Jack couldn’t stop laughing, not that it disturbed the quality of his work. Despite his body shaking with laughter, Jack’s hands remained steady as he finished the stitching.
"Thank you," he wheezed, pulling the thread. "For inviting me to this."
Remus watched on with indifference.
"I’ve never really sewn before, I figured you’d have experience."
"Aye." Jack chortled, finishing the last bit, giving the garment a shake. The tiny bells tinkled.
Both men looked up to the sound of a pathetic whimper. There in the corner of Jack’s cramped apartment was a short man who regretted everything he had ever done.
Their gazes locked onto him, as if just remembering he had been there the whole time.
Gus cringed further, eyeing the floor in fear.
Now with proper lighting, Gus was indeed a short man, grubbily dressed. A thin and tiny man, with a ratty look about him. His shaved head did him no favors. Not that Remus could guess his age, Gus was in that unusual bracket of being naturally covered with enough grime he could be either 20 or 50.
"Is this... necessary, lads?" Gus reasoned with a whimper, somehow finding the courage to look from the floor to the edges of their gazes. "I could do this properly, ya know. And not have to-you know... this."
Both Remus and Jack stared at him unblinkingly.
"Did that sound like an opinion, Captain Jackson?"
"Why yes, Sir Remus, in my opinion, it did sound like an opinion."
They continued to observe the little man, faces expressionless. But the energy of them both enjoying themselves immensely was very noticeable.
"But. I’m just sayin’. Doin’ it like this. Is it really necessary?" Gus tried again, his voice finding strength from somewhere.
The tiny man eyed the garment in Jack’s hand.
"What if I get cold?" He complained.
Both the captain and the knight looked at one another and couldn’t hold their laughter back anymore.
Unlike the week before, the wind on the dock pier was colder. It was even mildly raining, much to the waiting men’s discomfort. Last week it was just two of them waiting for the shipment, but due to how heavy that long box was, they had two additional guys with them this time.
All four men huddled in their coats, waiting on the pier, gazing over the dark waters of the bay to catch a glimpse of the delivery ship. The waters were calm, stretching off into the darkness of the ocean and the night sky. The occasional ship was seen in the distance of the bay, minding its own business, smoothly sailing to its destination.
Two of the men held lanterns, the only real sources of light for their visitors other than the moonlight.
The man at the end of the pier, holding one of the lanterns, turned to the rest of the group.
"Remember. Say nuffin to them Fredel bastards, let me do all the talkin’, ye hear?"
They all nodded or grunted in agreement.
The last thing they needed was the boss hounding them for causing trouble. He was a bit on edge these days, with the watch guards hounding one of his businesses, effectively shutting it down last week.
"Where are they?" The leader grumbled, gazing out into the waters again.
Before any of his companions could give a reply, everyone heard a strange sound over the rain. A tinkling, tinkling of bells? And it was getting louder.
The leader, alongside his men, frowned into the distance where the noise was coming from, in the direction of one of the warehouses. He eyed the other man holding a lantern.
"Go check it out."
He nodded, quickly following the noise, lantern held high. The group could see him in the distance, pausing in front of a large door, listening against it. The sound of bells continued as the man yanked the large sliding door open to the side.
The group couldn’t see what was inside from their position, but they could see the look of bafflement on their colleague.
"What is it?" The leader called to him curiously.
"I dunno what the fuck this is." The guy called back, suddenly laughing. "C’mere and see this! All of you."
The group looked at each other, then made their way over. The leader reached the laughing man, holding his lantern up to get a good look inside the spacious warehouse. Amongst the different crates and boxes organized to the sides, there was a wide space in the middle of the structure.
There stood a short, skinny man with a red face, wearing nothing but these ridiculous little black pants.
With bells on.
"Hello, lads," the embarrassed man called out to them, shaking his hips like it was a punishment, "who wants to dance?"
The group laughed despite their surprise, apart from the leader, who stared at the man with a dumbfounded expression.
"What the fuc-who are you? The fuck you doing, you pervert!? Who let you in here!?"
The gyrating man, who indeed looked like he wanted to sink into the ground and die, did not, in fact, stop gyrating.
"I’m not a pervert! I’m dancing!" The tiny man screamed back in embarrassment.
"The fuck you are!" The leader roared back, never expecting to have to deal with this absurdity, not on this particular evening. Ignoring his giggling colleagues. He marched towards the jiggling offense.
"If you don’t get outta here, pervert, I’m gonna cripple—"
But the leader stopped issuing his threat, as about 10 or so feet away from the tiny man, the leader found he couldn’t move. Glancing down at his foot, he realized that the floor was beginning to light up.
Shapes, symbols, complex lines, and functions materialized on the floor, shrinking back the gloomy darkness with its sharp blue light.
"The fuck—" The leader breathed, his eyes wide in shock. Before he could even acknowledge he was standing in a large glyph, he was dragged forward a few steps by a powerful force and crushed to pulp.
It happened so fast and violently that the rest of the group failed to react immediately. As their laughter slowly stopped, before their brains could digest what just happened, what that sudden red mist was, it was too late.
Whatever suction force had pulled the leader rapidly expanded its reach. Boxes, crates, structural beams ripping out the floor, everything was sucked to the large glyph, mercilessly crushed down into dust and gloop.
The remaining three men were not an exception, despite being some distance away.
To their sudden horror, they were dragged in, powerless against the powerful force. Each of them met the same grisly fate as their leader, pulled helplessly towards the center, and compressed to vile waste.
They didn’t even have time to scream.
The awful, powerful vacuum continued to expand for at least a minute.
During all of this, in the middle of the glowing illustration, was a tiny circle. An island of no magic whatsoever, a safe zone for Gus. Despite being warned beforehand, he looked on in disgust and awe. Standing perfectly still, he didn’t move at all, not even to tinkle a single bell.
When the mana eventually dried out of the glyph, he refused to fall to his knees, despite how heavy his body felt. His brain refused a single movement of any kind. That was until he jumped out of his skin when the silence was eventually broken.
Jack appeared at the door of the warehouse, carrying two large brushes.
"Look at this mess." He grimaced, eyeing the border of debris and gore around Gus. "Let’s get all this shit swept into the gutter."
Gus was shaking from the cold or the shock.
He wasn’t sure.
All he could fixate on, ridiculously, was that the asshole sailor had not brought him any clothes.