Dundunduuuuun

Hopefully you're not sick of reading about Brogan bleeding, because I found one more.

Another clever title

Morgan's recent post inspired me to dig through my NaNo shorts for things that weren't too shitty to be posted. Also I guess this is the week to talk about Brogan's lady problems.

Steam bath

So I started this last November on a train. Almost two pages of no plot ahaha. Ha.
Here take it.
All credit for the brilliantly hysterical title goes to Mouse.

brb beatin writer's block

A great exercise when you have writer's block is to write descriptions of strangers. Mine tend to end up unflattering as hell but not everyone has the cold, sparkly beautiful skin of a killer.

Omen

The flowers held on. The sky grayed and the trees lost their leaves in multi-colored piles, leaving skeletons with hands held up to the dreary heavens. The grass died in patches, grubs feasting on tender roots like maggots in rotting flesh until only puddles of mud were left.

No one took it as a bad omen or thought twice or even questioned why, because all across town, the flowers held on. Grassy wildflowers along the road, little splashes of orange and violet amid the dying brown. Carefully cultivated gardens bloomed in full color. In window boxes, tiny red heads with bright yellow eyes peeked up. On fences they climbed and multiplied. The air was thick with perfume.

It was "amazing" and "a miracle" and "a marvel".

By the time the first child died, it was too late to stop.

The Legend of the Children of the Earth

The Earthmother was strong and kind. She was known as the Grand Protector and the Great Balancer. She loved her children dearly and granted each with the weapons and defenses that they would need to survive. The Earthmother’s guidance and power stretched across the land.

When the invader known as man arrived, she embraced him. Her love, which had always been her greatest strength, became her folly. Man did not desire her love and did not follow her harmony. He cut her and destroyed her with singular purpose: to thrive on his own.

The Earthmother called on us, her children, whom she had cherished and bolstered for so long, to fight for her. We took on the task readily, for we owed her everything and her destruction would be ours. She gave to us, the cunning to fight the forces of man, but he was a formidable foe, with weapons that she had never seen. Her children fell.

With a heart full of grief, she used her weakening power to grant her remaining children the ability to transform and mimic man, so that we could use his weapons as our own.

It is said that the last to receive the Earthmother’s gift were the serpents and that for them, the transformation was so difficult, and so painful, that once they changed, they never wanted to go back. The council of serpents decided to infiltrate the ranks of man to destroy him from the inside, but they got lost somewhere along the way. They warned man of the coming invasion so that they could live comfortably by his side.

We have not won the war. We are prizes and trophies. We are hunted. We are clever, exotic pets. The children of the earth have grown disheartened. We do not feel the pain of the Earthmother any longer and she has quieted her cries, for she has lured her children to their doom at the hand of these invaders.

Those that fight the war still, do so in wary clusters of their own people. They fight for their own. Those that no longer fight have done their best to integrate and blend with the invaders. Ours is a dying kind.

Brother

The tortoises were restless that morning. They shuffled in their stalls and clicked in their throats. Petra smoothed her hand against the smooth nose of the one nearest her. It closed all four of its slitted eyes and quieted. As a girl, she had believed in omens and had seen them in most everything. She tried not to dwell on the uneasy herd, and chose to go about her day.

She pulled the milking bucket and stool off of their places on the wall and headed into the stall. She patted the tortoise’s rocky shell as she set up near its flank. It warbled at her morosely.

"Come now, it's not all that bad," Petra insisted. "We'll head out to graze by noon." The udders of the creature had grown heavy and swollen in the two days she had gone without milking it. Her farm hand was visiting family, leaving her to tend the whole thing by itself. It had taken her three weeks to teach him how to milk the things. It required a grip that was neither too hard nor too soft, pressure applied in the correct manner (which was different for each animal and each teat), and a bit of intuition. She had not had time to do all the milking. Perhaps this was why they were so anxious.

The bucket was half full of the nutrient rich cream when the urgent chime of her communications system sounded. She leaned back and craned her neck. Sheriff Calhoun was on the screen, his bulbous nose anchored in place by his thick mustache. His watery blue eyes shifted, a nervous tic that betrayed the rest of his calm facade. Petra frowned and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. The tortoise stamped its cloven feet as she picked the stool up prematurely. She hauled the bucket out from under it so that it could not kick it over in its displeasure. It butted her in the chest with its beak-- a movement that could have been fatal if the creature had intended it to be. She scratched it under the chin until it quieted, and promised it that she would return in a little while.

"Sheriff Calhoun," she greeted neutrally.

"Ah, Petra," the man smiled in greeting. "Would it be alright if we came in for a few minutes?"

"Depends on who 'we' is," she frowned. The Sheriff had not had a deputy in a dozen years or so. He stepped aside to reveal two men in the pristine uniforms of the Galactic Federation.

"Come on in," she shrugged. The Galactic Federation did not meddle much in the affairs of the people that farmed the outer moons. Unless there were pirates fleeing in their direction, GF forces only stopped in every few years to recruit, or in off-duty capacities, to buy the goods they harvested.

Petra crossed the fields to greet her guests.

"I have a lot of work to get through today, so excuse me if I try to keep this short," she stated. Even as she said it, however, she began to fix a pot of coffee. She rarely had guests, but her mother had raised her with proper manners and she would not circumvent that simply because she was behind on chores. "What is this about?"

