Roleplay City
Oberon Castle => OBERON CASTLE: Drink Today, Die Tomorrow => The Markets => Topic started by: Trillian on January 21, 2007, 11:07:03 PM
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Ridley was distracted. The colourful displays of the market stalls and the noise of the people around him weren\'t enough to keep him amused. The girl at his side was called Teresa, and Ara had been adamant that he was to show her the ways of the thief. He wasn\'t happy about it but because Ara had given him time and space to woo the Captain, he\'d not made any protests, though his expression had given away the fact that he didn\'t want to be a babysitter.
He was thinking of Mia as well, on her own at Lord Dagger\'s house, wondering how much she would be trusted, how patient he would have to be before his own plan was put into action. There were a lot of things that he had on the boil as well as juggling the jobs Ara threw his way. No sleep for the wicked, and the five hours he managed a night was beginning to show on his somewhat handsome face, making him look grumpy and weary.
His hand was around Teresa\'s, declaring that they were to present as a couple to remove suspicion from the stall owners. Couples were rarely picked as thieves, unless they were caught in the act. Couples were also harder to make an escape, because there was a better chance capturing two than one. Guards were everywhere, but he wasn\'t nervous about that.
"Something simple," he told her, pulling her along behind him as though she were a ragdoll, though she might\'ve weighed as much. He was strong, from all his athletic tasks, though he couldn\'t judge his strength too well today, from being tired. He wondered how well he would be able to teach the girl. Despite Ara\'s warnings for Teresa to watch her skirts around the well-known womaniser, Ridley hadn\'t made a single advancement toward her. He had his hands full after all. "Distract with one thing to take another," he said as he moved through the crowds, shouldering people out of his way and choosing a stall that didn\'t have many precious goods on it. This wasn\'t as closely watched as others and would make better practice. There were scarves and wooden bracelets at the very front. "Make as if to buy one of the scarves, they\'re bright, colourful, and float on the breeze. A good distraction. Take your time over it. When the merchant is distracted with another customer, pocket one of the bracelets without putting down the scarf in your hands. Make a flag of it, a cover."
He finished talking just as he thrust her towards the stall, sighing and rolling his eyes like any man might who has a beloved who got distracted at every stall. He looked around with apparent disinterest, though he was watching her closely.
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Teresa woke up fairly early, and slipped on one of the simple outfits Ara had left her, only to have the slip right off again. A few minutes of careful knots in the right places left her with a descent looking dress, over a pair of pants (it was the best compromise she could find). She ran her fingers through her hair to neaten it up, and then went up-stairs to find Ridley. On her way out the door, she spotted a little knife in one of the piles, and decided to borrow it for the day.
Pocketting the knife, she climbed up the steps and entered into the office from the night before. It looked so different... sunlight and her refreshed clarity of mind had brightened the room and made it seem larger.
Leaving the office, Teresa found herself being introduced to Ridley and shoved out the door in almost the same moment. Before she could fully register what had happened, the thief was holding her hand and pulling her into the market place, giving her instructions as to proper thieving procedure under his breath.
When Ridley pushed her to one of the brightly coloured stalls, Teresa looked blankly at everything in front of her. Forcing a light smile to her face, she shyly picked up a large necklace- one that would never fit her slim features- and asked the stall owners to put it on for her. As he came around to do so, she leaned against the table, curling her fingers around a small, but expensive looking broach without picking it up.
She chatted with a bit about how the necklace was ever so pretty, but really not her style, and then concluded, \'Oh dear, it looks as though my um... love? is getting impatient with me. I had best be going, but I shall certainly come back later.\'
Joining Ridley again, she slipt her hand with the broach into his, saying, \'Sorry I took so long, dear.\'
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Seeing this little display before him, Ridley blinked his surprise when he realised that Teresa wasn\'t green. She\'d obviously done such things before, but he disliked the show-off way she\'d shown him. He said nothing until they were far from the stall, turning to walk down an alleyway where a salve shop was open but stopping before he reached it so he could turn on her.
"When I tell you to do something a certain way," he hissed, "that is the way you\'ll do it, or by Talon\'s hand I\'ll make sure that you\'re made." With his eyes narrowed and pink blotches on his cheeks, a once-handsome Ridley could look downright ugly. "If you want to learn from me, then you\'ll learn my technique as well, you stupid girl. Do that again and you can spend the day without me, and I\'ll let Ara know that you can\'t follow instruction." His hand still held hers, squeezing it though not quite painfully, not wanting her to blame potential inability to thieve because he\'d squashed her fingers.
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Teresa made a small noise of pain as he squeazed her fingers. She hadn\'t meant not to follow instructions, she just hadn\'t thought she would be able to use misdirection as well with a scarf as she did with the necklace. Looking away from her teacher\'s angry face, she whispered and apology, \'I\'m sorry I really didn\'t mean to be rude... \'
...but what did I do wrong? she continued to herself. She had gotten the ice, and there wasn\'t anyone chasing them down. Didn\'t that mean she did well? She would simply have to follow all instructions to the letter, from now on. After all, Ara had said Ridley was one of the best thieves, and he certainly had far more experience than Teresa could ever hope to aquire. If she wanted to become a good thief, she had better keep to the line and learn without improvising.
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Ridley, Teresa would soon learn, was a bully. He released her hand from the hold as soon as she hissed pain, disappointed that she would be so delicate that even when he was being careful it wasn\'t enough not to hurt her. He glared at her and then held out his hand, palm up, for her to give him the broch.
If she gave it to him, he would pocket it and pull her back out of the alley, back into the market stalls, moving back the other way so she could demonstrate what skills she had at a stall that was positioned near a city guard. If she didn\'t give it to him, well... something else would happen.
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Teresa had been told to stand up to Ridley, but it was one thing to agree to do that in private conversation, and another thing entirely when he was staring down at her. Meekly, she held ou the broach and put it in his hand, not meeting his eyes. She wished she was better at this thieving business, or at least that it was an easier one to break into. The threat of being arrested on her first day out may have been good incentive for her not to mess up, but it also scared her silly.
Looking up, but still avoiding Ridley\'s eyes, she asked, \'So what should I do now? Do you want me to try again?\' Half of her wanted to prove that she could, while the other have was trying to run away and hide. Unfortunately for the latter half, the former made a good point. She had no where to run, so she had better get used to this.
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He didn\'t respond, merely acting as he intended, and soon enough they were browsing the stalls on the way to an amateur fletcher. Weaponry always earned itself a watchful guard, stationed by the Captain herself no doubt, a savvy woman who knew that pretty things stolen weren\'t as important as weaponry. Merchants with pretty or more expensive things often recruited their own pair of eyes, and Ridley himself had once been on the other side of the stall, paid well to ensure no thieves raided.
