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Looking past the feet of the people on the street, he could see a cart coming from a small side road. He could also see the pothole in the road that was just waiting.... The boy stayed silent and tense underneath the tavern porch. He had seen the cart yesterday, and had seen what was going to happen yesterday too. There was only to wait... Then, suddenly, FJ shot out from under the dusty porch, dodging people as he darted across the street. He snatched up a handful of candy sticks from the over-turned confections cart and kept running. 'Never stop running until you know you're safe' had echoed in his mind since he was barely six. Now that he was eight, he fully understood what would happen if he stopped. There was no quarter for a whore's son in Linitroth. Even less so if that whore were a lady of the court, and her son a halfblood. FJ finally stopped running when he began to leave the dirty port-side taverns and inns behind. Now he was in the middle-class section of Linitroth, a bare thirty minutes from where he wanted to be. FJ could take it easy now, so he strolled along. This was his territory. He had managed to snatch four candy sticks. Good. That meant one for him, one for Mom, and two for Adia. FJ smiled and laughed to himself. A group of dreamers watched him with their great, two toned eyes. The lot of them smiled at the halfblooded boy. "He managed some..." "...Candy for his...." "...Lady." FJ looked back at the dreamers who smiled benevolently at him. Smiling back, FJ nervously wondered if Adia would do that when she grew up. She was half dreamer, one eye blue and the other green. Typical dreamer eyes... The boy shrugged it off and kept walking, though dreamers plagued his mind. Dreamers were peculiar people. Neither human nor elf, dreamers could look like either pretty much in the face. However, it was their eyes and their bodies that gave them away. Two-toned eyes. Short, and more willowy than any elf in Linitroth. A pair of them would complete each other's sentences, and a whole group seemed to read your mind. They never rose to any sort of social standing, nor did they work. They just were. You could find them in the dirtiest parts of town, and the dreamers would be immaculately clean. Scuffing the dirt on the road, the halfelf sighed. The cloth around his forehead kept the sweat from his eyes, as well as hid FJ's mother's secret. To her, it had been bad enough that the boy had lived through infancy. Even worse that at his birth, the midwife had thought him deformed. "The child has funny eyes," the midwife had said, "They see too much. And then there's that funny silver flower in his forehead... Should I remove it?" FJ's mother, the Lady Ultana, had told the midwife not to breathe a word of it. Supposedly the money had kept things quiet. Not even those in the Border Roads where his mother's burlesque house was situated knew about the silver metal in FJ's forehead. At the thought of the Border Roads, FJ looked around him again. Yes... There they were. The Border Roads, the place between upper-class society and the rest of the world in Linitroth. Most of the better gambling and whore houses were here, and FJ's mother owned one of each. And each were frequented often and held in high repute. FJ skipped along lightly up to the side door of his mother's house, and slipped in. The boy was immediately set upon by a girl his age with thick black hair, and large two-toned eyes and the most adorable freckles under her eyes. "FJ!" Adia cheered as she pounced him. "Hey! Adia...!" FJ oofed and landed ungracefully on the floor with the girl on top of him. He grinned up at her sheepishly. "Love you too.. Geez. I might need to walk later, forcryingoutloud!" Adia laughed softly, and ruffled FJ's already messy red hair. "Then you should have come back sooner, brown eyes." FJ grinned at the half dreamer, half elf girl. "Can I pleeeeeaaaaaaaaase get up so I can give you something?" Grinning, Adia got up and smoothed her tunic dress. She waited until FJ was standing to wrap an arm around his shoulder casually, and to begin herding him towards one of the inner parlors where the house's staff would relax. FJ handed her the two sticks of candy, and found himself pleased at her delighted squeal. She kissed him on the cheek and was leaving to show off her winnings when FJ caught her arm. "I bought you something." "You did?" Adia was stunned. FJ never had money, nor did she. "Yes... Here. Did some work for some sailors just come into port. Directed them to various places. Used the tip..." He handed Adia a small bone dolphin. Adia's already naturally large eyes became huge. She hugged the other halfelf, and whispered in his ear with childish enthusiasm that she loved him. Then, like a dream, Adia was gone away to her mother's rooms. FJ smiled a bit to himself, and looked in the mirror when Adia had left. He knew he had lied to Adia about how he had earned the money, but he had been wanting to buy her that dolphin for months. The chalk artists had been the easiest way. FJ examined his own deep brown eyes, and sighed. His face and form were delicate, and they held promise of a handsome man. But, at present, FJ seemed to everyone to be a very beautiful boy. The chalk artists would call him over when he was little, and ask for him to pose as an angel or as a cherub. It had been those looks that had earned him the ability to steal the money to buy Adia the dolphin. It had earned him the money to make Adia happy. Making Adia happy was what was important, wasn't it? Well, wasn't it? Suddenly, FJ sighed. He made a note to himself never to steal from a chalk artist again. Rather than going upstairs to see his mother and share the candy, FJ left the parlor. Left his mother's house. He walked through the Border Roads, not knowing where he was going yet. This was his territory more than the middle-class neighborhoods were. He knew every inch, every voice, smell, and sound. He closed his eyes, but continued walking. "Hey! Whore son! We're going unicorn hunting. Want to come?" "Nah nah, Jer. Unicorns don't come to whore sons. He'd just scare them off." "Maybe we should hunt werewolves instead? Use the whore son as... Hey! get back here, whore son!" FJ ignored the other boys, but he laughed privately inside. No unicorn would come to a whore's son? Ha! A Unicorn had come to his mother years ago, and more than once. That same Unicorn came to FJ to talk to him. To teach him some. A Unicorn would never come to a whore's son? But what if that Unicorn's son, was a whore's son? What if the whore's son were half Unicorn? FJ laughed. Only his mother, he, and his father knew. Knew that FJ, FalseJest, was the son of a Unicorn stallion who visited an elven lady-whore several times. Imagine. A Unicorn in a whore house.
