"And times when you're alone, all you do is think"

Note: A character previously introduced as "Lou" has had their name changed to "Reed", since I think that sounds more bug-like.

Wearing sunglasses indoors wasn't just stupid, it sucked . And she had to do it all the time because everywhere was indoors when you were in a giant cave and also because the fucking cops were already after her when all she did was steal a stupid rag.

Living a life supported by theft could prove disheartening, so Valleri liked to keep herself amused by pretending her life was some kind of crime drama. She wasn't some cheap pickpocket, she was a master thief , the most wanted woman in California. She lounged upon her golden throne (a cheap spinny office chair she bought on a whim when she realized she had almost no furniture) , draped in the finest night-black furs and satin (a 49er's hoodie she'd had since she was 17) , piles of treasure and precious gemstones at her feet (a couple wallets, some magazines, a fistful of jewlery, and a safe with cash. The safe itself was the most expensive thing she owned) , lurking from deep within her evil lair of villainy (a depressing flat out in industrial Los Angeles she paid 1.4 grand in rent every month for- one point four grand , can you believe that bullshit?!)

It was a grand, lavish life. ( It was not .)

And then she went and shot someone.

... Apparently.

Look, it wasn't her fucking fault, alright?! Yeah, okay, sure, when some stranger spills their food on your suit, you have a right to be angry, and honestly, she would have deserved it. But who the fuck draws a gun over something like that, a cowboy?! And in the middle of the street in broad daylight! She was just happy to not be dead, but everyone stared at her like she drew the gun on him! Was everyone out of their minds?!

...Was she out of her mind?

Stupid question, practically answered itself. Of course she was crazy. Because after having just murdered someone, she hijacked a car , sped out into the middle of bumfuck nowhere , and must've hit a pothole so bad it jolted her back in time and into another dimension.

And now? Bug people! Because every classic crime drama has 'em.

Honestly, if she could have stayed in that dusty old village up top, she would've. Less attention from whatever government was floating around here. But she had already made waves from stealing this stupid cloak; everyone was pointing fingers at one another, and she'd ruined whatever fragile semblance of peace there was to enjoy there. She couldn't survive off of that.

...Going down into a city was risky.

Going down into a city knowing damn well you're going to do nothing but lurk in alleyways and rob people was very risky. Doing all that when you couldn't even safely show your damn face in public was just ridiculous.

But cities had people. And where there were people, there were resources. Resources she'd need to survive in… whatever fresh hell she wound up in.

At the very least, she'd kept the gun. Also, holy shit, why'd she keep the fucking gun?!

Valleri wasn't experienced in guns, but it looked awfully fancy. Some close observation showed it was called a Colt Python - a name even she recognized - about a six-inch barrel, maybe? Polished steel that gleamed in the light, a neat rubber grip, and on the backside of the bullets, read "357 Magnum."

That was… good, right? She was pretty sure that was good.

Okay, against humans, maybe, but what about bugs? Giant bug-people. Shells were probably harder than skin, right? Americans could be batshit-crazy with this stuff sometimes, but she's pretty sure nobody's ever made bug-shell piercing rounds. N-Not that she even wanted to use this stupid thing, it's what got her in this mess in the first place. But like, if things got really bad, maybe-

Okay, no. The gun wasn't important right now. What was important was, y'know, not fucking dying.

Bug-people, people-people, fancy purses, weathered satchels, it was all the same to her. She needed stuff to live. She didn't have stuff. Other people did. It's pretty straightforward from there.

Everything was a lot easier once she started thinking of it as just a change in theme. Instead of dollar bills, it was Geo, and instead of the L.A. outskirts, it's this "City of Tears."

...Oh, God, she couldn't even think it with a straight face. Oh, it's always raining, let's call it the fucking City of Tears . Not even as a subtitle, that's what they actually put down on legal documents.

Edgy. Edgy edge edge edgy edge edgy edge.

Whatever, she'd make a living in knockoff Seattle well enough.

She supposed she couldn't complain too much. A small, abandoned room had become her new shelter; it may have been cold and dank and smelled of mold, but it beat sleeping in an alleyway or a ditch. And all she had to do was break a flimsy, locked door within an alleyway. Much easier than leasing her previous apartment. Why didn't she try this before?

Well, hopefully it was abandoned. The last thing she needed was for someone to barge into her hideout. Then, she'd have to figure out where to find more bullets.

