Snippet #2673064

"So, what do you plan to do?" Danairia could not help but pry.

"What?" Vadania questioned.

"To the slave handler that left his workers unattended to go to the fight! You don't plan on doing anything about it? If I were you, I would wait until he's on his deathbed. His family surrounding him on all sides, showering him with love," Danairia explains, seeming to grow ever more distant as she delves deeper into her fantasy.
"All of the sudden a lone pigeon flies through the open window with a message tied to its ankle, perches on one of his children's shoulders, lets the message be removed from its ankle, and then IMMEDIATELY takes a huge, runny bird shit on the kid's shoulder before taking off and pecking at the guy's wife on the way out! The message would read: 'I know you left your slaves unattended...Shame on you'-and then his sheer embarrassment would cause him to keel over with a heart attack!"

"...You're a special sort, aren't you?" Vadania could not help but feel such as the truth. Danairia looks back over her shoulder at the Duuthesh.

"Not just special. I'm unique." Danairia looks back straight and bends forward, stretching her spine.

"Yeah~ you could say that..." The thief says through a grin as she steals a peak at her guide's back end.

The leading girl bends forward more, placing her hands upon the floor and lifting her legs, walking on her hands and looking back at Vadania again, who quickly averts her eyes to avoid her discovery. Danairia grins a relaxed smile, an expression she has not been able to use for months. Not since she was free.

"Y'know, you could have stolen enough food to feed a normal person," said the sell-sword, bringing her legs back forward and somersaulting into a recovery. Vadania does her best to ignore her curiosity about the girl's seemingly-careless stunt...
"Hey, I did get enough for a normal person-do you always do stuff like that and act like it's nothing?"
...but ultimately falls to temptation. Danairia, again, leans forward and relieves her feet of the responsibility of carrying her weight, looking back at Vadania between her arms once more.

"Oh, I've got balance like you've never seen before and flexibility to match!"

The Tlamani lets her legs fall forward, like last time, but instead of somersaulting back to her feet, she simply plants her feet straight on the ground, arching her back in a steep bend in her recovery. Vadania looks off to her right, smirking playfully at the display as she was rather surprised by the development regarding her apparent flexibility.

"Don't bring balance into this. I could best you any hour of any day if you want to talk about balance."
Step four-step four-step four-step four-step four-...

Danairia clasps her hands together, brings them above her head in a stretch, and down behind her back with a loud pop.
"Anyway, I know you were a beggar and all but that doesn't make what you got a normal meal."
Vadania's smile falls. Her eyes glare at Danairia in front of her.

"I wasn't a beggar," she growls.

"Oh-my bad," Danairia sarcastically returns without as much as batting an eye, "you lived off the street and spent other people's money. It's only natural that someone might mix the two up!-"
[/i] the Duuthesh reaches forward and spins Danairia around, tightly gripping her shoulder.
"-I wasn't A BEGGAR."

Danairia's smile falters into a grin and her eyebrows raise in a look of surprise...but retains its amusement, nonetheless.
"Owning who you are is much more admirable than denying everything bad," she says, lazily blinking and holding a posture as if she had not a care in the world. "I was a sell-sword before I came here. [i]A piece of shit mercenary who, as long as it was honest, would take a payment for doing a job requiring a blade and, often enough, blood. I'm content with admitting it."
The Tlamani peels the thief's hand from her shoulder and continues on as if nothing happened. Vadania, despite the lingering taste of salt on her tongue, sighs and follows.

You really are a pain when you're free to walk around, you know that?

...

It was not long before the pair reached their destination. An obstacle blocks their way, though. The weaponmaster leans against his opening in the wall between the gear lockup and the passageway to its immediate front. Vadania retracts, having peeked out from behind their cover for a look.

"There's a man in there. Fairly large. We'll need to draw him out before we can subdue him. Then-"
Danairia has already crept back in the opposite direction from the lockup and her ally.

"What are you doing??" Vadania calls out in a hushed tone. The words "Trust me!" barely make it to the thief's ears before Danairia disappears from sight.

Trust her? TRUST her?? She didn't even say what the hell she's doing! How do I know what I'm supposed to do now? What kind of approach is she planning?

