A little writing exercise
Felt the urge to write a short story today after having a short bit of RP on FFMUX. Figured I'd write a little something staring my pirate character, Shae, since that muse always seems to be in gear and ready to ramble on. Probably needs some better proof reading and some edits, since my mind tends to expel stories in the form of a half coherent stream of consciousness, but I'm fairly happy with it, even if it did come out as some sort of weird, fantasy Noir. Anyway... to cut down on spam, I'll just stick it under this LJ cut
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In every direction, Treno, the city of eternal night, was laid out like a blanket cast aside, the fabric of it splayed in uneven peaks and valleys beneath a black, starless sky. There were pools of light all around Shae, marking the hubs of activity, the different squares themed after chess pieces that were divided from one another by canals, black and shinning like sheets of obsidian, broken up only by drifting islands of garbage formed from the castoff of the nobility who lived above. Tiny dominions of trash and treasure that kept the rats and bone pickers of the city's slums well fed.
The wild nonsense of it all was striking. The decadence and poverty packed in so close together. Shining spires standing counterpoint to ramshackle buildings barely held together with rope and rusted nails. The mess of bridges and walkways all tangled together in knots, connecting the glowing jewels of the high and mighty while simultaneously framing the ruins of what had come before. The bones of something far more ancient upon which the city was built, like some dark simile for the impoverished slum dwellers upon whom the fortunes of the mighty were built. Those unlucky souls who'd made a pilgrimage to this, the holy city of vice, with hopes of hitting big and who had been cast down by virtue of their dreams exceeding their grasp while the nobles sat by blithely in the banality of their wealth and power. A dark thought that befit the dark city.
But it was always dark here, he assured himself, noting how the city's lights made constellations of their own, his eyes tracing from lamp to lamp unbidden, mentally connecting them into patterns and shapes, assigning what he saw some sort of arbitrary meaning. They had to though, considering the brightness of the city and it's unflinching refusal to ever sleep, ever stop moving, bleached out the sky and caused the stars to hide their faces. Even with all that light, those man made stars, Treno would never be anything other than dark. It was just the way of things.
Somewhere in the night, someone screamed. He wondered why they bothered, really, it wasn't like anyone was going to save them. Not here. Sadly, he laughed a bit at the thought that the person in question was probably one of those do-gooders that might have tried and hated himself for it.
Letting his mind wander from those thoughts, though, and further afield as his heels aimlessly bounce against the walls of the inn upon who's roof he sits, he can't help but think back to the events of earlier in the evening. How the disappointed looks on his friends faces had cut him deeper than any dagger ever could when he'd told them he'd sold himself back to the underworld for the meager price of an airship. Or even farther back still, to the that strange, mephistophelean creature who'd brokered the deal, threatening him with veiled promises of violence should he refuse and brandishing a razor sharp smile like it were weapon.
Above all though, he couldn't help but think about what'd brought him out here onto this roof.
***
He'd waited until Treble had fallen asleep, sitting there on the edge of her bed.
She'd cut his hair, making comment all the while that if her were to be a ship captain again, then he should at least look presentable and then they'd sat together and talked, discussing the whys and hows of what had brought him to the deal he'd made. Though he'd said almost everything he'd wanted, he still had felt like he'd made no progress.
Regardless though, he'd enjoyed the time they spent together, the silence as she'd read her book and the snippets of smalltalk that had awkwardly crept in to break it up. It had been comforting, really, offering the sort of unassuming familiarity with another person Shae often found himself longing for. The tiny voice in the back of his mind had quietly hoped that they might have sat there forever, perhaps, enjoying the simplicity of the moment and not having to worry about the world outside that room. Not having to think about the vice ridden streets of the city spanning all around him that had succeeded in consuming him, drawing him back down into the old ways he'd thought he'd finally managed to escape, or the people who lived on those streets that had stolen Bass.
It hadn't lasted though.
The orator had drifted off to sleep and Shae had slipped out of the room, turning down the old kerosene lamp as he'd gone. Like a ghost he'd slipped out into the hall, nary a sound save the soft click of the door as he'd closed it behind him and then a second as he'd disappeared into the gloomy dark of his own.
He'd checked his pocket watch, decided that he wasn't tired. It was half passed midnight, it'd told him, though he'd only been certain of that because the moon shaped glyph that told him so was showing on the clock face. He'd felt like he should have been tired, it had already been a long night with everything that had already happened, but he hadn't been. It was strange, really, how having gone through what some might think too much left him feeling so unwilling to sleep.
Perhaps he'd just been trying to stave off dreaming. Some foolhardy attempt at fighting back against the accusing voices of his subconscious he'd known would become the architects of his mind's dream scape.
So he'd scrambled out the window of the room, climbed his way up and perched himself on the edge of the ramshackle mess of boards the inn dared call a roof.
****
That brought us to now.
