In Loki's Honor

Happenstance. Fate. Intelligent design. Luck. Destiny. Call that crap whatever you want. After five years estranged, my sister was right before me. She screamed. I retracted my claws and lifted a finger over my mouth.

"Hush. Silence. I mean you no harm," I told her.

She was pinned under more than a hundred kilograms of dead rapist. I rolled it off the bed. It landed with a meaty slap on the floor. She was covered in blood and... other body fluids.

The fairy replied with a mental smile.

"Stand still. I'm cleaning you. Nenandil!"

The fairy flew out of my chest and summoned a blob of water that covered Olive like a slime monster and flowed over her body guided by Nenandil's intelligence, taking all the filthy away. Olive looked at me. I hugged her.

"Sister. I missed you so much," I gushed.

"Sister? Who are you? Cerise? No, she would be a grown woman now. Apricot?"

Nenandil flew and sat on my shoulder. "Hi!" She waved. Olive's mouth moved like a fish.

"Shh. We need to get you out of here. Why are you here, sister?"

"The magistrate. He bought me and told me I could see my family if I was a good girl. Or hurt you if I wasn't," She started to bawl.

"We need to rob this place," I broke her from her grief. "You screamed, people will come to see what's going on. We need to rob and maybe torch the house. If I take only you with me, they'll think I came here to rescue you. We need to throw them off of our trail."

"Nobody will come here, sister," Olive sniffled. "Women cry in this room every night. He likes it when he hurts us."

"Good. Where does he hide his gold or valuables? jewels, but not anything too conspicuous."

Olive pointed at a portrait of the dignified magister hanging on the wall, "He has a vault behind that painting. But the door has a trap."

"Don't care. I can lose an arm, it will grow back," I scoffed and grinned. She flinched and I hid my fangs.

I ripped the painting from the wall and looked at the vault door. Locks were too deep down this world's tech tree to become a thing. There were some but they were clumsy and easy to open.

"Nenandil, cover us with a wall of water. I don't want any powder or gas escaping and hurting Olive."

"Understood!"

I just pulled the door open. Darts flew and pierced my paw. I removed them and licked my paw. An unidentified poison, but one that should have an antidote. I looked inside and found a small ornate chest, a bag of coins too big to be true, and some scrolls. I went to the wardrobe, took a robe, and tied the sleeves and sash to make a bag. With that, I stowed everything and slung the robe-bag on my back. I took some flasks of lamp oil and spread it around a stack of clothes and the corpse along with some on the bed. Meanwhile, Olive put her clothes on.

I straddled Olive on my back along with the bag and she cinched my waist with her calves.

"Stay quiet, whatever happens. I'll get you out of here. Hold tight. Nenandil, hide," The fairy zipped back to her hiding spot inside my soul.

A last look behind me and I tossed the lamp on the bed. It caught on fire and quickly spread out to the stack of clothes and the corpse. I crawled up the wall and inverted myself to do the crab walk to clear the overhang and get on the roof. The whole house was on alert. The guards patrolling the outside rushed in to help the magistrate and I found that leaving the mansion grounds was as easy as jumping to the wall and then landing on the street.

I ran with Olive behind me. She squealed and I nicked her leg with a claw. "Silence," I hissed.

But fire, oh, fire. Such primal fear the people that built their homes out of flammables have of this threat. The whole neighborhood woke up with the oranges and the smell of smoke. I left the posh zone of the city and climbed the side of a building to sit on the roof. From there, I let Olive down and sat on her side to watch the magistrate's mansion burn.

"Who knew you were there?" I asked her.

"My former owner. He doesn't live here. He brought me with him on a trip and we met the magistrate. He remembered our case and showed interest in me. He bought me. There are dozens of innocent girls in that mansion, Apricot! We must..."

I shook my head. "I'm no hero. Look at me. I can't save everyone. I worked hard all these years to save three women. That's the extent of my power. I've seen people truly strong. They frighten me,' I said as I stared into the distance.

