Changes

[Candy Hart]

Things change. Candy couldn’t argue the truth of that. She’d been gone for three years and the ever changing city of RhyDin had continued to do just that—change. The rundown church she’d squatted in her last time through had been remodeled into a night club and the squatters that had called those walls home had long since moved on. The building that had housed her studio apartment now housed an assorted collection of small business offices. There wasn’t space available there, but if she was interested she could buy a track of land on one of Eledoran’s many moons at a price she was told was ‘really a steal.’ Even the faces at the rings had changed. At least the fact that there were rings remained the same.

In the few weeks since her return she’d only seen a handful of familiar faces, mostly a number of the church squatters relocated to a dilapidated manor on the outskirts of the city where she was currently crashing. And there had been the spotting of one of the blondes at the inn. It had been almost like seeing a ghost. A ghost that didn’t look to remember her and one she didn’t approach. They hadn’t been friends, just known the same guy. She already had intel, from a caller at the rings, that he hadn’t been around. There wasn’t any other reason to approach. Instead, she watched. Watched and drank and set up a plan with Sayuri and Jochin, a couple of other duelers, to meet at the rings on Wednesday. Sayrui was a capable fighter that Candy had been in a close match with several says prior. She had yet to see Jochin fight, but if he kept it up with the pet names he’d find himself at the end of her fist with or without them standing in a ring.

The night ended with her helping a stranger drag the bleeding body of another stranger into a room at the inn. Candy counted that as her good deed for the month and headed back to her squatting grounds with one open beer and two for the road, hoping she’d still have a decent spot to call her own when she reached the manor.

Blood and beer, the more things change the more they stay the same.