Taking a drag from his long stemmed pipe, he holds the smoke in for a long moment before letting out a large, lazily drifting ring of smoke. Another beat, and then he blows out another, smaller ring, moving faster than first that races through the center of the larger, currents of air disrupting it's form and causing it come apart. David defeating Goliath. He finds himself thinking that somehow, his life was like that, constantly being shattered by some small thing he wasn't prepared for. It made him laugh just a bit. Things would never be quite the way he wanted them to be, he knew, and that fact alone would leave him constantly finding himself out on the roof.
Glancing down from his perch, he sees two men making a deal in the alley, standing just outside the reach of an ill hung street lamp, the shadows keeping them like a watchful guard. One man leaves after paying out his hard won money for god knows what and the other retreats further into the alley, disappearing out of sight. Another scream cut through the night only moments later and Shae assumes him caught by a stand over man, his pay day cut short along with his life. That money now belonging to someone bigger, scarier.
Shrugging deeper into his coat, trying to fight off the night chill that this city somehow manages to maintain, even in the summer, the pirate figures that that is just the way of things here in the slums. Men hustled one another to survive, and those without the talent became killers. You stopped hustling or you let your guard down too far and the city would eat you alive, though the reverse was also true... You worked to fast, made a little too much money and you became a target. Either way, you'd be gone. It always that way, business was always being done and death seemed the accepted punishment for laziness, carelessness, lack of grace, or a failure to heed the rules... That is, unless you were extremely lucky. Shae considered himself one such person, in retrospect, though his second chance had come at the cost of his freedom, being owned now by the city's dark master.
Drifting away from such unpleasant musings however, he finds his thoughts in that room again, Treble at the vanguard of his mind.
In the time they'd just spent together, there'd been something that he'd wanted to say to her. A sentiment clawing at the back of his mind like some sort of trapped animal fighting for it's freedom, a thought that'd wanted to be expressed in words. A little seed of something that'd been growing over the almost three months they'd known each other, planted on that fateful night they'd spent in each other's embrace. He'd forced it down though, combated it with practicality and logic and reasoned it away. They were words that only made things more complicated, he knew, but he was still kicking himself now for not taking the chance that had been right in front of him. Not really, anyway.
Sure, he'd whispered those three words after she'd fallen asleep, while he was on his way out the door. Told her what he felt when he was sure she couldn't hear him, though still so quietly he might as well have just been mouthing the words. Easier to say it, he thought, when there was no chance the object of your affection has no chance to reject it.
He was a fool, he assured himself, though for his cowardice or his sentimentality he wasn't sure. Checking his pocket watch again, he notes its just after three in the morning. He tells himself he needs to sleep, absently noting that the sun would be rising soon before remembering that the sun never rose here. It was always dark in this city of vice, but the certainty of that was somehow comforting now, where moments before it'd just been an accepted, but hated fact. It made him laugh again, and then he clamored back the outside of the inn and back into his room.
His dreams would get their wish to torture him, he decides. It couldn't be any worse than remaining awake.
_________________
In every direction, Treno, the city of eternal night, was laid out like a blanket cast aside, the fabric of it splayed in uneven peaks and valleys beneath a black, starless sky. There were pools of light all around Shae, marking the hubs of activity, the different squares themed after chess pieces that were divided from one another by canals, black and shinning like sheets of obsidian, broken up only by drifting islands of garbage formed from the castoff of the nobility who lived above. Tiny dominions of trash and treasure that kept the rats and bone pickers of the city's slums well fed.
The wild nonsense of it all was striking. The decadence and poverty packed in so close together. Shining spires standing counterpoint to ramshackle buildings barely held together with rope and rusted nails. The mess of bridges and walkways all tangled together in knots, connecting the glowing jewels of the high and mighty while simultaneously framing the ruins of what had come before. The bones of something far more ancient upon which the city was built, like some dark simile for the impoverished slum dwellers upon whom the fortunes of the mighty were built. Those unlucky souls who'd made a pilgrimage to this, the holy city of vice, with hopes of hitting big and who had been cast down by virtue of their dreams exceeding their grasp while the nobles sat by blithely in the banality of their wealth and power. A dark thought that befit the dark city.
But it was always dark here, he assured himself, noting how the city's lights made constellations of their own, his eyes tracing from lamp to lamp unbidden, mentally connecting them into patterns and shapes, assigning what he saw some sort of arbitrary meaning. They had to though, considering the brightness of the city and it's unflinching refusal to ever sleep, ever stop moving, bleached out the sky and caused the stars to hide their faces. Even with all that light, those man made stars, Treno would never be anything other than dark. It was just the way of things.
Somewhere in the night, someone screamed. He wondered why they bothered, really, it wasn't like anyone was going to save them. Not here. Sadly, he laughed a bit at the thought that the person in question was probably one of those do-gooders that might have tried and hated himself for it.
Letting his mind wander from those thoughts, though, and further afield as his heels aimlessly bounce against the walls of the inn upon who's roof he sits, he can't help but think back to the events of earlier in the evening. How the disappointed looks on his friends faces had cut him deeper than any dagger ever could when he'd told them he'd sold himself back to the underworld for the meager price of an airship. Or even farther back still, to the that strange, mephistophelean creature who'd brokered the deal, threatening him with veiled promises of violence should he refuse and brandishing a razor sharp smile like it were weapon.
