(*sheepish smile*) A fine evening to you, dear readers. I think me binge-posting these chapters on this new account is the fastest I've ever updated anything ;-;
The sun burned a yellow-tinged orange as it slowly climbed up the horizon, filtered between a greyish haze.
Petra's hand reached reflexively for a golden hilt every once in a while, only for her fingers to close around nothing but thin air. A grimace darkened her face as she led the way across what had once been a cobbled pavement, clearly displeased about her lack of a blade, while Ivor brought up the rear with one hand upon his vial-festooned belt (that one small gesture sufficing to assure any onlookers of his thorough willingness to use those vials), throwing around an occasional glare that made almost everyone it fell upon draw back as though scalded.
As it was, the majority of the people that they passed were huddled like penguins in corners and doorsteps - or, in many cases, what was left of them - and almost managing to blend in with the dull, blank silence of their surroundings, if not for their constant mutterings, whispering about friends and neighbours who'd gone suddenly missing over the past couple of weeks and associates who'd been seized for some trivial offence.
Grey stone, grey people.
The small number of structures that were still standing mostly intact were riddled with cracks and shattered windows and creeping ivy, all of which stood out like scars - though none of those stood out in quite the same way the stains that could be found peppering the walls, still gleaming fresh and red. Petra looked down at the cobbles just underneath them with a deeply creased brow, her boot toe nudging a government tester stick lying abandoned.
"They're being extra-efficient lately, huh?"
"Such...wastefulness," was all Ivor said, before striding on past without so much as a grimace at the gory splatters all over the stones. What did he care? Why should he ever care?
After an infinitesimal pause, Petra nodded stiffly and continued on, slipping shadow-like around the corner that led to the deliberately poorly-lit labyrinth known as Bad Luck Alley.
The building that Jack had once called his 'emporium' (and that Ivor had called 'that ludicrously overglorified shop of his') stood just as dark and empty as it had been for years on end now. Even so, Petra darted a surreptitious glance at the storefront as though seriously hoping that the man might have magically turned back up. Ivor didn't trouble himself to hold back an eye roll at that. The entire reason Jack had left was because he'd decided he didn't want this anymore. And Ivor could hardly blame him for that.
The only person there now was a young bookseller who had set up a shabby little stall in the street just outside the entrance - made shabbier still by the presence of about a dozen meowing cats jumping and climbing all over it. The seller themselves was a short, thin person of perhaps nineteen or twenty, darting around the occasional glance from under their dark-brown hair but mostly keeping their head ducked downwards, busying themselves with petting one or the other of the felines or else shifting their merchandise around with an air of neurosis.
They looked up, however, as Petra and Ivor drew near, a ridiculous ray of hope lighting their pale face. Ivor responded to this with a stony look at the seller and a scowl in the direction of their furry, probably flea-ridden pets. Cats. How he hated the wretched creatures.
"Do you know if Reginald's on guard duty today?" Petra asked the seller abruptly, not bothering with a greeting.
Their face fell, but after a hesitation, they resigned themselves to nodding and pointing a stone's throw away to their left, where the alley came to a forcible end thanks to the addition of high fences and some guard or another always being posted there, marking the start of what was considered 'out of bounds'. Straying into such an area was just one of an endless list of punishable offences.
Reginald automatically barred Ivor and Petra's way with his blade as they approached, but upon recognising their faces by the torchlight (or perhaps it was just the effect of Ivor's obvious lack of patience being written in his every feature), he grudgingly slid the gate open as quietly as possible and allowed them to pass, evidently having no desire to hear what they were up to. "Just make sure you're back before curfew; I refuse to be held responsible for what happens if you're not," he hissed after them, even though they were both already well aware of that by now, having heard some version of it at least a hundred times.
Ivor, of course, took it upon himself to grumble as much under his breath for good measure.
"You should probably choose your cards more carefully, Aiden," Petra told the squirming boy lightly, pressing her foot deeper into his chest. "Unless you want them to play you."
"I...you...it's- it's not...I dunno what you've-"
"I suggest you tell us where Stella is and what she's planning with Isa," Ivor advised him in a bored tone, cutting through Aiden's stammering - and rather enjoying the sight of someone who had always been yet another thorn in Ivor's side now sprawled in an undignified heap on the ground with his stupid smirk wiped off and the handle of Petra's pickaxe pinning him down by his throat.
Aiden swallowed, eyes darting to where Ivor's fingers were curled around a vial containing a particularly nasty-looking concoction...and then suddenly trailing past, fixed on something behind him. And Ivor had a very good idea of what - or rather, who - even before he followed the boy's gaze.
From her impossibly pristine (and ridiculously impractical) suit and pin-neat hair to the snowy white llama bleating softly at her side, Stella looked so utterly out of place that it would have been hilarious in most other contexts. Not that it prevented a scornful smile from curving Petra's mouth anyway as she scrambled to her feet, though still remaining close enough to Aiden to be a warning not to try anything. Aiden instinctively shuffled backwards, though stopped very quickly when he almost toppled over the edge of the half-collapsed bridge they'd chased him onto.
