Nel
Nel is a polar bear kin, originally from Ruskovich. She is a boxer and works for the Syndicate. Despite looking (and occassionally being) fierce, she is a squishy marshmallow at heart.
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Children
Long Lost
Nel sat in Aaboli’s home, surrounded by the elders of her people.
She had dreamed of having her extended family, her people, back for 30 years. And now that she had them, she found her heart predictably full, but also surprisingly lonely.
Most of the cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents Nel remembered were among the dead, their bones harvested by the horrible tower.
Those who had survived had been through devastation that Nel, who had survived the re-education camp called an orphanage, the Syndicate so far, and even a brief but horrific time in Thanatos, knew she could never fully understand. She saw their thousand yard stares when they thought she wasn’t looking, the way they looked at the newborn cubs in this good, safe village with a fervent protectiveness bordering on terror, the fear they showed at the harvests at once again having something to lose.
She felt like a child again in their presence — and the fact that she had stopped learning her native tongue at the age of seven only added onto that. She had a child’s vocabulary, and had to frequently stop and ask for the translations of words into Common or Orcish. She knew it wasn’t her fault. They knew that as well. But shame burned in her all the same.
But they loved her all the same, as desperately as she loved them. And she knew in her heart of hearts that they would have loved her even if she hadn’t come for them and helped them leave the Wastelands — just because she was one of their lost cubs returned to them. There was pain and loneliness and grief — but there was love and joy and the sense of home that was never only a place, but also a people.
She didn’t know how to lead them. But they taught her how. She watched them make decisions together around the fire, staying up late to talk things through until they all agreed on a course of action everyone could live with.
They did not need her to manage their day-to-day affairs. But with one foot in their world and another outside of it, they did need her as a bridge between them and Ruskovich.
So she listened more than she spoke. She made sure they knew — as if they needed the warning — that they must not build a temple to Eosphorous or worship him openly. She planned with them how to collect taxes, told them about opportunities to serve as royal guards, and poured most of her adventuring gold into supplementing their funding for soldiers among them to protect their people so that they would not need to rely on armed outsiders they would have trouble trusting and other needs they might have. She spent a small fortune on sending stones so that they could reach her whenever they needed to.
Her people were safe. They had food. They had land. They were as free as anyone in Ruskovich could be. This wasn’t their homeland. But it was a good place to stop and heal. Princess Orlov had shown the ursans more kindness and decency than any Run noble she had ever heard of. And she had them back.
Thanatos
.Nel opened her eyes from the now-familiar blackness of death and saw a dark sky, lit by an enormous, dim, red star that gave the ever-rising smoke and haze a faint red glow.
She hadn’t felt cold since becoming undead, but the rubble she was lying on was like ice. She picked herself up and looked around. A ruined city stretched out around her in every direction. Buildings smoldered and smoked. Others were overgrown with now long dead vines.
A row of gibbets – cages hanging from a sort of gallows– each held decaying bodies whose eyeless sockets contained lights that followed her movements. As she stood up, the dead in the gibbets began a chorus of noise – some wailing, others laughing or screeching. This place was very dead and very much inhabited.
She reached for her axe and realized it wasn’t there with her. But she could see the lights of torches being lit in the broken windows of the crumbling buildings. She turned and ran down the nearest alleyway away from the noise. The symbol of Orcus that Venowin had branded her with burned and throbbed as if were new again.
She heard heavy footsteps behind her and saw an enormous skeletal devourer giving chase. She rounded a corner and sprinted down another alleyway only to feel the ground give way beneath her, then an explosion of pain as she landed with a crunch of bone down in the bottom of the deep pit trap.
She stayed there, shivering for a moment, then looked herself over. Her right leg stuck out at an odd angle, a shard of bone poking through the skin and her right arm was out of socket. Despite her efforts to stay quiet, a sharp whine escaped her as she tried to sit up and drag herself…where?...to the wall, at least, so she could have her back to that.
Suddenly a red mist appeared in front of her and began to grow solid. A moment later an enormous creature stood in front of her, bigger than she was even with rune magic, curved ram’s horns arching over glowing red eyes and a mouth full of needle-like teeth. The creature’s bloated body was translucent and the glow of tormented souls trapped inside lit the space in a dim, sickly light. It carried a scepter of bone and wore a garland of entrails. Her brand began to glow with it, a blinding pain that dwarfed even her destroyed leg.
“Orcus,” she hissed.
“Welcome home,” came the reply in a deep and mocking voice. “All of mine come home eventually.”
“This ain’t my home and I ain’t yours,” she growled.
Orcus laughed. “You thought that mark was what? Decoration?” He pointed to her glowing brand of his symbol.
“Listen,” she hissed urgently, fighting through the pain to find words. “I got to go back. Morwen is breaking his cage. If he escapes, your world will end just like mine.”
“That’s a new one,” Orcus replied, voice full of amusement. “Usually it’s just ‘ahhh, please no! Spare me, I beg you’. I can, you know.”
“Can what?”
“Spare you. You’re a fighter. I could always use more servants and a rune knight who controls an echo is a useful thing to have. You can fight for me. Or you can feed me. Those are your choices.”
“Go fuck yourself,” she growled, trying to drag herself away from him.
He bent down and grabbed her by the throat, lifting her as if she weighed nothing, so that she was face to face with him, then he began to inhale.
Nel opened her mouth to scream as she felt her soul beginning to fray and shred and wisps of it, resembling nothing so much as the Northern Lights, began to be sucked into him.
“Hey, fuckface.” The new voice was far too casual, dripping with disdain. “Get your hands off my property.”
Orcus stopped and turned to the newcomer.
“Your property? That’s rich. Look – I even put my name on it.” The demon lord grinned, a deeply unsettling sight.
“Mine,” the voice repeated, emerald green eyes glinting from under his black cloak. “Check the label if you don't believe me, Orccy.”
Orcus chuckled and looked at the back of the paw that Nel was using to claw at his enormous hand wrapped around her throat.
The sign of Orcus burned into her skin turned into a holy symbol of Steyfano.
Orcus hissed and turned to Steyfano.
“You cheat!”
Steyfano shrugged, flipping a coin in the air. "I don't really care what you want."
“This is my realm! You can’t just come in here and steal from me in my realm! Someday, little god, when I’ve killed that fool Eosphorus and taken my rightful place as god of the undead, I’ll make you pay. I think hearing your screams from one of my gibbets will be sweet music.”
Nel watched the exchange with wide-eyed terror, struggling for breath for the first time since she became undead.
"Someday, maybe, but not today, you crimson fuckbucket."
“Maybe neither of us get this one,” the demon lord smiled nastily, a fire ball appearing on his fingertips, as he hauled back to throw it at Nel.
The trickster god immediately shifted into an absolutely massive green snake, big enough to wrap around the demon lord
The demon lord shrugged and let the flames go out.
“Fine. Have it your way. For now. Dunno why you even want it so bad. Mostly broken.”
"She owes me money," he replied, flashing all his teeth
Orcus turned back into a red mist and vanishes.
Steyfano shifted back into his human-ish form in an instant snapped his fingers, catching Nel before she hit the ground.
Nel clung to him, shaking, not having words for the moment.
“You came for me,” she whispered.
"I need to protect my assets," he replied casually. "Of course I did."
“We need to get out of this place. I don’t think I can stand—which is weird, since I’m pretty sure I’m dead. Again. Didn’t know souls had bones to break.”
Also, you got bigger.
Ain’t many people can pick up a polar bear.”
He flashed that mischievous grin, and suddenly, they were no longer in that terrible hellscape. Instead, they were standing in a plush sitting room, all black and emerald velvet and some strange green wood. "There we go."
She let go and tried to stand experimentally, no longer seeing bone poking through the skin of her leg or feeling the near-blinding pain.
“This is nice. Are we in your realm?”
"We're in somebody's realm," he grinned.
She looked down at the brand on her paw to see if it’s still changed.
The holy symbol of Steyfano had vanished, leaving behind bare, healthy skin. Or healthy bear skin. Either way
“It’s gone! You healed it. Does—does that mean I don’t got to worry about going to Thanatos again?”
"You shouldn't have gone there in the first place," he replied.
“I was in his control—Orcus’ —once. But only for a moment. It’s how I became undead. But I guess just regular dead now. Is that why I went there?”
"... he wants you bad," said Stefan.
“I got away. That’s got to hurt his pride something fierce. Weren’t nothing I did. Was my friends. They fought for me. Saved me.”
"Can't relate," he smirked "Anyways, you're welcome to chill here until they invariably raise you."
“Hopefully you can someday. You ain’t alone no more. You got a friend now.”
He blinked at her, tilting his head
“Me. I’m your friend. The person you just pissed off a demon lord to save from having having her soul devoured. That friend.” She smiled despite the seriousness of the situation.
"I told you, that was just asset protection." Thank you. I'm trying. I don't know how to be a friend.
She smiled warmly and nodded. “I know,” she said to the words behind the words. “You’re doing great.”
