Sparkles accepted the girl and turned his hook downward so as not to stick her legs, "Once up'n'a time, there was a li'l gurl what wan'ed t'be princess..."

He didn't look down at Aye, but he spoke just loudly enough for her to hear over the din and through the fuzz of the ache in her head. It sounded as if he were trying to distract Aye from the raging brawl.

"An' one day she was'a walkin' down th'beach with 'er lunch in 'and an' saw a fish what had rolled up a'shore--" he ducked a flailing arm and continued to follow Havek, "--an she, bein'a kind soul, rolled tha' great gold'n fish back inter th'water. The fish swam out a bit an' then swam back an' popped 'is 'ead outer th'water an' said, 'Oi! Ya chip, you jus' ruined me suicide! I curse yeh wit all'a me heart!'" Havek seemed to be taking charge of the situation, even directing a galdor, "She looked at 'im an' she said, 'Well, iffin yeh don't mind, I'd like ter curse you!' an' she whipped out 'er kerchief an' netted the bugger."

He stopped speaking, even though it sounded like there was more to the story, and there was no obvious danger for which he had to account at that moment. He curiously went silent for no apparent reason.

((Oh, that Sparkles, he's a curious fellow...))

Aye was lost in her thoughts, trying to distract herself from the fighting, when she heard Sparkles speak.



The distraction was working. She clutched the front of his shirt with the hand that wasn't holding her nose, and looked up at him wide eyed. She was paying full attention to him because this story was already sounding good, and she wanted to add it to her list of stories to tell.



Aye grinned looking up at him, so far this didn't have anything to do with being a princess, she guessed it was something that came later.



Aye giggled, despite the fact that she had a headache, blood down her shirt, smudged on her cheek, and down her arm. This story just seemed so random. she waited for him to go on, and when he didn't she frowned. She then heard a new voice speaking, and realised they had found the field that had scared Havek earlier.



Aye had no idea what this man was saying, but the way he said anything made her wonder what he was thinking. She frowned more when he looked at her and called her a child, that made her think think this conversation wasn't something children should hear, which made her smile to be there hearing it. The way Havek reacted to Charlies words made her wonder what the heck was going on, here? She decided to keep quiet, stay still, and watch. She sat there in Sparkles's arms, clutching his shirt, and eyeing the two men in front of her silently.

When Vivian heard galdori answer to her advice, there was an instant fire in her eyes. She wasn't a child nether filty.
"If you were a man, I would have slaped you", she hissed to him, without noticing Havek coming from behind her. But when the man arrived and started to talk to galdor like he would know him, Vivians anger disapeared more or less and she fell quiet. Closely she listened, what the man was offering to the galdor.

Keep close? I was born in this city and he tells me to keep close?
Vivian rolled her eyes, but nobody probably noticed it.
"Thanks mister, but I can take care of m'self. At least I would move from the sight of gunman" She then said quite calmly to the man, making a gesture with her hand towards the man with the gun. But then, so suddenly like her anger had disapeared, it woke up again, when that golly called her a child - again! She had been used to be thinked older than she was, but younger... That was not acceptable.

"Your child yourself. Atleast I can get away from the harbour without being shot." She bursted to the galdor. There was anger in her eyes.
Have to be glad there ain't too many of their kind over here
"Plus, if I would be wounded and needing a safer place to be, I would apreciate help, at least a little bit." She added crossing her hands although her voice was lower. Yet her eyes didn't soften, not until she saw Sparkles and the little girl.

If there was ever an opportunity to ram a machete through a golly’s eye, now was the time. The crowd all moving thick and fast, no one would know, no one would see (no one who much cared, anyhow)-- Havek’s skin crawled, the settled stress like settled dust now kicked up and hovering, clouding his thoughts.

“You – don’t ya even –“ the awful golly was thinking about that now, with danger at a pitch? His stomach churned. He’d seen plenty of nasty things; it wasn’t often that he had his mind thoroughly blown by anything said or done. Now was one of those not-so-often times.

“There ent no time in the present! Later, later – jus’ get us out and ya can ‘ave whatever ya want,” The words were fast, muttered, clipped. His mouth went mealy and sour – Havek wasn’t much of a convincing seductress. Truth be told, he wouldn’t give Charlie anything, be it a healing or any other unseemly thing. The promise wasn’t so much a blatant lie as it was vague mumblings to be misconstrued. Havek never claimed to know what exactly Charlie was asking of him, after all.

He was at a loss when the girl mentioned the gunman; no words came to his lips. He merely stumbled back, closing the space between himself and the little wick girl -- the only one, he noticed, hadn’t snapped and jawed at the offer of help. If a stray bullet did come their way, he hoped it would be enough to shield her, for a shield of flesh and bone was protection all the same. He flipped the machete in his hand, weak and anxious.

