2/2

The younger thief carefully considered the question instead of blurting out something stupid as the pain really set in. If Flame damage couldn't explain it, then… "I think I am the wrong type for sapphires. If I could use one, then there would be some kind of discoloration from heat damage on the edges of some shards. Tatiana and I saw several Flame Rings in Mafia Land, and all of them had scorch marks from use. Probably from quality assurance testing, if they were new."

"And so?"

"Sapphires probably won't work for Clouds or Storms. Then again, sapphires are typically blue gems, so I'd expect a Rain to have better luck with one… or a Mist."

"Isn't Rain what you claimed young Dmitriy was?"

Sonya was a little surprised how fast that bit of gossip got around, even to the rather isolated neighborhood little Mafiya hopefuls were living. "Yeah… I have another two, so I probably should give him one and see what happens."

Lisa raised an eyebrow, plucking the largest shard out of the tiny palm in her hands and ignoring the twitch of equally tiny fingers flexing in response to the pain. "Are you sure you want to teach him?"

"I'm not even sure I can teach this stuff."

"Sonya."

The young thief winced as an awkwardly stuck shard of sapphire slid out of her palm under the older thief's control. "Dmitriy is probably going to remain where he is, and if Dying Will Flame users become more common he'd be the one to get any clan requests on it dumped on him rather than me. The clan will also prefer going to him rather than me."

"It is your discovery, your work clearing up the questions we have on it."

"Being special isn't always a good thing, Lisa."

Cherep had gotten kidnapped when one shady individual realized what he was looking at. Sonya was a very young little girl with a similar ability. All total, it wasn't exactly a safe hobby to be dabbling in.

Lisa wasn't stupid, and she also had a large hand in raising her up to the thief she now was. The woman pressed her lips together but let the topic slide by them as she picked out the smaller shards of sapphire stuck in her palm.

"Be careful."

"I'm trying."

LVI (Tuesday the 8th of August, 1961. Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

Sapphire wasn't a Cloud or Storm Flame gemstone. The second one Sonya tried the next week shattered just as easily and she had merely warily held it on one flat palm while repeating her clumsy meditation exercise.

Dmitriy, who hadn't really been all that interested in Dying Will Flames in the first place, did at least get a visible but flickering reaction from within the stone she gave him. It was odd enough to attract the curiosity of the young mechanic, and interesting enough that he agreed to attempt learning.

She set him up with a stripped copy of her research journal on Flames, editing out everything on other Flames but Rains. Claiming the edited edition was just so he wouldn't have to pick through other natures or control building suggestions for other types, but privately held back the part of 'and so he wouldn't put two and two together and take a hard look at Cherep'.

The former pickpocket then tried an amethyst, purple opal, and a chunk of tanzanite in the following month. The amethyst scorched too easily in her hands, facets that had been clearly deep purple clouding up quickly to look lilac in the space of a day. The opal gave the best reaction, fitful spurts of light violet color ejecting itself from the gem but nothing Sonya tried influenced the reaction in any perceivable way. Tanzanite was almost opposite, instead of no response from the rock it fractured bit by bit but not as violently as the sapphire had.

Working off a hunch, late on Cherep's birthday she had him hold a fresh chunk of tanzanite in one hand and punched him in the same arm hard enough to bruise. He squawked at her but also screeched when the jewel set itself on fire, with lavender shades, in his grip.

He promptly dropped it, warily eyed the rock she had forced into his hands, then her. "The hell was that for?"

"Curiosity." She picked up the curiously warm gem, he hadn't held it long enough for that to be body heat. "I'm getting this carved or set, but I wouldn't suggest you carry it until you find what circus you're looking for."

Rubbing the spot that was likely purpling into an impressive imprint of her fist, Cherep pulled a face at her. "Nothing too girly, please."

She snorted, tucking the chunk of tanzanite into her pocket. "I was thinking more like a little skull you could wear."

