Disclaimer: I don't own Blood Omen 2. etc. etc. etc.

Author's Notes: There shouldn't be anything overly surprising in this chapter, and remember, some of this info is just assumed from things you hear in the game, some is unfounded. *flashes poetic license*

A Rabbit Escapes the Trap

Not everyone in the slums is down on their luck....

Many of the prey go there to hide.

Dulce was one such as that.

She first smelled the scent of danger with the arrival of the draft papers... the death warrants in disguise. In the case of her family, first it was the brothers. The older, then the younger. She ceased to think of them by name. For, surely, she thought, they were already dead.

They left home, and were never heard from again. When it was Dulce's turn, her father protested.

A girl, and their one remaining child, and still the Sarafan demanded even her service in battle. They knew what it was like for the soldiers. Death was inevitable. On the off chance that one survived to be elevated in rank, they would surely die to appease the vampires' rage at the Sarafan.

Dulce's father protested when her draft papers came, and they took him instead. Where, they do not know, but he is... was, far too old to be a warrior. They did not hold out much hope that he survived. Her mother wept for him, and for Dulce; for she fled the lower city when night fell. Dulce imagined that her mother still kept the store, if the Sarafan have not taken it from her.

Her new life, even more than the old, was about survival. You fight for nearly everything in the slums, and if you don't fight, you steal. You stay away from dark alleys and keep your head down. You sleep little and lightly.

It's a dangerous life, but death was less certain for her there than it would have been had she stayed in the lower city. At least in the slums, they do not search for you. The demon-worshippers of Nosgoth would not find her there... although was always the chance that something else might.

*****

Dulce's feet pounded against the broken cobblestones, her breath coming out in short pants. Her chest and legs ached and each breath she took burned trails of fire down her throat. There was no getting out of this, she knew, but she kept running, listening for the loud footfalls of the thug behind her.

"You can run, little girlie," he laughed, "but you can't hide."

Dulce was aware of that fact. The question going through her brain at the moment wasn't, 'Will I escape?' It was more like, 'Will I survive?'

Dulce was quick, and her speed was what had kept her alive for the few months she had lived in the slums. She had adapted well to this new world. After all, the rules were simple. If you stole food, you ran. If a thug wanted something you had, you ran.

If you could run fast enough, you escaped, and got to live another day. If they caught you, and took what they wanted, it was a tossup whether or not you would come out of the experience alive, and if alive, sane.

Usually Dulce could outrun the thugs. She was lighter and faster. She could also creep into passageways that had openings too small for a man to fit into. But this one-

Dulce couldn't shake him. His build was similar to hers. He was a pickpocket, perhaps, or a cat burglar, and he ran as fast as she did. Dulce had no illusions about what he wanted.

She had not been carrying any food or anything that could be mistaken as valuable. The pickpocket had seen the pale, pretty, unscarred face of a woman under the rags and smudges of dirt that were common fashion accessories in the slums.

Dulce had seen him leering at her out of the corner of her eye... had watched as he sauntered over to her and reached out to wrap a hand around her arm. She had watched, and waited.

When the thug was only a hairsbreadth from taking her arm, she'd shoved the heel of her palm into his nose and her knee into his groin. Usually that was enough to take a man down for as long as it took her to get safely away. This man had been ready for such an action. Dulce's knee had hit metal; a codpiece worn to protect against that specific form of attack.

So while he had shouted and grabbed his nose, he was still standing and able to run after her, which he had.

Dulce turned blindly down an alleyway and her breath caught in her throat. He'd chased her into a dead end. She sank into the darkness at the end of the alley, turned, and froze, keeping her breathing as quiet as she possibly could. The thug hadn't seen her run into the shadows, and although that would be the first place he checked, perhaps she could surprise him and still get away. The thug's footsteps slowed and he chuckled, knowing she was trapped.

The tip of a knife appeared around the corner of the street a few moments before its owner. The thug was smiling in anticipation.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," he taunted softly.

Dulce backed up slowly, trying to calm the thunderous beating of her heart. She held her arms out to her sides, bent her knees a bit. The thug licked the blade of his knife, teasingly.

"Come, girl... let us have a bit o' sport..."

Dulce backed up another step, her lip curling in disgust. The next thing she knew, there was a hand over her mouth, and an arm pinning her hands to her sides.

"Do not speak," a woman's voice breathed in her ear. "Be still, keep your wits about you... and you may live to see another dawn."

Dulce stayed in the shadows, frozen by fear, as the arms dropped and the unknown woman walked past her. The thug, confronted with this new menace, stopped, uncertain. Dulce got a better look at the woman in the meager light of the alleyway.

She was slightly less than average height, had skin as white as marble. The woman was clad in what looked to Dulce like little more than a set of violet undergarments, nylons and a small cape. There was some kind of armor on her right shoulder, and a formidable pair of metal boots encasing her legs from knees to toes.

The thug ignored all of this and decided that this woman was no threat. He smiled again. "Well what have we here?" the man grinned.

The woman chuckled softly. "A girl who wants..." the woman paused for a moment, looking for the right word, "a bit of sport."

"Well I can give you some o' that," the thug said, leering at her. He took a few steps forward.

"Yes..." the woman murmured sardonically, "I am sure you could." The thug stepped up to her. She placed a hand on his dirty leather jerkin. That was when Dulce saw it. The woman's nails were thick and black, filed to sharp points. Dulce's next breath shook as she realized the nails hadn't been filed at all. That woman was a vampire.

*****

I remember having the opportunity to see a Hunting game, played by a group of nobles. Sometimes, to catch a fox... they would release a rabbit. When the hunter had cornered its prey and moved in for the kill, the nobles would act, moving in for their own kill, and spearing the fox. It was amusing, I must confess, to see the panic in the eyes of the fox in the moment it had gone from hunter, to hunted.

*****

The woman dug her nails... no, claws, into the man's clothing and lifted him a full foot off the ground. His eyes bugged out in fear.

"Is this not what you had in mind?" the vampire purred. She drew back her arm and tossed the thug into the wall behind him. His back struck stone, then his head, and he slid down the wall to kneel dazedly on the ground.

"Such a brave creature," the vampiress murmured, "attacking one weaker than yourself." She drew him to his feet, punched him in the stomach, and threw her foot up and around to connect with his jaw.

Surely she was being gentle. Dulce had heard that vampires could snap a man's jaw with a single kick. The girl stood frozen in the shadows as the vampiress beat her attacker into unconsciousness. Dulce moved forward slowly, froze again as the vampire turned to look at her.

She swallowed heavily. "Now what?" the girl breathed.

The vampiress gave her an analyzing look, and then a small smile. "Now you go on with your life, as he shall not." Then she picked up the thug and settled him easily on her shoulder, and, without a backwards glance, ran off into the night.

Dulce closed her eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and left the alleyway.

*****

And so the rabbit escaped a trap.

I know not if Dulce still lives, or how she lives. I know only that she did not die that night, or the next. If she lives still, it is because she leaned well the art of hiding and running. Such tactics can be effective if properly utilized. I have seen many old rabbits in my time.

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So guys, what do you think of this? ^_^