"I have to admit, you were right." The admission came grudgingly from Steiner as the walls of Treno came into view.
"About which part?" Marcus asked, biting back the urge to explicitly point out that he'd been right about nearly everything so far.
"About the need to resupply." Steiner paused. "And," he added, even more refractorily, "that it was a prudent suggestion to wait until morning to arrive."
"Glad you agree," Marcus replied, eyes on the city before them.
The looming Aerbs behind the city cast a deep shadow over it, even when the sun rose above them. The heavy mists that clung to the feet of the mountains made the days as dim as twilight.
"You've been to Treno often?" Dagger asked him as they paused on the top of a mild slope that began a path down to the city gate.
"Often enough." He knew that he failed to keep the contempt from his voice when she glanced up at him. He cleared his throat. "There are a lot of… tensions between the folk of the city and the nobles," he said to her raised eyebrows.
"Tensions?" she echoed. "Is the city as truly dangerous at night as you say?"
Marcus hesitated before answering, his face scrunching a bit. "It can very well be," he finally settled on telling her. "There is a disparity between the poor and the nobles, and it's not a happy one."
A distant snort came from Steiner. "A city of thieves and cutthroats, no matter how you look at it."
Marcus caught a sharp edge to Dagger's glance at her knight, but spoke before she had the chance to. "You're right," he said, turning his attention back to the city. "But you're probably wrong about which ones they are."
Blustering for a moment, Steiner snapped, "Oh, and I suppose you want me to think the nobles of Treno are the thieves?"
"They are." Marcus felt the control on his anger slip a little, lifting his chin just slightly to glare over Dagger's head at the knight. "All those damn nobles do is bring more money and frivolous luxuries to one half of the city, while the other gets less and less and crumbles for it. And then they blame the slums they helped create and perpetuate for making 'their' city look bad."
"So you want noble families to just hand out their money to people with none? Somehow I do not think that will work."
Marcus took a breath, cooled the rising anger. The wind carried a faint scent of the sea and it helped him push down more argumentative words. "No, I don't want that, and most people living there—I don't mean the nobles—don't want that, either. They just want better chances to make a living." He shifted the baldric across his chest, thumb running along the underside. "Give the chance to have a better life they can work toward, instead of unending poverty deep as a pit and just as difficult to get yourself out of."
"Surely it cannot be as bad as all that," Steiner protested still, but now doubt drew lines across his brow and crept behind his eyes.
Dragging his eyes away from Treno long enough to send as neutral a glance as he could muster at Steiner, Marcus simply said, "You'll see."
Without waiting for an answer, he started down the slope toward the city , the dirt path that had vanished beneath the tall plateau grasses forming again. Now that they were arrived at Treno, Marcus' thoughts sobered, returning to Blank and the reason for his journey to the city. The last week seemed like a step out of time in some ways, and he had to admit that he'd been distracted by Dagger—and even Steiner's—company, and not entirely unpleasantly. He wondered how much more somber a trip alone would have been.
None of that mattered, Marcus reminded himself as they neared the outer walls of Treno. Despite Dagger's earlier insistence of wanting to help, he was sure he'd be able to lose them easily once inside the city, and get the job done with out any possibility of them complicating things.
As if reading his thoughts, Dagger spoke up from her usual spot at his side.
"I imagine there's a place we'll meet up with a contact of yours once we get in the city?"
Something twisted a bit inside him, the lie readily on his tongue and yet unwilling to loose it from his mouth. "Yeah," he heard himself saying instead, "there's a spot Tantalus frequents." It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the whole truth. He didn't have to outright lie if he was going to slip away regardless, and he realized all at once that he didn't want to lie to her.
"Hopefully they'll have some information on which noble might have the supersoft," Dagger went on, oblivious to his deception. Her voice was hushed as they passed through the ornate wrought iron gateway to the city, making they way into the large rotunda square that received all who entered Treno from the plateau.
"Not many nobles live here full time," Marcus began.
"Probably because thieves abound and conspire to steal from them," Steiner interrupted, earning a frigid glare from Marcus.
