Felyn
Once upon a time she used to be a lady... she was pretty sure.
A true upper class madam who wore long ball gowns that glimmered in the spotlights; the kind of who used to play the violin to packed audiences in grand theatre halls where the seats were made from velvet and the air was thick with the scent of perfume and dust. She was the kind of girl who carried herself with a grace that would have people stopping in their tracks, turning their heads to look at her. At least, she was pretty sure she used to be like that - Running through the streets of downtown DC with a bunch of thugs chasing after her made it hard for her to recall such days. Whoever that girl was, she was a new breed of monster now.
Ofelia had been on her way to meet Dusty for a catch up. Once or twice a week she would go back to her old haunting grounds with coffee and some food - talk to the people who had not caught a break like she had, make sure they were doing okay. Dusty was a veteran with some pretty hardy health issues; the guy looked older than he was, stunk like a wet dog and talked like a sailor. Never-the-less when Ofelia was homeless he took her under his wing, showed her the safe places to sleep and told her who to stay away from. The two were close, to this day they were close.
When she came across three grown men kicking the crap out of her friend, she acted without even thinking. Grabbing the lid of a trashcan she hit the first guy round the back of the head with enough force to knock him out cold, a lucky hit. As he fell to the floor his friends stopped and watched on dumbfounded - she threw the hot paper coffee cups at them, sending hot liquid splashing on their skin and clothes. As they were screaming there was just enough time for her to drag Dusty to his feet and set them both running. "Move it old man!" She shoved him, looking over her shoulder to gage the distance between them and their pursuers.
The old timer was hurt - she knew she had to lure them away from him. "Forgive me." She shoved the man down an alleyway as they ran passed. The old man hit the floor with a thud and watched as their two attackers chased after the girl. Dusty could only watch them disappear, holding his ribs as silence came over the street. "Ofelia.." He mumbled to himself, pushing his back up against the alley wall to catch his breathe. Everyone's luck was bound to run out sometime.
Her heel caught in a drain, a loud cracking could be heard as she cursed and started to limp. She tried to skid over the hood of a parked car but could feel something catch her hair as she tried to land on the other side. They were closer than she thought as she force in which she was slammed against the hood was enough to set the alarm off. God damn it. She hissed, she had one guy holding onto her hair, the other grabbing her feet as she kicked.
Ofelia managed to catch his face with her boot to push him back, succumbing to desperation she did not care what cheap blows it took to get them off of her.. Her heart felt like it was going to beat out of her chest, but she did not scream, just gritted her teeth out of a mixture of fear and anger. She had been beaten up pretty badly on the streets before, left bleeding in alleyways - she thought all that had been put behind her. Not knowing if people had weapons, not knowing what their intentions were.
She felt a fist collide with her face, another cracking sound could be heard as the taste of blood soon filled her mouth. Not knowing if her nose was broken or the old injury had been reopened, she slid down the front of the car and hit the floor. Air left her lungs as she held her blooded face; as soon as she felt a hand touch her shoulder she pulled the arm down and bit it as hard as she could. She then pulled the guy down to the floor with her. God damn it if she was not going to maul one of these ******** before she was through! So she did just that, jumped on top of the guy and started to punch him in the face repeatedly like a feral animal.
That was when she felt something hit the back of her head, she was not sure what it was but it felt hard and cold. Her vision went white for a second and a buzzing sound rang in her ears as she hit the floor lame, her sight was shaking as where her arms as she tried to pull herself up. "******** you." Her words were like venom as she felt herself get dragged onto her feet. She hit the hood of the car once again, a hand around her neck. She grabbed hold of the guys wrist, the energy leaving her arms.
“Calm down Princess, if you wanted to take on the old timers debts so badly you should have just asked.” It was then that he dropped the metal bar to the floor.
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Unlike Ophelia, Kamboja had no assumptions that he had ever been anything other than a brute. A wild, angry brute who had never been very fond of a people picking on the underdog.