“And speaking of friends…it’s hard to remember, but I think we were on an airship…fighting an undead beholder…when I died. Are the others alright?”
"I don't think any of them have bit it as spectacularly as you did."
She grinned both relieved and oddly proud—if she was able to protect them, even by dying, then she was pulling her weight.
“Got a knack for that.
“Thank you,” she said a moment later, “for saying me. I didn’t think anyone was coming.”
He shrugs. "I put a bet on you. Means I'm invested."
“Back at ya.”
He paused, looked around, and then sliiiiiid over without a word. He laid his head on her shoulder.
She could count the seconds. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
And then he was sitting in one of the plush armchairs, tossing a pair of dice in the air, grinning widely as if nothing had happened.
She beamed, but otherwise didn't acknowledge it and sat down across from him.
"Care to kill the time?" he grinned.
“Sure! Whatcha got in mind?” She grinned back.
Outclassed
Professor Sir Sedgwick Ivers paced around the room, lecturing passionately about the importance and complexity of taxes. He climbed the stairs to the lectern, standing on the raised platform that put him a sold three feet taller than he stood on the floor. It was the warning sign that he was about to launch into the Socratic method.
“Ms. Milensoryu, what are the three types of taxes?”
Nel stands up from her large desk in the back of the room.
“Um…Proportional – when everyone pays the same percentage in taxes; Progressive – when rich folk pay a bigger percentage in taxes than poor folk; and Regressive – when poor folk pay more and rich folk pay less. Sir.”
Professor Ivers smiles. “More plainly put than in the textbook, but correct. You don’t have to stand when I call on you though.”
She sits and can’t help the excited smile. Her hours studying the past couple of nights had paid off. She pretends to not hear the derisive laughter.
“And what are the advantages of each of them? Let’s start with Regressive. Lady Bauer?”
The young lady smiled prettily and answers:
“Regressive taxes take a higher percentage from the lower classes, stopping them from throwing away their money that would most likely only be used on drink or gambling or other immoral or even illegal pursuits. Meanwhile, the productive class – the nobility, the business owners, the House of Lords – pay a lower percentage, freeing up more of their money to employ the lower classes and contribute to society.”
Nel bit her tongue hard enough to draw blood and furiously scribbled notes in case the material was on the test.
“Now, Sophia, you don’t need to guess at what the lower classes do with their money. We have an expert. Milensoryu, what did you spend your money on when you weren’t sponging off your betters?” asked Baron Neumann, a 20-year-old useless lump of arrogance and smirks in expensive clothing.
A million answers flashed through Nel’s mind. There was, of course, the truth – keeping kids fed and off the streets as best as she could. Then there was the smart answer – to ignore him and focus on why she was there. But the part of her that had learned quick – in the orphanage, in the streets of the South Ward, in the Syndicate, and in prison – that keeping your head down only worked until a bully decided to make you a target and then they won’t stop until you make them – won the day and she said, almost without thinking:
“Flowers and chocolates for your mother, Baron Neumann. She were especially keen on the ones with the caramels in the center.”
A lot of laughter and a few scandalized gasps rang out through the classroom, while Baron Rainer Neumann scowled.
“How dare you talk about my mother, you gibfaced hedgecreeping vazey?!”
“Enough!” said Professor Ivers said sharply, raising his voice. “I was unaware my class was full of schoolchildren.”
Nel winced, inwardly kicking herself for letting him get a rise out of her. She reminded herself that she had more to prove than the rest of the class and that 500 ursans were counting on her to learn to speak the language of the nobility. She would need all of the lessons at the AC, both in the curriculum and from interactions with students in order to help make sure the ursans had what they needed and to track down the nobles who sold them to slavery in the Wastelands.
“Apologies, Sir,” she said to the professor. “Won’t happen again.”
“See that it doesn’t,” said Ivers, who then raised an eyebrow at Baron Neumann who only smirked back. The professor shook his head in disgust at the useless, spoiled baron.
“Baron Neumann, perhaps you can tell me which types of taxes are used in Eisen?”
…
Nel hung back after the lecture and approached Professor Ivers.
“Sir, I want to apologize again. What I said weren’t called for.”
The dwarf laughed. “Yes, it was. But you still need to not do it again.”
Nel nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“What are you doing here, Miss Milensoryu? Of all the places to study, why choose the one full of people who want to see you fail?”
“Because there’s 500 ursans in Ruskovich who been trapped and enslaved in the Wastelands until a few months ago. Princess Orlov gave helped free ‘em and gave ‘em land to farm and homes to live in and put me in charge of making sure they got what they need and they pay taxes and obey the laws and I need to do right by ‘em. So I’m here to learn the things I need to know – the stuff in the books and also how to deal with people like Baron Neumann. Cause if I can’t handle the likes of him, I got no business looking into Rus nobles who already hate and fear me just for being ursan and unead until I find out which of ‘em sent my kin to the Wastelands in the first place. Or even just making sure the ursans are happy and safe.”
Professor Ivers was quiet for a moment, then said, “That is no small thing. What degree are you pursuing?”
“None, sir. Just taking the classes I need to get up to speed so I don’t accidentally screw my kin over somehow – sorry, that probably ain’t the proper way to say that.”
The professor chuckled. “It was clear. For my class, that is enough. But did you know there’s a betting pool on how long it’s going to take you to quit or be kicked out?”
His expression grew serious and he continued. “Most people *want* you to fail. You being here is making all kinds of people clutch their pearls about falling standards of admission. They could not bar you from entering, not with a letter of recommendation from a princess. But they can certainly find reasons to make you leave. So you can’t let Baron Neumann or the others goad you into insults. It won’t matter that they started it. It will only matter that you gave them the reason they were looking for. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
“Good.” He nodded. “Keep studying. Keep your head down. You’re here for a better reason than most, and it’s obvious to anyone with eyes and ears that you’re working hard. Don’t let them provoke you into throwing it away.”
Nel nodded. “Yes, sir – I mean, no, Sir – I won’t lose my temper again.”
“Good,” he said again. “You can go.”
Nel thanked him and headed for the door.
“Oh, and Miss Milensoryu?”
She stopped and turned back around to face him.
“I have 20 gold on you finishing this semester. Don’t let me down.”
Nel grinned. “I’ll make sure that investment pays off, sir,” she said, touched, and hurried off to her next class.
I am Overcome
CW: prejudice, bad thing happening to children, abuse, slavery
Soundtrack: "I am Overcome" by Live
Nel had never thought she would ever see another ursan from her homeland ever again until one of them threw a femur through a portal into her kitchen. And now, here were 500. A sea of white fur, all speaking her first language, all looking like her.
And all suffering trauma after trauma after trauma. Some had been enslaved in that gods forsaken wasteland even longer than Nel had been in Novandria.
She should have known. Part of her knew that thought was irrational–that she was just a child when she was separated from them. That she had no way of knowing what was happening to them. But the louder part said that she should have known it was nothing good.
***
She remembered the uprising in Senovgorad, during a particularly rough winter. The price of rye had gone too high for nearly half the city to feed themselves and their families. The peasants in the town attacked the granary, torches and crowbars in hand. The soldiers had streamed in and put down the revolt with a brutality that had edged on public sadism. They were making a point. Everyone in the town who was not set for execution was made to come and watch. No part of it was quick or merciful. As they were being escorted out from the orphanage a soldier spotted her – the only ursan in the town since losing her parents. Drawn his sword and tried to arrest her as part of the revolt. She had been eleven and too terrified to speak, even though she had spent the revolt hidden in a broom closet with Khemma. She’d told her little sister stories and sung songs with her to distract her from the breaking glass, the shots of rifles, the screams.
Sister Galina had hated her, but this time she had stood between the soldier and Nel like a guardian angel as she scolded him that none of her charges had been out during the revolt. She said that sullying the orphanage’s reputation by saying a traitor had been found there would cost them business with the town’s nobles, and that if that happened, she would take the lost income from jobs the orphans were sent on out of the guards’ cut.
The soldier relented under Sister Galina’s fierce hawkish gaze, saying, by way of apology, that Nel was an ursan and everyone knew the ursans had no love for Ruskovich and worshiped forbidden gods. She had felt a jolt of panic, wondering how the soldier had known about her silent prayers to Eosphorous.
But Nel thought Sister Galina was going to breathe fire on the soldier, the way her nostrils had flared when she asked him if he really thought she would allow worship of forbidden gods or disloyalty to the Czar to grow under her nose. The soldier shrunk, even from above Sister Galina on his horse, and hurried away.
Nel had stared at Sister Galina in grateful disbelief, still shaking and crying in terror, amazed that the nun she’d lived in fear of had just saved her life. Sister Galina had responded with a sharp kick and a barked command to stop sniveling and keep up with the group.
***
How could she have ever imagined the other ursans had fared better? It had been a child’s fantasy that she had irresponsibly held onto for too long into adulthood.
And all the time Nel had told herself comforting fairy tales about their lives, the bones of her murdered kin had fed the tower. How hard had it been for Aaboli to wrench that femur out of its grasp? What had it cost her to hide it, to carve a message into it, when the tower pulled it to itself incessantly?