At least water wasn't a concern. She had no idea how it was raining constantly, but if it was clean, she'd be fine.

Regardless, she was sticking strictly to the essentials. Food, maybe some clothing, and a fistful of this Geo stuff was all she needed right now. The bare minimum she needed to stay alive and unseen. This city was the only one of its kind, if the idle gossip she had overheard was to be trusted. If she became greedy and bit off a bit more than she could chew, there was nowhere else to run.

Okay, there were other places, but she wanted nothing to do with any of them. A Spartan village of warrior mantises - " manti"? Oh, fucking whatever - a literal hive-city of bees, and oh dear God above help her, a hellhole of giant fucking spiders . Nope. Nope nope no nah nay nuh-uh. You couldn't pay her to set foot in a place like that. She was not a spider person.

Unsurprisingly, she heard no mention of hick Dirtmouth. Being up on the "surface" was that town's only redeeming feature. Honestly, she wasn't even certain how she wound up here from there ; she'd hitched a ride on one of those giant Stag things, and the huge bug never asked any questions. Cool guy.

Of course, the same city was also the home for the gentry and rich of this society. Snooty egg… bug... things. They were obsessed with their money and perceived power in this kingdom, and made no efforts to hide it. It was almost a single-minded obsession, a sole character trait. Even parallel universes can't escape from those assholes.

Look, point is, she lost no sleep over pickpocketing those arrogant bastards. Instead, she was losing sleep over LITERALLY EVERYTHING ELSE.

These fucking cops , man. Forget getting handcuffed and tased, she was worried about getting stabbed . ...Who would win in a fight, an average LAPD cop or an average City of Tears guard? On one hand, the cop's got the tech advantage; guns, taser, body armor, all the works. But on the other hand: giant spear.

All Valleri knew was she wouldn't win a fight against either of them, and she'd much rather just keep her head down.

"Who would win in a fight, Hegemol or Dryya?"

"Dryya, no question. She's faster, lighter, more lethal than a giant bug on a stick."

"Seriously? But Hegemol's so much bigger!"

"Yeah, but that's his problem, isn't it?"

Banter like this was only allowed in the city guard's ranks because it was the only thing keeping soldiers from just falling asleep on the ground out of boredom.

Two guards, leaned up against a denim-blue brick wall, weapons resting in a corner, casually watching over a relatively quiet street. Only a handful of bugs shuffled about through the rain, almost all of them only using this road as a shortcut to somewhere else on the busier side of life.

Rain poured from the sky, over the rooftops and down onto their armor with endless soft plinks , dripping through the grooves until they slipped off the bottom into a drain.

Nobody would break the law in a place like this. Empty enough for everything to be in plain sight, but with just enough people to see everything in plain sight. The place practically governed itself.

But if the Crown ordered guards at the ready on every street, there would be guards at the ready on every street. And most of them had nothing to do.

Nothing to do but banter, and get soaked in the rain.

"Okay, but is Dryya's sword made of the same stuff as Hegemol's armor? One of em's gotta be stronger than the other, right?"

"Doesn't matter what they're made of, Dryya could cut through any armor with a training nail like a hot knife through butter."

"No, she couldn't! She's not that strong!"

"She absolutely is!"

"But she-"

"Uhm, excuse me?"

And the rain came to a halt.

"A-Ah! Lady Isma!" shouted a guard, caught by surprise as he scrambled to stand at attention. His hands fumbled with his nail, slipping through and falling to the ground with a crash. Both guards bent down to pick up their weapons to stand at formation as quickly as possible, only managing to bump their heads together as they stood up again.

Isma giggled at the accidental display. "I'm sorry, did I surprise you?" She stepped forward from the shadows of an alleyway, standing just past the awning the guards were under. She patted down her leaf-green dress - made of actual leaves - to shake loose dry specs of dirt and dust, likely from the Waterways she seemed to favor so much. Her firm footsteps on the pavement echoed on the silent street corner, not a sound to be heard except for the flow of water down the drain, seemingly louder than usual, until even that came to a dripping silence.

"N-Not at all, my Lady!" lied the guard. "The street is secure, no signs of dissidence to be seen!"

"No signs of this-is-dense!"

A heavy clang! echoed through the street as the second guard was smacked by the first.

"The only dense thing I see here is you! "

"Says the one who think Dryya's strong enough to fell Hegemol with a training nail-!"

