Somewhere Safe

Tom's too soft for his own good.

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A large forest in Central Anaxas, the once-thriving mostly human town of Dorhaven is recovering from a bombing in 2719 at its edge.

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Tom Cooke
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Tue Dec 25, 2018 5:07 pm

23 Vortas, 2718 ♦ Nighttime ♦ The Painted Ladies

Cold night, he thought. His breath was just about steaming on the air, and the chill was creeping into his bones; it sunk into him like it hadn’t when he was alive, drenching all his joints in ice and making him sluggish and rickety. Maybe it’d been the salty breeze in Old Rose, but it had never felt this cold in the middle of Vortas before. Then again, maybe it was Vauquelin, and maybe it was the long hours at the factory. He felt like if he stood up for another half-second, he’d snap like a bunch of dry old twigs. But there was still farther to walk – and he was shepherding a little boch, red-nosed and bleary-eyed and clinging to his arm in a way that made his back protest. Sniffling and shuddering and begging to be carried, even though they both knew that Anatole wasn’t strong enough for that.

How, he thought to himself for what must have been the thirtieth time, did I get myself into this one? Thomas Cooke, you mung, you’re getting soft. You deserve whatever’s going to happen to you the second this gitgka opens the door.

Still, it didn’t feel as if he had much to lose.

When the sickly kid Brent had started working at the mill, Tom hadn’t paid him much heed. There was some camaraderie among the ladies, but nobody was about to throw a soiree when they got off work; even if they’d had the time and money for that kind of leisure, Tom reckoned they wouldn’t have invited him to their dinners. Urchins were always drifting in and out, hollow-eyed, working until (he assumed) they couldn’t anymore. He knew this like the back of his hand, knew that when he was a boch, he’d have ended up in a factory or a work-house if Carlisle hadn’t hired him on. It’d always seemed to Tom that there were too many children in the world – they were always slipping through cracks in the pavement – but if Marleigh’d taught him anything growing up, it was that the world weeded out the weak. In some ways, he’d always prided himself on being strong enough to weather whatever life threw at him. He’d dodged death enough times, that was sure.

Until he finally did die, leastways. But you couldn’t take death personal, same as you couldn’t take it personal that the sick and the old without means fell by the wayside, slipped through the cracks. You couldn’t take it personal that the world had cracks. People died; life was short. You were lucky if you made it to adulthood, and even luckier if you made something of yourself while you were at it. It wasn’t Tom’s responsibility whether anybody else – or anybody else’s boch – lived or died.

In theory, at any rate.

He felt his heart flutter and jump like a guttering candle, the chilly air making each breath feel like a blow to the chest. In a rush of dizzy anxiety, he pulled Brent closer to himself, wrapped his arm around the boch’s shoulder. Glanced around. Long, dark streets, the shapes of cats winding through the shadows with their threadbare coats glistening in the sparse lamplight like silverfish. Brent stumbled over a loose stone and caught himself on Tom’s coat, jarring his injured hand in the process and letting out a ragged yelp.

“Great Lady,” growled Tom under his breath, wincing at the sound. “We’re almost there, ye chen? Look, up ahead.” He pointed out into the cold, misty dark with a trembling hand. A pair of frightened, red-rimmed eyes followed his finger. “See ’em? They ent far. You can make it, can’t you? We ent gone all this way for nothin’?”

“Epaemo,” whispered the boch. “Epaemo.”

“Stop talkin’ nonsense, ye chen? It’s no trouble to me. But you gotta be brave.” He took Brent by the shoulders, stooped down, looked him in the eye. Let his voice get low, as low as he could make it go, which was very low indeed; he enunciated each word. “Do you understand? You got to behave yourself around this rosh, and maybe she’ll help you find someplace to go that isn’t the streets. I don’t know what’ll happen. But you got to be brave, brave as you ever been, and quiet and good as a mouse in a grandfather clock.”

Brent nodded.

Tom waved a bony finger. “And no more fiddlin’ with the splint. Leave it alone.”

