Chapter Text
The last Scarlett ever saw of her sister was the thick copper braid spilling down Jolene’s back, all the way to where her murderer’s arm circled her waist.
Scarlett was right there, a mere five or six steps away, clutching the same tankard of beer she’d held on to for the entire evening. She did nothing to intervene, didn’t even think about it. It was not the first time her sister had garnered a handsome stranger’s attention during one of her performances. Jolene had been born a star, never more dazzling than when she stood atop a stage, every single patron of even the rowdiest tavern in tears from her singing.
Being a bard was tricky business of course. But after years of struggle and hardship, Jolene’s career had finally started to take off as the front vocalist of Open the Gates. This was one of the band’s first well-paid gigs and surely not the last one, judging by the way the crowd hung at her every movement.
Jolene was the beautiful one, the graceful one, the remarkable one.
Scarlett was the one who stood by, invisible in the crowd, and let it happen.
At first, she could not believe it, when Wyll, the band’s drummer, told her of Jolene’s disappearance. She waved it away, as one of her sister’s creative elopements. Part of being an artist – not that Scarlett would know anything about that. The pinnacle of her own creativity consisted in the color-coded bookmarks she’d stick in the corners of the documents she needed signed by Gale or one of the other wizards in the guild. The most exciting part of her day was not when she slipped off with a mysterious gentleman into the dead of night, but – quite frankly – when everyone else had left the guild’s office and she sang her sister’s songs at the top of her lungs, while she finished the last bits of paperwork.
Scarlett had spent her life being supportive of her unpredictable, brilliant, wonderful younger sister. So she told Wyll not to worry and carried on with her ledgers.
A few days later, Jolene’s shoe was found in an alleyway not far from the tavern. That was when the city guards started showing up, all furrowed brows and impatient gesturing.
“Ma’am, we need you to calm down now. All we know at this point is that nobody has seen your sister for three days, since her performance at the Suckling Pig. Eyewitnesses report her leaving with a man. Any information about this man could be of utmost importance to our investigation.”
Scarlett cowered on her creaky desk chair, a snowstorm of discarded documents around her feet, and sobbed. Sweat poured out of her, together with the tears, as she desperately dug through her memory. She had seen the pair, hadn’t she? Her sister and her murderer, arm in arm, in the dim tavern light. What in the hells had the guy looked like?
“Attractive,” she blurted out and nearly gagged at the word coming out of her mouth.
The guards exchanged a pointed look.
“A little taller than her,” she quickly corrected. “About 5' 10". Slender. Curly hair, light in color. Pale blond maybe? Elf or half elf. He had the … ears.”
“What was he wearing?” one of the guards demanded.
Scarlett shook her head helplessly. Why in the hells couldn’t she remember what he’d worn? She was an accountant, gods dammit! It was her job to notice all the tiny, boring details!
The guards sighed and packed up their notebooks.
“There was also the voice!” she cried.
“The … voice?” one of them repeated slowly.
Scarlett shriveled under their skeptical looks. The voice was what she remembered most clearly. Silky smooth like slightly melty ice cream. The kind of voice you wanted to sink into and never come back out again. But how could she describe that to these men who already thought her hysterical?
It was then that Gale came to her aid. “Now might not be the best time for questioning,” he said in that authoritative, exaggeratedly slow voice he only ever used with non-wizards. “She is clearly distraught. Why don’t you give her some time to gather herself?”
The guards grumbled something, but left her to her sobbing. They never called her in for another questioning. Whenever Scarlett came by the city watch to ask about the investigation, she was left with the same nondescript phrases.
“We are doing everything within our power to find your sister” turned into “Regrettably, no new leads” and finally “We are sorry for your loss”.
That was when she knew they had given up on Jolene. And, bizarrely, that was when the sobbing stopped. Abruptly. Without warning. When Scarlett left the city watch, her eyes were dry, for the first time in over a month. Her fists were clenched, her chin set, her thoughts crystal clear.
She should have known that the guards would be no help. They never had been. She and Jolene, they’d always had to look out for one another. Nobody had ever come, when their father had drunk himself into a stupor and thrown mugs and plates at their mother. Nobody at school had noticed the bruises peeking out from under her sleeve, when Scarlett had raised her arm to answer a question, always eager to do well, to succeed.
She had been to one to take a side job at an accounting office when she was still in school, lying about her age. She had made sure each payment was carefully hidden under the loose planks under their shared bed until they had enough money to run away and make a new life for themselves in Baldur’s Gate. She had continued to work three jobs, back to back, so Jolene could afford her first lute, second-hand and beaten up, and then later her singing lessons.
It had all been worth it, in that moment, when her sister first took the stage in some dingy tavern. In the way her eyes lit up when the crowd started singing along with her. In her breathless smile, the dimples on her flushed cheeks, her talent so overflowing nobody could deny it.
Scarlett had been the one to give her the life she was born for. Not their parents, not their teachers and not the authorities so eager to turn a blind eye. Sisters like them could not count on others. Only on each other.
That was why Scarlett would be the one to take revenge on Jolene’s murderer.