She emerged from a peaceful dream and immediately plunged right into a nightmare.
As her eyes fluttered open, the first sight she was met with was the dark side of an empty wooden box and the faint yet musty scent of dead fish. She looked up, her neck aching, and found that there was another slab of wood above her head and behind her and on all sides. She was trapped in a little box, and it was nearly pitch black except for the small light that filtered in through the slits of the wood.
Slightly panicked, the princess reached around blindly into the suffocating space to steady herself. Breathe, she told herself. Breathe, just relax. Freaking out won't help you. One of her fingers finally went through a hole in the wood. Discovering that it could be used as a little peephole, she used her hands to guide her as she slid quietly to that side.
First, she pressed her ear against the hard surface and listened carefully. Outside, there was the faint sound of footsteps shuffling around the box she was in. Her captor was in the same room as she. The girl pressed her eye into the hole and saw the dim candlelit room with a fuzzy view. She struggled to make out the area of the room, how it looked like, or if there was anyway of escaping. She could only see the shadow of a person being casted on the wall across from her sight, its silhouette wavering in the flickering fire.
She decided that there was no point in just waiting and looking around, and she felt around the box for any weak spot. Maybe she would be able to break out. Silently, she felt around the wood, pressing her fingers cautiously over every small gap, listening to the person's movements on the outside. She couldn't find any, to her frustration. Great, it's only a matter of time until he decides to do something with me, she thought, but then her mind came up with a better idea.
The girl moved to one side of the confined space and pushed her body against it. It groaned and creaked slightly, and she could tell that the box was lighter than she thought. Perfect...now all I have to do it wait for the right time... For a moment, she sat completely still. She only concentrated on her hearing and the sounds around her. Even though she couldn't see him, she could tell that he was moving about the room.
As his footsteps came closer, she reared up her legs. There was a thud right in front of the box, and a shadow blocked a part of the light that was coming in from the small slits in between wood. Now! With a swift and powerful push, she lunged forward with all her might and rammed her shoulder into the side of the wood, tipping it over. Her body hit the ground with a dull thump and she heard a painful grunt of the man being hit by it. With the box on its side, she kicked open the cover and rolled out of her little prison. She saw that the boy was knocked over and was pinned down the weight of the box. The girl sprinted ahead with triumph and fled from the room as fast as she could, running down a narrow and dark pathway. She couldn't completely see where she was going but she knew she had ran into a dirt tunnel with a mud roof. She immediately knew she was underground.
Glancing back, she saw the place where she had been in - a small dusty room held up by some wooden planks, no windows, a different tunnel that led the opposite way, a lantern that illuminated the room that was on a shabby wooden desk, and the boy who had shoved the box off of him and was scowling to himself and shouting curses at her.
The hallway was impossible to navigate through unless you had an intricate map. It was filled with countless twists and unpredictable turns, and without a source a light, she was running around blindly. Where the hell am I?! Without looking back, she stopped to rip of her heels from her tired feet to prevent herself from falling down, and continued to run blindly through the cluster of endless tunnels that seemed to be a maze. She didn't know where she was going. She was just running and she wanted to get away.
When she was sure the thief boy was long gone, she came to a slow stop, heaving in breaths. She tried to muffle her gasps with her palm, knowing that every sound and every peep could be heard with echoes. He could find her that way, and being in his arms was the last place he wanted to be. As her heart rate calmed and her chest began to relax, she glanced both ways. There was nothing, not even a sound. She was stuck in the middle of a labyrinth with nowhere to go, with not even the slightest point of light to guide her.
Trying to keep her frustration inside of her, she took one step forwards, but as she began to move a hand suddenly reached from the darkness and snatched her wrist with a tight clamp. "Gotcha," a manly voice said. Her heart stopped. It was him. "Man, you're a freakin' pain the ass. I thought princesses were supposed to be dainty and fragile."
"Let go of me!" She retorted and pulled her hand back, but his iron grip overpowered her. He came out of the shadows with the same outfit as before with his black cape dangling from his shoulders.
"No way. How could I let go of something I worked so hard to steal," he gave her a sly grin. "You're mine now, remember?"
She huffed indignantly, her cheeks and chest puffing out with pride. "Don't you dare treat me like I'm someone's property, you damn pervert!" She retorted and struggled against his pull.
He shot her a smug look. "Don't make me use force on you, little girly. I'm not too into carrying you over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes, but I'm not gonna hesitate if I could."
"I'm not a little girl!" She yelled angrily. "And how did you find me so fast?!"
He raised his other hand and a pair of glimmering silver heels hung from his fingers. "I know everything in here, from every sound that echoes to every turn of every hallway. This is my domain," he said.
She finally gave up with her fighting and let her arm relax in his grasp. "Where are we, exactly?" She demanded.
"In the Underground. I'm sure you're familiar with this term, princess," he answered.
"Underground...? Isn't it that place where thieves gather to trade their stolen things?" She asked.
