Desperate Measures
Title: Desperate Measures
Characters: Alatan
Setting: Mercy Island, very shortly after Al's arrival in the Rogue Isles. Set well before she joins Black Sunday or even meets any of its members.
Prompts: "Striking out" silverbelle1220; "A fragrant smell" biglenny
For the Myshuno card here
Notes: Two tiny fics, one following right after the other. (This may be skirting the Myshuno rules. I don't care. The point is to write.) Prompt for each section is used as its respective cut text.
There, in the crack between the base of a building and the rocks that lined the paths in this place. A scraggly plant, forcing its way to the light. Alatan yanked it from the ground and inspected it closely. Not familiar to her, but was it edible? No. Only a ruminant could derive nutrition from such a fibrous grass. Still, as long as it wasn't actually poisonous, it would quiet her stomach for a while,if she could find enough of it.
That was a big if. How did people live here, where nothing grew? So many people. If she went to the forum, that open square surrounded by buildings, Alatan would see more people gathered in one place than she'd seen in her entire life. All of them speaking gibberish.
She popped the plant in her mouth, stem, leaf, root, and all. At least it would keep her mouth busy, and perhaps her stomach would be fooled into thinking food was coming and unclench.
*
Another day passed. How did people eat here? Where was food stored, since enough to feed the multitudes clearly did not grow here? There was no one she could ask. Al found it hard to care now, and a part of her was alarmed by *that*, but it was a small part. Easily ignored. More urgent was staying out of the chill wind that blew off the water, and this little corner in the lee of some stairs was the best she could do.
*
She must have dozed despite the cold creeping up through the cobblestones, because an unearthly cry startled her awake. Alatan kept very still. Just a woman, not a monster, she tried to reassure herself, even as the door swung closed behind the woman again.
Something was watching her. Eyes glinted in the deepening shadows. A predator, but small. Alatan reached out with her mind, praying it would work this time --
The cat crunched the food the woman had set on the threshold, not moving its glare from this intruder in its alley. Alatan didn't have time to feel ridiculous. What a cat can eat, I can eat.
Manna. The food smelled like nothing familiar, and she would wonder later why people kept cats here if there was no food to be protected from rodents; but Alatan had never tasted anything so delicious.