Shepherding food back and forth, Abha's feet pounded as she shuffled around the restaurant, fresh fried fish mingling with her sweat. It didn't win dates, but her calloused feet and dark circles weren't helping much either. Her stomach growled in hunger but churned in nausea in the heady smell of the restaurant. She paced, scurrying like a little rat with plates and baskets stacked with greasy food and overflowing glasses of beer and water. She had worked long enough to avoid messes and ramifications from her boss, the way she juggled her orders like a circus performer.
"Abha, someone's here to see you!"
"Is it Sashi?"
"No, but I'll let them know you're off soon--" Abha didn't wait to hear the rest, instead ducking into the kitchen to retrieve another order before hustling back out.
When Abha was out of the kitchen again, there was a pale little magpie running her pristine finger down the front of her boss' fishgut apron, counting the bloodstains and the impression of the buttons that lay beneath the dirty fabric. She was obviously cooing, preening with those dark fluttering lashes and that pretty whore mouth.
"Not even five minutes early, mister? I promise I won't get her into any trouble."
She flitted those eyes up at the man, then over to Abha for a millisecond, then back to the man who seemed to be acquiescing to her demands.
He looked at her and that whore mouth and her pale skin and dark lashes, biting the inside of his lip. "Look, she's one of my best waitstaff, you can't just be snatching her off any time you please."
But who was he to deny a pretty girl and her pretty little whims.
"Get her in trouble and I'll gut you next, Stille. Oi, Abbie, you're free to go!" he yelled over the cacophony of boisterous sailors and hungry customers, making his voice travel into Abha's little ears.
...which earned him a smack with a rag from her waistband. "Don't call me that! Sashi doesn't call me that!"
Her face was bright red from fury before sheepishness set in, seeing a certain little magpie next to him. "S-stille!"
Abha had never hurried as fast unless it was Sashi, almost missing the linen basket for her apron and rags and haphazardly took her tips from her bag. She practically had to be shoved back to the time board, clocking herself out before scuttling back to Stille, words hurriedly tumbling out of her mouth like fearful mice.
"Don't worry Papa--" the girl said with a wink as she grabbed Abha by the arm and stepped back to the door. "Just two girls and a fresh cherry pie. If thats your jam, I'll let you watch me lick it out the pan next time for being such a sport~" Her air of sensual seriousness only lasted until she was done licking imaginary cherry juice from in between her fingers before she turned with a giggle and all but pushed Abha out into the blinding light of day.
"We gotta hurry-- Uncle Baba's seriously gonna run out of pie, they were coming out when I was on my way over here."
That pale thing locked fingers with that nervous girl and jerked her into a trotting run down off the Docks and onto the Highroad.
No one would stand in between Stille and a pie.
Abha still had that damned deer-in-the-headlights look when Stille pulled that little shenanigan to her boss, somewhere between mortified and sort of aroused. Her eyes squinted shut when her brain processed the light, the sun moving west and getting nauseatingly brighter, feeling Stille and the wind carry her to market.
"Stille-!"
She needed to get out more, trying to keep her feet from twisting themselves, even with the pads that helped her swim. Goodness knows how long it had been since she had last swam, idly wondering if they had rusted at one point. The throngs of people weren't as bad as the restaurant, open air and the distinct lack of used oil sinking in the air like a fishy musk. No, here, the air was somewhat cleaner; still smelled of oil and mechanics, but smells Abha only got treated to during festivals and when her sister was in tow.
Having someone else hold her hand made her heart skip a little, even as her throat dried from the air passing through and chapping her lips.
Oh, but it was getting close and her mouth was starting to water - she hadn't had a pastry in god knows how long, especially a little walnut and cherry cake. It sounded terribly good right now.
Already there was a crowd pushing at the front of Uncle Baba's pie shanty, but Stille was sharp, Stille was quick-- she cut through to the back and flitted through the tiny kitchen before emerging, still dragging the reluctant Abha behind her-- and there before the two girls was a vast array of pastries, pies, cakes, and sugar filled delicacies that only happened three times a week at the little shop that pulled way more business than the proprietor's inn.
"Look at them," the pale bird said to her dark haired friend, possibly the first time that the blonde had addressed the other girl directly since she'd dragged her from the fish hut. In the rush to get there in time, Stille hadn't a need for pleasantries like Hello or How are you or Do you need a minute to catch your breath.
