by Joey Anderle
Because you know, priorities.
Delvar cleared his throat from the other side of the door, “So what time are we leaving?”
“Goodness!” Booker exclaimed in surprise, twisting his head to look down at the dwarf, “It’s barely dawn, what are you doing up?”
“Dwarves get up at dawn,” He explained, “It’s what we do, what are you doing up at dawn?”
Booker’s eyes slid up as he thought of his answer, “Because,” he watched Delvar carefully as he continued, “Leaders need to be presentable, so I’m just making myself presentable.”
“You decorating your beard?” Delvar questioned.
“No,” Booker responded, dragging his spare hand lazily across his clean jaw, ‘Genetics man, I have exactly zero beard game.” He lamented.
“We have ailments like that,” Delvar offered, “wouldn’t be much at all if you needed help, some dwarves can’t get ‘em out sometimes either.”
“Uhm,” Booker pondered the offer, and possible allusion, “The thing is, that medicine is meant for dwarfs and dwarf beard culture, and while I wouldn’t mind the help, I also fear I would step out looking like… oh… say, Saint Nicholas.”
Delvar shrugged, “Just know that I know a guy.”
“I’m sure you do,” Booker nodded, “Just like how you know a guy for when you need axes on demand.”
“When you’re in the business like me…” Then Delvar realized, “You are in the business like me. How do you- “
“Because, I am the one that gives you the axes you demand,” Booker answered, “Little hard for there to be a middle man when you are the middle man.”
“Makes sense,” Delvar nodded, “Where are those coins we talked about earlier.” The dwarf inquired.
“Yesterday,” Booker corrected.
Delvar waved his hand, “The same thing.”
“Why,” Booker questioned.
“We’re going to need them,” He responded.
“Need them for what,” Booker pressed further as Delvar’s answers became more and more conspicuous.
“Chances are we’ll run into someone or somewhere, where it would be the better option to pay with coin,” Delvar answered.
“And let me guess,” Booker rose an eyebrow inquisitively, “You want to hold on to said gold coins?”
“Sure,” Delvar answered as if he hadn’t even had the thought in mind.
“Alright,” Booker agreed, pulling his door open to let the dwarf in, “How many do you think we need, like a hundred?”
“Like a handful,” Delvar corrected in dismay, “Unless you plan on also renting a mercenary band for a few days?”
“I can do that? “Booker inquired.
Delver nodded with his beard as he approached Booker, “Yeah, but good luck getting that many mercs in such a short time.”
Booker slid his eyes to the side as he set that idea aside, “Huh,” he bisected his array of formal shirts, reaching in and pulling it back out with a silver suitcase attached.
“Alphonse got me this when I became The Booker,” he informed. “For when I started, and I quote again, ‘making it big time.’”
Rolling his thumbs along the digit locks on the brief case, a sharp metallic click of the locks snapping out of place signified Booker's success in remembering his passcode. Booker brought the case around and opened it to Delvar.
The Dwarves eyes grew wide as several long rows of neatly arranged golden coins dully glared back at him.
“Grab a stack or two; I think I arranged them in tens.” Booker offered.
“Don’t mind if I do,” Delvar slipped a roll into his pockets, “This is what it’s like to be The Booker eh?”
Sterling shrugged as he shut the case, scrambling the digits on the top of the case before placing it back where it belonged, “It’s better than a lot of nine to five jobs I know some other people have. Just happened to be the guy with the right amount of luck in the right place.”
“Can’t all be luck,” Delvar batted at his nose before pointing back at Sterling, “Else something would’ve gone wrong by now.”
“Oh, things have gone wrong,” Booker answered, nodding as he recollected some faulty jobs. “Sometimes my fault,” he admitted, “and there was this one time where it was a setup, never quite figured out who was behind that one at all.”
Delvar listened absently as he looked around the closet for more hidden gems, giving Booker the opportunity to continue discussing his favorite topic.
“I mean seriously; there was this baby that I had to get from point A to point B.” Booker placed his hands on his hips and looked up into his ceiling as he continued his story, “Crossbows were shot at us, it was honestly pretty badass ‘cause they were all chasing me with Alphonse in the passenger seat holding the baby, and Alphonse was all like.” Sterling cleared his throat and gave a pretty accurate impression of the elvish crime lord, “I swear to you, Sterling, should you injure I, the car, or this child, with these reckless maneuvers…”
Damn Delvar was looking around as Booker continued and on, He’s either really good at hiding or doesn’t have much more.