How many more had died while she had studied and prepared and planned?
Her heart had broken more times than she thought it could with each new thing she learned from Aaboli about how they’d all come to the tower in the center of the Wastelands. And it crumbled into smaller still crumbs when she’d seen the children, too afraid to even cry, whom they all had taken first to the safety of Symraphy’s cave.
Now, beyond all hope, all 500 were freed and safe in the cave of the dragon lich who protected living creatures in the Wastelands despite being a prisoner there herself.
Nel wandered around the camp, checking to make sure everyone had enough water, had something to eat, had medicine if they needed it. A part of her wanted so badly to just bury herself in that sea of white, see if any of them were the beloved aunts, uncles, cousins, and elders she remembered from the first six years of her life or if they knew what had happened to them. But another part of her kept her hanging back. They had been through so much together. They had suffered so much loss. They had helped each other survive. And no matter how much she might look like them, she had not been there. For all the hardships in her life – the orphanage, the Syndicate, prison – she had still been able to build a life. She raised children and for all her fears for them, that an evil tower would claim their bones had never had to cross her mind.
She felt torn between two worlds, and not fully a part of either. Her friends who had risked their lives to help her save her kin – who had followed her despite every last one of them being more of a leader than she could ever be – they were every bit as much family as the ursans -- as were her family back home -- Bodgan, Mia, the children, Cardinal, and others.. They knew the version of her that lived in Novandria. But few of them could understand what it was like to leave the Northern Isles, the dancing lights, the gentle community, and find themselves in a strange, harsh, noisy world where people in a hurry shouted at them in languages they did not understand. Just as the ursans would not understand Marlene and the horrible things Nel had done for her, the school, the dragons raining acid down on people and buildings, dissolving them like a sandcastle in the rain.
She knew these thoughts were selfish and self indulgent, but she could not shake them.
And the guilt that she had left them was overwhelming. At first, at the orphanage in Senovgorad, she had spoken to her kin every night. Told the stars her messages of love for them, her hopes of someday seeing them again. But, year after year the longing grew blunted and the hopes brittle as each day required all of her energy, wits, and strength to just survive. She lost hope that they would come for her. But she had never imagined that they had needed her to come for them. And when she was fifteen and Khemma was twelve, she gave up on seeing any of them again. Ruskovich was so big and her world had shrunk to be exactly as big as her adopted changeling sister. All that mattered was that she could not let the powers that be take away her only family left by sending them off to separate places. So she left Ruskovich and told herself comforting stories about what her kin must be up to as she and Khemma hid in the darkness of the cargo bay on the ship they were smuggled onto.
But now they were all here – the ones who had survived long enough to be rescued. Now they would have good lives in Lady Orlov’s lands. And none of them were angry with her for taking so long. On the contrary, most seemed to regard her as a savior. Many were just as strangely shy of her as she was of them. It was a strange feeling – they kept thanking her while she kept wanting to throw herself at their feet and beg their forgiveness for not knowing sooner, not coming sooner. So instead she hung back, said little that wasn’t about getting them to safety. There would be time enough to process once they had their homes and farms and did not have to be afraid anymore–
–Until Aaboli had told a group of sleepy children bedtime stories. Until she had come and sat down a little behind them. Until a tiny ursan toddler had climbed into her lap and fallen asleep. Then the longing she had felt for her people returned freshly sharpened, and as she hurriedly wiped away bloody tears before they could scare the children, she could feel the part of her that had been six years old and listening spellbound to the stories while the woodsmoke made its comforting perfume. The defenses she had carefully built in the 30 years since then came undone and her heart felt at once broken and healing, lonely and loved, grieving and hopeful.
There was so much and so many to grieve. But there was so much hope. The wounds of her community were deep. But tonight they began to heal.
A hope reversed
Content Warnings: grief, abuse, bad things happening to children.
(Soundtrack in my head d as I write this one: "Fix You" by Coldplay)
After the fire...after the factory went up in flames and too many machines blocked too many doors...after a pair of hands carried her out of the stifling darkness…after she had looked helplessly for her parents, for whom there had been no strong hands to carry into the cold, clear, night air…
…The world had been a jumble of disjointed noise, grief, and terror. Words in languages she did not understand. There had been shouting. People were upset. A sad man held her paw – she’d been so small then – and walked with her to a large building – the buildings in this city called Senovgorad were all so large, even bigger than the meeting house in the island.
She’d later know the building as the orphanage the Sisters of the Blessed Dawn ran. An elvish woman had stared hard at her when the man first dropped her off, as if she was both disgusted and hungry. Nel – about eight years old at that time –had tried to hide behind the sad man.
The elvish woman seemed angry about that. She barked more sounds and words at her that Nel didn’t understand. The sad man said other things, tone softer. The woman seemed angrier about whatever it was he said. He took a long time to let go of her paw and looked ashamed as well as sad when he turned to go.
A new chapter in life began in this place that people just called The House. It was a painful, lonely, confusing chapter. She seemed able to do no right to the angry elvish woman and the others who worked there, whom she could not understand. There were many other children there too. Many seemed as frightened as she was. She couldn’t understand or talk with them either, until a tiny changeling girl taught her Common and Orcish.
Life became slightly easier then. She learned to understand the orders the clerics gave them, the things the other children said, the prayers they had to memorize and recite each morning and night. The new languages were lifelines to survive this place.
But at night, no matter how tired she was after working wherever they had been sent to work that day, she would turn her thoughts back to her mother, father, aunties, uncles, cousins, and elders. She did not know where they were, but she felt certain that they would learn about what had happened to her parents and that they would come for her and take her and Khemma out of this dreadful place and to their homes – even if there homes were nothing more than a single rented bed in an overcrowded tenement that she’d slept in with her parents during the day and the day shift workers slept in at night. It would be more of a home than The House.
She wanted to show them, when they came for her, that she had not forgotten them. So she told herself their stories, over and over, practicing for when she was back with them again. She sang their songs, voice barely a whisper, once everyone else was asleep. And she made sure to do it all in their language – that beautiful language that made sense to her– the one where the words seemed to sound like the things they described – as one always feels about one’s native tongue. She would need to be able to speak it when they came for her.
Weeks, then months, then years, passed. She grew bigger – though still small for an ursan. Never eating enough saw to that. She grew harder too –became accustomed to the harsh conditions, to violence – both receiving and dealing it–especially when it came to protecting the tiny changeling girl from the bullies in the group. She learned to be strong – at least what it meant to her in this context – that she could draw the ire of the clerics away from Khemma and the others when she wanted to – it hurt, but it was also a sort of power.
After a few years she realized her aunties, uncles, cousins, and elders were not coming for her. She did not know where they were or what was happening to them, and they did not know where she was or what was happening to her. But she did not stop practicing the stories, the songs, the language. They were all she had left of the gentle life before the fire, before The House. If she lost them, she would lose her parents and the rest of her kin for good.
Eventually she gave up hope of ever finding them and ran with Khemma, the little changeling girl, and by some miracle, they made it to Eisen. They thought they would be free. But they found more cold, more hunger, and another woman who looked at them disgust and hunger that Sister Galina had–but Marlene, at first, had mostly tried to do it when she thought they didn’t see her.
There was more violence. More work that she didn’t have a say in. But at least now, first in their hovel, then in their crowded tenement room, then in their flat, 15 year old Nel could share the songs and stories and language with Khemma above a whisper without fearing punishment. Their gentleness, wonder, and humor kept her going.
The first time she’d seen that familiar mix of grief and terror on an orphan in the streets it had been when a petty crook had been berating a child and was about to strike them for not bringing in enough coppers from begging in the lower Central Ward. Nel used the violence she had learned on that man, then offered the terrified child her paw and her home. That night as the child slept soundly in her bed, she sat nearby and whispered the words she had been desperate to hear from her kin: “You are safe now. You are loved now. And I will always come for you.”
Nel had never stopped wondering what had happened to her kin, even though she had long given up hope of finding out.
Then Aaboli sent a message on a femur through a portal and she realized that their fate may have been a nightmare. They had not been able to come for her because they had been trapped in a hell of their own.
She was not small anymore. The magic of the runes had made her bigger than even most male ursans. Nor was she helpless. She had survived even death. Her claws and teeth and axe were strong and she had a group of friends with her who could fight and cast and heal.
That first night in the Wastelands, as she took first watch with their guides while her beloved insane friends who had come with her slept, she pictured the faces of her aunties, uncles, cousins, and elders, and whispered into the darkness. “Kay lee ha motonay” – “We are coming for you.”
Wasteland, Baby
It was supposed to be fun. An exciting tournament, no death on the line, in a new, beautiful place. Nel had strategized about how to stay in the shady part of the arena for the fight so that she could still see. Her opponent was a good sort.
