2/2

"Well… aside Shamal being a bit of a loudmouth," Renato continued in a deadpan, "that bit of turquoise he's got has attracted a fair bit of attention. Especially since it sparks indigo fire with his temper."

"Even matched jewels shatter or splinter if used too much." Sonya warned him, a small bit more seriously. "I pop my own rather frequently when I actually make use of one."

"The point, little lady Sonya, is that some people connected a Cloud Flame user that tetchy Mist user knows and the rock he refuses to be separated from."

Which would explain why Tyr had been watching her after already dismissing her as inconsequential, and what he had been looking for. She considered that information and the ember cherry on the end of her cancer stick, as well as what it may eventually mean for her.

"So?"

She sniffed in his direction, still a little distracted. "So, what?"

He gave her his most disgruntled look, which really wasn't a patch on how well Cherep could pull that look off. "So, can I tell anyone where he got his shiny rock from?"

"You, and Shamal, were one thing." Sonya started off slowly, seriously thinking through the consequences of such a thing and the likely few benefits. "I do not mind assisting you, nor did I mind helping you with a kid you are guardian to. It was to repay a favor, so digging into my own personal things to help was not an issue. Anyone else? I do not care for, have no reason to aid. First and foremost, I am a thief, not a scientist or researcher."

"You're claiming that after the work you put into those books of yours?"

She clicked her tongue at him, mildly irritated with the subject matter. "I do that for my own benefit. As my foster brother maintains, I am more like the mafia's version of a librarian. I read a book, I question said book, then I find answers among other books. I may occasionally condense that into yet another book, for ease of access or to strip said information of biased slants."

The Mafioso frowned at her slightly, which confused her slightly until he spoke his next question. "You have more books on Dying Will Flames?"

"I have a lot given what is available around here, actually. Most of which is rather useless."

"Then… you also have better books on the subject."

"Of course. But Shamal is a Mist, he needs a base of solid and correct information with little mental restraints to become a very good one. Pigeonholing him in one of a bare handful of ways some other Mist became a great one will do him no favors."

Renato made a face, half-disgusted and mostly thoughtful, as he mused on her reasoning. "…can I see one of your not-so-stripped books?"

Sonya pinned him with a level stare across their little table. "Will you keep my name out of whatever comes up from your little ward's actions?"

"You realize they likely already have your name, right?" The hitman pointed out with a fair bit of exasperation. "Shamal isn't exactly the discrete sort just yet."

"A three-year-old is not a reliable source of information."

"…point. And, if the brat was here," he continued in a markedly more amused tone of voice, "he would insist he is almost four."

"Another month needs to pass before I will call him four years of age." Dismissed the thief with a snort, then thought through the proposal that wasn't really a proposal as she busied herself with another lung-full of smoke.

Renato was being very chary with that last favor she owed him, trying to press for more information without directly coming out and demanding it in trade for that last debt. The curiosity must be eating him alive for him to be so direct about it.

"I… will… trade you access to my research journal in exchange for your help with it." The Russian eventually offered.

With Tatiana and now him, that would be both halves of the Sun Flame Polarization. Like how well the Cloud Flames were already sorted with, now both she and Cherep could contribute information to it.

With a little luck, Polarization would not turn out to be more of a sliding scale of outward/inward intensity rather than a one side of a coin or the other type of thing.

Which… yeah, she didn't really believe that anymore. Not with how hard it was to pin down Polarization of whatever Flame type was being.

She also had the suspicion the Hard/Soft and Classic/Inverted titles for the extremes of Polarization got a bit mixed up or had been mislabeled in the first place.

"Deal."

CLXVI (Saturday the 14th of January, 1967. Mafia Land.)

Sonya ended up looking for her next three contracts for Mafia Land rather carefully.

Given her near-misses in the USSR, it had become apparent she had lost some serious skill to disuse while in the circus. No matter what acrobatic practice she could put in or small tricks to keep her fingers nimble she tried to cram into each day.

