Welcome to Gaia! ::

Avis fell back in shock. It was a joke! Something she certainly wasn't used to. Of course, now it made sense. It was much more reasonable for him to be in here for a debt. She felt a mixture of ire and chagrin at having been so easily duped, but she also felt a small smile crack her face. It had been pretty ridiculous. Perhaps he wasn't so bad after all.

"Well that's stupid," she said pointedly, leaning back against the wall and cocking her head to one side. "Hey, what do you say I help you get outta here? It was pretty dumb of 'em to make me share a cell with somebody." She made pretense of looking in his eyes, but in reality she was staring at a point at the wall a few inches away from his head. That was as close as she usually got. Any closer and it began to be unbearably uncomfortable.

"Easy," she said in an almost monotone voice. "When they come to get me, we'll jump 'em."

She rested her head on the wall. Well, if there was one good thing about being forcefully interred, it made a nice break from the outside world. And she got to eat more often, anyway. Now all she had to do was wait out the day. She sighed. She didn't feel like sleeping, for some reason. So she decided to once again test the waters of conversation. She searched mentally for a topic; she didn't know of many.

"So this guy you're tryin' to pay back," she said with a sneer, "what's he like? Total jerk, huh?"

Ah yes, the standard Raman fallback: building up one's own pride by speaking ill of others.

"Keh, typical," Avis scoffed, although at the mention of feathers she sneaked a glance at her own bare arms. Well, they weren't completely bare. There were a few small, scraggly feathers here and there. She had always felt her arms enjoyed mocking her by constantly reminding her of what she couldn't have.

She sighed and stared at the floor. "Hope he gets what's comin' to him, then."

She stiffened when she heard footsteps outside of the door. Keys rattled, then there came a click and the door creaked open. She nodded to Heratio and ducked behind the opening door, where the guard couldn't see.

The guard looked around. "All right Human, where is she?" he hissed.

"Don't play stupid with me, Human!" The guard walked toward Heratio to kick him. That was a mistake.

A brown blur shot out from behind the door, tackling the guard to the ground. Before he could utter a cry, he was out cold.

Avis got off of him and snorted. She began removing his armor and robes and tossing them to Heratio. "Here, put these on," she instructed. "They'll be a little big on you, but just be lucky you're tall for a Human."

"We'll stay in the shadows and move quickly," Avis responded, ducking her head back in the door; she had been looking around to make sure there weren't any more guards coming.

"Besides, we'll make a distraction," she said with a grin, holding up the guard's set of keys before dashing off into the darkness.

A few seconds later, there came a cacophony of chaotic shouts. Avis ducked back into Heratio's cell. "Come on, let's get out of here!" she hissed.

The hallways were eerily dark, empty, and silent. The only light came from a few scattered magic cores every twenty feet or so.

Avis pushed out of the door and looked around. "They're gone," she said. "Let's leave before they come back."

She could see the large prison doors up the hall, light streaming through their barred windows, and she began clambering toward them on all fours as if she were in a trance. The promise of freedom has a way of doing that to some people.

"Ahem."

She looked up to see the bookkeeper standing in front of her. Despite being an older Raman, he still towered over her and he did not seem pleased.'

Avis bared her teeth and hissed. Nobody was going to take freedom away from her now.

Avis looked up at Heratio in confusion as she pushed open one of the heavy doors. She had heard whispered rumours of a powerful thing called "magic"...was that what he had just used?

Oh well, no time for contemplation. She looked around the entrance hall of the palace. It was empty. The guards usually posted there must have gone to quell the uprising in the dungeons.

Something glinted in the sun out of the corner of her eye. She turned to see two guards stationed just outside of the main gate. Avis sighed. So much for escaping out that way. But there was another option...

"I hope you're good at climbing," she whispered to Heratio as she sneaked out of the door with a quietness that takes years to perfect, moving deftly on her hands and feet (it was her preferred mode of locomotion). She looked at him, then at one of the sweeping staircases that led to the higher levels of the palace, and nodded, tiptoeing toward them.