A mother's love has no limits...
Tenth Day of Winter, 513 AV
The afternoon was gray and wet. Silver sheets of water poured out of fretful skies, crashing upon the rooftops of the tenement blocks and dilapidated apartments, sending innumerable little cascades from eaves and canopies, and running in small rivers down the narrow alley-streets of Sunberth. Remaello mused that it must not only come tumbling like a river out of the cold and unforgiving sky, but seep up from the very earth to soak his feet and numb his toes. Everything was swollen and rotting with the wet, and only a few poor souls, huddled within tattered cloaks, braved the streets during the downpour.
Remaello scampered along the muck and detritus of the soaked city towards the Seaside Market, his ripped red cape tucked under his arm, and his wide-brimmed hat bending at the sides with the weight of water dripping from it. There were only a few sad shops open on this miserable gray day; a skinny human waif in a ramshackle stall selling bowls of steaming fish broth, a near-derelict lean-to wherein squatted a withered old diviner, a hand-painted purple Seer's Lily propped on a board outside her shelter advertising her trade. Remaello stopped to watch as the rain smudged the paint and rivulets ran down the board to drip and pool into a violet puddle in the mud beneath. The little Pycon found it beautiful, such color against the drab gray existence the city presented today. But the seer's milky gaze upon him frightened him, and he tore himself away to continue through the near-deserted market.
He came at last to the Cobbler’s, a single story wooden cottage with a jury-rigged rectangular addition tacked on top of the front gable, as if an afterthought. Rainwater echoed off the corrugated roof and bubbled over the eaves, and the front stoop was half-subsumed into the mud. Remaello scurried under the awning and up to the front door. He rapped his knuckles against it hard several times, but got no answer. The lamps were unlit inside, and a hand-painted ‘Closed’ sign hung in the darkened window.
The Pycon stepped back into the muddy street and looked up at the shabby apartment built up on the roof. From the window, he could see a dim light flicker within.
His mother was home.
Remaello walked in the mud around to the side of the building, where a rusted drain pipe descended from the gutters and spewed ruddy brown water into the alley. Grunting, he caught hold of it and began to climb. About a foot off the ground, a bolt tore free from the beam, and the whole thing shuddered and creaked under his weight, sending the poor little Pycon tumbling into the mud below with a splat.
“Petch and blight!” He cursed, spitting out a mouthful of cold muck and floundering to his feet.
He stormed over to the drainpipe again, muttering all manner of curses beneath his breath, and began to climb the decrepit thing again. There were a few further dodgy moments, where the drain threatened to tear itself completely free from the building’s walls and send him spiraling once more into the sea of sludge below, but it held fast, and Remaello pulled himself up onto the rooftop, carefully clambering the few feet to the second-floor apartment window.
He rapped his cold-bitten knuckles against the window, and hollered inside.
“Ma! It’s me! Ma!”Inside, he could make out a small hill of boots, shoes, and assorted footwear, and a low workbench upon which perched a small wooden shoe crate. Within the box, the little light flickered, and at Remaello's commotion, it flared. A tiny, bent little figurine shuffled out a hole in the side of the box and peered across the mess, shaking its head, and with agonizing lethargy made its way to the windowsill.
The window creaked open, and Remaello hurriedly leapt into the flat.Inside was a sea of boots, shoes, tools, leather, broken machinery and cobwebs. Old yellowed sketches were tacked to one wall, another held a crumbling fresco depicting a cobbler at work. Water leaked in from several places to overflowing buckets on the floor, and the place reeked of leather and damp, mold and shoe-polish.
Remaello embraced his mother, who managed a weary kiss upon his cheek. Bent and stooped like weathered granite, her clay skin was cracked and dust collected atop her crown. A look of tiredness, or sadness, or perhaps both never left her carved face.
“What, are you crazy? To come out in this downpour! You coulda melted. Ayaya.”
“My cape, Ma, it was ripped by a kitten, I was hoping you’d sew it for me.”
“Ya ya.” she said tossing up her hands and then taking the ripped garment from Remaello,
“You and your crazy human clothes. Come, boy, I will heat you up some clay.”Inside her little shoecrate, Antonietta had a little bed of straw and cheese-cloth, a simple copper oil lamp. Her kitchen consisted of a ceramic amphora filled with the sustaining clay, and a few old copper bowls. The bent old Pycon presently filled one of these and held it over the lamp-flame, before handing it to her son.
“Eat, boy, you are plaster and grout!”The aged Pycon matron flung open a small tin box in the corner of her crate and pulled out a needle and thread, sitting upon the bed with a sigh as she began to patch up his cloak with trembling, cracking fingers. Remaello sat atop the tin and consumed his warm clay.
“My thanks to thee mother, thou art truly a culinary countessa!”
“Ayah, why cant you speak like a normal person? Always with the pretending. Like you’re so fancy.” Her elbow flared in and out with each pass of the needle, but she still managed one hand to put her fingers together, palm up, and wave her hand at the boy.
“You’re not a child anymore, I want you to promise that you’ll start living up to your potential. No more wiping up after whores. No more spending all your days in some filthy winesink with sailors and roustabouts. Wasting your future.”
“Ma, c’mon. I like adventure.”
“Adventure he likes! Adventure?! In this decayed city. No. Only thing you’re gonna find here is ruin.”
“Ma, c’mon, don’t talk like that. Pop loved this city, often he spoke of it’s potential, of the greatness hidden amongst the squalor. Remember, the ‘diamonds in the rough’?”At this Antonietta jumped up shouting, her hard face grimacing, waving her hand under Remaello’s face.
“Do not speak to me of your father! I will not hear it. Do you think he’d be happy to see his son dancing for coppers in some whorehouse? His statue weeps at what a fool and wastrel his son is…”She slumped down onto the bed and looked down at the patched cape, not meeting his gaze. Then she handed it to him, her head hung.
“You should go.”
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by Remaello on December 10th, 2013, 6:03 am 
