TACO Run
Chapter 32
Therion was wandering down another street when he heard a commotion that didn't sound like screams or a purse-snatching. Darting that direction, he looked around a corner to see several children crowding around a guy H'aanit's age, watching with 'ooh!'s and 'aah!'s as the guy made a top dance along the edge of a folding fan.
Therion had to admit, he was kind of impressed. Balancing a top on something that thin wasn't easy, and the guy was singing, too, a simple, childish tune that sounded like the kind of thing mothers used for silly children's stories. Then he flicked the fan, tossing the top upwards, and made both vanish on the way down, sweeping into a dramatic bow for his audience, who broke into squeals and applause.
The kids' minders—a trio of women who all wore matching aprons over their clothes—were clapping too, and dropped coins and bills into a tall hat laying on the pavement nearby. One of them bowed to the street performer, saying something that was probably a thanks for entertaining the kids like that. He laughed and produced a flower from nowhere, making her blush when he held it out, and making the kids 'ooh' and 'aah' again. Some of them started tugging at the ends of his jacket, probably demanding flowers themselves, or another demonstration of street magic.
The street performer just laughed again, making that weird 'pat-pat' gesture with his hands that mothers used to calm their kids down, and then produced a shower of small pink blossoms that had the kids squealing and running around in circles to catch them.
Heh.
Therion watched for a while longer, leaning against a nearby wall as the street performer went through a whole routine of different tricks. Making flowers or coins appear or disappear, seemingly causing a pen to float, making a cup seem to go through a solid table while leaving the coin it had covered behind… Therion had to admit that he was good. Not all of the tricks were sleight-of-hand, of course—at one point he had a member of his little audience pick a card from a row of them, shuffled them together, and then produced the card they'd picked without looking. At another point, he lit a piece of paper on fire, dropped it into a glass bottle, and set a hard-boiled egg on top of the bottle's mouth. Smoke quickly filled the bottle, and then the egg was suddenly sucked inside, causing the kids to gasp and shriek with amazement.
Therion didn't actually know how that one worked, and curiosity almost got the better of him. He found himself drifting close enough to almost be part of the actual audience, though when the street magician smiled his way and waved a hand for him to participate, he shook his head.
He got a pleasant smile anyway, and a shrug of slender shoulders. The street magician bent to retrieve his hat—it had plenty of money in it now—waved a hand over its opening, and then flicked it into the air so that it twirled about and should have scattered money everywhere. Instead, more flower petals showered down, and the hat was caught lightly by the brim before the magician settled it on his two-toned head.
That was really the only thing weird about the guy, after all—his hair was half-black and half-white. Therion had almost gotten used to everyone in this place being freakish in some way, and after running into that murder-porpoise… person, well…
Two-toned hair wasn't worth remarking on.
As the nannies gathered the children up in preparation to leave, the street magician produced a swath of slim booklets from his sleeves, holding them out to the various adult members of his audience. From here, Therion couldn't see much, other than that the cover was richly colored and had what looked like a picture of the magician on it. Three or four of the audience members bought one—including one of the nannies—but when the magician held one out in Therion's direction with a winsome smile, he shook his head and made sure his hands were tucked up under his mantle.
He couldn't read the damn booklet, so there was no way he was spending actual coin on it.
The magician's smile didn't fade as his audience dispersed, but Therion caught a flicker of… disappointment? Regret? Resignation? Something along those lines.
Therion drifted off too, along with the rest of the crowd, but he took the opportunity while he was turning the corner to glance back one more time. The street magician had sat down on the edge of a brickwork planter, and was sipping at a tall glass bottle of something dark.
Huh. Wine nice enough to be in bottles instead of skins should be beyond the means of a petty street-magician.
Therion had made it to a pretty big market street by lunchtime, which was a nice boon. He'd also managed to slowly build up his stock of coins and paper bills a bit more.
The bangle he'd nicked in the tavern the other day wasn't going to be much good without somewhere for him to fence it, unfortunately, but old habits died hard. He figured when he got back to Orsterra, he'd be able to sell it off easily enough. In the meantime, he still needed to eat.
A line of people near a food-seller caught his attention, and Therion made his way over to see what the whole hubbub was about. He couldn't quite tell what they were selling, but when the scent of hot oil and spices hit his nose he stopped worrying about the details. His mouth was watering badly enough that he swallowed twice in half a minute, and he had to wonder why everyone was lining up all neat and patient instead of crowding the front of the stand. They'd been doing that at the skewer-seller's before, too, and Therion didn't get it.
He lined up too, though, if only to keep the crowd from turning into a mob if he dared cut in front of anyone.
