A Perfect Gift

The light of the gas lamp danced in the breeze as Fiona’s bedroom door opened, sending flickering shadows across the sprawling mess of books, manuscripts, and newspaper clippings. A ratman’s head slowly poked through the entrance from the shadows outside.

“Fiona?” he called. “You still reading in here?”

Fiona whirled to face her brother with a nasty hiss and bared claws. This lasted all of about a quarter-second before she somehow managed to start choking on her own spit and was reduced to a coughing, giggling wreck.

He did his best to mock terror and shock, though it was hard in the face of her flailing and gasping. “I apologize, ferocious book-beast, but Fiona’s family misses her dearly!” the young man pleaded. “Could you find it in your heart to let her free for an evening? Just this once?”

Fiona, finally getting her breathing back under control, nodded as she stood. “Oh, alright, Trist, if you’re going to ask so politely, I guess the book-beast can hide away for a while.” She stretched, her back and tail popping noisily, and got shakily to her feet. “I suppose it would be good to stretch my legs for a few hours. I was planning on heading out soon anyway, but some company would be nice!”

“Oh you were, were you?” Trist asked with a knowing smirk, sweeping a page that had blown towards the door out of the air. “Made some plans other than studying for once, eh?”

Her eyes widened as he began to read the page. “No, wait, that’s-”

“‘The Reaper Walks Among Us Once Again’,” he read aloud, skepticism clear in his voice. “‘Shadows among the graves are believed to be signs that the mysterious Reaper, the undead monster who preys upon innocent folk in the dead of night. It seems it has returned to our city for some dreadful, unknowable purpose.’” He raised his eyes - and eyebrows - towards his sister. “Sounds like quite the read.”

Huffing in annoyance, she stomped across the room and ripped the newspaper from his hands. “I find it interesting, alright? The sorts of things the humans fear when they take a break from fearing us.”

Soon enough, the clipping was back where it belonged, in a bundle with the others, and Fiona set to work collecting the rest of the tomes she’d been poring over. Few were entirely complete, having been scavenged from the wreckage above or pilfered from the garbage bins behind libraries and bookstores, but they were hers, and they’d been a font of fascinating information as of late.

“You know, they say that the Reaper wasn’t always some deadly monster.”

Trist snorted. “They also say he’s the son of a dead god and that the ceph crafted him to slay whatever it was that nearly slayed them. This mysterious ‘they’ says a lot of things.”

“Oh shut up, you,” Fiona snapped, waving a hand at him. “There are all sorts of legends about something that sounds a lot like this Reaper the humans seem to keep seeing. Apparently it used to travel all of Duwallen, aiding the dead in doing things they’d left unfinished. Leaving messages for loved ones, hiding things that would bring shame on their families…” she pause, a far-away look in her eyes. “...getting revenge.”

“Aaaah, of course,” her brother nodded knowingly. “You need some fresh air.” And without another word, he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her with him through the door. The few remaining books she’d had to put away tumbled free from her captured limb and she only barely managed to catch the knob with her tail before she was being dragged down the stairs and out into the caverns of the Rattenvölkern.

The first rays of moonlight barely squeaked through cracks in the ceiling, far above, accompanied by the rainbow glow of the alchemical runoff that pooled in the crater above their home. The smell was foul, but somewhere beneath the scent of vaguely magical sewage was the faintest whiff of clean, clear air. Fiona breathed it in happily, even as she was still being hauled along by her insistent sibling. She hadn’t noticed just how stale things had gotten, locked away in her room. The two ran on and on, with him pulling her down streets and alleys, down through sumps and up the far sides. It wasn't as though she had another arm with which to resist, and so she stuck to humoring him with a smile. He got this way sometimes, and he wouldn’t let up until she let him tire himself out. Besides, she recognized this route, and knew exactly where he was taking her.

Finally he stopped, right where she knew he would. Far beneath the outlet pipe of some old Arcaniksburg sewer tunnels, near a slightly fungus-covered wooden support beam. With a precise kick, Trist set a rickety wooden structure above violently shaking, until finally a rope ladder flopped down to the ground in front of them.

“You know,” Fiona teased, “you could have just asked me to come to the old hideout. I haven’t forgotten the way.”

He laughed. “Are you sure about that? I wouldn’t have realized, since you haven’t been out here in months!”

“Well, with all the talk of exterminators for a while there, and then all of my research, and Dad-”

“Shshshshsh,” Trist shushed her, putting a finger to her nose. “This isn’t the time for things like that. I have something for you.”

She stared at him, surprised and confused, but he said nothing else before turning and scampering up the rope ladder, leaving her behind as usual. She sighed, hooking her arm into one of the rungs and waiting for him to haul her up. She could manage the climb one-armed, that much she knew, but ever since his growth spurt a few years back, Trist had always insisted on helping her like this. On the other hand - she cringed inwardly, imagining the face people always made after using that phrase around her - at least the view was nice.

Rung by rung, Trist pulled her up into their childhood getaway. Neither of them had any idea what the old wooden platform had originally been, but with a bit of salvage and some parental assistance, they had managed to make a place just for the two of them. A place to get away from the rigors of an over-large family and the constant, pervading threat of humans discovering them and wiping them out. From this little wooden hutch, they could look out, through the sparkling iridescence of the falling wastewater, over nearly all of their people’s city-beneath-a-city. Once she reached the top she waved her brother away, taking a moment to hang her legs over the edge and just… sit.

Time passed.

There was some clinking and clattering from the back of the hideout, where over the years the two of them had excavated a bit in order to clear more room for storage and activities. Fiona didn’t really hear it. She really had been spending too much time in her room, knee-deep in her books and newspaper clippings. Now that she was out again, breathing the open - if slightly fetid - air and looking out over the people just going about their days… She’d missed this. Quite a lot, actually.

“Fiona?”

She jumped. She’d gotten lost in the moment, there! “Yeah?” she asked, turning.

Her brother was clutching an awkwardly long box held together with twine. He clutched it like it was dear to him, tightly against his chest.

“What’ve you got there, Trist?”

He swallowed, suddenly seeming nervous. “I know how much you hate it when I help you even when you don’t need it, or when people… treat you differently, because of the arm…”

Realization started to dawn. “Trist… what is that?”

“And I didn’t want to be pushy and embarrass you by trying to help again, make you feel like you weren't great the way you are, but I know someone who knows someone who’s been working on this for a while, and I've been saving what I can for the last few years, and, well…”

As he spoke, he slowly began holding the box out. With shaking hand, Fiona pulled the twine free and lifted the lid.

There, cushioned by sawdust and adorned with a small cloth tag bearing Fiona’s name, was a prosthetic arm. Blue light shined softly from within the shallow runes that covered most of its smooth surfaces. The make was simple, maybe even crude, but the thought behind it was all that mattered. It was a thing of beauty.

Without a word, she pulled the metal limb from its box and fitted the leather-padded socket to the stump of her right shoulder. She gasped as strange, alien sensations reached her mind and the magic did its work. Metal squealed against metal as oil worked its way into the gears for the first time and the fingers of the steely hand opened and closed. Fiona’s eyes met her brother’s again, though neither could properly see the other through the tears. In an instant, they were hugging.

Fiona clasped both arms tight around Trist, crying heavily into his shoulder. “You have no idea how long I've wanted to do this.”