My sister's mother-in-law died last night (no relation to me and I never knew her) and they were her live-in carers since she had Alzheimer's. She called me late, demanded she "Needed my help" and to get there "quick", so I was worried about her and drove over only to find her and her husband not knowing what to do with a dead body. It was awkward to say the least.
I was there past midnight doing the things they should have been doing for them. THEN found out (when the police and ambulance came) that they had never actually formally registered themselves as her carer and the woman's carer was meant to be her OTHER DAUGHTER who had shirked the responsibility onto them while claiming benefits for it. Holy shit. What a night. I realised later on that for a moment there I'd actually been a suspect in some benefits fraud thing.
I've got to go there again today. I didn't even know her, so it's not emotional for me at all, but my sister is… kind of useless. Harsh to say, but I have one super reliable sister who basically raised and babysat me, and another who does drugs, drinks to excess, always does her best to live off benefits and not work, and basically needs babysitting by me despite being eight years my senior. Doesn't help that her husband is so work shy that he claims he's too injured from a car crash he caused to work and limps everywhere. Except when he forgets to limp of course, and he suddenly looks very spry.
I'll be working on this in off-moments at their house, in between them begging me to do basically everything for them because she's helpless and he is in grieving. Understandable, of course, but to do nothing and offload everything onto your brother-in-law, who doesn't even know the deceased, just feels a bit weird.
Aaand at the time of posting this, the fucker has gone to the pub to "de-stress" and "have some time away from it all".
Cover Art: GWBrex
Chapter 30
The wagons rumbled on for the night and stopped during the day, hiding in deep forest far thicker than anything he was used to in Vale. They slept through the day, woke in the evening and continued on. His companions, in so far as they could be called that, were quiet and taciturn; they would mumble and talk to one another, but they didn't speak to him other than to offer food, ask him to gather firewood and thank him.
Jaune had learned that his driver was, in fact, a man. He was slim and willowy enough to have looked female, with bright pink eyes that were elegant and soft, but he spoke in a slow and rich voice too deep to be a woman's. The other was female, louder and more excitable, constantly catching herself for that and going quiet with the kind of forceful silence that made it clear she'd made a mistake. He had the feeling they'd have been much chattier without him, and that they didn't yet trust him. That wasn't likely to change when they reached their destination and their leaders found out who, or what, he was.
"Here," said the man, offering a clay bowl filled with some odd stew; it was yellowish, with chunks of meat and vegetables, and it smelled incredibly sweet. "It's safe," he said, when Jaune's hesitation became clear.
"What is it?"
"Curry." The man looked at him again and seemed surprised. "You've never had curry?"
"I lived in a small village in Vale," said Jaune. "We didn't east much more than what we could grow and catch." He dug the wooden spoon into the mixture, stirred it about and sampled a small bite. It was hot, startlingly so in both temperature and spice, but it tasted delicious. "This is good! What's in it?"
"Chicken, peas, carrots, spice and water. Some honey." The man settled down opposite him with a bowl of his own, leaning back against the wagon's wheels. His partner settled in next to him. "It is a staple dish in Mistral, as because it can be cooked from leftovers or with limited options and remain filling."
Ominous. Jaune spooned some more into his mouth and asked, "I heard the Schnee family make things hard."
"Hard is an understatement," said the man, chuckling. "The Schnee have decided that the best way to prevent Mistral rising up in rebellion again is to make sure we are too hard worked, too weak, and too hungry to do so. Not enough to starve," he added, bitterly. "Not enough that we cannot work, but enough that most people would lack the strength to swing a weapon even if they took it up."
Brutal, thought Jaune, but he was unsure how sympathetic he was supposed to be. He'd grown up with the Church of Salem, and they hadn't been harsh or cruel. They would come every few years to test the women and take those away who had aura, but they paid graciously to the families for it and otherwise left you to your devices. He didn't want to say they'd courted disaster by rebelling in the first place. Maybe he'd been lucky, and maybe things were just that much worse here.
"Will we be passing through any villages?" asked Jaune.
"No. There is too much risk of us bringing harm to them, or of them informing the Schnee. The people are terrified, both of being seen as guilty and of being seen as oblivious. The Schnee forces don't differentiate between the two. Failure to stop us will be seen as siding with us."
"It's not fair," blurted the woman. "It's not-" She noticed the gaze of the other and dipped her head. "Sorry."
"It's not fair," he agreed, "but it is what it is, and it's not much of your business," he told Jaune. "I'm only informing you so that you know to stay quiet and hidden if anyone stops us. It's illegal to travel Mistral without a permit."
