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That first night, they all troop back to Hamid's apartment. Bertie - predictably - immediately makes for the guest bedroom and falls asleep. Zolf suspects he didn’t even bother to take off his armour.Hamid gets his own halfling sized bed, and Zolf and Sasha are left staring at each other in the living room.“Um.” Sasha says, incredibly eloquently.“Yeah,” Zolf says. His ‘yeah’ is long. Drawn out. Sasha looks like she’d rather be anywhere else.“I mean. ‘m not tall, or anything.” She gestures at the armchair. “You could take the sofa.”Zolf frowns instinctively. “You’ll crick your neck summat awful.”Sasha shrugs awkwardly. “‘ve slept in worse places.”That is unacceptable. Sasha can’t even be twenty five. Zolf understands that obviously forty isn’t the age of adulthood for humans - that she’s probably considered an independent adult - but despite being taller than him, she just looks so small.“Take the sofa,” Zolf instructs. Sasha goes, obediently. She fits easily, and slips out of her leather jacket, using it as a makeshift pillow.Her eyes don’t leave Zolf.Now, Zolf is a sailor. He's slept in some truly awful places with some truly awful people without batting an eyelid.Zolf Smith - a cleric, for the gods’ sake, if still a mercenary - is not an awful person. Hamid's apartment is not an awful place. But Sasha Racket, allegedly an antiques appraiser, is keeping her eyes open for fear of danger.Her arms are bare for the first time, discounting the spring-loaded daggers she doesn’t seem bothered to take off, and they bear scars. Zolf knows what scars like that around the wrists mean, he’s seen them enough on sailors returning from captivity. They are not scars that should be on a child.Around her neck, he thinks he can discern the marks from a shock collar. And Zolf knows what the look on her face means - it means justified paranoia. It is also out of place on a child.Zolf is getting on towards fifty, and he’s been around a long time. He’s seen plenty of horrors at sea. He's also seen plenty of horrors in his few brief stints working at temples of Poseidon, but this is somehow his first time seeing the result of such trauma on a child.“I’m going to bed now,” Zolf says slowly. “I’m askin' you to wake me early tomorrer, Sasha. That alright?”She shrugs as best she can, curled up on a sofa. “I mean, sure. I wake up… early. I'll… yeah.”Zolf hops up into the armchair and pulls off his peg-leg, setting it and his trident carefully on the floor. “See you in the morning, alright?”He deliberately closes his eyes, tucking his good leg underneath himself and settling into the corner between the armrest and the back.“‘ll get the lights,” Sasha mutters. Zolf can’t hear her steps, but the darkness behind his eyelids dims further, and then he hears the slightest rustling of what is presumably her leather jacket.He doesn’t fall asleep straight away. Neither does she, if the near-silent, measured breathing is anything to go by - Bertie's snoring from the room down the hall is louder, for the gods’ sake - but eventually it evens out.Zolf dares to crack his eyes open. Darkvision is a damned useful trait to have, and he thanks the gods for his lucky heritage. Sasha is curled up, barely taking up half of the space on the sofa, and under her leather jacket he can tell she’s clutching something. A dagger, most likely, considering her prowess with them.He does get some sleep that night, in patchy, short bursts. He's more than used to disordered watches on a ship, and he finds it easy to get a good night’s sleep while also keeping an eye as best he can on the hunched figure on the sofa. She keeps deathly still the entire night, but for once, in the very small hours of the morning.Zolf’s barely awake himself, but he can see the faintest motion from Sasha. She’s shaking, unaware of him, and he can hear her breath catching.His peg leg has rolled away at some point in the night, and it’s just a little too far to hop. The one thing he wants to do more than anything is to go over and see if she’s alright, to offer her a friendly touch or soothing words, and he can’t even go over to her.Zolf watches the indomitable Sasha Racket crying, almost silent, almost still, and does nothing to help.In the morning, he wakes first, but stays folded over in his punishing position in the armchair. He hears the faintest tap of wood on wood, and when Sasha taps at his shoulder, he sees that she’s retrieved his peg leg and trident and leant them against the armchair.