Imperfect Girl

Posted on Sat Jul 30th, 2022 @ 8:16pm by Cooper O'Reilly & Daiyu & Whit

Mission: Home Sweet Wonderful Home
Location: Three Hills - Cloudwater Port
Timeline: November 15 - late morning

A sea breeze kicked up with the distant hint of wild, free ocean and would be mostly lost to the locals yet still tangible to those new arrivals. Up here on the plateau of Cloudwater Port, the wide open space was filled with commerce and the multi-cultural architectural mess of a town that had been raised in the midst of a myriad of characters and money. Trade funded the entire planet of Three Hills, but Cloudwater was a tertiary port and as such accepted its place with a laidback charm that resonated eveywhere.

Crime happened, of course, but it was mostly roaming free in the busier sectors and policed by a force that responded and reacted rather than preventing wholesale. Pickpockets, chancers and the occasional space-cowboy with a need to prove they were a red-blooded alpha. If you wanted a fight, they were easily found, but not prevalent or overt. This was a Border planet with standards, though it was far from perfect.

Cooper had followed Whit, who had followed Daiyu, and the big shepherd stopped for a moment to take it all in. Fountains dominated a pretty stone quarter of town, people of varying colours, sizes and shapes milling around happily enough, frequenting a plethora of eateries that lined two sides of this retail area. Conversation and general noise rose about the vehicles and rickshaws moving to the south where a minor road crossed the zone. This wide open space was pedestrianised, marred only by the occasional push-bike or barking dog. He could see tall trees with birds above them beyond this broad and long market-place and catch a strong floral scent above the middle-ground smell of various types of food - some kind of recreational park?

Amidst the sights and smells that inundated Daiyu like a strong midsummer night's breeze was a band of musicians. They weren't playing the fiddle or harmonica like the brothers at the Monastery. They had something that looked vaguely like a lute, but it was more rounded and gave off the most delightful sound. Wooden blocks, metal bowls, large drums, even bells! Daiyu grinned as she made approach.

Standing back far to one side of the crowd, Whit crossed his arms and leaned against the nearest post. His keen eyes quickly caught sight of Cooper, at which he gave his brother Shepherd a terse nod to join him.

Like a homing pigeon, Cooper made a line through the space between himself and Whit. His head canted to the side in a curious gesture of questioning, then his face broke into a broad smile as he noted Daiyu's reaction to the music. "Our girl having some fun?" He asked, simply.

"Mebbe." Whit looked back at Daiyu unconvinced. "One way or another she seems to be having a moment. Reckon two Shepherds might be better than one in any event."

Cooper scanned the musicians in silence as he took in the longview and sussed out any wider implications that might be extrapolated from such. He couldn't see anything obvious in the mix that might spook, disturb or overexcite their current charge. That assumption on his part meant nothing, though, and he knew it.

"Reckon you might be right," he agreed, stoically.

--------

Daiyu felt her hands float upward to her shoulders and back again to waist level like clouds on the wind. Her eyes fluttered from one hand to the other, mystified as they moved of their own accord. Slowly they shift leftward, propelled along a path known only to them, or perhaps by instinct awakened through the music. A slow but fluid arc brought her hands up and around to her right side where they froze.

What was she doing? Daiyu felt there was a dance she once knew, but its steps were firmly out of mind. Her feet remembered the motions if perhaps not the order.

Awkwardly she raised her left knee and stepped forward, leaving her hands to trail behind her right side. Slowly, following the rhythm of the instrumental song, her hands came forward, though her left hand came to rest at her right elbow as her right hand made a fist. Her weight instinctively shifted to one foot as she brought her fist slowly down into her palm. That felt both right and wrong. Maybe she should try again? This time, Daiyu pounded her fist with her palm and gave the ground a stomp for good measure.

Only then did she realize the retinue of onlookers surrounding the musicians had turned their attention on her. At first she wondered if they would be offended, but several of them clapped softly to give honor while not breaking the flow of the music. Daiyu shifted on the balls of her feet and blushed furiously. Had she done something right? It was not often anyone looked on her with...with...

Impulsively she ran away, sprinting through the crowd like a scared jackrabbit. Only the jostling of clothes and turned heads gave any sign to the direction she'd went.

"Xi yā dé yí hè," Whit muttered. "Go after her but keep your distance. I'll circle around and meet up." They were equally fleet of foot on open ground, but Whit was still better at getting through tight spaces and around obstacles.

