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Jesper hears them before he sees them.
It was dark, so it wasn’t until he turned the corner and peeked through the slight gap in the door frame where he could really see the silhouettes shifting ever so slightly near the corner of the room, just barely illuminated by the buzzing lamp on the windowsill.
“No,” came Da’s voice first, stern and just slightly wobbling over the edge of concern. It was the same voice he used when Jesper climbed far too high into the winding trees lining the farm, or when Jesper tried (and begged) to take a feral cat home, or that time when Jesper bleached a particularly rude swear word into the jurda fields. It was the voice Da used when he was trying to sound like he hated the idea, but he actually just sounded really scared of the could-be result.
“Yes,” came Ma’s voice second, light and whispered in the dim of the night. It was the voice used when she and Jesper were cooking together—and she’d make the fire leap a little higher than normal, or she’d flick her hand and the eggs would instantaneously crack in their bowl—or when she’d let his hands rest over hers, her thumbs brushing his skin as all the flour on the two of them gathered into a powdery cloud and floated out the window, or when she pulled Jesper out the house on his fifth birthday, leading him to the stables to learn how to ride a horse. It was her excited voice, her “shh, Jes, let’s not tell your Da about this little thing just yet, hm?” voice, her voice when she was teasing and bubbling up with energy.
“No.”
“Colm,”
“Aditi,”
“It would be good for him,” whispered Aditi, and Jesper could just barely imagine her right now, eyes downcast, hands clasped around Colm’s, voice soft and touch ever softer. “And I think he’d like it.”
“He’s six,”
“It’s nearly his birthday,”
“In two weeks. And even then, he’s turning seven, not seventeen. He is a decade away from learning all—this. You do not need to teach him it, let alone get him one–Saints.”
Oh. Jesper bites the inside of his cheek to hide a gasp. His fingers stop drumming lightly on the wall. That’s me. They’re talking about me.
He had thought this birthday would be the same as all the other ones–which wasn’t a problem, of course, it would never be a problem–with sugary sweets and Da lifting him up in the air to spin him around and his parents teaching him more about the farm–which animals liked which food, how to harvest all the jurda (and spare enough flowers to make a crown), and when he turned six, how to ride a horse. He knows—from the tales Ma tells him before bed and the little written stories he can actually focus on to finish—that usually, things like parties or weddings or birthdays, there were presents wrapped in bright ribbons or cakes, but he never minded the lack of pretty little things bundled in silk and shine…okay, fine, maybe he minded a little bit. But he liked the lessons he got, he really, really did! He loves carving animals into the house with Ma and learning how to help out more on the farm with Da.
(And—in his honest, six-almost-seven year old opinion—he thought the sweet, fruity pie Ma makes, with violet flowers laid atop the middle and its leaves fanned out all around them, was a million times better than cream and frosting and whatever they put on cakes.)
But…it sounded like Ma was talking about a something, not some event or project. A gift—for him. (Though Da didn’t seem to agree with it.)
Jesper leans in closer.
Aditi comes into view, long, dark hair fluttering in the wind caused by her movement as she glides across the floor. Her hands are clasped in front of her, head tilted in the way it does when she’s making an offer. She’s grinning, though it's softer than he’s ever seen it before, just shy of pleading. “He doesn’t need to keep it all the time,” She whispers quietly, though not quietly enough for Jesper to miss. “I just want him to know. I knew at his age, Colm, a lot of Zemeni do, living on the frontier. I’ll teach him myself, and I’ll make sure he’s kept safe. I swear on the Saints and your aunt Eva.”
“And…” She looks up—and even Jesper could catch the surety in her eyes, the promise they seemed to be swearing. “If he doesn’t like it, I’ll hide them for good, keep them in the box under the floorboards. Or I’ll return them. I just—I want to teach him this, want to give him this.”
Colm walks in, hand running through his hair. (As he slowly approaches Ma, the skies clear and Jesper just barely catches his face illuminated by the moonlight, eyebrows furrowed and gaze downward in deep thought.) He doesn’t say anything for a long, long while, looking out the window before turning his head to face Aditi. “Alright.” He says, finally, though his voice seems to waver just a bit. “Alright.” He echoes, as if the second time would make him any surer. “Just…keep him safe.”