“‘s morning,” she says softly, pointing at the window. “Uh, you said to wake you up early, like. An’- an’- it’s morning.”“G’mornin’, then,” he says, voice scratchy. “Good night’s sleep, was it?”Sasha shrugs. She's already back in her leather jacket, and her hair is mussed. “‘Spose.”Zolf grabs his peg leg. Sasha turns away, a little awkwardly, while he fixes it back on and gets to his feet. “Righ’, then.”“Right,” she echoes quietly. “What's the plan, uh, boss?”He hobbles over to the coffee table, and predictably, there’s a monogrammed notepad complete with engraved pen.“Son of a banker,” Zolf mutters to himself, and scribbles out a note in common.
Gone shopping. Meet us in the square by Edison’s.
Sasha leans over and squints at it. “We’re- we’re goin’ shopping?”“We are goin’ shoppin’,” Zolf states smugly. “‘ey, Sasha. You want another one of them?”He mimes stabbing someone. Sasha's eyes light up.“I can- I can get more daggers?” she asks him tentatively. “An’ maybe some tools?”Zolf stares at her. “‘s your money, Sasha, spend it ‘ow you like.”The concept seems alien to her. “Um. D’we have to go, uh, now, like? Or could I maybe like, have… a shower? Jus’ quickly?”“I'll figure out what I need,” Zolf says. “Be quick now, alright?”She nods, and speeds off down the hall, footsteps not echoing. Zolf sits down heavily on the armchair.“Oh, Sasha,” he whispers. “What are we gonna do with you?”Sasha is excitable, pointing out every stall they pass as he stumps through Upper London. Zolf doesn’t point out that he’s been running a business here for a few months and already knows very well that Jonathan’s is the best stall to pick up penknives and small tools.He stops over one stall bearing a familiar red cross on its flag and pores over the options. Sasha lingers at his side, bouncing from foot to foot.“‘ow’s about, you go and pick summat up for yourself, and meet me back ‘ere?” he finally asks her, and she nods, slipping into the crowd.Zolf watches her go as long as he can - her head of spiky dark hair bobs up and down for a few moments, but then she effectively disappears, becoming just another blurred face weaving in and out of the market.“Didn’t know dwarves could have kids that look that human,” the stall-keeper muses.Zolf turns around sharply. The shopkeep couldn’t be more wrong. They met each other yesterday. They don’t look anything alike. Zolf is a mercenary and Sasha is clearly some sort of trouble.“She stuck with you for the weekend?” the stall-keeper continues blithely. “Didn’t look too pleased to be out shopping. Doesn’t she have a job by now?”“It’s ‘er day off.” Zolf can’t believe he hasn’t corrected the nosy shopkeep by now, but he supposes the assumption of familial relationships is an effective disguise as any. “And she’s always getting ‘erself into mishaps, so. This ‘ealth potion and your bog-standard healer’s kit, please.”The stall-keeper hands the items over, grinning. “You two look after yourselves.”Zolf loiters by the stall a while longer, but it doesn’t take long until Sasha turns up, appearing suddenly out of the crowd and beaming at him.“I got- these two, an’- this’ll be useful, yeah, I can use these way- like, way better.”She brandishes two daggers at him, and Zolf watches the care with which she tucks them away. Then she shows him her set of tools, and she just looks so proud of them.“Well, I got these,” he says, showing her his haul, “because I know you lot’ll need ‘em at some point.”That prompts the tiniest laugh. Sasha rocks back and forth on her heels, poking a little at his healer’s kit.“So, uh. Can I- like, what’s the plan? Uh, boss? I don’t- like, where are we, uh, going?”Zolf tucks his health potion away and hangs his healer’s kit from his belt, where it’s easy to reach in case of an emergency. Then he looks up to Sasha - light on the balls of her feet, like she’s ready to run - and gives her a tight smile.“Well, we told the others we’d meet them in the square by Edison's,” he says. “But somehow I doubt that they’re going to be there any time soon, so ‘ow ‘bout you show me summat exciting?”Sasha purses her lips in thought. “I could… I mean, if you… I could, you know, show you where I got these?”She lifts the edge of her leather coat, and one of her daggers gleams in the light.