Flashback A Lesson Learnt

[Shakune]

A Lesson Learnt, 73rd Summer, 498AV

Her mother smelt of sex again.

Shakune was not sure what exactly the word 'sex' meant, but she knew it was what Kinsha smelt of because she had told her daughter one morning. Shakune was dressing in their shared bedroom when Kinsha returned home after a night working. As she wordlesly slipped past her daughter, Shakune had caught a whiff of a strange scent. Sweat, alcohol, heat, and something else that reminded her of the saltiness of the coastline.

"What's that smell?"

Her mother had winced at the child's airy question, as if her daughter's very existence was painful. "Quiet Shakune. I have a headache."

Kinsha always had headaches. It did nothing to feed Shakune's curiosity, so she asked the question again. Her mother, whilst undressing and sliding into bed, casually replied: "it is sex, Shakune. Yes? Do you understand? Sex?" Her snappiness had told Shakune that the question did not actually deserve a response, so the girl had shut up and left her mother to lie in the darkness.

Now Shakune knew better than to ask her mother the same question, or indeed to speak to Kinsha at all. Her mother had little patience at the best of times, but she seemed especially taut and frayed in the morning. The slightest thing could set her off into a state of fury or endless sobbing. Once, Shakune had simply greeted her with a bowl of porridge in the morning and Kinsha had thrown the lumpy substance into the opposite wall, screeching to her in frantic Tawna. The girl, who spoke only one or two words of the desert tongue (much to Kinsha's utter disapproval and disdain) had skulked away and not returned home for two days.

When Kinsha entered their home, dress hanging off her left shoulder and dark red lipstick smuged, Shakune kept her black eyes down and focused on the book in front of her. It was a big book - an adult book, according to her friends - with long words that she could not read. But it had lots of pictures in, especially of different boats. The book lay in front of Shakune, open on a two-page spread of a blue painted Svefran casinor. She was busy inspecting the hull of the ship when she felt Shakune's hot breath on her ear.

"What are you reading?" Her mother's voice was croaky and gruff. Whatever 'sex' was, it clearly tested her mother's vocal cords.

Shakune stammered out a nonsensical response, trying to show her mother the fancy-looking book cover, but her voice cut short when Kinsha slammed her hand onto the book. The girl froze, her hand trapped painfully under the hardback book that her mother now had pinned to the table. "About boats." She replied feebly.

Kinsha inhaled deeply, releasing the cool, narrow breath so it fluttered Shakune's black hair around her face. From her position at their table, Shakune saw both of their mangled reflections in their old waprd mirror across the room. Even in a mirror so old and distorted, it was clear how identical they looked, Shakune simply being a smaller version of her mother. Long hair, copper skin, black eyes, each had a sharp jawline.

Their expressions were the sole difference. Kinsha's eyed hardened, narrowed, like two little black slits on her face. Shakune could not help but think of a snake, and when she looked at her own reflection, she saw a wide-eyed baby bunny that was about to fall prey to the serpent.

[Shakune]

After another hollow sigh, Kinsha turned and left her daughter - Shakune watched the predatory snake in the mirror slither away. Though her initial response was to feel relief, soon Shakune found herself close to tears. Her mother simply did not care anymore. She had never been affectionate, always distant and hard to please. But in the past two seasons or so, even those patronising smiles Kinsha would flash her daughter to feign some kind of interest had stopped. Her mother would only speak to her when she wanted something, or if she was confused after taking one of her pills.

It was one of those pills that her mother was popping into her mouth now. For a moment she held the tablet in her mouth, and Kinsha smile with almost orgasmic pleasure at the sheer relief of having that strange-coloured pearl of happiness in her mouth. Another sigh, but this time filled with pleasure and anticipation.

Another pill, another deep, shivering sigh.

"It's about boats." Shakune repeated, closing her book and turning fully in her seat to stare at her mother. She was desperate for a reaction, hungry for her mother's wrath to prove that Kinsha still cared enough to be angry. Anger was better than nothing. Shakune feared the day her mother would feel nothing.

Mother and daughter stared at each other for a long chime. Kinsha's lips curled backwards, like a rabid dog frothing at the mouth. Shakune almost smiled, immediately recognising the prophase of her mother's rage and welcoming the emotional reaction. But then the pills lying in Kinsha's gut dissolved and began to intrude her blood and cells. The woman gave a shake of her head, and walked airily to the bedroom.

She slammed the door, and that was that.

