Jezerai - EQ2

[Jezerai]

My earliest memories are of my room.  I call it my room, but really it was a small screened off corner of mam's room.  I would hide there, concealed from the view of her gentleman friends, as she called them, playing quietly while they went about the business of love on the other side of the curtain.  Mam had made my room for me after one of her gentleman friends offered to buy me on the spot.  I must have been five years old or so at the time.  Mam had laughed at him and teased him with her body, making him forget whatever fancy he had taken to me.  After that, she put up the curtain for me and made me hide there when she had visitors.  Before that?  Well before that, I would just go about my business while she went about hers.  There is not much secrecy in a one room flat, is there?  And a one room flat was all she could afford after spending most of her coin to "keep up appearances" as she put it and pay for her drink.
   
Mam was a human, and very lovely, with the dark skin and hair of the desert inhabitants.  She called herself an actress and got quite cross with me when I said she was a whore, slapping me across the face hard enough to bring tears to my eyes.  But really, that's what she was.  Every week she'd bring home a different gentleman friend and I learned of the Norrath races through these experience, for nearly every one was represented.  Some of these gentleman friends left gifts of clothing or cheap jewelry, which was promptly turned to coin and traded for booze or drugs.  A few lasted long enough for me to bother to learn a name.  For a time the rent would be paid and there would be food to eat.  If they caught a glimpse of me, I was to pretend to be her servant because mam thought having a child made her look old.

I was the only child she bore though, likely due to her inexperience at contraception at the time she became pregnant rather than for any other reason.  When I asked once about my da' she shrugged.  Really, how was she to know?  It is clear, from my pointed ears if nothing else, that he was elvish.  And, since I am several shades lighter than my mam, it is likely he was of fair complection.  Other than that, who is to say?  As long as I was not bothering mam, she was affectionate enough.  I learned early though to be very quiet in the mornings, and keep the curtains drawn tightly. 

When I was about twelve, my mam just didn't wake up one morning.  No matter how loudly I banged about, there was no curse coming from the bed and no shoe flying to hit me in the head. That's how I knew she was dead and I was left with no way to keep the flat.  After that I was on my own, living in the streets.  It helped that I was small and quick because slavers roamed the streets too, looking for children to collect and sell.  If a young 'un stayed in one place too long and looked like they didn't have a home to complain if they disappeared, they'd be taken right quick.  I knew several that vanished, never to be seen again.  I dunno to this day where they are ... either in Freeport, the brothels, or dead, like as not. 

One day, as I was scrounging for some food in the cast offs behind the baker's shop, I went flying from a boot planted in my posterior.  I scrambled right quick and jumped up to confront my attacker, only to look up and up into a face high above me sitting on a huge expanse of belly and chest and hair.  The owner of all this body smelled of garlic and grease and licked his fat lips as he saw I was a girl and not the boy he had imagined me to be.  He started to ask me something ... whether my name or my price I'm not sure ... but I didn't stick around to visit.  I'd seen that look before and I knew I wanted no part of this.  I learned later that he was the butcher and looking for me.  Word was out to the slavers that he'd pay a pretty penny for the dark haired elf girl and I knew it was only a matter of time til they caught up with me.

My story might have been different if the butcher had been a young and handsome gent and not smelled so very bad.  Perhaps then I'd have even sold myself and kept the coin in the family, so to speak.  But I'd rather die than lay beneath that mammoth of stinking male.  Indeed, I had dreams of dying, drowning in garlic and sweat.  I had to get away.  And so I turned to stealing with no further thought than to buy my passage and fly far far from Maj Dul on one of the little flying carpets at the docks.  Instead, I ran into Alanni Shortshanks and found my way to the safest haven I ever imagined ... Saga.

[Jezerai]

The gnome stood out on the streets of Maj Dul.  Sauntering down the street, barely reaching past the knees of the larger citizens but with an air of ownership far exceeding her diminutive size.  She was encased in the dark blue armor that marked her a warrior of not inconsiderable skill, but she wore her coin purse negligently dangling off her belt.  Her cloak, also of blue but with an odd tree design woven onto the back, was clasped with a pin that glinted like gold in the sun. 

Jezerai knew she should leave that particular mark alone, but the coin purse looked heavy as it bumped against its owner's hip and Jezerai was growing desperate to escape Maj Dul.  Jezerai knew she was not a particularly skillful pick-pocket, but she reasoned that the armor encasing the gnome would make it easier to slip the coin purse away undetected.  Stealthily she followed the small form down the crowded street, a slim blade in her hand.  When she drew near and judged the time right, she bumped into the gnome and attempted to slice the thong holding the purse with the blade, only to find her wrist in a grip of iron. 

