Chapter Text
"Get up."
Lucio opened his eyes. Valencina stood over him with a scowl. He sat up and reached for his swords lying as they always were in the rack beside his bed. He swept through empty space instead and that gave him pause.
Lucio closed his eyes. He must be dreaming then, in his final moments. Even in dreams, he could never escape her.
"Don't you think you've had enough rest? You aren't a lazy Rat, are you, Lucio?" A cutting remark. Valencina's voice was soft and only mildly annoyed. That was odd, but also in line with what he knew about dreams. He hadn't dreamt of anything like this in a long time with what little fragmented sleep he was allowed as of late. His room was barer than it usually was too, lacking both his sword rack and his dresser.
An open hand cuffed his shoulder and he found himself surprised by the gentleness of it as he was only shoved off the cot and to the floor instead of being launched to the wall. A pleasant surprise.
He opened his eyes and focused on a spot slightly south of his master's nose. She had her lips curled up in a sneer. "Don't tell me you're broken after all? If you aren't on your feet in the next three seconds, I'm throwing you back to the Backstreets where I found you."
It only took him a second to stand at attention, both hands tucked behind his back. His body felt sluggish, but without any training aches or real pain it barely took any effort to focus his movements. "My apologies, master," was his automatic response.
Valencina gave him a strange look, bemusement that then shifted to satisfied amusement. "Master? Well, it looks like you might be a quick study after all. The pecking order here is like this: you are directly under me. You know what a Finger is, brat?"
She didn't give him a chance to respond as she immediately began a brief lecture on the Five Fingers, what each member looked like, and their standing in relation to her and therefore him. It was a very familiar one since she had beaten it into him every single time he had forgotten during his first month here.
Lucio saw the smack coming and tilted his head slightly to receive it without letting it concuss him. "Don't nod off while I'm talking," the dream-Valencina said curtly. "Where do you stand?"
"Equal to Index Proselytes with cloaks of at least three foot length but no greater than five feet, Middle Little Siblings with at least forty-percent tattoo coverage, and Ring Students who have at least passed their third exhibition qualification but either haven't yet received sponsorship from their Docent or have passed their tenth exhibition qualification and thus qualify as a regular Studio member. Conditional equality with Soldato Quarto," he said and knew immediately that he got something wrong as she raised her hand.
"Conditional equality with Soldato Primo, apologies." Right. He was dreaming of the time he first arrived at the House of Spiders. He still got smacked, though it remained light. Valencina put her hand back against her hip.
"You only got the Thumb hierarchy correctly! You think too highly of yourself and you're going to get your tongue ripped out if you overrank yourself in relation to other Fingers. Get it wrong again, you won't be fed for three days. I'm taking it easy on you, but my patience is only so long. You ought to be grateful you're getting this chance, you know? Not just any Backstreets brat gets plucked away and given a place under the Thumb."
The smile that had sprouted on her face once she began boasting about her leniency took on a nostalgic edge. "Back in those early days when I was newly promoted to Capo Secondo, there was this Soldato Terzo under my command that had a squad of Primos under her..."
Lucio remembered this story. The Soldato had taken pity on an orphan that had followed her Primos around on a rote patrol, desperate for a handout. She gave a portion of her ration to the child in exchange for some insignificant local news. Valencina took this as an infraction and then ordered the Soldato to either induct the child as a Thumb-associate with all the needed requirements within the month or to recompense the Thumb for the wasted resources. The Soldato had chosen to have the child's organs harvested and sold.
"... so keep that in mind, got it? You always have a choice: either fall in line or suffer the consequences. It was the same everywhere as I rose up the ranks, from Secondo to Quarto, and then Sottocapo."
He remembered all the stories she would tell. Over and over, whenever she was in a good mood or a bad mood, she would talk about the days when she had it all. When people respected her. When her Famiglia's name granted her privileges even in the Thumb. When she didn't need a Ticket. When she most certainly wouldn't have needed a Textbook. He would be nothing without her, she said then, even as she lost herself to old glories.
"But you aren't a Sottocapo," Lucio said, cutting off Valencina mid-story. She immediately paused and looked at him in disbelief. A little thrill ran up his back. "You don't have any Soldatos underneath you, only me. All you have now are stories that you tell yourself."
He looked her in the eye. This Textbook was already torn to shreds, so what did it matter?
"Wow, you're a talker after all, aren't you? Lucio..." she said, her voice sickly sweet.
