TO would have carried Pearla if they could, but as it was the best they could do was to lead her down the narrow stairway, supporting her weight as they descended into the dim. They didn’t have to go too far before they found the narrow sliding door that the woman recommended. TO pushed it open, let Pearla in first, and then followed in sliding the door closed behind them.
Inside, the tiny room was only a little brighter so Pearla could see well enough to make her way to the narrow bed in the corner and flop down. The bed wasn’t big enough for her whole body, so half her tail still hung off the end. Despite this, she was asleep and softly snoring in moments. As for TO, they could see everything clearly, and their eyes were relaxed in the persisting dim. There was a narrow door in the corner that presumably led to a makeshift washroom, the bed, and an empty table in the corner, under which was a collection of roughly made scrap blankets. As TO picked through the blankets to find one for Pearla, they could have sworn that one of them had the same feel and style to the one they had seen in Flit and Snout’s room. Right, Snout said that they had taken up sewing, and made the blankets themself. Maybe some extras had made their way to allies.
They took the one Snout probably made, and draped it over Pearla.
DH’s parent made this.
The thought was a strange one to TO, and made them hesitate for a moment before letting go of the blanket. The idea of amy of them having a parent at all was still odd, and they didn’t think they had special feelings towards Snout because they were simply their parent. Still, that they came from someone, and not that King Decon handcrafted them Himself was comforting and concerning at the same time.
TO pulled their attention back to Pearla. She was clearly still exhausted if she fell asleep so easily, and keeping her warm was the best way to counter that. It was hard to tell if she was well or not because of all the carefully applied black goo on her face, but seeing her breath, hearing her snoring, and watching her shift in her sleep assured TO that she was at least a little better than she was earlier. There were no other chairs in the small room, and no space on the bed for TO to sit on. Well, that didn’t matter. They took an extra blanket from under the table, folded it up, and set it on the stone floor. With their new makeshift mat, they had a place to sit and wait for Pearla to wake.
Of course, they weren’t waiting too long before there was a knock on the sliding door. TO got up again, and opened the door to see the woman from earlier on the other side, carrying a rather heavy looking basket in one hand.
“Provisions.” She said, “Pearla looked out of sorts, so I thought-”
“She’s asleep.” TO said as they stood aside to let the woman in. “You know her, I’m assuming.”
“Who doesn’t?” She said as she hurried in and set the basket on the floor next to the table. She pulled out a hot plate and plugged it into an outlet in the corner. Next came a kettle, a large bottle of water, a large bowl,mugs, some rags, and a small container which she set on the table.
“Food.” She said as she gently tapped the lid with tiny, clawed hands. “Basic stuff. Fruit, meat, cheese…” She glanced at TO, “Can you eat any of that?”
“The fruit and meat.” TO said as they stepped forward, “The cheese will make me sick.”
“Ah, apologies-”
“No no, this is plenty.” TO insisted. They took a step forward and opened the container to peek inside, and while they hadn’t felt hungry until now, the sight of some variety in food made their stomach give out a hungry growl.
“I’ll bring more.” the woman said with a low chuckle, “... But, who are you? Our mutual messaged me and said that couple of people would need a place to rest, so while I was expecting guests, I wasn’t expecting Pearla and a stranger.”
TO wondered if this woman had seen GiDi before. Well, clearly not. If she knew about GiDi, she’d probably know a little more about Chilacians, and wouldn’t be looking at TO with such intense curiosity.
“I'm a friend of Pearla’s.” TO said, not wanting to give off more information than necessary. “Tio, is my-”
“Tio.. Tio.. Wait.” She frowned and looked up, “Were you here the other week with another? One of you got entirely plastered on one of our speciality drinks?”
TO’s ears dipped, “... Yes.” they muttered, “I didn’t realize it would hit so hard.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear it!” She said, as she filled the kettle from the bottle of water, “I made it myself.” She glanced up, “I wasn’t here that night, but I own the place. You two had to check in to use one of our rooms so I saw the name, and my assistant told me a story about these two tall, bald, winged people who got plastered and needed a room. I saw the name when I was doing my paperwork later on.” She set the kettle on the hot plate and turned it on. “Now then. I’ve got some tea here. You both look exhausted, but Pearla looks half dead, so I brought some tea to help wake her up.”
“Only half dead?” TO muttered, their ears twitching at their small joke.
Either the small woman didn’t hear them, or ignored them as she continued on with her instructions. “Now, this tea needs to steep for three minutes only. Shorter than that and it won’t have the right effect. Longer, and it’ll taste like ass.” she gestured to the basket, “I brought rags if you want to get cleaned up before you go on, and some bandages in case you’re injured… But you seem alright to me.”
“More or less.” TO muttered as he watched her unpack things. “Just.. tired.”
“I’d say! I saw some of that chase on the GBA.”
“You did?” TO’s ears perked up, “what did they say?”
“Oh, the normal stuff.” She said, “Insurgent plot with some indebted taken hostage. Massive infrastructural damage, monumental risk to innocent citizens, the usual.” She shrugged, “I know better than to listen to the editorializing. If you pay attention to just the information they give, maybe you can get half the story.” She turned, “At any rate, just hide here as long as you need.” She took out her communicator, “You got a comm with you?”
