Closed Scar Tissue

[Razkar]

31st Day of Spring, 514AV
Sunset Quarter
22nd Bell

If he was objective, he'd see what a cliche he was becoming. Sullen. Silent. Drinking, and when by the gods had that ever been his thing? Two days in the Blood Pits and on the streets, leaving his body wearied and lashed with healing wounds and swathes of bandages, fresh stitches that made him wince whenever he walked. His room was a sty and his hygiene would make a goat vomit.

No sense of self-preservation. No attempts to hide whom he was. Not a smart thing, when the city's largest syndicate wanted you dead (quite reasonably, if you'd butchered a dozen of their Dragoons).

The problem was, grief doesn't allow for objectivity. It consumes you, blinds you. Pain numbs your soul and thus your mind. Loss... loss for what was so precious to you, ripped away like someone took an ax to your legs. You anchor yourself in the past, in your grief, because going on seems too hard, seems...

Like a betrayal. Like an insult to the dead, if you were to have the temerity to live without them.

Actually, I tell a lie. The problem isn't the definition: the problem is realizing it, facing it, and doing something about it.

Razkar was thinking none of this, of course. Too wrapped up in guilt and self-pity (like I said: cliched). He was staring out his window, arm resting on the wall, head against his forearm as a cushion, other hand holding the smoldering pipe he was sucking on.

He'd been smoking too much, too. Part of him knew it was only a matter of time before more than just Taloba Grey was in his bowl. A season ago he'd never have considered it. A weakener of the mind and the spirit, fit only for barbarians. Thus it was then, thus it was that night.

But so much had changed. So much had been lost.

He gazed down with those bank black eyes and spied them again. Across the courtyard: four floors up, three windows along from his own. They weren't much older than him. From what the Myrian had seen, they both had steady jobs, but that definition could change day-to-day in Sunberth.

They made up for it in their bond. He could see them most nights, laugh and smile at each other. Blow out the candle and pull the curtains, leaving his imagination to fill in the rest. That... intimacy. Knowing that as hard and cruel as the world was, there was a soul for you in it that cared for you.

He tortured himself with his voyeurism, and all it did was rip whatever scabs were trying to heal over his heart and send his groping for another bottle, another pinch of Grey, another night at the Pits, prowling the streets and taverns.

Not tonight, though; for the last, anyway. But the pasts nights? Goddess, how he'd fought. How he'd slain and battered and hacked and defeated, become triumphant and become a minor legend among the dregs that patronized the vicious arena. The male snorted at the though, nose upturning in disgust.

And they'd cheer just as loud when you got hacked down by some nameless barbarian, too. Then forget you in less than a chime.

He turned from the window and walked unsteadily to his bed. Lethshine was hard to find in Sunberth; the barbarian lands were thin on palm leaves, after all. But every other imaginable booze was for sale, and Razkar was becoming acquanited with the variety.

A staggering drunk in the darkness of his apartment, crunching filthy paper scraps his food was wrapped in. And he did not see it, nor care to.

He lay in his bed... on his side. Such a strange thing that he couldn't lay on her side of the bed, by the table, where her purse and clothes was always arranged-

Had been arranged. Had been placed.

Razkar stared at the empty space in the mattress. He ran his hands over it and his eyes flickered to the door. For the thousandth time he willed her to walk through it. Just to see her face again. Once more. Her hair a flaming mess around her shapely neck; her laugh that turned to a snort when truy amused; he freckles speckling her skin, the way they felt when he ran his fingers over them.

Gods, he could still summon that sensation from his fresh and weeping memory. Screwed his eyes up and taste her on his lips-

-then see her as she'd been the last time. Blackened and beyond a daemon's nightmare. Wrapped in cloth, hideous abomination of her perfect flesh mercifully hidden. Tipped over the side of a Svefra boat, cast down with prayers to Laviku, sinking deeper from his eyes... vanishing back to her Father...

Razkar's arm lurched out sharply, fumbling blindly, desperately around the floor. He knew he had another bottle somewhere, and he would need it. Inebriated oblivion was better than-

Someone knocked sharply on the door and the Myrian stilled. Drunk and stricken though he was, he'd been a warrior his whole life, and those senses never dulled. Who would come to him so late? Had the Sun's Birth finally mashaled the will to invade the Quarter?

