[center][h3][color=007236][b]Prudence Stolz[/b][/color][/h3]
[b]The Slums — Night[/b]
[/center]


It was still dark. Prudence stirred and coughed. Her head pounded. Her ears rang. The blood on her face was thick. Most of it wasn’t hers. There was something below her. She remembered the attack in flashes. She grumbled. It was what remained of the boy. She rolled off of him and landed on the wet cobblestone. She stopped rolling, but the world kept twirling. She held her breath. Waited. Waited. The world leveled out. She tried to sit up. She was too quick about it the first time and the spinning started again. The second time she was slower. It worked. Through her double vision she could see the burned down house in front of her. The still-standing door frame look like a mouth. With her swimming head it looked like it was laughing at her. Asshole door.

She took a moment.

And then another.

Okay.

Prudence had woken up next to boys plenty of times before and regretted it, but never quite like this. She looked over his body. Even in the dark she could see what remained of his skull. She had done that? Prudence let out a ragged breath. She wasn’t a stranger to violence, maybe even revelled in it, but even that made her look away. Another memory of unbridled rage to shove deep, deep down until it was forgotten except in the occasional nightmares. Prudence put her head in her hand and massaged her temples. She couldn’t stay here. Constables didn’t really come out this deep in the slums but she couldn’t stay here.

She tried standing up and found that she could still do it. Prudence reached down to check her scarf, paused, took off a stained glove, and then checked it. It was still there, but she doubted the moisture was just water. She frowned and then felt for her coin purse. It was gone. Shit. She patted her dagger. Just the sheath. Double shit. Her eyes moved in a rapid panic and she spotted it a few feet away from her defunct bunkmate. Small miracles. She replaced her glove and grabbed her knife. It was frustrating to lose a handful of bits, but she could easily get them back with that knife alone. Now being unarmed? She wouldn’t live long enough to worry about money problems.

It was time to get the hell out of the slums. The task was easier said than done. She could hardly find her way through it when she was fully coherent, and now she could hardly see straight. However, walking wasn’t so bad. She tried to ignore the pain as her heavy footsteps echoed throughout the slums. Nobody was out now. It must’ve been real late. She kept pushing onward, the creeping feeling that she’d turn a corner at any moment and be met with a brutalized corpse and a charred house weighing on her heavily. Yet then through the ringing in her ear she could hear the sound of waves smacking against the seawall. If she just kept the sea on her right she’d make it home. Now if only that pesky blackness would stop coming...in...and…it was chased away by a red light.

Wait, where was she? Prudence whipped her head back and forth and triggered a shot of pain—stupid. She was outside of the Red Sail, the red lights burning away in there oil lamps to turn away the night and signal in lonely souls. Fontaine had explained to her how the flame burned so red once, but Prudence never understood any of that alchemy mumbo jumbo. It just meant she was home. Which was strange, because she didn’t feel like she had been walking for that long. She looked up at the purple sky and saw that the moon was barely above the neighboring buildings. She was missing time. How good had that old man beaned her? She was still alive, so she supposed the answer was “not good enough.”

Prudence stumbled against the door and propped herself up against it. At this time of night the Red Sail would be locked tight and the girls would be given some time for their all very important beauty sleep and a bit of self-reflection. She fished for the key on her belt and was relieved to find that it had not been stolen. After a bit of work she was able to find the hole, a phrase regularly uttered around the Red Sail but generally in a different context, and let herself in. Only the glow of the red lights lining the windows lit the room, casting eerie shadows across worn couches and chaise lounges. Prudence made her way to one of the couches and sat down. She just needed to give herself a second to let her head stop spinning.

[b][center]The Red Sail — Dawn[/center][/b]

When Selena woke her it was morning. The red lights were all extinguished and sunbeams poured in through the windows. The gentle rumble of dock workers and food peddlers outside mixed with the quiet gossip of the upstairs girls who weren’t sleeping off their hangovers. While getting poked with the handle of a broom wasn’t the most pleasant way to being woken up, it was the smartest thing for Selena to do—Prudence occasionally awoke swinging. Prudence rolled over and sat up; Selena took a step back as Prudence’s hood fell to reveal her face. Beneath the matting of deep red was a rainbow of purple, black, and yellow surrounding the cut around her temple from where the lantern had hit her. Selena’s initial shock wore away. It wasn’t the first time she had seen Prudence return looking like this, and if Prudence kept her luck then it wouldn’t be the last time.

