20 Ashan 722
"I'm going to kill you," Sabrina groaned as she kicked off the covers and swung her feet over the bed to the floor. The pounding on her closed door came again, sending an intrusive, repulsive reverberation through the room. "Hold on!" She yanked the locking mechanism back and turned the door handle. The knocking stopped. The dancer pulled the door open enough to look at the face causing the early morning annoyance.
"You're awake," the unknown man's voice sounded quietly.
"I am now," Sabrina sassed through grit teeth. Her hand shook through her unkempt, sleepy hair. "If you ever knock on my door like that again, I'm going to answer it with a dagger."
"Sorry," the stranger apologized. "Someone is here asking for you."
"So?"
"He doesn't seem the patient type."
"It's hardly mid-trial and I'm in here with my girlfriend." Sabrina rolled her eyes. "I don't care what you tell him, but find a kinder way to say 'fuck off' okay? I'll meet with him at a better time."
"Ah, alright. Sure."
Sabrina slammed the door shut before the man finished his sentence. She latched the door and turned with an exasperated expression, which turned into one of slight surprise when she found Maxine suddenly out of bed and in the process of fully dressing herself.
"What are you doing telling people something like that?" The Rusalka asked her question with a sigh.
"What?" the dancer tilted her head. "That you're here? That's hardly a secret."
"No, the other thing."
"That you're my girlfriend?"
"That," Max confirmed, unlit Ambrosia joint bouncing between her moving lips. "That right there."
"Oh, no!" Sabrina threw the covers over her head as though hiding from a monster, voice dripping with sarcasm. "A label!"
"I'm serious."
"What's the difference? I'm not seeing anyone else, and by the amount of time you spend here, I doubt you are. Why not just put the label on it and try out how it fits?"
"It's a bad idea."
"So, what? You don't want to be exclusive?"
"I just don't want to confuse what this is."
"And what is it then? What are we doing?" Sabrina sat up. "Where are you going?"
"Out." Max leaned over a low burning candle wick to light the end of her vice. "Don't worry about it. I'll see you around."
"Really?"
Maxine ignored her deliberately. She left the dancer there in her frustration, and closed and locked the room's door behind herself. The Ambrosia drifted through her system and woke her better than any rising sun. The haze in her mind lifted and her thoughts started to align in a sensical way that nearly felt natural. She blew a plume of the stuff out on her walk from the brothel.
Each step placed the conversation she escaped further behind her, and she felt lighter for it. Before long she was in a far less pressurized environment, and sliding straight into a seat at the end of a familiar little bar. It was quiet for now. Only a few people packed in. Before sundown the place would be unbearable, and the stench of alcohol reeking from sweating bodies overwhelming before the night was through. For now the usual drunks were just getting their fix. Max elected to join them, sliding a coin stolen from Sabrina's coin purse while she was speaking at the door across the counter.
"Sometimes I don't think they think much about the common folk," an older man with a thick, graying mustache offered begrudgingly a couple seats down. "Every arc is the same come election time. Everyone is a man or lass of the people. Everyone has suffered as we've suffered, and promises to let our gripes be heard if they're sent to the tower."
"Lemme finish the thought for you," a man with orange hair and freckles interjected. Max thought his name might've been Peter. "They get up there, into their high tower seat, and all that 'I'm one of the common folk' is long forgotten. Don't we know it. Nothing ever changes."
"But it should, shouldn't it?"
"Of course it should."
"Especially now. The war hurt us bad. Exposed some of our weaknesses."
"Like how we ought to be more ready for these Morty bastards? Bring the fight to them once in a while, keep 'em back and on their toes?"
"Aye, maybe. What about infrastructure? We have to rebuild and advance. What if Raskalarn's folk came for us? What then, hm?"
"We'd be fucked, that's what."
"Precisely! Her mass of slaves eat, sleep, and breathe war and allegiance to the bitch! Think of what that army could do if it marched here."
"The more we talk, the more I fear..."
Max nodded her thanks to the bartender when the requested ale tankard was placed in front of her. She came here for space and air away from Sabrina and the suffocating sensation she started to feel there. Politics were never a de-stressed, pick-me-up topic. It was a distraction though, and as much as she wanted to focus on her smoke and her drink, she found herself listening.
"We've got to start locking this city down," Peter lamented. "Think of all the Morty Lovers and Morty spies that waltz through our gate? Pointing out some of the same weaknesses you and I, with our peasant eyes, can see plain. That's what that Raskalorry would do I bet."
"Raskalarn?"
"Who gives a shit. Yeah, her. You know what I mean, don't you?"
"Of course I do! I'm an educated man, but it doesn't take a book learner to see what's this obvious. We live in dangerous times and we should fear if we are unwilling to evolve."
"We need a man, a leader, of like mind."
"What do you think of that jeweler boy? The veteran?"
"Tristane Dorrick?"
"Mhm, that's the one."
