Throwback Thursday: ‘Flavour of the Forsaken’ by Kristene Perron

“You’re going to end up bleeding in the gutter.”

Pempasigle heard Makineng’s words as he rolled to one side and wiped the blood from his face. Dribbles of morning light punctuated his shame. Right now, his friend was in a warm kitchen, exactly where he should have been.

No gutter. The bandits had taken him out to the alley to beat him senseless. Only crimson mud, urine, and old wash-water here. 

“You were wrong,” he wheezed, and then started to cry. 

Empty pockets, he knew before he even found the strength to search. He searched anyway, his fingers digging down to the very corners, pulling out only wet lint and mushy crumbs. That would be enough; his hunger was not of the belly. After separating the crumbs from the lint, he forced them through swollen lips and onto his tongue. 

Sweet haval sugar and the barest hint of sharpness. Fresh morning mint. The mint would have been picked before sunrise, before the sun licked the moisture from the leaves. His mother had taught him how to find the best morning mint in the market, to look for the leaves that had not curled at the edges. Home.

“They get everything?”

Pempasigle opened his eyes — he had not realized he had closed them — and saw a pair of heavy boots inches away. He followed the boots up to a leather longcoat, up to a head as big as a large pumpkin, up to a pair of yellow eyes, up to a shock of muddy green hair, up to a set of horns sweeping from back to front in an s-curve. Up to a Prang. The same Prang he had spotted shortly after his arrival. The same Prang the bandits who had befriended and tricked him had joked about.

Before he could answer, the Prang’s mouth twisted. “Yeah, they got everything. Go home, City.”