A man at a weaponry stall would be watched more closely than the woman at his side, so Ridley immediately began to inspect the bows before looking down at Teresa and declaring quite openly to her: "Whatever you can."
It was an invitation for her to use her judgement. There were full arrows and arrowheads. There were small vials of poison to help wound wolves and have them die quicker and with fewer arrows (and truthfully, Ridley would\'ve made for the poison than anything else). Arrowheads and flints, knives and bows, plus assorted bits and pieces for mending kits, as well as the full kits themselves. It would be interesting to see what Teresa would take, and if she\'d noticed that Ridley\'s exaggerated motions with the bow - stepping back and twanging it, was drawing quite a few stares, though not yet the guard\'s, who was more concerned with the fellow on Teresa\'s other side, studying a knife. The vendor was trying to sell him on it.
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Teresa shied away from the deadly assortment of weaponry in a way that was not entirely feigned. She tried to make her eyes look larger and kept a small distance between herself and the table. Whatever she could pinch... well, obviously she couldn\'t steal anything large like an arrow or bow. Even a hunting knife would be too hard to conceal.
She kept her eyes on Ridley, pretending to watch him playing with the bow, while she went over an inventory of the tables wares... The only things she could definately palm would be the arrow heads, charms, and vials of various darkly coloured liquids. The first two were awfully cheap, and not worth the risk they were plainly taking. But the third? They might be worth something, right?
Unfortunately, the vials were not near the edge of the table, but rather were a bit further in: within reach, but not subtly so. Letting her eyes wander over some of the nearby products. There were a few knives that were obviously mostly decorative... they wouldn\'t be too suspicious would they?
She leaned over the table, reaching to pick one up, as she let her long hair fall over her shoulder and onto the table. Just as she touched the grip, the shopkeeper\'s assistant, a young man of his middle teen years (probably the keeper\'s son?) rushed over. \'Miss, can I help you?\'
Teresa pulled backwards, intentionally knocking over several objects with her hair along the way. \'Oh yes I was just looking at that lovely sword, and- oh no I\'ve made such a mess! I\'m so sorry.\' Her face turned cherry pink without her having to force it to, and she began picking up trinkets, knife stands, bowls of arrow heads... and vials. She slipped one of the latter into her hand as she finished helping the boy pick up. \'So sorry about that, I can\'t believe I was so clumsy!\'
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Clever girl
Ridley\'s respect for Teresa rose somewhat when she used her hair to distract, for it seemed a genuine accident. Because some of the vials had rolled off the table\'s edge, he made a point of kicking one against the stall leg so that the vial cracked.
"Be careful, sweet," Ridley warned, stepping back and dropping the bow on the table so he could pull back on her shoulders, and motioned for the guard to approach. "I think you\'d best help us, sir, there\'s poison on the ground." He gestured to the dirt road and the guard\'s gaze followed. "Do you mind if we step away? I don\'t particularly care to step on poisoned glass with my soft shoes," he said, and the guard nodded, much to the fletcher\'s disdain, for the stall owner was about to demand payment for what was broken. With permission from the guard whose priority was to make the area safe for those walking by, Ridley and Teresa could make a hasty exit.
He led her back into the alleyway they\'d gone down before, and he eyed the mouth of it and also checked the doorway of the salve shop before removing the pouch that held the broch she\'d originally swiped.
"I\'ll swap you, sweet," he said, his nickname for her sticking as he grinned at her. All ugliness from their prior meeting in this area had disappeared as he became his charming self. "You can have the pretty shiny thing, if you give me that vial out of your apron."
He studied her for a moment. "You up for one more thing? We must present a bounty to our exotic boss-lady," he explained, "or she\'ll slice your fingernails off." The threat wasn\'t so much to scare her as to let her know how things worked under Ara\'s rule.
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As Ridley made a clever escape for the two of them, Teresa tried to make a show of looking embarressed and avoiding the small pieces of glass and poison. By the time they made it back to their alleyway, her face was flushed with excitement. \'Did I do well Ridley?\' she asked, hoping that he approved of her performance. She was amazed at how cleanly he had managed to get them away, he even made it look as if they were the ones in the right!
\'That was amazing, the way you had the guard on our side, how did you do it? I was sure that I would get in trouble for making a scene, if not stealing!\' Gratefully, she dug in her sleeve for the vial she had hidden. Passing it to Ridley, she grinned and put the broach in one of the many pockets of the dress. She hadn\'t been expecting to keep anything at all, not until she was on her own, at least, so getting to keep the broach was a pleasant surprise.
Not wanting to go back with so little to give Ara, Teresa quickly agreed to go for another run. \'Of course I\'ll try, if you think it is a good idea? I mean, I don\'t want to get cockey and get caught or anything...\' She was so glad that her tutor was not angry at her any more -- Ridley was scary when he was being nice, when he was mad he was downright terrifying.
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He smiled a lopsided smile at her when she gushed at him, hiding away the small vial she\'d stolen and making sure it was in a place where the glass wouldn\'t easily break, nor do any harm if it did. Poisons were rather hard to come by, as the guards began to inspect the quality of plants they let into the city walls.
"Many citizens have the impression that the markets are made mostly of travellers or locals who have no other way of selling their hobby trade, or perhaps even their livelihood," he began, leading her further into the alley and past the salve shop, which he took time to smell just inside the doorway, an odd action to anybody who didn\'t understand that the sense of smell was most important in distinguishing different things, where eyes might see just a mess. "That\'s not really true, in fact, most of the stalls are operated by merchants who can afford their own shops. It\'s a way of dominating the market. The thing is, most of these merchants have to decide between opening their shop for a day or going to the markets. A lot of the time they split their time into halves. Have you noticed that the market stalls seem lengthier on the sixth day of the week, before the Day of Worship?" He led her down a few back streets as he lectured. "That\'s because they all come out of the woodwork then, for that is a peak business for the markets and the merchants go where the money is. Thing about merchants though," he said as they neared a shop and Ridley looked up and down the street. "They can\'t be in two places at once." Ridley grinned and moved around the seemingly empty store to a side door, where he pulled out a kit of wires. "Keep watch," he declared.
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Teresa listened to Ridley\'s explanation, commiting it to memory, but not understanding what he meant until he pulled the kit of wires out of his pocket. \'You are going to pick the lock? We\'re going to-\'
-rob the store? She cut herself off, almost afraid to say the words out loud lest it bring the law down on them. Shoplifting and even pickpocketing couldn\'t be too bad, you could always claim it was an accident or something. Breaking and entering was a whole new idea. Despite herself, Teresa was rather intrigued.
