Daugrs & Diamonds

Sam watched as he slowly packed the last of his belongings into boxes. “I’m finally retiring eh, wonder what the girls will make of that?!” Richard had often joked about who would take over from him with the boys from Surf and Rescue LifeSavers (SARLS), but they’d all kind of known that it would always be Sam. To be honest, Sam didn’t want to take over SARLS, but he didn’t really have a choice didn’t really have choice.

It was Richards last week, so he decided, that tonight, he would travel to Aranox, and meet up with the club he was in. Sam didn’t know what or what they did, but he’d never really bothered to know, since his life had always been so busy with SARLS. He supposed that he really should’ve tried harder, since he was in the clubs’ council. He’d worry about that later, right noa, he had to book a ship, to take him across the Pennoy Strait, and into the heart of Aranox.

The slums in Aranox were where the club was based, so as not to be discovered by the stuck-up posh people that lived in the ‘nice’ part of the city.

As Sam entered HQ the reek of unwashed bodies and cheap vodka burned his nose. He made his way to the back and slipped out the door into the moldy courtyard. Sam the climbed through the hole in the fence, right into the council room. Just in time apparently.

The council room was really just a pile of rubble with a space hollowed out in middle for the council to have their meetings. Everyone else was already there and, to Sam’s utmost horror, Elaina was chained to a post in the very center of the room.

Her too thin body covered in a patchwork of deep purple bruises, her hair matted and full of blood.

Sam took his seat, his face a portrait of calm, as he tried not to stare at Elaina to long. This was her trial, although Sam knew that she would be punished regardless of the outcome. And with that, the trial began.

Councilor Pinch lived up to his name, as he poked, prodded and indeed pinched Elaina trying to get her to reveal what she knew. She was surprisingly resistant, as she withheld every single thing, she knew from them. In the end they decided to punish her for suspected murder. Sam knew, though he didn’t say, that Elaina would never dream of murdering someone, unless it was in her nightmares. As the councilors discussed the punishment they would give her, 50 days without food and water, Sam had been decidedly quiet through all of this until he suggested that she was allowed water until day 40 and then if she was still alive on day 50 all crimes would be cleared.

They thought this through, and eventually agreed to it. Sam was, of course, chosen to announce the punishment to Elaina, so he stood, face still calm, and told her.

He wouldn’t let the council see anything but his back as he walked over to the shaking, sobbing Elaina.

He untied her with rough hands and told her she had 3 days until her punishment began. If she did not obey then she would be killed, but she knew that. Whether or not they would kill her with an assassin or not he couldn’t tell. But Sam did know that he would do everything he could to keep Elaina alive, no matter the cost.

She was his fiancé after all.

It was day 39 of Elaina’s trial. Sam had kept her alive this long, so every morning he tells himself that he can keep her alive through this. To just hold on a little longer.

She was thin and haggard, barely able to move from the apartment that he was paying for. Since she wasn’t allowed food, and Sam was sure that if he gave her some the council would find out and then they’d both be done, he drugged her. She was only awake for a few hours each day, and he gave her water then, but he made sure that she was never once in pain.

On the morning of day 40 Sam awoke to find Elaina missing. Vanished. No trace of her anywhere. Even the bed she’d slept in was made. Sam’s heart nearly stopped dead in his chest, but he forced himself to get up, get dressed, and check out. Where could she have gone, he thought?

Sam decided to go down tom ‘The Raven’. A small pub in the slums and there was always someone who knew something there.

When Sam arrived, he chose an unoccupied table, and called the waitress over. He gave her a coin and when she bent down to take his order he whispered “Elaina?” She just replied with, “Beer it is.”

He slipped her another coin and when she returned with the beer and nothing else, his heart fell.

As he lifted the beer to take a drink, a slight slip of paper drifted down off the bottom of the jug. He slipped it into his pocket, chugged the beer, and with that, got up and left. He wondered how many secrets that waitress knew. Probably enough to give even Elaina a run for her money.

Sam quickly ran down the nearest alleyway and, checking there was no one around him, pulled out the note the waitress had given him. It read ‘17a Ress Street’.

Sam knew that street. He’d walked down it hundreds of times on his way to the clubs HQ. 17a, he didn’t know. Sam racked his brain for anything on 17a. Nothing.

He’d have to go there and find out. Even though everything about it felt wrong he set off, only stopping to buy a dagger at the Armory in case things turned to custard.

When he reached 17a he just stopped and stared up at it. A tall foreboding building, with bars on all the windows. That made sense of course, because it was a prison. Not a very good one but a prison, nonetheless.

Sam shivered to think about what was happening to Elaina inside.

He pushed open the door slowly, bracing himself for what he might find inside. A million thoughts rushed through Sam’s head. What if she’s dead?! What if she’s in prison?! What if the council has her in there?! No, Sam thought, thinking like wouldn’t help anyone, least of all Elaina.

Sam pushed the door open a bit further and stepped inside. It was eerily quiet and dark. The hallway ahead of him lit only with candles.

He slowly stepped forward again, just as the screams began…Sam broke into a sprint as he rounded the corner at the end of the hallway. He felt his face drain of color as he beheld the sight before him; Elaina, clothes in rags, and a strange looking man standing over her holding a thin curved knife. As he turned to face Sam, Sam was shocked.

It was Richard. Sam wondered, what was he doing here?! And with Elaina?!

Sam knocked Richard aside and grabbed Elaina, half carrying, half dragging her behind a pile of old crates. She was delirious and was falling all over herself. Richard stumbles around the discarded crates lying around to get to us, clearly drunk, and at that precise moment a shifter burst through the door. Clad in dark gear, charcoal hair flying behind her, the only sign of her heritage were the slightly pointed tips of her ears poking out of her hair. If you didn’t know who she was you would’ve thought, her to be Fae! Sam knew her better than that, but Richard, unfortunately didn’t. “This is none of your business Fae, always meddling in other people’s business,” he managed to slur. She shoots him a look, and throws the dagger, she’d hidden in her hand until now, so it pinned him to the wall behind, narrowly missing his head.