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
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.