Chocolate Fic for bubbly
To: bubbly
From: katmillia
Title: Partners
Pairing: Nagase/Becky; hints of Sho/Oguri Shun, Meisa/Jun and Toma/Maki
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Becky wants desperately to prove herself within the Thieves' Guild, and nabbing that important artifact is just the way to do it. Turns out, however, that she's going to need some help along the way.
A/N: dearest bubbly, please enjoy! It was a pleasure to write for you. :) ♥
The guard at the door almost didn't let her in.
"No, I'm on the list," Becky said, reaching for it; if he would just let her see it, she could show him. She was part of the Guild, she'd paid her dues - more than she probably should have, but that's what happened to those at the bottom of the ladder. She was allowed to attend the gala, and she'd made her dress especially for the occasion.
The guard just glared down at her, eyebrows hidden beneath goggles that reflected the bits of light bobbing on either side of the pathway leading up to the hall. "Miss, I have to insist that you remain here while I check-"
"But I'm on the list," Becky tried again. A couple walked up behind her and was apparently recognized immediately, because the guard waved them inside the double, arched doors. Behind the backdrop of the hall itself, with columns and turrets and distinctly Old World architecture, there were three airships parked there: the flagships. They were adorned and respected, and Becky hated that her small little ship was docked a half hour away in the public aerodrome.
The guard sighed, stepping in front of her after the couple he'd allowed in passed.
"This isn't fair," Becky said.
"Entry into the Thieves' Guild gala would rarely be considered that," the guard agreed.
"But I'm a member," Becky started, and that was when someone cleared their throat behind her. She didn't need to turn to know who it was; the haughty lilt of it had already given her away. Kuroki Meisa, on the arm of beloved guild member Matsumoto Jun, dressed to the nines in a full skirt, long sleeves, and a small clock face sitting on a bejeweled ribbon around her neck.
"She is a member," Meisa told the guard, in a way that said exactly how much she wished it weren't so.
The guard bowed deeply and made to open the doors for them, and Becky just bit down hard on her bottom lip to keep from saying anything that she would regret - only because it would get her in trouble with the rest of the guild. Meisa gave her a look and raised her chin higher as Matsumoto led her through the archway.
"Can I go in now?" Becky asked, feeling angry and small as the lace-lined train of Meisa's dress disappeared inside with the rest of the glitz and finery.
"Yes, Miss," the guard said, and gestured with one arm. "Please, welcome to the gala."
--
Inside, the building was alive with light: the guild had gotten a hold of shimmering crystals from the Haptop Mines and had strung them along cords, and the jewels glittered overhead as the crowd of people danced below them in time with the orchestra's music. Becky had never seen so much finery in one place. She'd known that the gala was the one event the guild went all out on, but this - this was positively overwhelming. She spent several minutes standing just inside the doors, trying to collect her thoughts. Meisa and Jun were lost somewhere amongst the crowd.
The problem with the gala was that most of the guild members had brought their partners; partners, as it were, were for life. Partners were your most trusted advisor and the person who had your back. Partners were the people who shot the Republic's ships' radios dead when you were being chased across the stars with the ancient masks of a long-dead civilization or the youngest princess' favorite diamond necklace.
Becky had yet to find a Partner - with a capital P - but she wasn't going to let that stop her from being a member of the guild. She would prove herself to be worthy of the clan, even if she had to do it alone.
Meanwhile, she grabbed one of the champagne flutes from the waiter drifting around the party and smoothed the lines in her skirt, the gears she'd glued onto her fingernails catching a bit on the black lace stomacher.
"Isn't it a little early in the party to be chugging champagne?" a voice asked near her ear, just as Becky was swallowing the last drops from the flute. It was good, too: light and crisp and obviously taken from some very wealthy nobleman's storerooms. Nothing at the guild's gala was paid for legitimately.
"They may not want me here, but I'm going to be here anyway," Becky replied. She kept her eyes trained ahead on the dancing figures in front of the band, but only because she knew who it was already. Shun took a step forward and entered the sides of her field of vision, wearing a waistcoat and gleaming suspenders made of gold-plaited cords.
"Well, I want you here," he told her.
She turned to him with a warm smile. "Then that makes you the only one."
"Hush," Shun laughed. He folded his hands in front of himself and leaned against the wall, moving one of the tapestries that was hanging there depicting a medieval scene done with armor and swords and horses. "Not everyone in the guild is all bad."
"Not all bad," Becky grumbled under her breath, but even she had to admit that Shun had a point; most of the other guild members were so busy with their own heists, their own lives and partners and planning and goods, that they didn't have the time to stop and get to know a young woman searching for her place in the system.
"Someday, you'll find the perfect partner," Shun told her. He leaned over and bopped her on the nose, and Becky swatted at his hand - his height advantage was irritating at the best of times.
One of the servers passed by with a tray ornately decorated with a tower of exotic-looking candies from somewhere Becky had never been, and she was too afraid to reach out and take one for fear of knocking the whole thing over. Instead, she crossed her arms over her chest and watched the center of the room, near the band, where a podium was erected; Meisa and Matsumoto were lingering near it, obviously waiting for the moment to arrive for their presentation to the crowd.
"You just say that because you've already found yours," Becky said over her shoulder. She didn't know where Shun's partner Sakurai was, but he was obviously somewhere in the festivities. A quick glance around that required tearing her gaze forcibly away from Meisa again, who was smiling and looking unstoppable and beautiful and powerful in her corset with small cogs embroidered into the fabric, showed no sign of Shun's slightly better half.
"No, I say that because I'm smart," Shun started, and then anything else he might have wanted to say was cut off by the band playing a short fanfare and Meisa stepping up towards the hovering microphone, glittering with some sort of artificial light.
The crowd quieted and Meisa waved her hand at someone in the back, looking regal. "Thank you so much for taking the time to come here and dine with the guild," she said, and then, with a mischievous look, added, "And don't even think that because we are all here, that guild rules about stealing from other members don't apply."
There was a ripple of laughter through the throng of people, and Becky just frowned harder.
"We'd like to announce a special something, since it is, after all, the 150th anniversary of the guild," Meisa continued, to a spattering of happy, surprised noises from the onlookers. "There's a very powerful, very old artifact that one of the members of the Republic Diet has recently discovered on a sight-seeing trip. We won't tell you what it is or who found it; we will, however, give whoever manages to find it and slip it out from under his esteemed politician's nose a grand welcome into the guild hall of fame with a lifetime membership on the guild committee."
"Is she kidding?" Becky asked, over the roar that sprung up once Meisa had finished talking - she could practically see her future in front of her, stretched out like the sails of an airship barge taking to the skies. That artifact was hers, and she was going to find it. She was going to find it and take her rightful place in the guild, alongside perfect Meisa and her beautiful, charming, elegant partner Matsumoto.
Shun reached out and grabbed Becky's arm, fingers tight. "Becky," he warned, and she could barely hear him because the crowd around them had begun clapping and yelling in pleasure, and the band had picked back up again with a lively tune that probably had at least three official court dances choreographed to it. "Don't even-"
"Don't even what?" Becky asked, interrupting him before he could finish and shaking his fingers free. "This is my chance!"
"Your chance to get arrested and killed," Shun said. "This is going to be guarded by the biggest private security force this side of the Koriander Reef. And you're still new to this, you haven't..."
His voice trailed off. Becky stared up at him, feeling small and insignificant. "Haven't what?" she challenged.
Shun had the decency to look abashed when he finished with, "Haven't even got a partner to save your neck in tough situations."
"Well, I don't need a partner," Becky told him. Pride and determination, hot and white and strong, was flaring up in her veins and igniting all of her thoughts with a singular goal: winning. "I'll do this all on my own, you'll see."
"Becky," Shun tried again, and then Becky caught sight of his partner Sakurai working his way through the crowd, hands up in the air and suspenders nearly getting caught on the decorative corner of one of the serving trays.
"There's your date," she said, motioning towards the approaching figure. "And I better go - I've got some reconnaissance to do if I want to get to this first."
She slipped off just as Shun turned to greet Sakurai, hoping that the gala would hold the rest of the guild members' attention until she was well out of the city and on her way to figuring out who and what she was even searching for.
--
A day outside of the city's airspace and down the Hapshem Route usually taken by merchants and travelers without enough chops to get on the royal trail, Becky stopped by a small inn that she knew was run by a young couple who kept themselves well-informed and their airship docking grounds well-oiled. Becky's little ship, The STAR Bridge, didn't run as fast as others' did; it chugged along and ate up oil and the propellers frequently threw nuts and bolts after she pushed it through long hours of flight.
Ikuta, the man who ran the inn, kept some good hands around that knew a bit about airship repairs, so Becky slipped them a small handful of gold coins when she landed and knew at least her ship would be in good hands. As she made her way inside, she found herself fervently hoping that the food had improved since the last time, too.
It was busy - the caravans were in movement with the changing seasons and Ikuta's wife, a small woman with a pretty face and high cheekbones named Maki, said that Becky was lucky, because she got their last room.
The thing about inns, especially during the big market seasons with the number of ships passing by, was that they were a particularly good place to find and haggle for information. Becky took a seat at a small table near the back after paying for the simplest meal available - soup, bread and a pint of ale - watching the bodies nearby to see if any of them looked helpful to her goal.
There was one woman with her hair ornately piled on her head, but when Becky asked her about any new gossip, she just turned her nose up and walked in the other direction.
Annoyed, Becky ended up eating dinner alone, trying to overhear snippets of the others' conversations.
The next morning, she went down to the docking grounds to find that the entire engine of The STAR Bridge had been taken out and the wires from inside were lying haphazardly on the floor, a bit like entrails that had been gutted.
Becky - too shocked for words - ended up making several horrified squeaking noises until one of the mechanics noticed her and came over.
"This your ship?" he asked.
"What did you do to it?" she exclaimed, hands half-covering her mouth.
The mechanic - who was almost as tall as Shun so that Becky had to crane her head upwards just to look at him - pulled the toothpick out of his mouth and studied her; his face was smeared with bits of grease and oil on his forehead and cheeks, and he looked rough. Rough and strong, like he could rip her ship apart with his bare hands. Studying the inner workings of her engine strewn across the ground, Becky wondered if that was what had happened.
"One of my boys got the ships mixed up," he explained. "Thought yours was the one he was supposed to take apart for spare parts."
The STAR Bridge looked as sad as Becky felt, emotion welling in her chest. "But... but my ship..."
"Yeah, sucks," the mechanic nodded. "Don't worry, I fired him."
"Can you fix it?" Becky asked. She wasn't sure what she would do if the answer was negative.
The mechanic gave out a sharp bark of a laugh and threw the toothpick down to the ground - his coveralls were just as stained as his face, and his goggles were pushed back into his hair, making the short bits stick straight up at the top. "'Course I can! I'm the best god damn mechanic in the province."
"I need to be going, I'm in a hurry," Becky told him, wringing her hands in front of her. Her edge on the others in the guild was seeping into the ground just like The STAR Bridge's oils were. "I'm on a tight schedule here."
