The Forgotten Sweetheart. It was just the name of a modest inn, like any other along the outer edge of Arca's market district. To Kriket it was almost a promise, a reagent in an elixir that would make everything right again, sand to keep the stain from spreading and cover it up.
Jo-Kyu-Nim's death was like breaking through eggshell into the world. Smothered in the caul of Jo-Kyu-Nim's influence and blinking stunned at the unwelcome brightness of the light. Unlike a baby, delivered into the care of a mother, Kriket was alone and quite aware that there was nothing to take the place of what was lost. To lose a loved one was to be dragged, suddenly, into a shadow of the world. The sun still rises, bringing light and warmth to all but you. Who sees nothing but shadows and trembles with chattering teeth. Hours become days and the weeks turn to seconds.
Jo-Kyu-Nim was dead and there was nothing Kriket could do but curl up, cry and try remembering and forgetting, breathing memories like air. The blood of Kriket's tears staining Jo-Kyu-Nim's deathbed further, until it looked like both of them died there.
In time Kriket, whose last sane action was to bolt Jo-Kyu-Nim's chambers shut from within, remembered how to do everything but weep and took to wandering listlessly through them. The rooms were familiar, like a life-long friend, but the walls loomed and glowered from every angle. The walls hissing in agony over Kriket's betrayal. It was time to leave. Kriket attacked the chests and drawers where Jo-Kyu-Nim's things were kept like a Maenad, sending up a tempest of items that were pulled on or packed away. When the frenzy was over Kriket, laden with Jo-Kyu-Nim's clothing and jewelry and couched over a pile of books and other effects, took a deep breath and went over the inventory again. Not everything could be carried through a cracked window. Choosing which things to leave behind was like choosing which organs to live without. The first pack was stuffed with clothes and jewelry Kriket couldn't fit into. Completely useless, precious things that Jo-Kyu-Nim touched and owned, even if they were banished to the bottom of a drawer soon after receiving them. Kriket stared down the backpack and its soft, jangling contents and in the end upended it in a clatter of metal and shuffle of fine cloth. The next pack was full of books, stone vessels, crystals and pouches of things Kriket didn't know the name of. That one was too heavy to lift, so Kriket dug the contents out and scampered between the two piles of things, taking a handful of bracelets from one, a book with a cracked spine from the other. A set of diaphanous underthings, a vessel that sloshed interestingly when shaken. Halfway through the bag was tipped over and the contents judged again. Again and again the pack was filled and dumped, until Kriket gathered a few hasty armfuls of things, shoved them into it and fled to the window, laying the pack down under it.
One last thing, Kriket walked to the bathroom to drown the funk of Jo-Kyu-Nim's death away. The servants drew a bath before Jo-Kyu-Nim's death, little bottles standing attendant around the edge in cloaks of dust. Kriket knelt before them and worked the contents into every inch of dry skin, hair and cloth in reach until they gleamed with oil and the air was washed in a cloying sting of alcohol, sandalwood, cedar, lavender and jasmine. Then Kriket stood, faced a mirror and looked into Jo-Kyu-Nim's mother of pearl eyes, staring back from Kriket's eye sockets.
The shock of seeing such a thing, or the heavy blanket of alchohol in the air sent Kriket falling forward to the tub in a swoon.
Somewhere in that haze of shock, alcohol and water, Kriket remembered. Jo-Kyu-Nim, rattling through the latest series of bloody breaths, reaching up to place a hand over Kriket's eyes. There was a spasm of pain as the light died, taking Jo-Kyu-Nim in the darkness. It was a quick memory, hurried along by a lack of air and an overabundance of water in Kriket's lungs. Before the idea that the water was a gateway back to Jo-Kyu-Nim and light could spark Kriket was clamboring up the sides of the tub and flopping onto the tiled floor.
Avoiding the mirror, Kriket crept back to Jo-Kyu-Nim's bed. Nearly everything was the colour of long dried blood, save for a bare patch of skin, a gleam or of silver and a pair of eyes staring dully upward. Deep red eyes. Kriket's eyes. The inspiration behind the odd act was dead with its architect. It was a strange gift, but still a gift. Kriket blew a kiss into the air, wondering briefly if there was anything left of Jo-Kyu-Nim for it to go to in the room.
Would it have to drift down?
Or... up?
Would it be trapped in this room?
Or have to race around the entire world?
Wherever it went, it had the same destination.
Far, far away.
Out of reach forever.
Kriket left Jo-Kyu-Nim's side for the last time, going back to the little window in the bedroom and squeezing out with the pack of momentos. Kriket landed on the other side damp and confused with only the faint smell of old wood and young flowers for company in the darkness. For a century and a second, Kriket stood shuddering in the night's chill with a hand on the wall, then stepped forward.
If Jo-Kyu-Nim's death was the rape that sired the change in Kriket, then the fount of blood when Kriket killed Alexis was the water announcing its birth. Before Alexis, Kriket killed in defense or to keep from being killed. All Alexis ever wanted was to take Kriket away from Jo-Kyu-Nim. When Jo-Kyu-Nim wouldn't give Kriket away and Kriket wouldn't leave Jo-Kyu-Nim, Alexis tried another method. It was the sort of thing a powerful being could get away with back in Hell - at the very least it wouldn't have to worry about a pathetic thing seeking revenge. Revenge was something for a creature that could actually succeed without devoting their life to it. Destroying Alexis became the center of Kriket's life, but it was snuffed as if Kriket took a dagger to its throat too. This wasn't the first time Kriket killed another creature. Any dretch that didn't kill was quickly killed.
