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autumnbrambleagain · 2 years ago

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Yhelm p11 - readmore for full

Day fourteen.

Day fourteen of Drizzle's stay in Flyhhnemonia, day fourteen of constant, non-stop rains. A few dozen degrees ago--not that anyone could even see Ardet-Argent to measure the angle of time anymore--but a few dozen degrees ago, Princess Flyhh, Heir of Love and Indulgence, one of the creators of reality itself, had finally acted.

Outside was wild, now. A once-in-a-lifetime thing. Princess Flyhh had exercised some great secret of her divine nature. The rain still fell, but in deference to Flyhh's mastery of the world, it did not land. Or more, the raindrops were missing everything they aimed at. They missed the people who walked dry through the sheets of downpour. They missed the buildings. They missed the ground. On her way here, as far as Yhelm could tell, the rain just sort of… disappeared, right when it was about to hit anything.

This was one of those rare moments that everyone, surely, would remember for the rest of their lives, and Yhelm was far too distracted to even enjoy it. She thought that was the worst part of it, really. Whenever, decades from now, whenever anyone talked about the time it never stopped raining, about the time Princess Flyhh changed how rain worked for a day, all she'd have was "Yeah I was going through some stuff then, kinda distracted."

Afternoon Sale, the tall, lace-draped knicknack, was teetering on a single stilt-like foot over Yhelm's head.

"Most people seem to be outside playing in the rain," Afternoon Sale said. "The silly things are merely observing the transient work of a god, when they could be in here, instead, savoring a god's sacred craft with every intimate crevasse of their tongue!"

"Can you actually taste coffee?" Yhelm asked.

"Prim'ent Machato, can I taste coffee! Can I taste coffee! I do not taste coffee, I experience it on levels the mortal mind would not even comprehend. I would need to invent six new words for my six coffee-specific senses that allow me to understand the true nuances of coffee in ways that poor mortals such as yourself can only percieve the shadows of! Taste it indeed!"

Yhelm bite a laugh trying to break out of her muzzle. "You're really leaning into the heir of coffee role today."

Afternoon Sale threw a dramatic, oversized hand to her dainty face and mock-swooned. "Well I must entertain myself somehow! We're practically dead today. As for you! You!" She pointed accusingly at Yhelm. Yhelm just leaned back in her seat and watched. "You are waiting for someone. But no, not one of your regular companions… you are waiting for… someone new, isn't it? You're bringing someone new to me! Ah! Tell me my prognostications are correct and I will develop even greater love for you!"

"Yeah," Yhelm said. "All devotees should turn new worshippers to their god, shouldn't they?"

"You Jayce, but speak red all the same," Afternoon Sale chortled. "Meadoe but provide they arrive timely."

Corbis was a guild miniboss, being summoned by one of his subordinates, of course he'd show up when he damn well pleased, which ended up being who-knows-how-late. In he finally strutted, not walked but outright strutted, wearing tightly buttoned layers of red and browns that clung sleek to his lean runner's body, on all fours with boots and sleeves that went all the way up.

He threw himself into the seat opposite Yhelm with his perfect graceful lack of grace. Tossed his elbow onto the table, and let his head fall onto his paw, making a show of being half asleep. "Sup," he said.

On Hartlight's Ribbon Yhelm wasn't letting this display of sheer Style go unchallenged. Hooking her hoof around the leg of the table, she leaned back in her chair, tottering at dangerous angles, arms crossed, eyelids lowered behind her glasses. "Hey." Don't ever try to out-Style a daughter of Bad Boy.

Corbis' eyes glanced around the dark coffee shop. "Weird place, but all right."

"You haven't met the weird yet," Yhelm said.

Afternoon Sale arrived immediately as Yhelm said that. "Well well well this is a new one! I am sensing: workplace acquaintance! But no, I taste a seedier undercurrent, something deeper beneath the surface… oh my, oh my how scandalous!" Afternoon Sale covered her little pointed face with her thick lace fingers, leaving only beady little glass eyes staring down. "You are more than just workplace acquaintances aren't you! Well it is not to me to judge! You are both young and in the primes of your lives! It is merely mine to provide you with the coffee your soul needs, not to judge it!"

Corbis' eyes slid from Afternoon Sale to Yhelm with a sort of "What the fuck" kind of look, his Stylish composure completely broken. Hah. Yhelm'd won. One of the reasons she had him come here. Second reason was that Afternoon Sale's coffee was so damn good.

"Corbis, Afternoon Sale. Afternoon Sale, this is my--boss, sure. Manager. Whatever he wants to call himself."

