V M A Saiyan Abroad

[Sandor Clegane]

Celipa soared through the air humming to herself. Occasionally she’d spot a cloud and dart through it like a knife through a pool of water to feel the condensation then break through its other side to bask in the contrast of Mesa Roja’s aggressively warm sunlight. Even the “Cloudless World” had its cumulonimbus if you searched high enough in the atmosphere.

The Saiyan’s shaggy mop of mud brown hair dazzled in the light as the dewdrops caught and fractalized the sunbeams. She wore her hair longer now than she used to, with a single braid adjacent to the crown of her skull, and one side of her head shaved to the scalp. She also wore a form fitting, sleeveless pink jumper with a hole above the ass from which a prehensile monkey tail sprouted. This she wore beneath a tank-top style piece of Saiyan armor characteristic of the low-class warrior caste in a planetary hierarchy that didn’t matter in the universe of The Crossroads.

She was on leave.

For most soldiers in The Hound’s employ there was a certain allotment of duty and service expected. As “the muscle”, however, Celipa was the exclusive exception. As long as she bashed the required skulls when the required skulls needed bashing, she was largely exempt from the tedium of everyday choring. This freed her up from big think tank time consumers like meetings of the Small Council, deeper architectural planning sessions, and administrative problem solving meetings.

Those things weren’t really her style, anyway. She liked to be there where the rubber meets the road, not in the high concept planning sessions that meant about sweet fuck-all to her.

It had always been that way, from her early days in Civil Unrest – the alliance of warriors she belonged to a universe and half a lifetime away in North Quadrant – right on down to The Hound’s petty fiefdom to which she was now pledged. She was good at punching the shit out of her aggressors, soaring through the air like a wingless bird, and shooting spiritual energy manifestations from her hands that went ‘pew pew’; the intricacies of maps, schemes, and plans were lost on her. When a leader needed a strong arm, they called on Celipa. When a leader needed a big brain, they avoided Celipa like a heaping pile of shit in the hallway.

She swam through the sky backwards the way one might float down a river if they held their breath. The moment was blissful nothing, just the presence of self, where all she knew was the sensation of the wind through her hair, the secure feeling of her Saiyan armor clinging to her torso with its taut yet malleable synthweave, and the dull roar of air pressure deafening out nearly all other noises.

All other noises aside from the sudden beep-boop of an alert coming across the intercom of her earpiece. Cel’s eyes snapped open.

The scouter was one of those few things that remained to her from the old days. Somehow the Tsufuru-jin technology that had gone into the development of this old, old device had withstood not only the test of time but also the transference of dimensions; it still retained its programmed functions through the miracle of science: an ability to detect the distance and power level of outside entities within a radius unknown to her, a communications intercom that interfaced with an over-the-ear shell designed for comfort and ease of access, and a stylish rose-quartz lens held over the eye by a thin metal arm that allowed the user to conveniently observe the UI in semi-transparency.

In this way the device was not an inhibition to the user. It was, in fact, part of the standard training protocol on her homeworld of Vegeta to learn to fight with the scouter as an enhancement to the natural senses. A Saiyan who fought in conjunction with their scouter would never be surprised by a standard ambush. Only those practiced in the art of ki suppression could circumvent that boon.

A series of numbers danced across her heads-up display informing her that the scouter’s heads-up-display had just detected a new power in range. Far below and off to the North-West there was a slow-moving entity bearing a combat rating of nearly three thousand.

Cel’s eyes glimmered. She dropped out of the sky, accumulating an aura as she went until she was a streak of pink with a shimmering white atmosphere. The brawny comet of Celipa hurtled towards her target at eye watering speed until a speck looming in the distance grew into a discernable shape rapidly. So quickly was she moving that the ground beneath her was a tan blur. She clenched her fists at her sides and observed in stark relief the outline of a massive centipede with an interlocked back plate for an exoskeleton and more legs than a fifty person orgy in a Karim whorehouse.

Gathering momentum, Celipa tapped into her inner ki reserves. Her aura flared red. Her speed increased, suddenly, until she was twice as fast as she had been. With the power and momentum of a freight train, she punched through the midsection of the rearing giant centipede. It screamed in shock, writhing.

