Berhanu

There was something in the air that night

The blacksmith shop didn't so much burn down but explode. No one could survive that. thought Berhanu, although... he survived, mostly because he was blown clear from his room at the front of their hovel. Tafari's room was at the back closest to the forge. Berhanu searched the crowd looking for his father's familiar bulk, that's when he saw them. At the edges of the crowd their faces covered by those eerie masks. Everyone knew what the presence of the Ghost Faced Killers meant. Had they seen him? Did they know he survived? Berhanu did his best to blend in and back away unseen. The fear and sorrow he would feel for his father would have to wait. He couldn't stay in the slums, he couldn't move to the upper slums, the only way out was down, down to the stink. He could keep his ear to the floor, maybe hear word if his Dad survived, but most likely he would never know. The only thing he did know, was that with the Ghost Faced Killers interest in the explosion, he could not stay here. He could not fight them, Tafari did, Berhanu could not. He did not have his father's strength or conviction. He could not think about the bakers on the corner, or the basket weaver across the street, they were on their own now. Without Tafari to protect them, the beggar on the corner and the guy with the sweets wagon would now be muscled out of business. Without Tafari, this part of the slum would be forever changed and there was nothing Berhanu could do about it. He had no where to go, now, and no way to earn coin. In some ways it seemed that he himself did not survive the explosion.

There was something in the air that night

Berhanu was tired of the gnawing hunger in his gut, he was tired of sleeping in the street. He began to think about who he could steal from without suffering a worse pain in his heart than what stirred now in his gut. Everyone he looked at looked as bad off as he. The old woman gnawing on a crust of moldy bread, the mother splitting a hunk of hard cheese between her three wailing children, the crippled man sucking in something in a dark bottle. Berhanu was beginging to wonder how long it took to die of starvation when they appeared. The girl was laughing and the boy walked with a limp but they both smiled, their dark eyes glittering in the last rays of daylight. Berhanu could almost smell the coin on them, and they seemed well off enough. The thought briefly crossed his mind before he noticed that someone else had already had that idea. He caught the glint of steel as the thug came up behind the two teenagers. Mustering bravado that he didn't even know he had left, Berhanu tapped the thug on the shoulder. The ruffian was a head taller then the twins, but Berhanu was another head taller and a great deal broader than the thug.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," he warned. Desta and Dejen whipped around, noticing, for the first time, the proximity of a stranger. When it became clear that he no longer had the element of surprise, and that he was facing three not two, the ruffian beat a hasty retreat. The twins, in gratitude, offered to share some of their new found wealth with Berhanu. Their good fortune was a fleeting thing, one night at the arena, but the friendship was not. By the time they landed at Flat Jack's curtesy by way of their fellow arena fighter Katya, Berhanu had earned his keep more than once. He was still hungry, but at least now he didn't need to search for a safe place to sleep at night, and troubles shared became troubles halved.

There was something in the air that night.

Katya hadn't been back to the arena in a week. Desta had lost the last three bouts in a row, and even Rowf, who could almost always coax coin from the crowd was having an off week. Rex and Will were sulking. Brandin had retretaed back into their own thoughts, and Sedora had developed a nasty cough. Berhanu no longer thought about preying upon those weaker than him, but there were people counting him. He started to formulate a plan. He needed some materials, maybe he could find something behind the foundry and Alemayehu could usually be counted on to find a few bits of metal. Now if only he could rig up some kind of forge...