Morning finds Anisa Snowshoe dressing in her casual attire: a loose short-sleeved shirt and a pair of black trousers. Still in her cabin, the Lapi frowns at what she must face today. Was it Wanda that stole whatever it was Baleforte' was going ballistic about? And if so, why? "Okay Royce, I'm heading out now. And if you don't stay here this time, I'll throw you over the side of the ship myself!"

Royce just curls his lip a little, but wisely remains silent. A pile of books around his sleeping bag on the floor seems to indicate he's got enough to keep him busy for a while, provided another snack-attack doesn't strike. (He's a growing boy.)

"I'll be back in a little while." The white Lapi opens the door a crack, and takes a peek outside. After yesterday's incident, she doesn't want to take any chances.

The hallway is mostly clear, except for an airman that patrols up and down the deck. It was announced this morning that passengers are allowed to roam once more despite the burglary, but that spot checks by airmen were to be cooperated with. The boatswain wandered around apologizing for the inconvenience on the Captain's behalf.

Anisa grimaces, and after giving one last quick glance at her brother, steps outside the door and heads down the hall. She keeps an eye out for a certain Skeek, hoping to see her somewhere above decks.

Turn up she does, in fact. The blue-attired rodent leans casually on a railing, watching Sinai creep by below, when the clouds permit.

Anisa halts. For a thief, the mouse sure doesn't try to conceal herself all too much. Taking a deep breath, the rabbit casually walks over to the Skeek, and leans on the railing as well. "Good morning, Wanda… "

One of the Skeek's ears perks, and she turns her head, smiling that lazy smile of hers. "Hullo there, sugar. You're up bright and early. Want to go get breakfast?"

Anisa forces a small smile, but still betrays a bit of nervousness. "Maybe later. First, do you have someplace we could talk? I want to, er… ask some entrepreneurial questions… "

"The deck isn't professional enough for you, is that it?" giggles Wanda, flashing bright white teeth and batting Anisa lightly in the side of one arm with the back of her paw.

The rabbit grins sheepishly, "Yeah, too many prying eyes and ears you know?" She gestures to one of her own floppy ears. "Maybe we could go to your cabin? That'd be a nice place."

Wanda shrugs, stepping away from the railing to stretch. "Mnh! Well, s'fine by me, sugar. The place is a mess; I hope you don't mind."

"That's quite alright," the Lapi grins, "I had six brothers, so nothing you can show me would be surprising." She makes an exaggerated sweeping gesture to make the situation seem more light hearted, "Lead the way!"

A short walk later, the pair arrive in Wanda's berth. It's really not all that messy – certainly not compared to Anisa's, which is similar in layout. There's a Rughrat-leather suitcase with a number of blue outfits hanging out of it sitting near her bunk. One corner of a white towel hangs out of it. Another case, smaller, sits closed next to it. On the dresser, a number of toiletries are scattered in front of the mirror, and a few of the dresser's empty drawers are slid open by an inch or two.

Anisa slips inside the room with the Skeek, and takes the initiative to close the door. She takes a look around, and smiles. "Not too bad; looks better than my room." She falls nervously silent, and takes a gulp.

"Take a seat wherever you can find one," laughs Wanda, gesturing vaguely at the room with one paw as she moves over to her bunk. She turns around and plops herself into it. Cushioning her head with her arms, the Skeek crosses her legs, then stares at the ceiling as if she were cloud-watching. "Whatcha wanna talk about?"

The rabbit walks over to the dresser, and jumps up on the counter with a sighs. "Wanda, I'm afraid I lied to you about the business stuff; it's not what I really meant to talk about… " She scratches an ear.

Wanda nods at the ceiling nonchalantly, still smiling as if she hadn't a care in the world. "Go on."

"Well," begins Anisa, "I heard from another acquaintance here who talked to a friend that heard something about that Naga and his missing… whatever it is he's missing… " The Lapine pauses, and stares at the Skeek.

"Brain?" remarks Wanda, her grin widening. She still stares upward.