"Yeah." She yelped with pain as he unhanded her wrist and grabbed her pigtail instead, starting to drag her along. "Now stop making trouble for me already. You do realize that there are others like me, prowling around down here. They'd love to steal themselves a princess, too."
"Ow!" She pulled at his hand as he yanked her by her hair from behind. "You don't have to be so rough!"
"I take it that this is not the first time you've been kidnapped, seeing that you're so calm. I think any other girl in your situation would be hysterical right now."
"Where are we going?!" She asked, letting out another cry of pain.
"Back to that room," he answered calmly.
"Why? What are you planing to do with me?!"
"Quit whining. I'm not gonna hurt you, if that's what you're asking."
"Then what could you possibly want with me?"
"There's a simple answer to that. And since you know me already, then I guess I can skip the introductions," he said, pulling her around a sharp corner.
"Ow! You can stop holding me like that!" His grip loosened and she pulled away and his crimson gaze eyed her carefully, as if she were a frightened little animal who was about to dart away.
"I won't have to if I know you're not gonna run away from me," he said and they both stopped in the middle of the passage. "You wanna know why you're here, right?"
"Yeah, and I know who you are already. You're Soul Eater Evans, brother of the famous thief Wes Evans. The Evans family is renowned in the thief world. But what does it have to do with me?" She asked.
"Well, ever since my capture from that failed raid, my reputation has dropped down to nothing," he said.
She grew enraged. "Oh, so this is about your stupid little ego now, isn't it?!"
"Yup. To put it straight, to gain your reputation back when a whole lot of other thieves wanna take your spot as the next Master Thief, you need to steal something - or, someone - big and important. A princess, for example," he said triumphantly and placed his pointer finger at her forehead, which she swatted away with annoyance.
"So now that you have her, what are you gonna do?" She asked, still mildly irritated.
"Show off, of course."
"So, let me clear this up. You went through all that trouble to kidnap me just so you can show me around like your little trophy? You damn asshole!" Her hand rose to strike him, but before her punch could land he caught her fist.
"Sorry about that princess, but I can't have you making trouble when I've come so far and so close," he said to her startled face, and heaved her over his shoulder.
"H-Hey! Put me down, dammit!" She cried as she pounded his back with her fists like a frustrated little child.
"I will. After you calm down I will," the boy said with a self-satisfied smirk while he walked through the corridors.
"You can't treat me like this! You're...you're nothing but a dirty low-down stealing - "
"Hey, you better watch it. There are other, more dirtier low-down thieves like me stalking these tunnels for a poor little princess girl. And even if you were to somehow slip away, I doubt even you would be able to find your way through these networks of tunnels," he shrugged and she silenced herself.
As they came back to the same dimly-lit room, he set her down on a chair. "Are...are you gonna stick me back in that box again?"
He chuckled. "Only if you give me a reason to." He walked over to the small wooden desk and picked up a bottle. "Hold up your wrist."
"Huh?" She stared down at her hands and found that one of them, the one he had grabbed, had a dark purple stain on it. It was a bruise.
He came back over to her with a roll of bandages and a bottle of fluid. He bent down and took her injured wrist and examined it. "Hm...it seems like I was a bit too rough on this one..." He pulled out the bottle and dabbed it in a cloth, softly massaging the bruise.
She cringed as her wound stung, but it was met with relief as soon as he carefully wrapped the bandage around it.
"All better," he said and stood up.
She looked down at her patched up wrist and then back at him, but his back was already turned. "What will happen after you show me to all of the others?"
"Dunno," he shrugged.
Her temper flared. "You mean you're just gonna keep me here?!"
He laughed. "No, I don't think I could possibly put up with you for the rest of my life."
"So you'll let me go?"
"Probably. Maybe," he teased.
"Stop giving me half-assed answers!" She demanded and the thief boy chuckled.
"No worries. We'll pay a visit to my friends and then you'll be on your way, back to that pretty little castle you live in." Maka seemed to freeze up at her words.
"And how do I know you're not gonna pull some dirty trick on me?" She asked cautiously.
"Fine, if you're so worried about it then I'll make a promise to you. A bandit's promise."
"Thieves always lie. They never keep their promise," she glared.
"Hmph. So you have been doing your research," he snorted. "Well, then. How about something more serious?" He swung around and surprised her when he came extremely close to her face and caressed her cheeks. His burning eyes were so close to her own she felt it would melt her already burning face. "The ultimate promise," he whispered, staring into her eyes unwaveringly.
"Wh..what..." She murmured but she didn't get to finish her sentence before he pushed his lips against hers. It wasn't until after both of their mouths had interlocked and she woke herself up from her daze and the unfamiliar warmth of someone else's lips on hers, that she found the strength to shove him back. "You...You perverted jackass! You just...you...that was my first..." Her face was blanketed in a deep magenta color that intensified as she stammered. "How could you do that?!"
He chuckled, wiping the moisture off his lips. "You asked for a better promise. So I gave you one. Now, you're permanently safe with me, no matter what will happen to us. I promise I'll protect you until you return home. So, shall we go now?"