The wagon clattered over worn cobblestone as the hills grew steeper, the land more wild. Eventually, twilight gathered around them, and lanterns flickered to life like fireflies. Crows perched on crooked rooftops as they rolled into a small outpost town nestled between two craggy ridges. The air hung thick with woodsmoke, damp hay, and something heavier—like anticipation.
Boo jumped down first, stretching her back until it popped. "We're gonna need better food than dried berries and half a crust of bread if we're going where I think we're going."
Nyxia dismounted more gracefully, her hood drawn up. Leopard-like ears twitched beneath the cloth, tuned to every sound. Loque padded silently beside her—just a shimmer to most, but always present.
They found a tavern tucked into a crooked alley—one of those places where the floor stuck to your boots, eyes watched from corners, and the air reeked of secrets. Smoke curled lazily from the hearth. The music—if it could be called that—came from a one-string lute and a baritone snore.
Boo sauntered up to the bar and slapped down a few coins. "Two meals. Two ales. And we're lookin' for work."
The barkeep, a narrow-eyed goblin with a scar down one brow and a brass ring through his nostril, didn't blink. "Ain't no honest work around here. Just bets and bruises."
Nyxia's eyes narrowed, glowing faintly. "Fighting ring?"
The goblin gave them a measured look. "Might be. Might not. Depends who's askin'."
Loque growled low, imperceptible to most ears. Boo leaned forward with a grin sharp as a dagger's edge.
"Let's say I'm askin'. Politely."
That got a nod toward the back. A tall woman sat cloaked in too many layers for the heat, tattoos curling up her throat like smoke. Her gaze gleamed like flint.
"She runs the names. S'called The Pit. Not local. No signs, no maps. You follow the red stones in the riverbed east."
Nyxia and Boo exchanged a look.
Loque bristled.
"Sounds illegal," Nyxia muttered.
"Which means someone's suffering," Boo replied, eyes already on the woman in the corner. "And where there's suffering… there's someone to gut."
They ate fast—a greasy stew that barely qualified as food, stale bread that softened only in ale—and booked a room upstairs after a hard-won haggle. The room smelled faintly of sweat and damp stone, but it had a lock and four walls. In towns like this, that was luxury.
"Cozy," Boo said dryly, tossing her cloak over the lone chair. "Bet the fleas are unionized."
Nyxia snorted, removing her bow and loosening her hood. "It'll do."
Still buzzing from the mystery of The Pit, and eager to loosen the tension in their shoulders, they made their way back down to the tavern's main floor, where the mood had shifted from wary to raucous. Voices had risen, tankards clinked, and the smoke was thicker now — not just from pipeweed, but from something heavier, sweeter… bloodthistle.
A heavyset Tauren near the hearth puffed leisurely on a long-stemmed pipe, smoke curling upward around the brass ring in his horn. His chestnut fur gleamed in the firelight, bare save for a necklace of teeth and bone. His trousers were loose and patched, and he looked very much like someone who'd brawled a dozen men and laughed while doing it.
"You ladies look like you've had a day," he said, voice deep and slow, eyes amused.
"We've survived a day," Boo quipped, sliding into the seat beside him with a grin. "Got room for two more at that fire of yours, or you the territorial type?"
The Tauren chuckled, his breath trailing a plume of blue-tinted smoke. "Ain't my fire. And it burns for anyone willing to laugh at the dark."
He passed the pipe without ceremony. Boo took a drag — deep and smooth — and coughed only a little before exhaling with a grin. "Sweet gods, I missed the good stuff." She handed it to Nyxia.
Nyxia hesitated, then took a smaller, more cautious puff. The bloodthistle hit her immediately, a warm rush of vertigo and heat settling in her limbs. She exhaled slowly, eyes half-lidded.
"I'm Draj," the Tauren rumbled. "Used to fight in The Pit. Broke a troll's leg with a bench once. Got stabbed with a bottle. Miss those days sometimes."
"I'm Boo. This is Nyxia." Boo leaned back, stretching. "We're thinking of signing up."
Draj gave them a slow once-over. "You don't look like Pit meat."
"We're not." Boo winked. "We're trouble."
What followed was a haze of stories, smoke, and steadily vanishing sobriety. Boo flirted outrageously, teasing Draj and Nyxia both with that wolfish grin. Nyxia loosened up in rare fashion, laughing at Draj's tales of failed magic tricks, troll gamblers, and a goblin who tried to fight with a live chicken tied to each boot. Boo doubled over laughing, fell off the bench, and took Nyxia with her in a tangle of limbs and giggles.
Sometime between the fourth ale and another round of bloodthistle, Boo fumbled through her belt pouch and pulled out a crumpled bit of parchment. "I need a raven," she slurred, standing too fast and nearly tipping over. "Where's the— Where do birds sleep here?"
"What are you doing?" Nyxia asked, still lounging by the fire, half-melted against a pillow stolen from another table.
"Writing a very important letter," Boo said solemnly, as she dipped a quill she didn't remember borrowing into spilled ale. She scrawled uneven lines on the parchment, giggling as she went.
Purrshus—
Are yu still aliv? We might be. Nyx says we are but i think she's juss tryin to be bossy wif facts.
