The Usual Escapades

The wind whipped strands of Vivi's hair free from her braid. She squinted in the afternoon light at the gentle stream not far away from the barn roof that she and Owen had climbed upon, absentmindedly tossing around a rock in the palm of her hand. Finally, she pulled her hand back and threw it, watching with satisfaction as it clattered and splashed into the river. She tossed her head to Owen with a smirk. "Two points."

The half-elf rolled his eyes at her as he lay on his back, gazing up at the clouds passing overhead. "Two points?" he asked, returning the smirk. "Why two? That seems..." He paused, waving his hands about aimlessly as he searched for words. "...ambiguous. Why not go ahead and give yourself two hundred points while you're at it?"

Vivi smiled at him. "Because it went into the river. That's two points—getting it over the hedge was one point, and getting it to the other side was five. Did you even listen to my points system?" Her friend assured her that he most certainly had not, and she laughed in response, pulling her hand back and launching another rock into the air. It glanced off a tree and landed in the bushes below them.

Owen looked up briefly, then let his head fall back down. "I was going to say there was no possible way you could have failed to get it to the river, but I guess I stand corrected."

Vivi smiled as she gazed up at the sky. It was very cloudy today; white puffs drifted across the sky. The sun was only an hour till sunset. "You put way too much faith in me. Besides, you're one to talk—you could barely hit a barn door from ten steps away."

Owen grinned. "No true critic would ever sully his hands with the craft he's critiquing." He joined her in gazing up at the clouds. "Speaking of, what are we gonna do about dinner?"

Vivi put her hands behind her head. "I don't know. Find something in town, I guess." She turned her head to Owen, a mischievous grin spreading across her face.

Owen laughed and slowly sat up, his soot-colored curls falling down into his face. Allegedly, they had once been white, but his aversion to hair care and lack of aversion to smoke and fire had long since rendered that a thing of the past. "Find something... or find something?" he asked, casually waving the hair out of his eyes.

Vivi grinned wider. "Do you even have to ask?" she replied, sliding down the barn roof without further explanation and landing in a haystack below it. She got up and dusted hay off her jacket, watching as Owen vaulted himself off the roof after her and landed gracefully in a crouch. He glanced up at Vivi with a smug smile on his face.

"Showoff," she laughed, sticking out her tongue at him.

The half-elf rose to his full height and dramatically took a bow. "Please. You flatter me."

Vivi rolled her eyes and turned to gaze for a moment towards the town in the distance. This was Sheo Caelora, an outpost in the far south of Uyalon, the Elven Kingdom. It was the place that the two friends and their shipmates for the past two weeks had called home, although home for them meant nothing more than a place to cast anchor. Vivi took in the scene for a moment longer; she saw some of the townspeople—most of them elves—moving to and fro in the distance, the sails of a little boat that had just laid to at the jetty by the tavern fluttering in the wind, the mast of their own ship, the Ajdaha, just barely visible behind the other merchant ships docked near the market, and a lonely wagon being pulled down the dusty road. Drawing a deep breath, she turned back to face Owen.

"What are you hungry for?" she asked with a smirk. "And more importantly, how are we gonna get it? The lawful way or the more fun way?"

Owen dug through his pockets, but all he was able to produce after sifting through the significant amounts of trinkets they were filled with was three copper coins. He sighed deeply and looked up at the sky. "I would go for lawful," he answered, dramatically gripping his chest. "Honest. My heart says yes, but—Alas!—my purse says no."

"Uh-huh." Vivi shook her head and started down the road towards town. "Maybe we can go to that tavern I saw..."

Owen snapped out of his dramatic lamenting and sprinted a few steps to catch up to her. "You know," he said with a glint in his eyes, "I feel you're not really appreciating the... deep emotional anguish these decisions are putting me through. To pay, or not to pay... that is a serious question indeed."

Vivi glanced towards Owen, then down the road. "I'll show you deep emotional anguish..." she leapt off with one foot and started sprinting off in the direction of the town, her footsteps fast and audible, "...when you lose!" Owen stopped for a second in surprise, then broke into a grin and shoved the coins back into his pocket before sprinting down the road after her.