There was only the impending co-op binge eating session, and now that it was at hand, Stille regained some semblance of social capability.
"Is your sister still out? We can get some extra for her too."
She didn't admit that they'd probably eat Sashi's share. It was the initial motivation that counted, right?
Abha panted, looking back up at Stille then at the display, her eyes as big as royal platters. She couldn't remember the last time she had been present for so many treats and goodies as her belly did flops and growls like an excited dog for a bone. It took her a minute to process the question before nodding, still breathless.
She looked, trying to scan for something that Sashi would like. No candies, no jams, no preserves...surely there was something savory or plain or maybe custard her sister would fancy. "Are there any...egg tarts?"
Right in front, Abha saw what she craved: a little, intricately designed flower-shaped pie, tiny rivulets looking reminiscent of moon beans and lotus petals and oh, she could smell the candied walnuts and dried cherries in it. "That little cake too, uhm, please."
"Make it two of those-- and two of those milk cakes, and three of the..." Stille searched. "Egg tarts. And one of the blueberry pies."
"You girls sure must be hungry," the androgynous, elderly creature behind the counter observed with a light clucking of her synthetic tongue, looking the two skinny things up and down before she pulled a couple extra pastries into their bag. "Coming in through my kitchen to cut my line."
The pale blonde smiled sweetly for her-- that winning smile that could do no wrong in the light of cutting in front of twenty people in a line for baked treats. "You can't blame us-- your pastries are why we only eat twice a month~"
She wrapped an arm around Abha and her platter eyes, not expecting her to recover from her sputtering shock in order to contribute to the ass kissing she was doing.
The androgynous Uncle Baba laughed and laughed before she addressed Abha directly. "Anything else for you, sweetheart?"
Abha's cheeks were red enough to put a maraschino cherry to shame and looked back up at the older women who were being ever so nice to her. She scanned until her eyes probably could've popped out of her head and all but yelled, "That! The pineapple cake! Please!"
Just as quickly, she smacked her hand to her mouth as if trying to shove the excited words back into her until she peeped out a little, "Sorry."
Her eyes looked at the pineapple cake with want, comparable to a wolf on a kill. The child inside wanted to snatch that cake right out of the baker's good hands and shove it between her teeth and tongue. It took all of Abha's willpower just to be even remotely civil as she dug into her satchel to furiously pull out something to pay the woman with, at least before Stille could, anyway.
"Oh my god, I haven't had a pineapple cake since Mama and Papa were around!" She couldn't care less what she just said, her little body virtually vibrating.
Watching Abha get so excited over pastries was absolutely adorable-- and sad, considering the cloistered existence the pale nightingale knew the girl's spearfishing sister maintained for her. Even her complete lack of volume control was endearing. Poor thing, tripping over her feet like a newborn puppy, stumbling over herself trying to pay for--
Waitasecond.
"I think not," Stille hissed, minimal clothing and minimal hiding spots proving superior to Abha's modesty and her boho lady purse. She fished the chips out of her top and put them on the counter-- Uncle Baba pushed 2 of the 6 round discs back.
"Enjoy the memory of your Mama for me, dear," the old woman said, lips curling into a tight grin. "Some of us can't remember that far back."
"Uncle Baba, let me pay," Stille insisted, pushing the discs back.
"Girl, push those chips back at me one more time and I'mma slap so much sense into you you'll come back in here wearing clothes next time--"
Abha didn't know what to say until she let out a little snort.
Pfft.
And soon enough came her first genuine smile for the day. It was bright and cheery, in between the stifled laughter at Stille's expense. As much as Stille was beautiful, the baker did have a point, what with the skimpy little amount that she paraded around in. But that's probably why Abha found herself staring at Stille a little too much every once in a while.
She looked back up at the baker and grinned, nodding. "I will. It's like an early birthday present for us!"
"I am wearing pants for you today, Baba!" Tanager hot and falcon sharp, Stille scrunched her nose, mock-tart for the taste of Uncle Baba's judgement of her life choices-- but somehow pleased that Abha found it funny at least. She grabbed the unaccepted chips and popped them back in her bra, tossed the bag of pastries into Abha's fumbling hands, and grabbed up the pie box before she bade the baker farewell-- until the next week, anyways.
