Chapter 16: Discord
Jax finished setting the boughs within the seams between the trees that Nalah had discovered for them to use as a new base, carefully packing each one down to help block the wind as much as possible. The area they had settled into was a fair bit larger than the spot they had before Sahari decided to them moved so far north, as bad as an idea that had been, since this one could properly support all five of them sleeping at once should the security be increased enough.
The inside was a slightly more rectangular affair than the almost perfect circle they had gotten used to, rounded and jagged corners formed by the scattered trunks allowed room for them to designate area for specific purposes. Four larger logs were placed in a square around the significantly larger fire as places to sit, slightly carved out to allow more comfortable positioning on the wood. Dirt and assorted brush had been either packed down or removed entirely, giving some semblance of a proper floor. The entry way was little more than an allowance of space between two trees that was going to be barred off with larger boughs should it be required, but for now granted passage into the space. It was a far cry from a proper and purpose-built shelter, but the coverage from wind was a definite improvement with the chilling climate.
It wasn’t a complete waste to come out here, he had to admit. Tel and Harrow were actually useful with their hunting, albeit as assisted as they were by the snares. He couldn’t really fault them for using the tools, a paper pusher and a cook were hardly expected to be expert hunters in the modern age, but he refused to use them to both hone his understanding of the wildlife as well as keep himself active.
Years on guard duties of various flavours before being drafted had left him wanting more for their little pack. There was only so much they could do with only three active fighters of varying ability and two previous dead weights. He had no firearms nor proper war weapons he could use and although he was confident in his ability to fight claw-to-claw, the beasts here have proven to be well beyond what he was comfortable going against empty pawed.
It took some convincing for his temporary Grand Huntress to allow the time to style even his rudimentary weapon, as it required significant down time for him to shave away and work with one of the breeds of wood that didn’t act as springy. It was far tougher than the alternative, leading to many hours whittling away layer after layer to get a passable weapon, but the risk of encountering more aggressive forms of resistance to his hunting was eventually enough to convince her, even if she didn’t think such a primitive weapon would help much.
It was perturbing to be subservient to a lesser hunter, though Sahari could possibly be dealt with, it would not be without injury. Nalah seemed to swoon over the very air the Huntress breathed and as such would fight to the death to ensure that she remained as intact as possible. Should he try to wrangle control of the pack, he would need majority approval as well as a strong enough argument to call her authority into question. Were it not for the moderate rapport he had built with her, he would have been tempted to forgo the formalities.
The aggravating part of his inclusion into the pack was that he had little say in the matter, they had crossed his path during his patrol and informed him of the carnage at the camp. When he confirmed that all order had been broken, he accepted to escort them until the greater portions of potential survivors could reform. The vow they took to regard her as the Great Huntress stipulated that, until a proper settlement could be formed, she would be their leader. Not the best choice he could have made, but also not the worst. He hadn’t expected them to go so long without contact from any surviving group and every sun was another opportunity for them or the others to grow too weak to reform into a proper sized pack. As it stood, they were of only six members with a bare hierarchy to support it. Well, five, he supposed.
Pan had been gone a while now, he stopped counting the time long ago and as such wasn’t even sure how long they had been on the planet, but, if anything, it had been a boon to rid themselves of a defective logistics grunt. With the additional mouth to feed no longer scraping at their rations, they could afford to experiment with preservation methods. The lack of the presence of weakness was an additional perk. He did not miss the scent she gave off.
Tel, having replaced Pan as the biped pack’s observer, had relayed ways to improve their armament as well as a possible way to preserve the meat that they caught, though any attempts at emulating the process for weapons was beyond anything he had patience for. Having her away so often and for so long meant that he had less to look at, leaving him to regard their Intelligence Officer more regularly, but also provided valuable information they may need to take the structure. Even if Sahari claims it would be dishonourable to do now, it may come a time where the information is valuable. He would be ready.
The call to continue observations was a divisive one, being both a drain on their active force and possibly alerting the pack to a possible sabotage or raid. Harrow and himself raised the issue initially, only to be overruled by the three others, Tel seeming to be far too excited for the task and Nalah simply following the wishes of her Grand Huntress. It was a foolhardy decision, but not without merit, he supposed. His job usually detailed ensuring people didn’t get into where he was stationed, less so about getting in himself. Hardly enough overlap to consider himself an authority on such matters, but musing over which defensive measures the pack took would allow him to glean the level of resistance he should expect.
