Breaking In... For Justice! [Rina]

[Anonymous]

The Ferren Hie Theatre Company had been in Arca for almost two weeks now. They hadn't been performing a lot. Rather, they were taking the opportunity to stock up on supplies, to rehearse and to see if there were any playwrights who might like them to take on a new production. It wasn't quite a lull, but it was quiet.

What it meant was this: Sethunya was bored.

With little need for costuming and her acting skills being mediocre at best, she was relegated to errand-running. She didn't like that much, and it tended to end up with her getting sidetracked by something more interesting. Such as, this week, a man she deemed 'totally weird' after seeing him while she was supposed to be stocking up on food at the market. She noticed that he had bought a riding crop, a dressed crab and a stick of lard, and found the combination odd. Of course, it had to be a clue! He was up to nefarious deeds!

She began following him. It wasn't stalking, no, because she was following a lead. It was her right and there was nothing wrong with that. She tracked him to his house, a nice little place in a decent part of town, before she got hungry and went home for dinner. For the next week, she spent a lot of free time (and work time that she made into free time by just not doing any work) hanging around his house. He didn't come home at night! The mark of a criminal!

So, this evening, she decided to go to the house again. As stealth was important, she dressed in black. Even the frills and ribbons were black! That was just how dedicated she was! She grinned as she drew close. She had to find something tonight!

[Anonymous]

This sucked. Keoni huffed, blowing a hunk of hair out of his face. He normally let it hang down over one cheek so he could hide the nasty scar across his cheek, but there was no one here to stare and frankly, it was annoying to have hair in has face all the time. He hated break ins. And he really hated break ins without Keani. Granted, it was better then pickpocketing, but his brother had all the real skill. He was just good with the locks.

Well, it should be easy at least. The man was out with some woman and shouldn't be back until morning. He hoped. It would be just his luck to have it go all wrong.

The skinny boy roamed the house, getting an idea of where things were. Don't take anything big, that was always hard to fence and too hard to carry away. But the little things made their way into his pockets. His large eyes darted around him, searching. There was supposed to be a stash around. Probably in a chest.

Jackpot! Keoni had found the bedroom. Moving inside, he squatted down at the foot of the bed, hands sliding over a chest. This was too large to hold the real valuables, but it might hold a smaller one. One delicate hand reached into his vest and pulled put a roll of tools.

He had only just slid one odd looking metal wire into the lock when he froze, head whipping around and staring into the darkness. What was that? He could have sworn he heard something.

[Anonymous]

Ooh! The door was open! Oh happy day, now the investigation could really get started. Sethunya  scanned the street. She couldn't let herself be seen, in case there was a conspiracy involved. The door was open so invitingly, it could even be a trap! How exciting! She didn't know for sure, but a detective had to be careful. She crept in on her tippy toes.

She scuttled around the house, not as quietly as she thought she was. She lifted things, scanned bookshelves and rifled through drawers. Everything looked so, well, normal. But that just made it more suspicious! What could he be hiding, by having such an ordinary house? It had to be something big!

Wait a minute... Where did most people keep their weird, private things? In the bedroom, of course! Oh, she was smart to think of that one. He couldn't keep his dirty secrets from her! "I have you now, wrongdoer!" she whispered to herself.

She flung the door open. In the dim light, she saw a hunched figure... She gasped loudly and her hands flew to her mouth. So that was what he was doing! The pervert! There was only one thing for it. She had to rescue this poor soul! "You have to come with me!" she declared in a stage whisper.

[Anonymous]

Crap! Crapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrap! Keoni jumped to his feet, looking for a place to hide when suddenly a strange girl burst into the room. It took Keoni a moment to get over the surprise and her strange clothes to realize she was a rather pretty girl.

"Uh! This isn't wha-huh? You...can't arrest me!" Keoni backed up, clutching his tools to his chest, huge golden brown eyes darting around him. Even in his panic, he ducked his head forward to keep his hair in front of him.

She didn't appear to be angry with him though. He gave her a confused look, "Wh-who are you?"

[Anonymous]

The boy seemed terribly surprised to see Sethunya, maybe even scared. Maybe he thought his awful awful kidnapper had returned early. Yeah, that had to be it. He couldn't be frightened of her! And what was this about being arrested? Oh, the poor thing must not have had any idea of what was going on... She had to reassure him, and see what he knew. Yes, that was what a real detective would do.

She clasped her hands in front of her chest and smiled brightly. "I'm not going to arrest you, silly! I'm your saviour!"

OK, now what came next when rescuing a captive? Ah, yes! She stepped forward and stretched one hand out towards him, just like in all the plays. "Now we must get out of this dreadful place!"