Isma raised a hand disarmingly, trying to stifle her laughter. "S-Sires, please. There's no use fighting over the strength of my peers…"

Both knights stiffened at her voice, dropping to their knees before her. Their armored kneecaps clanked against the stone pavement. "Forgive us, Lady Isma, for our unprofessional conduct!"

"Forgive us!"

Isma frowned. Dryya must've had them scared straight, the authoritarian she was. Herself, she preferred it when the guards had more personality, instead of transforming mind, body and soul into the living statue the Crown(and Dryya) would want them to be.

That personality was what had drawn her to Ogrim, after all.

"Please, don't think twice about it," Isma forced out. Was talking with other guards always this tiring? Good for a short laugh, and after that, they got too tense from her mere presence to just act like normal people. She felt bad teasing them for too long. Maybe it wasn't just Dryya's fault, maybe it was hers.

Oh, but she'd almost forgotten the point! "Anyway. There's been a surge in theft reports around this area. Have either of you two seen anything?"

"Eh? They're having the Great Knights do our chores now?" questioned the second guard, only to get kicked in the shin by the first.

Isma tutted, playfully shaking her head, "It is our responsibility to help the common folk as well, grand status or not. Besides," she added, "There is little else for us to do at the moment." She allowed herself a small chuckle.

"Shouldn't there be plenty to be doing right now? I mean, nobody's caught the guy from the case at the bar yet, did they-"

The first guard awkwardly laughed, patting the second guard roughly on the back, causing them to stutter and shut up. "W- Well ," the first guard said, "If you are indeed investigating, we would recommend checking the Market District. Most pickpocket victims don't notice they'd been robbed until they're back at their homes, but a majority of reports claimed they went through the Market earlier in the day."

Isma frowned. "They didn't even notice until that much later?" She had never been pickpocketed in her life before - nobody was bold enough to even get close to her - but she figured someone would have noticed their belongings going missing sooner. Was this really just some common thief? Or was there something more significant to it?

"...I'll look into it. Thank you for your time," Isma bowed curtly, and with a turn of her heel, went on her way down the street.

…

...drip.

Drip drip.

Drip drip dip.

Dripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripfs hhhhhhhhhhh-

"OHMYWYRMTHATWASHER!"

"HOLYGODSABOVEISHOULDHAVEASKEDFORASIGNATURTE-!"

It was unreal. She was surrounded by faces and completely invisible.

Everyone was everywhere was going everywhere else. An endless web of a crowd, folding in on itself, shuffling, hustling, sifting through the cracks between the walls of cloaks and masks. Everyone blocked everyone else's view. Everyone was equally blind. Nobody thought, nobody felt, they were only there to go somewhere else.

Nobody except her.

God, she was the center of the universe here.

Oops, her hand slipped. There goes that noble's fifty Geo. Oh, my bad, you weren't watching where you were going and let me take a fistful of shiny rocks out of your satchel. Back in LA, she always had to look out for people with tight pockets who she couldn't graze against without being suspect. Here, everyone's cloaks and satchels and bags were loose enough where everyone looked identical under their fancy bedsheets.

All she had to do was throw on a giant rag of her own, wear something to hide her face(their pale masks were weirdly impossible to find, despite literally everyone having one, so for now she settled for more cloth on her face with some sunglasses), and she was one of them. Oh, yes sire, she was but another common-bug on their way to thine worksite, nay, thou were but a small mortal amongst these good noble-bugs, they and their oh-so-hefty pockets.

Reclusive-Aggressive.

But money wasn't everything, of course. It was nothing more than a tool to her, something to use to get something else she actually needed. She didn't need luxuries in a storage room in a back alley, and it wasn't like she had many back home before anyways. She got her money, she used her money to survive another day, oh look, she ran out of money, time to go get more.

It was the kind of mindset that'd slowly kill someone working a deadend job at a gas station every day, but luckily for her, the thrill of taking her paycheck right out of the pockets of her higher-ups was payment enough.

Well… metaphorically. Adrenaline didn't fill an empty stomach.

Speaking of food, Hallownestian diets were ridiculous. It seemed like every stall was serving some new, random Mystery Meat Of The Day. Carcasses that definitely were not shaped like any animal she'd ever seen, and not a single one of them anyone had bothered to cook. She had to learn how to start a fire and grill meat herself using outdated bug technology through nothing but trial and error. She was always a meat-eater herself, but she'd kill for a salad right now.

