No matter how many times she got punched in the gut, the girl thought, she would never get used to it.
This hypothesis was not merely scientific musing; in fact, it was the round, hard ball of a fist in her stomach that had prompted such thoughts. Unfortunately, since this was a paying job and the pixie-like shape was nothing if not in possession of a fearsome work ethic, she couldn't just curl up on the ground and make cute fish-gasping noises. Well, that and the fact that doing so would most likely get her killed, but that was an observation for another night, as it wasn't an option anyways.
Despite the shadows that clustered thickly along the walls of the alleyway, the faint gleam of starlight reflected in a pair of eyes directly in front of her face. Those eyes were half-narrowed in what was most likely a leer, or maybe a grin; it was hard to tell, with the dimness, but Birdie was decently familiar with most of the less savory expressions to be found on the faces of her targets, and doubted she needed sufficient lighting to pick up on the subtle nuances. She had to admit that the man had a bit of a reason for such an expression; after all, he had been minding his own business when she'd come upon him, and she could imagine that being randomly set upon in the middle of one's evening wasn't exactly the best sort of circumstances in which to make friends with strangers.
She'd had nothing against the man, of course, but a paying job was a paying job, and she'd been feeling particularly jittery tonight. Her fault; rum always gave her too much energy, and a contract that she normally would have laughed at had seemed like a fun exercise. She'd taken it, a straight-forward enough assassination gig: one merchant who didn't like his competition, yadda yadda. If she'd seen one, she'd seen them all, and she had.
Things had been going quite swimmingly, in fact; not wanting to spill too much blood (she'd learned that lesson the hard way), she'd tried to go in for a quick upward jab into the kidneys. It was a bit rude to go for someone when they'd been stopped to relieve themselves of the night's drink, but then, she supposed it was a bit rude to have accepted the contract that would pay her for taking his life in the first place. Ah, well, Birdie's mother had always ruminated that she'd never raise a lady; she'd apparently been right.
The man had been surprisingly alert for someone she'd seen quaffing ale with the best of them; a foolish assumption on her part, but that was probably due in part to the fact that she'd been, ah, blending in with the tavern's other patrons, so as to avoid suspicion. Her blade had glanced off of his ribs, leaving a nice gash, but jarring her arm when she struck bone, so that her fingers went faintly numb. She'd drawn her hand back for an improvised strike, but the man was nearly twice her size; he'd seized her wrist in one hand and jerked, nearly breaking the bloody thing, but giving her the sufficient impetus to strike once more, this time fueled by rage.
Things had been going quite swimmingly then, and she would have done in for the target and been on her way, but apparently his friend had gotten a bit worried with the length of time he was taking, and come out to investigate. Birdie didn't particularly remember much of the following few minutes, but she could assume, based on the body a foot or so away, that it hadn't been much fun for her target's mate. Oh, well - lie down with dogs...
Which brought her to the present: grappling with a man who was six-foot-five if he was an inch, though admittedly a bit the worse for drink. Well, to be fair, so was she. However, she was at something of a disadvantage presently, and for some reason didn't particularly think he would be inclined to allow her to regain the upper hand - one of which was pinned fiercely (and bone-grindingly) to the wall, while the other engaged in thudding meatily into her erstwhile assailant's cheekbone. Despite the progress she was making, she knew she didn't have much time left to get him good and properly dead. At this rate, her strength would fail before his (a fact that she was bitterly embarrassed about), and that didn't bode well for her at all.