In Plain Sight (Elf Lady Love/Open)

[Jiaolong]

Daniel frowned at that, following her into the street. Just as he had suspected, the guards were nowhere to be seen, having given up their search for the thieves. The woman, too, was gone, and he made a note to himself not to go near that part of the marketplace.

A bar at one end of the street was filled with rowdy people, even though it was the middle of the day. Some more obviously wealthy people walked past wearing fancy fabrics and cloths. A merchant with a stand selling jewelry appeared to be falling asleep in the midday sun. People of all kinds shuffled past. "It's always busy here, isn't it?"

[Lowen Thorn]

"Mhm," she nodded as they walked through the bustling crowds. "Now this is a nice ring." The woman held her palm open to showcase a heavy silver ring with some sort of engraving etched into the side. Apparently she had already swiped it off of someone in the short time that they had been in the streets.

"Steady eyes and sly hands, Daniel. Remember that," she said as she tossed it to him. "Keep it."

[Jiaolong]

Daniel caught it, pocketing the ring and hoping no one had seen the exchange. He looked around the crowd for someone he could steal from.

Not the old, hunched over man who had only a rusty ring on his finger and worn clothes. It looked like those were the only things he had, and he probably needed them. But the two men walking a few feet in front of him seemed much better off, wearing nice, clean clothing and carrying bulging money bags. They almost looked too perfect to steal from.

"What about them?" Daniel whispered, leaning towards Regen.

[Lowen Thorn]

Regen looked over to the men that had Daniel's attention and gave off a wry smile. "Good eye," she noted, analyzing the situation. "But you gotta be careful with that lot. Anyone who is openly carries around money is either going to be a little more prepared, or just plain stupid. With them, my money is on the former. It would be easier to check their pockets before going after the coin in their sacks."

She frowned a bit, considering. "But give it a shot if you'd like. I'll have your back if anything goes wrong. If all else fails, bump into them by accident."

[Jiaolong]

"By accident. Right."

He was fairly well dressed-it didn't look like he had any reason to steal, so hopefully the men wouldn't think so either. He walked forward as he normally would, pressed in with the crowd. Quickly, he lifted a small hand into one of the men's pockets, fingers finding a couple coins. He took out only three, afraid the man would notice if the change in weight was too great.

The two men seemed not to have noticed. Daniel watched them go, the backs of their heads soon lost in the crowd. He turned to Regen, a satisfied smile on his face. "It worked this time."

[Lowen Thorn]

"Pretty smooth there," she admitted as he returned. "You might have want it takes to join the crew, though I couldn't see the other one holding his own very well. How'd you meet that guy, anyway?"

[Jiaolong]

"He seems as capable as me, maybe more so," Daniel said, looking for some other well-dressed people to steal from. He wasn't sure how to answer her question without revealing too much about Epirus or himself.

"I met him by chance in a forest. We fought some people, fought each other, fought some people again, and we've been friends ever since." It wasn't a lie.

[Lowen Thorn]

"Ya don't say."

Regen meant well, but her voice trailed of, uninterested, as something caught her attention from the corner of her eye. The two men Daniel had stole from had turned corner, heading back in their direction and gods did they look angry. "You there!" one of them barked, pointing in their general direction. "Stop!"

Shit.

Regen made a snap decision for her own well-being, though the man she was with probably wouldn't be too pleased. Leaning in, she quickly whispered in his ear. "First lesson of being a bandit. Every man for himself."

She ducked off into the shadows quicker than Daniel could turn around.

[Jiaolong]

Daniel flinched at the shouts of the angry men. Evidently, his stealing hadn't been as 'smooth' as Regen said. Speaking of which...

He barely had time to react before she disappeared into the shadows, leaving him behind. The men were close now, and one reached out to grab Daniel by the shirt, but the angel backed up into a nearby alley. The man followed, face reddened with rage. "Pickpocket! Get back here with my money, boy!"

Daniel turned and dashed through the narrow pathway, the men hot on his heels. But he soon outran them, losing them in the twisting corridors. He stopped when he was sure he'd lost them and, making sure no one was watching, unfurled his wings and flew to the rooftops. Here was a vantage point of the city. He had no idea where Regen was, nor where the noble's house was. Frowning, he allowed his wings to disappear.

The coins were still in his hand. All that for these little things...perhaps stealing was not for him.

[Lowen Thorn]

"Got away from them, did ya?"

Just as quickly as the woman had disappeared, she had returned, just behind the Angel and on the rooftops no less. Just exactly how she got up there so quickly was a mystery that remained to be solved. "Nice wings," she said curiously. "Where'd ya get'em?"

[Jiaolong]

Daniel turned, surprised she had found him so quickly. "You're very good at appearing and disappearing. But maybe I'm just not paying attention."

What was more alarming was that she had seen his wings. But the angel had learned there was no hiding things from Regen. She was a bit of an enigma herself, anyway. He unfurled his wings once again, flapping them slightly. "I was created with them."

He closed them abruptly, wanting to change the subject. "I've been thinking...I'm not quite cut out for being a bandit. It's not like I have a need to steal...but I don't know what else there is to do. I don't know what I should do," he muttered, the last sentence dropping to a whisper.

Things were simple when he was given orders. He followed them, no matter how difficult, and when he was done, he was given more. But the blue-eyed angel wasn't here to tell him what to do.

