No Place Like Home
Submission for Ironage Media's prompt, "The Acropolis"
The woman gazed at the city sprawling out before her. “So that’s what it’s become,” she thought dryly to herself. It had been nearly fifteen years since she had last been there—she had been barely more than a child then—and it still looked the about the same. “Home,” she scoffed, the thought made her want to vomit. Although it had been a rather seedy place before, it seemed a haven for scum now. The kind of scum she had become in her wanderings. She smirked, then walked towards the city, wondering if her mother would still be there.
She hoped that woman wouldn’t be there, because there was no knowing what she might do to her mother, and she didn’t know if there was any law enforcement, or what kind it might be. A gun was slung at her waist, and several knives were hidden about her person, including her favorite knife done up in her hair.
The orange rocks gave Lorann a change of scenery she had long been wanting. She wouldn’t have to deal with any more lush worlds for a while. Plus a rocky environment meant lots of places to hide, and Lorann constantly needed places to hide from the law. Dust and chalk were thick in the cool, light air. A small bush grew next to the path she was taking, and she picked a few berries from it, remembering it from when she used to run from the city and her mother.
She pulled a knife from where it was hidden up her sleeve, opened it, sucking on the tip, thinking. She wasn’t quite sure yet whether she’d just kill the man she came here to kill, or become a local crime boss too. She rather liked that idea. Having an army of minions, mercenaries, and slaves seemed like a nice change to the life she had been living as a roving outcast, traveling the stars.
She had seen many things in her travels, seen many evils and committed many evils. She had done some good, but only when it helped her out. She wasn’t usually malicious to be malicious—she was just in it for one person only: herself.
The city loomed nearer as she walked. She decided against checking her childhood home, as blood would inevitably be shed. That might taint her new first impressions of the place. If that happened it was a surety that she would never stay. Plus, she wanted a drink and some food before she crossed paths with her mother.
Once inside the city Lorann saw that law enforcement consisted of mercenaries who answered to whoever owned that particular section of the city, or whoever had deep enough pockets to make them look another way. Not much had actually changed.
She found herself wandering familiar streets, scheming a way to the top. Whistling a tune and breathing in the foul air, Loranne wandered about the poor sector of the city, letting her feet take here where they willed. She only stopped as she walked into a door. Rubbing her nose, she saw it was the door to her house.
Deciding to go with the flow, she opened the door and went inside, already planning how she’d get her revenge. The place wasn’t quite how she remembered. The once spotless walls were now grimy, their original color now unguessable. The floor was also hidden by layers of dirt years deep. Tasks that she used to do while being beaten. It smelled just as bad as it used to though, maybe even worse if that was possible.
The door opened behind her before she could look into her old room. Lorann turned, seeing the hated woman from fifteen years ago. “So the woman is still alive.” Only, Lorann didn’t say mother. Instead, she used something a daughter should never call her mother.
Her mother swore. “What in blue blazes are you doing here, you little brat. Don’t think you can fool me. I didn’t want to see you after I sold you. Why did you come crawling back here?” She pulled a flask from her vest, took a long drought, then belched in a most unladylike fashion. “Get out o my sight; I didn’t want ya then, and I ain’t want ya now.”
“You’re right,” Lorann said, throwing her knife, ignoring the speech she had prepared. “We don’t need to talk.” She drew gun and fired twice. Then walking over to the pungent smelling corpse of what once was her mother, she picked up the flask and took a sip. Spitting it out, she tossed the flask back at her dead mother. “You never did know a good drink from a bad one.”
Sneering, she closed the front door behind her, leaving the body for someone else to find. First thing’s first, she had a man to kill, for personal reasons, then she wanted a place to stay while she connived a way to the top. She inhaled deeply the familiar air. “Life is going to get a lot more fun.”
The End God Bless,