Give me Coffee or Give me Death

This is part of a very very old unfinished manuscript, dating back to college creative writing classes, lol. The writing is atrocious, so please forgive that. ;) Posted instead of your regularly scheduled story due to Thanksgiving holiday business. Enjoy! :)

I drift to wakefullness to the sound of the alarm clock. The beeping stops when I flail at the snooze button.

I roll back over, wrapped in blankets. Comfortable. Fuzzy with sleep. But as I drift back into slumber, that one tiny corner of my brain that is awake realizes that I have been hitting snooze for nearly an hour. I sit up, fumble my glasses from the night stand, and slide them on.

I am definitely not a morning person.

Before I have time to collapse back to the pillow, I push back the blankets, swing my legs out of the futon, and stand. The hardwood floor is cold under my bare feet, and my nightgown has ridden up and twisted all around while I slept. I guess it cannot cope with my gradually slowing metabolism and increasing hip circumfrence. I hike it mostly back where it is supposed to be and lurch to the bathroom. The mirror shows frizzy morning hair and dark sleep rings under my eyes. Nnngh. I'll shower later. First, coffee. Cigarette.

I set course through the bedroom door and pass into the kitchen, all white walls and unpainted cabinets. The counter is bare as usual, except for the coffee pot and rice cooker. Mismatched dirty dishes fill one side of the sink.

Motoko sits in meditation atop the kitchen table, legs pulled under her and hands folded in her lap. Across her knees lies her plain wakazashi, the unpolished wooden hilt lacking a hand guard, the blade sheathed in a likewise unpolished wooden scabbard lacking any adornment other than a dark blue silken ribbon wrapped and tied around the center. Her knee-length black hair cascades over her shoulders and meanders about her ankles on the tabletop. Despite the length of her hair, it never seems to get in her way, though I do not understand how. I keep mine bobbed to about the bottom of my ears.

Motoko, unlike myself, is a morning person. I always find that fact somewhat irritating until I have woken up enough to realize that I am being stupid.

I paw through the cupboard looking for a coffee filter, find one, then immediately drop it into the sink, fortunately into the side without dirty dishes. Too early for motor skills. I stare into the sink for a few moments watching the beads of water dripping from the faucet. They soak into the otherwise pristine filter before I have the presence of mind to pick it up. My response to this is, "Nnngh. Dammit." Ahh yes, my monosyllabic pre-caffeine vocabulary limitation.

This mild expletitive has apparently disturbed Motoko's meditation. She watches me for a moment with a vaguely amused look, which irritates me even though it should not. She sketches a mock bow and winks. "Gaki-sama!"

Humor. It is still too early for me to appreciate it.

"Bleh," I respond.

Motoko gracefully slides from the table. "Gomennasi, Rizu-san."

"Urngh?" I ask.

"I would have made the coffee, but lost track of the time," she says in Japanese. She holds out a hand. "The filter, please."

"Urnnngh." I hand the coffee filter to her and flop down on a chair at the table.

Motoko quickly sets a pot brewing. It is a strange thing; the coffee always seems better when she makes it. She takes the chair next to mine and pulls her legs beneath her.

She says, again in Japanese, "I hope you had better luck tracking the Oni than I. I was out most of the night, and found nothing."

I take out a cigarette, then put it away without lighting it and rub my eyes.

"S'partment," I slur in English. Our mode of conversation drives our friends crazy. Maybe that's why we don't have many. She speaks perfectly good English, but for some reason conversation seems easier for both of us when we just use our native languages. Probably something about understanding the complicated things from context while listening and not having to stop to think about unusual words while speaking.

She raises her brows. "Hmm?"

I rise and cross to the counter, pull out the coffee pot before it has finished brewing and pour three-quarters of a cup of that nasty, bitter half-brew, top it off with water to cool it, and toss it down. Wince.

