#dharmagun

I don’t know a good way to include your reply, so I’m going to just talk back :)

So, yes - underground water in the Capitol! That’s one reason this otherwise fairly fertile area wasn’t very densely settled - there’s enough water, but it can be hard to get to (and it’s an easily-accessible plain that basically got razed over and over again as different conquests of Ainjir happened, and those happened a lot)

So, this part of the country comes down from higher land in the northwest, flattens out a bit, and then you’ve got lots of hills to the east and southeast.  It’s kind of like the Snake River Plain (but no river), or maybe more the Upper Rhine Plain (but still no river) since there’s jungle to one side and low mountains/hills to the other - I dunno, honestly pretty far outside my expertise as to the geological/ecological logics of this and I should probably stop talking about it, especially because most of the ecology I originally based on China but wikipedia didn’t have great info on Chinese aquifers - BUT ANYWAY there’s a shitload of basalt under the Capitol, columns & caves, etc, and palace is on the higher side of the land because it was originally built around an Artesian well (the old song goes that the King was on an unsuccessful hunting trip during a very troubled time time and laid down for a nap and got up and was blessed by finding a new stream of fresh flowing water where he had taken his rest, and thus blessed & future peace secured & rights of kings, blah blah blah - somebody added a ribald verse about ‘ground penetration’ and what other streams might possible run down the King’s sleeping leg and the original song is rather rarely remembered these days)

GOING ON, the city’s development was rather haphazard (in part because it wasn’t always the capitol, in part logistics), but before Keadar-Ainjir’s coup, it was to varying degrees illegal to screw around with the King’s water - it all depended on how into enforcing the rules about well-digging and dumping and whatnot any given ruler was, and whether they were even there or not.  But there was no easily-accessible nearby stream for dumping, and water infrastructure was poorly developed, so the city was both not very clean except in certain areas, and had a very hardworking and well-developed strata of people responsible for waste management (that not everyone had equal access to, of course).  

Then Keadar-Ainjir takes over and SHIT GETS REAL (in more ways than one, lol - fun aside, other than needing to kill every member of the royal family to complete his coup, it was a good idea for him to take the Capitol by storming the Palace because it had the best access to water, and if they got reverse sieged they could hold out until reinforcements came).  This city is a paper-heavy society fro the get go, so people are using chamber pots/dry toilets and paper, and everything is getting hauled out by night soil people for use as fertilizer (mainly on non-food crops - Ainjir is a major cloth producer and supplier, but there’s also hemp, bamboo, dyestuff, etc - but there’s still probably a fair amount of pathogen transfer going for local edible produce).  There’s pumped water for cleaning (hands, occasionally butts) and vinegar (yet another delightful city-smell), but no city-comprehensive sewage system outside of the public baths and royal fountains.  

This would of course NOT DO for a campaign-trained general, who knew the value of not shitting where you eat, so the major mining projects that brought up most of what he used to build the Academy also created a city-wide sewage and drainage system.  They don’t have a systems as grand and far-reaching as the Romans, but something like what Romans and Minoans had: indoor plumbing, waste water separation, public access to water for multiple uses (maybe not pressurized showers - the Academy has a deliberately jury-rigged version of pressurized showers that’s part of the Academy Dayz stories).  It doesn’t work as well in the originally-shitty parts of old town, as a lot of the piping is above-ground and depends on rainwater collection to compensate for lacking underground access (they couldn’t dig under the shitty old town without destroying it).  Nice old town had good enough systems in place, and just got a little update.  

In Ainjir, this elaborate system of wastewater management in the Capitol is fairly unique; other places have it, but one a much smaller scale.  Adineh, Wulsh, and the conglomeration of republics to the south have their own systems, which are honestly more evenly distributed (except in Wulsh, where it can get very spotty).

