Walking Wounded

[Willow]

The air was warmer than when she’d left for the snow and ice of the mountains; the first hints of real spring starting to drift in with the melting of the snow and the milder nights. The breeze still cut the skin; making it feel colder than it was, but there was little breeze today. The sky was clear enough to let thick swathes of midday sunlight hit the trees and grass of the rural areas immediately outside Tannoch, lighting the still winter-bare brown branches with an ethereal glow.

Under a protective oak, the grass was threaded with long strands of hair, turned vibrant red in the sunlight from their usual near-black. The pale girl the night-copper fall of hair belonged to lay on the grass, head fallen to the side as it rested on a bulky travelling pack, eyes closed against the dappled sunlight breaching the shadow of the evergreen’s leaves.
Despite her peaceful countenance, she wasn’t sleeping. She was indulging herself, just this once, in a moment of complete relaxation, of letting go of everything. Even her usually sharp senses she’d dropped; letting her guard down completely. If she sensed anything awry, it would merely be luck and unfocussed attention that she’d caught the sign at all.

But, peace never lasts. With a small furrowing of her brow and a disappointed sigh, jungle green eyes opened, pupils contracting sharply in the bright sunlight that turned her iris a stark green-yellow, the colour of sunlight through a leaf, when it hit her eye from the side.
Slowly, she sat up, rubbing her eyes with her one good arm. The other was held against her chest in a sling to support a half-healed shoulder injury. The bite of a leopard. A dead leopard.

Shaking the memory away, Willow stretched as far as she could without pulling her shoulder, then stood in one fluid movement, scooping her bag up and settling it on her good shoulder. The next of her random destinations was Tannoch. She’d visited the capital before in the past nineteen months, but it was towards the start of her search, and hadn’t turned up many leads.
Mind turning, as it often did, to her target; Willow frowned slightly as she set off towards the city.
‘Difficult, untraceable swine,’ She grumbled silently. After her rather eventful, if it could be called that, reunion with her adopted family in the mountains, of all places, Willow was finding herself tiring of her hunt. It had almost been two years. It felt like she hadn’t lived her own life for longer than that. Four years. Almost five, now. She’d dedicated such a large part of her relatively short life – an even larger part since Willow only remembered eleven of the eighteen years of it – to either recovery or searching.
That could not be healthy.

Reluctantly, Willow recalled what Veraz had told her, once their party had gotten out of the mountains and Willow had decided, perhaps stupidly, to press on with her travels straight away rather than return home, for a few weeks at least.
“Don’t you think that this has gone on for too long? You can’t look forever, Willow. He could even be dead by now.”
“Just one more place. One more. Then I’ll come back for a while. Heck, I might even stay for good, if I can poison Vice fast enough...”
“You know I can’t approve of that.”
“But you do. Don’t worry; I won’t be long in Tannoch, just the usual check. Promise.”
“You know your word isn’t worth all that much...”
“Yes it is!”
“What happened to ‘I’ll be gone a year at most’?”
“Oh, that was to Vice. He doesn’t count. I told you lot I’d be gone for who-knows how long, didn’t I?”
“I guess I have to give you that. Just be careful, okay? And come home soon. Believe it or not, we miss you. God knows why, but we do.”
“Yeah, yeah, love you too. Somehow. I’ll be back in the village before you know it.”
“You don’t say ‘home’ anymore, do you?”

Willow glanced away guiltily, the way she had then, even though there was no one here to glance away from to avoid sad, mournful eyes. She hadn’t had an answer she could give painlessly to Veraz then, but now there was no one to hurt she could acknowledge it.

That place wasn’t home anymore.

The people were home; the families she knew and cherished, but not the place. Not the village. Not between the jaws of the vice gripping the village so tightly it had begun to splinter the edges.
When she came back from Tannoch, she wouldn’t stay in the village long. Just long enough to see her family and friends and throw something potentially deadly at their deranged, tyrannous leader that had somehow enthralled the council, making his position as Head of the village concrete until he died. Then she would run and only come back every few months to see people, and that would grow to every few years, until one day she wouldn’t go back at all.

The thought of that temporarily extended Vice’s grip, just enough to seize her heart through her chest and crush it for a single, stifled heartbeat, then the pressure was gone and her heart kept beating but the throat-constricting ache still remained.

Jerking her head once, angrily, Willow lifted it and took in her first view of Tannoch in a while. The last time she’d seen it she’d been passing it on the way to Ashata from Bethany. Then she’d hit the Castan Mountain range and stepped blindly right into the terrifying mythology of the land. She’d had no nightmares of that trip, but many times since then she’d woken up with a lingering feeling of deep-seated unease and a feeling akin to claustrophobia clutching at her throat, as if she’d just escaped from a pit deep in the isolated earth, enshrouded in burying snow and the unforgiving ice.

The sight hadn’t changed, except for the angle she was seeing it from. She was closer, too – only a few minutes run away. Running would probably jar her arm though, and it wasn’t as if she were in a rush. All she would do was check into an inn that had a semi decent lock on the door and could be easily defended from the thieves and other unsavoury sorts in Tannoch’s poorer areas that had a nasty habit of sneaking into your room when you were trying to sleep and weren’t in the mood for showing irritating robbers the door. Or window, whichever was closer or more deserved. Then she’d start searching and questioning; the only method she had for tracking someone who had been ‘missing’ for years. The bars were a good place to check; plenty of people, an information hub, and lots of alcohol to bribe and keep tongues loose.

The market district was packed; the time just after midday was usually busy. Willow walked near a wall; keeping her injured arm close to the reassuring stone, out of the way of peoples pushes and shoves. However, it wasn’t immune to further damage, proven when someone fell into the long limbed teen, making her stagger into the wall, healing shoulder barging into the unforgiving rock with a wrench that stretched from her shoulder to her stomach.
Snarling, Willow grabbed the person who’d knocked into her, spinning them to face her and quite ready to make them apologise on their knees. That hurt, dammit!

[flippedside]

"What is this?" she asked in a cold voice. The crowds had been shoved back and away from her person, but she could still taste the hot dust and grime that clung to the commons. She had enough dignity to keep from wrinkling her nose of course, but she couldn't keep the hint of disdain from tinging her words. One of her useless guards was being threatened by a mongrel. The woman was dirty with travel, the faint smudges of weariness showing through her tough grip on the guard.

Adina frowned every so slightly. Her guards were more useless than she had realized, to be grabbed and spun by a commoner. A trader perhaps, judging by the woman's heavy pack. Her personal bodyguard--a set of three of the Stone Riders, the elite guard of the emperor's family--moved in to surround her. Not tightly, just enough to be a warning to any who might be idiotic enough to threaten the empress herself. Meantime, she shifted in her palanquin, glancing about her. The crowds gave off a smothering heat, their eyes mixing interest and desire with hate and violence. It was the unique stares that only royalty drew...and knew so intimately. It was there at court, as well, though never half so clearly. There, the stares were guarded, trained. Here, it was the open fascination of those whose only taste of royalty was this brief brush in the streets.

She turned away, dropping the street gawkers, the merchants and urchins, the shoppers, and thieves all from her mind and into the quiet file that labeled them "trash." Not that she despised them: quite the opposite. They served the important duty of providing for her. But that was their purpose, their duty, just as hers was to rule. Trash they may be, but by serving her and the great rulers of Rhyallia, they lifted themselves up to a higher purpose. Or so she had been taught. The reality was that she simply didn't care.

What she did care about was when one of those commoners invaded her life--especially in the form of attacking her guard. Her thoughts had danced lightening quick through her mind, as she judged the woman's well-worn clothes and bandaged arm, sized up the crowds about her, and decided that she needed better guards. No commoner should affect her outing to such a degree. It was disgusting. An inconvenience. A degradation. She sifted through her thoughts quickly, separating them from her annoyance, which she quickly stifled. Better to handle things quickly and rationally than to let petty emotions rule her.

