[Oba]A Charity Case [Prala | Shavas]

[Faithofthefallen]

Prala poked her head over the side of the wagon bed, glancing this way and that to check for witnesses. Seeing no one in sight in the empty alleyway, she slipped off the wagon with a quiet groan, clutching at her ribs with her good hand. She was not in good condition. Clad in a dirty, ragged nightgown, barefoot, with tangled hair. Her swollen and discolored arm wrapped in a makeshift sling torn from the hem of of her gown, she was clearly vulnerable. Luckily, she also clearly had neither money nor anything of worth on her person. She could only hope that no one felt like causing trouble for a ragged beggar.

Tiptoeing to the mouth of the alley, she peered out at the people bustling by and bit back a gasp, pulling herself back into the shadows as fast as she could manage. Thos were Obans milling about beyond her hiding place. The driver of the cart had been Matori, she had assumed the man would be carting goods back to his homeland, it had never occured to her that he would bring her to the heart of enemy territory.... Not that he had know he had a travel companion. Well, two. She Circled the cart again and lifted up the large oiled cloth over the top of the boxes and clicked her tongue, unable to keep a small smile from her face as the Sailscale crept out from between the crates, its long tail lashing back and forth as it gave a flap of its wings and launched up to her good shoulder. The creature had followed her captor from Sauti by some miracle, likely simply following a source of food, but still. When she had crept away from Vaughn's prison she had been certain the wild creatures would make quick work of her, when the Sailscale had erupted from hiding to scare off a hunting Witu that had been intent on making her dinner, she had nearly had a heart attack. But she had recognized the scar marring the creature wings and found herself laughing and crying, and all around making a mess of their strange reunion. "I have no food for you, you silly thing." She had whispered, and then shook her head at herself for talking to it as if it could understand her words. Regardless, the Sailscale had followed her on her journey through Tale and it was good to have a familiar face in the heart of enemy territory. For that was what Oba had always been to her, the birthplace of the enemy. She scowled, as she tore the oiled cloth off of the cart and awkwardly tugged it over her head and around her shoulders as best as she could manage. Concealing the rather large lizard underneath its bulk as best as she could manage as well as her long white hair and the features that would mark her as a foreigner from a distance. It wouldn't fool anyone who bothered to look, but she hoped these proud people wouldn't deign to bother.

"Hey! What are you doing with my cart!" A man's voice rang out from the doorway at the back of the alley. "Crap!" Prala hissed, and took off into the crowd, dodging bodies ducking her head to hide her face. She didn't hear the sounds of pursuit, but she kept going until she was far from the scene of the crime.  

[Faithofthefallen]

Shavas peered into one of the mirrors set up at the market stall, biting her lips for color and pushing her bangs back out of her eyes. She had moved them back and forth throughout the morning, unable to decide between the comfort of having them out of her face, and the style of having them hang forward. She turned her attention back to the pair of elaborate slippers she had been admiring. Black embroidered with golden thread, the stitches so delicate her fingers itched to trace each line. She counted her meager stash of coins again in her head. She didn't have enough for both the slippers and the fan she had been drooling over earlier. She should have known to bring more coin, but how was she to know everything would be so expensive in Kalv? She had initially resisted her father's order that she accompany his merchant caravans to the Oban outpost. She knew he intended it as punishment for angering that idiot boy's family, to show her the life she might look forward to as a common warrior rather than the wife of some lord. It was true, she much preferred the comforts of home, but at the thought of all the exotic treasures she might hunt down in the settlement known as the center of foreign trade, she had given in with only moderate fussing.

She would have to ponder what to purchase with the rest of her money. She was heading back to Jatine tomorrow morning with the rest of her party, she had until then. Shavas continued to work her way down the streets. As she progressed, the streets grew narrower and more tangled, the crowds thinned. Shavas glanced up at the cracked and stained walls that rose up around her and wrinkled her nose, she must have taken a wrong turn somewhere.

Ahead, she heard a furious shout and the sounds of a scuffle. Curses, gruff laughter, muffled thumps. She was already marching towards the sounds when a cry of pain rang out and the mocking sounds of laughter began again. Shavas loosened her elaborately wrapped dress and let it fall to the earth, forgotten, as she ran. Her tight bodysuit more appropriate for the situation unfolding ahead. Shavas wasn't quite sure why she was bothering to head towards the sounds of a thieving. It happened all the time in these narrow corriders, and interfering in one really wasn't her concern. Call it instinct, or bravado, or simply being in the mood to knock some heads together, but she made a beeline for the commotion.

As she skidded around the last corner, she beheld the sight of three bedraggled men, two Matori and an Oban, who were standing shoulder to shoulder in front of a young woman in her early twenties. The woman was clearly a foreigner, her face was a dusky golden tan rather than Matori blue or Oban brown. Her crystals a delicate pink. Most shocking of all was her long fall of pure white hair. Those colors didn't go together on any of the races Shavas had encountered in her young life. White hair was a shifter trait, the pink crystals and warm skin looked more like a leaf earthling than a shifter though. A half breed then! Shavas peered closer at the strange woman, her eyes were wide, with fear, yes, and pain certainly. She was hunched over as if every breath hurt and one arm was bound to her chest. She had draped a weatherworn oiled cloth about herself in some pathetic excuse of a disguise, it had fallen away for the most part, except for a lump on her back that appeared to be... moving? Rather than trying to fend off her attackers, the woman was frantically trying to keep her hump hidden. Shavas shuddered, how terribly sad, she would rather hide herself than fight.

