A Steal

A Steal

                “Delani! Stop!” yelled Prayrwin. She didn’t expect the girl (woman, in truth, but she scarcely acted her age) to stop, of course. Prayrwin was a sergeant in the city guard, and Delani was practically her nemesis – the girl was a thief. A good one, too – she had plenty of hiding spots and a lot of skill at both escape and disguise. As she wasn’t a particularly wanted criminal (her long string of thefts was almost entirely pinching food) she had avoided any serious investigation by higher ups in the guard – which meant the angry stall-owners were entirely Prayrwin’s problem to deal with.

                I’m going to have to get a transfer to another city section if this keeps up, Prayrwin thought to herself as she ran towards the alleyway Delani had just disappeared into. Prayrwin’s hefty half-plate armour ensured that Delani had a huge speed advantage – unfortunately, those in charge of the guard would prefer that they projected an image of confidence and power rather than actually being capable of chasing down thieves.

                The western market had a small, dedicated squad of guard constables assigned to it. As the sergeant, Prayrwin was in charge of them – and, unfortunately, the scapegoat for the guard’s inability to catch more than a handful of the thieves that plagued it. She was fairly sure that if she didn’t change assignment soon she’d be demoted or even lose her job.

                For once, Prayrwin managed to reach the alleyway before Delani disappeared. The girl was halfway up a frayed rope dangling down from one of the buildings. Oh no you don’t, Prayrwin thought, rushing over.

                In the time it took her to get there, Delani managed to get another quarter of the way up – she was almost all the way up the four storey building. Prayrwin grabbed onto the rope and prepared to heave herself up – but then she had an idea. Instead of going up the rope, she gave it a hard pull. Prayrwin saw Delani take a look down and spot her, right as she gave the rope another yank.

                “Stop that!” yelled Delani.

                “Come down here and turn yourself in!” replied Prayrwin, before pulling on the rope once again.

                Delani ignored her and turned to continue climbing. But instead of continuing, she said, “Oh shit!”

                With a soft ripping sound, the rope snapped just above Delani. As the girl started to fall down, Prayrwin grinned and braced herself for a catch. With a loud scream, Delani fell right into Prayrwin’s waiting arms. “Auughr,” Prayrwin grunted.

I finally caught her – in more ways than one, thought Prayrwin. “Got you. You’re under arrest, Delani,” Prayrwin said, glaring at the girl. She was still rattled by the fall, and breathing heavily. Prayrwin dropped her onto the ground.

“Ow!” yelped Delani. She looked up at Prayrwin petulantly, and said, “There’s no way I’m getting my hands cut off for feeding myself.”

“Oh, this’ll be good. How are you planning to escape, Delani? I’ll grapple you if you get up, and Benedin and Obadiah will be here in under a minute,” gloated Prayrwin.

Prayrwin couldn’t really remember what happened next, beyond Delani muttering ‘like this’ and grabbing her ankle. She did clearly remember getting shaken awake by Benedin a short time later, however. And whatever Delani had done had left her ankle tingling very painfully.

Telling her superiors everything that happened turned out to be a bad idea. Not only had she lost Delani again; but the girl had managed to overpower her in front of several witnesses! Of course, there weren’t actually any witnesses, and had Prayrwin not mentioned it no-one would have been the wiser. Instead, she got kicked out of the guard.

Obadiah got the promotion to sergeant as her replacement, although at the ‘sorry you wound up as the scapegoat’ party he managed to ask every single constable that came to take his place (none accepted). Although the stall-owners and shop-keepers were told (in great detail) how the sorry state of the western market was entirely Prayrwin’s fault, within the guard it was well known that it was due to some stupid politics causing the western market guard to be understaffed. There is an eastern market, you see.

Getting fired was something Prayrwin had been prepared for. She’d leave the city behind, and travel east – see if she could pick up a job in a town or with a merchant convoy. It wasn’t the end of all hope, and unlike some of the guards she didn’t mind actual combat.

But before she left, she’d find a certain thief…

*****

                Delani smiled as she looked over her collection of ‘jewellery’. Every piece had come from the same place, and every piece was special.