Vadania sighs.

I suppose I should just do as she says. If things go bad, I still have that knife I took...

Minutes go by. There has yet to be any sign of the girl she is supposed to trust...

Damn it all. Where is she?

..."Rrribbit!"...

The croak of a frog can be heard...except it sounds entirely like a female person and frogs don't actually say 'ribbit'...
...In fact, it sounds more like a girl doing the world's worst impression of any kind of animal ever than a frog.

Vadania perks up. Her eyes widen and then dart to the sound from around the corner. She peaks back around from her cover, observing the weaponmaster, who seems to not have awoken from his daydream.

Was that-?...

..."Rrrrrrribbit!"..

The man continues to stare off into space.

...

"FUCKING-RIBBIT!!"

The weaponmaster suddenly rises from his slump, having finally heard the 'frog'.

"...Hello?" He calls out into the darkness.

"Rrrribbit!" The shadow calls back.

Curious, the man stands up and exits his post through the adjacent doorway to investigate, stopping just short of the other corner, from which the voice emits.

"Rilea? 's tha'chyou?"

..."Ribbit?"

As the weaponmaster approaches, and Vadania emerges from around her corner to assist, an open palm launches from behind the wall and strikes the man's center mass directly in his chest. Vadana watches as the big man's breath leaves his body and Danairia emerges, following the stumbling man. He makes an attempt to grab the elf by her rags but finds his own attack used against him when she brings his arm around her shoulder, turns her back to him, then pulls him over her and onto the floor.
Still gripping his wrist, Danairia tugs the man up enough to wrap her arm around his neck, clap her hands together, and apply gradual pressure until he is out cold after but a few seconds.

"Nighty-fuggin'-night, bitch," Danairia says as she lets the man drop back down.

"You're a hand-to-hand fighter?" Vadania asks as she closes the gap between her and the door. The sell-sword follows.

"No," she replies. "Some smug prick from home taught me Tlamani martial arts. I specialize with twin longswords but I can wield a number of weapons on a basic level; short swords, knives, Dadao-"
"-Bow," Vadania interrupts.

"FUCK!" Danairia yells out at no one in particular. Confused, the Duuthesh looks back at the disturbed woman. Her face is seething with frustrated anger.

"...I stubbed my toe."

Still confused Vadania looks down to find nothing remotely near Danairia's feet.

"...I didn't hear any-"
"-I STUBBED MY TOE."

Vadania blinks.
"...Okay?"

Something catches the thief's eye. It's her knife set! There is her armor; her rapier! It seems everything has been left relatively undisturbed with the few short days she has been held at the colosseum. The sound of weapons clanging as they hit the floor can be heard from across the room. With each one Danairia rejects with a 'no~', the amount of properly stored swords diminish. Finally, she yells out in victory.

"Victory!" Danairia has found her weapons.

"I've found my weapons! Ooooh I've missed you BEAUTIFUL little bad girls!"

The sell-sword tears through the stash of armor, trying to find her own set. It takes a moment but she soon stands holding the rest of her old gear.

"Alright," Vadania says in confirmation of everything being reacquired. "Lets go."

But Danairia does not move. The Tlamani glares at a sheathed blade. Short in length but of a stocky build. Her machete. Savage's machete.

"...Come on!"

She looks at Vadania, back at the blade, and then grabs it before beginning to put on a bracer.

"Wait, stop," Vadania commands. "We don't have time for that. Imperials could show up at any moment and we need to make sure we are not here when they are." The elf holds up the bag originally used for the food to show that it is filled again, this time with the sheathed rapier sticking out of the top. "Bag it and follow me."

Danairia does as she is told and heads out in tow.
"What do you mean Imperials? They don't patrol even relatively close to here!...Right??"

Vadania sighs.
"I saw a squad of them when I went to get the food. They are looking for me. I don't know what they'll do if they find me but-"

"-No," Danairia interrupts. "It's never good to be caught by Imperials, trust me. We need to get out of here as FAST as possible."
Taken aback by the sudden change in attitude, Vadania simply nods.

"Then let me take point and follow my lead. We'll make it out of here."