“Alright, come on now.” Tanathos woke us up a bit earlier than usual, “Rise and shine, brothers. Great things await those who rise early.”

“No!” Shaid was all too quick to shoot him down, “I ain’t going on another trip with you, old man! Not after last time!”

“Aw, come on now. But last time was so much fun, and you two were of great help to me.”

“Yeah, maybe for you it was fun, but not for us!” Olya parried Tanathos’ words, “Honestly, you made me hate traveling merchants with a passion. I don’t ever wanna see another piece a’ shiet fake ass jewelry piece for the rest of my life! That being said, Shaid, you go.”

“What?!” Shaid jumped up in anger, “What the fuck do you mean by that, amigo? You’re going.”

“Alright, rock paper scissors for who gets to stay?” Olya suggested.

“You’re on!” Shaid proudly accepted, “One, two, three… Shoot!”

“…”

“……”

“Best two out of three?” Olya pleaded.

“Fuck no! Woo!” Shaid took the W on this one in stride, “Suck it, fatty, this is my win! Buh-bye now! See you soon!”

“Shaid, brother…” Tanathos approached him with tears in his Eyes, “So this is how you truly feel, huh? You despise helping this poor Old Man to such a degree, that you’d even shamelessly flaunt leaving me and brother Olya alone?”

“Oh, that’s right, Shaid~!” Olya started the guild trip of the century, “This poor Old Man, whose back is slowly but surely eating away at his psyche, is simply asking of you to help him with some smaller tasks. Y’know, like an assistant? But oh, I guess if you’re gonna be like that to the person I’d say you owe the most to, then there’s just no helping it…”

“Hey, quit it, you two!” Shaid started yelling, “I won fair and square! Don’t try to make me go with you two when I obviously don’t want to!”

“Boo~!” Olya groaned as he started packing his things, “You’re no fun, Shai.”

“Don’t you dare call me that!” Something finally snapped inside of him, “Only the fair Mirka can call me that!”

“Mirka?”

“Grr…!” I couldn’t take it anymore as I threw myself at him, “T’fuck you tryin’ ta’ say about my ma’, huh?! You asshole, I’m gonna legally change your name to Shai just so everyone has to call you that, y’hear!?”

“Ow ow ow! Schnell! Stop it, amigo! I was just kidding about your mom, okay? Ow, hey! These punches are gonna leave a mark in the morning, so seriously, quit it!”

“Not unless you take back what you just said about my mom!”

“I literally said nothing bad though?!” He protested, only to get clobbered straight in the face because of it, “Ow, fuck!”

Witnessing our little display here, the ever-in-the-nude young lady rolled over to face us from her bed and in her hazy state, looked on with a semi-disinterested gaze. It was apparent here that we had woken up the now groggy Casssandra, but she wasn’t at all as pissy about it as we had expected her to be.

“Go back to sleep, idiotas.” She offered a middle ground solution, “Sleep good, but infighting bad.”

“No no, Cassandra.” Tanathos corrected her, “Wrong word. In this scenario, bickering would be a better fit.”

“I do not care in the slightest, papá.” She rolled back over.

“Hey now, I have no use of you if you’re going to laze about.” Tanathos plucked the bedsheets off of her, “Get up. You’re getting better at Entropic, but it’s still a farcry from good enough.”

“H-Hey!” The three of us shouted as we covered our Eyes, “Come on, man! Have some shame! We’re gonna see your daughter’s…!”

Eh? What’s this? Or rather, would a more appropriate question be Who is this? What the hell, Cassandra, the one girl who would always refuse to put some decent clothing on, she’s… wearing sleepwear?!

“…Ngh.” She looked away from our intense stares, “What you looking at, hombres? Bad!”

“A-Ah!” I shook myself out of the trance, “Sorry ‘bout that, ‘s just we ain’t used to seein’ you look decently dressed.”

“See? I told you they’d react like that.” Tanathos chuckled, “Although it’s just a tank top and some shorts for now, I think it’s enough for them to at least look at you when conversing.”

“On second thought, weather is too scalding.” She started reaching over her head, “I do not like this. I am taking it off…”

“Don’t!” We hastily stopped her.