In a mushroom of blood, viscera, and exoskeleton shrapnel, the Saiyan burst from the back plating of the beast. She stopped so suddenly in mid-air that the immediate break in inertia shed her outer coating of gore, and spattered a bloody Jackson Pollack painting across the thirsty surface of Mesa Roja’s desert.

Behind her the massive rope of stunned centipede collapsed against the ground with a tremor, twitching.

Celipa grinned a toothy grin and hovered over to the creature’s head where she landed and seized on its massive mandibles, one in each calloused hand, then yanked them free with a grunt.

“These’ll fetch a pretty penny!” she declared, basking in self-satisfaction. “Maybe I’ll sell this one, and make a spear out of this one.”

She felt the tip of the disembodied mandible contemplatively.

“Impressive,” boomed a deep voice from behind her.

Celipa whipped around, stanced up menacingly with a mandible in each hand like a dagger, and glanced at her scouter.

Despite no alerts there was a massive boulder of a man nearly thirty feet away from her, arms crossed, silent as the grave. He wore a plume of black hair in a swept back series of unwashed locks, and regarded her with coal black eyes. The man donned blue armor with extended pauldrons and sizable greaves. Around his waist there was a monkey’s tail, wrapped tightly, just like Celipa’s own.

She sucked in a quick breath, surprised. When was the last time she’d seen another Saiyan? Not since North Quadrant.

“Power suppression,” she growled, her hackles raised and eyes narrowed. “You know, it’s not kind to sneak up on a lady.”

She thrust one of her massive centipede mandibles forward. Menacingly.

“Who are you?” Celipa demanded, thin lips taut, face wary. “You better spill it. Fast. Or else I spill you.”

 

[Sandor Clegane]

“Actually,” Celipa cut herself off, eyes widening in realization. “I know exactly who you are.”

The massive meat slab of a man in front of her raised an eyebrow.

“You do?”

“Oh, you bet I do,” she said with a scowl. “You’re one of those Multwitter creeps out prowling for a muscle-mommy. You make me sick. A woman can’t go for a leisurely sky-fly without getting cyber-stalked by some kind of giant man boulder? I mean, what even are you? Look at those triceps! And is that a warhammer you’re wearing on your back? What is this this, trad-masc o’ clock, and you’re the only appointment?”

The giant man boulder frowned and cast a self-conscious glance at the haft of his warhammer.

“My Dad left me this hammer,” he said, looking at her as if she’d just kicked his cat. “And he got it from his Dad, who got it from-”

“Oh, boohoo,” Cel jeered. She rubbed her eyes in mockery. “Let me guess, you’re one of those ‘generations of Saiyan warrior’ saps, right off the discount rack? What are you, overflow shelf Raditzu with worse hair? I’ve cut cookies from molds more unique than you. Let’s hear it, then, beefcake. Let’s hear your pitch. I wanna hear what kind of riveting sidequest you’ve crossed the galaxy with to lay at my feet. Really, I do. I want to hear your fascinating backstory. Spill the beans, slick.”

“You’re a real bitch, you know that?”

The big brute’s expression had withered, his arms had uncrossed, and his shoulders slumped in resignation.

He pointed at Celipa, and said in a quavering tone: “I don’t need this, you know. I’ve done therapy. My self-worth doesn’t require your validation. You’re a mean, mean woman, and your spite is a result of your own insecurity. No wonder you’re alone out here.”

The wounded brute turned his back and Celipa and crouched to spring, aura licking up at the air.

“Hey, hey, now. Wait a minute,” Celipa called out, smirk faltering. “I didn’t mean it, big guy. It just gets, uh, pretty dull out here, you know? You have to learn to make fun. Even if it’s– well, nevermind. Come on. I’ll hear you out. Don’t run away.”

The big guy hesitated, which was enough time for her to insert: “I meant it about your triceps. They really are impressive. Really.”

He stood back up, straightened his spine, and lifted his chin when he turned to regard the much smaller Saiyaness.

“Do you mean that?” he asked hesitantly.

“Hey, of course,” Celipa gave what she hoped was a convincing smile. “I wish my triceps looked like that.”

She lifted her arm, which wasn’t insubstantial, but was built on the back of a utilitarian lifestyle and so bore the results of a lifetime’s hard fought battles rather than a gym’s targeted style of muscle sculpting. Then she gave him a smile that she hoped would convey a ‘see, we’re the same’ vibe, though she was quite certain they were anything but. The effect was illuminating; the other Saiyan’s eyes lit up and he slid a step closer towards her, even mirroring her smile. That was good.

