"I don't think they're actually real." Saturday glances at the silent, faceless crowd. "Like that post said the Stuff can make people but doesn't always? I don't think they're that. They communicate, kinda, but they don't seem to reason, and also when they're done with you they turn into flowers and float away. Kinda pretty, really."
She chews on her lip, trying to decide where to begin.
"Okay. The place t'start, I guess, is that I'm adopted. For a long while I thought my birth parents were scum, but it turned out that wasn't true - I got stolen, which is a different story, and when the woman who stole me died, her boyfriend sold me. I was about to be purchased by the kind of person who buys four year old girls when Solomon announced himself. The trafficker had been trafficking too close to Pops' territory, and poached a couple kids from there. Pops has what you might call a one-strike policy towards slavers, and since Sol was young enough, he volunteered as bait.
Sol was adopted, too, but - not the same way I was. When he was about the age I was then, his family got killed 'cause a gang war went the wrong way. Pops didn't get there in time. I was one of the kids rescued who didn't have a family, and I guess Sol just decided that was gonna be him and Pops from now on. Not that Pops argued any.
Oh, the other kids got returned home or found new families, by the way."
She pauses here, taking a moment, a little surprised at how much she doesn't want to say this next part.
"It's... another story to explain, but my pops is one of the guardians of a kind of magical vault full of artifacts and writing and things that are too dangerous or worrisome or inconvenient to have in circulation, but that no one wants to destroy or that can't be destroyed. Or people will fight over them, so it's better for no one to own them. Or the person storing them just never wants to see them again - I guess if you're immortal you can rack up a lot of reminders of things you never wanna think about but can't bring yourself to get rid of. That sort of thing. Just a big ol' storage facility for the ancient and magical.
One of the artifacts was a sword." Her flesh hand comes up, unconsciously, to cover her metal wrist. "I wasn't allowed in the vault, I didn't even know it existed. But I did know that Pops and Sol were always going in and out of a secret door I wasn't supposed to go through. Probably because all their cool hero shadowrunner stuff was behind it, which didn't strike twelve year old me as very fair. I could be a hero, too, if they'd let me."
She spreads her hands open in a helpless, shamed gesture. "I was a kid. I was stupid. They knew I was stupid, that's why they always closed and locked the door behind them. Except for the one day Pops was distracted an' the door didn't latch, an' he didn't see it. An' I went in. An' there was this sword, an' it was really cool, so I picked it up and started doing forms, daydreaming about how I could be a hero with a magic sword, an' - "
Saturday shrugs.
"What I didn't know was that the sword I'd picked up had a thing going on where, in order to bond with the wielder, it needed an offering. Specifically, the memory of someone you love. It - well, 'Ni-chan is sapient now, but he wasn't then. He was just an it. And the sword's magic decided my daydreaming was asking to bond with it, which it decided it wanted to do, because they were, like, pure dreams or something, I guess."
She says those words with a profound and abiding embarrassment, practically daring Ronan to say something about it. When he doesn't, she continues.
"So it took Sol. All my memories of him, involving him, about him. Half of my life, at that point. More than half. An' they're never, ever coming back - I know what I know because I was told it, an' because I got to kinda see what happened in a vision, later on.
Sol blamed Pops. Pops'll tell you, he was right to. But he also - cause of some shit in his life that ain't mine to tell - had this idea that Pops had done it on purpose, or let me do it - that it hadn't been an accident. An' he wouldn't believe Pops. An' every time he visited me in the hospital, someone had to introduce him to me all over again. He'd been replaced, overnight, with the sword. He - kinda freaked out and left."
She closes her eyes, throat feeling sore from talking so long. Yes. Talking. Not from thinking about the consequences of his leaving, and his return.
"Came back when I was nineteen, which is the second half of the story. If you still wanna hear it."
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She chews on her lip, trying to decide where to begin.
"Okay. The place t'start, I guess, is that I'm adopted. For a long while I thought my birth parents were scum, but it turned out that wasn't true - I got stolen, which is a different story, and when the woman who stole me died, her boyfriend sold me. I was about to be purchased by the kind of person who buys four year old girls when Solomon announced himself. The trafficker had been trafficking too close to Pops' territory, and poached a couple kids from there. Pops has what you might call a one-strike policy towards slavers, and since Sol was young enough, he volunteered as bait.
Sol was adopted, too, but - not the same way I was. When he was about the age I was then, his family got killed 'cause a gang war went the wrong way. Pops didn't get there in time. I was one of the kids rescued who didn't have a family, and I guess Sol just decided that was gonna be him and Pops from now on. Not that Pops argued any.
Oh, the other kids got returned home or found new families, by the way."
She pauses here, taking a moment, a little surprised at how much she doesn't want to say this next part.
"It's... another story to explain, but my pops is one of the guardians of a kind of magical vault full of artifacts and writing and things that are too dangerous or worrisome or inconvenient to have in circulation, but that no one wants to destroy or that can't be destroyed. Or people will fight over them, so it's better for no one to own them. Or the person storing them just never wants to see them again - I guess if you're immortal you can rack up a lot of reminders of things you never wanna think about but can't bring yourself to get rid of. That sort of thing. Just a big ol' storage facility for the ancient and magical.
One of the artifacts was a sword." Her flesh hand comes up, unconsciously, to cover her metal wrist. "I wasn't allowed in the vault, I didn't even know it existed. But I did know that Pops and Sol were always going in and out of a secret door I wasn't supposed to go through. Probably because all their cool hero shadowrunner stuff was behind it, which didn't strike twelve year old me as very fair. I could be a hero, too, if they'd let me."
She spreads her hands open in a helpless, shamed gesture. "I was a kid. I was stupid. They knew I was stupid, that's why they always closed and locked the door behind them. Except for the one day Pops was distracted an' the door didn't latch, an' he didn't see it. An' I went in. An' there was this sword, an' it was really cool, so I picked it up and started doing forms, daydreaming about how I could be a hero with a magic sword, an' - "
Saturday shrugs.
"What I didn't know was that the sword I'd picked up had a thing going on where, in order to bond with the wielder, it needed an offering. Specifically, the memory of someone you love. It - well, 'Ni-chan is sapient now, but he wasn't then. He was just an it. And the sword's magic decided my daydreaming was asking to bond with it, which it decided it wanted to do, because they were, like, pure dreams or something, I guess."
She says those words with a profound and abiding embarrassment, practically daring Ronan to say something about it. When he doesn't, she continues.
"So it took Sol. All my memories of him, involving him, about him. Half of my life, at that point. More than half. An' they're never, ever coming back - I know what I know because I was told it, an' because I got to kinda see what happened in a vision, later on.
Sol blamed Pops. Pops'll tell you, he was right to. But he also - cause of some shit in his life that ain't mine to tell - had this idea that Pops had done it on purpose, or let me do it - that it hadn't been an accident. An' he wouldn't believe Pops. An' every time he visited me in the hospital, someone had to introduce him to me all over again. He'd been replaced, overnight, with the sword. He - kinda freaked out and left."
She closes her eyes, throat feeling sore from talking so long. Yes. Talking. Not from thinking about the consequences of his leaving, and his return.
"Came back when I was nineteen, which is the second half of the story. If you still wanna hear it."