The mechanic - whose name tag read Nagase - studied her for a long moment. "You following that envoy's procession?"
"Envoy?" Becky repeated, startled. "What envoy?"
"The one that came through here last night as I was firing the guy who took your ship apart."
Becky hadn't heard anything about an envoy, but on the merchant's trail, it was a great deal less common to see nobles go through. It could mean anything - or it could mean that Becky was close to finding the valuable artifact that would secure her position in the guild for the rest of her life. Eager, she turned to Nagase, trying to ignore the pathetic look of her airship. "Whose procession was it? Was it heading north, towards the ridge? How many ships were part of it?"
Nagase held both hands up in surrender, palms dark. "Whoa! Whoa. I dunno, girl."
"I'm not a girl," Becky huffed, but waited for him to keep going.
"All I know is that it came through here on its way west."
"West?" Becky said. There was no way that anyone carrying something so valuable would be heading west into guild territory; it was practically offering the thing up. Becky deflated - the envoy was unrelated, then, and she was no closer to finding out anything.
"There was this one ship with them, tiny little thing. Pretty crappy, if you ask me - old model, really out of date, pretty sure the engine was actually recalled a couple of years ago-"
"Your point?" Becky interrupted. "The ship?"
Nagase scratched the back of his head. "Right, anyway, this little ship broke off from the procession just south of here and turned east instead. Figured maybe they were just hanging out with the envoy for protection. Can get dicey round these parts for the rich."
She let the information sink in for a long moment. East. East was towards the deserts and the nomad territories. It could be nothing. Or, it could be that she'd just been given a very helpful hint that the other guild members wouldn't have.
"How soon can you have my ship put back together?" she asked.
"A day," Nagase promised, which seemed a bit overzealous but if he was as good as he claimed to be, maybe it was possible.
Another day of bread, soup and ale. "Fine," Becky told him, mostly because she didn't have much of a choice. "I need it ready to leave tomorrow at daybreak."
--
The STAR Bridge was ready to go and sitting alone - and put back together - in the docking area when Becky woke early the next morning and set out. Maki took the key to the room with a warm smile and bid Becky good luck; Becky didn't need good luck as much as she needed to beat the rest of the guild members towards the deserts past the horizon.
The ship purred beneath her hands as she started up the engines and watched the propellers start to spin out the small cabin window - it felt good to be back in her airship again. The STAR Bridge had been with her through so much. At least Nagase and his mechanics had gotten it all put right once more. Maybe they'd even done a few repairs while they were in there.
The eastern routes were even less-traveled then the merchant roads were. Becky saw few other airships in the sky as she flew over the dunes of yellow sand as far as she could see. There were a few nomadic villages set up beneath the shade of desert palms, but Becky doubted the small ship - and the prize she hoped it carried - had stopped at any of the oases. The eastern deserts were a good place to disappear, but it was unlikely that the pilot and crew of the small ship had enough resources to avoid the major outposts. Supplies were a necessity in the harsh sun and unforgiving heat.
It was as she was keying in coordinates for auto-pilot, hoping she'd get a little while to study the maps she knew she had stuffed into one of the cabinets in the cockpit, that she heard the odd thumping noise in the hall leading back to the cabin. It didn't sound mechanical; instead, it almost sounded as if a wild animal had gotten into the corridor and was moving around. Becky's heart flew up to her throat, choking her in a panic - she didn't have much by way of weapons. And she didn't know what kind of being could get inside her ship.
Her heart sank as she stood; it was probably a person, then, which panicked her even worse. There was a person in The STAR Bridge with her.
She grabbed for the nearest thing she could find in the cockpit to use as a weapon, which was the small frying pan she used to make yakitori sometimes. With the iron clutched in her hands, Becky slowly made her way back towards the hallway, putting one foot in front of the other.
"It's just a mouse," she whispered to herself, shakily opening the door. There was nothing immediately visible in the hallway, but she heard another thud and scuffle, much closer than the last one. Her breath caught painfully in her lungs. "It's just a mouse..."
That was when Nagase's head appeared in her field of vision, just a hand span in front of her. Becky shrieked and swung the frying pan without really thinking, which smacked the man hard in the side of the head and sent him flying into the wall of the corridor with a muffled cry of surprise and pain. There was a moment of nothing, and then Becky realized that the hulking hunk of a mechanic had snuck on board her ship after she told him when she would be leaving. The thought enraged her so much that she swung a second time at him as he was attempting to pull himself back onto both feet.
"Stop!" Nagase cried, holding one hand up so that Becky's pan smacked him squarely in the forearm and elbow instead of his face, which was where she had been aiming - she hoped it hurt just as bad.
"Stealing on my ship!" Becky exclaimed, and lunged a third time - which was when The STAR Bridge lurched, too. Belatedly, Becky remembered that she hadn't actually finished putting in the auto-pilot controls when the sound had startled her; the ship was skimming across the top of one of the towering dunes, sand flying into the propellers and hulk scraping across the mass with an awful, piercing sort of noise. Becky stumbled so badly to one side when the ship hit a 45 degree angle that she dropped the frying pan.
There was a moment of nothing, and then another gut-wrenching metallic groan; The STAR Bridge hitched, caught, and finally sputtered to a stop in one of the sand dunes in a move that threw both Becky and Nagase into the door between the cockpit and the corridor.
Everything was still.
--
"This is all your fault!" Becky insisted, hands at her sides as she tried not to look at the damage to her beloved airship. It was half-buried in the sands, looking like a sick, tired camel that had given up halfway through the desert journey. The entirety of the bottom of the hull was scraped and bent, several of the propeller blades having been nearly completely destroyed. The sun of the eastern desert was beating down on them as they stood outside to survey the damage; just a few minutes in it and Becky was already feeling the swell of overheating rise through her form. "If you hadn't snuck in like that and surprised me-"
"Well, I didn't mean to surprise you," Nagase told her, though he seemed keener on taking stock of the damage done by the crash than her exclamations.
"What other purpose could you possibly have?" Becky asked. "A free ride? Smuggling? Are you smuggling something on my ship?!"
Nagase gave her an odd look. "Not unless you consider my tools illicit goods."
"Don't give me that," Becky snapped. The heat was making her irritable - or more irritable than just having her airship crashed by some sneaky, stowaway mechanic would have normally. "What were you trying to do?"
"Well, I mean, I was worried about you," the man said, sheepishly, rubbing his hand along the back of his neck where the hair was damp with sweat from the sun. "You were going off to follow some weird ship and you were alone-"
"-and I'm just a helpless girl?" Becky finished. Ire was flaring up hot and strong.
"No!" Nagase said. He put both hands up in a gesture of surrender. "No, I mean - well, you see. I just..."
It was hot and her ship was stuck in a sand dune and Becky was losing her patience for the conversation. "You just thought I needed some kind of big male bodyguard because I can't do anything on my own, right?"
"I just wanted to help!" Nagase exclaimed. Then his face got kind of funny; he looked at her with furrowed brows. "You would have been mad if I was smuggling goods on your ship?"
"No one smuggles things on The STAR Bridge but me," Becky insisted.
There was a second of nothing, and then Nagase's face broke into a wide grin. "I knew I liked you," he said.
Becky sort of avoided looking at him, hoping that the heat of the overbearing sun would mask the flush creeping up on her cheeks. "Whatever. Can you fix this? Because this is awful, and I really need to get going, and now I'm stuck in a dune in the desert..."
Nagase pulled his goggles down from the top of his head so that they settled on the bridge of his nose, glinting in the sunlight. "Leave it to me. You'll be back up and moving in no time."
--
Despite how annoyed Becky was with the whole situation, she did have to admit that Nagase made excellent time with getting The STAR Bridge back together and in the skies once more; it seemed that no major damage was done besides the propeller blades, and no pilot worth their salt took to the clouds without extras in case they get thrown or broken. Nagase got the ship back humming and flying, and Becky tried to figure out how she could turn around to drop the man back off at the inn - or turn him in to the local authorities for being creepy.
"We need to stop somewhere and get fuel," Nagase pointed out as Becky was tracing routes that had the best jails Nagase could spend time inside. "You're almost out."
With a start, she realized that in her haste to catch up to the envoy's deserter ship, she'd forgotten to fill the tanks. "There's a small outpost near the next oasis, according to this map."
"What the hell are you hoping to do, anyway?" Nagase asked. He settled himself into the co-pilot's chair like he owned the place, stupid big feet resting up on the console. Becky swatted at his boots.
"I'm following a hunch," Becky admitted, since that was really all she had to go on.
Nagase regarded her for a long moment. "A hunch about what, exactly?"
"Something important."
Nagase didn't push - which surprised and pleased her - and instead pointed down through the cockpit windows to the cluster of waving palm trees and bright, almost sparkling white-washed huts that appeared just on the edge of the horizon, where the bleached yellow met the brilliant blue sky. "There," he said. "That the outpost you mean?"
"Yes," Becky answered. She felt happier with the airship back in working order beneath her hands, fingers poised over the controls. At least she wouldn't be dying in the desert of dehydration. And she hoped she still had a head start on the envoy ship and its strange route and location. After all, she hadn't seen many other ships at all over the dunes.
Nagase remained quiet as The STAR Bridge approached the outpost, which was run mostly by the nomadic tribe that controlled trade in the area, and didn't say anything else as Becky slowly landed the airship in the docking grounds - which was really just an open patch of sand behind a tent with a few mechanics milling around to assist with small repairs. The people in the outpost wore the traditional clothes of the tribes; long light-colored fabrics to repel the heat of the sun, though Becky saw a few traders in the area outside the airship hub sporting the garb more suited to the western cities.
She made a few quick deals for fuel and set out towards the open-air market for some food while The STAR Bridge was filled; Nagase trailed behind her like a hyperactive guard dog.
"I'm going to take you back to the inn," Becky told him, as she walked through the market with stalls full of desert plants, harvested water, and sparkling, glittering beads strung amongst old gears and knobs. It was an eclectic sort of place, but Becky rather liked it - the air smelled strongly of spices and mulled ales.
"I think I should come with you," the man insisted, like he had a choice in the matter.
They paused by a merchant selling kabobs of dried, salted meat, and Nagase insisted on buying for them both. "I don't need protection," Becky told him. The meat was good and pungent on her tongue. "As soon as The STAR Bridge is re-fueled, I'm going to take you back to-"
She nearly dropped her kabob when she saw a familiar face among the crowd of sun-darkened nomads. She let out a small squeak and hopped behind a large, colorful awning to hide herself. What was Meisa doing in such a small outpost? After a moment of surprise, Becky peeked around the corner to get a better look.
"What are you doing?" Nagase asked, mouth full of the meat he'd taken off the kebab stick in one bite.
"Shh!" Becky hissed, finger to her lips. She watched Meisa - dressed in traveling leather and a stiff, dark corset and steel-toed leather boots that sparkled in the sun - move along the market stalls as if she were entirely uninterested. Her behavior was too obviously rehearsed to be real, which meant she was looking for something. A moment later and Matsumoto appeared behind her. Traveling together meant they were most likely on guild business.
