Rifka
RIFKA
By Paul Lucas and Moldred
The following is a story commissioned from me by Moldred. He supplied the characters, plot, and setting and I wrote it out for him and worked out many of the details. Like many of Moldred's stories, by himself or commissioned from others, it takes place in his Furries in Space universe. Please visit his site, which has a lot of cool pics and stories: http://www.furrysinspace.com/
Also, I am available for commissions, for stories OR art. I'm reasonable, real easy to work with, and even housebroken! = ) If interested, contact me at: [email protected]
Even though this is yet another chapter in Moldred's interconnected mega-storyline, not much background is needed that's not already included in the story. It takes place on Loam, a world dominated by magic and medieval-level tech.
Also, though there's nudity and groping, this isn't really a full-out sex story. Still a good read, though. = )
The coach bumped and bounced on the long winding coastal road. Rifka Rufous scowled out the curtained window, preferring her own thoughts to the droll conversation of the other passengers.
Her latest bitter, vicious argument with Vive had simply been the last straw. She had caught the first passenger coach passing the Inn the next morning, determined to start a new life elsewhere.
She had once been very content with life at the Crossroads Inn. Friends, family, even some fun and adventure here and there had all been hers, but she had always been too involved in her own ambitions to appreciate what she had.
The Crossroads Inn had been owned by Big Vinny, a retired vulpine soldier, and his wife Verona. Rifka had originally began hanging out there to escape from the humdrum monotony of her parents' nearby chicken farm, and had befriended their three children, Lil Vinny, Vive, and Moldred. Vinny and Vive were their naturally born offspring, both vulpines; Moldred was a foundling, a tasmanian tiger, the only one of his kind anyone had seen. Together with Patty and Catty, royals who would spend an occasional season at the Inn, they had all formed quite a close-knit gang.
Of course it couldn't have lasted. The local ruler had called upon Big Vinny, an old ally of his, to help with the security of a peace conference, pulling him away from the Inn for a substantial period of time. Vicious plots, assassinations, and betrayal had led to Big Vinny's death and Catty's disappearance. Moldred had been sucked into the thick of it, and now searched for the missing royal, while her sister had become obsessed with hunting down the assassins. Verona had passed away not too long afterward. Lil Vinny, self-serving and conceited as always, had gone off to the coast to seek his own fortune.
That left just Vive to run the Inn. She had been overwhelmed at first, and Rifka had done everything she could to help. But the death of her parents had changed something deep in Vive. Formerly open and friendly, the delight of many of the guests at the Inn while she was growing up, Vive had become angry, bitter, and withdrawn.
In some ways her new attitude was a windfall; it helped to really focus her efforts to revive the Inn. But it drove a powerful wedge between her and Rifka. Arguments became more frequent and ever more bitter. Finally, after the last argument that resulted in smashed pottery and thrown furniture, Rifka had had enough. Vive was not there to see her off the next morning when she bought passage on a large coach bound for the shore.
Vive would never understand how much that had hurt Rifka. The people at the Crossroads Inn had been Rifka's family as much as if they had shared her blood. Maybe Lil Vinny had done the right thing after all. Move on, find a new life somewhere else, leave all the pain and misery of the last year behind.
Forget about the happiest time she had ever known...
A matronly neomatan asked Rifka if everything was okay, the way she was wiping tears from her eyes. Rifka lied and said it was just dust from the road.
South Baston was not the largest or the most prosperous seaport on the Sunken Sea. In fact, it was the closest large city to the Crossroads Inn. But it was the farthest Rifka could afford to go on her measly savings. The passengers on the coach had talked at length of its lawless debaucheries, of how travelers could be swallowed up its lawless streets and never be seen again. When the coach had left her off at a large Inn on the outskirts of the city, the motherly neomatan had warned told her to be especially careful.