The issue was that there were no defensive measures, barring any intrinsic benefits to having a fully functional structure. No walls, no weapons, no air gap between fortifications, as well as an abundance of windows in which to simply view the goings on of anyone inside. It either spoke to their stupidity or how confident they were that his pack wouldn’t pose a threat. Their fighting force, according to Tel, only consisted of the biped and the smaller insect. Hardly a force for a warpath, if a bit curious for the lack of combatants. It was entirely possible that they expected nobody to think of their defensive as easy prey, perhaps not knowing that there were potentially entire settlements that had formed since their military had landed and then were scattered, but if so, he was not going to correct those issues before it fell into his paws.
Setting down the last bough he had in front of their wood pile, he idly inspected each seam, mulling over the chances of encouraging Sahari to push to secure the complex. All his work was tightly placed and secured between the tree trunks, packed further by moss to act as a mild insulation. He may have never been a survival expert nor carpenter, but he did pick up tricks like this on the job from time to time. It only took one trip to the colder planet they were developing to ensure he never froze so badly again.
He stepped back to puzzle out how to enclose the top of their structure when Tel approached him from behind, setting her feet heavy on the ground purposely to announce herself without making him twitchy. Her usual footsteps were fairly cumbersome, the only reason he suspected it was purposeful was her jaunts around her patrols when she had passed by his hunting grounds without even disturbing the leaves she moved through. He wasn’t sure why a cook would be so skilled at stealth, but she also seemed to be the type who enjoyed peeping, so perhaps the skill came with that practice.
“Hey, nice job Jax! Soon we’ll have a bath and a med bay, right?” Her tone of voice was playful, yet held a tone of lauding something over him. The sideways glance at him as she closed the distance spoke of amusement and casual ribbing, so he figured she was passing the time as usual. Her body leaned forward, pivoting on her hips to inspect the work he had just finished and clasping her paws behind her back. He had to actively stop himself from looking at the more sensitive areas the lack of clothing exposed, something he was both grateful for and remiss about since it also meant that if the weather continued to decline as it was, there would be a real risk of freezing to death if he couldn’t figure out the whole ‘roof’ thing. The fire crackling inside was enough to stave off the temperature for now and the wind coverage would help as well, but any precipitation could quickly ruin any plans they have of not suffering the elements.
Jax grabbed his spear from a nearby tree, flipping it over to rest himself against it without piercing his flesh. The wooden weapon flexed slightly under his weight as he angled himself to reduce any temptation to peer at her. “I take it you’ve gotten bold enough to inspect through the windows? I believe it folly to observe from such paltry distance.” It really was, but he could hardly fault her for being more through than her usual work.
Given the lack of any pressure after knowing they were all weakened, it was safe to assume that the pack wouldn’t react swiftly should they feel threatened. With only four members to press any kind of organized assault, they would be better served to lock down their encampment than hunt down an overly curious observer.
Tel flashed a smirk, her tail picking up speed as it swayed giving away her excitement. “Actually, I've met him!”
His brow furrowed at the claim, speaking cautiously as he confirmed what he heard. “You spoke with him?”
“No,” Tel closed her eyes while she shook her head lightly, straightening herself up to face him. “I spoke to him but I'm not quite sync’d enough to speak his language.”
“Wait, how complete is the process?” Jax asked, confusion taking over his initial motivation to chide her. It was one thing to have Pan learn it after spending so much time basically immersed in their language, it was another to have someone like Tel pick it up from merely watching at a distance. Assuming she kept at a proper distance at all, that is.
Tel tilted herself side to side, humming as she thought, a contemplative look shadowing her with each shift. “If I had to say, about three quarters? He really does talk a lot.”
He stopped leaning on his spear, shifting his weight to his opposite foot as he crossed his arms. “And what does he have to say of importance such that he vocalizes it?”
Tel replaced the smirk back onto her face. “What doesn’t he say! He talks to himself quite a bit about what he’s doing as well as plans to do.”
Jax raised an eyebrow. “Communications? Courses of actions?”
She shook her head again, firmly dismissing the suggestion and addressing the questions in order. “No, he just thinks out loud often, I don’t really think he notices. As for the plans, most are pretty mundane. Improvements for the interior and other quality issues.”
