A girl, her hair reminiscent of spun charcoal and her eyes a pair of disks reflecting a grounded sky, stood in front of a statuesque church. Since it was quite a famous structure, built in Cedar as one of the very first buildings to have been erected in the town, Lacey had intended to visit before wrapping up her travels in that part of Fiore. The nation was so much grander than she had expected; all that the country had to offer could not be visited in the short span of time she had scheduled to remain here. On account of this fact, the young woman had recently devised for herself a plan to dilly dally around in the summer place of mages and guilds for a little while longer until she had finished her journeys here. Part of the ice mage's missions, her actual intention when it had come to entering the nation in the first place, was to pursue the visitation of every church and sacred place she could find. So had the female been led to Cedar Town. Its local sanctuary was well known and also managed to live up to its fame, not disappointing Lacey in its simplistic yet elegant style of architecture. Those who cared for the church were also friendly and had welcomed the raven haired young woman, finding her to be suitably curious about the place and its history. She was indeed genuinely so and ended up spending over a week at the Cedar church in particular, working there alone and continuously pushing back her other trips until one day, a man wearing a rough burlap cloak approached her as she was leaving out of a back door. He seemed anxious to talk to her, but Lacey quieted him with a few reassuring words about her having all the time in the world. The two sat together on top of a stack of crates in the alley way behind the church.
"You require money, you say?" the female asked, her expression pensive as he explained that his wife had lost her voice but could be cured so long as he paid a price of at least two hundred thousand jewels. This, he claimed, was only so high because of a vendetta that the would be caretakers held against his wife, brought on by her constant singing. They had thought it tiresome and more irritating than a bird's chirping, he maintained, and Lacey decided to believe the stranger. "I can come with you to talk to these. . . doctors," she told him, shedding her robes to reveal simple street clothes, leggings and a tunic, underneath. "I would lend you the two hundred thousand, but unfortunately I lack money at the moment." The blue eyed one let out a short sigh as she remembered exactly where the money had gone; a just cause, she supposed. Finally, the means had brought the end which it had meant to carry on, but it had taken far more time and dedication than Lacey had expected. This wasn't to introduce the concept that she wasn't willing to put in plenty of either. However, it would have been nice to see her jewels and lodgings, every single last bit of both, not go to waste for the majority of the time she had originally given them up for.
Her eyes shone with unshed tears as she stared fiercely at the street urchin, fingers gripped tight but not in a harmful fashion around one bony wrist. Golden brown pools like swirling pots of melted chocolate, gazed back impassively from a face concealed by smudges of dirt and an unreadable expression.
Something cracked in the young thief's eyes, and the wisp of a girl all of a sudden tried to jerk away. Lacey held fast, both to the girl and to her emotions. She kept those tears unspilled.
"Let go of me."
A rough voice, low and scratchy now but at one time, smooth and dark like honey. She knew that voice, although the one which flowed into her ears had never been that unmarred tone and been heard to the ice mage. She shuddered at the hoarse sound that was actually heard, as memories flooded her mind of another brunette with lion tawny eyes and a voice touched by an angel.
"Why?"
It wasn't in response to the slip of a girl's demand to be unhanded. The angular face showed the gixie's understanding of that, too, as it lost all of its trepidation at the question and instead broke into a disgusted sneer. "Why do you think?" she snarled, resuming her efforts to pull out of the mage's grasp even as she gestured with her fee hand to the squalor surrounding the two of them. Deep in the gutters of the city, the two were practically wading in dirt and filth. "Why do I steal? To stay alive! Are you so stupid that you can't realize not everyone has what they need in this world? Not like you?" It was rhetorical, but Lacey answered anyways.
"Maybe I am stupid," she said with a slow and thoughtful voice as she struggled to articulate herself in proper common language, "That doesn't change how I gave you money, clothes, and the key to my apartment plus directions on how to get there. Why are you out here, stealing from the innocent?" It was the dark headed girl's turn to gesture, to the woman standing barely two meters away, to her purple boa and jewel studded gloves that were so out of place here. The woman seemed about ready to call for a Rune Knight, her eyes flitting back and forth between the two younglings standing in the streets.
"I don't take charity," came the response, fast and light and almost a derisive spit that was full of a certain emotion, present and swirling in suddenly burning hazel eyes. "I've got my pride--"
"If your pride lets you steal at will from honest people, regardless of whether they have a need for those items," Lacey interrupted, catching the way the street girl eyed the kilos of gems strung around her would be target's neck, "Yet it won't let you accept gifts that were freely given. . ." she searched the girl's face for comprehension before finishing, "That isn't pride at all." Her grip on the wraith of a girl's wrist loosened and then disappeared as the one with sky in her eyes dropped the arm and stepped one foot closer. Somehow, the strange thief hadn't yet bolted despite her new, sought after freedom. "My door is still open," she breathed, her exhales miniature gusts of winter wind that were cold even though the shadows of the hulking buildings against the setting sun had already chilled the atmosphere of the conversation and the skin of its participants.
"Don't steal," Lacey repeated before she finally retreated away from the end of the visible street, the exit to the small offside road. "Keep safe. May we meet again if it is willed," she said softly as the pickpocket fled.
When she was alone in the dark, no rays from the dimming sun lowering beneath the horizon, no brightness from the city lamps outside the narrow alley road, no rays of any kind to kiss her ivory cheeks, no illumination trickling in . . . when she thought she was absolutely out of sight, searshot, and mind, then she spoke in the quiestest voice.
"I'm here now, Fiore." Are you ready?
The ice mage smiled; she couldn't possibly stay bitter at the little girl, whose name she had found out to be Sina. Instead of attempting futilely to shift the blame for her own lack of funds to assist the strange man, the raven haired female bowed deeply to him. "I will help you any way I am able to and work hard towards the purpose of saving your wife," she told him with a determined smile after she straightened back up. The cloaked one appeared to be unsure of her words, hopefully not of their truthfulness but rather of whether she could actually be useful in any other way. He finally spoke and said that he knew of a way to get money. Some kind of tournament was taking place on an island-- Sphere Island, to be exact. By competing and winning, one could certainly win money, but the man was interested in betting instead. "I can't exactly condone gambling," the dark haired mage said with uncertainty, "But I do promise that I will give you all of the money that I win." The man seemed excited at the prospect of her competing either way; she felt some doubts that he would actually hold to his promise of not placing any bets on her winning but ended up brushing them aside in favor of giving the stranger the benefit of the doubt. There was a more important thing on hand, too. "A partner?" she repeated after the cloaked one said he recommended that she find another unknown to pair with during the battle. "It would be nice to depend upon someone to actually deal damage," she mused out loud a bit wryly, thinking of her own inability to wipe out enemies with the usage of enormous scale damaging abilities. "Since you propose for me to find a fellow mage to compete with when I arrive on Sphere Island, I will do as you wish," Lacey told the client. Now all that was left was to actually find someone. "I guess putting out a job request would be the thing to do?" she asked herself out loud with no little hesitation. The young woman wasn't really interested in hiring somebody, which was why she had a few misgivings about this situation. "We'll see when we arrive," she finally decided. Off to Sphere Island it was for her then.
1650/10000 Words~
Italics & Georgia are a memory insert that you may ignore if it makes more sense to you that way~