Rockin' Night at the Belly (H 1.2, L 1.2)

Location: Poseidon's Belly
Time: evening


Litch,

As it should be, Kestrel enters Poseidon's Belly ahead of you (she is your scout, after all). When you enter with Mynah, Kestrel gives you a significant look and looks over at the Sippians - they are out in force. The fighting cage has a pair of scrappers and the jingle is flowing - lots of bets happening. The Sipps have taken over main seating and they're currently harassing both Dakota and Helix. You spot a few Librarians standing and drinking at the bar with Kiwi.

By the way, how do you present yourself with Kestrel and Mynah in public? Is there a public display of affection, do people know the Talons are family?

Helix,

You brought some ice for Karo and lit his cig for him. His hand really is a mess. He's begged for more alcohol to drown the pain and if you give it to him, you know he won't pay, but he will eventually pass out and be quiet. How did you handle that situation?

Litch and a few of his Talons enter the bar. The Sippians take note, but right now they're watching Bristol do some knife tricks on the table (which means the table will end up pitted from multiple stabs, but no living folks will).

What do you do?

After Kestrel scans the area and gives us the "all-clear", I enter, Mynah at my shoulder. Folks know we're relationally involved. The Ashen Talons are a familial gang, whether born to the life or adopted into it. In public, my ladies and I interact as trusted colleagues and friends. Intimacy is reserved for when we're behind our own walls. We are comfortable with each other in our ternary union.

A few heads turn in our direction, but there are no open stares. I keep my black goggles on, even in the dim light, flipping on the night-vision setting. The gray-green hues create a congruent atmosphere that quiets my mind and allows me to be open to the divine, in case they deign to speak to their servant again.

I turn and lean in to speak to Mynah. "Darling, could you get us some refreshments? We'll find a spot to sit." I glance toward the bar. I've heard the rumors about Kiwi's parentage - that Mynah was unfaithful in her youth. Fools. Our lives are short and difficult. I don't begrudge my lovers for finding comfort and emotional healing where they can. Our faithfulness to the Gray Wing and loyalty to each other as disciples is my chief concern, not some youthful dalliance. Besides, some rumors are only created to sow division. I've never asked her about it and she's never revealed the truth of the matter, though we are both aware of the hearsay. Everyone is allowed some secrets. I try to give her opportunities to converse with the bartender when possible and leave them alone to it.

"Kestrel, luv, are there any free tables for us?"

I can't help but watch from across the room as Karo slides my hopes at a full belly straight down his gullet. His train of shots have drained most of my hard-earned tips straight back into Blackjack's coffers. I hope this isn't an indication of how the remainder of my service to the Sippians is set to proceed. Maybe Edmund could do something to speed Karo's recovery, but I doubt I could afford it, and I'd rather be in the debt of the Sippians than owe my soul to the denizens of the Tower.

I tell myself that adding a little extra water to my soup for the week will be well-worth it if it will prevent Karo from complaining at me and keep the Sippians from rescinding on the deal we made. I have no desire to see that bloody nail again.

Then the Talons descend on the bar. Thankfully it doesn't seem to be all of them. I hope that means they'll find a corner to claim well-away from the Sippians. I find my gaze sticking to Litch as he touches his goggles. If he'd been here just a little earlier, would I still be sworn to servitude like I am now? Would there be Sippian blood and Talon blood mixed on a tabletop that I could wipe away with jingle still heavy in my pocket? I have no right to it, but I resent Litch for not being here, but maybe it's easier to blame someone other than myself.

I grab a towel and make my way deliberately toward a table that's been lingering, hoping I can nudge them out and offer their spot to the Talons instead.

I pinch the tip of my hat toward Helix in thanks, then slide in next to Kestrel. Steepling my hands together, wrists on the table, I lean towards the girl. "Yes, thank you child." I peer at her, watching her face for any signs of trouble, turmoil unspoken.

Oh, it's charged enough. But I think you're better suited to Read a Situation right now.

Hey Litch, ask a question anyway... but be prepared for the worst.

