Completed Uncommon Enemy (Nanami)

[Kuvarakh]

18th Day of Fall, 514

The walk to the shop had been highlighted by a number of pauses to stare, spins to gauge the frequency of the new foliage, and half turns to walk backwards while marveling further at the trees. Such odd things, bare of branches for their entire height, then exploding in huge fronds near the length of his body in every direction, but only at the very top. Looking closer though, he could see the large nut-like fruits they bore. He suspected they were the source of the new drink trending at the Bizarre. A mug of this liquid made your skin turn blue for a few days.

Kuvarakh grinned briefly. On the one hand, he appreciated Ionu's pranks as much or more than anyone, and even allowed himself to be subjected to them willingly at times. On the other hand, this one reminded him that, as a Nuit, he ought not to drink, save for basic necessary hydration. It was an unpleasant circumstance when something he ate or drank needed to be purged before it rotted within his undead body. Nuits, after all, do not digest what they consume.

They had none of the bodily functions related to the nourishment of a living body. In fact, they only needed to breathe to allow vocal communication, though Kuvarakh had endured one experience where he was able to talk to an Otani, while submerged, by passing water through his vocal cords instead of air. But as always, the draining of this water from his lungs afterwards was a sorry celebration of coughing and gagging.

Water was something he could consume with no ill effects, as long as it was kept on the sparse side of moderation. But this coconut drink had more to it than just water, so it would entail digestion. Which in his case meant rotting, and initiating other rot within his undead body, unless it was removed. And since the lack of digestive function negated the normal use of the lower end of that tract, anything going in, had to come back out the top. Not a pretty picture.

The Nuit rolled his eyes, 'Why does everything lead to this line of thought?' he asked himself with a morbid chuckle. Once again, the requisite of laughing was breathing. This was something he expected most Nuits did without thinking. Speaking was certainly not some exotic talent preserved only for special occasions. So Nuits DID use their lungs, just not to provide oxygen to their blood.

The one thing that DID stick out to him though, was his own voice, changed again with the latest change of his body. This time, it was a man named "Kirby", a criminal from The Alvadas Underground. A criminal of the worst sort. A kidnapper of young women. A seller of these victims into slavery or prostitution, most likely a blend of the two. And a murderer of any that might identify him. He'd heard of this bastard, and his partner, "Verek", from one who'd escaped, but had left behind a friend in the process. Verek had died in the ordeal, and good riddance, but Kirby lived on.

So Kuvarakh had mounted a rescue attempt for the girl, with a single additional agenda. Making the arrangement with a local viper Dhani, rescue or not, Kirby was to be punished...permanently. And his body was to be brought back for more productive use. The Dhani was the perfect choice, not only for his innate discretion and reduced level of concern over doing the deed. But also because the use of his poisoned bite would cause no damage to the body that would hinder Kuvarakh's habitation of the corpse. Nuits were immune to the effects of most poisons. What matter if the body had a dose of toxin sufficient to stop the man's heart. A Nuit's heart did not beat anyway. The two bite marks were easily stitched shut.

And so Kuvarakh went on his merry way, easily rationalizing having secured the "execution" this man deserved. Thinking nothing further would come from it...

[Nanami]

One morning, after just a handful of days in this strange city, Nanami woke to find herself jaded to surprise. After turning blue at the behest of icy drinks, the shock of the kaleidoscope rain, and the awful unseasonal heat, the sudden appearance of strange trees did little to vex her. Indeed, she threw her door open that morning, sniffed the dull morning air, and walked around the towering tree that grew right on her front steps. She should have found shock, even wonder, at the tall smooth-barked and pliable trees that have pop out of the ground overnight. But she regarded it all with a mild sort of curiosity. The trees do no harm, the hard, bristly nuts they drop are good for chewing and they are a good territory-marking landmark to pee on. Thats about it.

 It was close to mid afternoon before she decided to nap away the hottest part of the day in the shadow of someone else's door. The new trees would have been a welcome napping spot instead, if they could cast a shadow larger than a tent pole. Despite the distinctly human skin she wore, the heat was unmanageable for the Talderan born-and-raised. So she smoothed down the threadbare grey dress she wore, tucked her legs underneath herself, and propped her head in the blue shadow of the doorway. In her mouth she held a thin slice of the strange, pliable trees to absently gnaw on while she waited for a more civilized time of day.
 
