Originally written:
08.12.2005

Revised:
06.17.2012

Reviews/comments/feedback are always loved and adored!

I'm gonna fuck it up again
I'm gonna do another detour
Unpave my path
And if you wanna make sense
Whatcha looking at me for
I'm no good at math

- Fiona Apple - A Mistake


Frantic as her thoughts were as she hurried upstairs and then climbed the rope, she didn't immediately notice the black-robed figure standing in the far corner as she pulled herself up into her loft room. Akara was actually halfway across the room before the figure stiffened and turned away from her meager book case, watching her levelly from beneath a black hood, one of her books held in both delicate, golden-skinned hands.

The thief stopped dead in her tracks, caught in that unforgettable stare. "M-Majere!" Akara whispered, taking a step backwards. "W... what are you d-doing here?"

"It has been over a year and a half," he said, softly, "and you have never returned."

"N-no... I didn't, did I," the thief cleared her throat, backing away another step even though he hadn't moved from where he stood, "I wonder why that is..."

The archmagus released her from his stare long enough to turn the book over in his hands, running one set of fingertips over the well-used cover. He looked lost in thought for a moment, and Akara managed to retreat several more paces before he raised his eyes to her again, trapping her in place. "I still frighten you, even here in your own domain?" It was a rhetorical question, and they both knew it. Akara didn't reply; he didn't seem to expect her to.

Raistlin turned for a moment to place the book back on its shelf, a detailed accounting of the War of the Lance that she'd scored in a card game downstairs a few years ago. The thief took the opportunity to take several more steps back, not daring to turn her back on him for even a moment. He could move wicked-fast, she knew. Way faster than he looked like he should.

What frightens me now? she wondered, Is it that he could kill me in a matter of seconds? No... it can't be. I've always welcomed that, haven't I? Akara, always so careful to never look too closely at herself, found that she had to examine the situation. If nothing else, because it was Raistlin who was involved. He's like a very poisonous snake that I keep insisting on holding my hand out to, waiting for the time he bites me just so I can say 'told you so' to myself.

"Why are you here?" she asked in a shaky voice, after he had turned back and frozen her mid-step once more, pinned by that golden gaze.

"I should think the answer obvious," he rasped quietly.

I'm terrified. "Humor me," Akara whispered, eyes widening as he started to approach. No, no, keep your distance! The thief thought frantically, retreating hastily as he came closer. She yelped loudly in surprise when her leading foot encountered nothing but air, and began to fall backwards through the open trapdoor-

A golden-tinted hand locked around her scarred wrist, and the mage braced against his staff while she pulled herself upright. Her other hand still held the two books he'd sent. Akara stammered a bit of nervous nothingness and tried to take her wrist back from him, but much like over a year and a half ago, his grip did not budge. Raistlin instead stared at the scars under his fingers. "These..."

"Your bite is worse than your bark, archmagus," the thief said with a nervous, slightly-unhinged laugh, snatching her wrist back as he finally released her and stepped away.

"You are frightened," said the most feared man on all of Krynn.

Akara snorted. "I think we've already established this, Majere."

"Is it the good kind of fear," his gaze bore into her, nearly palpable in its intensity, "or the bad?"

"Oh gods," the thief choked, "I don't- you remember that? I don't want to know. Please, just get away from me..." But as always, Raistlin seemed to think that the opposite was in order. He reached forward and took her by both elbows in a firm grip, drawing her away from the open trap door. "Majere..."

"Which is it?" he repeated.

"B-both..." she said, in a small voice, her shoulders hunching as though reflexively making herself a smaller target. "I-" Akara swallowed, "I want you to let go of me."

"Literally, or figuratively?" asked the Archmage, his expression unreadable in the shadows of his hood.

"Both!" Akara snarled, suddenly angry for a reason she couldn't place. "I want you to keep the hell away from me, Majere! You're so dangerous that it's addicting, but at the same time..."

"Yes?" Raistlin prompted, sounding a touch breathless in the face of her sudden anger.