The Inn's name turned out to be Wandering Vixen. Rifka marveled at the sign, which sported a painting of a cartoonish--and overly-endowed--vixen and bright lettering that glowed of its own accord. She had seen enough odd artifacts pass through the Crossroad Inn to know glow-crystals mixed in with the paint when she saw them. They absorbed light from the sun during the day and slowly gave back that luminescence at night. Powdering the crystals to use in paint would be very expensive, which only bespoke of the Inn's affluence.
The Inn's owner, a large black-striped feline, turned out to be a long-time acquaintance of Big Vinny, and had great respect for the late fox veteran. He readily hired Rifka as a chambermaid and started her immediately.
The hours were long, but she was familiar with the work and adapted to it readily. Like the Crossroads Inn, the Wandering Vixen catered mostly to travelers and the wealthy, though it had its share of laborers, sailors, and farmers descend upon its tavern room from night to night.
She learned very quickly that she could earn extra money from bar bets by exploiting her skill at knots. It was easy enough, spotting a patron in the tavern just tipsy enough to fall for it. She would strike up a conversation, turn the subject to knots--not a hard thing to do in a coastal town that catered to sailing ships--then dare them to create a knot she couldn't undo in under a minute. Unlike the Crossroads Inn, the patrons here were unfamiliar with her apparently unsurpassed skill and readily agreed, especially if she threw in a bit of shy flirting on the side.
The only one who foiled her was an old sea captain, and even then it only took her seven extra seconds to undo his devilish coils and densely nested loops. She had spent hours afterward talking shop with him.
When she wasn't at the Wandering Vixen, she explored the town as best she could. The docks lay around a small, flat, crescent-shaped plain that gave way to gentle-rising hills where most of the city's residential areas were built.
Trouble came just a few weeks after her arrival. A patron, a middle-aged ferret who had come to the Inn with a portly wife and five screaming kids, cornered her in the hallway by a closet one night while she was fetching fresh linens. He pressed himself into her, groping her bottom and licking her neck in the most disgusting way possible. She decked him, then kicked him in the seam of his legs as he lay sprawled on the floor for good measure. Some guys just didn't get the message unless you delivered it right to their strategic headquarters.
That got her fired. Big Vinny would have sided with her. He didn't stand for anyone, patron or no, groping his girls. But the Feline owner of the Wandering Vixen was definitely not Big Vinny, and wouldn't let some new maid jeopardize a few coins from a high-paying client. So the next morning, out she went.
Luckily, she still had enough of a coin reserve to put herself up in a modest hostel for a few nights while she looked for a new job. Unfortunately, the news of her row at the Wandering Vixen spread fast, and no hotel or inn in the town would hire her now. She had to settle for a job as a barmaid at a sleazy tavern named the Horny Tentacle by the docks. The pay was lousy. Fortunately the owner, a shifty eye-patched squirrel named Lan, nicknamed "Lubber," agreed to let her try dancing to entertain his patrons several nights a week along with his regular girls. Of course it was the kind of dancing where she lost most of her clothes between the first step and the last.
It was something she had done before a few times, privately, to entice one boy or another. Doing it in front of a crowd of people proved both nerve-wracking and awkward. But for some reason the males loved her, and clapped and cheered heartily at seeing a nervous and flushed half-nude female stumble about on stage. She was probably a fresh change of pace from the slick and semi-bored movements of the veteran dancers.
The Horny Tentacle attracted a lot of laborers and sailors, and after a few weeks Rifka began picking out the regulars fairly easily. One in particular stuck out, a shy young raccoon fisherman who usually hung out in back by the bar, whittling at small pieces of wood. He was always there on nights she performed, but the other girls didn't recall ever seeing him much before Rifka had started becoming popular.
Of course most of the other girls took "side work," as they called it, from the customers, slinking off with them to alleys or backrooms somewhere close by after the tavern closed for the night. Rifka thought no less of them because of it, but hoped she would never become so bereft of coin that she would have to follow their example.
