Easy Money for Me and Mine

this is the first short story i had written in years, inspired by my good buddy ethan's ICON campaign. he actually recorded a reallly badass audio drama version of this in our super special friendship discord server which i am so honored to have listened to. gotta have homies to back your art up!! ^_^

Fried waits outside the tavern, digging the heel of his boot into a deeper and deeper crater. He gets the impression that his cigarette butt is still smoldering under there. A single ember under the dirt.

The caterwauling inside hits a fever pitch. Tip bursts out of the swinging doors—whether she’s fleeing or being actually thrown Fried can’t tell and doesn’t care. A few mugs and odd pieces of silverware follow after her, kicking up dust where they land. Tip growls.

“You’d think they’d never played cards before,” she grumbles, dusting herself off, lightly loping on feline feet towards him. “Bunch of babies.”

Fried strikes a match, bathing her face in amber for an instant. Tip watches impatiently as he savors his first puff.

“Burn a whisker off,” he says. “Stand that close.”

“Burn my face off, more like.” She elbows him. It’s like elbowing a wall.

Even without his chitin carapace, Fried wouldn’t have noticed. He’s fixed on the wagon train hitched to the general store across the road, bustling with porters loading crates. He doesn’t blink.

“When’s Gray coming back?” asks Tip, following his gaze.

“Meet us on the road.” Fried turns to Tip, his mandibles flexing over some future bounty. “Got your gear?”

Tip grins and hefts her satchel. The porters holler across the street as the wagon master rouses his beasts. The wheels are spinning.

Without a word Fried and Tip slip into the shadows behind the bar.

Ember’s Gate is only about six buildings strong, including an outhouse, and not a single one has a foundation free of stonemites. Worse, Gray’s been back and forth through the little shithole close to thirteen separate times over eight years, and not once have they seen even a hint of a gate. Just saloon doors and suckers—and plenty of wagons. Couriers, trade goods, Dust shipments; a glimmer of hope in the middle of nowhere.

Gray’s alone on the road, surrounded by sycamores and piñon. Night birds chortle in a secret congress. It’s warm this time of year, being so close to the coast. Most importantly of all, the soil and dirt create invisible spirals, sending nodes of Aether across the horizon like a web. Gray listens to this web, and the web is theirs.

The dirt road beneath them whispers sluggishly, loathe to gossip. Gray doesn’t even need to ask. Wagon’s coming, something else following behind. They can’t help but chuckle. It’s the little things in life.

They wait alone under the moon for the beasts pulling the wagon train to get within smelling distance and, pulling on a rough, sinewy current of Aether, stomp once with their right foot.

Jagged stone pillars erupt from the earth, skewering the beasts, leaving the rest lowing in panic, dangling alongside the dead like puppets. Gray can’t see over the wall but hears screams, feels wood and bone splintering. They laugh and laugh.

Gray rounds the corner just as the cat and the crab arrive, leisurely sat astride large, flightless birds. They take in the devastation together. A regular family dinner.

The wagon master is alive. He coughs and holds his quivering hands around the beam pushing through his soft abdomen, not daring to touch, unable to look away.

Fried dismounts and paces towards him.

“Bandits!” the wagon master sputters. “Murderers! Murderers!”

He chokes as Fried rests his hand on the pommel of his bone saber. The blade clacks in its scabbard, eagerly chittering.

“Package.”

The wagon master dribbles thick blood from his mouth. “They’ll hang you in Mourdrevre for this!” He tries to scream but mostly whimpers.

Tip calls out from the wreckage: “Found it!”

The wagon master squirms again, his eyes locked on the sword. Tip joins Fried and Gray, placing a hefty wooden lockbox into the Xixo’s hands. Gray giggles.

“Taking this,” says Fried. “Worth hanging.”

They’re the last words the wagon master hears before the robbers leave, whistling a strange song all together, melody and harmony and something else. The wagon master struggles, panting, and painfully starts when a satchel—thrown with impeccable precision—lands in the wreckage at his feet.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Cold, gray flames peel away the cloth satchel, licking the wooden debris, leaving smoking sludge behind. It spreads. The wagon master can’t feel below his waist anymore, but he can see what the flames do to his flesh and bones.

The weak screams echo down the road. Fried can’t hear them. He’s fixed on the wriggling thing inside the box. It sounds hungry. All Fried can see is a mountain of Dust. He keeps on whistling.