"Why do you insist on knowing everything there is to know about everything you encounter?" she snapped, and then paused to wonder if her words made any sense. Apparently, it did. Raistlin pulled away from her, just a bit, and his stare turned quietly contemplative.

"It is... what I do," he replied, finally, shrugging his thin shoulders beneath the thick velvet of his robes and cloak, "you pick locks... I pick minds."

"You shouldn't say that to a thief," Akara snapped, not really thinking about it. "We all know that it's pretty damn intimate for the lock."

Raistlin's sardonic smirk was visible even in the darkness of his hood. "Indeed it is."

Wondering where she'd lost track of this entire conversation, the thief found herself taking stock of the situation. She was standing a mere arms-length away from Raistlin, his hands on her elbows, his stare boring into her skull like she was something to be dissected (or picked), and still no real explanation for any of it. Downstairs the city guard was probably being notified that hey, Akara Krinir was a freaking thief, come get her! And said thief felt her left eye start to twitch, just slightly. Deep breath in, deep breath out, and then...

The world outside roared. Here on the third level of the Golden Hourglass, the floor shook badly enough that she grabbed Raistlin's arms to keep from tumbling backwards again, the thin books he'd written falling out of her grip. Another shock through the floor followed immediately, and she looked to the mage, wondering (with reason!) what the fuck was going on.

But he looked mostly surprised, himself. Clear across the room, the glass pane of her expensive window shattered. The thief winced.

"I should never have rolled out of bed this afternoon," Akara commented once the rumbling had stopped, her heart hammering in her ribs and her adrenalin rising to the challenge like an old friend, "I just knew it was going to be one of those nights."

Raistlin blinked at her, and Akara couldn't contain her somewhat feral grin. "What's the worried look for? It's only a bunch of explosions strong enough to knock a three-story inn around," she pried her elbows out of his grip and went to the window, plain boots crunching on fragments of glass. The cat-burglar took a deep breath before continuing on a more serious note, not looking at him.

"This... this right here, is the kind of fear I'm good with. Not so much your creepy stalker shit." Akara peered out the window, past the tall tree just outside, and then pointed before the archmage could steer things back to being about him. Wasn't everything about him, anyway? Did it all have to be examined and dissected? It was all over, anyway, she'd never sneak into his tower again.

"And look," speaking of the tower, "someone's trying to roast your home."

Raistlin didn't seem very concerned. "The Conclave, I would presume," he said, but didn't approach the window, "they have undoubtably grown tired of waiting for me to make a move."

"It looks like someone is firing back, from... the Death Walk?" Not much could really be seen but flashes of fire from here in the dark, even without buildings in the way. But she knew the Tower's layout; knew the height of its various parts, even now. It didn't even take thought, her world had revolved around it for so long.

"My apprentice," Raistlin sounded arrogantly dismissive, "you will not have met him."

"Obviously, Majere," Akara allowed herself to snark, "since I've been avoiding you like the fucking plague. But tell me, isn't the timing a little strange?"

"Not if the Conclave had notice of my departure," he sounded vaguely amused, here, like he was silently laughing at someone. Akara glanced at the Archmage with suspicion, but had the impression that it wasn't aimed at her... for once.

"Another question," she said slowly, watching him.

"By all means," Raistlin gestured vaguely at the room, "I am at your disposal."

"If the tower is so indestructible," Akara asked carefully, "why is your apprentice bothering to fire back?"

"I would imagine it involves a sense of self-preservation," his tone was dry, but Akara knew that was an amused glint in his golden eyes, barely visible under his hood.

Akara felt her eyebrows climb upwards a bit. "Ohhh... I see. Your apprentice has a surprise coming to him later, doesn't he?"

Raistlin inclined his head, a bit of light from the window catching his smirk. But Akara's attention was snapped back to the open window itself, breath hitching suddenly as something very faint caught her eye. Movement, coming up the tree.

"Hide!" the thief hissed at him, almost too-quietly. Majere at least didn't question or argue, he simply stepped out of the window's line of sight. There into the darkness to one side, where the moonlight and bursts of distant fire didn't illuminate him at all.