“Then he is a source of a colossal security risk. None of importance should believe themselves as invulnerable as to discuss such matters in the open with surveillance as pervasive as ours. Though I suppose that talking about furnishings is hardly an issue.” He commented with a scoff. “Even if we assume he hasn’t noticed, one should always assume. Only an idiot would do otherwise.”
His prideful laughter was cut unceremoniously short by Sahari returning from her water collection, the large water skin hanging off her shoulder as she walked up to meet them. “Or he is aware that we are of his debt, deciding to turn a blind eye to our reconnaissance and treat it as a nonverbal technological exchange in light of the state he had saved us from.” Her tone was cut and short, glaring at him in annoyance. It only took a moment for her to join them in front of the shelter, removing the resources from her person to rest in her paw.
“You give him too much credit, Grand Huntress.” He spat the title, mauling the words as he spoke. “We have repaid that debt by providing him a servant, he need not waste his advantage over us by allowing us to observe him. That would make him a fool.”
“Actually,” Tel interjected, stepping forward to complete the triangle the three had taken. “Pan doesn’t seem to be doing anything as a servant, save for assisting him with setting up and checking snares.”
Sahari shifted her attention to the recon, interest piqued. “He took her as a mate then?”
Tel offered a shrug. “I’m not sure, the biped doesn’t seem to have done anything and Pan lacks the mark.”
The wind picked up slightly, the cutting edge of cold accompanied the rising humidity threatening rain within the hour. Jax walked past both of them, gesturing for them to continue the talk inside. “We know nothing of if he even can mark his females, he is not one of us, and we all know Pan is incapable of marking herself.”
It was foolish to assume the biped could, or even would, follow the biology of Lilhun. Even assuming he did, it was a stretch to think that his species would honour the same traditions as them, as archaic as the ones proposed were. Should he deem the defect unsuitable as a servant, and undesirable as a mate, there was little else Pan could be. It was entirely possible that she was kept as a future bargaining chip to be used against them, if not information. Given that Pan had little to do with any of the group before it formed and that she seemed to rarely pay attention to anything they were doing unless directly commanded to assist, it was unlikely that any intel gained from her would pose a threat, but it was best to assume that one thing or another she might have noticed would prove detrimental in the biped’s paws.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
The three entered their abode, sheltered from the wind. Sahari glanced around but saw nothing that would tell of the others, simply firewood in the back left corner and the fire itself in the centre. Dried meat lay on a flat rock to the right on the entrance, though humble in quantity. “What of Nalah and Harrow?”
Jax laid his spear by the entrance, fetching a log of wood for the fire. “Nalah is getting more wood; Harrow is checking her snares. Even if he didn’t accept her as a servant, he still accepted her. Our debt is repaid.”
“For now.” Sahari responded. “I am of doubt that we can maintain ourselves through the cold months. We simply do not have enough resources nor members to brave the chill. It would be helpful if we had something to ‘repay’ should we be in dire need.”
“I am working on that as we speak; it may be enough, should everything work out as I intend it to. Though we would not need to if we just take the build-” Jax started, abruptly cut by Sahari in time with the log clacking against its burning counterparts. Burning embers popped and drifted with the slight breeze as it settled.
“No. If we suffer beyond what we can manage, we will petition them for a contract. It would be better for us to bow our heads and live long enough to regret it than die proud and frozen.” Her voice was resolute and determined. He couldn’t understand her desire to bow to him rather than control them, but it was obvious she was dead set on it.
“We could ask if we could join their pack?” Tel suggested, raising one claw between them to cut the building tension. Instead of seeming nervous, her playful demeanour persevered, alluding to a desire at the outcome as she used her free paw to adjust an odd needle that she had stolen from the biped that had come loose. It was preferable to serving under the biped as a vassal pack, though joining them would entail accepting him as the de facto leader, likely in perpetuity.
Sahari sighed, sitting on one of the logs splayed around the fire as she ignored Jax’s sputtering. “Then that would be merging us. Although possible, it historically has only been done through bonded or mated pairs of leadership.”
Temperament cooled, Jax managed a laugh at the proposition. “So, you would turn yourself a wench?”
A frigid glare at him held no bite, merely allowing the sting of his jab to roll off of her. “Should he deny a contract, perhaps.” Sahari mused with a heavy breath, her face exposing regret at the prospect while turning her gaze to the floating embers that emerged from the flame. “It would be far from my first choice, but should all else fail, it would be worth considering.”
