Florence Springfield had not slept since the surgery. She leaned on her bloodstained mop, grinning. Having just carried the overweight and fatigued Doctor Manstein to a hospital bed, she returned to tidy the disinfected operating room.
Despite this, Florence was in a chipper mood. Singing and skipping, she frightened onlookers. She left the hospital to scrounge up something to eat. The sunlight stunned her eyes, and her previous twenty hours should have left her without an appetite. Unfortunately, Florence had become accustomed to the gore and blood of her daily life. The surgery was a resounding success.
"Umm... are you paying for that?" interrupted a timid baker.
"I'm sorry... here." Florence had unconsciously entered an aromatic bakery and devoured a baguette. The bread was stale. It still soothed the nurse's demonic voraciousness. She sluggishly reached into her pocket and tossed a few coppers on the counter, dozing to the sound of their metallic clank.
"Are you awake? I've seen you working in the hospital. It's alright."
Florence grumbled. Instead of coppers, she had tossed up various vials, unused pins, and a small, clean syringe. The weight in her hand felt queer, and the brownish glow of the vials deceived her tired eyes.
"It's all good, lady Springfield. I got this one." approached a first sergeant Cletus. He had a few gleaming coppers in his hand and a few snoring coppers behind him. He then greeted the baker with a handshake and asked him about his family. He secretively handed him a silver, telling him it's for the children. Eavesdropping, Florence learned all the local suspicious activity.
"Thank you… I will pay you back at my earliest," Florence groaned, almost dignified, furrowing her brow like a wounded rooster.
Despite his good nature, how Cletus ever made First Sergeant was an enigma. He was born to dirt poor indigenous Lorians, or sorcerers, as the commoners would say. Like many of his heritage, Cletus was so many generations removed from his past that all he shared with his mystical ancestors were wiry red hair and a face full of freckles. Growing up in the Leyforette district by the factories and docks, he had spent most of his childhood as a tide-waiter with his twelve siblings. Thus he had neither education nor any real connections. However, Rumors whispered in bars, coffeehouses, and underground arenas assert that Cletus became First Sergeant because of his contacts in the Courageous Companions.
Who were the Courageous Companions? They were a criminal syndicate founded on smuggling, racketeering, extortion, and conquest. Their military and political might was so great that they ended the Great World War after playing both sides for profit. Founding the League of Nations, they were also the source of its frustrations.
The baker left the room. All of Cletus's men dreamed away on benches beneath the gentle sun.
"So Florence, I mean, Ms. Springfield..... did uh.... did Mr. Graves sell Dr. Manstein a human heart?" Cletus casually posed an intricate question that Florence was in no state of mind to ponder. At once, she felt profound guilt.
Organ trafficking was illegal in Loria. Yet Florence had begged the old gravedigger to plunder a corpse from Sorrowend Cemetary. The poor girl undergoing surgery had reminded Florence of her little sisters, for whom Florence worked diligently.
Alas, Florence would not betray her benefactor. She also knew that the gravedigger and Cletus shared a close friendship and that Cletus, of all people, held minimal regard for the law's literal word. Cletus was utterly blind to petty crimes. He even indulged in public urination, gambling, drunkenness, and un-Lorian discourse. He also only appealed to his humanity when it came to judgment, so he was frequently taken advantage of by criminals craftier than him, which was all of them.
"No, it came from one of our cadavers," lied Florence, shifting her gaze. In truth, procuring a heart from the hospital morgue was harder than murdering someone for it. The Faith of The Blind Men guarded all the morgues and crypts of Loria. The many verses of The Truth in the Light dictated that any person buried incompletely could return and devour the living. Florence found such superstitions silly, but others didn't.
Cletus sighed in a resigned understanding. Florence's response implied that she knew it and that she wouldn't admit it without a good fight. And Florence was a fighter; that much Cletus knew.
"Anyways," Cletus continued, "if there was a heart at the Sungrace, well..., its owner wants to see it again before he parts ways with it."
"Excuse me?"