If so, they've gotten a lot quieter than they used to be. Someone else, maybe? A paid assassin? Or-

"I know yer in there, boy!" The high, clear voice of a female born to boss men around barked from behind the door, and Razkar sighed. "I can smell yeh!"

The Myrian moaned and fell back to the mattress, hands covering his eyes, willing her to just-

"Go away! I'm paid up!"

"I'm bloody well aware of that, lad! I'm here to check the room!"

"Tomorrow!"

"You really going to tell an elder female to fuck off, Razkar?"

His hands popped up and he glared at the door. Oh, that tricky petching barbarian petching stubborn petching... petch! Fine, then. A different tack. He wet his lips and did not sit up. No, he did not. That was like... admitting he would do something.

"I... I'm not in a fit state to take... visitors-"

"You are if they ask and won't go away, Razkar." Gods, she truly would not be cast aside that night. "You haven't let poor Hannah inside for days, and I want to check my property, thank you."

"Mistress Jilene, could you-"

"No, now get this door open!"

Razkar's arms fell to his sides. He stared at the ceiling and shook his head. He really wasn't going to win this one. So with a snarl and a sigh mashed together, he swung himself from the bed and picked his way to the door.

[Razkar]

"Hell's spite, boy! What petching died in here?!"

The woman that barely came up to Razkar's chest sniffed the air again and frantically waved away his answer before it fell from his lips.

"No, no, don't bother. Not sure I want to know..."

He watched the little blind woman potter around the room, occasionally pausing to navigate the larger piles of trash, before frowning in realization.

"What exactly are you-"

He paused and Jilene was all over him, sightless white eyes snapping to him with unnerving accuracy. Dead as they were, the amusement on her face was unmistakable.

"Looking for?"

"You know what I mean."

"Yes, I do. Just a little fun, lad. No harm meant." She leaned close to the bed and felt over it, making critical little sounds when her hands lingered over dry blood or her feet tinged against empty bottles. "You learn to be quite perceptive, when you lose your eyes."

Curious despite himself, Razkar couldn't help but ask: "Lost? You were not born this way?"

"No, no," she said, only a trace of sadness in her airy voice as she made her steady way to the basin. A fleeting look he did not recognize crossed her face when her small, rough hands felt the used cotton balls, old bandages. Too many of them. So many injuries. So much pain. "Purple Fever, swept through the town when I was in my tenth Summer. Killed my brother; I was lucky."

"You think it was luck?"

"I could have died, yet here I am."

Razkar would have bitten his tongue at any other time, just kept it quiet or simple until she left. But the booze and the smoke and the lack of sleep were just the topping to his mood; grief seemed to have shorn away his tact as much as anything else.

"Maybe the gods punished you."

She stilled, and he immediately regretted it. Those white eyes, the polar opposite of his own black ones, turned back to him and he felt her gaze measuring him without seeing him. Saw her jaw tighten a little before nodding and saying in a softer voice: "You seem to think the same."

She heard little for the next chime. Just a slight hitch in his breathing, then... steady again. She'd got to him, but only for a second. Ah. But his voice told him much more.

"You didn't come here to check the room, did you?"

"Well, technically-"

"You came to check me."

Not a question; a statement. Easy to spot. She'd learned that within the first year. She smiled gently, clearly amused at something and not letting on. Razkar blinked. She was a brave young woman, in her way. Probably never swung steel in her life, but she protected dozens in her Quarter, many of them children, keeping away a whole city of the lost and damned with nothing but her will and her sharp tongue.

And you can't just loom over her and pull the Scary Savage Routine like with everyone else.

"I did."

"Why? You have plenty of other tenants."

"None of them are in your brand of pain."

"You-"

"This is where-" she shot back suddenly, voice like the bark of a dog, silencing him with her matriarchal tone as she felt around for a set "-you tell me I have no idea how you feel."

"You don't."

"No, I don't. But I know what you're feeling."

Another hitch. This time for longer. The voice was deeper now, not... threatening, but rapidly losing patience. Part of her suspected it was only her gender that was stopping the male from throwing her out the door. But since he currently wasn't, she decided to keep going.

"You hate yourself. You blame yourself. I noticed your Svefra friend didn't come with you. I heard your voice break when Hannah mentioned her. I hear you come in at all hours, your pace always a little slower when you come back. Like you're wounded or drunk. Something bad must have happened, to-"

"We're not having this conversation, Mistress Jilene-" bare feet shifting on the floorboards, each creaking as he stepped closer "-please leave. I need to sleep."

