"Knock again."

It was hour six by the clock and Ensign Sellaphix was tired. He was tired of patrols. He was tired of wicks. He was tired already of being in the filthy Dives. In any other part of Veinda the sky might be getting a bit pink. But in the Dives it was just fecking gross. The shit in the gutters of the cobble-pocked street was glimmering poetically and Ensign Sellaphix was too tired to care.

Rafe and his bulky recruit were standing before a great set of double doors, their chroves snorting idly behind them. Their breaths came out misty in the morning air.

He and his recruit had been pounding on the door for a few minutes and nothing was stirring in the - what was this place called again. He looked down at the warrant.

The Kettle Black. Blacksmith.

The warrant proper didn't specify on what grounds the business was to be searched, just that they would be searching it. And it was signed by the Low Judge Ogden so it was legal. And if this wick, Master ... (Rafe checked the warrent again). Oh. Two of them. Jeremiah and Caiaphus Spindle. If the brothers or cousins or whoever they were wanted to act in their own best interests, they'd let them in, step aside so they could all get back to their breakfast.

"Again."

Rafe, as Seventen, had to serve warrants like everyone else. He only served as Healer when they needed him. His betters had it on good authority that this shifty wick was making guns in this smithy. And the last thing Vienda needed right now was more projectiles flying through the air. If the Seventen could keep dangerous weapons off the black market, all the better for all of Vienda.

But did they have to do this at clocking six?

Rafe rubbed his face with his hands, his chin rough with stubble. When the recruit's rapping vigor did not satisfy Rafe's impatience, he budged him aside and had a go properly.

BAM BAM BAM

"Seventen! Open!"

The next step was a patented Seventen Shove. A solid push spell great for doors and waking lazy wicks.

Smoke and coffee, coffee and smoke. The Kettle Black carried that scent always in the morning. Iron burning in the furnace, tobacco burning in the cigar perched in his lips, a pot of coffee simmering on the stove. The sun poked light through the iron paper, grey from the factories and late Hamis clouds. And Cai was awake, still awake.

Cigars and coffee, coffee and cigars.

His bare feet left trails on the soot caked floor, tracing his winding path between the furnace, the kitchen, the stairs, the swords behind the counter. Restless morning thoughts, that's all these were. Ensign Sellaphix wasn't the only one who was dead clocking tired. Anxious movements, pacing, not sleeping, busying all night honing down the points of swords that would never cut so much as bread. For now, he wasn't moving. Propped against the kitchen counter in the watery grey light, sipping singed lack coffee straight from the sauce pan.

The first knock made him pause. Hand tensing around the saucepan handle, black eyes flickering out towards the smithy proper.

The second knock made him set the pan down on the stovetop, sliding away from the counter.

The word Seventen made him pause in the doorway between the kitchen and the foyer. Made the line of his shoulders tense. Made his gaze flicker to the ceiling, to the upstairs, to Jer. Made him growl, "For fuck's sake."

Cai muttered quiet curses as he threaded through the shop, ducking between the chains and hanging wares thoughtlessly, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. Maybe he should get dressed, pull on something more than a pair of trousers, wake Jer. But Cai very much enjoyed having an intact door. The dead lock on the double doors was aging, at best. Deft fingers unlatched, unchained, unbolted the puzzle of locks swallowing the doors and eased them open.

He held them open, one hand on each, the flesh and bones of him swallowing up the entryway. He looked them over, cautious, before easing a hand off one of the doors, leaning into the other. This wasn't hardly an appropriate time to smile -- but Caiaphas tried. It was supposed to be that kind of obsequious, braindead smile you flashed to Uncle Brigk. But there were far too many teeth in it, for that.

He dipped into a bow, never taking his flat eyes off them.

"Junta an' good mornin' to ya both," Cai said. "Lost, are ya?"

Rafe's orders were followed by light noises from within the smithy. The whispers of foot steps transitioning to the clinkle and clatter of someone undoing the locks. The doors opened and Rafe felt the wick's feild brush against his own. It felt flimsy, like a child's. The man's accent struck Rafe's ears in an unwelcome manner. It reminded him he was in the Dives.

He too forced a smile, ignored the flippant comment and walked past him into the smith area. His recruit heeled obediently. Beginning with manners and condescending to wicks tended to make them more compliant, but Rafe found it tedious this morning.

He sighed boredly and looked at the rangey old Spindle.

