Completed Between a Lock and a Fang-Face

[Gillie Dhu]

Timestamp: 60th of Summer, 514 AV

It wasn't easy being a "scrawny" human in a sea of burly Akalak men. Having spent most of his life exploring Riverfall's streets, he was well-adapted to the weaving in and out of crowds he must do to get anywhere on time. When several Akalak walked side-by-side, nobody behind them was getting anywhere fast. The young strategist rolled his eyes as he came up behind three Akalak men and a Drykas woman (possibly the mate of one of them). He nearly bumped right into the tallest of the three, but managed to stop in time.

Eyes bulging, teeth clenched, Gillie stifled an exasperated growl. He breathed out slowly and ran a hand through his tousled mane of curly black hair.

He was in a terrible hurry, but it wasn't worth making somebody bigger and stronger than him angry. Taking the chance to put his tact to good use, he kept his mouth shut, though everything in him wanted to mutter, "Get in the slow lane, Grandpa." But he didn't. And it probably saved him some trouble.

When he finally had the opening he was waiting for, he curled around the foursome and ducked into an alley between the Almond Blossom and the School of Earth and Life Sciences. Having grown up a street urchin in the city, there were few his age who knew the alleys of Riverfall like he did.

As he passed quietly through the stone-paved alleyway, he unsheathed his gladius and flipped it through the air so that it completed a full circle and landed hilt-in-hand once more. He repeated this motion several dozen times--a trick he had been practicing. It garnered the attention of an Akalak passing by, though the azure-skinned humanoid merely grunted and continued walking. Gillie smirked and cast a glance in the Akalak's direction.

When he did so, he missed the hilt of his gladius and it spiraled to the ground. A sharp, echoing clang followed, as it clattered against the stone pavement.

"Crap!"

The Akalak, back turned, chuckled to himself. Gillie scowled and muttered a curse under his breath in Nari, the language his deceased mother had spoken. He knew very little of the language, but still remembered some of the more vulgar words he'd heard his mother say on occasion years ago.

He scooped up the blade and returned it to its sheath on his belt before continuing--this time at a brisker pace. He was headed for the Knirin Gardens, where he was to meet a client at dusk. The sun was beginning to sink below the horizon, and the dark-haired lad knew his client would be waiting.

[Gillie Dhu]

As the sky was enveloped by the amber glow of twilight, and the sun was just disappearing in the west, Gillie approached the third gazebo from the central one, on the far side of Lake Knirin--his designated meeting place. He'd made it to the Gardens in time to meet with his client, but as far as he could see, said-client was nowhere to be found.

He stopped at the foot of the gazebo's stairs and scanned his surroundings. The calming melody of birdsong had grown silent, making way for dusk's chorus of cricket-sound. His light was dimming, but he knew that soon that the light of heavenly bodies and their reflections off the glassy lake would illuminate his surroundings soon enough.

Most of the Gardens' visitors had since left, as it became an almost eerie locale at nightfall. He could still make out the silhouettes of a few visitors in the distance, though he could not make out any racial distinction. As he heard the last faint conversation drift away from across the lake, he crossed his arms and leaned against the gazebo's railing.

Having just slipped into a relaxed position, he nearly jumped at the sudden whisper directly above him.

"Gillie Dhu?"

Startled, Gillie whirled around, grasped the hilt of his blade, and shot a glance up at the gazebo's roof. He traced with his eyes the nondescript form of a cloaked figure perched above. He mentally cursed himself for having missed the figure earlier. Of course, such a mistake Gillie did not often make, so it was possible that the figure simply hadn't been there before.

Either way, he was quite certain this was his client.

The dark-haired boy glanced around to be sure no one was watching, motioned for the cloaked figure to remain where it was, and, with a brief running start, jumped onto the gazebo-railing. With a practiced swing of his body using his motion and arms, he swung himself upwards once more. This time, he caught the edge of the roof with one hand, then with the other, and pulled himself almost effortlessly on top of the gazebo. He brushed himself off and sat down facing the lake.

His client, crouching low, moved closer.

"You are the infamous Gillie Dhu, then?" the stranger whispered. Gillie listened closely. This was a girl, though she tried to keep her voice hushed and low so as not to give herself away.

"You got it," Gillie replied with his usual, unnerving grin.

"I imagined you...taller."

Gillie scowled. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. And who might you be? I don't do work for nameless people."

The cloaked figure (a girl, Gillie had ascertained) sighed audibly. Her hands touched the fringe of her hood and pulled it back just enough for Gillie to make out her features. She was slim-faced, as though she had not eaten enough in a long time. Her eyes were sharp, and her nose pointed. He took note of a few locks of dark hair emerging from beneath her hood.