BUT, all of this to say: people in the Capitol are a fairly clean lot, between the public baths, sewage system, indoor plumbing, etc.  People, especially in the public privies, still use the plentiful paper (another fine use of the broadsheets) to go about their business, and (if you’re not nasty) wash hands afterward with a water-vinegar mixture from a basin  (you are supposed to smell a little more like vinegar than like shit coming out of the restroom - fancy people smell like perfumes - but the systems have been in place long enough that people sort of expect that sharp tang to hit them if you’ve just excused yourself to tcb, and it’s a little suspicious if you don’t).  Fanciest people use water from specially-spouted (long, thin spouts and very round reservoirs) pitchers or very, very special little water pumps (thankfully these are rare, since they mess up the dry/ wet ratio of the waste which can affect composting).  

Peeing in the street is still a problem, though. They installed a bunch of little ‘privacy areas’ but it’s basically just to make it harder to stare rather than handling the waste - it goes in the common street gutter, rather than the side of someone’s house though, so that’s good. 

The shitty black pickup truck pulled into the tiny gas station, kicking up dust from the road in its wake. It sidled up to the lone pump, and the engine died. The mechanics in the open garage didn't look up from their work.

Door opened and slammed shut. Tall hombre got out. No, he wasn't a man, not quite, not entirely. He was that lobo. Couldn't miss that posture, that dangerous face for a mile. The station owner, sitting outside in a plastic lawn chair, exhaled a sweet-smelling smoke from his hand-rolled and grunted in acknowledgment.

Syl ignored him as he patted down the pockets of his low-slung jeans. His shirt was unbuttoned and open, pale skin already slick with sweat so early in the morning. Too fucking hot in Mexico. Only downside though, considering they didn't live in a bigger city, so he could be bothered to put up with it.

"Nice scars, lobo," the shop owner called from his seat. He referred the numerous scars decorating his belly, chest, and forearms, plus two on his face. Syl turned his mismatched eyes on the guy and snorted in response.

"You should see the other guy," he called back without humor. He found the wad of bills finally and counted out a couple of the notes, strolling over to the guy to pay up front. He wasn't expecting change, and the shop guy didn't plan on giving him any.

The bruja was with him, in the cab of the truck. No one knew what she was exactly. She touted herself as a curandera and a midwife, but that wasn’t all she was. What they knew for sure though was what she could do, and they knew not to touch her. Most of them did anyway. The villagers still got the occasional idiot who tried to touch her, hit on her. If it wasn't the lobo who got the poor bastard first, she could turn whatever bad shit you had in your head on you the second your skin touched hers. The shop owner figured he'd prefer the wolf.

She leaned in and turned the radio on, fiddling with it until she got a channel that came in clear enough out there. Then she settled back, staying in the shadow of the cab. Syl growled softly in his throat at the shop guy, who stared at her a little longer than he would have liked. The guy started in his chair a little and averted his eyes. Maybe he wouldn't prefer the wolf after all.  

Syl went back to ignoring him and stalked back over to the truck, snapping the gas cap off with a sharp twist of his wrist. Cherry was singing along with something on the radio. He didn't know what it was; his Spanish wasn't that good. He had a vast vocabulary stash of curse words, of course, but not anything really useful. He unhooked the pump and flipped the catch up, then shoved the nozzle into the gas tank and pressed the trigger.

He heard the passenger door open and shut and looked up. Cherry was coming around the front of the the truck toward him.

"Cherry, get back in the truck, luv," he drawled at her as she came up beside him. The short little thing started going through his pockets. "Oi!"

"I'm thirsty," she said in explanation.

He swiveled his hip away from her hands. Her arms were bare; he couldn't pull her away properly. She gave up her search and looked up at him with those eyes of hers. They were the color of dark, venous blood, and when she turned them on you, it felt like she could see straight through you. Like she didn't need her touch to read everything that was going on in your head. It always made a shiver go through him, but he couldn't decide if it was a bad feeling or not.

Syl stuck his hand in his back pocket and fished out a handful of pesos. "Go crazy."

"Gracias, mi hermoso." She beamed a smile at him and skirted around him to trot off to the little store attached to the garage. She stopped to drop the coins in the shop guy's waiting hand then went inside.

