Late. Late is not good when dealing with thugs, and I have somehow ended up that way. Late that is, not a thug.
"Well, look who decided to show up- you best hope we ain't wanting your blood slave girl."
Slave girl. I used to be-I used to clean and "entertain" guests and fight my brothers and sisters. I used to sleep in shackles and eat off the ground. I used to cower in fear around laguz and beorc alike.
No more.
"What do you want, Scarface?" I spit the words out. They leave a foul taste in my mouth, because I know that whatever task he gives me will leave me feeling similarly sick. This group this… gang… is dishonorable and criminal. They hate laguz, call them sub humans, and hate the Branded even more. I am glad for my long shirt and the dark night- they hide my wings so beautifully, like I was made for the night…
I can hear rustling in the bushes around the edge of the clearing I'm in. Outnumbered isn't a good thing to be when dealing thugs either, but I can handle them. I hold my position. There are probably three of them: Scarface, Jackson and Spider.
And I'm right. They all step out from the sides and behind me, carrying weapons. Though his lackeys have axes, Scarface carries a sword that he supposedly took from his father's dead hands after they fought for the last time. Not a very likely story though- I've seen him fight. He's mediocre at best.
"What I want right now is a bit of fun, but you've been unwilling to play," he finally replies. He walks up behind me, grabbing my hips and pulling my body snugly up against his. It's not a good fit, I'm too tall compared to him. I cross my arms and pull away, but Scarface digs his fingers into my hips and holds me there. He kisses the side of my neck, then moves up to my ear. After breathing heavily into it a few times, he whispers, "We could have so much fun, you and I, and it would only be one night… unless you wanted to go again."
I pull away again, and this time he lets me go. I turn to face him as Spider snickers, and he just smiles at me. I feel sick, he makes me want to be sick…
I almost start retching then and there. I tell him exactly where he can put his offer, and drop my hands to my sides. If there's going to be a fight, I want to be able to reach my knuckles quickly.
Instead of dropping off his face, Scarface's smile stays where it is. He doesn't move, not at all, and I wonder-
Why my stomach is on fire.
It's not, when I look down, but there's a knife sticking out of it. Someone else must have been there, sitting in a tree or behind a bush. It hurts like a bitch, but I'm too breathless to scream or do anything at all except raise my head to look at Jackson.
He just shrugs.
"You should have said yes, slave girl," I hear Scarface say, "You would have been a slave again, but you'd have been my slave- and alive."
I just crumple. I curse silently, wishing I didn't have to end my life lying on the ground not twelve steps off the road.
They leave immediately after, Scarface stepping right over me on his way. I'm unsure of why he'd kill me now, but he obviously lost whatever leverage he thought he had and deemed me no longer useful. Or my fees were too expensive. My father would approve of that aspect of my job. My stepfather would just beat me.
I just stare up at the stars. Might as well, I used to enjoy it when I was kid, and what the hell else is there to do when you're bleeding out?
Ugh. I don't even have the energy to pull the stupid thing out.
"Hey!"
…
"You won't be getting anything from us, kid. Get your beorc ass out of here, and take your buddies with you."
…
"You'll regret this!"
…..Well, that was Scarface.
…..
I can hear rustling.
"Tibarn, there's a girl here."
Hey! That's me. Help me, please, I don't want to die anymore…
"Sonnofabitch!"
A young face appears above me, obscuring my view of the stars. He must have tried to lift me, which explains why I suddenly swore in pain. Guess I should have been paying better attention to what was going on.
"What, can't you lift her?"
"She's in pain. If we move her, and she passes out from the pain, she will die."
The last voice is calmer, nicer. It feels gentle, not at all slick and oily like Scarface's or prickly like Jackson's.
"What did she say?"
"Something about Jack's son," says the one leaning over me.
He leans even further over me- he's blond, and he's wearing a cute hat. He has wings too, which means he's laguz.
"Why?" I force the words out between heavy, numb lips.
