Things to do in Marn when you're Wanted

[Chrishton Radu]

FAIV EGGS!

Her yell was met with a wince on his part. He then listened, or rather waited for her to get through the rest of what she had to say. The more he listened to her, the easier it got for him to cut through her warped, unbroken speech. Of course she was claiming to be a woman who completely misunderstood his request as being full of sexual innuendo. What else would she think he was asking for? Surely not a simple bath.

No, a crazy messed up whore house like this one just had to have someone to fill her petite role. He guessed a girl like Otter would be in pretty high demand, and could easily get away with charging double or triple the cost of a regular whore.

If, of course, she wasn't lying about her age... Which was another, equally likely possibility. She might well be a young girl just trying to act like she saw Udorl act.

He couldn't tell. But, again, he didn't really care. What he cared about was the fact that it was impossible to get what he really wanted, which was a nice, hot, relaxing, quiet bath. It was a matter of principle at this point. If inari wanted to make it that difficult for him, he was going to challenge this problem head on. At this point going back into the freezing Ofriyu mar was not an option.

He glanced around, checking to make sure Dorcas wasn't back in the hall again, and then leaned over to Otter.

"Laik see ai'm real feckin' dirty an' laik what I really want is a feckin bath laik with hot water in a tub an' laik if I dun get me a feckin' bath laik I'm gonna fuckin kill someone real soon."

He swatted at the air absently to shoo away a spirit that had appeared only to gawk at his sudden change in behavior, but his eyes never left Otter's, and he looked entirely serious. He wasn't actually mad. He had all the time in the world to waste in this asylum, but he did look and sound rather on edge.

"An then I'll tell ya all 'bout who I manked 'n how I manked em."

[Dorcas Tansy]

Otter rolled pale brown eyes up towards her downy hairline as Chrishton gave his reply. Her thin shoulders wiggled up and down in a shrug.

"Ooohh yeah, alrait, Ai'll see to it an' you shudd eat berffurs firs' ar else you wudd waiter the water get hat an' berffurs get call, laik." She did not seem in the least put out by his clarification that he was not in the market for some sort of House Special bath. In praise of Otter, she was certainly not as obstinate as Udorl, but on the other hand, she was probably not a very good businesswoman.

She turned to skitter down the stairs, probably expecting Chrishton to follow her for the breakfast she spoke of. She had made it only a few steps when the curtain at the foot of the stairs parted and Udorl's soft face poked through. "Otter, the fruit?" she prodded. Her eyes were fixed on Chrishton's face.

Otter's eyes widened in apparent terror at the fact she had forgotten to make this decision and she fretted in her characteristic manner--"Oooohh"--for a few moments before she spit out the answer with a splay of her fingers: "Quins!"

Udorl raised her eyebrows at Chris and her upper lip twitched in a strange sort of erotic sneer or smile. "Quince it is then," she sang to herself as she turned and disappeared again.

Otter glanced back up at Chrishton and shrugged thinly, then began down the stairs again.

[Chrishton Radu]

"Ooohh yeah, alrait, Ai'll see to it an' you shudd eat berffurs firs' ar else you wudd waiter the water get hat an' berffurs get call, laik."

Chrishton nodded and smiled at her. He didn't expect her to be offended at all. A man had needs, but sometimes those needs took a back seat to things like survival and the wound on his foot was not going to get any better without some care.

"Thanks girly. If I had money I'd offer ya some. We'll see if I can't mug someone on m'way out."

The girly moniker was definitely hers now, no matter what she said her age was. Hands shoved into his pockets, he followed her obediently down the stairs right up until Udorl poked her head through the curtains. She was still giving him those sexy eyes. At least she was determined on top of good looking. He didn't bother pretending to look disinterested because he wasn't. He was refusing on principle.

When Otter turned and shrugged at him, he shrugged in return and followed.

[Dorcas Tansy]

Otter slipped through the curtain into the front room; the bar from the night before now appeared as an informal dining room. The dirty oil lamps were out now, and the paper windows now seemed much brighter in the morning sun.

Two of the small tables had been pushed together, and several little chairs were placed around this arrangement. Otter scurried over and sat down in a chair, her shoulders slumped like a young child's. She dropped her head back and to the side to gaze impatiently at the goings on in the room.

