And Miles to Go…
Chapter One: Dying in the Sun
by Seishuku Skuld (skuldhotohori@yahoo.com)
Series: Trigun
Pairing: ^_~
Warnings: violence
Dedicated to: Asphodel, for her inspiration and unending well of good ideas.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
All he had to do was close his eyes and he could remember.
He could remember the smell of the shop, the fragrant scent of wood shavings, the rhythmic scratches of the saw. He remembered the laughter and the aroma of the stew coming from its black pot on the stove.
If he closed his eyes, he could remember further back than anyone on the tiny little planet ever could.
He could remember his childhood years, his first words and the months he spent lying in the crib, listening to soft breathing of the small body curled up beside him. He could remember the womb as his own universe of warm darkness, he could remember the voices he heard and the slight pressure every time his mother would rest an arm about her distended belly, wishing her children well.
Even back then, when he was just beginning, his body an unformed lump of flesh, he had known he was special in some sort of way. It never quite a conscious thought that floated through his mind, but some sort of basic instinct that had been shown him, that he was destined for great power, that he could do great things. Never when he was a child, had he considered what such power and capability would have cost him. It hadn't entered his fragile mind, as he was being pulled from the protective embrace of his mother's womb and heard her cry of surprise, that whatever god that ruled the universe might exact some punishment on him, some penalty for the gift which had been bestowed upon him.
Never when he was a child, had it occurred to him to blame someone else. Even with his great knowledge, his sharp intellect and his willingness to learn, he lacked the fundamentals of wisdom, the worldly knowledge and the unspoken rules that everyone seemed to abide by. They were strange and alien to him, often undecipherable and enigmatic, until one day, with the help of his peers, he had known what it meant to be "different." And it was that day that had changed everything, the few fateful words scornfully uttered by his peers that had set everything in motion; that had put him on the path which led to where he was now, so far away from the tiny town where his life had begun.
It was never hard for him to remember the touch, the visions, the smells of days long past, still as clear as his reflection in the mirror, as if he was peering through a newly cleaned window…still too clear, and sometimes he wished he couldn't remember so well….
Truth be told, it was a double-edged sword. It had saved his life on countless occasions, it had allowed him to cherish the moments he loved most, the smells, the soft touches, the deep voice of the man he adored were burnt into his memory, the experiences untarnishable by neither the passage of time nor the confusion of new memories. He was the perfect record book, written in ink, a flawless journal for his own experiences, whether they were happy and content, or horrifyingly traumatic. He remembered the small things, every little minute detail without fail, and that in itself was something unique. That alone wouldn't have won him what he had now, and he had that been his only gift he would have lived a rather typical life, passing his days peacefully until the day of his death.
He was both thankful and thankless for his ultimate gift, the one which had only earned him hate, fear, and resentment. It was the sole reason for his salvation, the only thing that had made him worthy of the momentous task that had been given to him, the only token that would make him of any use in that man's eyes. And for that purpose alone, he thanked the gods. He thanked them for his fortune and his gift, he thanked them for everything that had happened in his life, both good and bad but especially the good. He thanked them for his deliverance, and for finding him a place beside them. He thanked them for his moments of pain and his few moments of pleasure, and he thanked them for his left arm, which was the second gift they had given them when he thought he had been only worthy of one.
"Thank you," he whispered in the morning, the first thing he said every time he opened his eyes to a new day. And though his large bed was often cold and empty despite whatever had happened the previous night, he was thankful even for those few, small moments of true tenderness.
It had mostly been a quiet world he remembered when he was a child, young and naïve, and completely unaware of the world rushing by him, unnoticed by the cosmic force which would eventually uproot him and toss him into the center storm, a victim of circumstance, society, and the whims of the gods.
With he sigh, he closed his eyes. He sank down, his body relaxing, setting his chin to rest in his hand, as his fingers curled around a few short strands of hair, the color of what he had been told was the hue of the sea on a cloudless summer day.
*****
She had always been the center of his life. There hadn't been a moment in time when he couldn't remember the feeling of her presence. She was smaller than he, of dark hair but light complexion, and a sprightly way to her walk that told volumes of her abounding cheer and endless enthusiasm. He had always felt her gazing at him with a smile, those small lips upturned in a special grin that was only for him; and even though she might have her back turned, even though she was at the opposite side of the room, she was always smiling in his mind, and in those days, she had meant more to him anything ever had.
Her name was Ismay, and she had been his younger, but stronger half, and he had seen everything in her that he had lacked. As a child he was quiet and reclusive, always hiding from the world only to watch it with secretive, curious eyes. He had never felt the need to speak as a toddler, and for a period of time his parents were very afraid that he was incapable of speech. He always let Ismay do the speaking for him, for she had been a loud baby; if she wasn't crying, then she was giggling or laughing, experimenting with words and infant sounds. It was only during her sleep that she had been quiet, the sound of her breaths very small and quiet, only a whisper in the night, even when he was sleeping next to her.
As his constant companion, she was always the boss, in control of anything and everything they did together. He would defer to her decisions and her whims, whatever they might have been, and it was quite obvious who the dominant one of the twins had to be. She caused their parents no end to trouble, whether it was sneaking into their father's shop to steal little blocks of wood to play with, or snitching huge handfuls of pie that their mother had left to cool on the windowsill.
She was always dirty or grimy in some sort of way, it came from playing in the dusty streets, or digging for worms in the small backyard they had. She had stains on her dress from drops of juice, or whatever had been the sauce for dinner the previous night. She was sloppy but quick to tidy up when admonished by their mother, and she had gone through everything, everything with a smile and a small hand holding his.
His mother was a stern woman who dressed in earthy colors of various shades of brown, always with a spotless white apron and a tight, meticulous bun holding her long, dark hair together. She was a practical housewife, and went about her household duties in a no-nonsense sort of way. In speaking she was terse and brief, always to the point, but also open and honest, much in the manner of his father. She was responsible for entertaining the guests, making sure the family meals were always finished on time, cleaning the house, and raising the children. She even made their clothes to simple and practical, and though they weren't short for money, she never bought the delicate lace for herself or her daughter, never any jewelry or other useless shows of wealth and craftsmanship, it had always been plain clothing in plain colors, nothing flimsy or fancy, and made to last for years.
Ismay always wore a cream colored dress with a white collar and white buttons down the front, simple and otherwise unadorned. His clothes were similar, a shirt of the same color as his sister's dress, with pants the color of brown clay. He never went outside much, even at his sister's urging, and would only go as far as the small fence in the yard, never venturing to see the outside world, never curious to explore the neighbor's yard though he had always been watching it carefully.
His father called himself a carpenter, though it was clear by the skill and breadth of his works that he was much more-- the intricacies with which he carved and built had put him far above just a simple craftsman. He saw very little of his father during the day, for the man was always in the shop with whatever project the rich man from the big town had commissioned, sometimes an elegantly carved armoire or gilded oaken doors. As a young man his father had made himself famous at a furniture show, and soon all the rich aristocrats of the neighboring towns had to own something that had been crafted by Bard Thornsayer; even as the initial rush had died down, his father had enough fame to keep food on the table and the bank accounts full. As a child, he remembered many occasions in which the mayor, or even some rich newlyweds would knock on the door, lay large sums of money on the table, and walk away a month later with a beautifully constructed, ornate cabinet.
Dinner was a sober affair at the Thornsayer household, at six o'clock sharp his father would come into the kitchen, covered with sawdust and smelling of varnish, and give his wife a light kiss on the cheek.
"What's for dinner?"
"Whatever's on the stove," his mother would always answer with a quick smile. "Now go clean up, change your clothes, and dinner will be ready in an hour." Then she would turn back to her cooking, humming her favorite tune.
