Talyndre Ama'thas

Micro Story Prompt: #24 "Tender"

The man’s breath panted hot against Talyn’s ear, filling his nostrils with the scent of whiskey and pain. They were a pretty common cocktail, served up on the regular in that particular corner of the Row, where he’d often spent his nights in search of a little coin.

In the beginning, he’d thought it easiest to exist where he didn’t really exist, to blend into the faded edges of their bright and beautiful City. He was a born scout who’d found his footing with the Farstriders as soon as he could enlist- only to eventually lose it (but that was another story). He hadn’t yet mastered the art of hiding in plain sight, when he’d first taken to the streets.

So it had been a strangely natural progression, going from panhandling and petty theft to propositions and… everything that came after that. So natural that it surprised him. He’d never really understood the obsession with sex that so many around him seemed to have; of course he had needs of his own, but they were pretty easily taken care of when they arose (so to speak). It was the closeness, he thought, that people wanted, or at least the cheap imitation of it.

So he’d scraped by with scraped knees and an eye for deeper than usual pockets. The coin had rarely been great, but it was good enough. And he’d been in a good position to keep a finger on the pulse of the worst the City had to offer.

There, he’d learned about the kinds of connections people made when, for one reason or another, they sought them in the streets. Most of the time it’d been quick and dirty, over before he knew it and then onto something else (don’t count your tips in public- a workplace staple he’s always carried with him).

But sometimes it was anything but quick. Sometimes it involved a lot of pretty words pressed up against his neck, and hands moving far too tenderly for a stranger getting paid to be there. It was all wrong, in the way he had always been wrong, like trying in vain to speak of ‘love’ in a language that had no word for it.

Times like that, in spite of whiskey breath and tangible hurt, he could only smile and wonder yet again at how complicated people were. At how hollow he felt by comparison.