“If you’d just used some voo to—”

“Can’t,” snapped Tom, pulling the kid along again. They stumbled through the dark streets, keeping to the shadows, Tom keeping his eyes out for sharp things in the dark. “Ask me again an’ I’ll—” He coughed, lungs rattling. “I don’t know. Just close your head an’ come on, kid.”

“I miss Daoa.”

“I’ll bet you do. Great Lady, I’ll bet you do.”

Among the Painted Ladies, it was even quieter. In the narrow sliver of sky between the rooftops, Tom could see a scattering of stars, guttering in and out of the clouds. In the shadows between the lamplights, he squinted for the building he’d been told to look out for: it couldn’t be that hard to find a bright pink house, he reckoned, but all the houses here were colorful, and it was dark, and he felt like he’d slipped into a fever dream. His back was twinging more and more by the minute with the boch hanging off him, and the thundering in his head was starting back up, never content to leave him alone.

He was limping by the time he’d found the little pink house, damp with cold sweat gathering in his palms. His heart was still hammering, but he clattered to a halt, and the boch gave him a curious look. He swallowed thickly, swallowed glass.

“Is that it?” asked Brent. “Can’t we go in?”

Tom didn’t say anything.

“It clockin’ hurts! An’ I’m cold!”

“Lady,” breathed Tom. “Sack it. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m just damned –” She was an old lady, by all accounts – what could she do to hurt him? And what did it matter, anyway? As long as he got the kid in safely, what did it matter what happened? He patted Brent on the back, trying to be reassuring even though his hand was trembling with a violence. “Come on.”

The two of them struggled up to the door, breathing heavily. Brent was picking at the bandages around his hand again, but Tom didn’t have the time – or the mental energy – to do ought about it. Instead, he raised his own hand and banged on the door, wincing at the sound. A well-fed patch tabby peered around a corner at some distance, hungry eyes glittering in the distant lamplight. Tom hoped somebody was home.
Last edited by Tom Cooke on Wed Dec 26, 2018 6:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Agatha Maplethorne
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Wed Dec 26, 2018 12:38 pm

23 Vortas 2718
Nighttime
It was late for Aggie, but she couldn't sleep again. After a few hours of tossing and turning, she finally gave in and got up, making tea before sitting in her rocking chair in front of the stove, rocking as she sipped the tea.

It was nights like tonight when she missed having companionship. For the first 7 years after Edgar's death, she often had people over, just to visit her and check in. But over the last 5 years, there had been a slow, but steady, generational overturn in the Resistance. She knew it was only natural for this sort of thing to happen, especially in the Resistance, where lives could burn bright and fast. But it seemed like the new generation saw her as a little old lady whose time had come and gone.

It hurt to feel left behind.

Aggie, once again, pondered whether she should take a boarder. She could only offer them the couch since the idea of someone else sleeping in the bed that she had shared with Edgar was too much for her. Plus she had to admit that she'd sleep like hell on the couch. She was too old for that sort of the thing. But an old, beat up couch was more than a lot of people had.

Of course, there was the problem of the fact that she was a founding member of the Resistance. Even if she wasn't active, there was always the risk of one of them coming to her for first aid. They may not want her in missions, but when someone's been beaten up or shot, you take them to the first sympathetic person you can find.

After a while, Aggie discarded the idea again, just like every other time she thought about it. The companionship would be welcome on the lonely, lonely nights and she could use the money a boarder would bring, but she couldn't risk exposing the Resistance, even by accident. One word to the wrong golly and people could die. Clocks, one word to the wrong human and people could die. Not everyone found the golly's oppression grating and some even backed the golly's rule. Those people didn't last long in the Dives, but they were still there and Aggie knew, without a doubt, that there were people who supported the gollies silently.

Aggie finally finished her tea and stood up from the rocking chair with a groan. She took her mug to the sink and rinsed it out, placing it on a rag to dry just as someone knocked on the door. "I'm comin', I'm comin'," she yelled as she made her way slowly to the door, her cane tapping before every step. She threw her housecoat over her worn nightgown before unlocking the door.