The rabbit just blinks, but then continues, "Well, he- er, she-… that is, the acquaintance… said that their friend saw who stole the Naga's possession… " The Lapi searches for the words, but unfortunately subtlety isn't one of her strong points. "Wanda, did you steal whatever it was Baleforte' reported stolen?" she finally blurts out.

The Skeek finally sits up abruptly, her grin still plastered in place, and leans forward, still sitting cross-legged. "Well, no points for elegance, Anisa… but I have to hand it to you, you're a smart cookie. You're picking up on that awareness thing really quick! Is it any wonder I like you?"

Anisa blinks again, and a blank expression crosses her face, "You mean… it was you?" She had expected some sort of denial, not this! "Wh-what was it? And why?"

"C'mon, you haven't already forgotten what I said about opportunities for the observant, have you?" Wanda lifts herself from the bunk, and kneels down by her suitcase, tossing azure outfits over her diminutive shoulders as she digs. Coming up with a white, towel-wrapped square of some sort, she sits back on the bunk with the bundle in her lap. "Yep, it was me, sugar. I watched Baleforte' for a while, and knew just when to pick this little care-package up. Before I show it to you, how'd you know it was me? I wanna know if my advice applied at all." The mouse grins happily again, as if her best friend had just aced a Temple aptitude exam.

The rabbit thinks as quick as she can, hoping not to give away her brother's presence on the ship. "Oh, just doing what you taught me," she forces an exaggerated smile,pointing again to her ears, "and these things help a lot too!" She looks innocently up at the ceiling, resting her weight on her arms.

Wanda claps her paws together, rubbing them gleefully before taking hold of a corner of the bundle. "You're a natural! All right then, fair is fair… " With that, the Skeek tosses a corner of the towel off her find. … It's a tome, but… but the cover looks to be made of metal! Granted, the cover can't be more than an eighth-inch thick, but it indeed looks like mirror-polished steel on a leather backing, held with bright brass rivets, and bound shut with a heavy padlock built into the cover.

Anisa furrows her brow, and stares at the book. "A book?" She gives a confused look. "All this over a book?" She shakes her head, "I could understand jewels or metals or such, but this?" She jumps of the countertop and walks over to the tome. "What's so special about it?"

"Are you kidding, Anisa?" laughs the mouse, tapping the cover with an index finger. "The cover alone would be worth two silver, easy. That's some nice steel, and a beautiful lock." She leans her head nearer the book, as if pantomiming. "But look closer," she urges. "This polish is nice… It's obvious the book was taken care of, but it's still blurry. There's tons of scratches all over the thing; it must be ancient. Now, look at the edges… "

The Lapi looks at the Skeek questioningly, but then does as she says and takes a look at the edges. "You mean you stole it just for the steel?"

Wanda tries to stifle another fit of the giggles, as if Anisa were a comedian on a roll. "No, no, no, silly girl! Like I said, this thing is ancient! It's special! I thought it was maybe an heirloom, but look at this… " The Skeek draws her fingertip around the edges of the book. Sandwiched between a good number of pages is a thin layer of… glass? Something glassy. The edges of the cover shade it, so it's difficult to tell without a light to shine in, but the glassy layer looks to be tinted ever-so-slightly cyan. "The thing that gets me the most excited, Anisa, is that I don't know what it is," enthuses the mouse.

Anisa crosses her arms, and frowns. "You mean to tell me that you're just a common thief?" She crosses her arms, and looks disapprovingly at the mouse. "I thought you were a businesswoman! You had better get this back to that Naga as fast as you can; I hear they execute people for thievery in the Empire!"

For the first time, Wanda looks stung. She clasps one paw to her chest, nearly letting the book slide off her lap. "Anisa, first off, I never claimed to be a businesswoman. That's what your cover story is. Second, I'm anything but a common thief… I'm just someone trying to make her way in the world, taking opportunity as it comes, and trying for more than a buttoned down life as a wife, scribe, merchant, gutter-trash or whore would give me. I figured you of all people could understand that."