"Good morning, sir," he said, neglecting to bow to the older man in return. "We're to search this property on business of the Seventen, with approval by Low Judge Ogden. Your cooperation is assumed. I am Ensign Sellaphix and I'll be supervising the search. All parts of these premisis are subject to our inspection including the shop and any attached residences or outbuildings."

As he spoke in a bland authoritative tone, he produced the unfolded warrant and held it out for the wick to see. All of this was procedure. Say these words, reveal the warrant.

Then request identification.

"Tell us your name, sir, and produce your papers."

Rafe looked past the wick into the shop, praying the time goddess would make these moments pass them all swiftly. That the wick wouldn't behave as wicks do, with a defiance and vulgar posturing. And more mouthing off in that vernacular accent of theirs. It's like they're trying to sound like hayseeds when they speak like they do. Deliberately garbling their speech just to appear puzzling.

As much as he expected the wick to be trouble, he'd learned to behave in a way that assumed compliance. Come into a situation treating them like they're going to be trouble only seems to make the idea that much more appealing to them.

Ensign Sellaphix looked back at the wick, and crossed his arms. He raised his eyebrows as if prompting a dull-witted child.

"Mr. Spindle. Your papers as per the Intas 26 Writ. If you please?"

Cai's head snapped after the ensign too fast, his eyes slivered to spear points. His teeth ground against the cigar paper when the golly brushed past him, the acrid tobacco pooling on his tongue. Never, never ever, not after twenty years of living in Vienda would he ever stop being surprised to remember that even his house wasn't his own. Not completely.

Searches weren't a rare thing to him, but that didn't stop his heart shooting into his throat for one raw second.

"I do please, oes," he growled softly, voice muffled by the cigar in his teeth. It bobbed with every word. "'m Caiaphas Cyrus Spindle. Ent sir t'nothin' an' nobody. Sirs is all good men like you, ye chen?" They'd all been here before. It was worse, in the first years. But these search and seizure bits were getting old. Older than himself, even.

"The writ's upstairs in th'room." Cai cocked his head to the spiral stair. "Feel free to poke around. Coffee's in the kitchen, kov," he pointed to one of the four anteroom doors, the one propped open with a tea kettle. Make yerselves comfy."

The wrought iron staircase rattled under his footsteps, springy as a goat negotiating up rocks. Jaunty and confident was easy to pull off as a bravado show for a couple of Seventen. That was entirely a matter of pride. But the moment Cai reached the upstairs landing, that cheeky grin melted off his face. His expression settled into something sober. Alioe forbid -- worry chewed at him. Spindles didn't worry.

He slipped down the dark, narrow hall to their bedroom. The bedroom was innocuous as ever. Grey, brown, grey. Bedsheet curtains. Jer, a heavy lump under a cyclorama of linens and quilts. Wood shavings dusted the floorboards. Mundane things, all of these, but the made his hackles hitch. Cai padded quietly over to the nightstand, kneeling in before it and rattling open the drawer. That is, after snuffing his cigarillo out on the wooden top, making another burn among the veritable poppy field of scorches the little table sported.

Rumpling through wood carved fishes, hastily scribbled things, spectrographs, little phials of herbs -- his writ was among all of this rabble. He was certain. Somewhere.

Cai turned to Jer's sleeping form, propping his elbows on the edge of the bed. He slipped a hand over Jer's shoulder, giving it a hard shove. Again. And once more after that.

"Jer! Up with ye, hama!" a stage whisper, a hiss. Cai's dark eyes were glossy with something foreign to them both, something bordering on panic. "Uncle Brigk is out an' about. Where th'fuck's the last place ye seen my writ?"

This one was Caiaphas. Or so Rafe was able to devine from beneath the deep accent. If the other one, Jeremaiah, was afoot and they encountered him, he'd face the same treatment. But at this moment, all they needed was the one.

Spindle seemed calm enough. He was doing the Fake Nice they'd all grown used to as Seventen. The populous using gentle voices and happy tones so as to ensure the Seventen of their intentions to 'come quietly'. However, with wicks and humans it just as often concealed warning signs of grabbing some hot poker and waving it around. And there were weapons around enough for an army - pokers and rods and all manner of horrible clanking lengths of metal.

Rafe Sellaphix ignored the offer for coffee. Instead he waved at the recruit to begin. The Seventen recruit started at one end and began picking through shelves and crates nearest the doors.

