Please don't sue.
Ok. Guys, I have a bit of a problem. What's with the reviews that say "Can't wait for the next chapter"? Am I not updating frequently enough? I mean, I'm trying, I really am!! Also, I realize you all want to know who Kiley is, and why she knows all about Knives, etc. I'm getting to that, soon. Promise. That is, as long as the story doesn't change its mind on me again, and throw in some more detail stuff that pushes the explanations off some more.
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They had a bit of a problem when they reached the town.
"We won't be going there," said Knives quietly.
Kiley didn't pause, but did ask over her shoulder, "Why not?"
Knives had stopped. His answer was slightly garbled by the distance but she caught the drift of it. He wasn't going to mix with the nasty humans.
"That's nice," she yelled back. "Have fun out here in the sand!" Then she walked over a rise and was lost to view.
It didn't take Knives long to reach her.
"I know your hearing isn't all that good, but I shouldn't have to repeat myself. We are not entering that town." She could tell that he was getting mad, which was nice. She decided it was one of the few things she liked about him; he was easy to piss off.
Kiley paused long enough to give Knives an exasperated look, then pushed past him. He grabbed her arm and stopped her. "Where do you think you are going?" he asked.
"Knives, it's obvious. See the town? I'm going to the town. There's food there, and a bed, and I like both things very much." She was unable to keep the sarcasm from her voice, but then again, she didn't really try.
"Don't be more of a moron then you have to be. You are not entering that town," he grated out.
"Oh, 'we' meant the two of us. I thought you were just using the royal 'we,'" she said in a voice heavy with exasperation. "What the hell are you talking about? I don't recall giving you permission to run my life," she said, pulling her arm from his grasp.
"You will do as I tell you, or you will die," said Knives, his voice gone soft with menace.
"Stop that," she said, tired of his attempts to control her. "Either try to kill me now, or wait until after you learn what I know." Her voice went cold, and she said, "But. Don't. Ever. Try to dictate what I will and will not do on my own time. It's not your place, and you do not have the right." Something flashed in her eyes, deadly and sure of itself.
Knives wasn't smart enough to drop the issue. "You will do what I tell you, when I tell you. . ." He was cut off by a right hook that he didn't see coming. The blow was powerful enough to send him sprawling to the sand. Kiley didn't pause to check her work but continued on her way into town.
She wondered what she was going to have for dinner. She hoped it was steak, something thick, juicy and meaty, and maybe some nice crisp vegetables. Yeah, that sounded good. . . whoop!
She ended up face first in the sand, pushed forward by the force of the blow. Sputtering, she flipped onto her back and cleared the sand from her nose. As soon as that was done she launched herself in the general direction of Knives, fingers twisted into claws and ready to draw blood.
Knives had stayed close by to enjoy his work and was not prepared for her counterattack. She forced him on the ground, and the two of them rolled around in the sand for a few minutes, trading scratches and punches with wild abandon. Neither tried to talk, and neither tried to get away. Both were focused on causing pain to the annoying irritant that had possessed the audacity to attack.
Hands grasped to throttle, arms were raised to block punches, nails scratched harmlessly against clothing, and knees and feet were aimed in haphazard kicks. The most serious wounds received were bruises, but many were applied to every accessible inch of flesh.
The fight lasted for almost ten minutes, but finally drew to a finish. Both participants backed off at the same moment, sure their point had been made. They stared at each other, panting slightly from exertion. Knives' expression slowly grew more smug, pleased that Kiley had stopped her trek to the town ahead. This vermin before him should know better then to believe that she could defy him.
His pleased mood lasted until she started to laugh. It started out as a snicker, passed into a giggle, then evolved into a full belly laugh. That in turn was chocked off when her ribs protested, but she still looked at him with amusement.
"What's so damn funny?" he asked.
"You are," she replied. At the look on his face she elaborated. "I really don't see what your bloody problem is. You seem to think that my walking into that town is a bad idea. Logically, I don't see what your problem is.
"One, if you're worried about losing track of me, then you're just being foolish. You tracked me through how many towns before the last one? I'm pretty sure you wouldn't lose me in this one. You've been stalking me for weeks; it's not like you don't know when I get up, when I tend to leave a town, what direction I would be traveling in, and so on.
