Heavy Weapons - Sweet Venom

*** A Few Days Later ***

Tivy was standing in the middle of a large blue sheet of tarpaulin, in the middle of what looked to be some sort of large storage room within the lower decks of The Jeweled Fang. Both the sheet, and herself, were covered in white spray paint.

Dotted all around her were several steel, dark grey barrels, identical in all ways but one to the barrel she was currently rolling (with some effort) across the tarpaulin sheet. Some were standing up, some had been tilted over, but all of them had a fresh coat of white spray-painted text on them.

The barrels themselves were actually taller than Tivy was. Breathing heavily, she finally rolled her fresh barrel onto the sheet where she was happy with it, then stared down at it, deep in thought. She picked up the can and shook it thoughtfully, before kneeling down and writing against the side of it.

Tivys Soop Impooreeum

It took a great deal of effort to write the words down on the barrel. She'd written the same thing - albeit with various spelling variations - on a dozen of the other barrels around her already, and she found writing so tiring; especially the spelling part.

Tivy took a few steps back and cocked her head as she admired her work. Her admiration quickly turned into critique though, and she scowled with dissatisfaction. She looked around, comparing it to the other barrels. The can - and her motivation - were both quickly running out, and her scribbly handwriting was looking worse and worse with each passing barrel. She also couldn't quite work out which spelling of 'Emporium' was correct, and it was starting to give her a headache from concentrating so hard. She sighed dramatically; who knew that starting your own business could be so difficult! She hadn't even made it past the naming stage yet! She turned around and made for another blank barrel. She tipped it over, and it hit the metal flooring with a loud, hollow boom. She'd flinched the first few times, but it was too difficult to push or try and carry the heavy barrels over to the tarpaulin, and down here, in the belly of the ship, she was actually quite close to the engine room, so she figured that nobody would hear her over the noise of that anyway. She moved to the side, and started to roll the barrel along.

"Um, what are you doing?"

Tivy shrieked and jumped back. She looked frantically around the room, before she finally noticed Ceri, who was watching her from the doorway.

"NOTHING!" Tivy cried, looking away and fidgeting with her hands. While she was almost a hundred percent sure that she wasn't doing anything wrong, Wex had asked that none of the gang explore too far below deck, until he'd had a chance to show everyone around properly and safety-brief them. Now that she'd been caught somewhere she wasn't supposed to go, she felt the guilt and nerves rising through her body.

Ceri didn't look mad though. In fact she grinned, then walked further into the room. "Y'know, if you're gonna go sneaking around and don't wanna get caught, it might help if you close the door behind you." And she pushed the door to. She looked like she'd just come from the engine rooms - she was wearing an old boiler suit,but she'd pulled the 'top' half of it down, and had tied the sleeves around her waist. She was wearing a simple black vest underneath. Although the bruise on her head was now looking much better - practically gone in fact, despite her apparent tendency to accumulate imperfections; her hands and arms had black smudges and stains on them, oil perhaps, and there was a big streak of it going across her face too. As she walked towards the critter, her eyes scanned over the various graffitied barrels.

"Tivy's Soup Emporium? You opening a soup shop, Tiv?"

"Yes yes! I'm gonna start my own business, where I sell soup! Well, maybe." Tivy replied, still fidgeted slightly. She was bobbing on the spot, looking excited and keen to share, but also nervous. "It's just an idea I have. I'd like to keep cooking because I've been doing it a lot and everyone seemed to like it so maybe other people would like it too? Geralt said the trick to making money is to sell things people like! And people like food! So yeah!"

"Well, that makes sense! Didn't fancy staying as a pirate forever then?"

Tivy seemed to shift with discomfort before shaking her head.

"No, I don't think so. I-I want to see this through, but I'm only a li'l Tiv. I'm no good at fighting, so I need to find something else!"

"I get it, Tiv. That sounds like a good plan though! Or the start of one at least!"

"Yep! I was thinking of the name all night! I'm gonna buy myself a li'l ship or a stall, and some veggies and stuff, and I'm gonna open up my own restaurant! And that's gonna be the name!" Tivy puffed her chest out proudly, but then her shoulders quickly drooped. "But I'm having some trouble."

"Oh? What's wrong?"

"Advertising! Oxyi said that I have to 'build my brand' or something. So I've been trying to make a logo! But I couldn't find any paper... and then when I was looking, I found all these empty barrels!" Tivy spread her arms wide, as if the room was filled with the greatest of treasures. "They were just lying around down here, so I thought they'd be perfect to practise on!" Tivy suddenly looked worried, and lowered her head. "Was that okay? These barrels aren't for anything important, are they?"

