Work Text:
Senshi can’t claim to know anyone in the fragmented Touden party especially well. He just met these kids after all and while the bonds of combat and shared meals make fast friends, he simply cannot claim to understand most of them.
He absolutely doesn’t get the elf-girl, though he’s slowly come to suppose she might not be that bad. For an elf.
Laios is a skilled fighter with a lack of propriety that makes him both a benefit in a fight (having no qualms about doing weird or unsettling tactics to win) but he's a bit of a morale crusher outside of combat. Senshi isn’t great telling the ages of tall-men, but Laios comes off increasingly young to him as the days roll by. An optimism of youth blunted by the tactlessness of… whatever he’s got going on upstairs.
It’s the opposite for the team’s half-foot member; Senshi’s finding Chilchuck the picklock more and more the seasoned veteran of the three, apparent in the small corrections he makes to Laios’ plans or the way he stops to tell Marcille facts about the area or a story about adventuring norms in other dungeons. He’s a skittish thing, but otherwise level-headed.
The point is, Senshi’s pretty sure they’re good people
Odd. And not dwarves or anything familiar, but good people.
Unfortunately, the first night on the fourth floor is setting up to be a long one.
Laios is laid up. Vomiting and incapacitated with pain into the night because he ate raw kraken parasite. (The lack of basic food safety is appalling.) That leaves Marcille napping between rounds of healing him. The ruckus of her waking, healing, and Laios’ pitiful noises are making it hard to turn in early no matter how much they need it and, boy, after fighting Anne (rest her soul) and a whole damn kraken, they need it.
The shallow sleep is how Senshi ends up hearing it, later into the night after Marcille’s finally passed out from exhaustion:
The growl of an empty stomach.
He lies there a moment, trying to identify whose, assuming its Laios and his roiling gut causing him further misery, but when the growl comes again, it’s Chilchuck he hears shift uncomfortably. Chilchuck who sighs, rubs his neck, and picks up his waterskin to drink from it.
Chilchuck is on first watch as usual.
The half-foot is a light sleeper. Part of the reason Senshi takes second watch is to let Chilchuck drop deep enough into sleep while Senshi is awake that he doesn’t wake when Senshi later takes the last of his evening respite and starts snoring again. It means Senshi is often awake for a part of Chilchuck’s watch.
It means, he’s noticed a troubling pattern.
Senshi isn’t… trying to pretend to sleep exactly, but he watches between almost closed eyelids as the smallest member of the team corks his water vessel then stares into the candle flame at the center of their camp. The glow of the candle puts little lines of gold into the kid’s (no, not a kid) into Chilchuck’s copper-brown hair.
He rubs his eyes and yawns.
The growl happens again and this time there’s no doubt. Chilchuck grimaces and presses a palm to his stomach before shaking his head and resuming a sullen stare into the flame. Hmm. No good. No good at all.
“Hey,” Senshi says, sitting up on an elbow.
Chilchuck turns his head, blinking.
“Oh, hey. Can’t sleep?” He checks the melt-notches in the watch candle, then says, “It’s still an hour before your watch. You should still just close your eyes and doze, you know. That’s better than nothing. Trust me.”
“I know,” Senshi says, flipping his sleeping bag open. “Can I talk to you a minute? Away from the others? I don’t want to wake ‘em.”
“Oh, uh, sure.”
Chilchuck briefly checks over Marcille whose curled into a fetal position but happily drooling and sound asleep. They head toward the covered walkway outside the tower structure, a stone path that runs parallel to the lake where they fought the giant kraken earlier in the day. Even now, the enormous chalk-white corpse is still visible beneath the waters, sinking slowly amid the silver swarms of fish below.
Chilchuck peers over the edge of the stone walkway to survey the schools before turning on his heel, hands folded behind his head, to regard Senshi.
“What’d you wanna talk about?”
“I didn’t want to bring it up, cuz I thought it might just be an accident the first few times. But now, I’m kinda wondering something.”
Chilchuck frowns. “Okay?”
“The last few meals… you keep saying you’re full and giving the rest of the food to Laios and Marcille. But this is definitely the second night in a row I’ve heard your stomach growling. I know we’re only eating what we can find down here, so I thought maybe the portions just weren’t big enough the last few days.”
Senshi drops his hands on his hips, getting serious now.
