On the Hills of Eden

After a while of waiting, the waitress re-emerged from the kitchen, this time with a large clay bowl she cradled precariously with both of her thin sleeved arms. She seemed to tremble as she made her way haltingly across the bar, towards where the three of them sat.

The smell hit them from across the room, though this time their noses were spared the olfactory onslaught the durian brought upon them. The aroma of the broth was overwhelmingly herbal, the kind that soothes you and rouses your stomach in anticipation of a grand feast. It carried hints of chicken too, adding a certain hearty warmth that felt as though it were healing their very souls.

As the three of them looked between each other, Pallas eventually rose from her seat, moving to help the waitress.

Then, at that very moment, the diner’s doors swung open violently. Familiar, rowdy voices they recalled from the situation earlier at the gates of the Xoplikos Estate rung out, shattering the homely silence and replacing it with the rowdiness of the outside.

“Oi Officer! They done knocked Rocco out!”

As the Officer snapped out of his slumber once again, his face tainted with the grim look of annoyance, Pallas quickly sat herself back down.

The sailor, his outfit dirty, unkempt and stained, stumbled into the diner with his comrade on his back. The man was even more of a shambles up close- his hat, hair and even the supposed prestigious purples of his Gravitas attire all looked as though the last time they’d been cleaned was a few months back.

The Officer groaned, rubbing his forehead with his gloved palm.

“They wouldn’t let us in!”

The sailor stumbled his way past their table, accidentally kicking over Soleiman’s bag and sending its contents spilling over the floor under their table and leaving Soleiman to scrounge his way across the carpet in search of his equipment.

The sailor sneered slightly, continuing on his stumble.

Pallas and Qingxi soon joined Soleiman in gathering his things.

“And just how did he manage to get knocked out?”

“They swung, Officer! He tried grabbing one of them and they hit him with the butt of their spears!”

“Lord Gravitas have mercy on my soul,” the Officer said, sighing.

The waitress continued her slow walk towards their table, her hands shaking more and more as the fatigue began to set in, her feet threatening to stumble over each other with every step forward.

Soleiman looked up, finding the sight of the waitress standing idly, a look of pain on her face as she held the giant bowl of broth while waiting for the sailor to set his unconscious comrade down and take a seat himself as his frame occupied nearly the entire central aisle.

Though the waitress turned to place the bowl onto a nearby table, he quickly rose up from out under the table, offering her assistance.

“I’ll go help her,” he said to Qingxi and Pallas, to which the both of them nodded in response.

Soleiman quickly shuffled his way to the scene, with only about a metre between him and the waitress. Though most of the walkway was obstructed, there was still a fair amount of space they could work with to pass the bowl onto Soleiman and alleviate the load off of the poor girl’s arms.

“I’m tellin’ you, Officer! We oughta get back out there and set things straight!”

“I don’t have to do anything. You two got yourselves into this mess, you will get yourselves out of it,”

The waitress reached out slightly, hands shaking increasingly violently.

“If you didn’t laze around so much we wouldn’t have been in this mess you-!”

The Officer rose to his feet.

Soleiman reached out in turn, his hands clasping the warm ceramic of the bowl.

“What did you call me?”

As the waitress handed the bowl over to Soleiman, she mouthed a silent “Thank you” as the bowl sank suddenly, rescued just before disaster once he got used to its unnaturally heavy weight.

“Oh, I,” the sailor backed away as the Officer approached him, that menacing aura that overpowered the diner’s atmosphere re-emerging once again. “Officer I-”

The sailor backed into the bowl.

They scrambled, arms moving erratically as the broth in the bowl slushed about, throwing the weight of the soup about. The bowl’s centre of mass shifted well past the support their hands provided, sending them into drastic saving movements again and again, like a swing that grew stronger and more violent with each pass.

The sailor turned around in concern, eyes widening. And as he turned around, so did his comrade- sending his limbs flying about, and…

…striking the bowl.

