Peas in a Pod

[GoblinFae]

It all happened so fast. One minute he had his hand in the proverbial cookie jar and the next it was almost literally torqued out of its socket. Ocarern was finding himself in a very sticky situation. Not only was he covered from head to toe in honey but, he was also surrounded by guards with no chance of escape. In no time at all they had him caught and shackled, marching him on his not so merry way to the town's jailhouse.

By the time they carelessly threw him into a stinky filthy cell, the petite elf was a whimpering mess. He curled himself up into a corner of the cold, dank cell, his knees pulled up tight against his chest. Tears tracked down his filthy sticky cheeks and he hiccuped loudly, trying to stop himself from crying. Pointed ears drooped as fear slowly claimed him.

[CastlesInTheSky]

The woman on the floor of the cell across from him knew nothing of these events. She barely had the will to straighten her back and sit up. It wasn't like she was going anywhere. The cell had been her place of residence for a week or so. She heard that she would have to remain there for perhaps a month, maybe more. She didn't have time to sit around in a jail; she had to make money to send to her children, make money to feed herself, find that garbage sister of hers. Stupid. It was supposed to have been a simple body guarding job. So much for that rubbish. Thank the creator that it hadn't been a worse punishment; lying on the bottom of a cell in a squalid chamber was one thing, but it could have been much worse. At least she was alone in her cell, at least it wasn't a hanging scheduled. Especially a hanging in Arca; seeing her ex-lover's smirking face just before she died would be a crush of her honour. The scrap she had left, of course.

The sobs of someone caused her to sit up quietly, slowly, and look around. That wasn't something she heard before in this prison, crying. Languidly she ran a hand through her hair in an attempt to keep herself from looking like a wild-woman and moved herself forward to peer through the bars at her companion. Was he an elf? Judging by the ears, she would say so, but it didn't really matter. It was obvious that he was either unwilling to use magic or unable to; otherwise they would have shackled them as they did to her. Around the neck and the wrists, iron pounded as smooth as possible to avoid potentially fatal abrasions, straight from Connlaoth.

The kid looked so terribly pitiful. With a frown, she thought about what she could possibly do to get him to stop making those little sobs. She attempted to make it less obvious that she was studying him and looked around the cell for something to give him, or something to say, or...well, whatever may happen. Chamber pot in the corner? No good ideas there. Dirty stones? Not helpful. Shackles? No. Was that a...bone in the corner?- ah, no, just a piece of straw. That would have been just a bit wrong. Thoughtfully she reached into her pockets. They had let her keep everything that wasn't a weapon, fortunately. Rather, they decided not to go through the trouble of trying to loot the very angry and distressed woman and just take what was necessary.

A-ha! There was something of use there. Hopefully useful at least. She extracted an item from her pocket, which ended up being a small slice of fruit bread wrapped neatly in a cloth; she had gotten it not so long ago from an agent of the person she had been protecting who was 'truly sorry for her consequences from the job' and wanted to 'express his apology' with a piece of bread. Okay. At this point, all she saw in the loaf was the man's face and didn't want anything to do with it. Besides, wasn't everyone hungry that entered a jail? That was usually why they were in there, after all.

The woman, Amber, cleared her throat quietly and said in a gruff tone that was an attempt to be friendly, "Hey...you, there; are you hungry? I've got some bread left over, here." She wiggled her arm through the bars and held it out towards the 'kid''s cell, presenting the 'gift' to him. Well, at least it would distract him from being a mess.

[GoblinFae]

"Aiyee!" Ocarern squealed in surprise and threw himself against the adjacent wall that the arm was coming from. His hand clasped tightly at the spot above where his heart beat rapidly against his ribcage. Eyes wide he tried to think clearly and view the stranger properly but, he was too emotionally on edge.

He cowered in on himself, bringing his hands up to hide his face and protect his head. "Don't eat me! I promise I don't taste very good, even with all the honey." The diminutive elf shook and shivered, quaking like a sapling facing a strong wind.