Aggie opened the door partially, her eyes narrowing as she saw it was a golly of all people. Well, she at least thought he was a golly, though she could barely feel the sensation that most gollies and wicks gave humans, what gollies called a "field" and wicks called a "glamour". He definitely had the look of a golly, though he looked like he was about to fall over from exhaustion.

Aggie resisted the urge to snap at the man. The wisest course of action when dealing with any golly was to be polite. "How can I help you, Sir?" Aggie asked, her voice sweet as honey.

Then she saw the boy and her demeanor changed. She glared at the golly. "You bring me one of the kids you beat on? I suppose he's lucky you didn't just throw him in a trash heap like so many of your people do," she said, her voice angry. "I don't know why you came to me and I don't care. You ain't taking that kid anywhere," she said, opening the door fully and beckoning the boy in. "You get in here, boy. Ain't nobody gonna hurt you anymore."

As the boy passed her, she got a closer look at his hand, badly wrapped and leaking blood. Her glance went back to the golly, her eyes full of rage. "What did you do to him?" she asked, barely resisting the urge to go get Betsy and deal with this piece of trash. Part of her brain tried to tell her that she was making a mistake here, that the golly wasn't what he seemed, especially as his field flickered like a candle in a breeze. But she had seen too many injured kids to listen to it. Gollies were careless with human lives, seeing humans of any age as disposable. She had seen it too often and it was one of the reasons that she ultimately followed Edgar into the Resistance. It didn't make sense that a golly would bring her one of his servants after beating them but, right at the moment, Aggie wasn't thinking logically.

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Tom Cooke
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Wed Dec 26, 2018 6:03 pm

23 Vortas, 2718 ♦ Nighttime ♦ The Painted Ladies

He’d expected this sort of response; it had been a few months, so he was getting used to it, strange as that was to think. Wouldn’t do any good to argue. He watched Brent hunch his shoulders and totter obediently past him, though the boch took a moment to let go of his hand and shot him a dubious backwards glance. Then Brent was huddling behind the old woman, uninjured hand plucking lightly at her housecoat.

This, by Thomas’ estimation, was an impressive individual. As with most human women now, he found himself looking up at her, but she wasn’t particularly tall or strong-looking by nattle standards; the lines on her face, especially around her eyes, struck him as kind, and her voice had a sweetness like a little old brook in springtime. Nevertheless, all of her was full of a righteous fury that Tom knew like the back of his hand. This was a woman who’d suffered and come out of it tough and sturdy as the stick she used to walk. Even the mincing manner she’d put on when she first opened the door felt like the edge of a well-sharpened cooking knife. Benevolent, but you’d lose a finger if you misused it.

And it had changed so quickly, just as soon as she’d seen the boch! Much as he knew it was unwise, Tom couldn’t keep the smile off his face – a flickering, sad little grin. He liked her. He would’ve liked to know her back when he was himself. Unfortunately, he was miles and years away from that, across a whole river of life and death.

So he put his hands up real slow and shaky, bowed his head. “Whatever you want,” he said softly. “I ain’t planning on doing anything other than leaving you in peace, madam. But I got to tell you what happened, so you know. The kid’s got no family at all. You don’t got to take him in, but he needs someplace where he can heal up nice and safe. Not beggin’ on the streets.”

He struggled with words for a moment, all too aware of her eyes digging into him like whalers’ harpoons. Another thick swallow that felt like marbles in his throat, like a lump the size of the moon solidifying at the base of his heart.

“Me and the boch, we work at – it doesn’t matter. A mill. Real bad place for kids, but it’s mostly women and kids. And me. He got his sleeve caught; he’d just started working, and he didn’t know to keep his sleeves back away—” Tom stopped abruptly, wincing and taking a deep breath. Great Lady, but it was cold. He shuddered into his coat. “He ain’t got no family. He went to me, thinkin’ I could cure him with some jibber. I can’t. I took him to one of the doctors ’round here – real butcher, not a nice guy, ye chen? I hope it’s gonna heal—

“For the love of Alioe, Brent, stop pickin’!”