Combing through the Thieves' Hall and the available contracts, she selected a set of three in hopefully increasing difficulty. Mostly so she could measure that decrease in skill. The selection process kept her on the island for five days alone, during which she sent Bjǫrn on random errands for her.

Mostly to fetch things to eat but once to her storage unit for her copy of the Dying Will research journal she had compiled for herself and a few other Flame users in the Zolotov Clan, and once back to Moscow with written letters to both Tatiana and Lisa.

While the older redheaded thief still hadn't had the time to check if her Flames would heal old internal damage, there was a Sun Flame using nurse on the island who could probably answer that question rather well.

It was going to be up to them who asks, and what they did with that information.

A certain hitman who was after her rather unique information gave the Icelander teen a hard look over, but mostly dismissed him from his attention. Renato was a little put out she wasn't going to let him walk off with her master research journal, and even rolled his eyes when she gifted him with a flat stare in return for that complaint.

Sonya wasn't entirely surprised when Tatiana showed up with Lisa, the day before she would've left to hit two marks in a row and come back for a third contract instead of try arranging everything at once. She had included her possible travel plans in her letters.

The thief was surprised to immediately get smothered in a brief hug by their foster mother, though. Who knew well enough her issues with others in her personal space, so the older brunette kept it brief. "Thank you!"

"Hello to you too, Lisa."

Tatiana made a show of looking around pointedly, then cocked her head at her little foster sister. "So? Where is this Sun guy you were talking about?"

Lisa's eyebrows flew upward, and she gave the youngest of her foster children a hard look as she drew back to arm's length. "Yes, Sonya. Where is this… young man?"

The Storm-Cloud sighed heavily at them both. "Renato's off on a hit this week. I think he said he'd be back… in two weeks? Somewhere around there."

"This guy have a surname?" The only capable Sun user between them asked archly, then frowned a bit as something else occurred to her. "Did he find another gemstone?"

She let her expression smooth out, but the safecracker wasn't above poking her for the hell of it. She wasn't above pulling her older sister's fiery braid either. "Sinclair, and he picked yellow jade of all rocks but likes the moonstones better. Now stop it."

"Girls." As it hadn't been that long since either of them had left home, the redhead stopped poking the younger woman as the oldest one spoke. "We have a hospital to visit, do we not?"

Lisa looked impatient by this point, so after a glance to each other they both nodded.

"Where's Bjǫrn?" Sonya asked Tatiana quietly as they followed their foster mother.

"Knocked out on one of the beds in our hotel room. I don't think he slept at all on the trip out from here to Moscow or back."

She sighed again, this time pinching the bridge of her nose. "Remind me to tell him about that wonderful thing called moderation."

The redhead snickered, but the blonde didn't really think it was that funny.

Sonya could see the bear named Icelander as several different Flame types by now, a mix of a couple if she squinted.

Inverted Lightning, a similarly polarized if not as extreme Rain, Classic Storm, or any variation within those types for his mule-headed stubbornness alone. He was all sorts of focused when directed through, which put more emphasis on his possible Lightning or Storm. Then there was the inability to be bothered with what she had him doing, which was mainly busy work for now, that spoke of a Rain or Lightning attribute.

Bjǫrn could even be all three like her, which she really wouldn't wish on anyone.

She was mainly and foremost a Cloud, her innate ability with Flames was drawn from her Cloud nature, and while she could use some of her Storm Flames… she could not get more than sparks for her Sun attribute on rare occasions. That inability irritated her, and so she didn't tend to try for her Sun Flames much.

There was even the possibility Bjǫrn was a Cloud, but she doubted it. Clouds in his situation would've likely either gotten themselves killed off early by not bowing his neck… or finding something far removed from mafia work to do after he got free.

"Sonya? Did this Sinclair guy write anything in your journal for the Sun Flame section?"

"What he had already, yes." The younger thief informed her, giving the Sun user a sideways look. "I take it you want that information?"

Tatiana fluttered her lashes back. "If you would be so kind."

CXLVII (Saturday the 14th of January, 1967 continued. Saint Julian's Hospital, Mafia Land.)