"You mean to transport goods?"
"No," said the man. "To travel at all. Even walking between one village and the next is outlawed." He finished his curry and set the bowl down, leaning back and closing his eyes. "Easier to control us that way. Less chances for too many of us to gather in one spot."
"They split up families," said the woman, bitter and angry. "They can come to your village, say it's too big, and just take away ten, twenty or fifty people. You're never told where they will be going: some mining village, to the fields, forced to work in harsh conditions. They're just gone. Taken away."
"And no one fights it?" asked Jaune.
"Some do," said the man. "Many are made examples of."
"Some turn traitor," the girl spat.
"Yes." He nodded. "The Schnee recognise strength and capability, so sometimes the strongest and most aggressive of our people are recruited. They're offered a better life. A chance to rise up to be more than what they're born as. Granted power, spoiled, with the notion of their superiority reinforced in their heads along with the Goddess' mercy for having spared them the same fate." He shook his head. "They are the Schnee's private armies. Fiercely loyal, proud of their station." He gripped his hand tight and said, "Proud of having betrayed their own people. Can you imagine it?"
"More and more people aspire to that now," the girl said. "It's seen as a way out. The only way out. It's amazing… they… they belittle us. They lord over us just like the Schnee do, as if they weren't one of us at one point. That's just how it goes. The strong are either drafted or made examples of, and villages aren't allowed to grow large enough to start dissenting. If there is a whisper of it, even a rumour, the SDC – the Schnee Deterrence Corps – are sent in to crush it."
"Violently," said the boy. "Without mercy."
"But you still fight," said Jaune. "There still is a rebellion."
"It's formed of those who have nothing left to lose. Those who have lost everything. We slip through the cracks, forgotten and abandoned, fighting back for… I don't even know what," he admitted. "I can't remember a time when things are different. Neither of us can. Spite, perhaps? Anger? The chance to see the Schnee suffer?"
"Purpose," said the girl. "We fight for purpose. Because it's all we have left."
/-/
They kept to the forests for the next evening and night but passed by a small village some distance away as dawn cracked. It was far enough for them to remain hidden, but close enough for them to see. There were no walls, and the homes were evenly spaced out and uniform in shape and size; they were all wooden, all square and all in a line. There was a mine nearby, with a tunnel leading down, and the sound of picks chipping away was audible even from such a distance. There were also thick plumes of black smoke from charcoal burners outside, which must have been for smelting whatever ore was mined down into bars.
Outside the village was a wooden platform, and on that hung three bodies, their hands tied behind their backs and their legs dangling. One looked much smaller than the other – and Jaune hoped with all his heart that it was just a very small adult.
"It looks like the Schnee have been here," said the man. "They must be looking for the shipment."
Or for me, thought Jaune.
"Those bodies weren't there when we came by," said the girl. "Seranala is a controlled village; they refused to even listen to us when we asked if they could spare some ore. What do you think they did to deserve that?"
"Spoke up, maybe? Failed to meet a quota?"
Jaune hissed. "You can die for that?"
"You can die for a lot of things in Mistral." he said, glumly.
"Why?" asked Jaune. "The Eternity Queen is nothing like this in Vale. The Church doesn't do anything this cruel."
"It's not really the church here at all," said the man. "This is the Schnee family. They're acting on behalf of the church, but they rule Mistral like it's their own petty kingdom, and they're not shy about breaking the rules. I doubt the other realms know what it's like – you didn't." He pushed away and moved back to the wagons. "I'm not sure they'd care; we're heathens after all. Traitors. We sided with the Dark Lord."
"What mistakes I made that have wrought this," said Ozma, sadly.
"Can't you petition the Eternity Queen?" asked Jaune. "Or send a message to Vale or Atlas? There must be someone who would do something."
"I'm sure there is someone who would," said the woman, "But good luck on us finding or reaching them. You'd have to get a message off the island – difficult enough already – and then to someone in power who isn't corrupt and who wouldn't accept a bribe from the Schnee to forget it ever existed. Then they'd punish Mistral."
"How would they know who was responsible?"
"They wouldn't care," said the man, this time. "They'd make it a universal punishment like they have here. Pick one family from every city, town or village. One family at random, children and all, and execute them. Easiest way to send a message to whoever was behind it that they shouldn't try again."
He couldn't believe what he was hearing. "This is madness. This is… It's pure evil. How are they allowed to get away with this?"
"Because it works. Because, if we just accepted their treatment and our place in life, then there wouldn't be any problems. At least in their minds. Best not to think on it. We're almost home."
