Stupid, stupid, stupid Shoat thought angrily to herself as she slipped through the crowd. After leaving the guards behind to tend their wounded comrades, Shoat had immediately been struck by the recklessness of her actions.
And their stupidity, she thought bitterly.
To start off with, even just walking out into the city could have been considered a bad move. After all, why just walk out into a place that she had no clue about the rules of when she could have just climbed up onto a roof and watched from there?
And then, you had the guards. Why in the names of every god and Neverborn did she feel the need to antagonize them? She could have just ran away, and there was no way they could have caught her even if they wanted to. Which they probably didn't, considering how they acted. But noooo, instead she felt the need to all but stroll up to them, all from a desire to see how far they would be willing to go. And then to straight up attack them… she wouldn't have survived a minute in the Mound if she had acted as foolishly as this.
Shoat shook her head. If she really wanted to know more about the guards, then she should have just watched them from a distance. Now, she would almost certainly have a bounty on her by the end of the day, assuming she didn't already.
And she hadn't even spent a day here!
Shoat allowed a sigh to pass from her lips. Well, whatever. Not much she could do about it now, she'd just have to be more careful.
Now, the next step would be finding a place to stay. That was going to be an… interesting experience, so to speak. Sadly, she doubted she would be able to find an inn willing to take her. Even if she hadn't just likely killed a guard, she didn't have any money. At least, she didn't think she did. She didn't actually know what people around here used as currency.
Well, if the people here value knives, then I'm pretty well off, she thought with a snort.
She doubted she'd be that lucky.
---
Shoat woke up to the sound of shouting. Without thinking, she immediately jumped to her feet, her heart pounding as she drew a knife with each hand.
She stood there for a moment, completely still, waiting for something to happen. Eventually, after confirming that the shouting was not coming closer, she let herself relax. With a sigh, she sheathed her blades and heavily sat back down on her makeshift bed.
She had been lucky to find this place, she thought. Whether it had been due to mismanagement or something else, a few of the brick buildings had been built in such a way that they completely enclosed a sort-of alley-like place. Shoat only saw it because she was on top of one of said buildings, which was also the only way to access it.
The alley was protected from both the wind and more importantly, people. Shoat had taken one look at it and immediately knew it was perfect.
Unfortunately, the buildings did not prevent sound from getting in, an issue that Shoat was only realizing the implications of now.
Now, she had two options. Option one: she went back to sleep, or more likely, tried to go back to sleep in spite of the noise. Having already struggled to sleep the first time around, doing it again, this time surrounded by infuriating noises seemed rather unappealing.
Option two of course was to get up to see who was causing the noise, and if at all possible, get them to stop.
Option two it was then. Taking only a moment to hide her makeshift bed, she quickly began to scale the same wall she had used to enter the alley in the first place. Once she was on the roof, she slowly crept over to the edge, her Essence aided eyes and ears easily finding the group responsible for waking her.
The group in question was rather uninteresting, mostly seeming to just be a group of unsavory looking men; criminals most likely. Only two people in the group interested her at all; one a shirtless man wearing a white tiger mask, and a woman wearing some sort of cage-like mask along with a pair of sickle-like weapons on her waist.
Likely the leaders of the group, Shoat thought to herself. Deciding to hold off on attacking, she contented herself with just watching them for now.
Suddenly, the woman's head slightly jerked up, and her hands strayed for her weapons. Then, she paused, and seemed to relax. Shoat's eyes narrowed. She knows I'm here. Dragon-Blooded maybe? For all her cruelty, the Dowager had made sure that her greatest weapon knew her likely foes like the back of her hand, and the Princes of the Earth were among the greatest of those enemies.
Despite herself, Shoat felt her lips twitch upwards. She didn't have much experience with Dragon-Bloods; the only time she had faced one was when the Dowager had sent her to assassinate some merchant. She hadn't known why the Dowager wanted the man dead, and she didn't dare ask, though she harboured the suspicion that the whole thing was actually some sort of elaborate test.
As it turned out, the merchant had had a bodyguard; an outcaste Dragon-Blood, who had been clearly just as surprised to see Shoat as she had been to see them. The resulting battle was short and bloody, as well as being one of the few times Shoat could remember feeling truly happy since entering the Mound. She could still remember the rush she felt as she carved the unfortunate Exalted apart, and the panic on their face as they realized they had found an opponent they could not beat. Even during her worst moments, those memories never failed to at least slightly cheer her up.
Sadly, said fun did not extend to carrying back their head.
Well, I'm always interested in making new memories, Shoat thought as she unsheathed her blades.
Suddenly, the masked man swung around towards her, swinging his hand as if throwing something. Rather than any object however, a strange shimmer came hurtling from his hand, like claw marks in the air itself.
Thinking quickly, Shoat leapt from her position, her feet skidding as she slid down the side of the building. Behind her, there was a loud boom, as if something had exploded.
Shoat winced. I better make sure to avoid those. Her lips curled upwards. Well, at least this should be interesting. With a flick of her wrist, she tossed one of her knives at the group
Arcing through the air, the knife's first target was the woman, who barely managed to get one of her weapons in position to block it. Sliding off with a hiss, the knife looped around to its second target; the tiger-masked man. This time the knife found its target, cutting deep into his chest. It would have gone into his throat, but he recoiled at the last minute, conjuring a blast of wind to throw the knife off its course. Undeterred the knife continued on, slicing its way through the remainder of the group. Shoat suppressed a smile as she saw several of the other men fall, most clutching their throats.
Quickly moving into the cover of darkness, Shoat took a second to observe the group further.
