now.”
I muttered something even I didn't understand under my breath, resigning myself to just watch.
Neci had been dragged down to the food court, made to sit atop one of the many dirty tables. Arthur and Quincy and Aoi all had rifles pointed at her chest. Amir, the wisest of us all, was just sitting off to the side, not really bothering with any of this. He was a sweetie, I owed him a hug for that.
“I really don’t know what to tell you, Nightingale,” Neci sighed, shrugging, popping another little wad of fried chicken into her mouth. “Viktor forced me out, Scaldra has a kill order on me, and there isn’t a soul in this city, bar you lot, who would let me in.” She made a little face. “This isn’t chicken,” she muttered.
“And why, pray tell, would dearest Viktor turn you out onto the streets, Rusalka?” Arthur asked flatly, “He was basically felating you with every statement he made… Bit of a tonal shift, innit?”
Neci pursed her lips, shoulders slumping, back hunching. “Same reason he wants you lot dead,” she said simply. With a muttered curse, she began fighting with the hem of her shirt, trying to lift it.
“Oy, oy-oy!” Arthur took a step back, gripping the rifle a bit tighter.
“Hush, boy,” Neci whispered, slipping over the side of the table, lifting her shirt partially. Her waist was completely covered in the same chitinous skin that the rest of them were. “Viktor found out my little secret… as if he thought I smoked Efervon for fun,” she sniffed. Her eyes darted to Aoi as she began snickering. “It’s not really a laughing matter, Morohoshi…”
“Are those Eleanor’s ‘Princess’ booty shorts!?” Aoi wailed, not able to keep her rifle up. It clattered hollowly as she let it fall, just cackling.
“Aoi!” Arthur barked, “stay focused!”
“Nah, Arthur,” Quincy knocked his rifle back, shaking his head. “This shit’s too weird f’me.” He threw his hands up, walking away. “The bab’s vouched for ‘er, ‘s good ‘nuff f’me!” He lifted my newly acquired hat a bit. “Y’do, right?”
“I vouch for her!” I squeaked, “I’ll twist her balls myself if she decides to betray us!”
Quincy shivered a bit, as he should’ve. “It’s settled, Arthur!” he called, “I’m too tired f’this,” he whispered, shaking his head, all the beads and bullet casings he’d wound into his hair rattling melodically.
“Nightingale, what kind of meat is this!?” Neci called, shuffling toward the planter box Eleanor had hidden herself behind.
Arthur was just kinda left where he was. Aoi gave up, levitating her rifle beside her as she wandered back toward the old electronics store. Amir had already buzzed back to the arcade. Lettie was just kinda standing there, seemingly a bit in shock.
“Those are Eleanor’s shorts?” I asked, trying to look up at Lettie.
“They used to be mine, Cora, but don’t tell anyone,” she hefted me a bit, groaning. “Eleanor!” she barked, tone shifting in an instant. “Lemme see your tongue!”
“No! You need not see my tongue!” Eleanor squawked, backing away from Neci, breaking into a run as Lettie joined in on the malicing.
“It’s freshly shaved,” I said quickly.
“Did you deep fry your tongue and feed it to Rusalka!?” Lettie wailed.