It wasn't exactly perfect, but it would work for the time being until they had the space to poke Cherep's Flames without her clan catching on.

(ooo000ooo)

(Thursday the 19th of July, 1962. Arseniy & Lisa's home, Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

The start of the winter months saw Sonya playing with purple shaded garnet, tourmaline, and spinel. The last of her possible Cloud gemstone focuses, at least from one jewelry shop's contents.

The purple garnet fractured faster than the tanzanite, but it also showed fast growing splotches of scorching. Tourmaline gave a controllable response even as it burned up, but it required more effort to draw up than the stone she found for Cherep or Dmitriy's sapphire flickers. Purple spinel gave her nearly the same reaction tanzanite gave her foster brother, startling her into dropping it the first time it happened too.

The very last purple gem she had, zircon, ended up tried once then ignored as she played with spinel jewels and tiny tongues of light purple fire until her own birthday.

Spinel probably wouldn't be the best focus gem she would find but the important thing was that it worked, and she could find it in the USSR even with the lack of imports coming into the country.

With a Cloud gem found, and extras supplied by Tatiana when she heard the gem experiments bore some results, Sonya turned her attention to her red gems.

Since spinel came in variations of red and her foster sister gave her some, she started with those just to play with the jewels for another week. The results were pretty much the same, disregarding the fact the purple shaded stones were starting to show heavy wear from being used as a Flame focus.

Lisa and Cherep had collaborated to get her a decent book on crystal formations and gemstones for her birthday, and from reading that she learned spinel gems were sometimes known as false rubies and sapphires. Given her less than stellar reaction with sapphires, she gingerly tried rubies.

It gave a similar reaction as the spinel, except that Sonya burned herself on a jewel for the first time.

Dying Will Flames weren't supposed to harm their individual users, unless they were overused. The possibility it was more the stone than an overuse of something was possible, but risky to assume.

She tentatively decided rubies were too responsive for what she needed it for, then set them aside. The former pickpocket would revisit the problem after she had tested the rest of her gems.

Garnets, which she tried to see if shade did influence anything, gave a different response than purple ones. Instead of shattering with signs of scorching, Sonya got fitful flickers of reddish-purple fire as the stone clouded up.

Why garnets were different depending on shade when spinel wasn't was beyond her, but interesting to know.

Fire opals gave similar results as purple opals. Nothing the blonde did could get a more reliable answer than the occasional flicker now and again when she wasn't trying.

Red tourmaline, on the other hand, reacted interestingly. The flickers of Flame were fitful and weak, but ridiculously easy to coax out on demand.

Actual Flames. Via a sparkly rock. Proof in the flesh that things would get strange in a fast hurry.

Tiny and not reliably controllable, but a start.

She still had several other red stones to test but ended up deciding that for now spinel and red tourmaline would do. What jewels she had left were dumped into a jewelry box that was Tatiana's eleventh birthday present for her.

Sonya had two Mafia Land contracts to do and maybe another heist on her own to do that year yet, to afford next year's clan dues. The amount she had from the previous year's Mafia Land contracts and half the take from one jewelry store might not cover it.

It was 1962 and if the value of the re-issued ruble didn't keep up its value unlike the last decade, when one needed almost twenty rubles to buy a loaf of bread, then she would be left to scramble for more.

Which didn't sound at all fun.

Shortly after Tatiana's fourteenth birthday she set her Dying Will Flame research to the side and asked Lisa where the damn moving island was now.

LVII (Monday the 30th of July, 1962. Thieves' Guild Hall, Mafia Land.)

Sonya's first Mafia Land contract for her eleventh year was more comprehensive than the two she had taken before, the closest contract to the USSR asked that instead of a target item to steal she was to rob a certain household.

To completely rob, as in go through the house and take anything not nailed down and maybe trash what was left.

Private residence burglary did not list on her favorite things to do. Arseniy looked rather disgruntled by the fact she'd have to go directly to Romania and then come back to the island to keep within the contract's time restriction, as he didn't exactly have a lot of time to tag after one of his fosterlings.