Tel joined her across the fire, placing herself down with her legs crossed as she elected not to utilize the provided logs. “Seems we’re stuck between integration and subservience.”
The Huntress closed her eyes, absorbing the glowing heat radiating from the fire. “Seems so.”
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Unfortunately, Pan didn’t actually know much about the group she had been with before coming here. She mostly knew their placement on their ship and that the entire settlement they had built was ransacked by what sounded like a larger specimen of the four-legged beast he had run into way back near the cave. It was interesting to find out that there were probably survivors, according to varying accounts of the incident she had overheard amongst them, but given that it had taken place possibly months on-foot away from where they were, it wasn’t much of a concern that they would encounter them before whatever this planet has to offer for winter sets in. Once the sheer cold hits in full, it would be reckless to mount any expedition this far north, so Joseph didn’t want to trouble the Atmo with preparing any defensive measures should tooth and nail come knocking at their door.
That wasn’t to say he hadn’t considered bolstering the compound though, several possible expansions and upgrades were always ticking away at the drafting phase in the back of his mind. He would like to wall off a significant portion of the meadow to facilitate expansion. There was only so much they could do with three dedicated areas for general production and as much as he enjoyed the automatic atmosphere conditioning, he couldn’t rule out that it may fail after years of neglect and only amateur maintenance at best.
If there were others that they could recruit to turn their group into a village, he would require housing, proper work places, as well as the materials to ensure that the heat from any fires wouldn’t turn the homes brittle. The various woods available to him all reacted to heat with interesting effects; rubber trees tempered into ironwood, a dark grey conifer merely hardened until it became brittle like glass, and something resembling a palm tree seemed to soften and almost melt under anything respectable. None of them were suitable to make any sort of home heating furnace, not any serious attempts at tool work either, as even ironwood quickly lost its edge.
That meant processing and acquiring metals. They could use ironwood pickaxes to get enough to forge proper tools, then scale up from there, but he needed someone who could be tasked to do those things while he worked on the finer details. Mama or Violet could but that would tie up the other avenues for expansion they desperately needed. Everything they required for proper metal facilities could be temporarily done with wood; forges, anvils, tools, ducting for heat transfer. It just needed time and people to do it, as well as someone to point out which metals were which. He suspected the stone carried a high concentration of iron, the process of crushing and separating the rock would be tiring, though possible, but he wanted to know what exactly he could get his hands on for the future.
The acquisition of materials for housing and defensive measures could be done by Mama, should it be required and he asked, but she would likely require clothing of some description to combat her comparatively lower threshold for the cold. Pan informed him that she was working with Violet to condition some of the hides the Atmo had been collecting into usable material, but was more than happy to work on a suggestion he had while they waited the surprisingly long process. It wasn’t much, but he showed her how to weave the larger leaves into various shapes, and suggested using the abundant moss as a filler between layers once it had been dried out. The result would be bulky and heavy, but Mama could probably manage it easily without much effort. A test band was made for his arm and actually worked rather well for heat insulation, barring the additional weight of the surprisingly heavy plant matter.
That left them with a clear course of action, though understaffed to achieve it. Until Mama had full gear to go gather and cut the wood needed for a perimeter fence, and later wall, they would have to swing full force into producing both insulated clothing and snaring to account for any lack of animals the winter may enforce. The electrical repairs had slowed recently as he spun more effort elsewhere to account for future problems, but still carried towards his goal. It had been a few weeks since he had talked to his brother, but he was excited all the same to introduce him to Pan.
Robert was always more friendly with xenos than his human compatriots, possibly due to their more subdued style of negotiations when doing business, and was quite taken by meeting new people that didn’t match the species he seen in a mirror. Hopefully he knew more about the Lilhun than Pan did, she often hid from his questions behind most of them being ‘against her vows’ and ‘ability to comment due to regulations’, though she never seemed to be angry at him for asking, merely displeased with herself for not being able to divulge information. As unsatisfied as he was with the non-answers, he wasn’t going to push her past her boundaries since none of the questions were paramount to their survival or the like.
The more mundane things, like how society functioned, how she interacted with economic structures, and their relationship with other races was swiftly answered. Society was mostly comparable to every other one, save for there being a heavy ‘honour’ emphasis. The economy was slightly more unbalanced than he was expecting, though not as bad as an authoritarian monarchy or aggressive caste system. The question of how their intergalactic presence was carried out was met with an unexpected answer, veiled in spots by nondisclosure.
