3. Hurt

Hurt


  • "…so I pushed her down the stairs and had her husband imprisoned! True story!"

    The courtyard rang with chortling laughter as several thickly jowled men peddled their tales of debauchery to one another. This was a common occurrence in the home of the extravagant(ly fat) Nigel Nathers. Servants in white coattails bustled about, as invisible as possible, replenishing the diminished spread with edible finery. Their cloth had become a spattered canvas of rich and exotic foods, spilt wine and crushed fruit; with the three enormous bellies jolting and shoving the table at every humorous provocation, even the bananas were not spared from rolling off onto the grass.

    “I say, Nigel, you go too far, you go too far!”, choked one of the large men through a sandy mouthful of partially chewed biscuit. His name was Augustus Pinchletter. Throughout the course of several quiet arguments spanning roughly six months of time, the servers had finally come to the consensus that he was, in fact, the fattest of the three. And it was a wonder, at that; half the food that went into the man’s mouth ended up right back on the table… or painted to the front of his frilled ascot.

    With tears in his eyes, the other guest wheezed for control over his incessant giggling. The result was a sort of manic, desperate gasp for air, much resembling the way one would envision a whale with a sponge lodged in its blowhole. The whale would’ve died with more dignity. This was the notorious Bailey Dimpleton. A squat, bug-eyed little man (‘little’ only by comparison to the other two), he often roamed the streets of Athkatla reeking a scent that was some strange combination of seared pig-fat and elderly people. Rumors abounded of his love for bacon and geriatrics, whatever the two could possibly have to do with one another; chances were, the man’s stubby arms simply could not reach to bathe the direst parts of him.

    The afternoon drug on into twilight as the three continued their spree of lying, drinking, laughing, choking, laughing, drinking, choking and drinking. It was a ritual that the staff had come quite accustomed to dreading. “Master” Nathers (they called him other things when his blubbery back was turned) was bad enough on his own; beatings were frequent, though the sheer degradation of the experience was far more painful than the whip. Besides, the obese man’s obese arms could only suffer one or two strikes before his obese lips would begin to quiver and sweat obese drops of perspiration. No, it was the generally disgusting nature of the atmosphere that sent most servants ducking around corners at every sign that their Master might appear. Nights like this were the worst. A decent man could only stomach so many stories of good peoples’ lives being ruined by porky, horny, entitled, greedy, corrupt, corruptible, dishonest, violent, disgusting, and most of all, rich bastards such as these. For when these three convened, where was any decency left in the world? Surely not in Nigel Nathers’ courtyard. Here, the only decency lied in sparse fragments within the hearts of the serving staff. And being in earshot of these men made them feel hardly decent, at all. To add insult to tantamount injury, Nigel Nathers was considered an upstanding member on several sub-committees throughout the body politic. In some way, regardless of how small, this talking squid had a teaspoon of influence on how good men the port over were required to live their lives. For anyone who truly knew him, that teaspoon was far too large. For Nigel, however, it was far too small; everyone living at the manor knew that he had systematically been using his wealth to gain political toeholds and favors for years, but nothing compared what he’d been planning most recently. It made the night extra dour for each server as the news reached their ears, one by one.

    “Gentlemen, when I am elected Comptroller to the Six, I daresay we’ll feast every night just as we do now! This godforsaken city will be our oyster, and we shall shuck until we’ve no breath left in our lungs!” Nigel was the unofficial leader to the group; it meant nothing, save that they usually gorged themselves on his dime.

    “That outta take about six minutes.” One of the servers had the guts to say what the rest merely thought, albeit at a whisper. Luckily, the raucous chewing and laughing and spilling and slurping and belching and groaning drowned out the quip, made miniscule by their orgy of noise.

    Out of the corner of his eye, Nigel noticed a server whose face seemed not quite so familiar as the rest. The man must not have remembered to shave. He’d beat him later. Damnable ingrates, the lot of them. He smirked, reveling in the fact that he’d soon have them all replaced by a far more pricey, far more worthy, far more naked staff.

    The thought was banished from his mind as the plate of blueberry tart was placed before him.

