the stranger.
Nylaa Cinder, daughter of the Jabberwocky.
ART BY ME, DO NOT REPOST W/OUT MY PERMISSION !
πππππππ: After the VK's renounced evil, riots and turf wars flooded the streets as the villains fought for a title. The fighting had become so treacherous that the worst of the Isle, the criminals and murderers from the Undercity, had made their way at last to the surface. One such individual stumbles her way into the chip shop amidst the chaos.
ππππ πππππ: 1.7k
The room wasn't still at the stranger's entrance, if anything, she went completely unnoticed by the chortling street scum and miscreants. It seemed Harry was the only one to see her slip through the doorway. The rain had drenched her from head to toe, the fabric of her trousers and hooded cloak heavy with water.Β
Unable to quell his curiosity he slid off of the sticky bar counter to weed through the wrestling people who had had one drink too muchβthat much he could smell. The stranger had seated herself at a table lining the edge of the room. She fiddled with a knife in her hand, small and thin, and if heβd taken time to look closer, streaked with blood.
βWhatβs a lass like you doinβ out in the rain?β
His voice took on his typical flirtatious purr, perfected with experience. She froze, her finger holding the end of the knife still in the worn wood table. Her head tilted a bit, like she was trying to decide whether she would speak or not.Β
βI...β
Her voice was low and husky, though her posh accent bled through her whisper like black ink on paper.Β
βI need help.β
Before he could ask what with, she twisted herself in her seat with visible effort and tilted her head down at her stomach. Harry paled. A gash starting at the edge of her ribs and ending on her left hip bled profusely, fresh and watered with rain. What was worse was the knife she had been injured with remained deep in the flesh above her hip.Β
Tap, tap, tap.
She had begun nervously tapping her knife on the table, clearly ready to run back into the rain and most likely bleed to death.Β
βGive me your hand.β
She did so hesitantly and he was startled by her dropping temperature. He hefted her up from the chair and wrapped his arm around her good side. She winced but showed no other sign that he was hurting her.Β
βIβm gonna take you in the back.β
She nodded wordlessly, putting all her effort into staying standing. Hard muscle moved beneath the shirt Harry gripped onto, muscle that had been trained into this girl as a habit of survival. How curious. The duo moved through the drunken customers with a slow stagger, unnoticed by the criminals lost in their drink and merry-making.Β Β
The stranger's head was dropping steadily by the time Harry managed to push open the employee door.Β
βHey, stay with me, we just gotta get down the hall here.β
βUh-huh,β she murmured, a sound that nearly stole all her breath.Β
βUma! UMA!β
Footsteps thundered down the stairwell at the end of the hall, revealing a very tired and very angry daughter of Ursula.
βWould you stop thatβwho the hell is this?β
The stranger's legs gave out. Harry grunted at the added weight.Β
ββ¦orry, sorryβ¦,β she breathed out.
βShit, Harry.β
Uma rushed forwards, rolling her sleeves up to show she was ready to help.Β
βYou get her from under her arms and Iβll get her legs. Weβll take her upstairs.βΒ
And they did so with much effort and hushed cursing. Sweat beaded Harryβs temple under his hat. Uma directed him to the worn blue couch where they placed the slumped guest with a definite oomph. This seemed to jostle the stranger from her unconsciousness. Her hand flew to the knife handle protectively then froze inches from it. Harry silently grabbed her frozen hand and pushed it back down beside her, feeling as though he was assuring a feral beast that he meant it no harm.
βThis is going to need some serious stitches,β he confirmed, watching the blood ooze from the marred skin. The wound split a freckle completely in half.Β
βNo shit. I need to take that knife out.β
βIβll do it,β this was the clearest the stranger had spoken the entire time. She rested her hand on the handle of the knife with a very calm demeanour. βJust tell me when.β
Uma nodded, disappeared, and reappeared with a bottle of (unfortunately) good liquor.