"You're a Kelvic," he said, matter-of-factly. She recoiled, inadvertently confirming his assertion.

Gillie chuckled. "Don't worry about it. Just making an observation."

"How did you know?"

The curly-haired mercenary shrugged. "It was mostly a guess. I was pretty sure you weren't on the roof when I arrived, or if you were, you weren't human-shaped. So I just took a wild guess."

The Kelvic girl stared at him intently. "I am Nafria. I need your help."

[Gillie Dhu]

Gillie folded his hands behind his head and leaned backwards nonchalantly. He crossed his right foot over his left knee and raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, I figured you needed my help. It's not often people hire me just to chat on top of a gazebo."

"This is earnest," the Kelvic he now knew as Nafria continued, seeming to crouch lower and lower, as if each word were some new danger. "I must leave the city--I am being hunted."

Gillie remained skeptical. One person hunting another person down wasn't terribly uncommon. She was probably a runaway slave.

"I ran away from my master--"

Bingo, Gillie thought with the faintest of grins. I love it when I'm right.

"--but that's the least of my trouble." Tears began to stream down Nafria's face. Gillie looked closer and noted that the eyes he'd earlier perceived as sharp were in fact very swollen and red. It had been too dark to make out clearly at first. The Kelvic continued, sobbing softly, "You see, my brother--he escaped with me. And we were flying in our bird forms, and then--"

"They got him, and not you," Gillie guessed, setting his gaze once more over the glassy lake.

"No. It is much worse." Gillie turned, surprised. The tears had ceased, and Nafria's eyes--cold and solemn--met Gillie's. "A hungry Dhani mistook us for average birds."

Maybe 'mistook' isn't the right word. Pretty sure they'd eat you anyway, Gillie thought, though he decided it was best to leave it be.

The Kelvic girl stared now at the lake, her lip trembling. "We had made it as far as the city limits, but the monster was there--and it ate him! It ate Torrak! It ate my brother!"

Gillie cupped a hand over her mouth at the outburst and motioned for her to keep quiet. She apologized and went on, "Surely the wretched creature knows its mistake by now. I flew high and, through my weeping, watched the Dhani take my brother's necklace and return to its home. His--our--only possession in the world, save for this meager cloak I wear."

She looked intently into his eyes. "Please, I must have it back. It is all I have to remember Torrak by. Will you reclaim it for me?"

Gillie breathed out slowly, and ran his fingers through his disheveled hair. Finally, he replied, "Yeah, sure. I'll help ya get your brother's necklace back. There's only one place to look for a Dhani in this city. What kind of snake?"

"A constrictor."

"Oh boy."

[Gillie Dhu]

Nafria had offered him what little she had in payment for his work, but Gillie turned it down. She had even gone so far as to offer the service of her body to pay for his help. Admittedly, it had taken Gillie a few moments longer than he'd like to admit to decline that one. He told her that he would help her retrieve her brother's belonging for free.

His exact words were "on the house."

Now they made their way across the city under the pale moonlight. Nafria had shed her human-shape in favor of her bird-form, that of a Cyphrus hawk. She left behind only the hooded cloak, which Gillie understood to mean that she had been wearing nothing beneath it. He shook the thought away as he cradled her bundled cloak under one arm and extended the other for balance.

As Nafria flew, he was running along the rooftops, hopping from building to building. Sometimes he fell a little short and was forced to grab hold of the edge with his free hand and hoist himself back up. It was a quicker, stealthier way to travel by night in a city like Riverfall. He could hear voices and see passersby below, but he had done stuff like this enough to know how to move without attracting attention to himself.

They were headed to the Coils Club--the Dhani-hub of Riverfall. If Nafria's constrictor was in the city, he'd be there on a night like this.

The plan was simple: he would leave Nafria on the roof outside, ready for a quick escape, and he would enter into what he affectionately called the "snake pit" as a bar guest. He'd talk to some people, feel the situation out, and locate their man. Snake. Guy.

Nafria had described the killer's snake and Dhani forms--the two shapes she'd seen him take. Unfortunately, it was possible that in the Coils Club he would be taking his third more human-like shape. Still, he at least had 2/3 chance to pinpoint the guy. Then again, snakes do look pretty similar. Especially constrictors.

If the Dhani had the necklace on his person, Gillie would pickpocket it. If not (and he really hoped he did), he'd have to find the snake-man's living quarters.

Which would suck.

