She was never one for religion, and she hardly ever prayed. She scoffed at the church goers and flirted shamelessly with the choir boys after Sunday mass, but now, in this heart pounding moment, she considered herself the most devout woman in all of the world. Everything that tumbled past her panting and bloody lips were prayers, Hail Mary, full of grace our Lord is with thee. Something something, pray for us sinners, now at the hour of our death. Amen.
There was a rule amongst her little ragtag group of thieves. Every man (and woman) for himself (and herself). They had tried to help her up when the old, festering wound from what felt like a million years ago had caused her to tumble, right in the middle of a job, but when she spat at them to just go, leave! there was no argument. Those were the rules.
So now she sat, curled up in pain in a tiny courtyard at the back of a church, leaning against a mossy gravestone, rubbing at the aching scar on her leg and the new weeping wound on her shoulder. She wouldn't cry. She wouldn't tremble when the blade would appear before her. She wouldn't show she was afraid. It was what those bastard guards wanted. They'd wanted it since she was brought into this life of thievery, her head on a pike, her blood on their hands. It was a lucky day for someone out there.
And there it was. The telltale clacking of boots on stones, the ringing shouts that echoed in elaborate helmets, the sharp and short scrape of cruel metal in wooden and leather scabbards. Triumphant shouts, taunts.
Of course, she looked up at the Guards, smiled and winked.
"Hello boys."
She was surprised she was expecting a certain Prince Charming in gleaming white robes to swoop down and save her. He hadn't been there to do that in a long time.
True to the Rosa fashion, she went with a smile on her mouth and a laugh in her throat.