Home --- &RPaward
Posted: Wed Sep 22, 2021 11:17 am
Template to use when awarding stories/ other entries:
Ely edit 22 Oct 2021:
1-6 qps, depending on length and quality.
Potential +1 qp: if part of a series: o
Total: 1 qps
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Outside the Market Hall, a bloke stands at the cart of a pretty fruit vendor. They gesture amiably as they talk business and pleasure. The man grins and says "Home is where the heart is." Chay overhears his words in the busy square, and thinks the man a halfwit. She lifts a few of the man’s meager possessions from his pockets and moves on. She rubs at her mouth and considers. Ner had a home ‘cept Lugard. An if my heart is here? She huffs a laugh. Be dead already.
She sweeps through the streets unnoticed. No one pays attention to a cherubic lamb of almost eleven years - or maybe twelve? Who cares anyway? She was still small enough to be useful. More importantly, she looks the part. Chay takes in her fine, new clothes and grins. A set like this and she could go back to pretending she was a moppet of some high-to-do who escaped the leash of her nursemaid for the afternoon. Always good money in that. Better? Good fun.
Chay startles, standing there on the cobblestone street. Lost in scheming and conniving again! She looks over the rooftops to see the sun kissing the tiles in its descent. Hurry on. People gots no patience for tarryin nippers.
Quickly she makes her way to a familiar street, to a familiar building, to a familiar pipe, to a familiar handhold. She pulls her way up to the rooftop, skitters across to the other side and down to a scaffold. She runs the length of it and eyes a broken gable window at which she gives a half-jump and her hands gain their purchase. Clambering up to the next rooftop she is met with a toothy grin.
“Oy Chay! What’s been?” Chay smiles with obvious joy and flaps her new cloak at the boy. “Ho ho, you got a new grubstaker, aye?” She shrugs, then shakes her head. The boy stands casually in front of a sort-of-door to a shack. Haphazardly placed sheets of metal and wood form a sort of residence to which she and the boy hold an unholy allegiance to. He nods at the shack behind him and warns “Don’t get stuck Chay. He won’t fancy that, not a pinch.”
The boy’s name is Trag and it is short for some ridiculous other name like Bontrager or Trageron or Tragedy. The last one Chay made up herself because no one should be saddled with such a name. She could barely spell her own, much less say it, if her voice ever stopped betraying her. Light’s honest truth they were all in a bit of a tragedy, but having each other made it less like a disaster and more like the type of surviving that everyone endured.
No one looks out fer me ‘cept maybe Trag- an we look out fer each other. Chay warms at the thought and looks at Trag gravely. She nods. She was grateful to have found him - to have him as a best friend. He's great fun, too. When they weren’t working they kicked tiles off the rooftops to see whose could land the better distance. You won regardless if a tile brained a townsfolk treading below. That prune-faced maid across the street would come out, all in a fit at the broken pieces littering the street, broom in hand and sweeping like the dickens. Chay thought the woman could sweep the stink off a vagrant if she were given the chance.
“He’s been waitin fer ya.” Trag thrusts his hands in his pockets and moves past Chay to peer over the rooftops. “He ain’t in a bad mood neither. Yer lucky today.” He turns to grin at Chay. She nods again and grins back, adopting a confident stance. She saunters through the doorway like she owns it, hearing Trag chuckle at her back.
Ely edit 22 Oct 2021:
1-6 qps, depending on length and quality.
Potential +1 qp: if part of a series: o
Total: 1 qps
*****************************************
Outside the Market Hall, a bloke stands at the cart of a pretty fruit vendor. They gesture amiably as they talk business and pleasure. The man grins and says "Home is where the heart is." Chay overhears his words in the busy square, and thinks the man a halfwit. She lifts a few of the man’s meager possessions from his pockets and moves on. She rubs at her mouth and considers. Ner had a home ‘cept Lugard. An if my heart is here? She huffs a laugh. Be dead already.
She sweeps through the streets unnoticed. No one pays attention to a cherubic lamb of almost eleven years - or maybe twelve? Who cares anyway? She was still small enough to be useful. More importantly, she looks the part. Chay takes in her fine, new clothes and grins. A set like this and she could go back to pretending she was a moppet of some high-to-do who escaped the leash of her nursemaid for the afternoon. Always good money in that. Better? Good fun.
Chay startles, standing there on the cobblestone street. Lost in scheming and conniving again! She looks over the rooftops to see the sun kissing the tiles in its descent. Hurry on. People gots no patience for tarryin nippers.
Quickly she makes her way to a familiar street, to a familiar building, to a familiar pipe, to a familiar handhold. She pulls her way up to the rooftop, skitters across to the other side and down to a scaffold. She runs the length of it and eyes a broken gable window at which she gives a half-jump and her hands gain their purchase. Clambering up to the next rooftop she is met with a toothy grin.
“Oy Chay! What’s been?” Chay smiles with obvious joy and flaps her new cloak at the boy. “Ho ho, you got a new grubstaker, aye?” She shrugs, then shakes her head. The boy stands casually in front of a sort-of-door to a shack. Haphazardly placed sheets of metal and wood form a sort of residence to which she and the boy hold an unholy allegiance to. He nods at the shack behind him and warns “Don’t get stuck Chay. He won’t fancy that, not a pinch.”
The boy’s name is Trag and it is short for some ridiculous other name like Bontrager or Trageron or Tragedy. The last one Chay made up herself because no one should be saddled with such a name. She could barely spell her own, much less say it, if her voice ever stopped betraying her. Light’s honest truth they were all in a bit of a tragedy, but having each other made it less like a disaster and more like the type of surviving that everyone endured.
No one looks out fer me ‘cept maybe Trag- an we look out fer each other. Chay warms at the thought and looks at Trag gravely. She nods. She was grateful to have found him - to have him as a best friend. He's great fun, too. When they weren’t working they kicked tiles off the rooftops to see whose could land the better distance. You won regardless if a tile brained a townsfolk treading below. That prune-faced maid across the street would come out, all in a fit at the broken pieces littering the street, broom in hand and sweeping like the dickens. Chay thought the woman could sweep the stink off a vagrant if she were given the chance.
“He’s been waitin fer ya.” Trag thrusts his hands in his pockets and moves past Chay to peer over the rooftops. “He ain’t in a bad mood neither. Yer lucky today.” He turns to grin at Chay. She nods again and grins back, adopting a confident stance. She saunters through the doorway like she owns it, hearing Trag chuckle at her back.