"I can understand that!" Anisa throws her hands up, "but you have to do it through other ways, not just stealing things!" She sighs, "How do you plan on getting the book off the ship? And then what are you going to do with it; you don't even know what it's for! And also – " she suddenly stops. "My cover story? What do you mean by that?" The rabbit crosses her arms and shifts all her weight on one leg, brow furrowed.

Wanda's smile slowly creeps back, and she playfully jabs at Anisa with a knuckle. "Oh, come on. Your lying is even worse than your air-legs, and you can't cure bad lying with nik-nik berries."

Anisa's ears blush a deep crimson in embarrassment as she Grimaces. "Well… that doesn't change the fact that you have to give that book back right now! Baleforte's got the whole ship looking for it, and there's no telling what they'll do if they catch you!"

"Oh, I bet if he could get his claws on me, Baleforte' would see me drawn and quartered," chirps Wanda cheerfully. She sits back again, setting the strange and heavy tome off to one side of the bunk. "But there's nothing he can do. The captain won't authorize cabin searches because he knows every other passenger would have a fit, and they outweigh Baleforte'. He might be able to keep people aboard, checking belongings on the way out at the port customs, but by then, we'll be in Half Valley, and close to the ground. I bet I could sneak off. With you helping me, it'd be all but guaranteed!"

One of the Lapi's white ears perks up at this. "Me? Help you smuggle that off the ship?" She backs away, waving her paws and shaking her head in a negative gesture, "Oh no, not quite! You might be willing to get yourself killed over a piece of steel and glass, but not me! I have other things waiting for me in Half-Valley!" She crosses her arms again. "Besides, you don't even know what that book is about!"

Wanda balls up her little fists, tapping them on her knees emphatically. "That's just it! We don't know! It could be anything! I thought you had a sense of adventure."

"A sense of adventure within the law," counters the rabbit. "Where did you plan on selling it anyways?"

This draws an incredulous look from Wanda. "Within the law? You have to check every little rule before you try to do something exciting? Trust me, sugar, almost anything exciting that isn't a spectator sport breaks some rule. Anyway, I wouldn't necessarily sell the book. I told you, I want to find out what it is! Aren't you listening?"

"But stealing is almost a universal no-no, and for someone wanting to find out what it does, you sure do speculate on value quite a bit!" Anisa sighs, and plops down on the bed besides the mouse. She stays silent for a bit, looking adamant, then sighs as her curiosity gets the better of her. "Well? Are you gonna open it before we both become old hags?" She smirks.

The Skeek bites her lip. "I'm not even sure if I can. This lock is incredibly well-made and complex, and I don't think Baleforte' had a key. Given a few days of tinkering with it, maybe a week, I bet I could get it open. I need to get it off the ship to really do much with it."

Anisa frowns. "We don't have a week, since we're due into Half-Valley in just a few days. You're a thief, don't you know how to pick locks or anything?" She studies the book some more, part of her stomach churning as its buddy in the back of her mind tells her this is a bad idea.

Wanda clucks her tongue. "Stop calling me that. Just because I took something from someone who wouldn't appreciate it doesn't make me a thief. Anyway, I know how to pick locks… but I'm not Stickyfingers Skeek or anything, and this is some pretty serious hardware." She eyes the lock with a mixture of interest and thoughtfulness. "The idea is that we get this thing off the ship once we're in Half Valley. Then we can work on it at our leisure."

"If the way he was yelling and screaming about the bookmissing is any indication, I think he appreciated it a lot." The Lapine sighs again, and flops back on the bed. "Wanda, I'm serious about this. You're my friend and all, and this is really deep stuff you're getting into. This could be some sort of evil spellbook or something, and Baleforte' wants it back badly!"

The mouse's ears lower a little, and she looks at the tome wistfully. "Well… okay, you could be right. I know Baleforte's a merchant, though. I'm already sure he's not going to do the right thing with it, whether it's selling it to some private collector as an antique, possibly black market artifact, or worse… What should we do?"

