August 13, 427 DF

Post date: Oct 8, 2014 7:31:41 AM

Yesterday I feared we stepped into something larger than we wanted to.

Today, it stepped into us.

It has been years since I have seen people enjoy themselves, reveling in the moment and carousing with laughter and ease. I never realized until today that we were young then, and our joyous play was also young – I never saw any similar ease amongst the grown-ups. Yet, today, there it was, and in the stink, no less. It was shocking at first, but quickly it became entrancing, even despite the dancing girls and the leering men and the drearily typical chauvinism and chicanery. To be in such a place of high spirits, a place of relaxed guard and a yearning for enjoyment – I could play that game. I could dance thrice around the girls there and I could mess up anyone who tried to see me otherwise. I don’t know if the temperament ever changes, and rare is the spot that doesn’t have a grimy underbelly, but for a while today, I was brought back to my youth.

I never knew such a place existed here. I wonder if mom did. I wonder if such a place would lift her spirits better than that stupid pipe and its noxious vapours. I wonder if Rowf knows.

I wonder where Rowf is.

From that high place came the hammer as we wandered home. The dickwad hounds chose foolishly to jump us, but it was no ordinary skirmish. I’ve been in the arena, I’ve stood across fighters, I know it before the Coliseum enforcers step in to end a bout. Know it when a fighter snaps and it is no longer sport. The hounds did not bring sport. They and their mutts came to murder us, on the street, in broad daylight. We murdered them back instead. My reactions were quick and my blades quicker. I slew a score of them, but it was Aria that was the surprise. Earlier she crazily demonstrated her ability to heal wounds with a thought; now she demonstrated her ability to hurl radiant lances to cut down those before her. In the morning I had wondered, but now I knew: her too.

As did the rest of the city. The hounds fled, taking their witness of our strength with their screaming. It didn’t matter, for the countless city eyes also saw. I wonder now whether it matters if Margda saw anything or not yesterday, for despite our new disguises I fear everyone knows. Certainly those who got the Hounds to do their bidding, for the dickwads had neither the strength nor the guts before. I’d finger the Family, but the presence of Ghost Faced Killers, here in the lower slums!, would almost have me think otherwise.

And so it is that, in less than two days, our world has been completely upended. We have more than we have had in a long time, and for many in our gang its more than they’ve ever had. That includes attention. We are marked. Our simple escapade has grown much less simple. But perhaps it is our due. Rowf always joked we were a band of misfits, and how right he was. Aria has joined the ranks of the unusual, and Will, Tabor, Berhanu and Brandon also raised their hand to my question about it. Just as I did in the catacombs of the coliseum, the time has come for each one of us to make a choice. To cut and hide, as many of our gang still can, or to stand tall against whatever’s coming for us, to carve our own path, whatever that may end up being. It may not be an easy choice, for I will not leave my brother, or renege on my personal vow to protect Sedora. But I sense all of us are are only now getting a sense of our potential, whatever spark is in us.

I don’t believe we’re cursed with these misfit gifts. I believe we’re lucky.