"Release my guard," she told the woman coolly. She expected instant obedience to her commands, and so didn't bother to wait to see if the woman carried them out. Instead, she turned forwards again, gesturing at the muscular servants carrying her palanquin. "Continue."

One of the Stone Riders, though, paused and watched the woman. He cared little about the guard who had allowed himself to be caught. To one of the Riders, the man was a fool who would have been disciplined severely for not paying attention and allowing himself to be grabbed and jerked about. Those were mistakes that none of his kind made. But many of the King's Guard were there just for show. They could hold a sword, but matched to a real warrior...Well, he could carve flowers across their skin long before any of them had even managed to withdraw a weapon. Still, he waited to see that she released the man because, idiot though he was, it would be worse to allow a commoner to attack--even inadvertently--a royal guard.

And as he watched...he frowned. The lean form had an odd familiarity of movement. He imagined thick fur and long legs leaping powerfully forward...yes. That was it. In the mountains. He gave a feral smile and gestured to one of his companions. The other moved quietly aside, black eyes glinting just slightly with the pleasure of the hunt. In the silent movements, calm, collected, the crowd shied away. They didn't know what they faced, but sensed it somehow, like a mouse senses the quiet threat of death just before the cat kills it. The Stone Riders reeked of that threat, though their faces and body gave away no obvious signs. The third stayed with the empress, who seemed to notice their absence and glanced back.

Adina saw one of her guards, with that slight poised movement that suggested he was ready for violence. She huffed an irritated sigh, thinking that they were given too much freedom. They were leaving her for another one of their secretive hunts...


{Pretty good post for not having written in some time. }

[Willow]

A royal guard, huh? One of many foot soldiers that barely knew the pommel of a sword from the tip; this one resplendent in his official garb and looking both surprised and irritated at the tetchy teenager gripping his arm. His glare warning her to release him had no effect, except to incite her to tighten her grip and return the heated look.

Willow was just about to demand the apology she deserved when the unfamiliar, glacial voice slipped through the air, clear in the unusual quiet. Focussed on her own thoughts as she had been, Willow had failed to notice the palanquin as it and the guards of its contents approached her, instead staring at the ground a few feet in front of her, until the buffoon in the royal uniform had barged into her.

Oh, it would be her pure good luck for it to be the Empress. Willow really, really wasn’t in the mood for dealing with shallow, imperious royals who sought only to make their own lives easier at the expense of everyone else’s. Whilst Adina, and probably many of the other high-ranking nobles of Rhyallia, considered those below them dirt, Willow inverted that thought, spinning it on its head. To her, with her strong sense of loyalty to others amplified by her lupine side, you couldn’t get much lower than a traitorous, back-stabbing noble who cared only for their own comfort.

Sliding her snarling glare from the guard, Willow allowed a tinge of disgust to pluck at her lips as she looked unflinchingly, unimpressed, at the woman in the palanquin. Would it kill her to walk rather than have others carry her?
She had already turned away after issuing her order, oblivious to any but herself.
Irate, Willow raised her voice and her head, assuming a proud tilt that indicated her anger and affront.

“I will release him once he has given me a suitable apology.” She called, her tone matching the Empress’ for coldness. Flicking her gaze back to the guard, who was trying to jerk his arm out of her grip, to no avail, Willow spoke whilst facing him, though still addressing the ruler of the land, the frozen conifer green of her eyes boring into his.
“Simply being one of your guards does not excuse him from common courtesy. I would expect one of your social standing to understand that,” The wolf shifter continued, smirking slightly when the guard’s eyes widened in shock at her daring. Did the fool girl know who she was speaking to?

Once again looking past him to his employer, a slight, subtle movement caught her eye, but as the green orbs swivelled to follow it, she lost it.
As easily as she’d broadcast her anger, now she hid her suspicious frown, instead adopting a mask of disdainful indifference as she surveyed the royalty and her entourage. Most of them were like the individual in her grasp; normal foot men, there for show and as a deterrent more than actual protection. Just a few though, enough to count on one hand and still have free fingers, were different. Not by clothing, but the way they carried themselves, that controlled way of moving that spoke of years of training. Willow was in tune enough with her instincts that she recognised a hunter when she saw one, and right now her hackles were threatening to rise; her legs holding a forced looseness as she actively stopped them from stiffening.
Pushing down the instincts that were bubbling to the surface, Willow returned her gaze to the Empress, expanding her other senses and shifting slightly, taking her weight on one hip whilst the other leg bent up, resting on her toes, the sole of her boot just brushing the wall she’d been walking along before being pushed.

Satisfied that she couldn’t be attacked from behind easily, Willow mentally ran through the positions of her knives and swords. With only one functioning arm, fighting would be difficult, but she could manage it.
Now glad that she hadn’t yet released her captive, Willow tightened her grip fractionally, feeling the man’s resistant shift and testing his weight. Despite it, Willow thought she could drag the guy in front of her if need be; as a shield or to shove into the other guards in order to cause a disturbance in which to make her escape.

Any preparations she could make without being too obvious taken care of, Willow looked at the woman in front of her, but focussed on what her ears, her nose, her skin were telling her in the still crowd’s expectant hush as she waited for someone to move against her, or for this slip of the upper class to open her mouth and start spilling worthless noise for Willow to listen to.

[OOC: aye, it is. I was grinning as I read it cos I knew I (and Willow) would have fun with this. Well, Willow might not have fun, but she likes a challenge.]

[flippedside]

Adina stiffened at the cur's words. Demand an apology? She almost continued on with no more thought to the wretch. Almost. But no. She signed outside the open drapery walls of the palanquin to her bears to stop. They did so in smooth, perfect time (not that she would expect--or allow--any less).

If she had been closer to the girl she would have slapped her for her manners...and let the sting of that teach the girl politeness--and who one of her lesser status was allowed to speak to. Or not speak to, in this case. She looked again at the girl and could now see that she was, indeed, quite young. What Adina had taken for age was instead a hardness, an imperceptible aging of spirit, that made her appear an adult, when she wasn't yet--quite--full grown. Her body still had that slim girlish figure that would eventually develop into a lean woman's figure. At court, the girls stayed young, and none would have the hardness that had aged this girl past her years.

Not that the girls at court were innocent--quite the opposite. But they hadn't spent most of their life on the road and in the gutters, like this cur obviously had. Adina narrowed her eyes at the teenager. With the audience of common folk looking on, she couldn't let an insult such as the girl had given her go unnoticed.

"You presume a bit too much, girl." Her voice had that slight coldness that it took on when she was rebuking one who thought themselves better than they were. It was just a tinge of ice that slid through the almost-friendly tone of her voice. A warning that those who were wise listened to and obeyed. The foolish didn't hear the true threat behind her words...and didn't last long around Adina. This girl was well on her way down that road.

"It's for you to move out of the road when your empress and her train enter the city. Not, I think, the other way around." Her voice was delicate, almost teasing. She was at her most dangerous--a cat, playing with its toy before shredding it. And she knew she could shred this particular toy easily if she so desired...

It was difficult to know if the dark-haired girl realized her danger. Adina had met a few country nobility--those of the lower houses--and they always missed her subtle manipulations and toying with them. They were too naive (and usually too awed by meeting the empress herself!) to see just what she was doing. And then she was done with them, and threw them out to the dogs. Which was what was about to happen to the irritating stranger before her...

