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I was a toad on a wet rock. A snake was looking at the back of my neck.
-Murder My Sweet
Seshmir waited until the marks were good and relaxed in their usual alley. It hadn’t taken him long to track down the client’s kid. They had fallen in with one of the nastier pimps in town. He’d dealt with them before. With the cops all hiding across the river, more and more street kids were being scooped up and “put to work.” Seshmir had seethed with white hot rage as he remembered what these three regularly did to their “employees,” but now something else had taken hold.
People always joked about dragonborn being cold blooded because they looked like lizards. Nothing could be further from the truth. The blood of the dragonborn was hot and passionate and angry, but tonight was different. Tonight wasn’t about rage. This was work and dirty work at that. Tonight, he was done. Fire had become ice and he was ready to freeze the world… or at least three sub-human thugs.
With a shift of the shoulders, Seshmir cast a crude illusion over his face, put on smirk #2, and made his way openly down the alley towards the pimp and his two thugs. One of the bodyguards looked up as Seshmir approached, but relaxed as Seshmir made furtive look back to the alley entrance and back, giving all the appearance of a nervous customer. He waited two beats and then struck in that crucial moment of unguardedness. His eldritch blasts lit up the dim alley in pale blue light as they slammed into the other bodyguard. He dropped without a sound. He probably wasn’t dead.
Seshmir slid his head-knocker out from its home under his overcoat as the pimp and the other bodyguard collected themselves and charged. With practiced timing he waited for just the right moment and let loose at blast at each of them and pushed.
Seshmir had just enough time to realize his mistake before the bodyguard’s length of pipe smashed into his side and he felt his ribs protest and then give way. He cursed himself and the years of combat reflexes that had betrayed him as he fell gasping to his knees.
“You can’t do that anymore, dumbass!” he mentally chided himself.
“Looks like we have ourselves a hero,” snickered the pimp as he waved his daggers in the air before Seshmir’s face before continuing, “Whatever shall we do?”
The bodyguard laughed viciously as he drew back his improvised weapon and prepared to finish Seshmir off.
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It was a dirty, wet night in Luume, but the night belonged to The Blue Darter. Tseer really did need to stop reading those awful detective novels that Seshmir kept leaving in the warehouse. Of course, that wouldn’t be an issue anymore. They had all burned along with everything else. Except that cookie jar for some reason. The last time he had gone by to see if anything could be saved, the cookie jar was sitting in a little pile of salvageable objects. Improbably shiny and perfect looking amid the ash and rubble. Clearly Seshmir had been back since the fire. Tseer had to think of it as the fire. The rest of it was too much to think about. Gods and magical bullshit.
As he moved from perch to perch along his patrol route across the seedier part of town, he spotted a familiar figure glancing around before heading down an alley. What was Seshmir doing heading down that alley? Even Tseer knew not to go down there alone on his nocturnal adventures. He swooped across the street and stalked silently along the top of the build so that he could see what his friend was up to. As he approached the edge, he saw the tell-tale flash of Seshmir’s eldritch blasts and rushed forward to just in time to see him fall to the ground under the big one’s blow.
They were both so focused on their prey that they failed to notice the dark shape drop silently from overhead into the alley just behind them. Before they ever realized what was happening the bodyguard screamed in agony as his knee caved in sideways driven by the silent form’s sweeping kick. But his pain didn’t last long as Tseer continued the almost elegant motion and his other foot struck the thug hard in the temple plunging him into unconsciousness before gravity even had a chance to pull him to the ground.
He danced sideways without pause and unleashed punch after punch into the startled pimp who soon joined his companion in broken slumber on the ground. He gave a quick scan of the alley to look for addition threats before he relaxed and rushed over to where Seshmir was kneeling on the ground. Sliding his taloned hand under Seshmir’s arms he helped the injured dragonborn back to his feet. Seshmir steadied himself with a hand on the Tseer’s shoulder and grinned at him with one of those ridiculously endearing grins of his.
“You saved my life, Blue Darter. Oh how can I ever repay you?” he cooed up at the birdman.
Then he fluttered his eyelids at Tseer in a parody of helpless adoration and chuckled. The chuckle was clearly a mistake. He winced in sympathy as the dragonborn doubled over again as pain lanced through his broken ribs turning the laugh into a cough. Tseer tightened his grip on Seshmir, taking as much of his weight as he could manage. He also slid his hand into the inner pocket of Seshmir’s coat and pulled out the hip flask that Seshmir used for his healing potions.
Seshmir nodded gratefully as he drained the potion. Tseer watched and remembered the feel of the icy-hot magic coursing through his system and knit bones back together.
