Sewage, Priests and A Pouch

Alcmene found herself ducking under stalls of wood and slabs, sliding between the people of the market as her feet carried her away from the screaming behind.

A shopkeeper, brandishing the first thing they'd picked up when the child had snagged the pouch on their counter, sprinted past in pursuit as fast as a grown person could. The first thing they had found, however, was a small pair of sugar tongs, and really, it simply made them look rather silly.

They're quite fast for such a big person, Alcmene thought, Too bad they weren't watching their pouch.

Alcmene lost them around a corner. Not through any deliberate act, but through an act of god blessing their robbery in as much a comedic fashion as a god could.

The shopkeeper yelled as they skidded into view, knocking over barrels being rolled up from the docks by the local workers. Their feet got swept up as Alcmene tripped to a stop. She watched them flail, and yell, and attempt to crawl out as the workers began to intervene.

She decided to leave before the shopkeeper could escape his slimy fish prison, ducking into a sewer grate under an old worn down building.

The grate lead down into a passageway no bigger than four feet, and stank of excrement and vomit. Alcmene ducked her head under the tiling of the passage, gagging as a splodge of something warm and cold and wet and yet weirdly dry smacked into the back of her neck and slithered down under her shirt onto her back.

She kept her hand close to her chest, the pouch wrapped in her stubby, dirt-riddled fingers. Alcmene wasn't sure what was in it- but the shopkeep had been secretive of it all day, which meant it had to be sellable to enough of an extent to get some good food.

Her eyes adjusted to the darkness around her. Light only filtered in from the slats and bars leading to the streets above. She could listen in to the chatter, and the further she walked, the more she adjusted to the smell until it stopped being anything more than vaguely baked slop. Alcmene found herself glad that she didn't have shoes on. If only because it meant that, despite the sewage getting between her toes, she wouldn't have to walk in it all day.

Her hands traced the sides of the thin passage below the streets, old cracks bumping up beneath her fingertips; scrapes from rats and minor beasts drew her eyeline as she walked.

The tunnel dipped down once it got to a hill. While it was steep, the main grievances Alcmene had with going down was the fact that the water running through the street runoff was flowing rapidly down, and would soak her to the bone even more than it already was.

But she couldn't risk climbing out the sewers now- not with the possibility of still being in the town centre. The shopkeeper would find her, and she'd starve again.

So, instead, she held her breath, took a step forward, and slid down the steep sewage tunnel with a slight stumble.

Once she reached the base of the hill, she was shot out into a large, filthy casm of grease and muck. Alcmene landed on her stomach with a dull 'thud'. The pouch slipped from her grasp and slid across to a corner, bumping with a trill metal jingle against the brick of the wall.

Sitting up and spluttering, the girl hawked up something she'd managed to take in upon landing, scraping her tongue with her hands in a futile attempt at getting the taste out only to shudder another cough out when the grime on her fingers made contact.

It took her a long while to gather herself. That was a wretched decision. Alcmene made the impromptu choice to never do anything like that again.

Her scabbed hands padded around blindly for the pouch, feeling it and hearing the clatter of metals inside as she pulled it back to her chest in relief.

For a moment, she was glad. She hadn't lost it, she still had something to sell. Still had something to sink her teeth into.

Between the cracks and splits in the stone above her head, she realised she was under the outside of the churchyard to the outer edge of town. Finding her way up from this low would be damn near impossible. So Alcmene did all she knew to do.

She wandered the dark, until she found a source of light two times her height. It had cut-off slats of wood either side, and the piping was thin- but well, as was she. She placed the strings holding together the pouch between her teeth, pulled herself up onto the small shit-ringed ledge just below the hole, and forced herself up through it.

It was only once inside that the child got a good look at her surroundings.

White on white, walls painted in large mosaic patterns of people giving food to dogs on the streets. The ceiling felt tall, too. Much too tall for a bathroom. Each stall door was separated by a thick, dark wooden door, perfectly polished and fixed on clean hinges.

She stepped across one of the tiles to the sink, only to see she was tracking literal manure along behind her. Spitting the pouch onto the counter by the sink, the girl hoisted up all she could after it, which happened to be half her body before her leg swung hopelessly down over the side.

Alcmene had to wriggle around a little to force her left leg up with her, clutching the edge where counter met the sink to pull herself up. Though her hands were damp with mud and random bodily excretions, she managed.

Feeling the warmth of the water on her hands was a reprieve she hadn't been expecting it to be. The tap ran hot for a long while, with Alcmene simply sat on the counter, aggressively scrubbing all she could of herself without making too much noise or turning away from the door.

Someone was bound to come in at one point or another, bound to find her, bound to throw her out. The place felt rich, with a prestige she'd only heard people brag of knowing in passing on the market streets.

She washed the pouch too- because a seller wouldn't like dirty valuables. No seller really sold much to her anyway. But she wouldn't look inside the pouch. No, she'd only make the goods worth less if she touched them, or found them pretty and got attached.