[b]“Let’s clean you up, love.”[/b]

There was no protest from Prudence as Selena set to work. Again, not the first time. Selena guided her to the bath, helped her undress, and gently cleaned the grim as Prudence prayed that the water had been changed from the night before. Even still, she doubted that all of the scented soap and hot water in the world would be enough to clean the leftover residue from whatever three gold coins and an hour of privacy bought. Once Selena had time to wash her clothes and Prudence had forgotten her thoughts and just enjoyed the relaxing water the barmaid set about to dressing the enforcer’s wound after she dried. Prudence stared into the mirror as Selena finished wrapping the wound. Even with Selena’s care and the much needed bath she still looked like absolute shit. She sighed as she followed after her friend and took a seat at the bar.

[b]“So you going to tell me what happened or sit there being glum all day?”[/b] asked Selena as she set down a morning meal of hard bread, spiced meat, soft cheese, and a bitter tea in front of Prudence.

[color=007236][b]“I ain’t being glum,”[/b][/color] said Prudence between ravenously shoveling food into her mouth. It was simple but good, although every chew sent a sharp spike through her head. [b][color=007236]“I’m thinking.”[/color][/b]

[b]“Haven’t you hurt yourself enough today?”[/b] said Selena. She leaned forward, snagging a bit of cheese off of Prudence’s plate. [b]“C’mon, you know how the other girls love to spread rumors. Let me set the story straight.”[/b]

[color=007236][b]“Uh,”[/b][/color] Prudence squinted as she tried to come up with a lie. She was rubbish at lying; they almost always came out as questions like she was unable to bring herself to believing in them. [b][color=007236]“I took out a couple of Black Hands?” [/color][/b]

[b]“You said that fisherman and three of his buddies you kicked out last week tried to jump you and that they look tenfold as shit as you do?”[/b] clarified Selena. Prudence nodded dumbly. Selena leaned in closer so that no eavesdroppers could hear them. “[b]So what really happened?”[/b]

[color=007236][b]“I..."[/b][/color] Prudence sighed. [b][color=007236]"I got mugged by an old man and—.”[/color][/b]

[b]“An old man? You? Mugged by an old man?”[/b] Selena threw her head back and barked with laughter. Certainly the girls upstairs had heard her outburst. So much for stopping rumors. Prudence’s nails dug into the countertop as her friend waved her hand in front of her as an apology as she tried to stifle her continuing laughter. Prudence’s lips grew thin. [b]"What he bore you with stories of the back-in-my-days til you passed out and brained yourself on the street? Accidentally hit you with a hard candy? An old man! Hah!"[/b]

[color=007236][b]“With two lads! I killed one of them,”[/b][/color] growled Prudence. Selena stopped laughing. [b][color=007236]“Fontaine’s gonna be furious. Couldn’t have been any older than Priscilla.”[/color][/b] Prudence stared at the countertop. [b][color=007236]“Just some stupid kid following someone else’s orders.”[/color][/b] The wood on the countertop was beginning to warp; it was now the hull of a ship.  She could smell the seawater. [color=007236][b]“Just some stupid kid.”[/b][/color] Don't be so soft, stupid girl, pirates are pirates. That voice again. She shuddered. A glass clinked down in front of her. Prudence blinked her eyes rapidly at the whisky as she was drawn back into the Red Sail Brothel.

[b]"Grandpa's medicine,"[/b] said Selena, smirking.

[color=007236][b]“Fontaine don’t like it when you give away booze,”[/b][/color] said Prudence matter-of-factually as she slid the glass away. Besides, it was too early to imbibe and her head was already foggy enough.

[b]“Then don’t tell her,” [/b]said Selena.

[color=007236][b]“She’s gonna know.”[/b][/color]

[b]“It was that damn fisherman and his goons.”[/b]

[color=007236][b]“What do fishermen have to do with drinking from the supply?”[/b][/color] asked Prudence.

[b]“Oh, c'mon Prue. You don’t remember because they hit your head. But I saw it through the window. Helped drag you in here after you chased them off,”[/b] Selena said with a wink. [b]“It. Was. The. Fisherman.” [/b]

[color=007236][b]“The fisherman?”[/b][/color] Prudence repeated. Her eyes widened with understanding. Fontaine didn’t like bodies, or at least she didn’t like bodies left out in the open where they could draw prying eyes. With Selena’s story there wasn’t a body. She smiled. [b][color=007236]“Yeah, the fisherman.”[/color][/b]

Selena smiled back, and then in a flash snagged another piece of cheese from Prudence’s plate and popped it into her mouth before the enforcer could stop her. [color=007236][b]"Hey!"[/b][/color]

[b]"Payment for my services,"[/b] said Selena as she poured herself a glass of whisky and pushed Prudence's back towards her. [b]"Now it can't go back in the bottle, so drink up and let me tell you about my night. You weren't the only one hit on by an old man..."[/b]