They arrived shortly after all these thoughts. Nafria perched at the base of a building's spire and fidgeted almost incessantly. She was obviously nervous about what lay ahead. Gillie crouched low and crawled toward her. Clutching her bundled cloak, he whispered, "Hey, don't sweat it, Nafria. Just stay here until I come back. Mind if I borrow this cloak?"

The hawk-Kelvic shook her head and glanced over at the Coils Club not far off. Her feathers ruffled.

"Be right back," Gillie said with a wink. He dropped nimbly from the roof to the ground and landed on two feet and a hand, knees bending as he did so to absorb the fall's shock. He straightened himself, tied the cloak around his neck, and grinned.

Welcome to the Snake Pit.

[Gillie Dhu]

Gillie approached the Coils Club with a clear goal in mind: get in, get necklace, get out, and don't get eaten. He'd never been in there before, so his presence would most certainly be noticed. And, unfortunately, in most cities the big blue guys would stick out, but here in this city, Gillie was a minority. He hoped there would be other humans there, so that perhaps he could congregate around them until he was no longer noticed.

The Coils Club had a nondescript entrance, save for the snakes hewn into the tavern's stone archway. As if these weren't already menacing enough, a Dhani in human-form boasting a muscular physique and serpentine tattoos was his welcome. They stared at each other a moment, and finally, the bouncer stepped aside, allowing him passage.

Gillie cast a backwards-glance at the Dhani one last time before fully entering the dance club/tavern. Nope, not my guy.

His target would have a more bloated stomach, he knew, because he had recently eaten the day before. However, a small bird Kelvic wouldn't be nearly large enough to keep a constrictor from shifting forms. But still, the Dhani should be fairly easy to spot.

Gillie scanned his proximity quickly and efficiently. Perceptiveness was something he'd been working on--a skill necessary for someone who enjoys working in the shadows and pulling strings. It was hard not to perceive the large, mingling crowd and live music, but Gillie was looking deeper. He noted a couple of Akalak men in the nearest corner, seated at a table partaking in a drunken arm-wrestle match. Around them, several others had gathered: one was a Dhani, but she was a woman, and showed no signs of having recently devoured a mid-sized animal.

He took special note of the club's other bouncers, who stood at opposite ends of the room with arms crossed. They looked just as menacing as the first.

Play it cool, Gillie, he thought, continuing on, so as not to seem suspicious. He decided he'd better buy a drink, so as not to seem conspicuous.

"I'll take a fruit juice," Gillie said to the bartender, taking his seat next to two scantily-clad Dhani women and what was probably a Drykas man. He was pretty sure this guy was a Drykas by all the tattoos. He turned slowly in his chair, taking in as many conversations around him as he could, and rested his elbows on the counter, facing the mingled crowd.

His eyes rested on someone.

Gillie grinned. Bingo.

[Gillie Dhu]

Gillie had spied a familiar figure in the conglomeration of club-goers. He'd dealt with this individual before on similar occasions. If he needed to know something about what went on under the Coils Club, she would help him. For a price, of course. Such exchanges were common in the shadows.

They'd made eye-contact, but she kept talking to her friends. She was a rattler Dhani, and a gorgeous one at that, with a curvaceous figure, luscious lips, and dark hair that cascaded down her shoulders in ripples. And her eyes were hypnotic, like they could hold you in a trance. Gillie smirked slightly. He'd been in one of her lower-level trances before, and had decided he was rather fond of her company under such circumstances.

He knew her as Llessis, though he was certain this was either a cover-name or a shortened form of her actual one.

Drink in hand, the human tactician approached her nonchalantly. Her conversation with her fellow Dhani had apparently wrapped up, and she stood to meet him halfway. She did not stop approaching until her body touched his. Llessis leaned in and allowed her lips to brush his cheek seductively, and whispered, "Gillie, it'sss good to sssee you."

The whispers gave him chills. Excited chills. Carnal chills. He did not draw back, because he knew that doing so would give her an advantage, and with her scantily-clad form nearly pressed up against him, she already had a pretty distinct one. Instead, Gillie returned her advances, looping his arm around her waist and whispering, "Llessis, I have need of your services."

The rattler Dhani drew back slowly. Her lips curved into a humored smile. "Which services?"

Gillie chuckled softly. "I need to know something about one of the Dhani in the establishment," he said, slipping two gold Mizas into her back pocket, making sure she felt them. Then he added, "Please, I know what happens to the guys who ask for the other kind of services."

Llessis smirked coyly and winked at him. "Mm. You catch on quick."

