"She ain't- gonna get it, missy," a grizzled beggar managed between hiccups. His deep brown eyes wandered between the Tiefling and the Elf with a hazily bemused look as he slid down from the wall he'd been leaning on to the ground.
Mi'ishaen, with her glossy, crimson veil firmly pinned across her face, pushed off the ground, pulled her knees toward her chest, pushed her arms out like the sides of an arrow, and watched the cobblestone street whip its way over her head. A second later, her flat-heeled, common leather boots were back on the ground, and she looked over her shoulder at the incredulous young Elf behind her.
"It's not that hard!" the Tiefling exclaimed, turning herself around completely. "It's just like...like starting to hop over hot coals, only to discover that someone's thrown a knife at you." There was a pause in which the Elf crossed her arms over her flat chest and fixed Mi'ishaen's red eyes with a doubtful look. "What?" Mi'ishaen shot as she turned her back to the priestess again, annoyed. "It really is just like that! Try it- just try it again."
Beyond them, the beggar chuckled. It was a sprawling gurgle that seemed destined to devolve into shameless vomiting. Mi'ishaen ignored him, but the Elf looked over the Tiefling's shoulder at him with a shy smirk.
"Alright, fine," she sighed at last, rolling her neck again.
Mi'ishaen, who knew that the creature would again fail to get enough power into her legs to get her knees above her head, merely waited for the heavy sound of living flesh on cobblestone. What she got instead was a sharp shriek of surprise and terror. Mi'ishaen whipped herself around to discover that the Elf had landed perfectly on her feet.
"By the- you got it!" she exclaimed. But the Elf instantly marched over and slapped her.
"You didn't have to actually throw a knife!" she huffed. "I could have been-"
"I didn't," Mi'ishaen shot back, her hands clamping down on her hips. "I was turned around, how could I-"
"Oh, don't give me-"
The priestess fortunately stepped one foot closer to Mi'ishaen in the attempt to boldly confront her, and the Tiefling watched with wide eyes as a brilliant silver blade sung behind the Elf's back and into the wooden beam of a poorly-built, two family home.
"Kidding me-" Mi'ishaen breathed as she reached forward to grab the priestess and push her deeper into the Elven Quarter. "She's not even-"
"Guards! Guards!" the Elf screamed at once, having sharply turned around to spy the knife herself. But the nearby beggar, now lying on his back in the middle of the street, emitted the same sticky, burbling laugh.
"What guards?" he called after the two hustling females.
"Guards!" the priestess called out again, her voice made plaintive with the realization that the beggar was absolutely right. "Why aren't we heading back toward the dancing hall?"
Mi'ishaen didn't bother to answer the question at all. As she hustled the Elf toward what seemed to be a safer side of a building, she noted another shadow that couldn't possibly belong to either one of them- it seemed as though whatever was casting it was immediately behind them, though Mi'ishaen didn't hear any footsteps. She began shuffling quickly along the other sides of the close-sitting houses, hoping to outrun the flanking maneuvers. Before them loomed Le Lune Silvestre, the lights just being lit for the oncoming evening.
"We should be going to the dancing hall," the priestess insisted, now putting physical weight into her protest. "And we should find a guard- what is going on?"
"Do you really think that now is the very best time to ask questions like that?" Mi'ishaen finally exclaimed, exasperated, as she pushed the priestess around another corner. "Maybe a couple of aggressive types from the semi-hostile country that completely surrounds this place decided to take advantage of the fact that nearly every guard's in the Dark Quarter right now, you thought of that?"
"Semmites wouldn't spend time targeting priestesses of Lliira," the Elf replied caustically. "We're joybringers, not combatants." With this, the Elf wrested herself out of Mi'ishaen's grasp and moved to return toward Lliira's dancing hall, stepping out of cover and into an open pathway. Mi'ishaen turned around and whipped her tail across the backs of the Elf's knees hard enough to force a fall backward, and just as she did, a mess of thick strings suddenly appeared where the shorter priestess's body had been. Lying on her back, she had the perfect chance to look up at the result of someone's desire to trap her.
"Oh my goddess," she breathed, her back hurting and her heart slamming in her chest. "Oh. My. Goddess. I never- I didn't- What did you do?"
"What?" Mi'ishaen whispered fiercely as she dragged the priestess back behind the building by the back of her robes.
"It must be your fault," the female griped as she forced Mi'ishaen's hands off her and stood up. "If you were innocent, we'd call for the guards and run for the dancing-"
"The guards are either in the Dark Quarter, on a mage's operating table, or in the ground, and that web just came from the direction you want to go!" Mi'ishaen argued, forcing herself to whisper as she pushed the priestess backward until their bodies were pressed together on the wall of the building they were using for cover. Taking full advantage of her blood-red beauties, she stared holes into the eyes Elf before her. "You think walking into an offensive spell caster is safe?"
As she spoke, the undercover rogue caught another stray shadow, landing on the wall behind them, that could not have been cast by either of them. While whoever it was had attempted to put its shadow in the Tiefling's, the unplanned movement that the priestess had forced put the stalker out. Not wanting to give away the fact that she'd noticed, Mi'ishaen bowed her head toward the flustered priestess as though she were tired or in need of consolation.
"I need you to look as far as you can behind us, without turning your head, and tell me everything you see," she urged as quietly as she could.