Peter and his mustachioed elder had her full attention now. Max took a pull on her Ambrosia thoughtfully, doing her best to keep her eyes from drifting to their end of the bar as they spoke of the mysterious character vying for new power. That small group of men conspiring to undermine him swore he was a malicious, evil, manipulative foe of Etzos. The way these men spoke of him suggested he was the cure to the city's ailments like a messiah. Perhaps that's what made him something to be so wary of.
"Man's a stud, he is." Peter affirmed with a nod. "Think he has a chance?"
"Man, I hope so. He didn't come from the mud like us, or like how the others pretend, but I'll bet a war hero like him gets it. He's seen just what we've been talking about I'm sure. He's strong, honorable, and he's grown his wealth rather than wasted it away. I bet a military man like that would properly allocate city funds to keep us safe while letting us prosper. Sheesh. Maybe he's our only chance."
"You been to one of his speeches?"
"Not yet," the elder pulled at his facial hair and sipped at his ale. "Been looking forward to it though. He goes all over trying to reach people. Taverns, markets, squares, the underground, and everywhere in between. Makes me think he might actually give a shit, you know?"
"You've gotta hear him." Peter shook his head, eyes alight. "His words make my heart want to bleed for this place. I mean it."
"I'll have to make it a priority to hear him out fairly then, and soon. I'd spend my hard earned earnings if he's anything like what everyone swears."
"He is and more, my friend. Let me assure you of that."
"Sounds a bit too good to be true though."
"Eh, his flaws are familial I hear. No fault of his own."
Max twisted her Ambrosia joint between her fingers while her other hand fished for the handle of her tankard of ale. It made sense at least, that these men after a period of death, fear, and turmoil would thirst for strength and certainty invested in the city's future. It would seem that Tristane's outward appearance made him insanely popular for good reason. Part of her wondered if the other men, the conspirators, had fallen for gossip and rumors as any soft, malleable public often did. Maybe she was wrong to place trust in the conviction of the other men's opinion of the local figure. Before she ever thought to undermine a stranger, should she not make up her own mind?
For the promise of Onyx, do I give a shit what the truth is?
"His brother," Peter started to explain. "Benjamin. He's a big oaf. I met him once in a card den, and for as much as he runs the family trade, I noticed he gambles irresponsibly. I've heard nothing about the wealth going away, but makes me wonder."
"Ah, gambling," the elder reminisced. "A desperate, fun play toward the upper class for the poor. A senseless hobby for the rich with little at stake."
"And his sister, Quinnley? Bit of a wild child. Little party girl, something like that I hear."
"Rich girls do love their fun, too. With no daddy around to marry her off, those boys have their hands full I'm sure."
"Sure. The family is set and stable though. Long as they have that Kimber mine? Pft. Tristane will keep it under control."
"You sound so certain."
"If I didn't believe in him, I think the last of my hope would wither and die."
"Can't blame you there."
"Politics are disappointing," Maxine murmured loud enough to gain the men's attention. "You're right though, Freckles." She gestured toward Peter, raising her tankard off the counter a bit before bringing it to her lips. "Not all politicians are the same. Once in a while, one is finally right for the job...but you think some upperclass prick is gonna solve all your problems and slay all the monsters you think are under your beds?"
"I don't reckon we asked you for comment," Peter griped.
"What do you know anyways, foreigner? You've not got a quarter of the arcs of life I've got under my belt."
"Maybe I know nothing at all."
"Sounds more like it."
"You even know where Tristane lives? For all you know, he's some enemy plant come to sweep up the ashes."
"I've seen his home," Peter bragged. "Little Perry "Green" Vaul used to play across the street from me when we were boys. He works for Benjamin now, running errands. Probably saved his life, that little punk. Anyways, I've seen him with my own eyes walking the brothers home. I can assure you The Dorricks are Etzori men for certain."
"I call bullshit."
"Bullshit? You think I didn't see a man I know from my youth walking the Dorricks into their own damn home? A man I've seen speak? You think I'm mistaken?"
"Just sounds made up to me."
Peter was fuming now while Max casually finished up her ale. Out of the corner of her eye she could see a vein bulging in his forehead. The older man twisted his mustache with a furrowed brow.
"Settle, Peter," the elder coaxed his companion. "You don't have to convince the likes of her."
"Aye, I know," Peter grumbled, hot gaze fixed on Maxine while she ashed the end of her Ambrosia still burning inside the joint. He felt the bartender and a couple others eyes glancing at him. "I ain't gonna be made out to be a liar or something by the likes of her either."
"Got some proof?"
"Proof?" Peter tensed. "I got the sorta proof you can see for yourself! Take a walk through the Commercial District. Three sections out on the east side. I bet you find their banner waving over the door."
"Sounds like a far walk," Max shrugged. "I think I'm good. Last thing I feel like is staring up at the luxuries of someone living better than me, and then walking back to sleep in a tent with fuckin' holes in it. Yeah, boys, you're right. I bet he really gets it from his tower view."
Max stood up and offered the bartender a thankful nod. She popped the short joint back between her lips and offered Peter and his friend a shake of her head before taking her leave. As she wandered out of the tavern she could hear the men fuming back and forth. She didn't care. So long as they ruminated on her parting disgust in the idea of going anywhere near the Dorrick's residence.
