Archive of Our Own ^beta

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A small quick brown boy tumbled from the stagecoach just before it rolled to a stop. Most folk didn’t catch more than a glimpse, a figure darting away into the shadow of the hotel. Jonnit crouched in the dusty alley, one hand on his heart still beating at a gallop, and waiting to see if he’d been noticed. At least two of the coach’s passengers were assassins—he’d overheard them plotting in Wolfstooth. But it looked like some dandy in a green coat was holding up the line. Jonnit hesitated a little longer, watching as the murderers shouldered out of the stage and started fanning out.

An awful lot of luck was riding on him getting to the Sheriff before the rest of the coach’s passengers—but luck and the Lumins often shone in Jonnit’s favor, and he was pretty sure no one knew he’d hitched a ride. After another second or two, he trotted further into the narrow maze of buildings off the main street, looking for the legendary Orimar Vale.

Chapter Text

Travis Matagot was eternally grateful for the stupidity of men. “You, there! Take my bags up, why don’t you, and be quick about it!” And two people in the roughshod worker’s clothes that seemed so depressingly common around here looked at each other, confused, before they moved forward to take his (admittedly, meager) luggage. The stage had pulled up in the middle of Main Street, boxed in on one side by the hotel and the post office on the other. From his vantage point leaning out the door, Travis could see a motley variety of barber shops, saloons, a single general store, and a meandering line of ramshackle buildings that could loosely be called homes. 

“What a dump,” he said, mostly to himself. The other passengers, two men and a completely irascible woman, shoved him out of the door by sheer pressure. Travis stumbled on the pocked dirt of the road, tch-ing as the others piled out. He straightened his coat, brushed imaginary dust from his pants...and caught sight of Gable, a towering figure on an equally towering horse, looking with vague interest in the coach’s direction. 

Gable almost immediately caught sight of him, their expression souring into a familiar grimace. Travis quickly shoved his heart into a box that looked like annoyance, and his face into the same. Only then did he step out into the open, making sure to swirl his coat dramatically. 

“You,” Gable said, loudly enough to clear a path between them. 

“Me.” 

“What’re you doing here?” 

Travis was impressed with how much feeling they managed to pack into the single word, although it was undoubtedly because they didn’t know very many. “A little bird told me it was a nice place, so I decided to visit.”

Gable scoffed. “As if you would ‘just come visit’ anyplace.” 

Travis smiled a sharp, nervous smile. He wandered up to their stirrup, one eye on the truly enormous grey beast and the other on the enormous beast riding him. “Why don’t I buy you a drink in that charming saloon over there and we talk it over more privately?”

Reluctantly, Gable glanced over their shoulder to the bar at the corner—the porch roof sagging, the walls patched with several badly cut planks, and a hand-painted sign that said WISKY $3 next to the door. 

“Really Travis?” 

“It looks homey,” he said smugly. Patting their leg condescendingly he added, “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to. But I’m drinking there.”

“You’re the worst.” Gable rolled their eyes, but they swung one long leg over the horse’s side and joined him on the ground. Not that they didn’t still tower over him, just slightly less than they had before. “And not getting away that easy. Let’s have that drink.”

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Alone in his office, Dref Wormwood was trying to read. The light came in haphazardly, great golden beams that cut through the curtains and the dust. His many bookshelves shared space with glass jars full of murky liquid and other, more questionable ingredients. Bundles of herbs hung from hooks in the ceiling, and a great scarred table stained with old blood took up the center of the room. 

His office was set in an alley off the main street, shielded from the worst of Uhuru’s traffic. Still, the noise and bustle of the town could be heard through the thin wooden walls and precious glass windows, a constant disruption he couldn’t seem to tune out. 

And then, of course, there was a knock on the door. More accurately, it was a terrible banging that shocked Dref out of his hard-won concentration. He sat frozen for a moment, and the banging went on undeterred. 

“Coming, coming!” Dref stood up too quickly in his haste to stop that noise , hit his knee on the operating table as he went past, and stumbled to the door cursing under his breath. “It isn’t locked!” 

This statement did stop whoever-it-was from knocking, but they opened the door just as Dref reached it. The flimsy pine boards slammed into him with all the force of a catapult, knocking the wind out of his chest. In the same movement, an unfamiliar boy barrelled into his office, shout-whispering at him, “Shut the door! Shut the door!”

“You just opened it!” Dref hissed back--a little wheezier than usual, thanks to his visitor’s precipitous entrance. Together, they managed to shove the wooden door shut again. His precious glass windows rattled in their frames, and the boy crouched under them, panting. 

Through the wall, Dref could hear angry curses. “Where’d he go, the brat?” 

“You said he couldn’t have followed us from Wolfstooth.” 

“Shit, I’m sure I saw the fucker. Keep looking! We can’t make a move until we know he’s dead.” 

Dref sank back further from the windows, so that he couldn’t be seen even if someone was standing right outside. Anyone willing to kill a kid wouldn’t hesitate to kill him. “Who are those p-people?” he whispered over to his unwelcome guest, who now had a gun clutched in both hands. “Lumins’ eye, what is wrong with you!?” 

“What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you!? Don’t you have a gun?” 

“No! ” 

He only realized how loud he’d been when the street outside went quiet. Dref clapped a hand over his own mouth, unable to work up the nerve to glance outside. Both of them sat frozen, not daring to breathe as footsteps crunched towards them through the dust and rocks outside. 

A second knock sounded on the door, and despite knowing this one was coming Dref jumped again. The boy next to him hissed a curse, then rolled away under the table. He was out of sight in a moment. “Answer it!” 

“I w-wish you’d s-stop telling me w-what to do! ” Dref hissed back. But he opened the door. 