Soleiman yelled out in fear, reaching out to no avail to rescue the bowl from its tumble.

The Broth of Brosperity was sent flying out of its vessel, piping hot as it splashed all over the waitress, sending droplets of flavourful herbal soup splattering all over the place and soaking the floor in stew.

She shrieked in pain, falling onto her back as she writhed against the soup’s heat, now soaking into her clothes.

“Oh shit!” Soleiman said in shock, frozen in place as his mind whirred in a frenzied panic. “Take it off!”

The waitress looked up at him, pausing in hesitation, her face moulded into one of confused agony.

“Your upper layer, at least- Bartender!” He reached out to lift the waitress off the floor.

As Soleiman called out to the bartender watching on in horror, asking for a jug or two of cold water, the Officer stood and watched on in disgust as his subordinate dumped his unconscious fellow onto the table and turned to inspect the new stains on his attire.

Pallas stood to intervene, helping Soleiman escort the waitress outside of the diner as the bartender followed behind them, jugs in hand.

“Oi, stop-”

The shout of the sailor disappeared behind them as they busted out of the diner door.

“Careful, careful,” Pallas said as she and Soleiman set the waitress down on her knees and slowly poured the cold water over her clothes, flushing out the warm broth and soothing the burns she had been inflicted with under them.

“Goshdarnit, Rumi, really? Can we please go one day without you messing anything up?” the Bartender said, his voice more exasperated and fearful than angry.

“I-I’m sorry!” she whimpered, pulling the sticky stained bits of her underlayer off of her skin, wincing in pain at the feeling of its heat driving daggers into her flesh. She sobbed, lamenting both the pain and the embarrassment as Pallas and Soleiman desperately tried cooling her off and washing the hot stuff off of her.

“Water! Get more water!”

Inside, as the bartender rushed back in for more water, Qingxi stood in the way of the infuriated sailor as he demanded recompense for having his attire stained.

“Bring that girl back in here or so help me I’ll have this entire place taken down!”

“Wait. Please, calm down-”

The sailor tried rushing forward, though Qingxi met his advance with her shoulder, shoving him back.

“Are you-”

“Please! We’ll pay you, please.”

The sailor paused for a moment as he thought about it.

As Qingxi began digging through her bag in search of what little coinage she had on hand, the Officer moved to talk with the Head Chef emerging from beyond the bar.

Eventually, Qingxi managed to fish out her purse, offering the sailor a generous handful of coins- worth about a few days’ worth of meals, which he accepted.

As she scrambled to pack the rest of Soleiman’s equipment lying on the floor, gathering her and her fellows’ bags, she watched as the Head Chef stormed his way out the door.

Smashing the saloon doors open, the Head Chef stood imposingly over the waitress and the two siblings, his stature well deserving of the title of ‘Big Man’.

He bellowed, his voice shaking the very ground and turning even more heads to the mess of a scene unfolding upon the street.

“What have you done?”

The waitress turned in horror, crying out as she raised her hands above her head.

The Head Chef reached out, grabbing her by her forearm and lifting her back up to her feet, stopped only by Pallas and Soleiman’s interference even as she groaned in agony.

“Wait, Sire, please,” Pallas pleaded.

“It was me- my fault!” Soleiman said, looking exasperated with an empty glass jug clutched in his hands. Utterly pathetic in the eyes of the Chef.

“You spilt my beloved broth all over the floor and scalded my worker?”

“I, yes, but-”

“Then scram! Before I get you to pay for the damages!”

He turned, commanding the petrified bartender back into the diner as he pulled the crying waitress along with him, even though she barely had enough composure to keep herself off the ground.

“Wait!”

But the Head Chef kept on walking.

Qingxi emerged from beyond the doors, all three of their bags in tow.

“Move out the way.”

Qingxi gave the siblings and the waitress an understanding look, and stood firmly right where she was.

“Move!”

