If Hugleikr had to be honest with himself he really had gotten off lightly, all things considered. Multiple jailbreaks, harassment charges, he really did not deserve to be allowed to roam freely. But Corundum’s idea of ‘punishment’ had always been Interesting, and the centuries beneath the waves had clearly not changed that.

Why she didn’t assume that he might just kill his escort was beyond him, she knew him well enough. Perhaps she’d forgotten in their old age?
Or perhaps Heimdallr had made contact and put in a good word for him. Ha.
As it was, Hugleikr found himself in a harness and physically leashed to his escort. She towered over him, a nicobar feathered thing with impish horns and a dark coat emblazoned with the wings of a lunar moth. Her own harness was reinforced with metal studs and spines.
The leash between them spanned… he’d guess seven lengths of their body, when fully extended. Currently it held them strictly shoulder to shoulder as she guided him along the outer ring of the city to his job for the day. Sylphy, the guard had called the kadin? Not very talkative, but her golden eyes darted and observed with Intent. Her ears twitched and swiveled towards the conversations around them. Voices in an accent too thick for Hugleikr to parse from this distance. He was fine with the silence between them, it gave him time to think, to consider, as they plodded past storefronts and sellers harking their wares. Time to plot and plan and consider how best to get out of this situation. Or get to Corundum. Not that he wished harm on her but he was rather certain he could charm his way out of his sentence if he tried, she’d always been a reasonable sort--

His harness tugged hard against his ribs, and he stumbled as Sylphy cut in front of him to lead him along one of the spokes of the city towards the center. “Yeh’r a bit lost in yehr own ‘ead, I see.” she noted with a friendly flick of her tail. “Ah said we were turnin’ left.” her voice soft and kindly, still that same thick accent. “We be arrivin’ in just some minutes.”

He blinked, glancing ahead, lowering his head to look past her belly. Across the bridge sat a large pile of akadri machines, with garochs and a few non-garochs milling about around it, picking through it and placing machines into boxes and saddle bags. Ah, hard labor. “Aren’t I a bit old for such tasks?” he asked. Down below, the bottom layer of the city was bustling with activity. There was water there, alight with Magic.

“What ‘such tasks’?” Sylphy asked, ears canted with confusion as she dragged his slowing feet to the pile. “Yeh aren’t haulin’, if’n that’s what yeh’r worried for.”

Somehow he doubted it. There was at least one other ketucari his age shrugging some of the saddle bags on. Not that he wasn’t strong enough, but he didn’t much fancy performing hard labor. As he watched, the old stranger tossed the bags into a more comfortable position and trotted off without a complaint. Sylphy nodded to the stranger as they passed, receiving a cheerful tail flick. Hugleikr scowled, eyeing his leashmate, distrust crawling under his skin. Golden eyes met his, startlingly soft, and she led him past a fence, into the scrapyard around the pile. Ketucari and boxes, and broken machines were scattered about. The atmosphere surprisingly relaxed, filled with chatter. More familiar accents touched Hugleikr’s ears. A pair of danuocs tossed a turret the size of a basketball between them, tearing off pieces of machinery and tossing them into bins that were overflowing with parts. A ketucari beside one of the bins was lifting… batteries? out of it and dropping them into a pull cart. Sylphy led Hugleikr past this, to an open stand surrounded by more boxes, with a sign painted with vaguely familiar characters that if Hugleikr racked his brain, he recognized as an Old Tongue’s word for ‘office’.
There, a familiar face met them. The massive mist-coat that had first boarded the cartography ship. Durai? Was that what this descendant of Corundum had been called? They blinked and tilted their head in greeting, a far cry from the aggressive first meeting. “Sylphy. …Stranger.” they grunted. “Here fer work?”

“Aye.” Sylphy said, not waiting for a response for Hugleikr. He chose to let that be. “Sortin’ day, ye?” she continued. “The old un’s worried for the heavy stuff, doin’ for their age.”

Durai grunted and grabbed one of the broken machines, hoisting it up to eye level with ease. Garochs really were a different breed, Hugleikr shifted his paws uncomfortably. “Yehr task is simple.” they grunted. “Yeh take the machine. And yeh break it. Yeh take the shell, put it here.” they smacked their tail against a box as large as Hugleikr himself. “Yeh take the delicate parts, and they go heres, an weapons systems an chemcaps go heres.” Durai motioned to the large boxes in turn, taking care to drag their tail under symbols on the bins that looked… similar but wholly different to cautionary symbols back home. They did little to assist Hugleikr’s understanding. Chemcaps???

“Ah’ll show yeh.” Sylphy supplied. From the look on her face she clearly thought she was being very helpful when she brushed past him into the scrapyard proper. Instead he was struck by a wave of frustration.
She’d be working, too?

Sure enough, she grabbed a mech and began to tear it into chunks. The shell in with the shells, the battery and… plasma gun? into the weapons and ‘chemcaps’. Screws, nuts, bolts, glass, and wires got thrown into ‘delicate’.

“He’d have figured it.” Durai grunted, and resumed work on their own section of the pile. “Don’t yeh worry about haulin’ nothin. We’ve gots workers fer that. Just focus on tearin’ bits from bits.”

Well. It was a far cry better than dragging the rubble around, Hugleikr supposed, picking up what he was fairly certain was once the core of a drone. With a sigh, he plunged his claws into its metallic flesh and got to tearing.