"Rose… do you really have to kill people?"
This had to be the fifth time Sorey had asked something like that since they joined; she'd insisted time and time again that her job was to take life, but apparently, that wasn't enough for him. Dinner be damned, it was about time she set the record straight about being an assassin. "Sorey, if I gave them a choice, nobody would choose death," she pointed out.
"But if you could just talk it out with them…" began Sorey, exchanging a helpless glance with Lailah.
Rose rolled her eyes, then fixed them on the dessert before her, in search of a metaphor to make him understand. "Look, if I offered anyone an alternative, they'd take it no matter what it was," she decided. "It'd be like offering someone… say, cake or death. Like, that's a pretty easy question. Anyone can answer that." She leaned suddenly across the table to point at Sorey. "Cake or death?"
He blinked at her finger, then cautiously moved Rose's hand away from his face. "Uh, cake, please," he managed, eyeing her warily—clearly unsure where she was going with this.
"Very well," returned Rose, jerking her head at Dezel next to her, and crossed her arms as she leaned against the wall. "Give him cake."
"Why me?" muttered Dezel, but complied all the same, reaching forward to cut a generous portion of cake from the platter.
"Oh… thanks?" responded Sorey, taking a cautious bite. "It's very nice," he added, smiling uncertainly as if hoping that would be the end of the conversation. Little did he know Rose was just getting started.
"You!" she exclaimed, swiveling her finger over to Lailah, but she shook her head quickly, patting her stomach in the universal signal of fullness—so Mikleo was the next victim. "Cake or death?"
"Uh, cake for me too, please?" responded Mikleo, sounding no more certain than Sorey. As he shied away from her hand, he accidentally jostled Edna: she shoved him into Sorey, and he yelped, another bite's worth of cake dropping from his fork to his plate.
"Very well," returned Rose, nodding to Dezel again. "Give him cake too. We're gonna run out of cake at this rate," she added, looking the wind seraph up and down as he obediently shoveled a second piece of cake onto a plate and thrust it at Mikleo. "You!" she barked, as soon as Dezel sat down again, and he jumped. "Cake or death?"
"Death, please," he replied shortly, and Rose raised her eyebrows as he tensed in realization of his mistake. "No, cake!" he amended hastily, and Lailah pressed her fingers to her mouth to hide a smile. "Cake! Cake! Sorry."
"You said death first!" exclaimed Rose, nudging him playfully; Sorey and Mikleo stared between them, nonplussed, but said nothing. "Ah-ah! Death first!"
"No, I meant cake!" shot back Dezel, pulling his hat down farther over his eyes and flushing noticeably in the inn's lamplight. Rose was never going to let him live this down, and they both knew it.
Rose couldn't suppress her laughter any longer. "Oh, all right," she told him, pulling the last piece of cake towards them. He may have cut the slices too big for them all to have a share, but she didn't plan on stopping anytime soon. "You're lucky I'm your friend. Sort of, I guess," she added, turning to Edna. "Cake or death?"
"Cake, please," replied the earth seraph, narrowing her eyes at the empty dessert tray.
"Well, we're outta cake," grinned Rose, diving forward to steal a bite of Dezel's cake before he could bring it the rest of the way to his mouth: Lailah giggled. "We only had three bits, and we didn't expect such a rush. So what do you want?"
"What, so my choice is or death?" asked Edna, a quirk of the eyebrow her only change in expression. "I'll take Meebo's piece, then, and he and Sorey can share."
"Hey!" protested Mikleo, but did not try to stop her from snatching his plate; instead, he opted to lean back against the wall and pout until Sorey offered him a bite. Lailah smiled somewhat nervously at them all, but did not interfere.
"See, Sorey, nobody chooses death," finished Rose, waving her hand, by way of completing her metaphor. "Even if it had been something a little less savory than cake, this is why talking doesn't work. Some people need to die, Sorey." She laughed. "Maybe that should be part of our motto. Thank you for coming to the Scattered Bones—cake or death?"
"I asked for the Shepherd's pie," snickered a familiar voice from behind them, and Rose turned slowly around to find… Lunarre. What was he doing here? No, never mind, it didn't matter. The rest of the lobby was deserted, thank goodness; the eternal Pendrago rain meant there weren't enough other guests to get in their way if things went south.
"Ah, yes… the Shepherd's pie," responded Rose distractedly, getting to her feet along with the others, and reached for her knives as Lunarre's hands sparked and ignited.
A glint in her peripheral vision distracted her, and she glanced over at her drink, an idea forming. "Would you like a little wine?" asked Rose, snatching up her glass and hurling it at him with all her strength.
By the time he dodged out of the way with his inhuman reflexes, she was already charging forward, her friends behind her. Here was her proof, once and for all, that some people had to die: "Thank you very much, you foxy shithead."