angst thingy for talaste: stay close to me
It was always impossible to know when it would happen. The streets of the Braeryn would be bustling and flowing with the business of the slaves and criminals and fallen drow until someone who didn’t belong showed up. Or, rather, a group. The presence of nobility in the slums was unwelcome, but never challenged. No one would dare object to their presence.
But it was the sway to their step and their loud, arrogant voices calling over the sounds of everyone else, that told Talaste that they were not just passing through.
Everyone else had already picked up on it. One by one, they began quietly disappearing inside of buildings, cramming themselves into wherever was nearby. Talaste turned to Iimiara, fear in the half-drow’s eyes, and she grabbed her hand, squeezing it tight as she pulled her friend down the street with the rest of the crowds. Some people stopped to hide in alleys, or behind any kiosks left out in the streets; The owners would return to find their products missing, but it was better that than their lives.
Talaste and Iimiara knew better than to stay out, however, and she tried to follow someone into a tavern, only to have the door slammed in her face and locked.
Her stomach dropped. Iimiara squeezed her hand. It had already begun.
As she turned to look about the street, she saw less and less people, and more and more closed doors. And down the road staggered the drunken nobles, one of which was smiling wickedly as he now used a small crossbow to knock on the door of the butcher.
“Are you seriously locking us out of your store, you ungrateful filth?” the male yelled, his words slurring. “Don’t you know what happens to people who turn away the nobility?”
“Show ‘em!” a female hissed, yanking a young drow girl from behind a cart and holding her by the arm.
Talaste knew better than to hesitate. She pulled Iimiara to duck with her behind a kiosk and glanced around, looking for a way out. Down the street, the crossbow twanged, and they heard the bolt sinking into flesh, the gasp, and the subsequent screaming of the young drow girl as the shot proved less than fatal. Talaste squeezed Iimiara’s hand back.
The nobles laughed and cackled as the girl cried. “Again! Again!”
Talaste plotted a route out in her mind, trying to think of the quickest and safest route away from the nobles.
The drow cranked his crossbow back and loaded another bolt. But he made an odd noise, followed by a “Whoa!”
Someone fell into the street, and more wicked laughter followed. “Don’t be such a lightweight! You’re better than that!” another male crowed.
“Shut up!” the first one snapped. “You know I can fight better than AAANY of these lowlifes. Even when I’m blind drunk!”
Talaste finally got the path, but the alley they needed to go through was closer to the nobles. They had to be quick.
She turned and looked down the street, seeing the male with the crossbow picking himself up off the ground. His look of disgust was visible even at this distance as he began examining the mud on his clothes. “I can’t believe people live here!”
“That’s why they’re filth,” the first female said, and then punctuated the sentence with a kick to the girl on the ground. “Isn’t that right?”
The girl didn’t answer. All she could do was cry out in pain.
Talaste looked at Iimiara and saw the fear in her friend’s eyes, but Talaste’s determined look told her what she needed to know, and Iimiara’s expression quickly mirrored hers. “Stay close to me,” Talaste whispered, and she dragged Iimiara to a stack of crates in the street between them and the alley they needed to go down.
They froze in place when the female shouted, “Hey! Answer me, filth!”
In the split second it took to realize that she was yelling at the girl at her feet, Talaste dragged Iimiara the rest of the way to the cover and threw them both behind it. Her heart pounded, and it was almost impossible to keep herself from panting. When she looked at Iimiara, it was clear her friend felt the same way.
“So weak! She can’t even tolerate a shot this poor!” the female hissed. Then there was fabric scraping against mud, and the girl whimpered loudly. “Tell me, girl: Did you ever dream of being a noble? Being a Priestess of Lolth?”
Iimiara poked her head up, and Talaste hesitantly did the same. The girl whimpered as the female held her up by the front of her shirt, but she nodded her head in response. Then Iimiara stole Talaste’s attention as she pointed at a kiosk left on the other side of the street, right next to an alley. An older male drow was creeping back into the shadows, and Iimiara turned to Talaste with a firm stare.
Talaste put her hand over her mouth, not wanting to let a noise slip, and her desperate look begged Iimiara not to do it. Begged her to come up with something else. Anything else.
The firm stare faltered.
“Shoot her again!” the female hissed. “Teach this one a fraction of the pain that awaits her in Lolth’s domain!”
They ducked behind the crates again. “Just cover them,” Talaste begged Iimiara in a whisper. “We don’t have to make anyone else die!”
Iimiara was pained by Talaste’s compassion.
The crossbow twanged again, and the girl screamed. Talaste couldn’t help but flinch and clamp her eyes shut at the sound. Her hand squeezed Iimiara’s again. The drow laughed and laughed at the girl’s pain and it just made her sick.
“How far do we need to run?” Iimiara whispered.
Her eyes opened as she looked at Iimiara again, finding her resolve through her pain. “Not far,” she said. “I promise.”
“Then get ready…” Iimiara pulled her hand from Talaste’s grip and peeked over the crates again. Talaste lifted up just behind her, her hand hovering at Iimiara’s arm and ready to run with her.
After a moment, a cloud of darkness surrounded the drow, and Talaste seized Iimiara and bolted as the nobles began yelling in alarm. It was fifteen feet to the alley, and another twenty to slip through the hole in the fence and to the other side. Their footsteps were loud as they sprinted, and the drow shouted orders to follow the sound.
“Two little rats!” the second male shouted, and Talaste heard his heavy footsteps pounding behind them.
But all they needed to do was slip through the fence.
“Don’t let them get away!” the female hissed.
Talaste almost slid into the fence as she skidded to a halt, and she shoved Iimiara through the small hole. When she looked back at their pursuer, his face was twisted with rage.
He wasn’t close enough, however. Iimiara’s spell was just effective enough in delaying them, and Talaste squeezed herself through the hole behind Iimiara as the drow slammed into the fence with a yell, his arm slipping through after her. The male’s hand grabbed for her shirt, hooked around the loose fabric, and then it slipped through his fingers.
A simple fence was nothing to a drow noble, however. Within a moment, he would surely levitate over the fence and continue his pursuit, and so Talaste grabbed Iimiara and ran for the next street, not daring to wait or even look back.