Flash Fiction : The Cost Of Candor
Image by Gray Moth
Callum slammed his cup on the counter, startling his neighbor nearly out of his chair. “May the fiery cock of Firr scorch their asses! That’s what I say!”
A voice rose from the haze, “Plug that leak in your face!”
Callum did not often take to drink. He made an exception today. He was fed up and Folk were going to damn well hear him out. Piss pots and carcass rot for twenty two years. He could see his handy work worn about like it all came ready for wearing fresh from Nall’s quim. No “Thank-You-Kindly”. No gratitude at all.
“I’ll have yo-”
A man of a frustratingly sober demeanor appeared in the seat next to Callum. His common clothes and dirty hands betrayed him to be of the laboring ilk. Like Callum. Though something in how he carried himself separated him from the blur of bodies at the Drinking House.
“What’s got you troubled, friend?”
Despite a grand list of grievances Callum had been formulating the better part of the evening, the forthright question gave him pause. After another swing of swil, he settled on a reply. “No respect, I s’pose. I’m owed it, wouldn’t you say?”
The stranger took a moment to ponder the question. “That must depend on what you’ve done to earn it. Have you earned it?”
“I damn well have! Twenty two years in all. I’ve served as a tanner, a currier, and a thonger for a time. I do the work. I keep costs low. I even supplied at cost in the last war.”
“Then I’d say you do damn well deserve it.” the stranger replied with a kind grin. ”Will you have a drink at my expense?” He pulled two coins from a purse. That they were crane backed coins of the new imperial mint caught Callum’s notice, grating at his already dour mood.
“Times change. We gotta adapt. That’s the sorry truth. And these fools keep fighting at a long lost cause. I tell the as much and do they listen to me? No. No, they are out to slay the great golden tyrant - fell the empire all by themselves.”
The tender almost tripped over herself in haste to bring Callum and his new friend a drink. Callum couldn’t help but notice she served the stranger first, despite him being further from her start. Then, to add insult to offense, she knocked Callum’s knuckles with the cup before leaving it - even stared pins into Callum’s eyes before wandering off. No respect.
The stranger handed the tender his imperial mint, and another from his purse before she could scurry off. Turning his attention back to Callum, he mused, “Slay the great golden tyrant, eh? You have a poetic way of speaking, friend.”
“I s’pose. Don’t take my meaning wrong. I’m no friend of this empire of shipwrecked sailors nor am I fond of their cloudy God. Our gods may be dead, but at least they had a kind of sense about them in their day; A legacy that counted for something. Oh and I have nothing good to say for that emperor of all the fucking world Absolute Candor! No, I - I’ve forgotten what I was on about.”
“Ha! Lucky for us both I have not. You were speaking of others failing to adapt to change.``
Reminded, Callum snapped back into his diatribe. “Damn right! Damned kids and their damned rebellion so called. Damn them all. I understand it. I do! But, we lost. That’s just the truth of it!”
“And why shouldn’t a man fight for what he believes?”
Callum slammed a fist, “Bah!” In a conspiratorial tone he explained, “Raid a caravan and you only make the next one cost more to bear. Kill an Arahetian sophist and you double the steel-clads in our streets. It does more harm than good, despite the intent. Besides, it’s hopeless. If we were gonna win, we woulda won at full force. We woulda won before they took our temples. We woulda won when we had a damned army!”
“Foolish not ferocious is the leashed dog that chokes biting air.”
“That’s what I told her! More or less.”
The stranger raised a brow at that, “Her?”
Callum shrank into his cup, “My sister. Isa. Isabell, that is. I knew it when she was bringing home fresh plucked apples all of the sudden. She was meeting with them past the old orchard. But she just dismissed my prying the same way she did our da’s when we were young. Infuriating wit, she has.”
“... as stubborn as a whitestone wall. Yes, my sister was much the same. I understand your plight.“ The stranger raised his cup, meeting Callum’s for a casual toast. “To willful sisters, great golden tyrants, and earned respect, eh?”
“Aye. To that.“
Callum felt all of the sudden appeased as cups clinked, perhaps even a bit embarrassed for his upset, having had his troubles truly heard. After a moment of quiet company, a young man of Dehovan ilk called the stranger to some odd task elsewhere, leaving Callum the lone patron after casual parting farewells.
It wasn’t so very late, was it? Where had everyone taken off to? No matter. Callum reflected on his own foolishness. How much did he drink? Tomorrow will surely come heavy.
Tomorrow came heavier than Callum could have ever imagined. He woke late to the crier’s calls. Hangings in the square? He stood at the threshold of his tannery with a pounding headache and a subtle unease. A fit of the stomach? No, it felt more like guilt than upset. Though he couldn’t quite place its source.
His feet compelled him toward the square. At first with a disoriented lurch. Then a shuffle. Then a hurried sprint. So many people gathered - and this feeling in his gut.
Callum brushed against a dispersing crowd of Folk. Some were shaking their heads. Others struggled to hide tears as they walked past. Someone patted Callum’s shoulder before passing by. Callum didn’t see who. His eyes were fixed toward the hanging posts, eyes straining against the sun.
As his eyes adjusted to the bright, the lurking weight in his gut flushed through him until he was drowning in it. A dozen men hanged in a day. A dozen men and one young woman. Isabell’s body hung lifeless before him at the center of a grotesque display.
Callum fell to his knees. “How? Why? She wasn’t one of them! Not yet!” His face turned from ghostly white to angered red in the proclamation.
The clank of steel-clad men approaching did not stir him from his sunken despair. A crisp crunching - the sound of the first bite on an apple - did.
A familiar voice, “Foolish not ferocious is the leashed dog that chokes biting air.” Callum lifted his head to see that the kindly stranger stood next to him, alone in the square now with an entourage of exemplars. The stranger peered up at Isabell’s body with a freshly bitten apple held near to his face. He lowered his gaze, meeting Callum’s watered eyes with his own. “I truly regret your loss. You are a respectable man, Callum.”
Turning to one of the armored men the stranger said, “We must be off. Our work here is done.”
“Yes, your majesty. Have you an appetite?”
As the entourage faded from the square, Callum planted his face on the cobbled ground and wailed. He wailed until his eyes bled and his voice failed him. Then, with his will fully sapped, he resigned to weeping. He wept into the night until sleep took him.
What you just read was written in an evening. The format is called Flash Fiction. Flash fiction is a self-contained short fictional story that consists of 500 to 1000 words (Though this one went over the limit a bit).
While the matter-of-fact text exploring the histories and peoples of a world are a common and necessary feature of tabletop roleplaying setting guides, it often falls short of truly inviting the reader into the worlds explored. Stories, on the other hand, bring a world to life. To that end, flash fiction like this will be included throughout the Tribulation guide.
If you’d like to try your hand at writing flash fiction in the brutal world of Ash and Ruin, reach out to straygoat@tribulationgame.net for details. We’d love to share the imaginings of amateur enthusiasts!
Additional Context : Absolute Candor
28th to hold the station, Absolute Candor reigns over the Arahetian Empire. Though, encountered on the street one would not know it. Forgoing the adornments of his station, he seems more an elderly farmer with a curious entourage of exemplars and abjects. He’s of average height, wanting beauty, and waning youth. Forward, abrupt, warm, and sometimes downright rude in conversation, he pays no heed to tact or manner. Instead he speaks to each partitioner as one might a close friend. Despite his casual approach to conversation, his actions on the world stage are anything but tactless. Not since Absolute Order, 19th to hold the station, has an Absolute been so aggressive in his actions to snuff out those that would oppose Arahetian rule in the Protected Lands.
