30th Trial, Z'da, Arc 716
Civilian Housing, Outer Perimeter, Northeast
10th break
Civilian Housing, Outer Perimeter, Northeast
10th break
"Whadaya think he's up to?"
"Dunno. Dun' wanna, ee-vuh."
Kasoria didn't smirk as he walked out the store. Not on the outside, anyway. He didn't want to give any hint that he'd heard the two men behind the counter, for one thing, but for another... it didn't gratify him to know he was feared. Not personally. Oh, it was a boon, for sure, when people knew not to be so stupid as to break into your house or menace you on the street. But that was a practical consideration. There'd been a time when his reputation was all that mattered to him. Back when he was young and stupid, of course. That was all you cared about, when your whole world was your friends and your enemies and how your name echoed down the streets you lived on. But now-
"S-Sorry, sir."
Kasoria's free hand went straight to his purse as the sprat bounced off him, laughing run around the corner interrupted by a man-shaped roadblock. From his back on the cold cobbles he stared, as if expecting punishment, divine and cruel. Kasoria looked down and saw recognition in those wide eyes. The boy knew who he was. Had heard the stories. The woman who rushed up clucking pulled him away as if he were a leper, tone snapping to conciliatory right away.
"S-Sir, I'm sorry, he didn't mean to-"
Suddenly she was speaking to the back of a departing man. One walking a little more stiffly than before, she noted. She'd heard the gossip, over clotheslines and store shelves and market stalls. Quite the bloody outrage in the south of town. A house of villains laid waste to, all but burned to the ground, a dozen or so, they said. Deliah would wager there was an element of exaggeration there, but she was Etzos born-and-schooled and knew that since it was likely power-peddlers and the like, an investigation wouldn't go anywhere.
They don't care if they kill each other, she thought with a fierce, primal squeeze of her son, back on his feet and staring at the little man who seemed solid as oak when he'd run into him. No. They don't care if we kill each other, the bastards.
"Was that the man Dad talked about, Mum?"
"First of all, you're to watch where you're going, and second of all-"
"Ow, Mum?!"
"-don't be listening to your Mum and Dad when they're talking private, like! Now bloody well move!"
Kasoria didn't smirk, didn't shake his head or roll his eyes. His leg ached and his back was sore and they'd be worse once he got his supplies back to the house. Odd enough that even the two blokes at the store looked him over curiously as he'd picked it all out. But all of it essential. He just had to get back home and put it all together.
After your medicine, he reminded himself, turning a corner and ignoring a flurry of whispers murmuring from a passing group of urchins. Bugger cut you up a treat with that thing.
The thing sheathed now, at the small of his back. Curved and wicked and sharp and small.
Kasoria's mouth twitched at a memory, fresh as his stitches. It was almost a smile. Being feared didn't excite him. Other things still did.
+++
He didn't exactly need to be an engineer to construct what he wanted. He'd been making little repairs and improvements around his house for a couple of decades, so he knew the basics, but his talents... well, they weren't in carpentry and construction. He remembered the dummies at the academy, though. Worn and smooth where fists and knuckles across the arcs had pounded into them. There were others that had to be replaced or repaired every season, so often were they hacked and stabbed and bludgeoned and brutalized by the cadets. He wasn't expecting anything so polished, but for what he had in mind...
Planks of wood. Rolls of cloth and old clothes. Plenty of rope.
A hammer and a little bag of nails thumped down next to the whole assemblage, laid out like soldiers on parade under the bright, chilly Zi'da suns. He was down to his breeches and shirt and bare feet, stretching out the kinks in his limbs. Randolf may have been a drunk, a bore, and a hopeless gambler, but he knew his healing. The herbs he'd prescribed had been helpful, a spoonful of each one every trial. One for the pain, one for the bleeding... and as he touched the fresh dressings around his arm and leg and back, he found no stickiness greeting his fingers.
About bloody time.
"Think we're up to this?"
The black cat basking luxuriantly on the wall above him blinked swished his tail, and blinked with aristocratic slowness. Kasoria took that as an affirmative. It wasn't much of a backyard, just a rectangle of dirt and brick with a door leading out to the alley, but it had high walls and all the space he needed. He rolled his shoulders, felt them pop and click and rode out the motion all the way down to his fingers.
He was healing well. Best not to fuck it up building a mannequin.
Training dummy.
First things first: the body. He took two of the planks and laid them overlapping at the ends. Taller than him when he laid down next to it for a comparison. Which was intended: most people were bigger than him, after all. Once he had them where he wanted, he took the nails and hammer and... well, did the obvious thing. A steady rap-rap-rap beat out through the brisk air, making a few housebound old folks wonder what the evil little sod was up to. Six nails did it. A solid, almost-straight line... and he had his body.
Next came the arms.
Two more planks at the top corners of the "body", and... Kasoria frowned. Even nailed it they'd be loose, or unsupported. So it would be better to have-
The cat blinked again as the human that fed it and was nice to it put another big, flat stick behind the "body", another length for the arms to get nailed to. He was pleasant, as humans went. Didn't pet too hard or fuss over them, but would it kill him to leave food out? He only ate when the human did, and that wasn't near often enough. But the fluffy little parasite yawned and scratched and kept watching.
More hammering. Etzos cats didn't flee from noise, though. Much like the humans, they stuck around to watch what all the fuss was about.
Finally, the head. The simplest part of all. A short plant sticking out the top of the rectangular body, between the splayed out arms. Kasoria was sure he'd probably drawn better when he was a drooling child, but he wouldn't be seeing much of the planks. Not once he dressed his new "friend".
He stood the mannequin up against a wall and began wrapping cloth around the body and arms, even the head. Once the bones of his project were covered by a nice, thick layer of meat and skin and sinew, the old shirt and jacket went on, too. The cat rather enjoyed the sight of that: his pet human cursing softly as he struggled to get a shirt onto a wooden man. The jacket was much easier
Kasoria felt the arms of his masterpiece, feeling thickness and solidity there. Cloth and rags, of course, but they were cheap. Which was handy considering what would happen to them. Cloth was wound around and around the head, too, until it almost looked like a bandit's mask, only the silly sod forgot the holes. The rope was the last thing. Half of it going around the body and arms and head, keeping everything tight and secure... and the rest he used to secure the dummy to the wall.
He stepped back, and looked at his work. Then he blinked, and breathed, felt the frost tickle his nose and the sound of contented purring from above him. The roaring ruckus of a city beyond that, this high-walled oasis where he stood and-
-opened his eyes-
-saw a man there. An Etzos tough, like the nameless legion he'd faced. Bearded and marked by pox or scars. Clothing cheap and steel in his hand expensive. Hair cut short to fight the lice, or left long and dandy-like for the whores. He blinked and the man did not go away. He was there. That was who he face, and his hand went back to the small of his back and-
-before he'd finished settling into a fighting stance-
-the karambit kissed the sunlight, and he was ready to practice.