Sometimes Motoko talks about the Buddha and enlightenment and other things that I don't really understand. But I think enlightenment must be very much like the first cup of coffee in the morning. I sit for a moment savoring the feeling of my powers of cognition finally warming up. I push away the thought that it must be the placebo effect, as there is no way caffeine could be absorbed into the bloodstream that fast, short of intravenously. I remember a friend of mine, a nurse, telling me jokingly that he could get me a caffeine drip from the hospital. Hmm...

I am getting sidetracked. I blink at Motoko, grasping at the thread of the conversation.

Then I say, "The Weird followed it to that scummy student apartment complex on the corner of Griffin and Second, but I lost it as soon as it went in."

Motoko rubs her thumb across the smooth wooden hilt of her sword, almost -- hungrily? She's scary like that sometimes.

I take out a cigarette and light it. Motoko arches an eyebrow. "That is not good for you."

"No doubt." I grind the cigarette out in the ashtray among several others which are hardly smoked and take out a fresh one. This one I don't light, though. I just hold it in the corner of my mouth, inhaling through it.

I make a half-smile. "We really should get real jobs."

"As you say, there is no doubt."

I pour another cup of coffee and lean against the counter, sipping it. After a few moments Motoko says, "You teach at nine?"

"Er, damn." I am running late again. "Just a sec."

I hurry back to the bedroom and dig my usual daytime clothing from the closet: turtleneck, knee length skirt, and boots. I don't like trying to coordinate. Practicality over style, since I'm not much of a looker anyway. I clomp back to the kitchen and pour the rest of the coffee into a travel mug. A fourty-ounce travel mug.

Motoko has put her wakazashi inside a cardboard tube, the kind that art students are always carrying around, and is pressing the plastic cap onto the end. I pull my duster from the peg next to the door and shrug my way into it. Motoko opens the door that leads out to the landing. I walk out, she follows and closes the door behind me.

I realize that I have forgotten my purse. "Um, I think I left my keys inside."

"I have mine," Motoko replies. "No worries."

I nod and hurry down the stairs and out to the car. Some people call my car a classic. I call it a cantankerous, rusted out piece of junk. I only drive it because I cannot afford anything better.

The car is unlocked. The lock on the passenger side is broken, so I don't bother locking it anymore. I slide behind the wheel and Motoko takes the passenger seat. She presses her key chain into my hand. She doesn't drive, but I gave her my spare keys last year since I am always misplacing mine.

I pump the throttle a couple of times and turn the key. The engine coughs and sputters, then settles into that lopsided thrum that it makes. We leave. The gears grind a little as I shift through the low speeds.

I drop Motoko off at the campus library and wait, watching her go in. She walks so gracefully, like a breeze or a ripple on a pond.

But damn, why am I sitting here being pseudo-poetical when I'm late? I put the car into gear and pull away, realizing at the same time that I forgot to shower. Double damn.

Then something small, furry, and brownish-orange streaks out of the bushes next to the library and across the road in front of me. I slam on the brakes, causing the coffee to spill all over the seat as the engine to stalls. What the hell? A cat? Too big. Dog? Maybe.

Oh well, whatever. I set the coffee aright, start up the car, drive to the engineering building, park, and head to my class. No doubt my students are anxious to get started.

Or not. One of them is leaning against the railing outside, smoking. I bum a cigarette from him, since I left mine at home. It is a non-filter. Yuck. I smoke it anyway, even though I am running a few minutes late. They can wait, since all I have planned for today is a midterm review.


At this point, O humble reader, I imagine you want some background information, right? There was something mentioned in that composition class I had to take as an undergrad... Something along the lines of, 'too much expositional material is a Bad Thing.' Eh, whatever. I will just give you a quick sketch of Motoko and I.

My name is Roslyn Condottiere, but I go by my middle name, Elizabeth. No, I'm not french, but my great-great-grandfather was. I'm twenty-nine years old, dark brown hair, brown eyes. Average height. Slightly overweight. I completed a master's degree in computer science last spring and landed a job lecturing at the same school. Lucky? It doesn't pay much, but I'll only be here until Motoko's student visa expires. In my spare time, I enjoy reading, playing the piano and flute, and getting sucked into one or another of those stupid online games every few months. I'd play them more, but Motoko tires of them quickly and they're just not as much fun without her.

