Roach

[Imperial]

“Roach, I’m not going to tell you again! Get your head out of the clouds and get back to work! We are well short of our quota, so I want to see your focus on those looms and NOWHERE ELSE! That goes for the rest of you!”

The foreman raises his cane threateningly, pointing it at the other laborers and offering the unspoken promise of additional motivation to be provided, should their pace slow down even slightly…

… yet Iseult was thoroughly exhausted and distracted, besides. She could barely sleep last night, so overwhelmed was she with rage and heartache from both the revelation of her fiancé’s infidelity and the confrontation that followed. All this time spent in this monument to misery wasn’t just so they could keep a roof over their heads and food on the table; it was so he could pursue his dreams of becoming a famous painter. He believed he could make it big. She believed it, too, and she loved him and wanted nothing more than to support him, even if it meant toiling for thirteen hours every day in this awful place. She had his back, and she thought he had hers. She felt betrayed. She felt angry. She felt lik-

“ROACH! Come here.”

She did not mind when others called her “Roach”. It was a name she had since before her parents died and La Rue Bas itself became her mother, father, and teacher. The way he said it, though…

“I’m tired of dealing with your stupid, short, sorry ass… so congratulations, you’re going to be made an example to the others.”

He swung the cane at her. She closed her eyes and prepared herself for all-too-familiar pain, and yet… the pain did not come.

“NO.”

It was a voice. It was her voice, and yet at the same time, it held such an intensity that it was wholly unfamiliar to her and everyone else.

She opened her eyes and saw that she held the other end of cane tightly with her fist. Silence consumed the workhouse floor, with every laborer fixated on the two of them. The looms went neglected, standing as wooden monoliths keeping quiet vigil.

“I would sooner die of hunger, I would sooner be cast out into the streets and be food for this city’s ears than work here for even a single moment longer.” The conscious Iseult was now little more than a passenger in her own body. The id was fully at the controls.

“I QUIT!”

The words echoed through this cathedral to capital. The foreman just stood there for a while, utterly dumbstruck. He was not used to receiving any kind of resistance from any of his subordinates, and that it came from a halfling…

He looked around. The halfling was gone, and all eyes remained on him. He urgently worked to save face.

“Don’t just stand there, get back to work! All of you! MOVE IT!”

[Imperial]

"Wait! No!", said her father.

"Don't shoot!", said her mother.

The report of three guns fired in quick succession. There was no further protest to come from the two.

 Iseult was afraid to crawl out from under their bed. She was afraid to move at all. She was afraid to even breathe.

Someone expectorated on the floor and then spoke in a gruff voice, the smell of spent sulphur and nitre floating in the air as wisps of smoke made their rounds inside the ramshackle home. It took all of Iseult not to cough and give away her position.

"This isn't even the right place, is it?"

A minced oath was uttered underneath the breath of another in the room, and yet it did not sound like a man slowly coming to grips with what he had done; rather, like someone forced to contend with a minor annoyance.

A third pair of boots began to move near to the bed... and then away just as quickly.

They all began to rush out the entrance to what was once a happy home, though Iseult did spot the coat-tails of an all-too-familiar blue uniform as they made their flight out...