The pump clicked and stopped filling. Syl pulled it out and put it back on its hook, then screwed the gas cap back on.

She was inspecting the small cooler by the cash register when one of the mechanics came in from a side door. He strutted up behind Cherry, who didn't even look over her shoulder, until the guy's greasy hand came down on the glass inches from hers.

"Ay, bonita. ¿Cómo te llamas?" His voice was gravelly - too many cigarillos, she figured, for too many years. His breath by her cheek reeked of tequila. She never liked the stuff, didn't like what it did to Syl.

"Miguel!" the shop guy called to him in warning, but didn't make a move to get up.  Let him learn his own lesson.

She leaned back into the guy, skin crawling a little at the sweat on his undershirt. But she can feel skin and that was what she was after. He ducked his head to press his mouth on her neck. A shiver rippled through her, discomfort and a certain level of revulsion, and she made a soft sound in her throat.

"Lupe. She is sick, mi amigo."

The mechanic froze. Then he pulled away fast like she was on fire. "¿Que?"

Cherry turned around to face him, a sad look on her face. "Lupe. You should be with her. Not hitting on me. The doctors say she does not have long?"

He looked at her like she'd just spoken in tongues. "What the fuck do you think you're-"

"Cancer of the blood is terrible. You really should be home with her."

That hand swung at her face faster than she saw it coming. She threw her hands up far too late to block the blow. But it didn't connect, and she heard a deep growling behind him.

"Cherry, get yer arse back in that truck right now."

Syl. Cherry wasn't going to wait for him to tell her twice. She bolted from the store, skirt billowing behind her. He heard the pickup door slam shut. Syl let go of the man's arm and bared his sharp teeth at him, sharper than any human's ought to be. The mechanic crossed himself and backed away. "Go near her again and I will snap your spine in ten places. ¿Comprende, amigo?"

The mechanic jerked his head in a nervous nod and all but ran back into the garage. He could hear laughter from his friends at his misfortune before the door shut. Syl groaned and rubbed the bridge of his nose between his fingers. He was getting too old for this shit.

Cherry was quietly sitting in the cab, staring into her lap, when he came back out to the truck. Something cold and wet touched the back of her neck, and her head snapped up with a yelp. Syl gave a gravelly chuckle and pulled the water bottle away, then handed it to her properly. "You forgot that."

She looked down at it in a bewildered way. "I'm sorry, Syl. I should not have done that."

"Che." He snapped the ignition key forward and the engine turned over. The little yellow gas light didn't come on this time. "If anyone's sorry, it's me. Shoulda watched fer him."

Cherry shook her head. "I had no right to use his wife's illness against him like that."

"Well." He dug a cigarette out of the little box sitting on the seat between them and slipped it between his lips. "If you ask me, he had it coming. Chasing your tail with his wife sick like that." There was a chink of his lighter, then the sweet smell of his tobacco.

"She has leukemia."

"Fuck." Syl took a deep drag and exhaled, turning his head toward the window.

The silence kept in the cab as they head back to their house about five miles from town.  The only sounds over the rumble of the engine were Syl exhaling as he worked through that cigarette, then lit up another as soon as that was done. She knew he was upset, by the way he chain-smoked like that. She just watched the scenery go by as they barreled down the dirt road toward their little house by the tiny lake.

Cherry was glad for the silence though. She didn't want to talk about what else she saw in those few seconds she held contact with the mechanic. It turned her stomach, and she did her best to not think about it. Fortunately, Syl never pried into anything of hers. That's what she liked best about him. He let her come to him if she needed to talk. He didn't force her into such conversations. She was grateful for his company.

"Oi, pequeña."

Cherry looked up at him, and a tiny smile tugged at her lips. That pet name for her always made her feel good inside, no matter how crappy she felt. He was still staring out the windshield but it felt like he was looking at her.

"How about we go see that coyote guy of yours, eh? You like that creepy dog of his."

She liked that idea. Albert was more understanding of her problems, just from what he was. And she did like his dog, all of his dogs. She nodded slowly.

"I'd like that. I'll bring him some quesadillas."