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Smudge nodded, agreeing with Danny.
However, he had something to do first.
He approached Margret and John, axe in hand and a pissed off look on his ugly mug.
"Who were those two and why did they want you dead?" he growled, not appreciating letting someone free reign to flee..
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Margret looks up from her brother at Smudge, a relieved smile not quite slipping from her face. The boy looks completely out of it, but alive. "I don't know for certain. I'm sorry you and your friends were in danger to help us. I really am. Without your help John would be dead right now. The old woman was sort of the leader of our family, though she only came by from time to time. Her name is Ved'ma, and we often just called her "The Witch". It wasn't an insult, or she didn't think it was. The man is her personal guard or something, I don't know for sure. She only ever called him her "Bogatyr", which is some sort of knight, I think."
Margret pauses for a moment, then lets out a deep breath. "We - that is my brother and I - we were kicked out of our home when we turned 18. I don't think Dad wanted to do it, but that bitch he married a few years ago convinced him that we should be out on our own and all now that we're adults and what with the economy being in the gutter they couldn't afford to feed us anymore. We had finished high school, not great grades, but not terrible, so I convinced John we'd be ok. I tried going to school, but we couldn't get any jobs and we couldn't keep up with the rent and all....we ended up on the streets.
"The Witch and her family took us in, gave us a place to stay and something to eat. We even got hot pizza occasionally. I knew the things they had us doing probably weren't exactly legal, but we were just dropping of packages and collecting money, you know? But then John started using the stuff. They were cooking meth and selling it. Told me we had to pay for what we used, but we couldn't afford that! So I started doing more work for them while John just got worse. I had to drop out of school.
"When I showed up to the warehouse today I heard them talking to the Witch about some Vice cop getting too close and that they were going to burn John and me for it. I guess that makes a bit more sense now, but the Witch just looked at me and I panicked. I ran, and that's where you all come in to the story. I suppose they were going to drug us up and let us go up with the lab here. Cops find evidence of drug use with two bodies in the wreckage, case closed, right?"
Danny dragged himself up off the floor, looking remorsefully back at the wreckage. He knew how hot the fire had been, first-hand. His sword would be useless, left in the wooden door. It had probably shattered with everything else. He rubbed his temples.
His fingerprints would be all over the handle, and he didn't want to be involved in a drugs related crime.
He scanned the area hopefully, trying to at least see some of the pieces.
It didn't seem right to leave such a faithful, old friend here, alone in the wreckage. It was disrespectful.
Danny made a low, strange humming noise as he murmured in a half-forgotten, dream-like language without words. Once, he had been able to sing to metal, and it had come to him, no matter what.
He couldn't do that here, but maybe he could spot it.
2 successes
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Danny spots the trailer door lying twisted about 20 feet from where the trailer was before. It would seem the door was blasted off of it's hinges, absorbing a lot of the force of the explosion. The sword still protrudes from the door, twisted and slagged by the heat of the explosion to the point of uselessness.
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Smudge looked at the girl and then her brother, and his face softened slightly. With his free hand he pushed the fire helmet a little bit higher so as to scratch his head.
"Where are you gonna go now?" he asked, looking over to where Danny was investigating.
Looking at it was like looking at a mangled corpse. Danny walked over to the smoking ruin of the door, his shoulders slumped.
For a brief, split second, he had hoped.
Gently, he wiped the polished handle with the sleeve of his shirt, making sure not to touch it for any more than a second from the heat.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "You deserved a better ending."
Anya listened to Margret's tale without interruption, until the girl reached the end. It wasn't as if she was completely uncaring about the ordeal of the two, on the contrary their plight tugged at the Draconic on a level she couldn't allow herself to acknowledge much anymore. Her words however, would not immediately suggest any desire to helper further.
Maybe she did just want to distance herself now.
"Regardless of what you may plan to do next, we need to vacate the area before something else goes wrong." Hard logic, that worked. "Let's go."
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Margret shrugs at Smudge's question. "I'm not sure. But we're both alive tonight - thanks to all of you." She helps her brother to her feet. The faint sounds of sirens in the distance punctuate Anya's warning and Margret glances toward them for a moment. She nods, "Yes, we should go. I can find a place for the two of us to go tonight. Look, if any of you ever need anything... I don't know if we could help at all, but if you look us up we'll try." She mentions a location downtown to start looking for them, most likely somewhere people on the street gather. She then moves to support her brother under her arm and begins moving him away from the ruined trailer and exploded meth lab. The two of them return to the woods and while they may be lost in the dark, they still have each other.
Fin.
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