But it wasn't long before sleep was driven from her mind. The first thing to widen her slowly closing eyes was a stooped man in unseasonably warm clothing that passed within a handspan of herself. He was unremarkable to the eye, despite his heavy dress, but his scent had her confused. She even stuck her head out of her shadow to inquire after him with flared nostrils. He was almost unnaturally clean, and thats what surprised her. Not that he was just free of the dirt everyone else was wallowing in- there was something almost hollow about it, like there was something missing besides the dirt. If he was sweating (and who wasn't) she cant tell, and besides the sweet smell of dust on his clothes, the only other scent in his wake was the gummy scent of dried fluid. Strange.
 
Despite the enigma of the man in the coat, her curiosity was not strong enough to pull her from the welcomed relief of the cool shadow. She lets him go with a raised eyebrow and nothing more.  
 
The man that was following him, however, held much more of her attention.
 
He was thin and dark, handsome in his travel worn but expensive clothing, and a bit too short for his high heeled boots to make up for. And he was distinctly familiar. He was fifty paces behind the stooped man and closing fast. There was an effort to be casual, but he had the look of a man who had somewhere to be. Despite passing close enough to Nanami for the hem of her dress to flutter in his wake, he didn't notice her. And thank Morwen, because that was the man she stole from all those seasons ago.
 
She remembers him as the man who was with the Ravok Caravan that intersected the Avanthal caravan on their shared journey to Karjin. She remembers he journeyed with a huge stock of medicines and herbs. And if his travel mates were to be believed- drugs and poisons too. She didn't like him, and was even a bit afraid of him, but when her son caught that deep chest illness he was the first and most frequent of her plunders. She tried phial after phial of what must have been very expensive medicines, but in the end, just as she thought her boy was regaining energy and colour, his heart failed as she held him. 
 
That was three seasons ago. And she hadn't seen the man since she fled Karjin. What is he doing here? And more importantly, why is the tension of an angry alpha male rising off of him like his sweat? Throwing her stick aside, Nanami got up to follow the man at a safe distance. Something was turning in her gut.   

[Kuvarakh]

Kuvarakh straightened his posture for the third time since leaving his house. It was slowly improving, but it was not as sturdy as when he did the glyphs himself. His hands had suffered from an alchemical mishap and had been hardening over the past couple of seasons. It had gotten to the point that he knew he was not going to be able to scribe the glyphs of transference himself.

It was fortunate that he had given a copy of the patterns to a new associate and friend named "Maya". She was an artist, and had become his back-up plan for glyphing his current body for habitation. But it hadn't worked perfectly. Maya was not a glypher by trade. She was simply using her artist's skill to copy the symbols. This happened once before when his boss, Wanda, had been forced to scribe them. In that instance, it was Wanda's superior skill at glyphing, rather than her artistry, that had allowed the partial success.

For himself, he was neither artist nor glypher. But being a Nuit, he was imbued with the instinctive knowledge of applying the right glyphs in the right place. At least his hands had resolved with full function this time. He had thanked Maya for that. If nothing else, it promised that he would be able to perform his next transfer himself. For now though, he still found himself stooped from time to time.

This last episode was cut short suddenly as he passed an alley. But that was only a precursor to a different, more serious problem, as a force grasped his collar and pulled him even straighter. But the inertia did not stop there. He was lifted clean off his feet and found the scenery twirling by as he was flung back into the alley to land in a rolling heap.

Kuvarakh rose slowly, his body seeming partially unresponsive. Perhaps it had to do with the shock from the impact interrupting the already imprecise bodily alignments. But, uncoordinated or not, he was furious at the indignity. "What in Dira's Dungeons is the meaning of this? How dare you! Honest mistake or not, you don't just go throwing citizens into alleys, sir. What do you want? Who ARE you?" He was brushing dirt off himself as he spoke, unaware of the unrepentant grin on the face of his assailant.

