18 Where I don't belong

"Oi, Kiihd, why'd you get put in here?" A sandpaper drawl asked from out of the darkness of one of the cells.

There were other prisoners besides me here. It… terrified me in a way that I could not consciously explain. I wasn't supposed to be here, and yet here I was…

"It's not polite to not answer back!" Another snapped with the voice of what I could only describe as a mentally delayed man-child.

"Lenovitz, itz not polite to snap at someone like that…" The sandpaper voice rasped as if he was Lenovitz' mother.

"Oh… s-sorry…" The man-child apologized like only a child could.

"I can't smell him yet. Does he smell like anything nice? Wait, wait, now I think I got his- Lenovitz, did you just fart?" A clearly mad female voice asked the man-child.

The man-child just started to sob in his cell.

"Mila! You made Lenny cry again!" the sandpaper scowled.

"Not my fault that the hulking brat is such a baby!-"

Suddenly the cell bars banged with immense force as the hulking mature child battered against it, roaring with slavering malice.

"I'LL RIP YER NECK APART YOU EVIL BITCH! PUNCH YA INTO PULP! CRACK YOUR BONES LIKE TWIGS!"

"Lenny, that's not very nice either…"

"S-Sorry… I really just don't like being told that I'm a baby. I'm a grown man I am!"

"All men could use some growing up from time to time… Now, kiihd, I feel like some introductions are in order, make it a bit less… hostile…" The sandpaper rasped before moving towards the front of the cell. He was a half-cat, a Kedian from the Bastean Sultanate past the Bospor strait.

Elevating his tone into a 'King of Thieves' nobility, he began extolling his . "I am Al'hadar Mai'yk, Savior of Uzpa, Slitter of Purses, Sword of the Slaves…"

"Al's going off again..." Mila rolled her eyes inside the dark of her cell.

"I have done more noble deeds in my life than you've brewed potions, witch. Just try and outmatch my achievements!"

"You stab blades inside fat cats, pilfer their coin and call it justice. The only thing I did was turn my ex into soup and now I'm stuck in here listening to your bullshit." The dishevelled woman moaned, her dirty white hair long enough to scrape against

"And also eat a couple of other people?"

"A cat like you ain't a vampire, you'd not know the difference between cutting hair and chopping limbs! But the taste… Oh just thinking about it is making my mouth water. I wonder what his sausage would taste like…" She eyed me with carnivorous lust.

"She means you as a sausage, not your... " Al waggled his finger down.

"I don't think that makes things better."

"Ooh ooh! My turn! My turn!" Lenovitz giddily chimed in his cell, "It all started when me Mom stabbed me Dad-"

It was then that the memories flushed back into him, leaving him bawling in pain from the hurtful memories.

"Pretty shitty family," Al whispered to me, "Grew up as an outsider, but he always loved rabbits. One day, this Rabbit girl believes she can help him. She tries her hardest but her resolve slowly drains away. She left him, and the big guy tracked her down and ripped one of her long ears out."

Woah…

"So… Kiihd, why did you get shut in here with us?"

"He ain't in a cell. Herzt is being weird again." Mila stated.

"I was… annoying Herzt…"

"Yeah, and?"

"What do you mean by 'and'?"

"Herzt is a warrior, a soldier, and that is all he cares about. A man like him is complicated and simple at the same time. So, what was the last thing you said to him?"

"I… I was practicing magic in the courtyard. I miscalculated and got thrust back all the way through the fog to where Herzt was walking. Turns out Shadow magic isn't particularly useful at killing people, and that pissed him off quite a bit, but then things moved on to… you aren't a vampire, right?"

"I am not. I hate being locked up in this frozen shithole that you vampires call 'home'."

"I am!" Mila chimed in.

I turned my attention to her instead.

"Herzt had… set me up with a girl. It was a reward for my first bit of action, near Herwitz. It was going to be my… first… I guess…"

"And this girl ended up being a total whore bitch?"

"No! Definitely not like that… She was mischievous I guess, and I… gave in… eventually."

"So what?"

Lenovitz had recovered from his bout of trauma, and proceeded to scold Mila for her brashness with a teacher's condescension "That's not a nice tone, Mila. You should support someone's first time no matter what!"

"You fucking men make such a big fucking deal out of someone's first fucking time that it makes me sick. I'll have you know that the only thing women want to be is railed against the side of the house until-"

"THAT'S NOT WHAT WOMEN WANT!"

"Yeah, and I'm a woman! We know shit you men would never, NEVER understand!"

"You turned your ex into soup," Al stated, "You do not, in fact, speak for all women."

"Honestly I was fine with her." I said, trying to get the conversation back on track from what would end up as a blame game, "It was more that Herzt had set her up for me."

There was a silence in the air.

"HAH! VIRGIN! YOU PATHETIC FUCKING VIRGIN!"

"Mila, say another word and I slide a dagger through your ribcage… But seriously, Kiihd, you're a complete fucking virgin for thinking like that. But that's the thing about being a virgin. Once you lose it you're not a virgin anymore. Besides, you did say you were fine with her. Your standards were simply so high that you would've just stayed as one regardless."

"So who should've taken my virginity? A goddess with breasts the size of a fucking moon?"

"How pretty would you say the girl was? On a scale of one to ten."

My eyebrow flicked upwards at this, "Being pretty shouldn't be the only metric of how much I'd want to-"

"Oh shut the fuck up virgin!" Mila interrupted, "You might be a virgin, but I'll admit that you're so paranoid that you'd definitely be able to sniff out some latent bitchcraft."

"Thanks…"

"Don't mention it!" That evil white-haired woman said as her smile stretched across her cheeks.

I sighed briefly, thinking of what number she'd be.

"I imagine a six."

"So what number is the woman of your dreams?"

"An… eight, I guess?"

"And what's the number of a woman you believe you deserve?"

"Th-three."

"The average then would be five and a half so you ended up getting a girl better than your average. Not bad I'd say."

"But that still doesn't take Hertz into account!"

"Would you betray Hertz? If there was a 100% chance that you'd be able to get away with it."

"Hell no! I… I don't think I could go that far."

"But you're not willing to run away?"

"I… made a promise to King Vladimir, that I would have new responsibilities once the war was over…"

"Sounds like that promise means a lot to you."

"Y-yeah… yeah it does."

"Sounds like you've had quite a good chat." Hertz mouthed through the bars with stoic malice.

A blizzard of fright chilled my body to its core as I spun around to see Hertz glaring down at me.

"Busted…" the Voice mocked with a curling grin.

"I hope that dealing with these free thinkers has managed to give you some kind of perspective on things, although I'd much prefer some caustic lime than salt for the words these freaks talk about."

"Ahhh…" Al's sandpaper voice racked, "So good of you to return. We have had a great talk with your little friend here and it does appear that his perspective is now… healthier than what it was."

"The world is a cruel place, Al'Hadar. It pays to have a cruel heart, something I imagine Amshy here learned a great deal about from you."

"One cannot learn cruelty from merely the cruel. To learn of love is to truly know how cruel cruelty truly is."

"Fucking poet." Hertz said as his eyes rolled in their sockets.

The key clacked the heavy iron latch open, and Hertz opened the door.

"Amshy, the situation has changed. We have one more job to do before winter locks us in."

"What about these-"

"Someone else will deal with them. If it has to be me, then I'll throw them into a freezing river. Now move, we don't have much time."