Litch,

You take a seat with Kestrel and survey the bar. The old CRT TVs are showing the latest match in the fighting pits a stone's throw away - you could stand up and look through the chain-link fencing behind the bar to watch with your own eyes, but it's easier to just watch it on the tube, right? The Sippians are taking up half of the tables - they're out in force tonight and itching for trouble. The rest of the clientele around you are scuzzy dock-workers, fishermen, and the kind of folk who don't say exactly what they do to make some scratch. Dakota is limping her way around the tables, serving the orders she can remember, while Helix is making up for the loose ends she leaves behind. Kiwi is smiling while chatting with your mate Mynah.

As you're watching Mynah, Kestrel elbows you and nods toward the Sipps. The thing you should keep an eye on is their recent arrival...

Nuport is a screaming mimi, a wildcat, an unhinged psychopath, but a reasonably good singer.
Too bad she sings over watery graves.

Why does Nuport have a major hate-on for the Talons specifically? What have you taken from her that she'll never forgive?

What do you do?

I turn my head first toward Kestrel. She points toward the Sippians, behind Helix. I inhale deeply, bringing calm to keep myself from becoming agitated. "Ah...Harpy." The only person to ever receive banishment from the Ashen Talons. She goes by Nuport now, I've heard. When we knew her as Harpy, she was fearsome, but still sane. She nearly drowned on her last hunt with us. I think part of her vanished beneath the waves. Or perhaps she swallowed too much of the poisoned depths. Regardless, the fighter lost her way. Killed her lover Condor and wounded Merlin. He took one of her eyes for that, before we could restrain him.

She was a liability, manic and vengeful, but I wouldn't allow her the honor of death while she was a part of the family. In retrospect, I should have taken her dockside and buried a bullet in the back of her skull. Mercy. Now she's the Sippian's wild-eye b*tch. I sigh and murmur to Kestrel. "Best prepare for another scrap, luv, just in case. I wasn't looking for another fight, Kes. Looks like it keeps seeking me out, eh?"

Litch's name for me isn't one I've gotten yet tonight, and I can't help but wonder if it truly reflects how he sees me - a mere child caught in this cold, uncaring world. For a long time, he would have been right, but I like to imagine that I've done better for myself in recent years. My own place, a steady job - assuming I don't snap and injure another customer - and my pets to keep me...safe.

I move away from the Talon's table, not trusting the way they watch the Sippians. I'm perturbed Litch wasn't here to help with them earlier, but now that he is, I only want him to leave well enough alone. The ship has sailed and there's no returning the tide once it's gone out.

I head back to the bar and when lean across to say low to Kiwi, "Do you sense the storm I do?" I glance meaningfully toward the Talons. The Sippians are always a given when it comes to trouble.

I scoff. "I wouldn't work there if they gave me a tiara and named me queen. Those Tower tightwads are self-absorbed jerks." I sweep some crumbs off the stool near me then sigh. "You're right, though, we don't get paid enough to deal with this place. If you want to carry that complaint to Blackjack, I'll support you... just don't bring up my name when you do it. I'm not planning on getting fired any time soon."

I cross my left hand over my right to place upon the back of Kestrel's hand. With my thumb, I gently caress her knuckles. "Only if it's absolutely necessary. If it gets too hot, we leave. They'll call us cowards because they have numbers. We know what's true and what's bravado." I pull my hand back and look over at Mynah standing next to Helix, then back to Kestrel. "But thank you, luv."

There's too much human noise. Too much audio traffic. I'm not going to be able to get a good read on the situation here without calling using higher powers. I breathe out in a whisper, calling on the Gray Wing to allow me to glimpse the unseen. Should we leave now? Did I miss a sign? I close my eyes, picturing Helix. Can you hear me, young one? Helix?

I watch Kiwi's antics with soft amusement. I didn't know him as a child, but I imagine he had an ethereal joy.