You couldn't find any paper... The corner of Ceri's lip twitched as she fought to hold back a smirk. "No! No, absolutely nothing important." As she looked around, she could tell that Tivy had easily gotten to over half of the barrels already. "Y'know what, how about I help you? Sounds much more exciting than working."

"Really?" Tivy's eyes opened wide and shone with affection as she smiled widely up at the axolotl.

"Yeah! Let me have a dig around, we should have some more paint around here somewhere, can get you some nicer colours. Might be a laugh." Ceri grinned back.

"A BARREL OF LAUGHS, YOU COULD SAY!"

"Uh... Uh-huh, sure." Ceri glanced back as she made to leave the storage room, where the critter was now promptly and proudly giggling to herself.

A few minutes later, Ceri came back with her arms full with different coloured spray paints, a large sheet of card, and some general stationery supplies too, like scissors and pencils. Tivy had sat herself atop one of the graffitied barrels, but quickly jumped down and bounded over.

"Thank you thank you thank you!" She reached up and excitedly scooped as much as she could out of Ceri's arms.

"Tivy! Tivy, careful!" Ceri said as two of the cans and the scissors promptly clattered to the floor. "Okay, so here's what I was thinking. We can keep practising on the barrels, and then, when you find one you like, we can draw it out on here!" She gestured to the cardboard. "We could stencil it too if you want, and spray paint it onto the barrels we have left."

"LET'S DO IT!" Tivy shouted excitedly. "What colours did you get?!"

"Umm, I went for brighter ones, to help with the contrast. Yellow, orange, I thought the green might be good? It'll match your antennae."

"ON BRAND!" Tivy immediately snatched up the green can of paint and charged for the closest barrel.

"Wait wait wait!" Ceri quickly jogged after her. "Maybe we could use the other sides of the already used barrels? Just for practice purposes."

"Okay!" Tivy bounded over to the next one instead, popped the lid off the can and shook the can furiously, before she started spraying.

Tivys

Her forehead was wrinkled in concentration.

Ceri hesitated a little, but then after a few moments of Tivy's quiet frustration, finally she asked, "Would... you like me to write it for you?"

"Okay!" And just like that Tivy was all smiles again. She thrust the can back into Ceri's hand.

"Oh! Okay!" That was easy. Ceri shuffled on her knees towards another barrel, tipped it sideways, then started writing.

Tivy's Soup Emporium

"Ugh. Sorry, it's a bit messy." Ceri laughed. "And wonky." She tilted her head as she read the words. "What do you think?"

"Hmm..." Tivy pondered. "Emporium has less letters in it than I thought."

"Makes things easier for us!"

"True! Hmm..." Tivy took a few steps back and placed her fingers in a rectangle in front of her face, so that she could inspect the barrel properly. "I love it! But I feel like it's missing something... Y'know like how the pancake syrup comes in a bottle and on the bottle it says 'Auntie Maple's Syrupy GOO-dness' on it and then underneath there's a picture of the lady's face?"

"Yes..? Do you want a mascot?"

"Yes yes yes! How do we get one of them?"

"Have you got any ideas?"

"Hmm... Ooh, yes! Give me the paint!"

Without even giving Ceri the chance to react, Tivy had snatched the paint can excitedly out of her hands. "I'd rather draw than do writing any day!"

Tivy knelt down on the floor and immediately got to work. "No peeking!" She said, and curled her free arm around her art so Ceri couldn't see.

"Okay, sorry!" Ceri laughed, and took a few steps back, so Tivy could have her artistic privacy.

A few minutes later, Tivy bounded back with a large, satisfied grin on her face. "What'ya think?!" She asked.

Tivy had painted a rough cartoon soup can with a big smiley face on the label. It wore a little chef's hat on its 'head,' and a large wooden spoon hovered next to the can. "He's a soup chef!"

Ceri examined the art, and after a few moments jokingly said, "Tivy, you can't have this as a logo!"

"Why not?"

"You can't have soup-can cooking soup!" She chuckled. "That would be cannibalism!"

Although she had been joking, she saw the change in Tivy immediately; the little critter's face contorted into one of horror as she stared at her once-masterpiece.

"Tiv? I was just joking, Tivy!" Ceri said uncertainly. "He looks cute!"