The tiny thief rather liked the fact he let her go anyways, but she pretty much hated everything else about the contract. She didn't speak or read Romanian, she disliked stealing from houses with canines around to guard the neighborhood, and robbing a home was a lot different than robbing a store of anything marketable.

She was pawning everything, she didn't want to take any of it back with her. Doing so in Romania when she didn't speak their language was also a hefty pain in her ass, especially since she looked like a little girl pawning off her parents' luggage.

She ended up with very little reward for the effort, which cemented her dislike from robbing people that probably couldn't afford it. Sonya couldn't even try and find something she'd like to keep, because that house had been home to a girl about her physical age and robbing it just made her feel three different types of disgusting.

Making it clear to the clerk/secretary that had been assigned to help her sort through contracts that if he ever gave her another home robbery contract like that again she'd aerate his head with whatever was handy at least soothed some of her upset.

"You asked for something near the USSR!"

"I asked for something lucrative near the USSR," she reminded him icily in her supposedly native Russian, "robbing a household is not lucrative. I barely broke even on travel expenses back and forth. If you are incapable of doing your job, say so."

The man was young yet, brown hair and dark eyes with a pockmarked complexion. Small pox or pimples or whatever. Probably not much older than twenty. He also really hated her, from all appearances. "A private residence would have an array of jewelry, bank or government bonds, and antiques. Two of which you're noted to deal in, miss."

"Costume jewelry, debts, and knock-offs, sir." Countered the young girl, still icy calm even if she was irritated to the point of picking a fight where she didn't need to. "None of which I can move would fetch more than twenty euros in any antique store, therefore my net gain would be tiny. The payment for completing the contract was the only thing of note the entire job. If you cannot utilize the assets given to you to manage, maybe you should look for a different line of work."

"Maybe you shouldn't bitch so much, little girl? Take what you get and be happy with it."

She arched an eyebrow at the insult, then gave a sharp nod. "Thank you for saying so. I'll have to remember to ignore you."

He spluttered, she ignored him and left the conference room just so she should sharply slam something in his pockmarked face.

Screw doing both jobs right then, she was going home for a couple months.

If the ass had claimed everyone had to do a bad job now or again she would've accepted it, not well but still. That he didn't meant she was going to ensure she never took a contract he recommended ever again, because for whatever reason he really, really hated her.

Sonya didn't know why, if it was her age, gender, country of origin, all three, or something else. It didn't mean she had to put up with it, while her Mafia Land job was convenient it wasn't something she needed to do.

It would just be tricky if she wasn't working here in a few years.

Heading out to the amusement park's reception area, which doubled as the docking area for ship travel, was simple enough. Even if it was Mafia Land, and she was physically eleven years old, no one tried to so much as look at her sideways or down their noses at her being alone.

While she did keep a wary eye out, because this was an island of Mafia dealings so robbery or muggings or the occasional murder weren't unusual, she didn't see anything too alarming or interesting beyond what she had already seen until just before the arrival/departure hall.

A lanky older teenager with some wild and short black hair was facing off with two individuals down an alleyway. The teen was sharply dressed for a boy his age, but not quite to the point of wearing three-piece suits on a generally tropical island like the men trying to use their greater size to intimidate him were wearing.

Given how much they were sweating, it wasn't working too well.

One of the two men, who held himself like he was someone important, punched the teen in the face even as Sonya watched in morbid amusement from the street.

When his associate drew a knife and reached for the teen, she lost her amusement.

Reaching down, she grabbed a loose stone from somewhere near her left foot. Drawing back up to her pathetically short kiddy height she threw it to give a hard knock to Arrogant Ass Number Two's head before strolling on.

The teen could probably handle one-on-one on his own, and possibly could have dealt with two-on-one even with the knife in play.

Sonya just really, really hated people taller than her that day.

