Senna II

The night wind chilled Senna to the bone as Zinnia was tending to the campfire.

The star-strewn sky glittered like jewels amid the black sea back in Possibility. For a stray moment, she wondered if Monsoon was watching the night tide sweep in garbage treasures, cracked shells, and lost chests from their watching cliff. Craning her head further, she wondered how Icefyre was doing and where Temper was. She tried to stomp out that last treasonous thought as hard as she could. It did her no good to linger on liars. It was a scar that she kept scratching at, leaving it to fester and rot.

Most likely Icefyre was back home, a proud Ice Queendom soldier, ready to give his life for it, and Temper was somewhere in the Sky Queendom, working on her apprenticeship, staying in its splendor and joys. *No good, let those dogs lie where they are.* Senna had other problems to attend to. Her night vision wasn't the best, but she could catch hints of the twins, both of them refusing to turn from the guard post Zinnia assigned them. They were quiet enough, Senna noted, and obedient.

She knew nothing of them, not even their names. She thought back to Zinnia's words. *I'd consider killin' them right on the spot.* Well, she was right about one thing. Senna had cast the die and there was no turning back on this. She took a long, hard breath in the cold winds that the badlands' nights ushered in. She inched closer to Zinnia, eyeing the glow of a campfire, orange alighting through the bluish black of the sands.

"Tell them they can sit with us."

Zinnia arched an brow before shaking her head with that unruly smile on her face. She rose from the campfire and patted Senna on the shoulder. "Mind the fire, would ya?"

Senna snorted as Zinnia's sword clattered along with the crackle of the fire. She extended her claws against the fire, rubbing them for extra warmth along with the black cloth wrapped around her limbs.

It hadn't taken long for Zinnia to return with the twins. Senna gave them a harder examination. Both large and bulky in frame, the notched ear one didn't move like Zinnia, but the one with scars near his neck moved with a easier grace than the notched ear one. With a pang she tried to stomp out, she realized they were twitching from cold... without cloth to protect them. *I wear cloths and shiver twice as hard as them,* she realized with no small envy. With a greater pang she couldn't stomp out, she realized she never considered how they slept all this time. Both of them had drool hanging from their mouths, Senna wondered if they got it from their parents or something else. And their eyes...

It took a longer minute to realize they were waiting for her to say something. Senna cleared her throat and spoke, "please sit down... make yourself comfortable. And warm."

The twins eyed her with confusion. Like they were expecting a trick or something. As Senna said nothing and Zinnia huffed through her snout, they seated themselves, quiet as vipers against the sands. Efficient as her mother's claws on a patient's wound.

Only the cracking wood of the campfire lingered between them, the twins never leaving Senna's sight and vice-versa. In the corner of her eyes, did Senna register Zinnia settling down. She heard the ruffling of claws reaching through a pack. Heard the sound of flesh being pierced. Zinnia thrust out a salted lizard on a stick before her eyes.

Senna took it, letting out a breath misted with night. Zinnia then took out another salted lizard on a stick and waved it over to the twins. She tossed over that one to the notched ear twin. Senna watched the two's reaction, seeing the notched ear one reach out with clumsy claws before the scarred shoulder one caught it with more grace. The scarred shoulder one began to split his salted lizard in half before Senna realized what was going on.

"No, no!" Senna said, to the taut faces of the twins, watching the scarred shoulder one's talon knuckles tighten on the stick, not wanting to move. Almost like a healer realizing one wrong move would incite more bleeding in the wound. "I mean... Zinnia has more food," Senna pointed out, her eyes noting the other two salted lizards in Zinnia's talon, the owner of whom was looking at her with pity.

Senna puffed her cheeks out at Zinnia and watched as Zinnia tossed another lizard to the scarred shoulder one. He had caught it with the other talon, the notched ear twin taking the first salted lizard from him. Yet, Senna noted that the tightness in their demeanor didn't loosen. And that they were trying not to shiver more overtly. Body language. She noted it enough from patients who tried to impress her mother by saying they weren't cold after taking a dunk in the Shivering Sea. Fools, they were, all of them.

She cleared her throat and reached for her familiar tools. Blunt honesty. "You're cold, right?" she stated with no small brusqueness. Their expressions seemed to tighten harder, like cured hide, but their eyes were confused and jittery, darting from her to Zinnia.

Zinnia shrugged. "Don't look at me. I'm jus' followin' her lead."

Senna nodded at the twins. "I know you're cold. Come closer to the fire. There's enough room for us four," she pointed out. "No sense in all of us shuddering now."

The twins stared at each other, giving each other a long stare, before they, with deliberation and a controlled slowness, inched closer to the fire, eyeing Senna every inch they crept. They overshadowed her in the darkness, given their large frames, but Senna spotted some fear in their eyes. They were scared of her!?

They were certainly not much for conversation, them eating their lizards in silence. Senna preferred her lizard thoroughly cooked, while Zinnia preferred hers slightly singed instead. They seemed to prefer cold lizards, but Senna noticed a few more difference between the twins. The notched ear one ate his with small bites from bottom to top, while the scarred shoulder one ate his with larger morsel down the gullet with each bite, slow and silent like his twin.