'It's so cold here. No colors. No feelings. Dead, all dead. Nothing but rats! Leave me here to rot. Useless, pathetic elf! Goodbye, Are. Goodbye, Kessy. I'm done for!'

[CastlesInTheSky]

Amber lowered her hand a bit, giving the kid a look. What...eat him? No. She was at no point wanting to convert her eating habits to cannibalism. This kid was freaking out- no, more than that, he was panicking, and only over a simple offer of bread. How did he manage to live without dying of a heart attack?

Though she definitely wouldn't call the cell homely, in her mind it wasn't any hell like Ocarern had thought. It was a branch in her path, nothing more. Some time she would get out and get along with her life.

"No, no; I don't want to eat you. Just take the bread. Eating it will do you good."

[GoblinFae]

The elf glared out at the stranger from behind his crossed arms. 'Sure! It'll do me a lot of good. You'll fat me up then eat me! I know how these prison things work, people get desperate. No way am I going over there. I'm too young to die, I have my whole life ahead of me! Besides I don't need to eat, I'm not really hungry.'

Just when he had made this internal declaration a long low grumble bubbled its way out from his stomach. 'Traitorous tummy, making a liar out of me! Well, it couldn't hurt, could it? I'm going to die anyway might as well die with a full belly.'

Now decided, Ocarern scuttled quickly across the cell, snatching away the piece of bread before returning to the far corner. It was but a blink of the eye that passed in the amount of time it took for retrieval. 'It could be poisoned,' he speculated, turning the food over and over in his hands. Sniffing it revealed nothing untoward about it, nor did a tiny nibble. He was just about to chomp into it when a ghost of his mother's voice sounded in his ear. 'Manners Oca. You were shown kindness.'

His face screwed up in petulance at the idea. Again he tried taking a bite but a feeling much akin to be punched in the stomach stopped him. Looking at the bread he wondered if it really was poisoned and he was beginning to die. 'Ocarern Farwind!' his father's voice now rang out. Elven eyes widened to near impossible width. It all the years since his family's death, Ocarern had heard very little of his father's voice. To hear it now still sent fearful boyish chills through his being. "Thank you," he rushed out before stuffing a huge chunk in his mouth so he would not have to talk again. The sweet moist flavor of fruit made his mouth water. 'Yummy!'

[CastlesInTheSky]

The woman was not at all phased by his glare, but continued to look at him expectantly with the bread in her hand still stretched out in preperation to give him. She bore a face that simply showed she was tired, bored, and generally displeased with the way things were going for her at the time. 'Take the bread, kid', she thought. She wasn't the one covered in honey and near crying. She would be feeling a tad sorry for herself if she looked like he did right then too. Sympathy had never been her strong point, but well oh well.

She smirked in amusement as he scuttled away, but soon she just looked tired again. For a moment she pondered why he wasn't eating it right away. He looked like a street kid to her, and they were always hungry. As he said ' thank you', she looked at him, surprised, and said, "You are welcome" back. Well then, he was better mannered than her own children. The little buggers, always taking but giving her not so much as a glance. Ah, oh well. At least they weren't in jail cells...though she wouldn't be surprised.

"Kid, What are you in here for?" She had no idea what would get him smothered in honey and shoved in a cell.

[GoblinFae]

Ocarern licked the last few crumbs off his thumb before crossing his arms over his chest. "Nothing. I was falsely arrested for going about my normal merchandizing business." His eyes were closed and his nose stuck up slightly as he tried to appear important.

It did not last long though as anxiety returned. Groaning, the little elf dropped his head in his sticky hands. 'Aren is going to tear me to pieces when he finds out about this. I'm one very, very dead elfy. There's no way I can get out of this. Is this the first offense in Arca? I can't even remember. What's he punishment? Hanging? Burning? No that's murder. Losing a hand?'

He looked up and stared at his hands for a long moment in concerned silence. Ocarern groaned again and let his head thunk back against the stone wall with a heavy bang. 'One dead elf indeed.'

[CastlesInTheSky]

She scanned the elf silently with her eyes, having absolutely no idea what he could have done and gotten honey-covered and thrown in a cell. Well...she supposed it didn't matter much anyway.