LVIII (Monday the 30 th of July, 1962, continued. Mafia Land.)

"Parla Italiano?"

The lanky young man was following her.

"Dono yō ni Nihon wa dōdesu ka?"

How did Italian and Japanese collide enough for him to learn the language, exactly?

Neither were languages Sonya spoke, so she merely kept walking on trying to ignore her new tail.

She was kind of concerned that if she tried going home he would follow her, so for the time being she was wandering Mafia Land's less populated streets trying to wait out the teenager.

"English, maybe?"

"Unfortunately." Maybe he'd go away if she told him what he wanted?

"Ho? Well, then. My thanks for the assistance, miss…?"

"Isn't it rude to ask for a name before giving your own?"

The twitch of his mouth informed her he was amused at her stonewalling, and probably enough to try waiting her out instead of the other way around.

She hadn't used her family name in years, so it was what she gave him. "Nikishina, mister…?"

"Sinclair." He gave her a probably charming smile, tilting his upper body forward in a slight bow when they came to a stop near a strip of restaurants. "Renato Sinclair, miss Nikishina. A pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise." Sonya informed him tartly, the tone of her voice suggesting it was the opposite. "Is there a reason you are following me, Mister Sinclair?"

"You have some marvelous aim. You could say I'm rather interested in how, exactly, a young lady of your tender years could throw something hard enough to knock out a rather thick skulled, fully grown man."

"Curiosity kills the cat, Mister Sinclair." She knew perfectly well it wasn't going to budge him off her and would privately admit that taking her aggression out on one of his assailants probably hadn't been her best idea ever. "Besides, with you ever so Sunny personality… I'd assume you know full well what I am."

He narrowed pitch black eyes on her even while keeping up the charming smile, she kept her expression mostly blank and a little bored in return.

Her biggest tip off was the lack of bruises on his lightly tanned skin, even though she had watched him get slugged hard in the face. Either Mist user or Sun, and her mental hackles weren't crawling or aggressively raised enough for a Cloud faced with a Mist user.

Additionally, there was a speckle of blood on the cuff of one sleeve. A Mist user would've covered it up before confronting a little girl.

"I think… I owe you a cup of coffee. At the very least."

"I don't-"

"I insist." Sinclair gave her a much sharper smile, his right hand finding a place on her upper back. "It's just a small thing, miss Nikishina. Won't you please allow me to repay you?"

Lashing out before he could jerk away, Sonya gripped his wrist in her left hand and squeezed warningly until she felt his bones grate together. "Mister Sinclair, since I am neither a relative nor your ward do. Not. Touch me."

Sinclair didn't even flinch, and she had to admire that level of pain tolerance. "…of course, my mistake. Clouds do not like being led or herded against their will, right?"

Okay, she walked into that one. Her apparently obvious irritation only seemed to amuse him as she let his wrist go.

"One would think you would hide an unhealthy interest in twelve-year-old girls, in order to be not thought of as a pedophile. I know I am concerned by the level of interest you hold for me, Mister Sinclair."

Her pointed comment at least wiped the humor from his face, so the smaller thief turned and headed straight for the first café serving coffee she spotted. The faster this was over with the happier she'd be.

He was still quick on her heels even taken aback, so she resigned herself to a very sharp and twisted conversation. The Sun would not be an easy verbal opponent but she had started it, so she had to deal with it.

She left picking out where they would be seated to the Italian teen, and merely followed him to a simple pair of chairs arranged on either side of a small table at the back of the restaurant's opened patio thing. "How do you take your coffee, Nikishina?"

"With cream, preferably." She eyed the list of beverages served over the counter. "I would rather a Russian Spiced Black Tea if you would, however."

She got a tilt of his head in reply, as he was already focused in attracting the attention of one of the waitresses. It was disgustingly easy for him, Sonya supposed he was rather good looking… but she wasn't to the point of puberty when such things would matter to her.

