Part IV: Urchin and Sao-Fa
Urchin had been awake for about an hour now, but he left his eyes closed. The fog of sleep yet lingered in his eyes, and he had no interest it seeing it gone. Still, the stone gutter beneath him was getting mighty uncomfortable... and he would not stand it much longer. The hunger had grown into a dull ache in his gut, from this life of constant deprivation. He barely even noticed it anymore. He should have got up a long time ago, anyway. Sitting around pretending to sleep was a great way to earn a slit throat... a lesson he'd learned from waking up lying next to more than a few corpses. At this thought, panic filled him. It was not fear for himself, he had forgotten how the sense of self-preservation felt years ago. But Sao-Fa...
The orphan boy sat up suddenly, his fear producing bright sparks from his fingertips. He searched the ground next to him desperately for a second, before he saw the shape of his friend. Sao-Fa's chest rose and fell. Breath. Ragged, labored breath, but breath nonetheless. He sighed in relief, as warmth filled his little fragmented soul. Sao-Fa had found him years ago, alone, starving, nearly dead, and had saved him from what was certain to have happened before long. The boy was a couple years older than Urchin, stronger and taller too, with short brown hair and light brown eyes. He was Urchin's whole world, and Urchin was his. It was them, two starving orphans, against a cruel world that, honestly, didn't give
two fucks whether they made it or not. Sao-Fa shivered violently, a visible puff of air slipping from between his chapped lips. Urchin remembered how cold it must be right now. He had never known cold, or hot, as he could feel neither. Sao-Fa said that was from his Fire... he said it kept him at just the right temperature. Urchin had no idea, it seemed half the time that Sao-Fa understood more about his Fire than he did. He probably didn't though, Sao-Fa liked to act smarter than he was.
Urchin reached over a put a hand on Sao-Fa's chest. With a little concentration, the boy channeled his own body heat into the other boy. Sao-Fa smiled and mumbled,
"Thanks kiddo..." snuggling his head deeper into the arm he was using for a pillow. He always slept too much... and ate too much. Urchin didn't really mind. Sao-Fa always made sure that when they had food, Urchin had plenty. But honestly, the skinny little kid didn't eat that much, maybe because he wasn't use to it. Starving was all he'd ever known, and he was more than happy to starve a little more if that meant Sao-Fa could eat to content. And as for Sao-Fa sleeping so much, Urchin didn't mind that either. He liked standing guard, watching over his friend. It made him feel useful. Sao-Fa had saved his ass in every fight he could remember, so this was the least he could do.
It was another hour and a half before Sao-Fa woke up, yawning and stretching. The sun had just begun to rise, light spilling down their alleyway.
"Howdja sleep, kiddo?" Sao-Fa asked sleepily. He already knew the answer... but it was their tradition. Same question, same answer.
"Like a king," Urchin lied. Sao-Fa ruffled his hair and flashed that grin of his, wild, happy, completely out of place. Sao-Fa always smiled, Urchin never did. Sao-Fa stood and stretched, basking for a moment in the sunlight.
"Let's get some grub."'Getting grub' was Sao-Fa's wording for an action most would classify as 'robbing some poor hard working vendor of their precious wares'. Their mark today was a sweet older widowed woman, probably in her mid-fifties. Her name was Sofia, and every day she would come to the market square, where all the open stalls stood. She claimed ownership of a small, dilapidated wooden stall, from which she sold fresh fruit and vegetables. She also sold flowers on the side, small bouqets of beautiful flowers she had grown and preserved herself. She did good business on her fruit and such, but the flowers never sold.
Every day she sat there, unconcerned with her sales, only wishing that somebody would buy flowers. Every day, her flowers wilted a little more. Sao-Fa approached her directly, the distraction. Urchin, smaller, more innocent in appearance, was the thief. He waited a bit farther back in the market, watching.Sao-Fa struck up a conversation... a plea, really. He told the sob story of him and his orphaned brother, and their desperate need of nourishment. It wasn't entirely untrue, but neither was it the truth. The kindly old widow was more than happy to gift Sao-Fa with all the apples his arms could carry... little did she know, as she was loading the boy up she was being robbed. Less than a foot away from the woman, quiet as a mouse, Urchin snatched a sack of oranges. The sack was nearly as big as he was, but he managed, slipping quickly through the crowd... he just needed to get out of sight...
They rendevoused in a predesignated alley, Sao-Fa with his charity apples, and Urchin with his haul of oranges. Using an old blanket they carried with them, they laid their feast out and dug in, laughing and spitting seeds at one another. Urchin wasn't sure what happiness felt like, but he was pretty sure this was it.
"So, I was thinking," Sao-Fa began, mouth full of fruit,
"we need ourselves some better digs."Urchin looked up confused from his sparsely touched orange. He'd spent more time peeling it than he was actually eating it. His big red eyes told how lost he was. He didn't even know what 'digs' meant. Sao-Fa had a lot of words. 'Grub' was food, 'threads' were clothes, 'kicks' were shoes (they had one shoe, actually, which neither wore), 'scratch' was money (of which they had none).
"Digs... like living conditions, ya know?" Sao-Fa explained. His question was rhetorical, of course.