When the girl spat in anger, Havek winced, hand giving his satchel strap a spasmodic tug. “Please, d-don’t – we don’t have to – this ent no time for—“ but he just let the words fizzle and die on his lips. No one would have the ears to listen, anyhow.

It was with utter calm that he listened to the dark-haired human girl's angry accusations. Not a man was he, then? The temptation to find her again and make her eat that statement flared up, briefly, in his breast before he shoved it aside to be forgotten. It was of much less importance than his irritation. That this filthy little thing, this scrap of harbor trash, a little human girl, should presume to be able to say such things to him! He knew the denizens of Old Rose rarely thought of their place, but this girl had clearly never been taught that human girls should keep their mouths shut around galdori boys. Especially ones that had been clocking shot and had already asked with the utmost politeness required for her to kindly piss off. So it was with that same perfect calm that he turned around and let his fist fly somewhere in the direction of Vivian's nose, all of his rather considerable mechanic's weight and force behind it.

Aye watched Havek answer Charlie, saw the strange expression on his face, and almost giggled as he messed up all his words. He didn't seem to like what this galdor was proposing. "I wonder what he wants..." she thought, looking at Charlie.



"no time to do what?!?!" she thought annoyed, not knowing what this was about was going to drive her crazy. She then heard Vivian speaking.



She gasped and almost jumped out of Sparkles's arms when she noticed Charlies fist flying toward the girl, she didn't know why, it was just a reflex to do something. She didn't quite make it up though, which was okay because she wouldn't have made it in time anyway. So she shut her eyes, cringed back into Sparkles, and hoped the girl didn't get hurt to badly.

((A few of you need to be paying attention to your grammar, specifically your punctuation, use of possessives, and use of your/you're. Thanks! ))

While Vivian was most likely defiantly expecting another rude retort, eyes drifting from Charlie to Sparkles and the child, the galdor hardly had a wordy response. Instead, the bleeding young man swung for her face, a rush of air brushing across her skin before the smack-crack of impact just to the left of her nose spread a fiery, shocking flash of pain across her entire face.

The punch was not as hard as Charlie intended, given he was also in considerable pain and couldn't quite muster the kind of force his mind may have wanted, but it was still a pretty good one. Vivian's cheekbone would definitely bruise and the pain was surprisingly sharp enough to cause her to stumble backwards a step or two, reeling with some pretty flashing stars for a moment.

Sparkles watched as the golly took a swing at the human woman and sucked in a gasp through his teeth, "Oof!" He flinched involuntarily, curling Aye into him protectively.

He sighed as he noticed that the galdor hadn't even broken her nose, "Argh, they don't fight like'ey used ter."

(Sorry you had to wait so long. )

It wasn't until the moment after Vivian had been hit and she struggled one step backwords falling to the ground, she understood what hit her. First it was shock, but quickly after it came the understanding. She had crossed the line. One side of her face hurted quite badly, but Viv didn't say a word. She just held her right hand on the face. Skin under it felt hot. Viv felt little relief anything hadn't broken, but that feeling was soonly smothered with worry.

How am I going to explain this to my mum? While she thought, she said with a blank expression: "Sorry Mister. Forgot my place..." Her voice was as blank as she overall was, but the hit hand't taken her confidence. So, that's why she stood up quite quickly, not looking at Charlie even once, but turning her sight right to Havek. There was blood coming from her nose, but she didn't seem to notice it.
"We should move... His wound needs to be taken care of." She said looking Havek with her eyes. It was quite scary how quickly Viv could take herself together and hide all her feelings.

Even before any one could have said anything, Vivian turned and started to walk behind the closest house. She never looked back to see if anyone was following. There was a couple of empty boxes behind the house. Viv sat on one of them and sweeped the blood away with her sleeve. She just watched the sleeve thinking.
When was the last time I was punched by a boy?

Havek couldn’t say he hadn’t seen the punch coming. He could’ve wrenched the golly back by the elbow, he could’ve cried out to the girl to move, he could’ve taken that machete to his neck and turned Charlie the Creep into Charlie the Blood Geyser in half a second. But Havek didn’t do any of those things. He just godsdamn stood there watched it happen. Every muscle was rigid. Hard, flat lips curled into a piano-toothed snarl. The machete felt light and sharp and nasty in his fingers, an extension of his arm.

For a moment.

