Spinoza had ended up out at the pub drinking that night. Alcohol had been off-limits to her lately, so she ended up drinking like a fish.
As a result, she got drunk. Really drunk.
Part of it might have been the fact that she hadn’t had anything to drink for a while. There was also the fact that she had been really pissed off about getting expelled from the guards, which might have sped up her drinking pace. In the end, though, she ended up getting absolutely smashed and passing out in an inn room bed.
There, she had a dream—full of memories from back when she was still a child.
Spinoza had no idea what her parents had been like. She had been abandoned in the mountains before she was old enough to remember anything, and by the time she could, she was already part of a gang of bandits. Her parents had thrown her out, and the bandits had picked her up.
As a rule, children taken in by bandits tended to be sold off to slave traders; that was how robbers and human traffickers earned their livelihood. Spinoza was decently pretty, so she probably could have been sold at a decent price as well. The demand did exist—mostly because there were a fair number of disgusting nobles out there with a twisted appetite for young girls to toy with.
However, these bandits made no attempt to sell Spinoza off. They stole and they robbed, but they didn’t participate in human trafficking. Nor did they steal and rob from just anybody—they only did so from the most heinous nobles out there. That was the kind of bandit gang that had found Spinoza—the type that would be considered either “noble thieves” or “eccentric weirdos,” depending on who you asked.
The bandit gang also happened to be led by a woman. Her name was Amethyst, and she was the only woman in the entire group. Spinoza remembered her as being somewhere in her early thirties.
She was so full of vim and vigor that she outshone all of the men in the gang. She was also the best drinker of the entire group. When they had parties and got into drinking contests, she was always the last person standing, boasting that alcohol was like water to her.
On top of that, she was also the strongest member of the bandits. She proved that fact through the frequent arm wrestling competitions the gang held.
“There are only two types of people in the world: predators and prey. If you’re weak, you’re stuck being prey.”
That was Amethyst’s philosophy, and the bandit gang decided their hierarchy based on how good each member was at arm wrestling. If you weren’t strong enough, you got no say in anything.
Even after arm wrestling the entire gang, Amethyst had never lost once. She was so strong that sometimes she pushed down too hard and came close to breaking her opponent’s arm.
Above all, she was also more competitive than anyone else.
Spinoza participated in the arm wrestling competitions as well. However, at age ten or so, there was no way she could beat any adults in a contest of strength. The other bandits would always hold back to make it seem like a close match for her—but Amethyst did no such thing. The moment the match began, she would use her full force to send Spinoza’s arm and entire body slamming into the floor. Before Spinoza knew what hit her, she would be on the ground, staring up at the ceiling.
“Looks like I win,” Amethyst grinned victoriously, wiping the bottom of her nose with a finger.
When the other bandits would tell her she was being too immature, Amethyst had a comeback ready. “Lions always go all out, even when they’re huntin’ rabbits, y’know.”
The bandits would just roll their eyes at her, but Spinoza was actually happy to hear her say that. She felt that Amethyst giving her a straightforward beatdown was way more sincere than the men wearing stupid grins and putting on a charade for her.
When Spinoza had first been picked up by the bandits, she had been extremely wild—perhaps because she still had vague memories of her parents abandoning her. She was violent and refused to open up to anyone at all, seeing everyone besides herself as enemies.
However, as she continued to live with the bandits, the way she felt gradually began to change. With Amethyst as their boss, the gang members were nothing if not honest. They didn’t hide anything, and they always stayed true to their desires. As she spent time with them, Spinoza was influenced by their way of thinking, and her heart gradually opened up.
When she was in a bad mood, she would arm wrestle. The others were always willing to deal with her pent-up energy, whether it was anger or worry or anything else.
She really loved arm wrestling. It told a lot about the person you were up against. When you locked palms with your opponent, not only could you get a feel for how strong and confident they were, you could almost sense the strength of their spirit as well. In just that split second, you could get a clear picture of what kind of person your opponent was.
Her favorite person of all to arm wrestle was Amethyst. Her palm gave away the absolute confidence she had in her own strength—and her spirit felt immensely stronger than anyone else’s in the gang. However, the straightforwardness and kindness at the core of her wild temperament shone through more than anything else.
Once, Spinoza had asked Amethyst why she had bothered taking in a random kid like her.
“I don’t like seein’ things go to waste. If I see somethin’ somebody dropped, I make it a rule to pick it up,” she had said with a grin. “Besides, you’da probably been gobbled up by monsters if I hadn’t. Wouldn’ta able to sleep right knowin’ that. So basically, I did it ’cause I’m selfish.”
“Besides,” she had added, “I never knew my parents either, and I had a pretty shitty life back in the day too. I couldn’t just leave ya there when ya reminded me so much of me.”
All of the other bandits had been taken in by Amethyst as well. They had been penniless and jobless, but they at least had muscles. The group of people she managed to accumulate ended up becoming her gang of bandits, and they all adored her.
The bandit gang only targeted corrupt, money-hoarding nobles who were making the people suffer by levying excessive taxes. They would plunder money and valuables from the nobles’ carriages. When they scored big, they would head over to the village at the base of the mountain and pass that wealth on by spending it on huge drinking parties. The villagers welcomed them with open arms.
Spinoza had once asked Amethyst why they only stole from nobles.
“We’re bandits,” she had replied. “It ain’t exactly the most upstanding job out there, not by a long shot. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have our pride.”
“Pride,” Spinoza had murmured, and Amethyst had nodded.
“When you’re born low an’ raised bad, there’s only certain things you can do to get by. Try to walk the straight an’ narrow like a normal person an’ you’ll just end up dead in the gutter. If you wanna live, you gotta prey on others. We can be picky about our targets, though,” she had said. “Even if it’s just to make ourselves feel better about it.”
Amethyst gave a coy, toothy smile.