Private Tales I robbed Tinkerbell?!

[Jace]

Jace threw up his hands as if to ward off evil. The evil in question being her.

Willian and Varo had tried to explain women to him on numerous occasions; sometimes when drunk and sometimes when they had been bitterly sober nursing a bruised that Wren had thrown at them. William had always lamented of their changing moods whilst Varo had once described them as a fine ship you needed to learn how to sail. It was safe to say neither of their explanations had helped him.

What he had learnt had been learnt from the many cuts caused by their sharp tongues. Number one was not to ever mention clothes or nakedness.

Once he heard the door slam shut behind her he scrambled into his own clothes; new black breeches, a finely pressed shirt with lace at the collar and an expensive embroidered red jacket that would pair well with her dress. At least he hoped it did, he was a touch colour blind.

He was sitting back in his chair drumming his fingers on the table when Fraeya reappeared and he let out a low whistle.

"Well, if you get stage freight at least you're pretty enough to just stare at."

 

[Fraeya]

Her eyes widened and she looked down at herself. No one had ever called her that. She was a human living among near-perfect looking creatures. It was strange to get a compliment like that and she felt like she was mostly trying to figure it out.

“Thank you?” Her voice lilted more like a question as if she still couldn't believe he was being truthful. Eyes lifted.

“You look good like that yourself.” He looked older. She doubted he wanted to hear that comment though. Her fingers shifted to the bone dagger she’d strapped to her thigh, beneath that long dress. With the slit, she’d still be able to access it quickly if she needed it.

If she’d known what Midir had thought his members of his court would say they were, during their conversation during the dance. Not humble but ruthless and strong. She would probably look the picture now. Not ruthless how the king thought. But she was strong. And she was determined.

“Let’s go.” It was now or never. They were running out of time.

 

[Jace]

Thank you? I didn't really need your compliment to feel beautiful, Jace.

The boy gulped at the memory and half expected the slap that had come from that exchange too but it never did. Would he ever understand women? He thought of William and Varo and hazarded a guess that no matter how old he got he would never understand them. Men were not built for such knowledge. Instead he latched on to the compliment directed his way and puffed out his chest with a grin.

"Alrigh'," he nodded, ran a hand down his jacket once more to make sure he had all the daggers stashed away, then headed for the door.

The walk seemed quicker this time, perhaps because a part of him didn't want to reach the club that was already bustling with life despite the early hour. Jace sauntered past the queue and up to the front where the bodyguards stood. With giant tusks and boarish snouts they looked every bit the intimidating bouncer Mal employed them to be. The one on the left grew uglier as he glared down at Jace.

"I thought you were banned," he rumbled and Jace held up his hands innocently.

"My cousin is singing tonight, Cassie? Ring a bell?" before either of them could speak the Dark Elf seemed to materialise between them in a finely cut suit, his black eyes focused solely on 'Cassie' behind Jace.

"You look exquisite my dear," he purred and flowed forward to take her arm in his. "Come, I will show you to your awaiting audience."

 

[Fraeya]

Fraeya didnt flinch. Her arm fell smoothly into Mal’s awaiting one. He was creepy and greedy. And she wouldn’t trust him within an arm’s length if they were ever alone in a room together but he was no Midir.

A far bigger prick.

Her head turned, offering her ‘cousin’ a brief, reassuring smile. “You look rather dapper yourself,” she managed to the dark elf as he wove them through the bodies already in the club. Deep and heady scents reached her nose. Smoke that smelled like cloves and the sweet scents of libations. Chatter, laughter, and the clinks of glasses filled her ears.

They passed the stage she’d auditioned at this morning. A duo of elves looked like they were performing. There was another set of guards they moved through. Past a red-rope and into a much more intimate setting. The place has its own smaller bar and there was a small cleared out area in the corner with a man waiting, holding a guitar. The furniture and the people in this room were much more finely dressed.

Eyes flickered to Jace, trying to gauge if he’d ever been here before. Trying to read his expression.

 

[Jace]

Jace swaggered along behind the pair, shooting the bodyguards a grin that nearly lost him his head. Guest or not. He hurried to keep up with the other two after that though it was quite hard. The gambling tables called to him like a sirens song. A few of the patrons surrounding them glanced up at him but only one recognised him and gave him a dark look. Oh it would have been such a good night if he didn't have the whole, you know, feeling of having a noose around his neck.

The thought of the Erlking nearly put a damper on his mood.

