Blood on a Bluebonnet
Boredom.
Always present, all consuming.
The written expense report had to be finished and filed before 5 PM. Just another days work, made dreary by her current solitude in his office until a soft blue light tinted her desk, seeping through the monotony like ichor into seawater. The receiver rose with a flourish appropriate for the caller and answered warmly.
"Mr. Pulch-"
"Cancel my evening plans." She couldn't quite make out the background noise, but she recognized the subtle timbre to his voice when his quirk was activated.
"I have more pressing matters to attend to. We will have words when I return."
Recino blinked as the phone's soft click reached her ears, ringing beyond its own volume.
She had hoped to have the evening to herself. A chance to check if her recent "consultation" at the coffee shop had brought any ripples to the wider sphere she should know about.
"...Quite vexing."
To the side of a bar on the North side of that fair city, was an alley. In that alley way, with great brick walls on either end to hold up the horizon, baked in gold by the looming midday sun. one would find five men. Three who would not be remembered, one who was about to die, and one who was about to kill him.
"Who are you working for?"
The question comes out shaking, impossible to say if from nerves or simple pain.
"T-that's what you're going to ask me, right?"
The owl-faced man didn't turn to acknowledge him, momentarily satisfied that his body was too abused to fight back and enraptured by something in the distance.
"If answers are what you're after, if you're going after the rest of the gang, then you are SHIT out of luck."
The words came out with a smattering of spittle, not so much spoken as shot. His jaw tightened to a clench.
“We remember our promises. When you run with this gang, it’s ride and die!”
His fingers twitched.
The sun was unbearably hot.
He grasped the switchblade in his pocket.
The sun was unbearably hot.
“Look at me, you SICK-"
"Quiet."
One standing at the entrance of the alley would hear a brief hiss, followed by a sound like rotten fruit being pulped.
Waiting there a moment longer, one would hear gentle weeping.
"I... apologize for the outburst. I try not to let my feelings get the best of me, but the view of the sun is... sublime here. Framed and reflected in the architecture, it's magnificent."
Even as he spoke to him, shuddering slightly at the sight, he still faced away.
"One cannot find these joys in his every moment, so one must appreciate them when he can. Don't you agree?"
There were three other men in the alley, two "appreciating the view" of the alley's open end, and one standing over their unhappy guest. Each of them wearing an outfit well above a common street tough's worth. One of the faux gatekeepers turned his gaze from the street as if to speak, before being gestured down by an apparent compatriot.
"You do. If you didn't, you wouldn't have spoken so brashly of my bedfellows. Of me. You must think quite highly of yourself. Of your resolve. It is… awfully presumptuous of you then, to understand the pursuit of simple, honest pleasures and still tear me from my own."
Finally, as a cloud turns over the horizon, he turns to face the downed crook.
"Announcing something like that in a public drinking establishment of all places... You clearly aren't clever enough to sit at the top. Anyone important would know just how far an overheard word can carry."
The alley grows darker as he speaks, shrouded by the natural shade.
"Ironic, you must have overheard something while playing muscle during a meeting, and let cheap drink loosen your lips. Carrying that threat to me."
Deprived of his distraction, he steps closer.
"But if what you meant to say a moment ago holds, then you must have a pretense of brotherhood within your misbegotten hive."
Finally stopping, the avian stands directly before him.
"It is quite fine, I think. To compare you to a hive. Bees are fine creatures, if somewhat wearisome when considered in number. Their color palette is exquisite but failed by their shape. It's not the curvature that ruins them you understand, but the odd angles that all insects suffer. Really, exoskeletons as a concept are so passé. They served their purpose in ferrying evolution to land long ago, and now relegate to the lowest of natural life."
The furthest of his henchmen, a mutant with the rosy pale blades of an orchid mantis, shifted nervously in her coat.
"Bees, for their part, understand their place in nature. They realize how below beauty they are and dedicate themselves to cultivating the Earth's garden. They will never grasp those wonderous aesthetics, but it is by their toil that we can enjoy them. Understanding this, you must understand yourself even lower than these insects. To see beauty, our beauty, and to conspire to besmirch it."
As that inscrutable face grew closer, the waves of pain parted and instinct finally coalesced into civilized cognition. A blunt, stupid thought crossed the downed thug's mind.
This man is not normal.
"It is considered poor form to strike a bee with excessive force when killing it. Did you know that? Do you know why?"
Tatarimokke taps the side of his face, and another bloodied tooth sets loose and strikes the ground, meeting its brothers in a small crimson puddle.
"Their bodies contain a pheromone that attracts other bees of the same breed and provokes them to sting. They release it beside their venom when stinging. If you hit them too hard, it simply flows out."
His beak drums once.
"It's no issue, so long as one leaves the body intact."
In a dim lit warehouse, on the East side of that sick and wicked city, was a table. At that table, one would find four figures.
One who tasted his chances and found them bitter.
One who dealt and lost with a smile.
One who held and bluffed with grace.
And one who made her own luck.
“…Hm.”
The tone is deep, without the gruffness of gravel, but laden with the weight of the speaker’s frame.
“Hm?”
A teasing, lighter tone, dripping with smugness, as if dipped in hot wax.
“Hm. You’ve found some excellent hands then, haven’t you, Karma?”
An honest observation, spoken calmly. Most confrontations start with calm observations.
“This is a game of skill, big guy. And let’s never forget it.”
The table, a well-made thing, once fit for a proper casino, creaked as the larger figure, still smiling, leaned forward.
“It is. It truly is. We can agree on that. But we have a fairly skilled table here, and we can agree on that too, I feel.”
The statement hangs for a moment, the implications gentle, but unsubtle. Denim scratches against wood as the youngest player leans back, his gaze meeting the oldest with a silent request. One that goes answered, but unrequited. No need to step in yet. A firm grip keeps it steady, but a tight grip loosens the handle. A King knows that better than anyone.
“Sure. A good table, with great players, and one extraordinary player. Read‘em and weep, but the cards are what they cards are. We can agree on that, I feel.”
Returning the phrase, but with due point. One can’t nail a culprit without a crime, nor have a crime without a corpse. The King breaks his easy quiet, with a gentle correction to things.
“We all sat at the same table, Sebastian. We’re all using the same deck; one I’ve dealt myself. There isn’t a single card in her hand that hasn’t passed through my hands first.”
The three of them remain smiling, even as the tallest slowly rolls back his shoulders, almost rearing up. The light hanging above them swings gently as he speaks.
“I’m not saying anything unkind. I just feel that-“
A familiar sound, keratin drumming against keratin.
“There is a rat.”
The table turns, mildly surprised at the newly arrived avian’s uncharacteristically simple frankness.
“…You can’t show up late and then call me a cheater, Pulch.” Karma’s smile twists slightly. “We can agree on that, I fe-“
A set of long talons press against the table, the veins below his skin briefly visible below pallid skin.
“I met with a young man claiming his syndicate had a plant in Shiketsu. They’re sneaking out Hero schedules to raid with impunity."
Those talons, long and pale as ivory tusks, dug into the table's wooden finish.
"Someone in Shiketsu aims to usurp us."