Flashback III. Strange Exchange

[Konrad Venger]

15th Day of Fall, 501AV || The Slums

Continued from here

It wasn't a dream. Konrad was sure of that. His dreams were never so empty, and yet so real.

There was no form, no ground, no air, just darkness. He wasn't floating or flying, he just... was. Without a body, it seemed, for every twitch or breath or flex of his limbs was greeted by a simple absence.

He was aware, and that was all.

After... he didn't know how long, he started to feel a panic seize him. There was no breath to shorten nor sweat to mop from his brow (nor hand to mop it, in fact), but he could feel a frenzy welling in him. This didn't make sense! If this was not a dream and nor the fancy of some narcotic then-

Fuck. I'm dead. This is what bein' dead's like.

Not quite.

Konrad (and some corner of his mind wondered if that was accurate anymore, since what was a name without a body to attach to it?) felt that panic freeze like a maelstrom struck by a glacier. That was his voice. Thoughts. Whatever they were, they were... alien. Not his own.

Is... Is someone... Who are ya?

That's not really important.

I'll decide what's important, bastard!

It's unwise to threaten the unknown and unseen, Konrad Venger.

Who... How...

Are you ready to talk like a sober man?

Konrad wanted to thrash and lash out and tear and rend but every murderous impulse he had was stymied by his lack of form. If he had eyes he would screw them shut and will this away... but that wouldn't work, either. He had no lids to close, and even if he did, he knew he would only be back in this vast and unmarked nothingness.

... y-yes. Yes, I am. Where am I? Who are ya?

An apology would help, as well.

I'm sorry!

No, I don't think you are.

Jus' tell me where I am!

Why?

Wh-What?!

Why should I tell you? Because you asked me? I'm under no obligation to help any of you.

Then for... Wait... Any of you? That-That's what y'said? So there's m-more of us? S'not just us?

Not just you.

There was silence for a while. It could have been a chime. It could have been a lifetime. Konrad may have needed that long to find words for the possible truth he'd just been told. Things inhuman and fantastical were hardly a rarity in the world he knew: that there were flying monsters and apes that spoke and gods that walked the world was nothing too far in the realms of insanity or fancy. Not an everyday occurrence, of course, but certainly not cast off as nonsense.

But he never expected to be talking to one. Possibly.

You... You're... You're a-

What I am is hardly as important as my purpose, Konrad Venger.

What you are is yer purpose, innit?

Ah, a philosopher, is it? How unexpected. I say, for that alone I'll answer one of your questions.

Which one?

Your choice.

Konrad paused again and decided what mattered more, and which was likely to be answered.

... where am I?

A place between what is, and what comes after. That's the simplest way I can put it, for your kind.

Konrad was no theologian but he had... some memory of what came before. There were no veins to clog with drugs now, that would steal his wits and leech his brain of his logic. He could see the horrid, pointless past the the last season, near enough two of them. An endless repetition of drugs and mizas, over and over, until-

The Pits. The boy. The bat. The voices. That final slide into his back.

Fuck. Fuck!

I told you before, this is not what being dead is like. That implies a lasting state.

Who the hells are you?!

I only granted one answer, Konrad Venger. And who is to say I am not your own mind?

I don't know all those words yer speakin'!

You may have heard them and simply don't remember them.

Enough! Yer talkin' me in circles! How do I get back?

That's what you want?

Yes! Of course it is!

The other... being, for want of a better word, seemed to hum in the darkness, pondering. Konrad continued to hang there, suspended beyond all mortal physics, and wondered if he could move like a fish through this nothing, or fly like a bird through the air. Anything to get away from this blabbermouth.

Why?

Cuz I won't be dead!

Everyone dies. All beings in existence, from fleas to gods. Why not die now and be done with it? Was your life really so precious? So worthwhile?

Konrad blinked and his life was there. Surrounding him like a globe, like he was in some vast ball and the inner walls were plastered with every horror he'd ever committed, every splash of blood and broken bone, every laugh and tear and those rare, rare specks of goodness he'd shown. His parents, damn one and pity the other. His friends, before they'd forgotten him. The years flew by like leave in a hurricane and all that softness was buried in an avalanche of howling hate for all around him. Konrad cast his eyes about and saw nothing but Dira. Nothing but an ender of lives.

But... But it's mine. It's my life!

And it's worth keeping?

What other choice do I have?!