The grin turned to a sneer as the voice hissed in a mockery of remorse. "Ohhh, say it ain't so! Yer not remembrin' Victor, then. Funny how quick they ferget, once they get to the surface. Thought ya'd not be lookin' back at them what ya still got debts to pay? Ya thought Victor wouldn't folla ya up here to collect? Well you never WERE the smart one were ya, Kirby. It was always Verek what did the thinkin'."

Realization struck Kuvarakh like a fist. He was wearing the body of a criminal from the Underground. He should have considered that this man would have enemies. It also appeared that he owed money to someone, maybe MORE than one 'someone'. And the kind of people that a man like Kirby would be in debt to were not likely to take an apology in its place.

[Nanami]

Nanami didn't have to track the pair long. Half a block down the street the dark man (Vincent? Victor?) caught up with the cloaked man. And then, with a carless display of anger, the first caught the second by the collar of his coat and throws him bodily down an alley.
 
Nanami barked once instinctively at the sudden show of aggression, ripping her human throat on the harsh sound. Her hands clapped to her mouth to muffle the already escaped noise, and she pushes herself into the cramped shadow of a leaning barrel. But she needn't have bothered- Victor followed the cloaked mans tumbled body with nothing more than a heedless glance around him.
 
He disappears into the alley and the Kelvic stepped out of hiding. She ran the last few steps to the corner and stood with her back to the wall just around the corner of the little side street. Silently thanking Morwen for her superior hearing, she listens to the thrown mans’ indignant anger and a dusty shuffle as he gets to his feet and rearranges his clothing. 'Idiot, he has done you harm!' she berates him silently, 'snap at him! growl!'. To her dog mind, his talking without any physical display seems like a submissive defence against the aggressor. The man's subtle display of diplomacy passed right over her head.
 
There was a dusty tap, a strangely feminine sound, as Victor adjusted his stance in his high-heeled boots. His voice was rough and familiar in a passing way, like recognizing a person you knew years ago. His accent was so heavy that Nanami found herself tilting her head and narrowing her eyes in concentration in an effort to catch everything he said. She couldn't see his greasy smile, but she can hear it in the oily slick of his words.
 
There was something about debts, about following Kirby (is the cloaked man Kirby?) up to the 'surface'. The surface of what? And who the frost is Verek? Kirby sounded genuinely surprised when he was thrown aside like that. Does he really not know this man? 
 
If the trapped Kirby came to harm she assumes she would help, if only because she is wary of (and therefore despises) Victor. She had spent only three months traveling with this man, but she knew by the way others spoke of him that he was dangerous. He's just small enough that she is convinced she would scare him away if she just went in with a growl and a barking fit. But even so, he seems like the type to keep a knife in his boot or a bolt up his sleeve.
 
Carefully and slowly, Nanami peeked her head around the corner. Her hair fellsin her eyes and she licked her teeth nervously. There was still a chance the Kirby man would slip away and she will not have to confront the Victor, but she's not sure. 

[Kuvarakh]

Kuvarakh stammered for a moment, trying to find the words to divert his assailant's hostility without being overly submissive. "O....kay...I see what's going on here. This is all a very understandable mistake. Victor? I believe you called yourself? I'm afraid the man you think me to be, is dead. WE both know him to be called "Kirby". Whatever he owed you is not my responsibility. What he owed society is far greater, and, unfortunately for you, that debt has now been p-..."

Victor's fist appeared out of nowhere and didn't stop until it was a foot past where Kuvarakh's new head had been positioned moments before. It would be several ticks before Kuvarakh could have said whether the impact from the fist against his face had hurt more than the impact against the stone wall behind him with the back of his head. All he knew was the world turned dark and dizzy and Victor's face was suddenly his entire field of vision.

Kuvarakh's disorientation began to clear when he finally accepted that he was on his back, looking up. Victor's sneer was without remorse, "I don't give a petch in a piss-pot wha' he owed society!" The contempt injected into the word was intimidating with it's suggestion of utter disregard for decency. "I'ss whatcha owes ME that matters here an' now, buck-o! Now either give it up or I'll pay ya a part fer each tooth I pluck outta that ugly mug o' yers." It seemed that the man had been holding a pair of pliers the whole time, but Kuvarakh only noticed them now.

