Simpler Times

“And don’t come back!” the barkeep shouted as he slammed the door behind Zal and Annia.

Zal stumbled up the street, supporting themself halfway on the building wall and halfway on Annia’s shoulder. The glowing tubes lining the street left bright streaks across their vision as their head swayed side to side.

“Ah, their mead was flavorless anyway.” They looked over at Annia’s face, but it had three eyes. “Damn, I’m seeing everything double again.”

“I told you not to drink while you’re still coming down from witchsight,” Annia signed. “No wonder you still can’t taste anything.”

Zal tried to focus their eyes on its signs. Annia lightly slapped the back of their head. It made the world light up for a second, and the light dissolved into sparkling snow.

“See, you can’t halfway understand me when you’re like this,” Annia signed.

“I just need katal.” Zal tried to get their pouch of herbs, balancing on uncertain legs.

“No hazeweed, you know what happened last time you were on witchsight, alcohol, and haze all at once,” it signed.

They rolled a very questionable roll of katal, with bits of dried leaf sticking out from the paper. They pulled their matches out of a pocket, but the book slipped through their fingers into a puddle on the street beneath them. “Fuck!”

Annia held out a burning match for them, and they leaned into it and lost their balance, but Annia caught them. They did manage to light the paper, though, and the stimulating katal smoke hit them before long. The world came together a little more.

“Now give me the haze,” Annia signed.

“No fair!”

“I’m only inebriated by one substance, so it’s fine,” Annia signed. “Two at once rule, remember?”

Across the street a door swung open. The three men who came out looked as bad off as Zal was. They had brown leather jackets, and white laces on their boots, and on their shaved white heads each had a tattoo of a lightning bolt. They looked up at the bar they came from, and the lightning bolt symbol hung in the window too, a local haven for the Kogaku Purist Party.

“Aw shit, we shouldn’t’ve gone this way,” Zal said.

One of the purists pointed at them, and the three stumbled across the street.

“Hey!” He looked down at Annia with his light blue eyes. “What’s a pretty one like you doin’ hanging around with this trash,” he said, pointing to Zal. “Why look at you, those eyes, that skin, you gotta be one of the purest Norra I ever laid eyes on.”

“Does that mean you have to take orders from me or something?” Annia signed at him, making sure to show the tattoo of a double bladed axe on its left hand--sign of the Northern Wind anti-racist collective.

He looked confused. “Fuck, what luck, it’s defective, can’t hear us. Here I was gonna invite you to be a Purist Party girl, would’ve been your lucky day,” he said through slurred words.

“Fuck off purie, your genes probably look like shit anyway,” Zal said, speaking no better.

He turned his attention their way. “What aucadit--audatic--au-dacity! Speaking to your superior that way.”

One of his friends got up in their face. “We don’t need none of you west folk polluting our streets, taking our jobs!”

“Do I look like I have a job?” Zal says.

“What even are you?” His eyes scanned them up and down. “What is this, I can’t even tell, boy? Girl? What the fuck are you?!”

“It’s a changeling,” the lead man said. “Ain’t you seen ‘em before? They’re everywhere now, can’t even tell their own gender, or they try to make up their own. Freaks, don’t you know this is a deviant free zone?”

“Why are you so mad, did a changeling girl turn you down?” Annia signed.

“I don’t speak degenerate!” he said.

“It said you’re just mad ‘cause changeling girls won’t fuck you!” Zal said.

His eyes were seething. “I ain’t no deviant, take it back!”

“You’re the one that can’t take it in the back ‘cause pretty girls find you repulsive!” Zal said.

“You ain’t no girl,” said the purist getting even more in their face.

“Thanks!” Zal said, and smoked the last reachable bit of their katal.

“Fuck, I mean you ain’t a real man.”

“Thanks again!” Zal took the still burning tip of the paper roll and stuck it straight in the purist’s face. They were aiming for his eye, but they hit his cheek. He recoiled in pain and clutched his hand to his face. They and Annia both laughed.

“Freak! Deviant! Fuck you!”

“You? Not even for double our rate,” Zal said.

“That’t it!” He pulled his hand back and jumped at Zal. They ducked under his punch but his body ran into them and their balance collapsed under the weight.

The other two turned on Annia. “Let’s find out what’s in your pants, changeling!” The lead one swung at it, but it stepped back and avoided it. It reached down to a long pocket in the side of its pant leg and pulled out a metal pipe. The purist took a step back and his eyes widened in shock.

It charged at him and struck him in the side of the head, wielding the pipe in both hands. He lingered for a second before his legs collapsed out from under him and he hit the ground, unconscious.

Zal’s opponent fell on top of them and punched them. They reached up and wrapped their legs and arms around him and pulled him close to them where he couldn’t throw a punch, and only tried to squirm free. Zal laughed and spit in his face.

Annia hit him hard in the back of the head, and Zal let go of him and let him roll off of them to lie with his friend. Annia stared straight at the last one’s green eyes. He took a step back. It raised its pipe, and he turned and ran, but tripped over his own feet and fell, scrambling to get up and away.

It put its weapon back in its little hiding place. “Let’s get out of this shithole town, Zal.”