Under Dyni’s “lack” of guidance, we stole out of the Emerald Palace under cover of the morning sun. That our bodyguard had acquired ssen’iir clothing for us, instead of Ssiina, was a boon: we didn’t look quite so much like a group of ussen trying to act humble. Rather, the scratchy, ill-fitting garb reminded me of the childhood Kyrae and I shared. It hadn’t been so long that I’d forgotten how clothes like these felt to wear. Each of us also carried a small pack stuffed with basic necessities.

“You look uncomfortable, Sister,” I teased Ssiina.

She was coiled next to me in the aazh I was piloting; Dyni and Kyrae were ahead of us.

My hssen-raised sister scratched at the neckline of her shirt again. “I’m fine.”

I snickered, and Ssiina pouted. “Issa!”

Her complaint only made me snicker louder. “We’ll be landing on the Greatriver side of Ess’Sylantziis and heading to the edge of the elven part of the city. From there, we’ll enact our plan!”

“You make it sound like we’re doing something underhanded, Is-Sister.” Ssiina smiled, despite almost tripping up and saying my name. For now, we were anonymous—not so far as to make fake names, rather to avoid using ours.

“I guess it’s just a similar sort of mood. Not many people dress down to do nice things.”

“I see. Well, I’m quite excited to mingle with ssen’iir, and to experience normal life from an equal perspective.”

“Keep talkin’ like that and no one’s gonna believe you’re for real.” I slid the pauses in my speech together, drawing out certain sounds.

“I’ll… try to speak simply, Sister.”

“Sure.”

“You don’t think I’m capa—I can, do you?”

I shrugged. “Pretty much. Really though, let Kyrae or I take the lead here.”

“But I’m an equal part of this!”

I bit back a sharp retort. “You’re… right, Ssiina. Sorry. At least follow our lead? You said you wanted to learn, right?”

Ssiina smiled faintly. “I think I can do that much.”

I returned the expression, and we slipped through the water in silence until we pulled up to a small dock.

I caught Ssiina whispering to herself. “Just like Tuo’Antzin. Right! Act not like royalty.” She dipped the tip of her tail into the Greatriver reverently.

“You’ll do great,” I said, sliding up out of the water.

“Really?”

“I dunno.”

“Sister!” she hissed.

“You want us to be honest with each other, right?”

“I… yes. But you could stand to be nicer!”

I stuck my tongue out and slithered ahead of my sister, leaving her to catch up. Kyrae was waiting, alone, looking at home amongst the mixed crowd. I looked around the busy docks; Dyni must have already split off.

“You’re looking for coinpurses,” Kyrae hissed when we drew close.

“Was I?”

Kyrae nodded.

“And you weren’t?”

“Not intentionally.”

“Me neither, then.”

“Won’t people notice?” Ssiina asked.

I shrugged. “The whole point is for people not to notice. But we were also kids then, and that made us easier to ignore.”

“…Easier to ignore,” Ssiina repeated. “I… could I make a request?”

“Sure,” Kyrae answered before I could, shooting me a glare.

“We’re helping out somewhere, right? Could that somewhere be an orphanage? Is there one around here?”

“There might be,” I answered. “I would… be okay with that, I suppose.” Not all orphanages are going to be like that place.

Kyrae put one hand to her chin. “There’s a problem. Three people our age volunteering that they’ve never seen before? That’s very suspicious.”

“Oh,” Ssiina said, sounding defeated. “That… really? I suppose it makes sense, but I wish we could.”

Realizing a possible solution, I clapped my hands. “Why don’t we just wait until this plan is over? If everything goes well, they’ll welcome us as, y’know! Right?”

“I suppose,” Ssiina replied, tone a little brighter. “And then we can help more directly!”

Kyrae surprised me by shaking her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Ssiina and I glared at her, and she waved her hands, clarifying hastily, “I mean as you’ve planned it. We could do more—do something to fix the causes of the problems, not just give a token effort for a day or two. We’re hs-y’know after all.”

Ssiina’s eyes sparkled. “Then we’ll do just that!”

“Great!” I ushered my sisters forward. “Let’s get moving then; we’re standing here long enough that people are taking notice.”

“Really?” Ssiina asked.

I rolled my eyes in place of an answer, and sped up.

“We’ll need to be in the area for a bit first. People notice new folks, and they talk,” Kyrae said in a low voice once she’d caught up, pulling on my shoulder to get me to slow down. “Ideally, we’d take a few days and make up names and a story. But as it stands, we’ll have to settle for what we can do in a morning.

