CALLI E-K: ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW PT.2
To really understand someone, you need to know where they came from. Finding out key defining moments in their lives can give you insight into their behaviour.
We rejoin Calli a year after we left her. In spite of her best efforts, her brother Archie is still in exile. She’s spoken to anyone who will listen about the injustice (much to her parents’ dismay), told everyone to watch out for the villain Gaedren Lamm, and after the initial excitement of the gossip died down, life just went on as if it had never happened. There’s not much a young teenager can really do in situations like this.
This night she is making the usual trip from her father’s villa across town back to her mother’s and trying to come up with a new plan. Her father had given her another lecture on how important to their jobs it was that the family project a unified, stable front. That they were pillars of society, masters of etiquette, clever, and discrete. And how her antics had made an already bad situation drag on into embarrassment. She’d done “exactly the wrong thing at every turn.” She retorted that had she done nothing Archie would’ve been executed as a murderer, and that having a rebellious daughter is surely less dramatic than that. He dismissed her from dinner, and she didn’t see him again that night until the coach came to collect her. He’d calmed down, and gave her some parting advice with a rueful smile.
“Let things go quiet. The sooner everyone forgets, the sooner he can come home, my bright flower. You must learn that there’s a time and a place to be in the spotlight, and it’s equally important to know when to direct from behind the scenes. I’d like to see your passion take you to great heights one day. I fear unless you can learn this lesson it will see you killed.”
She was alone inside the vehicle, which was unusual, and left her deep within her thoughts. There’d been a sudden sickness that had struck some of the staff and they were in their beds recovering. Food poisoning, a bad batch of something-or-other they’d eaten that morning. Her mother had made the trip less often over the past year. Perishial had been the one to push for Archie to stay with his cousins, and Mimsy hadn’t forgiven him, yet. So tonight it was her, the coachman driving, and two guards riding horseback flanking.
Calli thought over her father’s words. ‘Behind the scenes.’ She knew how to hide and be sneaky, and she was skilled at lying, but she’d never really needed to be subtle before. She was annoyed with him for waiting a whole year to give her this talk. If being quiet would’ve brought her brother home sooner, then why let her go on like that?! It made sense. She had received less invites to her friends’ homes recently. More than once she’d cornered someone’s well-connected parent to ask them for assistance clearing Achidendron’s good name. It seemed so obvious in hindsight. She needed to be the perfect guest first, and then once they adored her, then maybe there’d be something-
She was thrown to the floor as the coach suddenly stopped. She heard the horses cry out, they must’ve reared up, and their coachman Fergus was cursing them. She heard a guard, També, shout at someone to stay back. The other, Rose, rapped on the side and instructed, “Brigands, Calliandra, stay inside. Only two, it won’t delay us long!” Calli set the door-bars to stop anyone opening one from outside, and then pulled back the curtain just enough to watch. She’d sometimes watch the guards practice but had never seen them in action. Rose, in particular, was said to be highly skilled with her blade. Calli was young and naive enough to only feel excitement.
It had been a trap. They’d stopped the coach in a narrow road of businesses long since closed up for the night. A makeshift barrier of wooden spikes had been dropped in front of and behind them. To get out of this they’d have to go on foot and leave everything behind. Or fight. The guards fought well. The guards were smart, fast, and better equipped. But there hadn’t just been two robbers, after all. The original two were dispatched, and two more appeared. També pulled out a whistle and began blowing, letting the loud, shrill noise summon any nearby watchmen. He only managed to signal three times before he was taken down. Rose swiftly ended the life of the person who’d killed him, leaving her facing off against the remaining thug. Calli heard the door on the opposite side to the fighting rattle, and she cried out to Fergus. She heard his whip crack, and the door went still. Then the sounds of two men scuffling. She turned her attention back to Rose just as she disarmed her opponent, and followed by slicing through his legs leaving him rolling on the ground in agony. Rose looked up at the coach as the two women heard Fergus make a terrible cry. Calli heard something heavy fall to the ground, and a moment later the door was struck by a mighty blow. Then another. It bent and cracked, and Calli screamed. Rose pulled out her own whistle and blew as she ran around to the other side. Distantly, Calli heard a return call. Someone was coming to help!
Calli was moments from removing the bar on the undamaged door and trying to run for it until Rose had handled the last man. Only when he had turned to defend himself from Rose did Calli’s curiosity overcome her and she moved to watch through the window closest to the action. Using feints and dodges Rose drew the remaining thug, a half-orc using a flail, away from the coach. The whistles grew closer. And then the fight was over. The half-orc had won. Rose lay crumpled at his feet. She might have heard him laughing to himself, but she couldn’t be sure over her own screams. He bent down and removed a ring from Rose’s finger, and then turned back towards the coach with an evil grin. Just as he wound up to finish shattering the door with his weapon, an arrow flew past his face. The guards had arrived. He ran. They lost him.
She waited in the coach, refusing to come out until her father had been summoned. By then they’d moved the bodies out of sight. She found herself going over memories of her now-dead escorts. Her family had multiple employees, but not dozens or anything like that, so she’d known them. They were familiar to her, and had been with the family for years. Rose was almost always her guard, especially when Mother was away. She was a bit like a fun aunt. She’d be a bit motherly, but also turned a blind eye to some of the lesser mischief her and her brother could get up to when they got into prank wars. What was her husband going to say? And poor Fergus had children! Only També had been unattached, still making the most of being a strong young man with his life ahead of him.
Calliandra was uncharacteristically quiet for a little while after that. The households went into grieving out of respect for the people lost in their service. She overheard more conversations between her parents about how dangerous the streets were now, and once heard them debating if placing a bounty on Gaedren would make things worse still or finally bring them to an end. She wasn’t sure what they meant by that, but knew it meant the robbers had worked for him! She wondered how much of the city’s dirty dealings could be linked back to him, and wondered at the unlucky coincidence of falling afoul of him twice. Fourteen year old Calli didn’t follow that thought far enough, though. She only knew her fire had been relit inside her. He’d have to be stopped, and she’d need to become much better at everything to do that.
End of part 2.