"Sir..." Kuvarakh started, genuine fear beginning to settle into his guts, "I'm telling you the truth. I am not Kirby. My name is Ku-uhhh..." A sudden realization that giving this thug his name might not be the best idea stalled his speech. But it brought a vicious scowl to Victor's face. Kuvarakh tried to recover. "Now just a chime there. I think you can understand my reluctance to give you my name, considering that it would only make it easier to track me down later. But I assure you, I am not..."

Victor's unpleasant laughter cut him short. That and his fist making an encore appearance, this time to Kuvarakh's midsection. "Stow it, Kirby. I already said ya wasn't the bright one. If yer gonna make up a name, try to make it different from yer REAL one. Now I'm gonna give ya to the count o' ten to get me whatcha owe me, or I'll be settlin' up wi' ya here an' now."

Victor was only speaking figuratively, because he was well past ten before Kuvarakh could even speak again. By now the Nuit was on his hands and knees, with Victor straddling him, left hand in "Kirby's" hair, and an ugly knife in his right. Kuvarakh was trying desperately to focus his mental faculties enough to try to hypnotize the man, but his head was spinning too erratically, as was the rest of his world. "Please, sir..."

It stung him to hear himself beg like this, but a cut throat would end a Nuit just as quickly as a living human. "I swear I don't know what Kirby owes you! I'll get you the mizas. But I don't have them ON me." he knew this sounded hollow, and dread anticipation filled his senses with the feel of a knife slashing his throat. He wondered if Victor was using the Flux to enhance his assault. "If you kill me, you get nothing!" It was his last gasp comment.

The edge of the blade kissed his neck as Victor's voice hissed quietly in his ear. "Nahh...Ain't nuthin' I'll get, Kirby, ol' boy! I'll get the satisfaction of bringin' yer head to the Akalak. He don't know yet, but when he does, hoo boy, you'll be thankin' me from the grave that I took ya out meself. Now, on t'other hand, if'n ya pay me, with a bonus, I'll put in a good word fer ya. Say it was Verek what betrayed YOU."

Kuvarakh was absently glad that Nuits didn't drink, because he would have soiled his pants. There was nothing he could say to this man that would make him believe that he wasn't Kirby, trying to get out of paying some debt. "I'll pay, you I swear! Just tell me how much I owe you!" He knew his words made him out to be admitting to being Kirby, and he felt an utter self loathing for surrendering to the charade, but was somewhat vindicated by Victor's slight relaxation of his aggression.

The knife came away from his throat an inch or so, and the pull on his hair relaxed slightly. "There now... Don' it feel better ta tell the truth?" Victor's mockery was unbearable, and Kuvarakh felt a blush of shame burn his cheeks. It didn't occur to him that it could only be a remembered reflex, as he had no blood to blush with. But it turned quickly to a burn of shock and rage as Victor went on. "But it ain't money, buck-o. You know that. You owes me the babe from that lass you an' Verek dragged Underground last Winter. 'S been three seasons, pal. I know me enough biology to do THAT math. I got a line on a buyer for a slave baby, and you owe me. Now I can SEE that you ain't got it ON ya, ya damn fool. Lead me to where ya DO got it...with that bonus we discussed...and we'll be done."

Suicidal or not, the fury building in Kuvarakh's soul at the thought of an infant slave trade was beyond suppression. With the red haze coloring his vision, and the low hum distorting sound, Kuvarakh roared incoherently and pushed off, adrenaline giving him lift beyond the usual parameters and giving the back of his head welcome contact with Victor's face.

Battle was joined...

[Nanami]

Nanami heard every word. But she didn't pull Victor off this Kirby even when he was straddling his back with his hair in one hand and a knife in the other. Every word out of their mouths was only serving to make her despise Kirby. He's a feckless coward and a liar (Kirby is dead, hm?), while Victor has proved himself to be the criminal his travelmates said he was. She was still making up her mind wether to walk away and let them slit each others throats, or take out a nice big chunk of thigh from both of them, when a Common word burrows into her ears in perfect clarity amid the muddled accents.      
 
Baby.
 
Blood sung in her suddenly cold veins. They weren't quarrelling over money, they were quarrelling over a child. A sudden piercing image of her son ran across her waking eyes. Her baby. Her poor child. They were dealing in children.  
 
