"You're slipping in your old age." The voice was dry, cracked, mildly sarcastic and sounded like it had seen more than its fair share of years.
"Yeah and you can talk," Tiyane smiled, padding soundlessly across the semi-dark room. "It's not like it's a habit or anything anyway," she added, playfully poking her tongue out at the Guildmaster.
The wizened old man, so heavily creased and wrinkled that he might easily be mistaken for some kind of tree if he hadn't been so small, grinned toothily. The crevasse that served as his mouth widened significantly, his black diamond eyes glittered. "True. Twice in two years isn't bad. Just don't make it a habit," he winked. He may for all intents and purposes have been a treefolk - or perhaps shrubfolk might be more appropriate for his somewhat less-than-average height - as far as Tiyane was concerned, others who had known him longer all reckoned that he hadn't changed since the first time they'd met him.
She trotted soundlessly up to the highly polished wooden table and dropped comfortably to her knees, tail curling around her, unhooking the bag from her belt at the same time. Tiyane emptied the contents of the bag onto the table. Metal clinked on wood accompanied by the bright sparkle of moonlight on precious metal. The old guy delicately ran gnarled, claw-like hands over the treasures before him. Tiyane watched his face carefully, watching for the glimmer of approval in his bottomless eyes.


A rotund object of the egg-shaped persuasion made a clanging noise as it connected with the wooden floorboards, skittered rapidly across the floor and rebounded lightly off a boot in its path, rotating on the spot until it slowed to a halt. The burly, swarthy pirate type owner of the boot glanced down unconcernedly. He blinked, his weatherbeaten brow furrowing in mild confusion.
Recognition dawned.


Smoke poured out of the object with an ominous hissing.


The old guy looked up suddenly without seeming to move. It was the kind of missed movement that convinced people that static objects changed positions when they looked away, the kind of movement that convinced those passing through spooky places that the trees or the tombstones were watching them. Perhaps even following them. It took Tiyane a couple of seconds to realise he was now staring intently at her. She looked back in puzzled confusion.
"Does it seem...a little quiet to you?" he queried softly.
Tiyane frowned, listening intently. Now that he mentioned it, she realised that the familiar, bawdy background noise of 'the others' enjoying their raucous entertainment downstairs was absent. They'd either toned it down - highly unlikely regardless of circumstance - or there had been a fight and they had all been subdued or killed, also unlikely because they would have firstly heard the fight and secondly it would have set alarms off.


Should have set alarms off.


The door to the little room blew inwards in a shower of bright light, heat and many decent sized splinters. Tiyane leaped to her feet, whipping out her crossbow in the same motion. The blast whipped the loose strands of her long dark chocolate mane, a few stinging her face with the speed at which they flicked against it. She squinted into the explosion while loading a bolt into the crossbow.
A dark, vaguely human shape appeared against the smoke and dust that had been kicked up from the explosion. It seemed to have glowing eyes.
"ID!" demanded Tiyane, levelling her crossbow into the middle of the shape.
The shadow flickered, moving rapidly towards them. Tiyane fired.
The bolt buried itself into the wooden wall with a solid thwack. Tiyane reloaded as the shadow sprang nimbly towards her. White hot agony flared in both shoulders as the shadow connected, toppling her easily backwards onto the ground and landing on top off her. She didn't even realise she was screaming as she thrased madly beneath it, her hands burning with a numbing cold where they connected with the shadow as she thrashed uselessly against it. Its glowing eyes were terrifyingly hypnotic as seemingly in slow motion it drew a dark blade made of something that was so dark it looked like it was made of nothing.


She pulled the trigger.