She ran the water cold after a moment, cupping her hands under the flow and bringing it to her mouth to drink.

Alcmene hadn't had clean water in ages- all the people gave her at the docks smelt bad, made her dizzy, and made her stomach hurt.

The deep brown haired child was yanked from her thoughts when the bathroom door swung open.

It banged against the wall harshly, an earsplitting 'THWAM' that startled her almost entirely off the counter.

Where to hide? Where can I hide?

Her mind staggered to find a part of the room she couldn't be seen from, but the man's eyes were already on her, and she shrank back.

He's mad she's in here, right? He's going to take her pouch and throw her away.

Alcmene guarded the valuables in her arms, shuffling back until her back hit the wall, and then slid back more. She squeezed her eyes shut tight- enough to give her a pressure headache.

But nothing happened. No sound. No yelling. No one grabbed her arms and scuffed her around like a rabid animal.

So when she opened her eyes, peeking through her lashes, she saw him just standing there.

The man was staring at her. He was dressed like the kind of man she would polish the shoes of. A robe of deep silk reds and blacks, threaded in gold and blue embroidery, with loose-fitted pants underneath.

And he stared. He stared too long, frozen, the face of a child staring back.

He didn't look mean, at least.

Alcmene moved to slide off the counter, tugging herself into a small heep on the ground and scurrying over to the toilet bowl to climb back into the drainage systems. But before she could, a firm hand pulled her back.

The girl yelped automatically, forcing her hand away and accidentally dropping the pouch.

The man kept his grip tight but not hurting, closing the stall and standing between it and her so she couldn't push past him.

His voice was soft, and low. Her crying overwhelmed it too much for her to know what he was saying, until he handed the pouch back to her.

She paused. Moreso in confusion than anything else. And he spoke again.

Alcmene assumed he was repeating himself, but she couldn't be sure.

"Are you alright, young miss? No need to be scared, I won't hurt you," he said.

"Do you need food, a bath?" he said.

"The brothers and sisters will be happy to help you if you need it," he said.

Alcmene tried to pull away again- from the man as he sat down on the toilet floor. She tried and tried, but he didn't let go, and he didn't make her respond until she'd tired herself out.

It was weird, Alcmene thought, that he wasn't yelling yet.

He looked concerned. Alcmene didn't appreciate concerning people.

With the pouch now tightly in her grip, she stopped screaming to look at him. Her bottom lip folded out without her really thinking about it, and the man gave her a soft smile.

"What's your name, kid?" he said.

He spoke just as softly as he had before. The girl pulled her arm back to herself the moment his grip loosened. It took her a second to find her voice- aside from all the waiting, it had been a long while since she'd said real words to someone.

Her mouth moved around them as if the language was unfamiliar to her. And to an extent, it was. Her mother had never spoken the language of this country- not that Alcmene could remember.

"Alcmene. Mama named me Alcmene", she faltered.

The tall man nodded, before he stood up and bowed like Alcmene had always seen adults do to people they respected. She vaguely remembered her father had done that to her mother when they first met. That was before she had been born, though, so she chose not to mention it to them, and nor to this man.

He kept himself light and airy in his words, simple to understand and difficult to misconstrue. It felt plausible that he'd met many children of Alcmene's approximate age.

"My name," he began, "is Arion." Once he stood straight he inquired of her, keeping his eyes gentle. Somehow, though, she felt judged. Perhaps not harshly, but she recognised with ease what that look meant. That spark. The tilt of his head.

She swallowed the lump in her throat and found it stuck. A step back. Her eyes fell to her feet.

"Arion," she repeated.

"Arion. Mister Arion," she repeated, again.

"Father," he corrected. The man then let out a soft noise she'd come to know as a sigh of thought. His foot forced open the bathroom door, and he poked his head out, calling a passing person to his attention.

Their conversation was fast. Alcmene tried to listen to it, but found herself lost at what exactly was being said.

The pouch dripped in her fingers. The water making soft 'pat's on the floor tiles.

Father, she thought.

Father Arion, she thought again. She thought it a third time. And a forth, and fifth, and sixth, then she lost count. Was he a dad? Did he have kids? 

She liked dads. Dads were the ones who left out a tray of food for her in an evening. The ones who dropped coins at her feet on the streets, or smiled and bought her the food she was eyeing at market stalls.

Father Arion turned back to her a moment later, and gently crouched to place a hand on the small of her back and push her towards the person on the other side of the door.

The person had long hair, and Alcmene wondered why hers wasn't like that.

She tried to back away, still half-convinced she could run back to the sewers and hide down there until they left, but instead her right hand was taken with somewhat more force then Father Arion had used, and pulled from the white tiled room into a rather damp but clean looking hallway.

The child found herself looking back at the door, but Father Ation made a face of slight panic and slammed it shut behind him. Alcmene didn't know what he was panicking about, but she hoped it wasn't about her.

