Sid

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Dillon, if you object to anything, please let me know...I'm kind of just making things up now.
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Sid:

Life I lead, it’s none to safe to be wandering the streets with a limp and a bloody lip. In particular if those streets happen to be on Persephone, where any urchin worth a rag full of engine grease’ll pick your pocket and crack your skull within a minute of meeting you.
Life I lead ain’t none to safe at the best of times, mind you, and this seabag don’t get lighter for standing around with it.
The sun’s going down, but back on Ariel, it’d just be heading up.
Wo de ma. Space-lagged and hurting…what a pretty picture I must make.
Thought makes me grimace.
I swing my belt around so that my knife sits easy on my hip to ward off the urchins. I might look to be an easy mark, but I am feeling none too patient right about now.
City’s changed since I was here last. Time was there was enough dust to coat your throat and clog your eyes within a minute of landing. Now they’ve cleared it up some, though I can’t see how they might have done it. Some of the landing vessels are – if not exactly shiny and new – a little less rusted and fit for the scrap heap than I’m used to seeing round these parts.
I walk a few more dusty small-town blocks and then stop for a minute. My knees are afire. I want to sink to the ground and howl, but I sure as ruttin hell don’t do that. Instead I turn around and grab the collar of the kid who’s got his fingers in my seabag, slam him none too gently against the wall. His eyes go wide.
“Ni yao wo kai qiang?”
I tighten my grip and push him a little harder.
He shakes his head, and even though his eyes tear up a bit and his teeth must be a bit rattled, he don’t look none too scared.
Street kids on Persephone – specially round these parts of Persephone – are a breed their own. And they don’t scare none too easily.
I let go of his shirt and he slides a few inches down, watches me as I turn around.
Limp….limp.
Gorramit if I don’t feel like I’ve been dragged through seven hells face down and hollering. Is there anything that don’t hurt?
I go half a block, maybe, before I feel that telltale tug and whirl around to pin some other hapless piece of dirt to the wall. This time I’m mad, but surprise makes me put more weight into the shove than I meant to.
It’s the same kid.
He looks like every second rim-born brat, to tell it true. Brown hair brown eyes, healthy layer of dirt over a none-too-healthy layer of skin and bones.
But this kid is persistent, and he don’t have a clue how to steal.
“Wo de ma,” I mutter. “You are pushing your luck, kid.”
He shrugs. Gives me a level look. “Ain’t got none to push, old man. Got a spare coin?”
Old man? I grit my teeth – which don’t appreciate it, having been recently booted by an asshole in steel-toed boots – and try my hardest not to hit him.
Persephone ain’t none too kind to strangers. Any one of them can slit one of these brat’s throats – not that I’m in that foul a mood, though I am mighty miffed at this turn of events – but if a stranger so much as gives an urchin a bruise, he’s liable to meet a lynch mob.
From the way this kid is grinning, he knows that well as I do.
I can’t brain him with my seabag and leave him to bleed to death, so I do the next best thing.
“As it happens,” I tell him, “I do have a few spare coins, but I need you to do something for me first.”
His eyes flicker to my hand on his throat, and he nods.
“I’m visiting an old friend here. A Mr. Stitcher, maybe you’ve heard of him.”
Again the eyes go wide.
“Maybe you’d like to carry my seabag for me.”
Another nod, and I let go of his throat and heave the seabag onto his shoulders.
I can see when he takes it that he’s planning to do a runner with it, but as it settles over his shoulder, his eyes go wide with the weight.
I grin.
He wavers a little, straightens out with determination, and takes a few wobbly steps.
I put a hand on his shoulder – best not to let him get any ideas about running off – and lean just a little.
His knees creak and mine sigh in relief.
We shuffle the rest of the way like that.
And it all works out to the best because when we get where we’re going and I knock on Hiram Stitcher’s door with a grin full of dried blood on a face he hoped never to see again, I’ve got a free arm to use to stop him slamming the door.
We go way back, Hiram Stitcher and me.