Sloth the Bladedancer

Part I

Andal groaned softly, tried to rub the sleep from his eyes. His head was pounding, his eyes stung and his hair was an unkempt mess with the number of times his fingers had run through it in his frustration.

The worn book on the table offered him no sympathy. The opposite, in fact. The book was a thing meant for children, with its cartoons, its large, animated text and yet, here he was, being made undone by it. The book couldn't sympathize but clearly, it could mock him, him and his struggle to learn what mere children had already mastered.

Andal pushed the dark hair from his eyes once again. He sat back in his chair, his back protesting the change after being stuck in the same position for so long. He tried once again to focus but at this time of night, the words were beginning to blur. Letters seemed to blend together and become even more unrecognizable to him than they already were. He groaned again, frustration instead of exhaustion, squeezed his eyes shut. He just wanted to rest them for a second. He would avoid lowering his head down to the table, lest he fall asleep here again.

A loud bang had Andal up and alert, his heart pounding instead of his head, sweat running down the length of his back. It was the sound of a door being ripped open, he knew it very well. But his door was still closed. The noise had come from the apartment below. As the initial fear drained from him, dread seeded within his belly at what was to come next. With how thin the walls and floors were, he only needed to hold his breath to hear the door being closed again, less violently, still loudly. Voices began speaking. Questions being demanded from one person to another in short, clipped words. Then the tones began to rise, the muffled words becoming rougher, developed an edge of aggression that had Andal sinking back and deeper into his chair, his headache already worsening.

Some woman and her man who lived in the room below, riling each other up into what was going to be a vicious shouting match; their third this week. The causes of the fights were so myriad, Andal had stopped trying to figure them out, resorting to just weathering the storm. Maybe the man came home drunk or maybe the woman spent an exorbitant amount of their much-needed money on frivolous things. Maybe he came home smelling like another woman. Maybe she came home smelling like another man. Whatever it was, no matter what it was, the result came out to be the same. An argument with no other purpose than to unload their frustrations on each other in a way that was loud, shrill and had the potential to stretch far into the night if one of them did not walk away from it.

There was nothing he was going to get done with this noise. Andal's vision glazed over when he fixed his eyes towards the window, onto the neon signs above his apartment that provided him with light. He wanted to pay attention to his task and if not, then the lights outside or the sky or the Traveler. But habit and instinct pulled his ears back to the fighting. To wait. To wait for that first sound of someone being hit, for the scream or grunt of pain to follow it, for the shattering of glassware or the thud of someone's body striking the ground.

It never happened. Things never went that far with the two of them. Andal knew all of that but would still wait. Because it would happen. If life under his parents had taught him anything, it was that this always led to that. To bruised cheeks hidden beneath long hair. To broken lips barely concealed by a beard. Of all the memories he had of the hell he had been forced to call home for twenty of his twenty-two years, those were always the ones who came to mind; his parents' fighting. His parents' beatings, not just of him and his sister but each other as well.

Even with that life miles away, Andal was forced to relive it. Every time the shouting started up, that ingrained fear he tried so hard to keep buried would break its way to the surface. That it would get worse. That it would get violent. That, in the end, one of them would take their rage out on him. Or worse, his sister. Andal would jump in, try to protect her the best he could against his vicious mother or his hulk of a father. There was never a time he did not pay dearly for it. He could still see faint bruises and lacerations sometimes when he took off his shirt. The price of trying to do the right thing.

Andal rose to his feet slowly, though he could not stop his legs from trembling or his body hurting from the ghost of beatings past. Despite all this, he forced himself to trudge his way to the bedroom door in the back and put his hand on the handle. It took several calming breaths before he felt he could pretend that everything was alright. He doubted that he would be very convincing. He had the door slid back just a bit, enough for him to see through the crack. He peered through the pitch-black bedroom until he could make out a bump rising from the bed. He pulled away, turned his head so he could better hear her breathing, slow and even.

Only then did Andal feel he could breathe himself. Akira was still asleep. The noise hadn't woken her up. It was a constant concern because any reaction Andal himself would have had to the fighting, his twelve year old sister's would have been worse. Just a hint of the shouting could have reached her ears and she would be unable to sleep. She would be shaking, stifling sobs, paralyzed with terror that would take no less than an hour for him to coax her out of, if he was lucky. He had bought her earplugs some time ago. They helped at times but not always. Other times, on the really bad days, Andal had even considered slipping her a sleeping aid. On the nights she was kept up by their neighbors and the days after, when she came home from school, shuffling like a corpse. He always decided against it.