                A couple of weeks ago she had been doing her job, such as it was – stealing particular things for particular people within the city of Littlecurve. She’d snuck into a mansion in the wee hours of the morning, found a certain small box and nicked it. But on her way out – in an attempt to avoid the one guard the family had on their payroll – she’d snuck into what had seemed to be (to her) a blatantly obvious hidden room.

                The room, however, had the appearance of being untouched for years – probably decades. And inside… Inside was an incredible haul of jewellery, carefully laid out on a small table. A treasure like that, completely unguarded, was too much for her – she took it all. After laying low for a couple of days, and hearing nothing about the theft beyond the ‘strange discovery of a forgotten room’, she felt the coast was clear enough to try and sell the jewellery.

                But she hadn’t been able to resist trying one of the rings on – just once. A silver ring, with a large, faintly red gem set in it. She slipped it on her finger, only to find that it fit perfect. That was strange, but not as strange as the feeling the ring gave her. As if she could summon fire to her fingertips on demand. She didn’t know how she knew, but she tried to do it – and all of a sudden, a small flame flickered to life at the tip of her raised pinkie finger.

                “Cool,” she had muttered. Curious, she then tried on the rest of the jewellery – she managed to put on every piece, and with each she felt able to do some new, small thing. One allowed her to control small winds; another to control the flow of liquids. Several, combined, would give her the ability to melt through metal; a pair of bracelets would lock the jewellery to her, preventing others from removing pieces without her agreement. One necklace in particular would allow her to shock anyone she touched – knocking them unconscious.

                Delani could see almost unlimited potential in the abilities the jewellery granted her – despite how minor they were. With them, she could perform confidence tricks that none could understand, or break into just about anywhere. It was the opportunity of a lifetime.

                It was also how she’d gotten to overconfident, and nearly gotten caught by Prayrwin. After escaping, she’d removed the jewellery to clear her head and have a proper think about using it all. It didn’t seem to have affected her thought process, just distracted her too much and made her overconfident.

                After taking a day to think about it, she had made her decision. She was going to put the jewellery on, and never take it off again. She reached out for the closest ring and-

                There was a knock at the door. With a mumbled curse, she called out, “Coming!” and covered up her haul with a blanket. Wouldn’t do to have the ‘landlord’ get greedy suddenly. And all her friends were other thieves.

                Preparing her best smile to cover her disappointment and greet her guest, Delani opened the door.

                Prayrwin was standing there, and Delani only had a moment to be utterly shocked before a gloved fist smashed into her face. The next thing she knew she was on the ground, dazed, with Prayrwin on top of her.

                “I’m sure you’re about to knock me out again – however the hell you manage it – but I thought I’d pop by before I hit the road. You got me fired, you bloody thief, and if I’d had my damn way I’d have smashed my way through that door weeks ago. I don’t know why the city council hate the western market, and I don’t know who told all you bloody thieves that we can’t come and get you, and I don’t know who bloody decided we can’t come find you in your damn obvious lurks, but I’ve known where you live for months,” Prayrwin said, angrily.

                When Delani only groaned incoherently in reply, Prayrwin added, “Hah! Looks like that rattled you more than expected. Did you know I actually got a warning after I punched that thief we got last month in the face? I gave him a bruise and I got a warning. Then they cut off both of his hands, because some rich bastard had been robbed by the guy.”

                Leaving Delani to recover, Prayrwin stood up and looked around the room. “So this is where you live, huh? As much as you’re ‘off the records’, it only took a handful of coins to get the owner to tell us you live here,” she said.

                The room was small, and only had a couple of pieces of simple furniture – a rough-hewn bed (that was covered in comfortable, expensive blankets and boasted a very comfortable looking mattress) and a table that Delani had draped a blanket over. A wardrobe was built into one wall, although it was closed. Prayrwin opened it, expecting it to be pretty empty (Delani had only ever worn two different sets of clothes in the markets) but it was surprisingly almost full – packed with outfits for all sorts of occasions.