The Kelvic stepped out from behind the corner, groping blindly for a weapon amid the clutter of the alley until her hands found a thin but heavy plank of wood leaning on the wall. Both Nanami and Kirby moved at the same time, and she swung it just as Kirby knocked back Victors head. The wood whistled over his head by a hairs breadth and glanced off the stone wall, vibrating out of her hands with the impact.   
 
But before it could even clatter to the street she had her bare toes curled into a fist and inches deep into Kirby's side. She connected with something hard, and there is a tiny pop in her foot as her middle toe breaks. Kirby rolled out from under Victor, (possibly from the impact, she's not sure) and the bitch took the opportunity to drag Victor down the rest of the way by the collar of his shirt. Then she drops to her knees on his chest and there is a whistle and a spray of spittle from the man as her whole weight pins him on his back. There was a short but savage tussle for the knife. Nanami pried open Victor’s fingers and he dropped the weapon, but as they both lunged for the small blade they knock it aside and it skittered away out of their reach.
 
She's never fought a human before. For that matter, she's never fought as a human before. All her knowledge comes from a handful of dog scraps and running wolves and bears out of the sledding trails in Taldera. She doesn't know if she can keep Victor down, and she definitely cant keep both of them there. And as much as she loathes Victor, its Kirby that knows where the baby is. How is she going to do this?
 
"What's this about children, Victor? You sick little bastard", she growled with a bravo she doesn't feel, looking down at the man she's kneeling on. The excitement was overworking the glands in her mouth, and strands of saliva were starting to run over her capped lips and drip onto his expensive tunic.
 
A rustle of movement betrayed the Kirby man and her head snapped up, suddenly terrified that he'll get away. If Victor wasn't lying then he's the only one who knew where the child was.   
 
"Get DOWN tikita!", she roared at the man, her pale blue irises alight against a rim of red. "You're going to give me that child, or I will hang off your throat until your ghost does!"
 
The intimidation sounded weak, even to herself. But she backs it with a flat, open-mouthed snarl that while doesn’t prove her capability to carry out the threat, proves vividly her willingness to try. What should she do! Her tongue curled in her mouth and her flat human teeth gleamed dully as her mind worked in frantic circles.

[Kuvarakh]

Kuvarakh didn't even hear the whistling of wood passing so close. There was a dismissed register of the "clunk" as it hit the wall behind Victor. He was turning to pound his elbow into the spot where he calculated Victor's jaw to be, but something slammed him in the side, throwing both his aim and his balance off.

He hit the paving stones at the same time as he heard a metallic clatter and a variety of oofs and thumps of a struggle. He assumed that Victor was the source of the blow that had unbalanced him, and that it had luckily resulted in his adversary losing balance as well. He spun, to take advantage of either a chance for a decisive blow to his vulnerable enemy, or a chance to escape, when he saw a woman, lunging, along with Victor, for the knife that had been at his throat moments before.

The woman snarled, "What's this about children, Victor? You sick little bastard." If not for the use of the name 'Victor', Kuvarakh might have thought the comment was directed at him, by the way she suddenly turned to fix her piercing gaze on him. "Get DOWN tikita! You're going to give me that child, or I will hang off your throat until your ghost does!"

Kuvarakh paused in mid-step at this threat. Not immediately realizing that a stranger would assume him to be the criminal Victor's words suggested. But the sudden assistance emboldened his strategy, and instead of looking to get away, his eyes sought for the dislodged knife. He saw it in a corner and swept it up, thinking he'd be able to return the favor now. But Victor seemed quite able to direct the wresting match so that the woman's body was in peril of being hit by such an untrained hand as Kuvarakh's.

Kuvarakh stepped side to side, looking for an opening, explaining himself as he did. "I'm not your enemy, girl! And I don't know about any baby. I'm not who this guy thinks I am! I'm a Nuit. if you don't know what that is, I'll explain later. For now, you'll just have to believe me, I'm no slaver!" His last comment was a growl as he closed on Victor, who had left himself surprisingly exposed.