They had none.
Not that she was aware of anyway. Three years or so ago, diplomats entered their lives, gave their spiel about unity and the benefits of joining the Union, then suddenly started glassing the border planets without much warning. Full martial law was enacted system wide and the Lilhun hunted them out of the territory. In their pursuit, they pushed their technology to give chase. Once the threat was firmly out of reach, they turned their attention to giving homes to the several billion refuges that had escaped from their planets before they became more than shiny dirt. Her ship was one of many that had grabbed people from all walks of life to inhabit potential planets and lay down the foundation to expand upon.
The news landed like a brick to the face for Joseph. He had the luck to meet two completely unrelated species that had both been blacklisted by the Union and no one is sure why. It was added to the questions to ask of Robert and his contact, something he was working on being able to do as soon as he could.
All these trains of thought were mulled over in one form or another as he tried to ignore Tel watching him from the trees. She wasn’t even trying to avoid detection much anymore, merely disappearing as soon as someone besides himself was around. At first, he had tried to call her over, being waved to in response instead of moving towards him. It was pretty obvious she had no intention of getting as close as she did in the cave, though he wasn’t sure why. When he mentioned it to Pan, she didn’t really have much in the way of insight besides confirming the description matched one of the cooks of their ship. A little curious why a cook would be able to sneak up on him so deftly but he had met plenty of people who grew up trying to be as quiet as possible to avoid waking their parents for good and terrible reasons.
Growing frustrated with the panel that controlled the solar panels infused in the windows, he closed it once he confirmed that any progress that he had made into redirecting excess flow from the dust bath went to the panel he had wired on the roof. It was a complicated mess of capacitors and regulators that controlled the current in ways he could never fully grasp, leaving him flinching every time he managed to switch gates safely or rejoin circuits in fear that he had blown something he couldn’t fix. Luckily, the heating was on a separate fuse that he hopefully wouldn’t need to bridge over to the mess required to run the terminal. It had been a month since he had called his brother last, though he warned him ahead of time, he didn’t want to worry him more than he had to.
Joseph stretched, almost knocking into the small fence that bridged the corner between the two wings of the building, working out the kinks of being crouched for a while. This panel was thankfully low to the ground, though lower than he’d like. Any excuse to not climb the creaky rungs was a good one however, so he was happy to not need to tie and untie knots in a makeshift safety harness.
He glanced over to where Tel was watching from, legs dangling off the branch she had perched on, paws cupping her cheeks as the arms rested on her knees. He noticed her using her tail as an additional contact point, it wrapped around a higher branch to allow her to swing about a bit without losing balance. It would be nice to have a prehensile tail himself, if he could ever afford the augment, but it would also be one of the weirder cybernetics he could get.
Tel, to her credit, lazily lifted one hand to wave at him before rubbing her stomach in a circular motion, careful not to dislodge the auburn-coloured quills she had fastened into her side fur. She was asking for food. He knew his mother was right when she said not to feed the stray cats in the neighbourhood because they’d keep coming back, but he didn’t think it would extend to several solar systems away from home and on a sapient creature. With a resigned sigh and a half-hearted thumbs up to the begging observer, he fetched some jerky from his bag against the wall. A short walk over to the tree and a fair flick ended with Tel snacking on a leaf bundle of meat and a smile that crossed species pretty clearly.
Joseph couldn’t help but return the smile, even if she couldn’t speak to him, she made sure he knew she appreciated the small things he was willing to do for her. It didn’t fit the description of a ‘spy’ that Pan had described as her objective when he found her initially, but Tel also didn’t seem to care that much about doing it to begin with. Most times she was either lounging around in the foliage while watching him complete one mundane task or another, or asking for treats. She did perk up slightly when he chose to demonstrate how to make the drying rack for the jerky, since he had to replace the one that he had long since abandoned in the cave anyway, but other than that she seemed content to listen to him ramble away at the miscellaneous.