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“This means getting food, and finding a place to stay. Founding Day is big enough that we can claim to be ssen’iir from downriver who’ve come here for the festival.”

“Food first!”

“Issa!” Ssiina hissed.

Kyrae shook her head. “She’s right—for the wrong reason, but she’s right. Anyone fresh off a ship they boarded cheaply or illegally would first look to eat something that won’t hurt them.”

“Hurt them how?”

Any reply to Ssiina’s question was lost in my sudden haste toward the smell of cooking meat. Tongue flicking out in a most un-hssen-like way, I followed the scent. The nearby market was in full swing for the morning, and people from ssen’iir to an ussen slithering with taaniir packed the rows of stalls.

Instinctively, I went for a place a little off the main path, and a little shabby-looking. Cheaper that way. Reaching for my coin purse, I found it surprisingly heavy, and it took me a moment to remember why; to remember that I didn’t need to eat cheap food anymore and that I’d overfilled my pocket with tails.

The copper coins were light in my fingers as I deftly drew a few out, paying without showing the money I had.

Behind me, I heard Ssiina draw in a sharp intake of breath. “Are those?”

“Three rats please!” I handed the coins over, trading them for three rice-floured and fried lumps on sticks, still warm.

Gleefully, I handed one each to my sisters, and it was only when we were slithering away that I realized I could’ve gotten more. We wandered to the fringe of the crowd, coiling up under the well-polished roots of a gnarled tree, Kyrae sitting on the top loop of my lower body.

“Good job not buying the whole place out, Issa.” My elf sister congratulated me on my misfortune. “I was worried you’d tip our hand, but now we can find somewhere to stay.”

“Do I… have to eat this?” Ssiina asked, looking pale. She held the rat on a stick out in a light grip, like it might spring up and hurt her.

“Yep!” I replied. “Wouldn’t make sense if you gave it to me to eat.”

“Don’t give it to her.” Kyrae put up a hand, taking a bite at the same time. “Don’t.”

Gulping, Ssiina looked at the steaming fried rat. “Is…it’s cleaned, right?”

I swallowed the last bit of mine. “Yeah, of course it is. Just because we can eat the fur doesn’t mean it’d taste nice. They’re also gutted, I think. The good places do that—and they smell right.”

“At least you can eat the bones!” Kyrae hissed, pulling a small bone out of her mouth and tossing it onto the dirt. “And yes, they’re gutted and prepared just like any other meat.”

Ssiina closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and took a bite.

“So? Not bad, right? Just like the last time—when we met you?”

She glared at me in response, swallowed, and took another bite, daintily avoiding the bones I’d gone through with mine.

“I think she likes it,” I whispered loudly to my sister sitting on my coils.

“I do not!” Ssiina retorted halfheartedly.

I giggled, and she flushed, going from pale to dark.

“When you finish, Ssiina,” Kyrae said, “We need to get going; finding a place is going to be hard right now.”

“Do we actually need to find one?” I asked.

“It’ll be stranger if we don’t.”

“We could always try to work somewhere for a place to stay for Founding Day.”

“That’s… actually not a bad idea, Issa.”

“I know.”

Kyrae pinched me. “It could also give us a chance to talk to an orphanage, possibly. But I think we should stay away from that angle for now—it could look bad on us depending on how things go.”

Taking their resources as hssen in exchange for token help. Yeah, that’s a problem. “We’ll need to find something that’s Founding-Day-related. Something where our help matters and we’re not taking anything in return.”

“Which is the original plan.”

I nodded, blushing.

Kyrae sighed. “Good thing you’ve been keeping your voice down. The best look we can go for here is worldly and earnest. Ssiina, you finished?”

Our sister nodded, looking embarrassedly down at the remains on her stick.

***

Against all odds, we did find a place to stay, after asking around. Those we spoke to claimed many others had tried and failed to stay there the past few years, but that wouldn’t matter to us. In fact, it was better, because we weren’t as likely to be taking a place someone needed. The plan was to give it over to someone else after all this anyway, at least for the period we’d paid for—one month.

As part of the plan, however, we had to go there, drop our things off, and make an effort to look like we were staying. The moment we reached the building, however, my gut twisted, shadows calling out to me.

