Pockets Picked [C]

The day was already going well for Tori. Thanks the the cell phone and music player that she'd sold to her fence the night before, she'd been able to afford buying a donut for herself for breakfast, and she'd even splurged and bought a frufru coffee that tasted like the illegitimate offspring of a cinnamon bun and hot chocolate. Delicious, delicious bastard coffee. Of course, the resulting sugar high was making her bounce on her heels, a smile on her lips. The crash would come soon, she knew, but for now she was enjoying the buzz. Whatever could she do with this amount of energy? Ignoring the cold looks from the passersby, she wandered past store fronts at a merry skip, dancing along the path and annoying the shoppers who clearly were not morning people. None of them knew that she was a Magi exactly, but she was still a young woman who looked like a child, dressed in ragged and dirty overalls. The signs that warned shoppers about possible pickpockets could have mentioned her by name, and the shopkeepers looked at her as if they did.

But it would have been a morning wasted, if she didn't at least try to lift something. She slowed her exuberance and joined with the flow of the crowd, glancing around with a smile on her lips. She was shorter than most, and that made it easier to blend in, even if the colors of her clothes and hair worked against her. Listening intently, she looked for anyone who would make an easy target. Ideally, someone who wasn't paying attention, and had something valuable on their person. It took her a minute to pick out a young woman with her face down, looking at a piece of paper. There was a bulge of coin in her pocket that was clinking with every step. So foolish to let down one's guard in a place like this.

Speeding up, she walked to the other side of the street with her hands loose at her sides. Grinning, she took off at a run, slamming into the girl hard enough to almost knock her off her feet as her hand reached into the pocket with the coin. When she disentangled herself from the girl's limbs, the money was clutched in her fist, and she continued on her way with a grin. Stopping near the end of the street, she opened her hand to see what she'd gotten. It wasn't much coin, but it was enough, and she could resist looking back at the girl and grinning at her, waving a hand as she pocketed the coin and zipped it into her pants.

"Thanks!" she mouthed.

Turning again, she took off at a run. Sometimes, people started a scene when they realized that they'd been targeted, and the best way to get away with it was to run before they could summon the police. Turning on the ball of her foot, she shot down an alley and kept going.

YOU CAN'T STOP ME; I'M A WARRIOR.

Tori laughed to herself as she ran, but when she heard rapid footsteps behind her, she stopped giggling and turned her attention to getting away. The fence at the end of the alley was at least a foot and a half taller than the top of her head, but she raced toward it anyway, knowing she would need the momentum to scale it. Splashing a puddle left behind by the previous night's rain, she launched herself into the air toward the brick wall on her left, and rebounded off of it, landing near the top of the metal grate and flinging herself over. Landing with a roll that made the back of her overalls wet with grit, Tori kept running. Her ability to run and keep running in spite of obstacles was what made her so effective as a thief.

She chanced a look over her shoulder, and began to slow, the grin falling from her lips as she recognized the horns on top of the girl's head. It was a Magi girl. Not watching where she was going, the edge of Tori's foot caught on a dumpster, and her remaining momentum sent her tumbling to the ground. Her arm scraped against the asphalt, and she grimaced at the sudden pain in her knee and her shoulder. Sitting up from where she'd fallen in a heap, Tori looked at her shoulder to find that it was bleeding, and the tiny stones embedded in it were sure to give her an infection.

She picked them out carefully, biting her lip. After she got most of them clear, she pushed herself to her feet and limped back to where the Magi girl stood, working at the zipper.

"Sorry, I didn't realize you were one of us," she said, blushing in embarrassment. "I don't like stealing from Magi."

Pulling the coins from her pocket, Tori held them out to the girl, wincing at the twinge of pain from her skinned shoulder. There was no way of knowing just what kind of Magi the girl was, but Tori had never seen a human or Cyborg with horns before, so it was a reasonable conclusion. And now she'd gone and hurt herself in a theft that would yield nothing, since Tori would have hated herself if she took from one of her own kind. Humans were one thing, and they could usually earn their own money without resorting to drastic measures, but Magi were almost always poor, and they had trouble getting money at all.

YOU CAN'T STOP ME; I'M A WARRIOR.

"Yeah!" Tori replied, smiling widely. "What, you couldn't tell? You're probably the only one."

As soon as the words left her mouth, she clapped her hands over her lips, blushing. Had she just told that girl that she was stupid? Ughh! Her big mouth! The girl was probably going to hate her now, and all because Tori couldn't keep her big mouth shut. Insulting herself mentally, she forced herself to smile again, rubbing the soft feathers on the back of her neck with her fingertips. The white feathers couldn't be seen because of her hair, but she'd picked up the nervous habit somewhere along the way, taking comfort from the soft downy feathers that marked her as Magi, if she pulled her hair back. She winced as the movement stretched the scrape on her shoulder, and lowered her arm again.

"Sorry," she muttered, tilting her head. "I didn't mean to say... Uhhh... Yeah. Ignore me. Sometimes my mouth gets away from me."