The explosion of pain when she backhanded him was expected, but it felt familiar. The anguish and rage in her eye dulled the pain and made him smile. "What the hell is wrong with you!" She threw Lucio out of the room and into her Corridor. The familiar scent of tobacco and whiskey was absent. Did she try to pull herself together in those early days? He could hardly remember anymore. "And here I thought you may have had even the tiniest use... Bah, I can always find another one of you!"
Lucio scrambled to his feet just as Valencina brought up her boot and kicked him into a wall. He wasn't dead yet, so she was probably going to torture him first. Good, it meant that he could still do as he wanted for a little longer.
"My time and generosity, utterly wasted!" She brought up a fist. "On a worthless idiot!"
But Lucio did not let her hit him. She always wound up her fist to smash down on top of his head. He used that moment to dive under a table, scrabbling to get away from Valencina even as she abandoned her punch to try and get a grip on one of his legs. Even the light scrape of her fingers tore away a chunk of his leg, though this did let him escape for a few seconds more.
"Fuck Rien's Prescript! You aren't worthy of becoming my apprentice!"
She stood up and kicked the table out of the way; it burst into wooden scraps at the force of the kick. Lucio had more than enough time to take stock of himself as he grabbed a disconnected wooden leg and got to his feet. The wood in his hands was completely unwieldy and a good hit from Valencina would be enough to smash through any of his defenses. He couldn't even move to attack her properly with his balance thrown off by the missing chunks of leg; he had one good lunge at best.
He was weak. He was in pain. He didn't appear to have any of his augmentations in this dream. Valencina had murder in her eyes, but she had not drawn her swords. Of course she wouldn't. Lucio was just a starved weakling without training when she found him. It would wound her pride greatly if she was forced to draw them to kill him at this point, and pride was all she had.
Every second he managed to resist would be a slight to her. He decided to make it his goal to last at least two seconds.
"In one-on-one fights, my Palermitan Style has the advantage," Lucio said, savoring the absolute disbelief of his Nursefather. He had always wanted to throw those words at her, if only to see her reaction. She could only stare agape at him as he took up a stance that he should definitely not know at this stage.
Her visible eye twitched. "Your Palermitan Style?" That was the most complex emotion he'd ever gotten out of her.
She was upon him, but he anticipated that. Her speed and strength eclipsed his even at his peak, but he had the advantage of knowing her style inside-out; her unarmed combat was surprisingly simplistic and unrefined compared to her Palermitan swordsmanship. He would accept the blow to the side of his face that would kill him. In exchange, he would jab the wooden leg at her undamaged eye with all his might in his dying moment. And in knowing this through precognition, Valencina would immediately change course to a kick to his side that would split him in half. And he would similarly adjust course the moment she sidestepped to chamber the kick so that he could swipe at her eye at the moment of impact. And in knowing this...
Valencina stopped just short of kicking and grabbed his wrist as he brought up the splintered leg. Her Relic was active. "You're a plant, aren't you?"
He couldn't help but laugh. "You used your Eye against an unaugmented Rat, master." Valencina smiled. He thought it was a good smile.
Then she snapped his wrist like a twig. "I'm going to fucking kill you. But first, you're going to talk. You're going to sing for me and it'll be a nice lullaby, Lucio." Her eye had that cruel glint to them that he had never seen turned upon himself with this much intensity.
"Congratulations, you won't be my Textbook. You're going to be dead meat and I'll turn you into compost when I'm done."
"Okay." Lucio was satisfied. He had seen all that he wanted to see and heard what he wanted to hear. He was done now. This was a good dream. It was time to die.
It was just a shame that he couldn't kill her in either dreams or reality.
After that, he fainted. Valencina huffed and let him fall down bonelessly onto the floor. Useless as a fighter and he still had the guts to mouth off. Absolutely unacceptable. She walked around the mess to grab herself a bottle and shot glass from a cabinet nearby. The day was already going so well, so why not? The Prescripts decided to give her the ballsiest Rat, why not? Was he even a Rat?
The bitter whiskey in the back of her throat was of no comfort as she mulled over that thought and how absurd that possibility was. It was much likelier for him to have been a part of the Famiglia Bognatelli. But even if they had withdrawn their love, she would have snapped up the chance to help if they needed something from her. He wasn't from the Famiglia.
How did he know about the Relic? He aimed for her eye specifically; in all the possible courses of action he would take, he would aim for the undamaged eye. If she simply stood there and let him strike first, he would have led with a perfect underhand blow, straight out of the textbook she wrote. It was enough to stop her from striking him down on the spot.
He didn't want to kill her. He wanted to piss her off.