It was the sound of the car alarm that had drawn him at first, though as he got closer and closer to the scene of the action, his chest grew heavy. He could hear what was going on - at least two men, it seemed, and a girl spitting angry, wild curses at them. When he round the corner and let his dark eyes finally take in the scene - part of him was relieved. These were just normal assholes, picking on a normal girl, no otherworldly magic to contend with or morals to question.
The part of him that wasn’t relieved, however, was beginning to get really, really angry. He might not have been able to handle Gehenna’s life or the issue he had brought to tangle up in it, but Kamboja Vaiphei was still not going to let these punks kill some girl in cold blood. Not on his streets, not in his stomping ground.
“What the ******** is going on here?”
He had closed the space between him and the fight in a few easy strides of his long, strong legs. Though his muscle mass was a little wasted from his recent misfortunes, as he would call it, he was still a thick man with bulging arms and broad shoulders. There was a strength in him born not just of working out, but of really fighting, and the eerie gleam in his dark eyes was the look of a man that had already seen more death and blood than anyone his age should have ever been burdened with. He had already killed - and he felt no guilt for it.
One hand reached out and grabbed the man holding her by the back of the neck, dragging him off and using the inertia to send him tumbling toward a few tall, metallic garbage bins. The clutter of the impact was loud, but he turned to look back at the man’s partner instead, obviously unconcerned with letting his guard down.
“I’ll give you ten seconds to crawl back into whatever hole you ******** came from. Got it?”
Ofelia really doubted they would actually kill her, kick the crap out of her maybe, but these guys were only street thugs - not hardened criminals. That was not to say civilians did not kill but even bad civilians had more morals than your average agent of chaos. Besides, she would have powered up and killed them before it got that far. She was not opposed to using her magic for self defence, be her opponents powered or not.
Her head was still ringing when she heard a voice; so much so she could not really work out what was being said. Blurred vision tried to find its source, was that a bear? Half dazed and slipping in and out of consciousness she would have believed it. The figure did look very bear-like. All she knew for sure was that she slipped down the hood of the car and landed on her knees, her palms on the ground and supporting her body the best she could. They had dropped her, probably to focus on their animal problem.
Ofelia was pretty sure she has some kind of concision and was yet to discover that her nose was bleeding. Golden eyes raised once more to examine the creature more carefully - only then realising it was a man who was approaching, one of the biggest men she had ever seen. Oh s**t, she hoped that one was at least friendly. She smiled to herself, a jolt of pain rushing through her head and making her squint.
The clash of her trash cans brought her back to reality, the dreariness she felt turning off all at once like a light switch had just been flipped. It was a sobering moment. Her eyes darted to the side to see her attacker make impact with the metal cylinders, surprised that a 'normal' person was able to do that. Heck, she was sure she would have struggled to do that as Mjolnir! She remained still on her knees, eyes drifting to look at the floor, pretending she was invisible as the man spoke once more. This time she heard every syllable of what he was saying.
Smartly, the man who remained standing gave up, clearly having had enough and not possessing any kind of death wish. He picked up his friend from the side of the street before they both ran into the night. They would be back though, she knew they were not done with Dusty. The old man was hooked on drugs and without a penny to his name, every dealer this side of Destiny City probably had it in for him. She could not protect him against them all nor would he accept any other help from her.
Running the back of her hand under her nose the brunette wiped the blood from her lip, the back of her head throbbing and the sting in her ribs indicating she was already starting to bruise. She placed her hand on the hood of the car once more, letting it aid her in standing as the alarm continues to ring out into the darkness. Her legs were shaky but she knew from experience that she would be fine after the shock wore off. She was not used to being blindsided, but her body was hurting more than her pride right now.
"T-thank you." She bowed her head, her eyes avoiding his. She did not really know what to say, more so wanted to scoot away before he asked for something in return. Rule number one on the streets was never go alone, rule number two was that everybody was out for themselves. Nobody did anything unless they wanted something in return - it was how the world worked.
The brunette turned to walk away with a limb in her step. The heel was half hanging off of her boot.
