Worry in the White Sands.

[miss_sanguine]

Funds low again, Kabe soared the skies of Whitesands as a seagull, looking for his newest victim. He couldn't go back to his parents, not after having already gone to them for more money only a few weeks ago. They'd grow suspicious—or worse, refuse him money and force him to get a job. He shuddered at the thought.

Gambling usually kept him with a high income, but seeing as how the reason he was broke was because of the recent bout of gambling he'd been through, he didn't think it wise. No, he would resort to one of his other skills: theft. And not just any theft, theft for another.

Marriage seemed silly to him; binding oneself to a single person, inevitably leading to bickering and hatred. But it provided him with ample job opportunities. Most of his stealing was for wealthy men or women that required his "abilities" to retrieve something their past lover had stolen from them, or in some cases, kept.

In this case, a man had asked him to find his ex-wife and rob her of the fine jewelry she wore—jewelry, he claimed, that he had given her on the day the of their wedding that she refused to return upon their separation. The man had supplied Kabe with enough information that he could find the woman in a crowd of dancing people, along with pictures of the items needing to be pilfered.

"She's always walking right along the shores just down there around noon. Can't miss her," the man had said, pointing in said direction.

And, sure enough, after only minutes of searching, Kabe spotted her along the white sands. She looked just as the man had described her, and in the bright beams of the sun, the needed jewelry glinted off her neck, wrists, and fingers.

Kabe circled a few more times to assess the situation. The woman was beautiful, with long black hair. Even with his poorer seagull vision, her beauty radiated like the sun itself. She wore a long pink dress that hugged her hips and legs. His employer had good taste. It was a shame he'd marred the matter by trying to seal himself to the woman.

Once his target was in perfect view, Kabe dove, long, gangly wings pulled in to his sides as the wind rushed past his feathers.

He was in her hair in mere moments, and in her confusion and screams of terror, he grabbed at the necklace on her neck and gave a sharp tug. It came free quite easily, and he pulled back from her to arrange in it his beak so that he'd have room to go for the other items.

[explodeyfaces]

Hiali had been making herself busy, shoving her bare feet into the sands and thinking very long and hard about the thing she just did. She had, for one thing, stolen a conveniently small fishing boat. She'd never seen one that tiny, but she happened upon it in a stroke of good fortune. That was pretty deplorable, though, stealing a boat. Running away from your family and your homeland was bad enough on it's own without 'theft' added to the list. The girl sighed and rubbed at one of the tattoos that swirled and rivered it's way up her right arm. Another mistake was not taking enough food with her for the journey, which she was violently reminded of as her stomach began to growl. Hiali pouted a bit, resting her chin in one hand, and tracing little patterns in the sand with the other.

   She looked into the rickety little boat, searching for something she'd looked over, something that might have showed up by virtue of some unusually helpful sea creature, perhaps one that might have slipped her a bit of lunch. No such luck.

   The sun was high, and Hiali didn't exactly know what she was waiting for. She was just waiting for something to happen, when, almost out of no where, it did.

   Chancing a glance over the sea-worn rocks that stuck out like a blemish on the pristine white sand, Hiali watched a seagull attack a very good looking lady and take her necklace. It didn't look like it was quite done yet, either. She shrunk down again, for fear of being seen. Perhaps that would be how she'd have to get by here. She'd have to steal things and fight to get through, like that seagull. Live life on the lamb! Maybe leaving wasn't the best idea she'd ever had, but if she could get the bird to hand over the jewelry, she could at least try to pawn it off for some food.

        Or, perhaps, she could just shake up a little bit of trouble and keep the seagull as a pet. Without considering how she'd actually tame and catch the bird. She tugged at her vibrant orange scarf, stuffing her shaggy hair into it's confines and trying to get the silk wrap to cover most of her face.

