Chapter 6: 7. Job Well Done

Rorri

 

“Wot a shitshow…”

Shirtless, shivering, and sopping wet, Rorri crossed his arms and glared at Bilge. “I told you I can’t swim,” he grumbled, leaning into the kitchen’s peeling door frame. Adar emerged from the hallway carrying a heap of tatty old towels with one wrapped around his waist.

“Then you probably shouldn’t have jumped,” he said, dropping a towel on the puddle by the door.

“The smugglers were chasing me!” Rorri snapped. “What did you want me to do, ask them nicely to leave me alone? I got the loot, didn’t I?”

“You did,” Adar said, tossing a towel to Rorri. “At the expense of my shirt, somehow, but…”

“Look, I said I’m sorry—”

“Balifra won’t be happy the bounty’s wet,” Bilge grunted from inside the tiny kitchen, swirling a half-empty bottle of mead.

“And where were you, anyway? What happened to ‘I’ll be ‘round the corner the ‘ole time’?”

“Uh… Somefin’ came up.”

“We might want to look at some ways to supplement our income,” Adar interjected. Rorri wrapped his hair up in the towel and disappeared into his bedroom.

“Oi,” Bilge called after him, “d’ya know how to pick pockets?”

Adar gave Bilge a dubious look, which Bilge returned with a shrug.

“…No?” Rorri replied after a pause, re-emerging in dry pants and a plain green shirt.

“’Salright, I’ll teach ya,” Bilge said. “Nico’s good practice. He’ll let ya ‘ave one a’ his smokes if ya get ‘em off him clean…”

“Is there no way to make money here without stealing from people?” Rorri asked. “Didn’t you say you work on the docks?”

Bilge snorted. Adar closed his eyes and shook his head.

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“Too many people, not enough jobs,” he said dimly, wringing the towels out in the kitchen’s wooden washbucket.

“An’ the docks ain’t payin’ enough t’cover food an’ rent, an’ god forbid if y’got a fam’ly. City’s gone down the shitta since them Du-én pricks crawled outta their holes an’ started up the War again.” Bilge knocked back the rest of the bottle, dropping it on the table, its uneven leg knocking into the floor. “Fer some goddamned reason all the refugees ‘ad to come here instead of anywhere else on the bloody continent…”

Rorri’s eyes clouded, suddenly heavy in their sockets. His heart quickened, the smell of smoke winding its way into his head, though there wasn’t any smoke in the house.

“Obviously it’s because Iridan is safe,” Adar said. “We’ve got a giant wall, and the ground is way too rocky to dig into the city from the Obsidian. It’s the most logical choice.”

Still, the fire crackled in Rorri’s ears. His breathing quickened, though his housemates didn’t seem to notice.

“Y’can’t tell me there ain’t nowhere else they could go,” Bilge argued. “Fergodssake, Anthatal’s floatin’ up in the fuckin’ sky—”

“It doesn’t literally float, it’s on top of a—”

“An’ Carran Pinnath’s got a wall, too, so ‘snot like there ain’t options.” Bilge belched and swayed to the pantry, opening it to reveal nearly-empty shelves, but for the last bit of Rorri’s bread, a jar of peanuts, and oats spilling from a deflated burlap sack.

Adar gave a heavy sigh. “Carran Pinnath is the capital of an isolationist dictatorship,” he said. “And you’re just a dick.”

“Call me a dick all ya want, mate,” Bilge said as the cabinet doors clacked shut. “I’m jus’ sayin’ wot everyone else’s thinkin’…”

Rorri stood in the hall through a thick silence, staring bleakly at the floor. His fists trembled. He gritted his teeth as the memories surfaced and shoved them into his mind’s darkest corners, but the human’s words smothered even the Snow’s residual buzz.

“I’m going to get some rest,” he mumbled, pivoting on his heel.

“Oi, Rorri.”

Rorri stopped, turning just his ear towards his voice.

“Good work t’day, lad,” Bilge said through a mouthful of bread. “Couldn’ta done it wifout’cha.”

After a few seconds, Rorri nodded, then shut himself in his bedroom and curled up on the floor.

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