Stolen from the Shadow

The Shadow District 609 ATA

The woman entered her home, weary but smiling fakely. The cheap makeup on her face was beginning to run, but the man on her arm didn’t notice or care. Unshaven, dirty, and crude, he had the sour smell of cheap aler.

She shut the door with a little too much force, and the bang echoed.

In the main room, a boy quickly blew out a candle, scampering into a closet with a prayer book and a holy symbol as if this were just another ritual that he had learned. Humorless laughter echoed at his back, then stopped abruptly.

“Yeh have a whelp ‘ere?” the man grunted.

“Rodrigo! SCAT!” she reacted, pointing towards the closet though he was already inside and shutting the door.

“He, he won’t be any trouble,” the whore pleaded, looking back towards the closet with a combined look of worry and anger. “You won’t see him again.” Her speech was surprisingly crisp for one in the Shadow District.

“I don’t care about ‘im. But you’re worth a few Kahar Imperials less now, aincha?” he responded. “No one likes an overly used whore, eh? Except th’odds ones.” A harsh chuckle followed the comment, leaving little choice.

“Of course,” she replied meekly, leading him towards the bedroom. Try to change the focus, she was quick to add coquettishly, “Aren’t you the lucky man tonight? Already getting a discount. We’ll see if you can’t earn another, won’t we?”

His loud, grating laughter was the last thing the boy heard until the bumps and moans of lovemaking began from the other room.

Covering his ears, the boy attempted to filter out the noises with prayer just as his mother instructed. Though she had fallen into sin, her sacrifices were meant to keep her son as pure as she could. Few in the Shadow District could read, yet this ten year-old was an exception.

Time passed. The noises stopped. Then, with a splintered crash the rotting door hammered the ground.

“Find the woman. She is to be brought to me, but unharmed. You will regret it if anything happens to her by your hands,” a crisp voice announced, the very essence of nobility.

“We got it, boss,” a hoarse voice answered. “So long as yer good for th’coin yeh promised.”

A commotion rose from the whore’s room, the entrance not going unnoticed.

“Wench! Involvin’ me in yeh problems!” the client roared in outrage.

A sharp sound echoed through the small hovel as he backhanded the women.

An annoyed look found its way on the face of the noble. He looked down at his riding gloves as he slowly began to take them off. “You may kill him. A bonus, of course.”

“I ain’t got no part in this!” the client nervously begged. “Let meh go, an’ no one will ever no. I promise. My word. Anything fer my life! Any-!” The protests ended in a strained gurgle and the wet plop of a body. The woman screamed. The boy began praying again, keeping his voice the barest of whispers so as not to attract attention.

The sounds of a struggle penetrated the closet as the hired hands dragged the woman into the main room. “Calm yehself o’yer gonna get yerself ‘urt, yeh?” one of the bruisers drawled, trying to calm the desperate woman.

“Alela, Alela, Alela. What have you done with yourself? You broke your brother’s heart. He never recovered. He died two years ago,” the noble said as almost a sigh, the words filled with regret and disgust. “Was the child worth this dishonor? How could you sink this low? You never needed to have done this to yourself.”

The only response the noble received was a wad of phlegm in his face.

Another sigh came from the noble. “I believe, Alela, you know how this will inevitably end. I will save you some heartbreak. I am not cruel, merely just. You understand that this is unacceptable, that you are a stain that must be removed. You have more than disgraced your family.”

“But, I will not harm your son, so long as he is not Touched.”

“Rodrigo is free of the Shadow! You won’t take him from me,” she shrieked, trying to launch herself ineffectively at the man who just professed to kill her.

A sad laugh was Alela Mikin’s only reply. “You think I’m so stupid not to know he’s in the closet? Really. I am going to take you from him, though, if we’re going to be honest here.” A momentary pause stopped the man’s speech as though he were tasting the sourness of his next words. “Rodrigo? Such a horrid name. We will have to change that.”

The boy had been so busy praying that he never heard the booted footsteps approaching the door. In the faint light, he could only see the silhouette of the noble standing above him.

“Works of the Light, Alela? Commendable. Very commendable. At least you have thrown away all of your heritage,” the noble noted as he yanked the child to his feet.

The scene finally unfolded for the boy. Before him stood a man wearing blackened ringmail, dark silk giving away his station. Across from the pair of folded gloves in the man’s belt was a sheathed sabre – a hand threateningly resting upon it. The man’s hatchet-like face stared disapprovingly at Rodrigo.

Behind the figure stood his mother in a torn, dirty white dress. Tears were streaming, unbidden, down her cheeks as she stared at her child. Her desire to fight, and to live, was slowly draining from her eyes.

On either side of the woman stood Shadow District toughs in studded leather armor. Both held notched and rusted short swords, one of which was dripping with still wet blood. A small puddle had formed and begun staining the bottom of Alela’s meager dress.

The boy’s eyes lingered on the men. They scared him. They exuded danger. It was a feeling of powerlessness that he felt, and he craved the power they represented. Though the men were no more than common scum, an imperial buying a dozen, he envied them at that crystallized moment.

“Elric, you were always a bastard. Promise you won’t hurt him, on your life, then you can do what you will with me,” Alela demanded, a hint of nobility entering her voice, though it was obvious she had already forfeited her life in her eyes.

The nobled barked a laugh and shook the boy by the neck. “Cousin, this is a bastard. But, aye, I promise. No harm will come to him, as long as he is Untouched. That is more than reasonable. He will live a comfortable life as a servant of our House, the House that you fled for him. I told you once already, I am not cruel.”

“So be it. Make it quick,” the noble-turned-prostitute said, raising her chin to expose her neck.

Elric responded with a simple nod. “Light Watch over you,” he whispered, whipping his saber through her neck in one smooth motion. With surprising alacrity, he slid to the side to avoid the shower of blood. A stab into her heart hastened her departure from this world.

Wide-eyed, Rodrigo began to cry. Though he attempted to stop his sniffles, tears poured from his eyes uncontrolled. He attempted to move towards his mother to give her one last embrace, to somehow save her from death. Elric stopped him with ease, a cold mask devoid of emotion on his face.

“Dispose of the body. The boy comes with me,” the noble ordered, grabbing the boy by the neck. He paused. “Say goodbye to your mother one last time, Rodrigo, before we return you home. To Light’s Reach.”

Softly, for his own ears, Elric told himself, "I am not cruel," one last time. More than anything else, he wanted to believe it.

Through his tears, the boy never said goodbye.