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Well, that was the oddest thank you he had probably ever received. He watched her begin to walk away and told himself it didn’t matter - he didn’t need a thank you and if she wasn’t concerned enough to stop and talk to him, he wasn’t required to go to any greater lengths to make sure she was alright.
He didn’t have to.
A long, annoyed sigh escaped his mouth and he found himself walking forward to stand in her path regardless, putting a hand on her shoulder and trying to coax her to look at him without being threatening. He had known what it was like to live without a home and if her current condition was any indication, she was knee-deep in fighting territorial battles with other street urchins.
“You need some medical attention, you know. Living out here makes you higher risk for infections when you have so many open wounds.” There was a frown on his lips as his eyes skated from the bloodied lip to the bit of red matting in the hair at the side of her head. He himself had been lucky that whenever he was really at risk of dying, someone had always been there to cart him to the hospital after. He was paying it forward, kind of, since she had just stumbled across his path in need of help. It was a small step in the direction of being an honorable person, right?
“I’m not gonna make you come with me but I want you to know you’re at no risk from me. I have a brother out here somewhere that thinks he’s too good for my help,” it wasn’t the whole truth, but he looked away as if he still expected Khetal to show up with a laugh at any moment, “so let me try to help you, at least, so long as you don’t mind putting up with my shitty attempts at small talk.”
Golden eyes remained solumley on the ground as he moved to stand in front of her, stopping her in her tracks like they were magnets separated by an invisible field. Then her gaze snapped on his hand, her fingers twitching in response as her body tensed uncomfortably. She was unsure about this man, unsure about the situation and she remained untrusting despite all his attempts to plead his harmlessness. She had never been fond of people touching her without invitation, especially strangers. A hand was rarely gentle.
“These aren’t my streets any more stranger, I just pass through them every so often.” She had left this life behind but could not help returning every once in awhile. Maybe it was her self destructive nature, maybe it was survivor's guilt - maybe it was because amongst the nobodies she finally found herself.
Finally, the brunette looked upwards to get a good look at the man who had rode in like a knight in shining armour. He was an impressively large man with caramel skin and long hair, intimidating in stature but showing no hostility. She wrinkled her nose at his suggestion, she hated hospitals. “Doctors are pricey and ask too many questions; though if you are offering a first aid kit and a solid drink I can put up with small talk.” She would survive, she had been through worse, but was not dumb enough to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Afterall it was the kindness of a stranger who had got her off the streets in the first place.
“Are you sure you want to do that? I could be anyone, you know.” He had no idea what caused the confrontation he had just witnessed; she could have been a junkie, a thief, both. She tried to rationalise it in her own mind - Maybe the fact his brother was out here somewhere had resulted in some kind of hero complex, sparkled some need in him to aid people who were down on their luck, cast aside, forgotten. It was the kind of mentality people would take advantage of.
She squinted and held her head as another wave of pain sent a shock up her spine, her temples throbbing from impact.
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The dreadhead nodded along with her as she admitted what he knew to be true - doctors and hospitals weren’t really a good use of time. However, for him, it was because he healed too quickly and it raised too many eyebrows. In a town like this one, where he could trust no one to be who they said they were unless he saw it with his own eyes, it wasn’t good to raise eyebrows. He could appreciate not wanting to waste unnecessary money, too.
“I’ve stitched my own mistakes up plenty of times, you’re in good hands.” The hand on her shoulder left as she seemed to ease back her bite a little, leaving Kam content that she would at least hear him out. Both hands raised in front of him to draw emphasis to them. “As long as you don’t mind whiskey.”
He hadn’t touched the stuff since he’d returned from Mars - not because he had been specifically told not to but because it seemed like something connected with what he was meant to forget. Yet he still had all of his private stores, locked up in the liquor cabinet where they had always been kept so proudly. At least someone might get a good night out of it. She’d probably earned it, besides, with how much she seemed to be in pain - especially once that hand raise up and held her head tenderly.
“Look, you can’t be worse than people I already know, alright? So why don’t you just come back with me to my apartment and let me at least patch you up.” The hands he was holding out turned palm up, so that he could splay his fingers with the question. It was an attempt to look harmless, but in case that didn’t work: “You can hold my taser the whole time if it will make you feel better.”