“When do I not?” Aditi beams–and that’s it! That’s his ma’s smile! “You will not regret this.”
“If it makes you this happy,” smiles Colm. “Then I don’t think I will.”
(Jesper holds back a gag–as all six-nearly-seven year olds do when their parents are, Saints forbid, romancing.)
Aditi laughs, “Yes, yes, so you’re the charmer now, Fahey? Where was all that flare last decade? I oh so remember a particular Kaelish man tailing me from sunup to sundown, with sweet Kaelish words I couldn’t understand and fragrant Kaelish flowers straight from the Wandering Isle. All gifts and longing gazes and horribly pronounced Zemeni compliments. And that accent–”
“A man can change in ten years, Hilli.”
“Aw, but what if I miss him? I still remember him to this day…whenever will he return?”
“Aditi.”
“I can still hear his voice…”
“Aditi.”
“And he used to blush so easily too! I wonder if he still does now…” Aditi grins, slow and catlike in the dark. “Would you like to know something too, Fahey? This Kaelish man, he blushed a lot—when I laughed at his jokes, when I talked to him in a particular manner, when I made eye con-tact—” She laughs, popping the “t”. “But he did it the most, and I mean the most, when I moved my hand up just like this—” Her fingers flutter and glide up Colm’s arm, crawling up the sleeves and the fabric before squeezing his shoulder.
Colm turns his head away and even in the dark, Jesper can see the red cascading all over his da’s face. “I’m going to bed.”
“Not so fast, wineglass.” Aditi grabs his hand and swivels the both of them around, swapping places. She’s grinning, still, and as she bends to pull her husband into a dip, the lamplight catches the delight and mirth in her face. “At least take me there too.”
“Of course, dirre.” Sweetheart. Colm laughs, a matching expression of love doused over his voice. “Anything you want, I will provide.”
“Well I do want a kiss, could you provide that, Fahey?”
“For you, Hilli? Anything.”
Jesper sneaks—runs really, but he hopes his parents didn’t hear that—all the way back to his room before he catches his parents—oh Saints—kissing of all things. He’s going to get sick. He’s going to vomit.
(Jesper, in fact, does not vomit, nor does he get sick, but that was majorly due to the fact he was far too interested in the prospect of a birthday present to have the image of his ma and da kissing soil his mind.)
---
Jesper trails his ma through the jurda fields, lightly pushing away the flowers as he squints past the morning sun. “Can you please say where we’re going now?” He begs, tugging on the ends of her shirt. “It's been forever,”
“I already told you, Jes, it's supposed to be a surprise,” Aditi answers. “You wouldn’t want to spoil a surprise, right?”
“Right…”
Aditi pauses, squinting into the distance before looking back at Jesper. She squeezes his hand, smiling just a little. “But I will tell you that we’re nearly there, and that this surprise will work the absolute best in that specific location.”
“Does the surprise have something to do with what’s in there?”
“In here?” Aditi blinks, jostling the small bag slung around her shoulder. Its contents rustle inside, and Jesper catches the telltale sound of metal clinking against metal. “Mmm, perhaps, but you’ll just have to wait and see, hm?”
“Ma,” Jesper groans.
Aditi rolls her eyes, lips pressed in the way they are when she’s holding back a laugh.
“Ma, come on,”
“Oh look, we’re here!” Aditi chirps, pushing away the shrubbery.
A clearing spans out in front of him, wooden stumps scattered around the grass as the trees circled around it all stretch out towards the sky, their branches touching and crossing and almost interlocking with one another as their leaves shroud the whole place from the sun—save for the few streaks of light pushing through the green.
“Ma…” Jesper exhales, utterly taken aback by it all. “What…It’s…”
“Save your words, Jes.” Aditi lightly scolds, though there’s no bite behind it. “That’s not even the end of the surprise yet.” She kneels down to match his height, eyes twinkling as she unclasps the straps keeping her bag shut. Her hand slides into the space between the fabric, before pulling itself back out, a sleek, silver, little thing held in her hand.