The boch bit his lip from where he stood behind the old woman. He didn’t stop plucking at the bandages around his hand; he just sniffed, and his eyes brimmed with tears.

Tom looked back up at the woman, lip twisting in something like a bitter smile. “Can you help him, madam? I know what I look like I am, but I ain’t got much to give you in return. But I can—” He rifled in the pocket of his oversized coat, eventually producing a couple of shills and a tally, glinting in the light from the doorway. He fumbled it toward her. “Please? I can barely take care of myself, much less a kid. Somebody told me the rosh in the pink house was good with kids who got nowhere else to go. A real good lady, they said you were.”
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Agatha Maplethorne
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Thu Dec 27, 2018 5:38 pm

23 Vortas 2718
Nighttime
Aggie visibly relaxed as the strange man spoke. His language wasn't golly language and she would never believe that a pureblood golly would sully their mouth with "crude language", regardless of how long they lived among the lower classes. The fact that the sensation that wicks and gollies gave her was weak also aligned with her new assumption that he was a wick, though it didn't explain the fluctuations in that sensation. But it was late and she was tired.

"You look entirely too much like your golly parent, y'know," she said as she waved the money off. "Keep it. And come in. I'll make you some willow tea while I examine the boy's hand," she said, turning around. "You look like you could use it. Close the door behind you."

She started her slow way to the kitchen to put more water on the stove to heat. "I swear to clocking Alioe, boy, I will cut that hand off if you don't stop playing with the bandaging," she said firmly to Brent as she walked past him and rapped his good hand with her cane. She had years of practice rapping children with her cane, so she knew that it was just enough to sting without causing any lasting pain. "Go sit your erse down on the couch. My first aid kit is between the couch and the end table. You should be able to pull it out with your good hand."

"Which butcher did you take him to? Was it the Hessean off of Linden? Tall man, shaved head, one eye, smells of alcohol?" she asked Tom once she finally made it to the kitchen. "That bastard's been taking advantage of factory workers for a godsdamned scoreyear. He probably made things worse, but what were you to know? Turnover in the factories is so bad that we can't keep word out to avoid him and I'm pretty sure some of the fucking golly factory owners help fund him," she said, her lip curling in disgust.

She fell mostly silent as she measured out tea for herself and willow tea for the wick. Once the kettle started whistling she sighed. "Sorry, but you'll have to come in here and get it. I can't take both cups out there on my own," she told Tom. "I'm Aggie, by the way, though I suspect you already know that. You can call me Aggie, Auntie, or Auntie Aggie. Just don't call me Rose," she said as she poured water into both teacups, letting out a giggle at some joke only known to herself. Before picking up her teacup, she dug in the cupboard for the sewing tin that she kept her cookies in. She pulled out her last gollyknocker and slipped it into the pocket of her housecoat before making her way to the couch slowly.

"Scoot," she told the boy, putting her tea on the old milk crate that passed for an end table. She pulled the cookie out of her pocket and turned to the boy. When she spoke, her voice was gentle. "This is a gollyknocker. It's got alcohol in it, like your orphanage patron probably drank," she said, not bothering to tell the boy that most of the actual alcohol was baked off. "If you can sit still while I take a look at your hand and re-bandage it, it's yours. I ain't gonna lie, boy. It might hurt. But you're a strong boy, ain't you?"