The short of it was yes. With a bit of help and a dab of Sun Flames, which Tatiana was obviously itching to ask about, Lisa might be able to have a biological child of her own.

Problem was, the older Mafiya woman was thirty-six-years-old already. According to the Italian-born nurse, named Celia by her name-tag, now was the latest she had to start any Sun Flame based therapy. To correct some of her internal damage to be able to conceive, before it would become more than just a little risky by nature to try.

Lisa… hadn't exactly informed Arseniy of what this trip to Mafia Land was for.

"Don't tell him." Tatiana begged in their native Russian, on her knees with hands clasped and held up in a begging pose that had the nurse smiling into her hands. "It'll be the only opportunity we have to see him faint."

"And the rebuttal from the good child?" Asked their foster mother calmly, looking over to the blonde thief on her other side.

"Why am I the good child? Isn't that the only brother we have so far?" Sonya wondered out loud first, wincing when the older woman swatted her thigh. "Fine, tell him."

That didn't exactly earn her the older woman's forgiveness, by the look on her face.

"Tell him it's possible, but don't inform him exactly when it's likely to happen." She amended hastily, because Lisa could slap and make it hurt even on a highly active Sun user's skin. "I kind of want to see Arseniy fall on his ass when he hears too. Can we plan this to happen over Christmas break?"

"YES!" The redheaded safecracker surged up to her feet happily, grinning a fit to crack her face. "Come on, Lisa! I'll even leave my gang and become a nurse to help you do this!"

She gave a painfully faked exasperated sigh, placing her face in her hands so either girl she had raised wouldn't catch the smirk forming on her own lips. The older woman had taught both too well though, and they did catch it.

Sonya sniffed at her bad acting, turning back to the nurse and switching to her rusty Italian… even if she highly suspected Celia could at least understand Russian perfectly well. "You wouldn't happen to have a phone line to the mainland we could utilize, would you?"

"Yes, miss. A room off the lobby is available for calls, but they do cost…"

"Don't worry about that, just add it to the bill." Thankfully Tatiana was going to split the cost with her, so Lisa wouldn't have to worry about it.

The older woman rose to her full height, giving the younger of her foster daughters a look that reminded her that one of the languages she knew was Italian, and gracefully walked off to place a rather long long-distance call.

"Tatiana?" Asked the younger thief when the nurse moved off to make a few notes in whatever file she had in hand, switching back to Russian because appearances had to be kept no matter what suspicions she had. "Are you really going to leave your gang?"

"I just might. It's fun and all, but I actually like having a permanent roof over my head. Nikolai is better than me at leading the group in tight spots and I tend not to go on very many heists anymore, because it is a lot easier to steal a safe and haul it elsewhere than it is to crack a safe on-site while you might get caught. Nowadays I'm mostly just the one that knows the most about how to handle medical emergencies who can crack a safe on occasion." The Sun user shrugged diffidently, not looking too concerned by the fact she was getting edged out of her old spot of ringleader a little.

"And you're okay with that?"

She laughed easily enough, grinning over at the slighter blonde. "I'm perfectly fine with it. I got interested in medicine on those quiet days when my boys were out, especially since my Sun Flames enable the shit out of healing others as well as myself. I'm honestly interested in becoming a nurse, for the clan or here if I can swing it. Even maybe a doctor, because this? Is pretty damn awesome, not just for Lisa's sake."

"We would love to have you, if you want." Celia interrupted earnestly, clipboard pressed to her chest. Then she seemed to realize they had been speaking Russian to each other, not the Italian she had been pretending was her only language, and blushed heavily. "I mean, um…"

"What would I need to do?" Tatiana interrupted, before the poor girl stuck her foot in her mouth about anything she shouldn't have been saying. "I really only know a little beyond first-aid and how to use Sun Flames on flesh wounds and the odd broken bone."

"Well…" Started the nurse slowly, recovering her mental balance when they didn't press her for her slip, "you will need an internship, for here anyways. Since university level education is rather… hard to get, for mafia people anyways, they do supply the classes to make up that difference as long as you can afford it."

