"Stop, thief!" The cry rang through the whole town square, as each merchant heard another's yell and joined in the warning. Though they all had to compete with each other, they also all banded together when someone decided to do so despicable an act as try and steal something from a stand. And as the cry spread throughout the area, the passing customers, and even the small children playing on the street, joined in. Before long every single person within hearing distance of a certain merchant's stand had started shouting along, with the exception of two people.

One of those two was the dumb servant girl at the Lucky Flagon. She, of course, was unable to join in, simply because she couldn't talk. But, so she wouldn't feel left out, she had decided to abandon her proper place, sweeping out the common room of the Flagon, and join the mob chasing after the alleged thief with her broom in hand. In normal circumstances the sight of her waving that broom around in the air like an idiot would not be particularly frightening. But when combined with at least twenty other people, all of whom were more or less out for blood at the cry of "thief," the thought of possibly being trampled to death came to mind.

And, of course, the other person not joining in the cry was me. I was a little too busy running, since I was the "thief" everyone else was chasing. They didn't care that I hadn't stolen anything, or even thought about it. I had money, for once, and I wasn't above spending it on things such as food, shelter, clothing to replace the ragged pieces of cloth that used to be jeans and a t-shirt, and, of course, the beer and/or ale that Mom would never let me have at home because I was too young to be drinking. But no, they wouldn't believe that, even if I could get them to calm down long enough to actually explain that. The guy at the fruit stall (complete with rotten apples that I wouldn't have touched if the guy had paid me instead of the other way around) had yelled thief and then started after me. So obviously I must have stolen something, even if half the people in the city knew me, and knew that I wouldn't do something like that even if I didn't have money at the moment.

"I really could live without the first hand experience of mob mentality," I muttered as I frantically looked around the area and noticed the terribly inviting open doorway over in "that" direction. I ducked inside, hid behind the two or three bolts of puce green cloth that seemed to be all the rage that season among the nobles, and then prayed that the mob didn't notice where I went because they were too busy being mob-like.

It even worked, for about five seconds. The first five or so people in the group chasing after me ran right past the doorway. The one of the more intelligent ones, the old lady who runs the meat pie shop next to the huge fountain, from what I could hear, noticed that I wasn't running in front of the leaders anymore. She stopped right in front of the doorway and shouted to the others that I had gone inside one of the doorways. I hadn't even noticed that there were any other doorways, but there must have been, since only the meat pie lady and two or three others that I didn't know all that well ended up in the storeroom where I was hiding.

Unfortunately, three or four people were more than enough to trap me in that room, especially when you consider the fact that the meat pie lady herself is bigger than two full grown men. So, within three minutes they had spotted my hiding spot behind the hideous cloth and hauled me out to face the mob. I went kicking and struggling, and yelling my innocence to all who could hear, hardly a very "manly" way to go, but still better than just giving up in my opinion. Still, I went.

They dragged me to the nearest guardhouse, where I wasn't about to get much leniency. The guards at that particular establishment were not terribly fond of me, and I more or less returned the feelings. I hated them because they hated me, and showed the depths of their affection physically through regular beatings. Why they hated me was a mystery to everyone but them, though I suspected it had something to do with the fact that I asked them for directions on my first day in the city. Needless to say, they weren't about to side with me on this issue.

Actually, I didn't even get a chance to defend myself. By city, and kingdom, law, the guards were required to listen to both sides of the argument when the crime wasn't too terrible. Considering that the merchant was only claiming that I stole a single apple from him, I doubt the crime I had supposedly committed could be considered "too terrible." So, either the guards were much more idiotic than I had originally thought, or they were just blatantly ignoring the laws of the land. Or both, which was what I would have put my money on in a bet.

That would be how I found myself rotting in a primitive jail cell on what I was pretty sure was my seventeenth birthday. I couldn't be sure, since I had never quite figured out how to convert September 18 into the screwed up calendar system I had been living under for the past year and a bit. I could have counted the days, except that there had been more than one period of spending more than twenty-four hours unconscious, and I hadn't always had a handy person nearby when I woke up to tell me how long I had been out. For all I knew, I could have already been eighteen that day because of a severely prolonged bout of unconsciousness.

Even if it wasn't my birthday, spending the night in a jail cell where the rats were almost big enough to talk back and the cockroaches did (magic, it had to be magic) was not my ideal way to kill time between jobs. It wasn't even in the top hundred, and that really wasn't saying much for it, seeing as laying on my flea-ridden bed and staring at the ceiling, tracing imaginary patterns in the wood, had once made it onto that list. And that was how I felt about spending the night in a jail cell before thinking about the punishment that awaited me in the morning, when the "noble" judge finally decided to show up and do his job. Add in the fact that once they decided I really had stolen the damned apple they would chop off my hand and then send me away for a few months, maybe years, of manual labor, and I would have to say that that night ranked pretty high on my list of the top ten ways not to kill time between jobs.

