After dropping the steaks Dalamar had boxed up for Wayland at Slaver's place where Wayland was staying, I made my way back to the docks and the warehouse I'd set up as a secondary home - it's not like anyone was going to complain about trespassing.
I called to the jit, and thankfully this time he came scampering out from between stacked pallets of goods... I paused a moment to look around. There was still a lot of stuff to go through. It would be difficult to decide what was necessary and what I simply wanted. It was my nature to acquire things I wanted - and now everything was pretty much free for the taking. Pretty much because I'd decided I wasn't taking things off dead bodies. I already felt bad enough that they weren't being properly sent off to the afterlife, if there was an afterlife.
Yeah, I wasn't going to take anything off the dead bodies. Everything I needed could be found in these cargos, on and off the ships and if it wasnt , I could probably trade something down the road.
As the sun began to set over the gulf - and the Thassa beyond- I collected my jit and the box of tospits next to my bench and went inside. Before I closed the door I lit several lanterns in the main warehouse giving a soft warm glow to the place. Shutting and locking the door I then let the jit go. He knew I had food so he wasnt going far, instead he began doing an animated dance of monkey gimme-gimme-gimme.
I couldnt help but laugh, in all the doom and gloom I felt outside, this small beast still brought joy in his exuberance and innocence. It seems his world wasn't tainted with death - or was it? ......I thought back to our trip to Port Kar... where he huddled in his travel crate and seemed very subdued and quiet... Almost like he was sick - but clearly he hadn't been because he'd recovered so quickly. Did he know something happened - or was happening?
I grabbed a handful of tospits and made my way back to the office area, closing that door ,too, as I'd entered the room with the jit very nearly stuck to my heels , screeching his glee -and demand- for food. I turned up the low burning lanterns to a brighter flame and bathed the room in light... I then sat down to peel and section the fruit for the jit. I could have let him do it, his ancestors clearly did to live, but I knew that if he 'thought' he had to depend on me for his meals - he'd not simply steal fruit and go rogue. To him, it seemed I held the key to getting inside the fruit and I let him believe that.
Up until now, it had been a good working arrangement - I sent him out to find shinies and rewarded him when he returned. I then thought about the future... The world wasn't going to work on coins and shinies anymore. I'd need to re-train the jit to do something else. I watched him munch away as I fed him bits of tospit. As for myself I'd already had a delicious steak and these tospits were just for Bug. I wondered what tomorrow would bring... and the next day - and the next. Was there other life out there?
There had to be...
I mean come on, I found the Outlaw... who I didnt know... and of all people I found (Ok Dalamar found) Wayland - who I did know.....Where was Wayland before he arrived in Port Kar?... The Outlaw had mentioned Brunduism... I was in the Marshes at the Den... Wayland came from somewhere. What if there was one person from each city or place left on the planet? Were they wondering the same thing?
All this thinking was pretty tiring (or maybe it was the full belly and a feeling of safety here in the warehouse office). The more I thought the less answers there seemed to be. Once the jit was done with his meal, I washed his face and little hands with the cloth in the water bucket, then tossed it back into the water to be changed out tomorrow.
I turned the lanterns down low and made myself ready for bed. Unbraiding my hair, brushing it, and the jits a few times because he thought he needed it, too . I then changed into my sleeping tunic and settled in on the couch. The jit scampered up and snuggled into the covers as well. I patted him gently and drifted off to sleep.
As I woke the next morning, I fell into the same routine that it seemed I'd made for myself since I'd been in Port Kar. Waking, dressing, heading outside and rifling through pallet after pallet... sometimes in the belly of a ship, other times on the dock itself. I sorted things into piles of 'necessary', 'probably necessary',' maybe I could use this', 'I kinda want this', 'and yeah,No'.
It had been a few sleeps, or more, since I'd last seen Wayland or Dalamar. I figured we were all busy doing the things we needed to do to figure out what we were going to do next. Perhaps in the morning I'd change the routine and head out to look for them - *well* ahead of any sunsets that brought the people eating creatures, - that Dalamar had mentioned, out-. Yeah I wasnt wandering anywhere at night anymore... even though I'd not seen hide nor hair of any creatures - or the Men- since that conversation, I wasnt taking any chances.
The planet, it appeared, didn't have enough people left on it to begin with - it couldn't afford to lose me.