Looking over the girl, she examined the scales and horns with fascination. Tori had been blessed with inhuman features that were relatively easy to hide from the word, if one didn't count her hair and eye color. What would her life have been like if she was like this girl, so obviously a Magi that it was frankly dangerous to go anywhere in the city? It would certainly have put a crimp on her pickpocketing abilities, since she would have found law enforcement marking her down as soon as she entered an area. At least Tori could pass for a mildly eccentric human if she had to.

Her arm continued to sting, and she frowned at it, rubbing the blood between her fingers until it more or less vanished. Her hands were covered with grit and dirt, and that was the sort of thing that was easy to clean off. The smutz turned to grit under her fingertips as she rubbed her hands together, but it took more devoted picking under her fingernails to get rid of the smear of red that she saw there. Sighing, she abandoned the effort.

"I guess you don't live around here, huh?" Tori said, gesturing at the horns with a smile. "Why would you risk coming to Felici, when it's always crawling with Hunters? At least Dagos has more of our kind to hide you. Not that... you're ugly or anything. You're really quite... quite something?"

Damn it! Why couldn't she just keep her stupid mouth shut!

YOU CAN'T STOP ME; I'M A WARRIOR.

"Haven?" Tori repeated, tilting her head in confusion. "I thought Haven was a myth."

The fire Magi had lived the entirety of her life in Felici, and it had been a number of years since she'd had a lot of contact with her own kind. Growing up in the orphanage, the idea of Haven had been a dream that many Magi held close to their own heart, but as the years had rolled on, most of them had given up on it. It was a childhood fantasy, one to be put aside with fairy tales and princesses. She could remember when she'd stopped believing in it, back around the same time that she realized that humans were never going to let her live a life outside of the prejudices and constraints that came with being born a Fire Magi. That was a number of years ago. The idea that it was a real place, or that someone had actually been there, was along the lines of someone saying that they were a Unicorn Rider.

Taking the offered bottle, she gritted her teeth and poured the cool water over the long scrape. The blood diluted the water, flowing from the scrapes and dripping onto the asphalt between them, and a few fresh beads rose on the skin as she stopped pouring. It was gross to watch the blood drip down her pale skin, but at least the water would keep the scratches from getting infected. She didn't really have the expendable income to afford a doctor, if it got bad. Screwing the lid back onto the bottle of water, she handed it back over to the strange lizard-like Magi.

"Thanks," she said, a genuine smile on her lips. "My name's Tori. What's yours?"

She didn't really want to address why she still lived in Felici. Aside from being from there originally, she didn't exactly have the funds for a train ticket. Besides, even if she did, Felici was prime real estate for a pickpocket. She always had fresh targets, considering how many tourists managed to make their way through. They didn't know better than to keep their goods exposed, and that made them easy for her to steal from. And the Hunters might have been dangerous, but she was determined to fight them whenever she had the opportunity. With their headquarters being in Felici, the opportunity was fairly frequent.

YOU CAN'T STOP ME; I'M A WARRIOR.

[attr="class","dec1"]FIGHT FOR MY
RIGHT TO
INHALE

[attr="class","dec2"]
I HAVE THE MUSE.

"You live in the woods?" Tori asked, tilting her head in amazement. "Wow. How do you eat?"

What a stupid goddamn question. How did she eat? It was as if Tori was competing with herself to see what was the stupidest thing she could say. Biting her lip, she resolved to think before she said the next thing out of her mouth. Still, the girl's words gave her a lot to think about Haven was really real? It was a dream she had given up on a long time ago. Perhaps it was time to give leaving the city another go? If she could make it to Haven, she would really be safe, for the first time in her life. It would certainly be nice to find a place to sleep where she wouldn't have to keep one eye open. The problem was that she didn't know how to live away from humans. How would she eat.

Never before had Tori realized how dependent upon humans she really was. Pathetic. It made her furious with herself to realize that if she lived anywhere outside of a city, she would probably starve to death. She didn't have the first clue how to hunt, or find shelter in the woods. In the city, there were always dumpsters and garbage cans when there wasn't unattended food on the outdoor cafe tables. There were nooks and crannies and abandoned buildings for shelter from the elements, where she could keep herself dry and warm.

Perhaps this girl could teach her more about how to defend herself. That is... if Tori didn't manage to scare her away with her big, stupid mouth. And that was a gamble of long odds. She'd already alienated Fiamma at least once, and it was a good bet that it would happen again.

"Yeah... uh..." she murmured, looking down and blushing at Fiamma's words. "Sorry about that. I can't exactly waltz into one of these stores and ask for a job. They don't really care for Magi around these parts, especially fire Magi. Arithelia knows, we're all vandals and arsonists."

There was an element of bitterness in her words. She wasn't ashamed of being a thief, but she was angry that she'd never had much of an opportunity to do anything else, like most of her people.

AND NEVER GIVE IT UP.

