In 11,000 Years, we meet Veddany from N’span, a grifter who’s more than just that. She refers to how she became a grifter in the novel. This is the full story – it just didn’t fit in the novel.
Veddany’s Tale
mark roth-whitworth, 2019
Veddany was standing next to the door of the mechanic shop’s office as her uncle was showing the shop owner the noise under the hood of the steam car. The owner, a man perhaps in his early thirties, with longish black hair, bent under the hood, and did something, and both he and her uncle partly jumped, partly were blown backwards by an explosion of high-pressure steam. They each picked themselves up off the ground, her uncle dusting himself off and complaining.
“Sorry, Ser. Garzha ,” said the man, a red patch on his face and hand, presumably from the steam. “I dun’ know why it did that. I’ll have my best man take a look at it.”
“See that you do, Zhu. I’ll be back after work. Will you have time to talk about the deal?”
“I’ll make the time, Ser,” Zhu said, wiping his hands on a bandanna. “I think it’s our best chance to make up….” He stopped, as her uncle was shushing him. “Right, I get you. Later, then.”
Zeddany tried to look uninterested, though her mind kicked into overtime. I wonder what that was about, and what he was about to say. ‘Make up’ what?
Her uncle walked over to her. “Where you planning on going shopping, before we meet for lunch?”
“No, uncle, I don’t have any money, don’t really need anything. I’d rather sit here and read, or rather, in a seat in the shop, while they work on the car.”
He looked annoyed, but then, most of the time he seemed annoyed, at least since her parents had died in the plague five years ago, and she’d come to live with his wife and him. “Very well, but don’t bother the workmen.”