Flannel

More new characters and worldbuilding/traveloguery this chapter than plot advancement. More of the same next few chapters, too, as I hinted back in the Prologue Addendum. If that's not to your taste, but the writing is at least acceptable, please have a little trust in me and keep reading. I like foreshadowing - I want to say subtle, meaning my own, but I've been writing without feedback almost my entire life, so I can't honestly make the claim. But I can assure you that there is a lot of lore churning away underneath here, like a duck swimming, and lots of attempts at the subtle placement of guns upon mantlepieces.

Regardless of whether you stick around or not, though, thank you for the time you have given me! I sincerely appreciate it.

“’Eyy, mister; you alive?”

Heat. . .light. . .the sun beaming down. . .warming and welcoming. . .filling him with energy. . . .

“’Cuz those’r some really nice clothes, y’know? An’ if yer dead, y’don’ need‘m no more, right?”

The sound of lapping water nearby. . .small waves hitting a hard, vertical surface. . . .

“Kon? Kon! Kon, you come out where I can see you! Right this instant, Kon!”

A repeated jab in his side. . .a hard point, not quite sharp, not quite dull. . .

“Kon? Kon! What are you - stop that! Don’t poke the man! Get away from him!”

Justin’s eyes popped open. He was lying on a quay of pale stone, parallel to its edge. The undercolor was halfway between the yellow of ivory and the brown of beige. Beyond it, a great canal of light blue water stretched out, at least a couple of hundred feet wide, and curiously empty of watercraft. It sparkled in the bright sunlight, a gentle breeze tickling its surface.

On the far side, there was a mostly empty street, fronted by a row of long, two-story buildings that ran off in both directions. Going by their regularly placed tiny balconies and shuttered windows, all closed, and the multicolored clothes and linens hung out to dry from their eaves, they were tenement housing.

He pushed himself up on one arm and looked around. He was in a little C-shaped nook of fish-reeking empty crates, stacked chest-high and shielding him from most people’s sight. A girl’s head peered over the top of the side presumably towards to the quay’s steet-end, her lower lip bitten in concern. She had vaguely asiatic features – dark hair, slightly sun-bronzed, in a ponytail; a flatter face and broader nose than his own; black almond eyes with an inner epicanthic fold and lacking an upper crease.

Inside the nook, below the girl’s head, a younger boy with features familial to hers was squatting on his heels. He wore a simple tunic and trousers of light brown canvas, tied at the waist with rope, and held a bamboo-like rod, a bit thinner than his wrist, with four cords of different thicknesses and colors attached to one end and wrapped loosely down its length – black, gray, green, and blue.

“Oh. You are alive,” he said, disgruntled.

The girl sucked in a hissing breath, then begged Justin, “Please don’t hurt him! He didn’t mean any harm!”

Justin held up his other hand. “I won’t. In fact, if you two can safely escort me to a reliable - and discreet - moneychanger, I’ll give each of you a bit of silver for it.” He sat up slowly, keeping his eyes trained on hers and his expression friendly, then crossed his legs.

“Y’don’ look or smell hungover,” the boy mused. “Nor drugged ’n rolled, neither.”

“I’m not, and I doubt I was.” Justin smiled. “But I was very excited to come here, and hardly slept the night before I arrived. I’m guessing I fell asleep on the way, and my guide left me here as a prank. Ah, but where are my manners – young lady, I’m going to stand up now, so I can greet you both properly. Is that all right with you?”

“Oh – uh, yes,” she said. “Um, thank you for the, the warning.” She stepped back a pace, out of arm’s reach.

“You’re welcome,” Justin said, rising to his feet. He faced both of them, cupped his hands, and inclined his head. “I am Justin of the Carse family, a newly trained alchemist, among other skills. I have emigrated to Ribe to open a shop here. Please look after me.”

“Um-” the girl began.

“I’m Daigo Kon!” the boy interrupted her, bouncing to his feet and imitating Justin’s gesture. “How much silver?”

“Kon!” the girl hissed at him. “Don’t be rude! Or greedy!”

“Yeah, yeah,” the boy replied, with the same dismissive attitude and tone that an uncountable number of junior siblings had displayed to their seniors in the past, and doubtlessly many more would in the future.

Justin waited patiently as the children tried to stare each other down, eventually clearing his throat to break their deadlock.

“Ah!” the girl squeaked. “I’m that one’s big sister, Daigo Kim,” she said, bobbing her head. “Please look after us kindly, big brother Jasutin.”