His father would wave at the children then, pause in the living room where he and Ismay would be playing, and ask how their day was. Ismay would answer with whatever exciting events had happened during the day, and he would just smile as his father always bent down, one hand for each of his children, and ruffle their hair with a smile.
The meal was usually long, everyone eating slowly with occasional conversation between his parents. His mother drilled manners into Ismay, "don't talk with your mouth full," interspersed with "don't play with you food," and "use your fork, not your fingers." Ismay would grin and wipe her hands on her dress, before picking up the silver utensils with a reluctant pout.
He never got scolded of course, his mother never talked to him much, and that was something that always made him wonder. Sometimes she would look at him, wipe his mouth a little with her napkin and smile a sad, worried sort of smile that always left him feeling somewhat less of the person he was. His mother never smiled like that at his sister, and until he knew the truth, he didn't suppose it was anything of great import.
*****
It wasn't until he was well into six years old that he truly realized what the look he'd always seen on his mother's face meant. Ismay had finally managed to convince him to make friends with the rest of the children in their small town. He had consented because he had oft seen the longing look in her eyes as she gazed out the bedroom window, her small hands clutching her doll, listening to the children shout and laugh as they passed through the street below them. At other times the children would stand on the porch, their curious eyes peering into the sitting room where he and Ismay would be playing; she with her dolls, and he usually with a book in his lap.
He knew his sister wanted to join them, the small, sweaty, laughter-filled pack of bodies, pressed together in the dusty street, a tight circle of feet kicking a small ball between them. It was a completely different kind of world than the one in which they lived; to Ismay, the children offered her so much more excitement than his own quiet companionship. Whenever the children would ask politely, whether or not she wanted to join their game, she would always shake her head, swinging her one dark ponytail back and forth, her hand grasping her doll tightly. She never went with them, knowing that he was too shy to meet them, knowing there was nothing and no one else he needed other than to be with her. In her own way, Ismay understood, in their small nighttime conversations. They would lie together in bed and though there might not have been words that passed between them, it was an implicit understanding, because they were twins, because they'd always been together. If he had his way, they'd lock themselves away from the rest of the world, so nothing, no matter how powerful or how far-reaching would ever be able to separate them. But he could feel it in the way she moved and in the way she always stood by the window, her body tensed in longing; no matter how much he needed her, how much she completed him, or how much she loved and took care of him, he was not the be all and end all to her existence like she was to his. She needed him and she needed others as well, she needed their mother and their father whose brow she kissed every evening when he would hoist her up in his arms, and ask how his beautiful daughter had spent the day. She wanted friends, she wanted to venture out into the world and leave the safe haven of their home.
"Ismay," he'd whispered one night, "do you want to go outside and play with them?" There was no question as to who 'them' would be.
"I'll only go if you go," Ismay replied quietly. "You want to meet them too, but I know you're too shy. I'll help you, don't worry." It was one of the very few times she had been wrong about him. She'd put her hands over his, her small fingers curling in his palm. "If they try to hurt you, I'll protect you. I promise." He smiled at her in the dark and nodded, if they came tomorrow then he and Ismay would join them. He did it for her, because he didn't want to be selfish, because he didn't want to dampen her indomitable cheer and exuberance by caging her inside the house.
It had never occurred to him what would happen if it ever came to pass that he would have to protect her.
*****
"Excuse me, Mrs. Thornsayer, but would your kids like to play with us today? We're playing a game of kick-ball and we need two more people."
Before her mother could answer, Ismay came bounding onto the porch, her doll left on the floor in the sitting room where she had dropped it. She'd turned around waved to her brother.
"Come on!"
He'd put his book down, placing a piece of worn ribbon in the page he had been reading before closing the voluminous tome and putting it carefully back on the bookshelf.
"Coming!" he called, running quickly to where the other children had already clustered by his door, a sea of dirty faces, matted hair slick with sweat from the heat of the noonday sun. For a second he paused, almost afraid of their curious eyes as they looked him up and down, measuring his existence, judging his worth in the way that only children can.
There was a hush as they all opened their eyes wide, some mouths dropping open. He heard his mother somewhere in the kitchen drop a plate, the china shattering with a loud clatter and an angry shout.
"Why does he have blue hair?"
He reached up a hand, tugging at the strands of hair falling near his eyes. They were blue in fact, and never once had anyone asked him that sort of question. Ismay had black hair, his mother and his father likewise had dark hair. They'd never mentioned to him the color of his hair, much less asked why it was that particular hue. He opened to mouth to reply, but realized that he had nothing to say.
"Come on, Ismay," the tallest boy said, "let's go." And that broke the silence, as the children all turned their backs on him and filed off the porch in a great big pack, little bodies pushing past each other in an effort to be the first to reach the street where the game was about to begin.
*****
"Ismay! Come outside and play!"
He'd sat quietly in the living room, another book in his lap, Ismay beside him with a pair of marionettes carefully crafted by their father, wooden arms and legs moving in a stately, intricate dance. Her head snapped up at the voices, Billy, Tony, and Rae standing in the doorway, with four nearly melted ice cream cones between them.
"Okay!" Ismay dropped her toys immediately and scampered to the door, nearly tripping over her own skirt. She gracefully accepted the ice cream that Rae handed her, and was about to leave before she turned around, surprised that her twin brother had made no move to follow her. In fact, he had been sitting on the couch, unmoving, his eyes roving over the same page for nearly an hour.
"Come on, let's go," she called back, beckoning him to motion with a wave of her hand.
He looked up from his reading, never having really been concentrating on it anyway, lost in thought. He had been thinking that perhaps Ismay was slipping through his fingers, despite his best attempts to hold onto her. They were a little older now, and while he did not get along with the rest of the children in the town, Ismay was loved by all, and all the boys and girls alike would come to their house often to call upon her to play. She was the center of attention, and he at best was spare baggage, brought along, tolerated because Ismay would have it no other way, but he could see the resentment in their eyes – they would much rather leave him by himself if ever given the choice.
He'd realized from day one that it was useless to fight the other children, for a boy of his age, he was smaller and weaker than they; he had not lived a life of romping in the grimy streets or playing underneath the sun. He was pale, his skin the color of polished ivory, turning a dark, painful pink when out too much in the sun. While not exactly delicate, he was fragile, easily tired, easily bruised if another of the children pushed him too roughly.
He didn't move as his sister continued to wave to him, calling his name, and urging him to come. She never saw the cruelty of the boys, for they had taken extra pains to hide it from her; every scraped knee and purple bruise was written off as his own clumsiness, his inability to keep up, or dodge the ball whenever it went flying in his direction.
He waited for the words to fall as they eventually would, finally uttered in the presence of his sister. He had felt their scorn, and known that they'd come this far into the house not only to fetch Ismay, but to finally say what they'd always wanted to say.
"Your brother can't come," Billy, the leader of the pack, sneered. He was the biggest of the group, though not the oldest. His father was the owner of the saloon in town, a large, burly, tough man that had been through many a drunken bar brawl. It was obvious the man had passed a few physical traits onto his son; Billy was taller than everyone else by a head covered with sandy-blonde hair. His arms were thick and already muscled, his blue shirt hanging open and flapping in the dusty wind as trickles of sweat carved salty rivers down his torso. He was already the ladies' man, and always had several girls hanging off his arms giving him innocent butterfly kisses. It as no doubt he had his sights on adding Ismay to his growing harem.
"He never talks. He's a freak." Tony was second only to Billy, younger than the leader by a year, but by no means less tough. He was an orphan that had been taken in by the town's mayor, and with all the business the mayor and his wife had to tend to, they hardly had time to raise their adopted son. It was all well and good for Tony, for he had grown accustomed to the streets already; it was home to him.