Then the area changed. There was a blisteringly hot, bright haze, each drop of -- was it dust?-- in the air a tiny mirror shining the punishing sunlight at her in miniature, brighter and stronger than a clear summer day. She recognized the place immediately from the portal Aaboli had sent the ursan femur through. The dry air, the cracked earth, the unshakable stench of death and dry decay. It was the Wastelands. Why were they in the Wastelands? Had she taken too long rescue her people? Had Aaboli managed to conjure her there? Where was she -- where were all of them? In a rush of panic she forgot completely about the tournament, about her opponent, about Vodacce. All she knew was they she was somehow in the Wastlelands and her family was nowhere to be seen. She'd taken too long. They had trusted her and she had let them down. Let them die. Or worse.
Then a small blur swung a sword at her and she remembered the tournament and swung back, disoriented and confused -- until the next time the wind shrieked again and her nightmares about letting her people die in the Wastelands came back to life again.
The fight continued like this, in and out of her deepest fears, until the gallant dwarf offered to let her yield. It was just the tournament. She accepted, setting down her battle axe.
Normally she would have cared about failing so hard and so publicly in representing Eisen. She would have cared that thousands of people had watched her lose her mind. But none of that mattered. Because Aaboli and her kin were still waiting. And her friends were still willing to go her to to rescue them in that deadly place. And she knew, after just a few minutes in this version of the Wastelands, that she had no chance of being of any help to anyone in that bright, hot, evil place.
Best of all possible worlds
Nel stared at the page in front of her. She had finally found an account by an adventurer who had been to the Wastelands and lived to tell the tale. But after pouring through it, sounding out the words twice, even asking the bewildered and sympathetic librarian for help to make sure she was reading the account correct, she wished she had never found it.
Buried in the account was a report of an attack on a village on the edge of the Wastelands by a group of zombie Ursans.
Her own people. Mindless undead killers. In perhaps thc worst place in the world.
How did this happen? To how many? Why?’
It was all she could do to not howl with grief and rage in the quiet library. She couldn’t stop picturing the faces of aunts and uncles, cousins and friends, empty, dead-eyed, and hungering.
She had thought—had hoped against hope—that the rest of her community had fared better than herself and her parents. But what if their deaths in the factory fire, her upbringing at the orphanage for children of political dissidents, what if it had been somehow merciful—the best of all possible worlds? Had the rest endured worse, been banished to the Wastelands?
Had she been happy and at relative peace in Novandria while they were suffering something worse than death?
She numbly checked out the book, then ran to the docks where the creaking of ships and the rush of the swift cold river could drown out the sound as she screamed in horror.
Least bad choice
Nel walked home from the Adventurer's Guild in the late morning after the night of Illegrenias’ attack on the Adventurer’s Guild, covered in blood that was not her own.
She had helped her friends to the temple for healing and then returned with the team of healers and her cart — first to rush survivors to Lorelei’s hospital wing of the temple, then return trips, over and over and over again—bringing the dead to the temple so that any who could be resurrected would be.
She had taken any diamonds Illegrenias had left behind for the resurrections. She had already poured out the resources of the Adventurer’s Guild to protect lives. In for a copper, in a for gold, she supposed.
She had never before missed growing physically tired, but tonight she realized the enormity of that loss. The healers and others helping move body after body — some of them people she had known and liked — eventually grew tired and needed to stop. But her undead body did not grow weary liked it once did when she was living. Her mind, heart, and soul, on the other hand, felt worn down by the enormity of the grief and horror. She had kept going, pushing the pain and guilt into that box deep inside of her she had used so much in Ruskovich, in the pits, and in prison, letting herself focus numbly on the task at hand.
But now, heading home, the emotions and thoughts began to escape. They had succeeded in stopping the slaughter — but they had failed at preventing it. Surely there must have been something they could have done, some bargain they could have struck, that would have prevented the enraged ancient lich king from tearing through the Adventurer’s Guild — that place where she was not just a criminal, but a sometimes hero. The place where Griselda had not thrown her away when she had shown her true colors, but instead trusted her to learn and do better. The place she had met so many people who had become so dear.
She prayed the guild would understand the bargain she had made—all the gold and gems in the vault that Illegrenias desired as weregild for his wife and the promise that the guild would not retaliate in exchange for him agreeing to be satisfied with his vengeance and not killing anyone else in Novandria. The contents of the vault had not been hers to give and the promise to part ways peacefully had not been something she had the authority to make on behalf of the guild. But nobody with that authority had been there to do it. And Illegrenias did her the courtesy of listening to her because she had died saving him in Kemet.
She could not think of a better solution. If they fought him, he might have killed them then continued his rampage through the guild, killing more and then going after the others who were away on guild business. If they had won, it might have been even worse—a more deeply enraged immortal king returning with an army to wipe out the guild and more.
She was amazed that he had listened. And she prayed that she could keep her word. If the guild attacked Illegrenias then death would be the best case scenario for her. She shuddered at the thought of him going after her loved ones to visit the pain he felt on her. Or the thought of him handing her back over to the Cult of Orcus to control her in her undeath once more.
She winced as the sun broke through the clouds and shined down on her as she neared her home, but breathed a sigh of relief that the children would be at school and Bogdan at the market with Msr. Boucle. They would not see her blood-soaked fur and clothes and be frightened. If Fix was home she’d understand, and she could bathe and wash her clothes before the rest returned.
Tiny Revolutions
TW: mention of alcoholism and domestic abuse in the context of getting free.
Nel stops in at the newly rebuilt shrine to Eosphorus in the South Ward near the docks. She smiles and looks with quiet reverence at the tokens left by worshippers in the community.
Along with the broken chains are hellebore flowers and red winter berries—some of the few colorful things that grow this time of year.
There is a sack of potatoes and parsnips, no doubt donated from the produce shop, a bag of flour, and a couple bottles of cooking oil. These aren’t offerings—followers who have extra food sometimes put some here for people in need to take. Nel adds a basket of piroshki.
And there are symbols of broken chains. A half empty bottle of schnapps sits on the shelf. Nel beams in pride. She knows how hard it was for Martin Fischer, one of the dockworkers, to put that bottle there instead of finishing it and work on breaking free from his addiction.
There is a gear there as well. Nel had heard a rumor that a group of workers had sabotaged a machine at one of the factories after the bosses refused to slow down production despite seven workers being injured in two weeks. Apparently they had been true. It was a small way to fight back.
A brass ring sat there too. Nel recalled Mildred Mueller in the square, walking tall as she made her way to the laundry where she worked, no ring on her finger and not coming from the direction of the home where her once-husband had regularly beat her. She’d got free.
Finally her eyes fall on some strips of fabric. They don’t look like much, but they’re what one of the pit fighters used to wrap their hands before a fight. They don’t need them anymore with Fox as the new Blade. Freedom.
Nel takes it all in with reverence and wonder and she prays her thanks to Eosphorus.
Left a mark
TW: for death, pain, loss of control of one's body
Nel's memories of the battle were fragmented and disjointed. She fought, her friends fought, the Devourer fought. There was searing pain, then darkness. Then light and searing pain again. Sometimes she was on her feet. Sometimes she was twisted and folded at unnatural angles inside a creature's sharpened rib cage. The pain and fear would fade to dark nothingness, then air would fill her lungs again and she'd awaken, barely alive, to agony and striking out with frenzied claws until impossibly large clawed hands dug into her in turn, ripping out flesh, muscle, sinew, and bone. More pain. More darkness. A feeling like floating on a dark ocean. Then a mad glee worse than pain. She was on her feet again and the pain that rippled through her fed a bloodlust she was powerless to stop. She looked at the faces of three beloved friends -- with whom she'd fought side by side and who had tried to save her--and she felt a hatred and a hunger for their pain, their deaths, and to make them like her. She wanted to glory in her agony and in theirs. She wanted to drown the world in it.
Then Nita death the Devourer a killing blow, and with its death its link to her and control of her soul stopped. She knew that it was its will, it's bloodlust and twisted glee that had pushed aside her own will and soul and filled her. But she also knew that she could never again go back to a time before she understood the mind of that creature--and she was terrified to think about what kind of mark that knowledge might leave.
She was alive -- sort of. She was present. She was herself. She got to go home from the adventure to her family -- something not everyone got. She knew she should be grateful for the chance to go on living -- or at least existing in this world -- and she was. But she hated the red eyes, the cold body, the silent and motionless heart that would all serve as reminders of the Devourer and the demon it served -- forever linking her to them.
Things Taken
TW: Descriptions of abuse as a child and an adult.
Nel sat downstairs with a mug of tea in the wee hours of the morning. The rest of the house was quiet in the deep slumber of Bogdan and now seven children, but her worried thoughts would not leave her long enough to let her do the same.
She had broken the rules—twice now that Philippe would know of. Accepting Lord Esch’s food donations would be the easier trespass to explain. She could simply tell the truth—it had surprised her and she couldn’t think of a way to send him away in that moment without raising more questions than was good for the Organization. That was a sin of incompetence, not disloyalty. At least, she hoped Philippe would see it that way.
