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The Day to Day
Topic Started: Wed Sep 13, 2017 9:30 pm (53 Views)
Phedre
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There was an absence, an unshakable feeling of emptiness. The sun continued its monotonous journey across the sky, the wind still blew, the stars still shone in the blackness of the night, but there was a stillness within her core that ached for a revival. Day after day it remained the same routine. She would wake with the sun, stretch and train, wash, then set out. She moved from bounty to bounty, her sole income drew from the pockets of those seeking some kind of justice. Track, stalk, capture/ maim/ murder, recover the coin… repeat. She carried out the contracts with deadly precision but did so in solitude.

It was another sunrise. A bleeding stain across the horizon signaled the start of the day with colors that matched the violence of the night prior. The ebon haired woman knelt by the bank of a small creek, cupping the cool water in her hands and splashing it up against her face and neck. She had only just resheathed her blade between her shoulders after dancing her morning’s patterns and strike combinations, and now rinsed the remnants of sweat from her skin. Her hair was plaited into a thick cord which hung loosely over her shoulder to rest against the worn leather of her breastplate.

Rising slowly from the water’s edge, Phedre returned to her nearby steed. The animal’s coat matched the black lengths of its owner, and it watched her with intelligent eyes. Across its back rested the heavy corpse of a man, his blood streaking down the horse’s left shoulder and foreleg. He had been breathing hours ago, but his contract did not require proof of life, and the dead were easier to travel with. A deep knife wound left a gaping entry over his throat. He had not seen her attack coming and there was little struggle, dragging him from the barn that he occupied involved more effort than the deed itself.

He was a lecher. A widowed woman and her daughter brought forth a complaint to their local official after he forced entry into their small homestead. The women had said little more, but their faces and bodies bore the marks of violence and the man had previous accusations of impropriety. He had been known to drink excessively and act impulsively, quick to anger if his demands were not met. When Phedre arrived in the run down farming town, local law enforcement were discussing their limited resources in attempting an arrest. She offered her services and listed a marginal fee. They had accepted with immediacy and provided as many details as possible surrounding his potential whereabouts.

He had not gone far, a drunkard can only stumble for so far before even the fear of capture is amotivating. She found him less than five miles from the town proper, slumped against a stack of gain sacks inside a small barn. He did not wake when she approached, nor would he wake again, for a quick slice was all that she offered in greeting. She labored to load him atop her horse, then covered the remaining blood in the barn with loose straw. And so she began the return to town on foot.

Phedre reached for hanging reins and began leading the stallion onward. The town was within view now, and showed signs of its occupants waking in the dawn light. As the woman passed by a small hut she heard the giggle of a young child. Taking pause she glanced over her shoulder to see a dust covered girl trundle after a rather unhappy looking gander. She laughed as it squawked, and chased it with outstretched hands. Phedre took delight in watching the simple exchange until a rather sickly looking woman pushed back the cloth covering on the hut’s door. The child’s mother, she had assumed, looked extremely thin. “Are there any eggs sweetling?” The mother cued her daughter with such gentleness.

“Oh!” the girl exclaimed, remembering her task. She entered a dilapidated shed, no bigger than small pony. The child’s defeated sigh could be heard from the roadway, “no mother, no eggs.”

The child scurried from the coop and dusted herself off, looking sadly toward her mother. “Perhaps tomorrow,” was her parent’s reply, before she disappeared back into the hut.

The child waited until her mother was free from her sight before rubbing her hungry belly. She rubbed her eyes with dirty fists and slowly trudged back toward the cloth-covered doorway. Phedre whistled softly to her, a friendly sound to draw her attention. The child looked up, her eyes red with tears. She was beckoned toward the horse and the stranger with black hair, and after looking back to the hut once, she made her way to them.

“I have a very, very important job to do,” Phedre said to the little girl as she rummaged through a pack on her horse, “but I am so very busy this morning.” She pulled a bread roll from her belongings and knelt before the child, “do you think you could help me?”

She smiled at the girl and handed her the bread. The child tore into it with the ferocity that only accompanies immense hunger. When only a third of the roll remained she paused and tucked it into her sleeve. “Yes miss,” she said, her eyes wandering over to the lifeless man, “I can help.”

Phedre smiled and returned to her pack, retrieving an apple. She handed it to the child and let out an exaggerated sigh, “thank goodness! I appreciate it ever so much!”

The girl bit into the fruit and let out a satisfying groan. After two more bites she again looked at the corpse. It is then that Phedre handed the leather reins to the child, kneeling again to speak her task. “This man needs to be taken to the bald man at the town hall. You can give him this piece of parchment,” she tucked the paper beneath the girl’s arm as her hands were now full, “and he will give you a pouch, and take the man off of the horse. Bring my horse and the pouch to the inn and I’ll pay you for your hard work.”

The girl looked over her shoulder at the hut behind her, then took another bite from the apple. She paused a moment, calculating her decision with an admirable degree of depth, before nodding in response. With a parchment still tucked under her arm and an apple in one hand, she skipped toward the town center, the stallion walking placidly behind her. The head of the corpse lolled with each step, bouncing against the horses’ side.

Phedre watched the exchange from a distance. Her employer looked visibly taken aback when the girl child handed him the parchment. He shook his head in disbelief and reached forward for the horse’s reins. To the girl’s credit, she stood firmly, crossing her arms over her chest and shaking her head in a firm, ‘no.’ The balding man appeared insistent for only a moment before sighing and calling for assistance. A pair of men came from the building and hauled the corpse from the horse, neither gentle enough to prevent its weight from collapsing to the dirt. Another few moments brought the exchange of coin, and then the girl turned and began to lead the horse toward the inn.

Phedre jogged swiftly behind buildings to reach the rear entrance of the building before the child could complete tying the mount out front. Walking through the common room, she pushed through the front door and onto the porch, stopping to stand before the child. In her hand she held an empty grain sack. “Is it completed,” she asked the child with a soft smile. The child nodded and held out the small leather pouch.

Phedre took it and pulled back the drawstring, counting the contents carefully. To the townsman’s credit, he paid the child in full and without hesitation. There was not a single copper missing from the bounty. Phedre nodded to the child in return and moved to her saddle packs. Pulling a few more apples, rolls, and a pack of dried fish from the sack she transferred it into the grain bag. Slipping the coin pouch into the burlap as well, she secured its top with a heavy knot. Kneeling beside the stallion she beckoned the child close once more.

“You have helped me so very much. I cannot thank you enough. Here is your payment, please share with your mother.” She transferred the heavy sack into the girl’s arms. Her eyes were wide with excitement as she stammered her own appreciation and took off toward home.

Phedre smiled as she watched her go, a small plume of dust following in her wake. As she disappeared around a corner, her attention turned back to her mount. The blood on its coat was drawing the attention of flies. She thanked the beast for his gentle nature, and his care with the young one, then swung up into the saddle. She would ride off to the next town today, and fetch some water to clean up the horse.
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