They threw me into the cell somewhere around nightfall, and I decided not to sleep the moment I saw the first rat. It was the size of my old pet cat, maybe even bigger, and it stared at me with a far more intelligent look than old Smoky could ever manage. Then, when it noticed me staring back, it smiled at me, showing sharp, yellowed teeth that almost would have been more suitable on something like a lion, or a saber tooth tiger. I couldn't help but scoot backward, pressing myself up against the wall, even though I immediately started yelling at myself for being a coward. After all, I'd faced worse during the month long "training" I'd been put through in the woods, and much worse day to day in the course of my chosen "career." There was just something about a cat-sized rat with oversized teeth that freaked me out, though.

I started to question my sanity when the first cockroach appeared. It was almost as big as the rat and its buddies who had joined it when the first one realized that I was terrified of it. To be honest, it didn't freak me out anywhere near as much as the rat did. I've never had a big problem with bugs. Actually, I was more or less obsessed with them when I was little. Besides, the cockroach didn't have giant yellow teeth.

But then it started talking to me. If it had a mouth to talk with, I didn't see it. I just saw it wave its antennae around a little, and then the sounds came out, in plain English, or whatever the hell language I'd been speaking for the last year or so. "What'cha in for?" it asked me, in a thin, reedy voice.

Someone who's less of a coward than I am probably would have answered back. When I think about it, I should have answered back right away. After all, I'd seen far weirder things in the past year or so. I don't think a talking cockroach could even come close to the demon I'd slain for my "final exam" in my training, or even the tamest of the jobs I'd handled so far. But, despite my general okayness with bugs, there was just something about a talking bug, especially a cockroach, that freaked me out even more than the something with the rat.

Kayu would have teased me, called me a wimp, and goaded me into standing up to it had she been there. She wouldn't have had a hard time with a giant rat and a talking cockroach. But I'm not Kayu. I've never been her, and I'll never be her. She is far more of a man than I am, in every aspect except her plumbing, which is why when that cockroach spoke to me I tried to back up against the wall even tighter than I already was. It wouldn't have taken much more to make me jump up on the bed and start dancing around and shrieking like in the stereotypical "woman sees mouse" reaction.

"Damn it all, did I get the wrong language again?" the cockroach asked when I didn't answer it for a good two or three minutes. "You humans have such confusing words to learn. And here I thought this was the right language for this region... Oh well. ¿Se habla Español?" I could have answered it, if I had been in the mood to talk...though my Spanish was horrid, and it probably would have laughed at me, if cockroaches could laugh. That would have stopped me from answering it in Spanish, even if I wasn't terrified.

Instead, I continued to stare at it, and it made a frustrated noise. Then it continued, though after the "Do you speak Spanish?" it gave up on the full questions and just started naming off languages. I didn't even recognize half of the languages it named, though I remember hearing Deutsch (German) and Nihongo (Japanese) in there at some point. Finally, after about twenty or thirty different languages, it muttered something in a voice so low that I couldn't understand it, and then switched back to English.

"Are you deaf or something, kid?" it asked. "Or are you just an idiot?"

It was about then that I decided that I would rather believe I was going crazy than stay terrified of the giant, talking bug. I hated being scared almost as much as I hated pain...though that didn't make it very easy to explain why I chose to slay demons for a living. Demons were scary, just as scary as big rats with nasty teeth and giant, talking cockroaches. Demons were also very good at causing pain. I considered myself lucky to get out of a job with all of my skin still on my body, and usually that only happened because I had put off completion of the job long enough that whatever cuts or burns that particular demon had given me had already healed.

Still, I hated pain, and I hated being scared. The idea of being insane seemed much nicer than continuing to be terrified. After all, if I was going crazy, then the cockroach wasn't necessarily there. Or maybe it was just a normal cockroach, and my loony brain was providing me with some companionship. Obviously, I was lonely. I wouldn't make a talking cockroach appear in my cell for me to talk to if I wasn't. Never mind I hadn't actually been all that lonely recently, not with Kayu hanging around the kingdom.

The decision, and all of the reasoning that went with it, didn't take all that long. The pause between the cockroach's last question and my reply wasn't terribly drawn out. In fact, it was much closer to being the normal kind of pause that you would find when someone has to think a little about their answer.

"I'm pretty sure I'm going crazy," I said.