By the time he got to the counter, he'd figured out how much whatever it was cost, and plunked the requisite cash on the counter, accepting a cup from the shop owner and getting out of the way before the people behind him trampled him. Then he made his way into a more secure little nook, and took a good look at his prize.
Chunks of some kind of meat had been rolled in flour and fried in spiced oil, and then packed into a cup lined with leafy greens and a thin layer of flatbread. A cautious bite nearly burned his tongue, and he panted around the first steaming mouthful.
Fuck!
Hot as it was, though, he couldn't spit it out, because he'd never tasted anything that delicious before in his life. Juicy chicken meat—plump young chicken, again, but somehow even better than the skewered ones—and crispy fried-flour coating, savory spices he couldn't name and just the faintest hint of apple-sweetness. The sweet flatbread and leafy greens soothed the worst of the burn to something bearable, but he scalded his tongue more than once as he worked his way through the whole cup.
By the time he'd licked the last lingering flavor from his lips, Therion… wasn't sure how he felt. It wasn't just 'satisfied', though he wasn't hungry anymore. And it wasn't really even 'content', though he was tempted to go back to his hideout and curl up for a nap. It was… he wanted to see the look on Alfyn's face when he tried to eat that stuff without burning himself. Wanted to see Primrose eat it while trying to maintain something resembling dignity. Wanted to see Tressa drooling, and H'aanit and Cyrus working together to hunt down the recipe from the food-stand's owner. Wanted to hear Ophilia gasp in delight over something that delicious, and Olberic make satisfied noises, and listen to all of them exclaiming over how wonderful it was and how amazing he was for showing them something like that.
He… wanted to share it with his friends. He was excited about it, and he didn't do excited, or sharing. He didn't, and something inside twisted in angry disappointment that the one time, the one time he found something he actually wanted to share with his friends, it was when he had no way of doing that, or even knowing if he'd ever get the chance to tell them about it.
The flimsy cup crumpled in his hand, and Therion threw it to the ground in disgust, stomping off down the street in what he knew was a snit. Because it wasn't fair, and when had he become the kind of person who gave a damn about fair? Life wasn't fair, it never had been, and he knew that, so why…?
Let yourself get soft, and it hurts all the more when you fall. Callouses built up over time, and wore away over time, and it looked like the callouses on his heart had worn away faster than he'd realized. And he didn't know how to deal with the softness they'd left behind.
…better not to deal with it at all, then. Not out here in the open, where distraction would leave him vulnerable. He was slapping himself for seven kinds of an idiot already, leaving himself open and unwary on the street that way. Sure, he'd have reacted if anyone had tried to actually touch him, but that didn't mean being careless was safe. For himself or others.
He was almost to the end of the market street when a bellow and the sound of thundering feet fast-approaching snapped his head around. A behemoth of a man was charging full-force in his direction, heavy brows drawn down over dark eyes and breath steaming from his nose like a snorting bull.
Therion bolted.
He didn't know why the guy was chasing him, and he didn't care. The guy was as big as Olberic and just as muscular, and if he got a hand on Therion that was it.
Fuck, he was fast for a big guy. Therion was quick, he knew it, but the big guy wasn't just keeping up, he was gaining ground, and Olberic would have had to drop from a run to a jog by now but the big bastard just kept on coming.
Therion darted into an alley, hoping to lose the guy, but he could hear heavy footsteps skid to a stop and then take off again at near top-speed.
What the hells? Didn't the guy tire?
After a chase long enough to leave Therion panting, he finally found himself literally treed like a cat, clinging to branches high up enough that someone that size couldn't follow him, because they'd break under his godsdamned weight.
Thankfully the guy seemed to have enough sense not to try, because he just clung to the tree's trunk and bellowed up at Therion like a hound after a marmot. How long would he stay there? How long before he gave up and left, so Therion could come down? How long before he got fed up with waiting and tried to shake the tree until Therion fell out? He might be able to actually do it, big as he was, and Therion was up high enough, avoiding him, that the fall might actually hurt.
More shouts from off to the side had both of them looking that way, to see what was obviously a pair of local soldiers or guardsmen running over with truncheons in hand, scowls on their faces.
Therion took the opportunity while they berated the big guy—probably for causing a scene and chasing him across town—to slip down the opposite side of the tree and make himself scarce. The big guy wasn't fighting the watch, but he seemed caught between sheepish and defensive, and he made for a great distraction.
Once he was sure that he was out of their sight and hearing, Therion blew out a sigh of relief, and started looking for a quiet place to take a short break. He'd go back to looking for trouble—and via that, the other guys—soon enough.
