“You’re laying the traps, not the…uh Baygum?” That one kind of slips out, pure surprise. Didn’t quite seem like it matched up with the relationship, especially the whole ritual life is forfeit thing that Juni had just gone off about. If Olesya was the one marked by light, wasn’t she supposed to lay the trap for capturing the faun so that she could tame him? Or was there a transitive property thing where anything that her captive did was to her credit no matter what? If so, that didn’t seem particularly fair, especially if Juni…no, no it was clear Juni was fine with it. Moving on.


She walks around the Welcoming Plaza. This place she knows. They start parades here sometimes. Open stones laid out in a circle that leads you to the street into the city proper, and cool stone walls. Crevas had a style and lived it. She watches Juni putting the net down, trying to set it up, wondering how she was going to camouflage it into stone of all things. Maybe she had some kind of magic? Or maybe she could just color match it with some loose gravel. 

Her mind spins over the last conversation as she watches the pack move about as well, climbing the walls and spreading through the city at impossible angles. Wondering if the Nagi had anything to match that. Winged Lamia guards maybe? Or jetpacks. Had she ever told Sulochana about jetpacks, as a concept? Nagi would probably love jetpacks, they’d be able to pounce someone tail first with them. Maybe powered by magic crystals or something. 

But anyway, she was pondering what Olesya said when she saw all the mounts, “also, if she knows what? I’m sorry, but I never really met the Serigalamu when I was here last time, so if there’s something with the goblin mounts and the Khatun, can you spell it out for me?” A guess, maybe a dumb one, Yuki wasn’t even sure what the She was, but Olesya only seemed to care about the Khatun’s opinion, so that was where Yuki was starting with her guess. 

A little time passes. Yuki is fretting and checking her tablet. No answer from Hazel, but also no visible Hazel. Could mean he was hiding and unable to safely pull his tablet out. But that could mean somewhere dark, which would mean the whole cut off the entrance plan might not pan out. Did she even want to catch him in a net? She had been hoping that he’d willingly join her despite Olesya’s presence and they’d be able to sort things out more quietly after that. She was ready to heart duel for Hazel’s freedom if she had to, but hoped it wouldn’t come to that, especially if it would make Juni mad. 

Yuki taps her foot on the stone streets, and then her ears twitch. What was that sound? That sounded like a skateboard. Distinctive wheel scraping on stone sound. Sensitive cat ears don’t lie about that kind of thing. It was an Earth sound, not at all like the big wheels of wagons or carts, the sound that only came from small hard wheels spinning quickly over an equally hard surface. Her head whips around to look for it.