The VIP lounge soon resurrected it however. He'd only been there once with Petyr to meet with Kressa but there had been much better liquor and much nicer food. He practically jumped onto the plush sofa when they arrived earning himself a disgusted look from a dwarf who was sat there.

"You're in for a real treat, mate. My cousin's got the voice o' an angel."

 

[Fraeya]

Mal smoothly ushered her onto the small circular platform. He cleared his throat. It only took one time. Everyone else hushed in the room. “Welcome! Please welcome Cassie all the way from Vel Anir. An up and coming star. Let’s give her a hand.” His glare screamed or else.

And then those black eyes turned to her with its own silent warning. She better not screw this up. She forced a smile to her mouth even as it fell stale on her lips. Adjusting that scarf around her neck carefully, she lowered her hands.

“We’ll start out fast and end slow,” she told those gathered, giving a look over her shoulder at the guitarist. Taking a breath, she started humming a diddy, and once he caught the rhythm, she began singing. This time her voice spread joy, the urge to tap a foot, to clap hands, to smile and forget about sorrow, if only for a moment.

 

[Jace]

The crowd fell to the thrall of Fraeya's song as though it were magic. Jace wasn't convinced it wasn't no matter what she claimed. People raised in the faerie worlds were changed. That's what made their own parents drive them out if they came back somehow. More than once he had tried to decide if this was some artful bit of deception rigged in order to get him trapped all for some fae's amusement. That's what they did in the stories anyway.

He let three songs pass before he began to pass round a bottle of wine he'd snagged from the bar downstairs. Booze, good music and food was enough to distract most people. By the sixth song he leisurely got up and began to wander towards the door that led upstairs. If anyone asked, he'd say he was looking for the bathroom. That'd work, right?

There wasn't much chance to think it through as he disappeared through the door.

 

[Fraeya]

As she wrapped up her set, the intimate audience had gone from nearly dancing in their seats to wiping tears from their eyes. They clapped loudly. Hopefully it was enough to warn Jace that wherever he was, time was running out. Mal swooped forward and escorted her off the performing area. His hand brushed dangerously low on her back and she seriously thought about breaking the elf’s fingers. But they were just…high enough.

“Come my dear. I’d like to introduce you to the club’s owner.” He beamed like a snake in the grass as he ushered her forward. “Kressa. Isn’t this young lady everything I described?”

 

[Jace]

"Ah, fuck."

Three walls of Kressa's office were dominated by huge oak bookcases, each one tightly packed with ancient tomes of some kind or other. He racked his brains trying to remember what exactly the book he had stolen looked like but he had been hoping to go off 'old and battered' to get him by. Who knew Kressa was a bloody book collector? At least it meant she hadn't brought it because she knew what it was. That meant it had to be here but where?

He could hear another song beginning downstairs - a sad lament Jace thought aptly described his life in that moment - and so with a deep breath he began searching through the stack. He just hoped Fraeya could stay alive long enough down there for him to find the bloody thing.

 

[Fraeya]

“Cassie, right?” Kressa made Mal look like a fool with the way her shrewd gaze searched every inch of her face.

“A rare find,” she purred. “We should be grateful to Jace for finding you snd bringing you here.” The elf looked anything but grateful. “Where is your dear cousin?” Her shrewd gaze scourged the room.

“Oh you know him. Probably throwing all his coin away at the gambling tables.”

Kressa leaned forward, stroking the back of her fingers slowly down Fraeya’s cheeks. “Perhaps,” she purred, a dangerous glint in her eyes. Snd for once, Fraeya wasn’t scared. Again. Not the Erlking. No. Fraeya was angry.

 

[Jace]

"Heeeere... booky booky booky..." Jace murmured as he prowled along the shelves, scrutinising every spine. He was pretty sure it had been blue - or was it brown? - fuck but it would help if he wasn't so gods damned colour blind! He stopped in front of the last column and cocked his head to the side. There was a faint... sound. Not coming from behind him which was what he was worried about but from one of the books. Like a whisper. Who knew how many creepy books were on Kressa's shelf but how many of them would know his name?

"Great," he yanked it out and stuffed it into his coat. He swore the thing giggled.

Pausing for a moment just to rearrange the books so it didn't look like there was an obvious gap, Jace hurried back down the stairs and slid into one of the tables by the entrance as though he'd been there the whole time.

 

[Fraeya]

Her fingers latched around Kressa’s wrist. And she yanked the elf’s hand away from her face. “Please don't touch me.” Mal stiffened at her side. Kressa looked furious but then burst into laughter.

