Mime woke up in the slums, to the sight of maggots flocking in and around a wound on her left leg. She blinked groggily.
The green-haired girl began to draw her leg up to her chest so that she could better see the tiny, toothless leeches sucking at her gash, but she paused. How would a rich person handle this situation? They'd probably scream.
Except that rich people didn't wake up to maggots sucking on their legs, they woke up to servants sucking up to their rich as-
"Hey," growled a voice next to her, and she felt something jab her right arm. "Oi, y'got enny ale?"
Mime turned her head and stared at the filthy person who had nudged her with his grime-coated finger, a look of cold, complete apathy splashed across her face. She didn't blink, and the blood shot, yellowish whites of her eyes framed shockingly bright irises, neither of which contained even the slightest spark of compassion for this man. He had long, red hair and a scaly green face, with an enlongated nose that hooked downward into a kind of reptillian snout. His tongue flicked in and out sporadically, and she began to shake her head no.
"I can trade," the man said, hurriedly. He pulled out a small, cloth bundle, unwrapping it to expose its contents, his fingers fumbling with a useless string of twine. Inside the mucky cloth rested five or six cigarettes. Mime stared. "Ripped these off a human, I did."
At that word, Mime's blood ran cold, and she stared into the man's crystal blue eyes, nodding. She kept her eyes trained on his while one of her hands dove into her thin, filthy robe. She withdrew a small bottle of amber-coloured liquid; a Sprite's nectar. It was fantastically rich to most races, though the Sprites themselves found it mild and not worth the aging process.
The two made the exchange. Scales nodded at Mime, who pulled out a cigarette and snapped her fingers at its edge, motioning for a flame. Scales smiled, exposing surprisingly straight, beautiful teeth. He winked.
"You're gonna have to look elsewhere for a flame, sweet eyes, I ain't that rich." Mime tried not to look crestfallen, but obviously it showed. Scales stood, his hands going deep into his trench coat's pockets, his tail swishing from side to side against the icy ground.
"Look," he said, sternly. "You're obviously not getting anywhere with this music thing. Yeah, yeah, I've seen you, you play all day and far into the night, and you're good and all, but musicians don't last long in this place. You don't even got a singer. If ya had a singer, ya might be able to get it, or at least some kinda other performer, maybe a dancer or somethin', but y'don't. Yer music's too exotic. Y'sound too foreign."
Mime glared up at him, removing herself from the piles of trash that had cushioned her few hour's rest through the cold night. She barely came up to his chest, but who was he to offer his opinion, like she needed it or something? He'd been there, what, an hour, maybe? And only because his wife and kids threw him out. Well, she'd been poor for a lot longer than they had. She
knew these streets. What'd he know? How to make a living? He could make one, but he couldn't
keep one, obviously.
He stared, each word coming out slowly now. "You haven't got a bad face. You're not beautiful - well, at least not in this state, anyway - but you're not that bad off. You're average, maybe. Clean up. Get out of the slums and off of the fourteenth level. Go into... Into entertainment, if you catch my drift. You're too young to waste away like this, y'know? They'll give you whatever you want up there on the seventeenth. Pretty clothes, good food, make-up, whatever it is you girls want. Humans pay through the NOSE to see a cute girl with wings, I dunno, it must be some kinda fetish-"
Mime's ragged glove looked like the bark of a tree as it flew into Scales' face, and she wouldn't be surprised if it had felt just as hard. He deserved that and more, she thought, if he assumed she would just sell herself to humans for the luxury of clothes and jewels and things that didn't matter. He was an old fool. Suddenly, tears blurred her vision, and she couldn't bear it anymore.
Thrashing, Mime worked herself into a frenzy, attempting to command her silent sobs to stop, demanding that she be strong, hating that she was tearing up
now, of all times, it had to be
now, and in broad daylight. She kept kicking and kicking, whatever that lump was, was it garbage, was it a wall? She didn't know. Finally, when her breath was coming painfully, she stopped and wiped her face on her gloved hand, staring at whatever it was that had been so unfortunate as to be her target.
A few steps back. A sharp gasp, toneless. But no tears.
Rummaging through his pockets, Mime found that Scales' had been an amazing sketch artist. Apparently, the giant reptile drew buildings for an architect that had a bad tremor in his hands, a man who would've otherwise been unable to work for a living. But from the letter in Scales' breast pocket, Mime could tell that the architect had recovered with the help of a human witch doctor of some kind, and that Scales' had been put out of a job. So that was the human whose cigarette was moist in Mime's mouth. She found the knife on Scales', the bloodied one that he'd used to do the job. There was crusted blood, yes, but also his own.
He'd fallen on his own knife, yes. He must've taken it out to use in self-defense, but he was old, weakened from the dark deed he'd done no more than twelve hours ago, he had just killed a man, a man who had unknowingly sentenced Scales' family to death, and now that overgrown reptile was dead, dead, dead with his human scum to thank.
Mime turned away, finding no money, pocketing the sketches of Scales' family, and tucking her cigarette behind her ear. She ran a hand through her green locks, taking a quivering breath. She stared at the amber liquid in its glass bottle, wondered how it had survived the scuffle, and uncorked it. She took a swig before she threw on Scales' coat and boots (which hid some of the maggots, who were doing a better job of cleaning the wound than Mime could've otherwise hoped for), no less filthy than she'd been before, and headed out of the slums.
When she emerged from the filthy world of iron fences and tin roofs, she discovered the wooden framed, golden buildings of brick, stared at the beautiful green grass, and admired the cobblestone roadways. There were trees, and birds sang from their perches on branches. Strong saplings aspired to grow tall and serve these beautiful singers.
Singers. Matches. Drags. Drinking. Filth. Grime. Scales. Family.
Sin.
Mime pushed through crowds of rich nobility and their squawking children, children who gaped at Mime and tugged at their mothers' skirts to ask how someone could end up like that. Mime was a bedtime story mothers told their children so that they'd grow up and be good. Mime was a nightmare.
She saw a few torches near a diner that she could use to light her cigarette, but for the moment, she was distracted.
A beautiful human girl was singing.
A sad song.
A funeral song.
This girl stopped singing, and she sat back on her throne, her marble wolf's huge paws, and then some petty little suitor asked her for a meal. Mime was walking forward, furious, and before she knew it, she was standing at the girl's feet, having pushed the stupid male aside, ignoring the children gawking at her still maggot-infested leg, her filthy appearance, and her pure hatred of this stranger.
Mime wanted to tell the girl that she was lower than dirt, that she knew nothing of hard times, and that humans should all be tied down and shot.
But Mime was mute.
So she settled for spitting at the girl's feet and slapping her with a filthy hand. Then, for emphasis, she pushed the girl squarely in the chest with all her might, hoping that her skull would crack against her marble beast.
(
3 I <3 GoH. Nothin' like murder and a hate crime. -.-))
