cannon fodder

Calan

The moment Finch swipes at the mud, Calan’s chin lifts, because that is obviously what guilt looks like, or defeat, or possibly both if you’re older and trying to pretend you haven’t been properly caught. When Carlo adds the extremely important cannon detail, Calan nods so hard his hood slips halfway over one eye again, but he doesn’t bother fixing it because the point has already landed beautifully.

He turns his attention back toward the stormdrain, where Boaty McBoatface has vanished into damp glory and possibly mortal peril, though Calan is much more interested in the glory part. The black gaps in the grate suddenly look less like ordinary drainage and more like a secret mouth into somewhere important, which is exactly the sort of place treasure likes to be. Treasure doesn’t usually sit out in nice dry spots with labels on it. It hides in unpleasant places so only brave, clever, properly rain-slickered people can find it. "She’ll need help bringing back all the treasure she found down there," Calan says, as if this is not an argument so much as a responsibility that has tragically fallen upon them. "She’s only little. What’s she supposed to do, drag it with a rope?"

Then Carlo mentions a seaweed empire, and Calan gasps, his eyes snapping to his brother’s, brows lifting with the dawning enormity of what they may have just uncovered. A seaweed empire would explain everything. The crab. The suspiciousness. The way things kept disappearing into drains and coming back different, or not coming back at all. Leaning closer to Carlo, Calan lowers his voice into a whisper. "Are you thinking what I’m thinking?"

I've never been one to half-ass shenanigans.

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

Finch is having what can only be described as karmic vertigo where every bad choice of his life piles in front of him in tragi-comic detail, personified by two rain-slickered little troublemakers with evil gleams in their eyes. This is, without a doubt, what people call ‘reaping what you sow,’ and the Gods have given Finch a backhoe and told him to get to work. He can see the pieces fitting together in the mischievous smiles of the twins, their eyes glinting as they consider the trials ahead of the brave but small Boaty McBoatface. Combined with the tantalizing new knowledge of Thieves’ Cant and the hubris that must have also been an inherent quality of garden-variety children, Finch can see how he had effectively damned these children to curiosity themselves to death.

He catches the whisper between the two, and is also unfortunately thinking what they’re thinking. “You’re going to go down there,” he says flatly, a grim acceptance. Now, it wouldn’t be the moral choice to leave them to their fate, but Finch has never been a moral thief. He could wash his hands of this and go off, whistling a jaunty tune and wondering what’s for dinner. It would be so easy. He could do it. He was going to do it.

He groaned. “Alright. I’m assuming anything I say against the subject will only interest you little gremlins more.” He examines the dirt under his fingernails like its child’s blood. He knew he had to proceed carefully; any word of advice or paternalism, even if it was right and for their own good, would only scuttle them away from him. And if these two monsters were going down into the Fingers, he’d rather it be with someone who knew they could read the symbols etched there, not only hoped they could.

“Boaty’s probably gonna get overloaded with treasure. She’s a sturdy boat. Good for hauling. You may need a third hand to help move everything out of the tunnels,” He postulated, trying to spell out the idea enough the twins would think they came up with it on their own. “And it could be helpful to have something with you who’s been down there before.” He shrugs.