Runaway Tales Pt. 1 (no, that's literally the title)
Author: Amata le Fay
Title: Runaway Tales - Part I - Into the Woods
Story: Coded Politics (RP)
Flavor(s): Teaberry 12 (the strong man is strongest when alone), Summer Challenge Trope Bunnies 2 (big bad)
Toppings/Extras: Butterscotch
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 638
Notes: “There are a grand total of three people who've managed to escape the Borgia hacker ranks and not get caught for years.” These are each of their stories. // I met my Summer Challenge Bronze Benchmark! Woot woot! Concrit very much welcome.
I. Into the Woods
He was the first to get away and thus the one who's stayed uncaught the longest. Nineteen years. Enough time to raise a child-and indeed one such child was raised. But this is not her story. This is the story of Stephen Sondheim, or, as he came to be known, Farran Gray.
He was fifteen years old, his sister Genviève twenty-one. They had been talent-spotted the year before and brought into the hacker ranks immediately. Genviève had legal custody of her younger brother then, as a bitter divorce had alienated the siblings from their feuding parents. Genviève was pretty-not breathtaking, but charming and handsome-with dark brown curls that framed her suntanned face and brought out the umber of her eyes. Stephen maintained that it was not her looks that had interested Roderigo, but her brain. The man had a gorgeous blonde for a wife with a vapid mind that couldn't have been more different than Genviève's. One was superficial and optimistic, the other romantic and more than a little brooding.
He would learn later that Roderigo Borgia had been experimenting on the brains of both wife and mistress. He'd needed a wide range of test subjects. Of course he had chosen to seduce her to gain her trust. Of course.
Stephen stayed in another hacker's room rather than chance overhearing their moans and labored breaths. He wasn't surprised when the pregnancy test showed positive, no doubt a part of Roderigo's plan. Quietly, he started building codes to counter the security programs he had installed in the Borgia Building. He hid the codes in sheet music and chuckled whenever anyone said his songs were “unhummable”.
Once Roderigo questioned him about a lyric he had written to one of those songs. “It's based on Little Red Riding Hood,” Stephen said, looking the Big Bad Wolf in the eye. “You know, the fairy tale.”
That's an awful lot of innuendo for a fairy tale,” said the Wolf.
“You obviously didn't read the Grimm version,” said Stephen.
When the baby was born, Genviève had insisted on both Roderigo and Stephen being in the room, as the father and uncle of little Lìadan Oswin. That night, Stephen used his secret codes to disable the security and broke into the hospital where his family was. He found Genviève dead of electrocution from the electrodes Roderigo had strapped to her head.
He grabbed the baby and ran.
It felt like months and was almost certainly several days 'til he stopped running, save for when Lìadan needed food or changing. Deep into the woods he ran until the trees parted miles out from the city and he stumbled to the ground. His feet were bleeding.
Lìadan was crying. Stephen squeezed his eyes shut. “How do I go about being a... parent... with no one to mother my child?”
Just calm the child, murmured Genviève's voice. She was singing in his mind, even though he had never heard her sing when she was alive.
“Calm the child...?”
Look, tell her the story of how it all happened, be father and mother, you'll know what to do.
“Alone?”
Sometimes people leave you halfway through the wood.
Do not let it grieve you... no one leaves for good.
You are not alone. No one is alone...
Hold her to the light now, continued the soft melody.
Let her see the glow.
Things will be all right now.
Tell her what you know...
He gathered the baby up in his arms and rocked it back and forth. “Shh, Lìa. Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time... there lived a fair maiden, a sad young lad, a Big Bad Wolf, and a pretty little baby named Lìadan.”
It was the first song he ever wrote without a code, and, in his opinion, the most beautiful one of all.