We drank. A lot. Then a bigass cowman named Draj shaird sum bloodthissle wif us. He smokes it lik a poet. Said sumthin abowt da stars havin teeth?? I think I luv him. He scared of goblins wich is WILD coz he's huge n cud crush one like a bug on soup.
We fownd a pit. Not a hole. Like, a fyt place. Called THE PIT. Caps. We mite fyt. Mite bet. Mite kiss sumone's mom. IDK. No maps jus rocks in water. Red ones. Nyx says we follow em. I say we roll down em.
Nyx is funner than ppl think. She snorted beer. Like a lot. I saw her SMILE. thrice. She has this… laugh? lik a sunbeam curlin up in a hammock. I'm not cryin ur cryin. -B
She paid a stablehand a silver coin to take the letter to the raven roost on the far hill. Whether it got there or not, she didn't care. She just liked the thought of Perseus getting it mid-mission, surrounded by seriousness, and being forced to imagine her in a smoke-drenched tavern with ale on her breath and mischief in her eyes.
By the time they staggered upstairs, the tavern had mostly cleared out. Boo nearly tripped unlocking their room, muttering curses about the key being a "shapeshifting bastard."
Inside, they collapsed onto the bed, fully clothed, shoes and all, half-drunk and high from bloodthistle. Boo wrapped an arm around Nyxia and exhaled, the ceiling spinning lazily above them.
"I like this part," she mumbled, her breath warm against Nyxia's neck. "Before the blades and blood. Before it all gets messy."
Nyxia shifted to face her, pressing her forehead lightly to Boo's. "Me too."
Loque curled quietly at the foot of the bed, a protective shimmer in the dark. Outside, the wind whispered through the crags, rattling the shutters like bones.
Tomorrow, they'd follow the red stones east — toward The Pit, and whatever shadows waited in the depths.
Tonight, they just breathed, their laughter fading into stillness — tangled in warmth, memory, and the smoke-laced breath of a moment they'd remember long after the bruises.
They didn't know when they fell asleep. One moment, Boo was giggling into a half-eaten slice of bread she'd sworn was staring at her. The next, the tavern room was dim with early morning haze, and Nyxia lay sprawled like a queen fallen from grace—half on the mattress, half tangled in her cloak. Boo's head had somehow ended up pillowed squarely on Nyxia's backside, one arm draped over her thigh like a drunken claim.
Loque'nahak, ever present and ever spectral, sat in the corner of the room. His form shimmered with faint blue light, his piercing gaze soft with amusement. His tail thumped once, slow and deliberate.
"You're being reckless again, Nyxia," he murmured into her dreaming thoughts. "Letting down your guard. Letting someone in." But the rebuke lacked edge. There was affection in it—like an old companion watching the stars change and choosing not to stop them.
When Boo stirred, it was with a groan and a hiccup, flailing slightly before realizing where her head was. "…Mmph. Nyx, yer butt's comfy," she muttered before rolling off and dragging herself to her feet. "Shower. Gonna die if I don't. My teeth smell like smoke."
The washroom was cramped but blessedly private. Boo stripped down with the casual boldness of someone who never saw her own body as a thing to hide—lithe and toned from years of agile fighting, with curves that defied logic and probably physics. Scars decorated her in strange, intimate places - a knife edge just beneath her ribs, a burn on her left hip, old bruises turned to faded memory. Her skin was moonlit lavender, smooth and radiant under the steamy lanternlight.
She stood under the water, sighing as the bloodthistle sweated out of her pores, letting the heat soak into her muscles. She scrubbed, groaned, scrubbed again, and sang a half-coherent tavern song while rinsing her hair with something that smelled vaguely like citrus and sin.
After drying off, she wrapped a towel around herself and sat by the mirror, humming while she brushed out her hair—dark and wild, streaked with faint indigo strands. She twisted it up into loose braids, pinned two daggers into them like accessories, then examined the results with a cheeky grin.
"Still got it," she declared, striking a pose.
Nyxia finally stirred, grumbling into the sheets as she woke up with Boo's scent lingering far too close. "Ugh. Your head was on me."
Boo winked. "You're welcome."
With a quiet, elegant sigh of resignation, Nyxia stood and made her way into the washroom. Her long limbs carried the weight of both grace and exhaustion. She shed her cloak and garments without fanfare, revealing the elegant lines of a huntress's body—taut with strength, but not hardened. Her alabaster-pale skin shimmered faintly in the light, dappled with subtle spectral markings along her hips and shoulders—like the ghost of Loque's pawprints had blessed her.
A clawed scar curved just beneath her ribcage, another trailed down her thigh—tokens from beasts who had failed to kill her. Her breasts were full and proud, her frame lean but not lacking softness. She stepped into the water and let it run down her back, tilting her head up as steam curled around her horns.
Unlike Boo, Nyxia washed in silence—methodical, focused. Her mind ran even as the warmth unwound her body. Only when the water hit the sensitive scar on her thigh did she gasp quietly.
After drying off and dressing in her usual practical leathers, she emerged to find Boo snacking on leftover bread and re-braiding a strand of her hair with a stolen feather. Nyxia arched a brow but said nothing.