It was all Legacy could do not to gasp as the world dropped out from beneath her. The city lurched upwards in a chartreuse blur of sky as her insides clutched for purchase. Her eyes squeezed shut for the landing, which came harder than anticipated. She smacked back first, as Collette had instructed her, into the hay mattress, which proceeded to knock into the dingy which knocked into the water until all were bucking beneath her like a wild horse.

Her breath evacuated from her lungs, or what little breath she had, anyhow, considering the garment. The caging cut into her leg, which caused a splitting pain at the same moment Augusta cursed.

“Didn't even see you coming,” she hissed, clutching at her chest.

The elf got her bearings much like any sailor, squatting with legs wide in the men's trousers she wore, and used her oar to direct them into the tunnel beneath the channel wall.

As the darkness closed around them, Legacy gasped for breath that would not come. Was it the tunnel that was dark or her vision? An unseen vice bound her lungs into a state of immobility. Something in her chest must have been damaged in the landing. She reached for Augusta.

“Hang in there, love. Just a few strokes more and we round the bend,” Augusta panted. “Can’t have an authority see us here.”

That was fine. After all, it was only oxygen.

They turned into total blackness as they moved around the corner from daylight and into the tunnels that met with the sewage line. But now stars lit the world before Legacy’s eyes. Panic settled in her where air could not. She gasped for breath that came as if through a straw, suffocating as she tried again and again to make her diaphragm expand.

Was this what it was like to die? How fascinating. She had never before felt a fear of her own mortality. After all, she wasn't going to make it out of life alive as it was. If she was honest with herself, others’ self-inflation of their own peril had always baffled her. And yet the fear came instinctively. Why was that? What exactly was there to be afraid for? It wasn’t as though dying changed any aspect of her life’s inherent value.

Did it?

A light flickered into being alongside the smell of a burning matchstick.

Augusta’s freckled face and tapered ears were orange in the lantern's light. The wispy halo of her flyaways took on the appearance of embers around her face where they reflected the flame. She looked at Legacy with an eyebrow raised before finally comprehending her distress.

“Oh,” she said, and rolled her over to fumble at the back of the dress. Augusta spoke exclusively in a language of overstatements and understatements. ‘Oh’ would be the later. The seconds passed in agony.

“Shit. Plan A is a tortoise,” Augusta muttered as her fingers fumbled over an infinite row of buttons to reveal the ties beneath.“And Plan B is going to be a bit expensive.” She pulled a knife from a holster at her waist and serrated the ties to release the boning. Legacy gasped as she felt her chest expand. The relief was almost as painful as the suffocation. Augusta thumped her on the back. “But hearing you gasp is always worth it.”

Legacy coughed and gasped and swallowed in cycle for long minutes until she felt like she had her own set of lungs back. Augusta held her hand all the while, her wispy brows pinched in concern.

“Gods,” she finally said. “It’s a torture device cunningly guised as women’s fashion.”

“Leave it to a man to invent such a thing.” Augusta mumbled.

Through the lens with which Augusta viewed the world, everything could find blame in a man.

Legacy flopped on her back, taking a sudden appreciation for the way her stomach raised and fell in the meager light of the lantern. “Couldn’t have been a man. Had to be Fordue himself.”

Fordue, god of death, was so much easier to blame in her mind considering that, like blame, the gods didn’t really exist unless someone chose for them to. But that was one of many unpopular opinions she’d learned not to share with Augusta.

“You’re alright then?” Augusta asked.

“Minus the smell, never better.”

She shifted to a seated position and flashed her hand towards Augusta as daintily as any recently betrothed. The elf’s mouth formed a perfect circle. Then, she squealed and flung herself at her and they both tumbled backwards onto the makeshift mattress cackling with glee. The dingy threatened to capsize. And they heard the water slapping up onto the walls of the vein-like tunnel for all the motion they were making.

“Eggs and Loaves,” Augusta said, propping herself up on an elbow to squint at the ring through the darkness. I don’t think I’ve ever held a pinch of saffron that big let alone a diamond. Watch that you don’t hurt somebody flailing that thing around.”

“Oh, It'll be off faster than a man’s pants in the silk district when we get back to Colette. I’m half terrified it's going to float off my finger and into the channel,” she said. “Can you even believe it?”

Augusta’s nose scrunched up in amusement. “Sure enough. And now I know how much your pretty arse is worth.”

Legacy felt a surge of triumph for the first time, now that her mind and her lungs had caught up to the relative safety of the sewage tunnel. “Enough to feed and grow our little band of axe wound snatchers for years, at least.” She found herself chuckling like an idiot and tried to self analyse. It was not a matter of triumph. Or relief. It was a social defense chuckle. A piece of her flitted back to where Thomas might be sitting alone with only the sweat beads on his petticoat to keep him company. Her insides shriveled.