"We been ramblin' from one shit filled gutter to the next, sleepin' in the cold and rain. We need better. We deserve better."Urchin nodded vigorously. He agreed completely. Some deep dark part of that boy, a place he'd not explore for years yet, knew that the world owed him everything for what it had done to him. One day, he would take it all back, even if it was one tarnished candelabra at a time.
"Where we gonna go? I don't see no real estate this side o' the gallows. An' we ain't got the scratch to afford no fancy digs anyhow.""C'mon kiddo, think. There's roofs all over this damned town, and plenty of 'em empty as that head o' your's." Sao-Fa answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, rapping his knuckles on Urchin's scalp to accentuate his point.
"The homes is all taken, you know that, Sao-Fa." And he did. They were both of them acutely aware of that fact. There was hardly an abandoned house in Castle Town not filled to the brim with refugees and criminals alike. They had been kicked out of more than a few, and nearly killed or sold in many more.
"There's one ain't no squatter in his right mind'd walk in..." Sao-Fa flashed his wild grin.
"Good thing the two of us ain't been in our right minds since we came tumblin' out our mama's cunts."Urchin's big eyes widened until they seemed likely to consume his face.
"You ain't talkin' 'bout the Barton Place?"Sao-Fa's grin spread wider.
"Din's fire."The Barton Place was an old abandoned house on the outskirts of one of Castle Town's more shady slums. Old man Crowley Barton had been a madman and a killer. They said he kidnapped whole families and kept them in his house, feeding them to one another until there was nothing else left. He got off and murder and raped when he was bored. He was evil as six Ganons with a Twinrova thrown in for good measure. But unlike those villains, he died easy as any other man. When the townfolk burned his shack down with him in it, they thought they were done with the matter for good. That was until they awoke the next day to see the Barton Place standing just as it had before, not even touched by the flames. Old Crowley was never seen again, probably because he died suffering that day... but his home remained. Since then, not even fools ventured near that old shack. The old folk told that to look upon the house was worth twenty-two years of ill luck and at least six months of repentance. The wicked nature of the place seeped out like puss from a plague sore.
Sao-Fa thought it was perfect.
They lived there for a month, leaving before dawn and returning only after the city had been cast back into shadow. Then it happened. The day began with their usual routine, Urchin awoke early, Sao-Fa slept for at least another hour. Then they came. Two men, quiet as shadows. Urchin had good eyes for the dark, but he didn't have any idea that they were there until he felt a hand cupped over his mouth and nose. He let out a muffled scream and kicked out, not wildly, but specifically. His foot caught Sao-Fa in the ribs. The other boy sprang up, quick as lightning. The other man grabbed for him, but Sao-Fa, not even fully awake, was better than that. The heel of his palm smashed into the man's nose. Blood splattered onto the floor as Sao-Fa took three quick steps back and fingered the hilt of his knife.
"Who the fuck are you?!" he snarled.
"We're doing our job. You weren't suppose to be here boy. Mr. Amory can't do with witnesses." It was Urchin's captor that answered. He had a face scarred from countless knife fights, and a heavy crossbow slung across his back. The other, bleeding, man looked younger. He wore a knife on either hip.
"I don't give a shit who can do with what. Let the kid go, and I won't flay the skin off your cock." Sao-Fa's answer was brash and harsh, but his eyes betrayed his panic. His lips played at a nervous smile, flickering in and out like a candle. He locked eyes with Urchin. The kid knew what to do.
The man began to answer, but his teeth were suddenly chattering too much. His skin seemed to turn white even as he looked at it. His hands were ice, he couldn't even feel his fingers... but the boy. The boy was absolutely radiating heat. It was as if he were stealing... The man shoved the boy away from him.
Urchin hit the wall hard, but he didn't notice. He was already looking at the other man, the one bleeding from his nose. He spat a plume of flames across the room, straight into the bastard's face. The man let out a screech, flailing around the room in flames. The freezing man willed his joints to move against their vigorous complaints. Sao-Fa ran at him, but he caught the boy with a heavy boot to the chest. He turned his attention to the fire freak, pulling the crossbow from his back. His companion was rolling on the ground, but he couldn't waste time on him. He was going to kill this boy before he met the same fiery fate.
"DON'T TOUCH HIM!" Sao-Fa yelled, pulling the knife from his belt. The scarred man did not hesitate for a second. He raised his crossbow and fired a single bolt. It struck Sao-Fa dead in the chest. The force of the blow sent him flying back into the wall, where he smashed horribly and landed in a destroyed heap upon the ground. The older boy heaved with the pain of breathing. A cloud of scarlet life spread across his dirty tunic. The bolt itself protruded grotesquely from his sternum. It seemed to be larger than life, and Sao-Fa seemed smaller than ever. Already, his skin began to pale. Already, his eyes were glossy. He looked up, the pain and misery clear on his face, and he found Urchin's terrified face. The smaller boy was sobbing uncontrollably he'd been screaming at first, but they'd silenced him with a fist to the gut. His powers were forgotten, his will to fight dying with the other boy. Sao-Fa locked eyes with Urchin.
And he smiled.