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rainbowfic2017-01-24 06:21 am
malapropism) wrote in rainbowfic2017-01-24 06:21 am
Alice Blue 14, Sulphur 3, Fire Opal 18
Author: Malapropism
Story: Battle For the Sun
Colors: Alice Blue 14 (everything's got a moral, if you can only find it), Sulphur 3 (make a contract), Fire Opal 18 (hell or high water)
Supply: Canvas (Takes place a day or three before the start of BFTS)
Word Count: 1419-ish
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Lewis Wainwright listens. A young woman calling herself Amanda Knight tells him more than he wants to hear.
Notes: Warnings for mentions of human trafficking and forced prostitution. Constructive criticism welcome.
Lewis Wainwright sat alone at an old wooden table in the back room of his son’s tavern - for as long as it had been open, he’d known it by no other name than just his son’s place, and Sam got so exasperated that this was so that Lewis couldn’t exactly bring himself to stop now - and downed the last mouthfuls of water from his glass. The lure of real drink and the roaring din of the customers up front was a sweet temptation, but he’d been contacted for a job and it wasn’t like he could afford to miss out on the work. Not that money was an issue, no; his son saw to it that he always had food and shelter. The issue was that ever since he lost his skill with a bow, his pride stung at him unrelentingly whenever his hands found themselves idle.
Lewis was new to being blind. One day he’d woken up and discovered he was no longer the best distance sniper in Daldain. Months later he was informed that he couldn’t be trusted with a bow anymore and was summarily fired; then, well, too soon after he’d opened his eyes one morning to the same sight he’d have the rest of his life. It had seemed more complicated than that at the time, but Lewis was square with it now, honestly. The things he’d turned a blind eye to, the number of times he’d done it, he could almost convince himself it was divine retribution. His son took care of what he couldn’t anymore, but even that was less than it used to be. Lewis did well enough for himself. He got by. People paid him for other things now. He was ears in rooms others couldn’t get into, a mouth to pass on words others couldn’t or wouldn’t. Lewis had been told he came highly recommended.
“I’ve been told you’re a good listener,” his last client had put it. Lewis hadn’t even tried to stop himself from laughing. All it had taken, it seemed, was to go blind. That regard hadn’t stopped the client from trying to stiff him, of course, but after all, that was Daldain.
Lewis smelled the woman who sat herself next to him before he heard the susurrus of her clothing but after the door clicked shut behind her; she moved silently, to her credit, but her perfume was loud, an explosion of vague, choking floral scent that smelled cheap above all else. He recognized it. It wasn’t a stench that followed a body because they had a say in it. It was some scheme of Don Reynaldo’s concerning his cathouses; get customers to associate the smell with sex, he’d overheard, and they’d get hard just passing by. Lewis hadn’t noticed any difference, but then he’d never really cared for sex to begin with. When she told him her name was Amanda Knight with a hushed voice both lovely and deep, Lewis recognized that, too.
“I need you to listen around for a while about anything unusual regarding Don Reynaldo,” the woman calling herself Amanda Knight said. Anyone else, and Lewis would have demanded that she saw herself to the door and never return. He’d worked for Don Reynaldo for fifteen years. He knew the price of disappointing him and he’d exacted the toll of betraying him; few people could afford the kind of hazard pay he’d demand for risking either of those punishments, and none who had that kind of money would have a reason to pay him to. Amanda Knight might not have remembered, but he’d overheard her a fortnight ago when she’d been going by another name just as phony as the one she’d given him now. She’d been talking to a client he’d come to meet down at one of the Reynaldo-owned cathouses down on Royal Street, and she’d breezed off before he could listen in on any specifics, but her voice had been all he’d needed to hear for it to beggar him for the rest of the week. It had been more than simple hushed tones her voice had been soft with, but a lot of Reynaldo’s people were twitchy from abuse, especially the hookers. Lewis had bought his son out of such a fate; half of the room that night had been fenced cargo he’d ensured would live to one day work there. Sweet Thing Amanda Knight included, he’d come to realize. She’d been a runner, too mad and scared for sense to have knocked resignation into her. Reynaldo had wanted her alive, so Lewis still had the brand of her teeth on his wrist to prove it.
“Go on,” Lewis said, and whether for curiosity or boredom or something else, he didn’t know why.
“I’ll be out of town for a while,” Amanda - Kristen, Lewis thought, her name had been Kristen - said. She wasn’t a child anymore, but she still sounded so young. “So I’ll need you to send letters to certain addresses. I have…a written list here. Can you do that?”
Lewis did his level best not to actually say the extended string of curses he was thinking. He groaned, cracked his neck. She knew how to read and write or she had a collaborator for her impending flight - damn the silver, she’d just made this life or death. He still took the wrinkled scrap of paper from her.
“Don’t you worry about me. Worry about the cost,” Lewis said. “How much are you offering?”