As the wick blacksmith disappeared upstairs, Rafe watched him go and squinted after him. A wick out of sight was a wick worth watching. And in these dangerous days when Seventen were found de-spleened and lost in rivers, Rafe had every right to be suspicious. That Spindle could return with his brother/lover/cousin/son or whoever, both with ramstockle guns and fire into his chest. Or he would run off. For a moment, Rafe closed his eyes and tried to inflate his feild, hoping to gain a better hold on what he could expect from this choppy Spindle. But he gleaned nothing. The wick's own feild was too small, and Rafe not skilled enough to send his own senses very far.

He turned his attention back to the recruit. He walked up along side him and spoke in a low voice. "Remember, we're not just here for that black powder. Any bit of wood that looks like it could be a handle. Small bits of led for bullets. Metal tubes or pipes that look suspicious."

He looked up at the ceiling, hearing the floor boards creak. He furrowed his brow and drew out a short Seventen Club. He strode over to the wrought iron staircase with impatient steps and struck the banister. The whole structure clanged and resonated.

"Hurry up, mister wick!"

Jer was a hard man to rouse, wrapped up tight in layers of sleep, but Cai was experienced. A good shove to the shoulder, maybe more than that, and Jer would wake up eventually. The hour was early, though, too early for Jeremiah Spindle and though he wasn't sleeping anymore, he wasn't fully awake.

Until the word 'writ' came out of Cai's mouth. Jer struggled to sit up and shake the sleep-fog from his brain. The only time Cai would ever need a writ was if there were Seventen afoot, and if there was anything Jer didn't want it was Seventen afoot. Sure, he was used to 'em-- came in and out all the damn time, asking for paperwork and what all else. Proof that they weren't criminals, which right enough they weren't. At least, as far as Jer knew. Not anymore. He was too old to have to worry about all this.

"Dunno, Cai, ent that a bit important to be losin' it?" Jer swung his legs over the side of the bed, heart in his damn throat. They had to find that thing-- wasn't nothing he wanted to see less in this world than Cai go down those stairs writ-less. Himself, neither, and Jer realized he didn't know where his had gone. Probably in the same place, somewhere safe where they couldn't lose 'em.

That'd be just as like, to lose their writs when Seventen came knocking 'round the damn door. Jer started the process of tearing their house apart, looking for those stupid scraps of paper. Everything was covered in those damn wood shavings-- Jer wasn't the most fastidious of men, leaving bits and pieces of projects in his wake always. He brushed some aside, lifting up a mug of cold coffee from the week previous. The paper it was on top of stuck to the bottom, probably from some of the coffee spilled from the--

"I found it!" Just Cai's, but he'd found it. A little bit of the tension that had threaded through his shoulders relaxed.

Words like 'love' stopped getting thrown around so much, after twenty some years. Jer never used that word much ever. But --

"Fucking Ah-li-oe, macha," Cai hissed. "I love ye."

There it was.

Cai peeled the all too important scrap of paper from the sticky mug. He peeled it off of itself, too, delicate as he could manage. It tore, just a touch, just at the edge -- and the old script was darkened with coffee stains, but it was still legible. Had to be. The clang of club on iron was like the tolling of a bell, a huge and intensely unnerving bell.

"Comin', sir!" Cai shouted back, all too jovial. "Jus' makin' meself decent fer yer sensibilities an' all that!" The moment the words were past his lips, his face hardened into a scowl.

He was relieved to have his writ, he didn't give much thought to Jer's. But Jer had lived here all his life, there was nothing to question. No, no -- his nerves didn't trill so much over that. Such things could be explained away. Had to be.

"Get yerself dressed, keep it hushed," Cai said, words all muffled by the shirt slipping over his head. "Jus'..." Don't lose your clocking head, he wanted to say, but he knew that wouldn't be Jer's problem. It would be his concern, that whole strangling a golly bit. "Pray, I guess. Yer daoa did tha', right?" Trying to smile, trying to joke, trying to clear the air of its anxious pall. That was his job.

And Cai was gone from the room, quick and quiet as he'd come in. He toed down the spiral steps unprepossessing as he could, calling up another smile more toothy and forced than the first.

"..'ere it is, sir," he announced, holding the muddled scrap of writ out for Ensign Sellaphix's scrutiny. His gaze flashed over to the recruit, rifling through all their crates of scrap metal and bolts.

"Might I ask what yer all rootin' around for, 'zactly?"