"He has blue hair." Rae was the smallest, a newcomer but one that had quickly fit in. Rae had hair the color of the darkest night, darker than Ismay's. Rae was tiny and quick, the winner of all the races and already he was learning how to fight, his punches lightning fast and thunderously hard. He always played lackey to Billy and Tony, following them around like a lost puppy dog looking for a master.
"And yellow eyes, like a cat."
He sighed and raised his book higher in his lap, lowering his head so that the blows might slide over his back where they would disappear into the carpet, so he could sort through them later on his own time. His eyes fell back down to his reading, and he desperately tried to concentrate on his words:
Near the center of the room there was a trestle table piled high with glossy apples. An evil idea came over me—
"Don't talk about him like that!"
"C'mon, Ismay, just look at him. Look at his hair. It's blue."
"Like the sky! Yeah! No one has hair like that!"
"I bet it's not even real."
"Stop it, Billy," Ismay's voice had gotten quiet, her voice shaking with the effort to restrain her rage. She had her fists clenched at her side, her arm quivering as if she was a string pulled tight, desperately trying not to explode and punch all three of them.
"Why should I, Ismay?" A rough hand lifted her chin. "You're not very cute when you cry, you know."
"He's my brother, Billy. My twin brother."
"Funny thing you know, you guys look nothing alike when you cry."
"Stop it!" Ismay brushed aside the hand on her face, taking a step backwards. Her small frame shook with fury, an anger that seemed small in front of the boys standing before her.
…so evil it made me shiver as I smiled—and I sidled across the table. "So you want to be a hero."
He took a deep breath, wishing he could wrap himself in the story, wrap the words about him as a protection from other words. If he could just roll himself up in the pages, maybe he would disappear when someone came to close the book. Maybe if he concentrated on the words, everything else would fade away and he could be left to his own devices, free to do whatever it was he pleased, not always having his strings plucked by his sister or by the "friends" that came to drag his sister outside.
I picked up an apple and polished it lightly…
"Leave my brother alone!"
"See? Even you said to leave him alone, Ismay. Come on, let's go already. We don't want the likes of him mixing in our group."
"Get out, Billy! Get out right now!"
"Cut the crap, Ismay, just come with us."
"Get out!"
"He's just your brother, Ismay…"
"I said, get out! Out! All of you! I never want to see any of you again!"
There was a moment of silence, broken only by the sound of Ismay's labored breathing as she tried to hold in her sobs.
"You should go with them, Ismay," he heard his own voice say quietly, fighting for steadiness in his tone. He blinked rapidly holding back the tears that he had already seen fall from Ismay's face.
"Who asked you, cat eyes? You stay out of this."
"Shut up, Tony, and get out. I'm not playing with you anymore."
"Fine, Ismay. Just sit there all day with him, we don't want you either."
"Don't you dare show your face at my house again," Ismay growled softly, her voice full of venom. "If I see you again, I'll get my mother and she'll knock the lights out of you."
"Huh, we're not afraid of your mother. Tony, Rae, come on, let's go. It looks like Ismay likes her blue-haired brother better than she likes us."
He kept his eyes rooted to his book as he heard Ismay return to the room and sit down on the carpet.
And now I was raining apples at him and laughing myself weak. He covered his head…
The first drops of his tears fell not too soon after he heard Ismay's first sob. She sniffled, and broke down completely, wrapping her arms around her knees and rocking back and forth curled into a little ball.
"Ismay," he began tentatively, not sure quite what he had to say, but that his sister needed him by her side.
"Go away."
He stopped, his book dropping from his hands, landing on the carpet with a soft thud.
"GO AWAY! STOP IT! YOU'RE ALL THE SAME!" Ismay scrambled up, and dashed for the stairs, not caring when she tripped over her own dress as she made her way up the stairs. She merely picked herself back up again, and continued running until she was out of sight, turning the corner. A few moments later, he heard the slamming of a door.
"Is something wrong, darling?" His mother had poked her head out of the shop where she had been helping their father with a particularly difficult carved statue for the Farnelli Insurance Company in the next town over.
"No, nothing, mother," he replied mechanically, quickly wiping his tears with the back of his sleeve. He picked his book back up, and settled himself into the couch, wishing for all the world that the thing would swallow him whole.
…I jumped back and tipped over the table on him, half burying him in apples as red and innocent as smiles.
*********
"Ismay, why do I have blue hair?" It was well after dinner and their parents had long since retired for the night, but he still couldn't sleep. He'd lain in bed awake for a good many hours already, listening to his twin's slow and steady breaths. The moonlight filtered in through the window, casting a silver glow about everything in the room. His sister's hair had taken on a shine; if anything could have glowed with black light, it was the midnight color is his sister's hair. He reached out, curling a loose strand about his fingers, marveling at its softness, so different from his own.
"I don't know," came the answer, muddled with sleep, startling him out of his reverie. He heard her yawn and withdrew his hand quickly.
"But aren't twins supposed to look alike?"
"I don't know. Maybe. Or maybe it's just that you're special. All the heroes in the stories are special. Maybe you'll be a hero someday."
"A hero?"
"Yeah, like the kind that ride around on horses, wear shining armor, protect the princesses and save the kingdom."
"That sounds like fun." He smiled, he'd read about heroes, and it seemed that being one didn't seem to be so bad. "So I'll get to protect you someday?"
"Yeah, when we grow up, you can protect me."
"Okay!"
"Then it's a deal. Don't let me down."
"I won't." And he made that promise, fervently, with every little fiber of his being. He had to protect Ismay, because she was too precious to him to lose.
******
Midway, true to its name was situated halfway between the large cities of March and Septem. It was one hundred iles from March, and nearly as far from Septem. The town was founded not too many years after the Septem Craft Exposition, where Bard Thornsayer had won his renown. The founders had wanted a small town, away from the ritzy, glitzy lights of Septem and the smelly, crowded slums of March. They wanted a small town away from the ceaseless motion of the teeming cities, but did not want to forsake the multitudes of amenities that were offered in both March and Septem.
David Harper had been one of the few that had ventured into the desert, led by what he claimed was a dream that there was water near enough to the surface to attempt to dig a well. With a few of his good friends from both large cities, Bard Thornsayer among them, Harper and his companions set out one hundred iles from March, and began their digging. Three months later they struck the water table, and thus it was that Midway was begun. It was a small well they found, nothing near large enough to sustain a large city the likes of March and Septem, but it was sufficient for a hundred families or so. A small gathering had formed when the well had been fully built, and only a few weeks after small houses had sprung up, built by the hardworking hands of friends and friends of friends of the original founders, and so within a few years the town had swelled to nearly three hundred residents. It was a tiny place where everyone knew everyone else, where greetings and the latest gossips were exchanged at the markets, and all the wives would gather together with their children while the men played cards at the saloon.
It was in his tenth year that everything had changed, from the quiet utopia his childhood town had been, into the nightmare that had shattered his life. Perhaps someone had splashed their coffee over Destiny's grand plan, or one of Fate's giant wheels had stopped turning and simply rolled away. But somehow, things took a turn for the worse.
The weather had been unusually hot for months, and while no one in the small town of Midway had marked this as a particularly noteworthy event at first, Bernard Eloise, mayor of March City and Kyle Loveless, mayor of Septem City, already had their hands full with blossoming emergencies. The drought had gone on for nearly a year, and food supply sudden became short as crops withered and farm animals died, and soon the large cities were noticing that it had become harder and harder to draw water from the well. Within a few months, the wealthy were stockpiling whatever they had left, buying whatever they could find from passing merchants, and the poor were in the streets, thin with hunger and dying of thirst.
The rumors had begun then, that Midway was a desert oasis, crawling with beautiful flowers, lush fruit-bearing trees, and that the entire town was covered in green forest trees, shading its residents from the heat of the twin suns, preventing its water supply from drying. It was all tall tales, for Midway had long been the victim of overimagination and careless exaggeration, but nonetheless the talk spread like a sandstorm and the damage was already done.