Oh, and I've been hunting demons since age twelve.

I met my -- friend, Motoko Yamaguchi, a few years ago in a calculus class. We were undergrads at the time, and for some reason I had to take two semesters of a foreign language to graduate. I had decided on Japanese, as it seemed suitably esoteric at the time. After studying math with me for a little while, Motoko offered to tutor me in her language. We became very close. I ended up taking seven semesters of Japanese, just because.

She is currently working on a doctorate in mathematics. She is one year, two months, and eleven days older than I, is quite athletic, and looks typically Japanese except for her unusually tall height and ankle-length hair. I don't know much about her family, other than the fact that they have been running some kind of dojo in Japan since time out of mind.

Motoko also hunts demons, though she calls them Gaki or Oni. I still can't really tell the difference between the two. A demon is a demon, if you ask me.

It is easy for gaki (Or is that gakis? gakii? Japanese doesn't really have any concept of plurality) to feed unnoticed in a college town. There is so much booze and so many drugs going around that the prey, even if they remember being attacked and live through it, chalk it up to drunkenness or hallucination. And the university covers up the worst incidents. It is bad press. Can't have enrollment falling because of some weird rumors, no-sir-ee.

Well, that's enough exposition for now, right? On with the story.


Attendance in my class is very sparse today. Review days are like that. I jump into a review of function pointers since so much of the class botched that question on the last quiz. The students who are still awake after a few minutes wear a look of puzzled boredom. I give up and switch topics, telling them that it will be on the midterm, though I have no intention of really testing them on it. I remember having the same trouble as an undergrad. It's one of those things that you have to learn through experience rather than in a classroom.

Just as I am starting on another subject, the door opens and a late student pads in. I keep talking. We're not supposed to stop class to hassle latecomers. I guess I can see why. It is their money (or their parent's more likely) that they are wasting, so whatever. When I started teaching I thought I could make the material interesting for everyone, or at least tolerable. That was a rude awakening. Abe Lincoln was right.

Another thing I cannot do well is to remember all (or even a few, really) of my student's names, aside from the irritating ones who always try to contest their grades. But I know the latecomer's name: Sarah. She has never tried to contest anything though. In fact, she is very quiet. I have never spoken a word to her. A good student, who gets very good grades. She is, as far as I can recall, the only one who answered the aforementioned quiz question correctly.

But something bothers me about her. Maybe it's that she is too pretty. Very light brown hair, lovely curls, and a perfectly proportioned face and body. Maybe just a touch of eastern Asian descent, but nothing really noticeable unless you look closely. Preternaturally pretty. But no, that is not the bothersome thing. It is that she is always very frightened of something. Terrified. Oh, she hides it quite well, but I can [i]feel[/i] it on the surface of her mind as the Weird wanders the room as I lecture. There is something else there too, but I cannot really describe it. Just a darkish sort of feeling. Not the malice that a gaki would exude. More like an illusory sort of grayness around the edges.

I put some code up on the overhead projector and give the class a few minutes to puzzle out what it is supposed to do. While they are working I watch Sarah through the Weird. Grayness. Fuzzy edges. I send a tendril of the Weird into her grayness. It passes through as if it were nothing but vociferous ether that those 18th and 19th century "scientific" texts talk about. Very bizarre. I try to attach the Weird to the edges of the grey fuzz and pull it away. Probably a bad idea.

Yes, definitely a bad idea.

Sarah's head snaps up and she stares straight at me, eyes wide with now unconcealed terror. I snap the Weird away, but for a split second I see through it. I see yellow behind her eyes, slit pupils hidden behind her irises. Orange flame behind that.

I pretend to glance around, watching the rest of the class. She continues staring at me, her schoolwork forgotten.

