Dark Alleys Are Never a Good Idea (GreenBeads)
Feb 25, 2011 20:23:27 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Feb 25, 2011 20:23:27 GMT -5
This was not a good idea. This had never been a good idea. River was fairly certain that selling her tesserae oil was illegal, but what could she say, it was a decent source of income and a way to get rid of her dad's empty rum bottles. The redhead sold the bottled oil for considerably less than the town shops charged lantern fuel, and she had a good rapport with quite a few of the sailors who needed light for their night shifts. Her business was run out of a tiny alley between two warehouses near the docks, bottles of yellow liquid propped up on a huge, overturned wooden spool that had once held miles of rope.
She'd been running this business on the side of her normal fishing job for a few years now. Most of her income that she brought home from the docks went to her father's booze habit, so only River's oil sale money was left to pay for the upkeep on their sad shack of a house and a meager amount of food. The girl almost didn't remember what it was like to have a normal life, a father who wasn't trapped in a permanent drunken stupor, a mother who hadn't drowned in a boating accident and left them alone. It had been this way for almost ten years. It would probably be this way forever. Blowing a stray rust-colored curl away from her freckled, heart-shaped face, River padded quietly down the alleyway to her normal place of business.
Winter had brought with it shorter days and longer nights, which was lucrative for the sixteen-year-old's little black market operation seeing as more lantern light would have to be used now that it was getting darker sooner. River ducked into her alley around seven-thirty, bottles clinking together with high soprano chimes within her backpack. Shrugging the canvas bag off her shoulders, the willowy girl began pulling the glass vessels out and lining them up neatly on the spool that sufficed well enough as a table. The sky was already inky black overhead, only the slightest bit of moonlight filtering down to cast eerie shadows along the alleyway. Chocolate eyes flicking around nervously, River finished stocking up her table and stashed the backpack safely in an abandoned crate. The former ballerina pulled her thin jacket tightly around bony shoulders, the damp chill from the crevice between the buildings cutting through her freckled skin and right to the bone. Even through the effects of poverty and malnutrition, River's body had managed to retain its dancer's shape, all lean muscle and graceful curve. She hadn't had a lesson since she was about nine, but she made practicing the skills she knew a habit when she had free time. Even now, in the empty alley, she found herself running through a few quick plies, one perfectly executed pirouette.
Stopping herself, River shook her head sharply, auburn curls flying as she reprimanded herself. You wanna look stupid? You'll have buyers showing up soon. She leaned her tall frame passively against the outside wall of one of the warehouses, ignoring the cold from the corrugated metal that cut through the back of her jacket. It was odd that no one had showed up yet, actually. Usually the red-haired teen had sailors lined up to buy fuel by the time she arrived in the alley toting her backpack, but tonight she was alone save for a stray cat that pawed through a dumpster a little ways down the dank passage. Puzzled, River began to pace, sneakers making wet crunching sounds against the damp pavement. There was no reason for her not to have customers tonight. The night shift hadn't been cancelled for any reasons, and she always had a few clients that would walk the extra quarter mile away from the docks to get a better price on fuel than they could in town.
The absence of humans in the usually-crowded makeshift marketplace made the girl uneasy, a weird feeling creeping up the back of her neck. There had to be something going on here that she didn't know about. Something other than the cold was making River shiver, apprehension running through her veins like a surge of adrenaline. She was on the verge of packing up her stuff and leaving, but she had to pay the water bill tomorrow and they were running low on food again. She needed tonight's income, badly. Biting her lip nervously, River went back the her spot against the wall, lean muscles tensed to make a break for it for some reason she couldn't explain.