"Two, if you're worried about having to come in with me and mix with the "vermin," you really shouldn't. All you need to be is your natural charming self and no one will want to have anything to do with you. They might start out trying to be nice to you, but just give them a few lines of how superior you are to every other form of life on this planet and I can assure you they will leave you alone.
"Three, if you're worried about paying for the room," and at his snarl she smiled and continued, "if you ask nicely I might be able to get us a double room. And if you say you're sorry for being an asshole, I'll even buy you dinner. Deal?"
Knives stared at her, stunned by her audacity. She persisted in treating him as if he were merely her equal. What possessed her to insist that she had any right or say in her life? Didn't she know that he was so naturally superior that she should be pleased to follow his every order? What was wrong with her, that she believed that she was on a par with him?
Kiley watched as he struggled with the concept of equality. Poor man, she thought. So used to being the biggest badass on the planet that he couldn't accept the notion that he could possible have an equal. Well, she was used to being the biggest badass on a planet as well. She knew that she wasn't making the situation easy for Knives, but then Knives was the sort of person who couldn't do things the easy way. He was too used to getting his own way all the time to accept that other people might like to be afforded the same courtesy.
She was used to getting her own way as well, which was part of the problem. Of course, her own way involved her, and her alone. She didn't try to order people to live their lives according to her notions of superiority. If Knives would just recognize that he wasn't going to be able to control her life would get a bit easier.
But maybe not as fun. She smiled at the thought. Her intrinsic barbarity always showed through at times like these. It had been a very long time since she had been in a brawl like that one, scrabbling and wrestling in the sand. There was something to be said for fighting like that, inflicting pain without permanent harm. No one had dared fight her for years; her reputation preceded her and scared the smart ones away. The stupid ones were to easy finish off and never could be as much fun as that last little fracas. Nothing like fighting someone who could take a little pain, and could give as good as they got. Knives wasn't going to learn equality quickly, so she would probably get into a few more fun little fights.
With that last thought she stood up and walked over to where her pack lay in the sand. As she stooped to pick it up she heard Knives make a strange strangled noise. She looked over at him. His face showed signs of some great inner turmoil. She waited for him to say whatever it was that was causing him so much trouble, sure she was going to relish the words.
"I'm," he started, then paused. His face turned a bright shade of crimson, but Kiley couldn't tell if it was from embarrassment or anger. "I'm sorry," he choked out. "I," and another long pause, "was an. . ."
This next pause stretched into infinity. Knives had nearly worked himself into apoplexy apologizing. The second criterion was beyond him.
"Apology accepted. We'll work on that second part," she assured him, then waited for him to grab his bag. They walked the rest of the way into town in silence, he fuming and she smiling.
Dinner was near. So was a bed.
Simple pleasures are best.
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They reached town only a few minutes before the sun slipped below the horizon. They walked in silence, Kiley absorbed with thoughts of food, and Knives absorbed with thoughts of retribution. She was going to suffer for every moment of humiliation she put him through.
What irked him the most was the feeling that he was losing control of the situation. He was used to taking what he wanted from someone, not asking for it. It gave her entirely too much leeway to ignore his commands. She knew that he wasn't going to kill her, and she seemed immune to threats of pain or physical harm. She didn't run from confrontations, but instead seemed to court them, fascinated by the chaos they sowed. It was as if she enjoyed watching chaos break a pattern, then was fascinated by seeing what new pattern arose.
This joy in chaos, coupled with her annoying competency had him off-balance. His task would be easier if she seemed to care what result her actions caused. If she would just desire something, he could use that to influence her. Everyone is shaped by what they want, what they strive to achieve. Knives was adept at using these desires to manipulate people to his own ends. The problem with the woman was that she didn't seem to want anything at all, or at least nothing he could use.
He glanced over at her. She was obviously thinking about food. How was he supposed to use that to coerce knowledge out of that infuriating mind of hers? She gave no indication of thinking beyond the next few minutes, the next meal, or the next town. To all appearances she wasn't thinking of much at all.