“No, it’s okay. You’re quite a treat. Strong too. I would love it if you sang here again. Mal can go over the details with you.” There was a spark of heat against her skin and Fraeya released the arm.

Her fingers tingled and looked red. Jace had said she could do magic. “And don’t cross lines you’re not prepared to handle, girl.”

 

[Jace]

It took a few minutes to get his breathing under control and to scan the room for Fraeya.

"Full House," he smirked and laid the cards down on the table in front of him. There was a collective groan from his opponents as he dragged the winnings towards him. It was probably a good thing that that was when he spotted his 'cousin' talking to Kressa and made his excuses about leaving.

"There you are!" he looped an arm around Fraeya's shoulders with a grin towards her little group. "I told you eh, Mal? Lil songbird. Unfortunately I promised my auntie I'd 'ave her home before midnight - mothers, am I righ'? - and I think I've outstayed my welcome," he jingled the coins with a smug smile.

"C'mon cuz."

 

[Fraeya]

Kressa sneered at Jace. Her opinion clearly written on her elven features. “Yes. Run along before trouble finds you both.” A predatory grin flashed at them both. Fraeya was an inch shy of punching her in the face. Male was reluctant to let Fraeya’s other arm go but did. She was a half inch shy of slamming her foot on his toes.

“Good, you can buy me dinner,” she spoke to her ‘cousin’ as they wove their way back to the main area of the club. Then the doors beyond. And as they walked out the door, Fraeya smelled a tang of burning metal. “Wai-,” she barely got out as the air around them exploded into magical alarm bells. Hands found Jace’s shoulders and she shoved him forward.

They’d set off some kind of magical wards.

“Run!” One of the body guards lunged for them.

 

[Jace]

Jace didn't need telling twice to run like hell itself was trying to swallow him whole. He did, however, had the decency to turn and grab a hold of Fraeya's wrist and boldly pull her after him. The bodyguard went crashing into the wall behind where she had been standing a second later but the young thief wasn't paying attention to what was behind him anymore. Petyr had always said looking back was what got you killed. They pounded down the stairs as a shout went up behind them and the guard which had been stopping the riff raff from attempting to join the private party upstairs turned to see what the commotion was about.

"MOVE!" Jace shouted, startling the guard but not enough to get him to move. The patrons behind him, however, knew better and scrambled out the way as Jace threw one of the cards from his own deck towards the floor at the guards feet. A second later an explosion ripped through the club and Jace leapt over the crack in the floor, pulling Fraeya after him.

 

[Fraeya]

She stumbled after him, barely making that jump over the burned step. Her shoulder jostled into a guest who stumbled back. For a second she felt her wrist slip from his grasp, then she wound her fingers tighter through his own.

"You didn't tell me you could do magic!" She squealed and with her free hand swiped at a silver horderves tray from a stunned waiter. She swung it hard at the face of a guard trying to block their path. He staggered back and she hit him again as Jace dragged them forward. While this dress was pretty it was not easy to run in being floor-length. Neither were the shoes and all it took was a yank on her free-arm to have her stumbling back and falling over, her grip slipping from Jace's own.

 

[Jace]

"I can't!" Jace searched through the cards as they ran and swore when she fell. The club was in utter chaos now with people running for the exits without a care of who they trampled or what they broke. Tables and chairs were flipped over in the sea of people, people lay dazed and bloodied on the floor where they had been crushed or trampled under feet, and shards of broken glass seemed to cover every surface imaginable. He quickly bent to help her to her feet.

"It's the cards, the cards do magic," he explained hurriedly as the guards who had greeted them on the door approached. He might have been reading too much into it but they seemed to be grinning at the possibility of hurting him with those maces. He thumbed through the deck and seized a hold of a jester. This time when he threw it at the floor a hole opened. Grabbing a hold of Fraeya one more time he leapt into the pit of darkness, dragging her along with him before it shut over their heads.

 

[Fraeya]

Her chest heaved in the darkness. Her breaths echoed with Jace in...wherever they were. Instinctively, her hands lifted and found it pressed against earth and wood. She couldn't even hear the muffled shouts above them.

Her arms shifted and she winced. There were warm and wet streaks on her skin and she knew she was bleeding from falling on that shattered glass. But she couldn't think about that now.