I turn to work the problem out on the board. When I turn back she is gone, only her books and papers left behind. But the door is next to me. I didn't see her use it. And the emergency exit in the back would have sounded an alarm.

Dammit. I've never had to hunt one of my students before. It is going to be a really long week, I can feel it already.

Balances - Chapter 1

The crossbow bolt flew from somewhere in the underbrush near the tree line. Bryn subconsciously registered the faint whir of the bolt's flight and awoke on impulse, her open palm slapping the shaft away a split second before it would have lodged itself in her throat. With a loud thwack, it sunk instead into the saddle upon which her head was cradled. The bolt stood there vibrating, humming faintly.

Bryn rolled to the side as another bolt thumped into her bedroll. She snagged her sword belt from the saddle horn and buckled it on as she spun to her feet. Her good eye narrowed as she scanned the tree line, searching for the source of the barrage. The road stretched horizontally before her. A rail fence ran along the far edge of the road. Beyond that, across a narrow field, was a dense forest.

Damn it, she thought. She was tired of being hounded by Henson's men. Though she could not really blame him for sending them after her. She had quite thoroughly embarrassed him.

Her hand snapped upward of its own accord, grasping the shaft of another bolt as it sped towards her, stopping it just before the point plucked the patch over her right eye. She lowered her arm slowly, snapping the bolt's shaft in her hand.

"You'll have to do better than that," she called out sardonically as she cast away the splintered arrow. "Why don't you run along and tell Henson that he'll have to take care of me himself."

"I thought as much," replied a gravely baritone voice from the tree line. Bryn's lip curled as she recognized the man's voice. It continued, "It is refreshing to see that you haven't let yourself grow soft. It will make your death all that much more satisfying."

A dark shape detached itself from the shadow of a large oak. It resolved into the shape of a burly, dark haired, bearded man holding a crossbow. He ambled easily down the hill towards the fence, casting aside the crossbow and drawing a short, thick-bladed sword. Bryn slid the toe of her boot under her staff where it lay next to the campfire and kicked it aloft in response, plucking it from the air and spinning it around her head, bringing it to rest in the crook of her arm. She crossed the road, approaching the fence.

The man halted his advance when he approached within five paces of the other side of the fence. Bryn matched him. Her eyelid twitched.

"Articus Henson," she said. "I have to admit, I'm surprised that you came after me yourself. You got tired of your boys coming back with broken arms, did you?"

"On the contrary," Henson replied. "You provided me with abundant resources with which to show the rest of my men the price of failure. No, I have concluded that nothing will give me greater pleasure than to see the half-Norse, half-Nihonjin bitch who broke her contract and humiliated me before my own men die by my own hand."

"Walk away. I am no longer a part of your little band, and I have no interest in your affairs."

Henson's features twisted into a scowl. "Not a chance," he spat, and leapt toward the fence, spinning in midair. He easily covered the five paces to the fence and alighted upon a post, perched like a crane, empty hand extended before him shaped as a claw and sword raised beside his head, point forward. Bryn rolled forward and launched herself toward the fence, flipping once in midair and landing on the post opposite him, matching his stance, her staff extended behind her.

They perched motionless for a few moments as the wind rustled through the trees. Bryn tilted her head toward him, her eye casting daggers. "Make your move."

She felt the fence quiver underfoot as Henson charged along the fence rail toward her. She cartwheeled across the rail to meet him, parrying his descending sword with her steel-shod boot, while feinting at his throat with an open handed strike from her left hand. Her right hand shifted grip on her staff, and she drove the butt into his solar plexus. A puff of air escaped from his flaring nostrils, but the strike had no other visible effect, not even breaking his stride. He barreled into her and she clawed into his beard with her left hand, letting his momentum flip her over his back, sending her airborne into a lopsided flip that landed her on the post that he had originally occupied, facing him, her staff extended before her. Henson somersaulted along the top rail, coming to his feet on her previous perch, and spun towards her, his sword in a two-handed grip.

