Chapter 47: 56. Downpour

Rorri

 

“I thought I might find you up here.”

Rorri jumped and whipped around to find Shacia slinking towards him, uncharacteristically meek in posture and gait. She smiled, though her forehead was wrinkled in an odd expression he couldn’t quite place, and the smile was certainly forced.

“I never told you I smoke,” Rorri said, his ears suddenly burning. He dropped his gaze to the bright yellow banner hooked to the balcony railing, swaying in the breeze beneath his feet. It bore the crest of whatever house was hosting the event, and its rippling had him mesmerized. He’d spent the better part of the last few minutes calculating how far he was from the ground, though it was difficult to discern in the evening light. Not that he intended to do anything, of course. It was just easier than thinking about anything else.

“You didn’t have to,” Shacia chirped, taking slow, measured steps towards her tutee. “You just seem like the type, I suppose.”

A strange, morose feeling washed over Rorri, adding weight to his heavy eyelids. The edges of his body felt numb, his insides swampy and cold, but an invisible, crackling energy skirted his surface, like lightning clinging to a storm cloud, a blink away from lighting up the sky.

“Um… Are you alright?” Shacia leaned in, glimpsing his face through his veil of red hair. “You don’t look well.”

“Oh, no, I’m f-f-fine,” Rorri said, tapping his fingers on the railing. “People keep saying I don’t look well, but that’s not a very nice thing to s-say, is it? M-maybe this is just what I look like. N-nobody thinks about that.” He took a sharp drag from his cigarette and exhaled just as quickly.

“That’s not just what you look like. I think I’d know.”

“Yes, w-well, I’ve got – I’ve got a f-few things on my mind,” Rorri said, keeping his gaze trained on the very tip of the banner. “You know, silly p-peasant things.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, he grimaced and squeezed his eyes shut. He missed the pained glimmer that danced across her eyes, but he didn’t have to see it to know it was there.

“I’m s-sorry, that didn’t come out right.”

“No, I understand,” she said, tucking away a loose strand of hair. “You don’t owe me an explanation, and certainly not an apology.”

Rorri’s head spun with questions he wanted to ask, but they kept evaporating from his tongue, leaving him gaping and speechless. His head was turned away, enough that she couldn’t see his partially-formed words, but he must have formed them a dozen times. He stamped his cigarette out on the balustrade, where it imparted a small black smudge that barely burned the varnish, and took a sharp breath.

“S-so,” he finally managed to start, leaving no option but to finish. “Are… erm… Are those… y-yours?” He gestured vaguely towards the stairs. Shacia tilted her head, and a moment passed before she made the connection.

“…Oh!” She burst into a chuckle. “The twins? No, no, not at all. Goodness, that must’ve looked…”

“No, sorry, I just w-wasn’t sure,” Rorri said, his smile reaching his eyes for the first time that night. “Younger s-siblings, then, or…?”

Shacia’s gaze went distant. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “They’re… family friends.”

Rorri tensed as he noticed her shift in demeanor, but she perked up before he could press any further.

“How did you wind up here tonight?” she asked.

“Oh – I got sort of, erm, r-roped into a job,” Rorri said. “Not that it’s all bad, or anything – I’m just, well, n-not great with kids, but they have me doing the special effects, for the p-puppet show.”

Shacia’s gaze softened, squinting into a smile. “Using what I’ve taught you?”

Rorri looked out over the balcony, a sudden void opening in his gut.

“Yes,” he said dimly. Shacia took a step, narrowing the gap between them. He shuddered, as if the breeze carried the softness of her skin to his.

“I wish you’d tell me what’s wrong,” she said.

Rorri snorted and shook his head, his face surrendering to his misplaced grin.

“I really ought to s-say the same to you,” he muttered, rocking back on his heel. A tiny crevice dented the painted space between Shacia’s eyebrows.

“I understand that it’s… vexing,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. “But now is not the time—”

“Who are you afraid is going to h-hear us?” Rorri blurted out, hushed, his eyes flashing. “You want to know what’s wrong with me, b-but you don’t want to talk—”

“I can tell there’s something else going on,” she snipped, checking behind her again. “Besides… that. You know—”

“Yes, yes, I’m a t-terrible liar, everyone knows,” Rorri said, stepping away to rifle through his pockets for another cigarette, but his pockets were empty. He grunted and swept his hair back. “Anyway, why should I s-say anything when you won’t even tell me who—”

“Anyone with ears,” Shacia hissed. “If anyone hears us – it’s just a fact of my station, Rorri. It isn’t safe.”

“F-fuck your station, then!”

The lightning flashed. Her make-up obscured the red beneath her face, but he could see the heat building in her neck. He pressed on, too furious to stop.

“You don’t even w-want your title, do you?”

She crossed her arms and started to speak, then faltered, wincing before she recovered her voice.

“It doesn’t matter what I want—”

“Of course it does!”

“Do not interrupt me!” she commanded, cutting a sharp silence into the air. Rorri deflated and averted his eyes, though the strain still showed in his jaw.

“I have a duty to my family,” she continued, each word meticulously chosen, spoken with a deliberate edge. “It’s not something I can toss away on a whim.”

Rorri moved to interrupt, but was halted by her gaze, as if it were a blade hovering over his throat.

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“You might not have anything to lose,” she said after a brief, tense pause. “But I do.”

Rorri scoffed, bristling. The thunder rumbled…

“You should count yourself lucky. At least you have your freedom.”

