Saturday's Storyteller: "The pixie snorted a line of pink sugar and then leaned over to me, eyes pointing in different directions, and slurred, 'So let's make a deal.'"

by Belinda Roddie

The pixie snorted a line of pink sugar and then leaned over to me, eyes pointing in different directions, and slurred, "So let's make a deal."

"I'm listening."

He watched me stir my mystical cocktail with a glass wand. Something that couldn't cast spells, but just what I needed to mix the booze together thoroughly. Chiddy was his name: Grantil Chiddy.

"That's good stuff, by the way," he said, rubbing his left nostril feverishly. He chafed his own skin so hard that glitter scattered on the card table. "Where did you get it?"

"Old friends. So what's the deal?"

Chiddy coughed, inhaled, sniffled, and exhaled. "I'm talking six hundred gold cred here, buddy. Two hundred less than my original offer. Money's tight, Maxi. I can't go any lower than that."

"You know my standards."

"This is good shit I'm talking about here," he insisted. "Like, good shit. Shit that would make the Faerie King piss himself if he ever found out. I'm selling it to you for a knock-out price. I need to clear it out. Get rid of it. I know you're better at this whole dealing thing than I am, so I'm leaving it to you."

I told him to get out the wooden chest. We were sitting in the corner of Hollow's Eve Casino, where minotaurs served the beer and sprites, gnomes, and the lower elf classes sat on stools in order to indulge in the more superficial and soul-sucking parts of life. Three elves in pointed hats played pool at the only table that wasn't scuffed up to high heaven. Trolls grunted over a game of roulette, roaring and belching when they didn't win. A satyr let a pair of dice dance in his furry hand before he tossed them across the green, sparkly felt. Snake eyes. He was done for.

I myself kept my crystalline wings hidden beneath a long, heavy brown coat. Tweed. My left wing had been permanently damaged in the war, and I couldn't fly around without pain. I got hooked on the nectar to alleviate the stiffness, the spasms of agony. Now I was selling the sweet, powdered stuff. It was easier to transfer. Stronger. Quicker to the bone.

Chiddy undid the padlock on the chest and let the lid fall back with a slight creak - only a slight one. It was like looking into a fucking rainbow cavern. Everything that had been pulled from the mainstream markets was there: Sugar, nectar, jelly beans, gumdrops (the sour kind). They were all tidied up into neat piles, undisturbed despite being carried around in the pixie's bottomless knapsack.

I took a sip of my cocktail and let my gloved hand hover over the presumed treasures.

"I've been collecting this for a while, man," Chiddy was telling me. "The gumdrops were premium. Guy from the Candy Sector fobbed them off to me for dirt cheap. He was an idiot. I've gotten dozens of members of the Faerie family in my pocket."

But I wasn't paying attention to the gumdrops. My trembling fingers stopped when I spotted it. Among the packaged tubes, bags, and tiny boxes, a small glass vial was what caught my eye. It was innocuously nestled between a bottle of dandelion extract - which was the most worthless thing in there; you could get that over the counter at the local Dwarf's Drugstore - and a cluster of cinnamon sticks, also nothing to fawn over. The liquid in the vial gleamed gold in the sparse light of the casino. Beside me, one elf squealed; he had knocked the eight ball into the wrong corner pocket.

"Chiddy."

The pixie looked at me. His nervous fingers were scratching at his wild thatch of silver hair. The pink sugar was really beginning to kick in. "Yeah, Maxi?"

"Pass me that vial over there."

He smiled and obliged. The glass was warm in my grip. I could smell what the contents were without prying off the cork.

"This is..."

"Honeysuckle extract." Chiddy kept his voice low, knowing all too well what this meant. "I know. Crazy, right?"

"You got honeysuckle fucking extract? How did you get your hands on it?"

He told me. Chiddy had done plenty of traveling around Hollow's Eve and the city of Rose Ring. Honeysuckle was expensive these days; even I couldn't exactly afford it. The nectar and sugar that I stayed high on was far less costly by comparison, but the physical and mental payoff wasn't nearly as satisfying. In the back of my mind, I remembered the first time I had ever gotten my hands on honeysuckle, before the war. My wife and I had both tasted it on the tips of our tongues. The last thing I recalled after that was how sticky the bedsheets were and how my wife moaned against my bare chest in the cool morning light. We had definitely enjoyed ourselves.

