[color=gray][quote=@Mae]"Hum, oh." His faculties decided to rev into action at that moment. He patted down his pockets as if one of them contained his name. Unfortunately, all he found was a slightly beer stained flier. "The Job." He stated, shoving his hand out awkwardly only for the ..contraption... To gobble it down.[/quote][/color] Echoh paused with a steamy hiss and a mechanical squeak, a sharp leg scratching on the concrete floor. It reached out a scissored appendage and snapped the flyer from Archie's hand: the paper disappeared into a limitless abyss beneath the thriving terrarium. The robot tap tap tapped on the floor as it spidered away, leading into the open door of the red-lit traincar where the others were gathering. [color=gray][quote=@Wayward]Toni would be the first to enter the train following Echoh and Yiya. Crossing through the sliding door felt heavy, but once inside the weight became feathery; a light sensation, like being brushed by soft hair or fur. At ease, she looked a Yiya, pondering her questions. But her attention would turn more to Sasha as she would enter the train. "Your revolver," she would start. "It's... not normal, is it?"[/quote] [quote=@Mole]"I--I think there was a rue," Neomi said to Yiya. "And we-or, umm... Sasha? She fired a gun at it, and it disappeared." She looked back at Sasha and then at the poor guy who just showed up. There was something awkward about him, and it was not just that he had arrived quote-unquote semi-late to the game. Not that this is a game... "And, yeah, I definitely have a lot of questions," she quickly added and looked back at Yiya.[/quote] [quote=@King Cosmos]“Um… Yiya? You can’t see the Rue, can you?” ... Sasha placed a hand over the holster at her waist. “When you see me draw this gun… it means there is a Rue nearby. That’s the only time… the only reason I’ll ever draw it.” She never kept it loaded. She had never pointed it at another person, or even at an animal, not even as a threat. It was a keepsake and nothing more. At least… at first it had been. “I… we… need you to trust us. If we say run… run. If we… say hide, then hide. If you see me… shooting at nothing… there was a reason for it.” Sasha’s voice faltered, suddenly realising how defensive she was sounding and feeling embarrassed. “Just… you hired us because of the Rue. So… trust us.”[/quote] [/color] Yiya was quiet while she shuffled down the center aisle of the traincar, her cane clacking a rhythm on the red-hued wood. After she had found a seat with significant leg room (space for the angle of her cane and the stretch of her aching legs) she let go of a long sigh and sniffed thoughtfully. A knobby finger tap, tap, tapped on the carved handle of her cane. [b]"The stations are supposed to be protected from Rue interference,"[/b] she said quietly, almost to herself. She tilted her head to peer up at Toni, consideration stiffening the lines in her face. She could not see Neomi from this angle, but the girl's explanations curled the old woman's hand tighter on the cane. Her eyes rested heavily on Sasha's holster. As soon as Archie had stepped across the threshold, the traincar doors hissed and snapped shut. He might see the fading, scattered shimmers of what had been a Rue in the space where the train now sat. [b]"I cannot perceive the Rue,"[/b] Yiya acknowledged, and she stared at nothing in particular, lost in another thought. She hunched in her seat, a transient feebleness shuddering through her. She was still smiling hauntingly. [b]"My daughter always sighted them for me. And now it seems I've been followed."[/b] The traincar rumbled to life and metal wheels screeched underfoot with a rattle and a quaking jerk. The red light flickered and shone again. The station moved slowly past the left-side windows, while on the right smooth concrete gave way to rough-hewn stone. [b]"You all saw it, then?"[/b] Yiya raised her voice over the rising rumble of the train. The station slipped away from view and the windows blackened, leaving them with only red light. [b]"Or perceived it? Neomi, you saw something. Sasha, you shot at it. And hit it, I expect, from the tone I hear in Toni's voice. All of you recognized a Rue in the station. So you are truly Howl."[/b] The tracks clattered beneath the train, and Yiya wobbled in her seat, her cane pressed firmly into the floor in front of her, while she turned her sharp eyes to each of them in turn. [b]"The Trailing Bird is sacred to them,"[/b] she explained gravely. [b]"Like a deadly volcano is sacred to the people who live below it. While the tree lives, its presence is like a drug or an idol god, intoxicating. But the moment it dies, so do all the Rue in a miles-wide radius. So the rumors say. Our village is finishing its own barrier of witch-pilings: we'll kill the Trailing Bird at the middle of the village, in a swarm of Rue like moths to the flame, and then we'll finally be free of them for good. But until then, as far as those Rue are concerned, I'm a burglar who's stolen a god from their temple, and they're not too pleased with me."[/b] She rapped the end of her cane on the floor like a gavel and sat straighter, the obstinance returning to the square of her thin shoulders. [b]"So tell me, Sasha, what made you choose to shoot it? What was it about the thing you perceived that prompted you to raise your gun? Neomi, if that shot hadn't fired, what would you have done? Toni, you were the first to call it out, you said you may have to deal with this one. What did you mean? Did it threaten us, did it have a look in its eye, did it say anything, did it touch anyone? Are you sure it's dead? Are you sure there aren't more?"[/b] She twisted in her seat, a vain attempt to squint back over her shoulder. [b]"And why are there four of you? Who is it, who's there snooping? Just because I can't see Rue doesn't mean I'm blind!"[/b] While Yiya spoke, Echoh produced a steaming teapot from nowhere and poured a stream of rosy pink tea into a chipped blue cup, its saucer clutched in the delicate grasp of a scissorlike clamp. The robot held out the cup and saucer in a slow sweeping motion, offering it to whomever would reach out, while it poised a third leg and started filling a second cup of sweet-strawberry tea. The train had picked up speed and was speeding through darkness. Outside the windows were shimmers of bioluminescent insects clinging to great stalactites and stalagmites, formations of flowing rock and deep gaping caverns that stretched away like the throat of a dragon. Occasionally a witch-piling blurred past the window, a feeble beacon of safety in the heavy dark.