Cletus glanced both ways before excitedly adding Florence as a confidante. "Mr. Graves and I investigated a noise by the cemetery on thirdsday this week, and we unearthed a bloke who was still alive! Despite not having a heart!! Well, the bloke was going to die, if not for my magnificent friend Barroco!"
Florence listened with a frightened incredulousness. She was used to fantastic tales from the mouth of children, but Cletus was a man of almost twenty.
Of Barroco Abuta's abilities as an apothecary, she had no doubt. The Sariassian dandy had fancied Florence and so had offered many a free sample of his wares. He seemingly revived patients near death. Alas, Barroco's potions ultimately proved way more effective than his personality. In her brief courtship with the Necromancer of Moor Street, she had learned of Barroco's notoriety as a flirt.
"Dr. Manstein and I just performed the surgery today, so my patient cannot expect visitors. I'll arrange a soiree of it at my house next seventhday. Sound fair?" Florence asked. She flashed her aristocratic smile. In truth, she was morbidly curious about the nature of this heartless fellow, but decorum and guilt prevented her from an immediate meeting.
"Thank you, miss." He tipped his striking blue beret with the royal Griffon's golden insignia, proudly displaying his rank. "Also, Barroco offers his apology once more and sincerely hopes that he may be invited."
"Fine, he can come, but only if he brings his lunarfritz products. The hospital will pay good silver." Florence replied with a sigh. Lunarfritz was a potent drug, a natural flower that produced a dazing, almost comatose effect on its eater when ingested. Because it was so highly addictive, the Courageous Companions had made its fortune shipping it to the Shixian Empire. Growing it in Loria was illegal, yet the silvery flower was so beautiful that many noble houses took it as its crest. Thus ironically, it came to represent the country.
Barroco, through his extended connections, was able to procure large quantities of it. He knew many farmers who legally grew it in the western province of Cascadia, away from the jealous eyes of the Courageous Companions.
"You're lucky, my lady. This year the farmers were able to harvest." Cletus spoke. Florence had heard the rumors. The Companions often raided Cascadia to burn farms and villages. The deposed Cascadians would then leave home and swarm the ghettos of Leyforette. After all, they needed to eat.
"That's good to hear. Was it because you people hired the Courageous Companions to police itself?" Sickeningly, The Companions would then hire the destitute villagers as bandits and highwaymen while also selling their services as mercenaries for the Lorian Crown.
"Not even. The Companions softened up like a dessert left in the sun." Cletus explained. "Maybe its new leaders had a change of heart."
"Well, let's hope that this arrangement lasts."
"Agreed, my lady. There is something else I must inform you."
"What is it?"
"I… truly don't know anyone in the Courageous Companions." Cletus handed Florence a piece of paper with her signature. "I ...uhh..., also went to the Companions' embassy down in Leyforette multiple times. There was nobody there. I can't find her. I'm sorry."
"Thank you.... for your kindness and.... diligence, sir Cletus," Florence meekly replied. Her mood instantly soured.
Cletus tipped his beret and left. The baker appeared again suddenly and handed her a fresh loaf of bread. Not wanting her to repel his business, he gently shoed her away. Florence aimlessly wandered the streets of Loranisburg for a while. She found a nice flowery plaza that surrounded a decapitated granite statue. Florence often meandered here whenever she felt hopeless, as the sight of a headless man dressed flamboyantly would lift her spirits.
Her education, though, had taught her too much. They medaled the man as a marshal.
Whenever a general had been disgraced, had betrayed the country, or had proved himself a coward, tradition dictates that he and every likeness of him must be beheaded. Sometimes, he was just a political rival. Still, she never cared for this headless man's identity until today, when loneliness had gotten the better of her.
Here commemorates a true hero to the people, one who demonstrated himself admirably in the Auchin rebellion, the Gottland rebellion, in the Great World War, and against the Courageous Companions. Time and again, he has lead brave and outnumbered Lorians to victory to preserve the crown and our homeland.
Here immortalizes the undefeated 'Companion Slayer.'
Here immortalizes Mareschal Desmond Fiela of house Canzones.
Every line afterward had been crossed out by knife marks.