Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work –Thomas Edison
I was sitting in jail. I did not pass go, I did not collect two hundred dollars and for once I wasn’t actually guilty of anything. Well, other than bringing a firearm down onto a weapons free world and flashing it around, then sticking it in the face of their Port Authority representative. Or they could still sore that the last time I’d been dirt side I sort of maybe helped a Rebellion overthrow a government. And there was just the slightest chance that this could be related to the fact that there was a price on my head with the Hounds, which is the equivalent of an arrest warrant. For once in my life I am actually hoping for a Shuffle; something nice and distracting that would let me slip out of prison with Rorick in tow. Like that time the Universe decided to shrink all living organisms down to like a tenth of their usual size. Then again, I’d almost died that day, like three different times. So, maybe not a Shuffle like that one then.
Back to the whole incarcerated thing, this left us supposedly weaponless and awaiting our fate. I say supposedly because Rorick has broken a man’s jaw and jammed it into his skull with his bare hands before, and I have some really interesting places where I can hide weapons. And before you get any gross ideas, I meant that my hair hides all kinds of things besides my desperate need for a hot bath with something resembling water.
While I’m sitting here all antsy and itching for the chance to try my lock picking skills on the cell door, Rorick was asleep. He’d just sat down, wedging me between his muscular ass and the wall and acting like this big ol’ bodyguard, and then he started to snore softly. Considering how many times his nose had been broken, I’m grateful it’s his soft snore I have to endure, but still it was making it hard for me to fall asleep myself. I know that if I were to start moving about, he’d wake up all paranoid like and then we’d both be awake and miserable. I think I’ll let the man meat sleep.
Thankfully, just as I felt my sanity start to get bored right out of my skull, the guards tromped towards our cell. Please be a steak and egg dinner. Maybe a milkshake too. I don’t want my last meal to be protein paste. I mentally pleaded. But instead of anything delectable, or even disgusting to eat, the guards brought something far worse. A vastly amused looking Wanda.
“Well, I can’t say that I’m surprised that you ended up in here. Though I am impressed with how quickly you managed to get arrested.” Wanda mocked at me.
The moment she had started to speak, Rorick’s eyes flew open and I nearly broke a tooth with how hard my jaw clenched. Yeah I know, stress will be the early death of me. Nothing had happened between Rorick and Wanda, intellectually even my feeble brain gets it. But tell the green eyed monster inside to calm down and she’ll flip you off.
“Yes well, some of us are really good at getting a quick response.” It was lame but at least I didn’t just start spitting at her like a territorial cat. Lame or not Wanda just smiled at me like she knew exactly why I don’t like her.
“Sorry if I kept you waiting long Captain. And I am sure that Port Authority will compensate you for this little misunderstanding.” Wanda said as the guard unlocked the cell.
I’m not sure if it was pride or paranoia that made me not want to just walk out of the cell. I’m a stubborn enough mule that having someone like Wanda bail me out was just not going to sit right, and I didn’t trust why she was being oh so helpful. Of course she did technically owe me one. I never actually believe anyone holds up their end of the bargain when the debt is owed TO me and not from me. But not having much of a better choice, I stepped out of the cell. Rorick had been smart enough to stay quiet the entire time, probably because he knows me well enough to know that there’s not a power in the universe that would let me forgive this woman. She hadn’t even wronged me personally; but between her and Dandy’s betrayal of Rorick years back and that night months ago when I believed for a moment that she was Rorick’s lover, I had a special hell set aside for her in my mind. I didn’t like knowing that she had to come get us out of jail, although my pride is slightly mollified by the fact that even with her ridiculous shoes on, I’m a good few inches taller than her. Yes I am that petty, I accepted that fact years ago.
Of course, being smugly taller doesn’t do anything to make it not hurt when I start to move around again. My wounds are a couple of weeks old now but still, I’m not fully recovered. My ego being what it is though, I’m not about to let Wanda the Doctor Lady know how bad off I am. Eventually I’ll get hurt again and need medical attention and she can figure it out first hand herself. I just have faith in the fact that whatever plan I come up with next it going to fall apart in a spectacular mess and end up in bloodshed. That’s not the GOAL, but it’s the likely reality. Better to assume the worse and be prepared to handle it than assume the weakest and get overwhelmed. Maybe I should cross stitch that somewhere….
“So I take it that my message got through to you?” I ask Wanda, making sure to walk without perfect posture. It’s slightly instinctive for me when I get near another Lady. The first twelve years of my life had drilled all the right social niceties into me so that if I’m not thinking, I revert to form. Even over half a lifetime later, I’d catch myself sometimes not slumping. It’s terrible for my rep to look polite.
“After a fashion.” Wanda replied cryptically as she led me and my Rorick out of the Prison area and towards a part of the city I had avoided at all costs last time through. The main core of the city, where the highborn stood in Mastery over all.
Auralis is a city of three overlapping circles; Docks, Residential and Business. Where the three layer each other is the richest, most protected part of the city and the last time through here we’d avoided it like the plague. Actually, I’ve gone into plague territory before, I’d still rather do that than go where we were going. I kind of felt like a fly walking into the mouth of a Venus plant, knowing that it was going to slowly digest me while I was in here and yet… I follow along like a good girl. It was making me queasy to behave.