She walked past another stand, discreetly swiping another flintstone and a bundle of kindling from a stall whose owner was busy haggling with a paying customer. It was almost too easy. She slipped the items under her cloak without missing a beat.

Okay… what next?

She mentally went over her list of what she needed. She only had to do this dance every few days, or… at least, what had become of "days" for her. Her sleep schedule had devolved into "sleep whenever you want, and wake whenever you want". It was an… odd change, but one that made the days merge together into an amorphous blob. A reminder she was fighting for her very survival above all else. Time had abandoned her.

God, that was depressing. Okay, back to work.

More kindling and a new flintstone for her striker and fire, check. Food, she had already grabbed. She couldn't stockpile it because of the bugs' lack of refrigeration, but it was plentiful enough to steal. The bedding in her small hideout was still good enough. Water, of course she was fine. Her cloak…?

Maybe it was time to replace it. Not to imply that she would get rid of it, of course. It would be retired to a place of honor in her hideout for its service. Regardless of its use to her, it had become quite fringy and torn. It hadn't been in the best condition when she swiped it, and her constant use hadn't done it any favors. It would be trickier to grab a new one, but how hard could it really be? She'd stolen harder items, even before coming to this city.

Valleri could have just paid for it, but...

It took her about fifteen minutes to find her mark; a dingy stand with sturdy, bland cloaks for sale. The stallkeeper, a bored looking pillbug, was busy chatting away with another customer, another one of those pompous nobles. His focus wasn't really on the conversation, but then again, it wasn't really on much of anything, so she wasn't worried about him catching her.

Slip by, grab a handful, slip away. Candy from a baby. She stepped forward, her hand hovering over one of the cloaks-

"Pray tell, have they make any progress on that murder case?"

Valleri froze. A murder? She hadn't heard anything about this before. Besides, a little city gossip might keep her sane.

The stallkeep sighed. "Should you really be talking about that so openly…?" Was it a taboo thing to discuss? Back home, even the most gruesome crimes would be talked about endlessly if there was enough press on it. It was kinda fucked up, but hey, people talk. Can't really help it.

The noblebug leaned forward, her eyes darting side to side, searching for any eavesdroppers. Of course she wouldn't find anyone, not even Valleri standing right next to her; not when half of the crowd looked identical. "How am I supposed to stay on top of it if nobody ever talks about it? You can feel the tension in the air everywhere you go, why worry about some blasted infection when there's an alien murderer on the loose?"

Valleri's hand slowly fell. This could be important, moreso than a new wardrobe.

"Baroness Emilitia, you know we could get the wrong kind of attention for merely speaking of this."

" What kind of attention?" Emilitia said. "From who? From where? What'll they do? Nobody knows! Nobody knows who did it, so they're afraid of everyone now. How can people live like this?!"

" Quiet down, " hushed the merchant. He only sighed again, his face falling even further than it already had. "Your family ascended into nobility, and yet you still have the fire of a journalist in you."

"So do you have anything?"

"Why would I? I'm a cloak seller, that's it."

"You must hear gossip from your customers and other merchants, no?"

"Well…" He sighed yet again. Valleri almost felt bad for him; poor guy couldn't catch a break. "I mean, I heard a rumor about what the person looked like, at least."

"Oh? I haven't heard this before. Do tell?" Emilitia pushed. Valleri wanted to know, too; a rampaging murderer on the loose wouldn't do her chances of survival any favors. She didn't need a repeat of the "ice cream incident" from back in L.A.

"I heard this second-hand, alright? I can't confirm or deny this, it's nothing more than a rumor." The stallkeep's voice fell to a whisper, and Valleri had to strain her ears to hear him.

"Just after having done the deed, they say their hood fell, showing an alien shaped, pale-pink face, with these strange, long, dark strands coming out of their head, and a sharp-looking nose. Nobody knows what they are, but they were surely no bug."

…

"Intriguing!" Emilitia breathed. Is there anything else you have for me?"

"I'm afraid that's all I-"

Wooosh.

"Hm? That one left in quite a hurry, didn't they?"

"Eh, probably just running late."

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Fuck fuck fuck shit fuck fuck shit fucking shit fucking fuck. Shit. Fuck. Fucking fuck fuck fuck shit fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Shit. Fuck.

Fuck.

Valleri fled to a dark alley, unsure and uncaring of where she was or how she got here, and collapsed against a wall. Her breaths were shaky, her hands kept clenching and unclenching involuntarily. She had figured, in the back of her mind, that it was only a matter of time before people began to suspect her. She couldn't keep doing this forever.

