I waited patiently at the door, staring back at the light brown skinned Gek standing across from me, bewildered and enraged that I’d so casually violate her privacy.

Of course, I knew that much of what I’d been doing lately bordered on the line of moral dubiousness. With emotional manipulation being one of the mainstays of my current repertoire, but I was willing to wade into the darker waters for this. In the grand scheme of things, I was hardly doing anything bad at all.

Not that it eased my conscience to it, really.

“I’m going to have to insist that I come inside, Lauka.” I sated in no uncertain words. I was currently standing just outside the door to her home, a room that faced outward towards a long balcony floor that had many other front doors facing out onto it. It was the outside of was effectively an apartment building, and it was hideous in every sense of the word, or at least most of them.

“I’m not going you let you into my house, Max.” She said stubbornly, probably in trying to protect her children from her ‘work’ life. I didn’t have the time, so I just leaned forwards slowly, positioning my mouth close to the earhole in the side of her large skull.

“This conversation is going to happen, whether or not your kids are in the room to hear it. I’ll give you some time to move them, but I’m not going to leave.”

The light brown Gekkonidae almost scowled up at me before seeing my expression. I’d done away with the jolly disposition, replacing it with an overbearing officiality, something you’d more expect from a judge than someone like me.

She growled lowly before she slammed the door in my face, taking the next few moments to let the apartment fall into complete silence. After that, though, I could hear Lauka’s soft footsteps against the wooden flooring I’d seen inside as she made her way into where her children were and commanding them gently with wordless gestures.

I hardly had hearing that I could write home about, though they were exceptional, which was the only reason that I could hear them move within the home. If I weren’t concentrating on doing so, though, I’d be totally unaware of them.

Well, if I didn’t have the ability to sense emotions. It could be used as a rudimentary sonar, but I can only imagine that there are people out there, on Virsdis or Orisis, capable of either hiding their emotions, or killing them completely.

The mother slowly made her way back to the door, less silent now than she was as she’d helped her children hide themselves away. She stood behind the door once more before pulling it open.

“Come in,” she said, gesturing to her right, “there isn’t enough stew for you to eat, though.” The apology felt forced, especially someone who was a faithful of a Hearth God as Lauka apparently was.

I nodded graciously, entering the living room quietly, ducking slightly to fit through the much smaller doorway. Most businesses or upper class had high doorways by default, but the further you went into the poorer areas, the more utilitarian the buildings became, before they were total squalor of course.

I followed Lauka into the kitchen and dining room, ignoring the presences of her children as they mutually contemplated how they’d get a peek at the sudden visitor for their mother. I looked around the room I’d found myself in.

It was nicer than it’d likely come, Lauka having done at least some work to turn it into a homely place. I could see from her kitchen that she liked cooking, with pots and pans that seemed salvaged, using a better setup than I’d have honestly thought possible outside of an upper-class home.

It wasn’t pretty, mind, just clear that she was knowledgeable and well learned in her tools and what she did with them. I looked down to the ramshackle table that Lauka was standing by, waiting for me to sit in what I could only surmise was a respect thing of Kaliha’s.

Kaliha, that’s right. One of my distantly related siblings, once again showing that Hearth Gods are almost as unavoidable as cooking fires, even on Virsdis.

I sat myself down in the chair, letting in creak under my surprisingly heavy weight, with my height and musculature playing a significant part. I took a more relaxed stance than I normally would, letting my eyes wander around the apartment idly.

“Lovely home.” I said quietly, drinking in the atmosphere. Lauka scoffed, almost offended.

“It’s a trash heap, you can’t possibly tell me it’s not. Not with your fancy suit that costs more than rent for half a year.” I chuckled, knowing that she wasn’t wrong. Certainly not about the suit. That thing was ludicrously expensive, and many would be more than willing to steal it right of my back just to sell it to someone else for even a fraction of what I paid for it. Happens to be difficult to buy and resell tailored clothes, however.

“I live in the Skinned Lizard, mind you.” I gave her a small smile when saw a twitch of recognition, “I’ll tell Tek that you think his rooms are good enough to totally undermine your home.”

It was a poor segue, but it hooked her, nonetheless. The name of the Skinned Lizard was known by almost every Reptilia in Crossroads, and those on the more… unfriendly side of the line knew the Skinned Lizards very differently than those who did not.

“You work with the Skinned Lizard?” She asked tentatively, but I frowned ever so slightly.

“A partnership, you might call it.” I breathed in the air gently, smelling the stew that had been cooking in this room only minutes before. I was no cook, but neither had I been someone skilled enough with alcohol to make drinks like I had for Valeri the night we first met. I could smell the distinct herbs, the Court of Gods residing somewhere within my domain throwing however many local names for the herbs into my brain.

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“Then why are you here; to tell me about this sudden partnership? To scare me?” She said, her voice low and defensive, deliberately keeping the noise low so that the two children in the other room couldn’t overhear.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” I chided, tapping my fingers against the somewhat flimsy surface of the table. “If I were trying to intimidate you, I could be doing a lot better of a job right now.”

Lauka opened her mouth to speak again, but I cut her off with a long and loud inhale, closing my eyes to appreciate the smell, and then releasing the spent air.

“Hmm, you’d call them tolro root, burta leaves, and kinra, right?” I looked to the woman beside me with a slight curiosity playing in my expression. She narrowed her large eyes slightly but nodded, even though I’d likely butchered the pronunciation hard enough to be laughable.