“A…gun,” Jesper murmurs. His hands twitch and—with an approving look from his ma—he gently lets his fingers brush the pistol. As he feels the entire thing, from the barrel to the grip, the cool chill of the metal kissing his skin, he lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
It felt like the sound of his ma and da’s laughter, the taste of the little pieces of candy da brought from his trips to the city. Explosions of feeling shoot through his system, popping like the fireworks every start of harvest season, running down his neck and across his spine. If he tried, really, really tried, he could hear a song whistle out of the thing, soft and gentle and beckoning. It was life, it was energy, it was as if a piece of himself he didn’t know was gone finally slotted itself back into his soul.
When Jesper opens his eyes, finally regaining himself amongst that flurry of emotion, the pistol is in his hands and his ma is smiling at him, her eyes crinkled in a feeling somewhere between delight and amusement.
“Alright Jes,” She starts. “Now that you’ve finished with all that…” She turns, gesturing towards a set of tin cans stacked on a tree stump. “How’d you feel ‘bout learning how to shoot?”
---
Shooting, Jesper very quickly learned, was wonderful.
The gun—pistol, it’s a pistol—felt like an extension of himself, another part of him that could move as quick as lightning and shoot something without a single thought. It felt like what the men da sells jurda to had described when tasting the stuff, bursts of energy crackling beneath your skin and rushing adrenaline through your blood. Addiction. They’d say.
Addiction. Jesper agrees, taking aim and pulling the trigger.
(Years later, many, many years later when Jesper is a good fifteen and spending his life in a gang and decidedly not university, he learns while trading stories that no, it is decidedly not normal to not flinch when hearing a gunshot for the first time. It is also not normal to master the stance in less than half a day—especially at six—then master the aim in two, then reloading in three.)
---
It’s still the early hours of the morning when Jesper and his mother arrive in Cofton. The dawn streaks the skies in swathes of purple and pink and orange and bits of blue behind the clouds, the bustling noise from the trade and the commerce and the ships bouncing around the many buildings. Jesper yawns, rubbing his eyes.
“Oh? Are you tired already, little rabbit?” Aditi frowns, tugging him along to a little shop by the coast. “On your birthday too…well I suppose we’ll just head back then—Saints know your da would love the company.”
“Wha—No! Of course not!” Jesper yelps, eyes wide. “‘M not tired, ma. I wanna see your surprise! Let’s go! C’mon, c’mon!” He clasps her hand and tugs, pulling her forward.
Aditi laughs, a soft, twinkling thing, like glasses chiming. “Jes…you don’t even know where we’re going.”
“Huh? I—yeah! Right! Where—where are we going…?” Jesper looks down sheepishly, a little embarrassed.
“Right…here.” And his ma pulls him into a cornershop smelling like a strange mix of sea and gunpowder. “Alright Jes, close your eyes”
“Wait—why?”
“Just cover ‘em, okay?”
“Okay…” Jesper closes his eyes.
He catches Aditi whisper something—multiple somethings, actually—into (who he assumes is) the shopkeeper’s ear, her fingers tapping without rhyme or reason on the desk. There is the thump, of something not quite heavy, but not quite light either, placed atop the wood, then the creak-sliiiide of the whatever it was being pushed towards his area. Another, lighter, definitely lighter, clink, clink, clink reveals the drop of a little pouch of smaller metal somethings. Bullets, Jesper realises with a jolt.
The smell of gunpowder…the bullets…the way Ma smiled with a certain twinkle in her eyes when she told him there was a surprise waiting for him.
They were in a gunshop.
He wants—he wants to open his eyes. Was that—whatever the shopkeeper dropped on the table—the bullets, the bullets—was that for him? It was, surely—surely it was right? He—Saints—he really wants to open his eyes right now. He’s not a careful person, he’s not a thinking person. He’s energy and movement and impulse and he really, really wants to see what’s happening even more now.
Slowly, Jesper opens up a single eye—
“We’re done now, Jes.” Aditi whispers, nudging his shoulder. “C’mon, let’s go.”
Jesper shoots up, eyes opening. He flits around frantically, spinning wildly until his eyes catch sight of the bag slung around his ma’s shoulder, and the way her hand dips into whatever its contents were inside.
