RP:A Wild Firefly Steve Has Appeared

Part of the The Dust Up In Cenril Arc

Summary: Hudson and Pilar witness a brutal fight between two teenagers over a stash of Firefly Steve. Disturbed by what they've seen, Hudson and Pilar dump the abandoned stash down a nearby privy and agree to forget what they've seen.

Streets of Cenril

Hudson is on his way back from the market, hands in his pockets, plodding along relatively inattentively. If cell phones existed he'd definitely be texting and walking. They do not, however, so he simply stares at the ground in the usual attempt to avoid shattered glass bottles. He's jostled, however, so he has to look up. A street rat at the ripe old age of 14 or thereabouts zips by him, chased by a slightly older though equally ragged seeming youth. The kids are shouting at each other as they engage in a spirited cat-and-mouse. Not sure what to make of this, and incorrectly appraising it as 'kids at play,' Hudson stops in his tracks and observes, waiting for it to break up or move along before moving along himself.

Pilar had returned to Cenril and was meandering down the street, headed towards the sea. Some time at the beach would be nice. She had to think. As the youths ran toward her, she reflexively grabbed her bag and gave them a wide berth. Her brothers had been adept pickpockets back in the day, and she knew their tricks. Just one 'bump' was all it took to lose a coinpurse. Up ahead, she spotted the guy from the bank, and offered a smile that didn't quite meet her eyes. She was tired and troubled. "Hello, Mr. Hudson."

Hudson offers Pilar a smile as she joins him in waiting out this strange game of tag that seems to be... wow, seemingly violent. He hadn't remarked on that before. "Hey... Pilar," he returns the greeting, but his tone's deflated, distracted by the kids. His lazy expression of polite good humor has likewise dissipated in the face of the gleam of metal whipping between the two youths. Were they knife fighting? A jagged swipe here, and there's a blooming red stain on the younger kid's trousers, and the only thing between the wee bugger and a knife between the ribs is a fortunately placed rock, on which his assailant trips. It's the opening the 14 year old needs. He's gone, wedged into the crowd. The older boy follows. Huds bends to pick up a pack that one of them seems to have misplaced during the chase, and he exchanges an alarmed look with Pilar, now fellow witness. "You OK?" he asks her. "Did you catch what that was about?"

Pilar watched the fight go down in horror. They were so young, too young to be fighting like this! Before she can think to intervene, the boys are gone. She looked at Hudson, wide-eyed. "N-No, I didn't... I thought they were only..." Cutpurses, not cutthroats. She hugged herself and looked at the item Hudson had retrieved. "What is that?"

Hudson reaches into the pack that he's holding, opening it enough so that both he and Pilar can peer inside. It's filled with rubber stoppered vials holding blue dust. Hudson blanches. As if holding a burning object, he hands the bag to Pilar. "See for yourself," he says, looking around them now, conscious that one of the boys might return to claim the stash. "Why are kids getting mixed up in this," he sounds troubled, checks down the path again. "We shouldn't hold on to this probably," he tells her, his palm rubbing his stubble-lined cheek in thought. "Can't really leave it out and about either, though."

Pilar took the bag and looked inside, ebon brows furrowing. She didn't recognize the glittering powder as anything dangerous, but the way Hudson was acting didn't go unnoticed. Someone might have expected her, goody-two-shoes that she was, to suggest reporting it to the police, but she and her family didn't have a real good history with the authorities. She closed the bag back up. "What... is it, exactly? Pixie dust?"

Hudson makes an ambiguous gesture of understanding of the situation. (Play it cool, man.) "Yeah I dunno," he exhales, though he knows quite well what's in the stuff. "Blue dust though... I'm pretty sure it's this Firefly Steve stuff that people keep talking about." His breath hisses through his teeth as he considers the situation. "....Which means you're holding a small fortune. That two kids were fighting about, I guess. Or not even, since they left it here." He considers the direction in which they'd fled. "They're gonna come back. Or one of 'em is at least."