One night, she was the last girl on, the others had already split the night's take and headed home. A customer, a rather tipsy serval, let himself into the back room as she was changing into her street clothes. As soon as he had laid a hand on her he had ended up on the floor, eyes tearing as he cupped his agonized crotch from her powerful kick.
When she complained to Lubber, he growled angrily and summoned Groppi, his Ursoid bouncer, over. The bear clamped his massive paws over her arms, pinning her with ease. "Of course he came into the back room, you stupid bint!" Lubber yelled at her. "That's what he paid me for!"
"What!" Rifka exclaimed, struggling futilely in the massive Ursoid's paws. "Why would you do that?"
Lubber shrugged. "Because you are not nearly as profitable as you should be. We get a cut of the other girls' 'side business.' Most started doing it on their own by now. But not you, little miss perfect, you're too good for that."
She spat at Lubber, growling. "Damn right I am, you festering pustule! Let me go! I quit!"
Lubber sighed, rubbing the bridge of his muzzle. "I was afraid you'd say that. If I let you go, there goes all my profit form you, past and future. Well, you will make me money, Rifka, voluntarily or not."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
He spoke to his giant bouncer. "Let's take her to the Catacombs."
Rifka dangled naked from chains suspended from the stone ceiling. She bit at Lubber's hand as he cinched the last manacle around her wrist, then kicked at him as he stepped back. She just barely missed. "And this is when you rape me, you sons of a bitches?"
Lubber and Groppi looked at each, bemused, as they held her clothes and belongings. "I'm afraid you're too old by a decade or so for my tastes," the one-eyed squirrel laughed. "And you're missing something between your legs for Groppi to be interested in you. But don't worry, we know many who would take an instant liking to a nubile young raccoon like you...which is why we think you'll fetch quite a good price on the slave market."
"Slave market!"
Lubber scratched casually at his chin. "Oh, yes. We're going to meet a potential buyer right now. You'd be surprised at how much we can get for an unblemished young thing like you. Especially from an offworlder. They usually love helpless and naive girls from so-called 'backwater' worlds like ours."
"I'm not helpless!" she pouted, pulling at her chains futilely with a despairing look on her face.
Lubber chuckled bemusedly. "Oh? Could have fooled me. And don't bother screaming. No one can hear you down here. And least not anyone who'd care. We'll be back in a little bit. I'd suggest you use the time to contemplate your poor career choices up to this point." The squirrel and bear turned to go.
They had taken her down in the Horny Tentacle's drippy basement, and into a backroom whose one wall opened up into a broad, dark tunnel that led into the hillside under the city.
From their idle conversation, Rifka gathered that there was a whole maze of catacombs and tunnels under the city. Apparently they had been part of the original city plan, built and then buried to make the hills that now made up the city's foundation. It was a common way for a city to add an extra layer of defense in a world dominated by castles and sieges. She was just surprised a minor port like South Baston had something like it.
She waited a few minutes to make sure her captors were gone. Then she hefted herself up so her hands could reach into her long hair. She pulled out two small, slender, needle-like tools.
She swore low at her own stupidity. She should have seen this coming. If she was going to dance and strip for a place like the Horny Tentacle, of course they were going to expect her to put out! How could she have been so naive?
Rifka held herself aloft, making sure she put no undo tension on the lock of her manacles, as she probed the mechanism with her tools. It clicked open a heartbeat later. She smirked. She would have thought wanna-be slavers would have more challenging locks. Within a beat of a dragon's wing she was free and had her cell door open as well.
Like with her talent with knots, her skill at figuring out locks had come pretty naturally to her. She had a long habit of hiding lock pick tools in her hair, to make some of her "escapes" during the games they used to play at the Crossroads Inn look all the more miraculous.
Rifka was soon faced with a new problem: she couldn't just prance around naked, even if it was in the filthy catacombs! She should have just run out of there as fast as she could, but she couldn't help it. She felt so exposed, showing every square inch of her fur!
