A/N: Apologies for slacking off. This scene and the one that follow are why I rated this fic 'M'. Though, I really don't think the rating system makes any sense.


jewels in coffee grounds

Treasure could be found in the heaps of refuse outside raucous playhouses and rundown temples. Dark brown fingers grew alternately light gray and dark again as shaking hands rifled through trash overlaid with incense ash and coffee grounds. Both were fragrant and drew his lingering attention. He paused, knees digging into the garbage in his low crouch. For a moment he let the conflicting scents of sandal wood, cardamom, and bitter coffee fill his dulled senses. It took the edge off his scent which was a malaise of sickening scents that were covered with cheap perfume rather than washed away.

Hanging like a wooden shawl across his neck, a cracked and limp marionette languished. Though rats had chewed off the leather ears and brush mane, Shadash could tell it was a horse. There was nothing more than a stump where the tail had been and the eyes had flaked off long before it had been thrown away. The strings were all but gone, but the joints were comprised of rusted wire and yet held. Even without all four hooves, it was a treasure.

A gray hand smoothed fragrant ash over the wooden body and a brown hand resumed its industry. The hoof was not to be found, but he held out for other treasures in the damp heap as he sucked the flavor out of a mouthful of grounds. If he found something to distract from his treasure, it would be easier to hide it from the other feral children kept in Avenue Paradise's dark and repulsive alleys.

There was naught to be had. Shadash swallowed his mouthful of grounds and scooped up another he had yet to suck on. It was an old habit and it was turning his small teeth yellow. His face was as dark as the coffee he'd never had the pleasure to drink and so, in the darkness where he was kept to be preyed on, no one noticed. He didn't care, but he'd been told he would be lashed to an inch of his life if he continued the habit when new teeth came in. Shadash cared very much about avoiding lashes.

Still crouching in the dirt, the boy thought hard. How could he keep the horse? He was a vicious scrapper, but physically he was incapable of holding his own in a fight with a larger opponent. Many of the other children were larger, a few would regularly called his bluff, those that wouldn't make a grab for the horse would simply wait until he was picked up for a night by one of the dreaded representatives of Loviathar. If he died, it wouldn't matter. If he survived, he would be too weak to defend his right of possession.

If his exotic green-black hair had not recently been deloused, cut, and sold to doll makers, he could hide the horse under the mass. He stood up, knees shaking, and observed the decaying headscarf tied around his hips. There was barely enough material to cover his loins. He supposed he could walk into the shelter naked; the scarf was a new acquisition he'd stolen from one of the sick in his stable. Everyone was used to seeing him naked.

Nodding slowly, the boy undid the knot in the stained scarf and pulled it from his body. He laid it down on the ground and wrapped the horse inside. Speaking in soothing tones to the horse, Shadash assured it that he would be able to keep it from harm. He did not pause to wonder if the horse understood the singular language of Shadashite; he assumed it would.

After he had tucked the dirty parcel under his arm, the boy walked on bare feet, clad only in dirt and festering scabs. He was not allowed far from the mud-brick walls and leaking roof of the house. None of the children ever ventured further than a few lanes from their shelter. Everyone knew that inhabitants that did so never came back. They were told repeatedly that leaving would end in death and dismemberment and it was easy to believe in that sad back alley where the children grew as feral as dogs. As terrible as their young lives were, most of them wanted to survive. Those that didn't were usually sent to the Loviatarans with doomed, damned, ever-surviving Shadash.

Before Shadash slipped into the gaping maw of the derelict house, he stopped outside and swallowed his last mouthful coffee grounds. Placing the hand covered with ash over his mouth and nose, he stepped out of the blinding midday sun, into the unlit darkness of the mud-brick structure. He inhaled hard on the ashes covering his hand, hoping to cover the scent of stale sweat and other rank bodily fluids. His effort was disastrous; a wracking sneeze threw him to his knees.

Murmurs of protest sounded from all sides. It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the dimness, but when they did, he saw several sets of narrowed eyes observing him from the vicinity of the packed dirt floor. Luckily, Shadash saw no interest from the older children that lazed on the ground near the door. Their eyes were the most dead, their cruelty the most casual, their bodies the most consumed with disease.

Shadash moved on, ignoring a few soft-spoken jabs concerning his lack of scarf. "Ugly-Eyes, put your funeral shroud back on." "The girl you took it from was fed to dogs." "Loviatar's man was here looking for you." "Unroll that thing, your ass is a gaping hole customers shouldn't see."

He passed through another corridor and went up rickety wooden stairs that were hammered straight into the wall when the pathetic structure was first built. Only the smallest, lightest, of the children could make it up the stairs. It did not keep them safe; there was no other way down. It was common knowledge that the place was haunted: Shadash and the other young ones only went there for solitude during daylight hours.

It was not empty when he arrived, but he was certain he could bluff and outfight any of the children there. He could do it even though he developed the shakes the day before. Casting his malevolent green and red stare around the flat, he communicated his dominance and superiority. His odd appearance, dark-skinned as a Chultan prince, eyes a conflict of colors, hair the midnight green of sea kelp, and slightly tapered ears, was enough to concern the bravest of the children.

Nobody moved to bother Shadash as he set down his wrapped treasure and carefully stepped over dirty bodies to reach a pile of broken pottery and metal bits. The heap belonged to nobody in particular, but was grown by the inquisitive hands of the young. They were like magpies; picking up shining pieces of glass, broken marbles, bits of interesting debris, and, most importantly, wire and string. The boy's fingers snagged what he needed and callused feet returned him to his horse.

Ingenious small hands worked with wire, strung strings, whittled wood with glass, and bored small holes. As he worked, he sang in his native tongue to put the earless horse at ease. The other children understood nothing, but they enjoyed Shadash's singing and did not complain.

By afternoon, the horse was restrung in a more complicated fashion than it had sported originally. Shadash knew the horse had been strung onto several sticks, but he only had three long splinters he'd pulled up from the floor and decrepit window pane. It had a new hoof that was smaller than the other four, two new orange ears, ripped from the hem of his scarf and a matching orange tail of the same origin. It still had no eyes, but Shadash knew it didn't need eyes to see.

While he restrung and rewired the marionette, the boy had hit on a stratagem to insure possession of the horse. He decided it would perform plays, just like in the playhouse or temple that had thrown the horse away. As long as he convinced everyone that he was the horse's only voice, he would be the only one who could touch it.

Satisfied with this plan, Shadash wrapped his arms around the horse, careful not to tangle his strings and pushed his back against a wall where the rotting boards did not protest nor mud flake. Muscles still spasming, he drifted to the floor to sleep and dream of a horse that would take him far away to Chult, where he thought his father was from. After all, the Loviatarans had told him his mother was a dead-eyed half-elf whore with a resilience their goddess adored. Surely his father was noble; not the demon his owners sneered about. Yes, a chocolate-skinned noble from Chult who rode a magnificent horse with orange ears and an orange tail.


Next scene: dog eat dog