To conserve its most precious resource, March and Septem desperately tried to ration its dwindling water supply. Newspapers and radios reported hundreds of deaths of city citizens, standing in lines for hours and hours on end in the hot noonday sun, weak and exhausted from dehydration. Already things had gotten out of control, and there was a many a whisper of the Midway Oasis, and how Harper and his friends were trying to kill everyone.
An attempt to covertly divert water from the Midway had failed already, barely yielding a trickle into their own water supplies. To the local governments there was only one option that remained: a polite inquiry to the town of Midway.
The messages from both cities had been delivered the same day to the Mayor of Midway's small office, completely independent of each other, each one bearing the official seal and stationery of their respective cities. It was a small note, neither lofty nor humble, but simply requesting the aid of Midway in the use of its well to transport water to the needy citizens of March and Septem.
Midway had returned them both the same letters, a polite refusal of help, not because they were unwilling, but because it simply was not possible. Midway was suffering from the drought as much as the other cities, and the supply the small well provided was barely enough for its own residents, certainly not large enough to sustain cities the size and breadth of March and Septem. Midway had its own people to care to look after, and expressed its deepest regrets to the casualities of the two cities. The letter closed with a prayer for better times ahead.
In the eyes of the residents of March City and Septem, this courteous reply had turned into a cruel, malicious answer, and the tabloids had reported this as a direct affront against the two cities, that Midway had intentionally stolen the water of the two cities and were storing it for themselves, selling the extra off elsewhere in order to increase its wealth.
Not too long after the initial gossip, mobs in March City had taken to the streets, trampling the old, sick and the weak underneath their bare feet, demanding that justice be brought upon the evil tyrants of Midway.
"Make them give us our water back!" Yelled the angry crowds in front of March City Hall. The Mayor and the Police watched in horror as thousands gathered to protest, first content in reveling in their own fury. When it became apparent that the government wasn't about to do anything about Midway, that all Eloise did was hide in his office, the mobs ransacked the building. They rushed through the police guarding, tore down the door, and spilled like ants into the structure. Statues fell, paintings were broken and torn, pottery destroyed as even the bricks were pulled from the façade. Not to be appeased by this small victory, that very same day the March City rioters poured the rest of their energies into Midway, riding whatever thomases, motorcycles, or other vehicles they found in the streets.
The attack had come suddenly in the night, and he remembered rolling out of his bed to the sound of three gunshots. He had thrown a protective arm about Ismay's shoulder, gritting in his teeth against the pain as her frightened fingers dug into his flesh, leaving dark bruises.
"What's that?" she whispered hoarsely, shaking with fright as she hissed the words in his ear, her small voice nearly overpowered by the sounds of the shouting in the street outside.
"I don't know," he answered slowly, but knowing that it was something terrible. Never in Midway's few years had there been anything as loud as the mob from March City, bearing their guns, knives, and whatever petty weapons they had found at hand.
"What in hell is going on?" Bard had burst out of his room roaring, cocking his gun. "What's this shit?"
Before he and Ismay had a chance to reply, their mother burst into the room with a blanket, gathering them up quickly in her arms. "To the cellar now." He remembered screaming as a rock crashed through the window, punctuating her words. His mother rushed them down the stairs, carrying them as if they weighed nothing, still wrapped in the white blanket with the yellow flower print that had been their parents' wedding gift. It smelled a little like sawdust, and a little like the kitchen; but that fragrance was soon drowned out by the smell of gunpowder as several more gunshots rung out amidst the shouts.
He remembered spending days and days in the cool darkness of the cellar, with no one and nothing but his mother, his sister, and the small lightbulb in the ceiling.
After his mother had dumped her children into the safety of the basement, she had shut the door and barricaded it with chairs, boxes, and whatever she could find that would serve as some sort of barrier.
"What about Papa?" Ismay had asked shrilly, her voice on the edge of hysteria as tears fell openly down her cheeks.
"Your father will be fine, Ismay, darling," came the hurried reply. His mother was never one for extra words or tenderness, and so he had been left to comfort his sister. He held her tight in his arms, stroked her lovely raven hair, murmuring soothing words to her.
"I'll be here, Ismay, don't worry. Papa will be all right, he's going to protect us all."
"Oh," Ismay had gasped, collapsing in his embrace, throwing her arms about his neck and sobbing into his nightshirt.
"Yes, your father is going to protect us," his mother smiled wanly, reassuring her children as she quickly pulled more furniture in front of the door.
Sleep had been a long time coming to Ismay, when finally her wailing had stopped, she had degenerated into small sniffles, occasionally wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. He had rocked her back and forth, as he remembered Mama doing when they were both babies, and he sang her a lullaby that he had learned as a toddler. Finally even the sniffles had stopped, and Ismay drifted off into a deep sleep. His mother had taken her away from him, lifting her onto the couch.
"Good boy," she smiled down at him, cradling his twin, "be strong."
"I will, Mama."
"Darling, where did you learn that song?"
"The lullaby? I remember you singing it to me, Mama."
He remember his mother's strange sad look, and he realized that she was staring directly into his eyes, her gaze occasionally shifting to his hair, which in the darkness of the room had a sickly green glow.
"I haven't sung that song to you in nearly nine years."
"I still remember it."
"How much exactly do you remember?"
"Everything, Mama." And that line of questioning had ended there, his mother lapsing into a deep silence, as she turned away, staring about the rest of the room.
Finally he broke the quiet. He couldn't hear what was going on outside, for the cellar did not have any windows, and the only source of sound was the door, which had already been blocked off.
"How is Papa going to get inside if the door's blocked?"
"He'll be back when the people are gone, dear."
"When is that? Who are they? Where are they from? What did we do? Why are they attack—"
"I don't know," his mother had said quietly, her eyes falling to her hands, folded in her lap. "I don't know when they'll be gone. I don't know when your father is coming back."
"Oh," he had breathed, realizing the weight of his mother's words as if he had almost picked the hidden implications from her mind. He thought back to the newspapers he read daily, and recalled something about a long drought, and the wells of March and Septem cities drying up. It was that, he was certain, somehow the people had gotten angry and had come to Midway demanding water. "But there's not enough water in the well for them, Mama."
"I know, my son, I know."
********
He didn't remember falling asleep, but he did remember waking up in the dark without a watch and without a clock, not knowing whether it was morning, late afternoon or night. Ismay was sleeping next to him, an arm flung about his chest, her small body pressed tightly against his back.
His mother was dozing in the chair beside the couch, her head lolling to the side, snoring softly. He'd heard a quiet rapping on the door, and it interrupted his reverie causing him to jump in sudden surprise.
"Who's there?" he called out.
"It's your father, son, open up."
His mother had roused herself at the sounds, scrambling to move aside the barricade. She did it as quietly as possible, so as not to wake and upset Ismay. She flung open the door, and in a sudden impulse that he had never seen before, his mother embraced his father, crying.
They spoke in low tones, obviously not wanting him or his sister to hear what they were saying. From the open doorway, he could still hear gunshots, and the occasional shout, though beside that and the murmurs of his parents, he could hear nothing else.
"Things are going to be bad for the next few days, Alma."
"What's wrong?"
"There's news that a new mob is headed this way from Septem."
"Oh no, you're not joking…"
He saw his father shake his head, a worried look on his face. "This isn't just a street riot anymore." His father didn't say what exactly the situation had evolved into, but he didn't need to be told, from the serious look on his father's face.
"Why don't we just leave then? We can gather the children up, fire up the car, and run."
"Where to, Alma? Where can we run? This is the only place with water, there's nothing but wasteland for miles. Where would we take them?"
