[color=696969][center][url=https://fontmeme.com/fonts/punk-typewriter-font/][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/240122/96b51cbc48bd377db299e57ead156677.png[/img][/url][/center][b][color=634533]Time:[/color][/b] Unknown
[b][color=634533]Location:[/color][/b] A holding cell somewhere
[b][color=634533]Interactions/Mentions:[/color][/b] —
[b][color=634533]Equipment: [/color][/b] Confiscated
[center][h3][color=634533]✠✠✠✠✠[/color][/h3][/center]

Vasco had learned a long time ago that the body keeps its own books. Every high run on credit, every beating added to the tab, and no man, however hard, ever cheated the ledger. It had been collecting since the warehouse: the nausea, the shakes, the dull ache where the pipe had caught him. Even lifting his eyelids took more than he had. So he lay still, eyes shut, and listened.

Off past his head, where his good ear lay up off the floor, there was an argument already going, and he’d come in on the back half of it.

[color=5A9389]“That isn’t the arrangement we made,”[/color] said a stiff, starched-collar voice that figured itself a cut above the company it was keeping.

[color=6B6B8C]“It was what we agreed before this mess.”[/color] Vasco knew the second voice, the Black Maw boss, Kaelin Vore. [color=6B6B8C]“A simple job, you told me. Now I’m down good men and the better part of the goods. What we settled this morning doesn’t cover what today cost me.”[/color]

[color=5A9389]“There is no renegotiation. Both humans, delivered to the docks before the tide, aboard the ship for the General. Should you fail,”[/color] the prim voice said, flatter now, [color=5A9389]“the Black Maw ceases to exist. The General will attend to it personally.”[/color]

Kaelin laughed at him. [color=6B6B8C]“Or maybe we keep the both of them. I can think of worse things to have in a war.”[/color]

The collar made a hard, disgusted sound. [color=5A9389]“Be at the docks. While there is still a Black Maw at all.”[/color] Several sets of boots moved off, a couple of them ringing metal on stone. A door shut, and the cell sat a degree emptier.

[color=FFCC00]“Prick,”[/color] somebody spat.

[color=7B95A8]“What now, boss?”[/color]

[color=6B6B8C]“Ready the carriage,”[/color] Kaelin said. [color=6B6B8C]“We move everything tonight.”[/color]

Then they were moving too, and the cell went quiet. Only then did Vasco open his eyes. Cornered against the far wall, knees to his chest, the kid watched the door like a beaten dog watches a raised hand.

Nobody in his crew would lose a wink over Vasco. But if they didn’t come soon, the rebellion would be short two humans, instead of just one.

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