Knives wasn't willing to believe that. She had managed to trap him, to use his desires to manipulate him to unknown ends. He was beginning to understand that she had purposely used such a spectacular demonstration of mental powers to entice his curiosity, to make it impossible for him to rid this planet of her presence before he was able to wring the knowledge from her.
How did this human know his greatest weakness? There were only two reasons for him to keep from disposing of a vermin: because he could use them, and because they intrigued him. Rem had intrigued him; at times he wished he could have figured out what his brother saw in her that made him adore her so. Maybe, if he had been given more time he could have learned. But she made her choice and he was left wondering just what was so wonderful about that pacifistic woman.
Knives shot another glance at the woman walking beside him. He hadn't thought this much about the past, or about his own motives for years. Why was he doing so now? It was incomprehensible, maddening, and worst of all, he was losing control.
His musing were interrupted by a destination. A golden light was beginning to illuminate the street as the glow from the suns dissipated. Loud and off-key music came pouring joyfully from the building. Voices wove around each other, creating a wall of sound that had a physical presence.
Kiley paused before the building and turned towards him. "Knives," she said, almost shouting to be heard over the noise from the inn, "Try not to kill anyone." At his cold look she amended her dictate. "At least try to wait until morning. I really, really want to sleep in a bed tonight." Her sincerity was both obvious and disturbing. No one had ever accepted his propensity for random acts of slaughter so easily, or given him such a flimsy reason to abstain from indulging.
He really didn't want to go in there, but he even less wanted Kiley to know he didn't want to enter. He set his jaw and forced himself to follow her into the common room. The cacophony was just as bad as he had feared it would be. The racket was almost deafening, assaulting his ears.
The sight that greeted his eyes was almost as bad. Humans were piled in the room, packed until the room was almost at its capacity. Kiley strode through the mass of people, pushing some out of her way while slipping around others. Knives didn't bother with moving around people. Instead he began walking forward and the humans found themselves making way for him. He obtained a table in the corner and sat down. His eyes scanned the room, looking for some trouble he could get into but no one would meet his gaze.
"Quit sulking," said Kiley, placing a dinner tray in front of him. "You look petulant."
"I was not sulking," replied Knives frostily as he picked up his fork. "I was merely deciding how I wished to kill everyone here."
"Before or after dinner?" she inquired politely.
"After," came the reply, muffled by a mouthful of food.
"Good. Are you sure you can't wait until after I get a good night's sleep?" she asked.
"We'll see," said Knives. "It depends on how nice you are to me."
"I bought you dinner, does that count?"
Knives considered the matter. "It's a start," he allowed.
"What more do you need?" she pressed.
He put down his fork and allowed his gaze to roam the room aimlessly. Her eyes followed where his led, and Kiley wondered what he was looking for. His eyes returned to her, a decision evident.
Instead of relaying it, Knives picked up his fork and began to eat again.
"Well?" asked Kiley. "What more do you want?"
"Get me some money," he said, waving to a table off to the side. Four men were playing cards, gambling.
"You want me to play poker." She looked at him for affirmation and he nodded. "You're sure about this?" she pressed.
Knives nodded again, beginning to get exasperated.
Kiley's face grew serious, and she nodded. "All right."
She finished her dinner, wiped her hands on the napkin, then slowly walked over to the table where the men were playing.
"Care to deal me in?" she asked of the man with the deck. The cards were dwarfed in his large hands. He looked at her, gaze traveling from waist to breasts before he nodded and waved her to a place at the table next to him.
Kiley cashed one of her bills at the bar and settled down at the table. The men around it eyed her with unguarded interest as she counted the coins and stacked them neatly in front of her. She looked at them as well, but was a bit less obvious about it. Well, since she wasn't ogling them she couldn't quite be as obvious as they were. She treated them all to an empty smile, and the man to her left grinned back. He dealt the cards, slinging them across the table with the ease of practice.
"My name's Roger," he offered as she picked up her cards. "That one's Tim," Tim waved, "Dahrk," Dahrk nodded, "and the skinny one's Tiny." Tiny was neither small nor skinny. He also wasn't very personable; he only glanced up from his cards long enough to let her know she was being dismissed.
"My name's Kiley," she told them with another empty-headed smile.
