Welcome to Gaia! ::

Levi cut her a few more slices, and finished the rest himself. "Where next, m'lady?"

Levi shrugged in assent, and winked at the fruit vendor as they strolled away. A few apples had made it into his pocket, but no one seemed to mind. "Y'like pets? Ah gotta fishie, m'self."

With a grin, he stepped to the edge of the aisle and motioned her around the corner with one grand gesture, as though he'd prepared the exotic pets booth just for her.

Levi followed Kitsu around the corner, and brightened as he spotted the large tank. Hey, that was pretty cool! It was big enough to put a shark in! The young pirate plastered both hands and his face against it, peering in like a sucker fish.

One of the booth attendants stopped to stare, hands shoved deep into his coat pockets. It wasn't the suckerfaced pirate that caught his attention, rather, it was the remarkable creature that followed him. Almost imperceptibly, he nodded...perhaps a greeting to Kitsu?

Fromm overhead, a small golden monkey grabbed the bars of its cage and started to shake, screeching shrilly.

Levi gaped, but didn't detach himself from the tank. It was a girl! A mergirl! Still staring, he glanced up and down what he could see of her through the murky water. She was real, all right, but...

Wait. You could buy a mergirl?

He finally turned to glance at Kitsu, shrugging in confusion. What could they do? It seemed vaguely wrong, somehow...perhaps he wouldn't have cared if the girl hadn't looked so desperately unhappy.

"'Ow much?" He asked the question grudgingly. He didn't have enough, no matter HOW much the mergirl was, but the moment he showed interest one of the booth attendants sidled up. He draped an arm around Levi's shoulders, blocking his view of Kitsu, and turned the pirate back to the tank. "Beauty, ain't she!"

A shadowy figure shifted behind Kitsu, from the space between two high stacks of crates, and a tiny gleam of light ran up the length of a hypodermic needle. If she took one more step back...

Levi blanched at the whispered price. That much, just for a fish girl he was going to toss back into the sea?! Shaking his head, he waved the guy off, and turned with the intent of sharing the ridiculous price with Kitsu.

Before he turned all the way around, though, the attendant caught his arm and turned Levi roughly back toward the tank. "Look again, lad! She be worth e'ery penny!"

Grimacing, Levi looked, his stomach tightening with how desperate the creature seemed. A half lady was still a lady...even when she was pounding silently on the glass with the side of her little fist.

But...why was she pointing at him? The guy tightened his grip on Levi's upper arm, which the pirate didn't care for at all, but he was a bit distracted by the way the girl was pressed up against the tank. It was almost like she was trying to tell him something!

A pale flash across the surface of the glss caught his attention, and Levi let his eyes unfocus just a bit. Even though he couldn't turn, with the other guy looming beside him, he looked 'into' the reflection on the surface of the tank...just in time to see Kitsu's reflection vanish. It was as though the dark swallowed her up, and at the same moment, the mermaids mouth widened into a perfect O of horror. Dense as he was, Levi knew immediately something was wrong. "Wha-?"

"Hey! Settle down, lad. I wouldn't wanna...." The man struggled against him as he tried to turn, but his voice cut short as Levi caught him in the stomach with an elbow. As soon as the guy doubled, Levi came down with the same elbow again, this time on the back of his neck.

"KITSU!"

Levi stumbled forward, arm aching where it had connected with the ugly fellow's neck. The direction they were heading was obvious, but Levi couldn't do much more than watch. Even if he did manage to fight them off (and he rarely stood a chance in a fair fight!) there would still be an unconscious Kitsu to deal with!

Instead, the young pirate took one last look at the girl in the tank, and nodded. Maybe he couldn't fight...

...but there wasn't a cage in the world Levi couldn't open.

***

A small, wet hand patted the side of Kitsumai's face. The voice was thin, delicate, like the whisper of wind over sand. 'Wake up! Wake up!' A slight trickle of water, fresh and invigorating, wound across the side of the Legend's face. 'Wake up! We have to go!'

Surely, it would seem as though a two headed monster was pawing at her cage. The mermaid clung weakly to Levi's back, with one slim arm around his neck. She leaned forward as he worked on Kitsu's cage, patting her awake as he clinked and ticked at the door.

Strange tools bristled from his mouth, where he held them pressed between his lips...occasionally exchanging one for the other, and poking at the lock with a slightly different metal point.

"Mumoss...hair!" He mumbled around the tools to himself as the lock finally snicked open, and the young pirate stood a bit unsteadily, backing away from the door a bit as it released.

"Sorreh, Kitsu." His voice was quiet, and his eyes were a bit sad. The mermaid still clinging to his back gasped, and laid her head against his shoulder. "Sorreh I couldn't rescue yah right-like. Guess ah'm notta prince." He glanced back over one shoulder as he spoke, looking back the way they came. It was obvious they were short on time.