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Tom Cooke
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Sun Dec 30, 2018 12:03 am

23 Vortas, 2718 ♦ Nighttime ♦ The Painted Ladies

To be honest, he had expected her to take the boch and slam the door in his face. Wasn’t too far back to his apartment, especially without an injured kid clinging to his arm; it was cold, but it wasn’t midwinter-cold. He’d have made it all right, and he’d have done right by a ragged kid that didn’t have anyone else, which would have just about made up for the effort. He had to do something, at any rate, to make up for the incident at the Stag. (He wasn’t sure when this had started mattering to him – when this whole social class vodundun had become real to him, when life had become about more than just getting paid – but it was somewhere around there. Something about the look on that serving girl’s face when she’d stifled her laughter, when she’d seen Constable Delacore coming at her like murder in a uniform. He’d never make up for seeing that and not doing anything.)

But the old rosh didn’t slam the door in his face. In fact, she relaxed and opened it a bit more.

He looked like his – golly parent? He squinted, trying to parse the words; they settled over his brain like a thin layer of dust. It took a handful of seconds for them to sink in, during which he stood there, hesitant, as if she hadn’t just invited him in. Hadn’t just offered him tea and a place to sit and – hell – but she thought, didn’t she – she thought he was a –

She thought he was a wick. For the first time in five months, a regular human being was inviting Tom Cooke into her house.

“Fuck!” he spluttered without meaning to, and then fumbled back together what dignity he had, trying not to laugh. “Sorry – sorry, epaemo, ’scuse my foulness – it’s just – wouldn’t you know, I get that a lot?” Trying to control his grin, he ducked into the little house after Aggie, shutting the door behind him against the chill air. “Guess I just” – he paused, taking a deep breath, wind-burned cheeks tingling in the sudden warmth – “guess I just got all the toffin in the family. Great Lady.”

When was the last time he’d gotten to talk to a real live human? Polite-like, smooth and conversational, on equal terms? Like they was just two humans, plain and simple, not glaring daggers or looking fit to piss themselves? It was a novelty, that was what it was, and Tom couldn’t quite wipe the smile off his face; it kept twitching back, burbling up every time he thought he’d got rid of it for good.

Here was a real fuckin’ house, too. A normal person’s house, with a couch – soft but a little threadbare, with a milk-crate for an end table – and chairs. A kitchen right out in plain view that somebody worked hard in. (Had Thomas ever even found the kitchen in the Vauquelin estate? He’d barely found the pisser, and even that he wasn’t so sure on.) The only human house he’d been in lately was his own little shithole. This was a work of art by comparison, but it wasn’t some cold, sprawling mansion full of mad gollies and passives slinking around and taking your coat before you knew whether you wanted to hang it up or not. This was just plain nice, and Tom thought he caught the whiff of tea and biscuits. Not recently-made, but frequently-made – he caught the whiff of a place where making tea and biscuits was a commonplace endeavor.

Brent yelped as she smacked his good hand and scrambled over to the couch, biting his lip against another surge of tears. He listened, then reached down with some effort to the niche that the woman had mentioned; after a few moments, he’d produced the first-aid kit and was sitting with it in his lap. He peered curiously after her.

Tom, meanwhile, had sat down sheepishly on a chair. “Shit,” he said softly, biting his lip and frowning. “It was the drunk just off Linden. Damn, well. I got him from a guy who knows a guy, a whole string of kovs shadier than the underside of – well, anyway. Ain’t like anybody trusts me; you should’ve seen the bowing and scraping I had to do to get pointed in your direction. You ought to have someone’s head over that, by the way. Lucky you are I ain’t some uncle in disguise.”

Another twitchy smile as she introduced herself. He stood with some difficulty, lumbering into the kitchen. The smell of tea hit him in a swath, pleasant and oddly familiar; he reckoned somebody’d made him willow tea in the past, but he couldn’t put his finger on who, or where, or when. That was the way of things now. He cradled the cup in both hands, careful not to spill it as he limped back to his seat.

The boch’s glistening eyes had already latched onto the cookie, bandages forgotten. He scooted over as she sat down, squinting like a dealer who’s not sure if the product he’s been presented with is worth the asker’s price – or even the real thing. “’Course I’m tough, gitgka.” He stuck out his chin. “I’m a real man. I can sit still. So long as you keep your end o’ the deal.”

