Disclaimer: Wish I owned it, but I don't.
Weeeee! I love reviews! They make me all giddy and want to write! I have maybe half of this story written already, but I'm going through and rewriting roughly seventy-five percent of it, just like I did in Sins. Go figure. Anyway, I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, so enjoy! Enter, Locke!
Warning: Coarse language, violence, and references to adult subjects.
Chapter Two: The Thief and the Harlot
The Weeping Harlot. As the name implied, not the most pleasant place in South Figaro, but overrun by Imperials, it was even fouler. There, the soldiers would congregate on their breaks, drinking themselves into oblivion as they ogled the dancers, telling stories of their conquests, both on and off the field.
The perfect place for a thief with a stolen uniform to overhear a way out of the city.
He walked into the bar and ordered a beer at the counter. While he waited for his drink, the thief took a quick glance around the pub. Most of the Imperials sat two or three at a table having what appeared to be quiet conversations. There was one more boisterous table right up against the stage with seven or eight men laughing and making catcalls to the dancers. Just as the thief received his drink, a couple of the Imperials at the rowdy table called out.
"Hey, Serg! Join the fun!"
"Yeah, come on, Xander!"
It took the thief in disguise a moment to realize the nameplate on his uniform said "Sgt. Xander." Damnit. That's the last time I steal an officer's uniform… He couldn't back out now, so he took his beer and strode confidently to their table, hoping they were too drunk to realize that it wasn't Xander under that helmet.
"Pull up a chair, Serg," the first to call to him offered.
Apparently they were.
"We were just talkin' women."
Of course you were. Their speech was so slurred he was surprised they were able to stay upright in their chairs from the amount of alcohol they must have consumed. Taking advantage of the situation, the thief sat down.
"I started tell 'em 'bout yer recent exploit," the second man said, his words almost incomprehensible. "Tell 'em…tell 'em 'bout it, Xand."
The thief's confidence was wavering. "I…I've told that story so many times—"
"Come on, Serg!" the first urged.
When he hesitated, a third man leaned closer. "What was she like?"
"Uh…frisky."
A couple men chuckled. "I hear she put up a good fight."
"Well…yeah, she did, but she was no match for me, you know? I'm the Conquistador!"
They all laughed heartily at that, and the thief received a couple slaps on the back. His worry was starting to fade.
"An' chained to th' wall like tha', I bet she couldn't do nothin',"
Chains? Great… "Nope. Not a thing."
"An' she was a hard 'un to break?" another asked.
"It took a while, but in the end, I had her crying like a little girl, begging me to stop."
He couldn't believe what he was saying. The thought made him want to vomit.
"Yer shittin' me, the general?"
General?
"See?" the second piped up. "I told ya!"
Confused and impatient, the thief was about to excuse himself, but before he could get up to leave, one of the dancers came to the table and sat in his lap.
"Hey there, you handsome thang. Goin' so soon?" she wondered, sliding her arms around his neck.
The thief found it hard not to squirm in revulsion. "Shift's over," he explained.
"But mine ain't, sugar."
The harlot shifted so that she straddled his lap, tracing a hand down his chest, and the Imperials whistled at their "sergeant's" apparently favorable position while he fought the urge to throw her off.
"Come on, honey, you've had a long hard day, but I'll help you relax."
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but I really must leave!"
His voice squeaked on the last word as her hand traveled too low for comfort.
"Why so tense, handsome?"
"I'm late for patrol."
"Ooh, do you patrol that secret passage under the mansion I've heard so much about?"
Secret passage? Bingo. The thief smiled to himself. "Yes, I do, and I really must go," he emphasized as he stood up, almost dropping the woman to the floor.
As he walked out of the bar, she called to him. "Come back later, baby!"
"Right," he muttered.
He still couldn't figure out what those Imperials meant when they mentioned the general, but he figured it was just drunken stupidity. Dismissing it, his thoughts turned to the apparent secret passage. That's got to be the way out, he bet. There was only one mansion in South Figaro, and as far as he knew, it was being used as Imperial Headquarters. Better keep low in there. I doubt they'll be drunk…
He strode up to the brick building, chuckling inwardly as the guards saluted him. Maybe the uniform wasn't a bad choice… They opened the door for him, and he walked inside. There weren't half as many Imperials as he had guessed, and most of them were lounging around, playing pool, and chatting casually. So much for strict professionalism. What kind of commanding officer would allow this? he wondered.