But now things had changed too suddenly, and the already tattered and unstable rug had been pulled out from under her. Nobody was looking for a thief in the City of Tears.

They were looking for a murderer, and somehow, the blame had been pinned on her.

Or… was there another human here? She almost calmed down at the thought, until she realized that would make the only other human in this entire kingdom a deranged killer.

The threat of her life being on the line was all-too real now. If the city guards wouldn't kill her for getting caught, then maybe this mystery person would.

But… if they were looking for a human, they wouldn't give a damn about her being a thief. All they'd care about is her supposedly being a murderer. She wouldn't get a trial or a due process or anything. If they saw a killer on the streets, they'd kill them on sight, whether she actually did it or not.

"Um, excuse me?"

OHGODIDIDN'TDOITISWEAR-

Valleri whirled around to find the voice. A small bug, seemingly a child, had followed and approached her in the alley. The horns around his head were still small and stubby, but their shape resembled what she had seen on some of the city guards' helmets, and he also wore a pendant similar to the guards as well. A family member of one, maybe? His hands were folded against his chest, nervous.

"Are you feeling well, miss? I saw you running off and was worried." His voice was soft and timid; it impressed Valleri that he had the guts to talk to a stranger like her at all.

Valleri gave herself a second to get her bearings right, before standing tall and dusting herself off, scoffing at the child with the scorn of a noble. "What does it matter to you?"

The young bug recoiled at her venom, and she felt a twinge of guilt. Alright, she'd admit, that was mean. He didn't deserve her bullshit, he was just an innocent child trying to help, and she was being a bit of a bitch. Still, if she was a murder suspect now, the sooner she got out of his attention, the better.

"I, uhm…" The bug-boy stuttered a bit, starting to recover. "I just… w-wanted to help, miss. M-My brother is in the guard, and I- I wanna be a guard too, someday, and uhm… he said I can be a guard if I help people...

...A-Adorable, yeah, but if his brother really was in the guard, that was bad news, right? Thankfully, Valleri wouldn't be the master thief she was if she didn't know how to turn a bad situation in her favor.

"Well… if you're brother's in the guard, he's probably worried about you, right?"

"N-Not really. He always gets deployed up in Dirtmouth, so he's not home often."

Oh. Okay, well she could always…

"What about your parents? Do they know you're here?"

"M-My dad died in Blackwyrm, and my mom died to the Infection when I was little."

...R-Right. More shit she didn't know. Fuck, uhh…

"D-Do you have any other family who might be worried about you?"

"...No. It's just been me and my brother."

"Do you live with anyone, any caretakers, or…?"

"Nuh-uh. All by myself. ...Unless Reed comes to visit. He's my brother."

"W-Well, where do you live? I can walk you home if you'd like."

The small bug clenched his hands and nodded. "I-I'd like that."

Holy shit finally. Stupid sad backstories, doing nothing but making her life harder. It really shouldn't be this difficult to get a nosy kid out of her hair, and now she had to walk him home herself to boot. Talk about too much information. (Though, she supposed she did ask…)

She'd still have to stop by that cloak stand to actually buy one now, though.

"Here, take my hand," Valleri said, holding hers out to the young boy, who tentatively reached up and grasped her hand. His hand felt so weird , firm and jagged, skinny as bone, but still a bit malleable. He himself was chill to the touch, feeling like a plastic water bottle she'd just pulled out of a fridge.

"Y…" the child trailed off for a second, as though unsure of what he was saying. "Y-You have… very warm hands, miss." He gave a gentle squeeze. "A-And they're soft, too… Are you… going through a molt soon, miss?"

"A molt?" Valleri said as they started off. Shit. Was this a normal bug thing she was supposed to know about? She never took an insect biology class in high school. Fuck fuck fuuuck-

"Y-Yeah!" Luckily, the small bug didn't seem to notice her confusion in his excitement. "I-It's that thing when you get really big, so you, you gotta go through a sh, a shed, and you come out bigger and stronger! M-My brother says my wings are gonna grow in on my next molt!"

Oh. So, it was like a puberty thing. Instead of growing gradually, bugs grew in phases. That made enough sense to her. "Y-Yeah, I'm uh… I'm gonna be… molting… soon. Ish." She could stick with this narrative well enough, she thought as she led the child through the rainy streets to where he said his home was. Walk this kid home, get him out of her hair, find another one of those Stag Station things and get the hell out of here.

