Then he realized that was a dumb thing to wonder. Too easy — his grandmother would have him disappeared long before Jet thought about murdering him. The old lady of the house was much too crafty and capably vindictive for her own good; even if Jet was a brand-new General King, he couldn't out-guile Laike's grandma.
New question: who should he fear more?
Again, too easy. Jet wasn't especially fearsome, not to Niter. Jet was usually more interested in supporting him, or making sure he was okay, or nudging him on tiring little projects that Laike didn't care to participate in, but Jet didn't give him the option to go be lazy. His grandmother, on the other hand… She had more than a few wicked stories on hand to spur Laike into action.
The final question was: whose orders should he follow?
Jet didn't want anything for his promotion, and he seemed uncomfortable whenever someone congratulated him or addressed him with any special reverence. He seemed happier if people went on without really acknowledging that the dude got a promotion that no one had seen or experienced in… Actually, Niter didn't know of anyone getting promoted to General Sovereign. From what he'd heard, some General Sovereigns got transferred in from elsewhere back when Laike was like, 12. And the ones that got transferred in were basically the same ones that made up the current roster of Sovereigns.
Which meant that Jet's promotion was actually a Huge Deal, which probably made Jet even more uncomfortable. If Laike were him, he'd be uncomfortable enough to ask the Queen to take it back. So, lots of motivation to not make a big deal out of Jet's promotion.
But.
But.
Laike's grandma gave him one very specific, very expensive bottle of liquor with equally specific instructions. He was to give that bottle to his boss for his new promotion. She would not let him even think of doing otherwise. And she tasked Laike with writing a card to go with the Extremely Alcoholic Gift. Then he had to leave it on Jet's desk and vanish before Jet noticed the gift, because sticking around necessitated acknowledging the gift to Niter's face, and his grandmother fed him a few horror stories about how that kind of bad form concludes.
And Laike didn't enjoy the idea of being Rift food, so.
After he penned a very brief congratulations paired with his signature, Laike sealed the card in its stock envelope. He didn't know if he had to wrap the bottle (he wouldn't, even if he had to — too much work), so he planned on leaving the card on Jet's desk and setting the bottle on top of it. And since Laike thought their subspace pocket was a little sus, he carried the bottle with him when he exited the house and donned Niter's guise.
Which made him look like a deadbeat drunk to the first Captain he encountered, but he managed to swallow his anxieties enough to beg a trip to Negaspace. It helped that he didn't reek of alcohol, but he still had to prove that the bottle was sealed before the Captain considered taking him.
After that, it was a long and terrible walk up too many flights of stairs to reach the hall of the Sovereigns. Here, the auras were so thick and intense that it felt like standing next to a stage speaker during a thrash metal concert. He couldn't tell how many there were or which office they were in, so he paused in front of Jet's door, dropped to the floor, and peered through the crack between the door and stone for any signs of life.
He waited a long minute. Didn't see anything.
Next, he knocked timidly. Waited. Chewed the inside of his lip. Then he knocked again a little louder.
Nothing. Maybe Jet was out of his office.
Finally Niter got back to his feet. He wrapped his free hand around the knob, heart in his throat, and turned the handset slowly. His bones nearly flew out of his meatsack when he heard the handset click, and he stopped breathing for a full minute afterward, but once he found a few slivers of courage to rub together, he finally opened the door.
No Jet waiting there, ready to murder him. No Aqua, either (which was a good thing, because Niter was sure Aqua would genuinely consider killing him with extreme prejudice).
Tiptoeing in, Niter planted the sealed card on Jet's desk. Right on the corner, where maybe it would be out of the way. Then he set his bottle of Very Expensive Liquor on top of it, spread his hands at it as if to tell it to stay put, and backed out of the room slowly. He shut the door with the same quiet reverence in which he opened it.
And then he beat the hastiest ******** exit of his life, right back down all those stairs and straight into the Captain that brought him down there.
WC: 869
guine