Sweet Kristen Knight dropped a bundle of enticingly clinking sack-cloth onto the table and slid it noisily to Lewis. He counted twice, unbelieving when he produced the same sum twice.
“Sam,” he shouted, “Sam!”
His boy came in and counted the same, smacked Lewis’s back lightly as if to congratulate his pop, then left. Out front, some drunkard screamed bloody murder as the sound of flesh hitting flesh carried to the back room. Kristen endured his doubt and blooming dread with serene patience.
A long time ago, so long ago that nobody lived who remembered the day and year, so long ago that the first written record of the event described the sky as rust-colored and not blue, there was a goddess of mercy in the world. No god of justice existed because there wasn’t any need for one, but the dawn of civilization had seen a dusk of sorts for generosity, or so the accounts all claimed. The first city of humanity was an overcrowded, lonely place where each citizen regarded their neighbor as a potential enemy, just like Daldain, and it was a place one could easily have disappeared in, and often people did. All anyone knows is this: something unspeakable happened to a stranger, and the entire city was party to that first atrocity. It was so foul a deed that the goddess of Mercy, her name lost to time, died thousands of miles away tending to the sick of another city. From her corpse burst forth a fire so bright it blinded the eyes of all who saw it, even the eyes of the one from whom it emanated: Annancoeur, the goddess of justice, new-born from injustice. Her flight from that city to the first was said to be swift and probably literal, and when she was through the first great city of humanity wasn’t even rubble. Annancoeur described the event to an anointed scribe centuries later, as placid as a field of freshly fallen snow. She did what had to be done, she said, patient as a parent explaining why not to a toddler; she brought justice to a place that had none. Lewis did not examine too closely why the old tale crossed his mind now. It was too late for the choice to be his.
Twenty thousand crowns total. The price Reynaldo placed on a young human life.
“That’s…a lot of money,” Lewis said. He didn’t dare mention it was more than she should have been able to possess honestly.
“I’m a resourceful woman,” Kristen said, pride held as gently and uncertainly in her voice as a baby bird.
“You’ll be hearing from me again, then,” Lewis said. “When something unusual happens to Reynaldo.”
Kristen said nothing, but rose quietly and left, taking the stink of flowers with her.
Lewis drank something much stronger than water the rest of the night, there in the back of his son’s bar. Sleep was going to be a distant dream soon, and he knew it.
Story: Battle For the Sun
Colors: Alice Blue 14 (everything's got a moral, if you can only find it), Sulphur 3 (make a contract), Fire Opal 18 (hell or high water)
Supply: Canvas (Takes place a day or three before the start of BFTS)
Word Count: 1419-ish
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Lewis Wainwright listens. A young woman calling herself Amanda Knight tells him more than he wants to hear.
Notes: Warnings for mentions of human trafficking and forced prostitution. Constructive criticism welcome.
Lewis Wainwright sat alone at an old wooden table in the back room of his son’s tavern - for as long as it had been open, he’d known it by no other name than just his son’s place, and Sam got so exasperated that this was so that Lewis couldn’t exactly bring himself to stop now - and downed the last mouthfuls of water from his glass. The lure of real drink and the roaring din of the customers up front was a sweet temptation, but he’d been contacted for a job and it wasn’t like he could afford to miss out on the work. Not that money was an issue, no; his son saw to it that he always had food and shelter. The issue was that ever since he lost his skill with a bow, his pride stung at him unrelentingly whenever his hands found themselves idle.
Lewis was new to being blind. One day he’d woken up and discovered he was no longer the best distance sniper in Daldain. Months later he was informed that he couldn’t be trusted with a bow anymore and was summarily fired; then, well, too soon after he’d opened his eyes one morning to the same sight he’d have the rest of his life. It had seemed more complicated than that at the time, but Lewis was square with it now, honestly. The things he’d turned a blind eye to, the number of times he’d done it, he could almost convince himself it was divine retribution. His son took care of what he couldn’t anymore, but even that was less than it used to be. Lewis did well enough for himself. He got by. People paid him for other things now. He was ears in rooms others couldn’t get into, a mouth to pass on words others couldn’t or wouldn’t. Lewis had been told he came highly recommended.
“I’ve been told you’re a good listener,” his last client had put it. Lewis hadn’t even tried to stop himself from laughing. All it had taken, it seemed, was to go blind. That regard hadn’t stopped the client from trying to stiff him, of course, but after all, that was Daldain.
Lewis smelled the woman who sat herself next to him before he heard the susurrus of her clothing but after the door clicked shut behind her; she moved silently, to her credit, but her perfume was loud, an explosion of vague, choking floral scent that smelled cheap above all else. He recognized it. It wasn’t a stench that followed a body because they had a say in it. It was some scheme of Don Reynaldo’s concerning his cathouses; get customers to associate the smell with sex, he’d overheard, and they’d get hard just passing by. Lewis hadn’t noticed any difference, but then he’d never really cared for sex to begin with. When she told him her name was Amanda Knight with a hushed voice both lovely and deep, Lewis recognized that, too.