"People like me, right?" Marcus' voice held the sharp edge of a threat along his words. Before Steiner could bristle with a reply, he shook his head. "Let's just grab the supersoft and get this over with."
"How dare you!" Steiner snapped. "Do you think I'd let you commit a crime before my very eyes?"
Marcus grinned because he had no intention of them being around when he obtained the supersoft in whatever manner he needed to. "What, are you going to arrest me? We're not in Alexandria anymore, Pluto Knight Captain, and you're out of your jurisdiction. You have a better suggestion on how to get it? Think we should just mosey up and ask nicely if the kind and generous noble who has it will just give it to us to save my friend?"
The knight stepped toward Marcus, on hand balled into an angry fist. "Quiet! I will not suffer such brazen disgrace!"
Just beyond Steiner's shoulder, Dagger caught Marcus' eye and made a motion with her head. He couldn't tell if she was indicating she wanted them to ditch the knight, or if she wanted him to keep Steiner distracted while she slipped off. Marcus remembered her mentioning sightseeing the architecture—of course she didn't want to slip away with him. All the easier to ditch them when they were the ones leaving first, Marcus told himself.
Eyes sliding back to Steiner, Marcus drawled, "I never asked you to come along," to keep the knight occupied while Dagger jogged away down a long and winding stone street. "Quit complaining."
Steiner's voice dropped to a frustrated hiss. "Don't you talk back to me! First of all—"
It was too much for Marcus to keep a straight face as Dagger's orange overalls vanished completely from view, and he let out an involuntary snort of laughter.
"Do not interrupt me while I'm talking!" the knight scolded. "Princess, we cannot abide this vagrant's…" He trailed off as he turned to find Dagger no longer in their company. Frantically scanning the area, he only found the confused and mildly frightened stares of Treno's denizens.
"Princess!" Steiner called out, and Marcus could have cuffed him for being so immediately indiscreet, except that his wild searching provided a short window of opportunity for Marcus himself to slip off.
"Not again," Steiner moaned as Marcus went off in the opposite direction Dagger had gone, weaving his way through a group of people walking past and concealing his departure. The rest of Steiner's words faded behind the constant chatter of the city. Marcus passed through a leaning wooden frame that served to mark the passage to the poor's slums, high above the graceful canals and stepping stone walkways of the waterfront.
It'd been some time since Marcus was in Treno last, and peering down at the lower levels, he could see that not much had changed. The estates were all well-kept and as extravagant as ever, and the huge slabs of stone that made the walls holding up the upper walkways carefully maintained so that only the most aesthetic ivy grew unobtrusively along it, acting more as cultivated decoration than natural growth. A curling sneer pulled at his lips when his eyes fell on the lavishly carved and painted domes sitting atop the King of Wands' estate. The four more decadent of the noble's estates sat in a diagonal across from one another, each in a different quarter of the city, each as outrageously opulent as the other three. Each one as guaranteed to stoke Marcus' irritation every time he saw them. He couldn't imagine what it was like to live here, with constant gilded and marbled reminders of people squandering gil while the upper levels of the city fell into ruin.
Angry at each delicate trellis and every artfully sculpted, free-standing column in Alexandrian fashion evenly spaced along the canal's gentle edge, Marcus dragged his eyes from the extravagance and continued along a wooden platform that spanned a crumbling gap in the stone walkway.
The walls might have looked picaresque at the canal level, but they were falling into ruin at the top. At least, Marcus thought, it kept the structure intact, instead of being derelict at the base. Small comfort.
Where everything was maintained the same for the nobles, here there were several new additions of wooden patchwork to fill in the larger breaks in stone—the smaller ones were too numerous to all get to. Instead of pruned ivy, the walls and walkways of the topmost level were spotted with an oily lichen, and moss grew out of many of the widening cracks between stone slabs.
