Shadow's Angel.
Disclaimer: no I don't own anything.
Yes, I am fuly consiounse of the fact that I HAVE FOUR OTHER FICS TO FINISH and probably shouldn't be starting a new one. But this one came to be in the middle of the night and I know exactly how it's going to turn out. So it goes up! Bwahaha!
Please read.
Chapter One.
Street's Daughter.
It was night in Menedeas's streets.
Menedeas was a city north of Tarsis and south of Solace; it was a big city, a fiefdom, with beautiful rich areas for the rich and desolate, crowded, dirty areas for the poor.
The nice areas were clean and neat, sparkling buildings that shone in the night with soft light from fancy windows that somehow peak out through the velvet curtains, alight with laughter and soft songs and music, with that undercurrent of gentle voices filled with wonder as they told bedtime tales of shadowy mystery and brilliant magic, of magnificent dragons and grim dungeons, of a beautiful princess and a handsome prince, of Happily Ever After. Tales that make little child go to sleep nice and warm and happy, smiles on their lips as they dreamed these tales where they danced with the prince and they rescued the maiden from the dragon, where nothing bad ever happened, where they were heroes.
Butthis story does not take place here.
This story takes place in the crowded, poor areas. Areas where the buildings were three or four stories of cramped, dirty rooms. Areas where woman screamed and men shouted and children cried. Areas where little children turned a corner to find a dead body in one of the allies, stabbed and torn and bleeding. Areas where children worked and suffered. Areas that were pressed in, dark, damp, and either too hot to breathe or too cold to cry.
Areas where there were no stories, where the children went to sleep on the floor beneath a threadbare blanket, their clothing scant and dirty, their stomachs empty and their skin cold. These children dreamed of food and warm clothing, of places where Mommy didn't cry and work so hard and where Daddy didn't yell or cry when he thought no child was peeking around the door.
Dreams where there were no heroes, only warmth. And light. And joy.
Dreams that seemed impossible.
This is where our tale begins.
"Kid, ged ova here!"
The girl turned to her Boss, damp hair straggling into her eyes so that she could barely see him. It was dark and loud in the dirty tavern, a place where bawdy men drank and hard-eyed woman slapped. A place that was no place for a child.
And yet here she stood.
"C'mere, ye dirty rascal! Ye liddle dog!" the big, half-drunk tavernkeeper called, pointing to the girl. Confused, she looked about. The Boss never spoke to the spindly little girl.
"I'm talkin' to ye, ye girly!" she poked a finger at her chest. "Yeah, ye! Watcha madder, girly? Ye deaf? Ged ova here a'fore I tan yer worthless hide!"
Still confused, the little girl walked up to the big Boss, her little feet nearly tripping over her long, dirty apron that was made for a woman, not a six-year-old child. She walked into the back of the tavern with the man, to the kitchens where all was hot and steamy.
The Boss studied the girl. She was a spindly child, all bones with sharp elbows and knees and a round, pale oval of a face that was defined by the sharp corners of her bones. Straggling, damp brown hair clung to her face and neck, and through it too-large, dark eyes blinked away the unwanted strands. She was dressed in a cast-off men's shirt and much-mended, seamed leggins. Her feet were small and scarred and bare. A dirty, stained apron trailed to her ankles, smelling of stale beer and grit.
The Boss scowled; this was not a pretty girl.
"Ye -" he reached up and seized a beer flagon, shoving it into her arms. "Ye're bein' promoted, ye hear? Got too many liddle kiddies to scrub da floors, not 'nough ladies to wait da tables. So ye're goin' to wait da tables. Ye take this beer and ye put it on da table that axed for it, ye hear?"
The girl blinked in confusion, clutching the beer flagon.
"Ye dumb, girly?"
She shook her head, the hair falling from her face.
"Then ged to it!" the man roared, throwing the girl out of the kitchen and to her knees int he main tavern room. Stumbling, she staggered to her feet and looked around, still holding the flagon.
Promoted. Two minutes ago she was scrubbing floors with dirty water that seemed to give them a tobacco-y, brown stain rather than clean them. And now she was supposed to wait on tables?
Lida, one of the barmaids, came over to the confused little girl. "Ye see that table, ova there?" she asked, jabbing her own finger to a table that housed three men who apparently had a bit too much to drink already. "Ye take that flag'n and ye stick it on that table and ye wait t' see if any of 'em wants anything else. If they don't, walk away. Don't go too close that they kin touch ye; and if they do touch ye, slap 'em, good an' hard. They're so drunk they'll let go, and if they don't, slap 'em again."
"Yes'm." the girl muttered, following the pointing finger to the table. Walking over, she reached high up and pushed the flagon onto the table, then backed up to see if they wanted anything else. One of the men reached out and seized her hair.
"Ye're a purdy lassie, ain't ye?" he drawled, giving her hair a tug. Remembering what Lida had said, she swallowed and wondered what would happen if she did slap them.
