The Little Death

Act 1

Vero finally had enough money to leave the city of Whitegate, and to her mind, the moment could not have come soon enough. She had arrived in the Most Serene Republic hoping that a city of its size and wealth would give her ample opportunity to gain employment in her chosen profession. That had not been the case.

Misadventure in the Ruby Mountains had left her half-starved and without her coin purse. She was forced to give her horse to a pawnbroker when she could not afford feed them. The code of her order forbade her from hunting bounties or hiring her sword as a mercenary, so she had spent the past two seasons selling cures as a cunning woman and working at a laundry. Thrice she had taken work as a midwife. There were less dignified ways to earn money, but she was glad to have seen the last of them for the time being.

The night wind blew cold and she found it very refreshing. Vero closed her eyes and felt the sea breeze pass straight through her thin summer– actually, threadbare- dress. Her weak leg ached from walking, but worse than that was the constant noise. And then worse still was the stench of fish which hung over the city like an ever-present miasma and refused to dissipate. Every day in the city had been miserable, but this day had been even more miserable than most.

All those problems were inconsequential to her now, however. Vero hated having to earn silver by washing well-stained bed clothes, but she finally had enough money to redeem her horse from the pawnbroker. Now she could leave at last. Leave towards where? She did not yet know. No destination could be worse than where she currently resided, so it did not matter.

She left her troubles behind her and walked home with bonny gait in her step. Home in Whitegate was a cramped little room on the top floor of a large building in the brothel district near the docks. She shared the abode with a prostitute named Theodora, a very bright-eyed young woman. Vero often worried about her being as naïve she was, given her profession, but she also found the trait almost irresistibly charming.

The room was cheap even by the standards of single room hovels. According to Dora, the rent was due to its elevation. It had been very pleasant during the winter. In summer the city was almost unbearably hot at any elevation, but Vero discovered that the higher one's room, the farther one was forced the stretch the definition of 'almost'.

Vero entered her building and climbed up the long and creaking staircase which led all the way to her floor. She walked down the hallway until she found her room. The neighbors' doors were all open to try and allow some movement of air. The other renters were all women who worked in the district, so they kept very little privacy from one another. A small group of their children played in the halls and on the staircase. It was too hot to even move during the day, so they often slept and came out for their games at night.

Vero found Dora preparing a meal of White Sea bass and garum. Garum was itself a sauce made from fermented fish, so one may question the reason in serving it over more fish. Dora did not. Nor would any other citizen of the Republic, so she was not without company. Vero speculated that it was probably one of the reasons for the city's distinctive odor. She closed the door behind her. It made the heat worse, but she was too modest to undress without some privacy from the city at least, if not from Dora.

Dora was raven haired and blue eyed. She was beautiful and innocent looking in a way the district's visitors, or perhaps only Vero herself, found very attractive. In many ways they were a study in contrasts. Dora was shorter than the average for a woman by nearly the same measure that Vero was taller. Dora's skin was darker than Vero's, but she rouged it to lighten the color, while Vero's preference for the outdoors often made her naturally fair skin look ruddy. Dora's body was curved and feminine in all the ways Vero's was not, and sometimes Vero even found herself envying Dora for it- but in all she was very fond of the girl.