"Great, I did have the right language!" the cockroach said, its voice filled with excitement and happiness. I could swear its antennae started waving differently, though I really hadn't been paying enough attention earlier to tell the difference. "You didn't answer the question, though."

"Close enough," I said. Now that I was crazy, and that there wasn't really a talking cockroach on the floor, just some strange creation of my poor overworked imagination, I had absolutely no problem arguing with it. After all, I was really arguing with myself, and I did that all the time. I even won sometimes.

"No it isn't," it said, sounding slightly annoyed. Well, either that or aroused...I couldn't quite tell, and that worried me. "Though it's pretty obvious now that you aren't deaf. You still haven't told me whether you're an idiot or not. I didn't ask you about the state of your sanity, and idiocy and insanity are not necessarily linked."

"Does it really matter?" I asked. "You're just a figment of my imagination, something I created so I'd have someone to talk to. Why do you have to know if I'm an idiot or not?"

"I am most certainly not a figment of your imagination," it said. This time my confusion of its tone wavered between annoyance and hysterical laughter. Again, I was worried, though I think I preferred not being able to tell between annoyance and hysteria to not being able to tell between annoyance and arousal. The idea of an aroused cockroach was more than a little disturbing, even given the fact that I was definitely insane. "And your mental ability matters quite a bit. I have not the time to waste on someone of limited mental capacity, which is what you appear to be. Good day to you."

Having the cockroach leave should have made me feel better. After all, it was scary and disturbing. But, since it wasn't really a cockroach and it was someone to talk to, I realized I didn't want it to go. I didn't want to be left alone in the cell with the rats, even if it meant begging the cockroach to stay. Luckily, I realized this just before it started scuttling away, and I even managed to get the words out before it made it to whatever hole in the wall, or magical hole in space, it had come from.

"Wait!" I exclaimed frantically. "Don't go, please!"

It turned back to me and looked at me. At least, I think it was looking at me. "Why should I waste my time on someone who cannot even believe in my existence?" it asked me, and this time I was sure it sounded annoyed, nothing else. I wondered if I was starting to get used to its way of speaking, or if I was just getting crazier.

"Because I'm lonely?" I said, forcing an uneasy smile on to my face.

The cockroach just made a mean harrumphing noise and turned back around. I didn't get another chance to call after it, because it was gone wherever it had come from before I could get that particular thought through my head. This left me alone with the rats again, and I noticed that the first one was still staring at me. When it saw me staring back, it smiled again.

This time I did jump onto the bed, though I didn't dance around and go "eek!" I had a little more pride than that, I think. I swear the rat snorted then and gave me a disdainful and hurt look. I think I hurt its feelings, because then it stalked away, just like the cockroach had. Its buddies followed after it, all of them disappearing into the same place the cockroach had gone, though I still couldn't tell where that was.

So, I spent the few hours (I couldn't quite keep track of the time, since my watch had died a long time ago, during an encounter with a particularly nasty demon who tried to eat it) huddled up against the wall on the bed. I had brought my legs up onto the bed, so that my legs were against my chest, and then put my arms around them. I stayed that way the whole time, shivering from a combination of cold and fright and wishing that my newfound insanity would think up some more company for me. I didn't like being alone in that room, even if the alternatives were giant rats with oversized teeth and talking cockroaches.

Then, sometime in the middle of the wee hours of the morning (I've always wanted to use that phrase for something...), I heard a scraping at the wall. I assumed it was the rats coming back, or maybe even the cockroach so I would have someone to talk to. I even prepared myself to apologize to whichever being came out of the hole (or however they got in there). After all, even if the rats couldn't understand me, it couldn't hurt to apologize, and if it was the cockroach, I might be able to convince it to stay this time.

But then I saw one of the stones in the wall push its way out and fall down with a thud. Behind it was a person, not a rat, not the cockroach. Specifically it was a guy, somewhere between five and ten years older than my distinguished self. I couldn't help but wonder if he was just as loony as I was, since there wasn't really much of a reason besides that to be breaking in to a jail cell.

Now I'd noticed several times before in my life that I had surprisingly good night vision. As in I could see almost perfectly in darknesses that would have a normal person more or less blind, though my color vision suffered at those times, making everything slightly gray. This was one of those times, since there was just one little tiny slit of a window in the room and it didn't let in much light. I'm pretty sure most people wouldn't be able to see their own hands in front of their faces, but I could see well enough to make this newcomer out without too much trouble. Thing is, he couldn't see me, which I found out just a few moments later.

"Anybody here?" he called into the cell, even though I could see him turning his head back and forth, as if he was trying to look around and see who was nearby.