Two shots later, she decided she was done. She had to figure out who the fuck this little shit was. Before that though, she had to make sure she handled that Prescript right so that Rien wouldn't be a pain in the ass about a bit of interrogation.
She got up and fumbled for the back of his scrappy shirt, dragging him along the floor of her Corridor. He was as light as a feather, she noted. Even more surprising that he could rip himself away from her grip with the little strength that he had.
"Rien!"
She barged into his Corridor and trod on the gray stone floor. "Are the Prescripts saying anything?" Her voice was swallowed up by the soundproof padding, but she knew he heard her.
The Index Nursefather was sitting quietly on his couch, staring at a picture book he had open on his lap. At her words, he took the beeper from his pocket and looked at it as if to confirm that there were, in fact, no words on the display. "No."
Rien put back the beeper and looked at the picture book. She waited for him to say more, but he turned a page instead.
Valencina rolled her eyes. It was hard to think this man used to be a Star of the City. She tossed the boy in front of him and his prone form smacked against Rien's black shoes. "Nothing to say about this? He knew about the Relic and about the Palermitan Style. He has to be a plant or something."
Rien stared at her in silence like an actual, literal, plant. She gripped the hilt of her blade tightly. Keep it together. "Rien. Talk to me. This is about the Prescript you gave." Worst fucking mistake she made was asking him for one in the first place.
"You already know your Prescript, Valencina. There is nothing to be discussed about a Prescript so clear-cut. 'Consume three bottles of vodka and spin in a circle thirty-three times. Then wander into the door right in front of you and create an apprentice of the third person you see.'"
"Then let me consult with you as a Proxy, hmm? I just taught him a lesson on hierarchy and gave him some hands-on combat experience. Does that count? What sort of definition is there for an apprentice?"
The beeper made a noise and Rien checked it. "What does it mean to be an apprentice? They are bound to their masters to learn their profession so that in the end, they become masters themselves. They must be trained in the trade of their master under a contractual agreement."
He took out a bookmark from a suit pocket and tucked it inside the picture book before putting it on a shelf. "Do keep in mind the wording. Create. This young man may not be suitable to be an apprentice, but you can create an Apprentice out of him. Do you need additional guidance? I must depart soon, I should warn you."
Damn him. She stormed out with the boy in tow. Fine. If the Prescripts wanted her to take this boy as her apprentice, so be it. Whatever it took to get Ticket back to par, right? She just needed to make some changes to the curriculum. If he knew so much about the Palermitan Style, then she could just jump straight ahead!
The first thing she did when she got back to her Corridor was rip out the boy's tongue. Look at her, being so merciful as to do it while he was unconscious too!
Familiar pains to go with the familiar sight. He had no tongue. His right wrist was broken. The wooden sword snapped and the top portion flew off into the distance.
"Get up."
Perhaps he had made a grave error when he assumed this was a dream.
"Keep up, Cheatsheet. You should know what's coming next..."
Master prepared to perform the Sezionatura di Coniglio, done at a quarter its normal speed. This was going to hurt. Lucio braced his core as his master swept past him, tapping him roughly in the side with her own set of training blades. "Dead."
"Again."
"Useless!"
"... Hah."
She slammed the hilt of one sword against his shoulder and he toppled over without a sound. His limbs were solid lead a few minutes in. The last exchange consisted of her flicking his guard away in one move.
This was worse than her usual moods. Not the worst, but it was getting there. She was unusually sober, smelling only slightly of whiskey. She wasn't kicking him while he was down. He forced his eyes open and watched as she paced around the room. If he had a tongue to apologize with, he would have already done so. 'I'm sorry, master,' he mouthed before starting the laborious process of standing up. His vision slipped sideways and he found he could not get up anymore.
This was it. His limit.
Master looked disgusted. She reached for the inside of her coat and pulled out a cigar. "So much for your Palermitan Style," she muttered. "Without the augments, the conditioning, the equipment, you can't do shit without breaking your body."
Lucio felt himself pulled up. "Tell you what, Cheatsheet, I'll let you off easy on that disrespect you showed me. I'll get you a new tongue, once you've shown me that you won't mouth off. We can get you the augs on the same day too," his master said. The familiar scent of tobacco wafting off her mouth was comforting and he felt himself drifting away. "So long as you promise to tell me who taught you the Palermitan Style."
That was easy enough. All he had to do was tell her that it was her. Who else would have taken him in and taught him the Palermitan Style? The Bognatelli family? Impossible. It could only be his Nursefather, Valencina.
He found the energy to nod.