But it was a ruse, and as Kuvarakh foolishly came in close enough to be sure of his strike, Victor kicked the woman off and grabbed the knife hand right at the wrist. If not for Kuvarakh spending breath to explain himself, he might have prevailed. But Victor applied tricks of leverage and quickly wrenched Kuvrakh's wrist to reverse the direction of the point.

Kuvarakh managed to salvage the move enough to keep the damage to a slash across his shoulder. He roared in pain and fury. It seemed that this was a sufficient goal for Victor, who crowed in sadistic triumph. "It's all over now, Kirby. Have you forgotten the kind of blades I like to fight with?" Kuvarakh's dismay was genuine enough, but not from what Victor thought. Where the slaver believed the poison on his blade would soon be taking effect, Kuvarakh was only upset because, as a Nuit, the slash on his shoulder would never truly heal.

For the moment, neither of them were thinking about the woman...

[Nanami]

Victor wasn't much taller than Nanami, and her legs were thicker and her shoulders almost the same width, but the man fought like a bull. He shook her around, bucking his hips for leverage, and twisted her wrists that were vainly trying to pin him down. And all the while the Nuit (whatever that means) was holding that knife at the pair of them like he was looking for the best place to pry open a walnut. He was explaining himself in jumbled, half-heard words that he didn't know about any baby, that he wasn't the man this guy thought he was.
 
Nanami could only grunt a neutral sound in reply, as her breath was otherwise occupied. She didn't trust him, of course. But she also knew he wouldn't stick that knife between her ribs right yet either. How does that saying go? "The enemy of my enemy is my friend".  
 
Victor had wedged his forearms across her throat to keep her growling face away from his, and with a surprising show of dexterity lifted his hips off the ground to push her even further away until there was then a solid foot of space between Nanami and his exposed chest. The Nuit lunged then, but thats all the Kelvic saw before she was thrown aside like she weighed less than a straw dummy. She hit the cobblestones hard and rolled, dazed, into the stone wall.
 
But the sudden angry roar of pain was more stimulating than the most potent of smelling salts, and Nanami scrambled to her feet at the sound. Both her knees were bleeding through her dress now, and her broken toe gave an angry throb as it was disturbed.
 
The Kirby Nuit had a slash across his shoulder, and Victor was standing in front of him crowing in triumph. The empty, gummy smell she noticed before came in a sudden guff from his broken skin like opening a door to a damp room. She could smell no blood, but there was a bitter, astringent smell coming both from the open shoulder and the unholstered knife. The scent is strangely familiar, but trying to back engineer this feeling she was faced with a yawning block in her mind that she quailed from. What was it? She cannot, for the life of her, differentiate between poisons and medicines. Perhaps with practise she could decipher the complex melodies of the concoctions. Without it she couldn't tell what that cloying smell was on his blade. But what are the chances he imbued his blade with medicine?
 
"Oh frost. Tikita, its poisoned!"
 
If the Nuit dies, then there is only Victor who knows anything about the child. She takes one frozen second to collect her rattled head before leaping forward and shifting. She had forgotten about the dress, and the thin, worn garment exploded at the seams with the sudden change of pressure. And before she hit the ground she was an enormous, silver-white dog with heavy matted fur and the same bloodshot blue eyes as the woman. 
 
Unsure of what to do while the poisoned knife was still in Victor's hand, Nanami moved out into the centre of the alley but otherwise stayed where she was. Victor had turned his back on the doomed Nuit and was facing her now, eyes scrutinizing but not surprised. He recognizes her now too. She flattened her ears and her plumbed tail raised like a flag. She was snuffling loudly at the air to taste the tainted knife, frustrated that its so familiar.

But what was the Nuit doing? He’s still standing there, feeling gingerly at his wound like you would inspect a rip in your garment. Even if he did hear her yell at him he doesn’t look like he cares. Victor seems to have written him off as already dead, though. The knife is still held strongly to Victor’s side, but he is unaware of the tough creature behind him looking at his mortal wound like its just soured his day. No, he’s not Kirby, of course he’s not. If her nose and her eyes aren’t fooling her he’s not even human. That, if nothing else, makes her trust him a little bit more.

She barks once. A single, powerful note. Take the knife!, she mentally pushes at the Nuit. She dare not look directly at him unless Victor notices there might be something wrong.