Oh, Konrad Venger. There is always a choice. But I can see you have made yours.

Konrad opened his mouth to speak and there was a tremor, like a massive bell had been rung and the shock of it was echoing through the air. He blinked and the span of his life, the whole squalid horror of it, was gone again in place of the darkness and-

A speck of light. Further away than a horizon and yet Konrad could see every tiny detail. It was a bed splashed with white and red and pale, pallid flesh. There was two figures, one huge and slow to move, the other smaller, gnarled, hunched and quick with wrinkled hands. Dirty candles barely with their wicks still remaining lit them and as Konrad looked closer and closer-

I... I'm not... That's me.

Indeed it is, Konrad Venger.

Who is-

No more questions. This was not your death, Konrad Venger. Quite the opposite, in fact. If you would but know...

Konrad blinked and if he had brows, he would have knotted them. The voice sounded almost sad, regretful for something that had past and need not have.

Who... Who are you?

Just the echoes of your own thoughts and memories, Konrad Venger. Nothing more. Nothing you will remember, either.

Bollocks.

It may have been laughter, but to Konrad it sounded like the sundering of the world, and when all the calamities and continents crashing had ended, there was still that ringing as he plunged back down into that speck. It grew and spread like a cancer, like jaws, and before he plunged into it he heard-

"Fuckinell!"

There was a room and walls. Candles and cups. A bed and sheets. Softness under his hands and slickness also. He looked down and yes, he had the eyes and the neck to do so! He could feel himself, touch his body and-

-the pain hit him like a fucking hammer and he slammed back into sweat-softened pillows. He gasped and his lungs wouldn't work or clear and he thrashed until impossibly strong hands held him down by the shoulders.

"Easy! Easy, lad! Calm yerself, yer back!"

"Aye... Aye, I... kff... I fuckin' am..."

[Konrad Venger]

"Four days?"

"Aye, thereabouts."

The first question that snapped into Konrad's mind was "how did I void my bowels?", but he decided to leave that as a question for the ages. A quick shuffle about told him that the sheets were clean and not... sticky, in any way that would cause him worry. Actually how the old bat had managed to get it out of him-

No. Doesn't bear thinking about.

"Didn't think you'd make it, once'er twice. Shoulda' figured you'd pull through."

Konrad squinted over at the hunched little figure by the table, lit by a low lamp, immobile save for her ever-moving fingers, grasping needles and yarn. A few blinks cleared the water from his eyes and he saw that it was not some fleece or blanket she was making, but rather... mending. A pile of off-white bandages lay on the table, and passed across her lap like a production line, ending up stitched and sewn and wrapped up in neat little cylinders next to her.

Ideally, anyway.

"Ey! Away with yeh!"

The prowling streak of black-and-white devilry was not quite stealthy enough to miss her shred eyes. With a bang of her foot the cat bolted from under her chair before a knife-tipped claw could snatch an irresistible bandage plaything. Bessy tutted and rolled her eyes, tone almost apologetic.

"He's a tryer, that one is. Can't stay away from the bandages. Silly moggy."

Konrad hardly had a response to that. Instead he just watched the creature hop up onto a cushion places purposefully on the window at the end of his bed, and curl itself into a tight, comfy ball. Killer and cat watched each other with similar eyes, the later twitching its tail here and there until he grew bored of the contest and looked away.

"How... How long fer I can get going?"

Those same shrewd eyes slid up from their busy fingers and looked into his. There was a pause. That was never good, in his experience. It meant the thing it had just heard was unwelcome, unadvised... unwanted? That struck Konrad as queerest of all. Why by the heavens and hells and the dirt 'tween them all would anyone want him sticking around?

"Few more days yet, I'd say. Yer weak. Need to eat and get yer strength back up."

"Not lookin' to hang aroun', jus' get me so I can walk again-"

"Y'can walk now. Just not that far."

Konrad's jaw twitched in irritation and he flexed his legs experimentally-

-grunted back the pain as a thousand tiny jaws tore into his legs and muscle and marrow, enraged by his presumption. It wasn't just pain of the nerves, but the wasting sloth of his muscles, too. Thinner and unmoved for days, they'd shriveled so much that the shuddering pins-and-needles of leg made numb by a bell or two of inactivity sitting down felt like a lover's kiss by comparison. Konrad braced his arms instead and-

"Hell's fuck-!"

