Larkin: Urban Exodus

Larkin hadn’t even left yet but she already missed the attic.

It was sweltering in summer, drafty in winter, with sloping trusses waiting for anyone taller than five feet and a handspan to not duck their head in time, and in over seven years no one had even bothered to repair the damages caused by misfired lightning bolts.

But there were reasons she’d moved back in, even if she could afford a better place now, or even live at the warehouse. It was familiar and it was hers. Larkin liked it.

She hauled her packs out the window-turned-front door, locked it, then dragged a sheet of plywood across from the outside and nailed it down. No telling when she would return to Skyport and she’d rather be warded against surprise visitors, even without any valuables stored inside.

Satisfied with her precautions, Larkin pushed the clothing bag over the roof’s edge and, other bags slung across her back, climbed down after it.

The pack had thumped down next to Cat’s outstretched legs. Larkin prodded the boy with a foot until he jolted awake and scrambled to stand.

“You were s’posed to keep an eye out.”

“I… was.” He tried to look awake and yawned instead.

Larkin shook her head, then cuffed Cat over his. “Get your shit together. You’re no lil’ gangster anymore, you’re working for the big wigs now.”

Cat hunched his shoulders and scowled but kept his mouth shut. Even managed to look a bit contrite.

“Just do what you’re told. And don’t sleep on the fucking job or some day it’ll cost you more than just your pay.”

“You’re not paying me?” he asked, very much alert now.

“Calm down." Larkin shook her head again but kept her arms crossed this time. "I am, but only if you don’t give me any more headaches.” She kicked the bag closer to him, then gestured to hurry up and follow. “And don’t fucking lie to me again.”

There was only one more trip to make before leaving for Glimmerton. Everything else had been prepared during the weeks since Renar had informed Larkin she would be responsible for establishing a foothold in the fishing village. It wouldn't be easy. The town was small and the inhabitants wary of strangers.

Travellers passing through on their way from and to Skyport were not uncommon but people knew each other and any stranger staying for more than a few nights would be eyed with suspicion. If they wanted to take hold there, they had to work with the locals.

Five of the people Larkin had picked out to be part of her very own gang were already stationed. She’d sent them out one by one, each with a reason to stay in Glimmerton and an objective to make themselves part of the community. They had one contact there, a fisher, who took in the first two. Another had volunteered to become part of the small bandit watch (a couple fishers and the butcher patrolling the outer edge of town with fish spears in hand). Two more were stationed in a cottage in the forest and Larkin herself would be moving in with Cat, to pose as siblings with a cutler’s workshop.

Really, the only reason she had picked Cat’s lazy ass up off the street was so he could do the actual shop work while Larkin went snooping after the Guild.

She could have taken another one of Renar’s soldiers, but… the kid had looked like he could use an opportunity. That and they did share some similarities that would make it easier for them to pass as siblings. Same pointed chin and flat cheekbones, same narrow eyes and dark stare. His skin tone was different, and the placement of his horns, but they had been broken off and filed into stumps long ago and Larkin assumed none of those villagers would have seen enough tieflings in their life to know better anyway.

“Donkey Gate’s the other way,” Cat said, following Larkin down the main street and around a corner into a dead-end alley.

“It sure fucking is,” she said, not caring if he heard her. A small fountain with a roaring lion’s head was set into the back wall of the alley. Larkin stuck her hand into it’s dry maw, feeling around but finding nothing. That was... disappointing but expected. Yeah. No need to feel bummed.

She took out a folded piece of paper and shoved it in.

“What was that?” Cat asked when she turned and waved for him to follow her back out.

“None of your business, it was. Not paying you to ask stupid questions.”

“Not paying me anything yet,” he grumbled but trailed on her heels.

“What’d I say about giving me headaches?

Once he stopped being pain in the ass, Cat was actually good company. Larkin sent him to get them a couple donkeys at one of the many stables around the gate, and he returned with two animals and more spare money than she had expected. He did have his talents, this one.

The ride to Glimmerton they spent mostly in silence. There wasn’t much to talk about anyway, except making sure he knew how to sharpen a knife without cutting off his own fingers, and going over some of the details of their venture again. Not that it was necessary - Larkin had already made sure the knowledge was thoroughly ingrained in Cat’s head. He knew to be friendly to the locals, open enough with his story to not raise suspicion but keeping his mouth shut about everything else. Eyes and ears wide open for any signs of Helena Baron or any other hint as to what the Skyport Thieves were up to in the area outside the city.

They spotted the cluster of Glimmerton'S houses at around noon. Coming from Skyport, the village lay behind a gentle rise of the land one had to round to see Glimmerton in the river valley beyond. Most of the few dozen buildings were wood, thatch and red clay, perched on stilts over the water and along the shoreline. On the drier patches of land a few houses made from river stone bordered what was more of a market street than a square.

Larkin pointed when they had gotten close enough to distinguish buildings.

“See that one? Red roof beams, little porch?”

Cat pushed himself up on his donkey and craned his neck. “Yeah. That’s where we going to live?”

“That’s where *you’re* gonna live”

Cat sat back down and looked at her, puzzled. “But you said we-”

“I fucking know what I said,” Larkin cut him off. “I’m gonna be around but not all the damn time. Your job is to keep up looks and get chummy with the neighbors. I got other stuff to do.” Visiting Goro in the castle chief among them, but Cat didn’t have to know that.

If it were possible, Larkin would avoid staying in Glimmerton all together. She loved Skyport with its narrow alleys and stagnant canals winding into a labyrinth of stone and laundry lines where only the right people knew her face and name and where she alway knew which turning would make her disappear. Glimmerton was different. Wide gaps between houses, scattered between the river, the open farmland and the forest. If you wanted to disappear here, it was either the forest or learning how to breathe underwater. In Skyport, and especially at the docks, Larkin could go days without ever seeing the same face twice; in a place like this, one could go to a shop for the first time and expect to be greeted by nickname.

In short, the village had everything she hated.

Larkin hadn’t even arrived yet, but she was already sick of it