Well, figured Cooper, as he broke into a lazy sprint that ran out of steam swiftly in the gathered audience, that was kinda cute while it lasted. Slower now, picking his way through the myriad people with a gruff politeness and gentle nudging, the big Shepherd kept his gaze a few steps ahead, watching the obvious 'wave' sent up by Daiyu's forward motion. Undulating sounds of surprise and begrudging compliance signaled the young woman's progress and the Cloudwater crowd's compliance to said motion.

"'Scuse me," Coop requested rather than demanded. Times like this had taught him that chasing down a scared sheep went far easier if you didn't look threatening - that being to the particular quarry herself and equally to the other sheep in the field. "Thank yer kindly. Don't mind me. Jus' coming through."

He came to a hard stop when a particularly belligerent individual somewhat unsensibly resisted on account of Cooper's intimidating physical presence and planted his own six foot form in the Shepherd's way. Coop sighed and stepped around, only to be met by the same stubborn human wall. "I don't wanna hurt ya," Cooper said, tone light, eyes dark. "But lemme past or I'm gonna shove ya." He hoped Whit was having better luck.

--------

On account of Daiyu appearing to be right-hand dominant, Whit took a lucky guess and ran down the left alley that would cut through to the next thoroughfare. People and their carts were easy enough to dodge, though a pesky clothesline nearly took his head off when Whit kicked off the brick wall to circumvent a dense huddle of folk who wouldn't make way for even the Second Coming of Christ.

"Ey, watch ware ye gooing, uh?" called one of the folk in protest.

Whit flung a loose garment from the clothesline behind him in the general direction of the voice and kept running.

By the time he cleared the alley, he looked in the direction he'd expected Daiyu to have run, but there was no troubled woman or turbulent crowd disturbance in sight. Where could she have gone? He needed a better vantage point.

Looking up, Whit could see a steel water tower atop the squat building across the thoroughfare. Various drainpipes led away from it toward other buildings on the street, but he'd likely draw attention climbing one of those. What he needed was another way up, and quickly.

Whit darted through the crowd into the next alleyway. Ramshackle scaffolding from a long abandoned renovation stood in partial deconstruction about a third of the way down. It would serve as a quick way to the rooftop, so long as he didn't break his neck in the process.

Rickety groans cried out against Whit's bodyweight, but fortunately he moved too quickly for the structure's protest to turn to full scale collapse. Rough, old hands grasped the edge of the roof tightly enough for a boot to kick up one side, allowing Whit to hoist himself up and over.

Allowing himself only a moment to catch his breath, Whit rolled to a crouch beneath the water tower in order to scan the port from above in hopes of finding Daiyu. His keen eyes caught movement toward an opera house a good step down the way, against the flow of pedestrian traffic. The tangle of black hair could only have been Daiyu.

Shiny. So that's where Daiyu went. But where was Coop? He hadn't been on Daiyu's tail. Whit looked for his brother Shepherd, wondering what had possibly slowed him down.

--------

He hadn't played fair. Not really. But when the first request had been ignored and the first punch hadn't made much difference, Cooper had split the difference and gone for the low blow. Literally. Most men hit the floor and this one had been no different. It wasn't pretty, but it also wasn't lethal. Now he was lost, if not in relation to the city itself specifically in relation to his female quarry and fellow man of god.

Whit's cortex chirped with an inbound text. Where are ya?

"Qiú zhu liánmin..."

Knowing better than to give Cooper too many details or directions to follow, Whit replied with his intended destination instead. Opera house. North side. That's with the sun on your right.

Opera house? The words thudded into Cooper's brain with a worrying solidity. He knew what one of those was, but he'd never really considered heading in their direction for any reason that sprung to mind. Daiyu was Up To Something, following some mental trail that may or may not make sense to those beyond her complicated and broken mind. Coop didn't overthink it, though he did roll his eyes at Whit's need to tell him which side of himself 'north' meant he needed to keep the sun.

On my way He sent back, unwilling to waste time in debate. Coop had never yet won a verbal argument with Whit and right now his pride wasn't important, time was. So with a a wave and a grunt, Cooper pulled the Shepherd Card. He hopped into a rickshaw that seemed ignorant of crowds but happy to support a man of God and let the young Chinese fella figure out the fastest way to Cloudwater's Opera House.

--------

"And who are you, the proud lord said,
that I must bow so low?
Only a cat of a different coat,
that’s all the truth I know."