There was another woman at the table, an older creature with grayish chestnut skin and hair dyed an artificial shade of red. She was picking at her molars with a long fingernail and watching Udorl from behind. Udorl was at the bar of the room, speaking with a plump, smiling woman. This woman's age was unclear beneath her padding, but she was probably older than Udorl and certainly younger than the hag at the table. The smooth skin of her face was rather pink and shiny. A bib apron was tied at her waist, and its narrow top and wide skirt accentuated the pleasant pear shape of her figure.

The older woman saw Chrishton come in after Otter, and she gave him a seedy smile, as if in compliance with an off-color joke he'd told silently. The grooves of her teeth were stained a tar-like brown. "Heh?" Her voice was gravelly, yet bright in a sort of unsavory way. "You steal our virgins and now you want our food, doo? Gome on, what is this?" She lifted her hands in a shrug as if to hold the situation up for appraisal.

She cracked a wider smile and cackled dryly at her own joke. "I am joking!" She flicked one outstretched hand dismissively in Udorl's direction. "She is not a virgin!"

Udorl seemed to pretend she didn't hear a word, as she did not even turn around to acknowledge any of this, even Chrishton's arrival. The plump woman in the apron pushed past Udorl and picked a steaming basket of rolls off the bar. She motioned with her free hand for Chrishton to sit at the table with Otter and the strange older woman.

"Burfas is nearly ready." She spoke with the rounded effort of one trying to negate an undesirable accent. "I hap you'll make yoursef kemfortable whaile we finish." She looked at the occupants of the table and introduced Chris's company. "Davrib and . . . Otter."

Otter was staring up at the ceiling, oblivious, until her name was spoken, and then she jerked back to attention. "Bath!" she squeaked, and she hopped up from her seat to run back behind the curtain and patter up the stairs.

[Chrishton Radu]

Expectations weren't particularly high when Chrishton entered the dining room, and thankfully so. Rather than a room of less pregnant Udorls, what he found was one much older and one much more pregnant looking woman. He knew there had to be more girls just around the corner - he was sure the voices he heard the other night did not come from the ones in here - but it mattered little because he was on the prowl for food, not fun. Sustenance, not copulation. And food they had. Warm food, no less. The sight and smell of the stuff lifted his spirits immeasurably. So much so, in fact, that he couldn't help but give the rotund cook a woman a suggestive wink after her most awful attempt at humor.

"I ne'er woulda guessed."

Taking the woman's offer, he had a seat at the table with Otter and the older lady, not at all shy about it. Actually he offered the latter a friendly smile. Whoever she was, if she'd survived in this awful city in this crazy inn for so long, Chrishton knew that she'd have stories to tell and might be useful to have on his side.

"Davrib." He echoed with a nod.

Bath!

Otter's customarily abrupt outburst made him wince again, mostly out of jest and for the benefit of the others in the room.

"Right, well, plenty'o patience here. An' how's yer mornin' been lady Dav?"

[Goeffrey Coward]

Samahazai drifted over this particularly dirty part of a dirty city, searching for one building in particular. While Samahazai himself had no interest in the carnal pursuits that so many he had met were obsessed with, he knew an ideal residence was a whorehouse, at least for the time being. He knew the lower he put himself on the ladder, the less people would care about him and the more likely it would be that they would state something imprudent in his presence. Catching a whiff of hot food, he circled lower, to street level, dipping behind a barrel and going from his preferred body to his necessary body. Shaking away a few stubborn feathers, his many necklaces began a sound tied with Samahazai, something he could not even approach human interaction without: the soothing jangling of what must have been half his weight in jewelry.

Samahazai looked at a passer-by, a balding man with a thin moustache and an even thinner comb over. He clawed at his tangled mop in an attempt to make it look closer to what he assumed was local style, before changing his eyes to a bright blue and stepping into the ragged little 'inn.' To call it such was to stretch the term to its limits. Even the travel-houses between his villages and the city had been better furnished; these inns had no obligation to be nice without competition, but they managed to out-do the creaky house before him.