The loans were another story. It undercut the loan sharks, gave people a way out of the Warrens and out from Syndicate control, and worst of all, she hadn’t asked permission after he’d been so good to her about the school. And she has no good excuse. The truth was that she hadn’t asked because she knew he’d have said no—or worse—taken the project from her and made it into something that served the interests of the Syndicate, like he’d done with the school. The truth was that she hated the Syndicate and what it stood for and she wanted to create something that didn’t belong to them. That kind of disloyalty was lethal.
She didn’t believe he would kill her, but she sat up late wondering what he would take.
They always took something, the powers that be, when they were angry, offended, disappointed, or even just bored.
With Ama Galina, back in Ruskovich, it had been food, water, warmth, and light as she locked the bloodied and beaten objects of her wrath in the cold dark cellar for days on end.
In prison it had been dignity, as that hated guard had no shortage of sadistic games designed to humiliate prisoners for real or imagined defiance.
Marlene had taken the most direct approach and taken away unbroken bones, and, as a couple of gaps in Nel’s smile and a missing pinky finger on her left paw testified, actual pieces of minions who’d angered her.
That did not seem like Philippe’s style. He had a hard edge to him for sure, but he was fínese, not a hammer like Marlene. And there was much he could take—the school, the job that let her protect her friend and give her family a safe house with running water, his assurance that he wouldn’t try to make her hurt people. She would gladly lose another finger or tooth before any of those things.
And he would certainly take away his good opinion of her, his friendship, such as it was. She knew he used her. But he’d also saved her life and spoke to her like she was a person. He didn’t have to do either of those things and she was in his debt. If she was honest with herself it was for that reason, not strategy, that she still protected him from the SOTUG.
She wracked her brain thinking of what she could offer him to appease him, but came up empty. She could offer to do a job for free, but he already had that—after all putting labor towards a debt she could never pay off was the same thing, and that was the case with the school. They both knew she’d never finish paying it off and just pretended otherwise in a courteous game of make-believe with each other. He pretended to be her friend and she pretended to believe him. It beat the alternative. But when a person owns your time, labor, and body, there is nothing to offer them that they don’t already have.
So instead, she stayed up late and prayed hard. She prayed to Fodla that her family wouldn’t have to leave their home. She prayed to Sephira that Cardinal would remain safe, with or without her there to protect her. She prayed to Aesthene that the school would remain. And she prayed to Eosphorus that the loan project would continue. Finally she prayed to Ellowyn to give her courage to refuse to go back to breaking legs for the Syndicate and to face whatever would come, then she fell asleep at the kitchen table.
A life that is mine
TW: discussion of sex trafficking, death of a sibling, a long incurable illness, parental rejection
Nel sipped tea with Odila, the halfing madam of Peitho's Palace. Since her brief time as a bouncer she made sure to pop in now and again to visit her friends at the brothel. After exchanging pleasantries, Odila stirred her tea pensively in her private room, and then said carefully,
"Did you know our boss with the organization changed? It used to be Hilda, but now it's Romy, and she's a bit more 'hands on'. Hilda only cared that we paid on time, but Romy? Well...say one of the workers wanted to quit...I'd have to ask her permission. Can you believe that? And she'd say no."
"Is there--does someone want out?" Nel asked, brows knitting in worry.
"No, no, of course not. It's just the principle of the thing, isn't it? By the way, you should visit Nadine on before you go. She said she's been missing you."
***
"Nadine, love," she said to the young human tiefling woman a little later in her room, "you want some help making a change?"
Nadine froze, eyes wide in panic.
"I'm not saying you are, but if you did, I might know a safe place you could go. And people who could help you."
Nadine took a breath. "My brother died last week."
"Oh no, love. I'm so sorry."
The tiefling nodded. "I...started doing this a few years ago. He got sick. Something the healers couldn't fix, but there was medicine that could...help...at least for a while. I never...liked this work, but it was the fastest way to make the money my family needed for the medicine. And...I miss him...but he don't need it anymore."
Nel nodded back in understanding. "Do you want to go home to your parents?"
Nadine quickly and vehemently shook her head. "No. No, they're ashamed of me, of what I do. Never stopped them from taking the money I sent, but I ain't welcome back and it ain't a place I want to go."
"I'm so sorry. They should honor what you did for your brother."
Nadine just shrugged in response with a soft, bitter laugh. "They wanted me to do something respectable. But weren't nothing like that that didn't require an apprenticeship. And this paid better."
"Taking care of your family *is* respectable," Nel replied softly. "What do you want now, dear heart?"
"I don't know, really, but...I want a life that is mine. Is that selfish?"
Nel smiled sadly and shook her head. "Not even a little bit." She took a breath. "It's dangerous, trying to get out of the organization. But it can be done. Is this a risk you want to take, to have a life that is yours?"
Nadine's composure crumbled for a just a moment as she brought a hand to her mouth and choked back a sob, but she nodded. "Yes," she finally managed.
Nel nodded solemnly. "Then I need to go talk to some people who can help you. It may take a couple of days to set things up. But we'll find a way."
Candlelight
There were many gods, but Fodla, Eosphorus, and Ellowyn were the three who had always felt like home to Nel. Tonight she visited Ellowyn's Temple. It was so peaceful at night and there was a space on the floor filled with sand where people offering prayers could leave candles burning. Looking down at it as she walked among the lights in the quiet and darkened temple felt like walking upside down upon the night sky, each flame a star.
She settled herself down in a clear patch and lit her own candle. She sat quietly for a few minutes, listening to the sound of her own breath. Normally she prayed silently, but there was no one else around tonight, so she began with an old song that the elders had taught her and she's heard her mother sing as a small child. It was a song of praise in Ursine for the gentle goddess. Her voice, deep, rumbly, but not without sweetness, echoed in the empty space. These were words she had held onto under the care of the Sisters of Daybreak, songs almost silently to herself in secret at night, in defiance of the rules, so that she would not lose them.
Gentle goddess, you are unlike all other gods
You lived a mortal life, bled, and died.
You know our love, our grief, our joy, our pain.
We love you, dear lady, and raise this song to you.
You bring life where there is death
Comfort where there is pain
Gentleness where there is wrath
Mercy where there is only unfeeling power.
Guide us with your wisdom to walk with each other in gentleness
Guide us to show mercy when we are wrathful
Help us to rekindle dying fires, and refresh the weary
Give us courage in the face of cold, unfeeling power
To speak truth and make our aim steady and true when we fire upon oppression.
We praise you for giving us hope where all is hopeless
We praise you for resurrecting dead hearts and souls
We praise you for kindling fires from ashes
We praise you for holding no one beyond redemption and no one too powerful to be brought low.
As she finishes the song, she prays, just talking to the Lady, still in Ursine,
"Dear Lady, thank you for hearing my prayer. I have much to tell you, much to thank you for, and much to ask.
First, thank you for the chance to do something good for my work. There is nothing I would rather do than keep Miss Cardinal safe from those who would harm her. Please help me to do a good job and the to be the person she needs me to be. And please help Miss Cardinal to find freedom from the cage in her mind. Help her to feel free in her new life. And make my claws to strike true against any who would drag her back to her old life. Please, if it's possible, also bring the other women trapped there back to life, back to themselves, and free them too.
Please also give me wisdom about the special group I'm in. Help me to be true to those in it, and those without who need protection. Stop the loan sharks, the predators. And also protect the folks who are caught up in something too big to untangle themselves from. Or who joined because it was the best way to protect the people they love. I feel a bit torn in two. Please show me to right next decision to make.
I went back to Westgate with my friends a few weeks ago on a job. I never wanted to go back there, but...I'm glad I went. Someone was attacking the prison, not caring if the prisoners or guards died. I know some say it was Eosphorus' doing, but you and I know better, dear Lady. He wouldn't poison people in chains. Whoever did this had money and power. And I think they might mean to make war again. Please help us to build peace instead.
I felt you with me, Lady, at that place. At the end, I was helping the healers, just binding up wounds to help keep folks alive long enough for the healers to get to them. And Sir Lange was one of them. He was the worst of the guards when I was there. He seemed to take joy in breaking prisoners' wills and causing pain. I knew his face and he knew mine. I saw terror in his eyes when he saw me. He knew, and so did I, that I could have killed him in that moment, instead of helping him. It wouldn't have took much more than a slip of the claws when I was binding up his wounds. So many were dying that nobody would have questioned it. And Lady, I remembered every blow, every lash, every word, and I wanted to kill him. Forgive me, but I did. For just a moment I had power over him instead of him over me. And it felt good. But then I felt you, your mercy, your gentleness, and you reminded me that power meant that I had a choice. And I had the power to choose to be different from him. So I bound up his wounds, good and tight so that he would not bleed out before the healer could get to him. I even cradled him enough to let him drink some water. I had nothing kind to say to him, but I said nothing instead of cursing him.
I say this not to say that I am good, but to thank you for being with me in that moment, for showing me a different path. I want to be like my wise mother and gentle father instead, and like my kind and brave friends, not like him.