[Anonymous]

What? What was going on. Keoni continued to stare at the woman, confused and bewildered. He pressed farther back against the wall, heart pounding. She...she wasn't going to arrest him? That was good right?

The hands clasping in front of her breasts drew his gaze there and he flushed. He wasn't used to dealing with girls and he wished his brother was here. When she thrust her hand out, Keoni flinched back, cringing until her realized she wasn't going to hit him.

"You want me to go with you? Where?" Glancing around at the bedroom, Keoni frowned, "Dreadful? It's not so bad. It's pretty swank, I thought...uh..." Focusing on the girl again, Keoni spoke again, "Who...uh...who are you?"

[Anonymous]

Well, that was a strange response for someone who'd been held captive. But no matter! She would press valiantly and boldly on with the investigation! She would find the truth and drag it kicking and screaming into the light, and she would get this boy to help her! Well, as soon as he stopped shaking, that was. Why was he doing that, anyway? Weird.

"I'm Sethunya! I'm a detective, well, not officially, but I do it in my spare time and I have a lot of spare time and..." Her cheery babbling trailed off.

She leaned towards him, cupping a hand around her mouth. "I'm on the trail of a dastardly kidnapper," she whispered conspiratorially. "We're in. His. House."

[Anonymous]

"Kidnapper?" Oh man. What had he gotten himself into? He hadn't realized the guy was a kidnapper. That could be bad for Keoni. Thank the gods he hadn't taken anything yet. Well...nothing important anyway.

His hazel eyes continued to dark around the room, sure that something was going to jump out at any moment. Why couldn't he have just waited for Keani for this? Stupid!

"You said you would get me out, right? Let's go!" He wasn't sure what the girls deal was, but she seemed nice at least. Better then staying here and waiting for some criminal to return.

[Anonymous]

He sounded like this kidnapping business was new to him. That was... A little weird, sure, but Sethunya was certain that there was some kind of explanation. Of course he'd been abducted, that was never in question. Maybe he was repressing his experiences? Yes, that was it! That had to be it! It all made sense now!

And if he was, it would be bad for her to remind him of them, wouldn't it? So if he denied it, that was normal. It didn't mean there hadn't been any dirty deeds. So that was that!

"Then we shall go!" she cried in triumph. She turned to leave the room, then paused. It would be kind of... She didn't know... Anticlimactic to just go back out through the front door. What was the proper protocol for a rescue? "Oh!" she realised, turning back to him. "We should use the window!"

She skipped past him to go and examine the shutters. She peered at them, and then started fiddling with them. Embarrassingly, she couldn't figure out how to get them to open. "Um..." she started. No, that was no good! She was wasting the drama of the moment! "Oh no!" she gasped. "We are trapped!"

[Anonymous]

Girls were insane. Keoni had figured this out before of course, but this girl was taking it to a whole knew level. It wasn't helping that she was pretty. That only made Keoni feel more awkward.

But more pressing then all of that was getting out of this house before the kidnapper came back. Keoni was not a fan of confrontation or getting his butt kicked, which was where most confrontation tended to end up.

"Trapped?" Keoni gave the girl a weird look, "Why can't we go out the way we came? And why would we go out a window?" Really, what was wrong with this girl. Putting his tools back into his inner shirt pocket, Keoni started back toward the front entrance. He didn't like things to be over complicated. Simple plans were always the best.

[Anonymous]

Because it was wrong, that was why! When rescuing a person, the correct thing to do was to lower them gallantly and dramatically through a window. Sethunya knew this for a fact. There was no drama from just walking through a door!

Oh, if only she could have opened the damn shutters, it would have been a perfect scenario. She rattled them pathetically one last time before giving up. "It just isn't right! It's no good this way," she whined. "Oh, it was all going so well, too..."

She sighed, turned around and trailed dejectedly after the boy. It had been a pretty good night, what with breaking into a kidnapper's house and freeing a captive. However, Sethunya lived in the moment, and at this moment, she was sulking.

[Anonymous]

"What? Why is this way no good?" Keoni froze again. Was the entrance being watched or something? Though the girls odd behavior was starting to make him wonder if she was right in the head.

But you were supposed to be nice to girls. He was pretty sure. The ones he had met sure had seemed to think so. And she was rather pretty...

The scrawny kid sighed and rubbed the back if his neck, the scars there familiar under his fingers, "Look, if it is so important to you, we can go out the stupid window." Damn it. Why couldn't Keani be here? He was better with girls!

Moving over to the window, Keoni pushed his greasy hair out of his eyes, studying the shutters. There was a simple lock on them. Easy enough. His hand slid into his shirt, nimble fingers finding the tools he wanted and pulling them out.

Chewing on his lip, he started picking the lock. It was childsplay to someone of his skill.

