The girls spent most of their day at the theatre, and Jack in wandering the streets. There were always simple evils to be fought, even in the depths of winter, and he needed to get back into form now that he had an arsenal again. Of course, some time at a firing range wouldn't go amiss either, and that evening he sparred against Aki once more, once they returned from their own daily rounds.
Ashi smiled as they entered. "No new deliveries to the warehouse," she told the samurai after they and he shared greetings, tea and snacks. "How was your day?"
He smiled. "It went well. I dissuaded a would-be gangster by showing him what the gangster life actually involved, convinced a foolish young man to show his girlfriend proper respect, and his foolish girlfriend to consider what messages she meant to send, and asked some very sharp questions of a restaurant manager who did not seem to understand cleanliness." That last prompted looks of complete bafflement, and Jack's asking them, "What confuses you? You do know what a manager is, and a restaurant?"
They nodded, and Ami spoke. "But how could he not understand cleanliness? The cult that raised us is led by a madwoman, worships the Deliverer of Darkness as a benevolent creator, is suicidally devout, and still prizes cleanliness. Even we had to help to keep the temple clean, and the others bathed every day without fail. Multiple times if they went outside."
Jack frowned in puzzlement. "Do you not bathe?"
Aji shook her head. "We only need to wash our faces and hair; our darksuits clean themselves. We're not sure how."
Jack nodded slowly. Strange, strange girls. Perhaps one day, they would learn the joy of hot baths. "There are people in this world who do not value cleanliness, or at least do not value it so highly as they should."
This time, the girls looked both baffled and disgusted. "And they make food?" to which Jack nodded. "Let's not think about that," Ashi said. "Suddenly, I'm very glad we get most of our food from street vendors, where we can see the cooking surfaces." The others nodded sharply in unison. "Jack, will you join our sparring session?"
He smiled. "Of course." By the end, he was of two minds about the girls' skills: on the one side, he wanted to teach them about teamwork, but on the other, he wondered if they should be left to discover it on their own. There did seem to hints of progress toward the concept, and thus far they'd accomplished great things even without proper assisting of each other. He would need to consider the question for a time. The session did go well, all of the girls pushing themselves to match Jack's skills. In truth, the margin was smaller than he liked to admit; they might have learned little more than fighting, but they'd learned that even better than he'd realized. By the time they were done, they were tired but not exhausted, and in need of cleaning up. Jack went first, then the girls, and at last, the most important question: who slept where. Jack and Ashi discussed the matter, he being careful to spare their probably delicate feelings.
In the end, it was Ashi who came up with the solution: Jack would take his futons and sleep on the floor, and the sisters would take the alcove. "It's good for all of us," she said. "You're being a considerate host by letting us take the alcove, we're considerate guests in leaving the bedding to you, the alcove's wooden floor is perfectly comfortable to us, and we like sleeping in a pile. So we all get good sleeping conditions, and you don't have to worry about… well."
Jack understood what she meant, and nodded in agreement. "Very well. Is there anything else to be done first?"
"One thing," Adi said, and she set their little idol on the edge of the table. "It just feels wrong not to do something before sleeping." The girls arranged themselves in their accustomed three-and-four, and Jack watched as they settled into a meditative state with surprising speed, and once settled, began to, not sing exactly, but to produce a single note, breathing staggered so the tone was continuous. After a few minutes, they rose, and went into the alcove, heads facing out. Jack closed the curtains, turned off the lights, and settled himself in for a peaceful night's sleep.
The next morning, the girls spent a brief period in meditation upon their idol before Adi vanished it. Jack wished them well in their performances, and they wished him well in the fishing, then they all departed, Jack carefully checking that the apartment was properly shut up.
On the way to the theatre, the girls made more of a point than usual of looking for things that seemed off or wrong, as least so far as they could tell. The city was just so weird! The temple had been simple. If Rika, their mother's enforcer, had held them gently, that would have been strange. Almost any act of affection would have been strange, for that matter. But here, everybody was so complicated! At least with the off-worlders they weren't expected to genuinely understand anything. And speaking of off-worlders, after breakfast in the green room, they sought out the two new performers, and Ami knelt before them. "The manager told us about your species, a little. My sisters and I would like to show you our appreciation for the effort you're putting into this." And the two stick-thin waif-looking performers found themselves at the centre of sevenfold hug. They struggled briefly, then returned the gesture.