She didn't expect an apology from the girl-traveler--that was too much to expect from one like her who clearly had no sense of manners--and honestly, she didn't care much. But the girl was wasting her time, and while she wouldn't show what she was feeling, she was beginning to grow irritated.

Enough of this nonsense. "Remove her," she told the Stone Rider at her side, too quietly for the crowd to hear.

He bowed. "It is done, lady." He gestured, and she saw what she had missed while she had been focused on the impudent brat.

She had three real guards, who could, if circumstances demanded it, wipe out the entire street. They were gifted with the shadow magic--a dark magic that allowed them to survive wounds that should have been fatal. She didn't know much about that--or them--and really didn't want to. What she did know was that they swore a blood oath to serve the emperor and empress and that it couldn't be broken. By anything. Not bribes or torture or even other magic (though everyone knew most magic was quite weak and technology usually was a better tool).

Now they seemed to have worked just a slight bit of that magic (to her untrained eyes, at least), for they had somehow moved easily and silently to either side of the brat. If she had known that it was no more than skill and the slight aura of wrongness that many in the crowd unconsciously pulled back from that had allowed them to rapidly block the girl between them, she would not have been any less impressed.

Adina might have been merciful at that moment and demanded that the teenager merely apologize and release her guard--and left it at that--but she could not control her Riders' response. And it was a violent one. Before she could speak a word, they had moved forward with stunning swiftness and struck at the girl, completely ignoring the guard she threw up as a shield. One man's sword swiped straight through the man's gut, and he let out a snort of derision as the guard let out a cowardly cry of fear and horror. The Riders' despised the Royal Guard as no more than parade decorations (which was mostly true, and why Adina had three of the Riders with her as guardians). Though the slash killed the guard, it was not meant as a killing blow for the girl--merely something to temporarily incapacitate her. The other Rider was already striking in a similar style from the opposite side.

The crowd shoved backwards, some shouting in alarm, most either stunned or fascinated enough to stay and watch the resulting battle. Adina stayed her guards and watched with some fascination of her own, as her assassin bodyguards worked to corner and bind the girl. It very quickly became clear that they did not intend to actually kill her, but what they did intend...She couldn't actually fathom. They had the freedom to work as they wished, but the fact that they acted on something other than her will annoyed her slightly. She watched the battle anyway, certain that they could kill the girl at any moment, but chose not to...


{Well that's way longer than I originally expected it to be. lol. Maybe it's because Adina's so evil. It makes her fun to play. And...I seem to be enjoying overly-long sentences (though I don't think any are actually run-ons...lol).}

[Willow]

The smooth motion of a noble-pale hand induced an equally effortless halt as the Empress paused in her travel to deal with the irksome commoner impeding her journey. Willow barely held back a smirk she knew was irritating. Fancy the Empress stopping just for her. That would make for a funny story later, she was sure.

Amusing as that situation on its own was, Willow’s humour was dampened by the spider-silk fine tension undercutting the exchange. She caught the subtle tone to the Empress’ words; Willow fought with words almost as often as she did with weapons, and was accustomed to picking up the intricacies of tone from when she’d lost her sight and had no other indication of another’s mood except through their voice, but it didn’t stop her from replying to Adina; her voice serious and honest.

“Is it really too much to ask for a man to have manners, Empress? It isn’t you I have an argument with; it’s your guard. Yes, he is a part of your train, but he's a person all the same; presumably one with good upbringing, and thus with some concept of manners. He should be polite enough to use them, surely.” Willow’s tone, too calm to be earnest, but strong all the same, was a response in itself, to Adina’s silent ice. ‘I hear you,’ it implied. ‘I hear you, but I stand by what I believe. I won’t give way because you wish it.’

Willow wasn’t sure why, but when she was riled, or dealing with someone she had a dislike for, however intense, but still demanded respect, her way of speaking became more refined. If this had been a row in a tavern, for instance, Willow would waste no time in throwing around curses and insults like unwanted food, but here she was more cautious. Not because the Empress herself posed any threat to her – Willow was pretty sure that she could floor the haughty noble with one punch, if she were close enough and with the right motivation – but because of the pressure of having a number of guards as well as a crowd of civilians nearby. It was a subconscious action, but Willow just put it down to adaptation. Everyone spoke differently depending on who it was they were addressing, and this was just more of the same.

The noble woman’s next words had Willow expelling the lightest of exasperated sighs, though her tone remained as level and reasonable as she could make it. Was the woman blind?

“And nor would I expect you to move out of my way, Empress,” {‘because you’re too stuck-up to even think of accommodating others, you arrogant cow’} “...but how was I to move out of the way? I was already brushing the wall as I walked; any closer and I would have been embedded in the rock. I am not the only one who needs to look where they are going, and though I will admit that I was not paying attention, I wouldn’t have been able to move out of the way even if I had been. I’m not looking for him to beg on his knees; just an apology. Is that too much to ask of another person?” Only a faint strain of annoyance tinged her words; barely there. If she hadn’t been speaking about the guard whose arm was still in her grasp, one would have thought she’d forgotten about him. For his part, he’d stilled during the confrontation between his liege lady and the girl who, in his eyes, had accosted him, waiting patiently for the Empress to dismiss the ragged commoner with the unfortunate faith that blinded him and his fellows to their rulers’ faults and flaws.

It was this blindness that would see him die skewered on another guard’s sword.

Willow’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly at the too-quiet communication between Empress and guard. Though she had shifted just enough to boost her senses, her heightened hearing still could not detect what was said. She did, however, catch the subtle gesture at herself.
Glancing around, Willow’s suddenly adrenaline flooded muscles overrode her control, bunching slightly around the shoulders and tensing her legs in an unconscious lupine display of reflected aggression. The guards she’d marked as capable, the ones that made her hackles raise and fur bristle when shifted, had boxed her in.
‘When did they...?!’

Movement.

"Shit!"
And then it was instinct. She threw the guard; oblivious and easily manipulated as he was, to block one of the strikes; defending her injured side. She only half-expected the attackers to pull their strikes to avoid their own; it wasn’t a complete surprise when they ran the guard through. Willow didn’t stop, didn’t have the time, to contemplate it, to even think about it as, to avoid the identical attack from the other side, grabbed the shoulder of the dying guard and shoved him forward, jumping back into the space behind that which the corpse had just occupied, her shoudlers hitting a void in the wall that indicated a window. With the sword still in the body, that threat was momentarily lessened as the sword was, for an instant, forced to follow the body, allowing Willow to get closer to the first attacker than she would otherwise in order to avoid the second by what could only have been millimetres.

Attackers either side, a crowd, corpse and palanquin in front, Willow followed her automatic analysis and spun to face the wall, good hand already extended to grab the top of the window frame and haul herself up. Her good shoulder almost seized up in protest to having most of her weight hanging from it, but it held long enough for Willow to move.
With one shoulder impaired, the young wolf shifter used her immobile forearm to support herself against the glass as she crouched, for less than a moment, in the window frame before stretching and launching herself up, strong legs whose muscles were half shifted propelling her up the wall to grab for another hand hold, finding it in the second floor window ledge.
Pulling her legs up, Willow hung lopsided, shoulder pulsing with uncomfortable heat and strain, before drawing in a breath and twisting, casting herself out into the air above the heads of the crowd, knees drawn up to her chest as she completed the one hundred and eighty degree spin, one arm extended for balance as her legs stretched out again to catch her.
She landed on the flat roof of the palanquin, hearing the pall bearers grunt and feeling them strain to keep the Empress steady as Willow’s body coiled to absorb the shock of impact before she leaped again, landing in the street before turning sharply and sprinting, shouting ahead of her to clear the rapidly backpedalling crowd.
Not liking her chances of outrunning her attackers as a human, Willow completed the shift and fell to three limbs, the fourth held near her chest as the wolf bounded forward in a rolling gait, ears flickering, one always tilted behind her to track her pursuers, the other warning her of other sounds around her that may impede her vital flight.