"But Bard, the children! This is no place for children!" his mother protested, gripping his father firmly by the shoulders. He was frightened by the conviction in her eyes, the burning determination on her face. It was a look he turned away from, and he was amazed at how his father held his mother's gaze, unflinching, meeting her fire with one of his own.
"This is our town, Alma. Remember how we helped build it? With David, Pete, and Little Freddy! We can't abandon it now."
The inferno in his mother's eyes died at these words, and
she took a step backwards, suddenly appearing tired and exhausted, nearly
falling to her knees. "How
long until the fighting stops?"
"I have no idea. Perhaps days or weeks. Either way, hide down here with the kids, Alma. Bring everything in the kitchen and that you can. There should be enough food and water in our storeroom anyway."
"All right," his mother sighed, closing her eyes, brushing a stray lock of hair out of her face. She smiled up at her husband. "I suppose we have no choice but to wait this out."
"That's the spirit, Alma."
It was the first time and the last time he'd seen his parents kiss so passionately. It was long and silent, and when it was over, it still lingered in the air, even after they'd broken apart, even after his father left, and his mother disappeared up the stairs and into the kitchen to fetch the pots and pans, and whatever food was in the refrigerator.
*****
Jimmy Kennet was born in the slums of March City. He had no father he could remember, and he could only recall vague images of his mother, dirty blonde hair usually plastered to her face with mud, her gaunt face hovering over in his vision in a parody of a motherly grin, most of her teeth knocked out, her mouth a great gaping hole. He had no clue what had happened to her, but he figured she'd met her end in a dark, smelly alleyway somewhere. He never found her, and hadn't really cared much past the initial few days of fear after she hadn't come home.
Coret Street was one of the worst places in town, if there could have been anything or anyplace in March that was worse than any other. There were stories, told by the crazy beggars on the street in their dusty rags, stories that March City used to be a glorious rich haven like Septem, full of the wealthy and the well-to-do, but all that had been wrecked by Devilish Max Grenadier, one of the cleverest con men ever seen on this side of the moon. Supposedly he'd been popular amongst the citizens, and after nearly twenty years as Mayor of March City, he'd stolen nearly all the city's money and run off to the desert with it. Searches for him had been fruitless, and there was no way for the city to raise enough money so quickly to repair its broken roads or rebuild its abandoned buildings. That was why March was so poor, or so they all said.
But Jimmy Kennet was smarter than that, unlike the older folk, the ones with the graying hair and the ones rolling about in the street, he didn't dwell on the past. He didn't have dreams of glory as an orphan, his happiness every night was finding a warm place to sleep away from the gangs, the groping hands, and most importantly the wind. For the street gangs could be beaten off, and the groping hands could be kicked away, but the wind was something intangible. It was worse than the hands crawling under his shirt, and the fists that beat him, because in the face of the wind he could do nothing, nothing but grit his teeth and bear the cold that seeped into his skin and covered his bones with a layer of frost.
It was cold at night for the homeless, without the shelter of a roof. They were often victim to sandstorms or heat waves, or whatever the elements threw at them. Life as a child for Jimmy, was filled with mischief, usually stealing whatever food he could from the market or from the hands of other, smaller street urchins. He'd been turned away from the orphanage, because they were already full to bursting and couldn't afford to feed the children anyway, the street was the place for him. He scraped by whatever way he could, sometimes even begging in the street in a tiny torn dress he'd found in a rich person's trash; he'd been told by man of the drunks that he looked like a girl, and he fully expected to use that to his advantage.
Now that he was older, it was much more difficult to masquerade as a female, but not entirely impossible. He was thinner and shorter than most boys his age, completely hairless on his chest and his chin. He'd been taken in by a kind prostitute not too many months after the deaths of his mother, and she'd taught him the tricks of the trade: the sultry look, the wink and the kiss to get them in bed. In the morning, if he wasn't the violent, beating type, he'd leave some money; not much, but enough to scrape by.
He remembered her lessons well, though he couldn't quite recall her name. He'd saved a couple of her dresses, and a few well placed bundles of rags for breasts and some of her cheap make-up had done him good for more than a long time. A sultry smile, a wink, and a kiss were usually all it really took to get the easy prey, and when he took the men to bed, he'd beat them senseless and take whatever small possessions they had. Of course, he hadn't escaped even from that unscathed. He had a crooked nose thanks to Big Ben Dailey, but anything that didn't kill him only made him stronger, and Big Ben had lost much more than he had in that little adventure.
He'd been one of the first to hear when the March mobs had gone to Midway, and one of the first to set foot inside the Midway town limits, with a long knife, something he'd stolen from one of his 'clients' one night.
The drought had affected the beggars the worst in March City, for they had neither the money to buy imported water, nor the connections it took to procure the precious liquid. Standing in the ration lines was futile, for the water ran out too quickly to satisfy all the people waiting in need. As soon as the rumors of Midway and its water hoarding reached his ears, he was one of the first ones to fight back.
He'd seen it all, the corrupted wealthy, the greedy beggars, willing to kill a neighbor, a family member, or friend for a shot at anything that would get them out of the slums. It was a world in which he had to eat or be eaten, competition was tough in the dark alleyways, and a day didn't pass that he could remember where he didn't see at least one dead body lying in the streets for the rats to pick on. He'd even seen a few starving children eating flesh from the body of their comrade a few times. It made sense, therefore, that as soon as Midway got wind of the drought, it stored water for its own citizens. It also naturally made sense that Midway, to provide amply for itself, stole water from March and Septem.
It was unfair. Life was unfair as he'd learned long ago, and though he didn't complain about it, he sure wasn't going to let Life slide by without fighting with everything he had.
He'd gotten up in front of the crowds in front of City Hall, shimmied up the flag pole, and waved his arms to the masses assembled there.
"MIDWAY IS THE EVIL!" he'd shouted, waving his hat wildly about his head. "MIDWAY HAS STOLEN OUR WATER! DOWN WITH MIDWAY!"
There had been immense cheering and clapping. He had loved every minute of the look of elation on the faces of the poor beggars gathered there. Finally, they had something or someone to fight against instead of themselves.
"ON, TO MIDWAY!"
And he had jumped off onto a stolen car, and led the masses to the town of Midway, where he was sure the change to his so-far ill fortune awaited him.
*****
It was not entirely untrue that Midway hadn't been hoarding water. David Harper had been it coming, and had warned his good friends, those with good sense enough to listen at least, and in the Thornsayer's cellar, next to the bottles of beer and wine, there was enough water to last the family for a month, tucked away in large glass jugs, placed orderly in a dark corner of the room.
His mother had poured him a glass of water when he was thirsty, and had poured a glass for his sister when she woke up and complained of thirst. From then on, it was a glass of water a day, and not much more than that. He and Ismay had understood the seriousness of the situation they were in, understood the long silences when his mother would stare off into space quietly, her mind obviously elsewhere. He remembered the shared looks between him and his sister, her normally cheerful, happy eyes filled with fear and worry.
"It'll be all right, Ismay, I'm here for you," he tried reassuring her.
She only answered him with a small grin, a far cry from her large grins or her happy laughs. "I know, I trust Mama and Papa, and you most of all." She tapped him on the nose then, giggling and suddenly wrapping her arms about him in a great bear hug.
*****
Septem had hardly been able to keep to its seat as soon as word of the March City Riots reached its ears. Septem was everything that March was not, it was glory and beauty, it was clean and beautiful and full of sparkling light, where all the March City streets were darkness. It was filled with the wealthy and the scholarly, merchants, inventors, scientists, engineers, politicians…all of society's elite was gathered in Septem City, and even they were not immune to the effects of the drought.
Riots had started in Septem beginning with the older school age students, mostly sons and daughters of the scholarly and knowledgeable, but soon spread to the merchants and even the lower ranks of the political conference as it became apparent that water was in short supply. Rationing had not worked, and in the wake of Septem's crisis, they found only one way out.