-collapsed back onto his back and then howled again. His lower back was a burning star of agony that shone light of pain into every corner of his being. Four days laying still in that bed, body keeping him unconscious to heal... but it had barely begun.

"Easy, now! Gods, I told yeh before, lad, you'll rip yer stitches."

Konrad stared up at the moldy ceiling and cursed softly, noiselessly. The woman, the men, the knife, the city, the world, every god as he could think of them and when he twitched again, of course, he screwed his eyes shut with pain. A child could butcher him with a cheese knife at that moment, and he would barely have stopped him.

"How... long?"

"I'd say... fifteen day. Closer t'twenty, maybe."

"Gods, above-"

"Or," she continued, iron creeping into her voice like a sword being unsheathed. "You can leave in a day or two and try to get somewhere safe, with all of the city seeing just how weak you are. I'm sure that will go well for you."

I preferred you back when you were just a babbling junkie.

"Twenty... sodding days," Konrad ground out, daring enough movement only to reach for the wooden cup of water next to his bed. "Call it... ahhh... fifteen.. an' then I'm gone."

"Suit yerself."

A dry, rattling thing came out of Konrad's throat and he shook a sardonic finger at her to go with the sneer on his face. His was the look of a man not fooled, shadows dancing over his face as rain drove behind the windows and the sputtering candles.

"Ah, c'mon, ol' girl. Yer gonna charge me a pretty purse a' coin fer all this. Fifteen extra days? C'mon, make yer fort-"

"Ain't gonna charge yeh a thing, Konrad Venger."

The rain pattered. The cat purred. Someone laughed beyond the front door and Konrad thought that appropriate. He gazed at the woman's face, like a weathered walnut, and tried to weasel out some hint of jest or ploy. But there was none: just the simple truth of words spoken, and intended.

"... yer pullin' my leg?"

"Not even a bit. No charge. Not fer any of it."

Konrad continued to stare until a sly smile tugged at his lips again. Ah, the old lady had more sand in her than he thought. Oh, she wouldn't accept coin, but a favor, perhaps? A word in the right ear? Konrad Venger imparting some of the street lore he'd learned? Or maybe it was more than that. A body she wanted made a-fresh? Some insult she wanted wronged? Maybe even a competitor, younger, cheaper, cutting into her only source of income?

Nothing comes for nothing. Always a price.

"You want me steel, do ya? Ah, clever girl, I wondered-"

"Don't be stupid, boy. Who in the world would I need killed?"

"Then what could-"

"That you put down your blades."

More silence. Konrad was sure he'd wake up at some point. The pain felt real and the room smelled the same, but this... no, it couldn't be. It was too bizarre. Because he was looking and searching and still felt no lie emanating off that old face. She'd put down her mending and now sat regarding him with his hands gripping her skinny knees, chin jutted pugnaciously forwards.

"Wadaya mean?"

"Stop killing folk."

She expected the young man's laughter. That rich, scornful hurricane that would go on until his eyes watered and-

"Ah... shyke..."

-he clutched at his stomach with one hand and spewed a coughing fit into the other. His guts were a frothy mess trying to choke him from the inside up, and he was still choking on himself when Bessy waddled over and poured him a fresh cup.

"Sounds strange, I know."

"Oh? Do ya? Do ya really?"

"It's all yeh know, after all," she said with some sadness, easing down into a chair next to him, one side of her body after another. Konrad could see now just how frail she was. How wizened and ancient. How her body was vital once, strong and vigorous in that rangy, teak-hard way all Sunberth folk learned to be. Now it was betraying her and all she had left was her will. "I'm guessing yeh don't have any trades outside of murder, hmm?"

"Very clever. So why would I stop?"

"Because yeh have a debt to pay."

"An' I'll pay it, jus' tell me how mu-"

"Ain't taking yer coin, lad."

"Then tell me who-"

"Not asking that, neither."

It was Konrad's turn to pause now. Long enough for her to look into his eyes and see his own truth. See every body he'd made, and the sleep he'd had after, long and untroubled. Bessy saw the glare and grimace of a man tortured so long by the world that his face had just hardened that way, like clay set to flame and forever made solid and unyielding.

"That's what I do. That's what I am. I ain't quittin' jus' cuz you won't be smart an' take payment like any sane woman would."