"Call myself Corbis most of the time," he said.

"You," Afternoon Sale pointed a finger down at Corbis, "will have, oh, let me guess, let me understand. Oh, really, a liquor-tea, this early in the day? And with a bravan leaf! You do not yet know that you want that minty flavor, but when you have your first sip you will understand the depths of my craft! And Yhelm! I believe… something less bitter than usual, isn't it? Yes, with sugar even, I can see it in how the skin around your eyes holds itself, you are in need of some relief from dark matters! Well! I will go prepare your prescriptions and leave you to your business!"

Corbis mouthed silent confusion as Afternoon Sale spun her way around tables and chairs and to the mass of coffee preparation devices that waited for her touch.

"Yeah she does that," Yhelm said. "I'm not sure if it's knicknack whimsy or if she has some actual Knowing-element power or something. I've honestly never had better coffee though."

"She's a knicknack, though," Corbis said. "What does she know about taste?"

"I'm to understand she has six coffee-specific senses that allow her to experience the nuances of coffee in ways we cannot understand. You'll get it when she brings it out."

Corbis lifted his head lazily off his paw, twisting his wrist with an audible pop. "Speaking of bringing out, why are you bringing me up here for? Is this a date? Normally people go on dates before they start fucking. We going backwards?"

Yhelm huffed. "This isn't a date. I wanted to talk, and I didn't want to do it in your bedroom."

"What's wrong with my bedroom?"

"There's no seats."

"There's a bed."

Yhelm sharpened her eyes. "Yes. Exactly. And I need your mind out of the bedroom."

"Pfft. You know I can have more than just Flyhh's ass on my mind right? What's up?"

She let her chair back down onto all fours. Resting her entire shoulder against the rough stucco wall. And sighed. "You've been in the business a long time, right?"

"You're doing it uh," Corbis paused to think, "roundabout," and twirled his finger in the air to give the words more context. "That's not what you really wanna ask. I've been inside you we don't gotta play coy."

Yhelm grimaced. It was a full tongue-out grimace, like she had a bad taste sensation come over her. "You don't gotta say it like that so bluntly."

"Yeah but I'm asking you to say what's on your mind bluntly."

Blunt. She could be blunt, fine. "Don't you think what happened with Lastsong was fucked up?"

Corbis shrugged. It wasn't even a very committal shrug, it was the laziest shrug Yhelm had ever seen. One of his shoulders barely moved. "I mean, gaitsbird, you know? You beat a gaitsbird at a game enough times sometimes they snap."

"I meant what happened to her. After."

Corbis' big, gold eyes stared at Yhelm, holding time in place for a long, suspended moment. "She almost killed a guy. She got almost-killed herself. That's not fucked up, that's fair. That's as fair as you can get."

"She was locked in a room--"

"Okay, I get it," Corbis said, that irreverent, cocky bravado dropping and a more reluctant maturity poking its head out, eyes blinking, so unaccustomed to the light. "That's why you're asking how long I've been in the business. Because college girl can't deal with the realities of guild life now that she's had to get her hands a bit dirty."

Yhelm's lips raised in a wordless growl that she directed away to the floor. She couldn't be that angry if he was right.

"So guess I can answer the first question then. You know who my dad is, right?"

Yhelm shook her head.

"That might as well be Belham Pio. I was given up real early. Pio took me in, raised me up in the life. So yeah, I'm the person to ask about this. Lemme guess. College girl is used to golden justice, criminal gets to sit in a cell eating dry bread for a year and then they're let out, problem solved right?"

"I guess?" Yhelm admitted.

"The guilds are old, Yhelm. And this is an ooooold city. All this, these lawizards, these courts, that's all extra stuff Aiax tossed on top of Law. You know that? Primal Law's a lot more simple. It's the reason the scale of justice is a sub-symbol of Law's antler. Direct balance. Catharsis." Yhelm hid her surprise Corbis knew that word and could pronounce it right. "The aggrieved party is tendered resolution directly upon the offending party." That was a lot more big words than she thought Corbis could use, wow. What was happening. "Big golden justice gives you, well, the system did its job, hurray for the system, which is great for people the system doesn't fuck. But most of us guild, we're poor-ass cobblepounders. Not even the Is give a damn when a background H-lights. We can't all afford the big lawizards. We can't afford the keys to the doors to get around golden justice. Gold's pricey, college girl, and red's the real color of Law anyway."

… this was all supremely more well thought-out than Yhelm had, had ever even expected Corbis of being capable of. Corbis was usually yelling or posturing and while he was sometimes right he was never articulately right.

