Chapter Text
Shouta had been worried that trying to get a visual of his quarry in a roadside tavern was a risky bet he was destined to lose. As soon as he walked in, however, there was no mistaking who he was there to find.
An impromptu stage had been cleared at the far end of the tavern, displaced tables clumped around it in a semicircle. At the center, idly strumming mismatched chords on a small lyre as he sang about some legendary adventurers, was the selfsame elven so-and-so Shouta had been tracking for the last few days. Lord Hizashi’s lanky frame, blond hair and deep russet freckles spoke to his Wood Elf heritage, but he made no effort to hide the hard angular line of his features or the pupil-less red eyes his Drow father had bestowed upon him. As he grinned out at the appreciative crowd, a flash of knife-sharp canines peeked at the corners of his mouth with a nonchalance that bordered on challenging.
Shouta bypassed the one-man concert with little outward concern, making sure to keep the elf in the corner of his eye at all times. Hizashi’s mother Lady Hanah had been very specific in her instructions for Shouta to not let Hizashi know she had hired a bodyguard to watch him. A mother’s concern was one thing, she’d said, but her son was still an adult who had the right to go adventuring without feeling like he was being babysat. Shouta was personally of the opinion that being an adventurer wasn’t a profession someone willingly went into expecting to come out the other side in one piece; but the money was good and tracking a bard-for-hire along established roads was hardly a challenge, so Shouta had taken the job.
The bartender, a weedy man with a resting expression that seemed to imply he was constantly smelling something rancid, gave Shouta a skeptical once-over as he sat down. “Not usual to see a tiefling from the wilds in here,” he said bluntly.
“With prices like yours I’d imagine not,” Shouta replied. “Ale, and milk for the cat.”
“What cat--?” The man’s expression twisted into a harder line of surprise as Kurotabi, Shouta’s smoky grey and black eldritch feline companion, twisted away from the shadows beneath his dark hair and padded lightly down onto the bar. Shouta gave the cat a scratch behind its ears, smiling slightly as it began to let out a throaty grating noise that was almost purring.
“Ale and milk. Sure,” the bartender said, nodding.
Shouta let his eyes meander over the crowd, most of whom were still focused on Hizashi’s singing across the room. He had a worthy voice, to be sure, Shouta thought, even if most of what he was using it for was nonsense. Every few minutes he seemed to run out of material and would pivot mid-thought, improvising some new danger for the heroes in his song to face down and valiantly defeat. The crowd hung enthusiastically on his every word, egging him on with cheers for even more verses and the sound of coins clanking into the bottom of a wooden mug being passed around for tips. The bartender eyed the cacophony narrowly as he placed Shouta’s order on the bar. Muttering something darkly to himself about bards thinking they owned every piece of ground they walked on, the bartender collected Shouta’s payment. He turned to make his way down the bar, then paused, eyeing Shouta thoughtfully.
“Are you in the market to make a few quick gold, friend?” the bartender said, his posture suddenly much more relaxed and genial than it had been a moment before. Shouta cocked an eyebrow.
“Not especially,” Shouta replied. The bartender either took this as a joke or was too enamored with whatever scheme he’d come up with that a single no wasn’t going to be enough to dissuade him.
“Surely a man of the road can always use a few more feathers padding his nest egg,” the bartender went on, his voice taking on a blunt, whiny tone somewhere between wheedling and insisting. “Listen. Do you hear all that racket going on over there?” he went on, waving a dismissive hand towards Hizashi’s performance. “It’s garbage, and every coin that goes to him is a coin stolen out of my take for the night. If he had any decency he would have offered to split the pot with me but do you think he’s done any such thing?”
“I’m guessing not,” Shouta intoned.
“And you’d be right. Damned uppity if you ask me, to interrupt a man’s business for the evening and not make any moves to make it right.”
“Is there an offer in here somewhere?” Shouta asked, cutting the man off before he could get too revved up. The bartender frowned, but dug in his pocket and pulled out a handful of coins.
“Six gold. When you see him leave, you follow him and persuade him to be a little more considerate, to the tune of say, sixty percent,” the bartender said. He slid three coins across the bar. “Half now, half on completion.”
Shouta pretended to mull it over a moment before collecting the money and putting it in his pocket. There was no point in refusing; if he said no the bartender would just move on to the next hungry-looking merc or sellsword he could find in a room full of hungry mercs and sellswords. This would break the no-contact agreement, but Shouta was fairly certain Lady Hanah would prefer that over her son being jumped and mugged for some pocket change. He dawdled over his drink, waiting for the long recitation to come to an end. As Hizashi packed up Shouta put down his glass and clicked his tongue to call Kurotabi back to him. The bartender shot him a conspiratorial smirk as Shouta slid off his stool. Shouta followed Hizashi out, careful to keep to a close tailing distance until they were sure to be out of earshot of the bar.
“You should be more careful about the places you commandeer to sing at,” Shouta said in Undercommon as he drew level on Hizashi’s left. He saw Hizashi jolt slightly at being spoken to, but the elf was smart enough to keep his eyes forward as they walked. “The bartender seems to think you’ve spent the night stealing from him.”
Hizashi snorted. “Of course he does,” he muttered back, sounding more amused than concerned. “And what does that have to do with you, friend tiefling?”
“He hired me to track you down and steal sixty percent of your gold for him,” Shouta said.
“You’re awfully honest for a hired mugger,” Hizashi said lightly. His grin had turned teasing. “More honest than the two stalking us in the trees anyway. I guess he doesn’t trust you any more than he likes me.”
