#Dark Autumn | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

autumnslance · 3 days ago

Text

The Schoolteacher

(Desertwalkers AU; foul language, nasty attitudes, & violence.)

Gareth Leawood had a shit week and it was all that fucking school teacher's fault.

Like so many others, he had come to Stonewood for the opportunities presented by Baelsar's consortium—except that dried up due to another investor and the Black Iron Wolf’s brief tangle with the Striker siblings.

Still, plenty of work for an honest man to do, enough pay to keep a small place Gareth could stick his mousy little wife. She wasn’t his first pick, but her cousin was spoken for and her uncle had paid well. She kept the place clean, his clothes darned, and hot meals ready for him, even when he came home late after a few drinks at the Saltlick.

Rather, she had done all that.

Fucking bitch of a school teacher had to stick her pert little nose where it didn't belong.

Aside from those rumors of a tussle with Baelsar, Gareth hadn't paid the Strikers much mind. The brother worked in the land office, handling half the town's bureaucracy on behalf of the mayor. Gareth supposed Striker was better at it than the mayor's spoiled worthless son.

The sister turned heads when she walked down the dusty streets, but she never seemed to heed the attention. She taught her classes, volunteered at the multitude of local charities and events women seemed to spend all their free time on, and shared a small homestead with her brother.

Not that Striker could control her. She demonstrated that by strolling into the Saltlick once, a respectable lady like her, and the school teacher no less. She sat down, had exactly one drink, a polite conversation with the piano man, broke another man's finger, and then left again while her brother fumed.

If she belonged to Gareth, she would have learned better.

Then again, he thought he had his wife in hand, too. But that fucking Thavnairian witch had worked her wiles on more than a few folks.

While Gareth spent his days hard at work, and deserved to end those shifts with a few drinks and some entertainment at the Saltlick, his wife had snuck off to the school house to take lessons. She was supposed to use her meager sewing skills to earn extra cash. She always handed over her pay to Gareth, as she didn't know how to spend it properly, and what was hers was his, after all.

Her earnings had been short for a while, but he hadn't suspected her of lying when she claimed she had fewer jobs, or that clients weren’t able to pay. Times were tough all around, thanks to whatever laws trickled in from Tuliyollal and the godsdamned Dawnservant.

A few days ago, Gareth had come home drunk and weary. He ate the food left to warm in the oven and then passed out in bed, still dressed. The next morning he realized his wife hadn't just woken early as usual—she hadn't slept in the bed at all. She wasn't there.

It took time to piece it together, and only after speaking with another bitter fellow that had also found his wife and daughters gone, down to the city and back across the Salt.

It was the thrice-damned school teacher.

She had taught Gareth's wife gods only knew what, convinced her to save away money, pack a few belongings, and book passage east. To leave him, as if he hadn't taken care of her, put a roof over her head, bought the food she made to eat. He had never even hit her. Ungrateful mousy bitch.

Gareth and the other man, Ben Brown, decided someone needed to deal with this wife-stealing little witch. Her brother might even thank them, when he sure as fuck couldn't keep her in line.

He checked around to see who else might be disgruntled at the Strikers—that brother had made more than a few enemies himself, given his work with local land and water rights. But when Gareth laid out his plan, Cal Hotwell shook his head and stood.

"No thank you. Good luck."

"Y'ain't scared of Striker are ya?" Ben asked.

"Yeah," Cal admitted. "I worked for Baelsar when he tangled with ‘em before. Ain't doin’ it again. 'Sides, you're goin’ after Aeryn Striker—and out of the pair of 'em, she's the one you ought to be afraid of."

Gecko snorted. The Au Ra's scars had lent themselves to the moniker. "The woman can scarcely raise her voice when her students act up."

"They don't often," Cal said. He tipped his hat and left Gareth's house, navigating around a full trash bin. The place was a mess, but Gareth had no wife now to keep it.

Because of that damned school teacher.

"Well, we shouldn't need more than the three of us to handle that wench," Ben said. "Keep some other honest fellas from losing their women."

They agreed, then headed to the Saltlick to celebrate.

For most folks around town, Miss Striker was an affable woman with a smile and a kind word for everyone. Even Gaius Baelsar, and he had sent toughs to kidnap her in an attempt to strongarm her brother last year. That attempt had not gone as planned when the thugs, injuries treated, ended up trussed in the back of the Strikers' buckboard and brought to town by an unsurprised Zaine, who had returned home to find them in said condition.

Cal Hotwell had been one of those toughs, since then set to more honest work in the mines Minfilia Warde ran for her mother. After leaving Gareth Leawood's place, Hotwell had let the Sheriff know trouble was afoot, and to have the doc ready to treat three fools.

And so Deputy Dark Autumn waited inside a nearby store, nursing a cup of tea as she watched the school across the yard through a partly opened window. Miss Striker seemed busy with her older students and a picnic lunch they managed for the younger classmates, while young Tenwa won the duty of running food over to Zaine Striker at the clerk's office. Not uncommon for one of the students to do that.

Tenwa had been gone far too long for that errand, given how Miss Striker checked the time and frowned as the lunch hour wound to a close, the older students leading the younger in cleanup.

Dark watched as the three men ambled up the street, Leawood's hand on Tenwa's shoulder. She set down her cup.