"Otherwise I think you'd have to apprentice yourself to one of the shady docs the clan has a sway over." Sonya offered, thinking of all the shady doctor types she had ever heard of back home.

Too bad Shamal was a little too young to practice medicine… on the other hand, with how perverted he was supposed to grow up to be?

Maybe that was a good thing.

The expression that crossed the Russian Sun user's face said she hadn't heard much good about those types either. She thought it over, ignoring the fact the Italian girl looked to be on pins and needles while her younger sister affected a bored mien, and finally shrugged. "I can't just abandon my boys out of the blue, so… it'll have to wait a few months at least."

"I'll get you the forms." Celia gushed happily, clicking away out the waiting room's door and down the hall on her impractical looking high-heels with respectable speed.

Sonya and Tatiana watched her go, then turned to each other.

"Do you think you could walk around all day in heels like those?"

The redhead pursed her lips. "Not me, no. I wonder if she uses her Sun Flames to avoid blisters or sore ankles after a few hours."

"Maybe she's just used to that kind of abuse?" The blonde Storm-Cloud suggested weakly, looking down at her scuffed and weathered but still sturdy knee-high boots.

Tatiana snorted inelegantly, kicking out her own slightly dressy but practically booted feet so she was more comfortable while they waited for the others to come back. "Hard core little nurse, then."

CLXVIII (Wednesday the 15th of February, 1967. Zolotov Condo, Mafia Land.)

Sonya left Bjǫrn under Lisa's eye, because if anyone could hammer home the idea of admitting when enough was enough it was her foster mother.

Her first heist for Mafia Land of the year was a civilian target, which required more of her gymnastic skills than anything else. Afterwards, a couple rare and mostly whole tablets of ancient Egyptian origin in hand, she decided that skillset was at least up to par.

Even if she was heavily abusing Cloud Flame derived strength to handle it.

The second was a few paper files in a military base of the Albanian Kingdom which, after fruitlessly trying to recall why that country sounded a little odd to her, ended up being not too difficult either. A bit more lock picking, a safe crack that didn't stump her, and a whole lot of sneaking around obstructions like people standing in the middle of the hallway talking or guard patrols.

A little frustrated by the inability to understand where she had messed up in the USSR heists, Sonya returned to Mafia Land to drop off her two completed contracts and pick up the last one and her minion.

Lisa lightly smacked her upside the head when she heard the issue. "You are known for doing jewel heists, which would also mean that those back in the Moscow Oblast and some distance outside of it are aware there is a very successful jewel thief running around. Why are you surprised they increased security in response? Especially after that Cartier job you did with Tatiana, that break-in was all over the news for weeks."

Sonya rubbed the back of her head, smoothing down her hair and edging away from Arseniy before he could offer another slap. "I've not actually… had to deal with that before."

The older woman gave a dismissive shrug, sinking back in the rather plush couch in the Zolotov owned condo on Mafia Land. "That's probably the best part of this place, the opportunity to spread out your work so the locals where you steal don't wise up so fast. That being said, you may have over-worked the jewel trade back home. A decade or two, and it may not be a problem anymore… as long as no one else decides to steal gems."

In all actuality, said jewel thief would greatly appreciate never doing jewelry again… but she had claimed that once before. Honestly, since jewels were what she cut her teeth on in this criminal trade, it was likely always going to be her first choice for a fallback plan if she needed cash quick.

"Or you could steal in other countries and avoid the damn problem entirely, girl." The vor chipped in dryly, looking perfectly menacing even with Lisa snuggling up to his side.

He probably was only putting the effort up because Bjǫrn was obviously eavesdropping down the hall.

Sonya needed to teach him to sneak better… or she could not. Really, what she needed was to decide what to do with the damn brat for most of next year.

She had nothing for him to do, herself. Arseniy and Lisa had already dealt with him for a decent amount of time already and would keep on doing it for half a month at most. That left…

She wondered where Tatiana went to, or if she should put in a visit to Dimitry.