"What is it you want this time, Petra?" Stella asked as sweetly as though they were talking this through over lunch, not acknowledging her apparent new best friend Aiden in the slightest. "Don't push too hard, now..."
"Sword." Petra's voice was almost a growl as she jabbed herself in the chest with one finger. "My sword."
"Oh." Stella's tinkling laughter broke icily into the air. "Oh, Petra. Sweetie. You know the rules. You have to work off your debt to us first. And I don't remember saying you could allow...others to get involved in our business." As she spoke, Stella shot a heavily pointed look in Ivor's direction.
Ivor's mouth thinned. "I'm fairly certain neither you nor Isa ever mentioned anything to Petra and I about an 'us' either. And I don't like surprises," he retorted, looking right back at her with dislike etched deep in his face.
Behind them, Aiden was slowly clambering to his feet, rubbing at his neck with all of his cocky smugness replaced by a wince.
Stella's sickly smile flickered, but she hitched it back onto her lips, examining her fingernails with a feigned indifference. "If that's how you see it...I suppose we can discuss this more at a later-"
"Oh, I think we'll discuss it now," Ivor said through gritted teeth.
"Oh, fine." With a dramatic huff, Stella mounted her llama and looked down at them all in what she seemed to think was a majestic manner. "There's something I-"
"'We'", Aiden interjected, perhaps not as strongly as he'd intended.
"We," Stella huffed again, "need to be taken somewhere. If you manage to pull that off for me - for us - then...perhaps I'll see about a more substantial reward than just your sword. Aiden, you stay here-"
"But..." Aiden protested weakly. "Wait...I don't know how to get back in alone..."
"-and both of you follow me." Before Petra and Ivor had time to do more than exchange distinctly sceptical looks, Stella had tossed her hair and trotted away on the llama's back.
"Wait!" Aiden's voice was so high, it was almost a squeak. "The...the guards know me and...you can't...if you leave me behind, they'll catch me here!"
Ivor's eyebrows rose in mock-thoughtfulness. "That's certainly true," he agreed, exchanging a meaningful look with Petra and then striding on in the direction Stella had disappeared. Petra would know what to do.
Sure enough, from behind him came the sound of rapid footsteps, then the quick swish and dull thud of a pickaxe being swung against stone, and finally a startled gasp that was abruptly cut off by a high-pitched scream.
Ivor glanced over his shoulder just in time to see Aiden plummeting downwards, green eyes wide and obviously harbouring the belief that the whole world had somehow given out from beneath him rather than a mere chunk of stone. As the fool's yells faded until he hit the water with a splash, and as Petra caught up to him with a satisfied grin, Ivor's sole reaction was to quirk up an eyebrow. "That's that problem solved," he commented, so dryly that if anyone else had been in the vicinity, they'd have immediately wanted a glass of water.
Some way away, a teenaged kid who was distinct from millions of others only in their height (or rather, their distinctive lack of it) and in their choice of companion (namely a little pig who was asleep with his chin resting atop their knee) was pushing themselves into a sitting position with a soft groan that, wordless as it was, spoke of a troubled night's sleep. One hand drifted upwards in an attempt to push a muddle of dark hair out of their slightly puffy eyes, a purple-dyed streak falling back into them even so.
It was still early; on the other side of the cracked windowpane, orange-gold streaks were dancing all along the world's invisible border. The kid gave up on the idea of further rest all the same, instead gently trailing their fingers over their piggy's little pink head and thinking.
Just thinking.
It was okay. Everything was going to be okay. Isa had promised.
Yet promises had popped like balloons before their eyes so many times already. And it was all because of this…this thing. Something else that they didn't ask for and never wanted but was still theirs. So really…it wasn't just the thing. Not really, not all of it. It was them.
Their own fault. Again.
The kid squeezed their eyes shut, clinging to their piggy, who stirred and gave a tiny, drowsy oink as his human's grip tightened around him. "It's okay, Reuben," they murmured, voice coming out only a little wobbly. "We're okay."
Not long now, that's what they'd been told many times over – especially by both Isa and that other woman, the one with the peculiarly shiny blonde hair and the voice that stuck like melted sugar to one's skin. They'd wanted to pet her llama. Not long to go until it would all be fine and then…then everyone would help the kid to find them, both of them.
(Promises.)
And everything would go back to the way it was. It'd be all right again at last. As if nothing had ever happened to begin with.
(So many promises.)
They tilted their head up towards the morning sun trickling in through the window, letting its rays unfurl over their tired face. They trusted Isa. They needed to trust Isa. Something good, something new and even just a little bit hopeful, had to come out of this tangled mess. It had to.
…hadn't it?
Please forgive both the slightly cliche ending of this chapter and the tiny, random self-insert up there; I just couldn't help myself T^T And yes, I am aware that I made it seem like Petra killed Aiden, but I promise you he is very much alive ;-;
Nothing else to add for now, so I shall see you lovely ladies, gentlemen and distinguished nonbinaries next time.
(*awkwardly tips hat*)
~ Rainy