X
City of Flames – 4
In the 5 minutes between giving the guards the slip by ducking into the burned out remains of a pub and collapsing on the floor from blood loss, Sarah had managed to come up with a plan the likes of which would have pleased the Inventor Himself.
It was masterful, devious by design and layered with complex simplicity the likes of which was normally reserved for the most well trained spymaster. But laying there on the floor, staring up at the ceiling through half lidded eyes as Keiter mumbled a healing chant in that strange draconic hiss of his, she had forgotten it.
All of it.
Karma, she decided, was an absolute bitch.
She had her wits about her enough to know that she had forgotten what the details were, but she remembered that it involved her house and stealing a cart. Getting her papers sneaking out of the city under cover of night-- because, after all, that's when all great escapes were made. At the fringes of her consciousness she tried to articulate this to the rest of the group but all that came out was a slur of empty syllables.
"What the hell do rolling papers have to do with anything?" A young man was saying. Some higher pitched woman-- probably an elf, the pointy eared kind-- answered him. "Oh. Her papers? What, is she some kind of a city official?" He barked a soft, disbelieving laugh and stepped into the edge of Sarah's vision.
She was tired. Too tired to really respond, but she made her best attempt at a lewd gesture.
"Feisty, too." He knelt down beside her with a surreptitious glance towards the kobold. His brow perked ever so slightly, as though he wasn't quite sure whether or not to trust Keiter. Not unusual, considering his racial type, really. In fact it was probably a miracle the stupid paladin hadn't smited him already.
Sarah braced her hand against the ashen floorboards and tried to push up, fell back with a thud and tried again. She needed to protect him. She needed to get out of here--
She needed to lay the hell down and relax.
"Easy, easy," the young man touched her shoulder. "They won't find us down here." He glanced over his shoulder. "Would you keep an eye on the door, miss? She's in no shape to travel."
Keiter inhaled deeply, sliding back on the balls of his feet until his blood stained robe was outlining his small frame, a sign Sarah had come to know meant he was having a hard time standing. "She'll be fine," he barely choked out before he slumped down to sit cross legged.
"And what's
your
story?" The young man-- the paladin-- delicately reached over to touch Sarah's wounded shoulder. He peeled back the blood sticky blouse from her shoulder and, seemingly content that the magic had done the job closing the wound, slid it back into position.
Keiter braced his little claws on Sarah's shoulder in a comforting gesture. She tried to smile, to thank him, but it just wouldn't come. She was too tired to do much of anything but lay there like a lump. The magic would take time to work, and in the meantime that meant everyone was at the mercy of the damn paladin and the inevitably stupid questions he was going to ask. Sarah gritted her teeth, trying to brace her hand again.
"Hey, relax. . . We're fine for now." The paladin muttered. "So tell me, what's going on?"
Keiter opened his muzzle a little and Sarah grabbed his hand. They made eye contact and she shook her head. "It's fine, my friend." He whispered. "Forgive her, she has a distrust for men with weapons bigger than her own." He tried for a smile but without the facial features to really pull it off, it looked more like he was about to eat something.
The paladin looked down at Sarah for a moment and then back up at her healer. "I'm sure. . . So what's really going on here?"
"I was wondering the same thing. They came into our temple and--"
