A Pirate and His Dog (Tag: Nethke)

Lessal pushed a bite of food around on his plate, staring at it as though it was going to do something interesting. Or not.
"Lessal?" Lessina asked, stroking his arm."Are you...feeling all right?" her eyes were wide, almost frightened, and Lessal wondered why that would be so. Maybe it was Angalia, or perhaps Zalphan had been tearing things up around the Hold. The two had moved from their cothold to Greenfields after Kals' accident and had made Lessina wherrypecked in her own home.

"I'm fine." Lessal mumbled. "Just not hungry tonight."
Lessina sighed, patted his arm once more before Zalphan stuck his head in the doorway.
"Lessal, we're going to need more towels. Blankets, straw, whatever you've got."

Lessal rocked back and forth, almost imperceptibly. Zalphan was a Tanner, though not an especially good one, and he'd converted Lessal's old room to a tannery. It was bringing in some marks, but hearing herdbeasts gargle and wherries scream was sickening in body and soul.Thank the stars he hadn't started on whers yet. That took a Master, or at least a very advanced Journeyman.

"I'll g, go g, get them." Lessal stammered. His stammer always got worse around Zalphan, everyone knew it and Zalphan considered it a point of honor.

Such as it is. the little voice in Lessal's mind said, before he squashed it down.

------

Knowing Zalphan would be working most of the night, Lessal was tempted to just sleep in the shed once he'd gotten another bale of straw. There was something nurturing about the smell in there, something that reminded him of safety and love; if you ignored the ichor and bloodstains on the walls where they couldn't be scrubbed out. Unconsciously, he rubbed his arm, feeling as though there were burning-cold patches on it, along his fingers.

He opened the door, and saw the slightest hint of movement in a corner. The movement of something big. His heart leapt, face bursting out in smiles.

"Brrrrt?" he chirped, a greeting in the Wher-tongue.

Lessal jumped back, a scream rising in his throat and coming out as a startled squeak.
"Who...who are YOU?" he asked, ready to run. The man was small, to be sure, smaller than Zalphan, but size didn't matter. Hadn't that wild wher Dad had been killed by, hadn't she just been a baby?

"I thought you might be a wher." Lessal said, blinking. "Not that you look like one, I mean, I just saw a big shape, and that's where she used to b-"

His hands ached, the scar through his eyebrow ached, and he felt sick to his stomach. He swallowed, pulled himself up to his full height (5'1) and then, thinking better of it, crouched down to look at the man closely.

"Don't worry, okay? You can stay here as long as you like. I just have to get another bale of straw, and then I'll come right back. I skipped dinner, so I can bring you mine. That sound good, sir?"

Lessal smiled, a nervous little grin from a boy uncomfortable with the spotlight going on him like this. "I...I'm not a sir. I'm Lessal. Just Lessal."

Or "Freako." the little voice added. Or "Lessy." Tell him everyone calls you THAT.

"Here, sir, you okay?" Lessal asked, getting pretty concerned at this point. Nobody talked to him like this. It was always "Hey, Lessy, what are you going to do, knock me off like you did your daddy?" or "Lessy, get some more straw for the hides."

------

When Lessal returned, he was carrying a few blankets and humming. His pockets were stuffed with food, with stones, with everything he could find he thought would be nice to show to the other man. "And what's your name, sir?"

"Hasco is a nice name." Lessal said thoughtfully. "It sounds like wind. Do you want bread? Meatroll? Both? I can get you something different, or try, but I couldn't sneak out any klah."
He pulled a blanket around himself and settled against the wall of the shed. "It does get windy in the autumn, Mr. Hasco." He hated the season, hated its dying and wind, but she-

Hands. Face. Burning. He shut his hands over his ears, trying to avoid the words that lashed across his skull.

"Not unless you can raise the dead." Lessal said, a sad smile twisting his face. "My father died a few months ago, and the Hold has been unpleasant since then. Zalphan's come. I don't like him. I miss my friend. I lost her. I don't know what happened, but the other boys-" he choked back a ylping sob- "They say I k-killed my d-dad. I didn't, Mr. Hasco. I was afraid of him, but I would never hurt him. COULD never hurt him, I swear!" The poor boy was getting rather distressed at this point, running a hand through his hair while he set out beads, stones, and figureines on the blanket among the foodstuffs.

"You...you really think so?" Lessal stammered out, snuggling closer to the other man. He looked over at Hasco, face streaked with tears in the glow-light. "I'm nice?" It was true, he supposed. He'd done his best to be kind to this man, even though Angalia called him thoughtless and uncaring and Zalphan had simply settled on "loser"...to this man, this Hasco, he was somebody.
"It's nothing, s-Hasco." he said, correcting himself. Thne the last sentence caught him off guard.
"They...they hurt you?" he asked, half-incredulous. "But you're so nice! I don't understand it, Mr. Hasco." he clasped the hand to him looking intensely at the ragged man across from him.

"They hurt me, too." Lessal said softly. "They...do things, and say things, and they don't even call me Lessal, that's my name, they just call me Freako and beat me up and...hurt me. They hurt me too, Mr. Hasco. For all kinds of reasons.

"I can't remember what happened when Dad died," Lessal began, twisting a braided string bracelet in his fingers. "I remember, there was a girl with golden skin and she was dead and there were...things...on my hands, and Dad was there too but he was dead and I tried to wake him up but there was blood all over him and he was...he was dead."

Lessal shook his head violently, hair flying in all directions. "It wasn't..." he tried to explain, hands shaking and beginning to itch as he did so.
"Did the golden-skin-girl save you?"
The picture in his mind began to solidify in the center, clearing ever so slightly...
"She wasn't a girl." Lessal said, firmly now. "She was my wher. My beautiful Kin girl, and her name was Lessask. Dad made...Dad?"

Memories were coming faster now, clear as his mind-self remembered looking at his hands, ugly hands, covered in ichor and covered in red...

"Hasco, Dad made me k, k, kill her. My poor sweetheart."

"and then Dad too." he whispered, nearly silent as he trembled against Hasco's shoulder.

"You understand!"Lessal gasped, eyes wide. "You understand...when they hold you down, there's nothing you can do, is there?" his tone turned suddenly philosophical. "I'm n-not in, n, no cent, Has, s, co. I remember, I killed Dad too. There was so much blood, ad I was so scared and so angry I couldn't bear it so I forgot. And there are things, Hasco, things the other boys make me do for fun...I don't want to go back outside. It's nice in h, here. Y, you're nice. You understand what he did." He wiped his nose on a grimy sleeve, burrowed further into the grey blanket.

"Promise you won't tell the others?"