As he walked, Marcus noted a few more thin buildings than there were last time he had been this way—they leaned against one another, the older structures against the new, to try and prolong their integrity before the family inside had to rebuild or find somewhere else to sleep at night. Feeling a tight pain in his hand, Marcus realized he was clenching it into a fist so tight it hurt, and he let out a slow and controlled breath, releasing his fingers. The disparity of poverty in this city, to have a ramshackle shanty town overlooking people with more money than they could ever spend in a lifetime and have it be so ignored grated against every nerve inside him.
An inn came into view to his left, nestled back from the walkway on wooden planks and shouldered in-between two other narrow buildings, just as run-down and hastily repaired as the inn itself. Outside, in the middle of the walkway, a young man and woman were pacing and talking, agitated.
"They exploited us to make their money, right, Sis?" the younger of the two, a boy, said. It was obvious he was looking more for an affirmation than a true answer to his question.
His sister nodded emphatically. "Right. But we can't just sit here and complain, or we'll end up spending our lives in this miserable place. We gotta do something."
At her words, Marcus' attention piqued, and he felt the involuntary race of his heart. Perhaps there was hope, he caught himself thinking rapidly, his pace slowing to catch the rest of their conversation. Perhaps a younger generation would refuse to pick up the dregs left by the nobility and start leveraging change.
"Power to the people! Right, Sis?"
All at once Marcus found wild thoughts spiraling out in his head as he listened. What if someone could mobilize the people living here, get them to form some sort of committee to make themselves be heard? What if they could put together a petition to get relief or help from Alexandria or Lindblum and rebuild the top levels properly? What if they got a big enough crowd together with a single purpose and a list of demands—and compromises, he grudgingly added, knowing the nobility would never simply wholly agree to anything without getting something in return—to start building the lives they could, should have here?
The young woman's voice cut through his thoughts. "That's right. Power to the people. We'll never go hungry once we become nobles! Follow me, Mario!"
And with a single sentence, all the optimistic thoughts Marcus had cracked as the two walked away together, further along the stone path beyond the inn. He closed his eyes and let out a sigh.
It was all wrong—the idea they could get ahead by becoming part of the problem. Maybe if he were more politically minded, or more tied to a place, he'd help get ideas closer to right planted in people's minds, start a motion toward betterment. He opened his eyes and closed off the part of him that wanted to help. But. It wasn't his city.
He scrubbed a hand over his face, forcing such thoughts aside and clearing his head. He had a job to do, to save Blank, and couldn't afford to get distracted by things he couldn't change.
Leaving the stone walkway, his footsteps echoed dully on the wooden platform that lead back to the inn, the door creaking as he opened it. Inside the inn, it was cluttered on one side, spare bedrolls and threadbare blankets and pillows all stuffed in the space from the floor to a loft platform's underside. An old rope ladder stretched up to the loft, where there were several thin mattresses laid out. A counter sat in the middle of the room, two uneven shelves on the wall behind it with a handful of liquors on them and an older man with half-moon spectacles perched on his nose hunched over an open book wider than it was long. Off to the other side of the counter was a set of stairs leading down to a landing beyond view. Liado, the old man, was marking notes down in an inventory ledger and did not notice Marcus when he entered.
Marcus cleared his throat to get Liado's attention. "Hey there. Is everything okay?"
Startled by the sudden voice, Liado slammed the book shut on his own fingers and winced as he turned to face Marcus. "What the hell are you talking about?" He glared over the half-moon spectacles at Marcus with no recognition.
Used to this flaw in memory retention that Liado had, Marcus shifted a little and waited patiently for the man to remember who he was.
"Hey," he said finally, eyes widening as he finally placed Marcus' face. "It's you! Where have you been, Marcus? It's been close to—what, three years since I last saw you!"
An amused smile fought its way across Marcus' mouth. "Only two, Liado. But you know me; been around."
Liado chuckled, a rasping sort of sound that bespoke the man's preference for smoking, something Marcus would have known from the scent of smoke lingering on his jacket even if he hadn't shared several pipes with him in the past. "The man's waiting for you," Liado said, one of his eyebrows arching, the slant of his mouth a simper one.
