Ronninflea: Chapter I

An Eternal Guardians Continued Story by Mire, Guilbeau, Angelle, & Boudreaux                    


               I.

If there was one thing Ronninflea wished not to be, it was an elf.  Though he could name a few good reasons for despising this heritage--the poor socio-economic status being one good one--what Ronninflea rued most about elves was their height.  Very, very tall, they dwarfed the other races, though they completely lacked the muscle to back up any rights they would have been able to glean in this might-makes-right world.  And Ronninflea, unfortunately, was a textbook example of this fault of the elves, being among the tallest anyone in the region had seen, and lacking what anyone, anywhere, would call a healthy figure.  In fact, the only pleasant thing that Ronninflea could say about being elven was his excellent hearing.  It allowed him to know when danger was about long before he would have known otherwise.  However, even this advantage was rather lost, for his six foot seven inch frame made hiding from danger a very difficult task.  And hiding--preferably in small places--was imperative to Ronninflea's survival.  How else was he to avoid...
  
"Flea!"

Ronninflea cringed as his elder brother's voice cut through the dense atmosphere, irritation pulsing through the short, one-syllable nickname.  

"Coming!" Ronninflea cried, emerging from his corner, swerving as a waitress carrying an over-piled tray of glasses passed within an inch of his nose.  "Sorry," he said without stopping, rushing to meet his brother on the other side of the room, behind the bar.  Mikelvic looked angrier than Moose's old, fat cat when someone pulled its tail, aggravated at having to drag his younger brother from the corner, again, when said brother should have already been doing what Mikelvic was about to tell him to do.

"Have you dusted the barrels yet?" Mikelvic asked, rhetorically.  He knew the job assigned to Ronninflea nearly an hour ago had not yet been started.  Ronninflea tried to cower, but that proved ineffective since even in this state his brother was still shorter than he.  

"But, the cat..." Ronninflea faltered, knowing that his brother would never understand how truly terrifying it was to have an evil cat stare you down.

"The cat!  You are insane!  I have more than half a mind to lock you in the broom cupboard with that cat..." Mikelvic began in a whisper that slowly began to rise to a shout.  

"Alright, okay.  I'm going," Ronninflea said quickly, just trying to avoid the scene that Mik presented the bar's customers nearly every day.  His words were quicker than he was, however, and Mikelvic felt the need to push him toward the cellar door.  Ronninflea stumbled toward it, anxiety slowing his steps.  He hated dusting the barrels of mead, but Madame Rock kept a tight ship, insisting that it must be done.  Oreollivan often did it for him, but right now she was nowhere in sight, and hadn't been all afternoon.  Ronninflea steeled himself and opened the cellar door.  He took a deep breath.  There were lights down there; it wasn't like he was going into complete darkness.  He could do it. After a minute more of this sort of pep-talk, he made it to the base of the stairs.  Unfortunately, right there waiting for him, was the demonic cat.

It was truly a repulsive animal, by anyone's standards.  It was mottled black and orange, not in patches, but in sprinkles--as though it had gotten in the way of two fighting painters and the droplets had permanently discolored its fur.  Its eyes were green, large and lantern-like; they glowed in the dim cellar.  Ronninflea had tried, once, to refrain from judging the cat's character by its looks, but its personality was so glaringly evident in its shorn tail and deformed ear (remnants both of an epic battle with some powerful adversary) that it was simply no use.  The cat was a monster, surely.  And as if that weren't bad enough, it had the most eerie way of constantly watching Ronninflea and following him around as though it was just waiting for Flea to grow big enough to pop into a stew.

The young elf stood there for a moment, staring back into the green eyes, trying to convince himself that he could so this.  That is, until the cat winked at him. Ronninflea bolted back up the stairs, taking them two at a time.  Thanks to his incredible sense of timing, he arrived at the top just as Oreollivan passed with a large tray filled with ice-water (a rare commodity much demanded by those who partook a bit too liberally in the mead).  Ronninflea flew headlong into his older sister and the tray crashed to the ground.  Water pooled and broken glass and ice skittered across the polished wooden floor.  

Ronninflea's eyes widened in terror as he realized what this meant: in a word, Madame Rock's wrath.  Oreollivan looked torn between feeling sorry for her brother, annoyed that her clothes were now soaked in cold water, and frightened.  She hurriedly retreated through the side door to the ice house, making a quick twirling motion as if to say, "Flea, clean this up!"  Angry voices began to filter through the smoky air to Ronninflea's ears.

"Where is it?" one deep voice called.