“Ha!” he shouted, tossing his head back. “You know what? Y-you’re right! I never thought about it like that!”

Another flash. Shacia jumped at the outburst, staggering backwards a step, but Rorri didn’t notice.

“Just think of all the things I can do with my f-f-freedom!” he continued. “Like, should I sleep on the street tonight? Or should I s-sleep on the rock I call a bed in my tiny, freezing bedroom? Oh, or maybe I should go back to Belethlian and find myself a nice little p-pile of leaves!”

“Rorri, please—”

“Oh! Oh!” He spun around with an excited hop, hands clasped together. “W-what should I eat tonight, my Lady? Should I steal a f-fish from the dock? Should I s-see if the bread in the cabinet has got mold on it yet? Or should I go back to Belethlian and hope all the wildlife didn’t d-die in the f-fires?”

“Stop…”

“Oh, I know,” he continued, ignoring her plea. “With all this f-freedom, how should I make a living? Should I b-break my back on the docks for pennies a goddamned hour? Maybe I should steal from some poor sod in the m-market, or – Ooh, maybe I should sell drugs! Or—” He threw his hands out dramatically. “Should I do m-magic tricks for a bunch of rich pricks’ spoiled, s-snotty little kids?”

Shacia whimpered, but the sound was muffled by the blood and thunder rolling in Rorri’s ears.

“All this freedom! Good thing I have n-nothing to lose, or I might get stuck in a goddamned mansion! T-tell me, what would you do in my position, my Lady? Please, help me decide, because I’m obviously too s-stupid to figure it out myself!”

Rorri’s rant ended, dissolving into a cold, sticky silence. He aimed his eyes at the sky, far away from hers. The electricity that had animated him sizzled out, like fire in a downpour.

“Our struggles can’t be compared.”

Rorri looked up to see the tears streaming down her cheeks, leaving muddy white grooves where the powder had set, hints of pink beneath the paint peeking through.

“Yes, I have a soft bed to sleep in. I don’t want for food. I don’t have to work for money. I’m not ungrateful for such things. I—” She choked and coughed, covering her lips.

“Shacia…” he started, but she leveled him with a glare, and he found he had nothing to say. She exhaled a slow stream of air and continued, with the composure one would expect of a noblewoman, as if she knew no other way.

“The Madam has arranged for me to marry.”

A wave crashed over Rorri’s head.

“Sold me like a cow…”

The world around him washed away, his heart snatched by the undertow. She whimpered, covered her mouth, paused, breathed in deep, and continued.

“I’ll have his children in his soft bed. I’ll eat his food, cooked by his servants. I’ll decorate his arm at parties, if he’ll even let me go, and that…” She laughed. “That will depend on if he thinks I’m pretty enough, and…”

Her hand hovered over her drooping eye. She collapsed into a squeaky sob.

“And if I’m not, then… I don’t know what he’ll do…”

“Shacia…” Rorri said. “You don’t—”

“Shut up!” she snapped. “Just listen. The death of a noble house is an ugly… slow… painful death. We would be systematically ostracized, shunned by the ones with power until the money dries up…”

She inhaled sharply, as if she’d forgotten how to breathe, the red beneath her nose beginning to show.

“Because nobody would do business with a family who dared – dared – to embarrass my Lord by rejecting his hand. He – he has the influence to make us suffer for it, Rorri…”

She fanned herself, wrinkling her face, the magpie brooch rising and falling with her chest, as if finally flying away. He timidly reached out, wanting desperately to comfort her.

“It’s okay—”

“No it’s not!” Shacia shouted. “You don’t understand. It’s not just me that stands to lose everything if I fail in this – it’s my father, my little sister, my grandparents, and an entire house full of servants who have cared for me since I was a child! They are the ones who would suffer and starve, Rorri! Because of me!”

She turned away from him and covered her face, sobbing silently, only a few tiny whimpers escaping her throat. Rorri could only watch. The void in his gut swelled. His eyes were hollow in his skull. He could barely feel his heart pounding, so numb was the inside of his chest. His mind was empty, apart from the ringing between his ears, and the one dangerous thought he kept pushing away.

The whimpers faded, and from their echo, her voice reemerged.

“So if it were me, and I had your freedoms…”

Shacia sniffed, the silhouette of her shoulders trembling against the stars.

“I would pick the rock, the fish, and… the magic tricks.”

Rorri watched the edge of her lips flash into a smile that gutted him. It was a smile that, on any other night, in any other light, under any other circumstance, might have drawn him in, invited him for a kiss or a sip of fine wine. She stole one more glance at her tutee, meeting his gaze with enough force to shake the marble beneath him, then turned away, hanging her head as a prisoner sentenced to death.

“Excuse me,” she whispered and hurried away.

Rorri stood motionless on the balcony. Every feeling he’d ever ignored had just been ripped from him, like the entrails of a mouse preyed upon by a cat, and he could only bleed, twitching and raw. He turned to the railing, wilting over the edge in spite of the Snow that still kept him awake, and he leaned all his weight into it, testing its stability, its will to hold him back. It didn’t budge.

He watched the ground until the lights inside dimmed and the chattering faded, until the cold night air bit through his fingers, until the dark clouds coalesced and covered the stars, until he realized he had nowhere else to go. Then, he shuffled into the opera house to rejoin his housemates, to finish the job, to get paid, and finally go home.

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