“Go on, then,” Zolf says a little brusquely. “Always good to see where our supplies come from.”Sasha leads on - she doesn’t just move, she almost flows, like black paint in a gravity well - and Zolf finds himself struggling to keep up, despite using his trident as a cane and doing his best to rush.“Sasha,” he calls. “You do remember that I only ‘ave the one leg, right?”She turns back round, eyes wide, face stricken. “Sorry! Boss! I can - I can slow down, if, uh, if you need.”“I very much do need,” Zolf grumbles. “‘ow much further on is it?”“Not far,” Sasha mutters, shuffling her feet. “Sorry, boss. Uh. Sorry.”Zolf sighs. “No ‘arm done, Sasha.”Admittedly, it doesn’t take them long to get to the stall, even at a decent pace for a peg-leg dwarf. And Sasha's right - it does capture his interest.Zolf, as a rule, fights with his trident, but the clear craftsmanship that’s gone into some of the shining daggers is almost enough to make him consider a purchase. Sasha’s evidently made friends with the blacksmith, because she’s chattering away, gesticulating with her hands.“Any you like?” He finds himself asking Sasha, and she points out a small knife with an elaborate folding mechanism, explaining how it folds up small to be disguised as a snuffbox.He raises an eyebrow at the blacksmith, who grins like she knows exactly what illicit purposes that kind of knife would be put to use to. Zolf doesn’t particularly want or need a hidden knife, and clearly Sasha doesn’t need it or she’d have bought it with the others.However… it is very nice. Zolf doesn’t buy it, but he does mentally note the store as a re-equipment point if they survive going after the Simulacrum.It won’t take long for the blacksmith to realise that the two of them don’t actually intend to buy anything, so Zolf pulls Sasha away. “D’you think you can get us back to Edison’s?”She nods firmly, and makes sure to keep in step with him, despite him definitively hampering her speed. By the time they make it back to the arranged meeting place, Hamid and Bertie are milling around.“I, uh,” Sasha says, raising her eyebrows. “Has he, like, polished his armour?”He has, hasn’t he. “I don’ doubt it,” Zolf sighs.Hamid jumps up to wave at them, gold rings flashing in the sunlight. He hadn’t seemed to be the most comfortable with all the action yesterday, and Zolf isn’t entirely sure yet whether he wants to trust the son of a banker, especially looking at the incredibly unsubtle display the two of them are making.“I’ll go off and make sure ‘e’s not making a tit out of ‘isself,” Zolf sighs, stumping towards Bertie. “Can you take Hamid?”“Sure,” Sasha says, shifting on her feet. “And meet back here?”“Yep.”Trying to corral Bertie is downright impossible, a fact Zolf learns forcibly. Either that, or Zolf is just very bad at making sure people stay on track. Trying to stop the man from buying all seven puppies barking up at them from a side-street’s stall is, somehow, the biggest challenge he’s faced all week. Luckily, Bertie’s impassioned sword-waving doesn’t require Zolf to heal himself or anyone in the immediate vicinity, but it’s a close thing.Sasha was much better behaved.Zolf doesn’t know what’s got into Sasha, but something about Other London seems to genuinely disquiet her. He does his best to put her at ease, but the fact that he had to resort to telling her that they’ll be in and out as quick as possible doesn’t make him the most confident about either the situation they’ve walked into, or any performance he can rely on from her.Luckily, she perks up a little bit when they get into her territory - in contrast with Zolf, who’s got steadily more pessimistic about this whole endeavour. After the incident with Bertie, he’s on edge, relying on his trident as not only a mobility aid but also as a very obvious symbol of defence.If anything says “don’t mess with me” for a dwarf who can only hobble better than a trident, Zolf hasn’t encountered it yet.Sasha’s disappeared off somewhere, so Zolf reluctantly purchases two salted eels - one for Bertie, who seems genuinely excited about trying something new, and one for him to satisfy Sasha. He has had salted eels before, something he’s pointed out to her, and they’re definitely