My first reaction was to shush him. As much as I wanted some company, I knew that I was still in a jail cell, and that there might be guards nearby who could hear every word that was said. That wouldn't be a problem when it was just me talking to the cockroach, since obviously they wouldn't be able to hear the cockroach, as it was just a figment of my imagination and I don't think they would be terribly surprised at hearing me talk to myself. But this guy could possibly be real, and if he was, the guards would be able to hear him and know that there was now someone else in the cell when there wasn't supposed to be anyone other than myself there.

"I'll take that as a yes," he said, and I could make out a smile directed at me on his face.

"Could you keep it down?" I hissed. "What if someone hears you?"

"The guards all went home for the night," he said. "It's just you and me."

"Out of curiosity, just why are you here?" I asked him.

He didn't pout, though the tone of voice he used to answer my question would have fit better if he was pouting. Most people would pout, even if it was less than cool to do so. But he didn't. "I thought you might like to get out of here."

"Huh?" I asked him. It's not that I didn't understand him; I heard him quite clearly. I just didn't quite understand why he had just said what he said. I had never met him before in my life, and it just didn't make sense for someone I didn't know to just go and break into a jail cell to spring me. People just weren't that nice, which made part of my brain start whispering that he was going to want something from me if I let him get me out of there. The rest of my brain, of course, was just confused and starting to suspect that he was just another manifestation of my insanity.

"I heard someone was locked up this afternoon," the guy said. "Knowing the guards around here, you didn't deserve it, so I figured I'd help you get out."

"I can't pay you or anything," I said. "They took all my money."

"I don't want your money," he replied, almost sounding hurt. "I just couldn't leave a person in here like this. It wouldn't be right."

I shrugged, though I don't think he could see it. "If you say so."

"Give me your hand," he said. "This hole isn't very big, and I don't want you to bump your head on the wall." He stuck his hand out in front of me, almost hitting me in the face.

"I can see you, and the hole, just fine," I said. "Just lead the way and I'll follow you."

He shot a strange look back at me. Well, in my direction. It would have been more effective had he been looking at me instead of the left wall of the cell, but I got the point. My ability to see in the darkness was strange. I just smirked.

"Well, are we going to get out of here any time tonight, or are you just going to stare at the wall until the guards wake up and find you here?" I asked him.

He frowned, but then started backing up in the hole. I waited until he had completely disappeared into the hole before stepping up to the wall and peering inside. He was still moving backward, so I climbed in, very glad that I was smaller than he was, since it looked like he was quite a tight fit in there. I had plenty of room.

The wall we were crawling through wasn't the one outside wall in my cell, the one with the little slit of a window in it. So, we had about five minutes of crawling, which got very, very old, very quickly, before I saw the first hints of light in the dim darkness in front of me, mostly blocked out by the figure of the guy crawling in front of me. At some point he had gotten himself turned around, so that I was staring at his butt while we crawled, but I had absolutely no idea when it happened. I swear I had been watching him the whole time, and I hadn't seen him turn around. Besides, the tunnel had never gotten any wider, so he shouldn't have had the space to turn around. I figured that was a sign that he really was a manifestation of my insanity, albeit a very useful one that knew things I didn't know...

As soon as he got out of the tunnel, he stood up and waited at the entrance for me to finish crawling out. Because of where in the wall the tunnel came out, I could only see part of his front when I looked up to see in front of me. After one time of that, I decided that I really didn't want to watch where I was going that much, as I had a "nice" view of his crotch, and that was about it. Because of that, I was looking down when I finally stuck my head out of the wall, and I didn't see him when he started to move.

"I said I wouldn't take your money," he said to me as he stepped forward. "And I will stick to it. But I think I will take this in return for helping you to escape." With that, he knelt down so that his head was about level with mine, leaned forward, and kissed me.

Right on the lips...

Needless to say, I wasn't very happy. I kinda let out a muffled shout of sorts when I realized what he was trying to do, but he didn't stop. I considered trying to head butt him, but I decided that I really didn't want a headache, so I would try to hurt him later, once I was out of the tunnel. Of course, when he tried to slip me the tongue, my temper snapped, and I threw myself forward as hard as I could, trying to shove him out of the way.

He somehow managed to avoid my lunge forward, just barely. So I didn't go flying into him. Instead, I went flying forward, out of the hole in the wall, and proceeded to land on my head. It hurt, a lot, and it really didn't help my temper very much.

As soon as the pretty stars that had come when my head hit the ground disappeared, I jumped to my feet, glaring at him. "What the hell was that?" I yelled, not quite conscious of the fact that I was standing right outside of the jail and really shouldn't be yelling at the top of my lungs, especially in the middle of the night, when it would be more likely to get attention because it would wake people up.

