Callisto

Revelation

Despite these thoughts, she opened the can by mimicking Jespar's action, using her thumb and forefinger to force the hooked device into the object and pierce it open, tearing the metal away and revealing a frothy, yellow liquid within.

The ingenuity of the Old World never failed to amaze her. They truly knew how to complicate even the most basic of functions.

"Jespar," she said as she stared at the swirling liquid. "This looks like piss."

"Ha!" he burst out. "Well, we Old Worlders just loved this kinda piss in our day," he said. Then he leaned forward and tapped the rim of her can with his own. "Cheers!"

She stared at him with sudden shock.

"It's a tradition!" He explained. "We're two friends celebrating the end of our journey with a nightcap. All you gotta do is say the word."

She nodded slowly as she understood the intention. She even managed a half smile. Sitting here, surrounded by tables filled with the shadows of the past, she could see them performing the same act. Everything here was like a play being staged for an audience that did not exist or one that had long since departed.

"Cheers," she said, and they both raised their cans to drink.

At first, she tasted only the bitterness of the beverage, then, noticing that Jespar seemed intent on gulping down as much of the liquid as possible, she continued drinking out of politeness to his culture. Only then did her head begin to feel overcome with a kind of heat that she could only associate with feverish symptoms or the thrill of combat in the canyon. She put the can down and, sputtering, made a sudden discovery.

"Jespar, this is alcohol."

He gulped another mouthful, and she saw the cheeks on his greedy face turn lambent red before he placed his drink back on the table, threw back his head, and belched, howling "Yeah!" and "Wow!" in equal measure.

Once more, he had her stupefied.

She looked at the liquid and then back at him. She said nothing.

"Y'know," he burped. "If there is a God, someday I wanna meet 'im and ask 'im two things. One: What's the meaning of life? And two: If you're so great, why in the name of Hell did you make it so that chocolate and booze could kill dogs?"

She remained neutral. "Is that why you brought me here? To watch you drink yourself to death?

He frowned, swaying. "Hey, I didn't say it'd kill me. I'm different. I'm a bonafide miracle of nature. I'm a-"

"Enough!"

She slammed the can on the table, letting its contents spill onto the floor and pool beneath her feet. He huffed and wheezed like an old, decaying man. There was the fear again in his eyes – his tiny trembling body and his sad smirk that betrayed the mind of a creature that held the weight of the world on his hairy shoulders.

"Fine," he said quietly. "Fine, Chief, fine."

He kept himself steady, for he was looking at her too. He was looking at a girl that was starting to see the truth of things already. He was looking at someone realizing that he was a piece of shit good for nothing hustler for the first time.

"You ever heard of a game called "Twenty Questions"?"

She shook her head. "No," she said, lips trembling as the word spilled out.

He leaned forward and winked. "It's an easy one. See: I ask you a question. You answer. You ask me one. I answer. We go till someone can't answer anything else."

"It sounds like a mean game," Rain-Born said, trying to control her twitching hands clenched together on her lap. "We should have played it sooner."

"You think it's mean now? Just wait," he said, baring his fangs in a mischievous smile. "Tonight, we're gonna break all our rules. We're gonna be free."