They were probably after the same ship that Becky was chasing.
Becky watched them disappear into the crowd as her heart sunk down into her stomach; she didn't have time to take Nagase all the way back to Ikuta's inn if Meisa and Matsumoto were on the same trail she was. Their airship was faster and bigger, and the head start Becky had thought she had was rapidly disappearing.
"I can't let her win," Becky said, to herself before she realized that Nagase was still standing next to her, chomping on the meat and eyeing her with an amused expression. She slid out from the shadows. "I can't let her win! Don't you see, she's after the same thing!"
Nagase said something that Becky couldn't totally understand around the half-chewed bits of meat that might have been, "What thing?"
"I can't believe she's here!" Becky continued, ignoring the question. "Gods above, how did she get here so fast? How did she even know about the envoy?"
She had lost sight of the pair, but she was reasonably sure that they were headed back towards the docking grounds. She just hoped they didn't recognize The STAR Bridge; they probably wouldn't. Thieves in the guild went out of their way to make their airships as nondescript as possible. The STAR Bridge looked like any other merchant airship that had suffered a bit of wear and tear.
"What are you talking about?" Nagase asked, and Becky largely ignored him - she started out into the market, keeping her footsteps light. As long as there were always bodies between her and the duo, she could tail them to see where they were going. It was possible that they had more information than she did. It was possible that they already had the artifact.
That thought made her pause, her back hitting the wall of one of the mud and sand huts. Her breath stole away in her throat for a moment, and then she shook her head. If they had the artifact already, they wouldn't be taking a leisurely walk through a nomadic market street. Meisa and Matsumoto would be flying back to the guild with more speed than they'd ever coaxed from their ship before. Becky was safe - for the time being.
She was right, too. She followed the pair back to the docking grounds and hid behind one of the overturned metallic bins that held tools and spare parts and things that Nagase no doubt knew all the names to. With her fingers curled over the top of the bin, she stared out at them, at Meisa speaking with one of the mechanics and Matsumoto lazily brushing invisible dust from the sleeve of his tunic. His suspenders glinted into the sunlight.
"Shoot," Becky hissed. Beside her, Nagase stood up. She reached for him and missed, and as he started walking towards the two she managed to call out a soft, "Wait! What are you doing?"
Nagase didn't answer. He strode up to Meisa like he owned the place - and it sort of looked like he did, since he was still in his mechanic's coveralls and coated with the grease and grime of fixing The STAR Bridge overnight. They had a conversation and from what Becky could tell, Meisa was completely comfortable; her face was open and relaxed and she even laughed once, like she couldn't possibly have anything to worry about. Nagase motioned a few times at their ship and his hands were moving like he was explaining something in detail. At the end, Meisa did a little bow to him and Nagase bowed back with one hand crossed over his middle, and then made his way back towards Becky's haphazard hiding place as the two thieves started off towards their airship.
"What did you do?" Becky asked; her heart was in her throat once more.
Nagase just sort of shrugged. "Talked about the engine. Told her there were some modifications we needed to do depending on where they were headed. She cut me off during my explanation of the pistons misfiring because of too much grease building up on the-"
"But why?" Becky interrupted.
"Well, she told me where they were going," Nagase said, like it was very obvious. He peered down his nose at Becky, who was having trouble processing everything. "I'm just a mechanic, right? And they are heading out towards the eastern ruins. There's a village there in the cliffs that-"
"-that is known for the scholars of the ruins," Becky finished. "I can't believe I didn't see that myself."
Nagase chewed on his bottom lip a bit as Becky rounded the corner of the drum she'd been perched behind. "So, that must be where this thing is, right? This thing you are going for."
"It's an artifact," Becky told him, a bit absently. She kept her gaze on Matsumoto and Meisa, who were rounding their airship as if taking stock. "It's - well, it's important. It's very, very old and very, very valuable."
"And you want it."
"And I want it," Becky confirmed. "But I want to get on the Thieves' Guild committee more."
Nagase kicked at the sand beneath his boots a bit, sending a cloud of it into the air, where the dust hovered a bit. "So, we're going to steal it?" he asked.
Becky shot him a quick, sharp look. "We?"
"Well, I'm not letting you do it alone," Nagase said. "I'm here, too, aren't I?"
"Only because you snuck on my ship like an assassin," Becky huffed. But she fell silent after that, because the truth be told, without Nagase, she wouldn't have known where Meisa and Matsumoto were going. He had proven helpful, even if he was the reason The STAR Bridge had run into problems in the desert in the first place. And she was too far gone to turn around and take him back - she'd lose far too much time, and now that she knew she was fighting for it, she couldn't afford to waste it.
After a long moment, when Meisa and Matsumoto started up a conversation with another mechanic milling around the grounds wearing the white garb of the nomadic tribe, she said, "Alright. We'll make a deal, then. You help and stay out of my way, and maybe you can get a bit of profit after this is all over."
"That's it?"
Becky eyed him. "And I won't press charges for stealing on my ship in the night."
There was a long second of silence, and then Nagase's face split into a wide grin.
"Deal," he said, and held his hand out like the Westerners who lived along the coastlines. Becky shook it with a small amount of trepidation and a blossoming feeling of hope creeping up her torso, warming her blood.
Maybe this was going to work out after all.
--
Meisa and Matsumoto headed towards the far edge of the desert, where there were few oases in the middle of the sands and the sun beat down its brightest; their ship, well-oiled and repaired, was a good deal faster than The STAR Bridge, but at least since she knew where they were going, Becky could follow behind. Once there, at a small nomadic village known as Hartizi, Becky waited until the two had docked and left before settling her airship down on the golden sands.
"Did they say anything at all about the artifact?" Becky asked, almost desperate, as she and Nagase climbed off the ship's bridge and made their way towards the larger, white-washed buildings at the back of town - the oasis wasn't like the others, with the tents and the merchant tents selling cheap wares. Hartizi was full of researchers, bustling with academics and university students and those with an eye for ruins and pieces of history buried beneath the dunes. It sat at the side of a large rock formation that marked the official border between the desert lands and the arid plains beyond it - a rock formation with tunnels and caves dug through it in twisting, criss-crossing patterns that Becky had heard about in the history books while she'd still been in school.
It was the perfect place for someone of prestige to come with something of value, especially something historic. But the number of eyes and the high alert of the town were going to make slipping out with the thing far more difficult.
And Nagase was not the kind of person that got overlooked easily.
"I told you, they didn't mention it," Nagase repeated. They started along the paths that led up to the mansions positioned on the face of the cliff side, overlooking the huts below; if someone of high stature was there, he'd be located in the nicer area of town. Even in the middle of a desert, Becky doubted someone with enough money to buy something that had caught the eye of the entire guild would ever truly slum with the locals.
Without much to go on and no sign of Meisa and Matsumoto, who had disappeared into the village somewhere, they headed towards the inn - a small, sturdy looking place that smelled of cured leather and cinnamon. Becky liked the feel of it. There wasn't much to do other than sit in the commons and have a meal, with prices that were higher than Ikuta's were. Becky sort of picked at the bits of vegetables floating in her soup as she tried to come up with a good plan of action while Nagase ordered seconds of the dried meat that was delivered sizzling in some kind of exotic spices.
"-asking for a bunch of researchers to come and give their opinions," the man seated behind them was saying. "It's apparently very old and-"
"-and you're supposed to be heading back in with the department tomorrow," his companion interrupted. Becky's ears perked. She sat back a bit, fingers still poised on her spoon, trying to listen in to see if the conversation was headed where she thought it was.
There was the clink of wooden spoons, and Nagase was still chomping his way through his second helping.
"But the opportunity to study something like this comes along once in a lifetime," the first man argued. "I can extend my stay for a week or two."
"Rich people," the second man snorted. There was a pause, like he was taking a drink, and Becky didn't dare turn around for fear of giving herself and her eavesdropping away. "Where did you say this guy was staying?"
"In the cliff side manse, with the mayor. They've got the tablet on lock-down, and he's got the best security system in the village."
The second man barked out a laugh. "Boy, I wish I could afford the type of help the mayor employs. Have you seen the girls that answer his front door?"
The conversation behind her shifted to the women of the village - and their lack of clothing - but Becky had all she needed already. She bolted up from her seat and Nagase stared at her, mouth frozen in mid-chew.
"C'mon!" Becky hissed, grabbing for his arm to pull him away from the table. Night was falling, and even if she wasn't officially part of the guild, she knew the basics. It was the best time to attack and they might even manage to get in before Meisa and Matsumoto had enough information to go on.
"But he's bringing me dried camel steaks..." Nagase said, and Becky just kept tugging until he fell away from the table and stumbled after her with the napkin still tucked into the front of his coveralls.
--
The mayor's manse was situated on the part of the cliffs that got direct sunlight when the sun rose in the morning and sat coolly in the shadows the rest of the time. It was very dark when they crept around the side of it and found a window that didn't appear to have anything covering it on the inside; Becky hoped that it was an unused parlor or storage room, or some other useless room that the rich seemed to think they needed to have.
She had a few trinkets in her tool belt, sitting low on her hips as she crouched down just beneath the windowpane. "Follow me," she whispered. There was a small iron claw she used to open the window up enough to slide her fingers in - the lock on that sort of old design was at the bottom, and she'd studied them enough to know her way around. The lock popped open with a snap and she pushed the window the rest of the way up.
She got in with no problem, but Nagase had a little trouble with the whole 'silent' part of sneaking and fell inside, nearly knocking over a lamp situated on a small end table. Becky glared at him as she set it back into place, and he just sort of shrugged, unaffected. He was too large to be good at being really quiet.
It took them a little while to figure out where they were in the house. Becky didn't know her way around and she assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that the man and the tablet they were looking for were situated in the guest wing. She just didn't know where the guest wing was. They crept through a darkened hallway that didn't seem to be in use until they reached the main foyer and the parlor with open doors just past it. There were voices coming from the room; Becky leaned around the corner to take stock of how many people there were, and nearly jumped clean out of her skin.
Meisa and Matsumoto were sitting in the parlor, drinking tea from fancy, painted cups. Meisa's hair was styled up in an elaborate ornament with feathers at the side and brass chains looping down - one of them led into a series of links that ended at the piercing in her ear. Matsumoto, across from her, was wearing pinstripe trousers and a bow-tie. They obviously were prepared for it - how else would they have brought such regal clothing?
But they beat her there. They beat her, and they were welcomed guests within the manor. Meisa laughed at something one of the older men said - one of them was standing just behind her chair with a hand on the back and graying, thinning hair.
"No," Becky whispered. She fell back against the wall.
They had won. They were in the manor, and they would have no trouble stealing it. Becky's hopes of getting onto the guild committee started to fall apart at her feet, and she was suddenly too tired to try and pick them all back up again.