Though the spasms of her hammering heart focussed her on running, on escape, Willow had noticed the direction of the attacks directed at her. Though the guard was dead, at the angle and height of the strikes, it probably wouldn’t have killed her. She wouldn’t be able to move and any further attacks would finish her, but the two aimed at her weren’t designed to be immediately lethal. Yet the guards had had no qualms about killing one of their own; so why not her, a commoner in their way, who had insulted their Empress? Others had died for less.

An uneasy conclusion formed in the still corner of her mind that wasn’t moving as fast as a hummingbird’s wings, and it travelled straight to her gut to draw out another pang of adrenaline. These men didn’t want her dead, but Willow seriously doubted that that could be a good thing.

[OOC: 1,350 words Can you tell I’ve recently played Assassin’s Creed I & II? I was just trying to think of a way for Willow to try and worm her way out, and with sides, front, back and ground blocked, her only way was up. I think she may get caught though; the Riders are the best, and in top form. Willow is young, not as experienced, and injured to boot. That’s not gonna stop her doing her best to leg it though XD Can you tell she doesn’t like Adina much? I borrowed your idea of using parentheses to mark thought in the middle of speech, just to make it clear Willow was thinking. Even she's not stupid or bold enough to call the Empress a cow to her face haha]

[flippedside]

"Hm." Adina felt a smile twitch ever so slightly at the corner of her mouth. There was something oddly amusing in the girl's words about her guard bowing before her. Still...it wouldn't really do for her to talk back to the empress, whether she was right or wrong. These masses had to be shown the proper respect for their queen, even if that meant something so small as releasing her guard on her command.

Not that it mattered. Her guards were already rushing forward and slashing through the guard's gut, seeking to grab the girl. But the strange creature was fleet, transforming to leap at a window, and then jumping straight onto Adina's palanquin. She gasped, and then hissed. She had intended to go down to the massive temple to speak with the High Priestess (much as she secretly hated the woman), but anger washed through her and she snarled, all plans forgotten. She would kill the little bitch if she got her hands on her!

Her nearest guard saw the leap and blinked, surprised, but he was already completing the jump in his mind. As the wolf-girl sprang away into the street, he crouched and shifted, following her leap with a powerful one of his own. His heavy body extended just past where she landed, his jaws gaping to clamp down on her neck. Not that he intended to break the skin--the slight sign he had been given said to capture (not kill) the teenager--but he needed a way to help pin her. As she lunged forward to run, his body collided heavily with hers, his powerful striped forelegs swatting at her slightly shorter legs to knock her over. The tiger shifter's weight alone was enough to bear the fleet young wolf down, though he could feel the lean strength in her straining, but wounded, body.

Already another of the guards was leaping into the sky, shifting into a hawk's light and swift form to flap across the square and then shift as he dropped to land on all fours before the girl. His sword hissed swiftly out, snaking to block her way. The other was sprinting towards them, eyes glinting with a frightening darkness.

Adina sat back with a slow smile and a sigh, and waved her bearers on. It was clear that the wolf girl was already captured. She could continue on to her meeting with that horrible priestess...

She missed the dark speck that came winging swiftly over the buildings, attracted to the scuffle in the street. Bright gold eyes surveyed the street rapidly before dropping in a blur to savage the back of the neck of the other hawk shifter with beak and talons. The man cursed angrily, automatically twisting away, and striking behind his head. He wasn't quite fast enough.

Hard hooked beak connected with soft flesh, and the hawk tore through the arteries on other man's throat. The man gurgled, twitched as if still trying to grasp the hawk, and then toppled sideways, dead. The hawk was already leaping away, to shift into a tall lean man with rough scars and hard feral eyes, his sword in his hand almost the same instant his feet touched the ground.

He grinned, recognizing the wolf in front of him. "Hello Willow," said Jarad.


{Why is it my character's can't manage to stay out of a fight? XP}

[Willow]

A heavy shadow was the only warning Willow received before she felt teeth close in the scruff of her neck, and a large paw hooking her legs out from under her.
She went down snarling, legs scrabbling off to the side in a vain attempt to regain her feet before she slammed down onto the hard ground, half suffocated by the immense cat pinning her down.

The tiger was too heavy; she couldn't move any limb more than a few inches in any direction, his grip on her neck was needling at her, ingrained instinct from when she was a pup telling her to curl up to be carried. Her injured shoulder was screaming in agony, the half healed muscle stretching and threatening to tear anew under the weight that pressed the joint into the hard stone ground.
To escape the pain, and to try and give herself an opening to fight her way free, she shifted, and felt the large canine teeth scrape her skin as it shrunk and slipped out of the tiger's bite, her body changing shape, flattening and lengthening so that, for a scarce moment, she had some space to move.

Not willing to waste it, she lunged forward, grabbing at the ground with her good hand, nails scratching the dirt as she hastened to drag herself forward. She wasn't fast enough to free herself completely, however. When his weight fell to occupy the space she had vacated, Willow had only freed her torso down to her waist, the giant feline crushing the rest of her body into the ground, preventing her from even flinching back when the second Rider landed inches from her outstretched fingers.

Cursing everything that came to both sight and mind, Willow spat a snarl at the Rider in front of her, bucking vainly to try and worm her way free, face contorted with the pain of her injury and the rough stones on the ground digging into her skin through her clothes.

Finding the struggle futile, she cricked her neck looking around for any other approaching threats. Of course, she had a massive blind spot behind the tiger shifter, but there was no helping that. And any further threats would have little effect on her situation now, other than make it harder to escape. Something she had yet to do.

Willow had been holding her upper body away from the ground as much as she could to spare the pain in her shoulder, her good arm shaking with the effort and her spine shrieking in complaint. With enemies spawning in every direction however, she locked her teeth together, lifted her supporting arm away from the ground and gritted her teeth as the expected clench of pain in her shoulder twisted sadistically.

Reaching across to her wounded shoulder with her good hand, Willow drew a thin blade from a holster on her shoulder, hidden until then by her shapeless traveling cloak.

Finally armed, she grabbed the knife in a reverse grip and punched it backwards, towards the tiger's ribs, behind his powerful foreleg, under the thick fur. Her movements were hampered by the shifter's weight and her own injury, and her strike hadn't been as fast as it would be normally, made additionally awkward by the angle she was attacking from. She was hitting blind, unable to see exactly where the tiger shifter's vital spots were or even where his ribs were so she could avoid them. The only thing that could aid her was her uncannily large streak of good luck and the hope that karma was on her side.

Apparently it was; that was how it seemed to Willow when she felt the dagger slid cleanly between two ribs and hot blood start beating out of the wound when she jerked the knife free, the body above her lifting off the ground slightly in a too-slow response. She heard and felt the tiger's bellow of pain as she hauled herself further forward and finally scrambled free; lashing out with the bloody dagger at the Rider in front of her awkwardly, still crouched on her knees and unable to advance further.
She hoped for her own sake that she'd mortally wounded the tiger shifter rather than just pissing him off, but didn't dwell on it for long when her attention was rapidly drawn elsewhere by the hawk Rider dropping to the ground, throat torn open by the beak of the second shifting hawk.

She felt a single moment of surprise bordering on shock when she recognized the scarred member of Nightfall, but didn't waste time in greeting him whilst thinking a silent, reverent thank you to whichever crazed deity was watching her back at present.

“Hello, my new favorite person. Watch out for the third guy.” She growled, voice rough with pain as she spun in the cramped space between big cat and dead Rider to face the giant feline behind her. The tiger shifter was still alive; she could see its labored breathing and hear its rasping growl, but she didn't know if it was on its last breaths or merely marshaling its strength for the next attack.