[Gillie Dhu]

"Constrictor, forest-green scales--intermingled with some lighter hues, should be fuller than usual," Gillie said in a low voice, as he spoke with Llessis amid the noise of the Club. "Just ate a Kelvic osprey. Took a necklace as his prize."

Their eyes did not break. Llessis pretended to think for a moment. Gillie knew she was playing with him, like a serpent with its prey, because she never had to think about the information he requested. She always knew immediately; she was just a little too playful for his liking sometimes.

"Name's Shiranssollus," she finally replied, her full lips curling into the slightest of smiles. "He's a bouncer here. Matches your description exactly. I saw him wearing the necklace earlier this evening. He retired to his room in the tunnelsss almost an hour ago after his shift was over."

Gillie inwardly groaned, but didn't allow his frustration to surface. If there was one place in Riverfall he didn't want to enter, it was the Dhani colony below. "Can I ask you two more favors?"

Llessis shrugged, smiling coyly. "Sure, but it'll cossst extra."

"Put it on my tab," Gillie replied with a wink. "I need a distraction--some chaos in the Club so I can get down there--, and a guide, because there's no way I'll find this guy without one."

Llessis stood slowly, and walked past him, her hips swaying hypnotically as she moved. "I'll sssee what I can do."

[Gillie Dhu]

The planned diversion worked splendidly. Llessis herself would serve as his guide, but before that, she created an immense clamor. Having nuzzled herself between two drunken Akalak, the Dhani rattler seduced both into a frenzied argument over her with each other, until fists were flung and chairs hurled. As the Club's bouncers sprung into action, several more intoxicated tavern-goers were caught up in the fray. Nearly half of the Dhani slipped into their snake-like forms in an effort to subdue the burly, brawling drunkards.

And in all the chaos, Llessis led Gillie beneath the Club, into the tunnels. He had a hard time taking his eyes off her voluptuous, swaying hips as he followed her into dimly-lit chambers below. He quickly draped his borrowed cloak from Nafria over his head and body to conceal his identity. Peering out from under the hood of his cloak, Gillie made careful note of each turn they made, as well as the compass direction in which they headed.

He may have to navigate these same tunnels alone on his way out.

It wasn't hard, because apparently Shiranssollus's habitations were fairly close by. Llessis brought him down a hallway lined with doors and stopped at one in particular. "Here'sss your man," she said with a sly smile. Then, her lips brushing his ear, she whispered, "It was a pleasure doing businessss with you again, Gillie."

With that, she departed, leaving Gillie alone to figure out his door-situation.

The tactician grinned. Anticipating the debacle, he'd pinched one of her hairpins in their encounter. He was getting better at it, although he was fairly sure she had felt it happen, and in her playfulness, pretended it had gone unnoticed. Gillie shrugged. Either way, he had a hairpin.

Quietly, he tried the door. Locked. He bent the hairpin into a straight line and proceeded to--as silently as possible--pick the door's lock. After nearly a minute of struggling against the lock, it gave way, and he was freed to enter. With a soft push, the door creaked open, revealing the darkness of an unlit room inside.

A serpent's abode.

[Gillie Dhu]

The room was dark, lit only by the sliver of light from the barely-opened door. These were not favorable circumstances, as Gillie would have to slip in and procure the necklace--wherever it may be--without waking the sleeping constrictor.

And without the luxury of clear sight.

He could, in spite of circumstance, make out the serpentine form of the Dhani, which made all of this quite terrifying. The constrictor, Shiranssollus, was sleeping as a snake, and an enormous one at that. What made matters worse was that Gillie knew--based upon previous experience with a drunken Dhani in snake-form--that snakes do not have eyelids. Ergo, he would not know for certain whether the snake was sleeping or awake--and watching.

The thought gave him goosebumps. He scanned the length of the serpent for signs of a head. He found the tail easy enough, but the snake's head was hidden within his coils in the shadows. Gillie made an effort not to gulp. Using the light from the door-rack, he searched his immediate surroundings. The necklace--just as Nafria had described--was hanging on the wall by a nail. It bore several colorful beads, a glass pendant, and two small feathers--one white, the other brown.

Pulling it slowly from its place, he put it in his pocket and turned to leave.

But something was not right. He heard the slightest sound of a body uncoiling. Skin rubbing skin as the muscular form of a predator untwisted itself.

Gillie found himself face-to-face with the slitted eyes of a constrictor. The snake eyed him a moment, and Gillie felt his long body start to unravel so that it surrounded the room. This time, he did gulp. He had stepped into a predator's domain, and been trapped.