Between them and Midway were the Velusian Sand Dunes, great mountains of sand that stretched for thirty iles at least, uncrossable by any means except for motor vehicles, which thankfully many of the dissident residents of Septem already owned.
The Septem army was better organized than the mobs of March, possessing a greater body of weapons. It arrived in Midway a mere twelve hours after the March fighters, only to find that half the town had already been occupied by the forces from the opposing city. There were a handful of fighters protecting the well, the founders among them, and it was apparent that they were able to hold their own against the disorganized attacks from March.
It would have been a swift victory for Septem had it not been for the war on two fronts, fighting both March and Midway was difficult for an entering army trying to establish territory, much less find the well. The Septem army had not been sent off with much in the way of supplies, for they were needed in the city itself, but they had enough to last them for a few days, unlike the March citizens who were looting the houses and shops in their territory, taking whatever they could find, and fighting amongst themselves.
After a quick assessment of the situation from the Septem commanders, a plan had been formed: wipe out March first, for it was the most disorganized of the bunch, and then secure the well from the hands of the Midway towners. The first task seemed rather easy, for all the March rioters and their numbers, they fought against their own ranks as much as they did with the others, and Septem was sure that would be working towards their advantage.
They had been surprised however, when they'd found out that March did indeed have a commander, a young boy by the looks of him, long brown hair waving in the wind as he directed his attacks solely on Septem, the incoming army. Beggars in Septem were mostly docile, living by themselves, hiding their faces from the city's high society, and the Septem soldiers were surprised by the viciousness with which the March beggars fought. Slashing furiously with knives, their aim deadly with both bullets and stones alike.
With the arrival of the Septem army, it had become apparent to Harper, Thornsayer and their associates, that they were in for the ride of their lives. It was no longer a simple intertown rivalry, it turned into something more akin to a war, with gunshots ringing all during the night and all during day, punctuated by screams and the occasional explosion. Trapped on both sides by March from the north and Septem from the South, Bard Thornsayer was relieved that his family's house was near the center of town, and neither army had pushed that far…yet.
There was great strain on the small militia gathered out of Midway, but it was a great relief too, for every man and boy that was old enough to fight, aim, and hold a gun had appeared, coming valiantly to the town's defense. It was a heartening sight to see, the entire town united to protect that which was rightfully theirs. It was different for every man that fought, some for the town they had just moved to, some for the land, for the insults and the damage already done, for protecting friends and family. They supported each other with their courage and their sacrifice. And sacrifices there were.
By the third day of battle, bodies from all three sides lay in the afternoon suns, their rays beating down upon the war below as if they were a fourth enemy, not trying to save themselves but intent on the destruction of everyone.
David Harper lay dead in the sand, a bullet through his head, and two deep stab wounds in his chest. As if Septem hadn't done the job already, two boys from March had torn through the fire, smashing their blades into Harper's belly before he could fall to the ground, dead already from the gunshot.
"Man, this is depressing," Bard laughed, wiping the sweat off his face as he loaded his shotgun, and let it fly into the body of a raggedly clad boy sneaking up on his friend from behind.
"How much longer I wonder?"
"Doesn't look like it'll stop until all of us dead," Bard chuckled grimly, it was macabre he knew, but he couldn't help it.
"Don't say things like that Thornsayer, it's bad luck."
"Well, doesn't it feel like that sometimes?"
He received no answer.
At the end of the third day, March and Septem City sent reinforcements. Even after so few days, the water situation was getting more and more desperate. The two rival cities made a temporary truce; it was clear that the only way to win was to kill off those defending Midway first.
*****
"Mama?" he remembered asking, "how many days has it been?" He'd lost track of time, in that small world of theirs, without light, shut off from all the sounds of the outside world.
"I'm not sure," his mother answered. She looked tired, spent, a smear of dust across her forehead. Her hair had fallen out of its usually neat bun, light brown wisps floated around her face in an unearthly halo as she smiled wanly at her son. Ismay was sleeping again on the couch, curled tightly into a miserable ball. For the third time since their imprisonment she'd been crying from nightmares.
He'd sat in the cellar for the past few days, not knowing for exactly how long, but long enough that he was sure he didn't want to see the cellar again should he ever get out, scratching little things in the dust, mostly drawings and the occasional poetry. He usually erased them immediately, for he thought they were silly, whimsical things, and seeing them would only depress his mother and Ismay. He tried to turn his thoughts to the world outside, thinking of the days where he and Ismay played with the rest of the children, but then he realized that there were no cheerful memories where that had come from, and so he had turned back to drawing and writing.
It was a dull existence most of the time, when he was not sleeping, as he was wont to do, he was idle, not sure of what to do but bide his time and wait, wait for the misery to end, when his father would pound upon the door and take them all back into the house, and everything would be all right. He'd heard the words exchanged between his parents, but that must have been days ago, and over the hours of sitting quietly in a chair, watching his mother fuss about the room or cry silently in a corner, he realized the sobriety of the entire business.
He'd read stories about battles and wars, but they were fairy tales, historical stuff from ages ago; no one had wars anymore, everyone was civilized. What was there to fight over, after all? He looked over to the bottles of water lined up against the wall, less now than there were before but still plenty, and suddenly he knew the answer. It frightened him, to see all of that clear liquid sitting against the wooden walls, all of that in the cellar while his father fought outside. Perhaps his father had been killed already, that was no small possibility. Irrational fear gripped him at that point, at the thought of the death of his father. He could almost imagine it happening, his father staggering through the shop and down the stairs to their door, several gun wounds in his chest, bleeding profusely as he collapsed against the door and nameless, faceless strangers pillaged his house, burned his books, and destroyed Ismay's dolls.
But it couldn't happen that way, he knew, because the world just didn't work that way anymore. They were no savages with nothing better to do on their hands, they were people, and though they lived in different places he was confident that they were all, each in their own way, good respectable people.
******
"Get out of here, Bard!"
On the sixth day, the March-Septem forces had broken through the makeshift barricades that Midway had erected to protect its water supply. With a sound of creaking, splintering wood, the wall had fallen and the enemy rushed through, shouting angrily, brandishing weapons: knives, swords, guns, pitchforks, cooking pots and pans. It was Midway's desperate last stand against two forces, one from each side in a pincer movement, crushing the small town's resistance. It was not a glorious last stand, it was not a battle that would ever have been written in song, much less history books. After the breaching of the barricade, it was short, quick, and brutal.
The warning shout had not been enough, as Young Tom Saver had fallen to the ground, a well-aimed knife lodged to the hilt in his chest. Bard Thornsayer hadn't even had enough time to run and warn his family before he'd been shot several times, bullets flying in all directions, from Midway, from March, and from Septem.
"Shit," he'd sworn, lying face down in the dust the heat of the twin suns fading from his body as sure as his own blood was pouring into the sands beneath him, "this is…too much."
The Midway forces had been crushed in a mere matter of hours past that, with no survivors left. Bodies littered the ground, the dust dyed a deep shade of red from corpses from all three cities, though the Midway fatalities far outnumbered the ranks of the March and Septem. The leaders of the city forces had rushed forward then, both scrambling to get to the well first, thirsty for a nice drink of cool, clean water. They dropped the bucket on its rope, eagerly awaiting the splash that meant their battle had not been in vain. After a few tense moments, both armies eying each other warily, hands on triggers and knives in throwing positions, there was a resounding thud as the bucket hit the bottom of the well.
It had been Midway's final and greatest secret. Over the final two days of fighting, the Midway well had dried up.
*****
He came awake at the pounding on the door, it was loud and harsh, breaking his dreams and startling his sleep.