\'Do you think I could learn to pick locks too, sometime I mean, not right now of course.\' She chattered quietly, leaning against the doorframe so she could easily see both directions without swiveling her head suspiciously. In her wish to look non-chalant to any passerbys, but watchful to Ridley, she probably looked very silly.
\'Is it hard picking locks? I always thought it looked so easy whenever I saw Ara do it, but when I tried getting into one of Rosaline\'s cupboards with a hair pin I just couldn\'t get it to work, no matter how I tried.\'
Movement to her left brought Teresa out of her ramblings. A man was just about to turn the corner onto their street. He didn\'t look like a copper, but she was supposed to keep watch well, so Teresa whispered, \'Man at 9 o\'clock, Ridley.\'
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He didn\'t like doing this sort of thing in daylight, despite how bold he usually was. A risk-taker was Ridley, but stupid he was not. He liked not living in the dungeon, and the instant he heard a click of the lock turn (a simple lock too, he was surprised to find), and grabbed Teresa with both arms and spinning her around so she was trapped between him and the doorframe of the store, ensuring she wouldn\'t fall into the store proper. He moved his face into the base of her throat, though didn\'t nuzzle. Rather he remained there, peeking around her face as he had a look as to who was approaching. He didn\'t expect the new thief to struggle.
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Hearing no response, Teresa turned to see if Ridley had heard her... just in time to see him grab her shoulders and sweep her into the doorframe. She was about to protest when she noticed that Ridley was looking over her shoulder. She tilted her head in an attempt to see what he was watching, and saw that the man was still walking their way.
The man had a plain outfit on, but it was clean and well cut. He looked like the servant to a household who\'s owners were not overly rich, but still respectable. His age was perhaps ten years or so older than the two thieves, making him in his mid-thirties. As he neared the door to the shop where Teresa and Ridley were standing, he turned to look at them, first with curiosity, and then tolerant amusement. Teresa quickly turned back her head and pretended to be involved.
Out of the corner of her eye, Teresa saw the man walk past their door, and then she lost sight of where he went. A few seconds later, she could hear a knock a few shops down, and the sound of a door opening and closing.
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Ridley listened to this sound as well, then pulled his face back from her neck.
"Nice perfume," he commented before gesturing that she move away so he could turn the doorhandle and enter the shop. It was a furrier\'s shop, which seemed a strange place to steal from, but Ridley would not go to where the coins were most protected.
He knew this particular merchant was a coin collector. He\'d also come in here once before under the guise of a noble\'s servantman, staking out the shop for a future job. New targets had come up and other things had kept Ridley busy (like the Captain and Mia), and so he\'d forfeited this store in order to keep his tasks to a minimum, but hadn\'t forgotten about it. Which was why he was here now, with Teresa.
Inside was a collection of fur coats and stoles, handwraps and even fur-lined boots. A few taxidermied creatures in a hissing pose, and on the walls some of the furrier\'s coin collection. At the back of the shop along its length was a wooden counter, with some smaller pieces draped across the top of it and a door off to one side and behind the counter itself.
He walked to the middle of the store and stood there, turning on his heel so he could fold his arms and look at Teresa.
"Check around," he told her, to see where she would go first.
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\'Thanks.\' Teresa whispered, in response to Ridley\'s complement about perfume, slightly surprised. She followed him into the shop, and waited a second while her eyes adjusted to the lack of light. Her nose was immediately assaulted with the biting scent of dead animals and preservatives. Unlike the warm smell of used leather, these stuffed animals had a revolting odour, especially in such a small area.
Looking around like she was told to, Teresa immediately disregarded the mounted animals and large pieces of clothing. They would look suspicious and would be very difficult to sell afterwards. Small things... just like at the weapons stand. They didn\'t need to be quite so small, since they had time and privacy here, but they still needed to be concealable.
Stepping over to the wooden counter, she ran her hand over the smooth grains in the wood, stopping when her hand passed several intricate purses made of soft fur and a dark, coppery metal. There were only three though, and removing one would be too inconspicious.
Teresa\'s eyes lighted on some fancy coins on the far wall. Approaching the collection, she stared at some of the most obviously foreign. \'Ridley, these coins aren\'t from Oberon, or anywhere near here. Look, this one isn\'t even in English...\'
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"What are they made from, Teresa?" Ridley asked gently, for most coins were made from precious metals and could easily be melted down into an unrecogniseable nugget, not hinting at its former self. As she looked behind the counter, he went to inspect the coin collection on the wall, also many of them not of the Kingdom and its surrounding lands, and also some with scratchings in them that Ridley didn\'t recognise as English.
Suddenly, a though occurred to him and he looked at Teresa in surprise.
"You can read?"
Education such as reading and writing came at a price, and most of the thieves couldn\'t do such a thing, nor even operate a quill or charcoal to draw even the most crudest images. If she recognised a foreign marking, then she knew what a local marking was.
"Have you been schooled?" he asked in amazement. Ridley had been tutored, such was his background, though his own understanding of written language was also limited, due to his early departure from his studies.
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Teresa shook her head at the question of what they were made of. Some looked like they could be silver, some even looked like gold, but she couldn\'t be sure. Who knew what other peoples used for their coins? Her fingers itched to take down the shining pieces and play with them...
When Ridley asked whether she could read, Teresa laughed; first at the prospect of being literate, and then second at the surprised look on his face. It was amusing to see the normally nonchalant thief taken aback by anything.
\'I would be so lucky! No, what little education I\'ve got is all from listening in on my old mistress\' lessons. So I could recite the alphabet for you, or every king for centuries, but I wouldn\'t recognise my own name if it were written in front of me. However, I have spent some time looking at the books in the Nemein library, and I\'m pretty sure that there are so such characters as these\' she gestured to a small, dark coin, \'in the English alphabet.\'
\'Besides,\' she added as an after thought, \'I have seen English coins before, and these aren\'t at all similar.\' She wondered whether Ara or Ridley could read, and if they could, whether one of them would teach her. She had always loved looking at Rosaline\'s books and trying to figure out what they said.
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Even reciting the alphabet was something beyond what most other thieves (common, poor folk) could do, but if she was an attentive child with a knowledgeable mistress, it seemed reasonable that she would learn the sounds of the letters, if not the letters themselves, especially if it was in the format of a children\'s song, which was how Ridley himself had learnt it.
"You\'re quite perceptive," he told her, his opinion of her lifting slightly. It seemed Ara had been quite lucky with this newfound thief, and Ridley would have to watch himself and his skills around her. There was no point teaching her too much, lest she be a threat to his status in the Thief Lord\'s ranks.
"Take what you want and we shall leave," he said, removing the case from the wall with some trouble and setting if on the floor before he set about breaking the glass in order to pick out the coins within. He took them all, placing them into a little holding pouch, separate to his current coins, looped on the other side of his belt.
