BTW
This is the first chapter of a work-in-progress story based on my oldest characters and world. I made them when I was like 13 years old. I suck nuts at writing prose but these characters are very dear to my heart because they’re the first actually fleshed out characters I ever made so I’m doing it for them.
And the very first paragraph was written as a joke in which I tried to write how I would write if I was writing a cheesy romance novel but I ended up kinda liking it so I just kept it. If it feels tonally out of place that’s why.
And this is my least favorite chapter that I’ve written. I do not think it is good but it’s necessary for exposition.
So proceed with all that information in mind.
Also that title was made using Google Translate so sorry if I have any French speakers in the audience and it sounds like absolute bullshit to you. Basically just deal with it.
The door to the bar flies open violently, like the pages of a book in the wind, and the opening encases the opener in a rectangular frame of light from the midday sun outside. He slumps against the doorframe, panting and sweaty, streaked with dirt and blood. He’s of average height, if a little on the shorter side, lean and gracefully toned, and his skin is a warm brown, splashed with ragged-edged patches of pale white, like his body is a map of some fantastical planet. His hair is a deep, dark brown highlighted with a few streaks of white, and it looks like he was just thrown in and out of a tornado headfirst. He’s also almost completely naked, with only a ragged skirt wrapped haphazardly around his narrow hips. He straightens himself up, shakes his head a little bit, and moves forward a tentative few steps before falling completely limp to the ground like a ragdoll.
Jax was the first one to him, kneeling down on the ground by his unconscious body as Milah jogs awkwardly past to shut the door. He presses two large, clawed fingers gently to his neck. A pulse, steady enough. Not really knowing what else to do, he pushes the hair out of the man’s face and straightens him out a little bit, putting his arms in a less awkward position. He looks at him closer, at his eyelashes, the bags under his eyes. At the little white patch on his left eyebrow, at the sigils on his chest, seemingly branded onto his skin. He’s quite pretty, he thinks, in a boyish sort of way, and he looks peaceful. Idyllic.
Milah rushes over with a potion in a small brass bowl and Jax is glad for the action. She waves the potion bowl by his nose and he wakes with a start, his eyes shooting wide open like an owl’s. In the split second, Jax notices that his eyes are hazel. He sits up fast and seemingly regrets it, pressing his palm to the side of his face and groaning.
“Where am I?” he asks, his tone urgent, demanding, but unsteady. He rubs the back of his head with his palm and looks dizzily around.
“You don’t know where you are?” Milah calls from the bar as she empties the potion back into its container.
“Is this Bronze Sword?” He leans back on his left hand and twists around to face Milah.
“The very one. Who’s asking?”
He groans and pulls himself up off the ground with generous assistance from Jax, following him with wobbly steps as he leads him to a stool at the bar.
“My name is Emerett,” he says, clearing his throat. “I’ve just come– no, wait, is this The Bronze Sword?”
Milah raises an eyebrow. “Yes, are you sure you’re okay?”
“No I mean, is it true that you guys have… are the rumors true? About the shelter?”
Jax and Milah exchange a look, or a series of looks. His eyes widen, hers widen, she tilts her head, he raises his shoulders, she furrows her brow.
“What do you know about that?” she demands, breaking the silence.
“No,” Emerett sighs, pausing to consider something, “I just escaped from the army. They sent me to be killed, I- but I escaped. I escaped and I heard that I could find shelter here. That you guys help… people like me. You know.” He looks down, clearly nervous, or ashamed, or something. Milah chews on her lip for a second and huffs out a breath through her nose.
“Take him,” she says to Jax, waving her hand towards a dark wooden door at the back of the building.
“Come on,” he says, offering his hand again, “Let’s go.”