Aditi takes one, long, amused look at his face, with its wide eyes and stunned expression, and huffs out a little laugh. “Not yet, Jes.” And she pulls her bag closer. “We need one more stop before we get to the entire surprise.”
“There’s more?!”
“There’s more,” Aditi laughs. “Now come on, you like pearls, right? We’re going fishing.”
---
“Ma!” Jesper laughs, running (or at least—running as well as he could knee deep in the sea) over to his mom, water splashing around carelessly. “Look! Look! I found more pearls!” He cheers, presenting a collection of oysters in his open palms.
Aditi laughs too, a loud, sudden, bursting thing. Her hair moves freely around her, droplets of the sea shooting out at her movement as she collects the oysters into her own palms. “Oh you’ve found much more than last time!” She winks. “I see you’ve finally started using your gift, hm?”
Jesper pointedly looks away, embarrassed. “Yes…” It was fun, admittedly, using his zowa blessings. The pearls had a specific ping to them, a song. Not like the guns and the bullets, where it was all echoes and reverbs and harsh, loud notes. The pearls were soft and tinkling and filled with the rush of the ocean, like when he would press a conch shell against his ear. If he squinted and flexed his fingers, he could so very clearly feel the little pearls beneath the sand. And—when he made a fist and imagined how it felt to pull up those particularly stubborn jurda flowers, where the roots had burrowed far and deep and clinging to the ground—he could just barely spot the oyster peeking out of the sand. “But da would be…” Disappointed. Sad. Upset.
Scared.
“Well it’s a good thing we’re not telling them how exactly we got this many pearls in just a couple hours.” Ma smiles, all mischief. Though it turns into something softer when she spots the still dejected, still guilty-looking expression on Jesper’s face. “Though… if we did tell him today, I don’t think he’d mind that much, Jes. It’s your birthday, your da wouldn’t care—that much—if you did something that made you happy. And I know you love your gift, right little zowa?” She’s smiling, still.
Despite himself—because his ma always had that effect—Jesper smiles back.
“Now…” Aditi starts, and in the blink of an eye, a pocket knife twirls around her fingers. “It’s time to get these pearls out.”
---
It’s rhythmic, almost, how easy it was to de-pearl the oysters. Jesper would slide the knife inside, carefully prying the shells open before very, very carefully so as to not kill the oyster, he would take the pearl out, placing it in a little group beside him. Meanwhile, his ma would flex her fingers, opening and closing her hand slowly as the oyster’s shells opened and the pearl rolled out.
And when the two of them finally collect all the pearls, of various shapes and sizes, all of which were collected in the small indent in the sand created by his ma, he sees as Aditi begins to slide her hand into her bag.
Jesper’s breath hitches.
Her hand slowly rises up once more, and held between her fingers—is a revolver.
“Happy Birthday, little rabbit.”
“Ma…” and Jesper flings himself into her arms.
“It’s of Zemeni make—of course.” She laughs, softly, as she holds him close. “Privately commissioned—by me—and I used cherry tree wood, from the one in the farm. I thought the revolvers would be a good fit for you, they fire fast, and shoot quickly, and you can always see the cylinder here move and turn—like you. And—”
“Thank you,”
Aditi startles, and Jesper can feel her hands still for a moment. “Always, Jes. Happy Birthday.”
Jesper finally lets go, and picks up the gun. His hands are a bit small for it, the handle much larger and wider (because it's for me when I get older too, he realises, jolting.), the cherry wood wrapped around it shining in the sunlight.
He loved it, he really did, but…it felt a little plain to say the least. He could survive with it, it was a gun after all, but he cannot help but wonder what he could do to make it spark more, make it a little more personal, a little more Jesper.
His eyes flicker from the handle, then to the pearls, then back to the handle.
“Ma…” He starts, picking up a singular pearl and aligning it somewhere around the side of the handle. “Do you think—you can—” Use your gift. Use your blessing. Your power. “Could you—could you—”
Aditi presses her hands atop his, fingers tracing around the back of his hand before slowly pulling his hands away from the handle. Within it shines the little gem, and he can see as it sinks up to the middle into the wood, brown climbing and wrapping around the greyish–white pearl before stilling.