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Teresa blushed a bit at her teacher\'s humouring words. He was so nice when he wasn\'t angry... The smile was startled off her face as Ridley cracked the glass in the display. She quickly darted a glance at the door, scared that someone might hear the sound. Looking back at the case, she shivered; glass was so expensive, especially the kind as clear as that. The case must have cost the furrier as much as several of the coins inside it.
Looking around, she grabbed a few of the expensive looking purses and slipped them into her frock, along with a pretty, jeweled letter opener that was behind the counter. She then took off the large boots she had borrowed from Ara\'s stash and put on the plainest pair the merchant sold in her size. The borrowed shoes she rolled up and tied with some leather twine before tying them to the pants under her skirt.
Teresa finished her pillaging by taking a few pairs of fur gloves from their stand. They might not sell for much, but they would help when the weather started turning cold soon. She checked that none of her stolen wares were conspicious, then turned to Ridley and said, \'I think I got enough... so I\'m ready to leave if you are as well.\'
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He moved behind the counter once he\'d taken the coins, and she was done by the time he was at her side. He moved past her and behind her, in order to check the door. It was locked so he knelt down to pick it. This second door was a great deal more difficult than the first, but his skill was well practised for years and he had a proper set of pick tools. The lock was open in less than a minute and he turned the handle to display what looked ilke a storage room.
Standing and putting his picks away, he moved inside into the room and looked for anything that looked a little different from all the merchant boxes that were on shelves inside. The best stuff was always kept behind an interior locked door, so he looked, and he found a small lockbox that was small enough to hold an item that could be concealed, but too big to conceal the entire box itself. He picked it up and shook it. Inside, things clinked and jingled.
Smiling widely, he took out his pickset once more, and withdrew the two smallest picks he had.
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Teresa watched silently as Ridley picked the lock of a small door she hadn\'t even noticed was there. It took him barely any time before the door opened into a little room filled with stock and other boxes. While Ridley played with the lock of a small, difficult looking lockbox, Teresa explored the room.
Most of the interesting looking boxes and cabinets were locked, so Teresa, not having any lock-picking expertise, soon got bored with them and went to look in the crates and boxes that were openable. These also lost her attention quickly, as they merely held fur and fur products that were not yet on display in the shop propre.
Moving to the corner of the small room, Teresa hopped up onto one of the large crates, and sat playing with a copper coin. She remembered a long time ago seeing a traveling stage magician who could make the coin appear and disappear. After the show, he had shown a crowd of eagre children, including Teresa, how to palm and manipulate the coin.
She had been no good at it at the time, since her hands were so small, but the events of the day had brought the magician to mind again, and while she had nothing better to do, Teresa figured she could try again. So, while she waited, she practiced the basic slights she had not been able to do so many years before.
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He was so taken with the tiny lock that he hadn\'t noticed Teresa\'s boredom. Once the thing was sprung however, he opened the little lockbox with glee to find it was a music box which tinkled a merry tune at him. He poked at it and realised it had a soft bottom panel, so dug his fingers in and lifted it out to reveal a number of silver pendants in various animal shapes. Upending the lot into his hand, he put them all in his pocket to the sound of the music playing and then put it back and closed the lid to shut it up, before turning to look at Teresa.
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The sound of music shocked Teresa out of her practicing, and she looked up to see Ridley holding a small box, from which the music seemed to come. Hopping off her perch, the girl walked over to look over Ridley\'s shoulder at the curious little thing more closely. The box itself, as well as the jewelry the thief was taking from inside it, were both extremely pretty and intricate.
When the Ridely finished with the box and closed it, the music shut off and he turned to Teresa. She put the coin she had been playing with back in her pocket, and glanced at the small door they had come in through. \'Should we be going? We\'ve been in here for some time now...\'
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"Worried?" Ridley asked with a teasing lilt in his voice. "The markets are held all day, are you expecting the furrier to grow bored of selling his wares?"
He smirked at her then moved to another box. Greed had Ridley in its tight possessive hold, and there was no way he would be leaving without taking the full reward he sought. This was too easy an opportunity to pass up. He moved down the rows of shelves, shaking boxes, only picking the locks of the ones that jingled.
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\'Oh... no.\' Teresa said, going back to her wooden perch. \'I\'m not worried... at all really.\' She really was an awful liar. It wasn\'t that she didn\'t trust Ridley to know what he was doing, it was just that she was a very careful person. When she\'d had the puzzle of actual theft to deal with, her mind had been busy enough to be distracted from the danger of what she was doing. Being idle made her nervous.
Taking out her coin again, the girl tried to busy herself by working on the slights from before. She could get the coin to roll over three of her fingers and stop at the pinky, but she couldn\'t get it to roll back. Lost in her practice, she continued to play with the coin while Ridley searched for more locked-up treasures.
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Ridley was consumed by his work, opening little box after box, unable to open a few of them. Time tick-tocked away but he wasn\'t concerned due to the fact the markets were a long ordeal and the furrier had been observed staying to tend his stall until the last noble or merchant left him, always reminding everyone where his shop was if they wished to see more of his goods at a later date.
Ridley had discovered that the furrier must\'ve used a barter system with some of his things. He recognised the jewellery from the craftwork of a much recognised jeweller. Another box revealed more coins. Yet another had little metal chain links (these Ridley cast aside, not seeing their value). A pocket watch here (with fur trim, it must\'ve been a joint venture) and little metal soldiers from the toymaker.
Ridley lost track of what Teresa was doing and pocketed as much as he could, getting greedier by the second. The problem with his observing the furrier and not the shop was that he didn\'t realise a pair of patrolling guards came by and checked on the shop every hour or so.
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Guards Skellern and Macintosh were sauntering through their rounds with relative casualness, when they came upon the slightly ajar door to the furrier\'s shop. Guard Macintosh - being the more experienced of the two (as was declared by the light green ribbon adorning his breast) - noted something amiss in the shadow cast by the open portal quite a way down the alley. His partner, Guard Skellern, had a light grey ribbon on his lapel, declaring him a humble weapons guard.
Of course, there was a lot to be said for humble. Guard Macintosh - whom everyone called \'Mac\' with various degrees of venom - had been reassigned to simple street patrols from his usual, more prestigious position of training other guards in dual-wielding shortswords (his particular specialty) or drilling a company of skilled guards a week beforehand. Mac had a nasty temper (augured, some said, by his fiery orange hair) and a vindictive streak that had landed him in some hot water with one of the lieutenants and now he was supposed to be learning from his interactions with the commoners, understanding how best to cope with anger and realise just how deeply his actions effected them. Or some such bullshit.