She knew from the start that Owen would probably win—she was always struggling to keep up when they found themselves running for their lives—but she ran her fastest anyway. The half-elf quickly gained speed behind her. They got closer to a cluster of buildings; they zipped past another barn and farmhouse and then continued toward the center of town. Owen was close behind her. The roads turned from dust and gravel to stone, and soon, the tavern was in view. Vivi turned her course and nearly crashed into the corner of the shambled building, breathing heavily. "I... I win," she panted, smirking at Owen as he came to a stop right behind her, barely even out of breath.

"Ah, hubris!" he exclaimed. "I have been... vanquished. Defeated. Beaten. Humiliated." He grinned, casually leaning back against the wall. "Now what?"

Still breathing heavily, Vivi straightened and marched to the door to the tavern. She grabbed onto the handle and tossed her braid to the other side of her shoulder. "Now for some fun!" she whispered, and without looking inside, yanked the door open and gestured for her friend to take the lead.

Owen strutted confidently into the tavern but stopped dead as he saw the room filled with a group of armed men, all wearing the uniform of the notorious Uyalon Police. They all stopped their drinking to stare at the two newcomers. Vivi stopped short and blinked, but Owen simply cracked a smile and waved genially.

"Looks like your fun is off the agenda," he whispered. "How about we go to 'plan B'?"

Vivi wanted to ask what this 'plan B' was all about and why she hadn't heard anything about it, but Owen had already marched off towards one of the tables and taken a seat across from one of the officers.

"Afternoon," he said politely, leaning back comfortably on the bench.

Screaming internally at her friend's idiocy, Vivi followed him, trying to catch his eye and tell him to abort whatever he was doing.

"Good afternoon," the officer replied shortly. "Can I help you?"

Owen gestured dramatically at nothing in particular. "Alas, perhaps not. But maybe you could give me some slight assurance; I've heard such terrible rumors of that horrible pirate guild and their raids... why, aren't they raiding towns as far south as Silmah now?" He shook his head. "It seems like they're all over the Remnant by now... What if, one day, they decide to pay us a visit down here as well?"

Vivi cast one last side glance at Owen before giving up and playing along. "Yes, 'tis true," she added, giving her best impression of a paranoid glance around the tavern. "What if they just"—she spread her hands in a dramatic gesture—"attacked in the middle of the night when we're all asleep?"

The officer smiled. "Lucky you have us, then," he said, a bit smugly. "In fact, we captured a guild ship this morning heading up the river." Owen cast Vivi a short glance as the officer took a long sip from his glass with a satisfied smirk. "No doubt," he continued, "they were scouting the area for future raids."

Vivi caught Owen's glance, but as the officer placed down his glass, she gave her best worry-face. "But you'll protect us, right?"

"That's why we're here, miss," the officer said confidently. "You won't have to worry about any pirates as long as we're around."

Vivi nodded solemnly in response. "Thank you, good sirs."

Owen nodded as well. "Indeed. I—" He cut himself off. "By Shān!" he exclaimed, pointing towards the window behind the guards. "Then who are they?" The officers were distracted for a split second, and Owen made good use of the opportunity. Standing up suddenly, he grabbed onto the table with both hands and flipped it on top of the officers, then dove forward to snatch a bag lying on the bench next to them. "Oh, that's my bad," he chirped, quickly backing away towards the door. "I could have sworn I saw something."

Vivi bolted after him towards the door, grabbing his wrist as she ran past to yank him outside. The guards shouted and screamed after them as they scurried away from the old tavern—a volley of gunshots rang out, and a bullet whizzed past Owen's ear, but he just laughed.

"I'd say that worked out pretty well, wouldn't you?"

"Pretty well?" Vivi snapped, flinching as another shot rang out behind them. "I don't think they took it all that well!"

Owen quickly dove into an alleyway, pulling Vivi along behind him. "Personally, I don't see what their problem is," he said, quite evidently enjoying himself far too much to pay any attention to Vivi's protests. "We were getting along splendidly."

Vivi peeked around the corner, watching the policemen rush into the street, fanning out in search of them. "You flipped the table on them—I think I see what their problem is. You, on the other hand..." She punched the half-elf in the shoulder, just hard enough to let him know she was cross with him. "Why did you do that? Now those tincaps are going to be chasing us all across town—what if we can't get to the ship? Or what if they give Captain Aenwyn trouble?"

"I think she'll be the one giving them trouble if they so much as set foot on the Ajdaha," Owen said confidently. "And besides, what's life without a little fun now and then? You know... narrowly escaping certain death and such?"

