The sun lounges over the eastern horizon like a golden eye, misted over with early morning fog. The suspended ships that shelter the trade yard continue their faint, ever-present swaying. Noise of guildfolk joins the chatter of gulls and the soft rush of the ocean below. Another beautiful day in Astera.
“I’ll kill him!”
This is what reaches Fray’s ears from his perch on the winding stairs above the Ancient Tree. It stirs him from his idle examination of the latest issuing of the ecological branch’s monster research, and he frowns, looking up toward where the canteen is blocked from his line of sight. Furious declarations of murder are not altogether uncommon to overhear, in the over-the-top way stereotypical of hunters. The voice, though, is not that of a hunter. It’s the Handler.
That bodes badly. The Handler never gets angry, or not angry enough to howl about it. Quietly, Fray closes the book, like doing it too loudly might draw her wrath.
Well. She’s his handler, at least fifty percent of the time. He had better go see what needs killed.
The canteen is a bloodbath, if the blood was soup. The entire massive bowl has been emptied, with most of it seeping into the dirt. Felynes dart around in haphazard packs under the head chef’s glaring single eye, shooing away scavengers and trying to clean up the mess. The rest of the canteen is little better off: the overhead nets have been yanked down, their ingredients missing or ruined; the stone hibachi table is cold, covered in knocked-over bowls and implements; the fires are all dead. The place is in ruins.
And, of course, the Handler has been stalking across the scene like a furious tobi-kadachi from the moment Fray arrived. Marco’s gotten there first, and has the look of someone who has forgotten what it is like not to be yelled at. Alex is in his company, as always, and has set himself to aiding the other felynes. Fray searches for Proxy, who is rarely far—
Weight hits his shoulders as something drops onto him from above. “You should’ve bailed, buddy,” Proxy says in an urgent whisper directly by his ear. “You guys are in trouble.”
Absently, Fray grabs her by the scruff and lowers her to the ground. She ducks behind his legs at once, though he pays her no mind. Her tendency to appear in the most startling fashion possible is something he’s long since grown accustomed to. Instead, he catches Marco’s eye and signs, “Not again?”
Marco’s eye flick from him, to the Handler, and back again. His eyebrows jump in an unsigned answer: Fucking duh?
“Fray!”
Fray flinches, and tries to give his most innocent look to the Handler as she marches up to him. “Oh, do not get cute on me, mister!” she barks, shaking a finger in his face. “Look at this place! So much wasted food! It’s all completely inedible! Spoiled! You two were responsible for taking care of this!”
“Taking care of what?” Fray signs. It’s so much easier to lie through sign. Behind him, Proxy gives an audible groan. Behind the Handler, Marco is signing rapidly to him. Fray catches the words death-wish and insane. Fray ignores both. “The canteen? I thought that was Chef’s job.”
“You know exactly what I mean!” the Handler says, and jabs a finger at the communal soup bowl. It’s been knocked onto its side, leaving the interior visible. Sure enough, pressed into the edge in a slurry of soup and mud, is the elongated track of a yian garuga. “You two told me that—that—thieving chicken was handled! Are you hunters or not?!”
That gets Fray’s back up, as it was almost certainly intended to. “We caught it,” he protests, and repeats the signs twice for good measure.
The Handler crosses her arms in front of her. It’s cute when she’s not actually out for blood, but anything involving food waste will evoke her wrath. “You caught it, yes,” she says, reading his signs with enviable ease. “But did you also remember to mark it for use as parts, not catch-and-release?”
“Yes!”
“Just like last time, hm?”
Fray makes a face and pulls on his hair to get his frustration across. “I marked it correctly both times,” he signs, and looks back to Marco—who has nearly succeeded in sneaking away. Oh, hell no. Fray puts his fingers to his lips and makes the short, distinct whistle that indicates hey, Marco!
Marco stops misstep, and promptly trips over a canteen felyne. Alex is there like he teleported, keeping him upright. “What’s the question?” Alex asks, and Fray repeats himself. “Oh. Yeah, they did. I checked.”
“Maybe it was a different yian garuga,” Proxy offers.
The Handler eyes all four of them suspiciously. “This is,” she says after a moment, her tone as icy as the monster they’re discussing, “the third time it’s gotten out. I’ve seen you guys take down elder dragons! I just don’t get it. First it smashed up the trade yard, then it nearly took out the hub! That was bad enough, but interfering with the Commission’s food supply? That’s the last straw!”
Not unlike his Palico, Marco also seems to possess the ability to manifest as if from nowhere. He’s at Fray’s side now, and while Fray has gotten used to Proxy’s entrances Marco does it so silently that it still startles him now and then. Must be a New Worlder thing. “This is just, you know, an idea,” Marco signs, directed chiefly at the Handler, “but maybe if you let us kill it instead of trap it—”
The Handler’s glare makes his hands drift uncertainly apart. “Absolutely not,” she says, deadly serious. “You need to catch it and you need to bring it back, because now it’s personal, and there’s only one way that food-stealing jerk can pay it back!”
There is a sudden ruckus among the canteen felynes, shouting and cheers. The chef, that felyne with the unbelievable muscle definition, has clambered up on top of a nearby, overturned table. “Girlie’s right,” he growls. “One free meal’s too many for a monster. It’s next on the chopping block. Ain’t that so, cooks?”
The ruckus explodes into a genuine caterwaul.