His partner was entirely the opposite; less experienced in general (though not with a long sword) and obedient to a fault, he had already learned that he should automatically defer to Mac\'s wisdom and rapidfire decision making on the job; not only was the deference to greater experience a sensible idea, but it kept the peace a lot more easily, too.
"What have we here?" Guard Macintosh murmured as they came level with the door. He looked at his partner with a glint in his eye and a rakish smile across his wide lips. He held an index finger up to them, to be sure Guard Skellern was quiet as he pushed gently on the door, hoping it didn\'t have squeaky hinges... it didn\'t. Now they only had to hope that the floorboards inside would not give them away as they crept in, Mac in the lead and his brunette partner following cautiously.
Hearts thudded with the increased release of adrenalin into poised bodies, their ears strained to hear a sound. Eventually they heard it, not coming from the shop itself, but from a room off it. It was just some shaking and clunking of something at irregular intervals and in irregular patterns, but it gave away the fact that it was likely not the owner (they had only seen his stall at the markets a short while ago, but there were a lot of people about and they could have missed him returning to his own shop... though he would be foolish to leave the front door open) in that little room.
Guard Macintosh drew his shortswords as he crept towards the internal door - already ducking and dodging so that he wouldn\'t be seen by its occupant but might catch a glimpse of what was going on in there for his own benefit - glancing over his shoulder in time to see his partner draw his own weapon. With a nod of approval, he resumed the slow walk to the storeroom.
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Teresa was still practising with the coin. It just wouldn\'t return across her hand, and that bothered her so much that she wouldn\'t give up, even if she had to practice the rest of the day. Quickly, she rolled it from thumb to forefinger, middle finger, ring, and finally the littlest finger. Slowing it down, she concentrated hard enough to get the coin back to the middle finger before it dropped, for what seemed like the millionth time.
\'Dammit!\' She swore quietly, her upbringing not giving her much curses stronger than that. Quickly sliding off her crate, she chased the coin across the floor, pouncing on it about half way between where she had been sitting and the far wall, where they had come in.
When she stood up, Teresa thought she saw a glimpse of something moving in the shop proper. Shaking her head to clear the feeling, she spun the coin into the air. When she snapped it out from its trajectory and slapped it on the back of her hand, it turned out heads. She smiled. Things were so lovely when they went as planned.
-
Ara had been on her way to the market to see how Teresa and Ridley were doing, as well as to check up on the rest of her thieves. Her eyes had been scanning the road and when she found two guards making their rounds she turned a corner abruptly and peeked her head out to watch them go by. But they didn\'t. They went into a shop, which had the door slightly ajar. Her mind screamed an alarm and as soon as the guards were in the shop she rush out and slid on the sand as she tried to stop herself. Two fingers went to her lips and a piercing whistle rang through the empty streets.
She heard a clatter from inside, and that was her cue. It was definitely her thieves. At the top of her voice she screamed in the most girly voice she possibly could, "HELP! Guards! Somebody!" Her hands quickly reached down to the dust and she threw it in the air, feeling some of it fall into her eyes. They began to water immediately and her lip quivered convincingly, "Help! They\'ve got my purse!" she wailed, hoping the guards would take the bate, as she choked through a whimper.
Her howls becoming increasingly louder and more agitated, "Somebody! He\'s taken my purse! He\'s taken my money! It was all I had! Guards! Somebody! Heeelp! May Talon smite your soul, thief! May Adora shun you and turn her beautiful face away from such scum as you! You don\'t deserve to be scrapped off the bottom of a chamber pot! You disgusting pig! My money! My money! Somebody help! He\'s getting awayyy!" Ara had to resist a smile, she\'d tell /this/ one to her thieves...it was surely the best insult she\'d ever made up for herself. Her mouth was downturned and she was the picture of desparing disarray.
-
Ridley was still consumed with the latest lock. Usually perceptive, usually stealthy and observant, Ridley had excellent hearing. The problem was his focus, he had everything on the box in his hands, and using his tiny lockpicking set to jimmy it open.
He puffed a sigh, frowning at the interruption of Teresa\'s noise (which was very quiet) and continuing with his work. It would seem he wouldn\'t realise they were interrupted until the interruption was upon them.
-
Mac was smirking in quite a superior fashion as he finally came up to the door of what he\'d managed to ascertain was a storeroom. He\'d heard a female voice following the sound of something dropping, but couldn\'t quite tell if she was in there on her own or not, with all his concealment theatrics.
Finally, he had no choice but to play his hand and see what came of it - he stepped firmly into the doorway and glanced hastily about the inside, feeling confident with his shortswords in hand - though they were lowered in case it was a relative of the furrier\'s in the shop, rather than thieves, as he suspected. They could be raised in a flash, though; his reflexes were renowned with the weapons.
"Well, what do we have here?" he enquired abruptly, hoping to inspire some panic with his sudden, loud address and aggressive tone.
Guard Skellern stood behind him, also poised for action but so nervous that it felt like he might have a heart attack and prove himself useless at any given moment. He hoped that his presence, blocking any tiny gap Mac had left in the doorway, was a comforting one to his superior, for it was all that he could think to do.
-
If Guard Macintosh had been looking for an audience for his theatrics, he had found the perfect one in Teresa. When he sauntered into the little room, short swords in hand, she made a small sound of surprise in the back of her throat, and took a few steps behind her before bumping into a large box.
\'R... Ri... R... Rid-\' she stuttered, before clamping her mouth shut. No good telling the guards the thief\'s name! Stupid, stupid girl!
Her small hand clasped tightly on the coin it held in it as she tried to keep herself from shaking. It wasn\'t working too well, and she was shivering something awful, her large eyes made larger from surprise and fright. Caught, on her first day out? It wasn\'t fair!
The hand not holding the coin, her left (and dominant) hand, twitched slightly. Part of her wanted to grab the dagger she had hidden in her pocket that morning, while the other half of her did not want to attract any attention from the guards. Besides, what good would a dagger in untrained hands be against swords in the grasp of skilled guards?
-
Different plans raced through his head.
Could he use Teresa and play the nobleman card who came into this shop after thieves had rifled through it? No, it would likely not be believed, not with his lockpick set out. They might\'ve watched him at work for the past few seconds.
Stupid bitch! She should\'ve kept a lookout, she should\'ve warned him, she should\'ve got herself arrested protecting him. He was important, not her.
Was there another door or window out? No, he\'d already spotted that. There was nothing except the door into the storeroom from the shop proper. Then there was the front door. It was a cheap shop with only alley access. Cheap shop with a cheap lock that relied on patrolling guards.
Had he closed the door on the way in? He couldn\'t remember. Stupid bitch, it was her fault, she\'d come in second. She\'d led to their capture. Screw that, he wasn\'t going to be captured.
So. Run. But if not out, then.... up?
