Brona, Fortune's Fumble


Written by Septia.


'Hello, I am Brona'. 
	'Or, was it something else? That part gets a bit fuzz. Suppose that's what happens with names when ya go long enough without anyone to remind ya of it. And who'd wanna associate with me? Oh right, you wouldn't know. I'm Brona, the spirit of misfortune. Hang around too much with me and, yeah yer are catching on'. 
	A whistle warps the surrounding afternoon haze, calls for departures and arrivals echo across the train platforms. 
	'I'm hanging out at the train station of Prosonull, the Ohdra trainstation, the big one, which connects to the rest of the Ceres continent.' 
	In Ohdra, people become a crowd, and the crowd become a liquid, always on the move. Even those who remained still had somewhere to go eventually, but when they rose there were always new people to flow in, into their seats, and it continued as if nothing happened. With rotating witnesses, and the bustle of bodies, a single body could remain still without attracting attention: water cares not for the pebble in the stream.
	'It is cozy being here. Somewhere I visit now and again, when I'm not too busy bein' homeless. Can't remember how many years it's been now. Then again… I don't think I have ever been home-full? Just crashing at friend's places. Friends who… aren't around anymore…' 
	Brona sighed, resting her forehead on the railing. The concerning gesture went ignored by the stream of arrivals in the platform ahead, none could stop or to give her a glance. And behind laid an equally busy expanse of creatures, looking for their respective locomotives. And those close by? Caught in the same liminal state as her, in the part of their trip that was neither journey nor destination, merely waiting. Brona raised her face from the metal bar, the poofy gray hair lugging behind in a bounbob, she propped up her chin by her knuckle. 
	'Course, could'a been worse. Yeah 'got a couple'a people I've gotten to talk too lately, friends of a former friend, it helps to talk, lets you realise things you can't when yer alone with ya thoughts too long. Like this whole… spirit of misfortune thing.' 
	Brona glanced up, tracing the latest stream of arrivals, eyes aligning with their path, passing through the physical – mere coordinates of their bodies – into the metaphysical. Past time, and into a vision of events: who leads to what, what is said to whom, whom goes where? Consequences following actions… Brona reaches in under the patchwork of mismatched greys, brown, and black scraps that constituted her clothing, and flung a horseshoe through the air. The metal arch sung in between the flow of moving bodies, passing with all the impression of a ghost through a summer resort, and landed inside a bag put on a conveyor to be scanned. The scanner registered the unidentified metal, its owner pulled aside. Brona counted on her fingers. 'Three, two, one…' The horseshoe snagged against a structural weakness in the scanner's machinery, blocking the path for further luggage. People in the line started to grumble: the flow successfully disrupted. 
	Brona's eyes followed that of an irate woman storming out of the queue to find another. Brona took note of this. She wouldn't find one in time. She'd be lae, and the proposals she was carrying in her briefcase would miss the delivery deadline. All those tagalong-rulings on the soon-to-be approved legislation would not be added in time, and several big corporations would be very upset that they couldn't skate by with their poor practices for another few months… 
	“Urughs, just my damn luck,” the woman grumbled as she passed Brona's spot. 
	Brona nodded to herself, and rested against her knuckles. 
	'You said it. Can't rely on fortune. Though, one's misfortune can be another's salvation. Isn't always about big changes, sometimes just a little nudge can brighten up another's day. Fortune's aren't so behest to logic that they can be measured or even relative to one another. But, if my mah lil misfortunes can do some good, ain't that the best ah can do?' She let her eyes wander through the crowds, a misstep here, a shift in perception there, one or two horseshoes thrown around for good measure to alter trajectory and convenience. 
	'I came to realise that misfortune can bring its counterpart, fairly recently… I needed friends for that. Or, acquaintances at least.’ 
	Brona let out a big sight, a smile cressing up the side of her cheek. ‘After years of not trying, I am finally getting the hang of this stuff. Can't believe ah spent untold years just spreading bad luck for a laugh. Though, then again…'
	She noticed a particular arrival. Black suit, blue hair, less-but-still-blue skin. Some kind of amphibian? His path ahead was paved with misery at the expense of others. The consequences of his actions sticking out like a sore thumb, from the otherwise middling affects the rest the travels around him held. 
	'Whose to say ah can't appreciate the great artistry of slapstick every once in a while?' She saw a broad statured woman walking out of a restroom ahead – her pants ill-fitting, mimicing a corset as overworked as her gait was staggering. Every step jiggling through curves screaming to be relinquished from its prison… she was made for a pratfall.
	 'Ah've earned a bit of chaos…' She thought, and focused on the woman, calculating the pace compared to the blue businessman, and… tossed a horseshoe. It flew through the stream, to snag in the hem of the pats, drag her forwards, and topple her balance to fall ass first right on the smug business prick… 
	The horseshoe made contact. -Chthnng- “Hwoawaht aaahh-.” The woman squealed, just in time for the blue man to-. 
	“Ooh, what's this?” the man exclaimed, and hurried his steps in a spurt of speed, passing the woman and looking down on the ground a meter ahead of her. 
	Brona's eyebrow twitched up straight. 
	“Whoooaoaa-.” The woman kept screaming, and, as she fell hapless onto an unsuspecting couple, who'd taken their chance to fill the gap behind the wake of the businessman. They had barely a moment to look up before the horseshoe tugged down the hem and lunsewerat down, anchored to her ankles. The bare rear clapping into their faces with a thunderous smack -Chhllpttwwngh- The hind squatting down on them with a crackle and growl of soggy cloth displacing meat as the couple were sandwiched in the clasp of the cheeks and penetrated up the portly woman's crack -Tddhhngwwng- The cheeks ramming down over them with an orchestra of meaty crinkles until it collided with their luggage -Cshhrlrlfh-TBbgbwnwg- and bounced the lady back up a smdige from colliding with the tall luggage, she stumbled forwards, balance displaced by the couple buried up her rear and tumbling to her knees, under the stranglehold of her pants held her legs in. An echo of the collision ringing in tune with the chime of announcements -Bddwnnnggg-. 
	“Mphahoooh ghooolsh, aah wh-what happe... happen-. Ahaha, are yomfm ok back there?” The woman stammered to the pair of flailing bundle of limbs kicking out of her hind. 
	“Mpghgs.”
	“Mgpghh-. Wgmpggh.” Weary and startled grumbles vibrated form the couple as their flails and rummaged in the woman's rear like a pair of beached mackerels. 
	Security was on the move, further blocking the stream. Some stopping to take in the sight angering those behind. The ramifications spread through all oncoming passengers. 
	But, Brona's gaze was affixed to the blue frog man, standing up from the floor. 
	“Would you look at that, someone dropped a coin, hah, what a sucker,” he said while shaking his head, pocketing the change and sauntered on his merry way. 
	Brona's mouth hinged open, as her eyes narrowed in perplexion. 
	“What…?” She spoke to herself. The scene replayed in her head, again and again, each time fuzzier, like a tape speeding through degradation… The horse how flying, the woman falling, but the man getting away… Her eyes trailed his path, but was left blind by the cavalcade of fortune strings twisted and warped by her own actions… She couldn't follow his trajectory.
	Brona stood straight, and dusted off her rags of a dress as she left her spot, hearing the heaves and moist churn of the woman's hind, as station guards did their best to heave the couple back out. It wasn't her concern anymore… If she couldn't see where this frog was going… then she was gonna have to find out first hand…