The dark man jerked his head to their left.
“I live just up the hill here.”
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Ofelia could have protested that; she was the worst kind of person.
Though the brunette did not think that out of self loathing but honest admission, she had sinned and she planned to keep on sinning, she had hurt people and planned to keep hurting them. She was thunder, fire and hatred’ fueled by chaos with an unhealthy obsession for the light. Honey coloured eyes looked up at the man as he held his hands out towards her, the look on her face saying she was very skeptical of his words. He was strange and she could not decide if his kindness was a facade, she remained distrusting, for now. Everybody had an angle, everybody wore a mask.
“I don’t need it.” She told him with confidence. If it came down to it, injured or not, she would fight him. She did not really fancy her chances with his size but if it came down to it she would power up to preserve her life. She had lost her identity once, starting again as nothing did not scare her.
She shook her head out of instinct but her face said she regretted the decision instantly, her nose wrinkled and her jaw clenched as painful pulses echoed through her skull. She was very rapidly coming to terms with the fact that the incident could have ended very badly if it was not for the man in front of her. Internally she scolded herself; she was stupid for acting so rashly, for getting herself into such unnecessary danger.
She cursed under her breath; a few weeks ago she would have not reached out to help someone in need unless it was beneficial to her. Now her perspective had been changed and she wanted nothing more than to drop this heart she had suddenly gained.
She looked at the hill ahead of them and started walking without hesitation. “You must know some characters if that is the case. What lead you down the rabbit hole into trouble? Everyone who ends up cleaning up their own wounds and fighting on the streets was either chasing or running away from something - right?” From her experience anyway; be it abuse, addiction or fear. Everyone had a vice and a story to tell.
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Not that he ever would have admitted it, but a real relief swept through Kam as he watched the damaged woman before him turn and start heading in the direction he had indicated. She was proud, he could tell, it was written clearly in the way she acted without even bothering to answer him. He couldn’t fault it. He’d done a lot of foolish things for pride, too.
“The first time, I was running away. The second time I was chasing.”
It was as much of an answer as she was going to get in that regard. The incidents that had attributed to his downward spiral still plagued his life and, honestly, still had him fighting that pulling tide. He wasn’t even sure he would make it out alive at this point but he could at least hope to help a few other people on the way.
“Which, for you?”
As the lumbering man fell into step at her side, careful not to go too quickly given their difference in height and her overall condition, he reached into his pocket and plucked free a pack of smokes. One thick thumb and forefinger pulled a cigarette free and then, with a raised brow, held it out toward her while they walked. He wasn’t sure about her, but he always like a smoke after a good fight. Though, as he watched her, he became more concerned.
“Look, if you pass out I’m probably going to carry you. So don’t punch me when you wake up.”
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“I don’t even remember anymore.” She admitted with a shrug and a small smirk.
Ofelia was sure that she was stuck in a coma induced nightmare and the the last year of her life was nothing more than her brains way of punishing her. That current events were nothing more than a manifestation of her guilt, for her sins, for her shortcomings. Even now, whilst she was clawing herself out of a bleak situation she felt like she was floating, that whatever support structure she had found was just going to be taken from under her. It might have sounded pessimistic but it is what experience had taught her.
Everything good has a beginning, and everything good has an end.
The brunette looked over at the man's cigarettes and she shook her head - she really needed to stop doing that. With a sigh she stopped in her tracks and then looked at the man once more, she felt drowsy, like the few steps she had taken had exhausted her. Ofelia did not know why she laughed; was she really that defeated? “I am heavier than I look.” She joked, her eyes drifting back to his blurry frame.
Nausea suddenly overcame her and she felt like she was going to vomit violently, one foot in front of another, her knees shaking as she stumbled in an attempt to keep her balance. When vertigo made her lose her footing all she could do was reach out to grab his arm to break her fall. She grabbed at him aimlessly and then there was nothing but black.
They had got her good this time.
