"Get back here you little thief!" The crowd parted reluctantly to let the angry merchant lumber through, his hands dripping with grease and blood from the wares at his meat stall. He had the stature of an ox, wide-shouldered and obviously strong, but that would only help if he could get his hands on the little runt who stole from him, and it wasn't useful at all in the chase. He saw the boy ahead, slipping unobtrusively through the crowd, and he upped his pace, forcing his way towards the scoundrel.
For a moment he could still see the tuft of gray-ish hair, but then he was lost in the mob of the market place and the merchant growled to himself, realizing he wasn't going to get his meat back. He turned reluctantly and headed back to his stall, grumbling the whole way. Today definitely wasn't his day.
-----
Jonathan smirked to himself, looking back over his shoulder once more to make sure he wasn't being followed. He had turned out of the main street and was walking along one of the less populated, although still pretty busy, roads now, and a small pack on his back was filled with his stolen goods. His stomach growled at him, as though reprimanding him for not feeding it as often as it would like. Soon though, he'd be able to eat.
A dog nearly half his size walked beside him, her coat a a beautiful mixture of browns, grays, and black. Every so often she would eye John's bag and he would laugh. "Not yet, Nikki. We have to wait till we get back home." That wasn't entirely true, because it wasn't their home. Indeed, it could hardly be called a home at all, but rather a derelict ruin overlooking the slums of the town. A hole was blasted in the front of it, which Jonathan had covered with a brown cloth, and the stairs leading to the entrance were all but destroyed. The door was much too high for someone to reach, even if they jumped or stood on their friend's shoulders, so it provided the perfect hide-out, for the next little while atleast. Until they moved on.
On the way they passed a group of women stringing up their laundry to dry, talking in low voices and looking around nervously. "Did you hear?" One lady started, pausing for suspense. "They say he hit the Conner's last week. Robbed them blind, while they were home! They didn't even notice the money was gone until they opened the safe this morning and found nothing but the feather." The other ladies shook their heads sadly and started talking about something else, but Jonathan had passed them by then and their voices slowly faded into the distance.
It wasn't too long until he got back to the slums, but before he could reach his 'house' he heard angry voices behind him. "There he is! That's the little bastard who stole from my stall!" Someone called for him to 'Halt, stop where you are!' but naturally, that was the last thing he was planning to do. A quick glance over his shoulder proved what he had already guessed - three guards and the heavily-built meat man, who was quite out of breath from keeping up with the soldiers. Jonathan hated it when people got persistent.
Nikita turned around and growled menacingly at the guards, who stepped back with surprise before shaking themselves off and coming at them once more. But just that one moment of hesitation was all John needed, and he dashed into a nearby alley, listening to the sound of heavy footsteps on the ground behind him. He turned corner after corner, trying to shake them, but they stayed on his heels for much longer than he would have liked. It seemed he'd gotten the three guards who actually took this sort of thing seriously. Lucky him.
Okay, so empty alleys weren't working, but he had a better escape method. It would cause a serious detour on his part, but he much preferred it to being put in prison for stealing some stupid meat. He had better things to do with his time. So he wound his way through the side-streets, heading back towards the market where he could slip into the crowd. By the time he got there he was starting to get seriously out of breath, and he wondered how the hell the soldiers were keeping up with him. Probably two of them were elves or something ridiculous like that.
He slipped through the herd of people and after another five minutes or so he was feeling pretty safe, and he looked back once more to make sure they weren't anywhere around. They weren't, and he sighed (or breathed slightly heavier than he already was) with relief. He was just returning his gaze to where he was going when he ran into someone. He stumbled back a few steps and mumbled a 'sorry' before looking up to see who he'd run into. He just hoped it wasn't a soldier, because he seriously wasn't in the mood.
((I'm not really the best at starting threads, in case you didn't notice ;)))