Shouta paused, listening as they walked. Just as Hizashi had said, there were two extra sets of footsteps tailing their own. The ones following them were trying to be clever and match their step and pace, but the slight off-beat when they had to speed up or slow rang loud in the stillness. Shouta reached up to touch Kurotabi where the cat had curled out of sight around his neck. A flex of claws into his shoulder told Shouta that Kurotabi had noticed the approaching threat as well and was ready when he was.The two behind them had not stopped, speeding up through the underbrush as Shouta and Hizashi turned to face them.
The two tavern bouncers, a tall half-Orc with a thin but vicious-looking oak club studded with hobnails and a scruffy-looking Tabaxi readying two hands’ worth of razor-sharp claws, didn’t pause in their approach as they were found out. Instead, they both seemed to take it as an invitation to lose the element of surprise completely, telegraphing their incoming attacks with loud victory cries.
“I’m guessing we can’t get out of this one without a throwdown, yeah?” Hizashi asked.
“At this point? No.”
“Shame.”
Shouta readied himself, fists raised and heels planted. Kurotabi slithered down from his shoulders, landing heavily on the ground in a much larger and less identifiably feline shape. Its immense paws flexed, dragging long ruts into the path with its claws. Hizashi, however, just grinned. Raising one hand to motion for Shouta to hold up, he put the forefinger and thumb of the other between his lips.
His long, shrill whistle echoed in the woods; above the noise of the oncoming fight Shouta could just barely hear a hard rush of oncoming air, like a breath of wind with an axe to grind, answering. A moment later a blue-white streak barrelled out of the woods, clipping the Tabaxi hard in the side of the head and sending them toppling backwards. The half-Orc swung their club wildly at the interloper only to go suddenly rigid and drop to the ground unconscious.
Shouta slowly lowered his hands, trying to process what in the world had just happened. Kurotabi gave an annoyed huff, nose snuffling in the air as it tried to scent out what it was that had stolen its fight. A tall, curvy woman wearing a thin cloak over a slinky dress that looked more at home in a costume ball than the woods sauntered out of the trees, tossing her dark hair over one shoulder. A moment later the blue-white streak looped back around and slowed to a visible speed. A broadly-grinning air Genasi sat on a levitating cloud, arms folded behind his head.
“All right, Hizashi?” the Genasi asked.
“He’s always all right when he gets the chance to cause trouble,” the woman replied for him. She nudged the unconscious half-Orc with the toe of her boot. Hizashi laughed, coming over to hang affectionately on her shoulder.
“Only because I know I’ve got the best backup in the world,” he said.
The woman shot him an amusedly disgusted look and swatted him away. She unselfconsciously began to go through the bouncers’ pockets, confiscating everything that she could get her hands on. The Genasi, on the other hand, was looking curiously at Shouta as he reclaimed a very disgruntled Kurotabi onto his shoulders.
“Who’s your new friend?” the Genasi asked Hizashi. Hizashi brightened, looking from Shouta to his companions.
“Right! I should have made introductions!” Hizashi said. “This is the indomitable Miss Nemuri Kayama, close friend and wizard par excellence,” he said, presenting the woman as she continued to rifle through the bouncers’ belongings. She looked up and grinned, winking at Shouta.
“Charmed, I have no doubt.”
“And this is Oboro Shirakumo, head in the clouds, fist in your face,” Hizashi continued, turning and gesturing with a flourish to the Genasi on the cloud. Shirakumo gave a broad smile and a cheery wave.
“Heya!”
“And this is--” Hizashi paused, face twisting in sudden confusion as he realized he didn’t actually know Shouta’s name. “Sorry, who are you?” he said sheepishly.
“Uh. You can call me Aizawa,” Shouta said, hedging more than a little. Kayama cocked an eyebrow at him.
“Is that your name?” she asked, a slight tone of challenge in her voice.
“It’s what you can call me,” Shouta repeated. Kayama looked him over, skepticism in every inch of her expression, then shrugged and went back to what she’d been doing.
“The bartender got salty and tried to hire him to mug me,” Hizashi said, shrugging. “He decided not to.”
“What a hero,” Kayama said, grunting slightly as she straightened up. “Looks like it was payday, boys,” she added, cheerfully jingling the money in the purses she’d found. “This should be enough to get us to…” She trailed off, eyes cast up as she did some mental math. “Hm. Hosu, probably? Maybe Musutafa if we eat lean and keep our wits sharp.”
“Where are you headed, Aizawa?” Hizashi asked. Shouta shrugged, a lie not coming to him quite fast enough.
“Nowhere in particular,” Shouta said, hoping the non-answer didn’t sound too evasive.
Hizashi seemed to brighten at it, however. “D’you want to come with us, then? We could always use another friend for the road. Right?” He turned to his companions, expression clearly saying “agree with me here, please”.
“Sure! More the merrier, right?” Shirakumo said at once. Kayama looked less convinced, but shrugged.
“If he wants to come, why not?” she said.
Hizashi turned back to Shouta. “What do you say?”
Shouta hesitated. That, he was sure, was far outside of Lady Hanah’s no-contact rule. Then again, he supposed it made a certain amount of sense to keep the spirit of the rule even if he could no longer keep the letter of it. As long as Hizashi never found out that Shouta had been hired to keep an eye on him, and there was no reason for him to ever do so, they could travel together for now and part ways when the time came.
“Sure. For now,” Shouta said, nodding. Hizashi beamed.
“Great! I’m Hizashi, by the way, I don’t think I said that before,” he said, extending a thin, strong hand to shake. Shouta shook it.
“Good to meet you.”