This was where Kyrae and I had stayed when we first came to the city. Sure, I didn’t know that for sure from the outside, but I was certain. Kyrae, too, for the look she shared with me.

“I’m sure you three will be fine,” the woman slithering with us, a different person than we’d last rented from, said. “It’s all just rumor, and you’re three hale-looking young ladies.”

“O-of course,” I said with very-real nervousness, as we entered the familiar building

“We’ll be fine,” Kyrae managed with more confidence.

Ssiina took the opportunity to pounce, as only an eldest sister would. “I’ll keep those two safe if they’re scared.” She slithered between us, putting an arm over each of our shoulders.

I jumped, shadows in the nearby alley twisted toward us before I willed them away. Ssiina jolted, realizing that I hadn’t been acting.

Kyrae lifted Ssiina’s arm off her shoulders. “We’ll be fine, I’m sure.”

The woman guiding us chuckled, stopping at a familiar door. “This is the place.”

While I held myself together and the shadows back, Kyrae and Ssiina finished with the woman, and the eldest amongst us opened the door. I braced, expecting a black void on the other side, or a twisting pit of shadows in the floor.

Instead, I got a simple, familiar room, now empty. Sunlight streamed in through the windows, warming the floor. Kyrae and I followed Ssiina inside, and I pulled the door shut with my tail.

“It’s quaint!” Sssiina said. “Where’s the rest of it?”

“This is it,” I replied quietly. “Just this room.”

“Oh. Well… where do we…”

“Outside. We get pillows for sleeping.” Kyrae pointed inadvertently to where we’d had our bed, in the warmest, brightest spot.

I let out a shuddering breath, pushing the shadows back again.

“Issa?” Kyrae asked. “Will you be okay?”

“We should put our packs down and go.”

“Okay.”

I didn’t wait for Ssiina’s reply before slithering out of the room, down the hall, and outside, gulping in fresh air like I’d been underwater. From where I was, I could see the opening to the alley I’d almost died in just down the street.

As I stared, it gaped wider and darker, threatening to pull me inside again. Pull me under the mud again into the darkness that never ended. I shook my head and turned, slithering away as fast as I could, dipping into the brighter alleys and byways until I found myself in some abandoned garden, lying amongst vines and staring through sunlight as it filtered down from the tree above me.

Have I ruined everything again?

I had to wonder, but maybe the room’s reputation could be blamed. A reputation that my powers had given it. Did I stain my room at Phaeliisthia’s? Was she secretly cleaning up after me?

Questions whirled in my head, but the vines were soft, and the sunlight was warm. That warmth increased as I laid there, and the shadows retreated from my mind.

“Issa?” Kyrae’s voice seemed to filter down from the light above.

“Issa, are you alright?” She asked again, this time seeming much more real.

I opened my eyes to find hers hardly a handsbreadth away from mine. “I’m fine.”

“I told Ssiina what happened.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t notice!” our other sister’s voice floated in from further away.

“Dyni led us here,” Kyrae continued. “I’m sorry about the room.”

“I’m… scared that I caused it. I know my powers caused it. Am I hurting other places? Does my existence just cause problems?”

“I should slap you, Issa.”

I blinked up at Kyrae, seeing her eyes growing wet.

“Just learn already! You’re loved!”

Swallowing, I tried to really feel her words, pulling myself together a little as I lay sprawled out. Scales rushed through leaves, filling my mouth and nose with a floral scent. Good memories surfaced, and I instinctively tried to pick them apart.

But… I couldn’t. Not entirely.

“You’re right. I think.”

“Don’t think! Know! Well, actually do think, but this is something you should’ve already decided on.”

“Too many words for a salient point.”

Kyrae pinched my nose.

“Hey!”

Kyrae smiled and wiped at her eyes. “Get up, Issa. We’ve people to go help. You and your sisters who love you.”

“Exactly!” I felt Ssiina’s tail brush my own, and she lifted herself above Kyrae in my vision, eyes worried. “We’re family, and more importantly than that, we all love each other.”

“Thanks, Sis.” I let her pull my upper body up, and I rearranged myself to get ready to move again.

“The room’s settled.” Kyrae said, taking the lead. “People noticed you slithering away, Issa, but it wasn’t hard to convince them that the room scared you. Last thing to do is to go make ourselves helpful and get ‘accidentally’ caught by Dyni.

“You ready for some well-intended subterfuge?”

I took a steadying breath, pulling my mouth into a lamian smile, tips of fangs showing. “You bet!”