As if he didn't know.

Rafe didn't want to touch it. It looked fecking filthy. It was a little torn on the edges and had some brown crap on it. Could be coffee. Could be something more foul - and that's not racist, Rafe saw how these people lived and what respect they had for the queen.

He tucked the club under his elbow and took the writ in both gloved hands. He gave Spindle an annoyed accusing look, as if Spindle'd doctored it to be suspect out of spite. "Filthy, rolled in shit..." he mumbled through his teeth as he looked over the paper.

It was the real deal. Caiaphus Spindle's name was filled in properly and so was the address of the Kettle Black. The wick was legit. Good golly gosh for them both.

"Might you ask?" he echoed, shooting his glance up at the wick. "You might keep your mouth shut and remember your place, Spindle. We're not come around as your guests. So stop offering tea, and going on with those mocking curtsies. Now let's have those keys and step out of our way."

Rafe just didn't have time to play the fool for this wick. They were all shifty, chatty, guile-some thieves. The only reason they wouldn't find anything on this search is if the Spindles had some damn fine hiding spots. Weasels and their hiding spots. Too damn early to play along with any wick double-talk.

He took the club out of the crook of his elbow and flicked the writ back towards Spindle. Just then the recruit straightened up over a rack long metal pieces. He held up a long tube with a flared end.

Rafe nodded his head towards the piece. "What's that. then? That piece of metal there."

Seventen in the shop weren't ever nothing good, by Jeremiah's reckoning. The question was, just what breed of nothing good were they today? Jer sighed, looking down the steps still half-dressed. Nothing too much, he hoped. Normally he'd trust Cai to not have done anything to get them in any real trouble-- but lately? All that pacing and snapping like some sort of fool beast in a cage, Jer just couldn't quite bring himself to dismiss the idea that Cai had done something truly stupid.

A quick scrub of his hands over his face, and Jer was walking to pick some shirt off the floor to dress himself with. He wasn't shaved, neither, but he figured as it didn't matter much to some Seventen. He'd look the same to them either way. Didn't have no writ, didn't put on shoes, didn't do nothing but head down those stairs.

(( SFSR and for taking so long. ))

"S'coffee," Cai corrected, before saying anything more. His voice was rigid as wood.

"My place is..." Black eyes blinked at the Seventen, flat. "Ah, right. Under you, oes? I'm awful forgetful these days. S'old age, it is. Does that to ye.

Maybe, maybe, playing at the big damn hero bit was not the best idea in such a delicate situation. His spine steeled when the recruit held up the tube. It was a like a punch in gut, hard and tangible. That's what they were coming about for, then? Nothing to fret, nothing to worry about -- twenty years and nobody knew nothing about nobody. There was no reason that stripe would suddenly change. Right?

Right.

Cai narrowed his eyes at the recruit, gaze dragging over metal thing.

"S'called a mandrel," he drawled. "Ye use it t' fix chains an' the like? Sizin' metal? Lowly things like tha'. 'ere's a couple more layin' about, if ye want t'peek at them, too." Of course they wouldn't know what in Vita it was, he thought. They'd never done a touch of labor in their lives; not without all that potent melting-pushing-congealing magic they had. He nodded to an anvil.

"An' tha'," he said, "is an anvil."

Cai tottered a couple steps back from Ensign Sellaphix, and leaned back against the banister. He spared spurious glance to Jer, quick and questioning. That one word, writ, chewed incessantly at the back of his head. They'd leave him be, surely. That faint buzz of field clouding him was the only wick-ish bit Jer could lay claim to.

Surely.

"I know what an anvil is, Spindle," Sellaphix snapped, rounding on the old wick. "Watch your jamming tone with me, understand? This is fecking Seventen you're dealing with. Start cooperating or you'll help us out sitting in a cell while save ourselves the trouble and burn this stinking hole in the wall to rubble."

He slammed his club against the banister again, inches from the blacksmith. The piece of metal looked damn close to the diagrams they'd been shown last night of long-barreled guns that sprayed shards of metal out the mouth. The type of weapon meant to cause dangerous injury, meant to cause terror. Meant to perforate the faces of their beasts, or to injure civilians. Not a killing gun, but a brutalizing gun. And this wick was giving him flip.