Nagase's shoulder brushed hers. "If they're in there drinking tea, then that thing is probably left alone."
"What?" Becky asked, startled.
"That thing," Nagase repeated, like that had been the part she'd had trouble with. "That thing you're trying to steal. Doesn't look like they have anything in the parlor other than sugar and lemon wedges."
Becky turned for another look; Nagase was right. The group was sitting in the parlor and maybe they wouldn't be there very long, but they were definitely not looking at anything old, historical, or valuable. Wherever the tablet was - and Becky hoped that the man at the inn had been correct, or else she was going to be looking for the wrong thing - it was not in the same room as Meisa and Matsumoto.
"Okay," she whispered, flushed and jittery once more. Adrenaline was pumping hot through her form. "Okay, here's what we do. We have to find the guest room. My guess is that the tablet is there - he might go up and get it, if they ask to see it, but I doubt they will. They won't want to let on that they even know it's here. Otherwise, it draws attention to them. They'll probably slip out later tonight with it once they've won the trust of everyone."
"They're good," Nagase said, nodding in appreciation.
Becky elbowed him sharply in the ribs. "No, they're competition. Now just follow me up the stairs and we'll see if we can find this thing."
She'd thought that Meisa and Matsumoto's arrival meant only doom for her, but as they made their way up the stairs in the relative darkness of the foyer and tip-toed past the voices carrying up from the parlor, she had to admit that maybe she'd been wrong. The mayor and the owner of the relic were so engaged in the conversation that they'd left the entire wing unguarded; by welcoming the pair into the house, they'd effectively left the backdoor open for her.
Becky tried to squash the feelings of premature success - she didn't want to jinx the entire thing. She and Nagase moved along the wall being as quiet as they could be, and only once had to jump into a storage room when a servant walked by carrying a load of folded towels. He didn't look in their direction.
The guest wing, as it turned out, was situated directly over the parlor the group was sitting in. Becky could hear bits and pieces of the conversation drifting up through the floor as they made their way cautiously inside. She didn't know what they might encounter, and in the end, it didn't seem to be much at all. There was a trunk pushed against the far side that was open and brimming with clothing, papers and ink wells, so Becky didn't bother looking into that. She headed for the other side of the room, where there was another trunk, a smaller one, peeking out from underneath the bed. It looked like the owner had hastily shoved it beneath after he'd been called to something else - dinner with some guests, perhaps, and then tea afterwards.
It was locked, but Becky had her lock-picking kit with her. She found a small metal dowel that seemed to be the right size and started working on the mechanics within it; her fingers started to cramp up after a few minutes, but it didn't take much longer than that. The small trunk popped open, and she leaned in with anticipation.
It was a tablet, but at the same time, it wasn't. It had to be hundreds and hundreds of years old; there was gold in-lain to the letters carved into the surface, as if the words immortalized there were so important they deserved a king's coating. Becky couldn't read any of the runes, but just holding it she knew it had to be incredibly valuable. It was solid and smooth on the sides, and she ran her fingers over it appreciatively. No wonder the guild was after it - whoever sold it would make a fortune.
"Wow," Becky whispered, holding it up so that the moonlight peeking in through the window caught the gold and made it sparkle a bit. "This is amazing."
"Amazingly boring," Nagase replied. "I thought we were going to steal something real, like jewels."
Becky pushed the trunk closed, replacing it beneath the bed and smoothing the blankets so that it didn't look like anyone had been there. The tablet was a heavy weight pressed against her stomach. "This is real," she snipped, vaguely annoyed, "and by taking it to the guild I can ensure that I-"
There were voices on the stairs. Becky froze, panicked.
"Go," Nagase hissed, hands on her shoulders as he pushed her towards the window. She didn't even know where the window led, but her knees sort of jerked without her input. She staggered towards it with the tablet held flush against her form and every terrified pounding of her heart was screaming in her ears.
"Wait-" she said, because halfway out, she realized that Nagase wasn't following her.
"I'll distract them!" he told her.
That was when the door opened and the owner of the tablet - an older gentlemen with the air about him that said he'd never wanted for anything in his life and had always been well-fed - stood somewhat shocked at the doorway, mouth open.
"I LOVE STRAWBERRY MILK!" Nagase roared, and rushed towards both the man and the figure behind him, who Becky assumed was the mayor. They were so surprised that neither looked in Becky's direction; having someone of Nagase's size hurtling towards them had probably rendered them both a bit speechless. They sputtered and started to move and run, and it gave Becky the time she needed to slip out the window. Making her way back down the cliff face with the extra weight of the tablet wasn't easy, but there was so much fire coursing through her veins that she hardly noticed.
She didn't go back to the inn - it was too traceable. She went back to the docking grounds because as soon as Nagase got back, she knew they had to get out. The STAR Bridge wasn't fast, but they might have enough of a lead.
Her fingers were trembling by the time she got on board. She deposited the tablet and fired up the engines; they didn't have much time. She was desperate to get out of Hartizi with the tablet. She kept thinking of what the guild would do when she presented it to them, of Meisa's face when she realized that someone else had beat her to it...
The seconds felt like hours. Becky's lungs were pressing against her ribs. She kept thinking every sound was someone coming to arrest her and take the tablet back. She stared out the viewport windows with her hands curled around the controls and waited, minute after minute, until she almost couldn't handle the suspense anymore.
Then the door to the bridge burst open and Nagase staggered inside, breathing hard. His eyes were wild and his hair was askew.
"Go, go!" he shouted, and then collapsed face first on the ground with an odd-sounding groan.
Becky wasted no time in complying.
"What did you do?" she asked, voice warbling, as The STAR Bridge lifted off the ground and into the night sky. "How did you do it?"
"I think I'm dying," Nagase whined pitifully. "I'm not going to make it."
"What did that even mean, what you yelled?" Becky asked.
Nagase snorted, which meant he couldn't be that bad off. "Well, I really like strawberry milk."
Becky couldn't help it. She stared at him, strewn across the floor of the cockpit, and then started laughing so hard she could barely breathe, and then Nagase started laughing, and for awhile that was all they did because she couldn't figure out how to right herself again. Then Nagase ran out of breath and started complaining about the stitch in his side from all the running, and Becky tried to rummage around to find something to give him to drink.
--
There was a big party after everything, after Becky gave them the tablet and received all of the congratulations. They had to officially induct her then, and since she'd done something so public, it seemed only natural to throw another banquet for it. The guild was awfully serious about their parties.
This time, nobody questioned Becky at the doors.
They even brought her her own bottle of champagne. She felt like a queen in her new dress, corset laced tight and skirt buttoned halfway up to show off the new boots she'd bought. A figure found her as she was pulling something enticing off of one of the hors d'oeuvres tray.
"So, I guess you are a full member now," Nagase said, and Becky was so surprised she almost dropped the cake.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
Nagase had cleaned up - he was sporting a vest over a buttoned shirt, complete with a pocket watch and chain that hung outside the dark fabric. He shrugged. "Well, I wanted to come and congratulate you."
"I couldn't have done it without you," Becky admitted. As odd as Nagase was, he brought something exciting into her life when they'd been traveling together. He reached for another goodie on a tray, something that looked like shellfish, and popped the whole thing in his mouth.
"I kinda thought I'd join you for awhile," he said, through the food, and Becky caught about half of it.
"What?" she said.
He shrugged again. "I mean, if it's okay with you."
"But..." she started, confused and flattered and a little happier than she'd like to admit, standing in the decadence of the guild's party having got everything she'd wanted. "But, it's not really something you can tell people about, as far as careers go..."
"Yeah, but you're worth it," Nagase said easily.
Becky's hands flew to her face because she was sure she could actually feel the flush radiating from her cheeks. "What?" she squeaked.
"I've never met anyone like you," Nagase told her, with a somewhat crooked, nervous-looking smile. "I mean, you're not really anything like I expected a thief to be. And you are a walking contradiction sometimes with the things you say and do. And boy, you could really use somebody to stick around and do repairs to your ship, because there are a lot of things outdated on that thing."
Becky just stared at him, feeling something bubbling up in her chest that she couldn't swallow down and wasn't sure that she wanted to.
Nagase winked at her. "Plus, I hear you guys do this stuff in partners, anyway."
"Partners," Becky repeated, softly; she heard the capital letter there. Partners. He wanted to be Partners with her. Nagase was strong and handsome and probably really good with the ladies, and he wanted to be Partners with her.
Nagase just sort of smiled at her and Becky was pretty sure she was just beaming back, and then Shun came up with a huge grin on his face, hands in the air. "You did it!" he exclaimed, and picked Becky up to twirl her around for a moment. She was a bit dizzy when he put her back down again. "I can't believe you did it! Well, I mean I can, because I knew you could, but to beat Meisa like that!"
"Shun," Becky laughed, overcome with giddiness and happiness and a lot of other emotions that ended in -ness. "I'd like you to meet Nagase. He's my... he's my partner."
One of Shun's eyebrows went up to his hairline. "Your partner."
"Yes," Becky said, gesturing. Nagase did a little bow, but he was still smiling. "My partner. He fixes airships. He's a great mechanic. He helped me get the tablet."
"Nice to meet you," Shun said. "I feel like maybe I should know something about you if you're going to be working with Becky from now on."
"Well, he really likes strawberry milk," Becky told him.
Shun looked confused when they both started laughing. After a moment, he stepped aside, and Becky's mirth subsided; Meisa was standing there, looking radiant and darkly dangerous in her black fitted dress. She looked at Becky for a long moment, and then nodded stiffly.
"Congratulations on getting the tablet," she said. "And congratulations on your official induction to the committee."
"Thank you," Becky replied. Meisa gave her one last look and stalked away, no doubt off to find Matsumoto and complain about how less desirable people were now permanent fixtures within the guild. But Becky didn't mind. Nagase reached out to grab her fingers, and his hand was warm.
"How about a dance, then?" he asked. "To celebrate the beginning."
"The beginning," Becky repeated. "Are you sure about this? I mean, if you change your mind..."
"Yeah, about that," Nagase said, looking a bit sheepish as he walked with Becky to the floor and put his hands on her waist; he felt solid against her. "Since I sort of just left Ikuta's inn, he assumed that I quit, and I can't get my job back. He was pretty pissed off."
The band started up a jaunty tune that Becky knew the steps to, and Nagase was a surprisingly good dancer.
"So you need a job," Becky said.
"I'd much rather be working with you," Nagase told her, and spun her around in time with the band's rising chords.
She was blushing again, she just knew it. But at least dancing, she could pass the color off as exertion. Nagase didn't seem to mind, and he was much lighter on his feet on the dance floor than he was trying to sneak in through windows. "You know, a lot of partners here, they-"
"-think their partner is smart, funny, and beautiful?" Nagase finished.
"You think I'm beautiful?" Becky squeaked, and almost forgot the dance steps completely.
Nagase just pulled her in for a quick, chaste kiss that left her entire mouth tingling in anticipation and pleasure, and spun her around again.
"Darling," he said, and Becky just laughed, "we are going to be excellent partners."