She spotted two flexible leather straps and light chains on a bench right outside her cell. She put on a broad strap across her breasts and secured it with a crisscross of chain, forming a skimpy but crude halter top. She looped another leather strap down over her crotch and up over the cleft of her rump, using chains again to secure it in place like a cut-rate g-string. It was better than nothing. Kind of.
The raccoon girl began slinking through the darkened corridors, grabbing the lone torch that had been left outside her cell for light. She was completely lost down here. She knew Lubber and Groppi had led her around some twists and turns, and up a flight of stairs, then down two more. But which twists and turns and stairs in which direction, she had no idea.
Just a few hundred paces from her cell Rifka turned and ran into a dead end with massive steel double doors. Besides the door was a large geared wheel, locked down by heavy chains and padlocks. Curiously, she went up to touch the doors. They felt cool and damp. She sighed, then turned to go. A mystery for another time.
She passed another row of cells, and someone called after her. "Hey! Hey, you with the torch! Get me out of here! I, uh, know where this treasure is, see! Lots and lots of gold! Get me out of here, and we can share, fifty-fifty!"
That voice. It couldn't be. "Lil Vinny?"
The wiry fox chained in the cell narrowed his eyes at her as she brought the torch close to her face. His jaw hung slack. "No way! Rifka?"
"Vinny, what the hell have you gotten yourself into now?"
The male gave his usual casual laugh, the one he used when he didn't want people to know just how badly things had spiraled out of control. "Aheh heh. Yeah, you see, there was this thing with this captain's daughter--his three daughters, actually--and I kinda got shanghaied in retribution and...and for Haven's sake, get me the hell out of here, Rifka!"
The raccoon girl sighed heavily, pulling out her lockpick tools again. This was so typical of him. Back at the Crossroads Inn he was always sweet talking some clueless female with one lie after another of his "exploits." What always amazed Rifka was how many females fell for it. Rifka had to admit that Lil Vinny he could be smooth and charming when he wanted, and he had the same very sexy smile his father had. But it always galled her how many girls just took what he offered on the surface without even trying to dig a little deeper.
Well, they usually found out sooner or later. She was surprised his jowls weren't permanently discolored, considering how often he was slapped in the face.
She got the cell door open. Lil Vinny was smiling ear to ear. "I can't believe its you, Rifka!" A very familiar smirk crossed his rusty vulpine features as he looked her over head to toe, his eyes zeroing in on her barely-covered cleavage. "You've come to rescue me! And dressed liked that! The gods must smile on me!"
Rifka squirmed, her cheeks burning with a bright blush that showed through her thin facial fur. "The gods never were too bright, were they?" she grumbled. She realized with his hands held over his head as they were that she was going to have to get uncomfortably close to the fox to free him. Well, there was no helping it. She walked right over to him and reached up to his manacles, her body leaning up against his as she strained to work her tools in the lock. "Now hold still. I mean it! The more you squirm, the longer its going to take!"
He laughed lustily, snaking a leg around hers, pressing himself up against her softness. "Aheh heh. Would that be so awful?"
Rifka grabbed Lil Vinny by the jowls, pinching as hard as she could. He yelped in pain and surprise as her furious eyes drilled into his. "Now look, you self-absorbed idiot! We're trapped in a dungeon run by slavers and worse. If we don't get out of here, and I mean now, I don't want to think of what will happen to us! And if I get captured again because you can't keep what's in your pants under control, I swear I'm going to use my last act of freedom to rip your balls off with my bare hands! Understand?"
He gulped and nodded, ears tapering back against his skull. He removed his leg and hung limply while she went to work. From his increasingly ragged breathing, she could tell he was getting aroused anyway as she moved this way and that against him. Truthfully, she couldn't think of many males who wouldn't, at this point. But he dutifully controlled himself until she was finished.