“Of course, Jes,” she answers, voice soft, “though I might need a little help with these if we want to make it back home quickly.” She offers him a pearl, letting it roll around in her palm. “How about we do this together, hm?”
(Later, Jesper finds himself with a new revolver in his hands with irregular, varying colours of pearls lining his handle in a long coil until ending just at the end of the wooden grip. Ma promises to teach him how to shoot when they get home, in the clearing with the tree stumps and the slivers of sunlight.
Da’s smiling when they get back—even when he sees Jesper’s revolver for the first time—though after that, the grin didn’t quite reach his eyes every time they moved to look at the pearl-handled firearm in his grip.
Jesper—decidedly—ignores it.)
---
They bury her under the cherry tree.
They start to bury her an hour before the sun rises, and as Da shovels in the last of the dirt—Jesper still clinging to his side—dawn has already stretched across the sky. The wind whistles in the early moments of the morning and the birds begin to sing, sharp, lively beats of chirps and song.
Jesper doesn’t get it. Ma just died. Why hasn’t the world stopped yet?
His da seems to have stopped though. He’s shaking, still, and even as Jesper lets out a small whine, he does not release the tight grip on his hand.
“Da…Are you…okay?”
“I’m okay.” Da squeezes his hand even tighter. “We’re going to be okay, Jes, promise.”
But Jesper knows his da like the back of his hand. He knows what he looks like when he’s tired, or overjoyed, or sickly, delightfully—formerly—in love, and Jesper especially knows when Da is lying. His smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes and his voice sounds like a bird struggling to fly, strong and messy beats without rhyme, frantic fluttering.
Ma would know what to do. Jesper thinks, suddenly, and even the mention of his ma nearly sends him choking in tears.
He can imagine her now—picture perfect. He can imagine her head leaning against Da’s, one hand clasped around his as she whispers soft reassurances and “it’s okay”’s into his ear, sometimes switching into the little Kaelish words she knows just to watch as Da’s face shifts to something softer, warmer, less…sad.
But Jesper is horribly, unfortunately, not his ma, so all he does is squeeze his da’s hand in return and lets himself fall back against Colm’s side. So all he does is make burnt crackers when they get home and keeps his da company in a house suddenly too large and a farm holding a dead person’s name.
(He also—secretly—buries his revolver in a tight wooden box in the clearing. He can’t—he can’t bring himself to shoot—to look at the thing without—without remembering and—He just can’t.
So he buries it deep in the dirt where he learned to shoot, and swears never to shoot again.)
---
Jesper Fahey—unsurprisingly, obviously—is horrible at keeping promises.
He just can’t help it, alright? Which was really, truly, a shocker. Jesper “impulsive, rash, cannot resist a dare to save his life” Fahey, completely and utterly unable to keep a promise to his Da.
If he focuses less on the ground beneath his feet and the grass brushing his legs, he can perfectly imagine the expression on his da’s face when found about Jesper’s less than stellar activities. He can see the furrow in his brows, the way he’d pinch his nose and sigh deeply before looking back with the most suffocating expressions of disappointment he’s ever seen in his life.
“Jes,” he’d say, eyes sad the way they’ve been since Ma’s death, “Please listen to me, you need to apply yourself.”
(I’m sorry, Jesper wants to say, though the words are stuck in his throat. I’m trying, Da, I really am, I promise.
He wonders how long until he breaks that promise—again.)
But Jesper doesn’t want to start thinking of all that, not now, so he’ll resign himself to absentmindedly walking around the field, the nearly-sunset sky painting everything in a warm orange. Until…
Oh.
He’s in front of the entrance to the clearing.
If he closes his eyes, tips his head facing the sky and lets his mind run wild, he can clearly see his Ma, in all her bright, alive glory, leading him into the wood. He can feel the metal of the pistol, then the revolver—oh Saints the revolver—in his hand, the wood of the grip and the bullet in the chamber, humming a song only he could hear.
He shouldn’t—he really, really shouldn’t—but…he just wants to see. Just a look. He promises. Just a check. Then I’ll be gone. I’ll be gone.