From: katmillia
Title: Partners
Pairing: Nagase/Becky; hints of Sho/Oguri Shun, Meisa/Jun and Toma/Maki
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Becky wants desperately to prove herself within the Thieves' Guild, and nabbing that important artifact is just the way to do it. Turns out, however, that she's going to need some help along the way.
A/N: dearest bubbly, please enjoy! It was a pleasure to write for you. :) ♥
The guard at the door almost didn't let her in.
"No, I'm on the list," Becky said, reaching for it; if he would just let her see it, she could show him. She was part of the Guild, she'd paid her dues - more than she probably should have, but that's what happened to those at the bottom of the ladder. She was allowed to attend the gala, and she'd made her dress especially for the occasion.
The guard just glared down at her, eyebrows hidden beneath goggles that reflected the bits of light bobbing on either side of the pathway leading up to the hall. "Miss, I have to insist that you remain here while I check-"
"But I'm on the list," Becky tried again. A couple walked up behind her and was apparently recognized immediately, because the guard waved them inside the double, arched doors. Behind the backdrop of the hall itself, with columns and turrets and distinctly Old World architecture, there were three airships parked there: the flagships. They were adorned and respected, and Becky hated that her small little ship was docked a half hour away in the public aerodrome.
The guard sighed, stepping in front of her after the couple he'd allowed in passed.
"This isn't fair," Becky said.
"Entry into the Thieves' Guild gala would rarely be considered that," the guard agreed.
"But I'm a member," Becky started, and that was when someone cleared their throat behind her. She didn't need to turn to know who it was; the haughty lilt of it had already given her away. Kuroki Meisa, on the arm of beloved guild member Matsumoto Jun, dressed to the nines in a full skirt, long sleeves, and a small clock face sitting on a bejeweled ribbon around her neck.
"She is a member," Meisa told the guard, in a way that said exactly how much she wished it weren't so.
The guard bowed deeply and made to open the doors for them, and Becky just bit down hard on her bottom lip to keep from saying anything that she would regret - only because it would get her in trouble with the rest of the guild. Meisa gave her a look and raised her chin higher as Matsumoto led her through the archway.
"Can I go in now?" Becky asked, feeling angry and small as the lace-lined train of Meisa's dress disappeared inside with the rest of the glitz and finery.
"Yes, Miss," the guard said, and gestured with one arm. "Please, welcome to the gala."
--
Inside, the building was alive with light: the guild had gotten a hold of shimmering crystals from the Haptop Mines and had strung them along cords, and the jewels glittered overhead as the crowd of people danced below them in time with the orchestra's music. Becky had never seen so much finery in one place. She'd known that the gala was the one event the guild went all out on, but this - this was positively overwhelming. She spent several minutes standing just inside the doors, trying to collect her thoughts. Meisa and Jun were lost somewhere amongst the crowd.
The problem with the gala was that most of the guild members had brought their partners; partners, as it were, were for life. Partners were your most trusted advisor and the person who had your back. Partners were the people who shot the Republic's ships' radios dead when you were being chased across the stars with the ancient masks of a long-dead civilization or the youngest princess' favorite diamond necklace.
Becky had yet to find a Partner - with a capital P - but she wasn't going to let that stop her from being a member of the guild. She would prove herself to be worthy of the clan, even if she had to do it alone.
Meanwhile, she grabbed one of the champagne flutes from the waiter drifting around the party and smoothed the lines in her skirt, the gears she'd glued onto her fingernails catching a bit on the black lace stomacher.
"Isn't it a little early in the party to be chugging champagne?" a voice asked near her ear, just as Becky was swallowing the last drops from the flute. It was good, too: light and crisp and obviously taken from some very wealthy nobleman's storerooms. Nothing at the guild's gala was paid for legitimately.
"They may not want me here, but I'm going to be here anyway," Becky replied. She kept her eyes trained ahead on the dancing figures in front of the band, but only because she knew who it was already. Shun took a step forward and entered the sides of her field of vision, wearing a waistcoat and gleaming suspenders made of gold-plaited cords.
"Well, I want you here," he told her.
She turned to him with a warm smile. "Then that makes you the only one."
"Hush," Shun laughed. He folded his hands in front of himself and leaned against the wall, moving one of the tapestries that was hanging there depicting a medieval scene done with armor and swords and horses. "Not everyone in the guild is all bad."
"Not all bad," Becky grumbled under her breath, but even she had to admit that Shun had a point; most of the other guild members were so busy with their own heists, their own lives and partners and planning and goods, that they didn't have the time to stop and get to know a young woman searching for her place in the system.
"Someday, you'll find the perfect partner," Shun told her. He leaned over and bopped her on the nose, and Becky swatted at his hand - his height advantage was irritating at the best of times.
One of the servers passed by with a tray ornately decorated with a tower of exotic-looking candies from somewhere Becky had never been, and she was too afraid to reach out and take one for fear of knocking the whole thing over. Instead, she crossed her arms over her chest and watched the center of the room, near the band, where a podium was erected; Meisa and Matsumoto were lingering near it, obviously waiting for the moment to arrive for their presentation to the crowd.
"You just say that because you've already found yours," Becky said over her shoulder. She didn't know where Shun's partner Sakurai was, but he was obviously somewhere in the festivities. A quick glance around that required tearing her gaze forcibly away from Meisa again, who was smiling and looking unstoppable and beautiful and powerful in her corset with small cogs embroidered into the fabric, showed no sign of Shun's slightly better half.
"No, I say that because I'm smart," Shun started, and then anything else he might have wanted to say was cut off by the band playing a short fanfare and Meisa stepping up towards the hovering microphone, glittering with some sort of artificial light.
The crowd quieted and Meisa waved her hand at someone in the back, looking regal. "Thank you so much for taking the time to come here and dine with the guild," she said, and then, with a mischievous look, added, "And don't even think that because we are all here, that guild rules about stealing from other members don't apply."
There was a ripple of laughter through the throng of people, and Becky just frowned harder.
"We'd like to announce a special something, since it is, after all, the 150th anniversary of the guild," Meisa continued, to a spattering of happy, surprised noises from the onlookers. "There's a very powerful, very old artifact that one of the members of the Republic Diet has recently discovered on a sight-seeing trip. We won't tell you what it is or who found it; we will, however, give whoever manages to find it and slip it out from under his esteemed politician's nose a grand welcome into the guild hall of fame with a lifetime membership on the guild committee."
"Is she kidding?" Becky asked, over the roar that sprung up once Meisa had finished talking - she could practically see her future in front of her, stretched out like the sails of an airship barge taking to the skies. That artifact was hers, and she was going to find it. She was going to find it and take her rightful place in the guild, alongside perfect Meisa and her beautiful, charming, elegant partner Matsumoto.
Shun reached out and grabbed Becky's arm, fingers tight. "Becky," he warned, and she could barely hear him because the crowd around them had begun clapping and yelling in pleasure, and the band had picked back up again with a lively tune that probably had at least three official court dances choreographed to it. "Don't even-"
"Don't even what?" Becky asked, interrupting him before he could finish and shaking his fingers free. "This is my chance!"
"Your chance to get arrested and killed," Shun said. "This is going to be guarded by the biggest private security force this side of the Koriander Reef. And you're still new to this, you haven't..."
His voice trailed off. Becky stared up at him, feeling small and insignificant. "Haven't what?" she challenged.
Shun had the decency to look abashed when he finished with, "Haven't even got a partner to save your neck in tough situations."
"Well, I don't need a partner," Becky told him. Pride and determination, hot and white and strong, was flaring up in her veins and igniting all of her thoughts with a singular goal: winning. "I'll do this all on my own, you'll see."
"Becky," Shun tried again, and then Becky caught sight of his partner Sakurai working his way through the crowd, hands up in the air and suspenders nearly getting caught on the decorative corner of one of the serving trays.
"There's your date," she said, motioning towards the approaching figure. "And I better go - I've got some reconnaissance to do if I want to get to this first."
She slipped off just as Shun turned to greet Sakurai, hoping that the gala would hold the rest of the guild members' attention until she was well out of the city and on her way to figuring out who and what she was even searching for.
--
A day outside of the city's airspace and down the Hapshem Route usually taken by merchants and travelers without enough chops to get on the royal trail, Becky stopped by a small inn that she knew was run by a young couple who kept themselves well-informed and their airship docking grounds well-oiled. Becky's little ship, The STAR Bridge, didn't run as fast as others' did; it chugged along and ate up oil and the propellers frequently threw nuts and bolts after she pushed it through long hours of flight.
Ikuta, the man who ran the inn, kept some good hands around that knew a bit about airship repairs, so Becky slipped them a small handful of gold coins when she landed and knew at least her ship would be in good hands. As she made her way inside, she found herself fervently hoping that the food had improved since the last time, too.
It was busy - the caravans were in movement with the changing seasons and Ikuta's wife, a small woman with a pretty face and high cheekbones named Maki, said that Becky was lucky, because she got their last room.
The thing about inns, especially during the big market seasons with the number of ships passing by, was that they were a particularly good place to find and haggle for information. Becky took a seat at a small table near the back after paying for the simplest meal available - soup, bread and a pint of ale - watching the bodies nearby to see if any of them looked helpful to her goal.
There was one woman with her hair ornately piled on her head, but when Becky asked her about any new gossip, she just turned her nose up and walked in the other direction.
Annoyed, Becky ended up eating dinner alone, trying to overhear snippets of the others' conversations.
The next morning, she went down to the docking grounds to find that the entire engine of The STAR Bridge had been taken out and the wires from inside were lying haphazardly on the floor, a bit like entrails that had been gutted.
Becky - too shocked for words - ended up making several horrified squeaking noises until one of the mechanics noticed her and came over.
"This your ship?" he asked.
"What did you do to it?" she exclaimed, hands half-covering her mouth.
The mechanic - who was almost as tall as Shun so that Becky had to crane her head upwards just to look at him - pulled the toothpick out of his mouth and studied her; his face was smeared with bits of grease and oil on his forehead and cheeks, and he looked rough. Rough and strong, like he could rip her ship apart with his bare hands. Studying the inner workings of her engine strewn across the ground, Becky wondered if that was what had happened.
"One of my boys got the ships mixed up," he explained. "Thought yours was the one he was supposed to take apart for spare parts."
The STAR Bridge looked as sad as Becky felt, emotion welling in her chest. "But... but my ship..."
"Yeah, sucks," the mechanic nodded. "Don't worry, I fired him."
"Can you fix it?" Becky asked. She wasn't sure what she would do if the answer was negative.
The mechanic gave out a sharp bark of a laugh and threw the toothpick down to the ground - his coveralls were just as stained as his face, and his goggles were pushed back into his hair, making the short bits stick straight up at the top. "'Course I can! I'm the best god damn mechanic in the province."
"I need to be going, I'm in a hurry," Becky told him, wringing her hands in front of her. Her edge on the others in the guild was seeping into the ground just like The STAR Bridge's oils were. "I'm on a tight schedule here."
