RP [PotHN] Nicked

[illirica]

"-really, must we, with the whole prison thing? It's just hardly very sanitary, you realize, and-"

The voice floated down the stairs to the city's jail, along with footsteps - one the heavy booted tread of the guard, one the much less rhythmic step of someone being encouraged along, so to speak.

"You assaulted three people with a razor!"

"Barely nicked 'em. Could have done just one, but it takes a lot more blood then, doesn't it? And then you end up in jail - bit like this, really - I was trying to do you a favor, you realize."

"Well, don't do us any more." The sound of a rough shove, and the speakers finally came into view, one a disgruntled looking guard and the other a person who probably would have been considered stylishly dressed it it weren't for the manhandling - or the ruddy tint to their spiked hair, or the little drying droplets on their face and shoulders that were almost certainly blood.

"Well, if you ask. Any chance I can get my things back? Oh, I know, not the razors - but the bandana? It completes my outfit, you know."

"You're a madman!"

"I am not." This was said with indignance, though some of the indignance was lost by the fact that the person was being shoved into a cell at the time, and the emphasis was that of the door clanging shut behind them and the guard stomping back up the stairs with the keys. "Madperson, maybe - too many pointlessly gendered criminal depictions." This had been a mutter, more to themselves than anything, but it was only a moment later before they leaned against the bars and considered the prison's other occupant.

"Well, that was awkward, wasn't it? Suppose I'll have to start over again." A bow, more whimsical than formal. "Vena Cava. Not at your service, but here anyway. And whom do I have the dishonor to address?"

 

[Belle]

The being on the opposite end of the greeting was... strange. She had her face pressed against the bars in such a way that her eyes and mouth were stretched at the corners, her nose peeking through as if she were drunk... or drugged... or both? Really, if she weren't pressed so haphazardly against the bars, she'd probably be quite pretty, but as it was with her hat askew and her face a mess, she just looked... well, strange.

It took a while for the strange woman to process everything that had happened before her. Even the greeting seemed to slip by her dull and stretched gaze. Then, with a startling amount of movement, she stood up.

"Vena Cava!? Dear God golly gosh! I've never heard of you! But it's quite the name, rolls off the tongue quite well, Vena Cava. Almost has a sense of alliteration about it."

Standing, the woman was clearly short, with a tattoo across her chest under her pure white, yet completely messy blouse, the contradiction clearly playing out before Vena as her fellow prisoner spoke.

"I myself am Feidelm! Feidelm McAllister. Though the Warden calls me 'Damn it, woman.'" Feidelm kicked a leg back, sending her hat into the air after it had dropped from her head behind her, and juggled it clumsily before offering an equally whimsical, and slightly ridiculous bow in return. She stumbled back after the bow, falling onto her cot in the back of her cell.

"So! I take it you're a fellow freedom-loving fellow who has been wrongly imprisoned? As are we all!" Feidelm bellowed, waving an arm down the line of cells, which were filled with very few others. "Careful of those ones though, they're actually guilty. Tax fraud... despicable," she shook her head, clearly having made that up.

"But, of all the comers and goers in our delightfully cold, damp, rat-infested cells, you're a new face! Which can only mean... either Sam the Slasher wasn't actually brutally executed and changed his face, or, you've come in on a new ship! A ship with a crew. A crew that cares about you! .. Unless you're a bastard. In which case, welcome to your new home!"

 

[illirica]

"Ah, well, truth is... I'm a bastard." Vena raked a hand through their hair, apologetically or nervously. It came away red and sticky, which was very good. It meant bad things weren't about to happen just yet. "I've been on one or two ships, though. Or three. Or four, or... well, quite a few, now that I think about it. Generally best not to repeat the business, I've found. Although, some are worse than others. I've found I can usually pick up passage when I need to, though, in exchange for a few services."

They considered this momentarily, then added, quite quickly: "Ah, not those services. No shame on those that do, of course, but not my thing, no, not at all. I'm a tailor." This seemed to be a point of pride, if not necessarily a point of strict accuracy. Well, they were a tailor, at least, that was what they considered themself to be, when they weren't busy with other things. "You'd be surprised how many crews will take you on for a little mending and a few alterations. Pirates, treasure-hunters, what-have-you. They go about stealing things and then they want to wear the pretty dress, and of course they're not the same size as the dead bint they stole it off of, did they even take a measurement? Not that it would help, given that they're usually skin and bone by that point- or, mostly bone. The fleshy bits rot, you know?"

Perhaps she did not know. Perhaps it was better to get off of that particular river of thought, or at least out of the rapids. "Anyhow. Ignore that. I will if you will, which would be doing us both a service. I've come recently from Leimor, thinking to pick up some fitting work for the wedding. I was working for the college a bit, fitting robes and whatnot. Now, if you want someone to be imprisoned, forget the tax fraud. Cultural archaeologists, they're the ones you want. This elderly lass was going on and on about this book she'd written about some ancient island full of ladies who must've nipped off one of their bosoms to be better archers, basing this all on some garment they'd unearthed. She was not best pleased when I pointed out it was likely a codpiece, ahem. That conversation went tits-up in a hurry. Hence my finding a rather quick passage out of Leimor and hoping to set up shop here, but I'd had a few little things to take care of and now I seem to have been, er, reaccommodated."

Vena squinted, as if this would make the pressed face look less like a poorly ironed pleat. "Er, were you looking for a ship, then?"