“I spent a long time on these bad boys,” the giant Saiyan man stated, sticking his arm straight out and flexing.

If he calls his arms his guns, I swear to the North Kaio-

“You don’t get guns like these without putting in the hours,” he continued, unfettered by the chains outside perception. “Anyway, the name’s Kohlrabi. I’m a Saiyan, like you.”

Captain Obvious, to boot.

She dropped the centipede mandibles she'd been clasping then extended her hand which he met with a big ham hock in a meaty grasp. They shook, then held each other’s gazes, either set of eyes the same plain beetle black as the other’s. When they released their hands, they took a step away from each other.

“Celipa,” the Saiyaness introduced. “I’m a Low-Class from the North Quadrant.”

“Oh, I know who you are,” Kohlrabi informed her. “I’m a Mid-Class. I’m not from the North Quadrant, but my father is. I’m a second generation immigrant to the Crossroads. I’ve never even seen the Planet Vegeta.”

“It’s a lot like this,” Celipa said flippantly, gesturing at the vast desert beyond. “A little redder. A little more war-torn. More flying people, more shooty hand lasers. Not quite as flat. You know, that kind of stuff. Other than that, it’s really not that different.”

“Wow,” remarked Kohlrabi. “I wish I could’ve been there to see that.”

“It was a sight, alright. The North Quadrant was a lot more violent than this place. It was a real ‘blast first and ask questions later’ kind of place, where folks divided up into factions and vied for these universal prizes, and if you rolled into the wrong situation you were likely to get ganked by a squad of lousy good for nothings who had their eyes on your-” Celipa looked off at the horizon and trailed off with a wan smile. “Yeesh. I’m dating myself. Anyway, it was a different kind of place. In some ways, it was a better place for a person like me. I’ve always preferred a good ol’ fashioned fist to fist confrontation to the weird small-town politics of the Crossroads. Things are, like, really complicated here. Did you know that there’s a walking, talking mouse that prowls around saving people in this universe?”

“Mickey Mouse,” Kohlrabi nodded. “I’ve got his face tattooed on my ass.”

Celipa tried and failed to suppress a shudder. “Yeah, this is a weird place.”

“Listen,” Kohlrabi said, reaching out and planting a meaty hand on her shoulder in a way that prompted Celipa to take a step away from him. “I came here to tell you something.”

A pregnant pause sprung up between them, during which time Cel shuffled her feet uncomfortably.

“Just say it!” she burst out, groaning. “Come on, man! Don’t make it weird, here!”

“Well,” he said, glancing furtively from side to side. “I work for Syntech. They’re an organization who-”

“I know who Syntech is.”

“-Right. That makes sense. Anyway, they’re an– oh, jeez. I was about to do it again.”

“Please don’t mansplain Syntech to me,” Celipa insisted. “Gimme the bare bones, man. Just the basic overview. I’m a big girl, I can piece together the subtext, I promise. Give it to me with both barrels.”

“Right! So, I work for Syntech,” Kohlrabi cleared his throat and shook his head. “And we’re ramping up, you know. We’re going to do another Dante’s Abyss. And I think this one’s going to be a big one. And my father, he’s the one who gave me this axe-”

“I remember,” interrupted Cel. “You just told me. Five minutes ago.”

“Right. Anyway, he’s old, and he’s not in very good health anymore. He fought with you, though. Back in the North Quadrant. He said you were young, and you were an assassin in an army during a Dante’s Abyss event called ‘Conquest’. Said you were fast and reckless, but a great fighter, and his dying wish is to see a Saiyan from North Quadrant show this universe how a real Saiyan fights. You know, he’s seen you on Multwitter…”

I knew it. Damn cyber stalkers and their muscle-mommy obsessions. Who’s this guy’s father, anyway? I don’t remember anybody who looks like this tall glass of protein shake.

“Celipa?” Kohlrabi asked, looking at her expectantly.

Active listening, Cel. Don’t engage in an inner monologue when people are talking to you!

“Right. Sorry. Right. Just, uh, taking it all in, you know? Yeah, your father. I sure do remember him. Looked just like you, I bet! I mean, I remember!” she chuckled nervously, then hastily added, “-yeah, yep, that’s right. So, another Dante’s Abyss, huh? Come out of retirement? One last jobber for an ol’ gal from the North Quadrant?”