Vivi sighed deeply—she wanted to say she couldn't believe he'd do this, but in reality, she wasn't surprised in the slightest. "At least tell me that bag you snatched is worth anything," she said sourly.

Owen held up the bag and squinted towards it. "I dunno what it's worth... but it looks important." He pointed towards the insignia sewn into the bag: a skull pierced by a dagger. "That's the mark of the thieves' guild, right?" Vivi nodded, her interest piqued. Owen opened the bag and pulled out a small scroll, sealed with the same skull and dagger stamped in wax. "And this message... You think it could be for—"

"It belongs to us, you brat."

Vivi spun around to face the mean-looking tincap that had suddenly appeared at the end of the alleyway. Her first instinct was to run, but she froze when she saw the gun pointed towards them.

"You think you can just do something like that to the Uyalon police and get away with it?" he growled, slowly creeping closer. "Do you know what happens to scum like you when we catch you?"

Owen scratched his head, looking very genuinely thoughtful. "Well... It's been a while, but I think we get dragged away, locked up, and made to face justice for our heinous crimes?"

"That's for the lucky ones," the officer snarled, cocking his gun. Vivi felt her stomach drop as she saw the murderous look in his eyes. She wanted to run—somewhere, anywhere—but there was nowhere to go; the tincap would get them if she tried.

"So how about it, you filth," he said, his eyes narrowing as he raised his gun further. "Do you feel lucky?"

"Do you?"

The officer spun around to face the voice behind him, but he only had time to see the elf's fist striking him square in the face. He stumbled back a few steps, stood swaying for a moment, then fell backward onto the pavement with a crash.

"Faelyn?" Vivi asked with a sigh of relief as she recognized their rescuer—a scruffy young elf wearing an old sailor's cap. "I... what are you doing here?"

"I was about to ask you the same," Faelyn replied, stepping over the unconscious tincap. "What have you done now? This fellow won't be too happy when he wakes up."

Owen started giving a long-winded and not entirely accurate account of the situation, but Vivi soon cut him short. "We think we found a message from the Thieves' Guild," she explained, snatching the scroll away from him. "Maybe it's for Captain Aenwyn?"

Faelyn took the scroll and investigated it closely, his brow furrowing. "Aenwyn has not had any dealings with the guild for over a year now, but..." He looked up, peeking out into the street. "We can talk later. Let's get back to the ship."

Neither Vivi nor Owen had anything against that plan, so they quickly followed after Faelyn as he made his way down the alley—they stuck to the back roads, occasionally having to duck for cover when they spotted a tincap on patrol. Eventually, though, they reached the market, and as they slipped into the crowd, Vivi finally began to relax.

"I'd like to know what the hell you were thinking," she said, turning to Owen with a smirk, "but I suppose there's no point in asking."

Owen smiled. "Please, Vivi. I've gotten by all my life without resorting to such petty measures as thinking, and I don't intend to start now."

"Speaking of what you were thinking... where have you been, Nerikas?" Faelyn asked, using the half-elf's elven name as most of their crewmates did. "No one has seen either of you for over a week."

"You see... It's like this," Owen said, putting his arm over Faelyn's shoulder—much to the elf's dismay—and gesturing out vaguely into the distance. "What's important isn't knowing where you've been, but where you're going."

"That doesn't answer my question," Faelyn grunted, struggling to free himself from the unwelcome embrace. "Where have you been going, then?"

Vivi chuckled in amusement at the elf's predicament. "We've been sneaking around between the shops and the farmyards to find parts for my weapon," she explained, gesturing to the pouch she always carried on her belt which was nearly overflowing with a messy assortment of tools, broken equipment, and other various hardware—she had always liked tinkering with whatever knick-knacks she could get her hands on, but her latest contraption was a bit more ambitious.

"Of course... your legendary weapon," Faelyn scoffed, finally breaking loose from Owen's grip. "I thought you decided to give up on that last time you got in trouble back in Uinas."

"Do I look like someone who gives up?" Vivi asked defiantly—Faelyn didn't reply, as he knew very well she wasn't one to give up on things. They walked on in silence for about five seconds before Owen couldn't take it anymore and started ranting to Faelyn about something completely unrelated in Elvish, which lasted until they had reached the little town's harbor.