“I need you to listen around for a while about anything unusual regarding Don Reynaldo,” the woman calling herself Amanda Knight said. Anyone else, and Lewis would have demanded that she saw herself to the door and never return. He’d worked for Don Reynaldo for fifteen years. He knew the price of disappointing him and he’d exacted the toll of betraying him; few people could afford the kind of hazard pay he’d demand for risking either of those punishments, and none who had that kind of money would have a reason to pay him to. Amanda Knight might not have remembered, but he’d overheard her a fortnight ago when she’d been going by another name just as phony as the one she’d given him now. She’d been talking to a client he’d come to meet down at one of the Reynaldo-owned cathouses down on Royal Street, and she’d breezed off before he could listen in on any specifics, but her voice had been all he’d needed to hear for it to beggar him for the rest of the week. It had been more than simple hushed tones her voice had been soft with, but a lot of Reynaldo’s people were twitchy from abuse, especially the hookers. Lewis had bought his son out of such a fate; half of the room that night had been fenced cargo he’d ensured would live to one day work there. Sweet Thing Amanda Knight included, he’d come to realize. She’d been a runner, too mad and scared for sense to have knocked resignation into her. Reynaldo had wanted her alive, so Lewis still had the brand of her teeth on his wrist to prove it.
“Go on,” Lewis said, and whether for curiosity or boredom or something else, he didn’t know why.
“I’ll be out of town for a while,” Amanda - Kristen, Lewis thought, her name had been Kristen - said. She wasn’t a child anymore, but she still sounded so young. “So I’ll need you to send letters to certain addresses. I have…a written list here. Can you do that?”
Lewis did his level best not to actually say the extended string of curses he was thinking. He groaned, cracked his neck. She knew how to read and write or she had a collaborator for her impending flight - damn the silver, she’d just made this life or death. He still took the wrinkled scrap of paper from her.
“Don’t you worry about me. Worry about the cost,” Lewis said. “How much are you offering?”
Sweet Kristen Knight dropped a bundle of enticingly clinking sack-cloth onto the table and slid it noisily to Lewis. He counted twice, unbelieving when he produced the same sum twice.
“Sam,” he shouted, “Sam!”
His boy came in and counted the same, smacked Lewis’s back lightly as if to congratulate his pop, then left. Out front, some drunkard screamed bloody murder as the sound of flesh hitting flesh carried to the back room. Kristen endured his doubt and blooming dread with serene patience.
A long time ago, so long ago that nobody lived who remembered the day and year, so long ago that the first written record of the event described the sky as rust-colored and not blue, there was a goddess of mercy in the world. No god of justice existed because there wasn’t any need for one, but the dawn of civilization had seen a dusk of sorts for generosity, or so the accounts all claimed. The first city of humanity was an overcrowded, lonely place where each citizen regarded their neighbor as a potential enemy, just like Daldain, and it was a place one could easily have disappeared in, and often people did. All anyone knows is this: something unspeakable happened to a stranger, and the entire city was party to that first atrocity. It was so foul a deed that the goddess of Mercy, her name lost to time, died thousands of miles away tending to the sick of another city. From her corpse burst forth a fire so bright it blinded the eyes of all who saw it, even the eyes of the one from whom it emanated: Annancoeur, the goddess of justice, new-born from injustice. Her flight from that city to the first was said to be swift and probably literal, and when she was through the first great city of humanity wasn’t even rubble. Annancoeur described the event to an anointed scribe centuries later, as placid as a field of freshly fallen snow. She did what had to be done, she said, patient as a parent explaining why not to a toddler; she brought justice to a place that had none. Lewis did not examine too closely why the old tale crossed his mind now. It was too late for the choice to be his.
Twenty thousand crowns total. The price Reynaldo placed on a young human life.
“That’s…a lot of money,” Lewis said. He didn’t dare mention it was more than she should have been able to possess honestly.
“I’m a resourceful woman,” Kristen said, pride held as gently and uncertainly in her voice as a baby bird.
“You’ll be hearing from me again, then,” Lewis said. “When something unusual happens to Reynaldo.”
Kristen said nothing, but rose quietly and left, taking the stink of flowers with her.
Lewis drank something much stronger than water the rest of the night, there in the back of his son’s bar. Sleep was going to be a distant dream soon, and he knew it.
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Thanks for reading this! I appreciate the comment.
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Ahem.
Off to read this for real.
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Happy reading!
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I love Lewis, and I love how clear it is that he's had to make hard choices, but he's managed to stay sort of sweet anyway, and I love it. I also love the two point five seconds of his relationship with his son that we get. And heeeeey is this our Kristen?
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It is indeed our Kristen appearing here, although it's unlikely that she'll make another physical appearance in the story given when it takes place.