“And now that we’ve been properly introduced. . .” Justin leaned towards the girl, put his hand up to conceal his mouth, and mock-whispered, “. . .is he brave, or just really spoiled?”

“Oi!” Kon shouted in protest from below.

A shy smile lifted the corners of Kim’s mouth slightly. She put her own hand up and mock-whispered back, “A little brave, and a lot spoiled.”

“I’ll spoil you!” Kon yelled, jumping off the end of the quay into the water. Justin leaned over to see the boy butterflying smoothly along the quay’s side. There were small stone bollards along its edge, simple yard-high pillars of the same stone. When Kon neared the closest, he whipped the rod in his hand at it. The black cord flew out, a loop at its end settling neatly over the bollard’s top, and the boy began cliff-walking up the quay’s side with its assistance.

“That’s a neat trick,” Justin said, impressed. I wonder what the other cords are used for, he thought. I’m guessing one of them is a hook, and another a whip end. Or maybe two hooks, two different sizes and shapes?

“Kon’s very good with his river-stick,” Kim conceded. “Please excuse me now; I have to show him who’s senior. Again,” she added, putting a long-suffering emphasis on the last word.

She stepped further back from the wall of crates, giving herself more room to maneuver, and letting Justin see that she was dressed almost identically to her little brother. The only difference was her well-braided sandals made from dark green straw-like fibers; her brother was barefooted.

“Allow me,” Justin said, as he began to move crates out of the way for an exit. “Young Kon,” he said, raising his voice, “if you fight with your sister, you’ll get less silver.”

Kon, who had barely finished scrambling up the quay’s side, froze in place. His eyes narrowed.

Justin cocked his head to one side and smirked at him as he continued to restack the crates.

Kon straightened up and turned away, lifting his chin. “You’re lucky I am greedy,” he told Kim, not looking at her.

“Yes, yes,” Kim said, with a hint of not-quite-provocative consolation in her voice. Her eyes slid over to Justin’s, and her smile changed to echo his smirk.

“So! Old man Tabaro is trustworthy,” Kon said. “Let’s go!”

Kim gave Justin a longer, more thorough appraisal as he stepped out of the nook. “No; Madame Shinbi,” she decided. “She’s farther away, but more discreet. She has a big beauty salon and parlor, so she hears a lot of secrets to keep, and has better contacts.”

“Too far!” Kon objected. “And eww! Her place stinks!”

“And old man Tabaro gives you candy, sometimes,” Kim said. “While Madame Shinbi would give you a flick to the ear, if she caught you.”

“Madame Shinbi it is,” Justin said, moving up the quay a little past Kim and looking back at her. She twitched, and hurried in front of him, leading the way.

Kon muttered something under his breath as they went by that made Kim pause and hiss again, this time in anger. Justin caught the boy’s subtle glance, and realized he was testing the boundaries Justin might set for him.

“I’m not going to correct your language, Young Kon,” he told him directly. “Talk is cheap but deeds are priceless.”

Kon blinked. “Talk is cheap, but deeds are priceless,” he repeated, in a softer voice than his usual so far. He moved to flank Justin’s other side as Kim began walking forward again. “Huh. Never heard that one before.”

“The second half is my father’s original addition,” Justin said. “Other versions of the idiom had been in print among my people for. . .somewhere over two hundred years, and were probably much older than that. My favorite was ‘Talk is cheap, until you hire an advocate.’”

Kim snortled a laugh, then hunched her shoulders from embarrassment at the piggy noise.

Interesting, Justin thought. He’d meant to say a lawyer, but the other words had come out instead. Seamlessly. And apart from that one incongruity, he was unable to distinguish between whatever language they were all speaking and English.

I’ll have to test it later, he thought. If he could still speak English - and/or Welsh – it might be very valuable. Fluency in one or more languages unknown to this world could have great potential.

“I used to be an advocate,” Justin added.

That made both of the children laugh.

# # #

Kim led them north along the empty waterfront street and the closed and shuttered warehouses – big, white, basic barns - at the quay’s base. Past those, the buildings on this side of the canal were primarily small to medium shops serving the local residents. The majority were made entirely of the same dark brown to reddish woods as the tenements on the far side, some with panels of white plaster at waist height and higher.

About one in every eight, however, was set on a half-story foundation of inward-sloping stone, darker than the pale paving of the streets and quays, with little reflective chips glimmering on their polished surfaces. The buildings above these were usually made of a greener wood that had faded and silvered with age. Rather than dilapidated and shabby, though, the change in color left the wood looking like heirloom material; dignified, and expensive.