No one even looked twice as the imposter sergeant wandered around the mansion. Not finding anything promising on the ground floor, he ascended the stairs to the upper level. The door to the master bedroom was cracked open, and the thief heard snippets of a conversation.
"The Imperials are all over the place," a woman was complaining. "I feel like it's not even our house anymore!"
"What could I do?" a man demanded.
"How about not selling out your own homeland?"
"Don't even start that again!"
"I'll start what I want to! You're not the one who always has to cook meals for them and mend their uniforms and baby-sit them when they're drunk off their asses! And they're constantly barging in here at all hours of the night to get to that fucking basement, and I can't take it anymore!"
The thief decided that was what he was looking for, so he stumbled through their door as if he was drunk, mumbling about patrolling the passage. Neither the man nor the woman looked pleased.
"Ugh, the stairway is right there, you imbecile!" the man yelled, pointing to the bookcase at the opposite end of the room.
The woman threw up her hands in frustration as the fake Imperial staggered to the bookshelf, peering behind it to find a flight of stairs leading down. Leaving the couple to their argument, he cautiously made his way down the long passageway, and found himself below ground. By then, it was late in the evening, but the thief still heard voices in a storage room nearby. He would have continued on without a second thought, but something he heard stopped him dead in his tracks.
"Come on, bitch, scream for me!" a man shouted.
The thief's first thought was that some innocent maiden had been cornered by some drunken grunt soldier, but the repeating sound of fist meeting flesh suggested otherwise.
"Fucking traitor!" the assailant spat.
Traitor? the thief thought as she was hit again and again. His curiosity got the better of him, and he peeked through the bars of the door. With her wrists shackled tight against the wall, the woman was chained up in a standing position as she was battered continuously. The thief caught glimpses of the woman's face between the man's movements, and there was something agonizingly familiar about her eyes. Echoes of the past flitted through his mind as he raked his memory trying to remember where he had seen her before.
"What's a kid like you doing in a place like this?"
"Business."
A blow to the face turned her head to the side, and the thief noticed a scar down the left side of her face. He had seen it once before.
"Do yourself a favor, Lance. Get out of town."
"You're lucky, Cole. You just flirted with the enemy."
"And who is this vision of loveliness accompanying you?"
"See? That's what I was trying to tell you, sir! That was General—"
"Actually, this is General—"
"So, the mighty Celes has fallen!" the soldier taunted, snapping the thief out of his reverie.
The beating had stopped abruptly, and the thief saw that the woman could not longer stand and was hanging limp in her chains. Of course, that's General Celes! Suddenly their previous meetings became perfectly clear to him; in the Leaky Mug Tavern just before Maranda was burned down, and then again in Vector at the peace banquet. The thief turned from the sight, not wanting to witness the outcome of this brutality.
"Unchain me and see how long you live, Brakiss," the general dared quietly.
The officer gripped her chin and forced her to look up. "Do you think I'm stupid?"
"Do you think I'm bluffing?" she countered darkly.
Brakiss glared at her, then let go of her chin, and the woman scoffed.
"Coward," she whispered.
"What?"
"I said you're a coward," she repeated firmly.
There was a surprisingly strong bravado in her voice, despite her condition. The woman had spirit, and was defiant to the last, something that did not make Brakiss happy. He turned and kicked her in the stomach, and she again hung limp.
"Now, you're going to swallow what I give you to swallow," he said, unzipping his pants. "Lengthen her chains and hold her," he ordered the two guards.
The two did as they were commanded, but as soon as one chain was loosened, she wrapped it around guard's neck, choking him.
"Put that anywhere near my mouth and I'll kill him," she warned.
Both Brakiss and the second guard backed off in compliance. Celes, however, merely looked down at the man whose life she held and jerked her hand, and a distinct crack echoed through the cell as the man's neck snapped.
"You bitch!" Brakiss hissed.
The officer pinned her free shoulder against the wall and released a flurry of punches into her stomach and face. He then vengefully kicked Celes in the face, and the impact threw her into the wall. Her head met brick, and she collapsed, painfully stopped by her chains.
"I look forward to watching you die tomorrow," Brakiss scorned.