"We're dying of thirst here!"

"Sorry!  Sorry!" Ronninflea yelled back, hastily picking up the cups and trays.  It was inevitable that the shouting draw Madame Rock, and he was not surprised--though his stomach sunk to his toes--when the toes of a shiny pair of black leather shoes appeared under his nose.  

"What is going on here?" she bellowed in her ever-overly-loud voice.  One of the customers, who had nothing at stake in the accident but who was close enough to have witnessed the entire event, saw fit to answer the bar owner's question.

"That tall, gangly fellow over dere done run up dem steps and knocked over all our whiskey!" he cried with a surprising amount of energy for someone who could barely manage to sit up on his own.  

Madame Rock gave Ronninflea a stare menacing enough to scare the demon cat.  Ronninflea stammered a few phrases in his defense, but Madame Rock wasn't listening.  "Ronninflea," she said in thunderous tones, "go home."

The dismissal had something final about it; Madame Rock's words held more implications than they seemed to, and everyone within ear-shot knew it.  The customers who weren't completely senseless began to laugh, and Ronninflea rushed out the door, with the memory of his brother's angry face and his sister's shocked expression branded upon his mind.  


**********


Oreollivan looked toward Madame Rock with a pleading expression upon her sweet face.  The bar woman gazed at her with a certain amount of pity, but shook her head slowly.  Oreollivan's heart sank.  Was this really Ronninflea's last chance?  Had it just been blown?  If so, it was a long time coming.  But, still, it just couldn't be!  She had to be more understanding than that!  Oreollivan continued to stare at Madame Rock, who gazed back at her young elven friend, looking very perplexed.  Not a word was exchanged, but Madame Rock finally made a shooing motion with her hands: Oreollivan could go talk to Ronninflea.  The elf handed the newly refilled glasses to another service girl and went out the door after her little brother, Mikelvic hard on her heels.

Oreollivan rushed into the busy, dusty street and glanced up and down its length.  Had it been herself in Ronninflea's situation, she would have gone to a secluded spot and hidden away from everyone until she was able to calm down.  She was not Ronninflea, however; he would have gone straight home, seeking solace in the unshakable affection of their baby brothers and sisters.  Knowing this, she shot off down the main road leading out of town toward their house, and didn't stop until she saw Ronninflea's figure far ahead, about to disappear beyond a bend.

"Flea!" she cried, her voice clear despite being out of breath.

Ronninflea stopped and turned.  From this distance he seemed small, and the innocent, hurt expression upon his face and the way he hunched his shoulders forward in misery exacerbated the impression.  She slowed, and quickly realized that it was a mistake.  Mikelvic raced past her toward their little brother, already yelling at him.  His angry incoherent shouts could probably be heard for miles, but by the time she neared, Mikelvic was in such a rage that his face was nearly purple.  His words--too many to be either contained or released--bubbled up inside of him to the point that even his features seemed to swell with them.  Ronninflea looked anxiously to Oreollivan as she came up behind Mikelvic, his green eyes asking her violet ones for help.  She sighed and placed a slender hand on Mikelvic's shoulder.

"Brother, I think I hear Madame Rock calling for you to return to the bar."

The excuse was absurd; even with their excellent hearing, there was no way Madame Rock could be calling them at that distance.  Mikelvic glared, but Oreollivan gazed calmly back, making a small gesture toward Ronninflea as if to say, "Let me handle this."  After a moment, he allowed her to win the stare down, and stalked off muttering under his breath.  His sister always "handled" Flea, for all the good it did.

Oreollivan watched him go.  She couldn't really blame him for being angry.  He wasn't a naturally patient person, and Ronninflea did not help to cultivate such a virtue.  Oreollivan was trying not to become angry herself.  She had worked so hard, so many times, to find a job that worked for Ronninflea.  When she finally realized that he was incapable of fulfilling any responsibility without assistance, she made certain to find employment where they could work together and she could keep an eye on him.  Oh, they had been rejected from so many places!  From craft makers' shops to house cleaning services, everyone, everywhere, had eventually seen fit to throw Ronninflea out.  The bar had been the last option, the only place which opened its doors to them, partly because it did not require much skill on the part of its employees, and partly because Madame Rock was the most compassionate--if brutally honest and unyielding--human Oreollivan had ever met in her eighty years of life.  She had kept Ronninflea and paid him, despite the hours he wasted sitting in the corner or running outside to avoid everything that made a sound.  And now Ronninflea had ruined that, too.  Oreollivan thought of all the work she did and time she spent over the long years caring for her baby brother; yet nothing had helped him.  His abnormal phobias had only worsened and he was able to function less and less in society.  He had caused her--the whole family, really, for everything depending on everyone bringing home as much income as they could--so much trouble.  It was enough to make the best of people curse and swear, and Mikelvic was far from the best of people.  No, she couldn't blame him for being angry, not really.  