Her reminded her so much of her. So much so that Bessy looked away and fingered her necklace, running the pad of her thumb up and down the cheap silver surface. No answer, no response, and Konrad looked to see fully the faint blaze of color that had been demanding his gaze's attention for the last few chimes.

It was a shrine. Set into one wall, carved into a small alcove made by hammer and pick, by the look of it. Two figures painted in the broad, solid strokes of a street carver, with simple features and bright dress. A man and a woman, dancing at the top... but joined at the waist. Candles flanked them, and these ones were straight and now. A bowl was before it, and Konrad fancied he could smell meat in there.

"Who're they?"

The question came unbidden, far removed from their feuding words and yet Bessy latched onto it as if it was expected. Her nose made a little noise and she shook her head.

"Kelwyn. The twins. Gods of lost causes."

Konrad let his head flop back onto the pillow. His body ravaged and useless. His healer as insane as she was essential to him. Demented, impossible deals and gods worshiped not ten yards away and a bloody cat to top it all off.

Lost causes. Aye. That'd be about the size of it.

"It fits."

"Yourself?"

"No," Konrad said, lolling his head away from her to watching lightning flash outside, illuminating the rivers of water racing down the window. Revealing a landscape of black chimneys and rooftops beyond. "This place."

Bessy didn't answer. After a while she sighed and the chair creaked. Soft padding back to her chair, and then the monotonous click-click of her needles.

[Konrad Venger]

After four days Konrad was able to swing himself off the bed and make water into a bucket like a civilized man. He considered it quite an accomplishment.

There was the usual grunting and hissing and coarse oaths accompanying every movement, but he couldn't help the smile from his face when he unfurled his pintle and let loose into the filthy wooden receptacle. He rolled back his head and enjoyed the sensation, the achievement, and only when the stream started to die down did he swing his had back down and-

"Don't spill any."

"Fuck me!"

-nearly jumped off the sheets as he saw the utterly untroubled form of Bessy shuffling across the floor towards her little shrine. She paid him no mind as he hurriedly stuffed himself back into his pantaloons, focused instead on the little plate of food and herbs she carried instead.

Konrad watched as the woman carefully deposited ham, corn, bread and even a dribble of wine into the bowel. There was a muffled little ting! of a coin being dropped in there, too. Silver, if he missed his guess. It was a longer process getting down to her knees, one after the other, her frail arms lowering her down steadily and with much the same huffing as he'd demonstrated going for a piss.

"Kelwyn, gods of lost causes, please accept my offering this day..."

Her patient rolled his eyes and back into bed in almost the same movement. It was a daily ritual of hers, after the last meal of the morning. Whether her prayers were for the day that had passed or the one to come he didn't ask, but the latter made more sense. Who prayed for the past, after all?

"Nourish yerself on this food. Slake yer thirst with this wine. Put to purpose this coin, and cast yer eyes on this place."

Konrad chewed the bread and cheese he'd been given for supper ("No meat, yet. Not with your guts the shape they're in.) and listened to works grown familiar. She didn't clasp her hands together; instead she held them palms up and breast-high, as if hoping some unseen force would clasp them in answer, or reassurance.

"See and know that this place bears a great weight of causes both lost and dire, but not hopeless." He head bowed and her voice lowered to a whisper. "Never hopeless. No matter how low they sink."

That was the moment when Konrad felt a prickle of unease that was most unfamiliar to him. He'd seen death and fear and horror in so many ways; he'd been the cause of it countless time. Men had died begging him, grasping his coat... and so had women. Children. But even he wasn't blind to the fierce desperation in the old woman's voice. The deep yearning for her words to be true, that the gods would make it so and redeem her faith.

Something personal in that, he mused, jaw working slowly as his gears turned. Like she's praying for someone in particular.

"D'they ever talk back?" He waited until she'd finished before he asked. Didn't do to piss off the lady healing and feeding you while she was praying. "The gods do that, yeah?"

Maybe there was places where the gods weren't the fact that they were in the world Konrad walked; maybe all the people there had to just go on sheer, blind faith that whom they were talking to really was there (and, more importantly, both listening and inclined to care). Konrad had never seen a god, but he knew as everyone did they were real.

But he'd not prayed to any of them in a long time.

"Not yet," Bessy said as she got back into her usual chair, a high-backed and cushioned monster that swallowed her up most comfortably. "But you hope, don't you?"

"You tell me. Got no use of any of 'em."