Not wanting to be seen even in his stolen uniform, the thief climbed atop some nearby crates and scampered into the rafters just as the cell door opened and the two Imperials walked out, dragging the body of the guard. When they were gone, the thief dropped to the ground, landing on soft feet, and suddenly, he was caught in a battle of morals. Did he enter the cell and help this woman, this general of the Empire? Or did he turn and walk away, forgetting he ever saw her and leaving her to certain death?
General Celes was said to be an utterly ruthless, unfeeling, and merciless fiend with a frozen heart. She had killed thousands, burned countless villages, and was possibly even responsible for the raid against Kohlingen that took his love away. Perhaps it would be a service to the Returners, and the world, to let her die.
But they had called her a traitor.
Going against all sense of good judgment, logic, and reason, the thief withdrew a small metal pin from his glove and picked the lock to the cell door. Closing it with a quiet click, he turned to face the much reputed Ice Queen, the heartless general whose blood-stained iron fist ravaged an entire continent; the fearless and flawless symbol of Imperial might whose name struck terror into the hearts of men; the ice-carved goddess of the Imperial dogma.
The woman before him was pitiful.
Once again bound tight against the wall, Celes hung lifeless in her chains, her tousled blonde hair clumped by dried blood and sweat, her white tunic tattered and frayed. Blood was spattered across the brick walls and smeared on the white fabric. Countless bruises and lacerations were camouflaged by blood and dirt.
The majestic icon, fallen from grace and left to Death.
The thief knew what drove his pity. He knew what drove him to pick the locks of the general's shackles. But he didn't care. He wouldn't leave another woman to die.
One arm fell limp to her side, then the other, and with nothing holding her up, the unconscious woman slumped forward into the thief. He gently lowered her to the ground and glanced around the cell. He noticed her white armor in the corner, along with her sword, dagger, and cape. He slung the sword belt over his shoulder and draped the snowy cloak over her battered body. He also saw what looked like an earring, a silver band caked in dried blood. It was then he noticed a nasty tear in her right ear, as well as a needle in her arm. Pocketing the piece of jewelry and discarding the syringe, he carefully picked her up in both arms, wary of any possible broken bones, and proceeded out of the cell.
Turning down the hallway not yet explored, the thief searched for any possible entrance to a hidden passage. Coming into the last room of the mansion's cellar, the thief grew frustrated with his lack of success. He knew dawn was fast approaching, which meant the Imperials would be coming for the general.
Weaving through the numerous crates and chests and passing by an old grandfather clock, he rounded the corner and saw a second clock, ticking away. Puzzled, he turned back to the first clock and found its pendulum at rest. Inspecting the immobile clock, he felt a cool draft coming from the wall behind it. Careful not to bump the woman in his arms into anything, he pushed his weight against the side of the oversized timepiece. It took some effort, but it eventually slid across the stone floor, revealing a squat narrow passage. A waft of musty but cool air greeted him, and the soft sounds of swishing water reverberated through the rocky channel beyond.
Grunting in satisfaction, the thief tried to enter the passageway, but quickly realized he wouldn't fit carrying Celes as he was. He stood there, holding the woman, contemplating how to make this maneuver, but no matter which way he shifted, the two just wouldn't fit. Had he a free hand, he would have slapped his forehead in aggravation, but he settled for muttering curses under his breath.
Finally he decided that he would just have to crawl into the narrow crack sideways and drag Celes in behind him. It was still a tight fit, but he managed through, bearing Celes on top of his legs to keep her off the rough ground. Then the problem came with getting out of the crevice, as it ended with a four foot drop. With a woman limp across him and no room to adjust his position, the thief unhappily edged his body from under Celes and out of the cranny, trying desperately to hold onto the ledge. His hands slipped, though, and he tumbled the four feet to the hard wet rock below.
"Ow… Yeah, some treasure hunter you are," he mumbled to himself.
Getting awkwardly to his feet, he reach up and pulled Celes down as gently as he could. Lady Luck, though, laughed in his face as his foot slipped on the wet stone, and he fell backwards, Celes with him.
"Oh…" he groaned. "Oh gods, my back… My back… Ow…" The thief lifted his head and looked at Celes, who was still unconscious. "Ugh, this is going to be a long day."