 

[Belle]

Feidelm's face lit up with interest, her eyes widening most of all as she pressed her face against the bars, her hat tilting oddly. "Oooh! A bastard AND a tailor! Me ma and da always said only skilled hands keep a prick alive." She held up her hands, wiggling her fingers. "I've always gotten by with tinkering! Ships. Tinkering with ships, not tinkering in a man's pants. But you know what they say, someone with busy hands is never alone in bed," she giggled, the crude joke almost seeming odd coming from such a well-spoken young woman. But then, if anyone was going to be mad in this jail, it seemed it'd be her.

"But! I can't say I've ever seen someone who's nothing but bone and rotten skin and thought to myself, 'Oh boy! If only I could look as pallid and sickly as them... plus, they seem to leak into their clothes.' But I guess some folk must like that kind of artistic flair because I've noticed a lot of nobles smell like shit," she nodded, her face creasing against the bars as she did.

"As far as Leimor goes..." she said quietly, tapping her bottom lip. "I haven't the foggiest where we are right now! I just keep heading towards the horizon and making it up from there. Well... we are in jail. Which is certainly where these Cultural Archaeologists should be, by the sounds of it. Titty codpieces... I can't say I'd be overly keen on squishing my tiddies in a leather codpiece..." she muttered, leaning back from the bars to poke at her own chest, frowning at the inadequacy she felt. She didn't really need 'titty codpieces' at all.

"Bah. Well, I didn't sail the seven skies based on bra size... I made my living banging tubes! Not those kinds of tubes. And fixing pipes! Not man pipes, ship pipes. Which is to say, without the insinuation that I'm a whore—of which there's nothing wrong with being one—I'm a shipwright! Or shipscribe! Really, it depends on where you're from. I make flying ships do the flying. And other things... depending on how much I'm allowed to do." She gave a firm nod.

Feidelm tilted her head, considering. "So, what say you, Vena Cava? If we can get out of here, maybe we could find ourselves a ship in need of a tailor and a... well, whatever it is I do." She grinned mischievously. "One madwoman and a bastard on the run, looking for a bit of freedom and maybe the sight of the sky again, hm? I dunno about you... but they intend to send me back to the folks claiming to own me, and I've been chasing too many horizons to let that happen."

 

[illirica]

Vena was uncertain how a person could get by without knowing where they were, but then again, perhaps they ought to refrain from judging. "Goswick," they supplied, whether or not the information was wanted, "You're in Goswick. Well, you're in prison in Goswick, which is not precisely the same thing. The rest of the place is a bit nicer. Not much, mind you - depends on where you are and who you talk to, some of them are right pissy-"

They broke off, seeming to realize that if that sentence was going anywhere, it was likely to be in circles. Come to think of it, this Feidelm character seemed to have a bit of the same issue going on. Between the two of them, they could probably talk their way out of here - unless they talked themselves back in, which would be problematic.

"But yes, I'd love to - particularly that part about getting out of here. I'd like to accomplish that quickly. It's far too dirty in here for my elegant buttocks to sit down, and I imagine I'm going to get tired of standing. I don't suppose you have a secret passage?"

 

[Belle]

Feidelm inhaled at the mention of a secret passage out of the jail, leaning back from the bars. She pressed a finger to her lips, clearly having thought up something during her time here, however long that might have been. "Funny you should mention that," she spoke, her accent reminiscent of an uneducated ruffian hiding out in alleyways. "Me an' the lads have got a plan, y'see." She nodded her head toward the cells down the line, where a pair of more stereotypical criminals gave Feidelm a dull look before turning to Vena with a helpless shrug. It seemed they didn't have the highest opinion of her.

"See here..." She rattled the jail cell door before pressing her face up against it to look down the hall, as if checking for the guards. Obviously, they weren't down here with them, but equally, there wasn't exactly anywhere to go apart from... where the guards were. The jail cells were really just a long hallway ending in a solid brick wall. "Wrought irons, I tells ya. Keepin' us dangerous bing bongers, rapscallions, and knuckleheads all locked up tight." Maybe she was an idiot? "But... lazily made, ain't they? Trouble with people and prisoners, don't think they deserve nuthin' good." She gave the door another rattle, emphatically looking down the hallway again. It was clear the guards had no interest in her shenanigans. "What they've got here is iron on iron. No spacers! Not even woody ones, so every time they rattle and move and open and close..." She rubbed her hands together quickly before showing her empty palms. "Like sandpaper!"

She grinned, stumbling back to fall upon her extremely uncomfortable... bed? More a slab of stone, really. "Which is to say," she continued, dropping the poorly done accent, "however old these cells are, they've not been replaced in a very long time! So these hinges, which to my eye were once a lovely and well-proportioned four inches long, are now sitting at a meager and pathetic three and a half! Not enough to jump a door off its hinges, I admit..." She then rocketed back to the cell bars. "But with an appropriate amount of perpendicular force applied to the top up here, and a lifting action performed by yours truly..." She held her hand up straight before angling it slightly. "Suddenly what you've got is a gap at the bottom!"

Her smile turned into a troubled frown then. "Trouble is, though, for someone to fit through that gap, they'd have to be my size. And someone my size certainly is not going to be able to do much more with these cell doors than this." She grabbed them, giving them another firm, annoying rattle. "But it's the beginnings of a plan! If I had a fulcrum of some kind we'd be... probably still not much closer, as I'd need a lever of some kind." She shrugged.

So, not entirely an idiot... and was probably telling the truth about being a shipwright. Clearly, she had some understanding of the material sciences and forces involved to make them work, but boy could she talk a mile a minute.