Dropping the box in his hands, Ridley demonstrated his acrobatic rooftop running/climbing skills by scampering up the storage shelving (and causing it to wobbly dramatically as he reached the top, bent over at the waist because the ceiling was high but not that high) and then hoped that the guards would rush in at him. If they did that (and there was a good chance they might), he would jump from top shelf to top shelf and then off when on the unit closest the door (three units away). He had to be lucky and to time it right. They would have to come all the way in. They would have to charge him and swat at him with their swords maybe. Would their shortswords reach? Damn Talon, what if the second guard was a crossbowman? He only thought that once he was standing up on the top and looking down.
Teresa could be sacrificed, as far as he was concerned.
-
Guard Macintosh blinked in disbelief as he watched the man apparently float his way up the shelves. He moved like a wisp of smoke, curling upward and then suddenly... was perched on the top. Blink of an eye. Mac\'s mouth hung open briefly, for he\'d never seen anything quite like it; a shiver ran down his spine and he closed his gaping mouth, an inkling of how dangerous the agile man likely was instantly occurring to him.
His gaze fell to take in the box the man had been fiddling with, having registered the high-pitched tinkle of small metal prongs as it had crashed down - a sound not connected to the box, as far as he knew. Sighting a fine bit of metal poking out of the lock, he made up his mind that the gentleman was, indeed, a thief. The girl probably was, too. His gaze took her in, flicking between she and the male (as Ridley was planning his escape route), expecting one of them to move at any moment.
Mac shuffled back a bit, so that he was slightly distanced from the doorway. He recognised instantly his tactical advantage and didn\'t wish to provoke Talon\'s ire by standing in a vulnerable position within the room. If he stayed beyond the sill, he might earn a thief pouncing on his head, or a door kicked towards him in an effort to stun or confuse him. Belatedly, he realised he could\'ve closed the door and completely hemmed the pair in, but he didn\'t want to be reaching forward with a hand more useful for holding a sword than grabbing a knob and tugging.
He leaned back towards his partner, keeping alert eyes on those within the little room, feeling smug. It was like scooping tadpoles into a cup, they wouldn\'t be able to escape without co-ordinating movements and rushing him simultaneously (he was watching for any signals they might be making toward one another but they hadn\'t made eye contact yet), and he would know by looking when that was going to happen. As far as he could tell, all he had to do was stand there and wait.
"Run and get the inner patrol," Mac whispered to Guard Skellern. "I\'ll hold them here \'til we have a few more bodies to drag them out with." The younger guard nodded after a moment\'s consideration, re-sheathed his sword and hastened out of the shop. He didn\'t go quietly - which Macintosh was rather disappointed by - but the elder merely tightened his grip on his twin hilts, imagining how sweet it would be to toss this lovely pair down into the same dungeon together. A leering grin had already surfaced on his face, a triumphant twinkle in his eye.
-
Teresa watched Ridley\'s antics first with shivers of hope, and then with a growing feeling of hurt abandonment. It it quickly dawned on her that whatever he was planning as an escape, she was clearly not involved in it.
Ridley was an expert, Ara had said. That much was clear in the way he climbed over the shelves; his acrobatics were as good as any gleeman\'s or jester\'s she had ever seen. However, Ara had also said that he would be a good teacher. Teresa could not see how leaving one\'s pupil behind with the guards was considered good teaching practice, though she could be wrong.
Keeping her hands in plain view in front of her -- she certainly did not want to be shot with a bolt for being suspicious -- the girl backed up slowly, into the maze of crates. Not looking where she was going, Teresa quickly tripped on one of the small boxes Ridley had left in his wake and fell over loudly, crying out slightly in surprise at her sudden change in altitude. She sprawled on the floor messily.
Pushing herself up quickly, Teresa remembered to keep her hands far away from her skirts as much as she could. When she was seated, the novice thief stared up, wide-eyed with fear, at the guard across the room. His grin was scaring her, and she half-wished that she had never left her current job, until she was remembered of why she had left. Even this would be better than that, she could hope.
-
Ridley eyed the distance from the shelf he\'d clamboured up to the one on its left (from his vantage point looking towards the door). Teresa on his left, guard slightly diagonal to his left... more information could be found there. There was stepping distance between them, if a very long step was made. He would have to be flexible, and he could do it, but it would leave him prone with his legs apart and perhaps unable to cross the rest of the way, his legs bridging two shelving units. No, not the way to go. A leap then.
"Leap of faith," he said with a sparkle in his eye, the kind he got when the adrenalin began to flow. He half-stepped, half-jumped and landed on the other shelving unit closer to the middle of the small room. It was an interesting maneouvre, considering he couldn\'t stand up properly, and the storage unit tipped so badly that boxes slid out from the shelves below. He pinwheeled his arms, hitting the ceiling with them, then braced himself on the ceiling itself while his feet balanced the unit below, putting it back on all its legs, instead of just one side. Stability.
He turned his attention to the guards, realising that it was just one guard and two swords. Two dull, sharp, pointy and evil looking swords. The guard didn\'t have much room to wield them in an arc, but he could certainly make stabbing motions forward. The doorway in front constricted him as well as them, and the counter at his back would halt any retreat he wished to make. He would only be able to move to his left, along the counter and then out into the room. Unless he climbed the counter... hmn. When last Ridley checked, guards didn\'t think that way.
"My lovely lass," Ridley said, not minding that the guard would hear him as well. "There is but one man standing between us and freedom, when before there were two. We must leave now, or we face the shackles, and possibly a noose."
He was trying to inspire her into action. There was only one reason why one guard would leave, and that would be to get more help.
"Wrap a coat around yourself for armor. There\'s going to be a swordfight."
-
Guard Macintosh grinned - until the thief jumped. He wasn\'t entirely certain (from his position outside the storeroom\'s threshold) what the lawbreaker could be up to, nor what advantage lay in jumping from one shelf to another. Surely he was only delaying the inevitable?
Well, apparently not. It seemed that the lad had realised there was only one of him and two of them... but he had no qualms about stabbing both of them, should they charge him. It was the positioning on the shelves that really bothered him... was the leap imminent? Surely the thief wouldn\'t be able to make it from there? And what of the girl? She was in the way... though if she went back to get some \'armour\' on (Mac couldn\'t see from where she might retrieve it) she might present a secondary attack. Hmm.
He forced himself to take a breath, eyeing off the distances around him and very pleased he was a shortsword expert. His deadly thrusts weren\'t likely to be hampered by the lack of space, he would be able to parry fairly well (though it did depend on what sort of weapon the thief presented) and he felt he was stronger than either of the thieves. The only problem was deciding whether to attack or defend... his every instinct screamed for attack, but he felt, in this case specifically, that it would be best to defend.
