12
DEC/21
Continued from…
Dum dum dum dum do be da
Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah
Dum dum dum do be da
Walder turned to the one with no shirt and said, “You must be Oni.”
He smiled as best he could and felt for sure that Oni would smile and say “the one and only.” He did not. That made sense. Walder remembered he was no charmer nor reader of people. He was just good at killing and running. And he certainly didn’t want to do either at the moment.
“I am Walder,” he said and paused again to see if there would be a response. There wasn’t. Instead, as he could see Oni look him over, assessing him, Walder turned to the other man and said “and you might be Mari’ya?”
The man didn’t immediately respond so Walder turned to the woman, “and you must be the new member from, what was it?” He thought for a moment, the song playing in his head. “From Raam,” he finished. “Same with these guys, right?” pointing to the two bodies.
Walder let his eyes linger on the tattoo of the face down man. He almost hated to admit but, and he muttered this part, “That’s a pretty sweet tattoo.” When he realized he had spoken out loud he continued. “Do you mind?” He asked as he gestured toward the body, indicating he wished to examine it closer.
Oni did not speak and instead just stepped back and watched warily. Vashir also backed away moving to a more advantageous position. Arnia’s hand slipped to her hilt and her feet shifted beneath her as she readied herself.
Walder knelt down beside David’s body. He reached out and touched the tattoo. “I guess I am going to need to get me one of these.”
Oni, Vashir and Arnia looked at each other. No need for Vashir to spend psi points to know what everyone was thinking. ‘WTF is going on?’ was written all over their faces.
Then it got weirder. The tattoo began to peel itself off of David. Ink separated from skin as it moved, closest to Walder’s hand and it lashed out, sticking itself to Walder. He tried to pull back instinctively but his hand was held firm to David’s back. The ink flowed rapidly now, transitioning from one man to the other. In just a few seconds it had moved completely over and he fell back, away from David. He watched as the ink continued to move, now up his arm and under his shirt, out of view. He could feel the tattoo moving on his skin as worked its way to his back. It seemed to settle there and Walder reached under his shirt to see if he could feel anything. He couldn’t.
Finally Oni spoke. “How does it feel? Does it itch?”
“No.” Walder replied.
Oni nodded approvingly. Then, drawing on some of the memories of conversations with David, he said “it might when it’s time to fight.”
“Yeah, I know.” Walder responded, grinning ear to ear.