Fanfare

The Outsider

"Stay here," Pierce tells her. They are crouched behind the collapsed remnants of an old, redbrick wall. Trenna presses her back against it and it holds strong. She can hear strains of the market music, like a background to her thoughts. Guitar strings and flutes and drums and screams, manic laughter flowing like water, like molten silver wrapping itself around the baton, soaking into the man's fingertips.

"You know I don't respond well to instruction," she tells him, digging her nails into the wounds made earlier; she does not wish to forget herself again.

Pierce looks down at her, his jaw taught. She stares back so he knows she won't back down. He sighs. "Fine. But it's your own fault if you get yourself killed."

"Killed? When was death mentioned?" She watches warily as Pierce pulls a long version of the small dagger in his sleeve from his boot. He brushes a finger across it to test for sharpness before tucking it into his opposite sleeve, his hand gripping the handle.

"You were there. You heard it. That thing is hungry." He rises a little, peering out from behind the wall before he stands. He looks back at her over his shoulder. "Coming?" he asks. She considers staying where she is. Running home to Kina and Joss, being yelled at and welcomed into their arms and yelled at again. Seeing a mother who probably doesn't even remember her leaving. Most likely doesn't remember her birth.

Pierce's lip curls at the corner as if he knows what she is thinking. She stands and waits for him to move. His slight smirk disappears and he starts off towards the market.

Now that she knows what it is, the magic of the market isn't so hard to resist. She feels it, a slight pressure against her mind. It pushes, testing her strength. She pushes it away. It is easy to do so, but it would also be just as easy to surrender to it.

It gets stronger as they reach the bounds of the market and begin winding their way through stalls and people with sapphire eyes and bewitching men and women who beckon without words. As she resists, their eyes narrow. She pushes on.

Every now and then, she feels Pierce's eyes on her, checking that she's still behind him. She avoids them because she knows what she will see, what they will offer in spite of the boy beyond the market. She doesn't want him to feel the shame she believes she'd feel if he saw the same thing in her eyes. She stares at his back as they pass stalls and people and flames and music. And then they stop.

She almost crashes into Pierce's back, she was following so closely, but she manages to stop herself. She peers around him and sees the man. The girl called him Coat, she remembers; an appropriate name for the tall, spindly man. She wonders if, without his coat, there is no body beneath. It seems as if he would be a floating head, disembodied hands and feet. Perhaps he would fall apart. Without the coat, there may be nothing there. The idea does not seem so stupid to her since she saw him reach through the road.

In front of the man stands the young girl. She is wearing a cloak, drawn up over her face, but locks of her snowy hair peek out from beneath the hood, and her eyes shine with malevolence as she stares at the owner of the stall in front of her. It is the same stall she and Pierce were in, Trenna realises with a jolt. The vile man with his cobalt eyes grins lewdly at the girl and takes the jewel the man presses into his hand. The girl says something to the man Trenna cannot hear, though she suspects it to be said with as much distaste as possible. The man looks surprised, but he tucks the jewel into his shirt pocket and steps backwards into the tent, delight lighting his eyes. Trenna feels sick. She thinks that, no matter if she is human or not, the girl does not deserve this. She starts forwards, but Pierce grabs her wrist and holds her tight. They watch as the girl steps into the tent before it closes, the Coat man standing at the entrance.

Pierce pulls her along with him at a quick pace, around the tent, to the back. He puts a finger to his lips as he tugs up the bottom of the tarp. Trenna feels a moment of disgust before she hears Pierce's shocked intake of breath and gets down on her knees beside him.

The girl kneels on the man's chest. Her hood has fallen back, and her eyes gleam dangerously as she leans forwards, her small, childish fingers pressing against the man's temples. A bright blue light seems to soak from the man into the girl, brightening her veins so that they can see the blue flowing through them beneath her pale skin. The man shudders and gasps beneath her, but the girl does not move until all of the light has faded. Then she reaches into the man's pocket and takes back her jewel with a crude twist of her lips as she tucks it into her pocket. She pulls up her hood and leaves the tent.

They wait for a long time. Trenna watches the man, imagining she can see his chest rise and fall with each breath, each beat of his heart. Finally, Pierce pulls the tarp higher and crawls in. Trenna follows as he kneels at the man's side. She watches as he carefully closes the man's eyes, and sees that where they were blue before, they are now colourless, clear, pale as the girl's skin.

She shudders and looks at Pierce over the dead man. "What is she?" she asks Pierce, hoping for an answer. Because she wants a straight answer. She wants to know what could do this. She wants to know why this man died, even though he was a disgusting creature, because no one deserves this.

Pierce raises his eyes from the man's face and looks at her; they no longer flicker with the flames of the market, but with a cold, icy fury that makes her feel as if phantom fingers dance along her spine. His hand grips the handle of his dagger so tightly that the blood rushes from his knuckles, his long, slim fingers turning pale. She cannot move, cannot breathe. When he speaks, the world goes silent. "An Outsider," he says.