A Small Revolution

Nel pulled her coat around her, leaving Khemma and the children sleeping peacefully at home, and stepped out into the rain. She walked along the docks, then turned into the Warrens, down the narrow streets, flooded and muddy in the downpour. Finally she arrived at Lina Becker's shack.
 
The rain flowed under, into, and out of the floors and walls of the rickety structure on its way out to the bay and no smoke left the makeshift chimney. She knocked at the door and called quietly, "Miss Becker? It's Nel, from Leonie's school. Can I talk with you?"
 
After a few seconds the door opened. Lina Becker stood there, shivering, her bare feet in the water running across the packed earth floor of the shack, wrapped in a shawl, and heavily pregnant. "Did something happen to Leonie? Is my niece okay?"
 
"She's fine, love," Nel assured her, but can I come in and talk to you?"
 
Lina nodded, and let her in, sitting back down on her bed and pulling her feet up out of the water into under the blanket on her bed-- really just a few wooden pallets with some straw and blankets.

"Sorry -- I don't got tea or nothing to offer you," said Lina. "Out of firewood."
 
Nel nodded. "Leonie said that factory fired you for being pregnant?"
 
Lina nodded back, miserably. "Can't find work elsewhere right now neither. I was saving to get out of this shack. Ain't safe for a baby. But now..." she shook her head, a shivering hand wiping away tears. "I don't know what to do. Razor Eddie said he'd give me a loan to get somewhere else. It's a bad deal, but I don't know what else to do. Why--why are you here?"
 
Lina remembered that Nel was part of the Syndicate and suddenly panicked. "I didn't mean to insult Eddie. I know things ain't free. Please don't tell him I said that!"
 
"No, no, no, I'm not here for Eddie. I'm here to help. I made some money adventuring, and I want you to have some of it, to get out of here and get you and your baby on your feet."
 
Lina looked at Nel suspiciously. "Why?"
 
The polar bear thought quietly for a moment, then replied "Because I know what it's like to be under their thumb and helping you stay out of it might be the closest to freedom I'll get."
 
Lina blinked and nodded, unsure of what to say.
 
"Take this," said Nel, passing the young woman a sack of 100 gold. "There's an flat in my building just opened up, and that should cover rent, coal, and food for a few months, if you want it. And Mrs. Schmidt down on the first floor makes her living watching the babies and children of other tenants while they're at work."
 
Lina opened the sack and looked between it and Nel with disbelief. "What's the catch?"
 
Nel shrugged. "Someday if you're in the position to do the same for someone else, do it."
 
Lina looked again between the gold and Nel, shaking harder and wiping away tears.
 
"Come spend the night at my house tonight, love? It's so cold and wet here. And there's some stew left over from dinner. Tomorrow I'll introduce you to the landord?"
 
Lina glanced up quickly, hunger and cold winning out over pride. She pulled on her boots, which she'd had drying on her makeshift bed. Nel took off her ring of warmth and slipped on the young woman's finger before they headed back out into the rain and towards Nel's flat.
 
Nel silently prayed to Eosphorus on the way back that Razor Eddie wouldn't find out where Lina's sudden windfall had come from. She could not imagine he would take her stealing his business kindly. But Violet and Bella were right -- this was a small revolution, tiny and fragile and full of potential as one of Muse's seedlings growing on the roof of the school.