"Home?"
"Home," he repeated. "Kuroyuri."
There was a certain expectation surrounding the word "home" that was objectively missing from the burnt out husk of a village that he was brought to. The shells of houses and walls continued long after the village itself had been reduced to ash, but what remained was blackened and charred. The very grass itself had been burned away, so that no greenery grew among the rubble and the dust. The wagons wheeled through it slowly, with the quietest crunch of ash tickling Jaune's ears. In silence, they travelled down the empty pathway, and in silence did they pass by a graveyard where over a hundred sticks of wood had been jammed down above piles of rocks.
The silence was unbearable. "What happened here?" asked Jaune.
"A traitor," said the man. "He informed the Schnee about the rebel forces in Kuroyuri. The village was being used to smuggle weapons further on. The traitor believed he could win better conditions for him and his family."
"Did he?"
"He burned with the rest." The man led the wagons to the dusty ruins of an old home, climbed off and stepped inside. He knelt, brushing his hand against the floor. "Most of the village died there. Most, but not all. I was but a child. We both were." He found something, pulled, and a large wooden slat rose up, revealing a stairway leading down. "Our families had nothing to do with the rebellion, and we were too young to be involved, but that did not stop the Schnee killing our families and our friends. In doing so, they drove us to the very rebellion they sought to quash."
He stepped back, and Jaune looked down into an abyss that was neither as dark nor as abandoned as he might have thought. Torches lit the way, and bright paintings and tapestries lined the walls. "Welcome to Kuroyuri, the subterranean village."
/-/
It was closer to a small town than a village, Jaune realised, in retrospect. The long tunnels that snaked around like an ant's hive opened up into a large chasm lit by hundreds of torches, and within which were well over a hundred small homes of wood, or simply of cloth strung up between poles to make fabric walls. Smoke curled up from numerous campfires and was then dispersed through holes drilled into the ceiling that must have led to forests and other places where the smoke would not be noticed.
There was a huge throng of people chatting, working and laughing – laughing as though living underground was the most natural thing in the world. Children ran about chasing balls and playing; cattle was shuttered away behind thin reed fencing; a field of mushrooms grew in one corner, fed by rotten logs sprouting edible fungus; in another, men and women trained with wooden weapons – spears, swords, bows and even in unarmed combat. It was a thriving, bright and open community, and that looked to be living better and brighter lives than those on the surface.
"Lie!" A man wrapped in dark blue cloth approached. He had a sword at his side, much smaller than Jaune's own. "You're back. Is this the shipment from Vale?"
"Yes. Neptune proved as good as his word."
"He always does." The man eyed Jaune. "And this is?"
"A passenger that Neptune asked us deliver here, along with a letter from Maria. Is mother in?"
"Yes and waiting to hear from you both. I'll take care of the shipment," he offered. "You go report in. Take your new friend with you; I've a feeling she'll want to vet him."
The man, or Lie, nodded and motioned for Jaune to follow him and the woman. He was led past several groups of people, including an older woman talking in front of a group of children, teaching them simple history while reading from a single book. They went by a huge pot where several people were cooking what smelled like more curry, and then up some wooden steps into the largest tent set in the centre of the cave.
It was as large as the tavern back home, and curtains had been set up to simulate walls and rooms, turning it into a house made of cloth. Several people worked here and there, but it was toward the centre he was brought, where a woman with dark reddish hair and dressed in green was looking over a map and talking to another person. They stopped on seeing them approach and the woman looked up, revealing a horrible burn down the left side of her face. It creased and crinkled as she smiled.
"Lie. Nora. You're back safely." Stepping around the table, she strode up with her arms held out and welcomed the two into her embrace. "Did Neptune deliver the equipment as promised?"
"Yes mom," said Lie. "I left it with Theo."
"Good. Good. He'll see them sorted out. You didn't face any trouble?"
"We stayed hidden, An," said the girl, Nora. "We were fine. Seranala has been punished, though," she said. "There were bodies swinging outside. It wasn't us. We didn't go near."
"It's not you," said An. "The Schnee are in a frenzy because of… well, it's dire news for Mistral. The Dark Lord has been reborn in Vale. He attacked the Eternity Queen and fled, and some believe he will come here."
"Why would he?" asked Nora. "He isn't welcome here."
"Seeking to use us as a distraction while he slips away, I suppose," said An. "Or he thinks to build another army from us."
"We've bled enough," said Lie.
It was hard to stand there, hear all that, and stay quiet. Jaune managed it through acute embarrassment, all the while shouting in his head at Ozma for putting him in this position in the first place. They didn't want his help. He was the last thing they wanted to see in their lives. There was no point trying to help them.