"Petra duMarcos," one of the soldiers said. He pushed his visor up, which was some kind of courtesy, or else he wanted her to be able to see his full face so she could see how serious he was. "Sister of Valentin duMarcos." Although he phrased it as a statement, it was followed by silence long enough for Petra to realize he was asking her to confirm.

"Valentin is my brother, yes." It was not a secret in any capacity. "Sheriff Calhoun could have told you that."

"We're just being thorough, ma'am. Are you aware of your brother's current standing with the law?"

"If he's on the wrong side of it, then yes. My brother is a low down crook and smuggler."

"Are you aware that he is currently under investigation for murder?"

"Murder. You think Valentin murdered somebody?" Petra's flat expression did not change much. "Do you mind if I smoke?" She asked as a courtesy as she pulled the pack out. The soldier made a forthcoming gesture and waited in silence as she lit up and took the first drag. "Well, it was only a matter of time before he graduated to big-boy crime."

"You were not aware of it, ma'am?"

"I was not. I'm not surprised, but I wasn't aware of it, either."

"Is your brother here, Petra?" Sheriff Calhoun asked. The two soldiers twitched and looked at him in obvious displeasure.

"Here? That's what this is about? You're coming to find out if Valentin is here?" she scoffed. Smoke curled about her head lazily.

"Harboring a fugitive is a crime, ma'am."

"That's a nice law. A good law. But Valentin is not here."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Yes, I'm sure about that."

"We have the records of your bay doors. You opened them at three o'clock this morning, local time."

Petra's jaw tightened. "One of my tortoises is sick. I called the veterinarian when it looked like it might be getting worse. You must have seen that I opened the door to let him out at four thirty in the morning, local time. You can call him to confirm."

"Petra, there's no need--" the Sheriff started. Petra cut him off with a sharp hand gesture.

"There is no need for you to be here." She looked at each man in turn. "Do you want to know why? Because the last time that I saw Valentin was seven years ago, when our mother was on her deathbed. He came home then. And when mother passed? He didn't stick around for the service. He stole two thousand credits from me and then disappeared without a word. So, if my brother comes here looking for refuge, I'll give you a call and you'd better bring a body bag to collect him in."

"...Thank you for your time ma'am. If he does show up, please give us a call," the man offered her his card. She stared at him sourly until he set it down in front of her.

"I'll be sure to do just that. Thank you for the warning. Sheriff, I trust you know your way out?" He tipped his hat to her and led the two men down the hallway.

Petra took a long drag and exhaled through her nose. Her hands ached from being knotted so tightly for so long. She eased them open, flexed her fingers.

A clap interrupted the silence in her house. It was followed by another, which quickly grew into applause. "Excellent performance. I mean, it gave me chills." Petra turned to see Valentin set his hip against the doorway. He looked as at-ease as he ever did, with his hair slicked back and his grin so big it thinned his lips. He had an attractive smile that masked his lying tongue perfectly. "For a second there, I thought you were going to give me up."

"I was tempted," Petra stated, and Valentin laughed. She had already worried her cigarette down to the filter. She smashed it into the ashtray on the table and lit a second one.

"Sis, that habit'll kill you," he reminded, his voice sing-song. He raised his hands in surrender at her pointed glare, but his smile was still as earnest as ever. He pulled two cups of coffee from the freshly brewed pot and set one down in front of her. Petra watched him claim a seat on her kitchen counter. Her brother had always had good intuition. Perhaps he had sensed that if he sat too close, she would give into the temptation to grab him by the hair and smash his face into the table until it was a bloody pulp.

Petra picked up the hefty ceramic mug with the same hand holding her cigarette and took a sip. The steam and the smoke swirled together to form odd patterns. "So, is it true?" Her voice was as flat and unamused as when she had spoken with the officers.

"What?" Valentin asked, eyebrows arched up to create that perfect illusion of confused innocence. Petra glared.

"Did you kill somebody?" She watched the tiny cracks in his mask, the little flickers of real emotion that were impossible for anyone that had not shared a crib with him to read. He looked guilty, confused, and kind of lost. She made sure to keep her cold indifference firmly in place.

"I didn't kill him, but he did die." He looked at Petra, tried to read her reaction. After a few seconds, he turned his coffee around so that the handle faced the opposite way and took a sip from it. "I didn't kill him, but I was there when he died. You have to believe me, Petree," he turned wide eyes on her. It was too much. The childhood nickname and the purposefully lost look, the touch of desperation in his tone. Petra exhaled smoke in his direction.

"I don't have to believe shit, Valentin," Petra said coldly. "You're a conman, a cheat. You've been that way since you were old enough to blink. Maybe it's not your fault. Maybe it's a compulsion. That doesn't stop you from hurting everyone around you. Even people that you love, or claim to love." He opened his mouth in shock, a protest forming at the corners of his lips. Petra ignored it. "I will smuggle you off of this moon. I will give you some money if you need it. But when I turn around, we're done. I won't be your sister anymore and I don't want to see you ever again."

Valentin stared at his hands. Although he looked like a scolded child and a beaten dog, there was no doubt it Petra's mind that he was trying to find a way to get back in her good graces. She pursed her lips, unmoved. "I'm taking the tortoises out to pasture in three hours. You'd best be ready by then," she stated. "And if you steal so much as one credit from this house, I will skin you alive and kick you out of the airlock."

Valentin grinned at the threat. "Really, sis? Skin me first and then airlock me? Talk about overkill." He appeared undaunted by her repeating 'three hours' and ignoring his attempt at humor.