He entered, stooped slightly as if peering forward into the dark, hands in his pockets with elbows bent and sticking out, and this combined with his avian features to make him look something like a pierced and clothed stork. The bags under his eyes were almost charcoal in color. He had been flying several days straight and his body was trying to convince him he should be exhausted. Samahazai would not heed such plebeian needs as sleep until he had secured a residence. His head swooped over the room, slowing for a minute over the hag. He would have frozen in fear of her recognition had he not been so tired. He half-floated to the bar and said in a quiet, measured tenor, with the faintest of Turkish burr, "I would like to procure from you a room in which I might spend a few days, or perhaps a few weeks." Samahazai could no longer imagine staying in one place for any longer than that, and in his naivete he assumed that the city would be reduced to bedlam in at most a month or two.

Behind him the old woman, Davrib, turned in her seat to look at him. Samahazai almost expected to hear her joints crackle as she did. He pretended not to notice her gaze. "I know you," she squawked. "You are from south and east. You are not a man." Samahazai still attempted to hide the fear of his discovery. He turned towards her, looking as close as he could to wrathful.

"Do you doubt my manhood?!" He had meant to shout it but he had spoken it, and inside he was embarrassed at his inability to frighten her. In truth very little could frighten the old woman, and she cackled at this and grinned mischievously.

"Why don't you prove it to me, eh, eh? I am not expensive." At this Samahazai nearly wretched. The thought of touching anyone here was loathsome enough, but her... wrinkled flesh... hooked nose... pot belly... Samahazai had never thought about what he considered attractive, the idea of being attracted to any woman seemed absurd to him, but this woman was perhaps the polar opposite of his deeply hidden feminine ideal. She cackled, adding, "I make joke. Your secret is safe with me."

He could tell she was only half joking about the attempted pass, but as for the next bit he was unsure. Did the woman actually know his secret? She wasalmost certainly sharper than she appeared, but he thought he had maybe assumed too much thinking she would remember him. He turned to the boy at the counter, asking again, "Is there a room available? I would like to know."

[Dorcas Tansy]

The older woman identified as Davrib shook her hand to dislodge from her fingernail a shred of gunk picked out of her teeth. As Samahazi skulked out of her immediate presence and over to the bar, she drew her dark tongue over her teeth with a profound sucking noise. The hag raised thick eyebrows a few times in Chrishton's direction. She wore a dark shadow linking her eyebrows and another over her upper lip.

"My morning!" she said to Chrishton, with a shallow bow of her head to acknowledge she would speak to him now, after the dalliance with the man who looked very much a fellow countryman. She flung her wrist in Udorl's direction again then drew her hand in again to scratch the knobbly bridge of her nose. "The morning greets me every day with that devil girl I raised on my own dit!" Davrib did not seem particularly sincere about the resentful comments; she accompanied her words with sweeping gestures that accentuated her verbal lampooning.

"Her brother is my bimp, and doday, he is gone!" Davrib paused to rear back her head, and from her throat rumbled a deep snorting noise. She leaned forward to spit a dark wad into a small tin cup before her on the table. "Do you have something do do with this, bath man?" Davrib accompanied this question with a display of a balled fist, which she wagged at Chrishton in a knowing gesture.

Udorl, near the bar, turned slowly when a new voice entered the fray. She turned sloe eyes on Samahazi. Her right hand snaked up along the length of the long, loose braid of hair draped over her left shoulder. Her forearm cradled and lifted her already expressed bosom. Just as Udorl's lips were parting in a pout, preparing to speak, the plump woman in the apron burst forth with a loud, nervous giggle and waved at Samahazi with her free hand. The other arm cradled the steaming basket of rolls, the smell of which must have enticed him in the first place.

"Oh, get off the cainter, whay dun't you?" The woman pulled the white squashed-tomato cap off her head and flopped it at the offender to coax him off. "We, em, we dun't serve burfas. Nat, em . . . usually . . ." She glanced over to Udorl, apparently for some sort of statement on the matter, and gave an exasperated tip of her head when she saw the young woman had gotten distracted watching Chris again.

Davrib hefted her armpit up onto the back of her chair as leverage to turn her upper body halfway in her seat. She grinned with only half of her mouth. "She means, brother, we are women of a bartigular ilk, and the food is merely incidendal."

