With little food to spare, few visit the canteen outside of mealtime. Yet, someone still must set the chairs and tablecloths.
This isn't part of their regular schedules. However, with a lecture being planned in the public square, things are a little hectic.
And they are happy to help.
Avgust: ♪ ... ♬ ...
Vila: "A leaky boat that could sink any moment" ...
Mumbling to herself, Vila tightens a tablecloth near the window. Realizing that this is the last one before they've finished, she smiles.
Vila: Well done, little comrade. Time for us to get to the square.
Avgust: A leaky boat! We're sailing on it to the square!
Avgust: Together with Windsong!
Avgust: So, we've finished with our Comrade Tables and Chairs? Do they know Comrade Cans will join them real soon and bring many more friends here?
Vila: Heh heh, yes, little Avgust.
Vila: We will need to say goodbye to Comrade Blini, make sure they're all set just right, and then we're good to go. Because ...
Vila: ... Because ...
She chokes on the word, as if a phantom hand wrapped around her neck, stifling her voice.
Vila: Urgh ...
The meaning is clear even before her scales begin shivering. Vila raises her head, eyes darting out beyond the window.
Her "people" have found her.
Vila: cough
Avgust: Vila?
Vila: Avgust ...
Vila: Listen, Avgust, you must go gather all your classmates and bring them to Comrade Evgeni. Stay with him.
Vila: You know where to find him, right?
Avgust: I do!
Vila: Go on now, Comrade Avgust. It is up to you to complete this important mission.
Nearby the docks, there is a place blocked off by discarded containers and machinery, a hidden place in the water known to few besides Vila.
A respite in Rayashki's rare warm days, a place where she could stretch out her "legs" away when the swimming pool proved too crowded, too public.
Vila: ...
Vila: Samodiva.
Вила: A large wave rises and then splashes onto the shore, accompanied by a melodious sound, one familiar to her people.
Rayashki prides itself on welcoming everyone. Yet, this is an uninvited guest.
Samodiva: Vila.
Samodiva: Refresh my memory: Do we always start our conversations this way?
Vila: You shouldn't be here.
Samodiva: You should not presume to tell me where I can and cannot go, traitor.
Vila: ...
Samodiva: You've always stayed on the move, Vila. One place to the next, never tied down. Hopping from port to muddy little port, through the greatest of the scaleless cities.
Samodiva: To think this would be the place you'd stay—an old dried-out shell you were too tired to shed off.
Samodiva: Here where the scaleless build their "home," scrounging under the landbed for scraps, like carrion crabs.
Samodiva: How pitiful, that we might be so easily mistaken for them.
She'd run as far as she could, but still they found her. They were relentless. Her kin would stop at nothing to eliminate half-bloods—no stone unturned, no place too remote.
Vila: I wish you could see, Samodiva. This hatred between our peoples, there's no way out this whirlpool, until we choose to stop it.
Vila: It has blinded you. That's why you can't see what we've been trying to build. What the world could be ...
Vila: Instead, you see what you want to see.
Samodiva: Do you think it matters to me what you see in this crab nest? Tides take it. I'm here for you.
Samodiva: You die today.
???: Vila—Ms. Vila—
???: My lecture is starting soon. I was hoping you'd do me a favor.
Samodiva's summoned arrows of razor-sharp water hang in the air, halted by the sudden intrusion.
???: Oops, my files ...
Vila, halting her breath, catches her foe's eyes darting toward the sound, narrowing with enjoyment. His arrows turn in a new direction ...
... and point straight at the source of voice, Windsong.
Windsong: D**n it, where is it?
Vila: NO—
Vila didn't know that she could make a sound like that.
It was melodious but dark and irritated; the sound of an ancient language, one she never mastered. She's warning him.
More water arrows took shape, surrounding Samodiva, these ones distinctly less sharp.
Vila: Don't do this.
Blunt as these arrows might seem, they produce a thin red line across his neck.
Samodiva: What?
Vila: You can't take her life or the lives of anyone here. Their souls are not for you. These are my people now.
Vila: Harm them, and you'll spend the rest of your life in regretting it, short though it may be.
Samodiva: What? You little—
Vila: It is time for you to leave, Samodiva.
Vila: Don't make me tell you twice.
She holds her breath.
This isn't the first time she's bluffed like this, but the stakes are higher now than they've ever been. She can't afford to give anything away.
Vila: ...
Samodiva: ...
Silence. Minutes or seconds might have passed between them, until Samodiva's arrows fall loosely into the water.
Even so, Vila does not let up. Her foe bares his fangs, hissing.
Samodiva: Somehow, you've found a way to become something worse than a traitor.
Samodiva: You betray us, refuse to accept trial, escape from justice. And now, are you truly seeking this "eternal soul"?
Samodiva: You're so homesick that you'd choose any way to get back, even if that means chasing a myth.
Samodiva: You're insane.
Vila: How could you know that it's a myth?
Samodiva: Even if it were real, it would not be a half-blood like you that would find it.
Samodiva: Go ahead, drown all the scaleless here, have them sign their souls away to the abyss, just see if that is enough—
Samodiva: But you're never going to find it. You will never reach Atlantis.
Vila: You know, I'm always open to trying new things.
Samodiva: Heh.
Samodiva: Then maybe you should start with the one calling your name.
Vila tries to call out to Windsong, waving her away. But the Ley Lines researcher walks clumsily towards her unheeded.
Windsong: Ms. Vila!
Windsong: What are you doing all the way out here? I've just been working on my lecture. It's mostly a rehashing of my previous work, but anyways I thought I could use your help.
Windsong: It might be a little too long now.
Windsong: Hmm? Ms. Vila?
The researcher seems unaware of the battle that nearly transpired there. The sea behind them is quiet and still.
Samodiva: It'd better be a corpse next time.
Samodiva: Or—
Though she hasn't dropped her guard, she somehow misses the moment that Samodiva leaves.
His voice lingers in the falling of the waves.
Windsong: Oh, if you have other suggestions, we can ...
Vila: No.
Vila: Um, sorry. I was preoccupied with something.
Vila: We can work out your lecture on the way back. Come on.
Vila: Everyone should be waiting at the square.
Windsong: Oh, of course, of course!
Windsong: So, in order to make it easier for listeners, I divided the lecture into four parts.
Windsong: I'm not so worried about my summary, and the theory part should be clear, but the introduction ...
The two of them walk side-by-side to the town square,
leaving the tides to wash over the shore.