Stolen story; please report.
“I don’t, I have…” They paused, just moments away from activating their chip before realizing something. “Wait!” TO went over to Pearla, and carefully reached into the pocket of her uniform. Their communicator had been with Pearla just in case she needed it, so now they could retrieve it. “Yes! I have a communi- sorry, a comm.” It was odd how she used this slang so easily, and yet TO heard none of the others use it. They’d ask later. It wasn’t important now.
“Perfect.” she said as she stepped forward, pulled her own communicator out of her pocket–it was so small, it looked like a toy to TO. Or, was it that TO’s was so much bigger than hers?–and held it up. TO tapped their own to hers, and a moment later her profile and contact appeared on TO’s communicator.
==Fengari. She/her.==
“Normally, I’d not share my info so quickly with someone I just met, but you come with high recommendations from our mutual friend, and you got Pearla here safely, so I trust you. You need anything, just message me.” She said as she slipped her communicator back in her pocket, “Or, when you’re ready to go. I’ll lead you to the exit, alright?”
“Alright.. Thank you.” TO said. “She just needs to warm up and sleep a little, So I don’t think we need anything…” A thought occurred to them, “Though, if you had some soap that’d be nice.”
“Soap?” She asked, “I mean, sure, but you know that the tunnels you’ll be going through aren’t clean, right?”
TO’s ears dipped, “I figured.” They said, It was true, they had figured they’d have to crawl through disgusting old tunnels again, but they hoped there would be a cleaner route. “It’s just, Pearla and I have this black gunk on our faces.” They said as they reached up and touched a part of their face where the black goo was particularly thick, “I’d like to get it off before we leave.”
Fengari gave a deep sigh of relief, “Thank the seas.” She muttered, “I saw Pearla, and I thought she was really sick or something at first. It’s just what, makeup?”
“Something like that.” TO said, “I don’t even know how well soap will work, but I want to try-”
“I’ll get you a few things.” She said, “You can figure out what works.”
“Thank you.” TO said.
“Not a problem. Now, I’ll be right back. Just sit tight.”
TO sat down on the folded blanket once more, waiting for the kettle to boil, waiting for Fengari to come back, waiting for Pearla to wake up and feel well enough to go back home.
Waiting; they had done so much of that by now, and always felt so on edge when they did. They decided that waiting with no way to improve their situation was, without a doubt, the worst thing for them.
======
“... What’cha doin?”
TO heard Pearla waking up only about a half hour later. She hadn’t been sleeping particularly restfully; the dead sleep that made her seem so lifeless was well gone, and now she was just tossing and turning as she slept off the remaining chill the lingering effects of the distilled seaberries. Still, TO had detected a subtle change in her breathing when she woke, and had listened while they sat on the ground, a bowl of hot, soapy water before them, a rag in one hand, and a mirror in the other. She had been awake for quite some time, laying silent on the bed while TO worked on their face.
“Getting this goo off.” TO muttered as they scrubbed at their cheek. They figured out a combination of the cleaning materials that Fengari had provided; a makeup remover, different soaps, and even a bottle of vinegar. They still had to scrub a lot to get the stuff off, and the effort left their skin feeling raw and looking deeply flushed, but at least it worked.
“Right.” Pearla said. Still heavy-lidded and languid, She looked around the room, frowning, “Where are we?”
“Cottage Core Pub. Or, at least we’re under it. I was waiting for you to wake up before we continued on.”
“Waiting for me to clean up, and for you to get your face washed?” She said with a grin.
“This is just me testing this.” TO said, “You’re using it next.”
“Oh, I’m fine, I-”
“You look sickly thanks to the work Mira did on you. It served our purpose, but GiDi…” They remembered the way they had reacted before Flit knocked them out and took them away. “They’re acting odd. It’s best if they don’t see you looking like someone has hurt you.”
That shook her from her slow, sleepy movements. She sat up suddenly on the bed, her eyes wide, “What's wrong with GiDi?” She demanded.
“I don’t know.” TO said. “Flit and Snout say they’re fine, but they wouldn’t tell us what was going on. They said they’d have to speak to us later.”
“Can you tell me what happened then?” She said as she slithered off the bed, “What did you see? Why are you worried?”
TO rubbed the last of the goo off their forehead and frowned at the mirror. There was still good around their eyes, but they looked a lot better. They figured a good soak would be the only thing to get rid of it properly. They handed the mirror to Pearla, then handed her a clean rag.
“Here.” They said, “You clean up, and I’ll tell you what happened.”
Pearla sighed, curled her tail around her, and dipped the rag in the hot, soapy water. “Alright.” She said, “But you better not skip a damn thing. If something’s wrong with GiDi, I want to know. Do you promise to tell me everything you know?”
“I promise.” TO said. If TO were in this situation with DH, they’d want to know everything as well, and they hated how information kept being hidden from them. “I’ll tell you everything.”