The Death of Ethan Fairchild

The Majestic
Morning after the Baker’s apartment burns
Aftermath of the Dustown Apartment Fires

Vanja had smelled smoke that night. The Baker’s apartment wasn’t so far from the Majestic, and the call of fire spread more quickly than the flames themselves. In a city this dense, with its timber buildings stacked close in the slums, word spread and echoed through the alleys on a wave of panic. The fire itself burned out quickly enough, before it spread beyond the first apartment complex - stray sparks and hot ash smothered with buckets of snow. At the time, it had seemed like a turn of luck. The area where the fire began had been empty. The rest, evacuated. The loss of belongings and a safe space to sleep far less than the loss of lives.

It wasn’t until the next morning that Vanja heard news that a man had died in the fire. The old, Blind Baker, who sold bread rolls and potatoes.

Vanja took in the news, as she treated the young man in front of her. He’d been brought in to the Majestic by one of the girls - badly burned from fighting the fire, the skin on his arm burned away, revealing the raw, pink flesh below.

Vanja’s river magic would heal it in an instant, but instead it’s a treatment of clean water, to flush away the dead skin, vodka to reduce infection, and a salve made of honey and nusnow blossoms for the burn. It would be cooling, at least. Comforting. But he’d have a scar at the very least, and at worst muscle and nerve damage. The arm wouldn’t be the same as it had been.

She had been triaging burns all morning - her initial bloody arrival at the Majestic seemingly forgotten by the working girls as her healing skills quickly showed her to be worth more than her trouble.

When Vanja had arrived at the Majestic, two days before, pale and covered in Lieutenant Peters’ blood, the madam had spent hours questioning her. Lovelace was a stern, dwarven woman, and she didn’t want trouble for her girls. Vanja, panicked and bloodied and refusing to answer questions, seemed like trouble. Vanja had tried to explain, had assumed that Lovelace knew she would be coming, that Ethan had sent word. Lovelace said she didn’t know anyone named Ethan, and so Vanja had stopped talking altogether.

The working girls didn’t ask questions, however, and many were sympathetic. One woman, an elegant part-elven girl with dark skin and close cropped white hair had chastised Lovelace for her interrogation of Vanja. Couldn’t Lovelace see that Vanja had been through something awful? Wouldn’t there be time for questions later? Lovelace had eventually demurred, and allowed the part-elven girl - Ildylen’tra - to bring Vanja to a room.

At Vanja’s room, Ildylen’tra had taken Vanja by the shoulders, her hands pressing into the bloody collar of her cloak. She reassured Vanja that the Majestic was a good place, that Vanja would be safe here. “And it looks like you need help,” she brushed some of Vanja’s bloodied hair off of her pale cheek, “a man, right? It’s always a man.”

Vanja had nodded. “Yes,” she said, “It was a man.”

And now, it seemed, that man was dead.

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The Death of Ethan Fairchild