Akara meanwhile ducked, rolling onto the straw pallet to get closer to the window-sill. She ignored the stinging bits of glass that bit into her back... worse had happened on missions without her so much as yelping. She pressed flush against the wall, on her side, her hand digging under her sleeping pallet for her kitchen knife. After the last visit to the tower, she'd started keeping a blade around. Even if she didn't really know how to use it...

The thief glanced towards where Raistlin stood, his hood hiding any trace of skin or hair that might have glinted oddly. Just another bit of night unless you knew where he was, darker than the shadows around him. She wouldn't give the interloper a chance to notice that last detail, where the soft black loomed as an unnatural blot of ink in the lighter shadows.

Moments later, though it seemed like much longer, a leg eased itself into the room over her hidden form. Before Akara could rise and strike from behind as she'd thought to do, there was a loud swish and a thunk, and the intruder crumpled under the Staff of Magius. Akara raised both of her eyebrows at the archmage, who stayed out of sight of the window still, before shaking her head and creeping for the body.

Leave it to the black-robe to completely screw up her plan. What had she bothered hiding for at all? Pfft. Akara reached the stranger then, and in a very showy manner, she heaved the intruder up to the sill, and shoved him out. "Hey, you creeps!" Akara yelled out at no-one in particular, putting her hands on the sill and leaning out. "What's the big idea, eh?"

Raistlin pulled her back abruptly, managing to grab a fist-full of the back of her tunic while still staying carefully hidden from the light. An arrow whizzed past where she'd been, and thunked into the floor. Akara shoved his hand off of her back and stalked angrily across the room, yanking open a secret compartment in the wall and pulling out her mask. As often as Akara had always ended up taunting her prey and her prey's guards, it had always been necessary for non-Raistlin missions in Palanthas.

Especially when she'd suddenly started to gain a reputation again, the stories of her exploits... elsewhere leaking out, somehow. The thief stormed back up to the window and leaned out again, holding her mask up into clear view with one hand. Ordinarily the thin, carved wood was held onto her face by a sort of scarf with eyes, nose, ear, and mouth holes. All it did was change the shape of her features, she didn't allow it to hinder any of her senses.

But she was the only thief she knew of in Krynn who used a wooden mask quite like this one. "Hey, you jerks see this! Eh? Would you still like to fuck with me, or are you going to tell me what th'fuck you're doing trying to break into my place?" she was silent for a moment, "And you creeps skulking around on the roof better pay attention, too! Gods-damned amateurs with your plain boots... think you're real sneaky, don't ya? Well, you're not!"

The near-imperceptible scuffling from above stopped abruptly. "You're the-" someone started to shout from out in the dark somewhere, but she interrupted them.

"Damn right I am! Now what's the meaning of all of this? And if you dare name me that loudly, bucko, I'm going to come down there and kick you in the nuts. Don't think I won't!"

There were no more repeats of the almost-naming. "We've been hired to search all the buildings in Palanthas tonight," a different voice said from below, and Akara could hear someone climbing the tree. She pulled her mask on quickly, holding it in place with one hand... the other still held the knife out of view.

Within a few moments she was mask-to-face with a solitary thief whose bearing suggested that he was the leader of this pack.

"Searching for what, trouble?" she snorted, once he'd stopped climbing. "You found it."

"We seek the whereabout of the archmage, Raistlin Majere."

"Well, he obviously isn't here, you dimwit," Akara rolled her visible eyes, "You lot know I don't deal with mages except to rob them." Or at least, that was what everyone said... just because she never used magic herself, and she targeted mage after mage, trying in vain to recapture the rush of her exploits involving a certain black-robe. It had never worked. They all paled in comparison.

"Of course, of course," the leader was quick to agree, "You wouldn't mind if we looked around, then?"

"Oh, yes I would mind," Akara spat, "you just want to have a 'look' around to fill your pockets! Now, I'm telling you one last time before I knock you out of your tree with this bucket of rocks I've got in here: get lost."

The supposed leader of the other thieves looked murderous at the threat. He advanced a step along the tree-branch toward her, and Akara raised her rather large bit of kitchen cutlery into view, making the threat clear. But that wasn't what stopped the other thief.

