Closed Gimme Shelter (Verena and Achenar)

[Konrad Venger]

78th day of Spring, 516AV || Dry Island, Kenash

He ran like all the hounds of the hells were snarling at his heels, and by the looks of the thing that broke down his door, they were.

His feet pounded down the cobbles until his lungs burned and his sides split and howled at him. He didn't slow down. His breath and heart were pounding in his ears but he could swear their pursuit was drowning everything out. Snarling, cursing shadows in the night, rounding every corner he skidded around, taking every alley, never losing sight of him.

Fear drove the man on. Certainty of his fat if he slowed for even a moment. It was past midnight, past the Mage's Hour, where every door was barred and every face he might see peering from the shadows was unlikely to aid a ragged, sweat-soaked fugitive.

He was a rabbit in a den of vipers, so had no choice but to flee.

"There! Down there!"

Something that mashed together a sob, a yelp and a gasp burst from his throat and he fell heavily, exhausted legs finally betraying him. He rose and boots battering the cobbles were fast behind him. He dared look-

The same two. One tall, so tall, black hat rammed onto his skull, curved knife in one hand, green eyes burning like swamp gas even from a hundred yards out. The other was flabbier, shorter, but his partner's rage and blood-lust seemed to give him energy. A relation to the same that flowed through his veins now, begging him to get up and move.

He'd heard the echoes of the yelling the tall man had given the shorter one. The threats he'd buffeted him with after Curvon had landed on him after jumping out the window.

"We lose him cuza' your dumb petchin' arse, it'll be youse I serve up to the pethcin' Radacke!"

Curvon didn't doubt him for a moment. He'd seen the man's face when he smashed his lock and appeared in his sparse hideout. The stark, merciless murder stamped across a face that looked chewed and burned across one side. He didn't try to argue, or beg, or bargain. One look... that's all it took.

The man was death, and he had come for him. And Corvun knew exactly why, and who had sent him.

No... No, I can't... I can't die like this!

It wasn't just him. That thought alone gave his failing legs the strength to stand again, put one foot in front of the other and start running again, even as the shadows grew larger and stronger and he dove down an alley, another, tried to get some distance between them-

"Petch!"

Something hard and jagged slammed into his stomach and Corvun went reeling over the fence into the sweetest-smelling painful landing of his life. Spitting petals and twigs out as he dragged his head upright, he blinked away the pollen and found himself staring at a squat, low building with barely any lights lit... but moving figures inside.

"Move, you fat little shyke!"

They were getting closer. This was the last throw of the die he'd get, and Corvun scrambled upright, banging and pulling on the door, casting looks over his shoulder. Gods above and below, if they saw him enter there... what about the people inside? He'd out them all at-

The risk is worth it. They can't know what I know.

Whoever opened the door would instantly have a hundred-and-seventy pounds of frantic, bruised human grabbing the front of their clothes, eyes the very picture of pathetic desperation, and voice matching.

"P-Please! Hide me! Please, they're going to kill me!"

[Verena Lorak]

It was mere two bells since a carriage had come and carted all three of her slaves to the Whitesnake. The servant that came with it had told her that they were told to gather all the Lorak slaves for some sort of inspection ordered by Lorana. There was no patients staying for the night either, leaving the building completely silent except for the young woman’s footsteps.

This was one of the rare times the healer was granted a break. She decided to curl on the sofa in the waiting room, knowing that she might not hear anyone coming in if she was to rest inside her office. Unfortunately, sleep did not come – not an unusual thing for the young healer. A good night’s sleep was a rare gift, only possible when she was severely drained. Verena knew she had to rest sooner or later. A healer had to be healthy, after all.

However, the world had other ideas. Verena had not even drifted off when something disturbed her. The noise and the yelling made her jump from her seat and glance out the glass doors. Just in time, she saw a shadowed figure hurtling right over her fence and into her small garden.

Most Kenashians first reaction was probably to find some sort of weapon, but not the Lorak. Most people would not think to harm one of the most prominent healers in Kenash who also happened to be the sister of the Head of the Lorak Dynast. Those who found their way to her establisment rarely sought trouble, only solace.

So, when the dirty, bruised man pounded on her glass doors, Verena barely hesitated to open her doors. She was startled however when the man grabbed the front of her robes, so startled that she had to stop herself from screaming. Her mind taking a dark turn, it took her a few ticks before realizing that the man was begging for help, his dark eyes wide.

“P-Please! Hide me! Please, they're going to kill me!”

Corvun immediately recognized the woman’s fine clothes and nearly reeled back at the realization that he had stumbled right into a Dynast. He expected her to call for her guards or some sort and threw him out to the street. He was dead, so dead. There was no one else that could help him.

Yet instead, she spoke, he voice soft but completely emotionless. “Are you alright? What is going on?”

That gave him the time to see the young woman even closely, noting her violet eyes. He had heard of her, the Lorak healer. They said she was sympathetic to slaves. He had even seen her traveling the plantations offering medical services. She must help him then. He had no other choice. She was perhaps the only one who could stop them.

“My lady, please please, help me! People are looking for me. They want to hurt me. Please. You just need to hide me!” Panicking, Corvun glanced behind his shoulder, hoping his hunters had not seen this exchange.

Still somewhat shocked, Verena did not say anything else as she let the man inside, prying his hands away from her. He did not want to hurt her. No, someone else wanted to hurt him. She still didn’t see anyone following but by the way the slave was hurrying, they must be close. “I will help you.”

