Xellyndra: Fools to Cage a Wolf
“Sonofa troll, this is gonna hurt.” The words are spoken low and calm despite the immediate situation of the speaker. She grits her teeth in anticipation, deftly twisting her tiny body as it careens through the air, impressive catlike reflexes on display. The impact comes a split-heartbeat later, just after she manages to get her head tucked around and away from the oncoming wall. The pitiful thud of her meager weight against the stone is easily overawed by the sharp crunch of a rib, but better a cracked rib than a cracked skull. A sharp breath of shock hisses through clenched teeth, but she doesn’t pause for the pain, quickly shifting her body again to get her feet back under her as she rebounds off the wall. Bare feet slap onto the floor, knees not bending soon enough to absorb all the shock of landing, and a lance of pain runs up from her ankles. A pause, and a hissed curse, and she’s off, springing for the barred door of the cell as it swings closed. Had she landed properly, she would have actually made it, but her reflexes still aren’t fully developed, and the flubbed landing cost her too much time.
The door slams shut with a bang, the locking mechanism snapping to, and then rattles in its frame as forty-some pounds of pissed off streetrat barges into it. With a shriek of indignation she leaps up onto the lowest crossbar, each dirty hand clinging tightly to a thick horizontal bar, “Lemme outta here, ya twice-damned spawn of an ogre!” The bulky jailor grins at her through the bars, distinctly amused by the little punk’s display, which only serves to further enrage her. “I mean it! Lemme out, ya pile of rotting troll dung! Your mother was a gully dwarf’s bootlicker!” Before she even realizes she’s gone too far, she is flying across the cell again, propelled by the planting of the jailor’s meaty fist square into her shrunken stomach.
Taken by surprise in her ranting, she doesn’t manage to react this time, landing and skidding across the floor almost full on the fractured rib. This time the rib breaks, sharp bone curving inward dangerously and laying a jagged scratch across her lung. Her empty stomach convulses from the powerful blow, struggling to spew something up, the wiry muscles of her throat standing out starkly. Fortunately, she is unfortunate enough to have not eaten in the last four days, and her stomach finds nothing to expel. A fit of harsh coughing wracks her malnutritioned body, spattering the floor before her dirt-streaked face with a thin misting of blood. Emerald eyes clench shut, squeezing out a pair of unwelcome tears as she curls up in a fetal position. She turns her face to the floor, hiding her tears, as she remembers all too well the jailor’s previous amused expression.
Unbeknownst to her, the guard now looks anything but amused. A deep frown of embarrassed regret creeps over his expression as he raises a beefy hand to rub the back of his thick head. The man sighs, speaking in a gruff, half-apologetic bass rumble, “Damn. . .Look kid, yer better off in here anyway, what with the weather bein’ like it is. An’ you’ll be out of here soon as you return the man’s money. I’ll, send for a healer, have him see to you.” For another moment he waits, but seeing no sign of response from the girl, he sighs once more and walks heavily away, muttering under his breath.
She listens to the thumping footsteps fade away before mumbling to herself, “The name’s Xellyndra, not kid, damned oaf.” Suppressing a grunt of pain, she levers herself into a sitting position, holding one arm firm around her ribs while using the other to push herself upright. She drags herself slowly to her feet and walks to the cell door, peeking both ways down the hall before her keen eyes settle on the lock. “Idiots don’t even know how to perform a half-decent search.” Her free hand slips inside her vest, rummaging around an inner pocket before emerging with a fat roll of leather, much too fat to have not made a bulge in her clothing, yet it didn’t. She yanks the tie loose with her teeth and spreads the roll out on the cold floor, revealing a surprisingly complete set of master lockpicks, a possession more than unusual for one her age.
Working quickly now, she mumbles softly to herself, “Can’t blame ‘em I suppose.” Her expert eye chooses out two picks. One in each hand, she sticks her arms through the bars and inserts the picks into the keyhole. “After all, they did pat me down.” Working blind, her fingers still move with surety, feeling out the mechanism of the lock and beginning to work the inner tumblers. “Why should they expect a measly streetrat to be wearing a vest of holding?” This draws an impishly amused grin over her features. She considers, as she works the lock, that the vest really should have raised suspicion. After all, it’s the only piece of clothing she’s wearing that isn’t reduced to filthy rags. But her derogatory musings on the ineptitude of the authorities is interrupted as the final tumbler turns over with a soft click. Not taking the time to gloat over the achievement, she quickly gathers up her tools and redeposits them within her vest, the inner pocket lying perfectly flush despite its load. “Give back the money, what a joke. How do they expect me to eat?” She slips back over to the door, once again holding her ribs carefully with one hand, and pushes the door slowly open. Stepping out with a self-satisfied smirk, she looks around for a back way out of the pitiful little jail. “Nobody locks up a Veracan. People of the Wolf don’t take kindly to cages.”
Down at the end of the cellblock, her sharp eyes catch sight of a small grate. With a quick glance over her shoulder, toward the door leading to the guardroom, she scampers over to the grate. The opening would be much too small for an adult, but her malnutritioned body should just barely fit. It takes her few moments of heaving and groaning before she finally shifts the grate out of the way, and over the heaviness of her breathing she can hear footsteps approaching from the other side of the guardroom door. She glances to the grate, realizing she won’t be able to pull it back into place once she’s down, and frowns softly, “Well, no clean getaway this time. Oh well.” Still trying to be careful of her rib, she sits down on the edge of the hole and drops her feet in. Just then, the guardroom door swings open, and two men walk in. The first she recognizes as the foolish merchant whose pocket she picked only an hour past. The second, wearing the simple robes of a cleric, is supposedly the promised healer. Apparently, the mark meant to demand his money be returned before any healing was bestowed upon the little thief.
Unable to resist the chance for one last taunt, Xell slips her hand back inside her vest and pulls out the merchant’s coinpurse, dangling it in front of her and rattling the coins loudly. “This what you’re lookin’ for, ya overfed brother of a donkey?” The merchant’s eyes narrow, his face turning a very satisfying shade of angry red before he leaps forward, running down the hallway toward the giggling scamp. “Sorry donkey-boy, this just ain’t your lucky day.” With that, a smartass wink, and one more impish giggle, she drops down through the hole, disappearing safely into the underlying sewers.
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