"Well, Ki," said Tim, "I'm glad you're here. Maybe with you around these scoundrels will stop stealing my money." He gave the men to his left a pointed started. Dahrk had the grace to look embarrassed, but Tiny ignored the comment altogether.
Conversation was limited; the noise around them made it hard to be heard, and small talk wasn't worth the effort. Kiley played conservatively, betting small and winning small, never overplaying her hand, and rarely bluffing.
After a few hands the men accepted her as part of their group, willing to let her play. She wasn't too lucky, she wasn't too greedy, and while they might have preferred lager wagers, they were willing to take what money of hers they could. She also didn't seem to have the mental capacity needed to cheat. Kiley was using her best idiot-female routine to loosen suspicions from their minds, and it was working.
About half an hour later, Tim threw down his cards and picked up his stake.
"I've lost enough money tonight," he said in farewell, leaving the table amicably. His leaving didn't slow the pace of the card game, but it did shift the focus of the game a little. The men who were left began to play a little differently. Kiley spent her time watching the men around her, trying to discern what they did when they had a good hand or a bad one.
Roger was the easiest of the lot to figure out. When he had a good hand his breathing would speed up; with a really good hand he would almost hyperventilate. Tiny was a bit harder to judge. He didn't have any obvious clues, but when his hand was a good one his actions would get a little tight, a little over-controlled. As soon as she saw it the first time, she could tell when his hand was good for the rest of the night.
Dahrk was a bit harder. He sat at his ease for the entire game. His left shoulder was slung over the back of the chair, his legs were stretched out under the table, and his head was tucked on his chest. She watched him closely out of the corner of her eye, and when she finally caught him out she almost laughed. When he had a good hand, his left hand would sneak behind the chair back and fiddle nervously with the side.
After that she didn't lose much money, steadily increasing her winnings with small bets, exclaiming over her good fortune with air-headed glee, and bemoaning the losses with a pout. She made sure to lose big when she lost. That, coupled with her slipping money off the table little by little, made it more difficult for the men to gauge the amount she was really winning.
Throughout the entire game she made sure to keep an eye on Knives. He seemed to be behaving himself, but obviously wasn't having a good time. His gaze rested on the far wall, dismissing the crowded room of people as beneath his notice. He only needed to rudely rebuff the serving lady a couple times before she left him alone for the rest of the night. His attitude kept people away, for which Kiley was grateful. She didn't know what it would take to set him off on a killing rampage and she had learned that this inn had a shower. An actual shower. She really didn't want to have to go sneaking off again tomorrow morning without a chance to get clean.
After over an hour's worth of play she excused herself, pleading tiredness. The guys made a token effort to get her to stay, but a few inane giggles later and they were more then willing to let her go. She gathered up what was on the table and went back over to where Knives was sitting.
"Let's go," she said, putting her hand out to help him to his feet. Knives looked at her hand like it carried the plague, then rose out of the chair without taking it. Kiley dropped her hand to her side and resisted the urge to shrug. She picked up her pack and motioned for Knives to walk ahead of her. The crowd magically parted before him again, and she trailed along in his wake.
Upon reaching the room, Kiley produced a key and unlocked the door. Knives pushed in first and took the bed farthest away from the window. She looked at him and resisted the urge to shrug again. Harder to resist was the urge to tell him to stop acting like a child, but there was an edginess to him that made her not want to rile him up.
Kiley pulled the money she had won out of her pockets and dumped it on Knives' bed.
"Here," she said. "So, are you going to kill anyone tonight?" she asked, a smile in her voice but not on her face.
"No," said Knives waspishly. "These obnoxious vermin are safe from me today." Kiley didn't miss the non-subtle emphasis on the word today, but let it pass without comment.
"Did you enjoy your time down there?" she asked after an uncomfortable silence had fallen.
"You are a moron," said Knives.
Kiley waited for an explanation, but none was forthcoming.
"Come again?" she asked after a minute.
"Even an idiot would realize that I did not wish to be down there."
She looked at him quizzically. "What was so wrong? No one did anything to you. I watched. The only one who was at all rude was you, to that poor waitress."
"She annoyed me," he said.
"Everyone annoys you," she said. "That's no excuse to be rude."
