Intrepid Pawns Ch. 16

"None of you are even, like, mindweavers or whatever! What's your team gonna do?" Mew rolled her eyes. "I just don't get it. I figured I would when we got here, like, I was missing something, you know? I'm not great at thinking ahead. But it kind of feels like your plan just, you know..." She folded her arms and scowled. "It doesn't make sense."

Trys gritted her teeth.

"Not to mention how you just kind of abandoned the others." Mew's temper seemed to be subsiding, flying cinders becoming dry smoke. "Your plan was already bad, and now we can't even do your bad plan, and now you're stuck in a Thriae hive so you can get honeyed up for some stupid city. Do I have that right?"

"Why do you even care?" Trys was getting irritated, but also uncomfortable. She knew her explanations sounded hollow. "You just came here so you could keep tormenting Yathi and I. If you knew it was doomed, why did you--"

"I'm a fey! What's your excuse?"

Trys tried to keep her voice mellow, calm, and condescending, as if she was explaining the obvious. "If we install a new queen, we might be able to negotiate with her. The Hive will calm down, and we can leave them here."

"That's a great plan." Mew ducked back into Trys's eye contact with a vicious smile. "Except like, your bosses aren't gonna leave them here, I bet. Right?"

"I thought fey weren't good at long-term stuff."

Mew laughed. "You think this is my first time dealing with humans like you? Like your bosses? What happens when you report back that the mine belongs to Thriae now for good?"

"They..." Trys bit her lip. "They'll..."

"Spit it out~" Mew's eyes were unyielding now, a cat with a claw on the mouse's tail. Her tail was flicking. She wanted the mouse to run. She wanted Trys to say something else foolhardy so she could tear it down for the absurd fabrication it was. Mew had found a puzzle and was happily taking her time solving it.

But Trys found she didn't want to play these games anymore.

"They won't understand," she said quietly. "They'll send us back, or they'll... they will pay someone else to do it. City people do not understand the fey. In our best-case scenario, the current owners give up and sell to someone else, someone else thinks they can succeed where their predecessor failed. It doesn't stop."

Mew looked startled. She blinked once, twice. "So what's the point of any of this?"

"The..." Trys stared at the catgirl. The catgirl stared back, unsympathetic, simply curious. Her voice went softer still. "There is no point, Morrowii. Not as long as the Hive is intact. Mortals can't beat the Thriae."

She put her head in her hands. Gods, it felt so good to say it out loud.

"My plan was never for us to beat the Thriae."

Through the cracks between her fingers, she saw Mew's tail stop flicking. The catgirl took a while to reply--whether it was out of guilt or simply not having anything to say, Trys couldn't tell without looking up. And Trys didn't look up.

She didn't cry. Trys wasn't a cryer. But she reached for the meditative place that had brought her so much peace before and simply couldn't find it. She sat there and wished to turn into stone.

Finally, Mew spoke. She didn't sound guilty, but she didn't sound amused, anymore, either.

"So what... was the plan?"

TO BE CONTINUED...