Still, with one Rider dead and one injured, the odds were a lot better. Willow just hoped that the tiger was severely injured - now that it could see her clearly, she doubted she'd be fast enough to land another killing hit without being torn apart by five-inch long claws, should the tiger need to be finished off. After that she'd be back to her usual dilemma: fight or flight.

[Woo, posted! I'd chatter for a bit but my cousin needs the comp, so yeah.

EDIT: right, finished and edited. I don't know why Willow said what she did, but that line popped into my head the minute I read your post, so I went with it haha.]

[flippedside]

Jarad saw the swift glance between the two men, and he shifted his stance slightly, deepening it in readiness. He didn't know what they were about to throw, but he settled himself to be able to move in any direction.

The street had cleared out quickly when the fight started. What had been entertainment for the masses when the scruffy girl challenged the empress, became danger when the hard-eyed men attacked. People pushed and shoved to escape quickly from any potential danger to themselves, and Jarad was left in a surprisingly open space.

The tiger snarled, then abruptly shifted and sprang upward. "You," he hissed at Jarad. "I remember you."

Jarad was fairly certain that was a bad thing, but for once he kept his mouth shut.

The tiger sneered at Willow. "Good hit, little tramp. But I would watch who you keep company with in the future." He looked pointedly at Jarad, before backing up slowly, shifting slightly aside.

The shift to the side was just enough warning for Jarad to glance at the other man, who had been further away. His eyes widened as he saw the cocked wrist suddenly fling something forward with a hiss. He leaped sideways, knocking hard into Willow to fling them both to the ground. A thin red line sliced across his shoulder as the knife slashed by. He rolled and flung a knife of his own, but they were already darting off to protect their queen. The angle was wrong and they were too far away to hit. Still...that had been close and he thought it was only the distance the slim knife had had to travel that had saved them.

Jarad sat up with a grimace. He was finally able to turn his attention to Willow. "Glad as I am to be your new favorite friend...I think we're both in a lot of trouble. They're gonna go get friends of their own, I think, and go on a nice hunt for us. If they hadn't been sent to guard the empress..." He spat to the side in disgust as he stood. "Well, lucky for us that she was there to distract them at all. Still. Better to go find some place to hole up for a while, I think." He looked at her and raised his eyebrows, questioningly.

The cut was thin and he hadn't felt it until right at that moment when it suddenly sent a sharp spike of pain, as if sharp blades were only now cutting into his skin. Jarad clenched his jaw and sheathed his sword, before pulling his dagger out of his belt. He sliced off his sleeve, giving him a look at the slash. It wasn't terribly deep, but he guessed it would need stitches. Still...at least it was nothing serious. Awkwardly, he attempted to tie up the bandage with one hand, before waving vaguely at Willow.

"A little help here?" He paused, and then another thought struck him, bringing him back to the original subject. "Unless you know of somewhere better, I might know somewhere we can stay for the moment..." He sighed to himself, thinking that the Riders were the last people he wanted to have a run in with...And really, they were probably right. It would be better for Willow if she wasn't associated with him. But...too late for that now...


{{Ugh. Sorry. The creativity's a little dead today.}}

[Willow]

In the brief lull between attacks, Willow straightened and slid the knife away, trading it for one of her dual short swords. Though she could fight well with both hands, she favoured her currently incapacitated right arm, a fact she rather disliked at present. The stupid leopard couldn’t have bit her left shoulder, could it? Or not bit her at all, which would have been ideal.

Still, it had bit her, and in her stronger arm, so she had to live with it.
Flipping her sword lightly, she caught it in a reverse grip, bringing it up to shoulder level when the tiger shifted, nearly spitting his words, as a silent warning to stay back. It was only when the tiger spoke that the pieces slotted together in Willow’s mind, drawing some hazy memory of Jarad talking about the ‘Emperor’s assassins’. It explained why these few guards were so good. Stone Riders. Willow had almost forgotten about them, something she now realised was a bad mistake.
The instantaneous memory had her settling into a steadier stance, the grip on her sword just a fraction tighter.

The motion seemed to draw the tiger’s attention, if his parting words were any indication. Willow bristled slightly at the insult, but, unnervingly fast, swapped her barely bared canines for an utterly false sweet smile.

“Thanks for the advice. I’ll go find a mass-murderer to hang out with then, shall I?” She simpered, then dropped the pleasant expression like a hot coal, eyes flicking from the tiger to his companion, further back. Her gaze never made it that far, instead fastening on the airborne dagger.

She let her legs go slack, dropping towards the ground right as Jarad cannoned into her.
She yapped in surprise as she was tackled to the ground, then snarled when her shoulder smacked into the uneven paving, the lancing pain spreading up her neck and down her side making her face contort and her muscles lock up.

Willow growled low, forcing her scrunched up eyes to open and scan the area as she pushed her rebellious body to sit up, warily, once the sound of the dagger bounding across stone had stopped.
Closest was Jarad, already sitting up. Further away, the guards were retreating, falling back to the Empress’ palanquin. The haughty bitch was still sat inside, Willow noted, unsurprised. The knife the guard had thrown lay behind them by a few feet, blade glinting innocently in the harsh summer sun.

Looking away from it, Willow turned back to Jarad to mutter “Thanks,” before sheathing her sword and gingerly rubbing her screaming shoulder for a second. As Jarad started speaking – initially triggering a wry grin from the teenager – she shoved the pain to a corner of her mind and did her best to ignore it. As Jarad said, she needed to focus on disappearing for a while, something she wouldn’t be able to do if she was agonising over a sore shoulder.

She stood when he did, mind ticking over different ideas and what she knew of the city as she stared off to the side in thought, eyes barely focussed.
“My first thought would be to blend into the crowd; so to speak. Get into the rough areas of the city, with the other law-benders. That, or get out of the city completely. We’d be harder to find in the forest. Splitting up might be an option.” Willow gave a one armed shrug, blinking to focus as she looked up and noticed Jarad struggling with his sleeve-come-bandage.
She couldn’t help grinning as she stepped forward to help. “Sure, but you’re gonna have to work with me. I’ve only got one hand to lend,” She managed to fold the two ends into the loosest approximation of a knot with one hand, before enlisting Jarad to help finish a basic but secure double knot.
“That’ll hold til we can find someone with two available hands, or a healer,” She said, stepping back and glancing in the direction the Riders and the Empress had gone. She couldn’t see them anymore, but they wouldn’t be far.

“Any ideas better than mine are welcome, since mine are generally ‘run and hide’. Something you might want to know though; those Riders. I don’t think they were trying to kill me. Two, maybe even three times they could have done, but they just aimed to injure or trap me instead. The first time, they even killed another guard, but had they hit me, it wouldn’t have been lethal. The second time the tiger just grabbed the back of my neck and pinned me, rather than breaking my neck or spine.” Rather than relieved, her tired eyes looked worried, her good shoulder slightly hunched though her injured one was still immobile. “I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not though,” She concluded, shrugging, before shaking her head briefly, as if to clear it.

“Anyway, our escape plan’s up to you. Lead the way,”


[Don’t worry about it – everyone has their off-days. And your post is still better than mine are on a good day XD]

[flippedside]

Jarad bit back a laugh at Willow's comment at finding a mass-murderer, but then decided that she didn't know him terribly well. She might be saying...otherwise...if she did. At any rate, the tiger ignored it, and he chose not to comment as well--his mind being on other things.