Emerett waves his hand off and stands up, making sure he’s steady before he walks. Steadiness verified, he follows Jax to the door, surveying his surroundings. It’s a pretty nice place, with wooden furniture and decorations on the walls, rugs and old weapons, skulls and a couple furs. It’s completely empty save for him and the other two, but that’s not crazy for a bar in the daytime. There are no windows and the place is lit haphazardly, with colorful lamps on tables and some glass lanterns on the walls. There is no overhead lighting and the effect is quite moody and dim, which is not at all helped by the burning incense distributed throughout the building. It smells strongly of beer and herbs, but it’s not overwhelming. It’s kind of comforting, he thinks, like being wrapped in a blanket of smoke.
They reach the back of the building and Jax opens the door with a key in his pocket. Beyond it is a stone staircase, lit with lanterns inlaid in the old stone walls. It smells considerably less nice in the stairwell, less like incense and more like wet dirt. He walks carefully down the stairs, keeping his balance consciously. Pretty soon they reach another doorway, and Jax knocks on it. After a few seconds, a slot in the door slides open, revealing a pair of eyes.
“Whozzat guy?” asks the eyes behind the door.
“New refugee,” Jax answers, “just came. Says he’s an escaped soldier.”
“You believe him?”
“Might as well.” he replies with a shrug.
The door opens and the full form of the eyes is revealed. A middle aged man, maybe in his early forties, with a thick, dark beard and a bald head. He wears a black knee-length skirt and a loose white tank top, and he stands almost the height of Jax. On his waist is a tactical looking bag, and reaches into it and pulls out a small black notebook and a stubby wooden pencil.
“You gotta name?” he inquires, pointing the pencil at Emerett.
“It’s Emerett, sir.”
“You do not have to call me that….” he mumbles, jotting something down in the notebook. “Just call me Orrian.”
“Yes, sir– Orrian,” he shakes his head, “Sorry.”
Orrian flips through his notebook intently, searching for something. Emerett stares curiously at his hands, his thick, calloused fingers. They look like the hands of the older soldiers he knew in the army, the ones that had actually been in battle.
“We’re out of rooms.. ehh… you’re gonna have to share with somebody.” he mumbles, mostly to himself, but Jax’s ears perk up.
“He could share with me,” he says way too urgently, and immediately regrets it, “I still have room in.. mine.” He kicks his heel meekly against the ground. It’s true, the second bed in his room is still empty, but Orrian doesn’t know that. He has him categorized under single rooms due to a mix-up in names that happened right when Jax came to the shelter. He never corrected him. He doesn’t like the idea of sharing rooms with somebody he doesn’t trust, but something about Emerett gets under his skin. His eyes keep popping up in his head, green around the edges and golden brown inside, like the sun shining through a glass bottle.
“I thought you had a single?” Orrian interrupts his train of thought, quite rudely.
“No, I have a double.”
“Well fuck me,” he flips through his notebook again, looking for Jax’s name, “it sure says you’re a single in here.”
Jax looks around guiltily, failing to respond. He makes eye contact with Emerett for half a second and immediately looks away, feeling probably more nervous than he should. He feels his eyes on the side of his face, burning a hole directly through to his brain. Maybe he’s a psychic, he thinks, some kind of wizard maybe. He imagines him doing gesture spells, his fingers agile and precise, and then he really hopes he isn’t a psychic.
Orrian corrects his notebook, scratching out his name and rewriting it in the double rooms section, with “Emerett” written next to it.
—
Later, Jax sees Emerett in the corner of the bar, holding a glass of beer and looking around owlishly. He’s right by a lantern and the flame paints his face in streaks of golden light, jutting up across his cheeks and into his eyes, lighting them up bright like an angel. He’s screened from him by a layer of smoke flowing thick and smooth like water.
Emerett sees Jax behind the bar, pouring a glass of beer and sliding it out to a customer, or another shelter dweller? He doesn’t know them all yet. From the smoky corner of the room, he watches his clawed fingers wrap around beer bottles and glasses and money and washcloths and whatever else. His hair is long, dark, and wavy, falling loose around his face and over his broad shoulders. He holds the bottles like swords. He’s screened from him by a layer of smoke and people flickering by like flames.
Oh me gerd this is incredible