“Ah, but why the sudden change?” Shaid inquired, “I mean, we appreciate you finally following everyone else’s example, but we of all people should know how strongly you’re against the idea of wearing clothes. What straw broke the camel’s back, so to speak.”

“Lina?!” She started panicking.

“It’s a figure of speech they invented.” Tanathos calmed her down whilst glaring on at Shaid, “And a rather distasteful one at that, brother.”

“Who cares about that? Come on, just answer the question.” Olya urged the poor girl, “Who’s the piece a’ shiet that made our mascot nudist lady lose her way?”

“Ahem, that would be me.” Tanathos raised an eyebrow, “I am, as you say, that piece a’ shiet, brother Olyahim. Although I do believe that even in your parts of the World, it is nothing out of the ordinary for a father to protect his daughter from unwanted lecherous stares.”

“Yikes!” Olya soon realized he messed up and started backpedaling, “Y-You’re right, sir! Why, of course a father would put some proper clothes on his daughter! It’d only make sense, right?! A-As an older man myself, I can definitely testify your claims! In fact, I was beginning to wonder what was taking you so long!?”

“Well, you are correct in that I haven’t been as unforgiving as I should be for my daughter’s habits, it is not like she didn’t have any reasons behind her distaste for wearing any garments. I just figured now would be a good time to go all out on the strictness.”

“How so?” I asked, not expecting him to immediately point his finger at me.

“Because my daughter will be living alone with a man, of course! I trust you, brother Schnell, but I do not trust a man’s lust.”

“E-Eh?!” I jolted back, my pupils darting between him and Cassandra, “What the-?! But I would neve-! Huh?!”

“Oh, if that’s the case…” Shaid immediately struck a deal, “Then I can stay back with Schnell to make sure nothing happens, will that be alright? I mean, if he didn’t have the balls to do anything with the three of us around, then surely that means even having one of us stay here with them will give you some peace of mind.”

“Hey, no fair!” Olya protested, “You just wanna get away with not having to go on the trip!”

“You will?” Tanathos shook Shaid’s hand, thus taking the deal, “Then by all means, and thank you, brother!”

“Ehe~!” Shaid turned around all smug and triumphant at the fuming Olya, “The pleasure’s all mine~!”

***

Standing around the majestic camel, we had all huddled around to wave Tanathos and Olya off before they departed for Cardina. Of course, one person was happier than the other.

“Grr…! Ooh, when I get back Shaid, you’re gonna get it!”

“Yeah yeah, have a safe trip!” Shaid smiled back at Olya before Tanathos began getting all uncertain as he usually does before every trip.

“Uh, brothers, now that I think about it, I kind of don’t feel safe putting my Cassandra in your care alone… Should I have called a female neighbor just in case, after all?”

“Come on, now.” I reassured him this time, “Tanathos, how many times do we have to tell you? We see Cassandra as nothing more than a younger sister.”

“She’s older though, so I guess a younger older sister.” Shaid added.

Confusing Tanathos into an even more uncertain position, we had finally given up on saying another word more in the fear that he’d just tell us to hop aboard Lina and join the grueling journey after all. That being said, Olya was all but waiting for it, but in my opinion, joining him isn’t something I’d wish on my worst enemy.

“Alright, we are off, brothers.” Tanathos hopped on Lina as he waited for Olya to do the same, “And you two, please don’t get any ideas with my daughter while I’m gone. Before, it was mostly alright since I had the neighbors take care of her for the duration of my trip, but she’s since gotten sick lately, so we have no other choice but to have her stay here.”

“For Selzion’s sake, just get the fuck outta’ here already, man!” I finally snapped and slapped Lina on the ass, making her hop forward into a slightly faster gallop.

“A-Ah, that reminds me, when we get back…!” Tanathos said what I can only imagine is something important, but due to him slowly moving out of earshot from us, we didn’t quite catch it. Oh well, now that that Old Man is finally out of the equation, Shaid and I can finally do the thing! Running back to the tent, raising the sand particles high as we ran through the quik and past the pyramid greenhouse, we lifted the tent’s curtains in great haste and ran over to where Cassandra was lying.