[Lowen Thorn]

"Well, that's just my little secret," she mused at his observation.

She stopped, studying him as he spot. He was created with wings, but he sure didn't look Yoreiqi. He wasn't cut out to be a bandit he said, but he had only given in the one or two go's as far as she could tell.

"Don't know what you should do?" she asked finally, her head tilted. "Well. The hells do you want to do? Just fish around until you find something you're good at."

[Jiaolong]

"Something I'm good at..." he echoed. Maybe he should take the advice of the merchant from earlier and get work somewhere. Getting a job would give him something to do to ease his boredom, and he could get money to pay that merchant back.

"You've given me a great idea!" He started off the rooftop but stopped. "...Where are we, exactly?"

[Lowen Thorn]

"I don't know," Regen admitted with a slight shrug. "This is just where I hurried off to when you got caught."

She took a look around the rooftop. "You can almost see the whole city from here," she said softly. "What's yer idea anyway?"

[Jiaolong]

"To get a job. Work. There should be some in the city, right? It would definitely give me something to do."

He looked out over the city, wondering how one even started looking for work. As far as he knew, Regen's occupation as a bandit wasn't a common one, so he probably couldn't ask her. He was about to glide back into the alley when he felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. He knew immediately what it meant—someone near here was about to die.

But why hadn't he felt this before? People died all the time, and yet this was the first time since he woke up in this world that he felt the familiar tingle. Were more of his powers as an angel returning?

Would his memories return?

Daniel frowned, turning around and trying to pinpoint the location.

[Lowen Thorn]

Regen laughed.

"You'll stick out like a sore thumb," she said again, feeling like she was repeating herself. "You've already been chased for two separate robberies in the span of what... thirty minutes? But hey, whatever floats your boat, Daniel."

She studied his face a little closer when a look of grim washed over his face. "...Something wrong?"

[Jiaolong]

Daniel barely heard Regen's words as he pinpointed the location. Some force compelled him to seek it out, and he strode past her without a second thought. "Someone's about to die," he whispered, jumping off the roof and letting his wings shot out to break his fall.

He didn't know if she would follow him or not, but that wasn't important. He was starting to remember things—everything, and also the reason why angels like himself were only supposed to observe and never interact.

He snapped out of his thought when he realized his feet had carried him to the source of the feeling of dread. It wasn't too far from where Daniel had escaped—a smaller street, but it was filled with people who all stared in hushed silence at someone in the ground.

The frantic and angry voices of some men could be heard throughout the street, and a horse somewhere whinnied in fear. Daniel approached the crowd, his eyes widening upon seeing it was the man who he'd earlier stolen from laying in the street. Dead.

"It ain't my fault he ran out in front of the wagon like that! And what are two men like you doing in this part of town anyway?" One of the arguing men yelled, sweating nervously. The other man, who Daniel recognized as the dead man's companion, seemed to be looking frantically for help.

No. This wasn't supposed to happen. Daniel could feel it; it wasn't the man's time to die yet.

[Lowen Thorn]

Fuck.

Daniel was becoming more trouble than he was worth.

Regen threw her arms up in disbelief when he dived off of the building like some sort of mad man, temporarily forgetting the capability of his wings, before heading for the stairs. There was no way in hells she could do what he just did, but at least she was fast enough to get back down to the ground to see what was going on.

Her better judgement told her to walk away then and there. She would need to make arrangements to get back to Yoreiq soon, anyway, and all of this "babysitting" was just slowing her down. It had been a nice visit to Serendipity, but enough was enough, right?

Wrong. Fuck her better judgement, or at least that's what she told herself as he zipped down the staircase. She was too curious, too involved, to do anything else.

She let out a soft, involuntary hiss when she made it to the scene. The bloke Daniel pick pocketed earlier was dead on the streets, and the Angel overlooked it like it was okay to do that.

Sneaking around the crowd, she found her way to Daniel, stepping up silently behind him. "What in all hells are you doing?" she seethed through her teeth. "Doesn't matter what happened! If you stick around, they'll find a way to blame you!"

[Jiaolong]

Daniel barely registered Regen's presence as he slowly took a step back.

"But, it-it is my fault. He wasn't supposed to die here. He was supposed to live for another 33 years!" The angel's usual calm demeanor was gone as he backed away from the crowd. A cart came to take the man's body away, and the crowd soon dispersed as quickly as it had come. Daniel decided it would be best to take Regen's advice for once, and he backed into the shadows with her before anyone could take notice of him.

He didn't expect Regen to understand. He now remembered why it was so ingrained in him to never interact with other creatures. The angels of his kind could drastically change the fate of anyone they came in contact with. It was like the butterfly effect, but magnified. Maybe he had already sent Regen's fate far off course.

"I think...you shouldn't be around me anymore. I'm only going to cause trouble."

[Lowen Thorn]

[OOC: Dude, that's an awesome little trait for Daniel you just introduced]



Up until that point, most of Regen's glares toward Daniel were a mixture of bafflement and irritation, but now a look of concern seemed to wash over her face. "Hey. Don't worry about me," she said after a moment, putting a hand on his shoulder. "You've already caused enough trouble, so I don't see how things can get any worse."

He forced a smile and a chuckle came out with it, and she took a few steps away from him further into alley the two had ducked off into. "How do you know how long that man was suppose to live?" she asked, tilting her head.