"Tatiana is immigrating here in a few months, apparently." Lisa continued in a different vein, smiling wryly at the youngest of her brood… so far, at least. "She's rather set on helping with this… ah, therapy."

"Can she do that?" Questioned the Storm-Cloud dubiously, slinking over to sit on her foster mother's free side. The one not occupied by nearly two hundred pounds of heavily muscled and tattooed vor.

"Our Pakhan is not getting any younger." She informed her seriously, looking thoughtful. "I guess the idea of a Sun Flame nurse, or doctor if Tatiana likes the job that much, within the clan is appealing to him. The clan's also paying for this little procedure of mine, with an eye to offer it to others if they prove dedicated enough to our syndicate."

"I thought he wasn't entirely sold on the reliability of Flame users?"

"You haven't been back in a year, sweetie. Things change." Gifting her youngest foster child with a sweet, sly smile, her mother elegantly shrugged. "Your efforts have made us the place for any Flame user to go, some syndicates even opting to forge alliances with our clan specifically for the information you've supplied to help their own people. Young Usov was really just the tip of that, and since it is your childhood efforts that are proving so valuable?"

Sonya blinked blankly at her foster mother, then had a dawning sensation of horror overtake everything else in her mind.

She had political heft in the clan?

What the hell was she going to do with that?

Arseniy snickered wickedly, then broke out laughing wildly at her expression when Lisa attempted to hit him in the stomach for it.

CXLIX (Saturday the 18th of February, 1967. Zolotov Headquarters, Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

Leaving Mafia Land for the year wasn't that hard. While she may have only done two contracts, she had the other end of the year to make that up.

Tatiana wouldn't bother Renato as it was, without Sonya neither really had reason to bother with the other. Without the blonde thief to handle introductions, her foster sister wouldn't do more than gather rumor on her own end.

The hitman might get interested enough to seek out Sonya's sister, but the redhead likely wouldn't do anything to harm her little sister's association with a contact.

Dmitriy, the heavily tanned Rain she had left to her clan's Pakhan and his use if need be, regarded her evenly across his desk.

Which… needed emphasis. Her childhood mechanic friend had a desk. In an office. Within Zolotov's headquarters.

He also didn't particularly seem happy behind a desk in an office, either. "Do you realize what kind of mess you left me to handle?"

Sonya paused in the middle of adding a few sections to his copy of her research journal, mostly on Inverted Suns and general additions to both Mist and Storm. "I have some idea, yes. Although, to be perfectly frank, I had not expected this upsurge in Flame users to impact the clan so heavily. No so quickly, anyways."

The Rain, who didn't particularly look much happier at that admission, glowered at her. "So, you did have an idea."

"Dying Will Flame users seemed completely exotic things when I started." She reminded him calmly, only a little wary over his temper. Inverted Rain meant he wasn't as calm and easygoing as Classic, and that his temper could turn into a monsoon if she wasn't careful about this. "Even when you started. Then Tatiana joined us, Usov, my sister's little Lightning assistant, and then I started running into other users outside of the Soviet Union. Yes, I knew this would become something that would need some kind of help to manage and that's part of why I nudged you into this spot."

Dmitriy's expression didn't change. Sonya leveled a flat glare back at him.

"You are also the only male in our little grouping, of age to actually be listened to. You are also a Rain, Inverted though you may be, and you are also the most level-headed of us all. For now, you are the best to handle and manage the clan's interest in Dying Will Flames."

Rubbing a broad hand across his face, the only slightly older man gave a resigned sigh at her reasoning. "You… sometimes, are a trial Sonya."

"Admit it, you'd be bored without me."

Her swarthy skinned childhood friend shot her a look, which informed her that her words weren't really appreciated.

"You could have complained at any time before our Pakhan decided one of us had to be on hand at all times. I would not have liked it, but I would have pitched in here instead of go mostly free-lance outside the Iron Curtain."

"I really should have. Unfortunately, I hadn't expected an upsurge in Flame users either." Dmitriy admitted sourly, leaning back in his rather plush office chair. "That being said however… there are a lot of random people I'm pulling information from."