Tom snorted. “A real man, eh?” He furrowed his brow, glancing over at Aggie, something sad and unsure creeping into his smile. “You got a way with kids, Auntie.”

“I ain’t a little kid.”

“Hell you aren’t. But” – he looked down into his willow tea – “thanks. I mean it. Junta, Auntie Aggie. It’s a real pleasure. You can call me Tom, if you like, but I ain’t picky. Just don’t call me ‘sir’.” And don’t call me Vauquelin, for the Lady’s sake. He fidgeted to the edge of his seat, pensive, watching her work. He knew he oughtn’t press, but he couldn’t help it: “Can you – find a place for him? When all this is said and done?”
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Agatha Maplethorne
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Wed Jan 02, 2019 4:11 pm

23 Vortas 2718
Night
Aggie laughed as Tom entered the house and apologized for his language. "No fucking worries here. I'm not the clocking language police," she said teasingly. "And I bet the kid hears it all the time."

She shrugged at Tom's comment about how he could be uncle in disguise. "The Seventen leave me alone. I ain't doing anything to give them a reason to bother me. I got this house, free and clear. Me and Edgar saved up for it for 10 clocking years, but it's all mine. I open my door to people who need help. But I ain't doing nothing illegal," she said. And, since the Resistance members had stopped coming to her for help or even visiting her, it was the complete truth. "I mean, why would they care about some little old lady who shares her soup with the family down the street who's struggling to feed their kids, y'know?"

When she came back from the kitchen and got comfortable on the couch, she smiled at Brent's reaction to the cookie. "I always keep my promises, my boy," she said as she gently took his hand. "What's your name?" she asked as she started unwrapping his bandages. Her every motion was slow as she tried her best to keep from hurting the boy.

Aggie smiled at Tom when he commented about her way with kids. "Me and my Edgar didn't have our own kids, so we decided to help take care of a lot of the kids in the neighborhood," she shrugged. "We weren't wealthy, but my Edgar… My Edgar was an artist. He was a glass blower and the things he made…" she sighed wistfully. "They were amazing," she said before shaking her head and refocusing on Brent's hand. It wouldn't do to get lost in memories while trying to help the young boy.

When she started talking again, it was with a small sense of pride. "Once we bought this house, we never really had to worry about how we were going to survive. And money… We didn’t see the sense in hoarding it. So we helped the people we could after we set aside a little bit to help us in our old age," she said before she set aside the bandages that the butcher had put on Brent's hand. "Of course, we went through most of that trying to help Edgar when he got sick. But I make enough with my sewing and embroidery that I can still help out a bit."

Under normal circumstances, Aggie wouldn't have been sharing so much with a stranger. She probably wouldn't have even let Tom into her house. Even though she had come to the conclusion that he was a wick, he was still a stranger. And, yes, he could have been an uncle in disguise or someone who wanted to rob her.

But it was clear that she was lonely. She couldn't remember the last time anyone in the Resistance had visited her, outside of Gale. Random people from the neighborhood checked in on her every day, but they usually only stayed long enough to have a cup of tea or a bowl of soup. And, sadly, everyone in the Dives was struggling more and more as the gollies hoarded all the wealth. The days of kids running in and out of her place all day were mostly gone. Instead, the kids were forced to go to work to help support their families, sometimes when they were as young as 5 or 6.

It broke Aggie's heart to see kids going off to work, dirty and exhausted as soon as they left their home. This wasn't the way it was supposed to be. Kids were supposed to play, to run around and tussle and enjoy life. Instead, they were working, a lot of them doing things that could easily cripple or even kill them. The lucky ones were able to do work outside of the factories, work that was safer, but those jobs were getting rarer and rarer as factories took over Anaxas, doing the things that used to be done by shops big and small. Everyone from blacksmiths to bakers were being forced to close their doors as the gollies came up with more and more ways to take over making goods. They made money off the broken backs of humans and wicks and, when their employees could no longer work, they replaced them without a thought, discarding them like the trash gollies thought they were.

