My Name Is...
Rumple.
Rum.
Ru.
All of the names he had gone under since he was a child. Since the moment his mother had told him about a mischievous beast that turned straw into gold. All it wanted was simple, it only wanted someone's child. He was clear about the payment, he was honest in his deals. What else could a Beithioch want to be?
Rum walked down the streets of Limsa with a hum in his throat and a spring in his step. He had managed to talk himself out of yet another debt that he didn't feel like paying. Part of him knew sooner or later people would be after him, but they would have to deal with the tricky wording of the verbal contracts he had put them under. He always wanted to be Rumplestiltskin, and now, he got to be. Minus stealing a child from a mother. That sounded like a lot of work for him.
Night time had fallen and he made his way to an inn he frequented when he was in the city, the rare few times he was that is. Living a transient life was part of his long plan to stay away from the people who kidnapped him and his siblings when they were children. But it did mean he never got to see any of his siblings again. If he had been more adventurous he'd try to find the way home. He would wander the woods in the Black Shroud and eat dry rations under large canopy trees. But that sounded boring, and like more work than he wanted to do. One of his siblings would find him one day. No one ever told stories of the middle child. It was always the youngest and oldest who did anything in the stories.
Inside the tavern, the first thing Rum noticed was the change of staff. Everyone in the tavern he had known was now gone. That wasn't a red flag, in fact, it meant there were new people for him to manipulate and trick.
'New prey for me, don't mind if I do.' He thought with a jovial bounce in his step. He sat down at a chipped wood counter and waved to a barmaid. "Hey, ale, something with flavor."
The woman nodded and would get him his drink. Rum tried to listen in on the conversation happening, but that's when he realized no one was talking. Again, that wasn't too strange. Sailors after being on a boat for months on end tended to have little to talk about with the people they were with.
Swallowing a long drink from his ale he looked around again, and then it hit him. They were looking at him. He didn't think he looked too strange for a Hyru. That was a perk of the family, they blended in everywhere they went. Unassuming, the wolf just off the path to bite the little girl who needs to get to her grandmother's house. But suddenly he wasn't a wolf amongst sheep, he was a wolf surrounded by hunters.
Sitting up straight Rum thought through his next actions. He had been alone all this time. He didn't need a family to protect himself. Unlike everything he had been taught as a child, his family could not protect him.
"I take it you're all from Ul'Dah?" He asked keeping his voice level. There was no reason to sound like he was panicked, panic would not save him.
No one responded.
His stomach twisted and as he got up to his feet he felt his balance had been thrown off and fell back hard into his seat. "The fuck?" He cursed and tried to settle his nerves. He had to find a way out, there was always a way out.
Survival was the duty of all of his family. He had lived on a slave boat, then he had gotten free to work with pirates, he had survived so much. This wasn't going to be the end.
Reaching in deep he got to his feet and pulled a dagger out of the back of his pants. Holding it close so the blade was pressed against his arm he waited for the people in the tavern to strike. If the poison he had ingested was going to take him out, he needed to find a healer to purge his system. But to do that he'd first have to cut his way through the room.
Two men got up from their seats and drew cutlasses that were crude and chipped. Rum launched forward and slashed one man's upper arm, disabling the man's dominant hand for the moment. Rum could try to make a run for it, to get to one of the guards and use them as protection, but authorities weren't to be trusted, even in a city like Limsa. They might side with his attackers anyway and then he'd be right where he was before, only with more people to hide from.
Rum kept up his attack keeping himself on the offense to run the disabled man head-on and push him on the table. The world throbbed around him for a moment, the poison was still crossing through his veins. He powered through it and sank his blade into the man's neck, blood sputtered out and soaked his chest and face with the pressured spray. Rum didn't turn away from it, the first time he had been covered in humanoid blood was one of his first memories of being with all of his family. It was a comfort, a happy memory soaked in hot sticky blood.
In another world, this would have been a sacrifice.
If only he had gone home. Maybe he could have been the Beast his siblings all dreamt to be.
Looking up Rum saw three other men come closer. They blocked the door and the barmaid pulled out a spell book. This was an ambush, whoever was after him, they would leave the room with more dead than they were planning. He'd make sure of that.
"Who sent you?" Rum asked as he got enough distance to plan out his next attack. His heart was pounding, and his mind was growing fuzzy.
The barmaid smiled sweetly. "Your sister has been looking for you, we're going to deliver you straight to her."
Calpernia.
Rum's blood froze in his veins as he thought of his younger sister. The sister who had been annoying and bothersome up until she proved she was as much of a Beast as him. She didn't cry after they were held captive, her pale blue eyes were as haunting as his elder brothers. She would tell stories to calm their nerves, and when he cut the number six into the center of her back, he had sworn he would find her one day.
She was still alive. There was one Beithioch who still drew breath. He had been alone for so long that he had been sure he was the last. A Beithoich alone in the world is a tragic and dangerous thing. Far more dangerous than them together.
He had to live, he had to see her at least once more. That he could walk to the beach and talk about the monsters they loved.
Readying himself again Rum knew his plan of attack. He didn't need anyone to save him. He never needed anyone, but he did want someone. He wanted his sister back in his life...