[Kuvarakh]

Kuvarakh stood, perplexed, as his assailant turned away from him. It was true, he was no skilled fighter, but he could still pick up a rock and brain the guy. But when the woman called out that the blade was poisoned, he understood both Victor's actions AND his previous words abut the "kind of blades" he liked to fight with. The man probably assumed Kuvarakh to already be teetering in a toxic swoon.

There was a light and the woman was suddenly bursting from her split-seamed clothes in the form of the biggest wolf he'd ever seen. Victor assumed a more ready pose, realizing the woman to be a more combative opponent that he'd been assuming. Kuvarakh, in the meantime, saw a length of a wooden beam leaning by a trash crate. It seemed that the woman saw it too, for she moved to the center of the alley, drawing Victor to turn his back completely to Kuvarakh as he adjusted his position against her.

She gave a sharp bark, which gave him a chance to get of hold of the beam without the sound of the scrape of the wood being noticed. "A Kelvic, eh? Ooooh, and a BIG one, to boot." Victor snarled, with surprising confidence. He backpedaled toward Kuvarakh just a step or two as he quickly worked a pouch around to his side. "I got just the thing for you, bitch. Come and get a taste."

Kuvarakh raised the beam halfway as he moved forward to get into position. But just then, a door opened further back in the alley and Victor's head whipped around enough to look. Seeing Kuvarakh, he instinctively stepped away to the wall, to triangulate their positions. But the astonishment on his face was plain to see. "What?...How the petch are you not dead?" His eyes narrowed on the wounded shoulder. "I see the stain...Got a second layer of armor under there, do ya Kirby? Not such a dumb-ass after all, I guess."

"I'm NOT KIRBY!" Kuvarakh shouted back, "THAT'S the big secret. You know, the one I already TOLD you? I was willing to pay you before, but that deals off now." Kuvarakh leveled the beam like a quarterstaff. "And I don't really see that I can afford to let you keep lurking around town, waiting to ambush me again."

Victor chuckled, "Spoken like a true liar. And a brave one to boot. All cringing and begging for mercy a chime ago, but now that you've got your bitch here to bail your sorry ass out, your tongue grows bold." His sneer stung Kuvarakh with its fair measure of truth. He turned his voice to the wolf, but kept his eyes flashing equally between them both. "This isn't your affair girl. You wanna just watch me gut this fish, I'll call us square, no pet, no debt. Whatta ya say?"

[Nanami]

Under the distracting sound of her bark, Nanami saw the Nuit take up a plank of wood and wind up for a crushing blow. The Kelvic stood there, confused that the man is not only still upright, but still willing to fight. Does poison not work on his kind? He must be tougher than she thought. She waits eagerly for the visceral sound of bones and wood, but the half-second before Kirby could set up his swing Victor heard a noise, and turned face-to-face with the still battling Nuit.
 
He immediately backed against the wall, shocked but still holding onto his sneering confidence. He couldn't believe that Kirby was still standing, and told the Nuit as much.
 
Nanami was surprised and a little bit proud when the Nuit pounced on his words and ripped them apart, all the while levelling the beam at the Human's chest like he was seconds away from running him through with it. Undaunted, Victor stubbornly called him a liar and questioned his bravery, causing Nanami to snort incredulously. The Nuit attacked him the second he realized the man wanted him to offer up a child; before they even knew she was watching. The guy had more guts than he thought.
 
But then Victor looked to her for what felt like the first time. Her ears flattened at the attention but she held his gaze. In the same confident, imperial tones he gave her an option to back out with no consequences. She could watch him "gut the fish" and leave it at that. 
 
She didn't even consider the offer. It was pitiable and weak, especially with the thought of a poor unknown child fresh on her mind. And besides, a secret spark of competition refused to let her show cowardice in front of the Nuit.
 
With this is mind she lunged at Victor almost as soon as he finished speaking, springing with a power used to pull twice her weight. But she was too far away to do it cleanly, and her feet touched the ground before she could reach him, giving him vital seconds to react. She aimed for his knife wielding hand, and felt a base, animal reaction as her teeth ripped his shirt and punched through his forearm. She’s never bitten a human before. Shame and a strange satisfaction welled like the drops of blood between her teeth.