"HE LOOKS AWFUL!" Tivy shouted. "DIE!" She spray painted furiously over the soup can. "Well, I'm not sure what to put in now! What else would make people think of soup?" She squeaked.

"Hmm..." Ceri pondered, cautious of the bug's sudden violence. "You said just now that some brands just use someone's face. You're a cutie! Why don't we put your face on it? It's named after you, the head chef should be recognised, don't you think?"

"YES! YES I DO THINK!" The image of her face printed on an army of soup cans brought a concerning amount of enthusiasm to the girl as she clapped her hands together excitedly. "MY FACE IN EVERYONE'S HOME!"

They worked on Tivy's logo for about an hour. For the sake of the paint, they'd moved away from the barrels and onto the sheets of card. Finally, they'd managed to come up with something that Tivy was satisfied with; 'Tivy's Soup Emporium,' with a quick chibi-doodle of her face, with her one antennae looping around the words and her little snake tongue poking out quite cutely. It had taken a few attempts - and more frustration than she'd care to admit over such a thing - for Ceri to get the mascot right for the template cut out for Tivy to use, but eventually she'd managed to draw and cut out something that actually resembled Tivy's face.

"Okay, okay." Ceri wiped her face with the back of her hand, smearing green amongst the pre-smudges of black. "I think this is looking good! Just one more thing, do you have a slogan or anything?"

"Like a catchphrase?" Tivy tilted her head in thought. She was also covered in paint, white, green, and random splodges of yellow - she'd gotten bored while Ceri was focusing on the template, and had started spraying little yellow doodles on the tarpaulin sheet.

"Yep! Any thoughts? It should be something short, snappy, let's people know straight away what your business is."

"Ooh, ooh!" Tivy held her hands up in the air. "What about, 'we sell soup!'" She moved her hands through the air as though she were presenting the words on a billboard as she said them outloud.

"We sell soup." Ceri repeated back. "Well, I suppose that does get to the point -"

"- It's perfect!" Tivy announced. "Hurry! Write it down, write it down!"

"I will I will! Don't worry, I don't think we're gonna forget that slogan!" Carefully, Ceri pencilled out the slogan in all caps, underneath the rest of the logo, then cut the letters out. A few minutes later, she held the cut-out before Tivy. "What d'ya think?"

"I love it!" Tivy squealed with joy. "Thank you so much!" She bounded towards Ceri, who had just enough time to raise the cardboard over her head before Tivy grappled her into her hug.

"Please be careful!" She said, somewhat desperately. "I've spent way too long on this for it to get damaged now!" As Tivy detached herself, Ceri asked, "so, do you want to try it?"

"YES!" She snatched up the green paint and took the template over to a blank barrel. Her hands were actually shaking slightly in anticipation. She pressed the cardboard up against the barrel - which was a little tricky, as it was quite a big piece of card and Tivy was already quite small, but eventually she managed to position herself in such a way that the card was flat against the surface of the barrel, leaving Tivy with a free hand. She shook the can of green paint vigorously, then slowly, with great precision, started to paint inside the stencil. The tension in the room was so thick you could cut it with a knife, as both of the girls held their breath for the final result. Finally, Tivy placed the can down, and whipped the cardboard away.

The tense silence ended abruptly with a squeal of joy from the artist. "It's me! It's me on a advert!" She exclaimed excitedly. "It looks amazing!"

And Ceri couldn't disagree; the final product actually looked pretty good. The bright green letters and the cute little chibi-Tivy face, their efforts over the last hour and a half had actually paid off. "I'm actually quite proud of that." Ceri smiled. "So you like it, Tiv?"

But Tivy had already bound over to the next barrel and was spray-painting furiously, humming happily to herself.

"I'll take that as a yes."

*

Later that evening, Wex's ship was calm. After a large dinner, several of the crew were sitting around in the break-out room, relaxing as their food went down. Both the crews were chatting amongst themselves, with the potential for another round of poker brewing.

But the peace was not to last.

"TIVY?!"

Wex's voice echoed along the corridor, accompanied by the heavy stomping of his boots. Everyone glanced around towards the door just as the captain came in. "Tivy, why have you spray-painted 'Tivy's Soup Emporium' over all of our corpse barrels?!"

Tivy's trademark excited little smile dropped. "Corpse barrels?!" She spluttered. "I didn't know they were corpse barrels! I thought they were just normal barrels!"

"Didn't you think it was a bit weird that we had a whole storage area just filled with empty barrels?" Wex asked her in disbelief.