Thank you for the Ursan who came to the school and who taught me the ways of our elders. I don't know how to explain what that means to me, but I know you understand it.
Thank you that I am still alive. I don't what Philippe wants from me, but without him I would not have gone home to my children that night.
I wish to apologize to you too. I go to Akmon's Temple every week and pray to him. I know he killed you. Please know you are dearer to my heart than he will ever be. I went to help a friend, and I keep going back now to keep a promise. But I do not love him. I love you dearly.
Please bless the people in the Warrens, especially the children at the school. Protect them from all would harm them. Help us to nurture new life there -- gardens and loans and schools and other things that will help people grow and be glad.
Please protect Fox and her loved ones from the people who want to hurt her.
Please protect Peg from her mother and help her to see the good in herself.
Please watch over dear Fix and keep her safe.
Please protect Bella from her mother and help her to have faith in her smarts and strength.
Please guide Kevan to his lost sister and give him peace.
Please help Muse to rescue their missing family, and help them to see how worthy of love and how good they are.
Please help James to get free of his debt.
Please help Schatzi as they try and make the world better.
Please help Nita to find her family safe.
Please help Violet, Alex, and the poor young dampire who that awful man had locked up to heal from their pain and losses and be with them through their nightmares. Let them know that they are not alone.
Please help Scarlet with the pain she carries and whatever it is that makes her look afraid sometimes when she thinks nobody is looking.
Protect Cardinal and help her see how worthy of love she is too.
Please protect Lorke from that minotaur and from Marlene.
Please help Nevermore to not be so along and to see that he is not a monster.
Please comfort Mara as she heals from her family's betrayal.
Please help Lady Orlov feel more free and less alone.
And please bless and protect Bogdan and each of my kids. May their lives be full of peace, love, and warmth.
Thank you, dear Lady, for hearing me."
She rises, brushing the sand off her pants and leaving the candle during, waking back out from the sea of upside down stars. She leaves a gold piece in the offering box and makes her back out into the night to head home.
Safe
It was early evening and Nel and Bogdan Sidorov were preparing dinner while Elsinore practiced violin, Seamus drew, and Olga and Simon built a castle out of blocks.
Bogdan was fussing at Nel to stop trying to use her injured paw and she at him to sit down and rest his hip. All in all it felt quiet, normal, and safe.
Suddenly there were heavy footsteps on the stairs and raised voices on the floor above them, where they'd lived until a week ago, then heavy footsteps back down the stairs and a pounding at the door.
Nel went to the door and sighed, recognizing three enforcers from Khemma's branch of the Syndicate through the window. She knew they'd just break the door down if she didn't open it, so she did, but stood in the doorway, blocking their entrance.
"What do you want?" she growled low, but calm.
"We're here for your sister and her druid girlfriend. She ain't showed up for work and the boss wants to know why."
'They left." She said simply, not moving.
"We're going to have a look for ourselves. Sure you understand," said Janusz, half-troll in a bowler hat with an unpleasant smile.
"It's just me, four young children, and an old man here," she said evenly. "And I don't give you permission to come in."
"Then I'm sure you wouldn't want them to see us make you let us in, hmm?" Janusz's smile widened.
Nel growled again, but stepped aside, looking between Bogdan, who was holding a kitchen knife and the children who'd gathered around him, frightened.
"Bodgan," she said, summoning every ounce of calm she possesses into her voice and expression, even smiling a little, "would you please take the children to the park while I have a talk with these nice gentlemen?"
Before Bogan could protest, Janusz shook his head. "Nobody leaves."
Nel shook her own head. "That ain't how this is going to work," she said, keeping her voice calm but firm. "You know the code as well as I do. These are young children and an old man. The very definition of innocents."
Janusz paused a moment, the other two, an orc and an elf, shrugged at him, and he grunted "Fine. Go." He pointed to the door, nodding to the children and Bogdan.
Nel saw Bogdan about to argue again, and just shook her head and nodded to the door as well. "It'll be fine. I just need to have a little talk. Go on. Have fun at the park. Bring your violin, love," she said to Elsinore."
Bogan scowled, then put on a smile for the children, and led them out.
Nel sighed with relief once they were gone and turned to face the three men. "Have a look for yourselves. Khemma ain't here. Neither is the druid."
The three men looked in the sole closet and under the beds. There wasn't really anywhere else to search. "Where did she go?"
"She's gone. Left Eisen. I don't know where to."
"Boss don't like it that she ran off. Someone's got to pay for it. She leave you any money behind?" Janusz seemsed to be the talker of the group.
"No," she said, honestly. "Leaving the country ain't cheap."
"Shame," said Janusz, and nodded to the other two, one of whom knocked the pot of stew off the stove, spilling its contents on the floor. The other took cups, plates, and bowls off the shelf and started breaking them.
"You sure?" asked Janusz. "If she left, say, 200 gold, maybe her boss would consider her square."
"Stop it," she growls, her voice low and dangerous.
"Or what?" Janusz laughed, shoving her back against a wall and breaking a chair. The orc started shattering jam jars and throwing eggs on the ground. The elf shredded blankets and mattresses with a knife with emotionless efficiency.
She staresd at them, shaking with anger. Janusz reached past Nel and took Bogan's painted plate he'd taken with him from Ruskovich and hung on the wall, holding it high.
"Wait! Wait, stop," she said "Khemma didn't leave nothing, but I got a little squirreled away." *She moved to a loose floorboard and lifts it, taking out ten sacks of gold, twenty in each. The men follow, one reaching in and taking three more bags stored down there.
"That wasn't so hard, wasn't it?" Janusz said with a shit-eating grin.
"You got what you came for, yeah? Now get out and don't come back!" she growled.
Janusz raised an eyebrow, his grin widening, and let the plate drop. It shattered into tiny pieces as Nel looked on in horror.
Then the three enforcers turned and left, $260 of her adventuring gold with them.
Nel stood in place shaking and just focusing on breathing for a moment, taking in the damage to the beds and mattresses, all of their cups and dishes broken, the stew, eggs, jam, and bread all ruined, and, worst of all, one of the very few things Bodgan treasured in pieces on the floor.
She cleaned up everything else first, hurriedly mending blankets and mattresses, mopping up food and sweeping up the broken dishes, picking up pieces of the shattered chair, working up the courage to look at the broken plate, then finally, reverently, picking up the shards and setting them on the table. It was then that the tears came. She let herself cry as she picked it up and set it on the table, the tension, fear, and anger coming out in big gasping sobs.
After a few minutes she dried her eyes, grabbing another pouch of money from a hiding place and putting it in her coat pocket, before taking the broken things out of the flat so that the children wouldn't see it -- except for Bogdan's plate, which stayed in its place on the table.
She hurried off to the park, where she found Bogdan and the children in the twilight. Elsinore was playing violin and the other three were chasing fireflies, but it seemed rather half-hearted. They all shouted joyfully to see Nel and she saw Bogdan's shoulders relax in relief.
Nel hugged them all. "Guess what, my loves? We're not having stew tonight after all! We're celebrating tonight and eating supper out at the Skybound! You can order anything you like." She smiled widely and the children's vague fears started to give way to excitement.
"Go let your fireless go and pack up your violin, yeah?"
She turned to Bogdan and explained what had happened in whispers as the children got ready. Her voice caught as she told him about the plate, afraid that she would start to cry again.
He patted her good paw. "Lapachka, (Rus term on endearment, "Little Paw") what is this foolishness? Why do you talk of a plate? You are unhurt, yes? Good. So are the children. So am I. Stop this nonsense right now. We are celebrating. This will be a good night for the little ones."
She swallowed hard and smiled gratefully, pushing back tears.
"There we go, Lapachka. Come, children. Don't keep an old man hungry! I may get grumpy and eat you up!" The children laughed, and they all made their way to the warm, safe, inn for supper.
Moving Day
It felt like the end of an era. After nearly three decades together, Nel had bidden Khemma a teary farewell. Khemma was off to change the world by putting her forgery skills to use in creating fake papers to smuggle enslaved people in other nations to freedom. It was difficult, dangerous, and important work, and Nel couldn't prouder of her sister for doing it -- and for breaking with the Syndicate -- even if her own heart broke at her leaving.
The small flat felt empty, even with Nel and the four youngest children still in it, without Khemma's quick laugh and sharp humor. It felt haunted by the things that weren't there anymore -- how she would make the most perfect cups of tea, the way she told the children exciting stories that Nel always worried were too scary for them (they never were), her understated care and kindness. Nel made a tiny shrine to Eosphorus beside Khemma's sleeping spot on the floor -- she always let the kids use her bed -- where she prayed after waking and before going to sleep at night that the Breaker of Chains would watching over her sister and she did his good work.
A challenge had popped up on Nel's first fight night after Khemma left. During the day she paid Mrs. Becker downstairs to watch the children while she worked. But Mrs. Becker was a respectable sort who slept at night. So she'd asked Grandfather Sidorov, the wry and kindly old Rus human from the Warrens to spend the night at her flat.