Calivar was standing there. Uhuru’s only deputy sheriff was dressed in typical deadly finery, silver inlays on both his pistols and polished turquoise studs gleaming in his ears. His shaved head and broad shoulders always seemed to be making a statement in direct opposition to Orimar’s long locs and lithe build. 

In fact, Dref could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen Calivar without Orimar at his side, and vice versa. Instead of the Sheriff, two ruffians he didn’t recognize crowded in at Calivar’s shoulders, and a third trotted up from the end of the alley, shaking her head. 

“Wormwood,” Calivar growled. “What’s that you were shouting about?” 

“N-n-nothing, sir. D-deputy.” Dref tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry. He may have been a coward, but he wasn’t an idiot . He knew when people were up to no good. “I...I d-dropped a j-jar, that’s all.” 

Calivar took one step forward, crowding into Dref’s space. Somehow, Dref stopped himself from stepping back. “I think you’re lying, Wormwood.” Calivar’s voice was smooth as water, deadly as drowning. “I think there’s someone in that shitty little excuse for a surgery you’ve got back there.” 

The only thing Dref could think of later was that he must have been temporarily possessed. Somehow, he stood up straight, scoffed in Calivar’s face, and swung an arm open into his office. “The only person who’s been in my office r-recently is L-L-Larry.” 

All three newcomers laughed, but Calivar grew a little paler. “The fucking leper?” 

There was a moment of silence where Dref scrambled for the last dregs of his courage. One of the ruffians cursed. “Are you kidding me?” 

“W-w-why w-would I be k-kidding?” Dref bit the words out, struggling both to control his stutter and not to give away the lie. “I’m a doctor.” 

“Shit, man, I’m not going in there.” The second ruffian, a man in a leather coat and hat, crossed himself as he drew back. His companions followed, and Calivar...considered. There was a frightening intelligence behind his bullish face, a thing that most people in Uhuru forgot—until all of a sudden he was breaking down their door at the most inopportune time. 

“Who’s in there, Wormwood?” he muttered, so close that Dref could feel the heat of him. 

“N-n-no one.” Dref sent a useless prayer to a dead god, his heartbeat shaking his chest. 

And at last Calivar stepped back, slow and steady. He kept his eyes on Dref, but called back to the others, “Let’s go. He can’t have gotten far.” 

Chapter Text

“—And now I’m here.” Travis downed his third shot, slammed the glass down on the table, and waved imperiously at the bartender. Gable leaned back in their chair, making it creak dangerously. Their expression was no less sour than before. 

“Not that I’m not happy to see you—”

Travis snorted doubtfully, and Gable gave him a long-suffering look. 

“Not that I’m not happy to see you, but . Uhuru’s a small town. How long do you honestly think it’s going to be before you piss off the wrong illimat players? And then I’m going to have to rescue your sorry ass, like always—”

“Excuse me, Mx. High-And-Mighty! I recall an awful lot of rescuing being done the other way around.” 

Gable conceded the point with a sigh. “That was one time—”

“And in that prison. And that time the Church got you in Madrid. And— ”

“Fine.” Gable waved a hand as if brushing away flies. “Fine. That doesn’t change the fact that you’re here because you’ve run out of places to run off to. And this is the end of the line, Travis. There’s nothing else out there but the desert.” 

“There’s always the Bandit Queen.” Travis shuffled a deck of Luminaries, the snap of cards loud in the quiet saloon. 

Gable snorted. “Like she’d have you.” 

“Queens love me,” Travis said, his smile sharp and double-edged. Gable only looked at him, but waiting for Travis Matagot to regret his bad behavior was a losing game. 

“I just don’t want you getting shot. Again.” 

“It failed to kill me before.” Travis flipped over a Luminary, smirked, and shuffled it back into the deck. 

“Travis.” Something about Gable’s tone, be it desperation or a treacherous note of sincerity, made him look up. “This isn’t Syndicate territory. This isn’t anybody’s territory. The only law here is what the Sheriff says. And Vale isn’t well known for tolerating idiots.” 

“I suppose I’ll just have to meet him.” Travis shrugged nonchalantly. This time, when he flipped at Luminary, he scowled and tossed it down onto the table in disgust. The Island stared up at both of them. And for just a moment, their minds were filled with the sound of crashing waves.

Chapter Text

Sheriff Vale didn’t even look up as his deputy clomped into the jail. “Where’ve you been?” 

Calivar only grunted in answer, slumping down at his desk. He was in a mood about something. Orimar didn’t have time to investigate more closely. He went on scribbling equations in a corner of the map, pausing every now and then to reference a heavy, leatherbound book that had clearly seen better days. 

A slightly uncomfortable silence descended over the jail, broken only by Spit snoring in one of the cells. Calivar put his boots up on the desk, then took them off again. He stared at Orimar, tapping the heel of one foot against the floor. The sound echoed in the small space, until Spit grumbled and rolled over on his cot...and Orimar looked up from his map. 

“Do you mind?” 

“When’re we ready to leave?” Calivar asked, as if they’d been in the middle of a different conversation. “I’m antsy just sitting here with that thing in the room.” He waved vaguely at the book. 

Orimar closed the book with a thump, eyeing his friend with some annoyance. “You’re the one that brought it to me.” 

“I know, I know.” Calivar shrugged. “It’s just...how long is it gonna take to crack?” 

“Whoever wrote this book wrote it before the stars fell.” Orimar ran a hand lovingly over the tattered cover, once-red leather worn smooth and dark by years and years of handling. “It’s just slightly difficult to interpret, my friend. But don’t worry. I’m close. As soon as we know the location of that cave, we’re gone.” 

Calivar glanced out into the dusty street, his expression very calm and as unreadable as he could make it. “Good. I know just who to take with us.”