"Collecting my reward," he said, sounding far too satisfied with himself. He smiled at me, and I just continued to glare at him.

"You disgusting pervert," I hissed at him. I then took a deep breath to start ranting at him. I planned on thanking him, for getting me out of the jail, but not until I had already told him off and made it very clear that if he ever got near me again I would make his life a living hell, if I didn't just try to kill him right away. Unfortunately, before I could even get the first word out, his hand clamped over my mouth.

"Why don't we discuss this somewhere else?" he asked me. "You woke people up, and if we don't get away from here soon, we'll both end up in jail."

I didn't want to go anywhere with him, even if it meant not getting to rant at him like I wanted to. I didn't get the chance to say that, though. Before I could even shake my head, he wrapped an arm around my waist, picked me up like I weighed nothing, and started running. It was about then that I realized that he was quite a bit taller than I was, something I hadn't noticed before then because either he was in the tunnel, or I was too busy being pissed off at him to pay attention to the difference in our heights. Not only that, but he seemed to be quite strong as well, as shown by the fact that he could pick me up with one arm and run with me.

I stayed quiet until we got out of the town. Then, when there were no houses in sight and he kept running toward the forest, I started yelling, and kicking. It made me look like a little kid throwing a temper tantrum I'm sure, but I didn't care. I wanted him to put me down right away, and he wasn't cooperating. And I couldn't force him to put me down, because I was unarmed and he was stronger than I was. So I yelled and tried to get my legs to bend enough to hit him in the balls. It didn't work.

Finally, once we were actually in the forest, he stopped and put me down. The moment my feet hit the ground and he let go of me, I took the opportunity to get the kick in that I just couldn't get while he was carrying me. Then, while he was doubled over in pain, I moved to the other side of the clearing, so that I would have a chance to bolt if he decided to do anything weird again, not that he was going to be moving very fast for a while.

"What was that for?" he whimpered after a while.

"That was for being a pervert," I said. "And for not putting me down when I told you to. And just 'cause I'm pissed off at you. You deserved it."

I had figured by then that he wasn't really a manifestation of my insanity. Even completely loony, I wasn't stupid enough to dream up guys who went around kissing me. It was just too weird. Besides, I didn't think it was possible for an insanity-induced hallucination to pick me up and run from town to the woods with me. But that also made me wonder if I had really gone insane or not... If not, the cockroach was real, and really could talk...so I decided not to think about that anymore and just concentrate on being pissed off at the guy in front of me.

He stayed silent for a while. Then he stood up and hobbled over to where I was. I let him get near me only because he didn't look like he was going to do anything, but I stayed ready to run if he got closer to me than I wanted him. Finally, after staring at me for a few moments, he made a noise of surprise.

"You're a guy!" he exclaimed.

"Of course I am!" I said hotly. "What else would I be?" Then it dawned on me exactly what else I might be, however stupid that mere idea seemed to me. "Wait...you mean you thought I was a girl?"

"Well, yes," he said.

I attempted to turn my glare up a notch. I'm not sure if it worked, since I couldn't see myself, and he just didn't seem to be affected by it in the first place. He looked just as calm and collected as if I was someone he was long familiar with and not an enraged stranger. Of course, that only made me angrier, which really didn't help things.

"How the hell could you think that?!" I practically screamed. He winced, but then started to take a step forward, hands up in a typical "I'm harmless" gesture. I didn't trust him...not one bit.

"It was dark in there," he said. "I couldn't see you, and you sounded female to me. I'm sorry."

"Damn right you're sorry," I huffed. Then I stalked up to him, trying not to be acutely aware of just how much taller than me he was (and failing miserably by the way), and poked him sharply in the chest. "Thank you for saving me from that place. You should hope I never see your perverted face again, because if I do I'm gonna beat the living shit out of you."

Even though it was stupid and sounded absolutely horrible, I was more than a little proud of myself for my parting threat to that guy. I didn't put on a tough guy act very often, since it just wasn't my normal way of operating, and it was nice to know that I could still do it when I was feeling more than a little shaken. But mostly, it helped me keep my mind off of the burning anger that was trying to tell me that I wanted to carry through the threat right away...and that would be a bad thing. So I was proud.

And with that, I stalked away to look for a good place to hide out until morning, when it would be safe to go into the forest and look for Kayu. I wouldn't be able to go back to town anytime soon, especially not after being broken out of the jail. Kayu could hide me for a while, maybe help me get set up in a different city, even.