Conversely, he loosend his grip on his swords, holding them readily, keen to change directions at a breath\'s notice, if need be. He watched the two thieves with something close to pleasure, waiting for their move to be made.
-
Teresa stared wide-eyed as Ridley jumped to the centre shelving unit. She was sure that it would come crashing down from the unbalanced weight, but the thief braced himself and kept it from falling over. The spectacle would have been terribly impressive -- in any time and place excepting this one. When the thief spoke to Teresa again, she lit up with a simple smile. He had not forgotten her after all! How could she have even thought such a thing? she chided herself. She was so ungrateful...
The thought of a sword fight, with a guard no less, sent shivers down the girl\'s spine. Trying badly to ignore them, she did what she did best: she followed instructions. Since the only guard who was still left clearly did not have a projectile weapon, Teresa gave up trying to be subtle and moved as quickly as she could. Clambering to her feet, she pulled the top open on the first unlocked crate behind her. It was filled with small fur and leather items: gloves, boots, purses. Useless.
Not bothering to replace the lid on the first box, Teresa went to another. This one was little better, so she passed it on as well. The third box held materials for the furrier to use: beads, rhinestones, thread, and other small objects. This she considered briefly, but couldn\'t find an immediate use for any of it. Moving on to a large, stationary cabinet by the wall, the girl at last found what she was looking for.
She pulled out a fur coat, and wrapped it around her, not so much as armour but as a way to hide where her actual flesh was. The extravagant and large accessory looked ridiculous on the thief\'s anorexic body, but it wasn\'t meant as a fashion statement in any case. Pulling out another coat, a big fluffy one this time, she through it as hard as she could towards the guard. It fell only a few strides away, but she hoped it would make some kind of landing for Ridley. If nothing else, it would provide a source of misdirection for her teacher.
-
Ridley did not know why Teresa would throw the coat onto the floor like that, considering it now stopped him from landing on a firm floor to having him land on a surface that might slip. He was about to throw her a dirty look when a thought came to him.
Breaking out of here would be much easier than breaking out of a dungeon cell. Yes, there was only one door out, but the walls here were thinner, and the ceiling might lead to an attic or the floor to a basement.
The guard was still slightly behind the doorway proper, defending his space so that he could block their exit. He signalled for Teresa to move away from the doorway line of sight, close to the door itself from the side that it opened. He looked at the wall near the doorway to see a metal L shaped prong jutting for it, perfect for holding a block of wood in place. So, this door was blockable, and could form a decent blockade while he and Teresa bought more time.
When Teresa was in place, and not a moment sooner, Ridley leapt from the shelf, hoping to distract the guard\'s attention to him and not the swinging door. He landed close to the coat but not on it, reaching down to pick it up and throw it through the doorway and onto the guard like a blanket, just as he bawled: "Shut it! Shut the door now!"
-
Teresa nervously watched to see what Ridley would do next. Every few seconds, she would dart her eyes back to the guard at the doorway, but most of her attention was on her teacher. She hoped that the guard wouldn\'t try and attack her so long as a far more dangerous threat had such an advantageous position. Realising that she had been holding her breath, the girl let it out in a hasty sigh.
When Ridley first threw her a signal, Teresa had no idea what he meant. The shooing hand motion looked as if he wanted her to run away, but there was no where to run. After a moment, understanding fell on her like a loose shingle and she rushed to take up position behind the only door. She chose a route that led her to the far wall (out of the range of site of the guard) and from there she followed the blind spot to the doorway itself, in the hopes of disguising her location.
Holding her breath subconsciously again, the girl waited for another sign to do something. When Ridley jumped, she stumbled back into the wall with a muffled thump, courtesy of the coat. Recovering quickly from the slight surprise, she obeyed and threw herself at the door with all her force, hoping to shove it closed on the guard.
-
From behind the coat, Mac could see nothing. This caused something of a panic reaction in him - as did having his weapons tangled in the heavy mess of fur - and he flailed instantly. His head whipped back in order to dislodge the barrier - only to have it snag on his helmet - and his arms thrashed (no doubt working at cross purposes to what his head was trying to achieve). His shortswords began making headway through the thick material almost instantly but it didn\'t slow his adrenalin-fuelled movements in the slightest.
Although he didn\'t hear the order to shut the door in a sense he could understand or predict what was happening, instinct had him bringing up a heavily booted foot (the one that wasn\'t supporting his weight) and striking out viciously with it - they\'d effectively covered his sharp weapons, but not so his feet. He expected that the coat was a decoy that meant the thieves were making a run towards him, so he expected to be kicking at soft bodies. He was happily surprised when it landed smartly against the door, causing it to shudder on its hinges.
He continued to work at dislodging the coat while he drew his foot back and kicked again, anger empowering the contact so that he struck with such force, he was as likely to go through the wood as send it flying back at the girl.
-
The door shuddered from the force of the kick, and swung sharply around on its hinges. It slammed heavily into the girl, picking her up off her feet and smashing her between itself and the wall. With a crash, the door broke off its hinges and fell over away from the girl and the wall. Luckily, the large coat took a good deal of the impact of the collision, but Teresa was still dazed, and when the door reversed direction, she fell to the floor light-headed. She slumped against the wall before slowly picking herself back up to her feet.
Teresa\'s head felt like it weighed a hundred stone, and beat something ferocious. Even once she was upright, she still had to use the wall as support. Leaning back against it, she felt a lump in her pocket, and was remembered of the knife she had slipped in that morning... was it just that morning? Slipping her hand into her pocket, her fingers curled around the hilt of the dagger. She pulled it out, and stared at it for a second before dropping the sheath back into her skirt.
Cradling the large blade in her small hands, the girl grasped the handle inexpertly. She was more afraid of hurting herself with the dagger, than hopeful that it would help at all, but she couldn\'t just put it back now that she held it in her hands.
She desperately hoped that Ridley had another plan.
-
Ridley did have another plan, but this was thought up on the fly and only because the opportunity had presented itself - and had nothing to do with Teresa\'s involvement.
When he\'d landed and headed for the door, the kick dislodged Teresa a mere fraction of a second before he reached for the door himself, and therefore he had time to reel back from it, saving the skin of his fingers from being torn away by the force of holding onto a wooden door. When Teresa slumped onto the floor, he heard it, but it wasn\'t his priority. There was a vibrating noise returning to the guard as it had bounced off Ridley\'s partner in crime and he was very close to the door (on the other side) when the booted foot appeared again while the door was forced to open.
He didn\'t have the kind of meaty strenth available to his body to break a bone if he stamped downward, plus the angle wasn\'t so great. His gymnastic ability made him limber enough to kick upward though, his ankle hooking beneath the calf of the raised foot and lifting high, hopefully unsettling the guard who was likely still half tangled in the coat Ridley had thrown a few seconds ago.