“But that ain’t true today. We got a big cache of protein and even some grains. Everyone had a chance to eat their fill and then some. The others did. I thought you did too., but now I’m not so sure.”
“Wait.” Chilchuck unlaces his hands from behind his head. “You’ve been lying awake listening to me on watch?”
“You got first watch. ‘Course I’m more likely to be awake. I just happened to hear your stomach growling,” Senshi says, pointing to the other man’s midriff. “And was a little curious. In a party that’s gotta hunt and gather for its meals, why on earth are you restricting your food intake?”
“That’s crazy,” Chilchuck says, exasperated. “I’m fine, Senshi. Really. Now can we go back to—?”
“Sorry, but I think you’re lying.”
“What?” Chilchuck draws back, offended. “I said I’m fine. I’m eating enough. Hell, I’m eating better than I usually do in the dungeon. Seriously. I don’t get why you’re giving me a hard time about this.” He folds his arms, which he probably means to look casual but comes across defensive. “So, what if my stomach makes noise? It’s just all the weird food. It’s good, but it’s weird. That’s all.”
Senshi squints.
“So you’re saying you’re not hungry right now?”
“No,” Chilchuck says with absolute confidence at the exact moment his stomach rumbles so loudly that it echoes a little across the still lake. There’s an awkward beat of guilty silence. “Shit,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“See, I thought you were the smart one,” Senshi says, disappointed. He folds his own arms, leaning forward. “We don’t got a consistent food supply right now. You gotta eat as much as you can, whenever you can. Isn’t that obvious? Now, why’re you restricting your food intake?”
“This is pointless,” Chilchuck says annoyed. “I’m smaller. I just don’t need as much.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard you say. And it don’t answer my question either and I think you know it.”
Chilchuck bristles immediately at that. “Hey. I didn’t come out here so you could insult me. You asked me if I was eating enough. I’m telling you I am. What else is there to say?”
“I need to know why an important member of a small team is reducing his effectiveness on the team for no reason at all.”
“I’m not reducing my effectiveness,” Chilchuck cries, throwing his hands up. “I’m maintaining it.”
“By eating less and giving your brain and body less nutrients to run on?” Senshi leans in closer, looming over Chilchuck a little now. “By risking death?” He leans closer. “By handicapping yourself when the group relies on you so much?” Closer. “Tell me how not eating is keeping your skills sharp as they need to be?”
“Because I’ll get too heavy!” Chilchuck bursts out, leaning back, suddenly nervous. “Back off, Senshi.”
Senshi obliges and straightens back to normal posture. “How do you mean?”
“Ugh, if you gotta know, I’m tall for a half-foot.” Chilchuck gestures to himself, head to foot. “That means I weigh a bit more than average. Most traps in dungeons have a minimum weight threshold that I’m not heavy enough to trigger… but only if I maintain a low body weight for my size. That’s all. Your food is really good, but if I eat too much of it, I could gain weight and put us in danger. Understand?”
Senshi frowns. “No, I don’t. You couldn’t possibly gain enough weight that fast. Fat accumulation doesn’t happen all at once like that and if your stomach is rumbling like that, you’re probably dropping weight. Not maintaining it.”
“I’ve been doing this for years, Senshi. I know my body. Just leave this alone.”
“You didn’t have a problem eating the hot pot or a fruit tart. What changed between the first few floors and now? That doesn’t seem very consistent—"
“Ugh!” Chilchuck whirls around, dragging his hands over his face to become fists at his sides. He glares over his shoulder. “Look! The only reason I ate as much as I did in the beginning is because I was already starved after Falin died so I could afford to.”
Senshi frowns.
“What do you mean?”
“When we got wiped out, part of the reason was because we lost three days of food in a trap before we reached the dragon. It wasn’t my fault, but it was my area. So…” Chilchuck sighs, rubbing a hand through his hair, turning to face Senshi but looking away. “I told the others I had trail rations in my kit. I lied because I can go longer than the rest of them without eating. So, the fighters could get priority while we rationed so—”
He breaks off, as if catching himself, then snaps, glaring, “This this dumb and pointless to talk about. I made up the deficit. You can’t make me eat.”
Senshi lets that stand for a moment before saying, quietly, “No. You’re right. I can’t do that.” He glances back toward the tower, the flicker of the candle through the stone arch far down the path. “I could tell the others though.”