"I've noticed." Sonya informed him a touch dryly, as there were bits of information he had added to the journal that she hadn't yet had the time to investigate. "How many of what?"

"Two more Mists, both of whom are younger than Usov. We still can't figure out which one is more Classic or Inverted among them."

"You can add another boy Mist to that, three-excuse me-four years of age. And an Inverted Sun and Cloud on my end."

The Rain's mouth twisted with some unknown emotion, and the man sighed. "There's also two new Lightnings, too new to decide more than both are Classic according to your work. A Storm, we can't figure his Polarization out either. Somehow there's four Rains, all Classical."

"When it Rains it pours?" She coughed quickly and smoothed out her expression, and his mouth twitched into what was almost an unwilling smirk.

"Another Sun, Classic, in the same neighborhood we just left. No Clouds though, at least none who've come forward or gotten his syndicate to contact our clan for help." He gave her a sideways look, one part calculating and three parts suspicious. "I wouldn't happen to actually know this Inverted Cloud of yours, would I?"

Sonya gifted him with a mostly bland smile, mostly except for a very sharp edge of too many teeth. "Possibly. No Skies yet either?"

"That…" Dmitriy trailed off, looking contemplative. "I think there is. An older one, actually."

"An older Sky… in Moscow?" Repeating it didn't really make the fact sink home very well, and she did wonder how he came to that conclusion. "Actively a Sky…?"

"No, I highly doubt it. We can't actually do anything with the information anyways, either." The Rain sighed heavily, giving the Storm-Cloud across his desk a contemplative look. "He's over thirty, and a public figure as it is."

"Why does age matter?" Sonya questioned slowly, wondering if that was in any of the books she had gotten or not.

"It seems one is more likely to show Flames during childhood or around puberty, and if they admit they can set themselves on multi-colored neon fire then…?" Dmitriy shrugged that off. "Either way, he's too often in the public eye for him to go missing for a stretch of time without suspicion or for him to suddenly gain Guardians without a lot of questions being asked."

She frowned slightly, but the Rain behind a desk had a point. As much as she'd like to go poke him into her apparently wider than she thought pool of Flame users to draw information from, doing that was way too risky for a Sky unable to actively use his Flames.

Children, on the other hand…

"He have any kids?"

"Two, so far. Very young ones."

She stuck her tongue out at his completely flat expression. "No, I'm not suggesting we go kidnap the poor brats. But… we might want to watch them. Not just for Sky Flames, if they have them. There's just been a big bust of some kind of Flame hunting group in Mafia Land… and if such things went on there…?"

Dmitriy's non-expression twisted into a understanding but disgusted snarl. "I'll arrange something for their protection."

CL (Monday the 27th of February, 1967. Arseniy & Lisa's home, Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

"You finished arranging everything to your little black heart's content?"

"Oh, shut up." Sonya hip-checked Cherep, who didn't even have the grace to stumble down the stairs under her non-Cloud Flame boosted strength. "Yes, everything that I needed to do is now out of the way."

"Good. Ah… where's Bjǫrn?"

"With Dmitriy. Until we get back, he's going to be his office gopher."

"I thought you said-"

"I did not want to formally link him and the Zolotovs, but Dmitriy convinced me otherwise. Claiming it would be cruel to leave Bjǫrn on the outside of that for another year, when it really is what he wants."

"Poor kid." The purple haired mechanic spoke, face tilted to the ceiling. "Poor Dmitriy, actually. Did you see…?"

"Where he ended up? Yes." The thief admitted, pulling her last cigarette out of the now empty pack. "Better him than me."

"It's kind of odd, now. Dmitriy's got a desk-job, Tatiana's becoming a nurse. Or a doctor. Depending." Running a hand through his short hair, Cherep turned to her with a bewildered expression. "You've stolen things recently, but you're also about to go another ten months without doing it again. It's almost like you're all respectable…"

"Except that Dmitriy's job includes training certain gifted people to be particularly inclined to shady criminal jobs using said gift, Tatiana is training to put shady criminals back together when they try to kill one another, and I'm…?" Sonya paused, thought about it, then shrugged. "Gaining traveling experience in a safe environment in order to know how to enter and exit other countries better, as well as learning some cultural norms this next year and how to navigate them."

