turn tail

Venni looked at the amulet Ghighi was holding out to them. They understood what it was, but they were still hesitating to use it just yet. 

Grrowl

Venni cringed as their stomach growled its emptiness. Ghighi didn’t move. The amulet sat between them. Venni huffed and looked away.

“I can only get so much scraps from the outlands, you know.” Ghighi reminded Venni. “The whole reason you’re on the team is so we can get bigger hauls out from more dangerous parts of the harrow. If you wanna go ahead and leave this stable so I can find a more willing companion to take your spot–”

Venni suddenly grabbed the amulet’s other half and snapped it cleanly along the break line. The magic was immediate, the two saw into each other's minds so clearly that they almost couldn't tell who was thinking what. 

Venni now finally understood: they weren’t going to go foraging today, they were cutting out the middleman. 

This was a heist.

---

Uridae herders populate the harrow outlands, so many that they often mix up members of their herds. Not that it matters to their overall goal of producing magic honey, unless there’s some sort of especially valuable exclusivity to the honey, such as 100% organic or extra magical or whatever rich people want with their purchases. In that case, the herd would be far isolated from all the other herds, and closely tended to by herder Voix that keep all the ultra valuable uridae in line. 

But no matter how many Voix you have to defend your property, nothing beats nosy neighbors with gossipy grandmas as a defense and identification system. No, it would be much easier to go for the lamb who wandered too far from the herd. 

Tonight, Ghighi and Venni’s target was one such lost lamb. 

They didn’t bring any of Ghighi’s pets. They were too small and innocent to be caught up in such dark dealings. Even if it was all for the sake of feeding them. And Venni. Venni was admittedly operating on slightly more selfish intentions than their chosen companion. 

Regardless, Venni wouldn’t need to be doing much to assist, for the most part. Venni was working double duty as the lookout and the getaway vehicle, once Ghighi was done snooping they would give a signal via the mind link and Venni would come pick Ghighi up and fly off with the loot. 

So Venni sat in the darkness, trying not to make too much fuss or movement. That would alert the guard Voix and make this complicated on Venni’s end. Since Venni wasn’t moving, there wasn’t much to look out for. There wasn’t much to do but look into the link and see if Ghighi was done yet. 

Cla-click BANG!

The sound of a gun rattled Venni’s ears. But they could only hear it through the mind link with Ghighi, from where they sat it felt like there was nothing at all happening in the farmhouse!

From this distance, Venni couldn’t access as much of Ghighi’s thoughts as they could if they were closer. Venni jumped to their feet and began sneaking towards the farmhouse. 

“Thought you could pull a fast one on me, huh?” An angry voice yelled. “I don’t need no affliction magic to put a bullet in your head, you mangy varmint!”

Oh this was the worst possible scenario. Venni thought as loudly as they could that Ghighi needed to jump out of there and leave, resisting the urge to break into a run as they got even closer to the house. 

Ghighi wasn’t listening, despite the fact that he very clearly had a gunshot wound on his leg. He was still thinking of the loot, the heavy loot he could barely drag with his full strength, much less with an injury. 

Venni had enough, they were taking this into their own talons. They circled around the house and found the doorway Ghighi remembered entering from. It took a few tries to get it open, but from there it was just a quick squeeze into the house to reach the scene itself. 

The aphex farmer looked up at Venni with wide eyes and re-aimed their gun. Venni was faster, using their ice powers to shove icicles down the barrel. The gun fired and grazed one of Venni’s horns, but it also produced a thick mist that the Aphex couldn’t see through. Venni grabbed Ghighi and tugged him back out the way they came, loot bag and all. 

Outside was a new problem. The guard Voix were now fully alerted and running over to apprehend the thieves. There was no time for subtlety, just escape at all costs. Still holding on with their beak, they gripped Ghighi with their front claws as well and beat their wings hard to send cold blasts over the attacking Voix. It wouldn’t be enough to get liftoff, not without–

A shiny bubble formed right before Venni’s eyes, and with a POP gave a gust of air right beneath their wings. A few more running flaps and bubbles from Ghighi and the two were airborne, flying off as the farmer and all his Voix cursed them for their thievery.

“I coulda done it on my own.” Ghighi grumbled. Venni didn’t acknowledge it, they just kept flying off back to their home. 

When they got back, Ghighi’s pets were all sleeping soundly in their pet beds. Ghighi and Venni tried to be stealthier this time, sorting out the bag of loot so they could put things away in their proper place. 

Their loot was all birdseed and mealworms. Venni was the first to take their share, munching directly from the bag as Ghighi filled the pet’s feeding bowls. 

“Chirp?”

Album and Venni paused their work to see that Album had woken up. The groggy little bird suddenly jumped for joy and ran to eat, Spike and Weeps soon followed, stomping up to ther bowls and loudly demanding food. 

“Maybe…stealth isn’t our strong suit.”

“Chirp!”