She ran. Damn fate for doing this to her but she ran all the same. It hadn't been a bad day either.
Laima had been sticking to the alleyways to get through the city like she normally did, ever watchful for any sign of a Connlaothian uniform. She had been hungry. More so than normal, at least. She never expected to have a full stomach but she still needed food to survive.
The end of the alleyway opened into a bazaar in a part of the city that she had never been to before. It was loud and crowded and very, very busy. A few missing apples wouldn't be noticed, right? Maybe a meat pie as well. Her stomach growled at the thought of food. With a quick caution to her stomach to be silent, Laima walked into the crowd on the search for food.
The crowd wasn't as bad as it had seemed from the edge of it but there was definitely enough people around for her to make a fairly easy getaway should she get caught. She needed a target first and a nearby fruit stand looked like a prime target. The stand owner was distracted by an argument with a man about something she couldn't quite make out. It didn't matter much as it left a barrel of apples unguarded.
She was quick. She had fallen in with the crowd as it moved by the fruit stand and, when suitably near the apples, filched a couple, and ran off through the crowd. Nobody saw or said anything and she was off scot-free. She grinned to herself as she pulled one of the apples from her sleeves. Food always tasted so...
Sick.
Sickness washed over her for a second and she stumbled into a nearby person. "The hell is wrong with you...?" She looked up at the person to see why he had trailed off. Huh, he was looking above her. At her hair. At her hair?! Shit! A quick look on the ground showed her hat had fallen off. She shoved herself away from the person and turned to run only to lock eyes with a woman in a Connlaothian uniform that did not look happy. Laima's eyes bulged, she made a quick one-eighty, and ran as hard and fast as she could away from the soldier.
People few by as she ran for her life. That soldier had known. Laima didn't know how but that soldier knew, at a glance, that she was a mage. Was that soldier one of those Mordecai that she had heard about? Dear Gods she hoped not. That was the last thing she needed.
She leaned against the alleyway wall to catch her breath. It had been a good ten minutes since she had started running so, hopefully, the soldier had lost her trail. It was disgusting! She was forced to homelessness, forced to steal for food, forced to run every time she saw a soldier, and because of what? Her magic? Because somebody had decided to curse her with this taint before she was born? Pah!
Laima kept panting. It didn't matter if a whole group of soldiers showed up right now, she couldn't take another step. If she was found, she was dead. She looked up, dreading that her fears would manifest themselves in front of her but all she saw was a smiling face. She blinked a few times. "Um...Can I help you?" The woman's smile widened.
"It's not that you can help me but that I can help you." The woman extended her hand out to Laima. "Or would you prefer to have soldiers continue to chase you because of your magic?" Laima quickly looked around to make sure that nobody had heard that. "Are you crazy?!" She whispered fiercely. "Saying that could get me killed."
"Not in the Catacombs it won't." The woman's smile was reassuring. "Come. It is time your life was better than stealing for food and running like a scared little girl every time a military type showed up." The woman turned around and vanished through a nearby doorway.
Well, what did Laima have to lose? Still slightly out of breath, she followed the woman through the doorway.