Shakune sat in silence for several chimes, watching the crooked door that led from the kitchen area to the bedroom. The door was so badly fitted that she could see the corner of her mother's bed through a gap about one inch thick between the wooden frame and the actual door. The hinges - rusted and squeaky - would soon give way, and they would have no bedroom door to separate them.

Good, the girl thought, suddenly full of unadulterated rage, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!

She wanted to tell her mother as much, but feared the lack of a response that would be earned from Kinsha. Better to keep her feelings to herself, and assume that her mother would be devastated and sorry for how her daughter felt, then to actually say them and witness how her mother simply did not give a petch.

Shakune mentally repeated the 'P' word over and over again, staring at the corner of her mother's bed and wishing the world would swallow Kinsha up and spit her out into the desert, where she belonged. Kinsha had always spoke fondly about the desert and how she wanted to return one day with Shakune so the girl could meet her family. But then she'd stopped talking about it, as if Ekytol itself had stopped existing. Then she started doing sex (I must discover what that is, Shakune decided determinedly), and taking pills when she came back from working at night. Shakune wasn't sure what had caused this downfall in her mother's state, but she guessed that it must be something pretty terrible. Her mother had never been happy as such, but she at least used to feel. Now she simply sexed, popped pills, and slept.

[Shakune]

Fortunately, Shakune had the Fish Market, and the people there were far nicer to her than Kinsha was. It was the smell of the sea that had first tempted Shakune to visit the market, which was about a year ago now. Most people at the stalls shooed her away, thinking her an orphan or a pickpocket. But then one day, a woman and her two dogs were walking through the stalls, and one of the dogs stole a great giant fish right off one of the vendor's tables. He had been furious, but the posh dog owner would not let him retrieve the fish, despite her dog not eating it, nor would she pay for it. Fortunately for the vendor, Shakune didn't like the lady much -- she had told Shakune to stop following her earlier that day, and when Shakune had replied "who would follow you?", the woman had called Shakune an ignoramus. So when Shakune saw the dog-versus-fish battle, she had wormed her way into the centre of it all and prised open the dog's mouth, retrieving the fish and slapping it back on the vendor's stall.

He was called Derek, and had been hugely impressed with Shakune's 'balls' (when she frowned and asked where on her body these balls were located, he had merely laughed). He'd rewarded her apparent bravery with a slobber-free fish, but when Shakune had taken it home to Kinsha, her mother had screamed and thrown it out of the window. The following day, Shakune returned to Derek's stall and request a better fish, and subsequently explained her mother's adverse reaction. This initial conversation had developed further, and soon Derek had a flavour of the loveless relationship between mother and daughter. Out of pity for the black-eyed girl (who had an unexpected common accent), he offered Shakune a job gutting his fish. He paid her what he could spare; sometimes a silver coin but usually a hot meal.

Derek lived on East Street like Shakune and Kinsha, but he also had a fishing boat which he took out to sea every other day to catch his wares. His youngest son, a lad named Ted, usually accompanied him but when Ted was ill or otherwise engaged, Shakune would join him. It was her first time on a boat (other than the one she had been born on), and she had loved it. Of course, Kinsha had practically thrown her daughter out of the house when she returned smelling of the sea (the woman could stomach the smell of fish only because of the food or coinage Shakune came back with). For the rest of the day, her daughter had wandered Zeltiva, every so often rolling in mud or standing close to perfumed ladies as she tried to mask the saltiness that clung to her skin.

Shakune spotted Derek immediately, at the same stall he always stood at, hollering out his prices in competition with the other vendors. When he saw Shakune, he waved her over and she ducked under the table to join him on the other side. A barrel half-full of fish stood to his left, as always, and Shakune immediately selected one off the top of the pile. The fisherman handed her a knife midway through a shouted sentence, and when his brown eyes met hers, he winked. His smile shaped the latter half of his cry to sound almost sing-song-like with enthusiasm, and Shakune smiled as well. All the tension from this morning was wiped clean - for the next two bells, at least.

Shakune set about her task, slapping each fish on the table in front of her and positioning her knife on the fish's belly, just under the pectoral fin. She dragged the knife along the length of the fish, right to the anal fin (Ted laughed whenever he heard that, but Shakune did not understand why). After this, she let all the fish guts tumble into the wooden box at her feet, which already contained a small pile of slimy, gross things from the fish Derek had gutted himself earlier that day.

[Shakune]

[right]Shakune remained beside Derek long after she had finished her job. It was part of her routine; she would do anything and everything to avoid returning home to Kinsha's medicated snores. She observed Derek haggling with customers and shouting out his wares in competition with the other vendors. He always went with the hard sale, choosing the price of his fish and refusing to budge on it. Sometimes the potential buyers would shrug and move away, but others lingered, tempted by Derek's descriptions of his fish as the best in t'city and fresh as a daffodil!

