Closed He Scanned Their Trinkets [Valanir]

[Philomena]

36 Winter, 512 AV
A cheap drinking dive, close to East Street

The old sailor had been the two worst things an interview subject could be: thirsty and digressive. This made the third thing a capstone of frustration for Minnie: longwinded. Minnie had meant to spend perhaps an hour there, and a part of her felt that if she had been able to spend the hour, instead, asking the questions she intended to ask, she might have learned something. The old codger, several of her other sources confirmed, was related to one of the sailors who died in the White Fever stage of the Circumnavigation, and Minnie believed it. He was old enough. But age, while it grants experience, in the unfortunate can rescind the ability to recollect clearly. Minnie had spent the last two hours hearing the man pontificate on the best varieties of ship's cats to protect a hold full of grain. She'd taken notes. It was the sort of tidbit one never knew if one might find useful. But it certainly had not been worth the three hours of nattering.

And now, it was growing late. She should have already had supper, and had not been interested in the liquid diet of kelp beer that the man had consumed in the tumbledown drinking parlor. She was hungry, now, and the sun was down, and she was only a few blocks off of East Street - not a good place to be, she knew, when the sun was low. Minnie was not an utter fool about these things - she had worn her least distinctive dress, a grey-white sack of a thing, but the spectacles, after all, were a dead giveaway - the foggy-eyed among the poor simply stayed foggy. Seh clutched her bag close to her chest, and went into the street. The place was mostly empty - these days, with the plague, the streets were much less crowded. The whole affair made her nervous, and she peeked behind her at the setting sun, and frowned, scurrying northwards, away from East Street, to try to get on the diagonal way toward the University.

[Valanir]

She shouldn't be here this late - first thought that grazed as he was getting ready to leave the rundown locale. The visually unimpressive woman would soon head him off in a way, disappearing through the door before he ever got the chance to pay any real attention to her. Regardless of such small matters, it was still fine time to leave the place. Paying one last glance to the drunken sailor that seemed to displease the lady who left so, he too would be out. The plan was to go diagonally towards the university so he could head closer to west street before taking three rights to finally reach his secluded home and try to get some rest. Leth might've been his Lord Protector, but for one to survive in urban enviroments, one needed to attain certain habits. Laboring during the day was just one of them, but by far the hardest to get used to. It was his own pethcin' fault for settling here even for a bit.

Not being ones for observation, the separated individuals would soon learn just what it was that made them a pair. To the back of their heads, eyes were set. Like bows waiting to go off, they would wait pristine opportunity in order to fire. And such chances were coming faster than either of the targets could tell. The female walked slow, or rather slower than the pale being that traced similar direction. Soon the two would catch up to one another and then it will be easier to jump them simultaneously without anyone getting needlessly jumpy. Licking his lips at the thought of what he could take, the thief wouldn't even pay much heed to the spear at the man's side. After all, all thieves looked like men, and all men looked alike. The long weapon was only a threat for its reach. Once he was within a few steps, the advantage would meld into its polar opposite. Far behind them, steps were trying to follow carefully, retaining quite rhythm.

[Philomena]

Bonnel was not a thief, that was the half of it. As far as he was concerned, he wasn't even stealing, or at least he'd convinced himself of just as much. He was just gathering up something to feed his children. The plague, like all disasters had hit the lower class the hardest, and Bonnel, was the lowest of low class, a mere stevedore at the harbor - and in the current environment? Trade had slowed, his opportunities along with it. A few drunken nights of frustration, and a punch thrown at one of his bosses, and here he found himself - trying to feed his children. His wife was sick with the plague already, and the money he'd had left had gone to medicines for her. He knew he wasn't quiet, so he simply sat, half buried in the shadow of a crossing alleyway, a few blocks north of the dive where his inadvertent benefactors were now leaving.

Minnie, used to walking the streets in a less dim light, found herself jumping at will-o-wisps - and the noisiest will-o-wisp was not the low breathing of the would-be thief: it was the heavy tread of a man coming up behind her - a man, at that, who carried a weapon.

//Who carries a weapon in Zeltiva?// she thought nervously, peering through her spectacles at the man with the spear, //He can't be Wave Guard. He doesn't have the uniform or the carriage of one.//

This set her nervous, and she turned around to face the man just as he had nearly reached her, "Alright, that's close enough, then, sir. Stand back!"

To attribute to this little display of aggression (even that is probably an overindulgent description of it) any sort of intimidating quality is to speak perhaps too highly of the tiny woman. She clutched her bag close to her, her eyes darting around her for possible escape routes.