    –------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The black haired, green eyed man could muster no more than a modest shrug, attached to a tiny, polite smile. Yes, he was pleased with himself. But far more than that, he was pleased with his host. They grey-haired elder with the kindest, grandfatherly gleam to his eyes was a bubbling tower of smiles and adulation.

    “Do not be so modest, my Vash’t, my boy. You are, without a doubt, the best thing to happen to the Harpers this year”, the man grinned and whispered against his cane, propping up against the desk at which sat the younger of the two. “The best thing to happen to me this year.”

    And that truly sparked a grin. He’d known the older gentleman for a time, now. That day had been surely a fateful one, if ever anything at all fateful happened in the life of Vash’t Reinhardt. Eighteen months ago? Nineteen? It seemed an eternity; the world was no longer what it had been, and when one undergoes a transformation of such magnitude, it is sometimes difficult and often amusing to remember being in the skin of an entirely different human being.

    He did remember that life had been hard. His wife was already gone, then, having died during the birth of their first and only child. He had taken her to every hospital that night, in hopes that someone would help her. When none would, due to vacancy, he remembered carrying her across the city to the Moonhall near the water. He remembered her sharp, short little gasps for air as her eyes locked with his in a mixture of fear for her life and adoration for her husband. He remembered how her arms began to go limp ‘round his neck, the strength required to breathe flagging and sapping her stamina. He remembered how the councilman road by in a wagon large enough for a bull, and would not so much as meet eyes with him or meet his pleas with the shame of a glance… never mind the pleas of his bleeding wife. And he remembered that fleeting glimpse at hope as he finally achieved the great doors of the Moonhall, legs and back cramped and locked with burning aches, loosing one weak hand from his woman to pound the knocker in wild desperation…

    “Vash’t?”

    The younger man started, snapping back into the now, back into the room with his host.

    “Eh… Rufus. I’m sorry”. He tried to apologize in the most neutral and opaque tone that he knew; alas, it was hardly enough to mask where his mind had been from the man who had come to know him like a son. He was prone to these spells, slipping in and out of conversation, fading from the past to the future without so much as a warning at times. Rufus had told him that people plagued with trauma sometimes developed a condition that gave their memories a mind of their own, able to control the victim’s thoughts and force them back into the nightmares against their will.

    And it was he, Rufus, that stood before him now with said knowledge intact. The grin that he’d worn seconds ago (or minutes, he never knew how long his episodes lasted) was numb, now, knowing not to overwhelm him with questions and solemnities whenever he’d returned.

    “You’ve nothing to apologize for, my Vash’t.” He loved to be called that. My Vash’t. He’d never been anybody’s Vash’t, at least not to any father figure. This man had single-handedly reached out from the ether and bodily hoisted him from his own drowning-pool of self-loathing and misery. All of the If I had just been a little faster and the If I could have afforded a wet-nurse and the If I had left her like her father insisted, he took all of that away. Made him whole again. Rufus had taught him so much more than the subtleties and nuances of assassination. Rufus had taught him what it was to live. Rufus had taught him to be a man. Rufus had taught him to take destiny into his own hands and change the world for the better, however you could, with words and love, with knives and poison, with gall and single-minded strength. Rufus had taught him that the villainy that reigned in Athkatla could come to an end, if only the pupil would be willing.

    And Vash’t had been a damn willing pupil. A man at the end of his rope will often slide off of it, right into a grave. Rufus taught him to turn that rope into a noose, and to hang monsters with it.

    “We are indebted to you, Vash’t…” The old man reached into his robe and pulled out a tiny parchment, wrapped and rolled in between wooden slats. Vash’t recognized it immediately. Whoever’s name was on that parchment when he opened it, that person would be the next one to lose their life. The next name on his growing list. Targets like Nathers were always easy. So weak. So endowed with the illusion of safety. Always assuming that peace-of-mind could be purchased by throwing enough gold at bodyguards and sell-swords. Alas, t’was an arsenicberry tart that was his undoing. Others were more difficult, but Vash’t had the skills, now. More importantly, he had the confidence. And He sure as Hell had the motive; a future Athkatla, so bright and free of corruption that the thought of letting a woman bleed to death in the street for fear of dirtying a stagecoach would no longer exist. The people… the people who thought those thoughts would no longer exist. They’d be dead. Vash’t would kill them. Not the ones who were smug and greedy and thoughtless. You can’t kill someone for being greedy. But the ones who directly involved themselves with the underdealings and political devilry that made those thoughts conducive in his city, they would die. But he wasn’t smart enough to find them on his own.

