It's not very good but read it anyway? :cry:
[SIZE="3"]Cyanberry Blues[/SIZE]
For Rinnousuke it had been a bad day, or week, or longer. He wasn’t quite sure; he hadn’t been keeping track.
He had been sprawled in one of the back alleys that characterized the capital of Tara, winding, dirty, sometimes filtering the lost cats and dogs that wandered about and made the crummy end of the city their own, ending up in a cul-de-sac of filled trash bins and storage crates for the alchemy emporium down the road. It was kind of cozy there and no one would have been able to find him unless they crawled over the crates or noticed the inordinate amount of empty alcohol bottles strewn about the area, most tossed into the trash like the laziest game of basketball ever played but eventually piled up all around him when he’d even stopped caring about all that.
Like it had been said before, it hadn’t been a very good run of luck for Rinnousuke the bandit.
Oh, in the beginning it had been great! He’d made swift headway up the ranks of the bandit forces due to his efficient skill at beating the ever loving tar out of every commercer that managed to stumble over the invisible trip wires in his territory. He could remember his plain badge being replaced by a rough badge, and then a shiny golden ruthless badge when he’d made off with half a shipment of bunk beds in the Blago Prairie. He’d had the milletian screaming and chasing after him for close to an hour before they had given up. No-face Nelson had rewarded him a hearty slap on the back for that one and Scandalous Charlene had shot him a look that had said; ‘keep at it and we might be partners someday, honey’.
He’d stayed up half the night thinking about that, about Charlene and her flirty giggles and song. Having a partner like her someday wouldn’t be that bad at all. Hell, he might even end up on the ‘Most Wanted’ board someday (in which case he’d need to think up a cool nickname like everyone else).
But then it had happened. He should have seen the signs, heeded the warnings, but it was a milletian thing. He never would have known.
It began one morning when his bandit team awoke on their turf. It was him, two imps, a goblin and a giant. It was the giant (he wasn’t that smart, but he had an eye for pretty things and bright colors) who had noticed and pointed out the rainbow in the sky.
Both of them.
“A double rainbow?†Rinn had yawned, tugging on his gloves. “Never seen one of those before. It’s probably nothing.â€
But he had been wrong. Rinn’s team usually camped out in his territory and waited for unwary traders to toddle by, but they would sometimes find themselves ambushed by stronger milletians and tuatha de dannans; powerful men and women with professional gear and a hunger for the scalps of him and his bandit crew. They were outlaw hunters, paid off by the various trade outposts to find Rinn and his comrades and make them pay for the trade goods they so often stole for themselves and their families.
Normally, on a typical day only one or two outlaw hunters would sweep through Rinn’s territory in the Blago Prarie and he would hide, crouch down low in the bushes and behind the trees and wait for them to pass. Taking on an outlaw hunter in their element was never a wise idea, but odds were Rinn and his comrades would escape.
On the day of the double rainbow, a day in which Rin cursed its memory, instead of two or three hunters there had been dozens of them, thundering on horses across the land or on the backs of trained aerial mounts in the air, searching, scouring, running down every last bandit under the multicolored sky.
Even with his skill, he could only hide for so long. Even with his crew fighting with him it was only a matter of time before the strange race of people from the soul stream overpowered them. He was brought in chains back to the trade outpost, back to jail where he pooled his substantial bank account (accrued from the loot of hundreds of traders) and posted bail. He was free again. He hid.
The outlaw hunters found him again. Jail. Bail. Hide.
Again. And again. And again.
And there had been one hunter, one, who had found him almost every single time. He remembered her the most, because like Charlene she had been dressed in extravagant frippery, white instead of Charlene’s black, little faux bat wings sprouting from her back, astride a thoroughbred horse and with a lance so huge and steady it could have easily skewered a wild boar.
It had skewered his friends. It made short work of all of them. And, as she had defeated him, kicked him to the ground, blindfolded and handcuffed him so he would be as helpless as a raccoon cub…
It occurred to him to think before he passed out from the pain; ‘Huh. She has blue skin. Never seen a milletian with blue skin before.’
††â€
“Damn it!†He had howled as he bashed his forehead against the iron bars of Tara prison. He’d lost count of how many times he’d been flung into the exact same cell that day. “Why are there so many? Why today?â€
“I don’t know,†a giant rookie bandit whined down the prison hallway in a cell Rinn couldn’t see, “but it’s not fair. There’s more of them than there are of us.â€
“I don’t get it.†Rinn hissed back in a puzzled tone, narrowing his dark orange eyes. “Usually the milletians just stay in Dunbarton, compare outfits and don’t bother travelling the commerce routes unless they’re one of the traders.â€
In the cell across from him a master goblin archer who had had his bow confiscated from him, yet still seemed old and grizzled and somewhat wise looked up at Rinn slowly, as though sizing him up for a task, or a meal. “I’ve heard once that the aerial phenomena we’ve seen in the sky can affect milletians in strange ways. It can make them erratic, energized; even bloodthirsty.â€
“Aerial phenomena? What’s that?†An imp squeaked beside Rinn, in the same cell with him. While Rinn could hold onto the bars like a proper person the imp could only reach the iron struts at the height of Rinn’s knees.
“The double rainbow, you idiot!†He snapped back, kicking the imp away from him.
The master goblin nodded knowingly. “I’ve heard of milletians getting the double rainbow fever into them and hunting hundreds of foes without sleep or rest, or entering into a madness that forces them to gather materials or forge weapons and tools until they literally drop from exhaustion. Perhaps this double rainbow extends that mania towards hunting and capturing us as well.â€
Rinnousuke sighed and ran a gloved hand through his short grey hair. He was running out of bank account and couldn’t afford to be caught again. If he did he’d wind up back in the slammer for good. He couldn’t have that; he was far too pretty for jail.
“I got to get out of here.†He said.