If that guard toppled, Ridley was going to rush out through the doorway and speed out the exit, never mind attacking his assailant, all the burglar wished to do now was get away.
-
Mac was, indeed, caught off balance when the boot hooked around his calf. He cried out in surprise as he overbalanced, flailing as he went down. The counter was contacted glancingly - certainly not sturdily enough to keep him on his feet, but enough to propel him sideways as he dropped - and then he met the floor. He landed rather painfully on his left arm and side, his breath leaving in a soft \'Oof!\' that, thankfully, didn\'t make him winded, but nor did it help his predicament.
The only good thing about the whole motion was that he managed to get the coat off his face in the process, but then it tangled half under him and was still across his left sword. In trying to steady (and not stab) himself when he fell against the counter, he\'d dropped his right shortsword and could only hope it wasn\'t in a dangerous position (ie. speared into the wooden floor and upstanding so that he landed on the hilt) as he fell, but it landed with a clatter about the same time he did. Everything seemed to be happening simultaneously, though his thoughts were processing at a far different rate to the physical reality he was bound by.
Although his vision was clear, the sudden shift from blind to seeing had him blinking in consternation and the change of perspective was startling. Last time he\'d been able to sight the storeroom, he\'d been on his feet; now he\'d rolled onto his back, his vision was blurry and there was a sharp pain being communicated to his brain from his left wrist that simply didn\'t bear thinking too greatly on. His instincts said to act but his mind... was slightly and temporarily overloaded so that all he managed to do was blink at the ceiling a few times and then, after a few moments, raise his head and look towards his toes.
The door was opening... oh yes, the thieves... Suddenly, there was another blur as the man leapt over him and Guard Macintosh panicked anew. He couldn\'t think what to do, visions of being trampled entering his mind but, thankfully, his training won out over his lack of cogitative sense at that moment. He reached up with his right hand and snatched at the ankle of the man attempting to get over him. He also stabbed upward with his shortsword, uncaring if he damaged fur stock and not really thinking about having the weapon too tangled to be useful; he saw action and both his hands moved at the same time, as they\'d been trained to do - though in vastly different ways.
Either way, his intent was the same; stop the thief in any way he could.
-
*awaits Morwen\'s reply* >.>
-
((oops! Sorry, I was waiting for you, since Teresa doesn\'t really have much to do...))
Teresa used the knife in her hand to cut off the thick fur coat; it was useless at this point anyway and tangled so that she could not simply slip it off even her own meagre frame. The blade wasn\'t perfectly sharp, and obviously covered in nicks, as it caught even on the smooth fur fibres. Chunks of expensive stock fell to the floor ignored, until the girl was free of her fashionable bindings. Looking up, she saw Ridley jump over the prone door and through its erstwhile frame, presumably to attack the guard.
A wash of relief and gratitude flowed through the little thief\'s mind. Naturally naive and trusting, she assumed that her teacher had attacked the guard to protect her, like someone in a fairy-tale might. Forcing her disobedient legs into movement, Teresa did her best sprint across the two metres between her and the doorway; that guard was brutal, Ridley might need help.
-
[ooc] Ha ha, started to think we were waiting for each other XD [/ooc]
Fingers grazed at the ankle of his booted feet, and Ridley\'s heart (already pounding a tattoo in his ears) seemed to want to explode from his chest. He managed to get his other foot beneath him on the counter near the guard\'s head and he pushed off it, but not before the edge of the guard\'s sharp sword sliced into his other leg.
Ridley barely felt it, he believed it to be a light touch, perhaps a last minute effort to hold onto him. Adrenalin pumped through his veins as he sprinted for the door and then out into the alley, jumping up onto a barrel and skirting up the side of a tudor building, using the decorative and supporting planks of wood to help himself straight up onto the roof. He stepped into something wet.
It was on the top of this building that he looked down, to see what was squelching beneath his feet, to find his entire leg covered in blood from the knee down. Shocked and confused as to what had happened, he looked back down where he\'d come from to see a pointedly obvious trail of blood coming from out of the shop doorway and all up the wall, telltaling where he\'d gone.
He couldn\'t lose much more blood or he would pass out and die up here. Unwrapping material from the top of his boots (which he bandaged on for a better fit due to the fact they were stolen from a nobleman with slightly bigger feet than his own) he applied pressure to the wound, staunching the flow before moving off across the rooves, pleased that there was less blood trailing him now, but frightened of the light-headed feeling he was getting, and the fact that every step now felt like a knifewould driving home into the same place where he\'d been slashed.
At no point did he consider Teresa, though he would think of her later - for she had his name.
-
The wild reaching had dire consequences for Mac - although he scored a successful stab into the thief\'s leg, the angle was awkward and forced his wrist to turn even more painfully once he connected. The guard cried out - a guttural exclamation of pain and rage, knowing his body was still recovering from being thrown down and now the arm still wrapped in fur was wrenched beyond immediate use. He was forced to drop that sword too as his right instinctively set about scrabbling the fur coat the hell off him once and for all.
He sat up to aid his progress so that he might be free for when the other thief exited but he was likely too late - the searing pain in his left arm had him thoroughly distracted and he wasn\'t moving nearly as quickly as he thought he was with his free hand - she was nimble and free; he was still entwined in fur with quite a lot of pain yabbering furiously through his brain. He wasn\'t even looking up at the door any more, so intent was he on reefing the coat away - his shoulders swung wildly left and right (as much as his throbbing arm would allow) in a tantrum-like effort to just be rid of his restrictions, another roar spilling from his lips while he did.
-
Teresa was halfway out of the shop when she heard the guard yell. She caught herself from turning to see what was happening, and instead forced her legs out the door. The trail of blood revealed clearly where Ridley had gone, without her. The thief\'s face flushed, though whether from anger at being abandoned, worry about whether Ridley was even alive, or fear of being captured, she was too distracted to know.
Shaking off the inhibiting feelings, she followed the trail of blood. She had to help him, he obviously could not survive long loosing that much blood. Darting to the building the crimson path led to, without regard for what might be coming on either side, Teresa tried to climb up the bloody wall. She managed to get on the barrel, but she could not reach any of the overhangs that would allow her to climb up to the roof.
Growling in anger at her thwarted efforts, Teresa gave up. By now Ridley was either dead or away, and in either case there was nothing she could do. It was against every part of her nature to leave the thief, but she knew that there was no way she could climb. Guiltily, she hopped off the barrel, and began running away from the trail of blood. She tried to tell herself that as soon as she found a way up, she would climb to where she might find Ridley, but in truth, she knew she couldn\'t.
Tears tried to force their way out of her eyes, and Teresa fought to blink them back. She had to find Ara...