Augusta squatted to make her way to her feet and retrieve her oar. “Best be on, then. We'll be right celebrities when we're back.” She handed Legacy a second oar, which was holstered to the boat’s side. “Are you good?”

Legacy frowned, looking at the mess of taffeta and lace around her. “Any chance you’ve got a spare dress in your bag of tricks? I’d prefer not to show up to headquarters in my cutties, yeah?”

"Wouldn't do any damage to your social status even if you did," she said.

"I'm not sure if that was meant as an insult or a compliment."

"I would just take it in stride. Y'know? The way you do, well, everything."

Legacy shrugged at her and grinned.

“Right,” Augusta set the oar back down and fished through her always overstocked satchel. “Here you are.” She tossed her a brown cotton dress and an apron.The elf was a head shorter than Legacy and smaller in the chest, but they were otherwise similar in stature.

Legacy wriggled herself from the threads of the suffocation apparatus and into the dress and apron.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Your apron smells like fish and chips,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

“That’s because I ate fish and chips yesterday,” Augusta responded with a laugh.

"Disgusting."

Elves loved fried food and sweets. She could never stomach the stuff– or anything that didn't grow in the wilds, for that matter. One drawback of her bloodline.

“It'll do you just fine, Miss ‘upper city’,” Augusta quipped.

“It’s not as though we don’t have a wash house, yeh slouch. Or napkins!” she tutted.

“Really? We’re halfway into the sewer and you’re concerned with the smell of greased potatoes?”

Legacy dipped the oar into the inky water and began to paddle. “Gods, they’re one and the same to me!” she exaggerated with a laugh.

They paddled downstream through the channel tunnels for six city blocks before coming out the other side into the waterway below Alderbridge’s western aqueduct. The scent of sewage faded, replaced with the smells of Alderbridge’s northwest quadrant– the lower city. Smoke, leather, iron, oil, and sea all mingled into one. To Legacy it smelled like home. She closed her eyes, letting the breeze cool her skin as it mixed with the sweat at her brow. A smile tugged at her lips and she felt her chest elate in the way only success and freedom could bring.

The outer rim of the sun was visible sinking below the watery horizon where the delta met with the bay. The sky was the color of spring leaves, fading into dark pine where the first pinpricks of stars pierced through above them. Legacy found it beautiful, though most didn’t. The sky was supposed to be blue, or so she was told. It had been until shortly before she was born. The green was a photosynthetic effect of the suppression fog, cast across all of Alderbridge by the Fae regent.

But that was just one of the many changes that Alderbridge underwent around the time of her birth. Besides, it wasn’t as if the suppression fog hurt anyone. In fact, Alden’s enchanters had yet to fully understand just what the fae were trying to suppress in the first place. Some even theorized that the spell was only there to demoralize Alden’s inhabitants and remind them that the fae realm would always have more power.

By the time they cruised into the lower docks, night blanketed the world around them. The tiny golden squares of windows were all that could be seen of the upper city behind them.

Legacy and Augusta docked the dingy, and Augusta threw a copper coin towards the deckhand. The man was a gangly old thing. He lifted his chin at Legacy and sucked in through his teeth as she stepped onto the dock. The gesture earned him a knock in the ear from Augusta.

“Ay! Mind yer own. This ain’t a proposition.” She locked elbows with her and they walked down the jetty and towards the main street.

The lower docks married with the silk district on their easternmost side, and women, especially any without a male chaperone, could only be considered to be cocottes. There was no other way around their timing. But Augusta wore trousers and a vest over her blouse with a matching bowtie. Her cross-dressing was their ticket to freedom, and disencouraged any particularly bad business that might find them. With Augusta by her side, she always felt safe. The tiny elf had a tongue like khajiits had claws and a street brawling background to back it up with. That, and she kept a stash of darts filled with sleeping droughts in her bag in case they got into close quartered trouble.

They wound their way through the eastern part of the dock, as cutting first east and then north would be the fastest way to get to Le Poule Enchante, Collette’s place. Legacy did all she could manage to keep the taffeta dress, now bunched under her arm with the caging held in hand, from dragging along the ruddy street. The garment was cumbersome enough to gain a few glances. If someone were to rip it out from under her, how much might they sell it for?

Well enough to earn a month’s keep. People killed for less.