Chilchuck flinches, furrowed brow gone soft with fear. He glares right quick to cover it up, but it tugs ugly at something in Senshi’s chest. He knows Chilchuck ain’t a kid, not for a half-foot, but in the grand scheme of things twenty-nine years doesn’t seem enough time to get a grip on nothing in the world. Too short a time not to take care.
Too little time to spend a minute feeling… hollow.
Senshi sighs.
“But I won’t do that,” he says, gentle-like. The way he might have talked to poor Anne before he pushed her to act to her nature. (Before he put a creature he didn’t understand in a position to be killed.) Senshi says, “It’s your business what you do with your body, but will you listen to what I have to say?”
Chilchuck un-bristles slightly. “Fine. But I’m serious. This is part of my profession, Senshi.”
“Sure. And like I said, I’ll defer to you in everything trap and lock related. But when it comes to nutrition and food, that’s my specialty, right?” He pauses, but Chilchuck doesn’t argue or storm off. “Thank you. Now, you’re worried you’re gonna gain weight, right? Put us in danger.”
“Exactly.”
“Okay. Tell me about the party you had before. Sounded to me like there used to be two other fighters in your group. Laios, Namari, and some other guy up in front. You in the back, right? You didn’t have to do any fighting.”
“No. Not usually.”
Sensing some gained ground, Senshi takes care to go on slow. “Right. But this party don’t got those guys any more. You’re doing a lot more now. How many fights have you had to get up close for? Help haul people out of trouble? Stuff your old party could do without you?”
Chilchuck sighs, shoulders relaxing just a little as he folds his arms again. “More than usual,” he admits, looking off to the side.
“Right. And Falin wasn’t here to fight off those ghosts on level three, so we’ve been running around where you usually get to walk, burning up energy crazy quick. You understand?”
“You’re saying I can afford to eat more,” Chilchuck says, unfolding one arm so he can pinch the bridge of his nose.
“Not just that you can afford to eat more,” Senshi says sternly. “That you need to eat more. If you’re hungry enough you can’t sleep, you’re gonna drop weight. You’re gonna be slow. You won’t be able to think as well. You’ll make mistakes and, like you said before, if you mess up at your profession the rest of us die. Right?”
Chilchuck says nothing for a moment, but Senshi thinks he’s struck a nerve, hopefully the right one. He waits for the smaller adventurer to work though his words on his own, patient as he’s ever been with oil heating in a pan or waiting for dough to prove. If he tries to handle Chilchuck too quick, he’s going to ruin what he’s put in so far.
So, he waits.
The lake waters are so quiet he can hear the subtle click and groan of ancient mechanisms, moving so slowly they’re a thing out of time. He wonders what Chilchuck hears that he can’t. The twitch of ancient clockwork buried and drowned and wound tight to snap them up and eat them sure as the jaws of any beast.
Then Chilchuck says, “Alright. I guess… I guess you’re right.” He opens his eyes, finally looking up at Senshi directly. Not sullen, but faintly embarrassed. “I’m still acting and eating like I would if I was just the team picklock.” He sighs. “But that’s not the situation anymore. So… I need to change my habits to adapt. At least for now.”
“I’m real glad to hear you say that.”
Chilchick flushes slightly before glaring. “Well, a decade plus of habits are hard to break. I guess as long as it’s just short term—”
“You been restricting your food for a decade?!” Senshi bursts out, apoplectic.
Chilchuck immediately bristles up again, shouting, “NOT ALL THE TIME, IDIOT! JUST FOR THE JOB!”
“THAT AINT HEALTHY! YOU’LL RUIN YOUR METABOLISM!”
“BEING DEAD FROM EXPLODING TRAPS IS ALSO UNHEALTHY! AND WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT MY METABOLISM?!”
Groggily from the door: “What are you two arguing about?”
Chilchuck and Senshi whirl simultaneously, saying, “Nothing!” while a bleary-eyed Marcille rubs her face and blinks at them from the atrium door. She’s got a blanket wrapped around herself, rumpled, and not very convinced. She squints suspiciously from between curtains of bed-tussled blond bangs.
“Sounds like a whole lot of nothing,” she says grumpily.
“We’re just talking shop,” Senshi says, planting his hands on his hips. “And considering a midnight snack. We have a big day coming up tomorrow. Right, Chilchuck?”