"Yarr mate!  Get yer grubby paws off me treasure or I'll have yeh hanged fer a scurvy dawg, see if I dinna!"  Surprised at the ease with which she was discovered, Jezerai attempted to wrench her wrist free so she could disappear in the crowd, only to find herself well and truly caught.  Who would have suspected that such a small person would be so strong?  Jezerai dropped the blade from fingers grown nerveless.

Alanni peered at the thief she had captured.  "Why, yer a wench, ain'tcha?  Whatcha doin' stealin' purses, anyways?"  Jezerai noticed a man she knew to be a slaver working his way through the crowd and the first edges of panic began to set in.  "Please miss," she begged, "hold yer voice down, if ya please?  No harm done, eh?  Ya still got yer coin, don'tcha?  Now whyn't let me go?  I learned me lesson, I did.  Please?"  Watching the figure approaching ever nearer, a note of desperation began to creep into Jezerai's voice.  Alanni, hearing this but unable to decipher why, looked back down the street, seeing nothing out of the ordinary.

Finding her wrist still clasped in a grip of steel, Jezerai began frantically attempting to wrest her hand away and escape, to no avail.  A heavy hand dropped from behind on Jezerai's shoulder and she knew, beyond hope of rescue, that she was lost.  It would not take long for the slaver to convince the gnome to leave this prize to his tender mercy.  From there it was a mere hop, skip and a jump to a drugged stupor in the stinking butcher's bed.

"What seems to be the trouble here?"  The slaver spoke in a low voice, not wanting to draw undue attention to the exchange.  "This urchin causing you trouble, Lady?"  Although not in uniform, the slaver made a very credible effort at projecting authority.  The gnome, however, did not loosen her grip and scowled at the man who dared to interfere in her affairs. 

"Jes' who do yah think yah be?  This 'ere ain't got nothin' ta do with yah."  Alanni looked up at the slaver with undisguised dislike.  She sized the intruder up in moments and decided that the man was not a guard and therefore had no good reason to be involving himself in affairs not his own.  Further, the look of panicked fear on the pickpocket's face appeared as though the young girl expected punishment far exceeding any that Alanni felt the girl had coming.

The slaver scowled, not expecting to find himself thwarted.  "I be takin' this thief in to the authorities to be dealt with."  The slaver eyed the girl up and down.  Noting the pointed ears and dark hair, his eyes widened as he remembered the amount of money that had been promised for this particular find.  Avarice lit his eyes and he jerked back on Jezerai's shoulder in an attempt to forcibly drag her out of Alanni's grip.  He did not expect opposition, but the gnome drew herself up to all of her slight stature.

"Ye'll be doin' no sech thin', sir!" She spat this last with obvious disdain.  "I be Capn' Alanni Shortshanks, o' tha renowned guild, Saga!  An' this be me cabin gel!  Her punishin' be up ta me and me alone!  Ye'll do well ta mind yer own business and keep yer nose outta mine, less yeh be losin' it, yeh stinkin' landlubber!"

The two stared at each other, the one short of stature but clearly not realizing that that fact was of any disadvantage at all.  The other, quickly lost his nerve in the face of such determined opposition.  The hand on Jezerai's shoulder lightened, then dropped away and the slaver melted into the crowd, leaving Jezerai with the gnome.  Alanni looked at the girl with a glance much warmer than that she had bestowed on her before. 

"There yeh are, gel.  I dinna like ta see a wench manhandled by sech a dawg as tha one."  She released her grip on Jezerai's wrist.  Jezerai rubbed the bruised skin, but did not dart away.

"Thank yah, Cap'n."  Jezerai stammered out the words gratefully.

"Now, now," the gnome brusquely brushed off the thanks and pressed a gold coin into Jezerai's palm.  "Now go get yerself some food an' grog an' be a good lass."  Obviously embarrassed to be caught in a moment of kindness, the gnome waved Jezerai off and continued on her way.  Jezerai stared at the gold coin in her hand, astounded to so unexpectedly find herself in possession of such a sum.  The coin was enough to buy her passage away from MajDul and the Sinking Sands.  She decided on the spot to head to Qeynos and look up this guild, Saga, that the gnome had mentioned.