Anisa shrugs, "We could still try and open it here maybe, and after we see what it is, give it back, or put it in a place where he'll find it." She gives the lock a good look, "I just can't justify taking it, even if it is from a Naga. What would you need to pick the lock?"

"Within the time it takes to finish this trip? About ten years of practice," replies the Skeek ruefully, grinning a little at her own joke.

The Lapi frowns. It's bad enough that she's going along with this at all, but now her own curiosity is peaked, and she wants to see what's in the book as well. "Could we smash the lock? Maybe the bolts unscrew?"

Wanda winces perceptibly. "Smash the lock? Pry out the bolts? That'd be like taking a sledgehammer to a genuine Kame Ikata to get it out of the frame!"

Anisa shrugs, "But books are important because of what's inside them, not how pretty they are." She sighs. "Do you have any ideas?"

"Well… other than giving the book back? … Not really." The mouse props her elbow on one knee, and rests her head on her fist. "If it means anything, I think I remember seeing Baleforte's itinerary while I was snooping around his cabin. I was moving quick, so I'm not totally sure, but I think it said it ended in Half Valley. What were you going to do there? I mean really?"

The Lapi's nose twitches, realizing that she has been found out. "Okay, I'll level with you. I'm a barmaid from Rephidim, not some businesswoman on a trip. My parents were going to send me to charm school to make me more ladylike, but then I got some correspondence from my brother Gibson in Half-Valley. He said he was in trouble, and asked for my older brother to come help him out, but he didn't say why. I stole my brother's tickets, and used them to get on the ship, and smuggled my little brother along because he's better with worldly things than I am." She grimaces. "So I'm not the adventurous spirit I made myself out to be, or at least tried to… "

Wanda's lazy smile returns, and she leans forward to pat Anisa's shoulder. "Give yourself some credit, sugar. I'd call that a great dodge. Faking out charm school to grab a set of tickets and mail yourself across the continent? For a second, I thought you were turning into Ms. Responsible on me." Wanda grins knowingly. "I was bluffing anyway, but this is all good to know. So what's happened to your brother in Half Valley that you're doing all this?"

Anisa flares her nostrils, "Bluffing?" She sighs heavily; she's more naive than she though. "I don't know what's wrong with my brother. He didn't say, but I'll let Dagh take me before I let my idiot older brothers try and help him, they'd probably just make it worse." She absent-mindedly twirls her ears around her finger. "Besides, I was getting sick of Rephidim. I needed some change."

"Good for you!" asserts Wanda, snapping her fingers. "You're take-charge; I think that's a good trait. I guess we'll all be in Half Valley for a while, then. Including Baleforte'… "

The white rabbit bites her lip, her curiosity causing her brain to rationalize the ridiculous. "Well… if he's going to be in Half Valley with us, then I guess we can just give it back to him then… after we look at it… as long as we get it back to him… "

Wanda nods slowly, though she looks a little skeptical. "I still don't really see why we have to give it back to him, since he's being an awful big squib-head about it, but since you're so adamant, and I was going to cut you in on the deal anyway… I guess we'll go with your idea."

Anisa hands Wanda the cloth she had wrapped the book up in originally. "Hide it away again for now, and later we'll think of some way to get it off the ship. We have to give it back because it's not ours, no matter how much of a jerk Baleforte' is." Smoothing out her trousers, the Lapi gets up from the bunk and walks towards the door.

The bundle is wrapped up again, and tucked into Wanda's suitcase. "Well, okay. We can figure it out tomorrow, maybe. I don't think we're very far from Half Valley anymore."

Nodding, the Lapi cracks the door open a bit, peeking outside like… well like a rabbit peeking out from a hole. "We're pretty close now. Oh Dagh's ears, I forgot about Royce!" She smack her forehead lightly, remembering that she needs to get food for the little twerp. She turns back to Wanda,"So, now that that's all out of the way, how about breakfast?"