Silence stretched out between them again. Kiley sat down on the bed and took off her shoes, wincing as her sore heels chafed against the sides while she wiggled them off.
"What was so wrong?" she asked again, quietly, not looking al Knives.
She was surprised when he actually answered.
"They all kept staring at me, looking at me," he said venomously.
Surprised, Kiley looked up.
"Looking at you?" she asked, wanting clarification.
"Yes, looking at me. I hate the gazes of you vermin, your eyes weighing me, staring at me, dissecting me," he said angrily.
Kiley couldn't stop the laughter that escaped her throat, but she was able to choke it off after one quick bark.
"Knives," she said to explain herself, aware of the weight of his ire, "I can't believe I need to explain this to you. For those lucky few not acquainted with your personality, you are a very attractive man. People stare at you because they aren't used to seeing someone as handsome as you seem. No one looks at you and sees a plant, so chill."
She looked over at him and couldn't quite figure out the expression on his face. She could not believe that with all his intelligence, he couldn't have figured that one out on his own. She saw him weigh the idea in his mind, and dismiss it. He obviously didn't believe her.
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Kiley woke up early the next morning and silently gathered up her clothes. The darkness of the room was almost absolute, but she didn't risk a light. Her bare feet treaded whisper soft on the floor as she moved with sure grace around the clutter that littered the floor. She reached the door without incident, but as her hand grasped the handle Knives' voice cut through the night.
"Where do you think you're going?" he asked, not bothering to be quiet.
Kiley flicked on the light, then turned sheepishly to face the grumpy figure on the bed.
"Sorry, I was trying to keep from waking you. I'm going to take a shower," she said quietly, showing a little more concern for the thin walls then Knives did.
She grinned as she watched him take in the clothes in her arms, and the fact that she didn't have her pack. She could tell when he made the decision not to accuse her of sneaking out on him. His eyes took in her feet, and when he saw she didn't even have her shoes he deduced correctly that she wasn't planning on going outside. It was sloppy reasoning on his part, but she wasn't going to correct it. There were lots of reasons: one, he was paranoid enough, two, she didn't need to remind him that she was capable of doing things outside of his assumptions so early in the morning, and three, it was useful for her to know that Knives equated bare feet with sticking around. If she ever needed to run, that sort of information might come in handy.
Knives settled back on the bed and flung an arm over his eyes. "Turn off the light," he commanded. She did, then turned and padded down the hall, rolling her eyes. He had enough arrogance for ten kings, their prime ministers, and all the members of their cabinets together.
The bathing room was deserted at this hour. The heat for the water had been turned off some time ago, but that didn't bother her. She drew enough water for a proper bath, concentrated, then stepped into a steaming pool of water. The heat relaxed muscles she hadn't realized were tight, and she released her cares while she enjoyed the luxury of the moment. For the first time since she arrived in Knives' ship she stopped worrying. She no longer had the homicidal maniac following after her. Instead, she was sharing a room with him, a preferable arrangement if it meant she didn't have to worry every single second that he was going to burst in the door and put a bullet through her heart.
She only worried about that once every five minutes or so, now. Sighing, she settled deeper in the water and pondered her dilemma. Knives was capable of destroying the world, given the right set of circumstances. She was running about the world, dragging him after her, unsure what exactly it would take to set him off. She knew she probably shouldn't tease him, annoy him, and certainly shouldn't anger him, but she couldn't stop herself. There was something about him that she just couldn't resist needling.
Maybe it was because he was so serious all the time. Maybe it was because he was so focused on his mission in life that he made it too easy for her to get a rise out of him. Maybe it was because she needed to feel that she had some control over the situation. Maybe it was because it was fun. Or maybe it was because she was an ornery bitch who loved to cause trouble for well meaning folks.
She heard the echo of her stepfather's voice in the last thought and sighed. She settled even deeper into the water, until only her eyes and nose were in the air. Or maybe it was because if anyone needed to learn that they weren't in control of life, it was Knives.
Whatever the reason, she knew she was playing with fire when she teased him. She knew that when you play with fire, you're liable to get burned, but she was willing to risk that. What bothered her was that she didn't know if she could keep the burn from spreading. She was willing to accept the risk to herself; she didn't want to put others at risk of catching the fallout from her actions.