“Sometimes the Hearth Court give me little tidbits like that. Usually it’s pointless things, like the name of a whiskey as I smell it while I walk, or the type of person who goes to a specific bar as I walk through the main streets.” I enjoyed the smell of the stew, but with that deep breath, I also learned more. It wasn’t necessarily by the sense of smell that I learnt it, my nose isn’t anywhere near that good, but by the atmosphere that lingers around this place of hearth and home. It was part of my domain, after all.

“Sometimes, it’s more important. Like the people that live within a home, how they feel towards one another, all the parts of them that click together to create the little worlds we find ourselves in behind closed doors.” I sighed contentedly as I bathed in the atmosphere.

“It’s been a long while since I’ve experienced a little world quite like your own.”

Lauka let the silence go on while she desperately tried to understand the pile of mumbo jumbo that I’d just poured out into the conversation. As the silence continued, I realised that my aura of Safety, the domain that I’d been granted only a while ago, was now working almost autonomously, having spread out and lingering like a cloud within the rooms of the house, easing even myself.

“You really are a priest of the Hearth Court, aren’t you?” She whispered softly, and I tilted my head to the side, remembering my façade as a particularly loved priest of an entire Court.

“I try to be.” I said truthfully, even though I couldn’t quite be a priest of my own Godly domain, with how ridiculously narcissistic that would seem. I could certainly pose as a priest though, something I’m almost entirely sure was a standard tactic by the Gods of legend back on Earth.

“Then have you come to bring peace, like the stories tell?” She asked sarcastically, though I could feel the tint of genuine, childish hope that laid underneath the surface of the remark. I didn’t respond for a while, letting myself contemplate, assuming a slower, more methodical approach to conversation than I had in quite a while.

I was good at being forceful in conversation, throwing around my weight like nothing else, accruing enough power to bargain at least a tentative peace between a Divine Warrior, a Shadow Walker, and an Abomination Maker. It wasn’t such an easy thing to do, of course, and it would fall apart as soon as I stepped out from the situation. That’s why it’d become so hard to be slow and contemplative like I had with Mayer for so long. Slow and contemplative was like trying to pick a lock with delicate, fine tools, instead of grabbing a pick and hammering into the metal instead.

“I can’t pretend that I’ll be able to absolve Crossroads of all sin,” I began gently, turning to look the woman in her large, slitted eyes, “but I believe that I can do something. Make life better here, before I inevitably move on, towards the monolithic goals in my future.”

“You’re not kidding.” She stated dryly as she returned my serious look, “You actually think you can… fix things?”

“It all started with you.” I said, not quite answering her question, “You were the first that I met who revealed just a nugget of truth. You told me about the gangs, about Shed and Kout, about the Officials, the economic nobility, the Shadow Walkers…” I heard two little gasps from only metres away, with Lauka’s children moving out of their room and deciding to risk it to listen in. Lauka immediately picked up on the noise, her cheek slightly twitching, but I gave no response.

“After that, I found the beginning of a conspiracy in the Skinned Lizard, Tek being the ringleader of course. Then the economic nobility, then those that find their way to Lucae’s rather… promiscuous parties. Then even a Shadow Walker in the flesh.” Lauka looked at me worriedly, her eyes pulling into a sharper slit as she examined me.

“You talk about all these events, meeting people and going to parties, but where does that become something important to me. Why are you here, talking to me, when you could be talking to the Shadow Walker you have on your side, apparently?” Her voice was a little dubious, but there was something great about honesty, something that I had become exceptionally good at being, even if I was obfuscating the exact truth. There was an undeniability to my tone, because I knew that I wasn’t lying, and those that heard the tone were immediately swayed to believe so as well.

“Because you’re one piece of the puzzle, Lauka.” I grinned, winking at her as the front door swung wide open and a new person entered the apartment lousily.

“Hey, kids, Lauka!” The loud, distinctly feminine voice called out, breaking the silence easily.

“Aunty!” Two boyish voices rang out, followed by a series of thumping footsteps as they then jumped into the arms of the visitor. Or, well, the other occupant who lived here.

“Ah! Good to see you’re both in good spirits!” The boisterous voice thundered excitedly, “Have you been treating your mother well while I’ve been away?” The two voices of the boys chimed happily, eager to tell the new woman that they had indeed treated their mother well.

“Will Lauka give me the same answer?” She asked suspiciously, making both the boys fall into awkward silence. “That’s what I thought. Lauka!” The woman called out, walking directly towards the kitchen, towards where both Lauka and I sat at the table, with two boys trailing behind her.

“No! Wait, Mum has a visitor over!” One of the boys yelled out, but the woman was already in the doorway, staring in at the two of us sitting around the table.

I felt a shockwave of emotions race through the woman’s mind as I took in her form. Tall, Tiliquan, and extremely physically powerful. Dark, dusky scales that gave me a slight twinge of resemblance between her and Tek, though both of their forms were quite similar in appearance. Woman stared on, her slightly elongated jaw having dropped open, disregarding common Reptilia etiquette.

With a synchronised movement, both Lauka and I tapped the bottoms of our chin, and the woman’s jaw snapped shut instinctively. It was another few moments before the other woman could speak, the shock so overwhelming that it literally stunned her emotions into freezing up.

After a long while, she finally managed to speak the words that her mind had been trying to generate for almost half a minute.

“Lauka,” she said gently, pulling the Gek’s attention, “you never told me you were into humans!”