“Hm?” She looked on at us, “What do you want?”

“Wanna see something cool?”

“Eh? Hombres, you are worrying me…”

“Wanna.see.something.cool?” I annunciated each word as I split the sentence up, “Yes or no question. Don’t ask why.”

“S-Sure…” She started inching away from us, “W-Wait! Stand back!”

“Great!” I picked her up by the pits as one would a cat, “Here’s a shopping list. If you wanna see the cool thing we’re talking about, buy us everything from here.”

After handing her the amazing quest Shaid and I definitely didn’t half-ass just a minute ago, I promptly tossed her out of the tent before closing the curtains behind us without a word more.

“Hehe! Nice going, amigo!” Shaid gave me a high five, “With this, we’ve got at least 15 minutes of playtime!”

If you’re confused by what we’re talking about, let me explain. You see, Shaid and I are both avid fans of all sorts of games, but apparently Tanathos is not. The last time he saw us playing some good ol’ fashioned Blackjack, he had took the cards away from us and burned them on the nearby altar of the Sun God the quikkas here visit to pray to. They were good cards, too, but he didn’t at all tolerate them, because in his words – “Casino games rot the mind.”

Of course, waiting for him to depart for a faraway location whilst leaving the both of us here was just one part of the plan. The other involved whipping up an arbitrary shopping list to give to Cassandra as we sent her off into the quik. This was to ensure there were no witnesses, so that we could have no anxieties about her spilling the beans to Tanathos when he got back home. Of course, we would feel bad kicking a naked girl out of her house, even if the whole place is used to it, but now that she’s finally got some proper clothes on, we have no qualms about simply kicking her out! Alright, caught up yet? Well, I hope y’are, ‘cause today’s game is none other than Poker, baby!

“Gimme two cards.” Shaid said as he discarded two weak cards from his deck, “Oh, you ain’t gonna like this, amigo!”

“Your bluffs won’t work on me!” I said as I swapped out one of the cards from my deck, “Bop! Three of a Kind!”

“Royal Flush!”

“Royal Flush my ass!” I started getting fussy as I took a swig of Tanathos’ rum as punishment, “Ooh, this shit never gets old. Hic, next round!”

“Hey, when do you think she will be back?” Shaid suddenly hit me with a curveball as I gave him his cards, “I kind of feel bad tossing a lady out so harshly.”

“Would you rather she told Tanathos about us two playing Poker while he’s away?”

“Well, not particularly. I just think Poker would be way more fun if all of us could play, Olya and Tanathos too.”

“Well sure, but Tanathos won’t let us.” I replied as I revealed my cards, “Bop, Two Pair, by the way. As I was saying though, I’d like to teach Cassandra a thing or two about Poker as well, but she’ll be a liability if we do. We can’t risk it.”

“Sure, sure…” He tossed a damned Full House on the floormat we were playing on as he yet again asked an odd question, “By the way, should I be worried about what Tanathos was saying?”

“What, me and Cassandra?” I brushed off the notion, “Not at all, man. She’s cool, but I really do only see her as an unofficial sibling.”

“Really?” He teased as I took another swig of my booze, “So you weren’t at all disappointed after finding out you won’t be seeing her buck naked anymore?”

“Ah.” I glanced over at the curtain opening as Shaid and I were in the middle of our game, “Dude, quick! Hide it…!”

“What?” He chuckled, oblivious.

“I said hide the cards! Someone’s here!”

“I’m back with the… things.” Cassandra looked at the two of us all sweaty and scruffed up from frantically running to toss the cards under Shaid’s bed, “You two are… really tired, are you not?”

“Huh? Oh, uhh, yeah. You’re thinking of exhausted, but tired works too.”

“So are those cards you tried to hide from me the cool thing you wanted for me to see?”

“Shit, you saw that?!” We cried out, “Please don’t tell your dad when he gets back!”

“Hmm, I dunno…” She teased as she sat herself beside us, “Let me play with you and I’ll consider.”

Geez, how the hell did she get all those items so quickly when it hasn’t even been 5 minutes yet!? She is one scary woman… Eh, as long as she promises to keep quiet about this, I certainly won’t mind an extra player. Hic.