There's always a first time

Today we had a bad day. Only a couple of purses and with only a few coppers in them. People is getting more careful lately and I know why it is... Too much competition. More over, we're growing old... people trust elven children enough to let us approach them, but they don't trust sixteen years old elven teenagers, even if we still look a bit younger for our age.

We run accross the beggar, Dorian, a couple of times. I'm sure he got more than half of the purses we couldn't grab... he approaches people more easily than us, asking for pity because of his missing eye and arm, and with his good hand he gets the purses like an expert. And if the peasant notices it, Dorian just looks around and if he sees one of us, he just points and says we probably stole it. I'm tired of him.

As usual, Eve and me go back to the orphanage using different paths. Not letting people know who is who continues being our best trick. I hid in the Pearl again for a while and when everything seems a bit more calmed I go back to that place I reluctantly call home...

A short comic strip about the times Mari used to hide in the Pearl and what she learnt there

And here he is. Looking at me shamelessly with his only eye. I stare back at him with hate.

"A good day today, eh?", I scowl. He grins.

"So you say".

Something in that smile makes me boil with rage. I want to punch his good eye, but I resist the urge. I just wish he stopped looking at me that way.

"One day they'll learn you're not as harmless as you pretend, and then I'll be the one to smile", I spit out. He just makes his smile wider.

"Maybe you should change your strategy, and ask money back each time you let shems lay your hands on you". I stop and close my fists when I hear that. Not that I don't encourage people to think that way, since nobody seems to understand our relationship with Ser August otherwise. But it still hurts. "Though maybe people will be not interested, would they?... who would pay for second-hand goodies?"

I feel the rage up to the point of my ears, but I'm not going to punch him, even if it is what he wants. Instead of it, I turn back slowly and get close to him.

"That's what you think?", I whisper, as close to his ear as I can. "Or is it just that you're pissed off 'cause you will never have money enough to pay for us?"

I hear him holding his breath and I see I got the effect I expected. A girl can always trust a teenager's instinct. I raise my hand and touch his cheek and he opens his eye wide, surprised. Then I giggle and with a swift movement, I snatch his eyepatch from his face and step back.

I half expected him to have both eyes, to fake his handicaps, but when I see the empty eyesocket I hesitate a bit, impressed against my own will, and that gives him a chance to react.

He pushes me against the wall and even if he has only one arm, he uses his body as a shield and makes it hard for me to move. Then he leans over me and kisses me inexpertly, anxiously. At first it is disgusting, but then a strange feeling overcomes it... Even if I don't really like it... I find it sort of exciting. He seems to notice because he relaxes a bit... and that's his mistake. I push him away and make him fall to the ground.

"Mari..." he protestes. He always seems to know who I am and I wonder how he found out but I don't care. I'm furious. He has stolen my first kiss. And I don't even like him.

I wipe my mouth with my arm and shout at him: "Are you happy? You got a kiss of the Lyns. Treasure it because you're not going to get anything else from us!". And I run away to the girls' quarters, embarrassed and furious at the same time.

 Dorian, by Emedeme

 
I close the door after me even if I know he's not going to follow me. There are rules, and the girls quarters are forbidden for boys, same than I would never dare to enter the boys' quarters. I pant and take the hair out of my face. Eve is reading on the bed, but she looks up when she hears me enter. For a moment I think she's going to ignore me, after all I make her believe quite often I'm hanging around with other boys, even if the stories I tell her are taken from bits and pieces of what I hear and see at the Pearl. But she's smarter than that and she says:

"You've been fighting with Dorian again?"

I shake my head. "Dorian? How do you know?"

"You are holding his eyepatch".

I look at my hand. It is true. I had forgotten it. The strap is broken, anyway, but I feel a bit guilty.

The eyepatch is roughly made, that's why it broke so easily. The strap is clumsily sewn and the stitches undo at the weakest pressure. But even so, it must have been difficult to make it with only one hand. I sigh.

I leave it over the bed and reach for my sewing tools. Both Eve and me tend to arrange our own clothes, since the ones they give to us at the orphanage are either too wide or too short for us, and we are also saving pieces of leather to create a couple of identical leather armors to move more safely amongst the crowd. But I guess I can spare some of the smallest pieces.

I choose them carefully and following the pattern of the old one, I make a new eyepatch. It's easier than repairing the broken one, anyway. I make sure it is solid and strong and that next time a girl slaps him, it won't break so easily. Eve just watches silently, she knows when she doesn't have to speak. But when she sees me admiring my masterpiece she can't but ask: "Is that for Dorian? I thought you said he didn't deserve us to be nice to him".

"There's always a first time", I reply.

Then I sneak out of the girls room, and making sure nobody sees me, I go to the boys one. I slid the eyepatch under the door and I go away. I'm sure he'll see it, and he'll know it is for him. And if he doesn't, oh, well, too bad for him. 

 

Dorian's character sheet. Drawing by Zinoodle