Things had to change, but she was just one little old lady. There was nothing she could really do if the Resistance wouldn’t let her help.

Aggie examined Brent's hand closely. The last two fingers were mangled, the broken bones badly set. The boy had a ragged tear on his palm, but the stitches were loose and messy.

"Well, shit," Aggie said to Tom. "Good thing you came to me before letting the boy heal some."

She let Brent's hand go and started digging in her first aid kit. She pulled out some bandaging, a needle and some catgut, and two splints. "I can fix this some, but it's going to hurt like hell and you're still probably going to lose some function in those last two fingers," she told Brent. She didn't sugarcoat the situation just because Brent was a child. She had learned that telling kids that everything would be okay made them lose trust in you if things ended up being not okay.

"Okay, I'm going to have to re-set those fingers and put a splint on you," Aggie told the boy. "And that cut is going to have to be re-stitched. Can you do this for me?" she asked, pinching her index and middle fingers to her thumb. She knew it would hurt, but she needed to know if the entire hand was damaged or if the boy could still grasp things.

She nodded to Tom when he asked if she could find a place for him. "He can stay here until he heals up and, once we find him a new job, I can get him a place to live. I gotta see how this hand heals before we find him a new job, though."

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Tom Cooke
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Fri Jan 04, 2019 5:47 pm

23 Vortas, 2718 · Nighttime · The Painted Ladies

Why would they care about some old lady spreading her (relative) comfort around? Tom had never understood that, though he’d worked for folks who did; if anything kept the world moving, it was money, whatever you thought about it. Money was one master that you couldn’t say no to. Even if you didn’t care about money – didn’t like it, didn’t want it in the first place – not having it would kill you, and not quickly, like a gun or a knife in the ribs. Not having money killed you slowly. That was what made people fall through the cracks, and gods and gollies forbid you reached out and tried to keep somebody else from falling.

As Aggie undressed his hand, Brent winced, tears pricking the corners of his eyes no matter how hard he pouted and blinked. Tom frowned, listening to her talk about Edgar without saying much – the occasional grunt, maybe, nods and inclines of his head, searching glances round the house. “D’you still have anything he made?” he asked, without really knowing why; it was like an itch he had to scratch. “The – uh, the pretty glass, I mean. Anymore, craftsmen don’t – it’s a dying art. Why pay somebody to do somethin’ with their hands, if you can pay a bunch of nattles and bochi to work a machine that does it twice as fast? Double the ging. Really, that’s all anybody cares about.”

Like you care either way, you clock-stopper, he thought to himself. That’s just the world you’ve got to live in.

He continued watching her attend to the boch. When the bandages came off, Tom bit his lip, still surprised even though he’d seen the wound before the Hessean butcher had started working on it. It was uncanny, that kind of bloody mangle on a kid’s hand. Tom’s stomach flipped a little, thinking about how that could’ve been his own hand any number of times. Happened every day.

“Set them again?” gawped Brent, but he quickly composed himself. A little hesitant, he moved his fingers how Aggie wanted him to, wincing a couple more times at the vicious stinging in his hand. Still, he managed to touch his thumb to his index finger without much trouble, though his last two fingers were limp and twisted and cramped. Brent looked up at Aggie, forcing a lopsided grin. “See? I ain’t scared. The name’s Brent.”

“Good kid,” said Tom, not without genuine admiration. He sat back in his chair, biting a nail. “You sit there and be good an’ still while your Auntie Aggie stitches that cut, ye chen?”

“I ain’t gonna complain.”

“Good kid.” Letting out a shuddering breath, Tom took a long draught of his willow tea. “You’re right. I don’t know anything about this,” and he gestured at the injured hand, the first-aid kit; “most of my life’s been spent causin’ injuries, not fixin’ ’em. I wouldn’t know good healing from bad.” He was quiet a moment. “You’re a good woman. We’re grateful, ain’t we, Brent?”