They passed a sable-haired human girl who looked to be no more than thirteen. She wore a dress that hardly fell to her knees and an atrocious amount of rouge that somehow did nothing to hide her own profuse blush. She was speaking with an older man, who was obviously haggling her down.

She nudged Augusta in the ribs. “First timer, don’t you think?”

Augusta’s jaw jutted forward. “Like a daffodil in the bleedin’ snow.”

“Can’t we?” she asked, giving the words her best pine.

Augusta scoffed at her. “I’m not trying to seem coldhearted, but you pick up every box of kittens you see on the street, and before long, all you smell is piss.”

She gave Augusta’s arm a squeeze. “Last one. At least until the others are all bringing in more than their own expense.”

“Fine,” Augusta grumbled. Then, “Ay!” she shouted to the old man. “I’ll give you a silver penny to go and fuck off. Should do you better than pricking a girl who ‘ent even wenched.”

The man startled and then shrugged his shoulders. He took the coin without argument and flashed them a checkerboard smile.

“Disgusting,” Augusta spat as he walked away from them without a word, flipping the coin once into the air before pocketing it. Likely in search of a more expensive purchase.

The girl looked as though she might cry. Truth be told, it was probably in mourning the loss of her next meal.

Legacy set an arm about her shoulders. The girl stiffened at the movement though she were a lycanthrope. Augusta wrinkled her face at her. A reminder. Ah yes, others’ perceptions of personal space were often at odds with her own. Legacy didn’t blame her. Friendliness in the streets was usually a ruse. A ruse she'd personally found could be broken by calling out their motives and returning honest friendliness with interest.

“Hungry?”

The girl hesitated and nodded.

“Need a place to sleep?”

She paused and nodded again. “Rest assured, I’d like to wake up with all my innards in place." Her voice was the epitome of a northwestern drawl– all vowel and no consonant.

Legacy gave her a little squeeze which made Augusta roll her eyes. “How would you like food, lodgings, and silver without ever having to sleep with a man?”

She kicked a foot and shrugged. “I might be open to partin’ with some of my less essential innards fer that, so long as the blades are sanitized.”

“That won’t be necessary, but do appreciate your resolve,” Legacy laughed. “What’s your name?”

Something in the way the girl held herself uncurdled. “Letha.”

“And I’m Legacy and I’m not particularly fond of this sector. Shall we go catch a drink?”

Letha’s mouth twisted. “Pardon my assumptions, but Pa always said that if it sound like a candy shop, it likely be a death trap.”

“At least Pa wasn’t empty between the ears,” Augusta mumbled. Her eyes darted around the now dark street around them. “Listen kid, I could care less if you stay out here and buy soup with your meat trap, but we have a schedule to attend to, so either you stay or you come.” She pulled Legacy by the arm, sparing a look in either direction where some of the street workers had begun to set eyes on them. “Let’s go mother duck, you’re causing a scene.”

Legacy looked back around at Letha, who was kicking at something between the cobblestones. The girl looked at them, her too-red lips set into a line, and then chased after. Legacy felt her chest swell. Another protégé. There was so much focus among the maidens on changing the world that, too often, none of them thought to change singular worlds. A far easier, and at the same time, more arduous task. Changing the world required changing or breaking others' minds. Changing a singular world required changing or breaking one's own mind.

“You got soup?” the girl asked as she caught up to them.

“Usually,” Legacy replied.

“And beef?”

“There better be,” Augusta grumbled.

“Bread too?”

“How is it that you still think this is a negotiation?” Augusta snapped. “Either be a whore or come eat what you're given.”

Legacy felt she could find communion in the reverse positives of that statement. Instead of being force fed the experience of life, why didn’t more people simply open themselves up to the plethora of possibilities outside of societal parameters?

She turned the thought over once, to be sure she wasn't confusing it with the previous, before saying it aloud to Letha and Augusta.

Augusta stopped walking for long enough to look her in the face. “God’s I love you, Legacy. But when you talk like that, it just makes me want to jump headfirst into the channel. There are some thoughts you just keep to yerself.”

Letha's face was all cheeks and teeth as she skirted along beside them. “Yeh sound like my old Auntie Florence,” she said to Augusta. “Yeh bark but don’t bite.”

Augusta’s upper lip curled into a snarl. “Say it again and I’ll beat yer fanny.”

“Good that you two are already getting along famously,” Legacy sighed. She had long ago stopped expecting anyone to receive her existential meanderings. “Didn’t you say something about not drawing attention to ourselves when someone would likely check out the shade of our combined blood to have my finger?”

The girl cocked her head. “What’s so special 'bout yer finger?”

“Hush now. Let’s just hustle up to dinner. You’ll learn soon enough.”