Annoyance

Author: Seth


"You know, it'd be nice to actually go to sleep where we planned to for once..."

Old, crumbling brick buildings crowded so closely together that the alleys that ran between them were called such as a formality only. Hawkers crying their wares from overflowing stands that straddled the refuse littered dirt road. People of all clanalities mingling in the crowd, sometimes cordial, other times belligerent.

The home away from home.

Then again, they didn't have a home, never really had, so as far as they were concerned this was home. At least for now.

A golden coin flashed along Kyuusei's fingers as both twins ambled down the main thoroughfare, looking idly the cornucopia of items on display in each stall as they passed.

"I really wish you wouldn't do that." Tatsuen grumbled noncommittally, eying the golden disk as it continued its dance around his sister's fingers, appearing and disappearing like some glinting spirit. "I don't feel like getting chased out of town just because you baited the wrong rich boy." He started playing with a small model glider which had somehow found its way into his hands.

"Oh c'mon, there's no sport in stealing from unsuspecting chumps." The drake of the pair grinned. "Gotta challenge ourselves or we're going to get rusty~" The coin began flying through the air from hand to hand, making elaborate patterns that simply couldn't fail to catch the eye.

A brown blur shot past Kyuusei, snatching at the coin which seemed to jump just out of the range of common thief's hand as he kept on running, not daring to go back and try his luck a second time in broad daylight. The missed chance at weeks worth of pickings would gall the would-be pilferer for the next few hours, though not as much as when he found that his purse had gone mysteriously missing.

"I don't see how this is any more of a challenge." Tatsuen commented, looking through the metallic contents of the pouch he'd lifted, almost as a second thought, from the passing pickpocket. "If anything it makes it easier." He fingered one of the silver coins the purse contained curiously; it was of a mint he'd not yet seen. "And please don't take that as encouragement."

"If we're going to reel in the big ones, we've got to have a bit of bait, don't we?" Kyuusei absently rapped a set of fingers that were creeping near her pocket. A quick yelp and the figure that had been shadowing them quickly melted into the crowd.

"What bait?" The gryphane of the two asked. "A couple of small purses that amount to maybe a fifth, at best, of what we could make if we were actually trying?" The silver haired boy shook the pouch for emphasis.

"Ahhh, but we're not baiting tucow here, that's way too tame for us." The female twin laughed at her brother's annoyed and worried expression. "No. We, we are baiting sharks." Kyuusei's face lit up as a predatory grin stretched from cheek to cheek. "And to bait sharks, we need some blood in the water."

The aloe loving girl altered course ever so slightly, heading towards a slight disturbance in the bustling crowd. Tatsuen looked down his sister's projected course and promptly plopped his face squarely into his palm.

Ahead the human flood parted ever so slightly to allow passage to a group of rakishly dressed individuals, whose kimonos were far too loud for anyone with even the barest fashion sense, and who each carried a katana on their hips. Of all the cities, towns, and even villages the twins could have stopped in for the day, they somehow ended up in the one that, apparently, still had a functional yakuza. Didn't it just figure?

"You aren't seriously-" Tatsuen started before Kyuusei cut him off.

"Don't be such a party pooper, this'll be a blast." The dancing coin crescendoed to a maddening frenzy.

"Most people would consider your version of 'a blast' to be suicidal." The pouch disappeared into his pocket in anticipation nonetheless.

"Since when are we 'Most people'?" Kyuusei laughed,

"Point." Tatsuen conceded, fingering the bag slung over his back for mild reassurance. Not that he needed it of course. It's just that sometimes Kyuusei's little games didn't exactly play out all that well, and he'd rather not leave this town short a historical monument like they had the last one.

Even so, as much as he'd come to dread that predatory glint in Kyuusei's eye, as much as it annoyed him that the he could kiss whatever rest he'd been looking forward to goodbye, he had to admit, his sister played one hell of a game.