Verena was not stupid, however. It crossed her mind that the man might be lying. Kenash had taught her that the world was not as simple and straightforward as she thought it was. Still, if it was true, she could not let a life be taken for whatever reason. Murder was not a solution.

Glancing around, Verena finally pointed the man to the healing room. There were shelves, beds and stacks of tools that might hide him from view. “You can hide in there.”

The slave nodded hastily and wasted no time as he ducked inside the room.

Verena turned her gaze back out the glass doors, closing it slowly. There was no one in sight just yet, but she wondered what sort people was threatening to kill the slave. Zorane would tell her not to get involved, that she should have denied the slave’s request. She was not supposed to get involved with these matters, especially while the Radackes were in power. But at the same time, Lorana told her to do her job as a healer right. To be the best healer Kenash have, establishing Kenashians’ need for their dynasty.

This was just part of her job.

Boxcode by Marion Kay

[Konrad Venger]

"Wait."

Three Eyes didn't much like having to slow down when his blood was already up and frothing, but he knew his partner... his boss, really, wasn't in the mood for any of his grumbling tonight. The tall, hatted figure next to him was just as likely to open his throat as hamstring the bastard slave they were after and drag him back to the Radacke.

Alive. Those were the orders. Alive and able to talk.

Never petching easy.

The two men shared that last thought. Konrad Venger narrowed his green eyes and fixed the front of the Mortal Solace with a glare that could have melted steel. He'd seen the glass door close as they'd come round the corner, a formless shade beyond the glass telling him that someone had gone inside... and he knew exactly who.

"Smart wee shite..."

"Eh?" Three Eyes followed his partner as Konrad stalked over to the iron gate, trying to follow his gaze. "Y'think he went in... oh."

Flowers had been smashed and even uprooted by frantic feet. Dirt had gone flying. But more than that, speared on one of the low fence spikes and glistening with fresh blood... was a patch of ripped green cloth. Konrad snatched it up and rubbed at the liquid.

Warm. Fresh. And this is what he was wearing.

"He's in there."

"Then let's gedim!"

"You know what this place is?"

"... no."

Konrad resisted the urge to break his nose. Gods, how could the man now have absorbed anything about this city in nearly a whole season? Oh, Eyes knew well enough the Dynasties, the "gangs" that ran the city (and, in point of fact, Konrad thought the comparison to back home was pretty accurate), but all the places that kept it running? If it didn't serve booze, herbs, steel or cunny, Three Eyes didn't care.

"S'a healer's. Ran by the Loraks."

"Dynasty?"

"Aye," Konrad said, turning his glare back to the ill-lit building and looked as much in memory as in the present. "Girl name a' Verena runs it. Lorak. One a' the daughters, I think."

"Y'know her?"

"Aye. Paths've crossed.."

"Oh... that thing in the-"

"Point is, we gotta tread careful. We can hold any slave or Freeborn sod over a fire until they squeal, but Dynasts're different. Gotta finesse it, y'know?"

Cultural savage that he was, Three Eyes wasn't stupid, per se. He knew what Konrad was getting at from their long association, and with a sound that was almost regretful, one of his numerous daggers slid back into his sheath. He snorted softly after it and cracked his knuckles.

Konrad could see the beginnings of a nasty set of bruises on his face, complete with a shiner. The slave had petching lost it when he saw Konrad. Dived through his wooden window shutters and there was Three Eyes, standing in the middle of the street below instead of off to the side.

Fat little turd made a nice landing pad for him, and all.

"Aye, get wotcha mean, Kon. But that ain't really our thing, is it?"

Now it was Konrad's turn to snort, and raise it by a sneer as he turned and marched up to the glass doors. From the other side, his edge-less shadow seemed to fill it, stretching up and up as he hammered on the door. A season or two ago, he would have agreed with Eyes, with a laugh of derision at all those smart wankers who liked to spout such shite as "brain over brawn". But here, in Kenash, that thinking served him better than just going at it like a Dhani in a pottery shop.

"Speak for yerself..."

When the door opened, the person answering would see something tall, black and distinctly unfriendly. Black breeches, black coat past his knees, white shirt underneath and a black hat topping it all. Of course, to reach the hat, the looker would have to pass the face. One side of it normal but gaunt, hollowed like a starving's jackal's... and the other?

Ruined like a fallen empire. Like a village ravaged and put to the torch. Slashed and burned in a very literal way. A long, deep scar, long-healed and nearly-fatal, stretched from his chin to nearly his temple. In it's wake and all around it, flesh was red, puckered, pulled in the wrong direction, one corner of the man's face set in a permanent, sneering snarl.

His eyes were burning swamp gas. Green like the djed his hands could form, glowing with malice.

Konrad knew the woman would probably answer him. Expect some shite about courtesy or "the lateness of the hour". He wouldn't give her time to hide behind her nobby sodding etiquette. The Radacke needed that slave back. He'd evaded them for too long and finally they'd tracked him to a room... but they'd botched grabbing him. Konrad was not about to let that lie.

"Where is he?" He'd speak without preamble. He'd even give her a tick or two to absorb the information... then he'd raise his other hand, which still held the blood scrap of cloth, taking a step inside without invite, Three Eyes tight on his heels. "Where is he, girl? Don't even try lyin' t'me..."