Makhus did his best to ignore Zelsys as he walked out onto the clearing, making a beeline for the still. The entire time she watched, casually leaning on the transport. “How’s the sickness? No aftershock seizures?” he offhandedly asked Sigmund as he tinkered with the glass and copper monstrosity, adjusting the barrier-stone fragment in its mount with one hand and the tube its condensation fed into with the other.

“I had a rather bad one, but I got over it,” the bearded man responded in an equally offhand manner, chuckling into his beard as he gave Zelsys an utterly unsubtle wink.

“Really? Any obvious trigger?”

“Oh, just that the rot-bear we were out hunting showed up. Our new friend dealt with it quite handily, I must say.”

Makhus froze where he stood, looking straight ahead before he turned to look at Sigmund, then at Zelsys, then at Sigmund again, visibly unsure whether he should chide the bearded soldier for joking around or ask where the corpse was. A smile on her face, Zelsys exclaimed “The body’s in your little field, sans a couple parts.”

“Ho-” he began with a questioning tone, turning the word to a faux cough almost quickly enough that she didn’t notice his partly surprised, partly impressed tone. “Well, there go all our crops,” he sighed instead, turning his attention to the butchering table.

“Where’s the-” he wondered looking around for the cleaver, but Spliteye interrupted him. “Don’t even think about it, we’re leaving in the morning,” she rebuffed, rising from her seat and dusting herself off before she began walking towards the transport. With a nod of her head towards the silver-haired woman, Spliteye added that “Besides, it’s hers by rights.”

“The fuck y’mean-”

“Seems I’m strong enough to use it properly, unlike you,” Zelsys mocked in a joking tone, lowering her hand to the cleaver’s handle. She couldn’t help but grin from ear to ear when his eyes went wide, fists clenched in sudden anger. “That’s not yours!” he shouted.

“It is according to the Squad Dynamics Guidelines contained within the Ikesian Military Doctrine guidebook. The decision was put to a vote within the unit, and a majority of the unit’s members voted in favor.”

With every word she said, the anger faded from Makhus’ face and turned to disbelief, then to plain confusion. He turned to Sigmund, questioning “Really? You did that?”

The simple answer of a few nods from the bearded man as he ate more soup seemed to hit him like a gut punch, considering the weight with which Makhus dropped onto the stump.

“You gave the Captain’s Cleaver to a foreigner?”

Sigmund swallowed the current mouthful and, slowly stirring the soup in his tin, looked up at the younger man with a hardened gaze. “She could’ve split as soon the beast showed up, but she chose mauling and Nigredo exposure instead. I think that’s a good enough reason alone, not to mention the fact it’s just a burden to us. A shiny and expensive burden, but a burden nonetheless.”