"Are you really apricot? Our retarded sister? You don't seem much like her."

I shifted back. Naked. I looked at my sister Olive and gave her a hug. "Better?"

She blushed. I chuckled. "You're naked."

"And only now she notices. Great," I joked and shifted back.

"You talk very slowly," Olive remarked.

Catching her attention, I tapped my head," Slow here." Then tapped my heart. "Fast here." Then I swiped the air with a claw. "Fastest."

"How?" She ran her hand over my fur. "How did you become this?"

"Secret. Please don't pry. The less you know, the better."

"The therianthropes," She mumbled. "I heard that legend. Fierce warriors created by the elves and released upon the world. When they fought Bundeus' chosen."

I glanced at her, "What? When did that happen?"

"A few centuries ago. In a place far, far away. Are you... Sister, is it safe? Don't you have to drink human blood, or do you become an irrational beast?"

"Yes. No, I can eat normal food. And no, I do not succumb to the beast's rage. I'm special. I'm a danger only to those that seek to harm our family."

I wonder if the elves are okay. But if the story was chronicled like that, I don't know. History is written by the winners.

"The guy that bought you... Did he..."

"He did. But he didn't hurt me."

"He's dead," I growled. "Dead."

Olive flinched. She touched me. I could feel she was afraid. "Sister. Killing is wrong."

"Tell that to the bastards that mugged our father. There are people in this world that deserve death. That scum of a magistrate, for one. Now come. It is time we go home. They are too busy with the fire to notice us."

Olive kept her thoughts to herself. I knew that killing was fundamentally wrong. But Apricot's body, Apricot's mind recognized it but not as a universal right. Given what I'd lived as Lily and the Great White One, I was forced to agree.

I left Olive alone in an alley and went to hide my newfound wealth. I didn't want her to see so she could deny it safely under truth-detection bullshit spells. I shifted, put on my clothes, and grasped Olive's hand.

"From now on, you found your dumb sister lost around the city. Don't talk about what you saw today. We'll keep you hidden," I told her, slow as it was all that I could with my lot in life.

"Right. But I don't know the way home," Olive said.

"Come. But make it look like you're leading."

I took her home. The door was open and we snuck inside. There was a tallow rushlight burning on the table and someone sitting on the chair next to it. She turned around and we saw our mother, worried sick.

"Apricot, is that you?" Mom asked.

"Mother!" Olive cried. She threw herself at the woman and they hugged.

"Olive? How? Why? Where were you?" Mom fired question after question, barely believing her daughter had returned. I sniffled and hugged the two women's legs.

Our racket soon drew Cerise and Mirabelle carrying Anjou on her lap. The flood banks of tears were open. Even Anjou cried out of sheer empathy with her mother, grandmother, and aunts. Only the matron landlady stayed asleep. The world would end before that old lady woke up before her time.

"How did you come back?" Mom asked.

"I was rescued by a mysterious benefactor," Olive half-lied.

Mom's gaze wandered into the infinite. "Them again. We have this benefactor, this guardian angel. He brought Apricot back to us with money. We used it wrong and got stuck in that horrible place," She shuddered along with Mira. I couldn't even imagine what that would be like. "This bandit gets us out because someone promised him wealth. He betrays the mysterious person and dies. The scoundrels that were after Apricot also died. We got free. Then Apricot disappears and you bring her back after someone saved you. Where were you?"

You see, this is what is called the Bat-Wayne paradox. You know you never saw them together, you know one disappears when the other shows up, but the truth is so glaringly ridiculous that your brain is unable to accept. The cognitive dissonance is so great you might believe someone is running a psychic ECM fucking with your brain when reality finally forces you to catch up.

"It is better if I don't say," Olive stared at me.

"No. Better not," I agreed in my meandering speech.

"My daughters," Mom pulled us in a group hug. "Now if I could find my sons too. We could be together," She dreamed.

That would be a worthy life goal. Find my three brothers without losing any of the women.

Days later, in an inconspicuous warehouse somewhere in town.