He placed their order, and since the counter bar was low enough for Mafia customers to keep a wary eye on what was going to be served to them both Sinclair and the former pickpocket kept an eye on their respective drinks being made.

It wasn't until his espresso and her tea were served that he tried to talk to her again. "Now then, miss Nikishina… could I have a first name?"

"You may not."

The refusal didn't seem to faze him. "If you insist. Young lady, since you know what I am and what you are why are you being so obstructive?"

She arched an eyebrow at him and sipped from her teacup. "Is there reason for me not to be? You are the one bothering me, even if I do not wish to be."

She had some sympathy for Cherep, if she had been as bad as this young man in the beginning.

"Suns and Clouds are known to be friendly."

"That is an old wives' tale, Mister Sinclair." One only had to look at Sonya's and Tatiana's early relationship to learn that. It was damn frosty until they started making an actual effort to understand the other. While they had the possibility to be friendly, it took effort. "It merely means I'm more inclined to assist you without a Sky at hand. Which I have, but if this is the thanks I get I might as well walk on next time."

Sinclair narrowed his eyes at her again, hiding the rest of his expression behind his cup. "I take it you are going to be stubborn no matter what?"

The thief gave him a taut smile of her own. "Of course. Give a little to get a little, Sinclair."

He at least conceded the point gracefully. "I'll see you around then, Nikishina?"

"It's likely, since I don't see you as the type to give up easily."

"I'm not."

Getting up and abandoning the rest of her tea, she shot him a bland look. "Obviously. Cute sideburns, Sinclair. I'll see you around."

Saluting with his espresso, Renato tugged one of his curly sideburns with his other hand as she left.

It was entirely likely he'd try following her, but she was certain she could use the train lines of Europe to lose him eventually.

LIX (Saturday the 13th of October, 1962. Mafia Land.)

Sonya took all of two hours to calm down on the boat ride back to mainland Europe, then she spent the rest of the trip with her head in her hands.

She couldn't believe how much trouble her temper had gotten her into, and how much bait Sinclair laced his words with that she had fallen for.

Yes, it had been a crappy job and her irritation was understandable. It didn't explain why the hell she had involved herself between a probably Inverted/Soft Sun and his assailants unless she had been looking for someone to take her aggression out on.

It also wasn't the Italian's fault she had behaved rather horribly, so taking her lingering aggression out on him had been outrageously ill-mannered of her. Lisa would've smacked her for being so rude to a made man, even one from another country.

The conversation afterward was sort of amusing in a non-mafia orientated viewpoint. Suns were stubborn, obstinate people and apparently Sonya had been a stereotypical Cloud with a Storm's temper in return. Her refusal to give an inch unless he managed to trick it out of her was probably only encouraging him to keep on bothering her.

She'd likely see Sinclair every damn time she returned to the island if he had the time to spare, so she'd better think up an apology to him between now and then in the hopes it would put him off.

If Arseniy had been there, she'd probably get her ass grounded for the information she had spilled so easily.

Sonya spent the next month looking up things to control her temper with, in between playing with spinel gemstones, trying to summon either her Cloud or Storm Flames without one, and Aleksandr's attempts to find a staff that would stand up to her abuse. Cherep got interested in the gemstones when Dmitriy stopped by to see if she had a different shade of stone other than purple for him to use, as his sapphire was getting rather brittle already.

There was one bad moment when an amethyst reacted to his attention when Sonya had been pawing through her jewelry box, but at least the two of them were the only ones in her room at the time.

The lack of more sapphires in her possession meant another jewelry store robbery was needed, but the young thief put it off until after her next Mafia Land contract. She could also probably get an array of blue shaded gems for Dmitriy to try, and maybe yellows for Tatiana.

She did wonder what had happened to her intent on not doing more jewelry store heists after her first one but put that thought aside just as she had Sinclair's silkily stubborn attempts to make her talk.

