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(aahahahha ironfan is his non canon daughter.)

Ninja Whip had been sharpening his gear for the past hour, hunched on the bench in his corner of the Blackrock barracks. The place was quiet for once — no drunken sparring matches, no shouting over cards, just the muted hum of torches and the occasional drip of rain seeping through cracks in the roof. The steady, rhythmic scrape of steel against stone filled the silence. It was almost meditative. Almost peaceful.

Until the first chirp.

He didn’t look up. His wrist kept moving in practiced arcs, slow and steady, steel gliding along whetstone. If he ignored it, maybe it would stop. Maybe.

A second chirp followed, louder this time, pitched high like a mocking birdcall. He felt the corner of his eye twitch, but he refused to break rhythm.

Then came the hiss — sharp, quick, and far too close to his ear.

He shut his eyes briefly, drawing in a long breath through his nose. “…Ironfan.”

Silence for a beat. Then the tiniest trill, bubbling into something between a giggle and a hiss, the exact sound she made when she knew she had him cornered.

He set his jaw and tried to keep working. The blade’s edge was nearly flawless — just one more pass, and—

Another hiss, drawn out and theatrical, as though she were putting her entire chest into it. The air shifted beside him; he didn’t need to glance to know she was leaning over his shoulder now, grinning ear to ear.

“Are you—” he exhaled slowly, voice level, controlled, “—trying to make me throw this?”

The answer was a rapid staccato of chirps, obnoxiously high-pitched, each one like a pinprick at the base of his skull. The hairs along his neck rose, and from the faint scrape of pointed shins on stone, he could tell she was circling him — slow, deliberate, like a predator toying with prey. Only her noises betrayed her, alternating between birdlike bursts and serpentine hisses.

He placed the whetstone down with exaggerated care, the scrape echoing in the room. Finally, he turned his head.

Ironfan stood just inside his reach, grinning with full teeth. Her tail — long, spiked, and far too expressive for his liking — flicked lazily from side to side, betraying how pleased she was with herself.

“Done?” he asked flatly, voice carrying the patience of a man who had endured this routine too many times before.

Her grin widened. She inhaled deeply and hissed, right in his face.

The sound reverberated between them. He stared at her, unmoving, and she stared right back, eyes bright with challenge. The moment stretched until, despite himself, the corner of his mouth betrayed him, twitching upward in the smallest ghost of a smile. “…You’re impossible.”

“Chrrrp.” Smug, triumphant. She even puffed her chest a little, as though she’d just won a battle.

He shook his head, picked up the whetstone again, and let the rhythm of sharpening return to his hands. “One of these days, you’re going to regret doing that when I’m holding something sharp.”

She made another hiss, louder this time, dragging it out until it rattled in her throat. Then, with the mischievous spark only she could muster, she leaned forward, sticking her tongue out at him.

“I don’t care!! Bleeegghhhh!!”

The words rang childish in the cavernous barracks, but her laughter carried just behind them, bright and unrestrained.

Ninja Whip didn’t tell her to stop. He never did.

Instead, he set his blade aside, letting the whetstone rest in his palm a moment longer. His eyes lingered on her grin, on the way her tail never quite stilled. She was chaos wrapped in claws and scales, and though he’d never admit it out loud, the barracks felt far less empty with her noise bouncing against its walls.