Vampiric Interdiction

[32] Trust Me

There were a number of nicks and scratches in Villahr’s flesh when he had finally finished. Dropping the rather worn pice of sand-paper back onto the desk, he picked up the infradai he had spent the past hour and a half working on, doing well to ignore the nuisance behind him complaining and moaning out her frustration, with incessant scraping and filing.

It looked pretty good if he did say so himself, and resembling a miniature ninja star, he had to admit that it looked pretty badass. He might even make another for himself when he had bottomed out the list of orders he had to finish beforehand.

The noise in the ship was cut down by half today, as Dion had the day off. Thank goodness too.

Villahr had been in a bad mood when he arrived this morning, Karolinna in resistant tow, and he certainly couldn’t afford another accident. He thought for a moment to the still very visible scar on his employees neck that he recalled putting their, with perfect mental accuracy.

After wrapping a piece of raw hide gently over the blade, Villahr carried it further into the shop to a giant pot full with water, bubbling up furiously. The fire burned hot beneath it, and after turning the temperature down a few notches to allow some of the steam to dissipate and picking up a pair of massive tongs, the elna carefully placed the infradai into the water.

The next thirty seconds of waiting he spent watching the bubbles forming and popping on the surface of the boiling mixture, flipping the blade once over at the halfway mark, removing it after another fifteen beats.

Turning the knob completely, Villahr watched as the light circling it slowly disappeared until it reached just a dull throb of red, before complete blackness. The vici then took a few steps over to the next station where he lowered the infradai into a few litres of warm water. Steam began to immediately rise, which he took far more interest in today that he ever had before.

“Er uo tus ot goin ot kal ot em ngai?” came the voice from behind him again. Though it had been a while since he had last hear it, for Karolinna at least, he knew she hadn’t given up trying to get through to him. For the most part Villahr had been giving her the silent treatment and it was killing her. He got some odd pleasure out of it.

“I eva gothin ot ya ot uo, Arolinn,” he replied, not once taking his eyes from his work. He was now slowly brushing away any unwanted filth from the blade, put there as a result of his earlier filing, with a small tool that resembled a slightly enlarged toothbrush.

“You always have something to say to me, Lahr, and I know that you certainly can’t be lacking in the conversation department now.”

“Are you asking me to yell at you?”

“Absolutely not! I just can’t stand the silence.”

Karolinna removed the flaxen from her eyes by blowing upwards through a small slit in her otherwise tightly pursed lips. She shook her freshly painted nails through the air with little enthusiasm compared to the usual flurry of limbs, and it looked almost as though she were lazily instructing an orchestra; a conductor that really did not want to be there.

She certainly didn’t want to be here, but Villahr hadn’t given her much choice, and unfortunately for her there was no way to get out of it today. She actually praised the Divine for an hour that morning in hopes that it someone would call her and take her away from the unbearable sting of the elna’s disappointment. She was even willing to share space and talk to the measly humans with substance problems.

Unfortunately no one called, and Karolinna made an abrupt stank face and unpleasant gesture to the heavens after checking her messages for the eightieth time, following Villahr out the front gates and towards his shop. “I have work to do,” he said, “Let’s go.”