A brigand's dream.

[Antichthon]

Evil, a gel, a useless twat? "Me too!" Phor had had enough clients with accents to decode what a "gel" was. It didn't even occur to her to be saddened by those insults. To her, they weren't insults. Just descriptors, like the color of her hair and the color of her eyes. She was just thrilled to meet someone else like her. Most of the other girls denied being evil and useless. That is, until they learned to be good girls. But after that most of them didn't talk at all. When they weren't with clients they just sort of sat there, looking at something really far away that Phor never saw. It was boring.

Lovah talked about goring her Da while he slept, Phor gave her the blankest of looks. "You mean like, hurting him?" Phor was having a hard time piecing things together, here. If her mind had fuses, they'd be blowing left and right. She struggled to fit things into the framework of the only life she knew. "You aren't 'sposed to hurt the clients unless they ask for it. Even if he is your Da. One of the other girls has her Da as a client sometimes. Madam tells her," Phor lowered her voice and did the best impression of a cultured lady, 'when you're in the bedroom, he's not your Da.' ...or she prob'ly said 'father.' Madam doesn't like stupid words." The bit about there being no Madam here went through one ear and out the other. Phor couldn't make sense of it, so she decided she didn't hear it.

Besides, the sight of the play area was enough to make any little girl forget what they were talking about. "Oh. My. Gosh." Phor knelt beside the barn. She and the other good girls who still liked to play had never made anything like this!

Lovah introduced Brute, and the little wooden draft horse had the horned girl's full, enraptured attention. "Ohmygosh! He's so pretty!" Phor reached out to pet him. And with Lovah's explanation, something clicked in her mind. "Oh! This is a brothel for horses!" It made sense. They mostly just got humans at the brothel. That must have meant there was a horse brothel for all the horse clients, and a chicken brothel for all the chicken clients, and so on.

Phor held out her hand, wanting to play with saddle-horse Lovah picked up. "I'll be Bruiser. She can be the madam." Once again, the weird things Lovah said about running and about Madam went in one ear and out the other.

[highawaywoman]

The five year-old Lovah didn't understand all the words her new friend used. However, some things were beginning to click within the juvenile mind. After all, she lived and breathed the stables. She heard the crude talk from the stable-lads, when they didn't think she was about. She knew what hoors were - they were the boys favorite topic.

Words like Madam, client, unless the clients ask for it, and bedroom were starting to slowly work their way into Lovah's mind.

"Nae! Naenaenaenae! I am NOOT a HOOR!" Lovah jumped up from where she'd been bent over her wooden herd, her bruised face was reddened and anger lit her green eyes.

"Gimme 'er!" Lovah made to snatch the wooden Bruiser from Phor's hands, "She be a fighter! A warrior! Nae a HOOR!"

"Them arses' say that's wot will become o' me, but NAE! I'm gonna rob."

The precocious child stomped her feet on the loft floorboards. That was disgusting! Sick! And to think her new friend was...

"I'm gonna be a 'ighwayman."

[Antichthon]

Phor flinched when Lovah suddenly screamed at her. The horned girl had no fight-or-flight reflex. She had only the learned helplessness reflex, which involved covering her face with her arms to protect it from the blows. She dropped Bruiser in the process, before Lovah had a chance to snatch her. The saddle-horse clattered onto the floor.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." It was a canned response. There was no conviction behind it; Phor was just playing the role she thought expected of her. The fact Lovah was younger and just as small as her didn't matter--reflex was reflex.

Phor didn't risk peeking until Lovah had stopped jumping on the floorboards. And she still covered her face, just in case the other girl decided to hit her anyway. "W-what's that?" Now it was Phor's turn to not know what a word was. I-way man. Well, she knew the last part. "You can't grow up to be a man. Madam says girls don't do that here." Which Phor found weird. Her memories were too scrambled for her to figure out why, but girls growing up to be men seemed perfectly natural to her.

[highawaywoman]

"Ye shoould be 'orry!" Lovah looked at the older girl with a petulant stare. "Ye drooped 'er!" The five-year old picked and up cradled the wooden Bruiser, tender fingers checking the horse over for any scratches or damage.

"A 'ighwayman rides the rooads. 'e 'as many friends and they 'ave great adventures. There be drinkin', fightin, and robbin'." Lovah beamed at this, it was so fun to tell the older girl what was what. It made her feel powerful. "The Laird had two o' 'em hung two months back. And I can 'oo be a 'ighwayman! Before they strung 'em up? The one screamed lioke a gel! And o' coourse, that dirty bastard they call a knight, Ser Great Arse, he ripped her shirt - and aye - she was a gel." Lovah rocked back onto her heels, eyes wide with excitement.

"'Twas me first hangin'. It was the best too. The 'ighwaymen always are. They usually give a speech and ken 'o toss coins 'o the gawkers, before payin' the black man." Lovah offered her new friend a different mare, this one a sleek horse of the desert - with a dished face and wide nostrils.

"The 'ighwayman rode a horse like 'er. 'ere. She be the fastest in the barn. But she's nae a hoor! I dinnae lioke hoors. They are stoopid useless Scags." Lovah went back down to her knees, looking over to see if Phor would follow. "Ye shouldnae be a hoor. Ye should be a 'ighwayman 'oo.

[Antichthon]

Phor cowered under Lovah's stare. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to drop her."

As Lovah described what an I-way man was instead of hitting her, Phor slowly relaxed. Her green eyes grew, more at the girl's passion than her words. Phor had never heard of anything like an I-way man before. And they could be girls, too? And they got hung if they were bad. She was familiar with that.

Phor accepted the new mare that her friend gave her. "She's pretty, too." But not a whore. They were stupid, useless scags.

"Ye shouldnae be a hoor. Ye should be a 'ighwayman 'oo."

"But I am stupid and useless." Phor didn't know what a scag was, but she was probably that, too. "A whore is what I'm meant to be. That's why I'm so happy being one. It's my purpose."

Phor looked down at the horse in her hand. All Lovah's talk of I-way men and knights and Lairds would have been easily forgotten, but the girl's passion stuck with her. And it made the horned girl imagine things she had never imagined before. Riding and friends and adventures.

She went to her knees beside Lovah. "We can play I-way men instead. But I don't know how." She looked at the younger girl, on unsure footing in this strange new world. "Will you show me?"