[Anonymous]

"Yay!" squealed Sethunya, bouncing up and down and clapping her hands in delight. This was great! This was wonderful! The narrative was back on track. "We're going out the window, we're going out the window!" she sang.

She hopped back over to the window to watch the boy work. She wasn't sure if it was all right for him to be the one getting them out, since she was supposed to be the heroine... Oh! But every good detective had a sidekick! If they also happened to be the rescued captive, well, that was one less person to worry about casting.

Plus, he was pretty good with those lockpicking tools. That would be a really useful skill for investigations. Yes, it was settled! She would graciously allow him to become her assistant, starting now!

"Wow! You're good at that!" She leaned in closer, impressed. "It must have come in handy for getting out of the chains, huh?"

[Anonymous]

"Chains? What?" Keoni looked up at the girl, his greasy hair hanging into his eyes. He had no idea what to make of this crazy woman. She seemed rather insane. But she also seemed to have an idea of what was going on.

With a sigh, he finished the lock and the shutters sprung open. Slipping the tools back into his pocket, he leaned out to glance around, "So...is it safe to go out this way then?"

For all her hyper insanity, she did seem to have a plan. Which was more then Keoni could say.

[Anonymous]

Oh, yes, he'd forgotten about his ordeal, hadn't he? She'd surmised as such earlier. Oh, how horrible of Sethunya to bring it up! How insensitive! She had to be more careful about what she said, she did, she did! It would be hard for her, as she never really thought before speaking, but she was sure she could at least try.

"Yes! Yes, this way is absolutely the right way!" She nodded vehemently. Now that step was complete, they could actually do the climbing-out-of-the-window part. However, it presented a dilemma. It was usual for a lady to climb out first, so that nobody could peek at her... But then, the captive always went first, too, so that the rescuer could valiantly defend them. Of course, most of the time, the captive was the lady, but that was not the issue here!

Well, he was already leaning out, so she supposed that in this case captive trumped lady. "All right then!" she smiled brightly. "Out you go!"

[Anonymous]

Well, at least they could get out this way. Keoni wasn't all that graceful as he scrambled out of the window and onto the ledge. He started to inch along before he recalled some sort of manners and with a blush, reached his hand out to Sethunya, "Uh, here."

Girls made everything so much weirder. They were all pretty and soft and made Keoni feel even more awkward. And of course, this one seemed extra crazy on top of everything else.

[Anonymous]

"Oh, thank you!" Sethunya grasped the boy's hand and stepped up onto the window ledge. Almost immediately she had to brace herself against the window frame; it was a lot breezier up here than she had anticipated. No, no! That was not how a great detective should think! A first-floor window and a little wind was nothing to them.

What she needed was a cheery comment to psyche her up. "It's a lovely night, isn'tpthhhhbt. Ptui." She spat out a lock of blue curly hair that had been blown into her mouth while she was speaking, and valiantly ignored that something so unglamourous had ever happened. "Isn't it?"

[Anonymous]

As the wind blew, Keoni glanced over and got a flash of her legs. While it wasn't that much of her leg, it was far more then the boy was used to seeing. The thief's face went bright red and he whipped his head away to stare straight ahead, desperately trying not to think about what he had just seen.

But her sputtered comment drew his attention back and the boy tried to not stare at her legs. Face! Look at her face!

"Lovely night? I guess?" Frowning, Keoni glanced around, "It's pretty windy." His own hair was getting in his face, though, luckily wasn't as bad as it seemed to be for her. Brushing it away, Keoni started edging along the ledge, "Do you know where we are supposed to be going."

[Anonymous]

"Down? I think down." Still clinging to the window frame, Sethunya risked a peek at the ground. However, she couldn't see anything they could use to climb down. Maybe the window wasn't the best way out after all... But it had to be! If it wasn't, why would everyone use it, huh?

Which gave her an idea.

Her face lit up. "Oh... Oh! Ohhh, I just had the best idea! I've always wanted to do this!" she squealed, squeezing past Keoni and scrambling back into the room. A moment later she reappeared at the window, arms full of linens.

With a huge, excited smile, she explained her plan. "Bedsheet rope!"

[Anonymous]

As he watched the girl vanish back into the window, standing on a narrow ledge, Keoni started to wonder what the hell he was doing. He was on a ledge. Outside a building. Because...she said they had too. This was stupid. He was going back inside and sneaking out the damned do-....

"A bedsheet rope? Are you kidding?" Keoni felt his eyes get even wider, "The guy is going to arrive before all those are tied together." This was just getting stupid. The boy edged back over to the window. Either way he wasn't going to be standing out on that ledge anymore, "Why do we have to use the window anyway. And when he sees the rope, he will know we were here."