“Sire! You have to send her to the almshouse!” Soleiman pleaded.

“And waste more money on her? Hell to that! Now move!”

“We’ll pay for it, and the damages,” Soleiman bargained, though Qingxi winced at the proposition.

“You don’t have that kind of money.”

“We promise, please. She needs the treatment- those burns are severe.”

“Agh, you sons of-” he let go of the waitress, letting her fall onto the stone floor. “Take her and begone! And I better see my coin the next time you drop by!”

Qingxi stepped out of the doorway, letting the Head Chef grumble back into the diner, mumbling under his breath as he disappeared back inside.

“Goddang s…” he muttered under his breath, the words fading from earshot as the diner doors swung shut behind him.

A small crowd of their own soon formed, puzzled and intrigued onlookers bewildered at the sight of a girl having cold water poured over her in public.

She began to reflect that, too, a mad blush rushing over her face as she tried to hide behind her soaking outer layer.

“I’ve got the bags,” Qingxi said, with Pallas and Soleiman’s backpacks on her back and front respectively while she clutched her own bag with her hands.

Soleiman and Pallas nodded, gently lifting the waitress off of the stone path, letting her guide them to the almshouse where she would have her burns taken care of. The cold water they had rinsed her with now slowly seeping into their clothes too.

“T-thank you,” she managed, her voice so tiny and quiet compared to the hub-bub of the city streets they could barely even hear her.

“No no, it’s alright. You don’t have to apologise. I was the one who spilt the broth.”

“Mmn,” she groaned softly in protest. “Thank you for taking me to the almshouse.”

“Right. No worries… Rumi?”

She nodded.

After a while of walking, the four of them arrived at the doorsteps of the Porthopolis Almshouse, located just by the heart of the city where other administrative centres like the city’s courthouse and the town hall were situated. These three buildings and their accompanying side-structures and other distinguished shops and restaurants encircled a large clearing, an open concourse with a grand fountain located right in its centre.

As they emerged from the streets that fed into the clearing, they shuffled their way into the almshouse, sticking to the fringes of the concourse to avoid unwanted attention. Even in the distance, across the hundred-metre long clearing, the town hall stood intimidatingly over them, elevated over the entire rest of the area by a large set of stairs carved from Solean marble, decorated with intricately designed jade engravings borne from the artisans of Xiafa.

They checked Rumi in on her behalf, accompanying her to her allocated ward and sitting through the palliator’s break-down of her injuries and subsequently paying off their quoted price.

As the light of the midday began to wane, giving way to the beginnings of the softer afternoon warmth, they managed to make sure Rumi changed into her patient’s gown and settled into her bed, where she would be sleeping for the next few nights before her return.

Her ward was mostly empty, the well-spaced curtained windows present on the far side from the doorway keeping much of the hub-bub of the outside from getting in and bestowing the few slumbering patients inside with some much appreciated silence and solace. The beds had been placed in a staggered manner, alternating from one side of the wall to the next, with little in the way of privacy aside from a wispy thin curtain.

The atmosphere was peaceful and warm, though this time its warmth was more akin to the embrace of a soft blanket, completely unlike the almost dreadfully still air in the Big Man Diner, heavy with languor.

Next to each bed stood a stout drawer, where a few jars filled with a marred golden yellow with labels of ‘Dilute Edenberry Paste’ stuck onto them had been placed atop of. Across the other patients, most of their jars had already been opened, the dimly glowing cream within lathered onto varying parts of their body.

With the silent whir of wind ascending up the almshouse’s inbuilt wind-catchers in the background, the three of them bade Rumi farewell as they prepared themselves for an encounter with the Duke.

Though, despite the serenity of it all, despite the fact that she was in good hands at the almshouse, a feeling of urgency gripped her. A fear, almost. A fear she was afraid she knew all too well.

“Wait!”

Her cry broke the ward’s silence, the three of them turning back in surprise.