At least these people were being nice enough to show her the way out without yelling. Her dark eyes trailed up to the person holding her hand. She couldn't think as to what gender they were. They were too pretty to be a boy, but they didn't look anything like mama, nor the other women that Alcmene saw out on the main street roads. They were speaking, too.

This time she really couldn't understand half the words they were saying, but it wasn't so much the content of it than the fact that they had a lilt to their voice that became incredibly distracting.

And that the fabric of their robes was trailing onto Alcmene's fingers. It was soft, like Alcmene's hair used to be, and like this person's hair looked now. They had a calming effect about them.

Upon hearing a rise in voices, Alcmene looked forward to where they were walking to instead, only to be hit by the smell of freshly baked foods.

Vibrancy hit right after. A swirl of bread and cakes, jams and tarts, the smell of citrus and thyme filled her nose and made her stomach rumble. She didn't know how many years it had been since she'd been in a bakery.

She remembered when she was older that she used to love tarts. She decided not to tell the pretty genderless stranger that. Instead, she pulled their hand in hers to get their attention, then pointed with the hand she was holding the pouch in at the tarts on the tray.

The tall stranger followed her gesture before chuckling gracefully and walking over. They took a tart, and crouched down infront of Alcmene before holding it to her.

"This? You like tarts, Alcmene?" they asked.

Alcmene liked their voice. Even if the lilt made them hard to understand.

The lilt almost felt splitting. Alcmene couldn't tell if it was male or female- it had a breathiness behind it she couldn't place, yet at no point did it sound as if the person was out of breath or whispering.

The child nodded her head, reaching out passively to take it. Offered food was good food, most of the time. And Alcmene had missed having tarts. She'd missed a lot of things this time around.

The person watched her take a bite, before they moved them off to the side to be out the way. Alcmene took in the room now that her focus wasn't on the food stands, and found large marble pillars in each corner. Wrapping every pillar was a long, thin black stone carved into the shapes of spines and skulls. The ceiling flowed into a swirl at its centre, curling in on itself in maroons and greys and whites and blacks. Forced into the very centre of the room, surrounded by crowded tables of others in robes and children bathed in black and white pantaloons and vests, was a statue. 

Axe raised high above its head in triumph. A firm look on its face and carved vestiges of thread and hair and eye immaculately rendered upon its skin and clothes with such detail that, if coloured, Alcmene would think of them as a living giant. They had an armoured plate along their shoulder, chainmail flowing down in ribbons as water over a waterfall, its hair long and up on a braid that Alcmene had only ever seen the guards at the gates wear.

She recognised that face. Even though she didn't know where exactly from, she'd seen them before. She remembered a kind, warm voice, not dissimilar to Father Arion's. Except the voice she remembered to go with this face was one she could only hear right if she didn't focus on it.

A hand wiping off her chin dragged her thoughts back to the genderless person before her. They smiled, and introduced themselves as they used a cold, wet napkin to take the jam off the child's face.

They said, "My name is Paster Tyche. Are you aware that you have entered a monastery?"

Alcmene almost nodded on instinct, before she thought for a second.

"What's a monastery?"

Paster Tyche's shoulders shook as they pocketed the napkin and stood up, gesturing to the statue standing proud at the room's centre. Alcmene looked back at it, and could have sworn she saw the stone and marble of the hair twisting around like it was blowing in the wind. But she blinked, and it wasn't any different then the first time she had seen it. Maybe she was imagining it.

The priest grinned as they exclaimed- quiet but with their whole being behind it, "This is the newly founded Temple of Trelancisk! Wherein we teach of our God's creations, and take in all. Old and young."

"I'm old and young," Alcmene said instinctively. She clammed up after that, but let her breathe out when Paster Tyche simply laughed and nodded.

"As you are, child. All souls are God's first creations, and they have been around much longer than our forms."

Alcmene made the choice against correcting them.

Food in the monastery was better than anything Alcmene had had in yonks. The pastries were light and fluffed. The tarts were perfectly sweet, the bread and stew so amazingly salted and meaty that Alcmene couldn't help but overfill on all of it. Father Arion came back to give her clothes with graciousness, and for once, the cloth hanging from her shoulders covered her feet, and her hands, and she couldn't feel any rocks forcing their way into the bottoms of her soles.

She'd kept a tight hold of the pouch, though. She planned on keeping it- regardless of what was in there, it felt a comforting weight in her hand to know she had something small to fall back on.

As of yet, no priests or other children had asked about it. Perhaps they had guessed it was something from a parent, or a sibling, or a friend. Perhaps they simply allowed for the poor sewer-crawling girl to keep the one real possession she'd had when she crawled out of their toilets and washed herself in their sinks. She was glad when Father Arion said she could stay, told her that he'd spoken to the founders and gotten their approval to keep her there, and keep her safe.