A Meeting in the Badlands
A storm had broken over the badlands. Lightning crackled on the horizon, each strike splitting a white crack of light through the gray sky. A slim, lanky figure leaning against a dead tree was the only apparent life to be seen in the desolate landscape. The bare branches of the blackened tree offered the woman no shelter from the stormy weather. Rain soaked into her suit jacket and now-transparent collared shirt, which clung wetly to her body, and water slid across her smooth scales. Drops of rain flowed like tiny waterfalls down her long, serpentine neck and the many feet of snakelike tail wrapped around the tree’s trunk. The electricity in the air would likely make her hair stand on end – if she had any hair to begin with. None of it seemed to bother her, though. A small smile played on Fick’s reptilian face as she lazily dragged on her cigarette. Her exhalation of smoke was followed by a forked, violet tongue. It flicked out from between her scaled lips, tasting the air. She caught the scent of ozone, moisture… and rats.
Fick thought she had overdressed for the occasion, but her suit was nothing compared to the garments of the creature slouching towards her. He was dressed like he was going to a gothic ballroom gala, complete with a crown. He was dripping in velvet and furs, the jewels on his clawed hands and coat’s lapels glinting in the scant light that broke through the storm clouds roiling overhead. As he drew closer, the initial impression of finery from his clothing began to rot away. Rips and stains besmirched his fine clothes. His silver jewelry was tarnished, bearing occasional empty sockets where a diamond might have sat, decades ago. Dust clung to the bottom of his cape despite the small entourage of rodents holding it off the ground by its hem. What looked at first to be a thick fur collar on his worn velvet coat was actually a mane of oily hair, pierced through by vicious-looking spines. Most unsettling of all, of course, were the three rodentlike heads nestled within the ruff of hair and quills. Fick would like to think she’d met stranger people in her time, but even wracking her memory of all its encounters with freaks and weirdos, she had to admit: at least they all had just the one head.
“You took your sweet time, didn’t you?” Fick said through a toothy smile, striding forwards towards the new arrival with a casual friendliness better suited to brunch with a coworker than meeting a monster out on the empty stretches of a wasteland.
“…Your majesty,” she added with a sloppy curtsy, obviously an afterthought. One of Vermalis’ ears twitched, a small show of the irritation bubbling inside him. However, the woman had expressed proper deference, even if flippantly, so he swallowed his annoyance and nodded a greeting.
A bolt of electricity split the sky with a boom and a burst of blinding light. At the lightning strike, a flash of white scales coated Fick’s head and traveled down her neck, disappearing just as fast as the light from the burst of electricity did. She took the shock better than her fellow did – he and his rodent cadre jolted at the sound, adding to the din with a concert of startled squeaks. His spines and ruff puffed up, quivering, defending instinctively against an invisible predator.
“Nice weather today, eh?” Fick said breezily, offering a cigarette to Vermalis with loose smirk.
“Lovely,” Vermalis growled, fussily smoothing down his ruff with one hand and taking the cigarette with the other. He accepted her wordless offer to light his cigarette as well, though his only thanks were a haughty sneer and a sniff of derision. “Why did you drag me out to this wasteland?”
“What, you’d rather meet in a dirty alley?” The snake laughed, though there was no warmth to it. “I thought maybe you and the gang would like a change of pace from the old sewer scene. Nice and private, too. No one comes out here. Shame, it’s a pretty place.” She looked out upon the horizon, taking in the sights of distance bare-faced mountains and long stretches of windblown dusky sand. Trees reached up towards the lightning-streaked sky, almost plaintively, like twisted figures sinking into the mud clawing towards freedom. The sight was not what most would consider “pretty”, though for once, there was no irony in her voice. Her appreciation of the harsh landscape was genuine. Perhaps it was one of the few genuine things about her.
Vermalis followed her gaze, taking a long drag on his cigarette, all six eyes taking in the craggy cliffs and stormy skies. Each of his heads bore a different expression, nervous, smug, irritated - but none seemed as captivated by the badlands as Fick. “If you’re besotted with rocks and mud, perhaps,” the center head scoffed, smoke seeping from between his pointed teeth and pitch-colored gums.
