Chapter Text
What Dwells Within is an experiment – I am attempting to recreate Fate Stay Night as a 'Weird Western' style story. I won't be using much magic in the plot, but I will try to weave in as many of the FSN tropes as I can.
I expect the story will be pretty short.
Story begins:
Lynn Thompson checked her father's six-shooter again, thumb brushing the black mother-of-pearl handle. She wasn't fond of guns, but her father had made sure that she knew how to shoot. 'Much good it had done him' - somebody had shot him in the back. But that was years ago, when she was barely fourteen.
She crouched behind the supervisor's shack, near the entrance to the Thompson mine, trying to control her heartbeat. 'I can't believe I am sneaking into my own property!' The wind made the shutters rattle. The building looked as abandoned as it had been for the past decade.
But there were horse tracks - or more likely, mule tracks - leading past it, down to the mine.
She had heard rumors that somebody - possibly that sleazy banker from back east that kept trying to buy the mine - was nosing around, doing SOMETHING. Maybe they had found a new seam of emeralds? Or maybe something else?
The shaft itself loomed like a wound in the earth, the support timbers in need of replacing, the wind whistling through boards nailed across the entrance. The iron stains on the mouth of the tunnel always looked like blood to her. She saw movement—someone was already there! They were moving low and silent along the rocks. A man, tall, hair in braids, blue stains on his arms and a long spear in hand. A native tribesman.
He froze, turning sharply, eyes going hard when he saw her. Lynn gripped her revolver, but didn't draw.
Neither of them moved, the mine breathing cold air between them.
\/*WDW*\/
Rose (no last name, just Rose) leaned against the battered bar at the Copper Hand, watching the deputy eat his late lunch at the other end of the saloon. It was halfway between lunchtime and dinner, so all they had was cold corned beef, but he didn't seem to mind. She smoothed her hair back and sashayed forward. The deputy was easy on the eyes, but that wasn't why she was approaching him - it was just work.
"You're new around here?" She asked sweetly, trying to sound cheerful.
The deputy looked up, "Yeah. I'm Emile. Emile LeBlanc." His accent was soft, southern maybe. The gun on his hip was army-issue, not the cheap iron most drifters carried.
This time of the afternoon, the bar was mostly empty. A few drunks snored at the table in the corner, and three ne'er-do-wells played cards by the door, laughing too loud, eyes flicking toward Rose as she moved. Anybody who had a job was out working it.
"Why don't you pull up a chair and tell me about this place?" Emile said, scratching the scar on the back of his hand. "I took the first job that came along, so I don't know much about the local history."
Rose smiled at his naivete. Most of the folks in Elm Grove knew her profession, and didn't talk to her on account of it. Not because Elm Grove was so small, but because her family used to be so very prominent, owning the mine that had been the main employer. Her grand-pa had built the school and the church, and her father had always made sure to pay a fair wage and not cheat anybody.
Then the emeralds ran out, and her dad died trying to work out a deal to keep the bank from taking everything they owned, and the whole town had watched their fall from grace and done nothing to help. The local Reverend had brought them meals for a few months, but then he had turned his back like the rest of the town.
Despite everything that their father had done for them.
She slipped into the chair next to the Deputy, brushing her skirt down, telling herself it was just work. "So, you like the food here?"
"Honestly, no - I could cook better than this. But I need to go back out to the Frank ranch after I eat."
"Oh, is their boy in the drunk tank again?".
"Yeah, seems he's a regular. He certainly knows his way to the cells better than I do."
Before Emile could say anything further, a skinny kid burst through the doors. "Mr. Emile! Sheriff says he needs ya! And there's a crowd outside the jail!" The boy bolted before Emile could question him. Either GIl - the Sheriff - had already paid him, or more likely, had put the scarers into him.
"Sorry, I got to go," Emile slapped a coin on the bar and stood, leaving his food half eaten..
Rose watched him go, rubbing her finger along the lip of his beer mug. It was the first normal conversation she'd had with a man in years.
Duke's voice growled from behind the bar. "God damn it, Rose! Can't you even reel in a country bumpkin like the Deputy? Why the hell do I keep you around?"
She picked up Emile's half-empty glass, and sniffed it before pouring it on the floor. "Because if I leave, you wouldn't have any damn customers at all."
She sat back down, calmly finishing Emile's lunch.