"Sonya…"

"Yes?"

"Stop ruining my childhood dreams."

"No. Your despair is amusing to me." His fellow Cloud user stuck her cigarette between her lips and lit it with careful application of Storm Flames. After a moment, and once she had less smoke tainted air to breath, she looked at her foster brother queerly. "Is that really your childhood dream?"

"It was, once." The mechanic admitted cheerfully, without an ounce of shame. "Of course, that was back when I was an idealistic little kid. Who thought that good equaled right and anything shady was inherently wrong. There was this daydream of somehow convincing you to abandon your life of crime and we'd go… do more legal things for our lives."

"Well… if it helps any," she started slowly, "we are respectable. Dmitriy's in charge of a very in-demand service for the clan, Tatiana's going to become the go-to healer for most of our own that end up in Mafia Land eventually, and I'm… uh, highly respected for some contributions I have helped midwife… apparently."

"Yeah… no, not helping." Stopping next to the front door, of the house they grew up in which seemed achingly empty without Arseniy and Lisa in residence, he turned and gave her a wry smirk. "Anything else?"

"I think I can make a case for another subject, yes. What… legal things did you have us do in these daydreams of yours?"

With a snort, Cherep buried his face in his hands. "No, don't ask about that."

"I am going to guess we went to rescue some princess." Sonya started in a deadpan, waving the hand holding her lit cigarette around for emphasis. "Which, really? Stereotypical. Why not a prince? A handsome, if useless, prince? Of course, I do not think anyone would really want a useless prince… so there is that… is that not technically the kidnapping of already kidnapped royal person…?"

"Sonya…"

"Then we likely fought dragons… before or after the rescuing slash kidnapping of gender ambiguous royalty? Why not a dragon prince? Just to make it all the more life-threatening. Because nothing says you are screwed like the, for some reason that escapes me, legal murder the last or next heir of some ancient and possibly reptilian royal family just because for some reason he, and or she, is evil by some… incredibly vague reasoning that may or may not exist."

Her brother snorted, clapping a hand over his mouth and trying not to let the full-blown smile surface.

"Or did we fight crime in this fantasy world of yours?" She carried on ruthlessly, tapping her lips with the filter of her lit cigarette. "I suppose there is a case of criminals helping police officers catch their old, equally shady, back-stabbing friends. Because apparently nothing says friendship like backstabbing at the last possible moment it could be remotely useful as an option. Even if it is not a very good option."

From how ragged her fellow Cloud's breathing had become, she could guess he was very close to losing grip on his laughter.

"Did we go hunting for some witch in a creepy swamp? Because, you know, persecution for religious beliefs and or lifestyle choices is really mean yet somehow perfectly legal and something no one seems to think should be pointed out as being an inherently wrong thing to do. As is burning of witches for equally racist reasoning, discrimination is not a good thing. Maybe the witch of the creepy swamp just wants her toadstool and toe jam soup and to be left alone, and yet you have us go murder her in some kind of fit of misplaced righteousness."

"Really?" Cherep wheezed out, a little painfully from his expression.

"I am listing off the plots of the books I have read recently, and why they are so stupidly illegal if you look at it in a slightly different way." Sonya informed him blandly. "And if I can realize they are the wrong thing to do in any situation, they have to be really bad plots."

He drew in a deep breath and shook his head at her. "I thought you were guessing for my childhood fantasies?"

"That is how it started." Admitted the thief easily. "I got distracted around the completely legal murder of ancient and possibly draconic royal lines for dubious reasoning."

"I will buy you better books, just… don't do that."

She opened the front door, searching her pockets for the key Arseniy had given her to lock it up behind them. "Admit it, you love my humor."

"Your sense of humor is a little dry, Sonya. And requires some getting used to."