The mechanic - whose name tag read Nagase - studied her for a long moment. "You following that envoy's procession?"
"Envoy?" Becky repeated, startled. "What envoy?"
"The one that came through here last night as I was firing the guy who took your ship apart."
Becky hadn't heard anything about an envoy, but on the merchant's trail, it was a great deal less common to see nobles go through. It could mean anything - or it could mean that Becky was close to finding the valuable artifact that would secure her position in the guild for the rest of her life. Eager, she turned to Nagase, trying to ignore the pathetic look of her airship. "Whose procession was it? Was it heading north, towards the ridge? How many ships were part of it?"
Nagase held both hands up in surrender, palms dark. "Whoa! Whoa. I dunno, girl."
"I'm not a girl," Becky huffed, but waited for him to keep going.
"All I know is that it came through here on its way west."
"West?" Becky said. There was no way that anyone carrying something so valuable would be heading west into guild territory; it was practically offering the thing up. Becky deflated - the envoy was unrelated, then, and she was no closer to finding out anything.
"There was this one ship with them, tiny little thing. Pretty crappy, if you ask me - old model, really out of date, pretty sure the engine was actually recalled a couple of years ago-"
"Your point?" Becky interrupted. "The ship?"
Nagase scratched the back of his head. "Right, anyway, this little ship broke off from the procession just south of here and turned east instead. Figured maybe they were just hanging out with the envoy for protection. Can get dicey round these parts for the rich."
She let the information sink in for a long moment. East. East was towards the deserts and the nomad territories. It could be nothing. Or, it could be that she'd just been given a very helpful hint that the other guild members wouldn't have.
"How soon can you have my ship put back together?" she asked.
"A day," Nagase promised, which seemed a bit overzealous but if he was as good as he claimed to be, maybe it was possible.
Another day of bread, soup and ale. "Fine," Becky told him, mostly because she didn't have much of a choice. "I need it ready to leave tomorrow at daybreak."
--
The STAR Bridge was ready to go and sitting alone - and put back together - in the docking area when Becky woke early the next morning and set out. Maki took the key to the room with a warm smile and bid Becky good luck; Becky didn't need good luck as much as she needed to beat the rest of the guild members towards the deserts past the horizon.
The ship purred beneath her hands as she started up the engines and watched the propellers start to spin out the small cabin window - it felt good to be back in her airship again. The STAR Bridge had been with her through so much. At least Nagase and his mechanics had gotten it all put right once more. Maybe they'd even done a few repairs while they were in there.
The eastern routes were even less-traveled then the merchant roads were. Becky saw few other airships in the sky as she flew over the dunes of yellow sand as far as she could see. There were a few nomadic villages set up beneath the shade of desert palms, but Becky doubted the small ship - and the prize she hoped it carried - had stopped at any of the oases. The eastern deserts were a good place to disappear, but it was unlikely that the pilot and crew of the small ship had enough resources to avoid the major outposts. Supplies were a necessity in the harsh sun and unforgiving heat.
It was as she was keying in coordinates for auto-pilot, hoping she'd get a little while to study the maps she knew she had stuffed into one of the cabinets in the cockpit, that she heard the odd thumping noise in the hall leading back to the cabin. It didn't sound mechanical; instead, it almost sounded as if a wild animal had gotten into the corridor and was moving around. Becky's heart flew up to her throat, choking her in a panic - she didn't have much by way of weapons. And she didn't know what kind of being could get inside her ship.
Her heart sank as she stood; it was probably a person, then, which panicked her even worse. There was a person in The STAR Bridge with her.
She grabbed for the nearest thing she could find in the cockpit to use as a weapon, which was the small frying pan she used to make yakitori sometimes. With the iron clutched in her hands, Becky slowly made her way back towards the hallway, putting one foot in front of the other.
"It's just a mouse," she whispered to herself, shakily opening the door. There was nothing immediately visible in the hallway, but she heard another thud and scuffle, much closer than the last one. Her breath caught painfully in her lungs. "It's just a mouse..."
That was when Nagase's head appeared in her field of vision, just a hand span in front of her. Becky shrieked and swung the frying pan without really thinking, which smacked the man hard in the side of the head and sent him flying into the wall of the corridor with a muffled cry of surprise and pain. There was a moment of nothing, and then Becky realized that the hulking hunk of a mechanic had snuck on board her ship after she told him when she would be leaving. The thought enraged her so much that she swung a second time at him as he was attempting to pull himself back onto both feet.
"Stop!" Nagase cried, holding one hand up so that Becky's pan smacked him squarely in the forearm and elbow instead of his face, which was where she had been aiming - she hoped it hurt just as bad.
"Stealing on my ship!" Becky exclaimed, and lunged a third time - which was when The STAR Bridge lurched, too. Belatedly, Becky remembered that she hadn't actually finished putting in the auto-pilot controls when the sound had startled her; the ship was skimming across the top of one of the towering dunes, sand flying into the propellers and hulk scraping across the mass with an awful, piercing sort of noise. Becky stumbled so badly to one side when the ship hit a 45 degree angle that she dropped the frying pan.
There was a moment of nothing, and then another gut-wrenching metallic groan; The STAR Bridge hitched, caught, and finally sputtered to a stop in one of the sand dunes in a move that threw both Becky and Nagase into the door between the cockpit and the corridor.
Everything was still.
--
"This is all your fault!" Becky insisted, hands at her sides as she tried not to look at the damage to her beloved airship. It was half-buried in the sands, looking like a sick, tired camel that had given up halfway through the desert journey. The entirety of the bottom of the hull was scraped and bent, several of the propeller blades having been nearly completely destroyed. The sun of the eastern desert was beating down on them as they stood outside to survey the damage; just a few minutes in it and Becky was already feeling the swell of overheating rise through her form. "If you hadn't snuck in like that and surprised me-"
"Well, I didn't mean to surprise you," Nagase told her, though he seemed keener on taking stock of the damage done by the crash than her exclamations.
"What other purpose could you possibly have?" Becky asked. "A free ride? Smuggling? Are you smuggling something on my ship?!"
Nagase gave her an odd look. "Not unless you consider my tools illicit goods."
"Don't give me that," Becky snapped. The heat was making her irritable - or more irritable than just having her airship crashed by some sneaky, stowaway mechanic would have normally. "What were you trying to do?"
"Well, I mean, I was worried about you," the man said, sheepishly, rubbing his hand along the back of his neck where the hair was damp with sweat from the sun. "You were going off to follow some weird ship and you were alone-"
"-and I'm just a helpless girl?" Becky finished. Ire was flaring up hot and strong.
"No!" Nagase said. He put both hands up in a gesture of surrender. "No, I mean - well, you see. I just..."
It was hot and her ship was stuck in a sand dune and Becky was losing her patience for the conversation. "You just thought I needed some kind of big male bodyguard because I can't do anything on my own, right?"
"I just wanted to help!" Nagase exclaimed. Then his face got kind of funny; he looked at her with furrowed brows. "You would have been mad if I was smuggling goods on your ship?"
"No one smuggles things on The STAR Bridge but me," Becky insisted.
There was a second of nothing, and then Nagase's face broke into a wide grin. "I knew I liked you," he said.
Becky sort of avoided looking at him, hoping that the heat of the overbearing sun would mask the flush creeping up on her cheeks. "Whatever. Can you fix this? Because this is awful, and I really need to get going, and now I'm stuck in a dune in the desert..."
Nagase pulled his goggles down from the top of his head so that they settled on the bridge of his nose, glinting in the sunlight. "Leave it to me. You'll be back up and moving in no time."
--
Despite how annoyed Becky was with the whole situation, she did have to admit that Nagase made excellent time with getting The STAR Bridge back together and in the skies once more; it seemed that no major damage was done besides the propeller blades, and no pilot worth their salt took to the clouds without extras in case they get thrown or broken. Nagase got the ship back humming and flying, and Becky tried to figure out how she could turn around to drop the man back off at the inn - or turn him in to the local authorities for being creepy.
"We need to stop somewhere and get fuel," Nagase pointed out as Becky was tracing routes that had the best jails Nagase could spend time inside. "You're almost out."
With a start, she realized that in her haste to catch up to the envoy's deserter ship, she'd forgotten to fill the tanks. "There's a small outpost near the next oasis, according to this map."
"What the hell are you hoping to do, anyway?" Nagase asked. He settled himself into the co-pilot's chair like he owned the place, stupid big feet resting up on the console. Becky swatted at his boots.
"I'm following a hunch," Becky admitted, since that was really all she had to go on.
Nagase regarded her for a long moment. "A hunch about what, exactly?"
"Something important."
Nagase didn't push - which surprised and pleased her - and instead pointed down through the cockpit windows to the cluster of waving palm trees and bright, almost sparkling white-washed huts that appeared just on the edge of the horizon, where the bleached yellow met the brilliant blue sky. "There," he said. "That the outpost you mean?"
"Yes," Becky answered. She felt happier with the airship back in working order beneath her hands, fingers poised over the controls. At least she wouldn't be dying in the desert of dehydration. And she hoped she still had a head start on the envoy ship and its strange route and location. After all, she hadn't seen many other ships at all over the dunes.
Nagase remained quiet as The STAR Bridge approached the outpost, which was run mostly by the nomadic tribe that controlled trade in the area, and didn't say anything else as Becky slowly landed the airship in the docking grounds - which was really just an open patch of sand behind a tent with a few mechanics milling around to assist with small repairs. The people in the outpost wore the traditional clothes of the tribes; long light-colored fabrics to repel the heat of the sun, though Becky saw a few traders in the area outside the airship hub sporting the garb more suited to the western cities.
She made a few quick deals for fuel and set out towards the open-air market for some food while The STAR Bridge was filled; Nagase trailed behind her like a hyperactive guard dog.
"I'm going to take you back to the inn," Becky told him, as she walked through the market with stalls full of desert plants, harvested water, and sparkling, glittering beads strung amongst old gears and knobs. It was an eclectic sort of place, but Becky rather liked it - the air smelled strongly of spices and mulled ales.
"I think I should come with you," the man insisted, like he had a choice in the matter.
They paused by a merchant selling kabobs of dried, salted meat, and Nagase insisted on buying for them both. "I don't need protection," Becky told him. The meat was good and pungent on her tongue. "As soon as The STAR Bridge is re-fueled, I'm going to take you back to-"
She nearly dropped her kabob when she saw a familiar face among the crowd of sun-darkened nomads. She let out a small squeak and hopped behind a large, colorful awning to hide herself. What was Meisa doing in such a small outpost? After a moment of surprise, Becky peeked around the corner to get a better look.
"What are you doing?" Nagase asked, mouth full of the meat he'd taken off the kebab stick in one bite.
"Shh!" Becky hissed, finger to her lips. She watched Meisa - dressed in traveling leather and a stiff, dark corset and steel-toed leather boots that sparkled in the sun - move along the market stalls as if she were entirely uninterested. Her behavior was too obviously rehearsed to be real, which meant she was looking for something. A moment later and Matsumoto appeared behind her. Traveling together meant they were most likely on guild business.