\/*WDW*\/
"What's going on?" Emile shouldered his way into the jail - there was a crowd of people, some yelling, most just watching. They all had an odd carnival-like atmosphere - they weren't there for any serious reason, but to simply enjoy somebody else's suffering.
The building doubled as the Sheriff's office, and it was set in the rundown part of town, squeezed between a pair of three story tenement buildings. Even during the day the jail had a pair of lamps lit, as little light came in through the tiny windows.
"We caught this little hussy wrestling with an injun down by the Thompson Mine!" Came the reply from a rough looking man who had one hand wrapped around the arm of a petite black haired woman in a dyed red leather jacket, which she wore over a white ruffled shirt and short skirt. She was the spitting image of Annie Oakley, but without the hat. He leered at her as he gave her arm a squeeze.
The woman looked very much out of place in that jail.
She also looked like she would have clocked the man holding her if there wasn't a second man, this one with the cold eyes of a killer (or a banker) on her other side, holding her other arm as well. Emile had to resist the urge to smile. He appreciated a woman with spunk.
"Let go of me, Casimir!" Lynn jerked her arm out of the grip of fish-eyes. "I was on my own land! Ain't no crime checking on my own damn mine."
"That's not what Mr. Mathew says." Casmir intoned quietly.
Sheriff Gil swaggered in, thumbs hooked in his gun belt, gold rings flashing in the lamplight. "Miss Thompson here is a real firebrand," He smirked, speaking to his deputy. "Now, Lynn, you know the judge says you're not to be near that mine 'til the probate clears." He motioned for the two men to let her go.
Lynn jerked her arm free from the grip of the beefy one as well, straightening her clothes before leaning forward to waggle a finger at the Sheriff, "Probate court! I turned eighteen two years ago, Sheriff. They're stalling."
"Your daddy had a lot of debts."
"My daddy had a lot of enemies, ever since he stuck his nose into that range war ten years ago."
"Be that as it may, you can't be going down to the mine," Gil replied lazily, eyeing Lynn's figure appreciatively.
"There's rumors of trespassers. I wanted to see if they were stealing anything. And furthermore," She turned sharply to the two ruffians, who had backed up into the rest of the crowd to watch the shenanigans, "Give me back my gun! That's my fathers!'
Emile watched the interactions with amusement. In an era where most women were polite and retiring, Lynn stood out.
"I don't know about no gun, missy," The bigger one smirked.
Emile stepped forward, hand dropping on the man's shoulder, squeezing until the man flinched. Emile wasn't as large, but he was taller. "It wouldn't happen to have a mother of pearl grip, would it, Miss Thomson?" He pulled the revolver out of the man's back pantswaist. "This doesn't look like your style, Jamie."
He handed the revolver to Lynn, who took it and holstered it as she squinted at Emile appraisingly.
"And what's this about a native?" Emile asked.
Lynn crossed her arms. "He came out of nowhere. I was trying to stop him from sneaking into the mine when these two decided to grab me instead. Because apparently detaining a woman who had every right to be there was more important to them than stopping a clear trespasser."
Emile glanced at Sheriff Gil. "Doesn't the Reverend have dealings with the local tribes?"
Gil shrugged, "If you are so interested, you can go ask him." He continued striding out the door nonchalantly, with the (now reduced) crowd parting for him like he was a king. "And I'll go swing by the Franks' in your place, after I visit the Sabel homestead."
"I hear that he's sweet on Astrid Sabel." Somebody in the crowd whispered. Astrid Sabel was a young widow who managed a thriving ranch outside of town.
"Well? What are you waiting for?" Lynn demanded.
"Excuse me?"
"You want to find out why that man was sneaking onto my property, or you just gonna stand there thinking I'm some hysterical girl?" She flipped her revolver's cylinder open, checked it, and snapped it shut. "Let's go talk to the Reverend!"
Emile watched her, lips twitching at the corner. "All right, Miss Thompson. Let's find out who's trespassing on your land." Emile grabbed his hat from the hook, "And for the record, I don't think you're the sort to ever be hysterical." Actually, she was the most interesting woman he had met since… in a long time.
Lynn gave Emile another appraising glance before taking the lead, walking towards the church. "It's gonna be a while."
Elm Grove was either a big town or a small city, depending on whom you asked, but it had enough civilization that most folks left their horse at the stables at the edge of town, so walking was the quickest way to get to where they were going. But it was not a short walk.
"That's ok, Miss Thompson, I like the company."
Lynn snorted in amusement at the corny line. Except she suspected that the Deputy actually meant it.