"Blackjack won't get rid of Dakota. Whopper likes her too much." I sigh. "Alright. Back to the grind." I pull a bit of jingle from my pocket and slide it across the bar to him. "One more shot for Karo. I think that should put him under for the night. One less conscious Sippian is a win for us all. I'll take the stuff for Two while I'm at it." Two is Dakota's table, and I know she got their order in to Kiwi a while ago. No one's drinking yet, though, and I know that's not Kiwi's error.

A gunshot cuts through the din and the chatter at Poseidon's Belly like a belch at a garden party. It happens, but it's never a good thing when it does.

Most people flinch and duck down, heads on a swivel to see who's drawn a gun. Some draw their own weapons, eyes wary for a big fight coming in a second wave of bravado and pitched fears. The music continues blaring through crackling speakers and the scrums in the fighting pit keep slugging each other, their heads swollen and drunken.

Mynah lets out a strangled cry of alarm and lunges foward to try and catch Kiwi before he falls behind the bar. Kiwi, for his part, falls as soon as his knees buckle, eyes glassy, mouth open with an unspoken retort about Karo.

Helix, you feel wet spots on the side of your face and look down at Kiwi, a bullethole in his chest, blood burbling and streaming out. Spatters of his blood have stained your top - they'll never come out.

Litch, your eyes were closed when the gunshot brought you out of your haze. Your eyes snap open and you see Kestrel has vaulted your table to interpose herself between you and the threat. Mynah is desperately trying to help Kiwi, ignoring everything else. Across the bar to the Sippians' side, you see Nuport holding a smoking .38 special, painted pink with the words "pArtee Gurll" hastily scrawled in Sharpe on the barrel. Around her you see several surprised Sippians - they are rowdy, but they've never shot the staff before. Pinched and groped, yes. Shot or harmed? Not even. Nuport has pushed it too far and now Lucky Strike has to defend her, Litch. You know this. You move on Nuport here and you and yours will be in for some pain. You may lose one of your ternary or worse.

What do you do?

There is a certain stillness in the clutches of catastrophe. A place where time turns from hard-edged sand plummeting toward oblivion to pastel petals, dancing in languid arcs left and right. Same destination, different journey.

It is in this netherworld that I first feel the viscid spray of Kiwi's blood on my skin. It is in the elongated seconds that I watch his eyes go from wide and alive to fading and falling. The momentary quiet echoes his question back to me: Do we really get paid enough to serve in the middle of a battlezone, Helix? In the protracted moments, I turn to see Nuport's eye staring, pArtee Gurll smoking, Sippians swigging away my tips and shooting my friends. We should wear armor.

I turn back toward Kiwi and time turns back to stone, falling at too rapid a pace, hitting too hard a floor, and disappearing long before I was ready to say goodbye.

I scramble to where Kiwi's fallen, desperately shoving the same dishrag I have used to wipe tables and beer for the last several hours against the hole in his chest. Someone is saying his name, and when they've repeated it three times over, I realize it's me.

"It's going to be okay. Can you hear me? Stay...stay here, Kiwi. It's going to be fine. Weh-we're going to..." What? What can I possibly do? I serve beer and sometimes smash hands, and only one of those things ever turns out well. "We'll get you to the Tower," I whisper, a dream and a wish, and maybe all of it too late, too little, too lacking. "Those elitists can fix anything. You'll see."

Though my physical eyes are closed, in my minds eye, the distorted vision of a bullet suspended in time before I hear the gunshot. Everything freezes. My eyes, the only things that move in this dramatic preview of unfolding events, flit towards the target. No! The small missile is heading right for Mynah! You were too late. Too slow. Too indecisive. Is that my internal voice? Or is the Gray Wing rebuking me? My throat constricts, another allowance in this space of arrested time. I need to go to...

Time resumes. Kestrel reacts; Mynah screams. I jolt forward, gasping, my palms hit the table surface. I raise my head and look to the bar, seeing both Mynah and Helix tending to a third person. The boy. The Sippians looked bewildered and alarmed. Even their new leader, Hard Strike's kid, looks shocked, before resetting his face to neutral. I raise my hands up, palms facing him. "Peace, Lucky, peace." I drop my right arm on Kestrel's shoulder to keep her from any engagement, then remove my goggles from my face, so as to look Lucky Strike in the eye.