Ultana, the youngest of the High Lord of Linitroth's daughters, was the family black sheep. That is to say, that her having a child and not being married was frowned upon, and not the fact that she ran a house of ill repute and a house of gambling and excess. In fact, such was cultivated amongst the highborn of the Linitroth line. "Damn GlowStar. Him and his saying Unicorn blood would get the throne back..." Ultana said bitterly as she applied a little lippaint carefully. GlowStar. A beautiful man with a literal mane of long, wavy blood red hair had come to see her one night. Making promises of a return to power for the city of Linitroth's namesake family. Three years had passed during which she had torrid on and off affairs with the stallion. Ultana had been unable to believe her luck at the time. A Unicorn! She hadn't been truly surprised at first when he told her he was a Unicorn. She had been a virgin after all, and believed a Unicorn would come to her if she hoped it so. But then... FalseJest had been born. Ultana had sent a message out to GlowStar that she had had a son. The reply had come back: "Call him Jest. For surely you are joking." Ultana had been enraged. She had given the infant the name FalseJest. A false joke. And she had rubbed the boy under the stallion's nose as soon as she could. All social standing Ultana had had, was lost with her pregnancy. Unmarried, it was assumed she worked as a whore in her own house. That the father of the child was unknown, and that that was the reason Ultana would only attach her own last name to the child. She resented GlowStar. Why did he refuse to marry her and save her from disgrace? Ultana had assumed that was what he had offered. Now, she did love FJ very much. She didn't resent him, just his origins. And now that she thought of it, GlowStar was constantly worried about the boy's growth. He was growing up perfectly normal, and at a human speed was all she ever told him. Certainly he was growing up much faster than an elf, or even a halfelf, was supposed to... Though it became assumed that FJ took strongly after a human father these days. Now, that dreamer-child Adia grew at the same rate as FJ... Dreamers tended to grow up much faster. How peculiar.... Ultana shook it off. She didn't have time for this. Examining herself in the mirror, Ultana swept out of the room and down to the carriage-room. "Where're you going, 'Tana?" asked Adia. She had seemingly popped out of nowhere. Ultana meant to rebuke the child for an over-familiar address of a highborn, and then for sneaking around like that... But she hesitated. "I'm going to see my family." Adia nodded and danced away with a stick of candy in her mouth. Weird child, was all Ultana could think as she settled
her skirts in the carriage.
"Your sister had another daughter, Ultana. It seems unlikely that she will have a son any time soon. That leaves your son as the lone option for succession to the head of the family." "But couldn't Cassiah...?" Lord Linitroth sighed, and stood. He was a beautiful man with glossy black hair and piercing black eyes. "You and I both know why Cassiah couldn't. The boy has no brain for these things, or for much else. We need someone who can be trained, who can be groomed for what we need. Groomed for a play for the throne." "But..." "He would spend the holidays with you." Ultana fidgeted in her seat a little as her father's gaze began to chisel through her defenses. She sipped her wine to mask her growing unease. "Father, he's a halfblood." "All the more reason to bring him forth. The human council members would back him, as would most of the elven if he proved to be competent." "Since when has anyone supported a halfblood?" "Since the current king has proven to be a quarterblood, my darling." "Since... what?" Lord Linitroth grinned. "You really ought to get out more often, Ultana. I'll be around to fetch FalseJest next week. Be sure to have him well groomed." Ultana nodded, and frowned faintly. She didn't like this,
not one bit.
He crept to the bathroom, and washed his face and cleaned the dirt and filth from himself. Kicking his clothes in the corner, the boy shut his eyes a moment and let out a slow sigh. Mom was going to kill him for fighting again, and for being as bruised up as he was. Forget Mom! What was Adia going to say? He scrunched his face up in dread, and wandered into his room to slip on his pajamas and go to bed. "FJ, what have you done?" Too late, there was his mother. FJ stifled a sigh, and tugged his night shirt over his head, "There was a fight..." "Obviously, let me have a look at you." FJ turned to walk over to his mother, half way expecting her to be in her dressing gown. He was surprised to see her dressed as a lady for the court. Beautifully perfect. He blinked at her mutely, and Ultana smiled a bit. "You've really hurt yourself this time haven't you?" Ultana removed her son's headband, and traced the silver flower on his forehead. "Not really..." The boy was puzzled. She'd never been this gentle with him after he'd been in a fight before. Ultana picked up a brush, and began brushing FJ's thick red hair. "I talked to your grandfather today. You have another cousin. A girl. Her name is Dremma. You'll be going to school next week," said Ultana casually. "School?" "Yes. School." The boy froze, getting a feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach all of a sudden. Images swarmed his mind... Blood on the ceiling, why was there blood on the ceiling? How does blood get on the ceiling? On the walls... A man with long gold hair, he looked like an angel... So much pain, but so much laughter... "FalseJest!" Ultana gasped as she caught her son from falling, "Did you have another attack? Are you dizzy?" FJ snapped back to where he was, and coughed. "I'm okay... Just sort of saw that you were going to drop that new bottle of perfume." Ultana sighed in relief, not knowing that her son lied. He had seen that was going to occur tonight this morning. She hugged him. "You're going to be going to school next week, but you'll be back here on the weekends and holidays." FJ nodded, and hugged his mother back. "We'll talk about this tomorrow, sweetheart. Get some sleep." Ultana left the room after kissing her son on the forehead, and FJ crawled into bed. Something was going to happen to Adia. He didn't know how, he didn't know when. It seemed so far away... And he drifted off into an exhausted sleep. |
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Laura
Woolard |
FJ
lay quietly waiting in the dust. He knew what was about to
happen.