She stroked her chin thoughtfully, watching Kohlrabi as he tensed visibly.

“Heck. Fuck it. Fuckin’ heck it. Why the fuck not?”

She stuck out her fist, and Kohlrabi bumped it with a grin.

“Under one condition,” she added, smirking. “You stick around a little while. I could use a sparring partner. I think I might be a little rusty.”

 

[Sandor Clegane]

“You’re perpetuating a harmful stereotype,” Kohlrabi said, nervously squaring up. “We Saiyans have more value than our ability to punch things.”

“Oh, come off it,” Celipa scoffed. She did not take a stance. “I wanna see what you’re made of, and it’s been awhile since I’ve fought someone worth their salt. Let’s see if you’re made of tougher stuff than this thing,” she thumbed over her shoulder at the moldering centipede corpse.

The expression on the other Saiyan’s face indicated that he, in fact, was not sure that he was. Despite this he slid his left foot out behind him in an uncertain semi-circle, squared up his hips, placed his flat left hand out at a countering angle, brought his closed right fist up with a bend at the elbow, and planted his right foot in front of him as lead. His shoulders were poised so that the left shoulder was raised, the right one lowered. Celipa inspected him closely.

“I’d like to see you correct the bend at your elbow,” she remarked, curt and with an air of instruction. “Ninety degrees at the elbow. Your range comes from the positioning of your shoulders. If you’re going to stoop a shoulder like that you should also slide your lead foot out further and bend at the knee; you’re not going to gain any advantage from a lowered shoulder if you’re not positioned to duck under your opponent’s guard. I’d advise against a closed fist lead and an open-handed off-hand, too. Countering with your off-hand is good if you’ve got a weapon in it, but if you’re countering me when I’ve snuck past your lead, you’re probably too late. Especially if you’re fighting an opponent faster than you, and I am faster than you.”

Kohlrabi blinked and flushed red, shifting to make some adjustments.

“Don’t get embarrassed,” Celipa chided him gently, softening her features. “I don’t want to make mincemeat out of you. If you’re going to give me a challenge, you’re going to want to take my advice.”

When he’d made the appropriate adjustments Celipa resumed her drill inspection. He was still sloppy, but better. She wouldn’t put him on the frontlines of a battlefield, lest she use him as a meat shield, but he’d serve the purpose of training dummy nicely enough.

She had not taken a stance, still. With a deep inhale of breath in through the mouth then out through the nose Celipa felt her shoulders grow slack, relaxed, while the muscles in her back loosened up a bit. In her belly the familiar thrill of anticipation began at a low simmer while a faint pink mist of battle haze seeped into the periphery of her frontal cortex, ready to inform her motor skills in a way that came more naturally to her than walking, eating, or breathing. Her biology was made for this.

“Begin,” she said quietly.

Kohlrabi catapulted forward in a rush while Celipa stood still. The instant before he reached her effective range he noticed that she hadn’t shifted which caused a brief but catastrophic window of hesitance during which time Celipa was a blur. She slipped her foot between his leg, hooked it behind his right ankle, planted both hands under his solar plexus, then shoved hard. Kohlrabi’s feet flew out from under him and he flopped to the ground like a heavy sack of meat. His arms and legs splayed out while his back clapped hard against the dried up hard pack creating an involuntary sand angel. A sudden gasp escaped him and he clenched his fingers tightly against the palms of his hands, nails digging in so hard that they drew blood. He bit down on his lip and tried to suck in air, but failed.

“Knocked the wind out of ya!” Celipa remarked brightly, taking a step back and planting her hands on her hips. “You’re sloppier than I thought! And you’re gonna have to do a lot better than that.”

She turned her back on Kohlrabi, listening to his breathless gasps as they began to steady and grow less strained.

“I trained under a God, you know,” she informed him matter-of-factly. “By the name of King Kai. The gravity on his planet was immense. I can’t even begin to explain to you what it felt like to heft around weight in such an environment. When it began to feel natural to me, this sensei, this trainer of the dead, forced me to chase an anthropomorphic cricket about his planet with a cartoonishly huge mallet until I could whack him on the head. I failed over and over. I failed so many times that, when I finally came back to the living realm, so much time had passed that friends I had left behind had aged years while in the queendom of my death I had not aged a day and instead had emerged with considerable speed and power. Despite this, there were warriors in my universe whose power was so great, so unspeakably fearsome, that even with the tools that God had taught me I was helpless as a pup to face them at their most relaxed.