Giving a small nod of acknowledgement, Marcus made his way around the counter and down the creaking stairs. A loud sneeze echoed up from below the landing, and Marcus' mouth drew into a thin line. Baku liked his sniffing powder too much for Marcus' tastes—shaking loose memories too near to his own mother's addiction to the dreamwine that eroded away her life when it got so bad she refused to eat or drink or do anything but consume the damn stuff.
Stuffing those thoughts back and away, Marcus continued down the second flight of stairs and joined Baku on the next floor down, the space long and narrow. Tall as he was, Baku stood half a head taller, even without the long ears that perched atop his head. He gave Marcus a stern look through the goggles he wore.
"Yer late," he groused.
Marcus shrugged, expecting that. "A lot happened," he replied with no further explanation. "Left me kinda tired."
He had something of a unique relationship with the current leader of Tantalus—mostly stemming from the fact that he'd been in Tantalus before Baku ever joined it, let alone began heading the troup. Marcus had only been a young child then, still learning under the wing of his mother in the young Tantalus of those days, but he'd been there. Though she'd never said anything about it specifically, Marcus was fairly sure he was born on the Prima Vista, flying between one venue and the next. By the time Baku joined as one of the actor-thieves, Marcus had already learned the difference in weaponry—the dulled blades of the stage, the honed steel for back alleys and protection on the road, the words and demeanor that could be just as deadly and effective as any sword.
Most of all, he'd been enamored with the plays his mother performed in. She was the best in Tantalus—man, woman, or otherwise—and was regularly cast for the vast majority of the leading roles. As he grew, he learned she was also one of the best thieves they had. She taught him everything he knew, on and off the stage, and was tougher than wrought iron on him—and when Baku joined, she taught him, as well.
Eventually, she left the troupe and ended up killing herself of neglect, and eventually Marcus went back to Tantalus. There was a familiarity between Baku and himself that almost translated to something brotherly, but not quite, that almost borderlined on insubordination, but not quite. If anyone else talked to Baku the way Marcus sometimes did, they would earn a beating twice over before they could say another word, but from Marcus, Baku chose to ignore it. Mostly.
"No excuses," Baku went on curtly, and Marcus immediately knew either something terrible had happened or he'd found something. "You're ready to go."
His heart rose in his chest and he felt a nervous knot twist his stomach. "You found it?" It was almost too good to be true. "You found the supersoft?"
Baku nodded, handing him a folded slip of paper, then turned away from him. "Yeah, in a noble's mansion. You'll go by boat and break in tonight."
They'd finally done it—after weeks of searching, of tapping old contacts, of bribing and intimidating, they'd found where the supersoft was.
"Leave it to me," Marcus said emphatically. "I'll make sure we get it and save Blank, no matter what."
His back still to Marcus, Baku's shoulder slumped just a fraction, but it did not go beyond notice. The bigger man walked to the next flight of stairs down, hands clasped behind his back and a sombre note to his voice now, a direct contrast to the giddy elation Marcus felt at the news.
"Yeah. Except now you've got two liabilities coming along."
The reminder of Dagger and Steiner sent a host of mixed emotions surging through Marcus as he turned to watch Baku descend the stairs. No words formed when Baku paused to glance back up at him over the banister along the stairwell, and Marcus knew he could not keep his face from falling. Baku nodded as if he'd expected this.
"I thought as much. You sayin' nothing confirms my suspicions you agreed to let them tag along." The disappointment ringing through the accusation broke the dam welling up the words in Marcus.
"It wasn't like that—"
"I don't wanna hear it, Marcus." For once, Baku snapped at him. "Lemme say this just one time: you get that supersoft for Blank like you said, no matter what, or you and I are gonna have a problem. Don't let either of those two get in your way. Got it?"
Taken aback by the ferocity of Baku's threat, Marcus nodded. "I got it, Boss." He didn't use the term often, and so he laid it out now to try and convey how serious he was. Baku had to know that he wouldn't put a chance to save Blank's life below whatever moral scruples either Steiner or Dagger might try and convince him of.