Akira would have classes in the morning. These remedial, whatever that meant, instructors were strict regarding attendance. Andal would have to see her there in the morning. Which meant he needed to be awake before her, which meant he needed to be asleep himself soon. Regardless of what was going on downstairs, he refused to do so until he finished the next few pages in her writing book.

When Andal let the door slide shut, he listened again. His ears found nothing but silence. By the grace of the Traveler or whoever else, one of them must have left. The arguing had ceased. He guessed it to be the woman, judging by the heavy, stomping footsteps and deep-voiced grumblings that remained. Andal allowed relief to wash over him even if he knew there would only be another argument. As long as it didn't happen until morning, when the both of them would be gone, it did not matter in the slightest.

Andal finally returned to the table, the rickety old thing atop which they ate and studied. His eyes locked onto the book, finding that the words hadn't gotten any easier. Knowing how to read had never been a necessity for him. Neither his mother nor his father knew. The job he had now, the arduous labor he performed to keep both him and his little sister fed and under a roof, did not require knowing how to read.

"But…" he said aloud, as if he were another person reminding himself. Learning would elevate his standing. Allow him to seek out proper documentation for him and Akira as immigrants to the City. Good housing would be easier to come by. School would be easier to come by. Financial assistance would be easier to come by or he could get a better job. One with lower hours and better pay. Maybe he'd even have the time and funds to do his own schooling, though he didn't dare hope.

But if everything remained the same, he would still keep going. All these late nights and early morns, the days upon days of back-breaking labor. Every terrible thing he has had to endure just to get away from the place of their births to the place they were now, it was worth it as long as Akira was safe. Nothing else mattered, his own comfort least of all.

Then another voice welled up within the confines of his mind. One that was darker, more biting and that told him that if he truly cared, he would have alerted someone. Authorities of the City that could and would take better care of Akira than some illiterate young boy playing at being a father. She would be taken away. He might never see her again and she'd never forgive him for it. But she would be fed, clothed, safe and warm. He wouldn't have to consider drugging her just so she could sleep through the night

The voice was right and he deeply hated it. Through their parents' abuse, through their escape from their old home to here, it was Akira who kept Andal going, gave him a purpose, a reason to bother waking up in the morning or at least, not dread doing so. If he lost her, if they took her away, what would he have? He claimed to be willing to disregard himself for her but it still all came down to him and his feelings. And apparently, that was worth sending her to school in ratty, oversized clothes and to bed, just barely above starving.

Andal turned his gaze downwards and tried one last time to focus on his sister's books. To his side was a datapad, old and barely functional. His, not hers. The school provided her with better equipment and he feared messing up something she needed so he left her's alone. He took up the tablet and stylus and began to trace the letters within the textbook to the best of his ability, sounding out every one as he did. With the time he lost, it was unlikely he would be able to do silent lettering tonight as he planned. An opportunity lost but not worth mourning. He hated silent letters with a burning passion. Common seemed so simple when spoken but when written down, it didn't make a lick of sense.

"A 'G' in 'Night'," he muttered into his fist, the other hand still tracing. "A 'K' in 'Knight'. For what?"

He finished the word he had been working through for the past few minutes, placing the little dot at the end because "those were the rules".

"Periods end sentences," Akira had said.

"Can a single word be a sentence?"

"Sometimes."

"...That doesn't help me at all."

"Honestly...I'm starting to think that's the whole point."

Andal pulled his sore hands from the water to shake them out, pressing his thumb into one of the palms to coax the nerves into relaxing. He moved them further into the light for a better look. They were smelly from dirty dishwater, sore and gnarled from constant scrubbing underneath a stream of freezing water as a stream of plates and utensils came to a stop at his workstation. Being the only dishwasher at the time with this kind of workload meant that no matter how many he worked through, the piles would only continue to grow higher and higher, in both size and number.

It wasn't just his hands that ached but his neck, from staring down into the sink for hours on end as well as his lower back, shoulders, legs and feet, the ten hours he spent on his feet most days of the week starting to get to him. Despite all of this, he refused to complain...much. And certainly aloud. He was lucky to have any sort of job at a restaurant as well-visited as this. Neither reading nor writing was necessary for what he did and what he did was a lot of manual labor. If he weren't doing dishes, then Andal was stocking their pantries, sweeping the floors, scrubbing down tables, cleaning up some rowdy child's mess and he was often doing it alone.

