With one last strain of aching muscles and a wet 'shlopp' sound, Isabella flopped onto the pier and groaned miserably into the wooden boards. She managed to turn her head enough so that one cold cheek rested on the filthy ground and she could see off in the direction where she'd swam from. For a moment she fancied that she could see her beautiful ship sinking sadly off in the distance, but it was only a trick of the light. She'd been pretty far off shore when those horned bastards had- well. It didn't matter.
"Hey! What are you doing here? This dock is off-limits, civilian." Heavy footsteps sounded from behind her, and she felt a pointed toe nudging the back of her head.
Isabella's eyes narrowed and with lightning-speed she rolled onto her side, grabbed two ankles and yanked them apart. The guardsman fell with an undignified yelp. She had stood before he'd really hit the ground. She smiled down at his dazed expression and deliberately placed one foot on either side of his torso, leaning down provocatively to hook a finger under his collar. "Hey handsome," she purred. "I'm looking for a boat. Have you seen one?"
After a rousing chase around town, Isabella easily slipped away from the contingent of slow-moving guardsmen in heavy plate armor.
Apparently her new friend had spent so long enjoying her company that he'd missed when he was meant to report back. It was fine- she'd gotten all the information she needed out of him anyways.
"Ah." Isabella sucked in a deep breath as something particularly rank reached her nose. "I love the smell of a really filthy tavern. Stinks like home." Her eyes flicked to the door as a couple of unusually weedy guardsmen walked in and began scanning the crowd. 'Poor dears.' Her lips quirked up. 'Someone got the shit route.' She gracefully extended a foot as two men stumbled past with mugs clench in meaty hands. The man closest to her went down in a spectacular spray of cheap liquor and indignant shouts went up from a group at the table behind them.
A husky woman with bloodshot eyes leapt up from her seat and held her tunic away from her chest with a disgusted expression, trying to keep the nasty swill off her skin. The man who hadn't stumbled sniggered and elbowed his companion who was just now getting back on his feet. "Sorry sweetcheeks."
"Right, that's it." The woman abandoned her futile attempt to stay dry and swung her fist directly into the first man's jaw with a nasty 'crack' sound and a whirl of tangled red hair. The downed man bellowed like a wounded boar and his companion lurched towards her. She gave a feral grin and spat in his face and stepped to the side so he missed her. "Bar fight!" someone shouted gleefully, and the pub erupted into chaos. Isabella turned back to her drink with a satisfied smile and drank the whole thing down before casually tossing it aside. It hit the table with a clang and rolled off to the floor as she drew her leg over the bench and slipped away in the confusion to the room she had rented upstairs.
"I think I'm going to like this city."