Konrad expected some outburst about blaspheming but instead the woman just dropped her gaze and looked so... disappointed. Which only stoked an ember of resentment in Konrad, that she would dare to try to rattle any guilt of of him with her words and her gaze and her hands ever-toying with that thing around her neck.

"Never know if you don't try-"

"I have."

The words were arrows, bolts, bladed and sharp and spat. Bessy looked over and saw fury burning in the healing boy's eyes, thick and vicious. He'd been a grumbler since he'd arrived, but many of her patients were that way. Hated being sick and weak and useless. Konrad was silent most times, but not she'd scratched a little too deep.

She pondered, with something close to sorrow, if she would be in danger, had he been able to walk over to her.

"Y'think I haven't prayed before, old lady? Think I haven't begged into the dark? I have. When my dad was bouncin' my mum around in front of me, I prayed. When I was on the streets wiv' my face a nightmare an' everyone else took chunks out of me, I prayed. Little boy with no-one an' nothin' and what did the gods say?"

CRACK

"NOTHING!"

His hand crashed so hard into the wall that for a tick Bessy was sure he'd broken something. But whatever rage possessed him numbed him also; he just kept staring at her, teeth bared, sweat running down his face, eyes wide and half-mad and all the evil his father had wrought on his flesh clear to her.

"Not a fucking thing."

Rage sustained, but it was hard to endure. Konrad felt what strength he had flee after his outburst, and his arms turned to jelly as he slumped back down in his bed. His guts roiled and his throat chafed; he coughed and sputtered until Bessy's shadow fell across him, handing him a cup of water.

Still those eyes of hers. Moist and warm and looking down at him like a boy. He didn't want to look at them, the concern so thick in them.

Tink... tink... tink...

"The... The fuck is that, anyway?" He spat out, aiming to wound anyway he could. "Dead husband or some shite?"

Again he was to be unsatisfied. There were no huffs of outrage or tears, not even a slap across his face, which he almost would have welcomed. Instead she fingered the well-worn clasp and it popped open. She stared into it and a whole gamut of feelings ran across her face. Fond remembrance. Compassion. Wistfulness. Grief. Loss. Sorrow.

"Would you..." He voice faltered, and she steadied herself. Street instincts hard earned started screaming at Konrad. Something was not right here. This wasn't just some... random thing. "Would you, ahem, like to see?"

He actually wanted to refuse. Better to not know than open this unknown door that his gut was telling him would lead to something worse. But Konrad couldn't back down. He'd asked, she'd offered, and so he turned one of his hands over.

Bessy's fingers were old but they worked hard, and with fine materials. She undid the clasp behind her net, and Konrad felt her old, cold, lined hand steady his own... drop the necklace into his hand, chain gathering onto itself like a serpent coiling... and then closed her hand over it with his own.

"Look."

She didn't look at him when she spoke. Konrad swallowed.

The night was never quite in Sunberth. Death and bedlam stalked on eager feet, in every corner. But Konrad had no senses for anything beyond that room in those ticks. He pulled his hand closer and squinted down at his fist, opened it gently...

It was a picture. A simple portrait made truly wonderful and unique by being done so small. By the weathered ink and chipped places it looked to be decades old; maybe the necklace wasn't even its first home. But as Konrad's eyes widened, he wasn't thinking about the practicalities. He saw hair and eyes and the jut of the jaw, the eyes like his own-

"... Mum."

[Konrad Venger]

First she'd prayed that one day this moment would come. Then she learned what the boy had become, what he did for mere handfuls of coin without the bat of an eye, and her hope wavered. The years ground on and her hope became a thing spoken of only in passing, then by implication, as if her wish for redemption became one for the whole city of Sunberth.

But she'd only to wake the next morning and step outside to see the strength of that hope.

"You... Why do you have this?"

The gods had a cruel sense of humor. Without exception. Never for them the simple, painless path; all things had to be earned in pain and blood, or to them, they were without meaning. So mayhap some corner of Bessy's mind had believed this day would arrive, when she least wanted or expected it.

"I keep it... as any mother would. A reminder of her... her daughter."

So when she'd seen Konrad in the mud, needing her aid a third time, in a place she would never usually set foot on a path home she would never usually take, she heard their laughter. She saw their message.

Damn you all for your games.

"What... But..."

