Thread: To Catch a Thief (Elaebryn × Rania Lark)

It is not until the thief makes an overt noise that the farce is broken, the trap sprung, and a forearm deceptively strong for its size flung forward. A fistful of gold is easily taken, the already-loosened mouth of the purse opening to accommodate wrist and fist. The barbarian woman seemed none the wiser, even as the pair of them trod in tandem across cobblestone pathways strewn with detritus and offal. She did not even seem to notice when the street walkers and hustlers called out not just to her but to the pair of them, playing the whole time the role of a quiet dolt who merely grinned at plunging neckline or swollen codpiece. Only once the thief withdrew her hand and shuffled her feet against the grimy stone did she react, as though she had held her action for just such a contingency. Where just moments before she seemed a cotton-headed simpleton, her face grew gaunt and her features somehow more harsh as her body sprang into motion. This is how the thief Anya beheld her once her vision cleared a stalwart, taciturn visage of quiet enmity and chained aggression wrestling against her better graces to break free and wreak havoc for in her sudden movement she had struck with great vengeance and furious anger, the leading edge of her forearm catching the smaller woman by the throat as she lunged forward to pin the thief against the wall of an adjacent building. Fire in her stare, her face presses up against Anya's with teeth bared like fangs for several long seconds made longer by the crushing force of muscled arm against vulnerable gullet. The sudden flurry of motion had been so fast that Anya might be forgiven for not noticing that she very visibly still held the clutch of coins in her fist, marking her complicity for any to see. The whores certainly seemed to notice, and this sudden excitement had drawn a small crowd of around a dozen ladies of the night eager to relieve the tension evident in the proceedings. But they all wisely kept their distance, knowing enough of the world to only offer their services to the victor of whatever may transpire. Seconds pass like hours when one's airway is constricted, when teeth flash and anger burns in one's face. Perhaps one's life flashes before their eyes, or one's internal organs relax and spoil their clothes. And in one moment of powerlessness, had the thief not been incredibly lucky to have preyed upon a barbarian with at least the basic understanding of civility, one might have found their neck crushed or their face ripped open or their body pummeled into an unrecognizable mass of broken flesh for in these moments, the fiery-haired barbarian seemed to swell in size and visibly shake from the exertion of consciously avoiding violence. This eventually reaches a climactic reprieve, whereupon the enraged woman strikes the masonry inches from the thief's face with her own clenched fist hard enough to physically shake the building and crack the stonework. Drop it, she says with venom proverbially lacing her words and saliva physically spanning her bicuspids. Thief. The wild woman does not force the issue. She in fact withdraws once she has delivered her demand and made her show of force. With a deep breath that visibly swells her breast and hardens her abdomen, the barbarian crosses her arms and actually steps away. But she keeps her fiery gaze trained on the breath-starved thief she had just a moment prior slammed against a wall, and every muscle in her body seems on edge trembling! waiting! for the opportunity to strike again. Her demeanour seemed to beg for a reason to unleash her clearly potent prowess, to administer violence unfettered to the waif she has caught.