//Something small, Minnie// she thought, //Something small, where this great oaf of a man will have trouble following, give you a head start. You can do this. Just like you were a little girl again...//

"I've nothing worth stealing, and I'm a professor at the University, you won't want the Chancellors after you, will you then? Move along!"

At this, she began backing slowly toward an alleyway, just as a man flashed out of it, a heavy stevedore's prybar wielded in his great bruising fist...

[Valanir]

Valanir wasn't much for paying attention to people of lesser races. Not unless it prospered him to do so anyway.At that particular moment however, he found himself eyeing the crazed woman warily. What was her petchin' problem? And then he'd hear the brunt of it. Did he really look so much a thief? Clearly the woman was never unlucky enough to ever meet one. Not yet. Her flamable nature disoriented him long enough to fail at noticing a gleam of steel. A prybar in a hand of a dockhand, not seeing anything wrong with this picture, it was alrady too late when he noticed obvious hostile intent.

"That, young lady, is a thief" the ethaefal would state simply before dropping his spear to the ground. He had been mugged once before, long ago, but even that was one too many times for him to provoke the pent up stranger. This wouldn't cost him much, he'd reckon and the thought only added to him feeling apathy to the whole thing. He wouldn't say anything else for lack of chance and interest both as the thief would growl something between a whisper and a threat. Maybe it was denial? There was no time to think it through, thief made sure.

"Shut yer trap!" the voice was tired, fearful, Valanir thought. And he'd listen to it, he had enough on his mind without having to bear the soul of some crazy human female upon his conscience. "We'll give you whatever you wan.."
"SHUT UP!" he was clearly robbing them, but somehow it seemed to pain him to hear it. Point taken, the pale one would take to it and refuse voicing any further thought. Hopefully the woman would take equal notice. A strange sensation of uneasiness fell over the whole thing. It was just coins. The idiot should take them and be done with these two stranded in misunderstanding. There was no fear yet; he wouldn't kill them, would he?

[Philomena]

The woman turned, with a start, only the dormant instincts of the street preventing her now from running into the man she was so leery of a moment before - her brain manages to think to go the empty direction, forming a triangle of the two. She looks at the man, trying to regain her breath.

//No, no, no... No... he'll want the bag... Not the bag, anything but the bag.//

She purposely lets go of the bag, trying to make it appear unimportant to the thief. Gulps, deeply, and stays silent.

The man now lifts the crowbar threateningly, "Come on, then, dammy. I'm not to buying that line about 'aving nothing worth... my time. I'm nae a thief. I'm... my babs are hungry, that's all. You dunny know what hungry is. Both of you!"

The man is clearly worked up. Minnie at this point wrinkles a brow, and clears her throat, and the intonations of her voice change dramatically, from the measured, well-anunicated tones of a professor to a low-street cant, a very natural one, though still filled with the shiver of a timid and frightened woman, "Come on, duffer. I'm an old shipper student, nae s'different 'en your own babs might be someday. Dunny do naught y'might be regrettin'."

[Valanir]

Rolling his eyes, Valanir couldn't really keep cool. Would this idiot rob them already? Compared to other things that could happen to them if they stay in a shady street like this for too long... well one small mugging was relatively tame. That's when the woman started talking again, having just formed a triangle between their feet. Her sudden change of tone and posture gave away that she was indeed familiar with the thief's plights. Or maybe she was simply good at manipulating people like that, there was no time to care!

"Regrettin'?" the man would yell, his presence suddenly towering despite the lacking stature. "And 'oose gonna feed me kids?!" then he'd point to the ethaefal with the crowbar, grazing his chest a bit in a slow swing "'im?" and the hand came back in an arch before being raised over his head as if he was trying to strike her down, but no swing came "You?!"
Valanir didn't want to interrupt any of this, but he could see the man's point. But paranoia was beginning to become much a real thing - would they be robbed alredy? There were far worse things than starving children waiting to stalk them here.
"Oi!" Valanir would raise his brows at his own derogatory language all of a sudden. It was... uncommon for him to speak such. Getting the man's attention, he'd slide a hand in his pocket and throw out any coins his hand grabbed on its first trip. The Mizas were thrown against the thief's chest and he'd soon gaze down at them as they fell to the ground in flashes of copper and silver and, was that really gold? "Steal, don't steal... it's not my place to care, just be done with it already..." what the ethaefal hand't told him however was that there were more coins in his pockets, but there was no need to go bankrupt over such idiocy.