She nudged her companion back toward the tiny kitchen, to exit the way they'd entered. Like fuck she was going to take her pie back through that handsy fucking crowd.
Like a wind-swept wraith, Abha tip-toed around the crammed kitchen, slinking behind Stille, content as a lamb to a pasture. It was sneaky and a little dishonest, to push their way towards the front of the line...
"Whatever, I haven't had a pineapple cake since I was eight, so..." she mumbled to herself. She smiled to herself and looked back up to Stille's platinum blonde head of hair. Back to weaving between crowds and passerby as the scenery kept changing.
"Where are we going, actually?"
"I dunno," the girl replied thoughtfully, pie balanced between her arm and her midriff as she considered their options. "We could go back to the docks or we could run up into the Treehouse-- there's all sorts of places to hide in there."
Abha's eyes wandered to the pie, then to the midriff, then back up and tried to focus on some part of Stille that wasn't her mouth or her eyes. "The docks?"
Her brow scrunched, nose wrinkled as she thought for a moment. Something came to her and she shook her head, rattling the images away. "I've never actually been there, the Treehouse. I've heard a lot of stories, though; what's it like?"
Whenever I'm up there, I get fucked-- so what do I know?"
"You can see the ocean, framed in green," she said instead, flighty step and chaste grin already leading them in the direction of the place she'd already decided upon. "The air is bright when you're not on the ground with all the dust and the people. It's quieter. Peaceful."
And Abha followed, thinking it over. Something quiet, gentle, and away. So far away.
Roots and trees tangled, the greenery filming over their skin and shadows like an emerald scarf. She pulled out the one pastry she wanted more than anything, looking at the shortcake crust, impossibly light but firm and bit into it. It was just a little moist, flavored with sugar and pineapple juice, just a centimeter shy of the jam inside.
"Is it so quiet that-" she started, mouth full and thick with dough before swallowing. Her tongue was tangled, though, a soreness in her throat that was more than a hard glob of food. Tightness in her birdcage chest, tremors in her muscles and tendons.
"I heard that it was a religious commune?"
"Emberswarm? Kinda. There's some dirty fuckers in here, but I think a lot of them heal people." Up the stairs, up a ramp. Left, right, and then out onto a rickety walkway, grounded by ropes and nails, that they had to balance carefully to make it across-- but when they did, they found an open platform, facing the sea, at the very edge of the branches of the Emberswarm's hometree.
"So quiet that what?"
Quizzically, the girl observed her friend as she sat down, legs dangling over the edge as she placed the pie on her lap, opening the box and sniffing it. It smelled of butter, freshly churned. Sugar, molasses, the sweetness of ripened blueberries. "Oh my fucking god, I'm going to eat this whole thing."
"Do it," the young girl teased, grinning despite the bits of crushed pineapple and dough around her molars.
She could still smell the ocean from here and it mingled with the forest. Salt and wood, a nice topping to the sweets between them both. Even with Stille's incredibly delicious looking pie tempting Abha's nose, she held her beloved little pineapple cake. For a girl who had rarely been so high up, she did as Stille did, dangling her enhanced legs over the ledge. They were tinged in brown on some parts, some of it due to salt water but something else: rust. It flaked off as she wiggled her toes, feeling the wind tickle over her nerves and skin.
She looked at Stille, then back at the cake and munched again, quiet. Her face furrowed a little, expressive like a child's, like she had misspoke or talked out of turn. She looked at the jam, all its tasty little intricacies of gelatin, sugar, and crushed fruit all but oozing out of the soft pastry. She concentrated, looking intently like there was something inside.
"So quiet that..."
It was so quiet, air growing heavy in the pause. "This is going to sound weird..."
She looked back at Stille. Cool, calm, collected, beautiful Stille. Brash, shameless, free Stille. "Do you hear voices sometimes?"
The human girl let her hair down, pulling a fork out of her bun-- she'd brought it from home just for this reverent purpose. She pushed the fork into the center of the pie as she looked over at the other, then shrugged as she shoved the first piece of glorious pastry into her primed and fully receptive body. She could've cum right there, even as she chewed, relishing every little textural detail.