"We throw Lastsong to gold justice and the people she hurt, they just sit there and assume price's paid. Trust in a system that ain't even theirs to do it for them? She comes out a year later a few actions proscribed and what, she's still walking around, you assume she got hers but do you know? Anger's still there. Clear it through tables, and now everyone's squared. It's a problem of abstraction, and we cut through it to the red, hard. Lastsong'll be fine in time. Pyrene, gallowc she fived on, she's quiet under Argent well knowing Lastsong got hers. Feud's done. Gold justice works if you let everyone be a rational actor, but you can rescue a princess if you think you'll keep her."

Yhelm shook her head. The basis of academagic was treating reality as a work of fiction. A spell was just a literary essay debating one aspect of it, manipulating it, reframing it. Academages by their very nature had to keep their minds open to new arguments, or their magic didn't work. As a professional academage Yhelm should allow Corbis' argument to stand on its own merits instead of just brushing it aside with a sweep of her emotions. "It's fucked up," but she did it anyway.

Corbis scratched at his chin thoughtfully. "Let's say someone kills Madrigal. Just, doesn't like them being a phanteasel, whatever. Stabs them in the streets, blood cold on the dirt. You find out about it, you're upset, you're angry. Rose Knights collect the killer. Give him a jail cell. Felicity and Falina lock him down so he can't attack anyone anymore. He's let out a year later. Harmless now, the officials say. Learned his lesson. You pass him in the street. Think he survives walking past you?"

"I--"

"Because you're still angry, you didn't get a single paw in on the deal. Someone else did it. You're taking it at someone else's word he's been punished. You didn't see it, you didn't know it, you're full Figments on it, does he survive walking past you."

This wasn't a fun thought experiment. "Probably not."

"Law can't just paint something red and call it red. You have to dye that cloth so it won't flake the moment Drizzle shows up, speak of the lunar," Corbis added a gesture out the window, where the rain fell silently on the dry city. "How long you been guild?"

"A few years?" Yhelm ventured. She hated when Corbis had the better footing than her. "It's hard to say when I exactly--"

"By the Captain I know I've sent you out to rough people up sometimes. You've stolen shit. You've gotten in a few fights. Why this one?"

"Because of how clinical it was!" Yhelm said, forcefully, finally having an actual opening! "Because when I rough people up it's drunks at the gambling loops or people stealing from the guild, or, or! We aren't--we're not the good guys but we're not the bad guys either. I--I thought we weren't the bad guys."

Corbis' eyebrows raised, slowly, showed no signs of stopping until they reached his antlers. "You're wearing a traditional Bad Boy jacket. You worship a literal god named Bad Boy."

"What do you know about adversaries," Yhelm growled.

"I know I might as well've been born one," Corbis growled back. "Freepeople weren't born with a destiny but we sure can inherit it. I inherited Bad Boy's. I try not to be a villain but if guild life's too rough for college girl Trackless built a big old world."

Afternoon Sale, at that exact moment, arrived with coffee. Yhelm's was a burnt, deep orange this time, rather than the usual Void-black. Corbis' was almost clear, faintly green-blue, with a single, multi-bladed leaf floating at the top. It was enough of a distraction the argument fell apart between them as they blew on their cups and sipped their drinks.

Yhelm's was sweet. Vaguely cinnamon. Hint of citrus aftertaste, more in the nose than the tongue. Bitterness and sweet fought in her mouth and neither was winning. Corbis looked suspicious of the leaf but after two sips he'd downed half his cup already.

"This isn't coffee," Corbis laughed. "This is like, a tea--"

Afternoon Sale Yhelm-swore-to-Aiax full-on teleported behind Corbis she moved so fast. "It is in fact made with a glass cultivar that has very little bitter flavor but retains ample caffiene quantities, mixed in equal measure with salaja imported from the Rebant colonies. The bravan leaf denies the more acidic taste of the salaja liquor and grants it a minty kick! It is a very sophisticated blend and also has an inordinately high alcohol content, mitigated by the small cup size. Tell me you do not like it, I challenge you to this very thing."

Corbis shook his head. "Dad taught me never take a bet you've already lost."

"A very wise man to have a very wise saying, and moreso wise are you to use it!" Afternoon Sale said. Satisfied in another conquest, she traipsed about to the next set of customers in need of her expertise.