Minutes later, Jesper finds himself wiping the bits of dirt clinging to the revolver and cleaning the entire thing from top to bottom, disassembling and reassembling it until it looked just like the day he first saw it, the pearls shining gleefully in the remaining light of the sun. Not even four years of disuse and inattention could wipe the mostly one year of continuously using it. The box he used to keep the cleaning supplies and the bullets lie open beside him, the clear indents of his fingers showing on the dust-covered surface from years under his bed. When he finishes, the rush of joy and adrenaline and delight was too overpowering to snuff out the bright smile on his face.
Should he restate the fact that Jesper Fahey was horrible at keeping promises? Probably not, he’s already feeling millions of years better than before, the revolver slotting perfectly back into his hand as if it never left. It would be a shame if he made himself ruin his own mood.
Then, curiously, ‘cause Da isn’t home yet, and won’t be home anytime soon, Jesper takes a look at one of the trees around his house and imagines shooting one of the squirrels that like clinging to the branches. It’s been a while since he and Da had a new meal after all, and Jesper was wondering what squirrel tasted like. He imagines it going right through the critter’s eye. Wishful thinking, impossible thinking, he knew, but it wouldn’t hurt to try.
So Jesper raises his revolver, taps his fingers against the grip without clear reason, and shoots.
And a dull, squirrel-shaped body falls from the tree.
(Even later, when Jesper presents the dead squirrel to his Da with bright eyes and a wide smile, or when he retells the story in the years to come, he never does notice how he shot it exactly where he wanted it to, the eye.)
---
Not very long after, Jesper learns how to hunt. He visits Cofton every so often, picking up odd jobs from the butcher or whoever decided they want to try squirrel soup or rabbit pie or wanted deer antlers on their wall. He learns where the animals normally go from the library, and learns which animals to shoot and not to shoot from the old tracker in the rocking chair by the beach.
He forages too—of course—and sometimes has to track animals instead of hunt them but it's the shooting that always brings him back for the next job, and it’s the shooting that makes him smile the most when he’s given those little piles of neredi coin.
He hasn’t told Da—also of course—and whenever he’s asked what he’s been doing, he always answers the same. “Just a couple of odd jobs around town, ‘Da, helping unload cargo, taking care of pets, the likes, don’t worry.” He would lie.
And Da’s eyes begin to soften, his entire body relaxing. “That’s good, Jes, that’s good.” He would say, then smile.
And Jesper would smile back, then lie on his bed staring at the wall. He used to never be able to convince his Da of something so untrue so quickly before. He was never—he really wasn’t—the best liar.
He wonders who’s the better actor, between the two of them.
---
Jesper is a good, ready, fourteen when he decides to buy another revolver. He’s got enough neredi to buy it after all, custom made just like his first one. It’s an impulsive thought, an impulsive decision, really, but Jesper couldn’t help it, alright?
He just—he just wanted a change. Something new, something just a bit different.
Something that reminded him of Ma again, to keep close as the finer details of her faded from memory.
Later, because another impulsive thought sparked up, which led to yet another, idiotic, impulsive decision, Jesper finds himself knee deep in the ocean, sand sticking to his clothes and pearls clanging about in a bucket dangling from his arm.
Distantly, he hears his ma’s voice in the back of his head. She’s laughing, he’s pretty sure, the soft, chiming twinkle of her voice faint in his mind. Use your blessing, little rabbit, she whispers. It’ll end up better that way.
But he can’t. He promised Da.
But, because Jesper is Jesper, breaking promises is an irrefutable, undeniable fact for him. The sun rises in the east, Da is terrified of Grisha, and Jesper Fahey is someone who cannot keep a promise for the life of him.
I’ve already broken a promise before. Jesper thinks bitterly, tracing the pearl handle of his revolver. Wouldn’t hurt to break one again. Da won’t know anyway. He adds in some sort of sour, twisted rendition of something his ma told him a long time ago.
So Jesper holds out a hand, flexes his fingers, and feels the pearls and the minerals and the rocks beneath him sing.