Knives was a bright boy, and he was beginning to realize that she could handle the mental crap he threw at her. He was picking up on the fact that pain didn't sway her from a course of action. He was having trouble with the notion that he couldn't intimidate her into compliance, but gradually he was recognizing the fact. Worse of all, he knew that she was going to try to save any hostages he might take.
She leaned over and grabbed a bottle of shampoo and began to lather her hair. She didn't know how she was supposed to fix that last little problem. While keeping away from people would probably work, people had water, and food, and provided things like roofs, ammo, and clothing. She also didn't know how long her mind would last if the only person around was Knives. She'd probably go insane as well.
Ducking her head under water she shook it rapidly to dislodge dirt and soap, then used her fingers to complete the rinse. She tried to shake away her thoughts, but they were not as easily shaken.
What bothered her was she knew she was smart. She should have been able to solve this problem already. It hadn't taken her long to figure out her trap for Knives; she was slightly surprised it had taken him as long as it did to catch up with her. But now that he was here, she didn't know what to do with him.
She didn't want to teach him mind tricks, and then have him turn around and indiscriminately kill people with them. In taking the role of his teacher, she had assumed responsibility for what he did with what he learned. She sat up and climbed out of the bath, then walked over to the shower. She didn't bother to heat this water, but kept it cold to help clear the cobwebs from her mind.
Somehow she was either going to have to wean him from his crusade, or she was going to have to kill him. The first option wasn't going to be easy, and it was likely the second wouldn't be as well. What complicated matter was the feeling she got, that underneath all the crap Knives showed the world, there was a decent person, trapped in a cage of his own devising.
She knew the best villains had a pretense of humanity, a veneer of good that served to throw their evil into greater relief. The problem was one never could be certain just how deep that veneer went. Was there enough good in Knives for him to be redeemable, or was she just fooling herself? And if she was fooling herself, was it because she liked Knives, or just didn't want to have to kill again?
She turned off the shower and got dressed, her questions floating in her mind without answers.
Kiley returned to the room, but only to drop off her dirty clothes. She carefully opened the door and pushed the pile in, then closed the door. Satisfied that she had made as little noise as was humanly possible, she turned and went down the stairs and into the empty common room.
Here she stretched for a few minutes, carefully tensing and releasing every muscle. She stood on the tips of her toes and pulled her arms as high above her head as she could reach. This was followed by rolling the neck and shoulders, rotating her waist and flexing her knees. She stretched out her legs and arms, concentrating on the major muscle groups. Once her entire body was feeling loose she started what had once been her normal morning routine, but had been mostly ignored after she found herself in Knives' ship.
She moved through a routine that resembled martial arts in places, street fighting in others, ballet, tai chi, calisthenics, gymnastics, and self-inflicted torture. She moved silently, her breath and her feet making the only noise in the room. Occasionally she grunted as an underused muscle protested the use she was putting it to.
Mentally she returned to the place she loved to be, a world without thought, only action and reaction, movement and motion. This was her favorite form of meditation, of reaching into the world and separating one's self from its trappings and worries. In movement she found the world denied her, that the people in it stole from her. This was her form of worship to an uncaring god, her way of denying that her life had been taken from her hands.
Gradually she became aware of aches and pains, sore muscles protesting that she was overusing them. She slowed the rhythm of her dance, gradually winding down until she stopped, standing near the center of the empty room, tired in her body but rested in her soul.
She had closed her eyes somewhere in the middle of her practice, and opened them now. The empty room greeted her eyes, the tables that had been shoved to the walls and the stacks of chairs. Light was beginning to seep through cracks in the shutters, coloring the room in shades of gray and brown. While she stood there waiting for her breathing and heart rate to slow she pondered the room. There wasn't much there to think on, which suited her. Only the tables, and chairs, and the dust, walls, and doors. The pattern of light and shadow painted by the dawn on the floor entranced her, its everyday beauty affirmed in her mind. There was peace in the stillness of the moment, and it stretched on as she stood there, strangely reluctant to move, to break the magic that quiet released upon the world.