“-And that’s probably why I ended up becoming Sterling The Booker Wells and not Sterling The Economic Analyst Wells.”
Delvar shook his head. Damn, where did the time go? “I’m sorry did you say something?” he asked the young human.
Booker slowly swayed his head left to right, “Nah not really, only my life story, honestly.”
“Ah, makes sense,” Delvar nodded, “So nothing important.”
“Ow,” Booker whispered softly.
Delvar started out the closet door, “Where do we go from here?”
“That depends, what time is it?” Booker moved his hands, pressing against every possible pocket in search for his phone. Growing more panicked as each pocket was confirmed to be empty.
Without much of a word, he slid past Delvar and back into his room, frantically searching the bed, “Where is it,” Booker muttered softly, then spotting the aluminum borders of his phone. He reached across his bed to swipe the phone off his night stand.
Booker had some trouble coming up with the will power to peel himself off his bed.
“You alright there?” Delvar questioned.
“Yeah,” Booker assured him, sliding his phone into his back pocket, “Just making sure I had my phone.”
Booker snapped his fingers in realization, moving around his bed to the nightstand, pulling open the top drawer. “People occasionally ask me what I look for with outfits,” he started, pulling out a slim black rectangular box, and a neatly wrapped cord. “The answer is commonly, pockets.” Booker opened the inside of his leather jacket, the items disappearing into the inner coat pockets as he explained further.
“Utility is a questionably overlooked aspect of clothing, to be honest, I mean sure, guy’s jeans have pockets that could fit their entire day.” Booker retrieved his phone and moved it into his front pockets, gesturing with his hands to the rough outline it made, “but I mean c’mon though, this just ruins the lines for me, like I have some sort of Robocop panel on my leg.” He moved his phone into his back pocket, “At least in my back pocket it's less disrupting to me.”
“Right,” Delvar agreed as he slipped out the room, unsure what this entire tirade was about.
Booker sighed and scratched his head as Delvar closed the door and entered the small hallway.
“What’s a Robocop?” the Dwarf questioned himself, making his way back to where his makeshift cot was, Mordecai slept on the floor, quietly muttering to himself in his sleep, no doubt dreaming of scholarly smart things like financial systems or something elaborate.
Delvar sometimes wished he were as intelligent as the outcast Troll; the Dwarf was smart. While there was nary a nook or cranny he couldn’t get himself in or out of, he was barely literate outside of dwarvish sigils, even after all of Mordecai’s efforts. But, that’s why Mordecai was around, to do all the heavy mental lifting.
> For the actual heavy lifting, trolls are famous for their raw strength for a reason, and Mordecai was not an exception.
However, compared to the Dwarf, he was on the awkward side in social situations, since there was no previous code, style or instruction of approaching the Troll as his people tended to be rather isolationist. There are a handful of recorded Troll tribesmen that broke away, and the Dwarf’s friend was the fourth on that list when he left so many ages ago.
Delvar wandered about the apartment and eventually landed at the window, looking out to an inky black sky floating above this world's buildings and cars. Lost in thought on how he got here, while it wasn’t unheard of for a dwarf to leave his family to pursue a different career than the generational occupations dwarf culture expects, but no one ever believed that they would be the one to break the lineage unless they come from a litter of dwarves.
In that case, it is expected for the youngling to pursue a worldly cause, perhaps spread their culture in another race’s land. But to become a career criminal? Delvar’s eyes searched the sky for an answer, missing out on Booker finally stepping out of his room.
“You alright, Bud?” He questioned, making his way over to his kitchen. Pulling his jacket off as if it were a cape, neatly hanging it on a hook jutting off the edge of the bar.
“Why are you The Booker,” Delvar questioned, still searching the sky for clues at least.
“I just told you,” Booker shrugged, slowly folding his long sleeves up his arm, “Pays well, more attractive than regular jobs.”
“That’s not quite right,” Delvar pondered, “Why as in, what led up to you taking the mantle as one of the best Runners in history?”
Sterling moved to his fridge, the white light illuminating the contents as he moved his pizza box around to get a better look, “Huh,” He sounded, “Never quite thought about it.”
The Runner pulled out the eggs and milk. Setting them on the nearby counter, moving about his kitchen on autopilot as he thought back. Setting various bowls, a pair of lined cups, and a few more ingredients in front of him, and placed a large iron griddle atop a set of burners on the stove. Slowly starting to explain how he thought he got here.
“I guess it started with…” he tapered off as he poured milk into the largest bowl, closing the box and setting it back in the fridge before answering, “Hot-wiring.”