After tying off the bandage, Jarad snagged the slim knife the tiger had thrown, checking it over quickly. There were no identifying marks, but that wasn't exactly...surprising. Jarad sighed, and headed over to pick up his own blade. He glanced back as he walked, so that he could reply to Willow's words.

"I'd vote for the forest, but...I'm supposed to stick around here for a few more days and by that time...Well, doubtful I'd be getting out, then." He shrugged, and picked his own slim blade up off the ground before tucking it away. "The city's big enough though..." He moved back over to her. "Should be able to hide out easily enough. I, ah...I'm friends with some of the thieves." Jarad didn't add that he'd done a good amount of work for them. He wasn't half-bad as a thief, and he was always good for a fight...

He couldn't resist a slight grimace, though. He knew the local thief lord, and he knew he could easily make a deal to get her to hide them, but...it was going to take a rather serious payment in services by him. Jarad had had a bit of...a falling out with the Lady, and he was sure she would put him onto the worst jobs she could find. Well. There were worse things than getting a bit dirty...like dying a slow--very, very slow--death.

Willow's words filtered through Jarad's memory of his last meeting with the Lady (and the humiliation of being thrown out of her presence--he could still remember that quite clearly).

"Wait, what?" He turned his gold eyes sharply on her, his attention suddenly fully on what she had just said. "They weren't trying to kill you?" Jarad felt as if a dark beast had suddenly torn out half of his gut and left ice in its place. "That's not...good." He stared for a moment down the street, his thoughts twisting in a vivid mix of memory and knowledge.

"Let's go," he said abruptly, turning down a side street. He moved quickly as he passed through several smaller streets and out onto another major thoroughfare, his eyes roaming. Once back in thick crowds, he slowed, making sure Willow was following. Jarad moved casually through the crowd, aware that they would be less likely to be noticed that way. He was also aware that they had put some distance between them and the fight...but not enough. Still, best not to direct attention to themselves...

Jarad moved gradually eastwards, towards the lower city, but made an effort to strike up a casual conversation with Willow. It was easier to blend in that way.

"So, hurt your arm? Last I saw you, we were all heading off different ways."

He scanned the area with a casual, practiced eye that was careful but not obvious. Jarad nodded at a vendor as the streets grew more narrow and gradually less crowded. Or perhaps...crowded with waste, rather than busy merchants and common folk buying and selling. Beggars and drunks leaned against walls and trash was packed into corners. The streets took on their own distinctive odor--strong and rank. A girl in a dress that was worn thin peered at them from around a corner. She smiled coyly at Jarad, but he just shook his head. Street trash--in all its forms.

Oddly, he felt more comfortable--and less exposed--here than on the busy thoroughfares. The press of bodies and shouts of hawkers only made him feel uneasy, as if the city walls had become a living thing and were bearing down on him. The narrow streets of the lower city were the nest he had been born into--and lived in for most of his life. They were just stepping into that world...but it wasn't home anymore, for all its familiarity.

A man dropped down in front of them, and two more figures landed behind them. Jarad stopped and crossed his arms, not bothering to glance behind him. "A little sooner than I expected," he commented wryly.

The man stood and grinned. He had dark skin, and his white teeth contrasted sharply. "Jarad. Not who I expected to ever see again."

Jarad eyed him in annoyance. "How nice for you."

"And the pretty lady?" The man, lean and dressed in dark tunic and loose pants, grinned easily at Willow. He took in her swords at a glance, and nodded slightly, commenting, "Any friend of Jarad's is bound to be a fighter..."


{Falling asleep, but...I'm much happier with this post. XD}

[Willow]

By sticking around for a while, Willow guessed Jarad was waiting for Kaye – or maybe even the whole Nightfall gang – to show up, but now wasn’t the best time to ask.
Instead, she nodded and grinned at the first mention of ‘thieves’.

“Some of my closest friends are thieves, so I shouldn’t have a problem getting on with yours.“ She replied with an intrigued smile. Then she noticed his grimace, small though it was. “Bad memories?” She wondered, chuckling slightly, but her tone hinted that her words were more an observation than an actual question.

She sobered as she told him about the Riders, but hadn’t quite anticipated his reaction.
With a feeling akin to sinking in her gut, it was Willow’s turn to grimace.
“Though I wasn’t certain, I had a feeling it wasn’t a good thing. Brilliant day this is turning out to be.” She muttered, as paranoia poked her into scanning the streets, rooftops and sky. Her first glimpse of a Stone Rider had been three mismatched bird shifters circling in the sky. If nothing else, that had taught her that an attack could come from any direction.

Upon instruction, Willow fell in a few steps behind Jarad, keeping pace easily.
Though she kept her normal senses open, shifted just enough to enhance them past human levels, Willow turned her mind to itself – more specifically, the extra sense she’d been shown in the mountains. Thought catching.

Most of the time, Willow didn’t notice it – when she wasn’t focussing on it, there was nothing more than a very low background hum, like a distant crowd. Even when she did focus on it, there was nothing clear, the way it had been when she was talking to Matt. She guessed that was down to a mix of inexperience, and a lack of people consciously ‘projecting’ their thoughts – that’s what the weredragon had said she was doing when she was speaking mentally to him, anyway.
However, just because she couldn’t pick up distinct thoughts, didn’t mean the new skill was useless. It gave her an indication of how many people were nearby, and how close they were. Willow had started to treat it like an extension of her already excellent sense of hearing.

And as an extension of her hearing, she had no qualms about using it to watch out for anything dangerous nearby, especially as they moved into the quieter, rougher areas of the city. It was easier to concentrate here, anyway – anything nearby would stand out from the low rumble of the city’s bustle.

She was so focussed that Jarad’s question almost made her jump. She managed to quell the reflex, however, and mentally shook herself.
“Uh, yeah. I got into a death-fight with a leopard. It got its teeth in my shoulder before I killed it.” She said, her nose wrinkling and lips skinning back from her teeth in distaste. Though she’d been too shaky with adrenaline, blood loss and fatigue at the time to react, she still remembered the taste of the puppet leopard’s blood in her mouth. Even its blackened blood tasted of rot and the closest approximation to death Willow thought she would ever experience. The thought of it still made her feel vaguely nauseous.

Shaking the memory away, Willow turned to Jarad, ready with a question of her own.
“How about you? I’ve seen Kaye since then, she said something about you lot getting drunk in Tannoch. Don’t tell me you haven’t left since then?” She grinned, to show her light teasing was meant in good humour.

A louder whisper in her mind gave her only a second’s warning; she stopped, drawing one of her swords, opening her mouth to warn Jarad, but before a noise could leave her, the man had dropped down and Jarad had stopped.
She half-spun to keep an eye on the two behind her, but Jarad’s unruffled countenance stopped her from immediately engaging them in a fight. In this area of town, these could very well be the people they were looking for.
The short exchange swiftly assured her that this was the case. She relaxed her tense muscles and turned to face the first man as he addressed her, sliding her drawn weapon back into its scabbard.

Though the endearment made a muscle in Willow’s jaw jump in annoyance, she was able to return the smile nicely. It would be better to stay polite, especially when these people could be the ones to help them.
“I’m Willow. You?” She asked, keeping her tone pleasant. Her smile warmed up a few notches when the man acknowledged her general occupation.
‘It’s too bad fighting tends to lead to trouble.’ She thought grimly. She would have said it aloud, but she knew that the magic word ‘trouble’ tended to make people mysteriously disappear. It was best to play it safe for now, and let Jarad handle these friends of his.


[Yay, quick reply This thread's got my interest haha; Willow's got a knack for attracting big trouble, be it shifter or Northern, it seems XD]

[flippedside]

"Bad memories?" Willow asked.