"It's funny," Yhelm started over, "how it works like that. I was born into a freeperson's life. I choose adversary. I say 'chose,' I'd argue being yourself isn't a choice, but, all the same. You're a freeperson, but you were born adversary. It's a curious parallel. I think I should like you less than I do, but for it. You're an abrasive dick half the time--"

"Oh," Corbis interrupted, smiling, "oh you love that about me though. You choose every time to get into fights with me and goad me on. It feeds your duldge, Fig me not."

Yhelm rolled her eyes dramatically enough that Corbis could see it in the dimmer light.

Corbis' drink was already near-empty. The leaf sat at the bottom, a thin layer of green coffee swirling atop it as he gestured with his cup. "So what is all this, you're doubting your life in the guild now?"

"I've been reconnecting with my family lately. And I had--something of a talk with the Arbitrator. And she--I guess she made me feel bad about some of this? I guess?"

"… shit, okay, I see where this is," Corbis said. He drank the last of his coffee and ate the leaf right out of the cup, grimaced at the mint overload, and forced himself to finish it anyway. "You're not looking to go straight, are you? You got reminded some of the bad parts of the life you need me to remind you of the good, that's it, right? You want me to talk you out of quitting."

Yhelm answered with a drag of her coffee.

"Well, okay, here's the baculum of it. I'm gonna give it to you, nice and peeled."

"Ugh."

Corbis waved away her disgust. "If you really liked college you'd be there. Having your paper fights in the greenlight. But that's polite and fake and you know it. It's fake and you're an adversary. Guild is real. You don't have to fucking, wear six masks and swap 'em out depending on who you're talking to. You got a problem in the workplace you don't, I don't know, have to worry about your grant money and your advisors and whatever they have in college. You don't sit there and go, humdeedledee. Fuck I don't know how publishing works but you aren't arguing with your, what do you greenlights get, magic editors? Publishers? You're an adversary. You have a problem you fix it. Someone disrespects you they pay for it. People don't respect you 'cause a piece of paper you bought, they respect you because you have power. And you have power. And all of that is how an adversary wants to live. You can trust me in that, because with all the freedom Meadoe gave me I choose to be her boyfriend's child instead. And now here's the real good stuff, the top shelf I'm holding out on, I'm gonna reach on up and take it down just for you, okay?"

"Okay."

"Most of the guild is just poor people trying to fucking survive this mess Flyhh dumped us into. And we ain't Apat, we ain't building a party-dome to die in, when a guild in good standing's in trouble, needs something, we play the heroes the Rose Knights pretend they are. That's really why you're guild, cutie. Because you're a hardcore servant-in-the-biblical-sense. You don't have to play games with anyone. And now and then you get to do some good too. So. Dad has me go around to retired guilders who did enough guildshare for a lifetime. Drop off their pension. Make sure they're alive and healthy. Keep them from getting lonely. So you'll be taking that over for me for a bit. How's that sound?"

Yhelm finished the last of her coffee. There was a thin, too-sweet sludge at the bottom of the cup she licked up in a single slurp. It made her fur stand up and it was great. "You want me to go keep old people company."

"Aiax's folly Yhelm you're complaining you had to see something too rough to sleep through and I'm offering you some feel-good work. Take it."

"I will. Thank you. You're not the worst boss, Corbis."

"You're not the most useless enforcer I have to babysit," he said gracefully.

Yhelm spun her cup on its plate, by the handle, in counter-clockwise circles. "You know, I honestly didn't expect you to be so well thought-out."

"Pfft. I'm the boss. You think I can get away with just shouting a lot I have to know what things are." The smirky grin so well worn into Corbis' face eroded a moment. "You ever read Murmur's writings?"

"Murmur. You mean Figments' Servant, Murmur?"

"A person as a fixed crystal."

"Since when the fuck do you know phil--" Yhelm started, and then considered what Murmur, Servant of Figments and God of Philosophy, had actually written 5,000 years ago, and stopped. "We appear differently to different people because of the angle they approach us from and how their own structure reflects light onto us."

Corbis pointed at her with a 'I got you' look. "I have to be in charge. And you have to be full of stupid ideas and go around fucking up all the time. So I have to yell at you and be an ass. I don't think life's so complicated you have to spend your whole life sitting around thinking about it, but that doesn't mean I haven't done my thinking on it already either. Come at me from an angle other than bratty know-it-all college-girl-turned-thug I can give you other angles of me too."

Purely because it would be an appropriate and useful way to delay responding, Yhelm wished she had more coffee to sip. "That's fair. I think I prefer this angle over the Corbis who makes me wait for him to finish jerking off before he tells me what my job for the day is."