         In a quick movement, she hurdled herself around the rocks and let out what sounded like the wails of a dying cat. Her bare feet made a quick orbit of the woman, who was undoubtedly confused by the sudden bird/girl attack. She kept orbiting the puzzled lady, waving her arms and yelling in Thanati. The bird was not far away, and Hiali hoped to confuse her long enough to make her into a sitting target for the bird.

[miss_sanguine]

The new girl's plan worked in distracting the screaming woman, but it also distracted Kabe. At the sudden wailing yell, he cried out, back-pedaling with his wings. It was hard enough keeping track of his target's swatting arms, and now he had to make sure that this new person didn't try and come to the rescue.

Being the first to recover from his initial shock, Kabe lunged for woman again, managing to grab the thin bracelet from her wrist and tear it off. The necklace swinging from his beak made maneuvering difficult, but he managed.

"Vermin!" the woman shouted out, a flailing hand catching him right in his wing and knocking him off balance.

Fiesty! The thrill of his work made him want to laugh, but opening his beak at this point would lead to his dropping his prizes. There was no room for the ring on the woman's finger. Surely the man would understand. He'd seemed a reasonable person.

But what about this new threat? The crazy girl circling them and calling out nonsense?

Tucking in his left wing, he whirled around and then soared up into the air, away from the two persons. Instead of going back to his employer, he decided to circle far overhead and watch to see what might happened between the two girls. Already the woman with the long hair was rounding on the crazy one.

"What do you think you're doing?" she was shouting. "You let it get away!"

[explodeyfaces]

The girl looked around for the gull, trying to dodge the woman and her gaze. "I didn't mean to!" she said in heavily accented Common. She was still searching the sky for the bird she wanted to catch, just so she could pawn off it's goods. Her violet squint returned to the woman before she shrugged, keeping the pose in an attempt to prove her own innocence. It looked as if the woman was about to try to grab the girl and do who-knows-what to her. Turn her in, try to fight her, send her on a boat back home, anything! So, taking her first viable option, she made a mad dash in any direction her wild feet would take her.

[miss_sanguine]

Yep. The young girl was definitely crazy. But not the kind of crazy Kabe had been hoping for. He'd hoped the two would get into a fight, possibly fall into the rising tide and get wet, their clothes clinging to their bodies as they clawed at each other and pulled hair.

He'd had such high expectations that the disappointment from their lack of assault on one another pulled his mood down a notch. Some woman, not fighting a crazy girl that could have helped her! No wonder the man had separated from her. Pretty she might have been, but sassy she was not.

He followed the wild, running girl for a while, hoping she might do some other crazy thing, but when she did not, he decided to get a closer look. The necklace and bracelet swung from his beak, his grip secure, and as he landed on a docking post just ahead of the girl, he made sure not to drop them.

Angling his head to the side in curiosity, he waited to see what she would do upon seeing him.

[explodeyfaces]

After jogging, and eventually trudging, over the untouched white sand, it had slowly dawned on her that this was the worst idea she'd ever had. After that first impression, Hiali was good and ready to flop face first into the sand and stay there. There was just no way she could get a job now! Maybe she could make a house out of sand? Live in it forever as a lonely sand-hermit lady. It would either become all-the-rage, or she'd become a display. Children would gather around the shriveled old woman who lived in a house of sand because she ran away from home and screamed in a rich woman's face. The old woman would make them head scarves and they'd take them as gifts. Hiali was knee deep in contemplating her future as a tourist attraction when she snapped out of her daze and saw the gull. It made her jump. What in the world was this guy doing here? Slowly reaching for her scarf and revealing her round face, she did her best to avoid sudden movements and scaring it away. Inch-by-inch, she bowed to the bird. Being polite would be the best way to make a friend, even if it was with a bird.
 "Hello," she said to the bird, unsure if he'd understand, "I hope you're, er, well."
Hiali had never talked to a bird before, but perhaps she could charm him into handing over his goods? She batted her dark eyes at him and smiled, trying her best to achieve 'charming' .