Sometimes Shakune helped him sell his fish, standing beside the man like a miniature bodyguard and watching his clients under a lingering black gaze. She liked to think that she always managed to stare the customer out and bend their will to hers, but sometimes she saw the wariness in their eyes: she still looked like a foreigner, despite having lived in Zeltiva her entire life.

"Think we're 'bout finished here, kid." The fishman stated after three or four bells. Most of his wares had been sold, and the few remaining samples would go to Dereks' family, Shakune, or the orphanage. He was kind like that. "Get yerself washed up and smellin' good."

She nodded silently, turning her attention to yet another box that stood behind the stall. This one was filled with water and chunks of lemon. Sometimes Derek squirted the lemon juice over the fish ("to give it that gourmet touch"), but usually they used the lemon water to clean the stench off their hands.

Whilst Shakune dipped her hands into the cold water and scrubbed them, she finally rounded on Derek: "What's sex?"

"Gods, Shakune!" The man spluttered then released a chortled laugh. "It's err- it's somethin' us adults do for fun."

The girl nodded solemnly, continuing to scrap the miniscule residue of fish scales and guts from under her fingernails. Derek's description did not match her mother's tired and snappy attitude in the morning. If she'd been spending her night doing something fun, surely she'd return home happy? "M'mam does sex at night. She doesn't seem very happy afterwards."

Derek's expressed hardened, and he nodded stiffly. Ah, now that made sense. Shakune had mentioned before how her mother returned home in the morning after a night's work, but Derek had not wanted to assume what that meant. The woman could be a barmaid, waitress, even a chef -- but now it was clear.

She was a whore.

He tried not to judge Kinsha; Derek had never actually ever met her, and plenty of respectable women sold their bodies when times got hard. But Shakune's mother was blatantly unloving, even cruel. Regardless, the girl defended her mother, even in situations where Kinsha's acts had been utterly unforgivable, like when Shakune had stayed with Derek, his wife and their five children when Kinsha had thrown her out of their house for two days in the middle of winter.

But there was no point in upsetting the girl, not when she deserved as much kindness and respect as she could get. So when Derek spoke again, he did so softly: "it means yer mother works hard f'you both."

Shakune frowned again, pursing her lips in thought. Yes: that was why Kinsha was always so exhausted in the morning: she had being busy working, doing sex! She had a newfound respect to her mother, who apparently spent the nighttime slaving away doing sex whilst her daughter slept soundly.

All for me... For us!

[Shakune]

She returned home later that day full of enthusiasm and spirit. Shakune now understood why her mother was so frayed and tired; she was working hard, doing sex to earn her and Shakune's living.

More importantly, it meant that Kinsha loved her daughter enough to have such a demanding job. Now the girl felt guilty over being so needy and demanding of her poor, exhausted mother. Kinsha often complained of a bad back and sore knees, so clearly sex was very challenging.

Shakune wondered what sex actually involved; what games were included? Was there music? What made it so fun? She knew adults drank alcohol to have fun, so she assumed that alcohol and sex went hand in hand. Perhaps her mother worked behind a bar, giving out sex with pints of beer? She wouldn't ask Kinsha directly (who wanted to be reminded about work out of hours?), but from now on, Shakune would be more patient and loving to her mother, to show how she appreciated her hard work.

She returned earlier than normal, keen to clean the house up to surprise her mother when she woke. Silence greeted her when she entered their home, but as Shakune began to tidy up from this mornings breakfast, she heard her mother groan and get out of bed. "Would you like a drink? Some food?" She asked gently but spiritedly. Shakune would no longer let sadness or resent tint her voice, "Derek gave me two Red Snappers today! They're pretty decent sized, too."

Kinsha appeared at the crooked doorway between the kitchen and bedroom. She was staring at Shakune as if she did not recognise her own daughter, her makeup smudged down one half of her face and her hair all matted. Blearily, she made way to the kitchen table and sat down.

The girl continued tidying in silence, but watched her mother carefully out of the corner of her black eyes. Kinsha was ferreting around in her satchel bag again, the one she always carried about with her and was now strung onto the back of one of their wooden kitchen chairs. Shakune expected her to withdraw more pills like the ones she had taken this morning, but instead Kinsha revealed another substance, one that Shakune had never seen before.

She watched as her mother poured a thimble-full of white powder onto the kitchen table from a small glass vial. Kinsha dipped her head down, snorted up the powder, and then threw her head back dramatically. For several ticks she remained in that position, head thrown back, legs splayed open, eyes closed. She looked like a rag doll.