"And yet the deal was made," said Ozma. "And I would have you keep to it."
It wasn't long before the letter came up. "I have this," said Lie, handing it over. "From Maria Calavera. She asked us to give this to you, and also to escort this one here." He nodded at Jaune. "We weren't told why."
"And you are?" An asked Jaune.
"Jaune Arc."
Her smile fell. A cold, sharp emotion crept over her face. There was no doubting she knew, and Jaune sucked in a breath of his own. "I see…" Her voice was even. "Nora, Lie, will you leave us for a moment? I need to have a talk with your new friend."
The duo left, and An nodded to the man who'd been in the room before, who clasped his hand to his chest in salute and then left as well. Soon, it was just the two of them, and Jaune felt very small and insignificant as she stared down on him. "I didn't want to be here," he said. "I'm running from Vale and-"
"Silence."
His jaw clicked as his teeth struck together.
"You are… It's true, then?" An's voice was quiet, but bristling with anger, and Jaune could only nod. "To think you would return here after what you did. You cost us everything. Our home, our freedom, our families."
"I-"
Her hand lashed out and fire blossomed across his cheek.
"Was it not enough?" hissed An. "That you should come back and ask it of us again!"
"I'm not asking you for anything!" snapped Jaune. "I don't want to take over this rebellion; I don't plan to have a part in it. I'm not the Dark Lord," he said, then, reluctantly, he said, "Not yet." Her chest rose and fell. Her eyes were sparkling with tears. "Look. I'm sorry for whatever the last person did, but I'm not him. I'm Jaune Arc. I'm a normal guy. I just… I just want to get away from Vale."
"You attacked the Goddess."
"That was him! He had control of my body and… and he says he lost himself to madness."
"Oh, he says, does he?" An laughed bitterly. "He says that. Yes. Yes, he lost himself to madness. That madness dragged us into war and had us charge headfirst into death. All the strategy, all the clever ruses he had until then used, forgotten in an instant. We – my father – believed that there was a plan behind it. They trusted him. And he threw their lives away for the chance to fight Salem!"
"I am sorry," said Ozma. "Tell her that."
I don't think your apologies are going to do anything, thought Jaune to Ozma. Not with how much pain she was in. "That's why I want to stay out of this," he said instead. "I understand that you have no reason to trust me, and I accept that. All I want is to evade Salem. Maria and Neptune believed that would be to your advantage. They think that if the Schnee fail to catch me, that Salem will get angry with them."
An was breathing heavily, still, but she did nod. "Yes. The Goddess does not accept failure. The Schnee have done good work for her, from her point of view, but an upstart rebellion is nothing compared to the Dark Lord. All their good would be forgotten in light of their incompetence in stopping you."
"That's good, right?"
"Good for us – but terrible for Mistral!" said An. "Do you not realise what the Schnee will do in their desperation? You expect them to search for a needle in the haystack; well, they won't. They will burn the haystack down, the barn with it, then have servants rifle through the ashes. They will narrow down where you are not by turning whole villages into rivers of blood. They will cut down your hiding places by cutting down any who might help you – and they will not lose sleep over the fact."
An slammed her hands down on the table. "They will turn Mistral inside out to find you, and anyone who they even suspect of helping you will be put to the sword." She shook her head. "You will find no help here. Not from me. Begone, take your foul taint with you and never darken our home again!"
"But Neptune said-"
"Neptune is a smuggler and an ally, not a part of the rebellion. You have nothing to offer that would change my mind."
"You do," said Ozma.
Jaune knew exactly what he meant and drew out the Relic of Knowledge hanging under his cloak. An gasped when she saw it, but that didn't stop Jaune revealing it fully and saying, "I have this."
This stuff with their mother in law reminds me of when my grandma died, which actually sounds like a recipe for genuine childhood trauma and yet wasn't. Basically, my parents both worked so I would be dropped off with my gran in the morning and picked up in the afternoon. My parents dropped me off early and left, and I went in at, like 7-8 years old, to find her in bed not waking up. This was before mobile phones (no internet either – it was dial-up at the time and my gran didn't have it) and such, and my gran had a payphone in her own house (I kid you not – she made people pay to use it when they came over), so I actually just sat on her bed next to her until 6pm when my parents came to pick me up and told them "grandma died". My parents were fucking horrified at having left me there all day (from 8am – 6pm) with my gran's dead body and kept apologising for weeks thinking they'd traumatised me.
Next Chapter: 28th August
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