Callisto

The Wicked (pt. 1)

"Did the stars shine like this before The Deadlands came to be?"

Jespar looked up from the well-roasted tunnel rat that he had been snacking on by their small campfire.

"Some nights," he replied, taking a nonchalant look at the expanse of light that painted the black depths of the sky. "Though we didn't look at them much."

Rain-Born had been preoccupied with the star-filled sky since they had set outside and constructed their bonfire next to the withered old statue that dominated the suburb"s center. She knew that, soon, the skies would be shadowed by the uniform grey bark of the Iron Forest's trees and be lost to her. So, she was taking the opportunity to gaze at the stars while she could, and Jespar, quite surprised by the notion, had obliged.

But she frowned as she realized their newest companion was not here to share this simple joy. So, after they had finished their meal for the night, Rain-Born asked Jespar if he knew where he was.

"Oh, you mean Mr life-and-soul of the party?" Jespar scoffed.

"Jespar," she cautioned. "He has endured much. His wife was taken by the Chainmen, too."

"That I didn't know," he said, biting into some leftover yet stubborn tunnel-rat ear and stripping the tough flesh from bone. "He hasn't said a word to me. Won't talk to a spirit. A "thing not of this earth," whatever the hell that means."

"Do you know where he is?"

"Yeah," Jespar replied. "He goes to see them."

Rain-Born cocked her eyebrow. "Them?"

He nodded towards the house where the horrors of The Chainmen had been brought to an end.

"I don't know what he does there," Jespar continued. "But he goes to see them every day for an hour or so. Far be it from me to intrude on his Tribal business."

She smirked. "That has never stopped you from questioning my beliefs."

He smirked back. "You're different. You're young. There's still hope for you."

She rolled her eyes and rose, throwing him some extra meat that he caught effortlessly in his mouth and began to tear into with abandon.

"I will talk with him," she said. "One "Tribal" to another."

She left him eating by the fireside, wondering what she planned to say or do. Typically planning an attack before a raid or border skirmish with the Guthra was a task she was well-equipped for. Still, she found it increasingly difficult to reconcile her training with the reality spread out before her, compounded by Jespar's strange speech and the knowledge he had of this place out of time and the minds of the people who walked the wastes.

As she walked, however, something snapped her out of her reverie for a moment. Jespar had begun singing by the fireside:

"Oh, there ain't no rest for The Wicked!

Money don't grow on trees.

We got bills to pay

We got mouths to feed

There ain't nothin' in this world for freeeee!"

It was a tune she hadn't heard him sing before, and as he belched its almost nervous, anarchic melody out into the starry night, she felt somewhat comforted. His voice was like that of Song-Born, who sang not with her words but with her soul. When she sang, it was said that it flew to the skies and bathed among the stars themselves.

She missed that voice and wondered if her sister was singing on this night, back across the Changeling's Tunnel and the Swamp-of-Many-Eyes. She consoled herself with the thought that, if she tried hard enough, she might hear Song-Born"s voice again and sleep soundly under the sea of stars once more.