The Reaches

[Jude]

It was not that Jude had never known need, or that he did not understand it. He had simply been raised by very clever grifters -- and grifters of aristocrats, no less. There had been times when patrons had fallen through, when investments had collapsed and support had been withdrawn, and the traveling carnival of the monster twins had to go on the road. But the family did not beg. To beg before these sorts implied you were a desperate charlatan at best, and an animal at worst. Need was not something to be freely admitted, especially before someone who had power over you.

Better to conceal need and be dismissed, than admit to it and suffer the same ends. At least the former allowed the preservation of one's dignity.

Now, bargaining -- bargaining was within the realm of the acceptable. Conditional offers -- especially ones where the conditions were simply promises of the future -- could be worked with. Jude arched his eyebrows when Near said he'd hitchhiked. You? Hitchhike? Why? Wasn't the point of wealth to distance oneself from the world? That had been Jude's experience in his encounters of it. Why else was The Reaches in the middle of nowhere?

A bottle of something. Warm static hummed in the back of Jude's mind, machinery behind a thick door. "I don't... really drink," he said carefully, careful not to double-cross himself and lose the ride. "Nothing too strong." This is dangerous. But it could take him days to go from the Reaches to petty civilization, from petty civilization to proper civilization. At once, Jude had nothing but time, but time was of the essence. Days versus hours: wasn't that worth a little danger?