The day floated by him in a haze and he supposed it was something he could find relief in. The day was close to done and he could hold out. Another thing that he could take relief in was that things would calm down after today. With Akira's schedule, Andal knew he couldn't take on additional hours so, he asked for extra work, any additional role that needed to be filled, anything his boss would be willing to pay him for. It wasn't particularly a comfort but it made his pain more bearable; reminding himself that he asked for this and that it would pay off very soon.

The quiet outside told him that the lunch rush had come to an end. He'd be gone by the time the dinner rush was well underway so he let himself breathe for a few moments. But he only had time for a few. Andal shook out his hands and rolled his neck to stretch it out and ease the pain.

He dunked his hands back below the surface of the water and heaved a filled pot out from underneath in a move that had his back twinging in protest. He set it down on its side so he could reach and scrub down the interior, ignoring the line of pots of similar or bigger size stretching leftwards from his sink to half across the long counter.

Few more hours. He could do this.

"So all of this…" Ahead of him, Akira turned and gestured to the box in Andal's hands. "Is just for good grades?"

Andal gave a small smile. "Are you complaining?" he asked.

She shook her head vigorously, her dark hair flying even more in the wind than it already was. "No, no complaining!"

"Are you sure? I could eat this all by myself." Andal even opened the box slightly for emphasis. A barely visible plume of steam escaped through the opening and filled his nose with the smell of freshly-baked pizza. If they didn't get home soon, he'd end up trying to test the truth of that.

Whether she was playing along with his ribbing or believed him to be serious, Akira's eyes nearly flew off her head when he did. "I take it back. I deserve it all," she said quickly, making him laugh. "And maybe a cake as well?" she tried hopefully.

"We've got ice cream in the freezer. Next time, if you keep up the good work."

"I'll remember that!"

A letter from Akira's teacher, received a week ago and dictated aloud by Andal's phone. In it, the teacher praised Akira for her quick and excellent grasp of the material and more than that, the strong enthusiasm she showed for learning. The letter stretched on and on for a page and it was nothing but complimentary towards his sister. Andal had gotten it while on break from a particularly hard time of the day, one that came after a long string of hard times. A late night comforting Akira as the neighbors' arguing spun out of control, again, turned into a late morning in which she was very nearly declared absent for tardiness which in turn, resulted in him being late to work. Andal only remembered it so well because it was the first thing that day that had made him smile. He barely knew what he was doing with her. He was barely a man, trying to raise a young girl on his own and tripping over himself every step of the way. Despite all that, he must have been doing something right and now, the proof was in writing, for his phone to read to him whenever his doubts began to drag him down.

That same day, he asked his manager for extra work and extra pay, working two positions at once so that he could go home at the end of the next work week with a bigger paycheck. He did, as he was leaving the restaurant today, and he used the extra money to reward her, taking her to a pizzeria she had once visited with some school friends and letting her design her own to take home. Akira was in the highest of spirits and her good mood was infectious, enough to cut through his deep-set exhaustion. The smile on Andal's face as he watched his little sister skip around and ramble excitedly about a million different things one after another hurt, but only in a good way.

Andal punched them into their complex when they reached it and Akira immediately bolted for the stairs, slowing down only when Andal called for her to. They climbed together, Andal shifting her bag, hanging off his arm, to his shoulder so he could carry their food better.

Akira got to the second floor before him, still talking about her day when suddenly, she stopped. The smile left Andal's face. He quickened his pace on the stairs so he could see what had caused her to go so quiet.

It was their neighbors. One of them, the man, was outside his room, talking with a woman who most assuredly was not the one who lived with him. The one who had argued with him and left the night before. She must not have come back just yet. The man was talking and smiling and leaning too close to leave much of anything to the imagination as to what his intentions with this stranger here were. At least, Andal's imagination.

Then, the neighbor spotted them and that crooked, lecherous grin quickly devolved into a scowl. He takes his companion sternly by the arm and pulls her inside, slamming his door shut. Akira flinched at the bang, her eyes wide and lowered to the ground and Andal knew he had only a precious few seconds to save her rare good mood. "Something wrong?" he asked, as if he hadn't seen anything of importance. She turned on her heel, like she had forgotten he was there. Quickly, silently, she shook her head. "Then c'mon. Food's getting cold."

Akira nodded and resumed her trek up the stairs, slower this time. "Andal?"

"Yes?"