Scrutinizing him through narrowed eyes, Baku seemed to accept his answer. "Be ready after sunset. And maybe you'll get lucky and they won't show up."
He vanished through the door at the bottom of the stairs, leaving Marcus to lean on and grip the old banister with one hand, wood creaking beneath his added weight. He wouldn't pass up a chance to save Blank, even if it put him at odds with Dagger—with the princess. But, she'd been fervent about working together to save him, insisting that she help. She had to understand that doing so might entail less than legal methods. She knew what Tantalus was when she'd planned to run away with them at the start of the whole mess. Marcus was sure that even if she didn't completely agree with it, she'd see the need for it.
"Dammit," he swore out loud, realizing he was already assuming she'd come along, even knowing it'd be far better if she didn't.
Baku knew they would be a liability; he had to push aside the thought of her pleasant company of the last week and remind himself they were, too.
Pushing off the banister, Marcus turned and helped himself to some bread and cheese and wine from the store built into the wall, sitting at the long wooden table beneath it. An open book lay nearby, and he reached out to pull it over and see what it was. The Vole Prince's Demise, an old play written by a less popular playwright than most knew about, but one Marcus was familiar with; he'd gone through most of the stores of books Tantalus had stashed in various hideouts and safe houses. Now, it provided a short distraction while he ate.
With the shock and elation of knowing now they were so close to obtaining the supersoft wearing off, Marcus' mind turned to logistics. He finished his meagre meal and set the play book aside. There were a few things he needed to see to now that he had a few hours' free time—if his falcata's integrity was compromised from the electrical shock from the black mage being the first and foremost, then he could drop his dirty clothing off with a launderer he knew while he was working that night.
Before he stood to set off to a weaponsmith, Marcus unfolded the piece of paper Baku had given him. It contained an address, scrawled out in Baku's leaning hand, and Marcus had to take a few minutes, wracking his memory, before he could recall where it was. Satisfied he remembered how to get there via the canals, he refolded and then slipped the paper into a pocket. He had plenty of time before sundown to get everything he needed done.
Marcus went back up the stairs, nodding a farewell to Liado, who waved him off, distracted, and went back out onto the topside walkway around the city. Turning to his left along the stone path, he headed to an old tower that overlooked the silvery Knight's House quadrant of the city. The weapons shop sat at the bottom of the tower's stairs, so he descended down to it. Once inside, he meandered, looking at the various swords and daggers in display while the keeper spoke with a pair of customers. His hands found their way to a long dagger with a leaf-shaped blade. It wasn't the fanciest thing in the shop, far from it, but Marcus found it beautiful with its simple form. Turning it over in his hands, he noticed the pale handle was made of bone and steel, and two small dark red stones were inlaid along the quillon on one side.
Lost in his study of the blade, he didn't hear the shopkeep approach him until the rough scrape of a throat clearing sounded just over his shoulder. Setting the blade back on its display holder, he turned to face the shopkeep, whose eyebrows lifted as he recognized Marcus.
"Been a spell since you were last here," he said, walking back to the front counter, Marcus trailing a few steps behind.
"Yeah," he said, coming to a halt on the nearer side of the counter while the shopkeep went around behind it and leaned forward on his elbows toward Marcus.
"What can I do for you today, then?"
"Well," Marcus began, reaching down and drawing out his blackened falcata. The shopkeep's eyes widened at the sight of the blade as it was placed gently on the countertop. "Can you tell if this's been compromised at all? Or if it's just marred the surface a bit?"
Gingerly, the shopkeep took the falcata up in his hands, inspecting the blade closely and running his fingers over the flat of it. "I'll have to do a couple tests," he begins.
Marcus nodded. "I got time."
"Okay. Just stick around for a few minutes."
As the shopkeep vanished into a back room where a small forge was housed, Marcus took the time to meander the store again, eventually finding his way back to the bone and steel-hilted dagger. He hefted it in one hand, spinning it in slow and swift arcs alike to test its balance. It felt good. Simple but functional, and he was drawn to the elegant curve and shape of the blade itself. From the back, there were several minutes of steel hitting steel, interspersed with bouts of quiet and a soft hissing noise. After a time, he heard the shopkeep walk back from the forge rooms to the stop proper, and so set the dagger down once again, moving to meet him at the counter.