Delvar looked questionably at Sterling, “Hot-wiring?”
“Yeah, you know,” Booker looked back to who he was talking to and corrected himself, “No you don’t, why would you.” He looked up as he thought of the simplest way to describe his old pastime, “Steal cars, go for a joy ride, occasionally race them, and if I was really good or the owner was really oblivious I could do this all without getting caught.”
The Dwarf moved over to the barstool, climbing up on the chair to sit on it as he watched Sterling in the various shades of blue cast on the human from the early morning sky. “How does that lead to becoming a part of the criminal underworld of another…” The Dwarf trailed off unsure what to refer to his side as.
“World?” Sterling suggested.
“Eh,” Delvar sounded unsatisfied.
“I get what you mean, though,” Sterling voiced. He answered the questions while cracking eggs into the same large bowl he poured milk into, “That’s a tricky answer, a lot of little things had fallen into place. A few close calls that shouldn’t have gone my way gained me a reputation that I could do anything that involved a motor.”
He opened the small bottle of vanilla extract he pulled from his cabinet, adding a dollop of the dark liquid into the mix of milk and eggs before capping it and placing it back up. Twirling a whisk around his fingers like a baton before using it to beat the ingredients together.
“That rep eventually, I assume, led me to end up on Alphonse’s Rolodex,” Sterling continued. “Not long after his first job offering, we became a powerful pair. Well, I say we, and pair, but odds are he has many runners, freelancers, and such under his control. I just happen to be the highest ranking one both in his organization and out of it.”
Delvar nodded, watching Sterling pull out a couple of small pans out. Setting them near him and twisted something. There were three cracks, and suddenly the recognizable sound of conjured flames rode along the circle on top.
“After a few high-level jobs, some races, two or three fights, and one confrontation with Martel, I became ‘The Booker’, since I felt like I deserved it more and always looked to climb higher.” Booker summed up, cutting slices off a stick of butter into the pans.
“Did anybody challenge you?” Delvar questioned.
“Plenty of people, especially some of the more aggressive characters since I was passed the title and didn’t win it in the conventional sense.” Booker chuckled, dipping slices of bread in the batter and slinging it onto the flat iron, making light crackles and Booker pursed his lips and shook his head.
“Alphonse was flooded with challenges, so he arranged one giant show of power and skill for the new Booker.” Sterling walked back to his fridge, turning his head to look at Delvar as he pulled the door open lighting half his face in the pale blue-white, “Me.” He retrieved his container of tea, elbowing the door closed. As he poured himself a glass, he looked back to his cooking array, and then to Delvar, “How much do Trolls eat?”
Delvar looked over Sterling's current setup, “Hum,” trying to figure a good enough comparison, “You recall that meal we had yesterday at Kitches?”
“Number four, chicken basket with fries and toast,” Sterling recited, “Yeah what about it?”
“That’s a snack,” Delvar answered, “But they also don’t eat often, and bread is his choice of food.”
Sterling began to look discouraged as he thought about his last half loaf of bread he had, “Wait a second!” He snapped his fingers. Drawing a knife from the brown knife holding block that Sterling affectionately called Julius Caesar when no one was looking.
He choked his hand up on the handle, hiding it away at his side, and marched to his pantry. Swishing the door open and pulling out a bag of potatoes, lugging it back over to his cooking counter. “Potatoes are carbs too, like bread, bread's third cousin twice removed,” Booker dubbed the spuds and smiled as he set the knife on the table, pulling several out and washing their skins, “what we need are some hash browns.”
Booker set a cutting board on the marble, placing a potato on it and then inspected his knife before he honed it with a nearby sharpener. Catching the personal engraving on the knife as the light glinted off the clean metal, Higdon, the cursive read.
“Uh oh,” Booker remarked, recalling that his name was not Higdon, “So that's where Brian’s knife went, whoops.” He shrugged, rolled his shoulders, and began to dice the potato. Careful to rock the blade from end to end versus slamming it onto the board.
“Is there a problem, lad?” Delvar asked, trying to peek around Sterling’s arms.
“Not really,” Booker answered, “Brian’s been looking for this knife for like a couple of months, I don’t remember why I have it, though.” He thought a moment and set the knife down at the end of the counter, letting go without a second thought and watched as the gravity pulled the heavy hilt to the floor.
Delvar was surprised to see the reflexive Sterling jump back and away like a frightened cat versus attempting to catch the blade before it clattered against the floor.
When Sterling looked around to make sure everything else was alright, he noticed the questioning gaze Delvar was giving him.