"Well?" the man demanded, giving her hair another sharp tug. "Answer me! I axed if ye was purdy!"
Swallowing, the girl pulled back her hand and slammed her bony palm against his hand with enough force to leave it stinging. He blinked and released her suddenly, shoving her back. She staggered, tripped, and fell on her behind.
"Oh ho!" one of the man's comrades chortled. "The liddle girly's gonna smack ye up, ye big brute! Ah, watch out for the liddle girly - she gotta stinga!"
"Oh, no, she ain't!" the man roared, stumbling to his feet. The girl back up as the man staggered foreward, sputtering. "I'm gonna teach ye, ye liddle dog! Jus' watch me! I'm gonna . . . gonna . . .meh . . . mess . . . ye up!"
The girl looked around, but there was no one paying attention, and she was too scared to get to her feet. She watched, numb, as the man staggered closer . . .
. . . and lurched and fell, face-first, in the dirty floor, snoring and asleep.
The girl gasped and staggered to her own feet, now more dirty then ever. The barmaid, Lida came over quietly.
"Hey, ye, go on home." she said, giving the man a good kick in the crotch. Even in his sleep he groaned and rolled over, vomit coloring the sides of his lips. "Ye had a bad scare, now ye go and see if yer ma's home."
"Yes'm." the girl unfastened the apron with trembling fingers. "I'll . . . I'll do that."
"Here -" Lidda seized the man's money-pouch from his waist and pulled outtwo silver coins and five copper, keeping some for herself. She handed the girl the seven coins. "Give this to yer da - he'll wanna know why ye're outa work s'early, and this'll soften 'im up."
"Yes'm." the girl knew how explosive angry Das could be, when their little girls came home from work early and without coin. She placed it into a pouch that hung beneath her shirt, over her chest.
"Good." Lida tugged the apron off and brushed the hair from the girl's face. "Tell me ma that I'm staying all night, will ya?" looking around, she sighed. "Got a bit more coin ta' earn."
"Yes'm."
"An' tell her not ta worry, will ye?"
"Yes'm."
The girl stumbled out of the dark, dirty, crowdedtavern into the dirty, crowded streets. The only difference was that the sun blazed hot upon her head and eye. Cupping her hands abover her brow she continued on through the ally-ways, traveling to her home.
Soon she arrived at the dirty, crowded apartment room. Going up to the rotting wooden door, she slammed her fists on it in rapid succession, yelling out, "Hey, ye open up! I live here! MyDa'll vouch for me!"
Minutes later an old woman dragged open the heavy door half-way, peering at the dirty girl. "Why, Ruthenne, you've returned! Good!"
The girl rolls her eyes and slips in, knowing better than to answer but answering anyway. "I'm not Ruthenne."
"Oh, so sorry, Amilee!"
"I'm notAmilee either!" the girl mutters, walking up the stairs. The old woman was always calling everyone the names of her three daughters, daughters that had died long ago.
The girl normally would not have been so snappish with the woman, but she was tired and hungry and cold.
She always was.
She made her way up the rickety stairs, feeling her way through the halls as she climbed. There was not light, no windows. She was terrified she would fall. She always was, even after living here for all her years.
She made her way through the halls, leaving the stairs behind. Now her eyes, trained to see in the semi-darkness, guieded her to her destination; a doorway in the stone, with half of it broken, all of it covered with a threadbare, moth-eaten blanket that served as a door. In winter, when the buildings grew chill and cold, the blanket would be taken down. Now, however, in autumn the blanket remained a last graps at privacy.
The girl pushes the blanket aside and walks in. It's empty, except for two young children, both males. They turn to look at the girl, the older girl.
"Jastra!" the elder male, the four-year-old, cries. "Ye came back! But it's so early . . . why're ye back?"
"Don't ask." the girl, Jastra, says softly, walking past her cousins into the room. Matt, the boy who greeted her, trails after her, persistantly asking questions. Ander, the small two-year-old, just sat still on the stone floor.
The room is small, cramped, with a chimney in one corner, a broken hole in the wall covered with a scrap of blanket next to it. A iron slate with the fire goes into the fireplace, with holes allowing the smoke to go through from the botten; an iron rod hangs a pot over it, and smoke from the below chimneys drifts up through the chimney and up to passage. Voices echo up with the smoke, but no ne cares. The room has one table and two small stools, with two blankets in one corner and two in the other.A chamber pot is in the remaining corner.
But the girl hardly cares. This is her home. This is where she lives. She sleeps beneath one of the blankets in the far corner nearest to the door, listening to her cousins rustle a little ways next to her; she eats food cooked in the pot over the smoky fireplace at the shanty table inthe room; she watches her little cousins play before her parents and uncle return from work in this room.
And so without answering her cousins questions, she places the pouch on the table and goes to the corner to sleep the slumber she could not do last night.
Yeah, I know . . . kind of a boring start, but who cares?
Please review. This gets more interesting, I promise!