“Enough wasting time. Get to the point.” The gravelly, slime-choked voice of Vermalis’ left head cut through the air. Both Fick and Vermalis’ other heads snapped their attention away from the vista, an identical look of shock on all their faces. None had expected him to speak. After a moment, Fick broke the silence.
“Right. Sure. To business, then?” Her countenance changed subtly, less relaxed now, her smile tighter, eyes shrewd. “Do you have the--?” She didn’t say the last word, simply made a vague gesture with one hand, but as Vermalis began to rummage in the inner pockets of his coat, she knew she had been understood.
Vermalis produced a small package, wrapped in brown paper and string, reddish-black stains smeared over it like a demotivated abstract artist had begun and then abandoned working on it. Fick hoped the stains were ink but considering the thick black ooze leaking from between her contact’s teeth, she doubted it. Fick reached into her jacket and pulled out an envelope of her own, wet with rainwater. The packages changed hands wordlessly, and each inspected what the other had given them. Fick peeled back a layer of the paper wrapping, just enough to catch the glint of gold and jewels beneath.
“All that security, but they never think to guard the sewer pipes.” Vermalis reached one many-ringed hand down to his entourage of rats. One scruffy-looking specimen hopped into his palm and clambered up his arm. The center head nuzzled the mangy rodent to his cheek, though the look of smug malice twisting his already monstrous features undercut the tenderness of the gesture. “It was child’s play, wasn’t it, my little one?”
Fick repressed the look at disgust trying to fight its way onto her face. If it were her, she would not hold something that had been crawling through toilets so close to her mouth. Or nose, for that matter.
Vermalis' right head was whispering something to the middle one now, sneaking wide-eyed glances between the soaked envelope and Fick.
“Of course it’s all there, you daft paranoiac,” the center head finally snapped to his right, and his other head fell silent, save for a few whimpers. “The snake knows better than to betray her monarch.”
Fick merely grinned and made a noise of noncommittal acquiescence. No need to ruffle the man’s quills. Still, a question tickled at the back of Fick’s mind. “Thievery is sorta below a king, ain’t it?” The words slipped out before she could stop them. Curiosity killed the snake.
Vermalis stiffened, his quills rising again. The rats at his feet stopped their scurrying, freezing, as if waiting for their king’s command. A peal of thunder sounded, rippling through the tense air between the two rogues.
“One cannot steal from thieves.” The monster growled, words dripping with metaphorical and literal venom, black slime oozing from the corners of his snarling mouth. “We do not expect your kind to understand the machinations at play. We are royalty, and we do not abide by the laws set in place by those who would attempt to keep our birthright from us.”
“Yeah, I guess I can’t see a guy… guys… like you working an office job.” Taking one final inhale, Fick dropped her cigarette and stubbed it out with the heel of her shoe. Scuffing some sand over the butt, she swept both dirt and the topic away. Vermalis allowed each of his heads one last drag on his cigarette before following suit, though his center head still fixed Fick with a withering stare.
“I thank you, your majesty.” She gave a nod, then another curtsy, with a little more effort this time. Her appeasement appeared to have worked, for now. The would-be king responded to her with a dismissive wave of the hand, his quills lowering. “Til next time, eh?” She said, cool as always.
“You know where to find our contacts, should you require another favor.” Vermalis responded, using a black-stained handkerchief to wipe the last traces of slime from his mouth, his voice now cold and professional. Fick’s gaze traveled down to the many beady eyes fixed upon her. Sure, she did. Where there were people, there were rats.
Another lightning strike bleached scene with harsh light, setting the cliff faces and the figures of Fick and Vermalis in sharp light and shadow. As the light faded and the canyon returned to darkness, both king and snake vanished into the shadows like thieves into the night. Rain washed away the prints of shoes and rats’ feet remaining behind in the sand. Only the badlands would know the two had ever been there.