An hour or so later, Therion was back to prowling the streets, ears open for the sounds of trouble. Specifically, the sounds of trouble that might mean his friends were involved.
Explosions, cackling, horrible punny quips. Stalwart challenge. The sky going dark with thunderclouds or raw elemental power.
He didn't hear those, but he was just passing what looked like a construction site of some kind—with enormous painted-iron machines laboring to move immense steel beams, and the foreman bellowing across the site—when a quiet hiss from behind and to his left made him skitter two steps sideways and glance that direction.
There was a snake. Not the biggest snake he'd ever seen, but still a snake. It was a golden-yellow color that was almost metallic and would have been pretty, if it weren't a living, breathing, probably venomous serpent only three strides away.
The snake raised its head to look at him for a moment, and then turned and slithered away.
Therion watched it, wary of turning his back on a known threat, and saw it slither up behind some woman whose light and flattering, but rich clothing marked her as either a high-class prostitute or some kind of very successful entertainer.
He had his hand on a dagger, ready to do something—he wasn't sure what—when the woman knelt to let the snake slither up her arm, over her shoulders, to coil itself into her hair.
What… what the fuck. Just… what… what the—she was dressed like an entertainer not a huntress and the snake was in her hair.
Therion stared for a moment longer, until the woman turned and smiled at him, wiggling her fingers in a flirtatious little wave… and then he turned abruptly around and walked the other way.
Nope. Not dealing with that. I don't know what that was, but I'm not dealing with it.
That sentiment repeated itself several more times over the course of the day. Therion would hear a commotion and investigate—or even just be meandering through an area—and be faced with some kind of weirdness that was so not his problem.
A weird metal sculpture being struck by a careening carriage, rupturing to spew a geyser of chilling water into the sky.
One person (maybe?) in a set of cubical armor who kept saying 'washa!' while spewing bubbles everywhere, cleaning up some kind of major spill on a roadway.
A weirdo whose jacket collar was so high it covered his face almost up to his eyes, and was actually held in place there by a belt.
Some mustached old guy with baggy grey trousers and a tailored coat who was talking to an unseen audience in a tone that said he was an actor or some such, directing his gestures at a nearby storefront.
A coin-pouch-snatching that was foiled by some guy in wooden armor who grew godsdamned branches out of his arms.
There was also a close encounter with a four-armed, bulky brute of a person who was barking orders at a couple of youths as they picked up litter, too, but when the guy realized that Therion wasn't one of his laborers, he gave a startled little jump and bowed, making apologetic noises.
The final straw, though, was turning a corner and seeing a guy whose face was literally on fire. A big guy in very close-fitting clothes, with an expression that said he was looking for an excuse to burn someone to charcoal. And his face was on fire and Therion was absolutely not dealing with that.
And all of that was on top of the—apparently normal—weirdness of this place.
At least the food was good. Sure there was That Guy, whose mobile food cart sold sausages of dubious origin that got him suspicious looks from the city watchmen—Therion thought maybe his name was Dibura or something—but there was a guy like that in any town of appreciable size. Therion knew better than to buy or steal his goods, even if they probably wouldn't kill you.
One bout of spewing out both ends was more than enough, thanks.
Instead, Therion picked up his dinner in a reputable-looking tavern. It was a smallish place, but well-maintained, and the owner didn't question Therion's refusal to talk. Sure, the other patrons were… weird, but not too much more so than the people he'd seen on the street. There was a lizardman much closer to the bulky, scary ones he was used to seeing than the skink-type he'd seen his first day here, though he still didn't have spikes. A statuesque redhead eating an entire cauldron of what smelled like beef stew by herself. A pair of short, bearded old guys carousing with glass tankards of the local not-ale and eating some kind of… bread-crumb-coated seafood? Another bearded old guy happily devouring something that smelled of the same mouth-burning spices as the saucy-meat-filled rolls Therion had stolen before.
Therion avoided all of them, deeming them either too loud, too drunk, or potentially too much trouble to deal with, finding himself a seat next to a delicate-looking young woman in a ruffled dress of exquisite green and silver silk, that wouldn't look out of place on a noblewoman in Saintsbridge. Considering she was in a tavern like this, he was guessing she either liked slumming with the commonfolk, had a scandalous lover—in which case she was absolute garbage at being stealthy about it—or the food here was just that good.
He was hoping for the latter.
He was also sitting near her because anyone who was dressed that finely had money to spare, so they probably wouldn't miss the coins needed to pay for his food. Though considering how nonchalant she was acting about her surroundings, she might be like Cyrus, and perfectly capable of blowing up anyone who dared go after her coin pouch.