The shadow emitted a high-pitched, ear piercing screech as it was pushed upwards from the bolt flinging straight through its stomach as though it had passed through nothing. It seemed to go fuzzy, losing a little of its defined form. Tiyane scrambled back out from under it, breathing heavily. It took a while for her to register what the large, dark mass on the ground actually was. In that time her crossbow seemed to have reloaded itself. She loosened her hold slightly to avoid accidental firing, but kept her finger resting very lightly on the trigger. "Dauthi..." she started, looking towards the Guildmaster for some form of explanation. Then aimed at the next target that sauntered in through the door.
She caught a flash of flowing red hair and piercing green eyes - quite a common combination was the very odd and out of place thought that occurred to her - and the required spell tore through her mind without much conscious thought. Tiyane threw up her free hand. The fireball fizzled a good thirty centimetres before hitting her open palm, a few molten sparks tumbling clumsily off it. Some winked out before hitting the ground, larger ones scorched the wooden floorboards.


The next one got her.


Tiyane couldn't even cry out for having the breath knocked out of her. She was aware of flying through space, the room a blur of colours around her, the agonising pain of shards of wood and glass ripping into her soft flesh slowing but not even coming close to stopping her. She was rather effectively proving the laws of gravity. A strange sense of calmness had set in, reducing the pain to a mere haze.
The green eyed redhead was smirking down at her. Her rich, flaming hair swirled gracefully around her lithe, slender bronze-skinned body. She was wearing what was supposed to be armour, although Tiyane couldn't and never had seen the point of wearing chain mail bikinis with a random assortment of chains and sashes thrown in. Not even a big gleaming weapon could make that look like armour. Not for battle purposes anyway unless the wearer was hoping to stun attackers through force of sheer sex appeal.


Oh yeah, she was falling.


Tiyane raised her free hand skywards. To anyone who didn't recognise the gesture, it looked like a desperate beseeching. In a way it almost was. Light flashed. Tiyane rotated casually backwards, getting her feet beneath her. A flash of cream and silver, sunlight off soft, clean feathers. The sound of air being shunted aside by thunderous wings.
She landed safely on the back of the pegasus with a rib jarring thud that successfully knocked the wind out of her. Feeling almost numb from the pain, she entwined her hands in its tangled mane, fitting her legs in front of its wings. The pegasus snapped its wings out, slowing their descent. It tossed its head, glaring contemptuously upwards, black eyes glittering malevolently. Its shoulder muscles, feeling like steel bands against Tiyane's legs, bunched together as it pushed its wings down, propelling them skywards.
The green eyed redhead looked satisfyingly shocked, stepping back quickly away from the edge to avoid the pegasus' wickedly sharp hooves. Lightning sparked, originating from her long, strong looking warrior fingers. Tiyane made a slight waving motion in front of and slightly above her face. The lightning curled threateningly around girl and pegasus for a second. The beast was unperturbed, tossing its mane impatiently. The lightning coiled back on itself, striking the redhead square in her bare, bronze stomach. Tiyane smirked as the proud, skimpy warrior was blasted back into the remains of the room.
"Stupid assassins." Still, they'd somehow managed to bribe, convince or coerce a Dauthi assassin to do a run for them. She was still trying to figure out how she'd manage to get it off her with a simple crossbow bolt. The Dauthi mostly were and worked in shadows and were near impossible to see much less hit. She wasn't even sure if the one she'd hit was dead or not. It had gone down but that didn't mean a thing. Not with the Dauthi. On a mental request, the pegasus beat the air again with its wings, rising up above the burning building that had once been the Thieves Guild, banked gracefully on the thermal rising from it and headed towards the sun.
Tiyane glanced back at the building that had once served as home base. They would regroup at one of the alternate posts, and build a new guild. Unless the shrubfolk had managed to escape (and she wouldn't put it far past him either - he was pretty nimble for an ancient geezer) they would be needing a new Guildmaster. Then of course they'd have to strike back at the Assassins Guild and do something equally nasty and horrible if not worse.
And why had they been attacked anyway? True there had never been any love lost between the guilds, their fields of work tended to overlap more often than not. There had always been some underlying tension but it seemed more a given than any real reason that both guilds should be opposed to the presence of the other. Tiyane did not have a clue and didn't really care to know either.
The pegasus was asking where she wanted to go.
Anywhere, she replied. Anywhere at all.