Another face appears above me, with long white hair, white wings…
"An angel… Goddess, you're an angel…"
And the angel speaks to me.
"I can dull your pain, but you'll need to be coherent," he says. He is delicate looking, but with strength and kindness in his eyes. The other one isn't bad looking either, but this man, this angel, is ethereal, seeming to glow in the moonlight.
Then again, the sky has turned pink, so I may be hallucinating.
"Please… don't let me die… I don't want to die anymore…"
The angel looks confused- maybe the Goddess didn't tell him of my sin? He looks at the blond with the hat, who moves back out of my view.
I close my eyes and hear singing. The voice is pure and clean, washing over my skin like water from a stream. It is cool and refreshing, but at the same time it's warm and comforting. My pain lessens with each breath I take, until I feel that I can stand up right now and walk away. I can see now, too, that I wasn't hallucinating. The sky really is pink, the sun is rising in the sky and I can see it through the trees.
I move to sit up.
I feel hands on my shoulders instantly, pushing me back to the ground. Someone is cursing, and I feel warmth spill down onto my trousers. Right- the knife. Somehow, the fact that I've been stabbed and have four inches of metal inside of my stomach is irritating rather than painful. This is setting alarms off in the back of my mind, but these irritate me as well, so I ignore them for the moment. I sit up on my elbows, which causes no resistance from the hands again.
"Why did you stop?" I curse inwardly as my words slur together. I hate sounding drunk- especially when I'm not drunk.
I can see them all properly now- the one that asked what I said earlier is tall, well-muscled, and has a scar across his face. It looks a little like a scythe, the handle cutting across the bridge of his nose and the blade pointing down his left cheek. There is also the angel who is really a heron laguz- I feel like an idiot right now- and the blond with the hat. I can see a fourth now as well, who has been silent until now. He is tall as well, but thinner and paler. His face is narrow and his nose is rather prominent. With the exception of the heron, they are all hawks.
"Ulki heard you breathing and said you sounded as though you were injured," the heron says. His voice is still soothing, but not as powerfully so.
"Yes," I nod, "but why did you stay and help? I'm…"
I stop. I was lying on the ground on my back when they found me, and I was wearing a long shirt. They wouldn't have seen my wings. And I almost told them.
But surely they will see them now- the muscled one had walked around behind me and was now lifting me up into his arms, my shirt riding up in the back.
"We don't have time for this. We need to get her to the building up ahead- that should be where Rhys has his school. He'll be able to heal her."
His voice has a hard edge to it, like the dull side of a blade, and it burns hot like a flame. The heat isn't painful though, so I don't mind.
"I'll fly ahead," the blond replies, "To let him know we're coming."
His voice is like sunshine on my skin- comfortably warm but not a deep warmth, surface only. The pale one remains silent.
"You'll have to tell us if you get dizzy or feel like you're going to throw up. You'll be losing blood as we travel, so if you don't tell us, you could die."
"Got it. Let's go."
The heron nods and smiles encouragingly. His advice annoys me- this isn't my first "life-threatening" wound- but I know he's just trying to help.
The pale hawk and his hatted friend fly ahead. The heron and the hawk carrying me fly slower, weighed down and held back by me.
We reach the fort without incident. We enter and are greeted by a man in white robes- a priest or bishop of some kind. I remark to my carrier that I'm starting to feel pain again, which the heron replies is normal. I'm starting to lose consciousness now, the pain is getting worse quickly.
I somehow end up on a bed in a small, well-lit room without the knife in my belly, and the bottom half of my shirt has been cut away. My wound is throbbing now, sending waves of pain up my spine as well. Some wounds never heal, I guess.
The man in the white robes comes in with a staff. Oh shit- he wants to use that on me. I have to tell him, I have to make him stop-
"This won't hurt at all," he says.
"Wait-"
The staff begins to glow, and he touches it to my injury.
Pain engulfs me and a scream tears out from between my lips as the darkness closes in…