Konrad continued in such a fashion for several ticks. Bessy could not blame him. She sat and took his confusion, steeled herself for the worse that was to follow. His gaze kept jerking back from her face to the locket, his jaw slack and eyes wide, until a broken, disbelieving laugh shuddered up out of him.

"N-No, this-this is some-some kinda joke. I'm... yeah, I'm dreamin', I'm dreamin' and this is all-"

"You're not dreaming boy," the woman said with a sigh that sunk her head and made her look ever more frail. "Gods be, part of me... oh, I don't know anymore."

Silence reigned for a long time in that shabby little cottage. Until the weight of the locket went from light to unbearable with revelation to forgotten entirely. But Konrad could not stop sneaking glances at that face. The short bump of a nose. The full cheeks that stopped her from being beautiful. Her brow was the same but her eyes, and her smile-

she smiled rarely towards the end, when his memory of her was clearest, but that alone made them all the stronger. when he came home with a pet frog or babbling with childish passion of some game he'd bested others at, she was waiting with that smile.
the pills and powders did not rule over her at all times; sometimes she had color to her face and when she smiled... gods, when she smiled

He lay in that bed, slumped in the sheets and buried in his memories, for a long time. Until the shuffling of the old woman broke the spell and reality rudely destroyed it all again. Konrad's hand closed over the locket, hiding her from him-

Hiding. Sneaking. Lying. Lying.

"Eleven years."

Bessy flinched as if struck, but did not move as the words were hissed at her.

"Eleven years an'... an' not once did you think to say anything?! Five years ago you patched me up, took me from the edge of Dira herself an' then, then you couldn't tell me?!"

"I didn't know how to, I didn't," her words came out harder now, moist and choked with decades of guilt and loss, her head shaking back and forth in constant refusal. "You know what I was like, back then. Wasn't until that that time in ninety-five that I had me head straight enough to-"

Any other soul, confronted by sole kin and revelation, may have been struck dumb again and softened. But Konrad was not such. Weakness did not mollify him; it only fed his hate, his anger, a bitterness stewing long in years finally given a target.

"Is that yer excuse?! For what you did-"

He damned his broken body and lunged at her, snagged her by the wrist and Bessy's cry was stolen by the crushing pain he gave her. His eyes were fit to run out of his head like molten metal, white foam at the corner of his lips.

"Long as I could remember, I was alone. I am alone! Nothing... no-one... never cared fer me. With a word - a fucking word - you coulda' taken that away. You coulda'..."

His words stalled as his anger reached a precipice. What could she have done? How could she have helped? Would he have listened? Would she have bought back his mother? Would an embrace have wiped away ten years and more of blood?

"I... I was scared..." Her words came in a lilting hush now, like a farmer trying to placate a wild horse. "I was... I was so ashamed. I couldn't... save my girl... my Emily..."

Emily. Yes. That was her name. He screamed it at her once. I remember.

"I saw what you were... what you were becoming." Now her words gained fire. Accusation and guilt joined together, as if she both despised what he was and damned herself for allowing him to walk that path. "By the time... the time I was sober again, and I... I was myself... you were lost. You were a killer."

"Even killers have family." He let go and shoved her away with the same movement. "You held mine from me. Such as it fucking is..."

More silence, save the faint rubbing of Bessy massaging her sore wrist. Konrad sank back onto his pillow and covered his hands with his eyes. This... fuck, he couldn't fucking hack this. Why did this shite have to happen now? He needed some more smoke, that'd sort him out, wipe this away, he'd scarce even remember it in a while-

"And what're you gonna do with it now?"

"Fuck is there to do with it?" He spat at her, uncovering one eye to glare at her. "What is it? An ol' woman?"

"A cousin, too," Bessy said with a sad smile. "Hansel. The big lad."

"Fuck me, that's a man?! I thought yed shaved one a' those gorilla people!"

"My eldest's boy," Bessy continued, ignoring the cruel jibe. Any argument or goal she had was on the tip of a knife now; she couldn't waste time with the trivial. "Your auntie, gods rest her. Her husband passed, too, last year. Emily was my youngest. Now it's just... us."

Konrad could practically hear the "we" that was quickly replaced and felt a sneer twist his lips. She was right, though. It wasn't just him anymore, and the more that single thought repeated in his mind, the more he felt his heart cool.