Any dretch without a master was killed quickly too. When time started making sense again and Kriket found the Forgotten Sweetheart, nearly a week slipped by. The days were all the same: sleeping until the sun was at high noon or later, creeping downstairs with one of Jo-Kyu-Nim's books and some stolen trinket of Alexis' to barter for one more day's stay, eat and stare at the pages until it was too dark to see and then back to sleep. Kriket counted them because there wasn't much else to do.
Lavender, the mistress of the Forgotten Sweetheart, began counting after the second day. The man seemed every bit content to live at the inn. It was a mild irritation at first, eventually he would notice that there were a few people passing through the inn without much money being exchanged and that people were turned away when there were plenty of open rooms. Then she had Brockett take a ring traded for the latest night's stay to Sumitra, who said it was hot. Part of a stash stolen from a holy warrior who was effectively turned into paint, whose remains had to be plucked from places no human parts should be plucked from to be buried. There was a bounty, enough to make her consider ordering Pettifer to poison the evening's food.
Until she received word about a new girl in her street.
If the whores were her own, Lavender would have ignored it. The scales could blend in among the normal girls. These girls belonged to Pinnel's 'uncles' and if she didn't police the street to keep girls that weren't with the gang out, she wouldn't get first share of the gang's cut of their wages. That extra cash kept Brockett and Pettifer loyal, working with the gang got Pinnel under her thumb and turned into a Dragon Boy and he would eventually bring the best of them in. Even better, this new girl wasn't just any girl, it was a dark elf girl. If she was lucky it was a girl laying low to keep out of a powerful relative's sight, a threat because of her talent and just cunning enough to think she could hide in the alleys instead of making a break for it. Maybe she was even laying low to strike against her matron. In either case, she could be asset just waiting to be snatched.
That was worth more than a paltry bounty for a murderer. So Lavender took the stolen ring and walked across the dining hall to where the man, Kriket was curled up in a chair reading another book. He sat slumped, his nose buried in the elbow a dark green cassock with frayed sleeves and hem and long rough slits up to a waist circled with many silver chains, some dripping with what looked to her like rings but where probably some sort of talisman. She tossed the stolen ring down on the book and put on a business face, coolly distant.
Kriket was starting to doze off when something landed on his book. Startled, he looked up and saw The Forgotten Sweetheart's mistress looming over the other edge of the table. "It isn't enough?"
"Not when I could get twice what I'd get for it by trading your head along with it at the estates of Alexis Braughlaird."
Kriket blinked and began to pull himself into a proper sitting position, eyes darting across the room for any sort of improvised weapon.
"Calm down," Lavender held her hands open at her sides. "I've come to negotiate a better price."
"Hmm?" Kriket lifted his head, pushing his long black bangs out of his face.
"There's a street just behind this inn, it's one of the easier places in this city to pick up a harlot-"
"You want me to get you a whore?"
Lavender's hands twitched, flexing closed for a second. "Not just any harlot. There's this one girl out there, a dark elf," noticing the blank expression on Kriket's face, she paused, starting with. "Pointed ears, dark blue skin, white hair, very hard to miss. Now, this girl is wearing even more clothing than you are, she doesn't look much like a harlot. The only way you could miss her is if you're completely dense. I want you to find this girl and bring her back here."
"Then you'll let me stay another night?" Kriket's eyebrow rose.
"Maybe a couple days..." One end of Lavender's lips curled upward slightly.
"What do you want me to do with her when I bring her here?"
"You're not in a position to be asking questions. If you'll do it, then go out in the evening and find the girl. Otherwise you'll get your things and be gone. Now."
Silence followed. Lavender watched Kriket's face. Kriket reached for the ring, slipping it in a pants pocket under the cassock. He watched Lavender watching him, then slumped forward again and buried his arm in his elbow.
"I'll do it."
Kriket couldn't walk three steps down the street behind the Forgotten Sweetheart without the whores catcalling. Scowling and tucking his hands inside his sleeves, Kriket tried to avoid making eye contact with any of the girls that wasn't blue. It would have been easier to pack everything up and make a break for it. At least at first. After that would come finding a new place and hoping Lavender wouldn't share anything she knew. This request was strange though, which almost comforted Kriket. It was better to be blackmailed than to be faced with an honest person that would immediately do 'the right thing'.
That thought couldn't distract him from the street and the hooting whores though. Kriket set his jaw and walked forward, staring at the hemlines and ankles of the women on the street. Eventually he'd see a flouncy hem or a pair of blue ankles. Then he could go back to worrying about what sort of perverted reason Lavender had for sending him out to bring a female whore to the inn - and thinking up what to say to the whore. You'll do, come with me to my inn? Did you ask how much first? Should she be asked how she felt about another woman being involved?
Kriket got lost in thought and stepped on the front panel of his cassock. He was bent just slightly and doubled over completely and falling on his knees when his other foot stepped on the front panel soon after. Slick. He could hear a woman tittering. Kriket scowled again and stood. That whore had better not have been picked up for the night already.