“I fell in battle in Dante’s Abyss. Things were different in my universe. When you died, there, you died. The technology wasn’t there to bring souls back or regenerate bodies. In this way, I am prepared to face the challenge, and I have little to fear. The warriors of this universe do not thrill me the way the warriors of the North Quadrant did. To you, I must seem a fearsome thing, unnaturally strong. To me, that was the Saiyans of my universe. Saiyans like Raditzu, Reijin, Vegeta; half-Saiyans like Bra. Each one boasted a power so great that I was an insect, below consideration, so weak as to be unnoticeable. Entire conflicts between titans of the North Quadrant transpired where I was so small as to be ignored.

“I will not be ignored here. Go ahead,” Celipa commanded, turning around. “Get up.”

He had gotten up already. Kohlrabi’s beetle black eyes were steel, hard and flinty.

Without a word he pressed the attack.

 

[Sandor Clegane]

“Let’s run it back. This time put your back into it,” Celipa said, rising to a stand.

Kohlrabi took a deep shuddering breath and stood to his fullest height. King Kai bless him, the man must have stood as tall as six feet and six inches. His forehead poured sweat which he swiped away with a broad hand. To his credit, he looked determined. His stance had improved, too. When he shifted his foot outwards, brought his open right hand up, bent at the elbow, craned his leading knee, and leaned into his guard; well, Celipa saw some potential in the boy then. He reminded her, in a foreign way, of an actual Saiyan.

“I’m going to really fuck you up this time,” she informed him. Her eyes narrowed and she watched him carefully. “There’s something you should know about Saiyan biology. We become our best selves when we’re dragged from the brink of death. Proper death is preferable, but I don’t know that I can drag you back from that. On Vegeta, we called it a Zenkai boost. It’s what happens to a soldier who’s thrashed into oblivion then tossed into a regeneration tank. You don’t know it yet, but that’s what you need.”

Celipa’s grin was honest. Kohlrabi’s shudder was too.

“Begin.”

An aura flickered up around her feet and consumed the Saiyaness in an instant that became a microcosm of the situation at hand. Suddenly a red comet in blur burst into Kohlrabi’s guard so quickly that he reactively thrust his offhand sideways to try and parry a blow that he hadn’t realized had already connected. His stance buckled even as his offhand withered, grasping the air while his mind tried to process a response to a trauma that had already happened.

The Saiyan collapsed, gasping, and retched upon the arid ground before him. Celipa was already behind him, aura wickering. To her credit, she had the decency to hold his hair. Her sparring partner spewed a geyser of blood spatter in a jet stream into a hole that had already been scooped out in instances between his notice. Eyes widened, the brute looked up at the space where Celipa had been.

“There, there,” she said, nestling her buttocks on the ground behind her hunkered pupil. “It was never really fair. I’m glad you came to see me, though. When you see me in the Abyss, you’ll realize that I was a small fish in a big pond.”

The man shuddered and collapsed onto his side pale as death.

With a sigh, Celipa stood and tossed him over her shoulder. That same blood red aura erupted around her and she shot into the sky. Her destination was The Hound’s camp where she knew a rejuvenation tank tailor made for her own brink of death that never came was waiting.

While she flew her scouter pinged and alerted her to the open registration. Dante’s Abyss had opened. She wasn’t late but she certainly wasn’t early. Registrants had already submitted their entries and the cameras? Well, they were rolling.

Showbiz had never been Celipa’s bag.

As Sandor Clegane’s camp grew nearer, then suddenly large in her perspective, Celipa killed the Kaioken aura and dropped from the sky.

Her scouter picked up the familiar powers of Pimordeus, Sandor himself, then the lesser entities of the upper guard who were formidable in their own circles but negligible through a ten thousand foot lens.

She landed in front of Pimordeus and dumped the unconscious Kohlrabi at his feet.

“Take care of this,” she commanded, looking towards the tent designated for her own recuperation.

“I’ll be damned if I’m gonna take orders from–” Pimordeus, the Tiefling with stark white eyes, suddenly stopped and looked at the body in front of them. “What the Hell have you done?”

“I’m taking a leave of absence,” Celipa said, tapping out a sequence on her scouter.