[Chrishton Radu]

Chrishton eyeballed the tin cup Davrib spat into and then threw up his hands in mock submission and leaned back in his seat, a grin firmly planted on his face the whole time.

"Woah woah wasn't me. Not unless y'ask fer it." Placing one elbow on the table, he sat comfortably again and gave her a sly wink that would have caused many a young lady to swoon and fluster in his heyday. "Course if ya get tired o' him lemme know."

Someone new entered the place and caught his attention. A man so covered in jewelry and trinkets he could march into a battlefield impervious to arrow fire. A pair of fox spirits appeared and started whizzing around the room, apparently enchanted by the man. Chrishton knew that such a reaction suggested something significant about the man, but also that getting them to reveal what they knew would be a pain in the ass and involve a lot of arguing and lies. Rather than break the ambiance of the room by indulging them, because they obviously would love him to shatter the silence with a loud "WHAT?" topped with an insane look, but instead he decided to watch and figure it out.

Not a man? That would explain it. Another shifter would definitely attract the spirits' attention, and the man's esoteric appearance was beyond mere bad taste. But what did the jewelry suggest? It didn't look magical.

"Oh let 'im stay ladies. Quit bein' so difficult. Ya c'n suck the money outta him after we eat."

Udorl's gaze went completely unnoticed.

[Goeffrey Coward]

"She means, brother, we are women of a bartigular ilk, and the food is merely incidendal."

Samahazai slid off the counter somewhat sulkily, again creating a cacaphony of jingling metal. His heavy lashes descended halfway down his large eyes in an expression of boredom and with a hint of disdain for the plump woman. "I am quite aware of what this particular building is." At this his face almost became a fully fledged sneer, but he reminded himself to be diplomatic. "I am also prepared to pay for what there is to be bought, excepting, of course, the 'main event.' I can tell by your furnishings that business is not so good as to turn down a paying customer." At this he glanced again across the dingy room. To his eyes, none of the women but Udorl seemed to him 'ladies of the night,' and if he had ever indulged the idea of buying affection, he was not about to experiment here.

As for Udorl, he was glad she was, for the moment, ignoring him. The woman's dress and manner frightened him. Samahazai was plagued by the instincts of prey, that is, a constant state of abject fear, and some part of his brain was convinced Udorl would relish eating him, and not in the way seductive women are said to be "maneaters," but in the quite literal sense of plucking his feathers and roasting him.

"Oh let 'im stay ladies. Quit bein' so difficult. Ya c'n suck the money outta him after we eat."

He looked cautiously at the lone man sitting down across from the hag. He had been sympathetic to Samahazai's cause, for what reason he did not know. From what he could tell the man was not the pimp or proprietor of the establishment, but carried himself with a swagger that suggested he had a great deal of control over the other residents.

To Samahazai the man appeared to be one of the kind who were usually chasing him with farming implements, but he felt in the man a kindred spirit. He was unsure of what precisely made him feel more comfortable: the man's eyes, in which there glinted hints of pathos that aligned with his own, or the way the man seemed to sit within his body as if it were a temporary dwelling, though admittedly with far more ease than Samahazai in his own.

[Dorcas Tansy]

The plump woman's anxiousness hardened into visible annoyance when Samahazi disparaged the financial situation of the household. He'd implied a desperate kind of poverty. Mousy hairs bristled on end from her furrowed brow, and the corners of her eyes crinkled in pleasingly symmetrical lines. A dappling of freckles rose across the bridge of her nose, in her slight flush of anger. She was, though lacking in obvious charms, a decently handsome woman.

The corners of her mouth squeezed inward, pushing her lips out in an obstinate "o." Davrib rose with a grunt, prompting the plum woman to lengthen her expression into something softer as she looked her way.

"My Domado," said Davrib; a placating gentleness found its way past her lips. "Be sweet." Davrib ambled over to place a hand on the knot of the other woman's apron strings. The "tomato" averted her gaze from Samahazi and wrapped her free hand around the warm basket she carried, to occupy herself fully with the task.

"We're not baubers, brother," Davrib addressed Samahazi, though her eyes were glancing up and down the length of her embarrassed companion. "The food? It's ours. You want it? Give me dwice the value so I gan go buy more food and still smell your money while I eat."