(It should be of note that later, when a twin revolver now rests in his free hand, the pearls on this one’s handles are significantly more uneven in pattern, more messy in placement. More chaotic, more loud, even. It’s his, now, with his mark and his chaos, more so than his first.
A part of him hates it, recoils, even.
Though when he takes aim and fires, all those thoughts vanish when a leaf drifts down from a near tree, a dark, smoking hole in the centre. )
---
“—Ketterdam’s a dangerous place, Jes,” Da starts, the beginning threads to a lecture slowly unravelling. “Island city, for one. Prone to plague they are. One sick and—” He makes a gesture with his hand. “Then there’s the Barrel. Criminals and thieves and killers. And brothels and gambling halls.” He places a hand on Jesper’s shoulder, eyebrows furrowed in concern. “Stay out of the Barrel, Jes. You’re a good kid.” A light pat.
“Be safe.”
Jesper rolls his eyes, fidgeting with the buttons in his coat. “I know, Da, I’ll be fine.”
“You write, okay? Letter every month, so I know you’re still alive.”
“I will.”
“And don’t get yourself in any fights.”
“I won’t,” Jesper grins. “And even if I did get into any fights—which I won’t, Da—I can defend myself just fine.” He adds, pushing away bits of the coat to brush his hands over the holsters of his twin revolvers.
Da frowns, and Jesper instantaneously feels a pang of guilt. He doesn’t think he’ll ever forget really, how upset-hurt-disappointed Da looked when he finally told him about his revolvers, and where the money actually came from, in a fit to keep his da from worrying about his near trip to Kerch.
“You know,” Da begins, eyes drifting towards the guns. “I still don’t fully know how I feel about you taking these with you. And I still don’t think you’re old enough to even use these—”
(A flash of memory. “—he’s turning seven, not seventeen.”)
“But…” Da slowly moves his hands up from Jesper’s shoulders to his collar, straightening it out. “I do know how good of a shot you are. I may not know how you are now, if you got better, or if you got worse, but I still remember when your ma taught you how to shoot.” A laugh, soft and weak but despite it all, genuine. “I remember hearing you and her shoot, sometimes seeing it, when the fields decided to be a blessing to manage. You hit every single time.” There is nothing short of pride in his voice and—suddenly, with a swish in the wind and a creak in the floorboards, Da pulls Jesper Fahey into a hug.
“You are a good shot, Jes.”
“Da—”
“So you stay safe, alright? Don’t get yourself killed.”
“I’ll be safe, Da.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
---
Jesper is fifteen, scared, and broke out of his mind as he paces the very limits of the Barrel’s borders.
He’d been taking odd jobs every now and then from whoever would take him to get himself just a bit of kruge, sometimes performing trick shots in the nearest bar to get a little more. It’s to get himself out of debt, he tells himself each time, just before he lands himself in much more, much worse debt.
It’s not enough, he knows it’s not enough, not if he doesn’t want to go back to a disappointed Da at home or die in an alley somewhere.
Which was exactly why he was currently pacing the street, debating this new, allegedly efficient, definitely illegal offer he’s been given. It’s dangerous, it’s deadly, and it’s everything he promised Da he wouldn’t do.
However, it gives good kruge, apparently, according to this limping, pale Barrel boy named Kaz Brekker with a raspy voice and dark, piercing eyes. Good kruge and a good place to stay and a hypothetically out-of-debt life given Jesper put in the effort and the dedication it required, lest he drown in the river with a knife in his gut.
And—now this detail was the one that hooked him—the job would require a gun. Which, by the way, Jesper was excellent at, much much more excellent at it compared to university, anyway. He’s a good shot, he knows. He’ll live, he’s pretty sure.
So…maybe he’ll take this Kaz Brekker’s—Dirtyhands, whispers the rumours he’s caught about him—offer. He’ll just lie to Da in the next letter, just once, then it’ll all be normal again once he’s wrenched himself out of debt. Just a couple jobs, then he’ll be out. He’ll be out.
C’mon, little rabbit, Jesper thinks, and tries to will it into sounding like his ma. (What would she think of this?) Take that offer.
And so, with a flourish and a twirl of his revolvers, the light gleaming off the pearls, Jesper takes a breath.
And takes a step into the Barrel.