Welcome to Gaia! ::

Lenila shivered.

The Boss — he had to have had a name, but she wasn’t the one to know it and that was all anyone called him near her ears — had recently learned of her knack, as it were, for memory. Any room she saw, she could map what was in it. A building she saw from the inside, she could retrace her steps perfectly and recount the way she’d been within a footlength. She also, of course, was ‘difficult’ to communicate with, or so thought many of his lackeys.

Never says it straight, she don’t. Knows the whole way, we know she does, but you ask and she speaks bent up like and with monsters.

Len did like to embellish upon her stories. With the Boss, though, she found her tongue less prone to tripping however it would with others. He had little patience, and though she toed many lines, with him she felt compelled to risk little and escape his company as quickly as possible. But, his discovery of her memory had lead to him wanting her ‘in more important places’ ‘just to look around.’

Risk unfortunately seemed to scale with importance. Lenila didn’t want to be important or risky—or certainly not under these circumstances. But here she was just the same, ‘escorted’ in to a building she was meant to explore in the quiet hours of night. They had not told her what building it was or even permitted her to see her way on the approach there. She had been informed they would retrieve her after she had ‘finished’ and thus did not have to concern herself with where in the city they’d taken her.

She disagreed.

But they cared little. And here she was. She suspected it was business office, government or trade related. It smelled clean and crisp, and had long, wooden panneled halls, protected by rugs higher quality than anything she’d ever touched—at least, since the last time she’d been taken in by hopeful adopters. She stooped, scritching her fingers along the rug beneath her boots after the door closed — and locked — behind her.

It promised to be an interesting night.

Lenila didn’t want trouble.

To be fair, she hadn’t even wanted trouble when she’d listened to her mother’s advice and had been reluctant for those very reasons to chase the name drop down—which had lead to her engagements with the Boss, and so far as she was concerned everything had only grown less pleasant from there. She had been assured, however, that the building would be empty. It did look empty, and it did all have a kick of excitement to it. So, she got to work.

Moving quickly and quietly, she strode down the hall she’d been let in on and took to slipping into the first room and scoping it: taking note of its trappings, size, shape. The first three rooms were uninteresting, mostly empty, and two others were locked. She made it down the hall and to a central one, within which she took more time. There was more to see. In particular the central desk had some papers still strewn atop it, and after taking pace measurements of the rest of the space, she slipped behind the desk, perching over the varnished surface to peer at the sheets.

Numbers. She tipped her head, pausing and thumbing down the sheet. Was this one of the merchanteering offices? It looked to be a stock of trade goods listed with prices and fees, along with another stack of stamped permissions from shipping officials, a letter from one of the local clergymen…

Something creaked, and clacked, thunking with the trappings of movement distinctly not of the sort one would expect in an empty building. Her body froze. Like a prey animal alerted to potential danger only her glowing eyes moved, flitting about the room before slowly, she crouched.

Whoever it was, they weren’t in here with her yet. But she would much prefer to pin their exact location before they did the opposite with her.

Piss.

Lenila had strongly hoped to make her way fully out of the room before her unanticipated guest reached her location. She heard him — them? — him. It sounded like a man’s footsteps, and only one, from what she could gauge. Heavy boots, but not looking to draw attention to himself, since he didn’t flip the lights or burn any candles. She saw no dance of lantern light.

But there he was, just the same.

She had been moments from risking a dart from the door when she heard him emerging again from one of the rooms he’d gone to investigate, and she dared not risk making her escape. So, she hunkered low behind a table near the far corner of the room opposite the grand desk and adjacent to a bookshelf. She was going to be silent, hood her eyes, hold her breath, and wait. Everything would be fine so long as her pulse didn’t give her away.

Except that the man was Jalase.

She gave a startled scoff-peep of a sound before realizing her mistake, debating for all of a half instant whether or not to bank on him not looking, deciding against it, and bolting for the door.

Len squawked, her objection at being latched onto significantly less subtle than before because—well, she had been caught and inconspicuousness seemed slightly less critical for the time being.

“Ayyyye, y’can’t just—hhhhhhhhh-” She puffed in objection as Jalase dragged her back and shut the door with a weighty click behind them, her cheeks burning with abashed frustration. Missy indeed. Was this man everywhere? And why could this not have been a simple eventless night. “Oooii, that’s me. But what’re you doin’ here, ey?” She accented the question with a jab to the front of his chest. “It’s late. Shouldn’t big city boys like you be sleepin’ at this sorta hour so’s you can get your rest and serve the people bright an’ early on the morrow?”

Len felt her pulse stutter in her chest.

She had been afraid — for herself, to be caught here, knowing Jalase but not so well that she didn’t know what would happen if he caught her and then he did — but this was something else. A panged jolt in her chest and her brow furrowed.

“She don’t got no reason—she promised she wouldn’ say nothin’, gonna get herself in trouble she will. You should…” She swallowed, flushing and frowning. “You should git on out o’ here, there ain’t nothin’ that’s her business here, y’hear?”

Len took a step back, but made no further move to flee, nerves of the first sort skipping back into her throat. She swallowed them down, puffing out a light breath and tossing her head. “I haven’t done nothin’…ey, sure, I shouln’ be here, but I ain’t taken nothin’, see?”

She folded out her pockets and then proceeded to shake her jacket and the sash at her hips, though a small ache pinched in her gut as her hands tousled the area her weapons ought to have been. They weren’t there, of course, and she knew as much. The men the Boss had sent with her to get her here and in without revealing the location had insisted she go in unarmed. ‘Less suspicious if anything went afoul.’

She felt smaller than usual.

“And I ain’ got no pointy bits neither, so you c’n relax about that. I don’ want no trouble, an’ I don’ need you in it. I’ll even get out with you if y’ insist, mm? Don’ much like it in here anyhow…”

Something—distinctly not either of them—clacked down the hall on the other side of the door. While it would have been a perfect time to add excitement into the narrative in a later retelling of the tale, she was less fond of the prospect of actually living such excitement.

Len peeked upwards towards the windows.

High. She could make it, probably. Quickly? Maybe. Quietly? Possibly. Quickly and quietly and surely was not something she could guarantee and the voices outside were gaining volume far too fast. If she failed, Jalase would be in trouble—certainly if they expected he was helping her escape, and even if was the Boss’ thugs come to check on her, that couldn’t go well. Her mind raced, but the options were too few and too poor.

“Too noisy, ain’t time.”

She darted, fitted herself between the bookshelf and the wall, and shut her eyes, dimming out their glow.

“No, it was definitely here.”

“It’s an orphan girl. Are you certain the story couldn’t get any more preposterous? Why don’t you drop the charade and explain the missing funds. You cannot keep…crying beast and Hand of the Gods storm events—”

“Do not bring the gods into this, Lord Fareiah. These are the dealings of men, and their eyes are upon us always. If the girl is here, we will find what she knows, and if not…forgive the gravity of the words, Mister Dorynn, but the gods do not smile favorably on those who do not pay their debts…”

“Come…we’ll check—we have not checked the main office, it’s…odd to be closed, actually.” There was a fiddling with the lock, but then more words. “Oh, it’s…not locked, come. If she isn’t here, I will have the officials scour the rest of the building. You may shoot any trespassers other than the girl—”

“No,” the man who had spoken of not bringing the gods into things cut him off. “One of our younger clerics has…enlisted the aid of a city guardsman. It wasn’t planned for, but all the more reason not to be hasty—with our words, or our actions.”

Someone scoffed, but whatever might have been said next was unintelligible over the creak and push of the door to open.