"Maybe it's a mandrel, maybe it's something else. Confiscate the lot of it," he said over his shoulder to his man. Rafe had to keep the upper hand and keep the wick back on his toes. Let them think their insolent misbehavior was going unnoticed would just embolden them. Don't give them an inch, they'd been told so often these days. Your safety depends on maintaining total control. Total order. Don't tarry long in a situation that's getting hairy.

And then it started to get hairy. Jumpy Ensign Sellaphix was startled by the entrance of Jeremiah Spindle coming down the stairs. It was a gut reaction, but the hostility in the air had made him tense.

"Hold it!" he shouted, threw out his hand and cast a stunted Push, meant to put the new arrival off his balance and halt forward progress down the stairs. "Hands out!"

The Push hit Jer hard, knocking him off balance and almost making him lose his footing on the stairs. A surprised grunt escaped him. Godsdamn golly--! There was a reason, a very specific one, why Jer tried as hard as he might to keep out of Seventen notice. Godsdamn gollies and their damned magic. In theory, that field that clung to him gentle as moth's breath meant he could do such things his own self. Didn't give him any more right to go around bullying honest folk what hadn't done nothing except try to walk down their own clocking stairs. Neither of them had the right, but this golly bastard was the one what had the ability. Godsdamn pondies and their godsdamn superiority.

Jer put his hands up as he was instructed. His face slipped a little from his habitual blankness, annoyance flashing across his features. Brief, though-- Jer liked as to keep Seventen from doing him much more damage. Jer didn't like it. Any of it. They seemed too godsdamn keen-- not to mention jumpy --for this to be a routine visit like as they got all the damn time. Had Cai done something? Jer's blood ran cold.

"Ent no need for no trouble..." And maybe Cai could hear the annoyance in it. Maybe not. What all reason did they have for taking the tools of his damn livelihood out of their shop? Jer wanted to know, but it'd do him not a lick of good to ask.

"For the love of ffff--" The hot words were tamped down, ground into his lip by teeth. Every muscle bunched, the hackles hitched back. Cai looked like a dog, more than anything. "Take whatever ye please, ye jumpy little tsuter. Ent like I kin do nothin' t' stop ye, ne!" he spat. "Strip the whole godsdamn place, I won't care a whit. Jus' the leave me balach outta yer red tape-y chrove shit."

Maybe playing at being a big damn hero wasn't the best thing to do -- what could he do? Break the bastard's nose to coleslaw, maybe, but that wouldn't end well for anyone. Twenty years ago, sure, without a second thought. Bad thing about getting so old: he actually thought about things now. His bones went unbroken, yeah, but left the ego bruised.

Cai hated to take his eyes off the slippery Ensign for a moment, but they slowly raked over to Jer. Cai could barely stand to look at him, either. He extended a hand, gaze darting down and away.

"Up with ye," was he all he could manage to growl. His jaw was set too stiff for anything else.

(( sfsp. ;w; also sorry for taking lots of time. carry on! ))

Ensign Sellaphix's expression hardened. His nerves were steeling up like they'd had to back in training. This ruthlessness was part of what it meant to be a Seventen. It wasn't a cruelty, it wasn't a mercilessness, it wasn't about pride. It was about the mission and sacrificing comforts such as politeness and patience to accomplish the greater good.

He shouldn't have cast that spell. He should have checked the escalation, but he hadn't. He'd felt threatened and reacted. But what was done was done and these twist-tongued wicks weren't making things calmer.

"Shut up!" Sellaphix ordered against Caiaphas's protests.

"You brought trouble on all of us when you starting making guns. You think giving guns to humans will help Vienda," he snarled with vindication and exasperation. "Playing the honest shopkeeper bit's getting old. Both of you away from those stairs and over by that wall. And then stay there until I tell you you can move."

He spat on the floor and took steps towards his man who was tearing metal and parts off shelves and out of racks. He had a few quiet words with him and then went to the front doors. Sellaphix threw them open and led in a chrove pulling a cart.

The recruit started loading the cart with everything he could get his hands on. While that went on, he went back to the two wick brothers and glared at them.

"One writ for two wicks. That doesn't work, does it. Let's see yours," he said to the new comer. "Now."

Jer's eyes jerked sharp to Cai at the mention of guns, then away again. Surely, surely Cai weren't so clocking thick as to start that up again? With the city as tense as it was these days, crawling with Seventen? Jer wanted to think so. After yesterday, though? Jer couldn't say as Cai had been all that trustworthy lately. He'd promised, once, said he weren't going to do things like that no more. Maybe Cai of six months ago would have kept to his word, Jer couldn't say. Lately he'd been restless, reckless and feckless, ever since Intas. Though it was possible he'd been like this for longer, and Jer just hadn't noticed. Too clocking busy thinking they were happy enough.