The only other thing of note was her interest in his attempts to use the quills from the hedgehog thing to engrave a small sculpture that he had time to make while watching over Mama’s various woodworking projects. After some brief consideration, he gathered some of the spikes in assorted sizes along with a smaller sculpture he had worked on but had messed up early on. She had taken it and returned the sculpture some hours later, now embossed with fractal patterns too fine for him to recreate. He appreciated it enough to place inside the hub with the other sculptures that everyone liked to make or look at, enjoying the art on display on occasion. He let her keep the tools in case she wanted to pick up the hobby on her own time since it can get pretty boring and monotonous otherwise.
He chewed on his own jerky, idly talking through his electrical woes in his own approach on coders using a rubber ducky. This rubber ducky, however, required snacks and couldn’t be thrown at a wall when he realized that he had completely closed the circuit for the communications terminal from outside power while he was doing his initial rewiring.
Thanking Tel for being the best duck ever, a compliment that he doubted would ever make sense to her even if she could understand him, he bolted to the roof, skipping rungs upwards and flying across the sky lights to toss open the hatch without securing a harness in his haste. Sure enough, a fuse was set to redirect power back into the hub instead of allowing it to the left side of the facilities wing. He hadn’t noticed since the only thing actually wired to that fuse was the terminal and varying sockets for equipment that no longer existed. A swift reinstalling of the fuse and descent into the building proved his tinkering functional, as the terminal booted up in short order once he activated the power.
Only seconds passed as he connected the terminal to the prototype he had removed from the pod, fingers crossed as a failure here could mark the end of his communications off planet for a very long time. As luck would have it, the connection went through cleanly, only taking a few minutes to load up all the software for the device.
Robert looked much more well rested now, his suit well pressed and clean. His skin seemed much healthier and his hair was cut and freshly touched up to give him the appearance of an experienced business man. His office was as sterile as ever, though now a fresh coffee was laid onto an obsidian-coloured coaster to contrast the stainless steel and oak wood veneer. He was wearing some blue-light tinted glasses, casually flipping through something on his tablet when he answered the call.
Robert laid his tablet down on the desk with his left hand and pulled his glasses off with his right, his face beaming with a smile as he looked at Joseph. “Joe! It’s been quite a while, everything going okay?”
Joseph cracked a smile too, his ears red from the cold outside burning slightly in the warmer room. “Everything is going good! Sorry it took me so long to get in touch, I screwed up a fuse early on and only just noticed.”
Robert relaxed into his chair, the tiny bit of worry that tugged at his brow receding as he laughed. “God knows I've been there. Makes you feel stupid, huh?”
“That it does.” He allowed with his own chuckle, regretting not having Mama make a chair for him to put in the room.
“So, what’s new?”
“Oh god, a lot. We managed to move in everything we could reasonably take, hunting is going about well as it can, and I found out there are other species here!” Joseph listed off, poking at his brother’s fondness for aliens at the last.
“The Atmo, yeah. How’s Mama and Violet?” He asked, grabbing his coffee to take a sip.
“Not just Atmo, but they’re doing good too. Bipedal cats. Tigers. Lions. Dogs? Things. I don’t know felines.” Joseph stalled as he belatedly amended his assertion several times until rolling his eyes and giving up.
Robert fought back a spit-take. “Cats? What?”
“Yeah, I was hoping you could tell me more about them, how the Union views ‘em. You know more than I would.” Joseph leaned out the door, yelling out into the corridor. “Pan! Come here for a second! I got someone I want you to meet!”
“Pan? Cats? Union? Joe, what the hell are you talking about?” Robert sounded confused, but his face screamed excitement and curiosity as he righted himself in his chair.
Pan peeked through the door, glancing at Joseph with a mildly perplexed expression before noticing the terminal. Her eyes widened for a moment before she hid slightly more behind the frame to obstruct view of anything below her clavicle. “Hello.” She offered meekly.
Joseph ignored the initial discomfort, instead waving his hand between the monitor and the cowering Lilhun. “Rob, this is Pan, resident Lilhun and speaks English. I asked why, but, for reasons, she’s not allowed to say. She moved in a little while ago and has been a huge help in sorting out our clothing situation. Pan, this is Robert. My brother and local powerhouse in our star system.”
Robert stared at Pan with his mouth hung open, disbelief painted on display. He managed to redirect his gaze after Pan retreated more behind the door, only showing an eye and an ear to the screen. “Joseph?”
Joseph wore a shit eating grin as he stared right back at his brother. “Yes, oh dearest brother?”
“How in the hell did you find a Khajiit?”
“RIGHT!?”