CROWNS I: Of Desolate Hope | ✔

14. Pat's Mission

What is that noise?

A woman was yelling and cursing somewhere in front of Pat but he didn't know who. 

"Wake up, lazy," continued the voice, that was starting to become familiar.

Pat lazily opened his eyes and saw Thea standing by a door. Where are we?  The room was quite small compared to what Pat was used to and smelled putrid. It was also barren apart from a large brown chest that had many holes. Pat sat up straight and stretched. His jaw was very sore and his entire body ached. 

"What happened?" he asked, getting out of the creaking bed.

"Well," began Thea, excitedly, "I needed to kill someone but you wouldn't let me. We got involved in a scrap. You were knocked out by a random person. I dragged you to this inn. You woke up for a second then went back to sleep and here we are now. You've finally woken up."

"I'm surprised you said all of that without taking a breath," commented Pat.

"Thank you," replied Thea, sarcastically as she swung open the splintered door, "I value your opinion very much. Anyway, let's get out of here."

Pat followed Thea out of the room and into the hallway where they were greeted with the noise of horrible singing.

"In this part of town the drinking doesn't stop," said Thea, trying to block out the awful rendition of The Four Horsemen.

What a tragedy...

The longer the song went on, the cruder the language became. When they descended the stairs there was a brief silence at each table before it started again. The singing became utterly dreadful and unbearable for the pair. Thea threw the key to the room at the woman behind the counter and swiftly departed. Pat quickly followed.

"Well," started Pat, arrogantly, "thanks to you, we've wasted hours." He shoved a pouch full of coins into Thea's shaking hand. "Here's the money," he continued, "now get me it for gods' sake! No more messing around."

Thea's face suddenly turned sour and sinister as she stormed towards him. She drove her finger hard into Pat's chest. "No," she said, becoming flustered, "you do not get to tell me when or how I go about my business. You should've let me do what I needed to and you would never have got hurt."

"It didn't hur-"

Thea grabbed Pat's arm very aggressively. Pat let out an almost silent welp.

"You want it so badly," she said, "let's go and get it."

Thea led Pat through the dingy backstreets swarming with rats and the poor. Blood and urine swamped the ground and the smell of dung was everpresent.  

"Why are we going this way?" asked Pat, shocked by what he was seeing.

"To show you that some people don't have the freedom that you do and that you mean shit here!"

Is she seriously still angry? I'm certain we're just trying to avoid the main thoroughfares...

As they walked the city began to wake up despite still being early morning. The sound of carts was unmistakable and bartering on the other side of the wall had already begun. This city just doesn't really sleep...

Thea dragged Pat around for a little while longer before things started to look worse. Revolting. The winding network of alleyways became more complex with random objects lining the ground. Is that a boot? The smell of dung had long since abandoned them and had slowly been replaced by the foul stench of rotting flesh. The pair proceeded to climb and duck over broken fences until they reached a small green where there lay a hut with a tall, pointed roof made of scrap metal.