"Be sure to spend them before plague takes you..." he'd leave the last bit hanging, hoping it was as rude as he intended it to be. It was such bother to deal with these one-life type of creatures. All gods should claim servants and send them back upon the mortal planes so that the new arrivals could all help each other in rewriting the world in a better fashion. Yes, maybe that could be his purpose.

[Philomena]

//Qalaya's dirty fingers,// she swore internally, //Who the petch was this fool? The thief is obviously on the defensive already, and this moan goes an insults him?//

Minnie spoke slow, trying to keep eye contact with the thief, "If I'm t'be pinked t'nigh, I'd just as soon feed a baby with it. Come on…" she spoke low, and flat, like a mother soothing a child, "I 'ave a bit of copper in m'satchel. And a loaf o' white bread. The rest, please, it would nae do you any good a'selling. I'm gunny open my satchel now, 'en, a'right?"

She moves very slowly to do so. The thief frowns at the woman, but ignores her for now, to turn back to the other man, "All high 'n mighty, chum, you go off an' scoff about the poor scum o' East Street, sure, but you'll be emptying your pockets first, 'en"

He raises the crowbar menacingly.

[Valanir]

Biting down his tongue in order to retain quiet, the ethaefal would only let out a slight moan of surprise. Was the human really supposed to react in such a flamboyant fashion? Sure his kids were starving, but this was still thievery! Did he really expect the targets to thank him after he was done, not only that, maybe he wanted them to aid in the process too?! The whole concept of such a delay angered him at this point. It was his own shykin fault in a way. Had he not dropped that silly piece of spiked wood, this could've been a very different conversation. Valanir wanted to leave without bloodshed instead, and even after all that, their interaction was reduced to him not caring about some random children somewhere... Seriously, humans got on his nerves more and more each day.

Every creature that ever was or will be had children who then made more. It was not his place to know or get attached to these other beings simply because they were in a need more dire than usually. What's worse, if asked politely on the street, he would've probably given out coin without a second thought. Like this though - one couldn't piss in your supper and call it a favor, no man would stand for such disgrace and neither could Valanir. Cornered men don't really see a non radical solution for their problems, the target figured.

Surprisingly the woman still seemed eager enough even after he had once already raised a hand at her. That was likely compassion, a care for one's comrade or kin. They could never be his kin though, every human action seemed to only deeper imprint that fact upon his psyche. "Thieves get treated like thieves" he'd say as the coins started to roll down from his hands and into the street. He should've ran when he saw he wouldn't hurt the woman. The feeling of being able to stop something only to know it was your fault for it even happening after not acting was complex even as a sentence. As an actual emotion it would bother him for days on end.

Thought interrupted, he'd slide back quickly as his head moved to the side only to be replaced with an arm. The loud thud came before the pain. Agony ensuing only once the metal gave his skin room to breathe again. This could've gone very differently. Holding his left arm with the hand on the other, he'd slide back a few more. Much to his surprise, the man who hit him still seemed terribly shocked at the fact he'd just done that. This however only endowed him in newborn vigor and he swung a few more times like a child defending its toys - a bloodthirsty one at that. Getting the hint, he moved back a bit more and let the petcher gather relatively unowned coins.
Pride came more expensive than one would hope for. Long tongue cost him more than finest of wines in the rare bars where Zeltiva actually had some. He would learn his lesson eventually, just not at the moment. Now he just wanted to hurt the one who caused him harm. Starving kids or not, the man had just tried to heavily injure him! With all the commotion in his head, it was a moment or two before he even noticed the woman, still close to her bag. A normal person would've ran by this point... but he really wasn't the one to talk at this stage.
"'ere!" the dockhand would finally squeel out, voice giving room to rage "Not so mighty, ar' ya?!" his every word causing Valanir to remember the face well. Stupid humans, their entire breed was a pestilence.

[Philomena]

When one speaks the word 'learning', one connotes, perhaps, something high - philosophy, magic, literature, the arts, a trade, something practical and 'noble' in that stilted sense that one uses the word as a stand in for 'respectable'. This is to belittle, one might venture to say even demean, the sheer breadth of the word 'learning'. Minnie Lefting has a great deal of learning of this traditional type yes - the 'Doctor' in her title was not granted on a lark. But then, though even she would perhaps not think of it as such, she has a great deal of learning outside of this purview as well.