Then she realized she was sprawled over Jace. It wasn't the ground moving it was his chest. A hand pressed against his shoulder and she went to roll off him except she met a dirt wall and her head clunked against the shallow ceiling.

"OWmotherofapeeTROLL!" She rubbed at her head and blindinly moved her hand forward. "Are you okay?" There, it looked like the way out was forward not to the sides or back. And this damned tunnel was so narrow.

 

[Jace]

Jace had imagined a beautiful woman falling on him many times as he tossed and turned in his little mouldy straw bed. Their eyes would meet, there would be a rush of emotion and feeling and then they would kiss. He hadn't been expecting to get a mouthful of hair and dirt whilst she crushed the air from his lungs. Fraeya seemed to have a way of quite literally crushing all those wonderful dreams out of him. When she finally got off he wheezed in an lungful of air and groaned as he rolled to his feet.

He only managed a stoop due to how low the ceiling was but it was better than crawling through the filth.

"I'm fine," he huffed and fumbled for another card. There was a bit of muttering and cursing then the card in his hands suddenly erupted into flame forming a makeshift torch. It illuminated the sewer just in time to see a rat scurry over his foot. "Is Itch home?" he asked the rodent who sat up on its back legs and looked at him for a considering moment before running off. Jace sighed. Guess I'm on my own down here, he grumped and set off in a seemingly random direction.

 

[Fraeya]

“Good,” she huffed. And almost gagged when she took another smell. Wincing and biting back a groan she pushed to her feet. Kicking off the ridiculous shoes, she left them in the sewers. Who the hell wore these?

Using the flaming light of his…erm…card, she looked down at her arms snd began picking free those pieces of glass and was careful not to step on them. “Who is Itch?” A quiet question. It was clear him speaking to a rat didn’t bother her.

A hiss through her teeth as she dug at a larger shard of glass in her skin.

 

[Jace]

"Itch is me best friend," Jace explained with a shrug. "We grew up on the streets together," well. Under the streets was probably a better description for what Itch had done but the sentiment was the same. Without her Jace would have gone hungry and likely died - or worse. The streets were not full of people looking to do good to the lost souls who ended up living there. He still counted himself lucky it had been Petyr who had got to him first and not another.

Like Kressa.

The thought made him shudder and he picked up the pace.

"She's not home though - Gillian would have told me otherwise - so we'll just have to rely on my memory and sense of direction."

His tone betrayed what he thought of that idea.

 

[Fraeya]

“Why am I not comforted by that?” Fraeya muttered behind him. Her footsteps sloshing in what she didn’t want to know about. Her dress was beyond ruined which was fine with her. She hated formal wear.

“I can’t believe you think rock trolls are odd when you speak with rats,” she pointed out the irony with a huff. Speaking distracted her from the throbbing in her arms. The blood she could feel running down them.

 

[Jace]

"I don' speak to 'em!" He cried and shot a glare at her over his shoulder. "Itch can speak to 'em, an' I don't know what she does to 'em but they can speak to 'er too. Or through 'em if she's around... I think," he'd never really understood what his friend did and he had a sneaky suspicion she didn't know either or didn't care how she did it. Jace didn't either. They'd helped them both out more often than he wanted to admit. It was very unnerving owning your life to a rat.

"Anyway, if we follow this we can go hide out in one of her little out houses," and then he went back to muttering about how rocks had even less business than rats in talking.

 

[Fraeya]

“You just spoke with…,” her voice trailed off. It wasn’t worth it. Had he hit his head when they fell?

“I thought it was kind of neat,” she whispered. The torchlight from his card flickering across her bedraggled form. A pair of fancy dresses up folks traipsing through the sewers.

“So those cards. You said you don’t do magic but what…did you buy them from a wizard or something? If I tried one, would it work for me?”

 

[Jace]

"Won 'em."

The change in conversation brought back the thief's mischievous smile.

"No," he sounded so proud in that one word and his chest even seemed to puff up the slightest bit. It was overshadowed by his next words though as he boyishly corrected himself. "Well, not without some practise. You 'ave to learn the right li'le kinda... flick in your mind. But anyone can learn 'em apparently," or at least the drunk college student he had won them from in a card game had claimed they could be.

Abruptly he came to a stop seemingly randomly but through the darkness a ladder could be seen.

"Alrigh', this should take us out somewhere safe to lay low for the night," he tucked the card back into his pocket after evaporating it and began to nimbly scale the ladder to the top where he pushed back a trap door to reveal the dark insides of a humbly falling down mill.