Her last Mafia Land job for the year had her traveling by herself. Arseniy wasn't at ease with letting her go back and forth from Mafia Land alone, but Lisa was surprisingly tolerant of the lone travel time. If nothing continued to happen to her between the moving island and the USSR, she'd likely keep on traveling alone.

Sonya was at least thankful she hadn't staggered into trouble like Sinclair with the vor around, he'd probably not be happy with her about it.

Said asshole Italian of some strange acquaintance did make it a point to greet her charmingly when she was on her way to fulfill her next contract using her first name, but at least said contract was not a home robbery again.

Instead she got to put her grasp of the French language to use and stole some information and the contents of a safe out of a very wealthy business with its home office in Paris. A modern, for the 1960s, office building had proved to be a different challenge than any of the other heists she had done.

The budding cat burglar was merely thankful there were no dogs, but a little disappointed that beyond needing her lock picking skills it hadn't been as hard as it should have been. No guards other than the ones outside to duck and dodge, so the overnight janitorial staff would be facing some rather hard questioning the next day.

"You look… disgruntled." Sinclair drawled lazily when she stalked out of the Thieves' Hall's front doors not a week after last seeing him.

"Why am I not surprised?" She looked up, mentally asking whatever was up there to send her some much needed patience. "What, Sinclair?"

"Well, I see that time away hasn't improved your temper much. Sonya."

Giving the smugly smirking Italian a flat look to start with, the young thief crossed her arms over her non-existent chest and scowled. "I do not recall giving you permission to use my name."

"We're friends, are we not?"

"You have a very interesting definition for friendship, Sinclair."

"Call me Renato. It's the least you could do after making me hunt around to learn something as simple as your first name."

"You mean it took effort to charm it out of the secretary on the ground floor? My, my, Sinclair. Not quite as charming as you thought you were, are you?"

The amusement on the young Italian man's face slipped off only for an instant, but Sonya knew she scored a hit. "Do you have the time to finish that coffee you skipped out on? I'd like to know what the youngest contract thief I've ever seen is so nettled by."

"You see many of my kind then?" She thought about it, but again being stubbornly non-talkative would only encourage him. "If you wish to hear me bitch, then by all means. I have the time."

The young man looked suspicious for a half a second, warily eyeing her sideways as she descended the front steps of the Thieves' Hall. "Just like that?"

"Surprise." Being she had a Storm nature too, it might be fun to twist his head around a Cloud that didn't always act like a Cloud. "I'll even pay."

Sinclair looked as if he couldn't tell where the punchline to the joke was.

Sonya decided it was his best look yet.

LX (Friday the 2nd of November, 1962. Arseniy & Lisa's home, Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

"Why, exactly, is my twelfth birthday coming up so soon?"

"Because it's almost been a year since your eleventh?" Cherep answered her dutifully, sounding distracted and as if he thought she had some kind of mental retardation.

Sonya thoughtfully smacked him upside the head, so he could share the same status. The fact his forehead hit the new engine block Dmitriy had forked over for his thirteenth birthday was entirely unintentional.

He peered over his shoulder with peeved purple eyes and a smear of grease on his temple. "Really?"

"At least your head didn't dent the metal, be happy with that." She defended herself, smirking at his deadpan expression. "This year went by too fast."

"You travel a lot and bury yourself in books when you are home. I'd be surprised if you hadn't lost a month or two of time somewhere in there." He turned back to the slightly different hunk of… she was only slightly sure the metal was aluminum alloy, it could probably be cast iron under the grit and dirt just as easily. "If I didn't have this baby and her predecessor, I'd think you didn't love me anymore Sonya."

"Really?" She echoed his previous question flatly, eyeing his back suspiciously.

"It was either traveling, books, or those shiny gems all year. Getting your attention from them was like herding a cat away from a beached fish." Her foster brother hauled himself up on his bed with her, ignoring the smears of oil and grease he was getting everywhere his hands touched.

Even with the chunk of motor sitting in the middle of his bedroom, the dirt and grease stains only traveled when he did.