Now, as I turned the vial over and over between my thumb and forefinger, I noticed how hot and stuffy it was in the casino. It also felt sacrilegious to have the extract here. This was far more valuable than Chiddy was letting on, and I told him that.

"So you'll pay me more?"

"Shit, Chiddy, I'm willing to pay you a thousand gold cred for just the honeysuckle. Fifteen hundred for the whole box. Those gumdrops may be a hit, but you won't be able to sell them to the big guys. They've got better to chew on."

"Fifteen hundred?"

"It's a fuckton more than six hundred."

"You got a deal."

I delicately placed the honeysuckle extract back into the chest, which Chiddy locked. He informed me of the combination, reminding me that if the alcohol had gone too far to my head, I could always pry the thing open easily with one of my daggers. I placed the gold cred chips in stacks in front of Chiddy, and he scooped them up like a starved animal foraging food and scurried off before I could say, "Toodles." I knew his type: Grantil Chiddy would blow all his new dough on every nasty and noxious candy and sweet that he could get his pretty paws on. Then he'd come back to me sobbing for more money as long as he brought me more mediocre stash. This time, however, he had outdone himself with the extract. I almost felt bad that I didn't send him off with another pouch of pink sugar. He deserved that much, at least.

Finishing my drink, I carefully stashed the wooden chest in my own knapsack and staggered my way out of Hollow's Eve Casino. I didn't forget to pay Brootof, the head bartender, nor did I skimp on the tip. He snorted and stomped his left hoof as a non-verbal thank you. I waved at him, thinking of how cathartic the honeysuckle trip I'd have at home would be.

***

My wife had left me after I started doping in order to cope with my injury. She said I had gone too far down the rabbit hole, and that not even the Faerie King could save me now. We had both come from well-established sprite families - my relatives had done well in the blacksmith business, while hers made quite a fortune with gemstones. Her ancestors had always been good with doing business with the dwarfs and their mines, and now she was back in Hilly Dell, her hometown, taking over her father's legacy with relish.

I knew she was clean. She had been clean for three years now. That didn't matter. I had my flat in Hollow's Eve, and I stumbled up the stairs of the complex and ignored the chimes tinkling against my door as I unlocked it and eased it open.

The living room was a mess, and I shoved away empty boxes of Wayward Pizza and both bottles and cans of Hot Juice (the bestselling fairy wine). I pulled the chest from my satchel and placed it on the coffee table in front of me. Outside, my neighbor, Ozzo, was screaming at the television again. His favorite ogre boxer was not doing well against an Elven newcomer, and I was sure he was quite offended by the result of the bout.

When I unlocked the chest and pushed the lid open, only the honeysuckle earned my loving gaze. The rest could be put in the cabinet and left for later, when I felt like more of a junkie than a classy addict. I yanked out the cork in the vial and smelled the extract. Yep. Pure. Chiddy hadn't ripped me off.

I remembered how I had first tried out honeysuckle - imbibing it, ingesting it - but had learned that the effect could be far more potent with a syringe. I turned on my own TV and listened to the correspondents talk about the latest announcement by the Faerie King to continue the War on Drugs (which had been a total failure, despite his predecessor's best efforts) before fetching the tourniquet and needles. My wife had been trypanophobic, so she never liked it when I stabbed myself. Now that she wasn't here, though, I was free.

I didn't think about my family these days. I didn't think about my wife. So far, my inheritance had held up, and the interest I amassed from the bank allowed me to maintain this modest lifestyle. That was fine by me. I had grown tired of using a hammer and chisel to smelt weapons and armor for the Faerie Military. I had had enough of being a cog in the machine. I had enlisted as a soldier in the end, and I had suffered dearly for it. I still hated the government for not giving me the proper treatment for my wing. Now I was a cripple, a jilted veteran, and I had an itch.

Wrapping the tourniquet around my arm, I bit down hard on the strap and listened to Ozzo's guttural bellows as the boxing announcer declared a total knockout by the elf. I watched as the honeysuckle extract pooled like precious amber in the syringe's tempered tube. I tensed up, and the needle went in like a charm. Right in the vein. The sting at first startled me, but then the heat spread. I had pins and needles all over. I felt my tongue wander around aimlessly in my mouth.

Shit, I thought to myself. This was oriental honeysuckle extract. This was the extreme version of what I had sampled when I was far younger. I was going to be out of it for at least a few days.

I should have given Chiddy another five hundred for the voyage.

This week's prompt was provided by Daniel Bulone.