He rubbed his newly freed wrists, wincing as circulation resumed. "Agh. How did you get here anyway, Rifka? How'd you learn I was in trouble? Is anyone else from the Inn here?"
She shook her head as she peered out of the cell, listening. The corridor seemed clear, for now. "I didn't know you were here, Vinny. Its pure luck I ran into you, The rest is a long story. Let's just concentrate on getting out of here right now, and I'll tell you the rest later."
They stole down one stone corridor after another. The place was literally a maze. As the catacombs were meant as a line of defense, that would greatly aid the defenders, confusing any invader unfamiliar with their layout. Unfortunately for Rifka and Vinny, it made finding a way out problematic.
Rifka, in the lead, was always cautious when they came to corners, peering around slowly. Once, she thought she heard a noise from up ahead, so she bent low before she looked around the turn. Thankfully nothing was there, but she yelped loudly when she felt a lusty pinch on her exposed rump.
She stared hellfire at Vinny. He affected his most innocent smile. "Aheh heh. There was this spider, you see..."
She grumbled low and stalked away from him. He followed sheepishly. "Sorry about that Rifka, but you were bent over right in front of my face, looking all curvy and smooth. No guy could resist that..."
Rifka turned to him. "Why do you do things like that, Vinny? Just doing whatever feels good at the moment instead of acting responsibly? You're father isn't here to take care of you anymore!"
His jaw hung slack and his ears lowered as he looked genuinely hurt at the mention of his father. "I--I know that, Rifka. I know I'm a real ass sometimes, but its like I can't help it. And I know I'll never measure up to my Dad. So what's the point of even trying?"
"You could have at least stayed at the Inn. Vive could have used you. We both could have."
"Are you kidding? All that would have done is give you guys more excuses to yell at me. Drudge work was never my strong point." He sighed. "Besides, after Mom and Dad died, I just couldn't stay there anymore. Every day, everywhere I looked, I saw something that reminded me of them, that they weren't going to be there anymore, ever. It just got too painful, you know? So I had to get away."
She blinked at him, surprised. She'd never heard him say anything like that before, or even thought him capable of such profound thoughts. At both of his parents' memorial services, he had been unusually quiet, and afterward had thrown himself into his hedonistic pursuits with unusual gusto. Everyone had just assumed he had been callous and uncaring, more concerned with his own pleasure than with honoring the memory of his parents. But what if he had just been trying to escape the pain in the only way he knew how?
Hadn't she actually done the same sort of thing, when she spontaneously decided to come to South Baston?
She sighed and lay a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Its okay, Vinny. We all miss your Mom and Dad." He smiled up at her, nothing pretentious or fake in it at all. She smiled back and punched him affectionately on the arm.
"There they are!" a voice boomed from down the corridor. Rifka and Lil Vinny twirled to see Lubber and Groppi, each with their own torch. The two groups just stared at each other for an interminably long heartbeat, before they all turned and sprinted, the slavers after their former prisoners.
The pursuit was breathless and harried. Rifka and Lil Vinny tried to lose the slavers, but it was no good. The torch they carried always drew the squirrel and ursoid like a beacon, but without it they would be completely and utterly lost in the darkness.
They turned a corner and stopped for a moment, gasping for breath. Rifka cursed as they found themselves at the cell she had originally been locked up in. All she had done was wander around in one huge circle!
She looked back to see the steadily-approaching island of light that held Lubber and Groppi. She thought furiously.
She spun to Lil Vinny, who had his hands on his knees, gulping air. "Can you swim?" she asked.
He looked at her askew. "Y-yeah, kind of."
Rifka grabbed his hand and pulled him quickly after her. "Good enough. Come on!"
Lubber called after them a few minutes later, snickering. "You two aren't very bright, are you? You just ran into a dead end! Might as well just give up, and we'll let you keep most of your non-essential body parts!"
Rifka tried not to listen. She and Lil Vinny were straining with all their strength, trying to get the wheel to turn. It groaned and squealed, moving only with great inertia.