    And that’s where the Harpers came in. When Rufus found him, that indeed fateful day, he’d been drinking his mind out at Delosar’s. This old, gentle grey-beard had sauntered up to the table, cane in hand, slid a mug under his nose and spoke those magical words that still rang in his ears from time to time: “Do you want to make a difference?”

    He hadn’t touched a drink, since.

    Working with the Harpers was a lot like being a freelance writer. They were the smart ones; they picked the jobs, the who and the why and the roughly when. You were responsible for the where and the how. He’d never met any of them, except for Rufus, but that was apparently how they prefered it; if he were ever captured, he wouldn’t know who to rat on. Only Rufus. And he’d send himself home to his wife before he’d ever rat out Rufus.

    The scroll was placed upon the desktop, gingerly, with respect for the actual gravity of that tiny piece of paper and what it entailed.

    “This one has to happen soon, my boy. I’ll let you glance over it. Tea?” Vash’t nodded. Rufus hesitated, and turned to shuffle from the room. It wasn’t normally like the Harpers to send him two jobs in such short succession. Two deaths of two notably powerful people in as many weeks was considered bad form, bad ethic. But they’d never steered him wrong.

    Vash’t reached out to pluck the roll from the desk. This particular ceremony always gave him a little bit of a shiver. It was as if the gods were casting bones, and he was the debt collector. He knew that it never really happened that way; every name on his parchments was the name of a man who had soiled the world with hatred, the name of a monster that lived under the beds of children and in the nightmares of good, loving folk.

    The peculiarity of the parchment struck him well before he had a chance to read anything that’d been written. The ink was in red, whereas it was normally black, and there was a seal at the top of the paper. His brow furrowed as he finally began to take in the text, written in common.

    It was dated three days prior:

    “Next, send your dog after Nathers. That gluttonous child has sullied the name of this city and this council for long enough. It is his kind, easily distracted, undisciplined, weak, spineless that hold this city and, verily, this country back from being the empire that she deserves to be. You will do away with the pig. After that, we’ll have no more use for Him, either, Rufus. He has served you, us, well for this year. But you know as I do the risk in keeping one on for so long. He should have been finished months ago. You will dispose of him, yourself. If not, hire some vagrant to do it, and then kill the vagrant, instead. Perhaps that will ease your conscience. We’ll have no slip-ups, old man. We’ve watched you. There are those here who’ve come to doubt your meddle, who find your affinity for this boy to be quite alarming. I’ve done what I can to stay their hands, but no longer. See that it is done. And begin preparations to acquire your next dog.”
    -T

    Just below it, in different lettering:

    "Vash’t… my Vash’t. This is the truth of our dealings. You do not work for the Harpers. You never have. Nor do I. I work for the Council. I work for the city. These people that you have killed in the name of what is good and true in your heart have not been innocent, but they ultimately died because they stood in the way of we, the old men who cling to life and power in these awful, gods-damned times, in this awful, gods-damned city. I used you. I will never wash the shame or guilt from my hands, and I hope to burn for this thing that I’ve done to you. For I have come to love you as a son. As my boy. My Vash’t. I do not ask your forgiveness, for I know it is not within mortal authority to forgive the ilk of demons. All I ask is that you remember what you’ve come to know as truth: you can make a difference. You can rid the world of its monsters; monsters like me. Don’t stop, Vash’t. This blow will unseat you, but don’t stop hunting. Not until you’ve freed this plane of us. You don’t need the Harpers. Decide for yourself who must not live amongst the free and good folk of Abeir-Toril. I love you, boy. Run."
    -Rufus

    –-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Vash’t ran.

    Account name: Vash't
    Character name: Vash't


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