She'd… figure out what to do next from there. She couldn't plan everything.

"Uhm… What's your name, anyway, kid?"

"...L-Lenny. My name is Lenny." the small bug child said, his hand still clenched around hers as they weaved through pedestrians on the streets. Lenny's shorter legs struggled to keep up with hers, and she had to remind herself to stop rushing for his sake. "What's yours?"

...Giving her name was… safe, right? I mean, he was just a kid. He wouldn't even know to snitch on her if she just didn't do anything stupid in front of him.

"...Valleri. My name is Valleri."

"Valleri?" Lenny rolled the alien name around in his mouth, letting it ebb and flow across his tongue. "...That's a very pretty name, Miss Valleri."

"It's my name, kid, don't wear it out." Valleri grinned.

Isma should have brought a cloak.

Look, she never does these kinds of missions, alright? These kinds of reconnaissance, stealthy, intel-gathering-type missions, she meant. She was a Great Knight , directly under the Crown itself! She wasn't built o-or trained for this kind of thing, Wyrm dammit! She… she always liked the more action -y missions. Where she actually did things, because she was good at doing doing-type things, y'know?

...Okay, that made no sense, but it made sense anyway, right?

She really should've thought this through before stepping out into the City square, because everyone except her had a cloak on and her white and green armor stood out like a sore thumb. It was embarrassing! Everyone was staring at her, stepping away with hushed whispers of awe. Maybe she can find one of those cloak stalls and throw one on real quick. Wouldn't matter if someone saw her then, she'd blend into the crowd in almost an instant and nobody would find her.

She always heard complaints about people's cloaks getting soaked in the City's eternal rainfall, but she couldn't recall ever having had that problem.

One such stall fell on her sights. She had some pocket Geo on hand, so it shouldn't be a problem as long as the stallkeep didn't try to force her to take it for free out of "gratitude for her service". She hated when people did that. She wasn't always a Knight; they knew that, didn't they…?

Isma stepped forward, reaching out to a cloak on the counter-

"Yeah yeah, that's great kid, here, lemme just-"

Only for it to land atop another hand.

"Eh? Can I help ya, greenie?"

Isma blinked. G-Greenie-?! The woman before her was wearing a tattered, run-down cloak, in the same dreary blue as seemingly everyone else in the City. Yet, instead of a mask, she had the hood of her robe wrapped around her entire head, with strange, dark glasses over where her eyes should be. Holding her gloved hand was a young child; judging by the pendant on his cloak, was a relative of someone in the City Guard. What was a duo like this doing here…?

The tired-looking stallkeep perked up, eyes wide in shock. "L-L-L-Lady Isma! W-What can I do for you today, my Lady?!"

"Uh…" Isma was caught off-guard by all of this. She knew what she wanted, but took a second to regain her focus. "I'll… I'll just take-"

"You want a cloak?" said the woman in blue. Isma turned and blinked again, her already wavering focus broken.

"I-I, ah-"

"Hey, mister cloak guy, we'll take two of these on me. Kinda in a rush right now." The woman in blue reached into her cloak's pocket and pulled out a fat fistful of Geo, dumping it on the stallkeep's counter. "Keep the change."

Isma eyed the Geo warily. What was with this woman? She had a raggedy old cloak that was moments from falling apart, yet she had enough Geo on hand to throw away on both herself and a random stranger. And this was all because she couldn't wait for Isma to buy it herself? Not to mention, she apparently didn't recognize a Great Knight…

… ! Could it be…?

"Good? Alright, cool, you can take yours, I'll take mine and go-"

"E-Excuse me!" Isma finally spoke up, reaching out and grabbing the woman by her wrist. She jolted, and immediately tried to pull away, but Isma's grip held firm. Isma noticed how soft her wrist was, while still having firmer bits within, and was… was she warm?

"Whaddya want now?!" the woman exclaimed.

"Well… I don't mean to pry-" oh she absolutely meant to- "-but may I ask why you're currently with a City Guard's kin?"

The child perked up at this. "M-My name is Lenny, Lady Isma! M-My brother is in the Guard, his name is Reed!"

"Reed…" She's heard that name before somewhere, hasn't she? It was stuck on the tip of her tongue… she could worry about that later.