Watching him with them, she had realized how much they all needed each other. Grandfather Sidorov's life had been marked with sorrow and hardship and being with the children gave him a chance to find gentleness and joy. The children needed a caregiver who could be there when Nel had to work. And Nel needed help caring for them. So she asked her old friend if he would consider moving in with them. It would likely have been too much for him when the flat was full of over a dozen children and two adults, but not, with most of the children at Lady Mara's until more arrived who needed a place to stay, it wasn't too noisy or crowded for him.
She worried about the nearly 90-year-old man climbing the stairs to her second floor apartment until mentioned the situation to her neighbor directly below her who was overjoyed at the thought of not living below many noisy children and immediately offered to trade.
So today was moving day. Nel and the children moved downstairs and Mrs. and Mrs. Einstein moved upstairs. The two flats were remarkably similar to each other. Nel moved the large furniture for both households and the Mrs. Einstein's and the children moved the small things. Before the day was over, each family was in a flat that was eerily similar, yet different in some strange ways, to the home they'd woken up to in the morning. But with the all important difference -- Grandfather Sidorov could easily get into and out of his new home.
Nel insisted that he take one of the beds. The children took turns sharing the other one and sleeping on the straw mattresses from Lady Mara on the floor.
Grandfather Sidorov brought dried flowers, a beautiful blanket, and a delicately painted plate to hang on the wall that he'd carried with him when he fled Ruskovich. He moved about the flat, tying strings and ribbons here and there, ringing a bell in other places, rituals to the gods and spirits for the protection of the home they all shared.
Nel set up a second small shrine to Fodla. Each day, in addition to praying to Eosphorus for Khemma's safety and success, she also thanked Fodla for bringing Grandfather Sidorov and the children into her life.
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.
Ghosts
(Content warning: this focuses on the deaths of the student-activists in tonight's game and all the people they remind Nel of. Given all kinds of current events, this may be difficult to read.)
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Nel knelt in the Temple of Nicodemus and prayed for the spirits of the murdered university student activists she'd seen at the house. She couldn't get the terror on their faces or the agony of their wails out of her head. And she couldn't stop imagining the faces of the idealistic young university students she knew among them.
It could have been Schatzi, pushing for a Parliament for common people; Ottilie, inventing things no other mind could think of to make lives better; Cardinal learning to fight for herself and her loved ones; Peg, wanting to burn down a bad system that hurt people and making sure children had beautiful things; Violet, who had left the university to follow her convictions and was facing the threat of a serial killer with nerves of steel; Lady Orsei, who had wanted so badly to help with the school in the Warrens; or even Lady Orlov -- whose ideals were different from Nel's, but full of conviction all the same. It could have been any of them if they'd been born a couple of generations ago instead.
They could have been her own kids or other students in a few years.
They'd had no idea what was coming for them and weren't hardened fighters. They were brilliant young people with good hearts who wouldn't have been able to imagine the rooks slaughtering them before it happened. They must have died asking why.
Her heart had broken for them and she had ached to comfort them. It felt so important that they know that what they had done had mattered. That people knew their names and that they had made a difference. The world in that vision without the festival--without their deaths--had been so grim.
The words she had spoken to them had come so naturally. She had forgotten about the journals and the job, even the danger. She just couldn't shake the terror on their faces or the pain in their screams. And in that moment, nothing mattered except trying to ease it.
And now, at the temple, she asked Nicodemus to continue to comfort them, to give them peace and rest. She prayed that Nicodemus show them how they had changed Eisen, how something like the school in the Warrens was possible because of them, all the good they had done. It would never take away the terror and pain. But maybe it will fill their spirits with more than that -- with pride and peace so they could enter their rest knowing they would sleep the sleep of the just.
Something Borrowed
Nel made her way home after her latest fight. She'd taken a dive, which wasn't all bad. There was a small sack of ten gold in it to make it worth her while and pretending to be knocked out wasn't nearly as bad actually getting knocked out.
Rent was paid for the month and there was enough to eat. She would set aside a bit to help Gertrud pay her application fee to the Artificer's Guild, but that still left a a bit of extra. She thought about buying more books and supplies for the school, or some treats for the kids or some more pots for the garden. But then she saw Phineas Howard.
Phineas was a satyr immigrant from Avalon, and newly married to Stanislaw Kowalski, a Patlovian harengon. The wedding had been a sweet affair. He and his new husband had exchanged vows at the Old Women's Day celebration in the Warrens and danced the night away, just three nights ago. He had looked thunderstruck at his good fortune, wearing a goofy grin the whole night.
But right now Phineas's face was grim and tight and he hurried toward a building Nel knew well. The second floor of one the few brick buildings in the Warrens was where Razor Eddy ran his loan business. The decision was made before she even had time to consciously think it through. She sprinted towards the satyr, grabbing his arm and pulling him around a corner and out of sight of Razor Eddy's window.
"Mr. Howard, you're going to Razor Eddy? Why?"
Phineas, startled and miserable, shakes his head. "I got no choice, Miss Nel. My Stanislaw was doing a roofing job and fell and I got to pay the healer. We're good for it -- we can pay it back before Eddy sends someone to collect. I just got a job at the factory."
"How much do you need?"
"Nine gold," he says, shaking his head at the impossible sum. "I really need to hurry, Miss Nel," he says, moving to step around her.
Nel takes the pouch out of her pocket, taking one gold piece out and putting it in her pocket to put towards Gertrud's application, and puts the rest into his hand.
Phineas blinks, looking between the pouch and Nel.
"It's nine gold, Mr. Howard. Take it and stay away for Razor Eddy," she whispers. "You'll pay at least three times what you borrowed in interest if you get it from him."
"I---thank you -- I'll pay you back!" he says, relief flooding his face.
The idea forms in Nel's heart and makes it out of her mouth before her brain can tell her any reason it's unwise.
"No," she shakes her head. Don't pay it back -- pay it forward. Once you got the nine gold, you do this for someone else who needs a loan -- on the same conditions -- that they help someone else in the same way. We're strong together, ain't we?"
He nods and shakes her paw.
"Now hurry back to your husband and the healer," she says.
He nods again and turns and runs back.
She watches him go and walks back towards home, saying a silent prayer to Eosphorus that nobody from the Organization overheard the exchange, and that the small pouch of gold keeps as many people as possible from darkening Razor Eddy's door.
Magic berries and numbered days
Saturday night Nel hurries to the Wayward Traveller after her deliveries, potion and magical berries in her pockets. She supplements the healer, giving the fighters berries to help them after each fight.
She does her best to stay out of Marlene's way, but polar bears stand out in crowd. Marlene doesn't look happy that she's healed already.
"Magic berries, huh? Cute. Let's see if you learned your lesson or I need to repeat it. You're subbing in the next fight."
Nel knows better than to argue, setting her coat with its pockets full of berries and potions in the fighters' back room and comes back in time to step in to the ring. She is still stiff and sore from the beating Marlene and her crew had given her that afternoon, tired of hurting and being hurt, but she takes a breath, focusing on paying the rent and feeding the kids as she shakes her opponent's hand and squares off.
She fights hard and in the moment, but each blow she gives and takes connecting to something else. Her left hook is a reminder of the money she's saving to help Gertrud apply to the Artificer's Guild. She takes an uppercut to the jaw but doesn't let it knock her down, remembering protecting Khemma when they were young in Ruskovich, how she couldn't fold, had to outlast the bullies. She lets lose a flurry of blows, imagining her opponent as Marlene and knowing she has to stay alive if she wants to get free. Her final blow is another punch with her left hand as she imagines wielding the Left Blade of Eosphorus against the Syndicate.
The bugbear she's fighting goes down.
She's breathing hard and heavy, not noticing the blood running down her face, except to wipe it out of her eyes. She catches Marlene's smile -- smug and triumphant-- and looks a away, running to the backroom and back to the bugbear and handing them several berries once the healer restores them to consciousness.
Marlene comes over pats her cheek lightly, a gesture that would almost be affectionate if it weren't dripping with condescension. "Knew you just needed a little motivation. You've never been smart enough to chase the carrot, but the stick always works."
Nel nods and looks down, a picture of submissiveness, but there is a fire growing inside of her and her left hand twitches, as if aching for a blade to strike a blow for Eosphorus. She promises herself that these days are numbered, and feels strength instead of shame.
Broken
Wake up. Eat a too small meal of moldy bread or porridge. Break rocks until bones ached, muscles ripped, hands bled, hunger gnawed and thirst burned. Endure. Keep working. Keep an eye on the more sadistic prison guards and fellow prisoners. Protect the smaller prisoners who were easy prey. Avoid the sadistic guards or fellow prisoners hurting her when it could be avoided. Endure it when it could not be. Keep working. Endure. If her torn flesh from the flogging throbbed and burned and made her feverish, don't show it. Keep working. Endure. Eat thin soup for dinner. Share it with the gnome from whom the sadistic or opportunistic prisoners would steal food. Picture the faces of Khemma and the kids. Let exhaustion sink her into a too-short sleep in a cold floor of a crowded cell. Repeat.