"Oh that's too bad, college girl, that Corbis you're gonna see from every angle. Can't help it. Just how your light reflects onto me, you know? That's my way of saying you're too hot to help it."

Yhelm sunk in her chair. "We've fucked already, dude. You can stop hitting on me."

"Unless I'm not trying to get you to fuck me," Corbis said, leaning over, "but just trying to make you miserable, 'cause it's funny to me."

"Sonofabitch."

"And you make it so easy, too!"

#series tag yhelm #yhelm 11 #autumn draws things #autumn writes things #fiction #something how do you tag shit on tumblr i'm too out of it

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autumnbrambleagain · 2 years ago

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Yhelm P10 - readmore for full

It was Big Girl Serious Time. If only mom could see her now, standing in the parlor of one of the city's crime bosses, holding a prisoner on a chain of solid Law. A trusted enforcer! Aren't you proud, mom. Be proud, mom.

Belham Pio, Boss of the Guild of Porters and Fishermen, was a dead, which meant he was a spooky skeleton-ghost and was born that way. He'd leaned hard into the theme. His parlor was dimly-lit, lined with unsettling portraits, peeling wallpaper, and carefully-maintained cobwebs. Bookcases where if you actually leaned in to read them the titles were all like "100 Methods of Torture." The windows were clouded over and the rain drummed dully outside.

Dead don't eat food, they eat fear, and the parlor was built to give Belham a snack every time someone had to talk to him in it. Right now he was probably gorging on poor Lastsong. The gaitsbird had lost any sense of bravado, drawn up behind all her wings and just barely peeking out. Madrigal was on the opposite side of her, their scarf animate and coiled in the air like a serpent. Not that Lastsong needed to be threatened with decapitation-by-scarf to keep her frightened and entirely miserable.

To be fair. It was bad.

The room was packed. Besides Yhelm, Madrigal, and their prisoner/workfriend Lastsong, there was a cultivar in a neat little uniform hunched over a desk with a massive book and pen. The Minuteskeeper. Didn't belong to any specific guild, ultimately outranked everyone in the room. Actually a huge deal.

Standing off to the side, wearing a non-descript lawizard suit, the Arbitrator. Even more big a deal. A freeperson (??), rusty reds and yellows. No one in any of the guilds knew who she actually was. She wasn't even guild. She was hired on for things like this and disappeared when she was done. It was Yhelm's first time seeing her, and no one had ever told her about the eyes? The Arbitrator's eyes were wrong.

Several enforcers from other guilds, too, lined up behind Yhelm and helping to keep Lastsong from running and showing everyone how tough they were. Posturing. Yhelm and Madrigal were posturing the hardest, though, since this was their home turf. Yhelm had her rain-slicked leather jacket, standing on her hinds, umbrella point in the ground, shoulders squared. Barely moving. Very serious. Everyone behind her? Sloppy. No discipline. Thugs versus someone with a degree. She'd always win.

At Belham's desk, three guild bosses, in the same room, behind the same desk, crammed together in the same corner.

Belham Pio, in his red robe and ghostly flames. Yhelm's boss. Lastsong's boss. The one losing face from his underling attacking another guild member in a third guild's tavern.

"Right," Belham said. "I suppose we can get this formally started."

Jalis Salt-on-the-Shore Mondegreen was here, a tiny adversary with goat-fox stylings. She was short enough she had to stand on her chair to see over the desk, and she was standing on several books too, just to make sure she was taller than the other two. She was in layers of mantles and dresses that were apparently the fashion wherever she came from. Guild of Brick Layers and Ditch Diggers boss.

"Let's start! I'm not here for the decor! Or the refreshments. Are there refreshments?"

Graveflower 5054-13-LangberryFunerary had the third seat. He was a cultivar. His dour wooden face was framed in the petals of a massive black flower that grew out of his stem/chest like an oversized collar. Yhelm barely knew anything about him other than his being the boss of Guild of Lamp Lighters and Wood Cutters.

"… by the charter of 3497 we convene this trial to decide the punishment of gopaf Lastsong." The Minutekeeper's pen scratched as he spoke. "Does guild defending protest innocence?"

Belham laughed. Absolutely no one could beat him for evil laugh, Argent preserve. "No, Hartlight's ass no. The only reason I'm having you all drip rainwater on my parlor is so we all agree I'm punishing her squares and pairs."

"Very well," Graveflower said. "For the record," with a nod to the other cultivar, the Minutekeeper, "gopaf Lastong is accused of near-fatally injuring gollawc Pyrene and disrupting the business of gobladd tavern Betcher's Ales. Guilt is taken for, punishment pending. As aggrieved with priority, I place execution."