“Thanks, kid. You really saved my bacon,” Seshmir said while straightening himself up.
“Just doing my job… old man,” replied Tseer in a gruff voice before continuing, “What are you going do with them now?”
“Make sure they can’t hurt my client’s kid or any other kid ever again.”
“Are you going to kill them?” asked the Tseer suddenly uncertain. Seshmir had been rocky for the last few weeks, but he never killed anyone unless he thought he had no other choice. If that had changed, then his friend was hurting far more then he had guessed.
With a scarily cruel laugh Seshmir replied, “What makes you think anything they have done merits that kind of mercy?”
Without any further preamble, Seshmir drew himself in and then leapt into the air. As he dropped, he brought his heels together and focused the full force on his fall on to the first thug’s right hand. There was a sickening crunch as a dozen tiny bones shattered and cracked. Even in the embrace of forced unconsciousness the thug cried out. Tseer was horrified. Not by the violence. He had done far worse in the heat of battle on his nightly excursions, but by this calculated viciousness coming from Seshmir.
His feathers drew in tight against his body and he began to tremble as he watched Seshmir methodically cripple these helpless men’s hands. This was wrong. This was so very wrong. What had happened to his friend? This wasn’t Seshmir. He knew something was wrong after the warehouse burned, but he had no idea it was this bad. What could he do? All he knew was getting angry and hitting things. That couldn’t help now.
Without another thought Tseer strode over to Seshmir, grabbed his shoulder, spun him around, and punched him in the face as hard as he could.
Seshmir was considerably taller and heavier than the Tseer, but this is what Tseer did. He got angry and he hit things. And Tseer was angry. His feathers were fluffed out and vibrating as he instinctively made himself look big.
The dragonborn stumbled and fell back against the wall of the alley in surprise. His slightly iridescent silver eyes wide with shock and confusion.
“You can’t do this! This isn’t you, Seshmir!” the Tseer screeched. Any pretense of using his hero voice forgotten as he let the incandescent rage boil through him.
“You don’t do this to people. Not you. You help people and you turn in the bad guys. You don’t cripple helpless victims!”
“Helpless?!” Seshmir roared back as he came to his feet again, eldritch energy crackling around his hands.
“Helpless is the lost kids they put to work on the streets. Helpless is the ones who get too old and are beaten and thrown out on their own like garbage. Mother! That could be YOU out there, kid, if things had been different. Hell. I hear some of these sickos pay extra for feathers. And then I would be the one telling YOUR parents what had happened to you. I’m sick to death of telling parents about what happened to their kids!” Seshmir screamed down at the smaller bird man. The further he went through the rant the more hysterical his voice became.
“And turn them in?! What makes you think I haven’t turned them in before? Three times! Three times I’ve beaten these scum up and dragged them to the cops. And here they are. Well not again! You can’t hit someone if your hands are shattered and if they can’t hit someone then the streets are going to eat them alive. Good riddance too. I hope the streets spit out pellets of their remains as a warning to anyone else who would hurt kids on my watch!” Seshmir was screaming now. His voice was harsh, and tears were pouring down his scaled cheeks.
Screaming? Tears? Seshmir never cried. Seshmir laughed. The worse things were, the bigger the problem, the more he laughed. This was new and scarier even than the calculated violence he had just witnessed. Tseer drew in his feathers and tentatively approached the raging dragonborn. Holding his hand out like you do when approaching a skittish animal. Seshmir’s chest heaved with ragged breaths as he started to calm. Without a word Tseer drew Seshmir into a tight hug, wrapping his wings protectively around his crying friend. The minutes passed like hours as Seshmir wept silently.
After a while the tears passed and Seshmir pulled himself away. Tseer watched as he settled his overcoat back in place like armor and the mask slid back into place. He knew that any conversation was effectively over. Seshmir was back in control and nothing would shake that frustrating façade now.
“Sorry about that,” he said almost but not quite jauntily. “Thanks again for having my back, kid. I’ve still got to wait for their victims to come back so I can take them somewhere safe. Would you mind watching my back? I don’t think I’m up to another fight tonight.”
Even knowing that Seshmir wouldn’t allow it, he thought about trying to talk to his friend, but after a moment he sighed and replied.
“Okay, old man. You do what you need to do. I’ll make sure no one sneaks up on you.”
He hesitated a moment longer, still unsure if he should say something else. Then he shrugged and flew silently up out of the alley and watched Seshmir while he took care of the lost again. This part was Seshmir. Taking care of people. Whatever else was going on the important part of his friend was still there, but what was he going to do? He couldn’t hit this and make it go away. He had to do something.