Post by Kris11 on Aug 14, 2012 14:00:09 GMT 10
Title: If you do, if you don't
Rating: PG
Team: Emelan
Prompt: End of the Line
Word Count: 635
Summary (and any Warnings): AU Briar reflects on what it is, exactly, that is keeping him caged.
Notes: This is an original bit for this competition, but it is based off another story I wrote called Always Us, an AU world where Niko did not find them. Briar, therefore, went to the docks as punishment. This takes place five years later, and though Briar has managed to escape the docks and make his way to Summersea, life in the Mire is not always pleasant.
It had been a long winter. Late into spring, storms still blanketed the city. The seas were obviously nigh-impassable, since not a ship had taken harbour in Summersea’s port in nearly two days.
For Briar, who relied on a job unloading ships just to pay for a room he shared with four other people and enough to put some beans and broth on his table at night, the lack of work was becoming troubling to the extreme. There was nothing to fall back on; no stash under his thin mattress or families with floors he could sleep on until the sea decided to play nice. There were few places that would hire an almost-fifteen year old with too many scars and two ‘x’s on his hands. Briar had found out four years ago - when he'd first arrived - that most of them demanded things he would rather starve than give. Briar had nearly starved those first few weeks off the boat from Sotat, until luck and chance found him at the docks at the right time to pick up a job there.
Not that I’m far away from starvin', now, he thought, rubbing a hand over an aching stomach and scowling. He hadn’t eaten yet, and with no ship coming into harbour, it looked like it would be at least another full day until he had coin.
Lightning lit the small room, thunder crashing around him almost immediately after. If the storm carried on any longer, there would be no work for at least two days. Two days without food, two days in which to avoid the landlord, or find himself out on his ear (again). The time seemed impassible, impossible, unfeasible.
Briar punched the wall beside the waxed window, impotent. He didn’t know what to do. There was no one he could turn to for help. He could try to fall in with some thieves or muggers, pick up a job, but he knew the risks. Harriers were as likely to arrest a bloke for hanging with the wrong crew as for actually doing something illegal, and his two ‘x’s were guaranteed to get him hauled in front of a magistrate. He wouldn’t survive another round as a convict. He couldn’t.
His stomach protested again. Not that he would survive a free man much longer, either. Rations had been meager, and you were likely to lose ‘em if someone bigger set their eyes on you, but at least they were daily. Nothing was sure, out on the streets. Briar wondered, sometimes, why he had bothered to escape at all. Nothing had changed. Nothing was better. He even still worked on a dock! There was no magical solution waiting for him, if he could just get far enough from the streets he had been tossed out on as a kid. No one, anywhere, cared about one more street brat turned ne’er-do-good with ‘x’s on his hands. He had had his chances (not that he had ever seen them pass him by), he had made his choices (when it was to choose between livin’ and dyin’, no in-between, no shades of grey) and now he had to live with what came from that (ah – this Briar understands; he’s been living with the scrap ends of what higher-ups left him since he was four years old).
Briar listened to the storm and the drunken mumbles of one of the men he shared the rent on the room with and tries to decide what to do.
The Bags would blame where he was now on the choices he had made, he was sure. But there was a secret of slums everywhere, whether it be Deadman’s District or the Mire, and Briar – after years of fighting and planning and thieving and trying – had finally come to realize what it was.
No choices he could make would change anything at all.
So, Briar listened to the storm and allowed it to do his raging for him.
Rating: PG
Team: Emelan
Prompt: End of the Line
Word Count: 635
Summary (and any Warnings): AU Briar reflects on what it is, exactly, that is keeping him caged.
Notes: This is an original bit for this competition, but it is based off another story I wrote called Always Us, an AU world where Niko did not find them. Briar, therefore, went to the docks as punishment. This takes place five years later, and though Briar has managed to escape the docks and make his way to Summersea, life in the Mire is not always pleasant.
It had been a long winter. Late into spring, storms still blanketed the city. The seas were obviously nigh-impassable, since not a ship had taken harbour in Summersea’s port in nearly two days.
For Briar, who relied on a job unloading ships just to pay for a room he shared with four other people and enough to put some beans and broth on his table at night, the lack of work was becoming troubling to the extreme. There was nothing to fall back on; no stash under his thin mattress or families with floors he could sleep on until the sea decided to play nice. There were few places that would hire an almost-fifteen year old with too many scars and two ‘x’s on his hands. Briar had found out four years ago - when he'd first arrived - that most of them demanded things he would rather starve than give. Briar had nearly starved those first few weeks off the boat from Sotat, until luck and chance found him at the docks at the right time to pick up a job there.
Not that I’m far away from starvin', now, he thought, rubbing a hand over an aching stomach and scowling. He hadn’t eaten yet, and with no ship coming into harbour, it looked like it would be at least another full day until he had coin.
Lightning lit the small room, thunder crashing around him almost immediately after. If the storm carried on any longer, there would be no work for at least two days. Two days without food, two days in which to avoid the landlord, or find himself out on his ear (again). The time seemed impassible, impossible, unfeasible.
Briar punched the wall beside the waxed window, impotent. He didn’t know what to do. There was no one he could turn to for help. He could try to fall in with some thieves or muggers, pick up a job, but he knew the risks. Harriers were as likely to arrest a bloke for hanging with the wrong crew as for actually doing something illegal, and his two ‘x’s were guaranteed to get him hauled in front of a magistrate. He wouldn’t survive another round as a convict. He couldn’t.
His stomach protested again. Not that he would survive a free man much longer, either. Rations had been meager, and you were likely to lose ‘em if someone bigger set their eyes on you, but at least they were daily. Nothing was sure, out on the streets. Briar wondered, sometimes, why he had bothered to escape at all. Nothing had changed. Nothing was better. He even still worked on a dock! There was no magical solution waiting for him, if he could just get far enough from the streets he had been tossed out on as a kid. No one, anywhere, cared about one more street brat turned ne’er-do-good with ‘x’s on his hands. He had had his chances (not that he had ever seen them pass him by), he had made his choices (when it was to choose between livin’ and dyin’, no in-between, no shades of grey) and now he had to live with what came from that (ah – this Briar understands; he’s been living with the scrap ends of what higher-ups left him since he was four years old).
Briar listened to the storm and the drunken mumbles of one of the men he shared the rent on the room with and tries to decide what to do.
The Bags would blame where he was now on the choices he had made, he was sure. But there was a secret of slums everywhere, whether it be Deadman’s District or the Mire, and Briar – after years of fighting and planning and thieving and trying – had finally come to realize what it was.
No choices he could make would change anything at all.
So, Briar listened to the storm and allowed it to do his raging for him.
Thanks for your comment! I really appreciate you taking the time!
Maybe once we'd have seen it during Smackdown!