The song had arrested Daiyu body and soul, holding her in the clutches of its gripping refrain. Strings and flutes, peaks and valleys of melody and harmony, the ineffable emotive quality common to live performances that gets lost in their recording, all of it enraptured Daiyu in a cocoon of emotion and being that left her standing stock still.

"In a coat of gold or a coat of red,
a lion still has claws,
And mine are long and sharp, my lord,
as long and sharp as yours."

A lone tear streaked down her cheek, the overflow of the saline sea that had welled up in her eyes. The doorman who had approached her in order to check her admission token and possibly escort her away stood motionless as well. The sight of Daiyu's sublime experience to the operatic display gave him pause in a way he could not rightly explain himself.

"And so he spoke, and so he spoke,
that lord of Castamere,
But now the rains weep o’er his hall,
with no one there to hear.
Yes now the rains weep o’er his hall,
and not a soul to hear."

As the crescendo turned to fadeout, Daiyu covered her face with her hands in a futile attempt to hold back her weeping.

"Miss, I need to see your ticket."

Daiyu made no indication she had heard him.

"Miss! Look, you can't just stand here and cry. If you got a ticket then you can take the privy, but if not then I gotta show you out."

With still no response, the doorman reached a gentle hand toward Daiyu's shoulder. "Miss, 'bout that ticket..."

Flashbacks. The train. The transport. Hera. The Monastery. The... blood...

Daiyu dropped her hands from her face, revealing tear-stained eyes turned red and puffy with pupils shrunken to pinpoints.

"I got her ticket right here," said Whit's voice.

While the doorman never noticed, at the sound of a familiar voice, Daiyu's pupils returned to normal dilation.

The doorman gave a startled twitch at the interruption. His hand jerked back from Daiyu's arm, having been mere centimeters from breaking the touch barrier, as he turned to the newcomer who claimed to offer a solution to the awkward situation. Looking behind him, the doorman saw a Shepherd, and then his eyes caught the Shepherd's beltline. The Shepherd's deft hand was waggling a platinum chip back and forth across his knuckles.

"Sir, I can't--"

"No drama." Whit flipped the coin toward the doorman. "We were just leaving. The lil' miss is getting the vapors anyway. Keep the change."

There was a clear conflict in the doorman's face as he was weighing his various options. Eventually, whatever he decided, led him to shrug. "Nearest exit is thataway." He nodded toward a side door that did not empty out into the crowded pedestrian boulevard.

Nodding casually, and careful not to touch Daiyu, the Shepherd changed tone. "Daiyu, let's listen to the show out here." He stepped forward with his hand gesturing outward like a valet or butler, guiding her forward from the front. "I bet we can hear the music without any bother from anyone else."

--------

Daiyu's distraught had almost fully simmered, allowing her to nod meekly and be guided in turn. She took short, rapid steps toward the door with Whit as her escort. When they went through the door, it deposited them in an alleyway that should have ran between streets, but there was a mighty heap of junk blocking off one direction. The music from the opera performance inside was almost fully muted. Even the bustle from the streets seemed muffled.

The silence set Whit immediately on edge, but he kept up his nonchalance with Daiyu. "Hm. Looks like we can't hear so good out here after all, mei-mei. Mayhaps we head back the way we came, though? I bet those earlier musicians are still playing. We could--"

The sound of the flicking switchblade reached Whit's ears before he spotted the glint from its edge. Four ruffians emerged from the refuse piles in total, two in front and two who had been hiding in the makeshift barrier that had cut off access to one of the side streets. They were surrounded.

"Shi chuánwěi shòu jī..." The phrase Whit muttered was an almost juvenile expression of fecal matter spoken as a child who found himself at the short end of a prank.

"Poopy is right," said one of the ruffians. "Empty yer pockets before ye get stuck!"

Hands slowly raised up, Whit inserted himself between Daiyu and the two advancing street-toughs while keeping a weather eye on the two from behind. So far, the rear folk were keeping their distance and seemed to be backup.

"Blessings of the Lord to you and yours," Whit said as non-threateningly as possible. Sometimes flexing his Shepherd status was all it took to defuse a volatile situation.

"Fuck yer blessings," retorted the lead robber. "Make with the dosh!"

A knowing grin slowly crept across Whit's face. "'Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee'..."

--------

"And Shepherds we shall be," came the unquiet rumbling baritone voice of fraternal support. "For Thee, O Lord, for Thee."