"Do you know who that was?" she asked, "She doesn't look-"

"No one important. That's who she was," he stated firmly. When they reached the third floor, he opened the pizza box again. "Now am I going to have to eat this all on my own or…" Akira spun around again and this time, practically lunged at him for the box. When he held it over her head, just barely out of her reach, she instead snatched the keycard from his pocket and ran for the apartment. Andal stood there and watched as she shoved her way through the door as soon as it was open just enough. He listened to her run to the sink and wash her hands, then the familiar tell-tale scraping of the dining chair against the wooden floor and his smile returned, even as he had to remind himself to have her ears plugged by the time she was ready for bed.

Night fell upon them quickly. Neither of them had noticed until Akira began yawning. The sky was cloudless and moonlight lit the bedroom almost as well as the lights did. Akira had gone to sleep, wrapped up in a bundle of blankets while the fan spun slowly overhead. Andal was still awake. Sitting in a small recliner he had moved from the living room to a spot next to her bed, drained from the long day, too tired to go to sleep.

He was alone with his thoughts now, a terrible position to be in. Those thoughts turned to his body, his aches and his pains. The work he did from day to day felt as if it were breaking him and for all his effort, it was barely enough for them to pull through.

It even made him wonder if Akira was more excited for the pizza itself or that tonight, she'd get to go to sleep with a full stomach. It was a reality he had to constantly contend with; that no matter how hard he tried, he could not do enough for her to have the life she deserved.

Andal swallowed thickly. Then his eyes shifted to her, burrowed beneath the sheets in the dark. She wasn't stirring in discomfort, as she often did when she was hungry. She wasn't trembling, as she did when she was caught in nightmares of their former home.

"Former". Even adding it as a qualifier did little to lessen the taste of bile in his mouth that he got whenever he referred to that hellhole as "home". They had lived on the outskirts of a village, close enough to be in contact when needed but mostly removed. Andal had once cynically wondered if it was so his parents could fight to their hearts' content and not have the neighbors interfere or anything else. Their father had been a laborer within the village. He had the body for it, massive and strong, and neither the mind nor the patience for anything else. Their mother stayed home to "raise the children". Andal had always wondered if that was some kind of euphemism for getting drunk by noon on the money they needed to eat and clothe themselves. Andal had to learn how to cook before he was even tall enough to reach the stove without help. And how to dodge glass bottles being drunkenly thrown at his head whenever he made too much noise.

His father was no better. Regardless of work, he was rarely home. Whatever money he earned, money that could have gone towards food or medicine, money his wife didn't spend on drink, he spent on gambling at the town inn. Or on...other things. Things Andal had been too young to realize them for what they were. Things that knocked the wind from him when he did realize, years after the fact. Andal had been dragged along into town with him one day. Saw him standing and talking with a stranger, his rare smile too similar to the one they had seen on their neighbor just a few hours before. Mostly women. Sometimes men. Either way, it ended the same as it did with the neighbor; Andal's father disappearing with them, not even sparing his young son a look back before he was left alone in town for hours. Their mother would find out and reprimand her husband for it, physically at times. Then later, his father would take it out on them. Only yelling, if he and Akira were lucky and he was sober. They were rarely lucky and he was rarely sober.

Andal could never forget the two of them, no matter how much he wanted to. How he wanted to love them. How he wanted them to love him and to love Akira, instead of making them feel as if every problem they had ever had were because of him. He had been what could be called an "unplanned pregnancy". His parents preferred to call him a mistake.

But in a morbid way, the memories comforted him. Over there, they often went to bed with empty, gnawing bellies but here, Akira ate every night. And any arguing the two of them were forced to hear were distantly removed from them. No fear of them hurting each other. No fear of them coming into their room at night and taking out their frustrations on them. This living Andal had just barely been able to scrabble together, it had been more of a home for the both of them than their parents ever provided.

Akira was at a measure of peace. Sometimes, like today, she was even happy. And it was Andal who gave her this. So work could beat him down all it wanted, he was far from a stranger to beatings. Life could break him down into the smallest of pieces. Andal could live a life that he dreaded waking up to every single day. He would still pick himself up. He would still put himself back together. He would still wake up to that life and he would still live it. He had one reason and it was the best reason he could ever possibly have.

For his sister. If nothing else, then for Akira. His own happiness be damned.

Bit out of left field with this backstory chapter but I decided a while back to add the remaining Heralds into this book so that Book 5 can focus solely on Aro and Pride, whose backstories are already pretty long and detailed.