It had been the rhythm of life in prison. And in some ways -- the hunger, the grueling work, the danger-- it hadn't been so very different from the orphanage. Better in some ways -- there was an end in sight. She had her sentence and she could serve her time. She just had to survive long enough to be done. She had to endure.
And unlike the orphanage, she had chosen to be there, hadn't she? Put in her time in that hell, but then be free from a worse one. Marlene had rolled her eyes, and Mr. Mueller had been happily surprised at the price she had named for confessing to his son's crime, but in the end, they'd agreed. The organization would never again require her to collect a debt from some miserable person down on their luck. She'd never have to threaten some terrified old lady to get her to hand over the money she had painstakingly saved for her medicine for the organization's "protection" ever again. She'd never have to see someone look at her the way her gnome fellow prisoner looked at that sadistic prison guard -- that trapped and panicked look, that "why?" behind their eyes -- ever again. She would not have to hurt anyone outside the ring for the Syndicate ever again. Her time in prison had been a small price to pay for not having the organization force her to be a monster.
And with two words and a shrug, Marlene had undone it. "Needs must." It was a punishment, of course. For the school. For Philippe's interest in her. For Marlene's bruised ego that someone had pulled rank on her. The job she was demanding wasn't so terrible. She didn't have to hurt someone vulnerable who couldn't fight back. These were fellow monsters, the biker gang, who were forcing the Warrens folk to pay "protection." Of course the Syndicate wanted them gone, and so did Nel.
But it wouldn't stop there. It never did. Marlene had a dozen other brawlers she could give the job to. She had picked James and herself. She was deciding whether the two of them were worth keeping around. If Nel passed this test, there would be others and eventually it would be as if she'd never made the deal. Never gone to prison to try and save her soul. It would only be a matter of time before she would have to give up pieces of herself doing terrible things until she was empty.
She'd wanted to flat out refuse and storm out, but that would have been unfair to James. He'd have still had to do the job, and there would have been nobody who cared about him to watch his back in this strange new world he was trapped in. So instead she would play to lose. Set James up with a win that would help him do well in the rings -- protecting him from the worst of what Marlene could do to him, and protecting Bella from having to see it.
She would play to lose and go back to the Pits. And at some point in the future, maybe next week, maybe a few years from now, Marlene would decide she had outlived her usefulness, and she would see her dead in a fight like she'd done to Peter. But it was better than the alternative -- becoming someone she wouldn't recognize. The sort of person who would hurt Cardinal, who people hid their children from, rather than letting her feed them and have a school for them.
The Syndicate's promise to her was broken, and soon she would be too. It was just a choice of how.
Spark
In the Warrens there is a small shop that sells produce that is close to turning. It's a ramshackle building that never smells quite fresh, but it's been cheerfully painted in brightly colored images of fruits and vegetables. The owner buys the items cheap from the vendors in the Central Ward and sells them at an affordable price.
Behind that building, if one goes down a narrow alley past the bins full of actually spoiled produce, one finds a small, nondescript shed with a door that doesn't lock. From the outside, it looks as though a stiff breeze might knock it over.
But those in the know visit the building now and again, going inside to find a small altar to Eosphorus. The altar is littered with symbols of the hopes of Warrensfolk. A pile of ashes that were once an edict from a noble. Handcuffs stolen off a rook and broken. A cup of stolen wine. A piece of stolen coal rests there, an offering from Nel. And one of her teeth, knocked out by Marlene.
It isn't an official temple, but it is a place Warrens folk go to talk to the god.
New visits the the shrine during the blizzard on Friday night, pulling the door shut behind her. The flame in her lantern throws shadows around the tiny shack. She takes her lucky button out of her pocket -- the one that Peter gave her before he stood up to Marlene. Before she made sure he died in the Pits. And she sets it on the altar.
She doesn't dare pray out loud, not even in whispers, not yet. The Warrens have ears, even here. But she prays silently and trusts Eosphorus to hear her anyway.
"A miracle happened, Eosphorus. I was struggling to feed them, the kids at the school. Going broke. I didn't know how much longer I could keep it up. Then Fodla showed up. Fodla herself. She gave me a name. And gave us a basket -- so that the kids at the school won't never have to go hungry again. When she learned that a lot of them don't have enough to eat she was offended -- angry. She loves them. Fodla loves the children in the Warrens. And I think you do too.
I never dared even dream of escaping the Syndicate. It just seemed right -- going from Sister Mila to Marlene. Well, not right. Familiar. The freedom that Khemma, Ghata, and me had run to had felt like a dream -- wild, exhilarating, and fragile. For Ghata, at least, it had been real. She'd found it on the seas. But I didn't think it could be real for me. And at least Marlene, the Syndicate, didn't want to separate Khemma and me -- at least not longer than my stint in prison. They mostly let us be together. Let us earn enough money to not starve or freeze. Let us help the kids not starve or freeze. For the last twenty years I told myself that was enough.
And then they let us have the school. And that was enough. Even though I don't know why they're letting us have this, what they mean to do with it, what it's going to cost. But it had to be enough. I told myself it was enough.
But...if the gods love the Warrens, then, Eosphorus, it ain't enough. It ain't just about me. Warrens folk deserve better. They deserve to live and not scrape by along a knife's edge between death and being owned. They deserve to have enough to eat. To be warm enough in the winter. To not have to pay the Syndicate to not hurt them. To have a school that don't threaten its teachers for wanting to do better by the students.
We deserve to be free.
I don't know what the next steps are. I know I ain't better than Peter or any of the other people who tried for freedom and died. But maybe it ain't the person -- maybe it's the timing. And if the gods are in Novandria, walking among us, helping us, then maybe the time is coming soon. Maybe it's okay to start hoping. Maybe hope will do more than break us, get us killed.
So we'll start with full bellies and gardens. Maybe a community oven. Maybe someday a place where folks what need money can borrow it from someone other than the loan sharks. Please give me--us -- cause it ain't just me and Warrens folk are capable -- wisdom.
I don't know where this is going, but Fodla kindled a spark. It scares me. But I don't want it to stop.
Thank you for listening."
She finishes, then turns and leaves the small shrine.
Warmth
Nel came home Tuesday night with the food from the next day from the market. She did her best to take as little from the Syndicate for the school as possible, give them as little reason to interfere as possible. She knew they didn't need a reason, not really. But it still made her feel better, even if money was tight.
She came inside, greeting Khemma and the children who were still awake. She smiles and talks with them about the day as she washes the hogs head and puts it in the large kettle of salted water to cook on the stove for the next three hours. She sets the oats in another pots of cold water to soak overnight, then sits down, tucking the sleepy children in and telling stories about the dancing lights made when Sephira and Rhodena dance together.
As they drift off, she makes herself a cup of tea, listening to the simmering of the kettle and the sounds of Khemma and twelve children sleeping. They were such beautiful sounds--people she loved sleeping safely and peacefully, and food cooking to fill their bellies the next day.
She poured the tea and sat down, treasuring the moment. She remembers hearing lots of sounds of breathing at the orphanage, but it wasn't peaceful like this. Sleep was often fitful as they had huddled together, shivering in the cold, hunger gnawing at them. There was so sense of safety, just exhaustion.
But here? It was warm. The children were safe, loved, and full. Khemma was loved and full and as safe, at least, for the moment.
She knew this couldn't last forever. Someday the Syndicate would call in what she owed them for the school. And for a favor so huge, the price would be too. It would be a big job. Maybe taking another fall for someone else and going back to prison, leaving Khemma and the children again. Maybe something that would haunt her like the explosion or worse. More ghosts to follow her, putting peace out of reach.
But right now? Right now, all was quiet except for the simmering kettle, the peaceful breathing sounds. They were warm and safe. And her heart was more full than haunted. She thought of her loved ones, the sweet, intimate, quiet conversations with Peg and Muse, Bella's exuberance, Cardinal's earnest loving kindness, James' passion for life even while trapped, Kevan's tenderness, Nita's compassion, Mara's joyful care, Victor's kindliness hidden behind sad eyes, Aeos' warmth, Lady Orsei's courage and generosity, Lukas' generosity of spirt, Nevermore's protectiveness, Dona's courage, Servis' fearlessness, Ottilie's mercy, Schatzi's loyalty, Arinelle's faith, Igor's playfulness, Hayden's love of the creatures in the water, Maelie's calm protectiveness of Dona and Cardinal, even Vera's graciousness in spite of feeling insulted from someone she surely thought was beneath her.
She thought about Otto, Ebba, Maria, Emil, Frida, Karl, Erna, and Atur safe, warm, fed, loved, and learning with Mara and Basia. About Josiah's body and spirit nourished with Nita and Muse, who would help him grow into his destiny and love for nature. About Elsinore and how her face lit up when Cardinal taught her the violin. About Nimue learning healing from Bella. About Valentina and Lev safe and loved with their family. About the hope for good futures for each of them.
She leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. Her own future was frightening. But right now they were warm and peaceful. And it was enough.