"Never mind this inn," a commanding voice said from below the tree, "We're wasting too much time here. He won't even be this close to the Tower, he's too smart for that." And with that, the entire troop moved away, the one on the branch shooting Akara a withering look before he climbed down the tree.

Akara made sure he was looking again when she stuck out her tongue at him. Finally, once Akara was sure that she the only thief in the immediate area, she lowered her mask. But she didn't lower her knife, turning to Raistlin with it leveled at him.

"You," she pointed with the cutlery, advancing on the entirely unconcerned Archmagus. "You planned this, didn't you?"

"Of course I did," Raistlin noted calmly, "you surely do not think this was coincidence."

There was a long, tense pause. "Well, alright, then," Akara said, lowering the blade, "it's not like I didn't already know you're nuts. But why did you pick my birthing day to taunt the Conclave like this?"

Raistlin might have smiled, but he tipped his head down just enough that his black hood hid his expression before she could be certain. She peered intently at him and could not pierce the darkness... shadowed inside a dark room.

"You enjoy danger," the archmagus finally said, "do you not?"

"You're kind of sick, Majere," said the cat-burglar, "you know that, right?" His response was an unconcerned shrug, and Akara gave a nervous laugh. "So, you obviously ought to leave town for a while."

"They cannot keep me from my tower." Raistlin sounded a bit offended, Akara shook her head.

"Oh, I know that, but why go back yet? Let your apprentice sweat steel for a while and the Conclave wet their robes a bit wondering where you're lurking, yeah?" she could have sworn she felt him smirk, though the darkness of his hood hid any such thing. "Well, either way, I'd better be leaving town myself," Akara sighed, the rush of the earlier moments wearing off.

She eyed the mask in her hand before setting the knife aside and going to pick up the books on the floor. "Everyone knows where I stay, now... and what I do, thanks to you. It won't be long before they figure out who I am, too, even if I go to another inn. It doesn't help that your book gives my profession away at a fucking glance, either. I thought you were supposed to be the subtle one?"

Raistlin said nothing for a long moment as Akara pulled several empty loot-bags out of the hidden compartment in the wall and began to empty her few shelves. She didn't keep much in the way of possessions, at least, and a good portion of her money was still stashed in the Shoikan Grove. But it didn't take much to maintain the thief, as long as she could keep busy. She had perhaps a half a dozen books besides the two the mage had just sent her, and all of them went in first. Then the dark scarf cut for her mask.

"Your back is bleeding," Raistlin spoke suddenly, from much closer than Akara had placed him. She jumped, startled. There weren't many people who could move around without her tracking them effortlessly, but Majere was the exception to a lot of things.

"Oh... the glass. Yeah, I felt that. Not worth fussing over right now, I'll wait until I stop for the mor... ning..." her voice trailed off as nimble fingers began to pluck bits of glass away. Nothing had bitten deeply or dramatically, at least. Just enough to sting a bit. "...Majere?"

"There is surely more, but that takes care of most of it," he said after a few minutes of tiny, sharp tugs that she as often felt through the tunic shifting as through her skin.

"You're doing this just to creep me out all over again, aren't you?" Akara asked suspiciously.

"No," the reply was too easy, and she wouldn't have believed it in any tone. Akara stepped away from him, wordlessly opening a small trunk. A few sets of tightly-bundled clothing... all of it plain, cheap, and dyed a dark brown - the ideal color for truly blending into the shadows. She resumed stuffing her bags, wrapping the wooden mask in a tunic. Maybe if she ignored him...

"Where will you go, then?" Raistlin asked, staying where she'd left him.

"I don't know. Back to my city, I suppose..." Akara pulled her plain boots and worn socks off and stuffed them inside the bag before taking her working boots from the trunk and rolling them onto her feet and up her legs. This was all done on one foot, alternating between the two, and the leather didn't lace. It stretched.

"A city?" the soft curiosity in his voice, she believed was quite real.

