Rainblade-Ryalors Private East Tookumberry The Poison Fox and the Singed Rose

[Mina Rose Brewer]

Mina Rose's eyes practically turned wide as saucers. "Bully Hahbah? The big city 'erself?" She'd heard tales of the place since she was a little kit bounced on the knees of the adoring patrons of her father's tavern, regaled with tales of distant lands. For all that various places were spoken of, Bully Harbor held a special magic, a blend of wonder and danger in equal measure. It was a place that turned paupers into emperors, and sometimes vice versa. You rose gloriously there, while those who flew too high inevitably burned up in the sun.

Mina Rose hesitated before giving her answer. She should just say yes; there was nothing left for her here, after all. Her parents and lover's bones were both long out on the tide, her home burnt to ash; she didn't even have any clothes left to call her own. For all of that, though, this island had been all she'd ever known. For the first time, standing on that beach, 'everywhere else' seemed mighty big. "Alrigh'," she allowed at last. "I'll go wiv' ya, Auntie Tanya." She tried the appellation experimentally on the tongue. It didn't quite feel right yet, but that might come with practice. She glance down the beach to where a vessel was coming in to the village docks, far larger than the normal boats that ran island to island here. "Reckon 'at's yer schooner down there, ain' it?" she speculated. She gave a small shrug before starting to amble in that direction. "Well, at leas' I'm all packed," she quipped. She glanced at Tanya as she added, "Maybe ye can tell me abou' 'ese cousins ye mentioned, an' my new uncle. I gotta awful lotta names an' faces t' learn now, don' I?"

 

[Tanya Keltoi]

It felt like a lifetime since she’d seen such wonder at the name of the Harbour, and yet she had seen it in Kinza only a pawful of seasons past. She could not fault the legend: even in decades past the reputation of the city itself had drawn even her fascination as a youngster. How she had come to hear of it was all but lost to fogged memory now yet lodged indelibly in her mind had been that first week. The sheer scale and spectacle of the Harbour and its gilded edge of violence had been almost hypnotic; a heady combination of fright and thrill, where opportunities seemed endless if one could make it to the end of the week. It would prove a true test of how the place had come along since her youth to hear feedback from Mina Rose’s own experience. Her guilders were on far less than she’d have hoped for.

An empathic nod followed the vixen’s wry observation on her light travels, electing for now not to overwhelm her with promises of a Trenches apartment and anything she might need. There was a time and a place for generosity and all potential at this stage for it to seem suspect. Padding alongside her niece, Tanya nodded. “Aye, that I can do – and that you do. ‘Tis a big family by all accounts, so we’ll take it slow, but for now we’ll focus on me good self. I do that best, y’see.” A lazy wink and she continued. “So I’m Tanya though you can call me Tox. Your uncle, my husband, is Jeshal the Ironclaw. Now he was Minister’ve Commerce back in the day,” by my appointment, how that bit me in the tail, “so if you ever have any money worries you go see him, he’ll see you right. I have four children, though two were with my first husband and they’re off ‘Gates knows where on their own adventures. My other two are the cousins you’ll be meeting, Kinza and Lorcan.”

She cast her eye over Mina Rose again, quiet for a beat. “You two don’t look all that dissimilar. Kinza’s a bright girl, got talent as a seamstress an’ some street smarts between her ears. Think the pair’ve you would get along well – an’ probably up to some trouble, eh? Lorcan…” There came another pause as Tanya sought a word before it seemed to elude her. “…He’s still workin’ out who he is, though he means well. The pair grew up in a place rural like this, so you’ll be in like company for getting used to life in old Bully. Truth be told…” She dropped her voice a touch, as though conspiratorial, “I barely know me rudder from me mizzen in that place, so much is different from when I was your age. Think there’s a fair few of us findin’ our paws, and no shame in it.”