He swallowed that snarl, relaxed around the machete, locked it all away in that funny little bird cage where all of his less-than-pretty impulses went. The girl’s servile little whimper – ‘forgot my place’ – was quick to put things into a clearer view for him. In a society that made a lick of sense, an innocent girl wouldn’t apologize to a man who’d just clocked her in the face. In a cesspool of crime or not, it would do him no favors to slash open an Anaxi galdor. He could cut the human girl, the bitty wickling, the leathery scrap of a man. All with no real pain, no real social backlash? But Charlie, filthy rakish diseased worthless Charlie – if he ran a blade through that particular slab of flesh, there’d be trouble. Is that how this backwards nation worked? Perhaps, he thought. But now wasn’t the time or place to weigh the social repercussions of murdering a woman-beating desema of a galdor. Time enough for those thoughts later, Havek assured himself.

He couldn’t even bring himself to speak. His eyes, his thoughts strayed after the fleeing human girl. Wordlessly, he reached back and gave Sparkles’ arm a firm tug. The base of his tongue buzzed with monic words just begging to be spat, a shaky arm held the machete at the ready. Havek wasn’t a strong man in body or magic, but he was damned angry one. Flying fists and knives and pistols still made him shiver, but being in the thick of that was much better than being around a Charlie. He wanted out of this, wanted to be somewhere safe and quiet to fix the little wick’s face, the human girl’s nose. Havek pushed through the crowd, seeking after Vivian.

Sparkles lurched into motion behind Havek. He pursed his dry, cracked lips with a glance down at Aye in his arms, "Now, where were I, then?"

He looked deeply thoughtful, then grinned as he seemed to reach a consensus on what he had been talking about, "Oes, 'at's righ'. So, the eller'fint looks down a'the li'l wee bluebird an' asks 'im, 'Why, where'd'ya git such priddy blue feath'r'ins?' an' the bluebird look'd up a'the eller'fint an' says, 'Well, Miss'r Eller'fint, I got 'em from me daoa.' So th'eller'fint says, 'Well, c'n I meet'cher daoa?' 'Sure thing,' says th'bluebird, an he flies off t'lead th'eller'fint to 'er daoa."

Sparkles tried not to drop Aye as he leaned precariously around a hammer-weilding pirate, "An' so when th'two git thar, th'eller'fint asks 'er, 'Why, where'd'ya git such priddy blue feath'r'ins?' An th'daoa bird tells 'im, 'Well, Miss'r Eller'fint, from me daoa, a'course." So th'eller'fint asks'er, 'C'n I meet'cher daoa?' 'Sure," says th'daoa bird. An' so th'daoa bird an th' li'l bluebird fly off t'lead th'eller'fint to th' next daoa bird."

Sparkles jumped awkwardly over a fallen man, "An when th'three git thar, th'eller'fint asks 'er, "Why, where'd'ya git such priddy blue feath'rin's. An' ya know what the Gran'Daoa bird tol'im?"

Aye opened her eyes just as Vivian hit the ground. She stared at the girl as she got up, eyes widening when she started speaking.



She squinted, "Her place? are women lower than men in Old Rose?" she wondered. This was her first encounter with a galdor, she still had no idea how lower races were treated by them. The girl wanted to ask about this, so she turned to Havek and was almost speaking. "What do-" she stopped when she saw his expression. The way he was standing, the way he wasn't speaking, his glare at Charlie, all were both scary and dangerous. She just stared, frozen with fear and questions apparent on her face, she then looked back at charlie. what had he done?

Aye didn't even notice when they started moving, hadn't even noticed when Vivian walked off. Now that they were outside punching range of that mob, she almost wanted down, but was afraid if she said so she too would be punched.



She jumped when he started speaking, but then realized who it was. She smiled as he continued his story, distracted from that punch for now, though it seemed to be a different story entirely.



Aye shook her head, looking up at him. She might have even looked like a cute little kid, if not for the blood and the hand that didn't leave her nose. "what'd she tell 'em?"

"Y'know, inna town full'a one leggers, yeh got a hard time findin' sin'glar boots. I always gotta buy a whole pair," Sparkles seemed to have lost track again. He took a few running steps to catch back up with Havek, "An', yeh gotter fink, what bizniss would make'a for'chin iffin' they'd sell'em like'at."

He spat black-speckled goop in a wayward human's face as he swung to close to him and his ward.

"Yes, his wound does need taking care of," Charlie growled, glancing around with no little apprehension. He was tired of this. Havek was being less than cooperative, the human girl was getting under his skin, the old man was insane-- not to mention he really just did not care for children. What Charlie Ewing needed was a good stiff drink and a tumble with something pretty. None of this mucking about in mobs that seemed to be going on. All he'd wanted, he mourned, was a little bit of fish and possibly a fishmonger or two to take home as well. Sometimes he really regretted his taste in living arrangements. This would never have happened if he'd stayed in Vienda, like a decent person. Though whether he was a decent person or not was something of a subject for debate.

