Valkyrie of Desire

5. Forsaken Apple

Young women help old men

Baby fat still padding

They lust with moist lips

Elders fragile and horny

Reciprocate with wisdom

Breathing heavy

As beauty makes

The crooked men

Stiff

—Seedwick "Apple" Morehunt

The clanking and chatter of a town's commerce comes through the bridge's second makeshift barricade. Hildr twists her hair into a bun and stabs it with her golden beetle hairpin to hold it together.

Better to appear more regal than destitute in a place of commerce. She puts on her silk tunic and leather loin strap. Chuckling, she shakes her head. No sober man will pay her courtesan wages until she can soak away the grit of travel, perfume away the stink of worry, and dress in attire for higher fantasy. She wraps up in the guard's blanket that was offered to replace her robe and wipes a smear of blood from her forehead. Whoring should be a last resort anyway.

Hildr huffs and trills until Meepsin scampers over. "I better get some food soon," she says to the brownie. "Even your crow's looking tasty."

As she dusts off her feet, he hops up her leg and climbs onto her shoulder with the agility of a moss-headed monkey. Grumbling, she slips her boots back on. The tiny brownie shifts, struggling to get under the blanket to nest in her silky tunic. She loosens her wrap, and he trills, his tiny tongue tickling her cheek.

"Keep still and out of sight, fae boy." Hildr creaks open a rickety door set in the barricade. "Do nothing to draw attention."

A morning bustle fills the town's main street where it is paved for a few blocks in both directions. The cobbled stone is smooth as bone and fits together tight as puzzle pieces or the shattered remains of giant skulls—the same style of stonework as the overgrown trail that got her here.

A pair of old men limp past, clutching large wooden plates, ringed for precious metal panning. One scratches at a hole in the rear of his ragged trousers and grins at Hildr, showing off a mouth full of gold teeth. A squad of men hurry the other way with pickaxes resting on their shoulders and dust darkening their features.

She pinches her nose. "Shit tubes."

Residents dump wash bins and chamber pots into holes on the other side of the street where townhouses and shops are built within and between gutted titan ruins. The pavement is tilted so everything funnels through pipes to the chasm behind her. Sewage spits into the air and rains on the river far below.

"Okay, Meepsin. Pray to your Green Overgod, and I'll pray to my Red one." Hildr sidesteps through the barricade and closes the door.

A huddle of young women pass with empty bins and buckets. Hildr leaves the shadow of the makeshift wall to step in behind them as they chatter about boys and what occupations could make them worthy men.

Past the aviary tower and the other bridge, the street curves away from the chasm. The girls continue on, and Hildr steps off where a hanging beer sign advertises a narrow wooden establishment. Snug in the space between neighboring stone buildings, it has a door that swings both ways and a steady flow of traffic despite the early hour. Pungent men drop off and retrieve pickaxes, shovels, and similar tools from racks bolted into the bordering granite walls.

Hildr slips inside as someone else leaves and hops to avoid the door as it closes. The windowless interior is lit with lamps hanging from the rafters of a high ceiling hazy with pipe smoke, giving the illusion of perpetual evening.