"Don' mean shit to me, old woman," he growled. "You did fuck all f'me then, yer gonna do fuck all fer me now I know yer-"

"I saved you, boy. Don't forget that. An' this time, I ain't wanting gold."

"Want me to become a stable shit shoveler, then? Work down the docks? Pull pints?" Every suggestion was delivered with naught but scorn. Disgust and disdain for those muggy little cunts who wasted their lives away serving others when they could have a blade in their hand and be their own masters. "Fuck off wi' that shite, woman, y'know my answer."

"I think you can change."

Konrad's laugh was long and cruel and he cared not that it made the woman bow her head again. Hiding the moistness in her eyes.

"Really? Youse haven't been payin' fuckin' attention the last years, 'ave ya?"

Bessy knew it would be this way. No matter how she did it, she would have to plow through all of his bile and contempt for life and all those that crossed his path. Turning him from it would be the chore of her life, but she would not shirk from it.

What have I got to lose? In these last years...

"And are you happier for it, Konrad? Has it eased all that pain even a jot?"

Konrad went very still.

"You dunno what the fuck yer-"

"You're happy like this? You can tell me that, can you? That you wake up in the morning happy to see Syna?"

"I'm warning you-"

"Not what I've heard, this last season. They say Konrad Venger's a shell. A ghost covered in skin. Nothing to him, nothing left. Waiting to die."

"Shut up!"

But she would not. If she had to draw out his hate like venom then she would do it, and damn the rage that came after. Her hand struck out like a snake and snagged the locket by the chain. He pawed after it as she snatched it away and when he lunged forward-

-it was his mother's face swinging before his eyes.

"Do you really want to die like him, Konrad? Like your father? Full of hate an' drugs an'UHK!"

His hand was around her throat. Her own grandson. Some hellish thing rooted itself in his eyes and candles seemed to burn out at the very sight of it touching the light. The one thing that could have summoned the very worst in him.

I needed to face it. So does he.

"If you... ever... compare me t'him again-"

"Then be better than him," her words were almost gurgled and choked but still they came. What did the young know of determination? Of real courage? Determination was a thing borne of years; courage of knowing full well what you had to lose and still trying hard. Bessy had not come this far to fail now. "Because I healed you. Because you're my family. Because of lost causes..."

Konrad's world was crackling flame. Pounding blood. Shit and spit and charcoal in his nose. One squeeze, that's all it would take. Even weakened he could do it, such was her age. Then cold metal was pressed into his free hand. He knew what it was.

Bessy closed her eyes. Her lids pushed the tears out and down her cheeks.

I have a grandmother.

"Because she wouldn't want you like this."

He could have, but he did not. He let her go. Breathing hard and rubbing her throat she fell back into her chair and Konrad to his bed and he wanted to sleep now, sleep and never wake, never deal with this again.

"The Fall. Until the end of the season." He looked to Bessy, the woman that saved him and cared for him. That lied to him and abandoned him. "Put down your steel. If by the Winter you are... not changed, if you still feel that pull to the streets... I'll not stop you."

Konrad looked at her. At the locket. Into the little hearth fire and the smatter of dwindling candles. It wasn't much of a house, but it was a home. Bessy had lived there all her life, most likely. She'd raised children there. Had his mother waddled along these floorboards as an infant? Had his aunt and she played games in the little garden out back? All these things he never knew, or worse, knew and believed had been lost to him.

He bowed his head with the locket in his hands. Palms pressed together. He did not move and Bessy felt the lateness of the hour upon her. She wanted her locket back, but... really, was it not better off his? Emily's son, surely he had more need of it? Until he needs the coin for powder, she thought with some bitterness, but quashed the thought. Konrad had gone years without any tangible memory of his mother. He deserved this much at least.

So she gathered herself up and felt around for her stick. She usually needed it later at night. She turned her back on the boy and reminded herself to change his bandages when she-

"Until the Winter."

The words were soft but struck her like light from the heavens. She pressed her eyes shut again and twin lines leaked from them. She nodded and looked to the little shrine, the capering figures dancing just for her. Bessy kissed the tips of her finger on one hand as she looked.

Thank you.

Continued here

[Aladari Coolwater]

Your grades have been spotted!
________

Konrad Venger

■ Observation: 2
■ Unarmed Combat: 1

Lores

Kelwyn: Gods of Lost Causes
Bessy: Lost Grandma
Religion: Don't Interrupt Prayer

Comments:

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