Lastsong ducked entirely behind the shields of her wings, as if that would save her. Fuck. Yhelm was starting to feel bad. Maybe this was a bad job. Maybe she didn't want mom to see her here. She pinged Madrigal through Love.

♥Hey I feel really bad about this,♥ she sent.

♥No kidding. They're always going to start high and bargain down though.♥

♥Right, sure,♥ Yhelm sent, ♥but do you ever get the feeling we're the bad guys?♥

Madrigal risked giving her a look over Lastsong's trembling head. ♥Your jacket says Trouble on the back.♥

♥Okay, sure, but--♥

Madrigal interrupted. ♥This is one of the unfun parts of the life. Meadoe's sake it's why my sisters are barely involved in guild.♥

♥Why are you? So involved in guild?♥ Yhelm sent. Outside of their Love, Belham and the other two bosses were debating Lastsong's life. Yhelm tried to not pay too close attention.

♥Money,♥ Madrigal sent. ♥It's not like I have a lot of skills.♥

♥That's not true.♥

♥Not a lot of legitimate skills. I have our family's martial style with the scarf, I have some Encore cred. I never learned something useful like they did. This is all I'm good for.♥

♥Don't listen to my mom. You're worth more than your marketability.♥

♥I'm dragging you down to bad places with me, Yhelm. You should really get out.♥

♥Uh. No. This is what your life is, Maddie, and I'm a part of your life. That's my choice. I'll fight you.♥

It was getting hard to focus on Maddie. The bosses' debate kept using terrible words and the other enforcers behind Yhelm were shuffling uncomfortably and the Minutekeeper's pen was zooming along at a speed the suggested he was using some kind of power. Lastsong was warbling. It was getting hard to pretend this away. This was happening. From what Yhelm could gather, the current sentence was torture, although undefined, and Jalis kept pressing for rape. Like, not even using a classy euphemism for it just outright saying someone should probably rape Lastsong.

Belham raised a bony hoof just as Jalis was describing cloacal tearing. "Arbitrator please."

The room went quiet and cold. The Arbitrator had just, been leaning on the wall, watching. Was she not blinking? Why did it feel like she wasn't blinking? Slowly, she stepped off the wall, and approached the desk. Her voice had a flavor like expensive but hard liquor. "There was no sexual assault in Lastsong's crime. Introducing sex in the punishment would require more expensive abstractive calculations. It's also disgusting."

Jalis snarled like she was going to say something but crossed her arms and huffed instead. Belham blew a raspberry with his weird ghost-fire tongue at her.

"You want balance restored," the Arbitrator continued, now owning the entire room with her quiet growl. "Pay her violence with violence."

Belham sighed. His entire body's flames flared like a bellows was in his chest. "Yes, we've got that much. The problem is how do you look at a beating and say 'Ah, now that's a good lawful beating.' How many times do I hit her with a tableleg to make up for it? Is her noggin off-limits? How many broken bones pays back someone trying to dig out your guts, yeah? What if I give her one a bit too hard am I in trouble now or can I sue these jerks for it?"

Okay the Arbitrator was definitely not blinking. Yhelm could feel the other enforcers around her deflate. "I'll quantify the harm caused to the victim and set her punishment to that value. Is anyone here a friend of the victim? Have them 'go at it.' That will be your emotional catharsis too. Feel the bad vibes fade away. All becomes… squares and pairs."

"Right right and what if when the friend has an accident and oops she's dead?" Belham asked.

"My Law will stop them from inflicting any harm in excess of what the victim suffered. They can 'let loose' without fear. When the limit's reached they'll be unable to harm her further."

Yhelm thought a second. <3Huh,<3 she sent to Madrigal. <3I wish Bodo was here now actually because I'd love to ask him if Law can do that?<3

♥Can it not?♥ Madrigal sent back.

♥Like, I'm not a lawizard. This is weird though. This all feels really weird. Doesn't her entire everything feel weird?♥

♥I guess?♥

♥… oh shoot is she a breacher? Because this is sounding like a fairy's idea of justice. What do you like, know about her?♥

♥Not much!? I've heard everything from people saying she secretly works for Flyhh to keep us in line, to she's a Law construct that went criminal. You know how guild likes to make stuff up.♥

"Yhelm," Belham Pio said, ordered, loudly. "That will be the deal then! What fun. Please take Lastsong and--who's doing the uh--"

Graveflower pointed to one of his enforcers. "Rebark."