The one-eyed squirrel and the bear turned the corner, stopping short. Lubber gaped, stopping Groppi from moving forward with an outstretched arm. "But...but how...that's been locked up for decades! No one even has the key anymore!"
Rifka snarled as with a last grunting pull the wheel came loose, spinning under their hands. The rusty chains and padlocks that had once held it fast were scattered on the floor along with Rifka's lockpick tools. A huge, torturous rumbling sounded from beyond the large metal doors as they shuddered hard, shaking the room, and started to move.
The squirrel went ashen. "Run!" he screamed, leaving the bewildered Ursoid behind as he sprinted back the way they came. The large bear only looked confused as the metal doors swung open and a huge wall of water slammed into him like a battering ram and carried him away.
The huge metal doors were floodgates, the last weapon in the city's last line of defense. An invading army that somehow gained control of the catacombs would face one last nasty surprise.
Off to the side of the raging torrent, Rifka and Lil Vinny were spared the worst of it, but the room was still filling up fast. The wheel would not budge back the other way. There was no doubt a locking mechanism for that, but they did not have time to fiddle around with it before they would be covered with water.
Rifka stripped herself of her makeshift garment, tying the chains and straps all together with unyielding knots in one unbreakable line. Lil Vinny gaped at her naked form. "Rifka, what...?"
The water already up to their waist, Rifka unceremoniously tied one end of her kitbashed line around Lil Vinny's torso, and the other around hers. They were already in up to their chests when she spoke hastily to him. "Listen! We're going to have to go out through the doors, but we're going to have to wait until the room fills up so we're not fighting the current so much, but even then we're going to have to pull ourselves along the wall! Understand? Once on the other side, keep hugging the wall until we're clear of the current, then shoot for the surface!"
By the time she finished speaking, they were already treading water. Lil Vinny's eyes were wide with terror, but he nodded. He seemed to want to say a lot more. "R-Rifka, I want to tell you..."
She put a finger to his lips. "Sh. Tell me after. Just breath now, build up the oxygen, okay?"
He nodded, and within less than a minute they were bobbing up next to the ceiling. It had to be now or never. She inched them as close to the opening as she could, while they still had some air. Then, with a final nod to Lil Vinny, the raccoon girl dived deep. The fox reluctantly followed as the line pulled taut, dog-paddling.
The current was stronger than she had thought. She had to fight harder than anticipated just to get the first few handholds in the rough rock wall. Thankfully, the darkness wasn't near-total. She could detect a faint light down the short tunnel that led to the floodgates. It must be morning outside.
The tunnel was not long, maybe a half-dozen body-lengths, but halfway through her lungs were already burning. That damn current was eating up too much of her energy. She strained, her muscles screaming, as she pulled herself hand over hand, her fingers bleeding on the slimy, rough-cut stone, occasionally feeling the tug of Lil Vinny's weight behind her.
Her vision began to fuzz just a few feet from the tunnel's opening. She couldn't make her arms move anymore. Oh gods, she thought as sticky spiderwebs pulled at her clouding thoughts, I'm going to die in the dark.
Rifka gave one last, feeble heave toward the light with all of her remaining strength just as consciousness left her completely.
Her lungs still burned as she coughed herself awake an unknown amount of time later. Her throat felt dry and scratchy, and her side ached sharply. A fuzzy, unfamiliar shape hovered over her vision. It shifted and called out, "she's awake!"
Her eyes began to clear, her thoughts still nebulous. The blob in front of her resolved in a broad male raccoon's face, dark ruffled hair and a clean black-furred mask around the eyes. "D-daddy?" she asked.
A bemused chuckle. "I'm afraid not, Miss Rifka. My name's Zeke. You're on my boat."
Lil Vinny stomped down the four steps from the main deck into the small cabin. "Rifka! We weren't sure you'd ever wake up!"