"I'm actually surprised you put the book down to spend time with me again."

The thief had already read the book she had been reading a little while earlier and predictably lost interest easily. "Yes, well… have I been neglecting you, Cherep? Is this your official complaint?"

"Don't you love me more than books, Sonya?" He returned just as quickly, slumping sideways onto her and wrapping his dirty arms around her waist. "I feel so lonely."

"You're about to be dead if I can't get this shirt clean later."

Cherep sat bolt upright in response, smiling sheepishly over at her. "Sorry. So?"

"So, what?"

He rolled his eyes at her, and she did take a moment to marvel how different he was now than when he had been a street rat. "This next year, put some time into not being totally absorbed in whatever you have in your hands."

Sonya thought about it. "Was I that bad?"

"Not bad, just distracted way too easily." Her mechanically inclined best friend raised a purple eyebrow at her. "Why?"

"Classic Storm nature is supposedly hard to fixate but easily distracted, Inverted is fixated easily but hard to distract. So…"

"Can't it just be something about you personally?"

She blinked at him a couple times as she absorbed that. "Probably… if I didn't already have the Flame type. It just means it might get worse."

"You? Being worse? Stuff of nightmares, that." He slid himself out of arm's reach with a grin. "So, which is it? Is your magical, mystical fire power of the Storm Classically fixated on the books you have or Inverted and fixed on what you pour your effort into?"

"Or both on both, I don't know." With a groan, Sonya let herself drop to lay out on his bed and used her hands to cover her face. "Pick one, you have a one in three chance to be right."

"What do I get if I'm right?"

"Pick something."

He slid over, so he was looking straight down at her. "A motorcycle?"

She had to laugh as she dropped her arms. "Really?"

"One you bought legally. With money you earn legally." Expanded the preteen, a wicked smirk stealing over his face. "Or… do you think you can't do it?"

"Are… you trying to dare me?"

"Maybe. Is it working?"

Snorting, she pushed herself upright with a huff. "Alright, I'll bite. I agree to the terms except for the legally buying thing. I've got rules to follow, so you'll have to buy it."

Cherep rolled his eyes but nodded. "Agreed. I guess Inverted."

"Why?"

"Because you're mainly a Classic Cloud. It would make sense if your secondary was Inverted."

"That would be if any of this mess of mysticism made some kind of sense." She sighed and shrugged. "Fine. If you're wrong, you have to steal something in front of me."

"WHAT?"

"What? Forfeits of being wrong. You're not chicken, are you Cherep?"

His jaw worked as he sought an argument, but his features fell into a pout before long. "You are a cruel, unusual little girl."

"You are the one that joined this foster family last. One would expect you to know that going in."

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever."

"You realize that your hands are covered in engine gunk and you just spread that all over your face when you rubbed it with both hands, right?"

Cherep pulled his hands away from his face, scowling at the smears of grease, oil, and dirt marring his palms. "Couldn't you have warned me a little earlier?"

"I could have. Did I want to? Nope."

AN#2 : Some of this is pulled straight from Wikipedia, because I'm that lazy.

Vory v Zakone (Singular vor, Plural vory) – Thieves-in-Law, title awarded by one's peers (like a peerage title rather than a military rank).

Boevik – Translates to 'warrior'. Works for a Brigadier having a special criminal activity to run, a Boevik is in charge of finding new guys and paying tribute up to his Brigadier.

Krysha - Literally 'roofs' or 'covers'. Extremely violent 'enforcers' as well as cunning individuals. Such enforcer is often employed to protect a business from other criminal organizations.

Avtoritet (Plural Avtorityets) – Literally translates to 'authority'. A captain in charge of certain operations within a Mafiya syndicate, could also be called Brigadier. He gives out jobs to Boeviks ("warriors") and pays tribute to Pakhan. He runs a crew which is called a Brigade (Bratva).

Pakhan - is the Boss or Krestnii Otets 'Godfather' and controls everything.