They were probably after the same ship that Becky was chasing.
Becky watched them disappear into the crowd as her heart sunk down into her stomach; she didn't have time to take Nagase all the way back to Ikuta's inn if Meisa and Matsumoto were on the same trail she was. Their airship was faster and bigger, and the head start Becky had thought she had was rapidly disappearing.
"I can't let her win," Becky said, to herself before she realized that Nagase was still standing next to her, chomping on the meat and eyeing her with an amused expression. She slid out from the shadows. "I can't let her win! Don't you see, she's after the same thing!"
Nagase said something that Becky couldn't totally understand around the half-chewed bits of meat that might have been, "What thing?"
"I can't believe she's here!" Becky continued, ignoring the question. "Gods above, how did she get here so fast? How did she even know about the envoy?"
She had lost sight of the pair, but she was reasonably sure that they were headed back towards the docking grounds. She just hoped they didn't recognize The STAR Bridge; they probably wouldn't. Thieves in the guild went out of their way to make their airships as nondescript as possible. The STAR Bridge looked like any other merchant airship that had suffered a bit of wear and tear.
"What are you talking about?" Nagase asked, and Becky largely ignored him - she started out into the market, keeping her footsteps light. As long as there were always bodies between her and the duo, she could tail them to see where they were going. It was possible that they had more information than she did. It was possible that they already had the artifact.
That thought made her pause, her back hitting the wall of one of the mud and sand huts. Her breath stole away in her throat for a moment, and then she shook her head. If they had the artifact already, they wouldn't be taking a leisurely walk through a nomadic market street. Meisa and Matsumoto would be flying back to the guild with more speed than they'd ever coaxed from their ship before. Becky was safe - for the time being.
She was right, too. She followed the pair back to the docking grounds and hid behind one of the overturned metallic bins that held tools and spare parts and things that Nagase no doubt knew all the names to. With her fingers curled over the top of the bin, she stared out at them, at Meisa speaking with one of the mechanics and Matsumoto lazily brushing invisible dust from the sleeve of his tunic. His suspenders glinted into the sunlight.
"Shoot," Becky hissed. Beside her, Nagase stood up. She reached for him and missed, and as he started walking towards the two she managed to call out a soft, "Wait! What are you doing?"
Nagase didn't answer. He strode up to Meisa like he owned the place - and it sort of looked like he did, since he was still in his mechanic's coveralls and coated with the grease and grime of fixing The STAR Bridge overnight. They had a conversation and from what Becky could tell, Meisa was completely comfortable; her face was open and relaxed and she even laughed once, like she couldn't possibly have anything to worry about. Nagase motioned a few times at their ship and his hands were moving like he was explaining something in detail. At the end, Meisa did a little bow to him and Nagase bowed back with one hand crossed over his middle, and then made his way back towards Becky's haphazard hiding place as the two thieves started off towards their airship.
"What did you do?" Becky asked; her heart was in her throat once more.
Nagase just sort of shrugged. "Talked about the engine. Told her there were some modifications we needed to do depending on where they were headed. She cut me off during my explanation of the pistons misfiring because of too much grease building up on the-"
"But why?" Becky interrupted.
"Well, she told me where they were going," Nagase said, like it was very obvious. He peered down his nose at Becky, who was having trouble processing everything. "I'm just a mechanic, right? And they are heading out towards the eastern ruins. There's a village there in the cliffs that-"
"-that is known for the scholars of the ruins," Becky finished. "I can't believe I didn't see that myself."
Nagase chewed on his bottom lip a bit as Becky rounded the corner of the drum she'd been perched behind. "So, that must be where this thing is, right? This thing you are going for."
"It's an artifact," Becky told him, a bit absently. She kept her gaze on Matsumoto and Meisa, who were rounding their airship as if taking stock. "It's - well, it's important. It's very, very old and very, very valuable."
"And you want it."
"And I want it," Becky confirmed. "But I want to get on the Thieves' Guild committee more."
Nagase kicked at the sand beneath his boots a bit, sending a cloud of it into the air, where the dust hovered a bit. "So, we're going to steal it?" he asked.
Becky shot him a quick, sharp look. "We?"
"Well, I'm not letting you do it alone," Nagase said. "I'm here, too, aren't I?"
"Only because you snuck on my ship like an assassin," Becky huffed. But she fell silent after that, because the truth be told, without Nagase, she wouldn't have known where Meisa and Matsumoto were going. He had proven helpful, even if he was the reason The STAR Bridge had run into problems in the desert in the first place. And she was too far gone to turn around and take him back - she'd lose far too much time, and now that she knew she was fighting for it, she couldn't afford to waste it.
After a long moment, when Meisa and Matsumoto started up a conversation with another mechanic milling around the grounds wearing the white garb of the nomadic tribe, she said, "Alright. We'll make a deal, then. You help and stay out of my way, and maybe you can get a bit of profit after this is all over."
"That's it?"
Becky eyed him. "And I won't press charges for stealing on my ship in the night."
There was a long second of silence, and then Nagase's face split into a wide grin.
"Deal," he said, and held his hand out like the Westerners who lived along the coastlines. Becky shook it with a small amount of trepidation and a blossoming feeling of hope creeping up her torso, warming her blood.
Maybe this was going to work out after all.
--
Meisa and Matsumoto headed towards the far edge of the desert, where there were few oases in the middle of the sands and the sun beat down its brightest; their ship, well-oiled and repaired, was a good deal faster than The STAR Bridge, but at least since she knew where they were going, Becky could follow behind. Once there, at a small nomadic village known as Hartizi, Becky waited until the two had docked and left before settling her airship down on the golden sands.
"Did they say anything at all about the artifact?" Becky asked, almost desperate, as she and Nagase climbed off the ship's bridge and made their way towards the larger, white-washed buildings at the back of town - the oasis wasn't like the others, with the tents and the merchant tents selling cheap wares. Hartizi was full of researchers, bustling with academics and university students and those with an eye for ruins and pieces of history buried beneath the dunes. It sat at the side of a large rock formation that marked the official border between the desert lands and the arid plains beyond it - a rock formation with tunnels and caves dug through it in twisting, criss-crossing patterns that Becky had heard about in the history books while she'd still been in school.
It was the perfect place for someone of prestige to come with something of value, especially something historic. But the number of eyes and the high alert of the town were going to make slipping out with the thing far more difficult.
And Nagase was not the kind of person that got overlooked easily.
"I told you, they didn't mention it," Nagase repeated. They started along the paths that led up to the mansions positioned on the face of the cliff side, overlooking the huts below; if someone of high stature was there, he'd be located in the nicer area of town. Even in the middle of a desert, Becky doubted someone with enough money to buy something that had caught the eye of the entire guild would ever truly slum with the locals.
Without much to go on and no sign of Meisa and Matsumoto, who had disappeared into the village somewhere, they headed towards the inn - a small, sturdy looking place that smelled of cured leather and cinnamon. Becky liked the feel of it. There wasn't much to do other than sit in the commons and have a meal, with prices that were higher than Ikuta's were. Becky sort of picked at the bits of vegetables floating in her soup as she tried to come up with a good plan of action while Nagase ordered seconds of the dried meat that was delivered sizzling in some kind of exotic spices.
"-asking for a bunch of researchers to come and give their opinions," the man seated behind them was saying. "It's apparently very old and-"
"-and you're supposed to be heading back in with the department tomorrow," his companion interrupted. Becky's ears perked. She sat back a bit, fingers still poised on her spoon, trying to listen in to see if the conversation was headed where she thought it was.
There was the clink of wooden spoons, and Nagase was still chomping his way through his second helping.
"But the opportunity to study something like this comes along once in a lifetime," the first man argued. "I can extend my stay for a week or two."
"Rich people," the second man snorted. There was a pause, like he was taking a drink, and Becky didn't dare turn around for fear of giving herself and her eavesdropping away. "Where did you say this guy was staying?"
"In the cliff side manse, with the mayor. They've got the tablet on lock-down, and he's got the best security system in the village."
The second man barked out a laugh. "Boy, I wish I could afford the type of help the mayor employs. Have you seen the girls that answer his front door?"
The conversation behind her shifted to the women of the village - and their lack of clothing - but Becky had all she needed already. She bolted up from her seat and Nagase stared at her, mouth frozen in mid-chew.
"C'mon!" Becky hissed, grabbing for his arm to pull him away from the table. Night was falling, and even if she wasn't officially part of the guild, she knew the basics. It was the best time to attack and they might even manage to get in before Meisa and Matsumoto had enough information to go on.
"But he's bringing me dried camel steaks..." Nagase said, and Becky just kept tugging until he fell away from the table and stumbled after her with the napkin still tucked into the front of his coveralls.
--
The mayor's manse was situated on the part of the cliffs that got direct sunlight when the sun rose in the morning and sat coolly in the shadows the rest of the time. It was very dark when they crept around the side of it and found a window that didn't appear to have anything covering it on the inside; Becky hoped that it was an unused parlor or storage room, or some other useless room that the rich seemed to think they needed to have.
She had a few trinkets in her tool belt, sitting low on her hips as she crouched down just beneath the windowpane. "Follow me," she whispered. There was a small iron claw she used to open the window up enough to slide her fingers in - the lock on that sort of old design was at the bottom, and she'd studied them enough to know her way around. The lock popped open with a snap and she pushed the window the rest of the way up.
She got in with no problem, but Nagase had a little trouble with the whole 'silent' part of sneaking and fell inside, nearly knocking over a lamp situated on a small end table. Becky glared at him as she set it back into place, and he just sort of shrugged, unaffected. He was too large to be good at being really quiet.
It took them a little while to figure out where they were in the house. Becky didn't know her way around and she assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that the man and the tablet they were looking for were situated in the guest wing. She just didn't know where the guest wing was. They crept through a darkened hallway that didn't seem to be in use until they reached the main foyer and the parlor with open doors just past it. There were voices coming from the room; Becky leaned around the corner to take stock of how many people there were, and nearly jumped clean out of her skin.
Meisa and Matsumoto were sitting in the parlor, drinking tea from fancy, painted cups. Meisa's hair was styled up in an elaborate ornament with feathers at the side and brass chains looping down - one of them led into a series of links that ended at the piercing in her ear. Matsumoto, across from her, was wearing pinstripe trousers and a bow-tie. They obviously were prepared for it - how else would they have brought such regal clothing?
But they beat her there. They beat her, and they were welcomed guests within the manor. Meisa laughed at something one of the older men said - one of them was standing just behind her chair with a hand on the back and graying, thinning hair.
"No," Becky whispered. She fell back against the wall.
They had won. They were in the manor, and they would have no trouble stealing it. Becky's hopes of getting onto the guild committee started to fall apart at her feet, and she was suddenly too tired to try and pick them all back up again.
Nagase's shoulder brushed hers. "If they're in there drinking tea, then that thing is probably left alone."