"Yeah. It's not on any maps you'll find around here," the legs of her pants were pulled up a few inches and tied securely with lengths of cord, giving her ankles as much movement as they wanted without the swishing of fabric to give her away.

"Ah... do you go back to make amends with your family, then?" he sounded genuinely interested. Akara paused, one foot in hand, to look at him for a moment.

"Impossible," the thief finally said, shaking her head before plucking a pair of familiar gloves from the trunk

"How so? Your mother is a red-robe, is she not?" Majere sounded quite reasonable, of course, as though the color of her mother's robes meant everything as far as how they'd get along was concerned.

"Was," Akara snapped the empty trunk shut with a bit more force than absolutely necessary, before tying off the bag with the clothing and books, "and she probably would have taken me back in, if I vowed to never lift another purse on threat of broken fingers, settle down, and marry one of those creepy old assholes she and the rest of them had picked out for me."

"She is... dead?" Raistlin asked next, tone unreadable.

"She is. She died a few years after I was kicked out... a sickness of some sort, I don't know. I wasn't able to find out much as the local nameless thief," Akara shrugged. "More likely she was offed, but no one listens to the local nameless thief, either."

"And your father?" the mage asked, stepping closer.

"Got himself a new wife. Another mage, even... black-robe. I don't think you would like her much, though... she's more interested in money than in actual power. Has him wrapped around her evil little finger, too."

It was Raistlin's turn to shrug, "Sharing magical allegiances hardly makes for a connection, no."

"She'd fawn all over you, though, I imagine," Akara snorted, "my mother was a real fan of you Heroes of the Lance... she'd have invited you in for tea, and her admiration was out of genuine appreciation for what you lot did. My father's new wife..."

"Your stepmother," Majere supplied.

"Not really. I've never lived with her. Anyway, she'd invite you in for tea in the hopes of snagging you for one of her plots. The archmage of the Tower of Palanthas has to have some money laying around getting dusty, right? She might even try to get you hitched to someone she controls. Or something. I don't know, she's a fucking piece of work."

Raistlin chuckled darkly at that, "So, she would wish to... inherit me."

"Right, just like any of the nobility that crossed the street in front of the house," Akara sighed, shoving the surprisingly heavy small chest to the side. Beneath it, several of the floorboards had been cut away, making another hidden cache. This wasn't filled with gold and jewels as one would expect from a thief of her reputation, but with a single scroll-case.

"And so, what would happen if I accompanied you to your city?"

The cat-burglar snorted at that. "Easy. They'd pretend they hadn't the foggiest idea who I was, but they'd be quick to pull you into the house for supper," the case was lifted, the strap slung over her shoulder. Akara moved to the desk. "Why, Majere? Looking for someplace to wait out all the fuss? Just make sure you don't get roped into anything you don't want to get roped into while you're there."

There were only a few items to be taken off the desk. A new rope and grappling hook... her original had been left in the tower over a year ago. And her belt with the dangling pouches that so resembled a mage's spell components.

"Lady's got a big nose," Akara lied, feeling strangely defensive all of the sudden. "It's kind of terrifying."

"I see," Raistlin's tone made her pause, turning to stare at him. He'd pushed his hood back, she noticed, and his golden eyes seemed to pierce her mind. "And what would happen if I accompanied you to your city-" the archmage interrupted her with a raised finger before she could make a sound, having opened her mouth to reiterate what she'd just said. "...If I accompanied you to your city, to the Krinir house, and informed your father that I was courting his daughter?"

Akara felt like she'd been hit in the back of the head with the Staff of Magius. "Wh... wait, what?" her knees gave out, she grabbed the desk for support.

"My dear thief, you think I would not lie to your family?"

"Oh... oh," Akara blinked. "I supposed they'd drag us both into the house, then, and pretend I'd never been disowned in the first place. But that would only last until they realized it was fake. But why would you do that? You could stay anywhere you wanted until this mess is fixed. Or, like you said, you could just go back to your tower," it took her a few moments before she realized something else, "Hey, wait... who said we were traveling together, anyway!"

Raistlin simply gave a sardonic little smirk in reply.