Writing Prompt: September

The feeling of 'things can go up from here' was fairly strong for Aran given she had a piece of paper in her hand with an address for a job, she wasn't having to contemplate stealing a room from someone in the less-nice parts of Ul'dah just to avoid sleeping in the forest, and Jaz'neth's job was safely on-hold with the runic covered box safely tucked in a specialist's hands. It was why she was in the streets of Ul'dah again - not just because she wanted to scope out the address she would be skulking her way into shortly but because she wanted to have that moment to see it, with a more up-beat set of eyes.

She perched on a set of abandoned crates and mis-matched green eyes looked at the dust, the sand, the worn stone of the alley. The refuse and shattered stones, the scraps of paper rumbled and tossed aside, the grit-clumped tiny rocks and dust held together by fluids of indeterminable origins. Further down the alley there were hooded figures, flashes of gil in hands and what Aran suspected were bottles being passed around but she wasn't a enforcer of the law (what law there was in Ul'dah that wasn't bought by the Monetariat) so she wrinkled her nose but she didn't stop it.

Why should she? It was hard enough to have a dream sometimes, when the gil was gone and your stomach was hugging your spine so hard that you knew it had made permanent friends with the bones. Some folk turned to vices, when they could afford it, so that they had a glimmer of meaning. It was fleeting - you needed more drink, you needed more drugs, you needed more skin until the dream had consumed itself and all you were was the moments between acquisitions. But it was still there and it happened.

She couldn't stop that reality. Shifting on her feet Aran let out a low breath. What she could do was make it so that her people had better options than to fall into those shadows, more options to them than she had when she'd left home and come to Ul'dah eventually with the exodus from her home.

In a gust of wind the figures at the back of the alley shifted - no more glints of gil in hands, just a shuffle as they seemed to part as easily as they'd come together. Easing off the crates her feet hit the ground with a surety of having seen exactly where to place them, half-braided hair hanging around her face before she pushed bangs from her eyes. She moved easily, purposefully, one foot hitting exactly where she wanted it to go and fingers lightly resting on the wrapped hilts of the daggers that rarely left her side. The way she moved seemed to ensure that even though there were more people in the alley she always had just a little bit of space.

"--please you have to help me--"

It barely registered, that plea, directed as it was to someone dozens of yalms behind her, but there was a shuffle and that drew her attention.

"--looking for someone, you have to help me--"

There was a ring of desperation in the tone that even she could pick up, so far away.

She felt sorry for the poor fool. It was going to be hard to find any help in Ul'dah.

Her winding feet had taken her to the small shop she was looking for - a cut hole in the wall with threadbare canvas over the door, a small handmade chime hanging to give it charm but at the same time giving off a feeling of desperation. It was rocks and metal spines and twine and absently she gave it a twirl while stepping inside the room, the sound dull but still a greeting.

The shopkeeper's litany of rotely memorized prices was a dry ramble to her ears and she shook her head, tapping the rough wood and pulling out a small sack. It was smaller than she'd have liked but until Cordellia's approved reimbursement was paid she was left with not as much as her normal donations. She set the sack down in front of the worn and tired looking woman.

"S'me. Regular 'n on time this month."

The sack slid forward and the woman looked up and stared at her then nodded, hands reaching out to take it. "Anything else this month for the resistance?"

"Nothin' ye' but iffin sommat comes up, y' know I'll drop it by as always."

"Of course I know, but ... some folks are... discouraged."

Giving a shake of her head she was about to speak when there was a sound a yalm back, at the door. Hands on the daggers then the pair of them waited until someone shuffled inside. The man was hooded and shadowed with a clear voice that Aran recognized from the alley - the man who'd called out, asking for help.

"I'm looking for someone- you. By the Twelve, it's you!" The man's hood fell back and for a moment, a breath, Aran stared.

Nothing had changed in his face - he was well fed though his beard had gone to the wayside for some reason - but his eyes were desperate in the low light of the store.

"You have to help me Aran, you have to help me. They know I came."

The silence of her reply was measured in heartbeats before - on instinct, without thought at all - she'd had daggers out, a swarm and haze of fury behind her actions. One blade just flashed, slamming into the man's shoulder like she were using it to get ahold of him, the force of the blow enough that when he stumbled back she added a kick then slammed him, forearm across his throat, into the sturdiest wall.

"Take it outside," the shopkeeper said, the words penetrating the din and focus and Aran giving a nod, twisting the dragger as she let the man up.

"Move," she spat, and he moved, the two of them shuffling out into the alley, Aran using her dagger to painfully steer him to the very dead back, watching him just grunt and take it.

"I need your help Aran, they're after me," he pleaded tiredly, softly, pain lacing the words.

"You lost the right to asking for help," she said evenly, finding a peaceful calm creep into her mind, a stillness as she kept him driven to the furthest corner. "You lost it when you danced to the Mad King's tune, when you helped them come in after, when you stayed for Garlemald. Now, now you come here, looking for help? Wanted to see what was left of the people you betrayed?"

"And I should've let the city bathe in blood? He was mad and you know it. He needed to be removed."

"Garlemald."

The word hung like an accusation, the only break between their exchange the pained pants and gasps as every time he tried to move the dagger just remained, pinning him to the ramshackle wall.

"I need your help, I have information. You're part of the Resistance, aren't you? Wide-eyed at the hope of home. I can help you. You just need to help me hide, they're after me and I know you can hide me, Aran."

She pulled the dagger out from his shoulder, wiping the blood on his shirt as he just stood, waiting. She could read the earnest tone to his voice, the fear that was real in his eyes.

And she knew to the blood in her veins and muscle on her bones that not a single thing he ever said could be trusted.

"I'll help you," she said as the silence stretched out, offering him a hand to shake. When he took it she pulled him close. A sound then, drowned out in the alley and street bustle and he jerked a moment, coughing ragged and gasping breaths.

She helped him lean back, slump to the ground and crouched down, counting his breaths and watching until it was over. She wiped her blade again, checking to make sure nothing was on her shirt before she stood, the motion fluid. Then she breathed a few rough gulps, eyes blinking once then twice, and the control she'd held fragmented just a little bit.

Her fingers were shaking. She stared at a hand in the dim, cracked light broken apart by rafters and beams and dust and smoke and wood, taking a moment to breathe.

Her hands were still shaking but she tugged her gloves, face a mask again as she decided to head back to the disaster of an inn room she was renting, when the bed wasn't sold out to someone else out from under her.