"What?" Becky asked, startled.
"That thing," Nagase repeated, like that had been the part she'd had trouble with. "That thing you're trying to steal. Doesn't look like they have anything in the parlor other than sugar and lemon wedges."
Becky turned for another look; Nagase was right. The group was sitting in the parlor and maybe they wouldn't be there very long, but they were definitely not looking at anything old, historical, or valuable. Wherever the tablet was - and Becky hoped that the man at the inn had been correct, or else she was going to be looking for the wrong thing - it was not in the same room as Meisa and Matsumoto.
"Okay," she whispered, flushed and jittery once more. Adrenaline was pumping hot through her form. "Okay, here's what we do. We have to find the guest room. My guess is that the tablet is there - he might go up and get it, if they ask to see it, but I doubt they will. They won't want to let on that they even know it's here. Otherwise, it draws attention to them. They'll probably slip out later tonight with it once they've won the trust of everyone."
"They're good," Nagase said, nodding in appreciation.
Becky elbowed him sharply in the ribs. "No, they're competition. Now just follow me up the stairs and we'll see if we can find this thing."
She'd thought that Meisa and Matsumoto's arrival meant only doom for her, but as they made their way up the stairs in the relative darkness of the foyer and tip-toed past the voices carrying up from the parlor, she had to admit that maybe she'd been wrong. The mayor and the owner of the relic were so engaged in the conversation that they'd left the entire wing unguarded; by welcoming the pair into the house, they'd effectively left the backdoor open for her.
Becky tried to squash the feelings of premature success - she didn't want to jinx the entire thing. She and Nagase moved along the wall being as quiet as they could be, and only once had to jump into a storage room when a servant walked by carrying a load of folded towels. He didn't look in their direction.
The guest wing, as it turned out, was situated directly over the parlor the group was sitting in. Becky could hear bits and pieces of the conversation drifting up through the floor as they made their way cautiously inside. She didn't know what they might encounter, and in the end, it didn't seem to be much at all. There was a trunk pushed against the far side that was open and brimming with clothing, papers and ink wells, so Becky didn't bother looking into that. She headed for the other side of the room, where there was another trunk, a smaller one, peeking out from underneath the bed. It looked like the owner had hastily shoved it beneath after he'd been called to something else - dinner with some guests, perhaps, and then tea afterwards.
It was locked, but Becky had her lock-picking kit with her. She found a small metal dowel that seemed to be the right size and started working on the mechanics within it; her fingers started to cramp up after a few minutes, but it didn't take much longer than that. The small trunk popped open, and she leaned in with anticipation.
It was a tablet, but at the same time, it wasn't. It had to be hundreds and hundreds of years old; there was gold in-lain to the letters carved into the surface, as if the words immortalized there were so important they deserved a king's coating. Becky couldn't read any of the runes, but just holding it she knew it had to be incredibly valuable. It was solid and smooth on the sides, and she ran her fingers over it appreciatively. No wonder the guild was after it - whoever sold it would make a fortune.
"Wow," Becky whispered, holding it up so that the moonlight peeking in through the window caught the gold and made it sparkle a bit. "This is amazing."
"Amazingly boring," Nagase replied. "I thought we were going to steal something real, like jewels."
Becky pushed the trunk closed, replacing it beneath the bed and smoothing the blankets so that it didn't look like anyone had been there. The tablet was a heavy weight pressed against her stomach. "This is real," she snipped, vaguely annoyed, "and by taking it to the guild I can ensure that I-"
There were voices on the stairs. Becky froze, panicked.
"Go," Nagase hissed, hands on her shoulders as he pushed her towards the window. She didn't even know where the window led, but her knees sort of jerked without her input. She staggered towards it with the tablet held flush against her form and every terrified pounding of her heart was screaming in her ears.
"Wait-" she said, because halfway out, she realized that Nagase wasn't following her.
"I'll distract them!" he told her.
That was when the door opened and the owner of the tablet - an older gentlemen with the air about him that said he'd never wanted for anything in his life and had always been well-fed - stood somewhat shocked at the doorway, mouth open.
"I LOVE STRAWBERRY MILK!" Nagase roared, and rushed towards both the man and the figure behind him, who Becky assumed was the mayor. They were so surprised that neither looked in Becky's direction; having someone of Nagase's size hurtling towards them had probably rendered them both a bit speechless. They sputtered and started to move and run, and it gave Becky the time she needed to slip out the window. Making her way back down the cliff face with the extra weight of the tablet wasn't easy, but there was so much fire coursing through her veins that she hardly noticed.
She didn't go back to the inn - it was too traceable. She went back to the docking grounds because as soon as Nagase got back, she knew they had to get out. The STAR Bridge wasn't fast, but they might have enough of a lead.
Her fingers were trembling by the time she got on board. She deposited the tablet and fired up the engines; they didn't have much time. She was desperate to get out of Hartizi with the tablet. She kept thinking of what the guild would do when she presented it to them, of Meisa's face when she realized that someone else had beat her to it...
The seconds felt like hours. Becky's lungs were pressing against her ribs. She kept thinking every sound was someone coming to arrest her and take the tablet back. She stared out the viewport windows with her hands curled around the controls and waited, minute after minute, until she almost couldn't handle the suspense anymore.
Then the door to the bridge burst open and Nagase staggered inside, breathing hard. His eyes were wild and his hair was askew.
"Go, go!" he shouted, and then collapsed face first on the ground with an odd-sounding groan.
Becky wasted no time in complying.
"What did you do?" she asked, voice warbling, as The STAR Bridge lifted off the ground and into the night sky. "How did you do it?"
"I think I'm dying," Nagase whined pitifully. "I'm not going to make it."
"What did that even mean, what you yelled?" Becky asked.
Nagase snorted, which meant he couldn't be that bad off. "Well, I really like strawberry milk."
Becky couldn't help it. She stared at him, strewn across the floor of the cockpit, and then started laughing so hard she could barely breathe, and then Nagase started laughing, and for awhile that was all they did because she couldn't figure out how to right herself again. Then Nagase ran out of breath and started complaining about the stitch in his side from all the running, and Becky tried to rummage around to find something to give him to drink.
--
There was a big party after everything, after Becky gave them the tablet and received all of the congratulations. They had to officially induct her then, and since she'd done something so public, it seemed only natural to throw another banquet for it. The guild was awfully serious about their parties.
This time, nobody questioned Becky at the doors.
They even brought her her own bottle of champagne. She felt like a queen in her new dress, corset laced tight and skirt buttoned halfway up to show off the new boots she'd bought. A figure found her as she was pulling something enticing off of one of the hors d'oeuvres tray.
"So, I guess you are a full member now," Nagase said, and Becky was so surprised she almost dropped the cake.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
Nagase had cleaned up - he was sporting a vest over a buttoned shirt, complete with a pocket watch and chain that hung outside the dark fabric. He shrugged. "Well, I wanted to come and congratulate you."
"I couldn't have done it without you," Becky admitted. As odd as Nagase was, he brought something exciting into her life when they'd been traveling together. He reached for another goodie on a tray, something that looked like shellfish, and popped the whole thing in his mouth.
"I kinda thought I'd join you for awhile," he said, through the food, and Becky caught about half of it.
"What?" she said.
He shrugged again. "I mean, if it's okay with you."
"But..." she started, confused and flattered and a little happier than she'd like to admit, standing in the decadence of the guild's party having got everything she'd wanted. "But, it's not really something you can tell people about, as far as careers go..."
"Yeah, but you're worth it," Nagase said easily.
Becky's hands flew to her face because she was sure she could actually feel the flush radiating from her cheeks. "What?" she squeaked.
"I've never met anyone like you," Nagase told her, with a somewhat crooked, nervous-looking smile. "I mean, you're not really anything like I expected a thief to be. And you are a walking contradiction sometimes with the things you say and do. And boy, you could really use somebody to stick around and do repairs to your ship, because there are a lot of things outdated on that thing."
Becky just stared at him, feeling something bubbling up in her chest that she couldn't swallow down and wasn't sure that she wanted to.
Nagase winked at her. "Plus, I hear you guys do this stuff in partners, anyway."
"Partners," Becky repeated, softly; she heard the capital letter there. Partners. He wanted to be Partners with her. Nagase was strong and handsome and probably really good with the ladies, and he wanted to be Partners with her.
Nagase just sort of smiled at her and Becky was pretty sure she was just beaming back, and then Shun came up with a huge grin on his face, hands in the air. "You did it!" he exclaimed, and picked Becky up to twirl her around for a moment. She was a bit dizzy when he put her back down again. "I can't believe you did it! Well, I mean I can, because I knew you could, but to beat Meisa like that!"
"Shun," Becky laughed, overcome with giddiness and happiness and a lot of other emotions that ended in -ness. "I'd like you to meet Nagase. He's my... he's my partner."
One of Shun's eyebrows went up to his hairline. "Your partner."
"Yes," Becky said, gesturing. Nagase did a little bow, but he was still smiling. "My partner. He fixes airships. He's a great mechanic. He helped me get the tablet."
"Nice to meet you," Shun said. "I feel like maybe I should know something about you if you're going to be working with Becky from now on."
"Well, he really likes strawberry milk," Becky told him.
Shun looked confused when they both started laughing. After a moment, he stepped aside, and Becky's mirth subsided; Meisa was standing there, looking radiant and darkly dangerous in her black fitted dress. She looked at Becky for a long moment, and then nodded stiffly.
"Congratulations on getting the tablet," she said. "And congratulations on your official induction to the committee."
"Thank you," Becky replied. Meisa gave her one last look and stalked away, no doubt off to find Matsumoto and complain about how less desirable people were now permanent fixtures within the guild. But Becky didn't mind. Nagase reached out to grab her fingers, and his hand was warm.
"How about a dance, then?" he asked. "To celebrate the beginning."
"The beginning," Becky repeated. "Are you sure about this? I mean, if you change your mind..."
"Yeah, about that," Nagase said, looking a bit sheepish as he walked with Becky to the floor and put his hands on her waist; he felt solid against her. "Since I sort of just left Ikuta's inn, he assumed that I quit, and I can't get my job back. He was pretty pissed off."
The band started up a jaunty tune that Becky knew the steps to, and Nagase was a surprisingly good dancer.
"So you need a job," Becky said.
"I'd much rather be working with you," Nagase told her, and spun her around in time with the band's rising chords.
She was blushing again, she just knew it. But at least dancing, she could pass the color off as exertion. Nagase didn't seem to mind, and he was much lighter on his feet on the dance floor than he was trying to sneak in through windows. "You know, a lot of partners here, they-"
"-think their partner is smart, funny, and beautiful?" Nagase finished.
"You think I'm beautiful?" Becky squeaked, and almost forgot the dance steps completely.
Nagase just pulled her in for a quick, chaste kiss that left her entire mouth tingling in anticipation and pleasure, and spun her around again.
"Darling," he said, and Becky just laughed, "we are going to be excellent partners."