People began to appear on the street – and watercraft in the canal - once the warehouses were behind them; mostly women, mostly shopping, and mostly for groceries. Justin saw and heard them haggling over fresh fish, chicken, eggs and pork, and sewing supplies and other vital household items. Storefront signs – the logograms on which he was both hugely relieved and impressed to be able to read as well – carried family names. A few of the larger stores had overhead marquees of black characters on white plaques that listed their deals of the day and prices. Some quick mental math showed that costs, in ‘Rr’, were comparable to Earth’s; maybe a little lower.

The people were dressed in a rainbow of patterned sarongs, women wearing them tied at the neck and shoulders and bust in an endless variety of styles, with woven reed hats for sun protection, accessorized with ribbons, and braided reed sandals much nicer than Kim’s. Occasionally there were small restaurants with wicker tables and chairs outside, under awnings and parasols, and the same plurality of women was seated at them, sipping from handleless ceramic or glass cups, snacking, and chatting.

Justin could practically feel their eyes sliding over him, assessing him, in his foreign, exotic clothes, and it took a semi-regular exertion of his will to relax his jaw.

His social issues weren’t their fault. He was a strange young man in a non-touristy part of town, accompanying two children, who - going by their own clothes – were from a lower socioeconomic stratum than the immediate locals.

Is ‘the wrong side of the canal’ a phrase in Ribe? he found himself wondering. But everyone seemed polite and calm; no one gave the Daigo siblings looks of dislike, let alone disgust.

Regardless of the children, though - people in a healthy community were supposed to keep an eye on someone with markers like his, tourism town or no. They weren’t all eyeing him up like a potential side of bridegroom beef for their daughters and sisters.

Not all of them.

It was a relief when they came to the tall abutment of a large, gently sloped bridge of three arches crossing the canal on their left. A relatively smaller waterway to the right made the joint of a T with it, splitting in two around the abutment’s base. The double channels ran underneath arches of sectioned stairs on pillars to either side that led to the abutment’s top, bracketed by two inclines for wheeled vehicles. Justin peered closer at those to see regular, wavy vertical abrasion patterns meant to both reduce slippage and channel rainwater. At the bridge’s right end, Justin could see the crowns of a small, dense copse of trees with drooping branches and long oval leaves.

This was where all the local men with free time were socializing; some dangling lines in the water, others sitting at more wicker tables, playing card and dice and tile games, reading broadsheets and books, smoking pipes, drinking, napping in the sun or shade, and so on. Their population also leaned noticeably more towards the elderly than the shopping district’s had.

The men wore sarongs as well, but in duller shades, and no higher than their waists. If they were not bare-chested, they wore pocketed fabric vests, with varying levels of embroidery, or blocky, wide-necked, short-sleeved shirts that combined tunics with south american guayaberas, also embroidered. As with the women, braided sandals and wide-rimmed reed hats, albeit ribbonless, were ubiquitous.

Justin followed Kim away from the canal onto the broad boulevard opposite it, which led easterly, deeper into the city. Two wide greenways of grass, flowers, shrubs, and trees ran down its middle, surrounding the smaller canal in its center. This one was less than half the width of the first, but much busier, with numerous sail-less boats moving east and west on its right and left sides respectively.

Most of these seemed to be taxis or small transports, and were being propelled by poles, oars, and geared human-powered paddlewheels. A spare few appeared to be enchanted - richly appointed, painstakingly detailed junk-like micro-yachts, gliding across the water with no visible means of propulsion. Curiously, a tiny number among those were old, worn things, all in the same style, like flat-bottomed pirogues with short outriggers and low, open-sided cabin roofs, universally painted a flat matte black.

Almost all the buildings here followed the grey stone half-story base template, with a broad variety of roof styles – gables, hips, pyramids, all jumbled together; some doubled or tripled, and deep eaves everywhere. Roughly half had roofed wooden walls enclosing courtyards that could be glimpsed through their open gates. Some walls were basic palisades while others were full buildings themselves, in the classic siheyuan design. Nearly every one was tiled in a narrow range of mild blues, and their long swooping rafters were painted in golden yellows.

Way down at the boulevard’s far end, a range of peaks rose out of the haze like a jagged bell curve, with a castle complex of tall towers before and beneath, mimicking them.