She blinked and tried to prop herself up on her elbows, only to fail miserably and slump back onto the cot. "What's going on?" she managed to croak.
Zeke let her sip some water and propped her up a bit onto some soft pillows. "Easy," the raccoon male said. "You had half a lungful of water when I pulled you aboard. I had to squeeze you a bit hard to get most of it out. You're going to be sore for a while I bet. I apologize for that."
That explained the pain in her side and the ache in her lungs. What she couldn't understand was how she could still be breathing in the first place. "But...How? The tunnel...I couldn't make it..."
Zeke hooked his thumb at Vinny. "He pulled you out, Miss Rifka. Damn near half-drowned himself. My boat was pulled toward you by some odd underwater current that sprung up from nowhere. When I pulled up alongside you two, he was wheezing and coughing up water, but all he cared about was getting you aboard and breathing again. At one point he even told me to let him drown, if it could save you."
Rifka's eyes grew wide as she looked at her childhood friend anew. "Vinny?"
The fox hunched his shoulders and shyly buried his hands in his pockets. "Ah, you see, when I saw you go limp in that tunnel, something inside of me just kind of snapped. I have no idea where I got the strength to pull you out and up to the surface, but I just couldn't let you die because of me." He shrugged, his voice suddenly very quiet. "Its--its what my dad would have done."
She took his hand in hers. "Well, then, there's some of your father in you after all." She smirked. "Buried somewhere in there."
"Yeah." Lil Vinny smiled at her, then shifted uncomfortably. Emotional scenes were still pretty alien to him. He looked around, desperate to change the subject. "Aheh heh. At least I'll have a new story to tell the girls. And this one will even be true. And....Hey! You know Zeke here has a bunch of carvings of you? Look!" He pulled down a small figurine from a shelf, showing her a carved wooden statue of a raccoon girl, dancing. It wore the same skimpy outfit she had worn at the Horny Tentacle.
"You!" she said at the male raccoon. "I recognize you now! You're that regular who used to come and hang out in back by the bar!"
Zeke shuffled uncomfortably. "Gods, I hope you don't think ill of me, Miss Rifka, but it gets kind of lonely, being at sea day after day after day, so I like to bring reminders of things I enjoy with me. You were just about the most beautiful thing I've seen in I don't know how long and..." he stopped himself short, blushing even brighter. "Oh, boy. Did I just say that?"
Despite her aching body and general weakness, she found herself smiling at the handsome raccoon, looking over the skillfully crafted figurine of her. The detail was breathtaking. Did he really see her as something so lovely? "Its okay," she said with a soft smile, knowing she was safe at last. "I don't mind at all."
Three months later, Lil Vinny got a legitimate job on a commercial frigate. Zeke and Rifka came to see him off before he shipped out. Rifka was more than a little sad to see him go. In many ways, Lil Vinny was her last link to the life she had once lived at the Crossroads Inn. When he stepped aboard that ship, a chapter in her life would close forever.
But the same page turning would open up a new one. She held Zeke's hand on the dock as they said their good-byes to her childhood friend. Zeke was only a humble fisherman, but she didn't mind that at all. He was a good male, and in truth reminded her quite a bit of Big Vinny, a bastion of strength wrapped up in a humble veneer. She knew he would protect her no matter what, even if she now had little to fear from living in South Baston.
Lubber had been fished out of the flooded catacombs and charged with all the damage opening the floodgates had caused to the city. He couldn't very well mention Rifka, or else risk being tried as an unlicensed slaver as well. He would spend the rest of his life toiling in an outer province as an indentured servant. Groppi the Ursoid had never been found.
During their final hug, Lil Vinny couldn't resist giving Rifka's bottom one last playful squeeze. He danced out of the way of her half-hearted swat, waved good bye, and chuckled as he turned toward his new life as a sailor. Rifka would remember that joyful, mischievous laugh of her friend all her days.