#voryn no you cant just send people body parts in the mail

[aladaylessecondblog]

Red Mountain Waffle House, pt. 4 ("The Hand")

Sadara kept the corprus thing under wraps. She told Jiub--but no one else.

"Well if that doesn't suck shit I don't know what does," he said through the cigarette dangling from his lips, "You okay? Gonna need me to shank you before you go crazy? When did you get bitten, a couple days ago?"

"A few months, actually," she said, "That's the strange part, I haven't had any symptoms. Not a rash or a boil or anything."

There was a pause. He flicked the cigarette, opened the baggie before him, and set it on the table.

"You got the papers?"

"Do I have the papers..." Sadara scoffed. "With the week I've had I don't think I'll ever forget them again!"

She handed over the bag and Jiub set them out and started rolling their weed into joints.

"Makes me wonder why we ever decided to come here, y'know. We could be doing pretty good just killing cliffracers."

"Yeah, and sleeping outside and in all conditions...I don't want to do that again. Ever." Sadara sighed, and checked on the ash yam stew on the stove, giving it a few stirs before coming back. "Like it wasn't bad, and this time we were choosing to do it, but..."

"But you're sick of it and want a permanent roof over your head. Even if it's just this shithole."

"Exactly. See, you understand me so well."

It was a friendship that went back to when they were both young and hungry. Easier to be poor when you had someone to watch your back and help you out when you needed it. And though they'd parted a few times due to one thing or another, they usually ended up watching each other's back again. Sometimes people thought they were dating, and she'd asked him once, but Jiub didn't seem interested. Didn't like girls, but didn't seem to like guys, either...

He was always good to pretend he was her boyfriend to put off the creeps, though.

"Yeah, maybe I'm a bit tired of it too, I'll be honest...fighting and scraping and trying to heal up from all the fights with cliffracers...like...I can buy healing potions and all, but who's to say we don't get got by a pack of them at some point?"

"So we work at a restaurant where we only get shit from people on two legs."

It wasn't THAT bad, really. The corprus monsters left her alone now, and why that was she couldn't figure out. Maybe having it made them think of her as just another one of them?

There'd be time to debate over it. She'd just have to keep an eye on it, and pray it didn't get any worse than it already was.

-----------------

"Hey, hey, Greg, how ya doing?" Jiub waved as the imperial walked through the door. "So you finally decided to join us in civilization?"

"Something like that," Greg laughed. He was a fairly jovial sort, and the one with a fairly large house (how he owned it inside the Ghostfence was a mystery to everyone) and thus the guy who held all the best house parties. To be friendly with him was always a good idea, even if they weren't entirely sure if he wasn't Sanguine's avatar or something. "You two gonna be free in two weeks? Say, Saturday?"

"What's happening saturday?"

"What d'you think's happening? We'll have ale and sujamma, but if you can bring a little green that'll be appreciated."

"Can't get ahold of any?" Sadara took his order for a waffle and some eggs and stayed at his table as Jiub went to work cooking. "Or you just want some to mellow out?"

"A little of both, it's been harder to get and Jiub's always had a way with the stuff. Oughta grow your own...or maybe you do already, in which case keep up the good work."

Sadara handed him the coffee and plate once Jiub was done cooking. "He's got a green thumb. Me...me, mine's pure black, inside and out. Except for that plant on the windowsill. The local cult leader seems to think I'm Nerevar returned because he was like that too."

"Is that so? Well, that guy's a bit isolated...he'll turn up to a party now and then, but mainly to--"

The door bell jingled and in walked a pair of ordinators. One of them same as Sadara had tossed out before, and she immediately tensed on sight of him.

"At least there's none of those things in here tonight," the mer said, "You'd probably welcome them with open arms."

She didn't respond.

Greg paid and left shortly afterwards, saying he'd give them specifics on when to turn up later. Sadara went over to the ordinators' table.

"And what will the two of you be having?"

The first one was muted, tired, and asked just for some sausage and eggs. The angry one glared up at her, "A Temple-fearing waitress would be a good thing to have, but obviously we're both out of luck now, aren't we?"

"To eat, sir." Her tone was icy, and she could see the temper broiling beneath the man's severe expression.

"Coffee, and eggs."

She took the order and walked back to her place. Shortly after, Ulen entered, and the ordinators tensed up.

"Ulen, it's good to see you again," Sadara said, "The sky looks like it's been threatening to rain all day, does that mean you expect to see..."

"Ah, not today, most likely," Ulen replied. "He has much to handle at home. Something has livened him up and we are all happier for it."

His gaze such as it was, turned to hers.

"YOU again," the ordinator snarled from the corner. When his food was ready a moment later, he was still seething. "I don't care if his money spends well, suppose the ordinators stopped coming here because you're obviously in with the Dagoths?"

"I'm not in with ANYONE," Sadara replied, "It's economics. They spend more than you anyway, it wouldn't be much of a loss."

"How DARE--"

"Can we not right now?" his partner said, "We're off duty, they're not violent, it's not worth the fight."

"The duty never ceases."

A groan.

Ulen didn't acknowledge them, and spoke instead to Sadara. "Your arm, it is healed?"

"Yes. Where did you--oh, right. He must've told you. Please tell me he doesn't have me watched."

"He DOES want to be sure his Nerevar doesn't come to harm."

"HIS Nerevar?" Sadara gave a laugh, and then not wanting to appear rude quickly added, "I'm sorry, it's just a ridiculous idea to me. Me, who's never been to Morrowind before the ship brought me here, and he thinks I'm the incarnate of Nerevar--"

"He thinks you're WHAT?"

The last sentence, spoken perhaps a bit too loud, had caught the ordinator's attention. He stood up so quickly his plate was turned over and clattered to the floor.

"The SHARMAT thinks you're Nerevar," the ordinator charged forward and grabbed her by the collar, "Now you've reached the point of outright heresy and that I CANNOT ignore."

"Get the fuck off me, you creep!" Sadara moved and kneed him in the crotch.

The ordinator let go, but slapped her with his right hand a moment later. "The Temple will know. And the Temple will do to you what they do to ALL those who think to call themselves Nerevarine!"

Sadara decked him then, and dragged him outside, hearing only a faint, "I tell him not to do this shit" from the ordinator's partner, who kept calmly drinking his coffee.

"I'm not Nerevar, but I'll damn sure kick your ass like I was!" She ducked a fireball from the ordinator and gave him another hit on the jaw. The fight that followed was confusing - she would recall afterwards getting cut by his blade, getting knocked in the head, sitting on his chest and punching his face bloody, but nothing more than that. What she did remember was going back inside to clean up.

Ulen came forward to heal the cut, and she thanked him. Gladly, the ordinator's partner left soon after, saying "he just gets like this" and both of them did not return to cause more trouble.

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A few days later, Sadara's black eye had come in in full bloom, and she had to get a pair of shades to cover it up. The mail tracking app said the package was due to be delivered today, and she went out to the mailbox to check.

Except there wasn't one package, there was two. One was definitely the sunglasses marked "Tiber Mart", but the other was wrapped in postal paper, tied with twine, and marked only with "A Gift" in the most cursive, flourished, show-offy handwriting possible.

She brought them both inside, and after checking that the sunglasses covered up her black eye well enough she looked to the other box. A Gift. What in the hells?

Sadara pulled the end of the twine and tore off the paper. The box was neat and expensive looking, but the scent was horrendous, and for a minute she considered tossing it out. The ordinators might've sent her a stinkbomb, or something poisonous, maybe...

Against her better judgement she opened the lid.

And screamed.

There, within the box, was the bloody, rotten, bonemold gauntleted hand of an ordinator.