Normal...merchandizing. She chuckled quietly. "I think I could say the same of myself. Though, I think your business is far different than my own." Indeed, when doing her usual bodyguarding or whatever such thing happened to come to her as a job, she had never found herself covered in honey.

[GoblinFae]

The elf eyed her suspiciously through his hands. "What do you mean the same? You're not my competition are you?" His shoulders rose up to his fluttering pointed ears in a defensive, threatened posture. "I'll have you know my work is highly respectful! I'm nothing like you! What exactly do you do?"

Ocarern wanted nothing to do with this other prisoner. But, something told him to listen. She had offered him food and cared enough to even talk to him. Who knows what information he could glean from her. Maybe she could help him get free, one way or another.

[CastlesInTheSky]

Amber shook her head, an amused smile on her lips. "No, I meant that we are the same in the sense that we were both wrongly imprisoned." It was impossible to take this small, shuddering little kid seriously. She did feel sorry for him a bit for being stuck in here, though.

"I get rid of demons and bad magical powers to help people out. And I do some bodyguarding. I was just guarding the wrong sort of person at the wrong time, I suppose. Now, I have to ask how you managed to, well, get in such a sticky situation."

[GoblinFae]

Her line of occupation set the elf on edge again. The prejudice he had suffered as a youth in Connlaoth still upset him and made him leery of people. His arms crossed over his chest again and he had just decided to go back to ignoring her when one of the guards suddenly appeared and answered for him.

"Brat dropped the honey he was stealing all over himself."
"It wasn't stealing! I'm an acqusition and redistribution merchant. Give me a break!" Ocarern screeched as the man opened his cell and yanked him up by his forearm.

"Shut up you and quit squirming pretty boy! We need this cell for someone else so-"
"So you're letting me go?"

"I said shut up!" The burly guard, booted Ocarern as he shoved him into the next cell. "Since you seem to have made a friend you can cuddle up with her." The man laughed wickedly and shook his head as the door clanged shut again. "Be grateful I didn't leave you with your new neighbor."

The elf shuddered and tried to curl up as far away from the cell's other occupant while the guard left again, his laughter slow to follow him.

[CastlesInTheSky]

Amber was just about to go about losing interest in speaking with him as well before the guard arrived. The following conversation confirmed the obvious; he had been stealing, and honey at that. If one was going to steal, why would they steal something so useless? Not bread, but honey of all things? Ah, kids.

As the guard decided to throw the elf in the same cell with her, she simply watched. The poor kid, curling up in the corner. What did he think she would do? Eat him? How he survived on the street was a mystery if that was his defense against the frightening. She also wondered how he managed to keep himself relatively nice looking. Assuming he was an orphan, he looked pretty darned nice. He was not quite as grubby as many of them, and didn't really look as much as if he lived on the street. Nonetheless he was here. His background didn't particularly matter.

"You don't need to sit there like that. I'm in chains on pretty much everywhere. What do you think I'm going to do? Shoot fire out of my eyes at you?" Her tone was sarcastic, but more joking than meant to be mean.

[GoblinFae]

The poor elf really was not having a good day. All he wanted was to go about his business and assuage his sweet tooth. Instead he managed to get coated in honey and thrown into a filthy prison where a certain inmate was insistent on trying to give him a heart attack.

Ocarern felt his heart rate pick up again as he stared at the woman in fear. "You can do that?" he squeaked, not catching her sarcasm. "Alright that's it! Don't look at me; don't breathe on me; don't even touch me! Yeah especially that, no touch. Touch, very bad, very, very bad. None of that!"

He was on his feet now, trying to stare her down as he pointed fingers. But, when a just over five foot elf with wide, fearful eyes and frantic ears starts screaming hysterically, it is really hard to take him seriously. In fact, behind Ocarern another prisoner reached through the bars dividing them and wrapped his arms around the petite elf. "Come here dearie, I'll keep you safe from the big bad witch," he chuckled, laughing harder as Ocarern squealed and flailed in an attempt to get away.