"Papa!" Ismay had called delightedly, jumping to her feet, but her mother held her back.
"What's wrong, Mama?" Ismay asked, her face turning white with fright, as she watched with wide eyes. There was still a banging on the door, as angry voices penetrated the wood and rang in their ears.
"FUCKERS! MOTHERFUCKERS!"
As fast a lightning, Alma leapt out of her chair, throwing her children from the couch, and pushing it against the wall, leaving only a small space.
"Quickly!" she hissed, nearly shoving the twins behind the back of the furniture, and covering them with a blanket. "Be quiet, children, be quiet, and don't come out until I tell you to." She gave them each a kiss on the forehead.
"GET OUT! WHERE'S THE WATER! GIVE IT TO US!"
The most frightening part had been the blanket covering their heads as they hunched together, trying not to breathe, trying not to cry, trying to scream as they heard but could not see the door break open with a loud, splintering crack.
*****
The leaders of March and Septem
stared at each other in disbelief. The
Midway well was gone, and had been gone for hell knew how long…and all this
time, what had they been fighting for?
"The water's gone!" Frank De Fulle gasped, loud enough for all of the forces gathered around the well to here. A murmur broke out amongst the assembled army, as each man and woman looked to their neighbor in complete disbelief. It was impossible.
"It's got to be somewhere here," Jimmy Kennet hissed, not about to give up, his face turning red with fury, "it has to be here! WHERE HAVE THOSE BASTARDS HIDDEN IT!?"
"Maybe it really is—"
"NO!" Kennet rounded on the Septem commander with a shout. "RANSACK THE HOUSES! FIND IT! FIND THE WATER! IT'S IN THIS TOWN! I KNOW IT IS!"
With a great cheer, the armies scattered and broke loose, men tearing into the Midway residences, ripping down doors, shattering windows in a mad chase to find water. Without it, they would not be satisfied.
*****
"WHERE'S THE WATER! GIVE IT TO US! NOW!"
The sound of three pairs of footsteps crashed through the room, throwing whatever small items that had been stopping the door aside or kicking the over roughly. There was a clatter of tables and chairs and cabinets, but most of all he could his mother scream. His mother had always been a strong woman, a practical one, as tough and unyielding as his father, and to hear her scream had been the very first nightmare, soon to be followed by much much more.
Ismay trembled in his arms, tears falling liberally down her cheeks as she bit her hand to keep from crying out. He held her close, one hand on her hair, hardly daring to move, his entire mind and body frozen by the sound of the voices a mere few feet away from where he was hidden.
"There, Jimmy! There! Water!"
The sound of hurried footsteps and glass breaking as the men took a few moments to drink their fill. He could hear his mother panting with fright still in the room, unable to run, unable to move for fear of what would happen to her children should be abandon them. March and Septem were out for two things, first being water, and second being blood which would make a fine substitute should their top choice not be found. And of course, because they had been maddened by the fighting, there was always one more thing the men were after.
"Hey, you're not screaming anymore pretty lady." One voice, deeper than the rest laughed. He kicked the coffee table in the center other room aside. It flew into the couch, smashing the twins against the wall with painful force, but thankfully neither of the children cried out, a fact that gave their mother at least a little relief.
"Guess what we're going to do to you," came a second voice, this one a reedy tenor, the voice high, lyrical, and light with a jovial tone that barely masked the fury writhing underneath. "Hiding the water, hmmmm? What were you doing with it?"
"Answer him."
A moment of silence, and then a shout, followed by a gasp of pain from Alma Thornsayer. Kennet had seized her by the hair, lifting her feet of the ground a few inches. "Tell me, bitch, what have you been doing with the water? Where's the rest?"
"T-t-t-this is it…"
"She's lying, Jimmy."
"Shut up, Dan, I wasn't asking you."
"Now tell us again, lady, where's the rest of the water?"
"I-I-I…I don't know…"
"LIAR!"
He heard his mother scream again, her body hitting the floor as the man threw her down.
"BITCH! LYING BITCH!"
His mother screamed again, and he felt his body tighten in fright, holding his sister close. He was going to protect her, he had to, because he promised.
"Dan, Mike, look around the rest of the room. If she's hiding the water, she'll be hiding more too."
Kennet watched the woman's eyes open wide at his words.
"What are you hiding?"
Silence as the rest of the men turned the room upside down, throwing furniture everywhere.
"Hey, what's this?"
He froze, holding his breath as a rough hand settle on his sister's head and tore her and the blanket along with her, out of his grasp.
"Well, well, well, what have we here?"
The man, dark haired with a heavy, bushy moustache and a scar across his cheek held Ismay aloft by her hair, watching in amusement as she struggled, screaming, kicking, and crying.
"Why a pair of little lambs!" the other man laughed, he was red-haired, his skin pale and heavily freckled. The man grinned at him, a frightening grimace that had not come from even his worst nightmares; it was much worse. The man put both hands on his shoulders in a rough grip, firm, vice-like clamps, hauling him out of hiding. He was too shocked even to struggle as the man lifted him clear of the couch and into the dim light of the room's sole light bulb.
"Hey Jimmy, look at this." The man continued grinning at him, raising him up off the floor by his shirt. He hung limply, completely paralyzed with fear, afraid of what the three strangers would do to.
His mother lay sprawled out on the ground, panting heavily, her hands curled into fists in the dust, body quivering with anger.
"What's this?" the man that had been called Jimmy turned his head around for a moment, taking his eyes off the woman.
"Boy's got blue hair, look at this."
With a feral scream, ragged and desperate, much too much like a cornered animal, his mother launched herself off the floor, one arm drawn back in a punch. She was off the floor before Kennet had finished turning around, swinging her arm around with enough force to knock out a grown man twice her size. But she was moving too quickly by the time she saw Kennet's smirk and the glint of light in his hand. She tried to stop and draw back, but her inertia carried her forward. She opened her mouth in a voiceless gasp, her expression of disbelief echoed on both her children's faces.
She knew her fate even before Kennet smoothly sidestepped the blow, her last hopes dashed as his hand came up to her stomach, wielding a small knife. She was knocked back by the force of the hit, stumbling backwards a few steps before falling heavily on to the floor on her back.
"No!" Ismay's scream rent the silence as she writhed in the grip of the man who was her. "Mama!"
He started at the knife embedded in his mother's stomach, the blade still gleaming a dull red in the light. He watched in horror as his mother's chest rose and fell, her breaths growing weaker, her brown dress dyed black with a spreading circle of her blood.
Kennet snorted, walking over to the woman's body and bending over her, the same smirk still on his face.
"Stupid bitch," he sneered. "You can't catch me off guard like that. I grew up in the March slums, yea, all by myself. I never lived the soft life like you folks here. You've still got a long way to go, woman."
Alma Thornsayer lifted her head weakly off the floor, cold sweat beading on her forehead as she spat the man in front of her.
"Tough, eh? I like that in a woman. Too bad it's over now. Don't worry, this won't hurt much."
In one smooth motion, Kennet undid the belt at his waist, whipping the length of leather free, grinning wickedly as he let it drop to the ground with a loud clatter of the buckle, frighteningly graceful in his fury. Next the pants came undone, pooling around his legs. The other men cheered him on, keeping an iron grip on the two twins in their charge. Ismay cried out in dismay, as Kennet pulled the knife free with no small amount of blood, tossing it into the corner. Ismay turned her head to the side and closed her eyes, trying to hide her sobs.
"Better watch carefully boy," the red-haired man holding him growled, strong fingers around his chin, not allowing him to turn away. His mother didn't scream much, though she did not put up much of a struggle either. Her breath became more and more shallow, the air inside her lungs rattling with each labored exhale. Her movements were slowing and weakening, until she no longer had the strength to resist, but simply lay there as the man above her rocked back and forth, pressed tightly against her skin where her dress had been pushed up.
