writing_shadows

The Beginning

She tried to talk to me in the early days. At first I didn’t understand the words. It felt like I’d only been speaking Arabic for years, although later on I realized that it was only Arabic to me.
Still, at the time, English felt lumpen in my mouth.

“Hello,” she asked. It was just one word. You didn’t greet people like that. Arabic greetings are long and linger on the tongue like sugar.

“As-Salamu `alayki”

I couldn’t say the words. She had a gun at her hip and I was kneeling in chains. ‘Peace be upon you’ seemed to be a rather optimistic greeting to offer. So I said nothing, but stared at her instead.

She was slim and light, and looked as if she was made of spindrift. Her eyes were blue and she looked a little bit lost in this place. How can a jailer look afraid of their own prison? I didn’t understand it then. I was only really learning to discover the meaning of my own fear.

She shifted uncomfortably. I wonder now what I looked like to her. I was thinner then, half starved, and with black eyes that burned, pupils sometimes gleaming like coals. I hated her masters, and so I
hated her, with all the passion that I could muster. And I am, it is said, good at passion. Just only ever the bleaker kind.

“Have you been here long?” she tried again. She was the first of the privateers to try and make conversation with me. I glared a little longer. I wasn’t going to give her an answer. I wasn’t going to let her feel good about what she was doing, talking to the girl her master kept chained on a leash.

I really really hated that leash.

She looked a little bit hurt. I think she could see the hate in my eyes and backed away. Still, she could have kicked or cuffed me then. Most of her kind would have done. But she didn’t. Instead she just wrapped her arms around herself, slightly defensively, as she turned and walked away.

Time Goes By

“Shhhhh….shhhhh….”

The man kept crying, quietly at least. The screaming had been bad. Screaming attracted attention and attention was never good. I’d learnt that, over the year or so I’d been here. I’d learnt a lot; other than the privateers, I had been here longer than anyone now. I knew the rules, and I’d learnt that rules were important.

“Listen,” I hissed. “I don’t have long. They will be back to take you away to the holding pen soon. You’ll be safe until you get down there. These guys don’t get to decide who lives and who dies, but
tomorrow the Auctioneer will come round, and if he thinks he won’t be able to make money out of you, he’ll kill you. So decide now whether you want to live or die.

“If you want to live, then keep quiet, try and make sure you can stay on your feet…”

As he had just had his kneecap shot out by the Spindrift Girl this really wasn’t going to be easy for him, but I didn’t make the rules.

“…and never look anyone in the eye. Don’t worry too much about the Ogres downstairs. They will bruise you up a bit, but they aren’t allowed to damage anyone too much. Be afraid of the Auctioneer, the Boss and the Spindrift Girl.

“She’s the one in white and blue. She’s pretty, but she’s cold. She carries a gun, and she will kill you in a heartbeat. She’s the one that the Boss will hand you over to if you irritate him.

“They won’t keep you long. The auctions begin tomorrow. But you need to get through tonight,”

There were footsteps on the floor, and I scuttled back across the room as quickly as possible, hugging the leg of the chair my leash was tied to. I didn’t look up. I just stared at the booted feet as they crossed the floor; big brown boots, small black boots. The Spindrift Girl was back early. I heard her voice, calm and cold, without a trace of emotion. She didn’t even sound annoyed when she commented on how loudly the poor bastard on the floor was screaming. I guess her bullet caught something important in his knee.

She tilted her head in my direction.

“Smokey doesn’t scream,” she commented. I was unsure if there was humour in her voice, or if it was purely an observation.

I did raise my head to watch her as she headed out of the room. She didn’t turn or look back once as she walked away.

Flames and blood

The first thing I remember is the horrible screaming sound as the Hollow walls gave way to the battering ram. The thousand trees which grew fast together to form the Hollow wall cried out, as their bodies were ripped apart, and I remember how the air was suddenly filled with the scent of sap and blood.

I wasn’t expecting that somehow. Then the first of the Molotov cocktails were thrown in through the gap and all I could smell was petrol.

I couldn’t get free. The stupid collar burnt at my throat like never before and now the room was filled with men, all burning bright as Summer themselves. I’d never met the Seasonal Courts, had heard rumours and whispers at best. I thought at first..no…I didn’t think. You can’t think clearly when you’re scared.

Someone else was screaming. The Auctioneer, a Woodblood, caught in the burst of flame for a Molotov, going up like a torch. My…no, I don’t want to name him…the one who’s good behavior I was held hostage for was roaring like a bull, pinned down by three or four of the intruders. The Spindrift Girl stood atop her master’s great chair, her face expressionless as she took neat precise shot, after neat precise shot.

I couldn’t get the collar off. I couldn’t. It hurt so much to push against it, and I think maybe that was when I started screaming too. I still have the scars – on my neck and on my hands – where I tore at the collar that day.

It didn’t help. I was still chained up when I saw him, my other, fall. It took four of them to bring him down.

I don’t remember much after that. I still feel numb inside, just thinking about it. I do remember the Spindrift Girl. She never moved from her spot, never showed a flicker of emotion. As her enemies
closed in, she fought with a blade now, a thin trickle of blood sliding down her sword arm.

The last thing I remember is that I saw her fall, before the accursed collar finally came free, and I let the smoke take me once more.