The young girl stepped out of the shadows, flipping a small dagger through the fingers of one hand nonchalantly as she whistled at the men. "That'll be enough of that." She announced casually. Examining the fingernails of her other hand as if horribly bored of the conversation already. Her brother would have cursed her for a showboat.  

[Faithofthefallen]

Prala almost couldn't blame her attackers for laughing at her young would be rescuer's proclamation, but something in the young girl's eyes left Prala quite sure that these men would sincerely regret it if they didn't heed the warning.

She hissed in pain as her sailscale adjusted its grip on her tunic, its movements jostling her damaged ribs and arm. The lump made by its sinuous body was the source of this problem, the men had noticed the creature moving and assumed that she was hiding something worth stealing. Prala kept readjusting her makeshift cloak, trying to keep the sailscale hidden from view, but the silly creature was bound and determined to protect her and kept fighting with the oiled cloth. It had already caused her hood to fall off, baring her face and hair and making it clear that she was neither Oban nor Matori.

Prala was in a mess, she had no supplies, no weapons, she was injured and exhausted. As she had watched the men close in she had closed her eyes in defeat before the sailscale had begun to wriggle, reminding her that she had someone to protect. She was sure that after these men realized what was under her cloak they would either take it or kill it, and she was not about to allow either.

So as the men laughed, Prala bared her teeth at them in a defiant grimace and swung her foot out in a sweeping circle that knocked one of them off of his feet and sent him crashing to the ground with a curse.  

[Faithofthefallen]

Shavas laughed approvingly as the young woman swept one of her attackers off of his feet and used the distraction to her advantage. She pulled her knee to her chest, spun on the ball of her foot and quickly extended so her sandal smashed into the side of the nearest man's jaw, whose head spun away from the impact as his eyes rolled back and he slumped limply to the ground in a heap. "Bulls-eye" she gloated under her breath with a short chuckle, her teachers would have been so proud.

But Shavas had already spun away, she was in her element. She checked on the foreigner, who seemed to be handling herself just fine, but in that moment of distraction, the remaining man, a Matori, came up from behind and grabbed her. She snarled in irritation at the audacity of the man and instinctively stomped hard on his instep, eliciting a yelp of pain. Shavas grinned devilishly, hunched, and then used her full body to drive her elbow into his soft middle with all her strength. When he released her to double over and heave, she spun and kneed him in the face, grabbing the back of his head with both hands and pulling his forehead into her incoming kneecap with a force that sent him reeling for a moment before he toppled to the side. "Pow!" she muttered under her breath.

Shavas shook her head in disgust at her two enemies, so easily defeated, and returned her attention to the girl. Who was crouched against the wall, clearly in distress, the man she had dispatched was groaning on the ground, clutching his groin, but the woman was bracing her good arm against her ribcage and struggling to catch her breath.
Shavas walked over, casually kicking the third man out of her way as she passed, and helped the woman to her feet. She parted the woman's cloak and cast an objective eye at her ribcage, which was mottled with bruises. "You're going to need a healer to look at that." She jumped back as a small reptilian thing poked its head out of the woman's hair and snapped at her with a hiss. "Aaah, so thats what you were protecting. Keep your creature under control, would you?" She patted the woman's hand and pulled her along with her back towards the milling crowds in the distance.  

[Faithofthefallen]

Prla followed quite a ways, glassy eyed with pain and trying to master her pain enough to focus on her surroundings again. After a while, she realized she was walking through the market, holding a strangers -an Obans hand, with a wild sailscale clutching her by the hair, and she probably looked about as deranged and filthy as most Obans expected of outsiders. She peered at the small brown hand grasping hers and gave a halfhearted tug. The girl glanced back with a raised eyebrow, "Don't be an idiot," she snapped, raising Prala's hackles in defense. "You don't know where you're going and we'd lose each other in an instant in this crowd." Prala wilted under her logic, but stewed in silence for a few more minutes.

"Who the hell are you, anyways?" Her voice was hoarse with pain and disuse, it had been a while since she had needed to speak to another earthling. Besides that, Prala was a woman of few words to begin with. She preferred her trees, and her animals, and to leave other people to their own devices. Especially Obans. Her old scars seemed to burn, she remembered again the face of her mother as she bled out down the front of her ragged tunic. Weeks of slavery, years of hiding. All because these people couldn't be happy with what they already had. Her gaze was dark as she glared at back of the girl's perfectly coiffed hair.

The stranger abruptly stopped, had a brief exchange with a shopkeeper, and handed Prala a skewer of steaming chunks of meat. "You look like you need the food." She stated by way of explanation, before snatching "Prala's free hand again and dragging her down the street.  

[Faithofthefallen]

Shavas had never known foreigners were so huffy. She could feel the woman's hard gaze on the back of her head like a brand and by some miracle of the Gods managed to avoid saying so.

"I'm Shavas"
She replied simply, "You need food, and rest, and healing. I'm bringing you somewhere where you can get all of that."

Ducking and weaving through the milling bodies, she towed her new friend through the crowd like a well worn doll. "And I can feel you staring at me like that!" she snapped irritably, her crimson eyes flashing. "What, are you daft, or did you just hit your head in the scuffle?"

She tossed her head and tugged faster, not particularly caring about the stares as she pushed her way through the people, sending more than a few stumbling and cursing out of their way. She cast them a rude gesture and continued on her merry way.