I walk toward him, slowly and calmly, hands still raised. I know he needs to stand up for his feral creature, regardless of his approval of her deed. He's still new to the leadership game and needs to save face. I intend to allow him to. I stop halfway toward him and wait for him to cross to meet me, as if daring him to the brave act of walking within striking distance of an old man. "Let us speak together."

Mynah acts so quickly and so confidently that it leaves me in a shocked dream state as she slices Kiwi's shirt from his body, exposing for a moment the tattoo he got after and Potpie mutually dared each other to get them - whatever they designed for the other. Potpie used to be a bartender here, but he left for a kitchen job on one of the big freighters that takes long-haul journeys over the waters. I wonder if he's ever been shot out there, and if anyone saw the potpie tattoo Kiwi had the artist put on his forearm.

Potpie could have chosen a kiwi tattoo for Kiwi to return in kind. He said they look like big, hairy zercombobs, but I've never seen one before to confirm that assertion. Instead, though, he chose an orange butterfly with black-tipped wings. I have seen those, once. I was just an Ivy at the time, clinging to the highest reaches of a tower no one else had dared to climb, lost in the clouds and soaking up feeling completely and utterly alone in the world. I didn't even have the Whispers to keep me company then. And suddenly a stream of color flitted from the fog in a rushing river. Hundreds - no, thousands - of orange butterflies danced around me, splitting around the tower and rejoining again on the other side. I watched them, wishing I could join them, until they disappeared into the clouds.

I don't know why Potpie chose that for Kiwi's tattoo, but I couldn't bear to hold his hand and watch as he got it. It puts a pit in my stomach even thinking about it now, a longing...a desire to be untethered and free, light enough to float away on the breeze.

I snap out of the memory and look at Mynah with shock. "We? I don't...I don't know how to do that."

My face is splattered in blood, dress stained with it, and I cover the wound with my hands, pressing down and looking at Kiwi's ashen face with concern. "Tweezers? No. No, nothing like..." I look up at her. "We have chopsticks. In the drawer over there." I incline my chin toward the place. "Kiwi was teaching me how to..." My throat strangles the words off and I have to swallow before I finish, "...use them."

Helix,

Huddled there, behind the bar where he worked with you, with a Talon by your side, you try to staunch the blood seeping out of Kiwi. With chopsticks and a steady hand, Mynah tries to find the bullet and remove it. But it isn't enough. The two of you aren't medics like Edmund and there isn't enough time to get him to The Tower. Kiwi shares no last words with you or the woman trying desperately to save him. He doesn't suddenly wake and look into your eyes. He passes quickly, like mercury through a crack in the glass.

You know he's dead before Mynah stops trying to remove the bullet. At some point, she flung the chopsticks away in fury and gently pushed fingers into the wound trying to find the bullet as if that would magically suck all the red from the floor back into his body. She still working now, trying to probe and pull that bullet. Maybe there was no bullet and Nuport shot Kiwi down with hate and spite alone. Your lap is soaked and growing sticky. The battle is quiet if it's happening around you, not that you care.

What do you do?

I nod once and continue to look at Lucky Strike, holding his gaze for several seconds. "I understand. Your mother wouldn't have made the mistake I did in letting a wild creature live to cause meaningless anguish." I pause and tilt my head slightly, studying him. Softly, I murmur to him, "I see much of your mother in you, Lucky. I think you'll prove yourself worthy of her legacy."

Then I turn my head at catch Kestrel's eyes. "It's time to go." I turn and walk to the bar, seeing two people and one corpse behind it. I walk around behind the bar and kneel down next to the body, placing a hand on Mynah's shoulder. With my other hand, I dip four fingers in Kiwi's blood while uttering a prayer softly. With my dyed fingers, I trace four lines on each of Kiwi's cheeks and triangle on his forehead. He wasn't one of us, but he was connected to the family. Therefore I consecrate his soul to the Gray Wing.