[miss_sanguine]

The girl wasn't much to look at, especially not after he'd gotten a good eyeful of his client's ex-life companion. No large breasts to fill his eyes with, no attractive curves. She didn't look any older than seventeen or so years.

He angled his head even further as she began talking to him as if he weren't a seagull, even bowed to him. As if he weren't one of the largest pests on the whitesands with a brain no bigger than a grain of sand. Did she come from a land where it was a normal thing to speak to birds, where birds could understand human speech? Or was she, as he'd been assuming this whole time, actually just crazy?

Pulling his head back to a normal position, he stared at her. Then he opened his beak enough to let out an ugly squawk, not wide enough to drop his prizes.

In a matter of seconds he was no longer a gull, but a man, sitting on the post with his legs crossed casually and a smirk on his features as the necklace and bracelet dangled from his lips.

After removing them, now holding tightly to them with his left hand, he asked, "Do you make it a habit to speak to birds?"

[explodeyfaces]

The scream started out small, a little "aaaaaaah" from the bottom of her throat, and gradually grew into a sharp shriek. Hiali tried to turn around and run, but she lost her footing and fell flat on her bottom. Scrambling to get back up, she stammered for what she was trying to say. "MAN! BIRD MAN!" was the most she could seem to muster before collecting herself back on her feet.
"You, you FAKER! Thieving vendor of falsehoods!" she cried, "What are you really? Are you a bird who turns into a man or a man that turns into a bird! Answer the question, sir, or I shall have to act!"
There goes the 'taming the gull' plan. Plan B was bluffing.

[miss_sanguine]

The scream made him smile, watching as she flailed around and fell to the ground.

Yes. Definitely crazy. But in an amusing sort of way, so he stayed where he was atop the wooden post and put his chin in his palm as he watched the show. She had such a shrill voice when startled, like the screaming of the gulls overhead that circled the beach looking for any sort of food they could grab.

"Why can't I be both?" he asked when she'd calmed down somewhat, still eying her with his chin in his palm. "Or." He casually slid down from his sitting place, now standing before her with his arms spread wide, the necklace and bracelet danging from his fingers. "What if I were neither of those things?"

[explodeyfaces]

He was trying to puzzle her. After patting down her clothes in order to look a little more presentable, she folded her arms over her chest. It was time to come off as being somewhat composed. "So, maybe it is that you are some kind of trickster, hm?" He was good looking, and she figured that might be part of the tricksters gambit he might be trying to pawn off here. Not today, sir!
"You have to be something," she said after a moment. "Maybe we could start over from the beginning, Gull."
She bowed to him again, and when she righted herself, announced: "My name is Linni."
It was never wise to give a tricky person your real name, so she stole her sister's for the time being.

[miss_sanguine]

He watched in a mixture of bafflement and continued amusement as she went about with slapping her clothes as if she had bugs all over her body. He might have taken further enjoyment from the show if she'd had breasts to speak of--watching a girl bat at her own boobs seemed like an appealing idea to him.

I'll have to remember that the next time I'm at the tavern, he thought. On second thought, maybe he could do the patting.

He'd been all ready to make such an offer, but by the time he snapped out of his thinking, the girl had finished and was now speaking to him.

"Linni." Here he bowed, deeply, as if addressing someone of royal birth. "Pleased to meet you. I am known as Kabe, but I would prefer if you continued to call me Gull--it has a nice ring to it. Maybe even Gully. And, might I ask, what a young woman such as yourself is doing out here on the beach, interfering with business that is not hers?"

[explodeyfaces]

She took a step back. So nosy! But then again, it was a legitimate question. People don't normally hang around beaches and try to seal a deal with a gull. "Well, uh, Gull, I'll have you know that I was just trying to help you with your little situation there. With that lady? I was being helpful." She used her foot to trace little arcs in the sand, her head bowed to watch the movement. "I think."
When she returned his gaze, she smirked. "To be honest, I was hoping that you were just a dumb bird who I could take the stuff from."