"Another clear beheading, boss," The figure clad in black reported. "No trace of magic. Must be a Perk. It was the same as five years ago."

"A [Assassin] working in my territory without my sanction," The one referred to as "boss" hissed. "We can't have that. The order must be maintained. Was anything stolen?"

"The vault was empty. Jewels, documents, gold and kingmetal coins," The black one said, using the common name for the metal known as platinum.

"The kingmetal coins can be easily traced if they try to spend it. No. Something is wrong," Boss mused. "Nothing else of notice?"

"One girl, a slave he recently bought, was thought to be missing. She could've died with the others in the fire but we suspect she didn't."

"Why is that?"

"The magister had her in his bechamber."

"Put a contract on her," The leader of the [Assassins] Guild branch said.

In my excitement, I forgot to assign my Skill points. They were automatically assigned to cap the Skills I had and then to purchase more Skills and cap those.

You gained the Share Assassin Contract (rare) Skill. You can share a contract with other assassins in a range of Rank x Charisma meters. The assassins need to have this Skill.

You gained the Detect Assassin Contract (very rare) Skill. You can tell when a person has a contract on them in a range of Rank x Mind meters.

With those Skills, I was mortified when I saw Olive in the morning. She had a contract on her. That information changed my plans. I needed to get my family out of the city. It wasn't safe for us here anymore. I knew why. It was my fault for being soft. I should've killed a maid or any other female and left her body to burn in Olive's place. That way, the trail would be erased or thrown in the maid's direction.

Yes. We needed to flee. Move to another city, search for my brothers. Maybe go down to the ocean. I would raze cities if my girls were hurt.

Olive took me and Anjou out to play. Mirabelle seemed glad to have someone to dump the responsibility on. The kids usually either ignored me or bullied me. With Olive nearby, they were keeping their distance, unsure of how my chaperone would react. That gave me time to study my surroundings.

It was hard. Apricot couldn't deal with large information flow. She was slow, to put it shortly. She could do whatever the others could, but she took more time. But she had an uncanny ability to block out unnecessary things. Sometimes it was my sense of morality. Sometimes it was the buzz and din of the crowded street and children playing.

I put everything that moved out of my focus. Only that which remained still for long periods was worthy of my attention. And from that subset, I further filtered for people's figures and silhouettes. It was amazing how that worked. It should be an ability.

At the end of the day, Apricot wasn't retarded or handicapped. She was different. Her mind worked on another level. Not better, not worse.

For example, I detected several [Rogues] hidden and watching us. Maybe even [Assassin] or dunno, [Spy]. I used {Appraisal} on them and got levels between thirty-seven and forty-eight. Yes. Those guys were the ones that put the contract on Olive. [Assassins], then.

There was one way to test. I focused on these guys and the notion they were there to murder my sister. Rage instantly boiled in my heart and a contract was put on their heads which I immediately shared. They noticed. These guys were part of a group of organized assassins. A guild of sorts. The [Assassins] stirred and took a good look at themselves. Next, I wanted to test a thing. If Apricot's mind was so powerful in this regard, to compartmentalize things, I discarded that hatred and dismissed the contracts.

The watchers got even more disturbed. Then I put the contract on, off, on again. I kept blinking until the one with the lowest willpower broke. He screamed and bolted away. Having an {Assassin's Contract} on one's head made one a tasty chunk of walking Exp, ripe for the taking. It would demolish trust and make cooperating impossible. Especially with these self-serving bastards. The one that fled kept his contract. The others, I removed.

Another ability Apricot had was the one to give zero fucks to what was irrelevant to her. My face didn't show a single twitch as I kept watching the children play. Which meant she could be cold and calculating whenever needed.

That had the makings of a psychopath. I believe that people like that usually don't have the framework to develop a moral substrate from which to derive an ethical behavior. Fortunately, I had my previous experiences to rely on.

I smiled only when Olive's contract vanished. The [Assassins] watching us went away. I knew they would try to contact me soon.