“Oes.”
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Agatha Maplethorne
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Sat Jan 05, 2019 12:21 pm

23 Vortas 2718
Night
Aggie smiled at Tom, and pulled out a pendant on a simple leather cord. She slipped the necklace over her head and handed it to him. The sunflower inside looked as real and 3-dimensional as a real flower. "He always said I was his sunshine," she chuckled. "He sold most of his wares to gollies, though he did make less extravagant wares for humans and wicks. He knew that we need pretty things to lighten our days, too."

After a few moments, Aggie decided she didn't want to force the kid to deal with having his bones set without something to dull the pain. She dug in her first aid kit and brought out a small flask of whiskey. "Take just a sip, child. Nothing more. You definitely don't want to be puking your guts out with a hand like this," she smiled as she handed the flask to Brent. "It'll burn like the dickens, but it should push off some of the pain."

Aggie laughed at Brent's insistence that he wasn't scare. "I can tell you're not scared. You're tough as nails and will fight with the best of them, won't you?" she grinned. "Don't worry. I'll get you fixed up good enough that you ain't gonna end up on the street. I promise you and I always keep my promises," she said as she took the splints and put them on her lap, watching Brent closely. When he had enough of the whiskey, she took the flask from him and set it to the side.

She took Brent's bad hand in hers and sighed, dreading what she had to do next. Hopefully, the whiskey would dull the pain enough that he wouldn't be in agony. "On the count of three, I'm going to re-set those fingers, okay? 1... 2.... 3," she shifted his broken bones as quickly as she could, setting them correctly. She saw red as she felt the bones move. The Hessean butcher hadn't even tried to set the bones correctly.

"I'm tempted to send someone to have a 'talk' with him," she thought to herself, furious.

The splint was wide enough to accommodate both of Brent's fingers and she quickly wrapped them to the splint. It was clear she had a lot of practice with setting fingers. Once she was done, she pulled the boy close to give him a hug. "I'm so sorry, Brent. You did good," she said, before kissing him on the forehead and handing him the gollyknocker. "I'm so proud of you."

"I'm going to get you some willow tea, Brent," she said as she stood up and moved to the kitchen. She took her time making the tea, waiting until she heard the boy stop crying before she started making her way back. She knew that boys Brent's age hated showing weakness and crying was the worst thing they could do. So she gave him his space, pretending she didn't hear his crying. She also wiped away her tears as surreptitiously as she could while she brewed the tea. It was times like this where she wished that she had easy access to morphine, though she reminded herself that exposing a kid as young as Brent to morphine was probably an extremely bad idea. But she hated hurting people to help them, especially when they were just kids.

She was relieved, though. His fingers looked ugly, with shallow cuts covering the skin. But the important thing was that the bones in his fingers weren't completely shattered, like she had seen in other factory workers. A proper set should ensure that he would be able to continue working. "Fucking gollies. Kids shouldn't have to work," she muttered to herself before taking Brent's cup of tea and heading to the living room.

She handed the boy the tea cup and smiled at him. "That was the hard part, Brent, I promise. I'm going to need to clean that wound on your hand with some whiskey. It'll hurt, but it'll keep your hand from getting infected and it won't nearly be as bad as your fingers," she said, hiding her hurt heart behind confident words as she picked up some scissors. She took his bad hand, cutting out the butcher's shoddy stitches. She took out a clean cloth from the first aid kit and poured some whiskey into the cloth, then took Brent's hand. She held it firmly with one hand, ensuring he couldn't jerk it away as she gently wiped the cut in his hand down with the whiskey. She waited long enough that the stinging should have mostly disappeared before she started making small, precise stitches into the wound.

She ignored Tom's comment about her being a good woman. She tried her best but, right now, she felt like a horrible person, even though she knew that everything she did needed to be done to ensure that Brent wasn't a cripple.

Once she was done with the stitching, she wrapped his hand up, bandaging his hand from the tips of his fingers down to his wrist. He wouldn't be able to bend the hand, but that was best right now.

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