[attr="class","dec1"]FIGHT FOR MY
RIGHT TO
INHALE

[attr="class","dec2"]
Not sure where we're going with this, to be honest.

Tori grinned at that, a playful, slightly malicious smile. She knew the stereotypes, and as much as she resented them, she knew that there was always an element of truth behind them. She'd met more than a couple of fire Magi who typified that persona, and Tori herself was always game for an element of mischief. It was part of the reason that she'd survived as long and as well as she had, the daring to do things that most people would assume was too dangerous. Perhaps it was a case of chicken and egg. Fire Magi were vandals and arsonists because they had the reputation, and they had the reputation because they were vandals and arsonists. Tori had certainly set more than a couple things on fire in her time.

"You could say that I'm paid to put up with it," she said, tapping her closed pocket.

Coin rattled to make her point, evidence that Fiamma hadn't been her first mark of the day, and probably wouldn't be the last. In the early days, when she'd just come to live on the street, she'd gone hungry more often than not. These days, she usually had a fairly comfortable cushion between herself and starvation, but she still went home with an empty belly every now and again. It helped to switch up her hunting grounds every now and again, to keep the cops from growing wise to her act. In a city like Felici, where business people and tourists were as frequent as the regulars, there were always more than enough dupes to supply her with targets.

She winced as the movement tugged at the torn skin on her shoulder, and she looked down at the scrape with a frown. It wasn't bleeding anymore, and the water had begun to dry up, but it was still swollen and sore, and it was starting to itch. Did she still have some of the salve that she usually kept to keep her scrapes from getting infected? If no one had raided her stash, she probably did. It was expensive, but she didn't need to get it all that often.

"I'm gonna need to put something on this," she said, looking up to the Magi girl with an apologetic smile. "Do you wanna see where I keep my stuff? It's safer for people like us than these streets are."

Was the girl planning on staying the night in this place? If she was, she would probably need a safe place to stay. People who didn't live in Felici couldn't know about the safe little hideaways that Tori had marked out for herself, and Tori knew all too well that a lot of Magi went to sleep in the city and never woke up, or fell asleep and were missing by the next morning. Some of the rumors going around even suggested that someone was kidnapping Magi. No one knew who it was, or why they were doing it, but Tori didn't wanna leave this girl alone on the street when the evening was coming before long.

AND NEVER GIVE IT UP.

[attr="class","dec1"]FIGHT FOR MY
RIGHT TO
INHALE

[attr="class","dec2"]
Home sweet home.

Tori grinned at the girl's acceptance of the offer. That would keep her from having to worry about Fiamma all night, and perhaps it would give her the chance to hang out with another Fire Magi for once. Their kind didn't tend to congregate, because it attracted too much police attraction, but one night wouldn't hurt anything. Maybe she might even make a friend. The fact that their conversation had started with Tori trying to steal all of her money didn't even occur to Tori, since she was just happy to be able to talk to another Magi.

Glancing around the alley, she mentally mapped the best route to her hiding place. Some routes had more police than others, but it was the danger of going into the wrong street thug's territory that usually decided the way that she would go. Generally, the police wouldn't bother chasing after her, if she wasn't doing anything terrible at that particular moment. She couldn't say the same of the Air Magi who guarded his territory as if he really was the dog that his features suggested, or the broken down Cyborg who shot at anyone who sneaked up on him in his sleep. The streets were full of dangers that most people didn't consider.

"This way," Tori said, waving Fiamma to follow. "Stay close."

She started off at a light jog, looking back every now and again to make sure that Fiamma was still following. She turned at a couple of alleys, winding her way through the back streets. At each corner, she stopped and glanced around to make sure that there were no nasty surprises waiting. It paid to be cautious when the sun was going down.

Within a quarter of an hour, she was making her way up the fire escape of an abandoned building, one that had been condemned and was waiting for the city to demolish it so that they could make a new parking garage. It was still structurally sound, but that yellow sheet on the doors kept people out. Luckily for Tori, the fire escape led to the windows, and the windows were easy to get open if you knew how. Not that she could risk coming and going all too often. If someone desperate saw her going in, she knew that the small window wouldn't stop them from following.

Taking a small wire from the edge of the window frame, she worked it into a crack and unlocked the clasp on the window. The window squeaked a little as she opened it and crawled into the dark fourth-story window, but she looked back out to make sure that no one was watching. Once she was sure that the coast was clear, she extended a hand to Fiamma to help her in.

"Mi casa es su casa!" she said, grinning and extending her arms like she was presenting a prize on a game show.

There wasn't much to see. The room was dusty, and there was a pile of old blankets and pillows in the corner, as well as an old chimney that was surrounded by sooty footprints. The door was blocked off by a pile of busted chairs, and there was a circle of candles a few inches from the walls, surrounding them on all sides. She wasn't stupid enough to catch the wallpaper on fire, but she liked a little illumination at night sometimes.

AND NEVER GIVE IT UP.