"Thank you," the girl/woman said in her soft, gentle off-stage voice once the sisters sat back. "It is a custom among our people to give new family names only to those who do something truly novel. My husband and I will be the Coldlife clan founders," and she smiled bright and wistful. "Our children will be so proud!"
"You have children?" Aji asked.
The man shook his head. "We agreed to wait on that until after we earned a new name. But we plan to have quite a few," he said, and hugged his wife's shoulder.
She leaned her head on his shoulder. "Six or seven litters at least," she confirmed, prompting a baffled look from the sisters. "What?"
"Ah… what's a litter?" Aji asked.
The girl/woman looked puzzled for a moment. "Oh! If a species normally has more than two live offspring at one time, that's a litter." The Daughters' expression cleared, and Aji thanked her.
The day proceeded quietly, the insurance agent not making a third appearance (fortunately for him), and the Daughters putting on their act and chatting a bit with the other performers, then it was time once more for a check on the warehouse, time on the range and in the walled-off park, and searching for evils to abate.
As they passed a narrow space between buildings, a thin faint sob caught their notice, and they hurried toward its source, finding a girl not even so old as themselves, in tattered, worn-out clothes, holding what they recalled Jack telling them was a baby. "Can we help?" Aki asked.
The girl looked up, and shrank from the masked shadows. "No… no, please… I'm just.." she stammered out before Aki spoke again.
"We'll help you if you'll say how," she said as softly as she could, and held out a hand to the girl, who reluctantly reached out.
The strange shadow-woman's hand seemed to have no temperature at all, but the ease with which she pulled her upright spoke of immense strength. Looking at the others, she pulled into herself as best she could, holding her babe as close as possible. "I'm… cold," she finally admitted. "And hungry, and nobody will even shelter my babe," at which she started to weep. "Are you… the last friend?"
The masked shadows and the woman who spoke for them looked to each other, then the speaker answered. "We are your friends, if you will have us. But we are not your last friends."
She was even more confused now, but anything had to better than watching her babe die before she herself succumbed, and so she went with the group, frightening as they were, as they led her through the streets to an ordinary-looking door in a narrow street. One of the shadow-women knocked at the door, and a tall woman in gold-trimmed white robes let them in. The living shadows stayed back and let the robed woman lead her into the warmth of the little library.
"Please, sit down," said the robed woman, gesturing to a curious chair that seemed to have its own alcove attached to it. She did as asked, and found herself slowly relaxing, though the masked shadow-women still set her on edge. Then the priestess-attendant asked her name, then turned to the shadows. "Thank you," she said, then to her, "Analie, meet the Daughters of Darkness. Daughters of Darkness, meet Analie," a smiled on her face and in her voice. "How long since you last ate?" she asked the girl.
"Two… yes, two days, your Reverence," she answers after a few moments' thought. "I can nurse my babe, but…"
"Watch her, girls?" the priestess asked politely, then headed out when Aki agreed. She returned shortly with a plate that held a large bowl and two sandwiches, and in her other hand she held a glass of milk. "Here," she said, and set the plate and glass on small shelves inside the chair's integral alcove. "Chicken sandwich, chicken soup, and cold milk."
After several long drinks from the soup bowl/cup and a few bites of sandwich, she felt much better, and hoping it wasn't too late, put her babe against her breast. The little one began to nurse feebly, and she finally let out of sigh of released tension. "Thank you, all of you. For myself, and for my child. You've saved our lives."
"It was our pleasure," said the unmasked Daughter of Darkness. They were still a bit unsettling to look at, but knowing that they were amazing women rather than harbingers of death helped immensely. And so, Analie resumed her meal, and her babe continued to nurse.
After confirming the priestess would let her stay for a time, the Daughters quietly departed, returning to their little room and after their nightly mediation, arranged themselves into a pile for sleep. "I think we did well today," Ami said. "Seeing Analie relax, and knowing that she and her baby are safe, at least for a while, made me feel so warm inside." She hugged Avi and Aki a little, and they hugged her back, and where she lay against Avi, Aji got hugged as well, and it propagated through the pile, a wave of emotional and spiritual warmth. The girls slept very soundly.