A quiet noise came from the direction of the kitchen, followed by the clatter of pans. The silence shattered, she turned and returned to the room.
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Knives had heard her return to the room after her bath. He had dozed fitfully while she was bathing, uneasy with her absence. When she didn't enter but had stealthily left again, he was compelled to follow. She didn't notice as he slipped into the hall, or when he stood and watched her while she exercised.
He had almost returned to bed after watching her stretch for a minute, but the novelty of seeing her without her knowledge kept him around. There was a chance, however slim, that she might let something slip that he could use against her. So he stayed, hidden in the shadows, silently observing. He had slouched against the wall, using it to prop him up as his tired body protested being out of bed.
After she began her dance he no longer slouched, no longer acknowledged his tiredness. There was a wild beauty to her actions as she tumbled and fell with controlled grace across the floor. He saw power in her movements, lethality in her actions that he hadn't glimpsed before. What she had hinted at, the capabilities she had thrown in his face were shown here in her dance of death.
He had never seen anyone move the way she did. When he had recruited the Gung-Ho Guns he thought he had seen the limits of human lethality. His collection had been wondrous and varied, full of people who could kill with a thought, twist the mind and reality. When he had recruited them he had assumed that they were the epitome of killers, yet seeing her now, he had no doubts that she could have defeated them all.
This surprised him. He had believed that only a plant would have had any chance against them, with the superior intelligence, speed, and precision that was their birthright. That was why he had sent them after Vash: to hurt his brother, but also to get them out of the way, to lessen the defense of the vermin. Watching her move, he wondered who she was all over again. She wasn't as fast as he was, or as smart, and there was no way she could ever match his accuracy, but there was something to her that almost worried him.
There was a fluidity to her motions that only added to their grace. It was as if she had found the limit of her capability and transcended it, or transformed it from a limit to a boundary, marking off the territory in which she embraced perfection. He was entranced by it, surprised to see that a human would attempt perfection in the killing dance. Every human he had known, with perhaps the exception of Legato, had tainted killing with emotion. Hate, fear, greed, desire, all these reasons to kill detracted from the beauty of death. Before him, death danced a cold, emotionless step.
He was entranced by the beauty that this human had discovered, and had inadvertently shown him. He suddenly ached to possess it, to make it his own. That a human could posses anything he could desire surprised him, but he was almost getting used to being surprised by this woman. She was like no one he had ever known before, no one. In his many years of life, he had thought he had encountered all the types of humans that populated this planet, and here before him was evidence that he was mistaken.
Perhaps it was time to restart his collection of Gung-Ho Guns? Almost as soon as the thought entered his mind, he tried to dismiss it. He still had no means of coercion to use on her, no way to bend her to his will, and he knew that she would not use this beautiful dance without sufficient prodding. But if he could find where she came from, maybe there would be more humans like her, humans he could bend to his will. Truly, she must be the most irritating and independent human alive, and since that was an undeniable fact, anyone else like her he found must be easier to manipulate.
There were too many ifs for Knives to begin to get excited, but he did begin to plan. As her dance slowed and ended, he backed up the steps and returned to the room and his bed, pondering the ways he might learn what he wished to know.
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Kiley noticed a change in Knives when she returned to the room. She wasn't sure if she was imagining it, so she said nothing, but there was something about the way he looked at her that had changed. The difference was nebulous and hard to define, but being the literal-minded person she was, she tried to put it into words. Instead of looking at her as a piece of scum problem he needed to figure out, he was looking at her like she was an intriguing vermin that he needed to figure out. It wasn't enough of a difference for her to be sure, but she had her suspicions that she had been watched while she exercised.
Suppressing a sigh, she started to pack up her clothes. She kicked the pile by the door over to her bed and grabbed the shirt off the top of the pile. She shook it, preparing to fold it and put it in her bag when she saw it was stained. Frowning, she put her clothes through a quick triage, forming two small piles: good enough to wear, and too dirty. She had been hoping to form a pile of clean clothes as well, but it appeared that she had run out of those. The too-dirty pile was the larger by far, and some of the good enough pile were pushing the edge of cleanliness. She swept the two piles together with her arms and picked them up, stooping to grab a sock that had stayed on the floor. Straightening, she turned to see Knives blocking the door.