His body was ready at any moment to leap for the door. He knew the serpent, by nature of being a constrictor, would go for a strangle, rather than a lethal bite. Shiranssollus might strike first with his jaws, but this would serve as a quick diversion for his muscular coils. The coils were what Gillie had to worry about most.

The snake shifted into its half-human, half-snake form, revealing the muscular torso of a scaly, green-brown male. His arms hung at his sides, flexed.

"Who isss that? Who are you?!" he hissed in the common tongue, his speech slow and slurred. He swayed a little when he spoke.

Oh, good. He's drunk. Gillie almost smirked. Almost.

Thinking quickly, the cloaked tactician said, "They sent me down here to check on you--"

"They? Who'sss they?" Shiranssollus interrupted, rising higher. He bumped his head on the low ceiling and recoiled slightly. "Ow!"

"Your friends, Shiranssollus," Gillie replied, easing closer to the door. "Your friends sent me to see how you were doing."

The constrictor, rubbing the top of his head, looked over at Gillie through the darkness and muttered, "I don't have any friends."

Gillie inched closer to the door. "Sure you do, Shi-man!" he continued, nicknaming the constrictor on the fly. "Heck, I'm your friend! Don't you recognize me?"

"Uh, yeah. Maybe."

Gillie backed towards the door, his hand hidden behind his back as he fiddled for the doorknob. "It's me, uh-- Artair!" he said, taking his deceased father's name. "I haven't been by in a while, so it's okay you didn't recognize me at first."

Shiranssollus stared at him, a dazed look on his reptilian face. "Oh, okay... Artair. Yeah. I remember now... I think."

Gillie's hand touched the edge of the door. "Well hey, it was good seeing you, Shi-man! We should catch up sometime! Tell the missus I said hey!"

And with that, he spun quickly out the door and closed it shut behind him. On the other side, he heard a very confused Shiranssollus mumble, "Missus?"

Gillie breathed a sigh of relief, felt the necklace in his pocket, and headed back the way he came.

[Gillie Dhu]

After some twists and turns, Gillie managed to make it back through the tunnels with minimal attention drawn (most who saw him were in a drunken daze and didn't care that a cloaked human was leaving their midst). When he finally did emerge back into the Coils Club, he found that the frenzied bar fight had simmered down, and that despite some overturned tables and broken chairs, the tavern-goers had largely returned to their usual socialization.

He did note that the two Akalak men directly involved in the beginnings of the fight were no longer present. Llessis, too, was nowhere to be found. But this mattered little. He'd accomplished what he'd set out to do. Now to return to Nafria and deliver the necklace to her.

Gillie exited with no difficulty, walking leisurely--so as not to be conspicuous--past the front-door bouncer. When he was far enough away, and hidden within an abandoned alley, he broke into a sprint and whistled a quick and simple tune. Nafria, perched above, heard the sound and recognized it as their planned signal. The Cyphrus hawk dove toward him and transformed back into her human shape just as her feet touched the ground.

"Did you--?" she began. But she was interrupted by Gillie's extended hand, which uncurled to reveal her brother's necklace.

"Oh, Gillie!" Nafria exclaimed, throwing herself into his arms, in spite of her nudity. She wept tears mixed with both sorrow and joy. Sorrow for her loss. Joy for the hope of tomorrow and the legacy of her brother. Gillie wrapped his arms around her bare back and held her tightly as she cried for several long minutes.

Finally, she kissed his cheek and pulled away. "Thank you, Gillie Dhu."

Gillie grinned. "Don't mention it," he replied, thankful that the darkness concealed his red face. He pulled the Kelvic hawk's cloak off and handed it to her. Then he tore off a piece of his sleeve and wrapped three gold Mizas in it. "Here, this will keep you going for a little while. You'll have to travel light and in hawk-form most of the time."

Nafria sniffed and wiped under her left eye. She held the cloak against her naked body and took the money gladly. Lastly, she received the necklace, and placed it around her own neck. "Gillie, I owe you my life."

"You don't owe me anything," the tactician replied, rolling his eyes and folding his arms over his chest. "Now keep that thing safe, you hear? I risked my neck for it."

She touched the necklace. "I will. I promise. Will I ever see you again?"

Gillie winked. "Oh, I'm sure. You can't just get rid of Gillie Dhu."

Nafria smiled. "I am glad."

And with that, the Kelvic returned to her hawk-shape and disappeared into the night sky. Gillie watched her go, glad that he had been able to help her--a new friend--begin a new life. A free life.

He smiled.