Ilayda watched the auburn-haired youth whirl at her approach, and her entire body tensed, torn for a moment before the primal urge of fight or flight. She took a half-step back, gut clenching in a mixture of dismay and guilt, overlaid with a flurry of indecision. Should she take the pack, and ignore the boy? Money was what she was after, true, and he would have kept the money in the pack. On the other hand, if she let him get close enough to touch her...
Alarm won in the end, and she whipped around, feeling utter shame turn swiftly into outright panic. Three young men blocked the path she had been about to take, leering grins glutted with excitement for the fight and the prize before them. Of course, with the way Ilayda's life had been going, she should've expected an already bad situation to sour quickly, but these things always seemed to catch her unawares. 'Stupid.'
"This is mine!" Her voice was surprisingly bold, hot with the anger that she fueled instead of her distress. If she sounded scared, she'd be done for. She'd have to act like she knew what she was doing - at least long enough to get away. Shifting the straps and swinging the bag around her shoulder so that she clutched it one-armed against her stomach, Ilayda chanced a glance over her shoulder. The sight of the naked blade in the boy's hand sent a shiver of distaste dancing over her skin, and she whipped her head back around, flinging the hand that had cupped the sphere of water at the center thug, the one who had been doing the talking.
"Yours? See, I don't think so- hey!" Carbos's mocking voice cut off mid-sentence as he jerked to the side, a thin whip of water coiling snake-like around his wrist. Ilayda took a half-step back, forcing herself to focus as she jerked the hand controlling the water in an effort to yank the man off-balance. At the same time, she half-pivoted and threw herself forward, feet pounding the earth as she dashed off at an angle. She felt bad for leaving that boy there to deal with those thieves, but-
Her erstwhile escape was quickly cut off by the youth who had been standing on the right. She felt an implacable hand snake around her upper arm, dragging her off balance and twisting at the same time. Before she even had time to cry out, she felt herself pulled swiftly backward, until her back hit a chest made lean by hard work. Almost simultaneously, she felt the man's other arm move, and before she knew it, a line of fire pressed against her throat. Ilayda could only let out the faintest, breathy shriek, stomach heaving inside of her and the world spinning beyond her head. The scent of cold iron was unmistakable in her nostrils, the sucking, draining sense of it leaving her feeling like she was drowning. Even the river refused her summons as she grasped desperately at it, her magic shattered by a hand-me-down blade and a boy who couldn't even grow a mustache.
The fey girl rolled her eyes toward the young man she'd stolen from, face desperate and made shockingly more so the paler she went. She knew he was likely to leave her to her fate, but she twitched her hand anyways, eyes pleading for help even as she struggled and failed to reach out to him. She couldn't expect him to help her - there was no way he would, surely? - but hope was all she had left right now.