He leaned against it with nonchalant ease, blocking her path and staring at her, his clear blue eyes watching her impassively. She stared back, not making an issue of his obnoxious stance, but not willing to put her clothes down and play nice, either.
"What are you doing now?" he asked, his tone making it more then clear that whatever she thought she was going to do, it wasn't doing the right course of action.
"My clothes are dirty. There's a laundry service; I thought I'd use it before we leave." Her voice was patient, the calm, unhurried tone you use with toddlers and crazy people.
"We won't be spending that much time in this town," he said with finality.
"Knives, it will take maybe four hours for my clothes to get clean. In the whole scheme of the universe, that isn't much time. Balance that with smelling me for the next however many days until you decide we can reach a town again," she said patiently, wondering if she was going to have to explain everything to him.
Knives' lip curled. "I already have to smell you, human," he said.
"Well, I don't," she said. "And I rather like the sensation. Besides, there's some shopping that I need to do before we leave. If I drop my clothes off now, they'll be almost done by the time I get back."
He straightened a little, but didn't unblock the door. "Shopping?"
"Food," she explained. "For the most part, food. Much as the ration bars can keep body and soul together, they aren't much for taste. If you want a few days to learn without the distractions of last night, you're going to have to let me get food."
The light of understanding dawned on Knives' face. A small smile touched his lips as he anticipated having her alone in the desert, at his mercy.
"We will leave before noon. If your clothes are not ready by then, they stay," he proclaimed.
She rolled her eyes but didn't disagree. There was no point in arguing now. If he tried dragging her out of town without her stuff, then she'd fuss. She nodded, the perfect picture of obedience, or as close as she could manage, and Knives moved out of her way.
She dropped her clothes off and paid the laundress extra to do them first, then left the inn to find a market. She wandered a few blocks, following her nose. A restaurant was cooking breakfast, and she went in and ate a few plates of eggs and bacon, loading up on protein while she could.
She asked the waitress where she could find a farmers market, and was given directions that led her to the other side of town. Here she spent an hour looking over the assortment of fruits, vegetables, and crafts that people were trying to sell. She picked out a good deal from the second category, a few from the first, and none from the third. She did buy a repair kit for canvas consisting of needles, heavy-duty thread, and a few swatches of fabric. She wasn't planning on ripping a hole in her pack anytime soon, but it doesn't hurt to be prepared.
She turned from this last purchase to see Knives staring at her. He had obviously been shopping for food as well; his arms were full of leafy green veggies. She tried ignoring him, but her efforts were in vain. He strode over to her and took the repair kit from her hands. He examined it minutely, then replaced it in her grasp, turned, and walked away again. She started after him, wondering what she had missed.
"He's a cute one," said the sales lady.
"Only on the outside," she replied distractedly, moving away.
She walked slowly back towards the inn, trying to figure out what she was missing. Knives never did anything without a reason. After a few minutes of thought she tentatively concluded that he was trying to establish dominance, which wasn't much of an answer. Of course he was trying to establish dominance; that was his nature. He had to be the biggest, the best, the ultimate being. She hadn't given him many chances to prove that yesterday, which was a thought that brought a smile to her lips.
She liked being an enigma. She had lived the majority of her life with people who presumed to know everything about her. Finding someone who didn't was nice; having it be someone like Knives was just icing on the cake. There was something infinitely enjoyable about confounding a know-it-all.
She saw a store that she needed to visit. She ducked in quickly and exited a few minutes later with a cleaning kit and oil for her gun. Now was probably the best time to check the weapon and clean out any powder that might harm the action. She still had an hour before the arbitrary deadline that Knives had set, and it would only take her a few minutes.
She was packed and ready to go fifteen minutes before noon. Everything had been squeezed into her pack, her clothes were washed and ready, and she had a shiny clean gun. The scent of gun oil clung to her fingers, a familiar smell in an unfamiliar place. She caught herself lifting her fingertips to her nose and losing herself in the aroma, losing herself in memory. When Knives cleared his throat she jumped, startled. Quickly regaining her composure, she followed him out of the room and out of the inn.
As she and Knives left for the desert, she wondered if she was ready for what was coming next.