Miss Striker's eyes narrowed. The children’s chatter and laughter faded as they looked at the rough men with their classmate, and then back to their teacher. She stood tall, arms crossed. "Is there a problem, gentlemen?"

"You could say that," Leawood said. "You're a bad influence, Miss Striker."

"The school board has confidence in me, as do my students' parents."

"We ain't talkin’ about the board, though I don't agree you ought to be teaching these kids the way you taught our wives."

She smiled, head slightly tilted. "Why should I teach them differently?"

Leawood’s hand tightened on the boy's shoulder. Tenwa squirmed "Maybe I don't agree with your teachings," Leawood said.

"You're welcome to bring your concerns to the board. Thank you for escorting my student. Tenwa, go inside with the others."

Tenwa tried to move forward, but Leawood held on. "We'll let him go, if you come with us."

Miss Striker's face was dangerously blase, but Dark didn't think Leawood had the brains to notice. "I have to teach afternoon classes. If you come back after the children are dismissed at three, we can discuss your own lessons then."

"Class is canceled," Ben Brown sneered. "Don't think you can use these kids as a shield from what you owe."

Miss Striker raised a brow. "Oh, you have it quite backwards. They're not protecting me." Her tone was rather frosty.

Dark frowned. She wasn't the most sensitive type, but there was an entire shift in the air itself as the Weave that suffused all life reacted to events in the schoolyard.

Reacted to Aeryn Striker.

"Ryne," Miss Striker said in her kind but firm teacher voice. "Take everyone inside. The older students are to divide the class into five groups, and each lead their little cohort in the afternoon's math lesson. Close the blinds, lock the door, and only open it for me."

The slight redhead nibbled her lip, and almost looked ready to jump into the fray next to her teacher. Her dark-haired friend, too; rumor had it she was apprenticed to the coven Ryne's father protected. The two girls exchanged a look, then escorted the others inside.

"Tenwa," Miss Striker said. "Go with them. I will join the class shortly."

The boy pulled away this time and dashed past her, but stopped at the door. "Miss Striker, you don't have your—"

"Inside, please, and follow Ryne's instruction until I return." She smiled, warm and sweet, for the child. He reluctantly stepped inside, and Gaia closed the door behind him. Dark couldn't hear it lock, but was certain the young woman had followed instructions.

For her part, the deputy was far more stealthy than anyone expected of a woman her size, and she took the opportunity to ease outside to stand just behind a pillar on the store’s shaded porch.

Miss Striker turned to the trio of men. "Walk away," she said, hands at her hips.

"Hear you're pretty good with a blade," the man known only as Gecko sneered. "But you don't got one now."

"Please." Miss Striker unhooked the pair of folded fans from her belt.

Leawood’s angry hand reached toward her. "Let's go talk somewhere—"

A snap, a flash, and Leawood cried out and stumbled back, his pants falling off his hips. His suspenders had been sliced by the razor-edge of one of the fans, his shirt and skin untouched.

"Leave," Striker said, voice cold and hard, the fans up in a ready position as she bounced on the balls of her feet.

"You uppity little bitch," Leawood snarled, grabbing his trousers. Brown hesitated—and then Gecko drew a firearm.

"You owe us," he snapped. The other men shouted. Dark leaped, already too late, toward the Au Ra as he pulled the trigger.

Reality warped, hot and electric, a shield of energy sizzling before Striker’s defensive fan. The bullet disintegrated. Striker flung the fan and electricity both. Gecko cried out and fell, his entire body jolted. The gun tumbled away, cut and warped.

Striker spun forward, her held fan collapsed into a solid piece she used to smack Brown in a half dozen places before he could react. She kicked out his knee, leaving him bruised and moaning on the ground.

She snatched the flung fan out of the air on its return arc, her own whirling motion ending with its deadly edge held to Leawood's throat. He froze, despite the knife in his own free hand.

He swallowed. "Th-the gun wasn't part of the plan." He glanced down at Gecko, groaning and slightly smoky on the ground. "We just…our wives left us and it's cuz you—"

He screamed as she left a long slice along each of his cheeks. "They left because of you," she spat as he dropped the knife and clutched his bleeding face. "I merely gave them the knowledge to make their choices and gather their means." She looked up with stormy gray eyes and met Dark's gaze.

If someone as inept as Dark sensed the weight and warp of Striker’s Weave manipulation, so could every sensitive in town.

Dark cleared her throat. "Think I can take it from here, ma'am."

Striker's face smoothed, though the storms in her eyes continued. "Thank you, Deputy. I do have class to teach." She stepped back from her combat ready position and snapped her fans closed to hang them on her belt. She took several deep breaths and fixed her long black hair. The sensation of imminent lightning faded as the teacher smoothed her blouse and skirt. "Perhaps you could also let my brother know there's naught to worry about."

Dark nodded. She whistled, loud and sharp, then leaned down to haul Brown and Gecko to their feet. Pipp and other nearby deputies would hear and come to help.

Miss Striker turned on her elegant booted heel and strode back to her school. She knocked in a specific rhythm and spoke through the door, which soon opened for her.

Not one student had peeked through the curtained windows, which did not open again until the deputies had the battered men out of sight.

The laughing children were dismissed promptly at three o'clock, as a few of Miss Striker's adult students arrived for their own lessons.