Just as every apple had its soiled spots--inedible to many and asy-tasting to the rest--every city has their own as well. They were brown and molded and corrupt sickness oozed out. They festered and, year by year, rotted deeper into the grain. Sometimes they spread outward. Sometimes they just became harder to dig out as they burrowed under the skin. Tonight, Gannon thought the particular soiled spot known as The Basin smelled particularly rotten. The stench of sweat, booze, and excitement stung his nose. It was a thick scent that weighted in the upper chambers of his chest and poured into his head. A faint smile touched his otherwise stony countenance, and in the dim light he looked even more malicious with a distorted snarl than with just his glinting black eye. Over the many months of victory, he'd come to almost enjoy that smell. It was nearly as intoxicating as alcohol and just as addictive. Never did it fail to put his blood on the boil and his firm arms twitch with anticipation.

Masses of bodies parted around his huge form as he strode towards the ring--just a circle cleared of zealous spectators, really. They snapped and roared and crowed around him, sounding like a pack of wild wolves. Gannon had become used to the sound. This was The Basin, after all. Everyone found an animal inside them here.

"Hoi, lad. Look alive an' pay heed, will ya?" a familiar bark to Gannon's right. The big man looked down, recognizing Stephen Morrison and his squinty, pinched face and pinched, jerky movements. He was a bird of a human man, and he tended to have a squawk to match. Before Gannon stepped out into the better light of the make-shift ring, he bent a little so as to hear Morrison. "Yeah?" he growled shortly.

Morrison tilted his chin towards the brawler, regarding Gannon like a man might regard a chained-up fighting bander. As a narrow-witted animal. "Look here," he snapped, nearly having to yell to make himself heard above the din. "Dis'un's a tiny little bastard they call Gingerscraps. Like th' damn cookie. Looks like one too but don't you stop watchin' 'im widdat eyea' yers! Keep 'im in yer sights alla' time, y' hear lad? Dis'un ent no lumberin' ox like dat Mug y' punched out las' time. He bit a man's ear right off'is 'ead!"

Gannon's eyebrows disappeared into his shaggy bangs. "His...ear...?" he repeated.

"S'what I said," Morrison spat. "Bit it an' ate it too! Look sharp an spill 'is sap! Don't get soft on 'im just 'cause 'e's a little shit, neither! Now git in there!" He gave Gannon's back a slap as the big human strode out into the light. The noise heightened as the first combatant entered and again, Gannon smiled wolfishly. The crowd was eager to see blood.

Quickly, he removed his shirt and tossed it to the floor. His eye began scanning the crowd for his opponent as he flexed his hands.

“Oh, my darling, you won’t surely die.”

The words were twined in a curl of smoke. If Steve Morrison was a fly by night bird, Eleksi Oren was a cat. Slinking and yellow-eyed, little claws all beringed, the Hessean wick looked like he’d be more comfortable curled up in some old mama’s lap getting his curls petted than plucking blood money from The Basin. At the moment this over-sized house cat was perched at Carmine’s skinny shoulder, smoking a Mugrobi cigar more expensive than his own suit jacket.

“Keep sayin’ tha’ and you’re gonna jinx it, daddy.”

Petite and doe-eyed, no one could say Carmine Lisette looked like anything that belonged in The Basin. Scoured by scars, by hunger, by burns – and yet, that patrician softness to his features refused to fade. Always willowy and fine boned, no matter how bad he trashed the flesh cradling those bones. Everybody else roared like a pack of beasts, but Carmine was curled into himself as some quiet thing, murmuring strains of songs he could barely remember. Pretty voice, that one had. Not that anyone could hear it, but Carmine could hear it. That’s all that ever mattered.