Above all though, he couldn't help but think about what'd brought him out here onto this roof.
***
He'd waited until Treble had fallen asleep, sitting there on the edge of her bed.
She'd cut his hair, making comment all the while that if her were to be a ship captain again, then he should at least look presentable and then they'd sat together and talked, discussing the whys and hows of what had brought him to the deal he'd made. Though he'd said almost everything he'd wanted, he still had felt like he'd made no progress.
Regardless though, he'd enjoyed the time they spent together, the silence as she'd read her book and the snippets of smalltalk that had awkwardly crept in to break it up. It had been comforting, really, offering the sort of unassuming familiarity with another person Shae often found himself longing for. The tiny voice in the back of his mind had quietly hoped that they might have sat there forever, perhaps, enjoying the simplicity of the moment and not having to worry about the world outside that room. Not having to think about the vice ridden streets of the city spanning all around him that had succeeded in consuming him, drawing him back down into the old ways he'd thought he'd finally managed to escape, or the people who lived on those streets that had stolen Bass.
It hadn't lasted though.
The orator had drifted off to sleep and Shae had slipped out of the room, turning down the old kerosene lamp as he'd gone. Like a ghost he'd slipped out into the hall, nary a sound save the soft click of the door as he'd closed it behind him and then a second as he'd disappeared into the gloomy dark of his own.
He'd checked his pocket watch, decided that he wasn't tired. It was half passed midnight, it'd told him, though he'd only been certain of that because the moon shaped glyph that told him so was showing on the clock face. He'd felt like he should have been tired, it had already been a long night with everything that had already happened, but he hadn't been. It was strange, really, how having gone through what some might think too much left him feeling so unwilling to sleep.
Perhaps he'd just been trying to stave off dreaming. Some foolhardy attempt at fighting back against the accusing voices of his subconscious he'd known would become the architects of his mind's dream scape.
So he'd scrambled out the window of the room, climbed his way up and perched himself on the edge of the ramshackle mess of boards the inn dared call a roof.
****
That brought us to now.
Taking a drag from his long stemmed pipe, he holds the smoke in for a long moment before letting out a large, lazily drifting ring of smoke. Another beat, and then he blows out another, smaller ring, moving faster than first that races through the center of the larger, currents of air disrupting it's form and causing it come apart. David defeating Goliath. He finds himself thinking that somehow, his life was like that, constantly being shattered by some small thing he wasn't prepared for. It made him laugh just a bit. Things would never be quite the way he wanted them to be, he knew, and that fact alone would leave him constantly finding himself out on the roof.
Glancing down from his perch, he sees two men making a deal in the alley, standing just outside the reach of an ill hung street lamp, the shadows keeping them like a watchful guard. One man leaves after paying out his hard won money for god knows what and the other retreats further into the alley, disappearing out of sight. Another scream cut through the night only moments later and Shae assumes him caught by a stand over man, his pay day cut short along with his life. That money now belonging to someone bigger, scarier.
Shrugging deeper into his coat, trying to fight off the night chill that this city somehow manages to maintain, even in the summer, the pirate figures that that is just the way of things here in the slums. Men hustled one another to survive, and those without the talent became killers. You stopped hustling or you let your guard down too far and the city would eat you alive, though the reverse was also true... You worked to fast, made a little too much money and you became a target. Either way, you'd be gone. It always that way, business was always being done and death seemed the accepted punishment for laziness, carelessness, lack of grace, or a failure to heed the rules... That is, unless you were extremely lucky. Shae considered himself one such person, in retrospect, though his second chance had come at the cost of his freedom, being owned now by the city's dark master.
Drifting away from such unpleasant musings however, he finds his thoughts in that room again, Treble at the vanguard of his mind.
In the time they'd just spent together, there'd been something that he'd wanted to say to her. A sentiment clawing at the back of his mind like some sort of trapped animal fighting for it's freedom, a thought that'd wanted to be expressed in words. A little seed of something that'd been growing over the almost three months they'd known each other, planted on that fateful night they'd spent in each other's embrace. He'd forced it down though, combated it with practicality and logic and reasoned it away. They were words that only made things more complicated, he knew, but he was still kicking himself now for not taking the chance that had been right in front of him. Not really, anyway.
Sure, he'd whispered those three words after she'd fallen asleep, while he was on his way out the door. Told her what he felt when he was sure she couldn't hear him, though still so quietly he might as well have just been mouthing the words. Easier to say it, he thought, when there was no chance the object of your affection has no chance to reject it.
He was a fool, he assured himself, though for his cowardice or his sentimentality he wasn't sure. Checking his pocket watch again, he notes its just after three in the morning. He tells himself he needs to sleep, absently noting that the sun would be rising soon before remembering that the sun never rose here. It was always dark in this city of vice, but the certainty of that was somehow comforting now, where moments before it'd just been an accepted, but hated fact. It made him laugh again, and then he clamored back the outside of the inn and back into his room.
His dreams would get their wish to torture him, he decides. It couldn't be any worse than remaining awake.