He stared expectantly at Havek. Filthy wick magic or not, it could fix him. He dearly wanted to be fixed so he could never see any of these people ever again.

(( Sorry this took so looooong! ))

Aye just stared at sparkles. her eyes and mouth agape. ".....wait, what?" she thought, clearly confused. Suddenly she grinned, make sense or not, this story was funny. The girl gigged up at him, eyes darting to Charlie when he spoke, then over to who he was looking at. Havek did not seem happy with the man, in fact, she was willing to bet he would love to slice off his arms with that machete. She looked over at charlie and his expectant expression, "does he want the same thing he wanted before? and what did he want before? she wondered. She decided she would try and ask Havek later, she did not like the idea of talking to Charlie. At least not while he had that expression on his face.

The girl looked back up at Sparkles and smiled.

"I have hands but no fingers, a face but no mouth, and i am made of wood. What am i?"

Amongst the din of the still brawling crowd, came an almighty yell, filled with pain and terror. The people split like grass in a strong breeze, yelling and back peddling from the scene hurtling towards them. The wirey man was running, holding one loose and broken arm with the other, sniffling and sobbing like a little child, eyes wide and wild. He ran like a man possessed, looking behind him every so often.

"Halp! Kill him! God's, he's mangled my clocking arm! Kill him!" His hoarse voice called out. People stood back, closest to the scene forgetting their fighting for a moment to gawk. Pounding along behind the injured soul was the Beefman, face red and veins in his neck throbbing like snakes. Spit flew from his mouth as he roared.

"TRY AN' CUT ME PRIVATES!!! WHAT KINDA GIRLY ARE YA?! GET BACK 'ERE SO I CAN PULL YER LIVER OUT OF YER EYEBALLS!" It sounded like a rather literal threat.

Panting and crying as he ran, the wirey fellow looked behind him, screaming as he did so, when suddenly...

SMACK!

He ran directly into Charlie's back, bowling him over and tumbling through the small group. Clambering to his feet, holding onto Charlie like some portable human shield, he shrieked as Beefman stomped towards them, shoving people out of the way.

"Halp me! I don't want to die over a fish! Oh Gods! Halp!"

Pain shot all through Charlie's arm as he was knocked to the ground by some scrawny yelling idiot. Oh good gods that hurt. Receiving the actual injury had been bad enough, but this! His fish was absolutely ruined at this point-- no saving it. A clocking tragedy, that was. Sometimes Charlie hated Old Rose more than a little. Was it too much to ask that he could venture out into the city and return with his skin in one piece? More importantly, who would feed Tippy if he was incapacitated by Harbour trash?

"Get your clocking hands off of me!" Charlie growled. He wasn't even a very good meat shield! The man grabbing onto him was taller than he was! "Why don't you grab the man with the machete?!" Charitable and brave Charlie Ewing was not. Besides, the only thing Charlie had to defend either of them was rather paltry spellcasting skills. He panicked, realizing that the wiry man was not going to let go, quite possibly until the rather large person barreling down on them had quite literally torn him to pieces. This wasn't his best day.

Sparkles looked pensive a moment, his lope slowing slightly. Finally he said, "Eh, I got no clockin' idea. What?



"Hm, that's a new'un. Las' week 'e was pullin yer 'heart out'cher a--" his eye roved down to the girl in his arms and apparently thought better of his wording, and finished "'butt.'"

He listened as Charlie yelled at the man and rolled his eye. He took a few extra steps and shouldered Charlie and the mangled fellow roughly toward the Beefman, "Grow a spine, yeh gits!"

(( so sorry! i completely forgot about this. :c ))

There was a quick moment when the realization dawned on him that the pair were no longer following him. He stopped sharply, hovering in a moral grey space: he could bolt on without them and get out in one piece, or he could –



“Yaraka!”

Havek couldn’t remember the last time he’d exclaimed something so fearfully.

He spun on his heel with more speed than he thought he possessed – he must have looked quite ludicrous, long coat billowing out around him with the momentum of the spin put on his heavy satchel almost knocking him clean over. Weaving from foot to foot, he stumbled back through the crush of the crowd towards the sound of Sparkles’ voice. A flash of panic was brimming up in him like hot bile, hurtling back towards the danger he'd been running away from, but he pushed it down. That poor little wickling was going to be smashed to pieces.

In a flash he seized Sparkles by the crook of the elbow, roughly heaving him back away from Charlie and the advancing figure of the preposterously beefy man.