The broad shouldered, bald-headed tank of their duo bulldozed through the stench of collected refuse without pause or concern for its weight or content. Cooper slid down the olfactory nightmare into the scene with no pause for greeting or warning besides his immediate and ungentlemanly presence. Broad arms wide, he close-lined the first threat from behind, crunched a solid-booted foot into the small of Robber's Number One's back and let steel toe hit neck-line as Cooper's right arm caught the second in the crook of a tattooed elbow.

Behind Whit's partner in worshipful rescue there came a landslide of rubbish and an updraught waft of months of neglect and abandonment, deceased rodents and takeaway carcasses. There was enough substance in the barrier to provide makeshift weaponry as needed, though Cooper didn't seek it. The gasp of breath as he broke Ruffian Number 2's neck came swiftly in exhale, mostly concealed by the continuation of the big Shepherd's scripture.

"Thou hath anointed our crimson frocks," intoned Cooper. "For the wolves have come, sparing not the flocks." Deep treaded combat boots sunk into spinal column as Criminal Number One ate hard ground and kicked outward uselessly.

Distracted as he was by his compatriots being systematically dismantled by a mortality engineer, the lead robber with the folding knife stood dumbfounded. People knew how to fight on Three Hills, but this was just unexpected.

"And we shall be avenging Shepherds over them," Whit said.

Both the robber and Daiyu looked at him, but Whit had eyes only for Daiyu. He pointed down toward the thoroughfare and nodded for Daiyu to run.

"What'd you say?" the lead robber asked, suddenly realizing that Whit just might be more than he seemed.

"In the name of the Alpha and Omega..." In what could have been a cardsharp's sleight-of-hand, Whit flicked his wrist in the space of two paces between him and the lead robber. A straight-blade had popped out of Whit's sleeve and, in one swift motion, opened the other man's jugular vein and carotid artery, and then released in a throw that caught the remaining robber in the eye from three more paces.

The lead robber man clutched his gushing neckline and fell to his knees, his face fell pall as he watched Whit retrieve the dagger from the other man's eye socket. He tried to say something, though nothing came out but gurgling. Whit turned back around and wiped the dagger clean on the kneeling man's dirty collar just before he collapsed.

Only then did the Shepherds intone the final words together as one: "The Beginning and the End."

--------

With the bloodbath finally spilt and finished, Whit bumped elbows with Cooper. "Good timing, Coop. That could have went the other way real quick."

Cooper didn't exactly smile, more grimaced as he lowered his arm and regarded the pair he'd been temporarily separated from. "Didn't mean ta leave ya so long," he noted. "Whatcha mean - other way around? You fixing to murder and rob these nice folks?" Sarcasm wrapped coolly about the question.

"I mean that Miss Daiyu seems to get a might disturbed and beside herself at the sight of blood," Whit said. "Violently so. And then Grimshaw mighta' had an opinion on what happened next." He looked up the alleyway and saw Daiyu taken in by some new sight or sound as if she had not just been fleeing from danger. For the first time since they had chased after her, he sighed in relief. "That one needs a different kind of shield. I don't know if we can give it, not forever at least, and I don't like thinkin' about the day she might end up on the wrong end of our litany."

A nod. "That she does," Coop noted. "And folks get to hurting," he added, with a concerned vibe about him now. There was violence and retribution, in the manner of that which pleased the Almighty, and then... then there was the other fella's bloody domain. He preferred to keep the two wholly separate for accounting purposes, and Daiyu, well she seemed to mix them right up without issue.

"The Lord is my Shepherd," the big fella intoned. "She shall not want. But we needeth to be right alongside her shepherding some, Whit. Least til we find someone better. Safer. Yer right, I don't think we can keep her pro'tected forever. Most likely need to find someone who can help fix what's hurting her mind." Cooper paused and looking in Daiyu's direction wistfully. "Or y'know...." He didn't finish that sentence.

Whit did his best to spit the distaste out of his mouth. "She's got the devil on her tail something fierce, and ol' Grimshaw says he's chasing the devil. Round and 'round we go. Something's gotta' give, Coop. The Echo crew ain't long for it." He gave Cooper a sidelong look. "If she can ever find any notion of healing, Daiyu could make for a mighty good Shepherd one day--figuring Grimshaw would go for it. Never heard of a lady Shepherd myself, but that's the only way I know to bring a damned soul like hers outta' darkness into light."