Pilar didn't spend a lot of time in Cenril, and when she did, she was usually alone. She certainly hadn't ever heard of Firefly Steve. Was it just because she was foreign, or did that name sound... weird? Then he mentioned it being worth a small fortune, something two kids were willing to fight, and... and kill over. She looked back down at the bag with wide eyes. "We should get rid of it." Her first thought was to just dump it in the ocean, but who knew how it would affect the plants and wildlife?

Hudson thins his lips and nods. They're on the same page. "Yeah. I got an idea. C'mon," he suggests, jerking his head away, away from the direction in which the boys had fled. He leads them - though not without checking their tail - further toward center city. "Not to continue a theme, but..." he smirks and lifts his chin to indicate the building where she'd recommended he relieve himself the other day. "...But what do you say about tossing it down a public privy? I can do it if you'd rather."

Pilar 's mouth flickered toward a smile. "I... suppose." There probably was no real good way to dispose of it, huh? Burning would probably release poisonous fumes or something, burying would let it seep into the groundwater, so she supposed dumping it down the toilet wasn't any worse. She still worried, though. She handed the pack back over to him. "I will keep watch."

Hudson lifts his eyebrows, sliding an amused glance Pilar's way. "Leave me to brave the public restroom?" he kids, topping the statement with a salute. "Be right back." And so he heads in to use the facilities. It takes him a bit to dump the contents of all the vials - which are only a fraction of the fruits of his and Emelyan's hard work - into the privy. Probably fifteen minutes! He has a piss to celebrate a job well done - and also ensure that nobody's like to try to salvage what he's tossed - and then, with a shrug to the next guy, who gives him an odd look for the eternity he'd spent in there, Huds heads down the alley to toss the sack and its now-empty vials into a dumpster. He returns to Pilar about twenty minutes later, looking well satisfied with himself. "Handled," he says to her, holding out his hand. "Proper co-conspirators now," he jokes. "You live in Cenril?"

Pilar spent the twenty minutes outside the building, watching every person who went in like a hawk. She inhaled sharply when she thought she saw one of the kids from before pass by, but it was just a lookalike. There seemed to be many lookalikes, as pretty much every couple minutes she thought the jig was up. And then there was the city guard. Two of them gave her an odd look and stopped. "Evening, miss," one of them said, though he regarded her suspiciously. "You look tense. There a problem?" Pilar swallowed nervously. There was a reason she wasn't the family con artist. "N-no problem. I wait for friend," she said, laying her normal accent on pretty thick, almost to comical levels. This seemed to appease the guards, who assumed that she was fresh off the boat and thus, probably not deep into Cenril's underground. She was twitchy and nervous for the remaining minutes until Hudson reappeared. Visibly relaxing, she shook his hand. "No, Valikrin," she said.

Hudson bobs his head, as if that explained everything. "Ah," he says, scratching behind his ear as he considers the somewhat nervous atmosphere around her. Truth be told, his pulse had sped up a bit too! He hadn't expected to actually encounter his product in the streets being sold by teenagers. But of course Hudson, of the trust fund and private school and tutor, would never have guessed that the cheapest way to move product was to use poor kids. He isn't exactly drawing that conclusion now. He's thinking about their brush with danger! He offers Pilar a grin that sags with relief. "I can't believe that happened," he says to her. "Well, welcome to Cenril. If you see those kids, play dumb. You gonna be OK?"

Pilar had grown up poor, though her family had never gotten into the drug trade. They did honest work when they could... when they were given the chance. Sometimes, though, ya had to lie, cheat, and steal to put food in your kids' mouths. "I can't believe it, either... " Kids stabbing each other in the streets? Crazy business. "I'll be fine, thank you. What about you?"

Hudson looses a long exhale, nodding in response to Pilar's question. "Fine, that was just a little much for a second there," he says with a cant of his head. "Anyway, I'm going to head home I think. Take care, yeah?"

Hudson extends his hand in a wave. "Under better circumstances, let's hope."

Pilar nodded. "I will. I think I'll head home, too. Until we meet again, Mr. Hudson."