Rorick loomed behind me like a hot blooded, personal space crowding shadow of doom and it helped me feel not so… ready to bolt. I did everything I could to avoid the Highborn. Most people look at me and see Captain Felix Katt, a nobody Runner with a reputation for acting like a hick, being dumber than a land tick and most likely smelling like I’ve rolled in pig shit. Not sure how that last bit came about as I’m actually rather hygienic (whenever it’s possible) but I didn’t dissuade that part because it kept polite society at bay. Here in the center of the city though, there was just the slightest chance that I might slip up and someone would start to recognize me. I’d fallen off the face of society’s radar YEARS ago, before puberty but I wasn’t assuming that this would keep me safe. At least I had the protection of anonymity here, I knew that this place had been my Rorick’s home for several years. When he’d been a simple indenture and not yet a Blood Slave. And he’s kind of memorable, so there would definitely be those that recognized him.
“So you and Dandy finally shacked up?” I asked, needing to keep some kind of conversation going to help settle my nerves. You guessed it, my gut was starting to tell me that this was a bad idea and lately the damn thing has been dead on with doom predictions.
“No. It’s…complicated.” Wanda replied, the superior smug smile curling up and dying like leech covered in salt.
Rorick and I catch each other’s eyes as I send a quick look over my shoulder. After nine years working together, we’ve long developed a silent communication system. He didn’t like the strangeness going on anymore than I did and I saw his muscles bunch as he prepared for some kind of attack. The Port Authority had kept our weapons (except those that they’d never found) so I was without my favourite pistol or my handy wakizashi, but I rolled my neck and felt the comforting weight of the dirk hidden in my hair shifting between my shoulders. This was going to go bad if I had to revert to form, and Wanda was just leading us deeper into the center of the city. Patrols that were more militia than military kept stopping us but we were always waved through, though Rorick’s slave collar was getting us a LOT of attention.
“Define complicated.” I finally demanded as the alarm in my gut started to get really hard to ignore.
Wanda sighed and gave me a look. It was a strange mix of broken heart and resignation. “Even after the Overthrow and with everything we accomplished, it’s not so easy.” I almost felt sympathy for her until her gaze left me to look at Rorick behind me. Then I had to fight the urge to snarl at her because she was giving him an intense look that was almost… intimate. “Society still believes the original lie we told, that it was you who took my Virginity.” Wanda was ignoring me completely now and I was a hair breadth away from slapping her across the face. With my fist. Repeatedly.
“You mean the lie you told that ended up with him as a Blood slave for life?” my voice was harsh and I felt Rorick hovering close behind me, either to try and warn me to calm down or as a silent way of saying he has my back. Either way, it wasn’t helping my rational mind any.
Wanda finally took her eyes off my Rorick to look at me again. “Yes, that lie. It’s what’s kept Maurice safe. He’s still not of the right station for my Family to accept our pairing, and if we make it an illicit affair….”
Maurice? Dude, Dandy’s real name is Maurice. No wonder he doesn’t mind my nickname for him, it’s ACTUALLY manlier. My brain babbled at me like an idiot. “You two start doing the lambada and people will do the quick math to suss out the fact that he was the one all along and then what? They punish him and Rorick is off the hook? Somehow that’s not exactly making me want to keep your secret.”
Rorick’s big hand came to rest on my shoulder and I felt my body freeze in place. We may have become lovers since the last time I was here, but I think a part of me will always react this way to slight touches from him. It’s a habit by now. Still, he had my attention so I looked at him, ignoring Wanda whose face was puckered and pinched like she had just gnawed on kumquat or something. “They won’t free me. Even if they admit I’m innocent. They’ll punish him silently, behind the scenes and let me wear this thing anyways, all to save face.” His deep voice was a gravelly purr and it just made me see red.
There are reasons I hated the Highborn, even though I was technically one of them. I’d walked away from that life years ago because this stupid politicking had cost me more than I was willing to accept and here it was just continuing to take and take, never actually giving anything back. I knew the Rebellion here would really change nothing. Different hats on different people, same damn problems persist. “You know what, this was a bad idea. Goddess’ great and heavy teats I am not going to go through this for a little assistance.” My voice was a harsh, flat tone.
Rorick’s hand had left my shoulder only seconds after touching me, and I know that Wanda was still unaware that our relationship had changed skins since she last saw us. My big dark secret was starting to make its way out into the worlds and I had to keep the fact that he was my lover hidden or else his fate was sealed. He’d been enslaved for life under the suspicion that he’d take a Lady’s Virginity. She was just a Doctor too, Highborn and important but I had been a First Daughter Prime. They’d just kill him for our loving. Goddess all of this was giving me a headache already.
“Captain, please. Things aren’t that bad here, and they are changing. But it’s slow work, even after a Rebellion.” Wanda actually sounds like she was willing to beg me to stay. Which of course made me paranoid as all hells. I came here to ask her for help, which should have made me the supplicant. But she was making it sound like I was actually going to be able to do something for her as well. Which made my paranoia meter go from ‘Shit is Bad’ to the red zone of ‘Run for Your Lives’. What was going on here?