Ronninflea relaxed as Mikelvic walked away.

"Flea, what happened?" Oreollivan asked wearily.

Ronninflea did his best to explain what happened, and why.  As always, it only left Oreollivan more confused.  It made no sense to her reasonable, sensible self, and though he put a lot of effort into explaining just what frightened him, Ronninflea never was able to do it sufficiently.  If he was, maybe then she'd be able to understand him, and fix him...

"Flea, things can't go on like this," Oreollivan said when he finished.

"I'm trying, Oreo.  I'm really trying."

She sighed.  Flea was standing there, shoulders folded forward, his head down, his eyes--usually a sparkling green, now dull and lackluster--refusing to meet hers as he stared off to the side and away into the trees.  The breeze ruffled his unkempt, coal-black hair.  His feet were bare, his shirt short in the sleeves, and torn; the knees of his pants were worn through.  He was the picture of all things pathetic.  She sighed again.  As difficult as their life already was, it just didn't seem fair that Flea had to be this way.  

"I'll try to fix things with Madame Rock, and talk her into letting you back.  You go home now, and help mother with the little ones.  I'll handle things."

Yep, that was her.  Oreo.  The one who handled everything.

Flea looked at her and smiled hopefully, sure of her magical ability to fix every situation he got them into.  He had a wonderful smile... Oreo couldn't remember the last time she had smiled.  She watched Flea turn and walk off, fast-paced despite his not trying to be.  Sighing a third time, she turned and went in the opposite direction, back to the bar, back to work, back to the never-ending "handling." 

She caught up with Mikelvic on the edge of town, a short, brisk jog from the bar.  Noise could be heard from all directions, a colorful ocean of angry tones, laughter, children screeching, sing-song languages, and guttural tongues.  A haze lay over the town from coal-burning homes and businesses, a heavy, dreary darkened cloud which had ensconced itself in the sky.  

Tabar was little more than an island.  Once the rim of an ancient volcano, the ocean had risen up the side of the monstrous mountain until Tabar was nothing more than one in a triad of miserable, half-sunken specks of dirt.  Like its sister-islands, Vinturion and Noigler, is was a smelting pot.  Upon it could be found all the major races of Yendys, thrown together by various circumstances, living precariously under a lax government--when there was any government at all.  It was a difficult life for just about everyone, but especially for Oreollivan's family, and especially for Oreollivan.  

"What happened?" she asked Mikelvic when she was close enough.  

"Ah, he was supposed to be dusting.  When I went down an hour later to bring up some bottles, I realized he hadn't done it yet, and I went to look for him."

"Where was he?"

"In the corner, again!  'The cat!' was all he would say.  I made him go down there, anyway, and the next thing I know he's charging back up like the devil had bit his behind and..." Mikelvic fluttered his hand in the air.  Oreo knew the rest.  

"Why didn't you go down before him and just get the cat out?"

Mik blinked at her as though her words were foreign to his vocabulary.  

"It was a mangy, mongrel of a cat!  If he doesn't learn to conquer even the smallest of his fears..." his voice trailed off as Oreollivan stared at him accusingly.  Her violet eyes were hard, her jaw locked.  It was clear that she thought the entire affair was his fault, since he could have prevented it.  Mikelvic thought about that for a second, and then brushed it aside.  He wasn't Oreo, and he wasn't going to take responsibility for something that wasn't his problem.  

"You coddle him too much, Oreo, and you know it," Mikelvik said, steeling himself against a confrontation he did not feel like having.  "He is never going to change if no one gives him the chance, and you are taking away every chance he has to get over his fears.  You are sheltering him, and making it worse."

"Because leaving him on his own worked so well just now, didn't it?" Oreollivan raised her voice.

"It's been a long time in coming and you know it.  And even if it never came, well...things are going...it wasn't like he...it's not like he's going to be here much longer anyway."

All the color drained from Oreollivan's face, but Mikelvic didn't see it.  He had looked away, refusing to meet his sister's eyes, when he dropped his hint.

"What do you mean?" Oreollivan finally managed to say, faintly.

"Oh, come on.  Don't play simple.  Mother and father are at their wits' end with him.  They've been considering sending him away and you know it."