"Yeah," she said, trying to swallow before she continued. "The people who live next door to me like to bang on their walls and yell at me when I'm getting rowdy with boys-- but mostly, I can hear people whispering in the alleys in the early morning. It echoes a bit in the Undercamp, yanno?"
Abha watched in a little more than pure fascination as Stille savored the pie, the little details as plain as sunspots on the floorboards. Then came the pineapple cake again, a much larger bite as she tried to munch and munch, practically grind and puree it in her mouth. She was more tense, the way she held her cake like an animal in the way of a hunter.
And she swallowed, but lord, that pit in her stomach wanted to suck her in and everything else. She tried focusing on Stille more and instead shook her head. "Yeah. I guess I'm just..."
So uncertain, so unsure as she nibbled again, trying to get the nerves to focus on something other than how abnormal her situation at home was. "It's stupid. I'm probably worrying too much about it. Sashi says I worry too much."
She looked back at her toes and down to the forest floor, trying to see what else was down there. Bugs, rodents, decidedly things that weren't just fish and robot parts. "Never been to the Undercamp either..." she muttered, mostly as a confession and less of a talking point.
Stille slowed the bites she was taking as she considered the other girl's words, the other girl's actions, the deference to Sashi--
always the deference to Sashi.
And she wasn't blind to it. She saw more than she let on. Stille had perfected the art of acting the idiot while the mastermind worked and while survival dictated that it was a danger to show her cards,
how sorry she sometimes felt for this poor waitress and the bite marks under her collar.
"Sometimes, it's good to worry," she intoned brightly, careful to mask the edge of suspicion in her voice with that dauntless smile, that airy optimism that kept her ignorant and safe. "Worry keeps you alive."
Another bite of pie to keep her from saying too much.
Abha smiled, covering her throat. "It's what I think."
She then dug back in the pastry bag and pulled out one of her Sashi's egg tarts, looking at the tiny, flaky pastry. It weighed nothing but it looked perfectly light, like a cream-coloured cloud. "I guess what I mean is..."
She stared back into the little pastry, expecting to find answers. "Like...when you think and you kind of hear your own voice. Except it's your voice and it's saying weird ideas you'd never want to do."
Like want to eat your sister for instance.
Bits of crumbs from the tart fell with the minute flakes of rust from her toes.
Stille pressed her lips together as she looked down at the wavy, crimped crust, golden brown and flaky, soft in a savory sweet fashion that only pie crust could be. She scraped her bottom teeth over her upper lip, peeling away a little of her skin. She caught herself on a maybe breath, like she knew what she had to say but survival instinct culled her words before they passed her teeth.
But she made her choice, & she would accept the consequences.
"Is something going on, Abha?" She said the words gently, wary, a kitten's touch on a pulsing wound. "Like, is everything okay?"
A lump in the throat and dryness in the back of her mouth matched with a tightening chest. Everything was slowing, stopping, like her breathing. How many people knew? How many people heard? How many people whispered through the alleys and the crowded, tight space of the Panhandle, outside their door.
She breathed that sad, shaky, 'oh,' and felt pain searing through her body angrily, like a virus in her head and down her spine and into the sickened catacombs of her heart. Her eyes seared, saline dripping. Her little head looked up at the sky, trying to find any little sign of a raincloud or the gentle rumble of thunder. Anything to hide behind, like the little tart she pushed into her mouth.
She swallowed a mix of crust, sweet egg and snot.
Like a dying frog, she softly croaked, "I don't know."
"You don't have to tell me anything," the blonde said gently, eyes remaining firmly on the perimeter of her pie. "But if you want to, you can. And if you want to, we can keep eating our feelings like I never noticed anything and like I never asked."
She took her fork and stabbed at another piece of pie, offering it to the girl on the verge of tears next to her.
"Try it. It's so good."
Abha looked at Stille, tears still streaming down her round face with the snot, then down at the pie and nibbled. It was good, with all its flakiness and sweet-tart blueberry filling. It didn't help the hurt in her heart and the terrified fears in her head...
But for now, having someone who wasn't her sister just offer a kind gesture made swallowing the pie a little easier.
Stille watched the horizon-- watched the ships come and go as they ate, now, in relative silence.
In these lean times, simple things like a bag full of pastries and pie with just one fork were enough.
Sometimes, just knowing someone was aware of unspoken pain was enough.