“I…” she quietened down, seeing the other patients stir from their sleep in the corners of her eyes. “I don’t want to go back,”

“He… he’s not going to be very happy with me,” she said. Shuffling forward, she sat at the foot of the bed as she leaned over the foot guard. “L-look…” with some hesitance, she grabbed the mouth of her sleeve, pulling it up to reveal her forearm.

It was like looking at a maze from above, line-like scars etched into her skin like some form of sick tapestry formed from the cross-hatching of broken and beaten flesh.

The three of them widened their eyes in shock, Pallas covering her mouth to stifle a gasp while Soleiman mouthed an expletive in disbelief. Qingxi rushed forward, grabbing Rumi by her arm and examining her scars closer.

“He did this to me,” she whimpered, stumbling slightly on her words, her voice as soft and meek as a mollusk peeking out of its shell. “He does this to make sure I get work done properly.”

Qingxi traced her finger across her scars, feeling the smoothness of Rumi’s skin interrupted by a vile history of abuse that writ itself in the gnarled etchings of her flesh.

“Please, if I go back… he will only punish me more.”

Qingxi let go of Rumi’s hand, turning back to Soleiman and Pallas.

The three of them shuffled away from her bed, forming a circle as they whispered a discussion.

“What should we do?” Soleiman asked.

“...I don’t know.” Pallas responded.

“Have you seen those scars?” Soleiman turned back to give her a quick glance to make sure he wasn’t being too loud. “There’s no way we can just leave her be.”

“Mm,” Qingxi nodded. “Not happening.”

“We can report it to the Duke-”

“What if they don’t do anything?” Qingxi cut in. “What happens then?”

“I’m sure the Duke would listen-”

“But what if he doesn’t?”

“Alright, look,” Pallas said. “We’ll make the Duke listen. If he doesn’t then, well…”

“We couldn’t bring her with us, could we?” Soleiman asked. “I mean we haven’t got much room for-”

“Oh! I-I can cook!”

They froze in place, slowly turning to see she’d been sat earnestly at the foot of the bed.

“Sorry, I mean…”

They shuffled a little further away.

“Okay. What we’ll do is tell the Duke what’s been going on with Rumi, and tell him he absolutely has to make sure she’s protected. It’s his duty.”

“Right, right.”

“Then we get out of here, all according to plan.”

…

“Questions?”

“So we’re just leaving her then?” Qingxi said.

“Does it look like we have room for one more? We’re going to be venturing into a warzone, we can’t bring her there.”

…

“What should we tell her?” Soleiman asked.

They peeked from their group huddle to sneak glances at Rumi, her eyes now wandering across the room as she whistled a quaint foreign tune.

“That she’ll be ok.”

Qingxi sighed slightly, pulling away from the group huddle and causing it to break apart.

Pallas approached Rumi slowly, sitting her hands on the foot guard as she knelt down to level herself with the girl.

“Listen, Rumi.”

Rumi sat in patient silence, her sunflower golden irises glittering slightly with the warmth of the midday.

“We promise you you’ll be okay. We’ll tell the Duke about everything, and you’ll be protected, alright?”

“The… Duke?”

“Yes. We’ll make sure that he hears of this, and we’ll make sure he does something about it.”

“Oh. A-alright,” she said, sinking slightly as she turned away from the three of them.

“We’ll come visit you later on, alright?”

…

“Trust us.”

Rumi sighed slightly, the golden shimmer of her hair disappearing as her head ducked out of the golden rays that shone through the window.

“Alright.”

Pallas reached forward, bringing Rumi into a hug. Qingxi followed suit, and Soleiman patted her shoulder gently in reassurance.

“We’ll see you later,” Pallas said as they pulled out of the hug.

Rumi nodded in turn.

As the three of them waved at Rumi as they made their way to the doorway, the girl still sat at the foot of her bed. She only just managed to lift her hand up before they disappeared into the corridor.