“C-c’mon now, we can’t stay here--!” he stammered, a clear tremor coming over his fingertips. This was very much not good.

The girl grinned, "A clo-..." she never got to finish her sentence,





She looked up at Sparkles, and laughed, seeing a grown man say 'butt' was just funny. She found that she couldn't stop laughing, and kept laughing even after she noticed there were tears in her eyes.





Still laughing, the girl looked over at the two, seeing the golly held by the man, and turned to see Beefman running toward them. She screamed, still giggling, and then smacked her hand over her mouth. Screaming would do no good here, if anything it would draw the attention of that Beefman, and she did not want that.

Sparkles tumbled after Havek, careful not to drop the little girl in his arms.

"Imma comin', Imma comin'," he grumbled.

He sped up to a jog, ignoring the pounding his heart was giving him. It was getting pretty scary with this kid in the midst of a square-wide brawl. He needed to get her out now.

Then he could jump in and have some fun.

Now and again he could see the open street beyond the fray. "Oi! Just'a'ead!" he called to Havek.

Another harbor brawl, Vik was losing count of the crazy fights that went on near the dock. The smallest things would light a fire in the Rose populace and set them to violence. After his first Vik mainly stayed on the outskirts and watched for innocents stuck in the melee.


The voice was disturbingly familiar though Vik couldn't quite place the beefy attacker. As the quarry ran into a dark haired golly Vik noticed the old man and little girl. They seemed to have found a clear hole and were making a run for it. Viktor decided to improve their odds.

Slipping his hammer from its loop at his waist he waded into the press of bodies. He strode between the girl and her protector and glared at the crowd with his hard grey eyes. If they wanted a fight, he was perfectly ready to work out his sea battered muscles.

"Clean job protecting that girl old timer, now run!" Viktor roared over his shoulder.

The wirey man shrieked again as Sparkles shoved him and Charlie towards Beefman as he thundered towards them like an out of control carriage.

"No! No! I don't want to die! Halp! Haaalp!!!" He manuvered Charlie like a human shield. Beefman snorted as he stomped towards them, people watching them in a sort of awe, knowing a death was imminent, half heartedly poking swords at each other as their eyes followed the Beefman. His was a sight to be reckoned with. Slowly, people began to choose sides, and the fighting became betting. The voices began to rise again, this time catcalls and amounts.

"YER A COWARD AND A BASTARD! DON'T THINK YER FRIENDS CAN SAVE YOU, I'LL TURN THEM INSIDE OUT AND USE THEIR GUTS FOR RIGGING!" Hearing the cheers and hoots behind him, the beefy man roared, raising one arm and turning in a circle to grin at the crowd. Half of them cheered louder. In the ferry, floating out of gunshot reach, the mugrobi shook their heads, arms crossed, and waited. Turning back to Charlie and the wirey man, Beefman reached to his waist, the screech of metal ringing out as he withdrew his sword, a massive curved blade with rusty looking stains on it. Grinning meanly, Beefman began to move towards them.



Piglike eyes swiveled in an oversized head, focusing on Viktor. A strange sense of de' javu swept across the beefy fellow, noticed briefly in his eyes, before he flailed his sword.

"YE GIVE ME THE BASTARD WITH THE BROKEN ARM SO I CAN FINISH THE JOB, AND I WON'T CUT YER LEGS OFF AT THE NECK!" It seemed Beefman only came in one volume. Earburstingly loud.

Vik set his jaw into a threatening little grin and walked up to just outside arm's length of the bellowing idiot. Resting his hammer on his shoulder, the blacksmith locked eyes with the Beefman.

"No deal." Vik said. He was pretty sure he had the smelly lugger's attention now. He hoped the two fellas behind him knew to make good their escape if that was their goal.

"You already have an appointment with me and my hammer, you motherless, poxy erse." Now he was certain he had his attention.

When the big man with the hammer told him to run, Sparkles shouldered Havek to speed up and went into a running gimp. When the big man and Beefman exchanged words, he decided to slow down. Everyone was so focused on the two of them they were no longer intent on stabbing him or the girl. He began weaving carefully between the men and reached the open air outside the crowd.

He took a deep breath and sighed, "Haaargghhkuh *kaff!* *kaff!* Well, yungun, take care y'self," he stood the little girl upright and ruffled her green hair, "Git one'yer folks'a lookit tha', arright?"

He tapped his nose then pointed at hers in indication.

Turning back to the crowd, he sighed again, this time without the phlegm-lined coughing, "Well, looks like th'real fun's all over. Nuffin'a do but watch, I guess."

He hopped up on a crate to do just that.