"Ceri said it was okay!" Tivy shouted as tears started to fill her eyes.

The attention of the whole room shifted onto Ceri, who had been sitting in the corner on one of the sofa's, hiding her face behind her tablet the moment they'd heard Wex's approach. She peaked around the side of her tablet, trying so hard not to giggle.

Wex was trying his best not to smirk too. "You do realise that at some point we're now going to have thirty barrels launched into space, with dead bodies inside, with the words 'Tivy's Soup Emporium' written on the side?"

"...Free advertising?"

"They're gonna think Tivy's running some sort of hit or disposal group!" Wex retorted. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Tivy starting to panic.

"No no no! I just sell soup! We sell soup! We sell soup!!!" She cried out, as if her slogan was an incantation.

"You're gonna have one hell of a reputation, Tiv." Ceri was giggling now, despite Tivy's distress, and covered her mouth with her hand to try and hide it. "In my defence, Tivy had written on at least half of the barrels by the time I caught her. She started it."

"And you just helped her finish it, huh?" He shook his head, but couldn't fight his smile any longer.

Tivy on the other hand had scampered across the room into Trent's waiting arms, taking shelter from the thought as Oxyi rubbed her back gently to comfort the critter. Whilst he whispered calming words to her, his scathing gaze was firmly locked onto Ceri's giggling visage. Despite themselves, both Oxyi and Geralt's faces cracked with guilty grins and their own barely stifled giggles.

"Do you want us to scrub the barrels clean, Tiv? Might not be the vibes you're looking to put out there." Diego asked.

"On the flip side, no-one is gonna mess with you!" Diesel chuckled heartily, his eyes tearing up at the very thought. "Corpse barrel adverts... now that's a new one!"

Everyone watched and waited for Tivy's response. The critter seemed to move through all five stages of grief within the space of about ten seconds, before she slowly turned to face the room.

"D-Don't mess with us... We sell soup!"

***The Next Morning***

The air was thick with steam and the warm, welcoming smell of detergent as Wex flapped one of his pirate coats out and laid it flat onto the ironing board. Whilst it was entirely possible to have someone else maintain his wardrobe - some might even argue it shouldn't be a captain's job to do so, Wex took pride in attending to his clothes personally. He was meant to represent the best of the Jeweled Fangs, so it was only right he did it himself.

He pressed the hot iron back and forth against the crimson fabric, pushing the metal point of the iron through the gaps between the buttons and armoured fixtures, slowly removing any and all creases when a noise pricked his ears, above the hiss of the steam.

Placing the iron down carefully, his gaze flickered over to his bedroom door where a small piece of paper had been slid beneath it.

How curious...

He nipped across the room and picked the note up, unfolding it with a neat flick.

Meet at the cafeteria at 3. Come hungry.

A bemused smirk fell upon the captain's face and he ducked his head out the door, only to find the corridor empty. He didn't immediately recognise the handwriting either, leaving the letter quite the enigma.

Alright then. Mystery lunch it is.

The morning drifted by quickly as the thought of the mystery lunch offer occupied his mind. But soon enough, the time arrived and Wex found himself hurrying to the ship's cafeteria with an unusual level of excitement that rarely coincided with such a room. Usually, Wex couldn't wait to be shot of the place...

The Fang's main cafeteria - or the mess hall as the crew preferred to call it - was a spacious room able to hold up to forty people at the same time - just under half the ship's maximum capacity - with rows of tables spaced evenly throughout and a semi-circular serving bar at the top of the room. Generally, food was served for everyone at set points throughout the day, but otherwise, there were smaller stations situated across the ship for people to cook themselves. The kitchen was separate to the mess hall and accessible only by a door behind the serving bar, where a welcoming sizzle and the occasional tack of utensils were dancing through the air, along with a deeply pleasant aroma that Wex couldn't quite place. Aside from that, the room was suspiciously empty. The only other detail of note was a note placed on one of the tables closest to the kitchen, that simply read:

Sit :)

And so, he did.

As he planted his rear on one of the closer chairs, his belly rumbled as the scent lingering in the air filled his nose. But it was a sensation that usually eluded the captain. He ate more as a formality, an agreed contract between him and his body. Rarely - if ever - did he feel hungry, nor did his belly ever really growl.

His contemplation was cut short by a sudden cold breeze enveloping his shoulders and a weighty, solid thud of a rubber-soled boot behind him, and he jumped out of his chair in surprise.