Alys Brangwin wasn't what her friends would call a fashion plate. Motavia's most celebrated hunter had more important things to concern herself with than whether or not she was following all the latest style trends. Still, she generally took the trouble to make sure that she was turned out neatly, so it was a surprise to her friend Fenris that Alys walked into the Hunter's Guild bar in boots that were badly worn, scuffed beyond hope of polish, and in a couple of places had even had to be stitched back together where the leather had been cut or torn.
Showing the perception that made her so good at her job, Alys caught the direction of Fenris's glance at once.
"Yeah, it has not been a good day," she grumbled, then called down to the bartender. "Hey, Garn, get me the usual, and make it a double."
"Gotcha, Alys."
"Wow, it must have been bad."
"Someone stole my boots while I was in the Guild bathhouse," Alys growled. "I had to walk home and get this pair out, which meant in addition to the annoyance and the theft, that I might as well not have bothered washing my feet with what all the dirt and dust I picked up on the way."
"At least it was your boots and not some underwear-snatching pervert looking through your stuff," Fenris tried to console her.
"I'd almost have preferred that. My boots cost a heck of a lot more than my underwear."
Fenris blinked in surprise.
"You have weird priorities, Alys."
"You think I'd feel any more violated at someone pawing through my stuff for different reasons?" Alys did tend to be more focused on results rather than the way she got to them.
Garn set the drink in front of her and she knocked back half of it in one gulp.
"Did you report the theft to the Guild secretary?" Fenris asked.
"Yes. After all, this kind of thing isn't just about me; it's a slap at all of us hunters, to have a thief inside the Guild facilities. Though I'd still rather handle it myself if I get the chance." She finished off the drink, then beckoned wordlessly for another. "Getting robbed, filing paperwork...it's just been one awful day."
"I think it just got worse."
"Huh?"
Fenris nodded towards the door, where Joss Howland had just walked in.
Joss was a fellow hunter, a tall, broad-shouldered man who was as powerful as an avalanche and nearly half as intelligent. He had fallen head over heels for Alys and no amount of sweet reason (or occasional physical violence) seemed capable of convincing him that he wasn't just the right approach away from breaking through her reserve.
"I don't know. He's walking like he's in pain, which is always a good sign."
As always, it took him less than two seconds to notice Alys's presence in the bar, and he made a beeline for her, somehow mincing and limping all at the same time.
"You know, Alys, that old saying is stupid."
That was an odd opening line, so for a moment Alys wondered if Garn might have given her the triple and she was hallucinating.
"I mean, I wanted to know you better, right, to see how you think, what you like in a guy? But the only thing I learned is that you've got smaller feet than me."
"Joss, what are you talking about?"
"You know the line? If you want to know a person, you have to walk a mile in their shoes?"
Alys looked around the edge of the table. Sure enough, her knee-height white boots were on Joss's feet. Or at least they mostly were. In altogether too many places, the seams had been unable to hold Joss's much bigger feet and calves and had ripped out.
"Well, I tried that," Joss continued, "but the only thing I got out of it was a raging set of blisters. My feet are killing me, and I don't know how you—"
He shut up then. He really had no other choice, since Alys's fist coming up under his jaw caused his mouth to shut and teeth click together. He toppled like a falling wall, hitting the floor with a crash.
"The day looking up now?" Fenris asked with a grin.
"That entirely depends on whether the fallen literalist here has enough meseta to buy me new boots."
"At least your priorities are consistent."
~X X X~
A/N: I hope that Joss didn't come off too creepy as the boot thief. His character is supposed to basically function like a little kid: stimulus-response, without really thinking through anything beyond the most superficial level of perception. Which is probably creepy on a completely different level.
Alys's thoughts on the level of violation associated with different kinds of thefts were meant to be consistent with what I've written about her in the past, particularly on the subject of killing (Alys finds nothing worse about stabbing someone in the back than about beating them in fair combat—or, more accurately, she doesn't find that giving someone the opportunity to defend themselves in fair combat makes them any less dead—it's the result of death that matters, not the how of it, and if you're considering killing someone you ought to be using your moral sense on the underlying issue of if this person should be killed at all, not on how). To her, getting robbed is about the fact that going forward she'll have an even lower comfort level with leaving her things behind in the bathhouse and will now have to adjust her thinking to assume things there are less secure. The question of why this happened doesn't really matter so far as her feelings are concerned, although it obviously becomes relevant in catching the thief. Hopefully, it all made sense!