A blip appeared on her HUD alerting her to the location of a pod, long since dormant, once deployed from a flagship she had called home.

“Yer not allowed to just take a leave of absence,” growned Pimordeus, planting a hand on his rapier. “We work fer someone.”

“I’m not supposed to take a leave of absence,” she corrected with a grin. “But I’m doing it anyway.”

She lifted into the air, a gesture for which Pimordeus had no answer. The natural inhabitants of the Crossroads were largely incapable of flight.

“Hey,” he chided, pursing his lips. Pimordeus pointed at the ground. “Get. Back. Down. Here.”

Celipa swung him a handy salute.

“I’ll see you soon, Pi. Don’t wait up.”

Then she flew away.

Pimordeus fumed, looked at the crumpled meat bag at his feet, and wondered how he would explain this to his Lord.

 

[Sandor Clegane]

Sandor Clegane burst into the medical tent. A black cloud hung over his head. It was clear that he was in the throes of a foul temper; this one was a full storm.

The scorched mask of his face contorted in fury, spittle forming in the gruesome corner of his burned lips as he swung his gaze over the tent’s inhabitants.

“Where is she?” he demanded, face purpling.

“I ‘onno,” Pimordeus grumbled in thickly accented Common. “She left a note.”

“Read it,” a vein stood out against The Hound’s neck. His hand had found the hilt of his longsword. “NOW!”

“I’m afraid that ain’t gonna be possible,” Pimordeus said hesitantly, holding the note aloft.

“Seven take you, you useless whelp! What use is a right hand if it’s useless?” Sandor demanded, knuckles whitening on his undrawn blade. “Mayhaps it’s time to sever it.”

“It won’t be possible,” Pimordeus added hastily, handing over the note, “because Celipa is illiterate.”

Sandor held the note out in front of him, steadying his gaze. Pimordeus could tell by the sunrise in The Hound’s cheeks that he was already in his cups despite the early hour. The effort of discerning Celipa’s unintelligible hieroglyphics would not be a small one, then. Pi himself had marshaled the lion’s share of his intelligence to decipher the scribbles. The Hound was impatient in his best humors, and totally irascible when he was in the hooch.

Genuine bafflement clouded Sandor’s mangled features. He stared at the note a long while, then set it down on a simple wooden table between the men.

“What is this?” he demanded, planting a calloused finger on the paper.

“I believe it’s a drawin’ of this man,” Pimordeus suggested.

He gestured at the regeneration tank placed centerpiece in the tent within which floated a naked Saiyan man of immense proportions. A ventilation mask covered the man’s lower jaw where it fed him air through the use of suction and the natural inhalation and exhalation of his lungs. Otherwise he was unadorned with tubes. The function of the tank was carried by its fluid, a special alchemical mixture known for its regenerative properties. It was the only thing bringing Kohlrabi back from the brink of death. A monitor attached to the device monitored his vitals in a series of numbers and statistics.

“And this?” Sandor pointed to a drawing of something that looked like a circle with a giant eye in the middle. His scowl was deepening and Pimordeus feared the potential of his wrath.
“I believe that’s her spacepod, the one she arrived here in,” Pi explained. “See these speed lines extending from its hull, and the asteroid in the distance?”

“You know little and less,” chastised the Lordling, pointing at the thing Pimordeus had called an asteroid. “This is clearly a sea sponge.”

“I thought it was a cookie crumb,” a nearby attendant suggested unhelpfully.

“And what is the meaning of this mummer’s farce?” Sandor pulled his wineskin free of his belt and upended it into his open maw. It drizzled out of his mouth and down his chin in blood colored rivulet.

“She’s signin’ up fer the Abyss,” rumbled Pimordeus. He cast his eyes at the man in the tank. “The dollar signs she drew above the picture of this poor fucker seems to mean that she left ‘im as some kinda substitute while she’s gone. Got a tail, same as she does. Reckon he’s a Saiyan, too. I’m figurin’ she meant fer him ta act as the muscle in ‘er absence.”

Pimordeus swiveled his blank white eyes back to The Hound, who was still staring back down at the drawing on the table. His fists were clenched, and his eyes were cloudy with anger and drink.

“I’d better, err, go count the wine casks,” Pi muttered quietly, slipping out the flaps out of the tent.

He left The Hound to his brooding.