There’s a momentary glare, followed by a soft ‘tch’ of annoyance. Chilchuck rubs the nape of his neck a little and says, “Yeah. My watch is ending but… I don’t think I could sleep. I think I didn’t get enough to eat earlier. So—”
Marcille’s demeanor changes immediately.
“Oh no! Chilchuck. You can’t sleep because you’re hungry? That’s awful.” She waves a little urgently toward the campfire with her blanket-swaddled arms. “Come on. Come here. We still have the kelpie meat right? Let’s cook a little. Can we do that Senshi?”
Senshi claps Chilchuck on the shoulder, maybe a little too hard, because he grunts and buckles slightly.
“Course we can!” Senshi declares. “No one’s going hungry in this party.”
Chilchuck groans but allows himself to be steered back toward the camp. Marcille promptly begins to fuss over him until he swats her away like an over-stimulated cat and sits, cross-legged, and fuming slightly while watching Senshi prep a haphazard cookfire and stir-fry. The half-foot’s grumpy demeanor softens a bit once the meat, veg, and oil hits the pan.
As the smell of cooking food fills their camp, just a bit of tension goes out of everything. Senshi’s focused on the meal, a single-serve portion but generous. He can feel Chilchuck watching him while Marcille takes the opportunity to heat some water to warm herself. The half-foot’s stare, like flecks of topaz, studies him in the dark. Like a trap he’s gonna disarm.
“Should be ready,” Senshi says encouragingly. “Marcille. Hand me a bowl would ya?”
“Sure thing!”
“Is Laios still alive?” Chilchuck asks, taking the steaming bowl from Senshi’s hand a bit later.
Marcille pokes the lump on the ground that is Laios, gets a pitiful moan in response.
“Yeah,” she says, bopping their team leader with her staff and a pop of healing magic. “He’s still alive.”
Chilchuck takes a bite of the stir-fry and exhales slightly, as if in relief. Senshi feels a bit of tension leaving his own shoulders watching the picklock start to dig in more earnestly. Feels it eke out of him bite by bite, until the bowl is empty in Chilchuck’s hands and Marcille’s been allowed to scoot close and sit near him with a mug of warm water.
“Better?” she asks, nudging him gently.
“Yeah,” he says, but reluctantly, letting her lean over to briefly drop her cheek against the top of his head. “I guess needed that.” He glances sidelong at Senshi, past the fringe of his bangs where Marcille’s weight has tussled it into his eyes. “Thanks for… staying up to cook, Senshi.”
“Course. It’s my specialty, after all.”
Chilchuck tolerates Marcille’s physical affection for a few minutes longer before pointing out his watch is ended, and everyone should try to sleep a bit. Senshi’s watch is next, so he snuffs the cookfire and re-lights the single watch candle and waits. Sure enough, Marcille drops right off to sleep (the elf-girl’s shockingly good at passing out wherever and whenever is required).
Senshi listens closely, but the only sound from Chilchuck’s bedroll is the soft shift of blankets and then, eventually, slow even breathing.
Senshi waits until he’s sure everyone is deeply asleep. Then, very, very quietly, he stands up to peer down at the sleeping picklock.
He’s relieved and encouraged to find Chilchuck’s sleeping face relaxed and unworried. Unlike the last few nights, where the kid’s (okay, surely twenty-nine is still youthful even for a half-foot) face seemed drawn and a little uncomfortable. He’s relaxed and peaceful now. One arm tucked under his head, his neck-warmer pulled up under his ears and over his chin for the extra warmth.
He looks like a rabbit, Senshi thinks, perhaps uncharitably, to himself.
Gratified, Senshi takes a seat.
He doesn’t know the Touden party. Not what they used to be or this broken remainder fighting its way to recover its missing people. But he thinks about the kind of mindset that says, “I’ll take food outta my own mouth to feed the others. Because they’re more important. Because it’s what’s best for the whole. Because it’s sensible. That’s all.”
It means something.
More than, perhaps, the man doing it comprehends.
Yes, Senshi likes this little party and its mean picklock and strange leader and (tentatively) tolerable mage. It will be a sad day when they part ways. For now, though, he can make sure this version of the Touden party gets everything he can offer and doesn’t chew itself up.
Yes. He can do that for sure.