There followed a sage nod from Cooper who had first-hand experience more than a few times of that 'devil on the tail' kinda activity. Much as Whit and Grimshaw did also. But the words coming out of his brother's mouth gave the big fella reason to consider before he spoke more on the subject. He was quiet for a moment or two, then replied with a simple gravitas to his tone.

"Getting the feeling they want us gone too, huh?" noted Coop. "That fancy Companion likely be putting words in the Captain's ear now his pilot's up and left. Yer thinking that word has something to do with us." It wasn't a question. "But, teaching the little miss our commandments... Don't seem like something Grimshaw'd be approving of until her mind's settled on one path at least. We need to clarify what's ailing her spirit and set her on a better road, I reckon. 'Fore we can consider making her work for a living."

He wasn't necessarily averse to a woman being amongst their order, Cooper considered in the privacy of his own mind. But it didn't feel entirely comfortable either. He struggled to reconcile why beyond habit and the general courseness of his and Whit's existence, though neither of those facts gave him enough reason to deny the point in principle.

"So, do we have to leave Echo?" Coop questioned. "Cos I think our lil lady's just starting to feel somewhat settled. Much as she ever might at least."

"The bargain I struck with Loxley will hold as long as it can," Whit said. "I reckon we're good for now. Just...we can't do this forever. The Brothers need to make good too before blood gets spilled what don't deserve it." He clapped Cooper on the back. "Let's catch up 'fore she runs into someone else."

There was a feeling of minor relief that flowed through the big fella at Whit's response, not necessarily anything personal by way of friendship or such for Captain Loxley, but just a need to be 'still' for a while. A need to be somewhere... someplace... It was harder to define than the Shepherd's mind had initially figured. Seemed the battered little Firefly was a comfortable place for the time being, and comfort had been somewhat lacking for a large part of Cooper's existence.

"Amen to that," Coop noted, offering up an amicable grimace at Whit's friendly slap. "Mebbe we speak to Grimshaw," he added, and by 'we' he definitely meant Whit. "After things calm down somewhat. Sure he'll have work for us to do, if'n we need some." But for now, hanging fire and keeping Daiyu safe was more than enough to be dealing with.

--------

The two lumbered across ground, one with a little more finesse than the other, and Cooper slowed to gain as much info on their surroundings as possible, allowing Whit to forge slightly ahead.

Daiyu was lost in people watching until the Shepherds broke into her peripheral vision.

"Are they dead?" she asked plainly, her voice demure.

"Don't you worry none, child," Whit said. "You're safe now. That's all that matters."

"I am not a child!" Daiyu protested.

"You sure act the part at times," Whit countered, a smirk teasing at his face.

"And you Shepherds kill people," Daiyu shot back. "What about the commandment... 'Thou shalt not kill'?"

Whit closed his eyes and sighed at the fucking irony before him. "We don't send no one to perdition, only to judgment. The Good Lord hisself makes the final call. If we do wrong, we stand for the same reckoning as everyone else, so we do right by the law of God, and that law says murderers, kidnappers, slavers, and other assorted sons of hell shall have their blood spilled by man."

Cooper nodded his agreement for these words, but didn't speak any himself. His eyes swept their surroundings, guarded and vigilant.

A frigid smirk overtook Daiyu's face. Her gaze wandered from Whit who had been talking onto Coop. A sudden appreciation for his masculine form became apparent.

"Like I said..." Whit cleared his throat loud enough to startle Daiyu into a soft hop. "Ain't nothing for you to worry over."

The oblivious deadpan expression returned to Daiyu.

"You're safe with us," Whit insisted.

"I want to go back to Echo." Daiyu gathered her garment closer and stared at the ground. Confusion was as plain as the nose on her face.

Whit nodded. "Yeah. We can do that. Coop, lead the way."

She wasn't right, Cooper considered. Neither was he sometimes, but this was different. He was always the same person, just bent out of shape some by the Verse around him and those who sought to do him harm or push him past his tolerance. Daiyu? She was fractured like a broken mirror, pieces reflecting different moods, different scenes in her mind. Not the first time he'd encountered such a thing, though abuse something awful had shattered folks he'd met before with such afflictions. He wasn't wise enough to fix things, but he would walk through fire, brimstone and the devil's hell himself to protect those that needed it.

"This way," was all he actually said out loud though, and with a jaunty point of a confident index finger to the path ahead, Cooper took the forward position and let Whit and Daiyu fall in behind him while they made their way back to the resting Firefly and its wayward assortment of crew.

--------