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Quickly. Quickly.

Jacline held her skirts up a half inch to spare the hem from being frayed, the heels of her boots clicking tap-tap-tap to the cobblestone street below. Under one arm, she held three books tucked into her grip. At her hip, a small coin purse hung. Her tasks for the evening were already overdue, and there was no excuse for it. She had gotten distracted inexcusably, read for too long in the high tower of the citadel and not caught herself soon enough. Now, she had only the space of an hour to return Mother Sallah’s books to the east quarter library, pay the baker, Callum, who had delivered this week’s morning bread, and fetch Father Tallart’s evening sermon robe from the seamstress.

It wouldn’t do to run. That was unladylike. But it wouldn’t do to be late, either. Or, Seren forbid, not make it. She moved as quickly as she could while balancing both goals.

She made it to the library well enough on time. There, she exchanged in the books she needed and after, made it to the east quarter. Once the week’s bread had been paid for, less coins jingled in the purse, but not all were gone yet. What remained had been counted to be exactly enough to pay for the mending done on Father Tallart’s robe, and by the angle of the sun, Jacline guessed she would have just enough time to make it all through, barring exceptional circumstances.

Unfortunately, exceptional circumstances had poor timing.

She made it down the main street, past the square and was within twenty paces of her final turn down the block when they hit, in the form of careening body. Though the character could not have been that much larger than she, they hit with enough force to her side to send Jacline yelping and toppling to the city street, gravel stinging her palms on impact and body disoriented. The pap-pap-pap of retreating boots, though, spurned her to shake herself, frowning and opening her mouth to chastise whoever had been so rude as to not watch at all where they were headed.

The person, however, was already fleeing.

Boy or girl she could not tell, but dirty with street soot, and it was only in the last instant before the crowd swallowed them that Jacline saw the coin purse. Her fingers jerked to her hip, but of course, she found nothing waiting there.

“No, stop-” Jacline pushed herself upwards, wincing as she did and shaking her head again in an effort to clear the dizziness there. “Stop, you mustn’t-” She started in the direction they had gone, pushing herself fast as her young legs could carry her. “Thief!”

Jacline felt ridiculous. Small-bodied as she was and ill-equipped or prepared for strenuous exercise besides, the crowd seemed like a great tide, battering her this way and that, and with each struggle to push forward, her goal seemed only to grow farther away. She would never catch him. The reality of this fact grew more apparent every moment, but her shame at having lost what she needed spurned her on regardless. Desperately, even.

She couldn’t simply let it go. Not without trying. She had to catch up, and despite her lack of faith that she would, she sent up a prayer to Seren in any case, begging forgiveness for her morning’s laziness beneath her breath and pleading a stroke of luck.

Then, to her own astonishment as much as any, her prayer was answered.

Like a goddess-send from the crowd, a tall, bright haired young woman emerged. The thief dropped to the streets, and a moment later, he was rooted in the woman’s grip, yelping like a misbehaving mutt and looking similarly scraggly as he squirmed in her grip. Jacline nearly tripped over herself in surprise, and was, a moment later, slowing her own pace as she made it to them. Her ‘goddess sent’ woman looked even more formidable close up, and though she opened her mouth, Jacline found herself unable to immediately find words.

Instead, her cheeks flared. Already flush from the run that her body wasn’t accustomed to and now all the more so from embarrassment, she felt certain her white cheeks must have been the color of a hot dawn well under way. It did not help that she was still half breathless, and that the woman was beautiful. It seemed a strange thing to notice, but so distracted was she generally by all the rest of the day’s events that the sort of powerful, self-assured grace that this woman had to her, so very different from the poised elegance of noblewomen, did not strike her as something she shouldn’t have noticed. The nervous pitter-patter of her pulse in her chest, too, was due entirely to the run.

Jacline dipped her lashes, dusting her fingers down the front of her robes. “Just…” She lifted a finger, pointing in a minimal flick towards the purse taken from her. “Only that, miss. Seren be praised you caught him, you were so quick. Goddess knows I didn’t mean to be causing any trouble. He knocked me over, he did. I couldn’t have been quick enough on my own…thank you, and our Mother’s church thanks you.”

Odette Duperian.

Jacline made mental note to put the young woman in her prayers of thanks for that evening, and mention her actions to Father Tallart, if she got the chance. Although she had winced when the boy was tossed back roughly to the ground, she straightened her shoulders as he scurried away and notched her chin up, turning her attention to her savior despite the lingering warmth in her cheeks and unasked for pinch of guilt.

The boy had sinned and was obviously astray. Seren was serving him what was due for his failures, and if he learned, he could be saved. Otherwise, it was not her place to feel guilt for his wrongdoings. It was only just that he suffer punishment, and this had to be among the most lenient of options.

“Jacline-” Jac’s tongue froze for a moment, more starkly aware than she normally was that ‘her’ surname was not hers at all, but a gift from Father Tallart that she might not be a nameless orphan. She swallowed. “Jacline…Tallart, under the Church of Seren. Not all of our Mother’s children are so noble, but I am grateful that you are.” After a moment of holding the pouch pinched in her grip, Jacline returned it to its place at her hip, this time doing more in her attempts to keep it out of sight in the folds of her robes. “I was to pay the seamstress just up the way…” She notched her head to indicate the next block. “When he took it, I feared for a moment that I wouldn’t make it, and-” She dipped her lashes, catching her lip between her teeth so as not to talk too much needlessly. “It is easy to forget what those desperate will get up to. You must have better things to see to, but…” After tracing the symbol of the six-starred sun in front of her chest, she tucked her fingers away. “The Mother sees all kindnesses and yours will not be forgotten.”