Sword in the other man's hands, Marcus glanced over his face to try and gauge whether he'd be hearing good news or bad. His face remained neutral, though, as if still assessing the situation rather than about to deliver the answer.
"Well," the shopkeep told him, "the steel's still good. No loosening at the cross-guard, no weak spots in the blade itself." Giving Marcus a shrug, he looked up from the sword to his customer. "Far as I can tell it's just blackened."
A small winch of tightness unwound within Marcus at the news, one he wasn't aware was there. It was just a sword, and he could certainly get another just as serviceable, but he rather liked this one, and it'd helped him survive far more than his fair share of fights. Grateful, Marcus picked it up and sheathed it.
"Thanks—how much do I owe you for the once-over of it?"
The shopkeep cocked his head a bit, considering. "You're a repeat, so say, twenty gil and I'll call it even."
"Sure." Even as he dug into his coin purse for the gil, his thoughts bent back toward the dagger. "And—how much for that dagger over there with the bone hilt?" He motioned in its direction with his head.
Looking past Marcus' shoulder to search out which dagger he referred to, the shopkeep finally spotted it. "Not looking for something flashy, eh?"
"Wasn't really looking at all," was Marcus' reply. "It just caught my eye."
"In that case, it's three hundred gil." He looked back at Marcus. "You want it?"
Pausing only a moment to consider, Marcus shrugged. "Yeah, I'll take it." He set the first twenty gil for inspecting his falcata on the counter, then produced the rest for the dagger.
Sweeping all the gil off the counter and into something hidden from Marcus' view on the other side, the shopkeep smiled at him. "Thank you—dagger's all yours."
Marcus picked it up on his way out, sheathing it and tucking it next to the falcata beneath his belt for the moment. While he can't succinctly justify the impulse purchase, it's not like another dagger would be remiss for him to have. Glancing up at the foggy sky and trying to discern the time, he guessed he had a few more hours at least until what passed as true nightfall in this city, when he would be setting off to finally retrieve the supersoft. More than enough time to fashion a proper frog for it before he had to leave.
One more stop before he headed back to the inn to drop off his dirty clothes with a launderer, and then he was on his way back to the inn. In his haste upon hearing the supersoft had been located, he hadn't changed into a new set of clothes, but it didn't much matter at this point. He'd wear the same set for a month if it meant being able to save Blank from his stony prison. Though, when he did return, he took a quick partial wash in the hidden set of rooms in the inn below the pub's main level—the important bits to get the worst of the sweat off. After doing so, he did feel marginally cleaner as he sat down at the long table against the stone pantry to fashion a serviceable frog for his newest dagger.
While he worked, several people came into the building—Jina, the waitress, coming to start her for the evening in pub that operated on the first floor, deftly shuffling around him to fetch this or that to prepare for their patrons; customers themselves coming in, chatting amicably with Liado and Jina. It all became background noise to him after a while as the evening drew near and the pub up the stairs from him filled. In the back of his mind as he sewed leather, Marcus was glad Liado still had good business.
So used to the constant murmur of conversation drifting down the stairs that he stopped picking out individual voices as they rose or fell in excitement or laughter. After a week on the road in relative quiet with only two other companions along with him, Marcus was surprised to discover he missed the enveloping sensation of being near a dozens conversations of a crowd. He'd grown up amid an entire troupe of people who were constantly bantering or bickering, and hearing the cheers and shouts of crowds as they performed. It was a stark contrast to the silence of being on a mission, or the quiet of traveling alone on the road.
"There you are!"
The lone, emphatic voice came out of nowhere, reaching through the rest of the pub's conversations down to Marcus. He looked up from the nearly finished frog in his hands to see Dagger descending the stairs, a smile on her face.
"Have they learned anything about the supersoft here?" she asked him once she joined him at the bottom of the stairs.