An eager adversary who looked more like a rat than a dog skulked forward, shouldering into Yhelm as he passed.

Belham gave a 'sure whatever' wave of his bony hand. "Yhelm, go find a nice side room for Rebark to wail on Lastsong while the Arbitrator arbitrates non-arbitrarily. What good fun, justice is served."

♥Fuck,♥ Yhelm sent to Madrigal.

♥At least you're not Lastsong,♥ Madrigal sent back.

This sucked.

This probably sucked for Lastsong more than it did for Yhelm, but this still sucked.

Yhelm was now standing outside a heavy, closed door, with only the Arbitrator and Lastsong's crying for company. And the thuds. The dull, heavy thuds of someone taking their long, sweet, enjoyed pleasure in beating her. This was fucked up. Why was it taking so long? Was it taking so long? How much of a beating equalled being stabbed near-to-death?

Fuck. Yhelm couldn't lose her cool. She was ON and three guilds were watching. This wasn't even a pride thing, this was a the-example-of-what-happens-if-you-fuck-up-was-happening-in-the-room-behind-her thing. Fuck.

"So he can't accidentally kill her?" Yhelm asked, just to say something, just to make noise over the sound of Lastsong's crying.

The Arbitrator hadn't been paying attention to Yhelm. A Law-shaped scroll was burning in the air before her, flooding with writing that made Yhelm's eyes go funny when she looked at it. Apparently it was how she was keeping track of the quantifiable harm done to Lastsong. Which was weird. Which wasn't how Law ever worked from everything she'd read. This was closer to Authority? Maybe? She wished she could ask Bodo about this without telling him 'I know you think I'm some kind of villain, but I'm really not, but anyway my gang was beating someone up as punishment and--'

The Arbitrator was looking right at her now though. Her eyes. A freeperson should have round, maybe slightly horizontal, pupils. An adversary should have scattered, broken pupils. These were just. Narrow black slits, set in yellow. They weren't right.

"Ah," she said, her voice always hovering just below a growl. "Yes. My Law will stop s'ent Rebark from exceeding the established value of harm inflicted on s'ent Pyrene."

"Right," Yhelm agreed. She had to play up the role. She had to lose herself in the role. There was a terrible CRACK and Lastsong shrieked and no she couldn't stay cool how the fuck could she stay cool during this!? "What if he goes all out in one hit? Tries to kill her? Or what if he does something that isn't bad now but later she--"

"It cannot happen in any way other than how I allow it to happen."

"Right," Yhelm said, convinced in the way where you're sure the expert knows what they're talking about but you still can't imagine how it works like that.

It'd been anywhere from half a minute to three hours, so far, Yhelm guessed. The guilds were formed millenia ago as labor unions, as organizations to control the jobs staffed by the lowest classes, both to keep them from falling into true lawlessness and to allow them to bargain with power. They'd been an institution for millenia, in this city created the moment time began, they were an ancient tradition, thousands of perfectly normal people were guild and did zero crimes at all, and even the crimes the guild did were more navigating around loopholes, collective bargaining, smuggling, petty pickpocketing or theft, she knew the history and she kept telling herself it as she listened to someone she knew be beaten in increasingly deeper, wetter thuds that sounded so loud even with a door between her and it.

"Fuck," she groaned to herself. She couldn't keep her cool. She'd lost it completely. Bad Boy forgive her.

"You're really worried about her?" the Arbitrator asked.

Gah, fuck, she was staring right at Yhelm again. "Uh. She's. A work-friend. I know she fucked up big, but it's one thing to say that, and another to stand out here and listen to it."

The Arbitrator smiled. It was this, wrong, smile. She had too many teeth? "It is a shame. People can be very… thankless. 'The World was made in Love' the Rose Knights say? But here we are."

Yhelm took the risk. Anything was better than the noises behind them. "So. Do you, disapprove?”

The Arbitrator mm’d an agreement.

“Why do you do it then?"

The Arbitrator's smile widened. "Why do you do it then? Why do you put yourself through it? Why--with all the choices you have in life--did you choose this?"

"Fuck I mean that's…"

"Personal," the Arbitrator finished.

"I was gonna say the big question," Yhelm said. "My partner's guild. We were just talking about that. Ultimately, this is their life--it's mine too."

"Mm," the Arbitrator said. She turned back to the scroll.

No, no no, she couldn't go back to listening to hearing it. "Are you uh. So. You can stop me if I'm some dumb low-level enforcer overstepping my place, okay?"

"I'll hold you to that," the Arbitrator said quietly.

"… right. Okay. Yeah. So you're a breacher, right?"