"Going to kick me out of my own room?"

"My room."

"My building."

"I don't want to talk. You can keep it up, if you like, and I'll stand here like some tame golem until you decide it's best to shut up and leave."

A dark eyebrow like an anorexic caterpillar quirked on her pale face. "Strong words to an elder, Myrian."

"Leave. Me. Alone."

Every word bought him closer, until she could smell the booze and smoke on his breath. She'd pushed him too far, mentioning his race. But she quelled the sudden flush of fear. Gods above, she'd stared down tougher specimens than him, after all.

Well. Metaphorically.

"... your dressings need to be changed."

She shocking swerve in subject was enough to momentarily befuddle the Myrian, who just stood there frowning. "I... They still have a few more bells-"

"I don't think so. I can smell the blood drying. They're soaked." Before he could stop her one hand reached out and pushed against a thick, crimson-coated example covering his stomach. A spiked mace, jammed in there hard. Even now he winced, at her touch and the memory. "Hmm. Definitely full, I'd say. Time to change it."

"I'll do that. Good night, Mistress."

"They heal, you know."

"I know, I have plenty of proof on my skin, now-"

"Show me."

"Cheva's cunt, female, petch off al-"

CRACK!

The blow was so sharp and unexpected that for a frozen moment Razkar just stood there with his mouth open, head facing away from her after the impact of the slap. Still there was no fear on her face. Now it was the stern mask that put the willies up the kids in the Orphanage, even the older ones who were already junior gangers but would not dare disobey Miss Jilene.

"Language, lad."

"You hit me."

"Glad you noticed that. Sobered you up a touch, hmm?"

More breathing. A little heavier. Probably pondering the consequences of picking her up, hurling her out and locking the door behind him. No, she'd just bang on the door until he... what, exactly? Jumped out the window?

It's tempting.

A sigh mingled with the whoof! of a firm, heavy body touching down on the mattress.

"Speak your piece, female."

"Alright. You're trouble, Razkar of the Shorn Skulls, and yes, I remembered. I know the Sun's Birth is still raring to cut up some Myrian who killed a few of them, and don't even try to tell me that wasn't you. There's precious few Myrians in Sunberth, and most of them are females. Everywhere you go, you leave bodies in your wake. Am I right so far?"

"You hear me arguing?"

"Then the obvious question is-"

"Why do you care?"

"Indeed."

"... well? Why do you?"

The woman seemed to gather herself up, gird herself for something she didn't quite want to face, but knew she had to. Her hand reached out, slow, patient arcs until she found an empty bottle. She smiled gently as she felt the faded label; the raised lettered engraved on the bottle.

"Ah... Old Winward's. I remember this brand. I went through a lot of it when I was younger."

"When you were blind?"

"No, when my husband died."

Bugger. That made it harder to be mad at her. But by the breezy, casual tone, he had to have been dead a few years. Jilene didn't even look away - oh, you know what I mean - when she mentioned him. Razkar did, though, voice softening a shade or three.

"I am... sorry to hear that, mistress."

"Well... I say 'died'," she continued, sad smile on her face, "He was killed. We never knew who did it. In this city, gods... it could have been anything. Maybe someone just wanted to see if their new knife could cut. He went out to see his aunt and he was late home. I... I couldn't look for him."

Now her facade cracked a little; her lip wavered a touch and Razkar felt some empathy for another pierce the miasma of self-loathing and self-obsession. Gods, to know your lover could be in trouble and be unable to help; not equipped to even look...

"So I waited. I asked friends to look for him. They did. They found him. Eventually." She looked down at the floor again, voice softer, forcing herself to remember. "It didn't... strike me, until I woke up the next day. He always ran my bath, you see. I couldn't do it myself, and I walked into the bathroom, got in the tub and, of course, it was empty. I shouted for him and realized."

Razkar felt himself nudge closer to the female, though he permitted himself a roll of his eyes. Why him, for gods' sake?

"I didn't get out of it for a while. Didn't want to. Just wanted him back, and no matter how much I wanted, he wouldn't be. Hannah came and found me. Gods, I was a right state." Her eyes glistened, or tried to. Whatever evil Purple Fever wrought on the body, it seemed to effect the tear ducts, too. "And I was for a while. You have any idea how useless a blind wench is in Sunberth? Ha! Best I could have hoped for was a whore who didn't have to look at her greasy customers. But Martin, he... he was so good to me. So tender. So many times I woke up and-"

"-couldn't believe someone as gentle as them could walk in the world without it... breaking them."

