The Thief
A girl held her breath.
Air was always moving, the same as time. Everything stirred it, from sound to fire, always flowing forward with every passing moment.
And when the air was held still, grasped deep in her lungs, it was almost as if she could hold time still. A feeling like a key catching in a lock, a trick that could be played on the world. Almost. At least enough to imagine...
She was backing away from the banquet hall, bowing as she held a cauldron-sized cup above her head, for not even the slightest hint of disrespect was tolerated by those whose voices rumbled and flared in the vast room.
<What if I...>
The girl imagined.
And then with a smile, she let the breath go. Not even a moment, not really. Just a slip into unreality for a moment, beneath the notice of dragons and warriors. What did they care about a daydreaming servant girl?
Later, the girl stood before a door. A massive door, sized for those who built the palace in the mountain when they were still vigerous enough to work with their own claws, back when they were proud of doing so instead of proud of their rule over the smaller existences.
She wasn't really there. In reality, she huddled down into a the shadow of a carving a hundred paces away, holding her breath and making no noise. But she imagined.
A thousand and one carven words glowed about it. A hundred locks held it fast.
The girl stepped forwards, lightfooted, and with a delicate thumb pressed mud into the smallest tail of the last clawstroke of the central character. And almost before she could see them, a dozen chains of fire and lightning lashed her flesh from her bones.
The girl breathed out quietly, then in.
She walked up to the side of the door, and with a delicate thumb pressed mud into one of the many characters that formed concentric rings on the stone walls around the polished metal of the vault door itself. It flared, then a dozen more in an arc. A snake of fire tore itself out of the wall, striking at her as she leapt backwards. But her smudge had not been random, and as it's jaws closed on her neck it's tail failed to rip free of the last, flawed character, cracking the stone and jerking the snake to a fatal stop.
She had time for a grin as her eyes traced four more patterns glowing brighter before the countermeasures ripped her mind to shreds.
The girl breathed out, quietly. A grin stole onto her face in reality. Progress, and so soon! She would have to be fast, and she would have to be *perfect*, but that was ok, fast and perfect on pain of death had been her life for so long that she'd almost forgotten any other. Even if this was a bit hard to compare to serving food and cleaning.
Later, much later, the girl frowned as she heard the last tumbler of the last lock thud into place. It had gone just as she had imagined it going, but her imagination didn't seem to stretch any further. It irked her. And ultimately, it was why she was here. Everywhere else she had ever been, she could imagine what was inside boxes or closets or chests or barrels. Or down corridors, or even inside the private chambers of the dragons themselves! But what lay inside this vault was beyond her. What could the kings of the world be keeping behind their most secret, most secure door? She had no idea, and so now she was here, in reality. Opening the door.
Something inside was howling.
Air always moves. And when you catch it in your lungs and hold it very tightly, you can trap 'always' too with a little bit of a trick, and look to see what it holds. But sometimes the air is too big to hold, the winds strong enough to pull the breath from your lungs.
But then, that is wind strong enough to fly with.
Hey
@yrsillar! Omake for your consideration. Dipping a little bit into dream and time as an art the wind thief used to open the vault.