Shakune approached carefully, her mouth slack in concern. "Ma-"

Something in her mother snapped. Her posture changed almost immediately. Kinsha sat upright, her head facing Shakune, but her black eyes seemed unfocused and blurry. "Why are you home so early?"

Shakune blinked, surprised by the clarity and speed with which her mother had spoken. She was unused to seeing the woman awake, let alone so responsive. "I wanted to clean the house to surprise you."

[Shakune]

Her mother laughed cruelly. "Surprise me? What would surprise me is if you didn't bother to come home one day."

The girl stayed quiet, unsure of how to react to this statement. Was her mother being mean or kind? Did she want her daughter to stay away from home, or was she saying how Shakune was brave enough to no longer need her mother? She hoped it was the latter, but something in her girlish mind told the half-breed that her mother was being cruel.

Her mother was speaking again, in Tawna this time. When Shakune shook her head slowly, Kinsha gave another hollow laugh. "Oh, of course. You don't speak our Mother tongue, do you Shakune? Nothing but Common for my little fucking pirate mutt. You know what my mother would say to this life I live now - and to you? Chopre he randi" The Tawna spilled out of her mouth so smoothly that Shakune barely noticed that her mother had switched languages.

No, this is wrong. This isn't how it's meant to go. Kinsha loved her daughter, why else would she work so diligently? She must be tired from work, that's all. That had to explain the shrillness of her voice, her apparent desperation to upset her daughter. Before she realised, Shakune had spoken quietly to herself, reassuingly: "You're tired. From sex."

"Tired from sex?" Kinsha repeated the statement in a mockingly high pitched voice. She wobbled her head side to side in an attempt to mimic her daughter's hopefulness, her youth. "Yes, I am tired from fucking my night away, but it's worth it. You know why?"

Shakune shifted her eyes from the floor to her mother. A glimmer of hope sparked within the girl at the question. Maybe Kinsha was about to explain how hard she worked in order to provide the best for her daughter, and to pay for her clothes and food?

But, no. When Kinsha answered her own question, her words were filled with poison. "I fuck my way all through the night for this--" she held up her right hand, and between her thumb and forefinger was the small glass vial, still containing the powder. Shakune noticed a tiny trace of the white stuff on her mother's nostril. "-- this gives me a reason to live. This little white powder is worth everything. All the men, all the bruises and the soreness. It's even worth your pathetic questions and sad company." Kinsha's chest rose and fell heavily. Sweat broke out on her hairline. "I fuck for this, and nothing else."

Shakune walked away, silent and on the verge of sobbing. She didn't know where she was going, or whom she was trying to find, but the girl found herself striding up East Street, away from her family home where her mother had started to wail and throw things. She was soon at the Market, where mere bells ago she had stood beside Derek and chopped off the heads of his fish and learnt what sex is. I'm an idiot, she thought miserably, remembering how hopeful she had been that her mother loved her, despite Kinsha's attitude and behaviour. But she was wrong; Kinsha loved her pills and powder, not her daughter.

Her mother was ill.

Yes, that's what's wrong.

The thought dawned slowly on Shakune, and she found herself coming to a stop to consider the new possibility.

It wasn't that her mother didn't love her; Kinsha was poorly with a disease. She took her pills and powder to cure herself, but perhaps the medicine wasn't working as well as it should. This gives me a reason to live -- those had been Kinsha's exact words. It sounded like the description of a medicine, at least to Shakune's naive mind.

The child's desperation to explain her mother's dismissiveness would continue for approximately another year. Whether it was naivety or denial, Shakune found herself unable to compute the fact that her mother - the woman she cared for more than anything and the root of her very existence - simply did not care.

[Perplexity]

You have played well, but the game is at an end.

You have been bested. Beaten. Checkmate!

However, here is a consolation prize: a wealth of Experience and Lores! If you have any questions or concerns regarding this grade, please do not hesitate to send me a PM. I'll be more than happy to assist you!

 

Shakune

XP

• Cooking | +2 EXP
  Interrogation | +2 EXP

LORES

• Sensory: The Smell of Sex
  Kinsha: Serpent, Snake…Mother
  Kishna: Lives for Pills and Powder
  Eyktol: Desert Homeland
  Derek: Kind Fisherman
  Cooking: Properly Gutting Fish
  Cooking: Lemon Juice Improves Fish Taste

MISCELLANEOUS

• Yikes. Shakune needs hugs. All of them.

Until Our Next Match,
-Perplexity, DS of Zeltiva
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