…he'd keep the possibility in mind.
Would you like to order?
"…!" Therion nearly jumped out of his skin, both hands going to his daggers before he could think, as a voice spoke directly into his mind.
It was a waitress, slender and delicately-built, dressed all in black and dark grey, looking at him with a guilelessly unruffled expression. Would you like to order? she repeated.
Slowly, Therion forced himself to relax, peeling his hands away from his daggers' hilts one finger at a time. He hadn't had a voice inside his head since visiting Sealticge's shrine, and he hadn't liked it then, either.
Without looking away from the waitress, he lifted one hand and flipped open the menu she'd apparently set on the table while he was distracted, jabbing a finger down at one of the pictures and hoping it wasn't the spicy-meat-stuff the old guy across the room was eating.
Of course. It will only take a moment. A short bow—what was it with the locals and bowing so much?—and she turned to head to the kitchen.
Once she was gone, Therion breathed out and slowly relaxed the rest of the way. After taking a moment to make sure no one else was paying him undue attention—they didn't even seem to have noticed his reaction—he went back to studying the woman at the next table over a little more carefully.
Wealthy, definitely. But no less weird for that, because her hair was a shade of silver-blonde he'd only ever seen on Simeon and Cyrus' old student Therese before, her ears were tapered to delicate points that only emphasized her elegant demeanor, and she was eating some kind of elaborate confection out of a wide worked-glass dish set atop a delicate stem that would probably break if tipped over too roughly.
…Therion didn't even know what half that stuff was. The apple slice he recognized, and the cream whipped to soft peaks. But he wasn't sure what the jiggly thing in the center was—some kind of molded custard?—there was a mound of something pale and creamy looking tucked next to it, and some of the other fruit slices were weird, too.
The delicate fork clinked against the glass, and Therion realized that not only had he been staring, but that the young noblewoman had noticed and was looking back at him with calm interest.
Therion jerked his gaze away. Careless. He was being entirely too careless lately, especially where food was involved. He didn't know if it was because he didn't have much else to keep him occupied besides not-worrying about things, or what, but it was starting to be a problem.
Your food.
Therion twitched, but didn't jump this time. The dish the black-clad waitress set before him was somewhere between a very wide, shallow bowl and a very deep plate. It was filled with long strings of… boiled dough or something, with a small mound of thick red meat-sauce in a depression in the middle. She also set down a tall glass cup of water with actual cubes of ice in it what the fuck.
Therion kept the stunned amazement off of his face, and reached forward to pick up the cup and sip the water. It was clean, sweet, and frigid, refreshing as if it had come straight from a snowmelt stream. The twice-boiled water in his waterskin was a disappointment in comparison.
The dough-strings were decent on their own. Nothing special—he could see it being peasant fare, which contrasted with the sheer luxury of ice in his drink. The sauce, though…
He couldn't describe the flavor of the sauce. It was rich, complex, savory and sweet and sour all at once. The meat wasn't in chunks, but crumbles that had been seasoned before being added to the sauce, and mixing it all together with the dough-strings made it easier to carry that flavor to his mouth.
The food vanished faster than it had any right to, but by the time he was done his belly was thoroughly full, and finishing off the glass of iced water cleaned his mouth out perfectly.
…he might have gotten some of the sauce on his nose and chin while slurping the dough-strings, but a napkin took care of that. And he didn't even care how much the food would cost him, because unless it was a king's ransom, it'd be worth the price.
And if it was a king's ransom, well, the noblewoman was still sitting right there. Spellcaster or not, he was pretty sure he could nick enough off of her to cover his tab.
Looking at the menu—the waitress had left it on the table—Therion worked out what he thought the total would be. He couldn't read any of the words, but he could compare the symbols that he'd realized were local numbers to the ones on the coins and bills he had on him, and get a rough estimate that way.
The bill was surprisingly manageable. Not cheap, no, but not mentally scarring or anything. He could pay it and have plenty left over, so he decided not to risk incurring a spellcaster's elemental wrath and left the noblewoman's coin pouch alone.
Leaving the money on the table, Therion left the little tavern behind and returned to his hideout. He had a good place to get affordable, delicious food, a place to sleep safely and in relatively decent comfort, the ability to get more money whenever he needed it…
Now he just needed to find his friends.
But that was a worry for another day.
A/N: Let's play a game called Spot The Reference! Therion encounters a large number of characters from MHA here, of course, but he also encounters characters from other shows. Can you name them all?