Kennith

“Norem?” Kennith called, dropping down heavily on the ledge outside the tinker’s shop. She folded her wings, hugging the trinket tight to her side, and ducked inside. Raucous noise from outside, of laughter and celebration at her crew’s return, faded away as she padded deeper inside, to be replaced with the roar of the boiler, gentle tinkling of tools hanging from the ceiling and on the walls being swayed by a faint wind, and soft whirring of a dozen different mechanic devices buzzing away at whatever task they had been built to accomplish.

A quick look about revealed no Norem in the front of the shop, so she squeezed down a short tunnel, her bulk rattling the shelves lining the walls filled with innumerable items (mostly junk), and emerged into Norem’s back workroom.

The tinker was busy at work at one of his desks, welding helmet lowered over his face as he used a thin stream of fire to melt a line of metal along the edge of another piece of metal. For whatever good that would do.

Mindful of the yellow line marking off the DANGER! DO NOT PASS! zone, Kennith stepped as close as she dared and filled her lungs with air. “Norem!” she bellowed, and was gratified to see the obelisk startle, the fire jet jolting as he jumped.

Quickly, he shut it off and set it aside, turning to face her. “Can you not read!” he yelled, flapping his claws at her as if to shoo away an irksome bug. “The sign on the front clearly says—Oh, hi Kennith.” He lifted the mask, revealing bloodshot eyes and grimy fur that bespoke of several all-nighters pulled in a row—but also a toothy grin. He bounded up to her and rubbed his gloved paws together eagerly, his eyes looking her up and down as he tried to find the item. “What have you brought me this time?”

“I’ll show you,” she grunted, jerking her folded wing away as he lunged for it. She held up a claw in warning, holding the trinket out of reach, and he drew back, disappointed. “If—”

“If what?” he barked, practically wiggling in impatience.

Kennith fixed him with a dark look. “We need to talk.”

Norem grimaced, nose wrinkling in disgust. “What about, really? We don’t really need to talk, you and I. You know that . . . we’ve always shared such a nice, simple little relationship . . . no need to make anything complicated . . .”

Kennith flicked her tail in the direction of the front of his shop. “Come along.” He grumbled, but followed as she led the way back through the cluttered tunnel.

As soon as they entered the shop front, Norem slunk over to his desk, where customers were greeted and items sold, and slouched down behind it, glaring at Kennith. She paced to the center of the room, took a deep breath, then turned to face him.

“We lost two pirates this voyage. Smaes and Perld.”

Norem started muttering something about the dangers of the high sea, cowards and treacherous enemies, the Tidelord’s embargos. Kennith ignored him.

“They died from explosions. They died because of failures in your machines. Norem—”

He hunched further, fiddling with a small contraption in his claws. Kennith strode up and smacked it out of his paws, sending it crashing to the floor where pieces of it broke off and skittered out of sight. His head jerked up, eyes aflame with anger, jaws open to yell at her—then snapped shut, as he finally met her eyes, and saw the coldness in them.

“They died because of you,” she hissed in his face, and when his gaze dropped, she stepped back and sat down on her haunches. Though the other obelisk was bigger than her, he looked smaller.

When he didn’t say anything, Kennith went on, “Captain’s angry. She sailed back ready to tear your hide clean off your bones. She told me—’Kennith, if you don’t talk to him before I get to his shop, there won’t be a scrap of him left to interest any tinker.’ And I believe her.” She tipped her head to one side. “This is your only chance to make things right.”

“I—I am the keeper of this base,” Norem growled at last. “Without me, none of you would have made it this far.”

“Tell that to the captain. Give me something, Norem. Anything, that I can bring back to her and convince our crew to keep your head from rolling.”

He twitched. “I have a few things,” he muttered, plucking at a button on his jacket with his claws. “A new device I’ve been working on—”

Kennith shook her head. “Nothing new. The crew’s nerves are stretched thinner than toffee. We need something familiar, reliable. We need to be able to depend on you, Norem. You’ve held our base, yes. But that’ll be of no use to anyone if your tinkering kills us out on the water.” Her lip lifted to reveal the edge of her teeth. “You won’t have me to bring you back little baubles to play with.”

He didn’t rise to the barb, one claw tapping on the desktop while he stared down at the wood, his gaze more distant than the moons. “Fine,” he said at last, abruptly. He straightened, leveled Kennith with a nervous gaze. “Alright. Sure, yes. Fine. I’ll figure something out.” He dipped his head awkwardly to her. “Thank you for . . . intervening.”

“I’m the ship navigator. I keep us from steering into rocky shores.”

“Right. Well. I need time to think, time to . . . plan. Fix things. I’ll make things right, I promise. The captain and I built this operation together. I’ll go to the Shade before I damned well let it fall apart.”

Kennith nodded shortly. That sounded like the Norem of old. She untucked her wing and let the trinket fall to the desk. She didn’t look at it or him as she swept out of the shop. Some useless thing; pretty, she supposed, with lots of little mechanical parts to puzzle and delight the tinker. She would leave him to it—she had to get back to helping her crew unload their captured treasures. And prepare for memorial services for their fallen.

“Kennith,” Norem called after her, as she opened her wings to lift off. “I am sorry. For Perld, and Smaes.”

Her claws curled in, grinding against the rocky ledge. “Prove it,” she said finally, and flew off to rejoin her mates.

~TETRAHEDR0N