Venne Town

Waking up in a bed made for the larger species was always harder than my own bed. I’d been warmly curled up between two little hills in a long, cloudy field of blankets. I tended to lie flat with my wings folded tightly around myself, but when I first opened my eyes, my arms and legs were spread in four different directions. One of my wings was folded behind my back, and the other poked out sideways.

Moxi’s backpack was open beside her bed. There was a burnt-out candlestick on the graywood nightstand beside her, little teardrops of wax sticking to a small glass candleholder. A thick book slumped against her pillow beside her, one of the open pages fluttering as she snored. Fen had thrown her own blanket entirely off her bed while she slept, and now it sat helplessly in a little pile on the floor. There were little tears and bitemarks around the edges of her pillow. Two white feathers were stuck between Fen’s lips, and dozens more were scattered across the mattress. A second pillowcase was discarded under Fen’s belly.

The little windowsill was only an inch wide and made from jagged wood. It wasn’t created with the intention for anyone to ever sit on, and I had to be careful not to stick my hand with a splinter as I did. My legs dangled down over the room as I turned my back to look out the window down at Venne Town. The fog had mostly blown off, though there was still a thin mist blurring the tops of the thatched roofs. The houses were built of stone and brick along a single semicircular street, and I could see a great black and gray crack in the ground between the little alleys. It was so deep, a pooling darkness seemed to seep out of it. A creek trickled from the north end of town and through the tall grasses, and it must have gone all the way back west to the Gale River from here. I hadn’t thought we were going uphill last night, nor had I noticed us passing such a stream, but I also knew of no other body of water it could flow to. On a warm morning like this, there was the whole town along the curved street, and not a boot walking it.

The door to our room creaked open, and Hadrien slowly stepped through. His uniform wasn’t fully buttoned up, and some of the medals he’d had pinned to it last night weren’t there. In the morning light, I could see a lot more white in the fur around his chin, and his posture was slouched and decidedly unsoldierly. He lowered his head slightly, “I caution intrude, travelers.” He looked down over Fen, seeing she was still asleep, and carefully prodded at her side with one gentle claw until she stirred.

Fen squeaked a half-yawn, her eyes trudging themselves open. “It’s still night…” She rolled sideways, only stopping as she caught the bright glow of sunlight through the cracks in her eyelids. She yelped and screamed across the room, “Moxi! Moxi, it’s late, get up!”
She woke quicker, grabbing the book beside her and shoving it back into her bag before saying anything. Moxi held her fingertips over the cover of the book as she did, making sure her thumb covered as much of the title as it could. “Yes, I’m up!” She lifted the whole backpack up on the bed with her and carefully shuffled through it, counting every little thing inside before closing it.

“You said last night there was something you wanted us to see,” I glanced down out the window, “nobody walks the streets, and it is no later than ten in the morning.”

“They are almost all in the mine,” Hadrien looked out past me, “though if you look long enough, I’m sure you’ll see somebody coming from the quarry or headed back there. The Grandfather, they call the mine. They’re careful not to let us Toads in.”

“You have the outpost here,” I glanced back down at the darkness under the alleyways, “aren’t you the town’s security?”

“Our relationship with Venne is half-official. Here, follow me down to the road.”

The first thing Hadrien showed us in Venne was the line of flowers planted along the edges of the town hall. The large circular windows of the mayor’s home were placed over the lines of yellow roses and white tulips, staggered across ranks and files. The soil was darker than the earth around the rest of the town, and it must have been brought here from some other places. When I flew closer to it, smelling the sugary, slight flowers themselves and trying to see the soil closer, I noticed a pile of bloated white maggots writhing between the dirt.

The alleyways were lined with carefully laid cobblestones, and there were few real gaps between them. What imperfections there were could not have been enough to trip any human walking through. Fen tensed up as she heard the scratching of a mouse running between some of those tiny cracks. Its gray fur almost blended into the rocks, but I could never have mistaken its long tail.

The general store was the only building with an open door. Through it, I could see lines of neatly stocked shelves full of cracked gems and bruised trinkets. As neatly as the wares were lined up, the shelf space between them was covered in black dust. A lantern dimly flitted, barely alive near one of the back shelves. Its little flame nearly died with each tiny breath of the morning’s gentle breeze. The rope, utensils, and medicines were piled lazily against the back wall, just barely sitting within the weak orange glow.

The Grandfather mine was far brighter on its surface. Therein were the people of Venne, who’d been all absent from the streets. One was on a cliffside three dozen feet below the edge of the mine. This one was covered in stiff wrinkles, his hair had gone white, and his eyes refused to look perfectly in the same direction. A rusted metal cart’s wheels screeched against the slick, gray stone before him, and he did not look up to heed us at all. Instead, he looked disdainfully at the pile of little crystals within his cart. I counted sapphires and diamonds among them.

Below him, the path along the edge of the mine spiraled deeper and deeper until no light could escape, a little black abyss at the very bottom of the pit. A teenage dogfolk swung a cracked, iron pickax down over his head, chopping at the stone. The stone wall cracked, and behind it was the remarkable, violent glow of some gemstone. The dogfolk covered his face in his hands, then threw his pick furiously into the bottom of his own metal cart with a crash that echoed all the way back up the mine.

Fen mumbled, “He’s just struck it rich…”

“The mayor has decreed that any large jewel be given to him directly,” said Hadrien, “he doesn’t want the people of Venne searching for jewels. The mayor has something else in mind.”

Moxi pretended to clear her throat, “Then we shall treat with this mayor, and we will petition him to change how he handles gemstones.”

Hadrien glanced slowly to Fen, waiting to see if she would veto Moxi’s plan. Fen did no such thing, though I wasn’t quite so sure she’d gotten the message at all. She looked off toward the town hall and took a step toward it, “A-all right. Let’s go talk to the mayor!” She held her hand out awkwardly to Moxi, who slowly grabbed and shook it.