Post by sesquipedalian on May 7, 2012 10:20:07 GMT 10
Series: An Honest Living
Title: Might Smell As Sweet
Rating: A really violent PG 13. Triggers for sexual abuse.
Event: Relay
Words: 400
Summary: Flory made her circumstances so they wouldn't make her.
1
The other rushers used to call her Flowers, for her name and looks. The Rogue, Pearl, especially liked it. She put up with it quietly at the beginning, and made it her duty to everything quietly, including her job.
They began to call her Rence.
As she rose in the Court of the Rogue, her voice in it rose as well. She started with saying her grumbles about the Rogue just a little louder than the others, until people started agreeing. Then she spoke louder, and louder still, until she was yelling their pain and her challenge at the Rogue.
2
“You see, I like my girls different,” the man says with a look past desire. She’s too frozen to back up, too sensible to scream. No one will listen and no one will care.
That’s why he’s chosen a young trull in a Court where everyone has it hard enough on their own to think of anyone else.
He draws the knife gently across her throat one last time, and she grabs at it desperately. He pulls the knife away from her and she ends up grabbing the blade far too hard.
“Exactly,” he says, “I like my girls bleeding.”
3
Flo watched her eldest weave her way through her crowded tavern, carrying on two playful and three serious flirtations simultaneously. She remembered being like her, young and pretty and conscious of both. She remembered flirting with the men she’d dance with when her shift was over, sitting on the gambler’s laps and slapping the drunks.
Until she married, of course. She wasn’t young and pretty, and she was conscious of both. Conscious of the ring on her finger, of the husband walking up behind her, of the yearning to be there again, gay and living for no one but herself.
4
“Stop your sniveling, you gutless trulls!” Pearl snarls at the Ladies of the Rogue, the only faction in the Court large enough to go against her. The doxies mutter their insults, and Flory bites her tongue. She wants to tell Pearl that they don’t have enough money to snivel, not since the coles are all anyone is paid in, with the Rogue doing nothing about it. That they don’t have enough food to snivel, not since Pearl left them without any food stores this winter.
Instead, she waits for someone who doesn’t have a child to speak up for her.
(1: Flory becomes a rusher. 2: Flory never learns how to fight. 3: Flory marries instead of becoming a flower seller. 4: Flory is quiet instead of loud.)
Title: Might Smell As Sweet
Rating: A really violent PG 13. Triggers for sexual abuse.
Event: Relay
Words: 400
Summary: Flory made her circumstances so they wouldn't make her.
1
The other rushers used to call her Flowers, for her name and looks. The Rogue, Pearl, especially liked it. She put up with it quietly at the beginning, and made it her duty to everything quietly, including her job.
They began to call her Rence.
As she rose in the Court of the Rogue, her voice in it rose as well. She started with saying her grumbles about the Rogue just a little louder than the others, until people started agreeing. Then she spoke louder, and louder still, until she was yelling their pain and her challenge at the Rogue.
2
“You see, I like my girls different,” the man says with a look past desire. She’s too frozen to back up, too sensible to scream. No one will listen and no one will care.
That’s why he’s chosen a young trull in a Court where everyone has it hard enough on their own to think of anyone else.
He draws the knife gently across her throat one last time, and she grabs at it desperately. He pulls the knife away from her and she ends up grabbing the blade far too hard.
“Exactly,” he says, “I like my girls bleeding.”
3
Flo watched her eldest weave her way through her crowded tavern, carrying on two playful and three serious flirtations simultaneously. She remembered being like her, young and pretty and conscious of both. She remembered flirting with the men she’d dance with when her shift was over, sitting on the gambler’s laps and slapping the drunks.
Until she married, of course. She wasn’t young and pretty, and she was conscious of both. Conscious of the ring on her finger, of the husband walking up behind her, of the yearning to be there again, gay and living for no one but herself.
4
“Stop your sniveling, you gutless trulls!” Pearl snarls at the Ladies of the Rogue, the only faction in the Court large enough to go against her. The doxies mutter their insults, and Flory bites her tongue. She wants to tell Pearl that they don’t have enough money to snivel, not since the coles are all anyone is paid in, with the Rogue doing nothing about it. That they don’t have enough food to snivel, not since Pearl left them without any food stores this winter.
Instead, she waits for someone who doesn’t have a child to speak up for her.
(1: Flory becomes a rusher. 2: Flory never learns how to fight. 3: Flory marries instead of becoming a flower seller. 4: Flory is quiet instead of loud.)