Roxanne

“Are you also gonna tell me to leave?” Roxanne asks as she opens her soft golden eyes. I kiss her forehead and respond “Early bird catches the bounty.” It was meant to be a joke but their eyes glistened with tears. “You know, I can make you forget it all, if you want.” Why did I think that would help? Before she has time to process what I said I pull her a bit tighter and run my fingers trough her hair.The alarm goes off again and I get up as gently as I can. Maybe she doesn’t have to leave, I can set an exception for her in the alarm systems. She sits upright and begins to get dressed, putting a small piece of meteorite in her arm. After I get dressed myself I walk back over to her and kiss her forehead again.

The sun hangs over the vast desert of Thunder Junction, casting sharp shadows across the village’s plaza. A cart, pulled by a pair of black horses, races into town. A tall humanoid, covered by their massive leathery wings clings to the top, something the courier seems to pay no mind to.

They halt in front of the Sterling Company building, the two guards standing by the entrance simply nodding. The winged figure jumps onto the floor, a wide-brimmed hat shading her pale face. She opens the door of the carriage, pulls out three masked individuals and drags them towards the building. Once there she hands them over to the guards and speaks in a soft, warm voice, “The usual, they’ll talk.”

As the words escape her mouth she's already making her way back towards the carriage, where the courier has already prepared a stretcher next to the door. The winged woman gently carries an unconscious leonin from the carriage and places it on the stretcher. Where her left forearm used to be there are now only a few layers of fabric hastily applied to the wound. The courier helps the woman bring Roxanne inside.Once the medical team waiting in the building starts taking care of the leonine, the hatted woman, wings almost scraping the already elevated ceiling, enters a backroom. ———————————————-

A large viashino walks trough one of the magically cooled hallways, stopping in front of a reinforced doorway where a guard stands on either side, thunder rifles held close. One of them knocks twice and the door hisses as its enchantment is temporarily disabled. The viashino steps inside.

A metal table takes up most of the space in the room, bolted to the ground, with three chairs on either side. Against the far wall stands a steel cabinet, an audio-transcribe device on standby resting on top of it. The prisoners had already been seated. Their masks now removed, revealing three identical elves with messy aquamarine hair, in differing states of consciousness. A varying amount of wounds covering their bodies, none of them left unharmed.

The viashino speaks up in a deep voice. “Names?” ———————————————-

The winged woman walks to the medical bay, now donning her own Sterling outfit. As she enters the room one of the nurses walks up to her. “How is she?” The winged woman asks. “She’s going to survive, will just take a lot to recover. She’s not getting back the arm though”, the even laughs awkwardly, “She had a communicator on her, do you want us to check it?”

The winged woman tilts shakes her head. “Just give it to me, I’ll do it myself.” She goes trough the emergency contacts, stopping on one with a star next to it. She presses the call button.

“Yes, hello, I am with the sterling company. I am calling you to inform you we have taken in the owner of this device, though she has been heavily wounded. I’ve made sure they guaranteed her survival though."

A large viashino runs up to her, looking panicked.

“I have to go now, I can call back later or you can come visit her. We will have to hold her at least until she goes back to consciousness… Yes. Mhm. Okay, thank you. Goodbye.”

She turns to the viashino and raises her eyebrows, “what is it?”

“The prisoners, they fell unconscious, so I went to get support. But when I came back they were gone.” He answers.