He didn't answer right away, choosing instead to finish sewing up and knotting off the frog for his new dagger. Once he was satisfied, he let out a breath. "So you're still set on coming along." It wasn't quite a question, but not entirely a flat statement, either.
Instantly, Dagger's eyebrows went up and her eyes widened. She leaned in close to him and whispered excitedly, "So you found it! We can finally save Blank! When do we leave?"
Marcus did his best to ignore her proximity, and a corner of his mouth twitched downward. "I will be leaving sometime after sundown tonight."
Of course, she noticed this and her look of excitement turned to an alarmingly coquettish one. "When do we leave?" she repeated, mirroring his emphasis.
Consenting to defeat in this, Marcus shook his head. "We can leave right away, now," he groused. "Unless you're not ready to go—I can't sit around waiting all night." One last attempt to dissuade her, though even he had to admit it was a halfhearted one. But, Marcus did promise Baku he wouldn't let them get in the way—nor did he want them to, not when Blank's life was on the line—and the easiest way was if they weren't there at all.
She laughed at him, the sound warm and musical and he instantly regretted how much he enjoyed hearing it. "Don't be silly. I'm ready to go right now."
With a resigned nod, Marcus attached the new frog to the bone-hilted dagger, then clipped the whole thing to his belt. It balanced nicely against his falcata, doubling against it in a way he decided he liked. "Boss's waiting at the dock, then."
He turned to head down the second set of stairs, not waiting for her, but she was right in step with him at his elbow, the space she'd frequented during their journey across the plains of the Bentini Heights. A loud clatter of steel plates banging against one another came from behind them, heralding Steiner's approach.
"Princess!" he called, receiving a sudden hush in several conversations of the patrons on the pub floor and an icy glare from Dagger herself. "Princess," he said again, in a fiercely loud whisper, "please wait!"
Marcus didn't stop. "I understand if you need to stay here and calm your knight down."
Transferring her glare from Steiner to Marcus, Dagger shouldered past him, her slim frame pushing his aside. "We'd best be off," was all she said, her tone brusque as she reached the bottom of the stairs before him and left out the door they led to.
Steiner caught up to Marcus by the time he reached the next level, and he didn't stop the knight from barreling in front of him to go through the door Dagger had vanished through a few moments before.
"Princess, please wait! It may be a trap!" he heard Steiner saying as he followed the knight out. "You cannot trust criminals—think of the consequences! You are a princess, and if the queen hears about this…"
Dagger had come to a halt before Baku, who towered a good few head and shoulders above her, and only then finally looked back at them. Her dark eyebrows were furrowed toward one another, and her mouth turned down just slightly at the corners. It was the disapproving look of someone well schooled in giving such looks, and Steiner stopped in his tracks and even looked mildly ashamed under her scrutiny.
"Steiner," she snapped, anger making the amber in her eyes flash. "If my mother hears about this and condemns me for doing what was needed to save the life of someone who put his own on the line to save mine, then she's more than welcome to. I'm tired of this blind faith that my mother knows best—she doesn't, and that's exactly why I'm helping do this and going back to try and talk to her about what's been going on."
Behind her, Marcus watched Baku's eyebrows go higher than he'd ever seen them before in startled appreciation. Steiner himself, to whom her anger was directed, could only stand speechless for several moments. Marcus felt an urge to smile tug at his own mouth, but he resisted it, scraping his tongue lightly against his teeth instead.
A gentle tapping was the only sound that broke the silence, coming from the boat that was moored in the water a floor below them bouncing off a post. Baku cleared his throat.
"Princess," he started, his tone inscrutable, "you do know that breakin' and enterin' is a crime?"
She turned her back to both Marcus and Steiner to look Baku up in the face, meeting his gaze with steely resolve that Marcus could see in her spine. "I am well aware of what we're doing," she said, the weight of each of those words sinking through the air almost like stones would in the water beneath the dock.
Marcus slipped past Steiner to walk up to where Dagger and Baku stood and looked up at the Tantalus leader. "Let's go," he said.