not his favourite, although he doesn’t know if Other London salted eels actually are the delicacy Sasha’s making them out to be.Hamid taps him on the shoulder, and does his best to be subtle while he points out the men that are gathering around the three of them.Zolf turns to look for Sasha. He can’t spot her among the crowd, and tightens his grip on his trident, handing one of the eels to Bertie and quickly passing along some coppers to the oblivious shopkeep.He does spot, however, when a man stumbles forwards with a familiar dagger in his back, and he jumps into the fray to protect his crew.The ensuing fighting is frantic, desperate, and proves that the four of them aren’t yet a match for the kind of thugs they’re likely to encounter. Bertie and Hamid go down - Zolf doesn’t even want to know what was going on with Hamid’s hands in the middle there - and though Zolf manages to remain standing in good enough condition to surrender, he’s been affected by some kind of deafening effect, and he can’t hear whatever Sasha’s trying to tell him.Sasha clearly knows the man who’s leading them further into the depths of Other London, and she looks desperately unhappy about it. Zolf wishes she had opened up to him before they ended up in the bowels of what looks very much like gang territory, but it looks like he’s going to find out what she’s been hiding one way or another.He really wishes he knew how to lipread. Part of his brain is already making a note to try and learn some basic hand signals that he can disseminate among the team, and then part of his brain starts thinking about how he’s already calling them his team, and all the while part of his brain is stuck on the insufferable sneer of the man herding them, and the effect it’s having on Sasha.Zolf has seen Sasha make herself small to be stealthy before, he’s seen her make herself small in her awkwardness, but there’s something that wrenches at him to see her making herself small and knowing that they’re in a situation he should have protected her from.He doesn’t want to think that Sasha was right to protest coming down to Other London, because he wants to believe that he did the right thing. He did, at least, do the thing demanded of him by Sergeant Haringay - but that’s cold comfort in the face of the ringing in his ears and the way Sasha has stopped completely in front of a set of doors.Sasha is saying something, protesting something, gesturing at Hamid and Bertie - Zolf catches “shut up, Bertie,” and hears Sasha calling them stupid, and he’s worn out and exhausted and he can’t help himself from flinching when he hears Sasha say “people care about them.”Do people not care about her?“They’ve got friends, it’ll be more trouble for you to keep them here,” Sasha is still babbling on, and Zolf is almost glad that the sneering man cuts her off, because he’s not sure he could have handled more explanations of how much less Sasha believes she is worth than them.Then again, the man has the audacity to call Sasha his catch, like she’s an eel he’s planning on hawking, and Zolf wants nothing more than to give him a taste of his own medicine. The knife wound in his back can’t be comfortable, but he deserves worse. Then the man threatens to burn Sasha’s face, all the while flaunting a familiarity with her and her history that sets Zolf’s teeth on edge, and the burning anger in Zolf’s chest crystallises into an icy knife. He’s about to say something, do something, find some way to stop the words coming out of the man’s mouth, when both the man and Sasha are stopped short by the appearance of someone new.Someone from whom Sasha cringes, who turns her nervous energy to the stillness of prey. She doesn’t shake. Her body is - as ever - a weapon.Zolf - stupid as he is, incapable of shutting his gob - considers their options and suggests that one older man is perhaps not the threat that the gangs and criminals they’re bound to find otherwise might be. Sasha just looks at him, dark-eyed and stone-still, and says something which he’s certain will haunt his dreams.“This is not safe. You guys have no idea.”And she walks away from him. She walks towards a man who - as Zolf will soon find out - is her family, and in some small way, with that step, something is set in motion that cannot be undone. She walks away, and Zolf has already lost her.