“This is the Dawnway,” Kon said, stopping to gesture dramatically. “Which’s why there’s that grove up there at the bridge’s end. Back when, at the wrong time of the year, the morning sun’d go straight offa the water and outta the back of folk’s heads coming up it. Bad design! Accidents! Discontent! So Kikuo the Shrewd put in them trees during her Renovations.”

“Angling for a bonus from some impromptu tour-guiding?” Justin asked, directly calling the boy out again.

“Wouldn’t say no!” Kon replied, without a hint of shame.

On Justin’s other side, Kim let out an aggrieved sigh. “Madame Shinbi’s Dawn Salon is three blocks down on the right,” she said, pointing. “Since you want discretion, use the deliveries gate in the back. You can tell the doorman the Daigo sibs sent you; it should get you all the way in.”

“Oi!” Kon objected. “He ain’t paid us yet!”

Kim leaned around to give her brother the hairy eyeball. “I dare you to say you don’t trust him for it,” she challenged.

Kon folded his arms and looked away, pouting.

“Thought so,” Kim said smugly.

“There are. . .” Justin paused to get the phrasing correct, “. . .circumstances. . .that prevent you from introducing me yourselves?”

“Outta our territory,” Kon grumped. “Can’t go no further. Not without payin’, anyways, an’ not in coin.”

“Ah,” Justin said. “May I please know your home address, then? I would like to visit, and compliment your parents.”

“Never had any,” Kon shrugged. “Master Kaji looks after us, but he didn’t raise us none.”

“I’d still like to visit, though,” Justin prodded. “There are fables, where I come from, that claim the first people you meet in a new land have the most fate with you, and how you relate to them shapes your life there afterward the most. ‘You never get a second chance to make a first impression, but you can change a bad one with seven more,’ some say.”

Kim was biting her lower lip again. This time, however, she seemed more passively uncertain than actively worried; adorably so. She looked at her brother, and the two had a rapid, silent conversation using just their faces, the way close siblings could. Finally, she huffed a sigh, and looked up at Justin.

“We’re housed in the Shrine of the Fist and the Rod,” she said. “People in the District of Stars can tell you where it is, and anybody from Ribe can get you to the District of Stars.”

“Bring me candy!” Kon demanded.

“Don’t!” Kim countered.

“Maybe the second time,” Justin told Kon. “But when I next come visit, I’ll teach you some daps instead, eh? For now, Big K, show me your fist.”

Kon gave his sister a puzzled glance, then took a martial stance: left side forward, left arm up to guard, palm open to parry or grab, feet correctly placed, center balanced over them, right fist chambered for a strike.

“Sorry, my bad,” Justin said. “I meant a bro-fist, like this.” He put his right fist forward, more casually, at waist-height. When Kon relaxed and imitated him, Justin lightly tapped the boy’s knuckles with his own. “Bro-fist, the fundamental dap,” he explained.

Kon stared down at his own hand, his brow wrinkled in confusion. “Rather get candy,” he muttered absently.

“We’ll see,” Justin said. He turned to Kim. “Hold still, please” he told her, and reached out to gently rub her hair, just firmly enough to convey affection without disturbing her ponytail. “Headpats for Princess Kim, the best of big sisters,” he said afterwards.

Kim reached up with both hands to lightly touch the same spot, her eyes wide.

“Okay, I’m off to the Madame,” Justin said. “I’ll see you two later; that’s a promise.” He strode away up the boulevard.

# # #

Behind him, the siblings exchanged looks of amazed disbelief.

“He touched us!” Kim exclaimed.

“I know!” Kon said.

“He touched us!”

“I know!"

“How – what -” Kim boggled.

“Let’s follow him!”

“No!” Kim said, snapping out of her fugue. Quick as a flash, she grabbed Kon in a headlock and started dragging him away.

“But – but -” Kon choked out.

“We are going straight back to the Shrine, Kon, and right! This! Instant!” Kim insisted.

“But!”

“Now, Kon!”

“Big – K!” Kon gasped, squirming in her grasp. “Call – me - Big – K!”

“No!”

Flannel

My favorite line in this chapter -

Spoiler

But everyone seemed polite and calm; no one gave the Daigo siblings looks of dislike, let alone disgust.

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Kim thematically resembles one of these characters

Spoiler

 

(from left to right, that's Komi Shouko, Nezuko Kamado, Kaguya Shinomiya, and Zero Two)

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more than the others. Can you figure out which one?

Who the Daigo think Justin is -

Spoiler

Revealed in Chapter 9!

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