Diary of a Rogue (10)

Part X:

Her eyes locked on mine, I found myself frightened into non-motion. As much as my small legs wanted to get moving and run as far away as I could, I found I was a statue. My brain seemed to be just as frozen. She seemed to be taking me in inch by inch, quietly assessing the situation.

“Child,” she said carefully, “what exactly were you doing with my mechanical?”

“Your what?” I answered, genuinely confused.

“My mechanical…” she said, pointing at the inactive bronze animal at my feet, “the one you seemed to be in the process of… harassing.”

“Binky?” I asked, blinking, “I mean… I was…”

The feeling was suddenly coming back to my body and brain.

“Trying to steal him?” She answered, an eyebrow shooting up as she completed my sentence much more truthfully than I ever would have.

“Her,” was all I could think of to correct her.

I expected a quick clout to the ear as she approached me, the natural reaction to a child caught stealing in Southshore at the time. With the coming wars this punishment would naturally escalate to beatings and in some cases, worse. No blow landed, however, and for the first time I really wondered what my consequence would be.

“Child,” I heard her mouth whisper inches from my ear and from behind, “If you wish to be a rogue you have to better than this.”

Diary of a Rogue (9)

Part IX:

The cottage door closed behind me and I looked at my target. Binky’s tiny, red glowing eyes were fixed on mine and her tail gave a small jerk as if she were expecting what was coming next. As cute as she was I wanted her now more than ever.

“Come here,” I implored, being ignored.

I reached forward to grab the small creature and felt the metal teeth clamp down onto the tip of my finger. As I lifted the mechanical animal who was much heavier than I expected from the ground the hard way (teeth attached to finger tip), the tears rolled down my cheek silently. I was learning my first lesson as a rogue. Sometimes stealing can be very painful. Binky dropped to the floor as I reached to grab her with the other hand and stood there. I could swear she was smiling. Anger suddenly boiled up in me and I dove at her.

I stepped forward, sack open and pounced on my tiny target that suddenly was no longer there as the bag fell on empty floor. I cringed as I felt the tiny metal feet clawing their way up my leg, back, then neck. I felt the heaviness of the animal on my right shoulder and turned to face her, finding her tiny nose a scant inch from mine. Her red eyes were staring at me in amusement.

Suddenly her small teeth clamped onto the end of my nose and, discovery or no discovery, I let out a scream that shook the foundations of the house. I reached up with both hands and as gently as possible tried to separate the small metal jaws from my incredibly aching nose. Second after painful second seemed to pass.

“Down!” said a feminine voice, “Deactivate!”

The small squirrel went limp and fell from my nose. I felt relief then a good deal of fear as I looked at the brown-haired goblin standing in the doorway, hands on her hips, eyebrows set angrily as she took in the scene. I was in trouble.

Diary of a Rogue (8)

Part VIII:

 

I could see that even Lunnassa didn’t risk damage to her cottage.  She had built a small workshop a good distance away.  I could see her small, green form through the glass window working on something.

A glint of bronze drew my eyes to her cottage window.  There was something small and metallic moving there.  My childhood curiosity was thoroughly piqued and I made my way through small bushes closer and closer, careful not to be seen by the goblin.  She probably ate kids.  They all did in the stories my brother told.

 My eyes set on the small mechanical squirrel and two things happened at once.  The first was that my desire for something that wasn’t rightfully mine suddenly overcame my good senses for the first time in my life.  The second was that I gave it the name, “Binky” because quite frankly she was small, cute, and looked like a Binky.  I knew at that moment that Binky would be mine.

My career as a potential kidnapper/thief began as I grabbed a small burlap sack from a stack of boxes set behind the cottage.  I looked over at the workshop one final time, saw nothing, and decided to risk it.  The faster I did this the less chance I had of getting caught.

Looking back through more experienced eyes it was to be the first in a series of events that was to shape the person I am today.  I am, however, who I am and like it that way.  I am not one to often wonder how things could have turned out differently.  I have the strange urge to do so now.

 

Diary of a Rogue (7)

Part VII:

“Samlyn Tailor!,” my mom yelled as I made my way out of the house, “You stay out of trouble today, you hear!”

“Yeah, yeah,” I retorted under my breath, making sure she couldn’t hear my mumbles. For a human her ears were sharper than a wolf. Her eyes weren’t half bad either.

My mischief sense led me to the beach north east of town. I had seen a real life murloc there one Sunday afternoon, not that any of the other kids would believe me. Of course, it may have been a clump of washed up seaweed but there was no way I was going to get close enough to tell for sure.

I reached for the small knife in its leather sheath that my father had presented me with last year. He probably hoped that I would take up whittling with it but I had found other games to play with it. Today I was going to kill a murloc! I knew that if I found one it would have to be quick indeed to catch my fleeing form and my screams would probably make it run away, but I was feeling braver than normal since an actual murloc was nowhere around.

As I made my way stealthily over a dune I found myself staring down at Lunnassa’s cottage. Lunnassa I had learned was the name of the female goblin that had blown a hole in the Inn. She had apparently adopted Southshore as her home even if the humans wouldn’t let her live there on account of all the explosions.