Yu stopped picking up dough balls and stared at him, unsure where this was going.
“He lasted three days,” Deltington continued, eyes gleaming with something Yu hesitated to interpret as either amusement or malice. “On the fourth day, we found him dead on the balcony. Bloated. Skin blackened, stretched tight like a wapa left too long in the sun.”
Yu’s gaze flicked toward the darkened kitchen doorway. The shadows beyond remained undisturbed.
“On a completely unrelated note,” Estingar added from his other side, his voice slow, deliberate, “did you know mianids secrete some of the most potent poisons known to alchemists?”
Yu stiffened.
Deltington clicked his tongue and waved a clawed hand dismissively before Yu could respond. “Do not try your luck,” he said, jabbing the same claw into a dough ball before stuffing it into his mouth. “Bubs counts rations down to the last grain of rinza.”
A pause. No one laughed.
From the kitchen, the quiet but fast-paced ticking of metal on wood.
If Bubs had been a little less heavy-handed, a little less precise, Yu would have sworn they were just messing with him. Now, he was not so sure.
He was even less sure about Deltington and Estingar themselves. Yu had no idea what they were. No moment had presented itself to ask about their race or origin without making his ignorance glaringly obvious.
One had been stationed at the entrance with Gurs when Yu and the escort party arrived; the other had appeared later, slipping seamlessly into the commotion. They had introduced themselves as brothers but beyond that, they had given nothing, no homeland, no heritage. So Yu did what he always did. He observed.
They were wiry things, all lean limbs and sharp edges. Avian, he supposed, but far from fina. Unlike any avian beastkin he had ever encountered, for that matter. They had wings, but no feathers, and that unsettled him deeply.
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