The Arbitrator wasn't really doing anything, but she still froze up. She stopped breathing, and she actually, finally, blinked, which Yhelm realized she hadn't been doing at all. "You know. You aren't the first to think that. You're the first to say it to me? Directly?"

"Is it--" Yhelm juggled the words wrong and rude in her head and what came out was, "wrongde?"

The Arbitrator sighed. "The guilds summon me from the Moon when they have a case for me."

"Huh, all right. Is that, is that a secret you want me to keep?" Yhelm offered.

The Arbitrator smiled and this time it--it looked less wrong and just more kind of sad. "What was it that gave it away to you?"

"Uh. I mean. Well." Fuck. Maybe it would be better to listen to the sound of Lastsong--no, nevermind, she could hear it, nevermind. "Honestly it was your Law being weird."

"My Law…"

"Yeah. This… arrangement works well for what we need, I guess. But it's sort of. Do. Do you know how I mean? It's not something I could expect normal Law to do? Traditionally Law isn't just the enforcement of authority that's Authority they're both derived from Red Aiax but they're different, on an, elemental level. Laws differ in different countries and organizations but there's still primal Law and the only Law I know that is just, sheer enforcement of any kind of contract is, well, theoretically I don't have direct experience with it but I learned about it in college, is breacher Law."

The Arbitrator looked almost surprised, almost impressed, if any emotion at all could fit on her severe, mask-like face. "You aren't dumb. But was there really nothing else to hint at it?"

She couldn't really lie to a breacher that wasn't safe, right? "… well, your eyes are wrong. But if it wasn't for the Law… well, you could just have had weird eyes. So it's kind of both together that--"

"I don't," the Arbitrator started. She looked back to the scrolling Law in front of her. "I don't try very hard when the Flyhhnemonia guilds summon me. Everyone wants me to play the role of aloof… mysterious… powerful… dangerous stranger. I can lose myself in that role and… forget."

"I think I follow? When I’m back there with all the eyes on me it’s easy to be Guild Enforcer instead of, me. I guess for you if everyone's already expecting you're something weird, so it's easy to let your disguise--"

"No," the Arbitrator interrupted. "It's not letting a disguise slip. It's… forgetting to be myself. I don't always want to be a breacher. Sometimes I like to play pretend… and think I am a freeperson."

"Oh." What.

"You don't know how much I envy you. The world was made for you, Yhelm Machato," Yhelm scrambled to remember if her last name had been said or if the breacher had just pulled that out of the air, "and your gods are still living. We are an ill-fitting virus begot of a dead king who never lived to see the world's birth. The world was made in Love, for you, and for Lastsong, and all the rest of you. And look at how… frivolously you waste all of it. We breachers turn on one another because we were made to. Our Father is dead and he never secured a place for us but through deceit and spite, what else can we be? But you all. Your parents made this world out of Love for you and you summon invaders from before time to referee your torture of one another. Everywhere else on this world I pretend to be a freeperson and pretend--just, pretend as best as I can that I belong here. Because that's the real joke of it. All of you belong here--and you're just as bad as we are on the Moon. That's why I always come when the guilds summon me. It's so--hilarious!"

She said hilarious, but the Arbitrator's Very Wrong Eyes were wet with tears.

Oooh man, Yhelm thought. Smalltalk was a bad idea. Listening to Lastsong was probably better. "I--I don't think--"

"It's done," the Arbitrator said, suddenly, her voice falling back to that deeper, smoother, aloof, terrible thing it had been before. "That's the limit. He can't do anything else. S'ent Lastsong will want medical attention. There are some broken bones. Yhelm?"

"Y-yeah."

The Arbitrator's eyes were dry now, and they were--deeply wrong. There were too many of them. That was the problem. She had four—six—three—eyes. Had that always been the problem? They imposed over one another in a dizzying blur like Yhelm's glasses had gone real bad, real fast. "If you told anyone about this conversation, or my true nature, that would be a dumb low-level enforcer overstepping her place, and I will stop you."

Fuck. "Okay," Yhelm said quietly.

With a wave of her paw, the Arbitrator dismissed the Law construct hanging in the air. "I hope you figure out what you want from this world before it's too late for you. Please don't take it for granted."

"I'm--honestly doing my best," Yhelm said.

"Promise?" the Arbitrator asked.

You should probably never, ever promise anything to a breacher, Yhelm reflected, as she said, "Promise."

#autumn writes things #autumn draws things #series tag yhelm #yhelm 10 #fiction #writing #i still dont know how to tag this

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