"I, uhh…" Now it was the woman's turn to act nervous, and she hadn't even noticed what was just over her shoulder yet. "I found him. Well, more like he found me , but he was wandering around, so I figured I'd walk 'im home, y'know?"

Isma's eyes narrowed. "I see…" She lowered her hand from Valleri's wrist and softened her gaze as she looked down at Lenny. She didn't know what his true involvement in all this was yet, but just in case, she had to be gentle. "Lenny, do you know if your brother is stationed in the City of Tears at the moment? It may be more responsible to-"

The woman snickered. Isma couldn't help but glare for a moment before returning.

"...it's be responsible , to take you to him in the barracks instead of taking you straight home. I'm sure he'd want to know where you are."

"Uhm… I don't think he's in the City right now. He's usually up in Dirtmouth."

Isma nearly gagged. "D-Dirtmouth…?" All the way up there?! This wasn't what she had planned. O-Okay, she could still work with this, though. "W-Well, perhaps we should still bring you to the nearest barracks. I'm sure there, we'll at least be able to contact him and let him know you're alright."

Lenny perked up with a big grin. "T-That's super smart of you, Lady Isma!" She grinned; if only he knew the half of it.

"A-Alright. Alright? Cool, that's cool," said the woman in blue. "You can take him there, is that alright? I'm uh, I'm in a bit of a rush, right now, so-"

" Actually ," Isma cut her off sharply. "Since you were the one who found him, I was hoping you'd come with us to the guard barracks as well."

The woman in blue froze up. Isma spoke again.

"You seem to understand the situation better than I do. I'm sure you wouldn't mind if we questioned you a little bit."

Valleri took a quick step away from Isma, and the raindrops fell against her navy-blue cloak. They did not splash, they did not soak into the fabric. They pushed forward, flattened, a thin edge of water, and the seams of the robe shredded in their path. Thin ribbons of worn cloth dropped to the ground around her in a heap, and every mask in the square was staring straight at her.

All was silent until the stallkeep screamed.

"Y-YOU, IT- I-IT'S HERE! BY THE WYRM, IT'S HERE!" His finger shot up and pointed at Valleri, whose exposed face, covered only by her opaque glasses, contorted in terror. Every hair on her skin stood on end, her heart pounding in her ears. Hooded figures stepped away, whispering to each other, whispers of her victim's bloodied bodies and the smell of smoke.

Isma was frozen on the spot, eyes wide, uncomprehending.

She came here to find a cutpurse and instead found a murderer.

Isma could barely stagger forward a single step, and Valleri's stupid fucking fight-or-flight system kicked in again.

She dashed up to Isma and kicked her straight in the abdomen, knocking her to the pavement with a pained grunt. Onlookers gasped in horror as Valleri snatched her new cloak from the ground and sprinted off into the crowd, fumbling with her robe in an attempt to blend in. Screams erupted all over the square, people running every direction, everyone trying to escape the serial killer hidden within them.

Isma was nothing if not durable, though; one measly kick meant nothing to her. It just… caught her off-guard. She felt strangely numb. The screams around her were nothing but white noise, and she was only vaguely aware of the raindrops starting to fall against her again. She struggled to find her balance, her focus. But she slowly staggered to her feet, and at some point, she stopped thinking. She let instinct take control, let her legs move on their own, let her eyes and ears follow her target instead of her mind.

And as Valleri vanished into the crowd and Isma vanished into the dense rainfall, Lenny was still frozen to the ground, feeling like the earth had risen up from beneath him to swallow him whole. He fought to hold back tears, confusion clouding his mind.

"W-Why… Why did you lie to me, Miss?"

Chapter name and summary are a reference to Wanted Dead Or Alive by Bon Jovi.
Other musical references in this chapter include:
Lenny by Stevie Ray Vaughan

Woohoo, back with more prequel stuff, and now it's actually getting interesting! To be honest, I find that I have much more fun writing Valleri than I do Chance, but despite that, it still took a full month to get this chapter out. No, seriously, exactly a full month. We started Ethnoentomology on the fourth of January, we last updated the main story on the fourth of October, and we're putting this up on the fourth of November. Kinda weird. I'm torn between accepting that chapters will have to come out when they come out, and trying to make them go faster so this story doesn't take me actual years to write.

Either way, both Piston and I had a lot of fun with this chapter, and there's a lot of foreshadowing in it as well! Next chapter we'll be going back to Chance's side of the story, so please leave a review and we'll see you then!