Baku nodded and turned, leading them down the wooden stairs to where the boat was moored. Behind them, Steiner surged into motion, cursing.
"I cannot condone going along with this—breaking and entering and stealing!" Every step down carried a complaint with it.
Thinking that such willful blindsight about Alexandria's Queen was a far worse kind of bad influence than he could possibly show Dagger in an entire lifetime, Marcus said, "Do whatever you want. I'm going to get this supersoft for Blank no matter who does or does not come along for whatever reason."
He moved through them all to the edge of the dock, frustrated that he couldn't just leave right now, that it had to be made into a conflict. Even if it was just Dagger who insisted on coming along, at least she could do so quietly and wouldn't make a commotion about it. Without waiting for any more arguments to be brought up, preventing him from leaving on this mission for even longer, Marcus got into the boat.
"Dammit, I am coming along. It's my duty to protect the princess from bad influences," Steiner huffed as he caught up to them.
Baku turned, hands akimbo on his hips, staring back at the trailing knight. "Always talkin' about your 'duty this' and 'duty that'. Ain't you got thoughts of your own?"
Marcus knew well the irritated tone that wove its way through Baku's words now. He caught a particular glare that was sent at nobody else but him, and it drew a frustrated breath from his lips. Marcus would surely be hearing about this later, but there wasn't much he could do about it now. It wasn't as if he could simply dump them off the side of the boat en route, no matter how much he was sure Baku might want him to.
"Watch your tongue—I'm escorting the princess to ensure her safety—"
Baku rolled his eyes, very obviously. "I thought you might've changed after travelin' around with Zidane for a while, but…" He shrugged, giving off the impression of being both completely uncaring and also monumentally disappointed. It was one of the things Marcus had never seen anyone else do quite so well as Baku, and this time was no different. "I can see you haven't changed one bit. Do you even know why you're here?"
"What do you mean?" Steiner shot back, only to receive a withering look and a shake of Baku's head in reply.
Something in the the last question Baku threw at Steiner struck Marcus as an odd thing to ask—unless the answer wasn't as straightforward as simply retrieving the supersoft. He peered up at Baku, keeping his expression carefully neutral, sifting through the different pieces of information he knew to try and put the puzzle together differently, to try and see if he could make that questions make more sense in this context.
Dagger's words, flat and cold, cut through his thoughts for the moment. "Let's just go."
Much the same as he had done only moments ago, she climbed into the boat with Marcus, who automatically held up a hand to help her in, which she very pointedly ignored. Well, Marcus thought, this mission was off to a stellar start already.
"Dammit!" the knight swore again, coming up to the end of the dock as well. Baku blocked his path. "Now, see here—"
"I won't stop you." Baku dismissed Steiner with a wave of his hand, then folded his arms across his chest and leaned down to look the knight straight in the face. "But listen. You get in the way of us gettin' this supersoft to save our boy Blank, and you'll have a lot more to worry about than just watchin' over a princess."
Blustering angrily, Steiner retorted, "Are you threatening—?!"
Baku clapped a thick hand on Steiner's back, said, "I sure am!" and without any further warning, shoved him forward off the edge of the dock and into the boat with Dagger and Marcus.
Seeing this at only the last moment, Marcus grabbed one of Dagger's wrists and yanked her out of the way, toward him. She slammed into his chest as Steiner crashed down into the bottom of the boat, rocking it severely and nearly knocking the two of them off their feet as well. It was only Marcus's wide stance and solid footing that preserved them from all ending up in a heap. Once the rocking subsided to a manageable amount, he released Dagger and shifted to untie the boat from its mooring.
Baku bent down and shooed his hands away. "Don't let them stop you," he reminded Marcus once again in a low voice, who nodded back his affirmation.
As Dagger helped Steiner up to a sitting position in the boat, Baku finished untying the boat and tossed the rope in with Marcus, then placed his boot on the edge and gave a great shove. Quickly, Marcus sat and used the oars to right them onto the proper course. He took a moment to glance back at the slowly receding Baku, giving him a nod and another promise under his breath.
"I won't."