Jarad glanced at her and raised an eyebrow, but it was a rhetorical question, so he made no reply, keeping his focus on his surroundings instead. He was especially uneasy when Willow mentioned the Riders attempt at capturing her. That could only be what they wanted--to capture and question her. Not a pleasant prospect...for her, at any rate. What caused his stomach to twist uneasily, though, was the fact that the Riders had caught sight of--and recognized--him.

Jarad half-listened to her response, intent on his own thoughts. He made an effort to appear casual. It was an effort--everything in him was warning of him danger, from the faint clawing at the back of his throat to the tension that was radiating through his nerves like hot fire. He made an effort to take a few deeper breaths--not noticeably, but enough to settle himself slightly.

Making conversation with Willow helped--a little--in carrying off the casual attitude. Of course, "normal" people didn't talk about death fights with leopards...Jarad assumed she meant a shifter, since no normal wild feline would be truly dangerous to a fully trained shape-shifter. They had the skill and intelligence of a human, with the added strength, speed, or flight of their animal counterpart.

He did note the face she made at the mention of the leopard, and put it together with the tucked--and clearly wounded--arm. "Must've been some nasty fight," Jarad commented. He didn't press her for more details, since the stiffness in her posture clearly said that it was not a subject she particularly wanted to talk about. Her smooth change in subjects--turning his question back on him--told him that his guess was right.

He grinned easily back at her. "Sure...I've done some drinkin'. Done a bit of work, too." He tilted his head slightly, and then shrugged. "Still got some friends here in the city that I occasionally do work with. Good money." He paused, and then grinned. "After all, you gotta have some way to pay for all the drinkin'." The thought brought his humor back up and settled the hard tension that had been running through his body.

It was good timing, too--he had just started to relax when they were surrounded.

Jarad tried to keep his expression steady, but what he really wanted to do was wring the neck of the jerk--

He clenched his fist and worked on settling his mind. Good thing Kaer was paying attention to Willow and not him.

"Willow, eh? Unusual name." The dark-skinned man grinned at her, and Jarad could see that he wasn't going to reveal his name. Or anything else. Not too surprising--thieves tended to be close-mouthed. He sighed.

"Willow, this is Kaer," Jarad said, interrupting whatever the thief lord's deputy was about to say. "He's one of Zerah--that's the thief lord...er, lady, in these parts. He's one of Zerah's deputies." He glanced behind him. "And those are his minions," he finished, gesturing casually.

"Minions!" One of the three--a woman with dark reddish-brown hair--made a rude gesture at Jarad, who grinned with amusement.

"I'm Taitha, Willow. I'd think Jarad'd at least have the decency to name me." She transferred a friendly nod at Willow to a glare at Jarad. "We used to be partners. Once. Before he decided to run off and...What was it? Oh, right. Become a rebel." Her glower made her dark eyes almost black.

The other one of the set of three thieves was a young, slim man that Jarad didn't know. He seemed edgy and kept glancing about. Taitha, on the other hand, caught his attention. She was pretty, with a tall, lean form and wide eyes. A scar cut the side of her face. That aside, mostly she made him uncomfortable. He was glad she'd only labeled him as "partner."

He pulled his mind out of the past and looked back at Kaer. "We came to see Zerah."

Kaer blinked at him and then started laughing. "You think--you actually think she'd see you?"

Jarad frowned and then shrugged, as if he could care less. "Of course. Why shouldn't she?" He felt unease stirring again, mixed with old anger. He really, really hated Kaer.

Taitha sauntered forward. "Oh, I think he should. I'd love to see her face." She gave him a feral smile, and then grabbed his arm. Jarad followed obediently as she pulled him alongside her. She glanced back, adding, "Come on Willow. We're off to see the queen." She grinned at the teenager, showing her sharp canines.

Jarad resisted the urge to roll his eyes and jerk his arm out of her hand. Better to go peaceably and get this over with...

Taitha cheerfully told him about the goings on over the last few years--how Zerah had assassinated a noble that had renegaded on her (he was secretly impressed), a number of people he'd once known that had died (mostly by the Riders, although one had turned traitor and been killed by Taitha herself), and of course, of the big heist that she'd been in on. Standard stuff. He wondered how long he had to continue to pretend interest.

Zerah was careful, and changed her headquarters frequently. The underground was dangerous, and a good hideout one day could quickly turn into a trap the next. All it took was one traitor...and many in the underground where happy enough to turn traitor when offered enough money. The run down building was unfamiliar to Jarad, but he caught sight of the guards on watch duty, and immediately knew they had arrived.

Kaer opened the door with a dramatic flourish, proving Jarad right.

Unfortunately, Jarad was also regretting his choice in hideouts...and companions. Not that Willow was a bad companion...It was everyone else. He felt like pulling back. "This trip down memory lane was great, but I'm outta here." Too bad things never worked out that neatly.

Jarad sighed, and entered the darkened interior of the building.


{1100 words...yay for over-long posts. lol. i did have a lot of "plot" to cover, tho, which took up lots of room.}

[Willow]

Willow acknowledged Jarad’s comment on the fight with a wordless murmur of agreement. It was a nasty fight, and the leopard wasn’t the end of it.

She was shaken from her memories fully when Jarad answered her question, making her burst out laughing.
“You sound like a friend of mine, only he’s permanently drunk and proud of it. He only works to get money so he can drink. His wife goes mad at him,” She explained, chuckling, remembering Ghett saluting the campfire with a mug of ale before toppling backwards off his seat, already oblivious.

She stifled her laughter quickly, aware that the sound would deafen her to other, smaller sounds, but an amused grin stubbornly stuck to her face until Kaer and his companions dropped down around them.

‘You smile too much,’ Willow thought uneasily, even as the thief deputy’s remark outwardly made her shrug; neither agreeing nor disagreeing, despite feeling a prickle of defensive pride. A seven year old only had limited imagination and inspiration when trying to think up a name to go by, after all, and one of the few trees around had been a willow. It seemed to fit her, so she stuck with it.
Before she could make up her mind whether to explain this to him or not, Jarad started speaking, effectively deciding the matter for her.

The outburst from the woman behind them made Willow turn in time to see her angry wave. The sight drew a grin from the teenager. It was a good first impression.
“Pleased to meet you, Taitha,” She said, offering the female thief her first truly genuine smile since they’d joined company.
She cast Jarad an amused look after Taitha’s rant. Though she stored all the information she’d just been given in some part of her mind, she picked up on the latter piece to comment on.
“Rebel? I thought it was mercenary, or did that come later?” She asked, amusement mixing with genuine curiosity. Really, she didn’t know all that much about him – he was a mercenary, Kaye’s second, he was or had been a thief, had apparently been a rebel, had a sense of humour and he was a good fighter. He had to be; otherwise he probably wouldn’t have lived through the Rider attack in the mountains. The number of scars visible on his face and arms were also a testament to his ability to survive.

Kaer re-entering the conversation drew Willow out of her contemplations, his laughter leeching her own out of her. That guy was starting to annoy her. Though his tone gave nothing away, Willow got a vague impression that Jarad felt the same.

Luckily, Taitha provided a welcome distraction, waltzing up and starting to drag Jarad down the street.
Her cheerful invitation to follow left Willow blinking after them for a moment, unsure of what had just happened, then groaning when her words finally filtered through the confusion.
“I really don’t do well with royalty. I’ve had one bad encounter with it today already,” She complained, but she trotted to catch up nonetheless, falling into step a pace or two behind Taitha.

She was aware of the other thieves walking alongside them, Kaer taking the lead after a moment, though Taitha seemed to know perfectly well which way they were going.
To distract herself from her renewed irritation with the man, and since Taitha was busy chattering away to Jarad about things that Willow understood but wasn’t concerned with; the young wolf shifter glanced back at the third thief in the party, walking a few steps behind her. He still seemed uneasy; even though they were rapidly moving towards what Willow hoped would be a secure location, at least for the moment.