Scared, maybe. They were all so big and he was so small, but he’d been fucked up worse by people he’d trusted more than this. Pretty face, pretty thing they’d all murmured once or twice, whispered their nothings in his ear, kissed his freckles, did their dance. Playing ragdoll for so long was tiring. Pretty thing. Object. No more of that, then! Smash those teeth to splinters. Make those big baby blues swell over with bruises. Slender nose, fine boned and patrician – forget that too, smash it to splinters. If this human beastie wanted to smash him to pieces, good. Break these patrician bird bones like fine china.

Huddled among the morass of bodies, impossibly big and impossibly blue eyes blinked up at the huge swarthy plowfoot swaggering around the center of the ring. Little pierced ears pricked at the sound of roaring cheers.

Anyone else might’ve asked their boss about this big bastard, who he was, how many wins he had, what was his style like? But not Carmine. Big bastards only fought one way, really, and if he was thrashed horribly, well –

The boy stood and stretch to towards the starry firmament, languid as a cat.

Carmine, Little Red, Gingerscrap, whatever…outwardly, he didn’t seem to care much. Quiet for once, he slipped his narrow form out of a blacksmith boy’s massive sweater (it fit him like a potato sack, but that didn’t matter, because it was Eoin’s sweater), revealing the ladder of his ribs and a world of scars crosshatching his back. Cigar burns over the nape of his neck and shoulders bursting up like a field of poppies. And a godsdamn galaxy of freckles, sprawling every bit of skin in great whorls. He took one last deep draw from Eleksi’s expensive bottle of whiskey like it was water (and for him, it pretty much was – can’t live with it, can’t live without it).

Above the din, his spindly voice pierced Eleksi’s ears.

“If’n I ent awake after this, kin ye stop by the Court ‘n’ pick up eggs fer Dolly? “She’s makin’ pancakes t’night, she is. Girl needs eggs. She wanted me t’get ‘em.”

Golden eyes squinted under their nimbus of curls, cat’s smile twitching dark lips. “Aye, yes, can’t forget about the girls now, can we? Sure thing, my dear! Jus’…remember, ya don’t wanna land yourself belly up in the brothel again, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Then go at this bastard like a rabid cat!” Eleksi roared, broad hand slapping Carmine on the hip. And neglecting to move it. Carmine slid away from the touch.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Sure. Always.”

Every mass needed a villain, he guessed. Black and white. A cornfed plowfoot boy versus a dainty faced golly-blooded ex-catamite – Car never expected to get applause, and that was fine with him. He never got upset. Roars and jeers of all vile kinds burst up from a hundred throats when his little freckled self stepped into the light of the ring. Whore! Starfly! Riffsucker! Greenie fuck! He just blinked owlishly, smiled a bit. It wasn’t like they were lying, anyway.

Carmine tilted his face up towards the tower of a man.

“Hey there.”

"Evenin'..." Gannon rumbled back, his baritone rolling in his broad chest like a boulder down a mountain.

Tiny bastard. The human had to tilt his head down to look properly at Carmine. Looked like the little red pullet that used to scratch about the front yard--fine-boned and twitchy. Gannon also remembered his Aunt Pertha wringing that one's neck early because she wouldn't grow to size.

He blinked as his black eye grew calculating. No man got thrown into the Basin for no reason. This one had to be good for something better than nipping off men's ears. The kid had plenty of scars, but so did he. Past lacerations crossed the expanse of his chest and ribs. The long scar of a wild boar's tusk wound he'd earned when he was far younger curled up his right bicep. Gannon's palms and fingers were laced with factory machine scars. Life ground on everyone like a spinning whetstone.

"You do anything else than nibble on ears, boch?" he growled, arching a heavy eyebrow. Gannon's tone was hardly condescending. In truth, he wasn't so sure he wanted to land a serious blow on something that slight. One didn't tell a chrove to attack a hingle. Considering this, Gannon wasn't sure it really mattered. If the boch was here, he was here. If he insisted on getting his little bone broken, then that was his business. Gannon's jaw hardened and he added, "Yer a little shit, but I guess you know where you are, eh?"