They shuffled along the rail towards each other, both delivering and parrying a series of short, bone-jarring blows, faces expressionless, each intent on the other. Neither presented any openings. Neither could penetrate the other's guard.

Finally, Henson made a wild swing at her head, catching Bryn by surprise. She bent backwards like a reed, easily avoiding the blow. But Henson stomped down on the rail at the same moment, splintering it. Bryn flipped backwards onto the post behind her as the rail collapsed. Henson launched himself into the air after her. She cartwheeled backwards along the rail, barely avoiding Henson's hobnailed heels crushing into the top of the post, splintering it and driving the it a full foot further into the ground. Bryn bounced to a halt, and advanced, whirling her staff about her body in a complex pattern, bludgeoning Henson about the face, arms, and chest as he struggled to regain his feet. He dropped to one knee on the splintered post under the assault.

But Henson wasn't beaten. As Bryn drew back her staff to deliver the finishing blow, he surged to his feet and caught the end in his hand as she propelled it towards his throat. His sword arced upwards, neatly halving her staff, and she cartwheeled back to the next post in retreat. As he cast away the piece of her staff, she hurled the remaining part at his head, but he easily knocked it away with his sword. He snarled at her as he twirled his sword in his hand, shifting back to a two-handed grip, and extended it before him, charging full tilt across the rail towards her.

Bryn dropped to her haunches, reaching back and grasping the rail behind her. With a guttural grunt, she ripped it free of the fence heaved it up and forward, putting all of her weight and strength behind it. It caught Henson in the teeth, snapping his head back and sending him flying back a full four rail lengths, trailing an arc of blood from his mouth, where he landed on a fence rail, bent backwards. Bryn planted the end of her improvised weapon in the ground and vaulted after him, landing feet-first on his stomach, driving him downward to the ground, breaking through both the top and bottom rails. As the wind was driven out of him, he spit a tooth and a thin stream of blood from his mouth. Bryn snatched the tooth from the air as they landed.

His eyes were wide with fear and his breath ragged as Bryn grasped his beard and hauled him to his feet, slamming him against a post. She held the tooth up in front of his face.

"You see this, you dirty bastard? I'll take you apart piece by piece if you keep hounding me."

Henson did not say a word -- probably because he was too busy hyperventilating.

She shook him once. "Hear this, you cur. I'm not going to kill you. I've had enough killing." He gulped, and she shook him again. "But if you ever, ever bother me again, I might not be so forgiving." She tightened her grip on him for a moment, then let him go, turning toward her camp across the road.

Henson's blood-stained face contorted in rage as she walked away. He lurched to his feet, producing a dagger from his boot, and careened towards her back.

Bryn's sabres came to her hands seemingly by their own accord, and she spun to meet him. The sabres scissored upwards, so slowly, it seemed to her, and Henson's hand -- still clutching the dagger -- flew lazily over her head, a line of blood splashing across her cheek. Then the sabres were buried in his chest, twisting, cutting through him.

#

It seemed like a dream to Henson as she cut off his hand. He did not feel any pain. Nor did he feel any pain when she buried her sabres in his chest. It just felt strange that he could not breathe. That and the dizziness. He stared into the face inches from his own, an expressionless face. A face that he felt he should recognize, although he could not. The patch over the right eye, the scar running beneath it from forehead to chin. The other eye, with an oriental cast despite it's green iris. The high, Norse cheekbones and pale, so pale skin, framed by such straight black hair. The face of death, he decided, unable to link it to a name.

Then the sabres twisted. The pain began.

Then there was nothing.

#

Bryn's thoughts took her back to Westphalia. She was nineteen. It was a time long before she had traveled to the Duchy of Weald and joined Henson's band. She was currently serving in the armies of a slavic warlord, Vladamir Dragos. She had risen quickly through the ranks, becoming his second in command.

Dragos had ordered her to take a raiding party to the nearby town of Biernan and burn it to the ground, hoping to put a dent in the flow of supplies to the opposing faction and make an example of the peasants who lived there. She had picked fifteen men, vicious men, and they had ridden hard since the small hours of morning. She prided herself on her ability to get maximum results, and was looking forward to the exercise.