*I'll have to start this then,* Senna thought before sighing. "So. What are your names?" she asked the twins.

The twins looked at her funny. Similar to the confusion from earlier. A look of suspicion they couldn't hide. They exchanged a look to each other before the notched ear twin slurped up his hanging drool, "Slobber."

"Slabber," the scarred shoulder one stated after he tried to wipe away his drool, failing.

*Your parents were fonts of creativity, weren't they,* Senna thought mercilessly. "Slobber and Slabber, I see. So..." she trailed off, "how did you become bandits?"

Slobber eyed Slabber again. "We met wit' Jagged Jackal's gang." Slobber stated, as if that explained everything.

"And then?" Senna asked, a bit put off.

"'Hen she died," Slabber responded.

Senna bit down a sigh. "Okay, who did you work for from then to now?"

"Jagged Jackal, Dingo thuh Deadly, Redtail thuh Ravenous, finally, Gloree'us Golde'," Slobber said without a wasted word.

"Why?" Senna asked.

Slabber shrugged a small gesture. "They was near."

"No, I mean... why be with them at all?"

The twins blinked at that question. Slobber, despite his fresh hanging drool, was deep in thought. Slabber was holding him on the shoulder, almost in support. Slobber met Senna's eyes. "There's was no 'un else."

Senna arched an eyebrow. "No towns, no nearby dragons to help? No parents?"

Slabber's snout seemed to sigh, the sound hung like the drool down their mouths. "'Elp? Where we went, they laughed," he said, pointing to his hanging drool that he tried to slurp up, failing again. "And pear... rens?"

"You know," Senna started, "a mom? A dad? Someone who'd hug you if you cried?" she asked, thinking of her own mother, how gentle and warm she was when "Sotolspawn" would dog her days and still do.

"Hug?" Slabber questioned, Slobber shot his twin a look before answering.

"Da? Da 'uld beat us when we cried," Slobber stated. "Ma threw 'hings an'," he said, pointing to his notched ear. "she bled us so we'd stop. We learnt soon. How to stop thuh cryin'."

"Normal da and ma," Slabber said.

"Normal da and ma stuff, 'course," Slobber said nodded, eyeing Senna. "*Normal*," Slobber emphasized off Senna's face, his face looking like a healer who spoke the wrong herb when asked what the right herb for burns was.

Air flowed through her throat and Senna felt her mouth gaping at this. It wasn't the violence that surprised her or made her jaw drop. Her mother and Mayfly had to attend to the occasional domestic case of violence visited onto a male victim. It was just... the cavalier nature of how these two spoke their domestic lives. That alone brought a spine-chilling cold deeper through her bones than the night wind brought.

She turned to Zinnia, seeing the lack of surprise on her face and a small twinge of pity to Senna, before returning to the twins. "What... happened to them?"

"Da died. 'Un day he was just gone," Slobber said.

"Ma beat us more after that. Said she'd want us dead 'stead of 'im," Slabber said, pointing to his own scarred shoulder. "Ma's claws."

"He was bleedin'," Slobber said, "she'd have killed 'im. So I killed 'er first and we left," he said, shrugging at the end. "I swears, we left."

Senna felt the wind whistle past her snout. She knew she was sitting besides killers and murderers, but there was something about this case that unnerved her. She could hear a cold wind pass, but nothing could defeat the chill inside her. The crackle of the fire seemed to roar louder in the growing silence after Slobber's words, but she felt no warmer for it. She wished Slobber and Slabber had gotten furious, bitter, and hateful with every word out of them. Fury, she understood, bitterness was her old companion, and she knew much and more about hate.

Yet, it was the nothing that hollowed her out more and left her no outrage to cling to.

"I'm so sorry," Senna said before she could think.

"Soree?" Slabber asked, in a puzzled tone that brought Senna a certain anger that she bit down.

"I feel..." Senna tried to think up the right word to express herself here, "... bad for you. They shouldn't have beat you two."

Slobber and Slabber exchanged a look, sharp with suspicion and clouded with confusion. "They done it," Slobber said, as if Senna was trying to call them liars.

Senna gritted her teeth and closing her eyes, not wanting to scream. "Zinnia," she said, covering her face, "give them cloths for the night. I don't want them colder than they should be tonight."

"We do sumthing 'rong?" Slobber asked, the fear in his voice this time as the sound of Zinnia pulling out cloaks echoed beyond the words.

*No, your parents did and I hope they rot somewhere, the sands take them.* Senna laid down and turned her head away from the campfire and the other dragons. It would not do her favors to gnash her teeth in front of them. "Sleep well. Good night, Zinnia, Slobber, Slabber," she told them as she breathed in and out through her snout, knowing that her teeth would remain clenched out of anger... and because, if she unclenched, her heart would give way to something far worse.

She wished her mother was here, more than ever before.