When it is finished, I rock back on my heels and turn to Helix. "We are leaving. You can come with us." Then I help Mynah to her feet and pivot towards the exit.

There is nothing beautiful about death. No poetic words to make it less painful. No bright side.

I realize he's gone before Mynah does. I tell her to stop. I tell her it's too late. I can't look away from his face. I should have held his hand while he got that stupid tattoo.

I'm vaguely aware of someone else behind the bar. Big, worn fingers drawing shapes on Kiwi's face, making his uncharacteristically blanched features even more alien, propelling him further from this realm.

It's not until Mynah stands that I look up and register Litch's face, his invitation to leave with them. I watch them with glassy eyes as Mynah talks about revenge...for her son. And it's like Kiwi's pulled another world away from me. I thought we were the same - motherless children - but we're not, and I can't unknow that fact.

What now? I demand to the Whispers in my head, as if they're responsible for this. What use are you now? I stand, everything in me wanting to take the offered escape, but how can I leave Kiwi here? How can I leave Dakota behind? No.

My body is a sail caught in a sudden gust, every sinew tightening against the gale, every part stretched to squealing resistance.

"No," I tell Litch, the word the first crack of lightning from the impending storm. I move out from behind the bar, my skirt suctioning to my thighs with blood, my footprints leaving a trail in my wake. "No," I repeat, halfway to my target, to Lucky Strike. When I reach him, I slap him across the face, leaving a bloody handprint behind. "Get out," I demand, my voice trembling and low. "You are BANISHED from the Belly. The Sippians are banished."

I have no right to do it. I don't care. People have been shot here before. Usually we serve on. But not one of us. Not Kiwi. No.

I nod in response to Mynah's ultimatum. "It will be taken care of." A vague response. Either Lucky Strike will take care of Nuport himself, or I will. I'm not above breaking a truce, especially when I have the advantage. But not here or now. I'm not going to waste our deaths. The girl rejects my offer to join us. So be it. We are halfway to the exit when Helix storms over to Lucky Strike and lashes out at him. I look back in her direction. If she really is the chosen one, she won't die tonight. Then I leave.

Litch,

You exit before the Sippians and Kestrel hugs Mynah before you take the stairs out toward your jet skis. You ride out under the stars, zipping away so the spray hides Mynah's grief.

Some tiny part of me, perhaps one of the Whispers relegated to the sidelines, tells me I should be grateful Lucky didn't strike me back, but the louder voice, for once my own, wails grief and wind-whipped fury.

"Do you really think our deal is still on after that?" I cross my arms, perhaps keeping myself from slapping him again. I shouldn't push my luck. "I took a hand. You took a life." Not just a life, Kiwi's life, and he's still back there, all alone now that the chicken-hearted Talons have fled the coop. "No." I turn to head back to the bar, for a flash still expecting to see Kiwi standing there filling glasses. It is a fresh strike of lighting across a seething, suffering sky.

The Whispers’ alarm in my mind mirrors my own sharp cry as Lucky yanks me back and I fall to the floor, scraping my elbow and bruising a knee trying to catch myself. Scalp burning, body aching, I’m surprised to find a comfort in the clutches of pain, a release in recognizing what I feel inside manifested outside.

As Bristol reaches for me, Sippians moving like the tide to sweep everything around them away, it dawns on me with stark certainty that I am as trapped with the Sippians as I am trapped in a world without Kiwi. All my confidence in the control I thought I’d created - over my life, my circumstances, even the Whispers - vanishes in a puff of smoke. I’m a life raft in a sea full of freighters and fighters. It is both my sole purpose and all I can do to keep myself above the waves. Failing that, I’m altogether useless.

I push myself to stand again above the storm, avoiding Bristol’s eyes - and Regal’s - as I lower my gaze to the heels of the Sippian in front of me and give myself up to the strength of their current, one foot in front of the other, leaving Kiwi behind the bar for the night one last time.

End Scene