The town's wooden gates fell easily, and they descended in a majestic whirlwind of chaos, torching buildings and howling like banshees. Their howls rang in heady dissonance with the screams of the town's pathetic militia as it was slaughtered.

Bryn dismounted in the square, breathing in the heat of the flames and the smell of the ashes and blood as she directed her men to nail the survivors to poles and raise them in the square. The men worked diligently and efficiently. She approved.

She wandered amongst the flaming buildings, basking in the heat, dispatching what few tried to oppose her.

Her meandering eventually brought her to a collapsed storehouse. A boy, no older than sixteen, stood in the doorway. A little girl, perhaps a sister, judging from their resemblance, cowered behind him amidst the rubble. Her leg was covered in blood, a clumsy bandage on the gristly wound.

Seeing Bryn, the boy stepped out into the street and knelt next to a body, prying a sword from it's fingers and clumsily raising it before him.

Bryn threw him a feral grin and winked. "You've seen what happens to those who dare to raise a blade against Dragos."

The boy charged at her, screaming, the sword raised above his head, tears streaming from his eyes. They met, and as the sword descended, Bryn's sabres scissored upwards, severing the boy's hand, and she spun, driving the blades deep into his chest, then twisting them apart. The boy fell, dying within moments.

Bryn looked down at the crumpled body and frowned. She saw the blood dripping from her blades. But she had been given no choice. Her orders were to kill anyone who raised a blade against Dragos or his troops. She had been given no choice. No choice...

She saw the wide-eyed stare of the little girl cowering in the rubble. Bryn blinked, turning away. Something broke inside of her heart.

That night, she slipped out of Dragos' camp. She wandered westward, crossing out of his sphere of influence. Crossing into Weald.

But her heart never healed.

And in her mind, the story repeated. It repeated until she finally came to her senses...

#

Bryn blinked and flared her nostrils. She smelled coagulated blood. Looking down, she realized that her swords were still buried in what was left of Henson. He was very dead, his body long cold. She planted a foot on his chest and slid the sabres free of the corpse.

Dazed, she wiped them on his tunic. She sheathed them and walked slowly back to her campsite. She kicked dirt over what was left of her campfire and saddled her horse.

She rode slowly down the road to the west. It would be evening soon, but, if memory served, there was a public house nearby where she could spend the night. She could probably reach it before dark. If the weather holds, she thought, glancing up at the gathering clouds.

Random Character Introduction

This is just a silly little (terribly unedited) character bio I wrote up for some freeform RP that never happened... Posted here just to have a first post while I gather my thoughts and outlines and prepare for the Real Deal. Enjoy.

"Thief! Aaron, bring a torch! Check the roofs!"

The cry rose behind Elise as she scrambled through the bracken at the forest's edge. She continued to run, heedless of the ruin to her clothing. It was several years out of high fashion, anyway.

Unable to see well in the gathering gloom, she skidded to a halt at the edge of a riverbank, windmilling her arms to keep from falling in. The small strongbox that she had been clutching under one arm fell to the ground with a heavy clinking sound. She exhaled slowly after regaining her balance.

She knelt, and after a few blows from a stone, the box's lock snapped. She emptied it onto the ground, silver and gold coins slithering under the moonlight. But she was heedless of the treasures. From the pile, she drew a furled scroll. As she thrust it into a pouch at her waist, the words 'Agreement of Dowry' could be seen briefly.

Digging beneath the brush at the edge of the river, she retrieved a bundle. Her precious flute, her brother's rapier, her poor departed mother's armor and sword.

And a change of clothes. Traveler's clothes. Commoner's clothes.

It was all where he had promised it would be. She would miss him, her brother.

She uncovered the bracken-shielded rowboat at the river's edge and climbed in. The oars were muffled with cloth, and made little sound in the night. She slipped away into the darkness.