“Hey,” She said, taking the initiative to come across as friendly. She spoke relatively quietly, to try and avoid spooking the guy further. “I’m Willow,” Just in case he hadn’t heard it the first few times that it had been mentioned. “What’s your name?”

As they approached their destination, the appearance of subtle guards around a slightly dilapidated building drew Willow’s attention to her surroundings. She felt a faint stirring of nerves, and was abruptly reminded of being led into Kaye’s camp for the first time. This was more of the same, just on a larger scale.

For the first time, Kaer’s actions didn’t annoy her, but that was more down to Willow stretching her senses ahead of her to try and puzzle out the shadowed interior of the building than the onset of a belated liking for the man. Other than the instinctive tab she kept on the people around her, she simply didn’t pay any attention to him.


[Wow, okay, there was no way I could match your word count this time XD Hopefully Willow gets on better with the queen than the empress...]

[flippedside]

Jared kept up his careful mask, hiding his annoyance at Willow's immediate connection to Taitha. He could tell from the young woman's grin that she was amused by his..."former partner." Secretly, he was none too happy to see Taitha, but it was best to show nothing and play along. So he attempted to keep his face impassive (something he wasn't always so good at) while Taitha glowered at him.

Willow's question drew his attention away. "What? Oh. Sure I was a rebel...once. Briefly." He glanced at Taitha who huffed at him, but said nothing. He relaxed slightly, relieved at her sensitivity. She knew just enough about him to keep quiet about things that he didn't want to mention. And then she was dragging him away and the conversation was forgotten...temporarily.

As Jared moved cautiously into the empty front hall of what might have once been a grand building or an apartment complex--it was impossible to tell anymore--he let himself shift enough so that he could see in the dark. Hawks have keen eyesight. Everything immediately changed to shades of gray, but he could pick out enough to see some broken furniture and two guards making their way towards them.

He stayed near the door, relaxed in the easy way that would allow him to move in any direction in an instant.

"Ho, Kaer. What ya brought us today?" The odd accent distorted the man's words slightly, and Jared frowned as he translated it back into the Rhyallian he was familiar with.

"An old friend of her majesty." Kaer grinned with secret laughter as he reached for a lamp.

Taitha snorted and stepped forward. "Well I wouldn't go that far. Anyway, let us past, Tavyn. We've got business."

Tavyn shrugged. His eyes flickered gold in the lamp's light. "She'll wanna hear 'bout what ya did." He glanced over Jared with some interest, and then at Willow, hanging near the back of the group, before shrugging. "Anyway, she said let ya see her, first thing." His companion opened a door at the far end of the room that led to stairs and Tavyn gestured them in.

Kaer nodded to Taitha, who took the lead this time, while he hung back to talk with Tavyn. Jared followed Taitha up the steps, noticing the third of their "companions" following at the back and looking nervous. Then again, he thought as he turned his attention back in front of himself, the kid had seemed nervous the whole of their brief time together. He still didn't know who the boy was, but figured it didn't matter much.

At the top of the narrow staircase was a hallway, and Taitha led them about half-way down to a wide doorway. Whatever door had previously hung there had been torn off, and another guard leaned casually against the door jam. He nodded to Taitha, and watched them blankly as they entered the room.

It was a fairly large room, and Jared suspected that the walls between several rooms had been knocked out to make the open space. Along one wall were several large windows, shedding bright light into the open space. Colorful furniture and pillows had been scattered about the room, and an unusual variety of people hung about or sat on the cushions. It was a sharp contrast from the dim entryway and dark stairs and hallway.

At the far end was a large chair next to a table, where the queen was holding court. Stretched languidly across the chair, Zerah was talking with three others. On the table was a glass of wine and a small pile of items that Jared couldn't quite make out. He let his vision shift back to that of a normal human, and colors returned in bright vivid patterns. He had to blink for a moment to adjust to the change.

Taitha was already striding across the room. Jared hesitated and glanced at Willow. "Well, here we go, I guess." He turned and headed for Zerah, picking his way between small groups of people. He guessed there were maybe a score of people in the room. A small group compared to the number of people that regularly passed through the Thief Queen's court, but still a big enough crowd for daylight hours.

[Willow]

The boy, when questioned, hesitated for a second, as if surprised he had been addressed. Willow thought she caught a glimpse of worry there, as though the boy would have rather remained invisible.

He gave a mumbled reply that Willow couldn’t quite make out above the sound of Taitha’s cheerful blathering, before hurrying to catch up with the others.
Willow sent an odd look at his retreating back, but shook it off, unconcerned. She maintained her place at the back of the group, using the time to observe her surroundings and think the morning through. She didn’t get very far before her thoughts deviated from where she’d planned to take them.

So far, things hadn’t exactly gone to plan. Then again, her plan had been to waste a few days futilely hoping for a stroke of luck that had yet to happen; throwing away money on a room and food when it could be saved to put towards something more worthwhile. Really, she wondered why she kept on searching. At first, she had genuinely believed she could find him, shake some answers out of him, but now...now, it seemed more like she pressed on so that the past few years amounted to something, rather than a faith in actually finding her quarry.

How long did she plan on chasing a ghost? She had asked herself that question with increasing regularity over the last few months; she’d already lost count of how many times she’d wondered it in the past week alone.
After a moment of thought, just before the thieves main camp came into sight, Willow shook her head slightly. The real question she needed answering was when would she start living for herself, instead of the idealistic child she had been?

The she caught sight of the old building and pushed all thoughts not pertaining to the present aside, to be dealt with later. Her expression switched easily from sadly introspective to intrigued and daring to be cheerful. Raising the mask was a reflex by now. Even her body language changed; she’d been walking quietly, hands in her pockets, arms close to her sides, shoulders hunched and head bowed, allowing two thick curtains of hair to veil her face. As she cleared her mind, her hands came free, letting her arms swing lightly at her sides. Her stride lengthened slightly and she raised her head, finally letting the light breeze whisk the strands of hair back over her shoulders.

Like Jarad, Willow shifted slightly to take advantage of her wolf form’s night vision, though there wasn’t really much to see apart from the remnants of a once-fine room and the approaching guards.
She stayed quiet during the exchange, though it left her with the reinforced impression that Jarad wasn’t the thief Queen’s favourite person of the year.

As their small group moved on – thankfully sans Kaer – Willow sped up to stick closer to Jarad as they approached the person who would hopefully be willing to shelter them until the fuss with the Stone Riders had settled down, or until they could slip out of the city. Since Willow got the impression that the Riders were more determined and persistent than a pack of bulldogs, she expected the latter to be the more likely.

As they approached the doorway, Willow let her vision collapse back into a human’s range – she’d detected the light from the room beyond seeping through the gap in the wall.
Entering the open space, Willow looked around in half-heartedly concealed surprise and interest, muttering a wry “nice place” under her breath before following Jarad’s cue and tailing him around the scattered groups.

Her initial impression of the Thief Queen was confidence. Sprawled in her seat, she didn’t seem concerned with the goings on around her. This was her turf; she was surrounded by her people. Either she was completely at home here, or she was purposefully affecting nonchalance. Not that that mattered; she still decided whether Willow and Jarad could stay in relative safety, or if they would be thrown out for the Riders to chase down.

Willow suddenly hoped that they made a good impression.


[OOC: a fairly short post (and delayed...again...) for me, as this was mainly all introspective stuff or recounting what’s happened from Willow’s perspective. My posts should get longer once there’s interaction between Zerah and the others – no doubt Willow won’t be able to keep her mouth shut for long ]