A childhood amongst fledgling thieves, for instance, taught her the difference between a robber and a thief. A thief is a professional, a servant (knowingly or otherwise) of Old Lady Yshul. A robber? He is a mere accident, one who is serving a different purpose in an unconventional way. A bumbling amateur. This man, for instance, stole in the name of Viratas. This is a distinction one cannot be taught in the theoretical, for the theoretical mind presented with this difference makes a dangerous assumption - that the thief, because he has the wisdom of the thief, is more dangerous than the robber.

The learning of practical experience tells one otherwise. The thief, if a mark is running away, has sufficient cunning to stop an consider the cost benefits of chasing them. A thief presented with Minnie fleeing, for example, might consider that Minnie is frightened, and small, and would likely scream if caught by force. A thief would therefore, unless he was very sure he needed precisely what this woman had, perhaps simply let her pass. Thievery teaches one this give and take. Robbers, they have none of this, for a robber has only the wisdom of instinct, and instinct says that fleeing prey must be pursued, that angry impulses must be indulged, that intimidation demands action. The way the man rose his bar in anger to strike down the man was pure robber-mark - anger was dangerous to the thief, after all, as much as the victim.

Minnie, then, looking at a man who was clearly lost of sensible reactions, stood still, because she knew that running would get her nowhere. Her mind split into two tracks. The one sat and coldly calculated what she had, what leverage she had against the man. She had some inkpots he could perhaps pawn. She had two silver mizas she had brought in order to pay her tab at the fish merchants. She had the bread she had mentioned before. And then she had the things she could not let him steal, the things her morals forbade the loss of: a book from Wright Library, a wax tablet of notes that must be recorded, the copper miza she kept tuck in the neckline of her dress. With a certain convulsiveness, her hand went to her neckline, clutching now at this little ball of hardness in the middle of soft linen.

The other half of her mind, though, was that affected by the sight of a man being beaten by a pry bar. Minnie was a coward, through and through, for physical violence. To say otherwise would be laughable. And the rhythm with which the bar rose, and fell, rose, and fell, spoke of the inevitable, that this man no longer had a drive or ambition in applying his force, he only had blind, compulsive fear and rage. The other man was clearly going to be bruised already, but two many blows of the bar would do worse things - break bones, break skin, break a scalp, break a skull, break a neck. Minnie whimpered in a soft horror, her voice squeaking into an involuntary nasal whine, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no..."

[Valanir]

It pained him to admit so, but Valanir was well aware that it was his restless tongue that got him in such shyke. His contempt towards the now berserked stranger who the mind would come to know as Kids knew no bounds at this point. Still, he was disgusted enough with himself to wisen up and refrain from jumpin for the spear. He wasn't even certain he'd be able to pick it up in time to resist the dockhand's onslaught. Instead he backed up a few more until there was no longer any room behind him. One more step would take him through the wall and into someone's private space. If Kids hit him hard enough, he'd get to see just what could be interrupted beyond the cheap structure. That would probably mean his death though, so peeking could certainly wait.

Both men suddenly lost focus when weird sound broke out between a bunch of mumbled denial. Valanir could still hear what she was saying, but it was unclear to him what was she even doing there? And why did she start making noise all of a sudden. Kids seemed preoccupied with the latter also. Instead of keeping vigilant and striking down the target while he had the time. "Pick the coins up and..." and then he'd feel a soft metalic slap against his cheek. There was no real power behind the hit, and it overally felt more like something to shush a very very bad child... of a monster. Regardless, Valanir knew he had gotten off easily and he'd keep quiet for what time it took him to rub his sore and definitely bruising cheek. Hints of fear were starting to drop down from his forehead as he realized that his entire body was breaking up in cold sweat. He would need to be out of here soon. Even Kids could agree to that, ethaefal thought. What was wrong with the world? Take the damn coins and go! - the thought ebbed on the end of his tongue before returning back inside unacomplished. He didn't want to get struck again.

Sliding to the side as quietly as he could, he would try to shorten the distance between himself and the spear. There might've been a no blood spilled policy for this once, but he was hurt and angry enough to gut the thievin' petcher right then and there.
"Quiet!" he could hear the man yelling, substantially louder than the racket that upset him so. Momentarily siezing his own fault, he'd retract tongue. Then he'd proceed to move down and collect the coins randomly and without preference. Copper, silver or gold - it made no difference to him now, he just wanted to be done with all this and out of there before the woman's squeeling provoked him enough to silence her permanently. Having decided he had gathered enough on an impulse, he'd simply take whatever she held in her hands on instinct. Unless she resisted of course, then he'd just knock her aside and make his exit from this stage.