"Easy now, officer," Jer murmured, a rumble from somewhere in his ribcage. Of all the days to lose that scrap of paper, had to be the day Uncle Brigk's at the door. "I have it." Weren't a total lie, that-- after all, he never said as he knew where. Jer hoped and prayed it was somewhere he could find before this jumpy fool did something a lot worse than Push him.

Jer didn't like trouble, again and again he found himself thinking this. So he did what he was told, but even a man like Jer finds themself being pushed too hard. He hadn't slept near well enough to have patience for some golly half his age ordering him about that way.

So they were bringing chroves into this, then. The sight of the beast made Cai’s stomach churn. All armor and horns and teeth, there was nothing he could do aside from stride over the wall and prop himself against it, arms criss-crossing his chest. He didn’t much look like an accused gunsmith compiling to orders so much as he looked like a bored old man.

“Go get it for the benny officer then, Jer,” Cai said flatly.

It was almost painful not to shoot Jer a look of his own, a glance that would speak volumes upon volumes. That would say things like shimmy down the gutterpipe under the bedroom window and skip out to Vicka’s, creep up into the attic crawlspace and don’t come out ever. But he didn’t, couldn’t. Cai felt transparent as butcher paper. A twitch of his hand could mean he was going for a knife, a glance could be an elaborate code. He didn’t move, didn’t glance – just stared balefully at the ugly chrove-thing.

“What’s all this, then?” he growled, shifting his gaze to Ensign Sellaphix. “Gonna confiscate the godsdamn stairs?”

The newer Spindle, the one who'd Sellaphix had pushed, was much calmer than the Caiaphas. Caiaphas was calm on the surface, but the Ensign could feel his resentment in that flat scowl of his. Both wicks complied but only one actually seemed interested incooperating.

"Yes, be a good lad, Jer, and do as your clocking told. Get that writ and get back here. And mind you don't act like a brainless moonborn and run off."

The other Seventen was piling up nearly everything he could get his hands on into the cart. Soon he started using magic to assist. Tools and bins and boxes started going into the cart as well. Perhaps it was overkill. But the inexperienced Ensign was doing his damndest to hide that the situation was escalating a little above his pay grade. The two Seventen didn't have the support to search this place up and down in enough detail, not while trying to keep track of a pair of wick brothers. Lurking as wicks do.

He'd get a hiding for it, but going through all this inventory back at the warehouse would be much easier. And it wasn't as if they were confiscating it from good, law-abiding galdori - they were wicks, probably human sympathizers.

When a growl came out of the old wick's throat, offering protest, Sellaphix regripped his club.

"It's called shut your clocking mouth!" Ensign Sellaphix retorted. "It's Seventen business and you'll do your duty to queen and country if you'll sit on your hands, smile and say thank you, Ensign Sellaphix!"

"Thanks for making sure there aren't any half-witted wicks making guns for humans to fire into crowds. Thanks for keeping clocking peace! That's what this is. Hey!"

He shouted after Jeremiah Spindle who was out of sight. "Hey! Have you got that writ or haven't you? Your brother here's letting his mouth dig both your graves!"

Ent no brother of mine, Jer wanted to say, but he couldn't bring himself to. He let everyone else assume whatever they wanted, anyhow, it weren't like it made a lick of difference. He still had to find that writ, and fast. Jer growled low in the back of his throat. He didn't like any of this. His head still hurt from the night before, a deep and throbbing ache that left little room for rationality.

"I'm comin', officer." Defiance crept in around the edges of his words. He didn't want to be doing this, he sure didn't. It weren't exactly the best time for this. Big ugly chroves in his home, little ugly golly officers taking his things. Jer was of half a mind to do something stupid. Perhaps this was how Cai felt most of the time.

Finally, finally, after much and laborious searching, Jer found his clocking writ. Fallen behind some heavy bit of furniture, it had, and Jer cursed himself for not finding it sooner. Still, it'd been found, and maybe that'd calm the twitchy little man some. Jer reappeared in front of the ensign and held it out without a word or a glance to either him or Cai. He fixed his eyes firmly on that clocking chrove being loaded with their things.