Making Up Monsters writing prompt — Monster who never said this would be easy
“Ooh,” Yadnix the Sepulchral says, peering interestedly at the ornate ring on Basriella’s finger. “Ooh, that’s terribly cursed, isn’t it?”
“Seems so,” Bas says tersely, sweating. There are other appraisers, other arcane appraisers, even, in town. But Yadnix, stingy as her valuations are, steep as her cut is, knows seemingly everything about everything, and what to do about it to make it saleable. Yadnix will touch anything. “Poxy thing was a plain silver band when I put it on — was just joking about. Then it wouldn’t come off. Then it started sprouting jewels and all that when I wasn’t watching. And I keep hearing whispering.”
“What language?” Yadnix says, like it’s as neutral and interesting a question as a gossiping fishwife’s, Ooh! And THEN what did she say?
“None I know,” Bas says, and stares down at the ever-cold metal on her hand, face twisted in revulsion. “Only…the longer it’s on, the more it feels as though I almost do.” She swallows, and can’t quite bring herself to look at Yadnix, because her tone is nakedly pleading. “I don’t want this on me, to find out what it’s saying. I don’t — just take the thing, as payment for getting it off me, I don’t want to even make a penny off it. Hells, I’ll pay you.”
Yadnix tilts her head, blinks. She smooths her long hands over each other, and Bas doesn’t even dart her usual uneasy glance at the appraiser’s arms, where a second pair of hands, long and pale and relaxed, is tucked into her sleeves, nestled below her wrists. Nobody knows what Yadnix is. People murmur — of course they do — that regular folk, wholesome folk, have never known so much about cursed artefacts. Speculate what dreadful place she must be from, to know so much.
Bas doesn’t care much, honestly. There are plenty of terrible folk in the world; it doesn’t take coming from some exotic hell. Bas knows plenty of respectable sorts who wouldn’t piss on you to put a fire out; and here Yadnix is, helping her, even if it’s only to turn a coin from it. But four hands is just plain unnerving. How do they even attach? What kind of articulation must her arms have? Does she have four of those, too, or do the extra hands somehow sprout like a cockerel’s spurs from the shanks of a usual two arms? If she ever untucks them from her sleeves, are they as dexterous as the bared set? Can they hold a pen or a knife? Do they grip as strongly, feel as finely? Are they delicate, like a child’s?
“I’m not sure you’ll feel that’s fair, once it’s done,” Yadnix says.
“Can you do it or not?” Bas says, loud and flat and unhappy.
“I can do it…” Yadnix says.
“Good!” Bas thrusts her hand out, juts her jaw. “Nothing else to talk about, then.”
Yadnix sighs. “If you’d like my advice on the better way to do it,” she says, “I’d go and get yourself drunk. Drunk enough you need a friend to help you back here. It’s cursed, Bas; things like that don’t want to be removed.”
Bas swallows, again. Spends a few moments pausing, more for the sake of it than anything; she has no serious intention of asking any questions. She nods jerkily.
Mirvin the Boot and the Catchaser half-carry Bas back from the tavern, almost an entire candle later; drape her in the chair that Yadnix indicates, and scarper. Bas, head lolling, doesn’t blame them. Curses! Who’d stick around, in case some kind of bad luck rubs off, like fleas off a stray dog?
“All right,” Yadnix says, gently patting Bas’s hair. “Just keep looking that way, into the fire. Watch the flames. Watch the colours and the movement. There you go.” She works unhurriedly, tying some kind of elaborate knot in a ribbon around Bas’s wrist, making little marks all over her hand with a fine-bristled brush and some kind of ink. “Nearly ready. Just lay your hand on the table, here. Flat, just like that, yes. Relaxed as possible.” With cool fingertips, she nudges Bas’s fingers apart; inks a fat line across the one the ring squats on, in the gap between where the metal band sits, and where digit meets knuckle.
Bas watches the fire, stomach churning a little from cheap ale and nerves. The ring is whispering, again; tone agitated. It knows something’s up. “Let’s be getting on with the easy way, then,” she says, hurried and a little slurred.
Yadnix pauses, ever so slightly. “I never said easy,” she says softly, and Bas scoffs, and nervously jiggles her leg, and pretends she never saw the hands up the appraiser’s sleeves holding a hammer and a sharp-pointed silver chisel.
“Get on with it,” she snarls.