With the distraction of the two other women and the newcomer, Udorl walked primly around their circle and towards Chrishton. She brought with her a tall earthen jug of cream, which she supported with both hands. "It's fresh." She looked directly at him as she placed the jug on the table. A thin lock of hair that had loosed itself from her braid fell from her temple, and she flicked out the tip of her tongue to catch it and wet the end of it inside her mouth. A moment later she parted her lips to release the lock of hair, and she broke her gaze from Chrishton to regard the cream, open-mouthed. With a shrug of her brow in his direction, she dipped the tip of her middle finger into the cream and transfered the thick drop to her tongue.

"So!" said Davrib after letting her point about their financial security sink in. "You're wondering will we let you stay here a night, is that it?" Davrib gave the plump woman a firm swat on the backside, and she giggled and shuffled away towards the table with the diners.

[Chrishton Radu]

Obviously the women running the place did not appreciate commentary about the less than affluent status of their living arrangements. That was something Chris didn't understand. The place wasn't a dump if you were living on a farm or in the poor parts of town, but as far as inns and brothels went it was pretty damn seedy. And no wonder it was if they treated a stranger with money the way they were. The guy had a point. They probably shouldn't be turning down paying customers.

Perhaps it was just his lifestyle, but Chris didn't give a damn who thought he was poor. It was so frequently an advantage... And the truth.

"Ladies, yer gonna scare 'im off..." He started to protest again on the stranger's behalf, but was cut short when Udorl approached holding a big jug of cream.

Damn she still looked good, but why was she so persistent? She was worse than him at his randiest, but a woman and entirely serious. Leona liked to play (before her mysterious vanishing act anyway), but Udorl was something else entirely.

Persistence was paying off, too. He caught himself staring at her tongue, and only after what felt like several seconds did he look her in the eyes and give her a sardonic smile.

[Goeffrey Coward]

Samahazai was half ready to leave after this latest exchange between himself and the old woman. He had counted on their poverty and their shame to grease the wheels of commerce and avoid any unnecessary human interaction. It seems he had stepped on their pride, probably the last thing he had expected to present itself as an obstacle. He wondered for a moment if it was really worth the trouble... Ultimately he knew he would be more embarrassed by an early exit, than a capitulation to that formidable force of nature, the slighted woman.

"I would be most appreciative of accommodations, assuming they are available. As for the food, delicious as it looks, I have already eaten today." This was half true, he had eaten earlier today. But even for Samahazai a few insects would not sustain him a whole day; truth be told he would have loved to eat but was unable to imagine sitting down for a meal with other people.

Witnessing the spectacle of Udorl's advancing on that scruffy gentleman, nausea and relief jockeyed for position in his heart. The shamelessness of it, the heavy-handedness, woke in Samahazai that misanthropy peculiar to those who cannot imagine intimacy with anyone. At the same time, it was obvious he barely registered in Udorl's mind at all, allowing him to finally relax. In spite of that scruffy man's sympathy, Samahazai was glad to sacrifice the now-receptive man to this woman in order to ensure his own safety.

[Dorcas Tansy]

The plump woman with the basket of rolls looked back over her shoulder after Davrib and accidentally bumped her basket into Udorl from behind.

"Oh! Sarry!" she said softly. She turned to place the basket on the table, and then returned her cotton cap to her head. She took a moment to adjust the puckered edge of the squashed-tomato cap around her crown. Her short, thick hair sprung out from beneath to just barely cover her ears.

Udorl reached a hand over to the basket to pull back the thick blue cloth that concealed its warm contents, and a small wave of steam trickled over her hand before dissipating. The basket was full of brown, plum-sized rolls that were strategically studded with soft kernels of barley. The nutty scent of barley wafted from the basket, along with a hint of butter and lemon. "The eggs and the fruit, please, Flosmarra?" murmured Udorl over her shoulder.

Flosmarra's friendly eyes narrowed briefly at Udorl's command; she seemed perfectly happy to serve the food, but annoyed at the patronizing reminder. Udorl wouldn't see her expression anyway, as Flosmarra was behind her, and Udorl was busy sizing up Chrishton's reaction to the hot roll she was squeezing in the coil of her fingers. Flosmarra marched to the curtain at the back of the room with her chin high as if to demonstrate her motivation of duty rather than obedience.