                Beneath the clothes lay a few locked boxes – probably containing thief’s tools. If the girl has clothes to pass unnoticed in all sorts of situations, she has to be one of the proper thieves; not just some urchin brat. Which is what I figured anyway, actually, Prayrwin thought.

                Turning back around, she found Delani staggering to her feet. “Get out,” Delani muttered, holding her head.

                “Pfft, when I feel like I’m done. No-one will care that I roughed up a thief, especially not since I’m about to skip town,” responded Prayrwin. “Considering that you’re single-handedly responsible for severely harming the livelihoods of almost every single merchant in the western markets I’d say you’re getting off easily.”

                “It’s my home, you lunatic,” Delani said, finally shaking off her daze. She was just in time to see Prayrwin grab the blanket she’d laid over the table. Her rapid plea of “Don’t touch that!” fell on deaf ears, and Prayrwin swept the blanket off with a flourish.

                “Well, what do we have here,” she said, staring at the riches beneath.

                “They’re mine!” shouted Delani, rushing at Prayrwin.

                Prayrwin easily held Delani at bay with one arm and continued looking at the jewellery. “There’s no way you didn’t steal these, girl. But you’re in luck – I’m not a member of the guard anymore; I don’t care if you’ve robbed some rich, powerful bastard of his family jewels. You can keep ‘em, just let me have a look,” Prayrwin responded.

                Unable to get past Prayrwin, Delani asked, “Just a look?”

                “Just a look. I’ve always liked pretty jewellery, but it doesn’t suit me. One of the things I’ll inflict on my kids, if I ever have any,” replied Prayrwin. She reached out and picked up one of the necklaces, causing Delani to gasp.

                “Don’t-“ began Delani.

                “I’m just looking, girl, calm down. I’m even kind of sorry I punched you, but I’ve had a shitty fucking week,” said Prayrwin.

                Delani kept a watchful eye on Prayrwin as she picked up each piece, and looked them over, one by one. After she set down the last, twenty or so minutes later, Prayrwin said, “These are magic, aren’t they?”

                Delani was shocked, but managed to say, “Y-Yes, they are” before her better judgement could intervene.

                “And one of them is how you managed to shock me?” asked Prayrwin.

                Delani didn’t respond, but Prayrwin noticed her glancing at the jewellery before she could stop herself. “And that’s a yes. Well, it’s no concern of mine. Try not to get caught doing something stupid with them – they might make you a better thief but the reason you haven’t been brought in is because someone is protecting the west market thieves. And if one of your ‘clients’ decides they don’t want you around anymore, you’re gone,” said Prayrwin. She made her way past Delani, and headed for the door.

                “I, uh,” mumbled Delani, unsure of what to say.

                At the door, Prayrwin raised a hand in goodbye and said, “May we never meet again.”

*****

                Prayrwin left town a couple of days later with a merchant caravan that was headed west, away from the sea. It was a small caravan – a few wagons and carts, a coach carrying a rich traveller, and a handful of other travellers on horseback. The owner had been happy to have Prayrwin sign on – rumour had it that a new gang of bandits was robbing caravans at random along the route he had to follow.

                She was feeling happy about her decision as she rode along – getting out of a stressful situation was good. And she hadn’t had a chance to ride a horse for years, despite it being something she quite enjoyed. It was a bright, sunny day. Pretty much perfect, she thought to herself.

                Looking up ahead at the cluster of travellers who were keeping with the caravan for safety, her mood suddenly changed. Oh, come on, she thought, speeding up her horse to catch up with them.

                Her worst fears were confirmed when she heard their voices.

                “Delani,” she said, drawing up alongside the travellers. Amongst them was, of course, Delani.

                “Oh, Prayrwin! Hi!” responded Delani pleasantly.

                “What in the name of the city’s five founders are you doing here?” asked Prayrwin, glaring.

                “Well, I took your advice, sort of – I’ve left the city, I’m going to travel a bit and use my skills to get at treasures no-one will miss!” replied Delani.

                “And you just happened to decide to head out with this particular caravan on this particular day?” asked Prayrwin.

                “Yeah, pretty much,” said Delani.

                “Fuck.”