"Forget it," the priestess retorted, full voiced. "The minute you let me go, I-"
And then she, looking over Mi'ishaen's shoulder, spotted a dark Elf as she carefully leaned out of cover with a crossbow at the ready. The two Elves looked at each other for approximately ten seconds before the Drow's face pulled into a wretched smile. It occurred to the priestess that hundreds of surface raids, supposedly blessed by Lloth, began just like this- and the frigid terror rammed into her bones by her mother, her grandmother, and her great-grandmother suddenly stole the petulance of her heart.
"Drow," was all she managed.
The crossbow bolt cracked free of its owner, but Mi'ishaen used the split second warning to her advantage. She simply pulled the priestess to the ground with her, closing her eyes and exhaling her own nervousness out with a single puff.
"Last time I checked," Mi'ishaen mouthed, "Drow don't like surface Elves."
The priestess literally began to tremble in Mi'ishaen's loosely wrapped arms. Her mouth worked at forming words, but nothing came but sparks and hisses of consonants. Not ungrateful for the silence, Mi'ishaen simply put a hand over the muted mouth.
"Calm down- if they can't see us and they can't hear us, they can't hit us. Now, let's get out of crossbow range, shall we?"
Mi'ishaen rolled over so that she was on her knees and elbows, listening carefully. Though there were no more careless shadows- and Mi'ishaen knew the Dhuurniv Drow would make sure not to give themselves away so easily again- her ears reported distant rasps so quiet that she wasn't certain of their reality. Deciding to continue moving toward Le Lune Silvestre and the safe house that she knew was just beyond it, she pulled the Elven priestess to a crouch and began hustling behind her from evening shadow to evening shadow. She made sure to zag from the corners of buildings, keeping as many solid stone walls between herself, the real priestess and Dhuurniv eyes.
She successfully moved out of the Temple District and into the Elven Quarter, then turned to the left to press toward Le Lune Silvestre. The priestess balked, throwing her gaze from one side to the other in disoriented confusion. Mi'ishaen pursed her lips, knowing that bringing such a ditz to the safe house would be a risk in and of itself. Just as she'd made the decision to get in front of the priestess and lead her to the door of the tavern, a volley of hissing, nearly-clear arrows split the air. Not able to do much else, Mi'ishaen simply leaned back on top of the Elven priestess and forced her to the ground beneath her. Farther down the street, the arrows smacked against the stone of a building and breathed out a horrible stench.
The priestess and the Tiefling scrambled to their feet, but at first, they weren't quite in agreement about where they were about to go. The priestess pulled toward back, wanting to turn farther down through the Elven quarter, while Mi'ishaen was intent on continuing to move in the direction that they had gone. It took some fierce tugs, but Mi'ishaen won, and let go of the priestess nearly immediately in her haste to get out of what seemed to be a spell caster's line of fire. All around them, the darkness of night began to press down like a large cloak.
Two sets of light leather boots around two buildings.
The same quiet lisp of thin soles down a darkened alley from which Mi'ishaen could catch a grim glimpse of the top of the Hawke manse.
But when Mi'ishaen was four houses down from the tavern, she knew something was wrong. It was a solid sinking in the bones, a sharp pricking of the hair on her body, an itch that gnawed at her belly. She stopped moving, stood up straight and whirled around on her left hoof. The motion was so sudden and beautiful, covered in scarlet, indigo and orange robes as it was, that the Dhuurniv assassin whose left jawbone was on the receiving end of the right hoof never suspected the danger and pain of it. His head smacked into the wall of the building against which the Tiefling was sneaking, and when he fell to his knees in response, Mi'ishaen pushed the same boot-covered hoof into his throat. Moving forward and stealing his dirk, she whipped the small, sharp blade across his neck.
The resulting scream- a high, thin, distinctly feminine sound, settled in Mi'ishaen's bones like thick, cold porridge. She bit her lips on a curse and whipped herself around the corner of the building to go back toward the safehouse- and was stopped by the body of the Elven priestess rolling off the roof above her. The corpse, still warm, pushed Mi'ishaen onto her back, where she was rewarded with the sight of a pair of radiant red orbs in the darkness.
"Why?" she whispered fiercely, feeling a dampness that she didn't want to explain on her upper right arm. "Are you the only Elf I'm allowed to know?"
But Bahlzair's gaze remained unmoving, and in the silence that reigned between them, Mi'ishaen was certain that she heard a crossbow's bolt snick into place. Pulling the priestess's body up in front of her like a meat shield and ducking behind it, the rogue just barely avoided two crossbow bolts to the chest and eye. She knew without doubt she would remember the thudding of the bolts into the dead body that covered her for the rest of her life.
"Okay," she nodded, her breath catching in her chest. "I get it. This is the most useful she's been all day."
Bahlzair rolled off the roof and landed on top of the corpse, pinning Mi'ishaen beneath it. Unable to think of anything else to do, Mi'ishaen pushed her tail up and around Bahlzair's ankle, then squeezed and twisted. Surprised, the Drow turned the wrong way, and a shock of pain thrilled up the side of his leg as he fell to the ground beside Mi'ishaen. After sitting up and pushing the Elven female's body off her, Mi'ishaen took the dirk and cut a strip out of the priestess's robe. Throwing the strip on top of Bahlzair's belly, she got up and began moving toward the safe house again. Unobstructed by any bumbling hanger-on, the horned woman had a much easier time of eluding the Dhuurniv.
Bahlzair, meanwhile, rested his head on the ground and closed his eyes for a few moments, turning his wounded ankle in as much of a circle as he could manage. The joint had swollen nearly to the size of a ripe tomato before he decided to sit up and actually use the strip that had been cut for him.
He plucked the eyes out of the priestess's head and wrapped them carefully in the cloth with a satisfied nod, then limped his way toward the Dark Quarter.
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