Meanwhile, Davrib was considering Samahazi's request. Her lips were drawn from their habitual ironic smile. "Only begause you are familiar do me, my brother, I will say maybe you gan stay for one night." Her eyes, paled with age, looked pointedly at the curtain at the back of the room, and she lowered her tone. Her voice turned up at the edges, crackly and cloying. "I will let you sleep all the day, but if there is a gustomer, even the middle of the day, you gome out and wait for them using the room. Then maybe the night, but there are more gustomers and you will get no sleep."

Udorl raised her eyebrows and let her gaze drift down shamelessly to Chrishton's lap as she repeatedly squeezed the roll she held in her palm. "You must be so hungry."

[Chrishton Radu]

The sights and smells in the room slowly worked their way through the various cracks in Chrishton's will, gradually engrossing his full attention to the exclusion of all other considerations. He was hungry for some real food, human food, cooked properly by a woman's hands and spiced for flavor. Nearly a month in Marn, and two since he started down the trail from the edge of Caelteth Eyrop, meant that such luxuries were rare and almost never came together so perfectly. The closest thing to a proper bed he'd slept in for the past two weeks was Kamar's hole in the wall. The regular diet was hunted rabbit or whatever he could find.

Udorl's undressing of the basket of rolls sent a wave of steam up into the already pleasant air. She might as well have been removing a veil in a strip tease.

It became too much for the man. Hormones of all sorts started sending him signals hither and tither, locking his attention away from the new stranger to the mouth watering rolls - one of which soon found its way into Udorl's delicate, ever so feminine hand. She began to squeeze it suggestively with those soft fingers of hers, and he stared at it the whole while. His mouth watered.

Some people were talking in the room, a few lone spirits flitted about as if the objects in the room actually had some effect on their non-corporeal selves (he never understood why) but the food and Udorl had his full attention now.

Something overtook him and he looked up into her eyes in the way that he had done the night prior to the incident in her room. It was all forgotten. If he could just get some food into him, he knew exactly what he wanted to do for the rest of the morning.

"I'm fuckin' starved."

[Dorcas Tansy]

Udorl's eyes widened briefly, a waxing and waning of smoky lashes. She gave the roll in her palm a final squeeze as she lifted her hand from the basket and moved the bready bauble to her lips. With a delicate flick of her tongue against her teeth, she plucked a kernel of barley from the roll's glossy surface. The kernel paused in the cushion of her gently pursed lips before she rolled the tip of her tongue out to catch it and tuck it away.

Flosmarra returned presently from the basement with two ceramic plates--one displaying several squat little glass pots of fruit preserves, a salt cellar, and a wooden jar of red powder, and the other presenting a fantail of slices of hardboiled eggs. In the center was a small hill of fluffy scrambled eggs, and a wet poached egg topped off the ensemble.

"I hap it soots," Flosmarra murmured politely as she deposited the plates on the table in front of Chrishton. She took a seat herself at the makeshift dining table and began to serve food onto the nearest of the several personal plates arranged around the table. Smiling primly down at her plate, she stole only a few glances in the direction of Chris and Udorl's exchange as she first poured a puddle of warm cream onto her plate, and then took a roll to break in half and soak therein.

Udorl pulled up a seat unnecessarily close to Chrishton's. She took no food yet, but simply watched Chris's reaction to the presentation of the meal. She shrugged a thinly clad shoulder and turned her cheek against the warm hue of the braid draped there in a subtle parody of coyness.

"Perhaps after you have a warm meal and a bath you can visit with me to tell me all about how you got so hungry . . . and dirty." Udorl lifted her eyes to peer at the horizon of the table edge that blocked the view of him from the midsection down.

Flosmarra, at the other end of the table, quickly stuffed a cream-drenched chunk of barley roll into her mouth and chewed it, the corners of her mouth tight to prevent the escape of a humorous smile.

The creak of the stairs sounded from behind the curtain, a heavier step than Otter's light patter. The creak grew louder with each reluctant step of the unseen descender.