The spectacle horrified him completely, he was not entirely sure what it was the man was doing, but from the other jeering voices and the wicked sneers, he knew it was something terrible. His heart sank to the pit of his stomach and he was unable to move, too scared even to breathe, his small strength barely holding up his trembling legs. It was as if the world had suddenly closed in on him, no longer was it an open, exciting paradise, but a dark cloud had settled, blocking all sound from reaching him. He was not even sure he heard the man grunt when he shuddered, long fingers digging into the flesh of his dead mother.
Finally the man rose to his feet and pulled his pants back up, revealing a large dark stain on his abdomen where he had pressed against the woman's wound.
"What do we do with these kids, Jimmy?" the man holding Ismay asked.
"Whatever you want, Dan. I know you like 'em young."
Ismay screamed at that comment, seeming to understand her fate. Her cry was shrill and frightened, and he turned to look at her with wide eyes as she reached a hand out to him.
"Help me—"
"Not a chance," the man twisted her arm behind her back, and lifted her over his shoulder. She screamed again, picking and punching.
He watched, numb, entirely sure that this was some extended nightmare, that it would end soon and he would wake up and the suns would be shining outside his window. The man threw Ismay to the ground next to her mother, and with one large, rough hand tore away her dress, throwing the ragged piece of cloth aside, not giving it another thought as she struggled beneath him.
It would almost have been comical had it not been for the screams and the sobs, his sister's body so incomparably small next to the other man's; it was a small wonder he didn't crush with his weight he pressed himself to her lower half.
"Help me!"
He watched in stony silence as her words faded, drowned and lost in the sea of her screaming. The man was acting similarly as Kennet had with his mother. His eyes flitted to her corpse.
His mother's hair was strewn on the floor, her dress pushed up to her stomach, revealing her wound and her plump white leg, now covered in vibrant, crimson blood. Her eyes were open, staring into the corner of the room, her face expressionless as a single line of blood marked the corner of her mouth, a red ribbon dribbling down the side of her cheek.
"Help!" his sister screamed again, her voice choked by her sobs. She lifted her head to look in the eye. "You promised."
He turned back to her, seeing her frightened face as if for the first time. Ismay, his twin sister, the one piece completing the puzzle of his life, reaching her hand out to him. He followed her arm downwards, watching the pool of scarlet spread by her legs, staining her socks with blood.
"Help me…you promised."
"No!" he finally moved, flinging the man holding him aside. It was the swelling of a chorus, the sudden rush of the wind as something within him crumbled, something bursting forth and pouring into and out of him in raging torrents like the waves of the mythical seas.
"Shit!" Kennet shouted, starting at him in disbelief.
He ignored Kennet and rushed the man holding Ismay to the ground. "Stop it!" Before he even touched the man, it was if he had moved of his own volition, springing up, tripping over his own pants, letting go of Ismay and flinging himself head first into the nearest wall. As the body slid down the wall, already dead, there was a dark spatter of blood where he had hit.
"Fuck!" Jimmy hissed, not taking another look back as he fled out the door, scrambling up the stairs and out the house.
"Ismay!" he bent down to his twin sister, gathering her small body in his arms. "Ismay…I'm here. He shook her gently. Her eyes were closed, and her head lolled to the side. "Ismay! I'm here! Ismay! Wake up!"
He shook her but she did not respond, one hand falling to the ground with a bloody splash.
"Ismay…I protected you…see? Ismay! Ismay!"
He cried, holding her body tight to his, not even hearing the faintest fluttering of her heart. He smoothed her dark hair aside, touching her cold cheek. His twin sister would never smile, never laugh, never play with him again. He screamed loud and hard, drawing giants breaths of air into his lungs and crying out over and over until he felt dizzy and weak, though he could still hear himself screaming long after he'd lost his breath.
The only fuzzy parts of his memory were the days after that, where he must have, in a daze, run out his house. He vaguely remembered seeing the body of his father, fallen by the well, and he only bare had sense enough to scoop up the half-filled water canteen that his father's corpse had covered.
He fled the town, neither in the direction of March City nor Septem, but heading somewhere where he knew no one would be. He wandered for what must have been days, plodding through desert, through sand and cracked, dry earth, not seeing hide or shade of any animal or plant, with only the merciless suns shining over his head as his companions.
He wandered aimlessly, not in any particular direction but only needing to move, to feel the rhythm of his feet walking, one foot in front of another, so he could lose himself in memory and pretend it was all a dream. Sometimes he would think that it would be all over soon, the loneliness, the sadness, and the pain. After all, who did he have left? His sister and his mother had died in front of his eyes, his father had been killed in the battle, and he couldn't remember any of his parents mentioning any living relatives. Who would take him in anyway? He had blue hair and golden eyes, and even though his parents never mentioned those things to him, he could still see the sad look on her face. Perhaps she had been wondering what had gone wrong, why one of her children had come out so strange and alien. He came to the conclusion that it was better to be out on his own; with Ismay dead an entire half of his life had been demolished, and with his parents dead there was nothing left for him to live for. There was no one left who would want him, no one make him feel needed or loved.
With his water long gone, he'd finally consigned himself to the sand, collapsing into it, wishing the winds would blow and he could die, buried alive in desert. He remembered reading about suicide in his books, about people wanting to die, but he'd never been able to imagine what it would feel like until then. He closed his eyes, and prayed for the end. When he awoke again, it was nearing night and the temperature was beginning to cool, the suns sinking below the endless horizon.
There was a figure standing before him, clothed in white and red, silhouetted against the fiery suns. He was tall and broad-shouldered, his head covered with hair that was of the lightest shade of gold, gazing into the distance with piercing sky-blue eyes. He suspected it may have been God come to call on him, to take him to heaven perhaps…
"Am I dead?" his voice murmured, so quiet it was barely audible, even to himself.
…or perhaps to abandon him instead.
"No," the voice answered, deep and soothing, veiled in mystery and a little contempt. "You're still alive."
"Oh," he whispered, more than just a little disappointed.
"It was you who screamed." It was not a question, but a statement, and he could not deny it, his mind briefly wandering to the image of his sister in his arms, already dead, blood running down her thin, pale legs. He pushed the sadness away, willing himself to forget.
"I heard you from far away. For a human child, you have miraculous powers. I may have some use for you."
"Use?" he asked, even that little bit too much to hope for.
"What's your name, boy?"
"L-L-Legato Thornsayer," he replied quietly.
"Thornsayer?" The man thought for a bit. "I don't recall that name from the ship." One hand settled on his head, gently smoothing the sand from the strands of his hair.
"Your hair…it's blue."
"I know." Legato turned his head away in shame, surprised that after so long, tears would still come to his eyes.
"It reminds me of the sky," the man murmured, taking a lock in his gloved fingers and examining it closely. "And the sea on a cloudless summer day."
Legato stayed silent, saying nothing, trying his best not to cry. Had anyone ever said anything so kind about the color of his hair? He'd always been teased by the other children about it, and his parents had never mentioned it to him. He had long suspected it was something to be ashamed of, just another thing that made him different from everyone else, an outcast even among his own family.
"I like it."
The hands left his head and the man turned to gaze into his eyes with the smallest hint of a smile.
"I have a new name for you, boy. Thornsayer is too plain for a child of your powers and potential.
From now on, I name you Legato Bluesummers."
Bluesummers…Bluesummers…such a wonderful, beautiful, lyrical name. He liked it. He liked it very much.
End Dying in the Sun
Author's Notes: The text in italics that Legato is reading is actually from Grendel by John Gardner. He's an awesome writer, and you really ought to read that book. The apples are a reference to the apple in Kafka's Metamorphosis. And yes, I did name this fic after the lines in the Robert Frost poem.