She looked at him, and Razkar had a wonderfully awful feeling she could actually see him.

"Yes."

The pause stretched on and on and Razkar didn't try to interrupt it. For once in days he had a... human moment, for want of a better term. Something that didn't revolve around loathing and rage and tears no-one saw but himself. Something better than that. Healthier, maybe.

"... I failed her." He said quietly, head bowed like a sinner at confessional. "I let her out my sight for a chime, and... and she was gone. I can never make that right. I can never... forgive myself for that."

"No-one will ask you to." She said, and he felt her hand on his, giving it a light squeeze. "Though you might want to consider it."

"Why?"

"Because I doubt that if she loved you as you love her, she'd want... this for you."

Her other hand swept around and took in the ruins of his room and his life. Razkar blinked and had that moment of clarity all alcoholics longed for and dreaded, taking in the pigsty he called lodgings in for the first time, with all five senses. Gods... was this really what he'd become?

"No... No, she wouldn't."

"Then why go on like this?"

The words came easier now, faster than he would have thought. He'd had so many of them bottled up, but all he'd used to express had been violence and self-destruction. This was oddly more helpful.

"So much of... of what I was, what I am, where I was going... it was wrapped up in Edreina. After Sahova, we planned to head back to the west. Riverfall, Syliras... maybe even back to the jungle."

A crooked smile broke onto his face and he gave a hoarse laugh. Jilene squeezed his hand again, recognizing too well that wistful, longing tone.

"My father would... heh, he wouldn't have trusted her. But she would have won him over. My big sister, too, but she would have had to spar for that privilege. We could have stayed by the coast, so she could have her ocean and she my trees. But now..."

Her hand cupped his cheek. She turned his face gently, but he saw no romantic overtones in her eyes or her own features. Just a fierce, quiet urge to impart what wisdom she had, and make sure the stubborn petching male remembered it.

"Now you find your own path again. Like you did before you met her. But do it in a way that would make her proud of you." Her hand trailed down and she heard a soft hiss as her fingertips touched an old, faded scar beyond the packed gauze. She smiled gently as she traced the outline of it. "They hurt, don't they? Some for longer than others. But that fades. You don't forget them, but you learn to live with them."

She stood and he did likewise, some semblance of good manners returning to him. Jilene patted him on the shoulder, spry smile on her face that was more like the bustling manner he remembered.

"Give it time. We've all lost those we love. The test isn't losing them: it's what you do next. Get some sleep, Razkar."

She was already walking for the door when he answered. "A-And you, Mistress Jilene." Then, just before she closed it, he blurted out: "Wait?!"

"Hmm?"

"If I am trouble, why do you let me stay? Why do... this, for me?"

Now the smile was downright wicked, and Razkar reminded himself that losing a sense didn't mean you had to lose any of your cunning.

"Remember those lads that hung around? Used to get in trouble, harass the guests?"

"Yes. Back when me and... Edreina were here. They were loud."

"Notice any noise now?"

"No, I can't say I have."

Jilene just smiled and gave him a tick to piece it together. He sighed and a smile was born at the end of it, half-smile creasing his face as she shook his head.

"You let on that I'm back, yes?"

"Always good to have a little trouble around, Razkar," she said, "Let's people know you're not a total pushover."

"Any other reason for the visit?"

She paused, one last time. She paused as if she were mulling over her words, and then cocked her head to one side.

"Nothing so wasteful as grief, lad. Doesn't bring anyone back, just drags the living down with them. You want to lose yourself to that? Well, your choice, I suppose. But I'd rather you didn't. Much more useful out of a bottle and back on your feet."

And then she was gone. Razkar looked around with fresh eyes and decided that first call of duty tomorrow was somewhere that sold bags. He'd need a few.

Then he sniffed himself and nearly choked.

On second thoughts, bathe first. Then we'll worry about the room...

He lay down and he slept. He dreamed of her, as he always did... but when he woke it was not to tears and his fists battering uselessly against the mattress or the wall. She was gone. He was not.

Now he had to live for both of them.

Receipt-10gm for Private Apartment in Sunset Quarter for Spring