Most of the group was still panicking, with some waving their firewands in ways that really didn't seem safe, and others doing their best to help those that had been hit with her first attack. Only the woman seemed to have been able to track her, likely using whatever it was that allowed her to find Shoat in the first place.
Calmly drawing another knife, Shoat took only a second more to watch her target. Then, she lunged forward, moving towards the Dragon-Blood at a seemingly impossible speed.
Moving surprisingly quickly, the woman raised her own blades, and Shoat's first strike bounced off with a loud clink. With her weapons already raised, the woman swung both of them down towards Shoat's head.
Deftly sidestepping her swing, Shoat swung her own blade up, aiming to cut through the woman's arm. To her pleasant surprise, the woman dodged as well, evading the blade by only a hair.
The two fighters paused, both reevaluating what they thought they knew about the other. Meanwhile, the rest of the group watched, wanting to intervene, but not able to get a clear shot with Shoat and the woman so close together.
Finally, the masked man seemed to have enough. Muttering something that Shoat suspected was a curse, he dove in, his speed boosted by a current of air. At the same time, the woman dove in, one of her blades swinging down, the other held in reserve.
Rather than try to contest both of them at once, Shoat ducked underneath the woman's swing, throwing out her own halfhearted swing to keep the other blade occupied.
Making sure to keep the woman between herself and the man, Shoat continued to trade blows with the female Terrestrial. Whenever the man tried to move around the woman, or the woman tried to move aside, Shoat would move in sync with them to maintain their position. And while the woman was still putting up a good fight, it was clear she was tiring. Her blows were becoming easier and easier to deflect, while Shoat's own strikes came closer to hitting each time.
Then, it happened. The two fighters moved as one, the woman throwing herself to the side, while the man lunged forwards. Shoat barely had time to block the strike before a massive blow struck her head on, sending her skidding backwards. Thankfully, her fast reflexes had prevented her from being injured, but now she had a new problem. Before, the close proximity of the fight had prevented the rest of the group from using their firewands. Now however, there was no such deterrent, and from how the men were pointing their weapons, they had realized the same thing.
Suddenly, all of the men jerked as if they had been struck. Continuing to flail wildly as if they were puppets being controlled by a particularly bad ventriloquist, the men collapsed to the ground, their weapons still gripped tightly in their hands.
Shoat and the two Terrestrials paused for a moment, all three of them equally confused. Shoat recovered first. Moving like a shadowy wave, she darted across the distance separating them and slashed up at the man.
The male Terrestrial recovered just in time to deflect her strike with a burst of wind, but Shoat had expected that. With her other hand, she stabbed a second knife upwards, aiming for his chest. This blade found its mark, and the man staggered back, blood dripping down his chest.
The woman immediately came to the defense of her wounded comrade, ironically enough standing between him and Shoat. Shoat didn't mind; she seemed more fun to fight anyway.
The two once again traded blows, each one being blocked or otherwise avoided. The woman swung high, and Shoat ducked and swung low. The woman swung down, and Shoat dodged before replying with her own swing.
Finally, the woman, clearly tired, made a mistake. Swinging with one last powerful blow, she misjudged the power of her strike, and overextended. Shoat immediately took advantage, stepping around the blow while making her own strike. The woman tried to pull back, but it was too little, too late, and Shoat's swing cut straight through her wrist, nearly cutting her hand right off.
The woman recoiled back, clutching her wrist with a pained hiss. Taking advantage of her distraction, Shoat lashed out at her knee with a kick. The woman let out another pained yelp as her leg collapsed in from under her, though she somehow managed to avoid falling all the way down.
I can fix that, Shoat thought. Bringing her hand back, Shoat struck the woman in the temple with the pommel of her dagger, sending her crashing to the ground.
With the woman dealt with, Shoat paused to admire her handiwork. The woman was on the ground moaning and clutching her head, while the masked man seemed to be trying to both stem the bleeding from his chest wound and stand up to continue the fight.
A quick kick to the head put a stop to that.
Shoat sighed. To be honest, she was somewhat disappointed. She had hoped that the two Dragon-Bloods would have put up more of a fight, but other than that one blow that had forced her back, not much had really threatened her. In fact, the one Outcaste she had fought for the Dowager had put up more of a fight than these two. For Heaven's sake, they didn't even manage to make her Caste Mark show!
She frowned. Were they Dragon-Bloods? Their wind manipulation and senses made her want to say yes, but in hindsight, neither of them had demonstrated much in the way of other abilities.
Well, in any case, it seemed that mystery would have to remain unsolved for now. With a shrug, she began to reach down for a knife to finish them off.
Suddenly, she heard the noise of someone speaking coming from right behind her. Whirling around, Shoat found herself looking at… well, she wasn't quite sure how to describe it. The closest thing that came to mind was some sort of insect, though she wasn't aware of any insects with two arms and legs.
Or insects with long hair.
The odd figure raised its hands in a placating manner and took a step backwards. Idly, Shaot nodded that its footsteps were completely silent, which was probably how it had snuck up on her. It spoke again, this time in a questioning tone.
Shoat wanted to sigh. Of course this being would also speak the same cursed language as everyone else here. "Can you understand me?" she tried, more out of frustration than expectation that it would work.
From the way the entity cocked its head to the side, it could not in fact understand her. Shoat sighed.
Wait, she thought, remembering the way the other men had fallen. Pointing at them, she looked back to the entity and cocked her head to the side. Even with the language barrier, she was pretty sure the message was clear. Did you do this?
The entity's gaze followed her hand, before it looked back at her. Slowly, it began to nod.
Alright, that's something at least, Shoat thought. She wanted to ask why it had gotten involved, but she doubted she would be able to ask that with just pointing and head movements.
We're going to be here for a while, Shoat thought tiredly.
///
Thank you for reading!