βNow.β
The stranger slid the knife out with a cacophony of curses, but nothing louder. The knife clattered to the floor right beside the sofa, leaving a delicate splatter of blood on the floor. Harry expected a scream, a yelp at least. He saw soon after why she had saved her voice. Uma poured the liquor over the wound and a broken cry tore from her lips. Both her arms clamped down over her hood, effectively muffling the noise in the fabric.Β
Uma put the half empty bottle of alcohol down allowing a few moments of peace for the stranger.Β
Then Uma pushed the needle into the edge of her wound and the stranger hissed. Harry sat still, uncertain of what he could do to contribute for the sake of the bloody stranger. Holding hands was comforting, right? He mulled over that intrusive thought for a moment. The stranger had her arms wrapped so tightly over her face she certainly could have rendered someone unconscious. Harry would ignore that thought and instead, he examined her silently. Muscular, but not like Gil or him. More like a sleek predator that was meant to be fast and lethal, stealthy and coordinated. Now who had caught this predator off guard? Or provoked her?
The final stitch in the strangers side was a breath of relief for all three occupants of the room. Uma tossed the needle into a waste bin and rolled back onto her bottom, sighing deeply. The strangerβs arms loosened up, but stayed over her face.Β
She sucked in a shuddering breath.Β
βThank you.β
βYouβre welcome,β Uma sounded annoyed but Harry recognized the look of intrigue on his captainβs face. An uncomfortable silence filled the room, one that Harry decided to interrupt.Β
βHowβd you end up like this,β he gestured at her wound, not that she could see him doing so through her arms. βYβknow, bleeding out.β
Uma looked at him with a raised brow, then cast her eyes over to the stranger on her couch.Β
The stranger took a moment to craft her explanation, perhaps to shine light on herself as the victim of an attack although she was quite obviously the attacker. Her arms remained over her face, though her head shifted under her hood making it seem as though she was looking at him.
βSomething of mine was stolen. I tried to take it back. I didnβt expect her to have a knife.β
βBut you had a knife,β it was more a statement than a question that came from Harry.Β
βIβm from the under-city.β
Another uncomfortable silence filled the room. The under-city was full of villains worse than the VKβs themselves. Miscreants with more blood lust than thoughts, people without morals and many without sanity.Β
The stranger broke the silence this time.
βIβll replace that. I owe it to you.βΒ
The stranger was pointing at the half-empty bottle of alcohol.Β
βYeah you do. Get some rest stranger, you need it.β
Umaβs tone was lighthearted, very uncharacteristic of her from Harryβs point of view. Maybe it was the politeness and vulnerability the stranger had shown to the two of them despite being, well, a stranger.
βIβm going to bed. I donβt care if you stay,β she waved her hand in Harryβs general direction before vanishing into her bedroom. Harry pulled off his hat and set it on the table next to the sofa, a way of announcing to the universe that he was going to stay the night.Β
He looked about the living room and spotted a satisfactory sofa and a mismatched foot rest. Harry hummed to himself as he dragged both closer to the sofa the stranger lay still on. Still?Β
Panic fluttered from his stomach into his throat. The stranger was motionless, causing him to conclude she was most likely dead. He opened his mouth to call for Uma, and was interrupted by a sound equally relieving and amusing.Β
Light snoring was coming from under the strangers arms. Sheβd appeared as a bleeding shadow, a predator who had chosen the wrong prey, and here she was asleep on Umaβs sofa and snoring.Β
βJesus Christ.β
Harry slumped into the sofa and ran his hands over his face. The last half an hour, which was unbelievably a half an hour and not more, was very taxing on him despite having only watched Uma stitch a wound on a complete stranger.Β
βYou better not die in your sleep,β were the last words Harry muttered under his breath before he drifted into sleep.
Harry most certainly wouldnβt have woken up had his feet not fallen off the footrest and startled him awake. His sleepy stupor lingered around him as he found his feet and surveyed the dark living room, cast in shadows by the early morning hour.Β
It took him several long seconds to realise the sofa across from him was vacant. The only assurance that the stranger wasnβt a dream was the dip she had left on the couch, the dampness left on the cushion, and the blood on the floor beside it. The knife that had been lodged in her side was no longer on the floor, taken, along with what was left in the liquor bottle Uma had used.Β
Harry scooped his hat from the floor and fiddled with the rim of it. An odd revelation came across him as he thought about the night before and the strangers dilemma and all the events that had followed her ghostly arrival.Β
He had never seen her face.Β
The water had lost its comforting warmth many minutes ago, yet she couldnβt find the motivation to get out of the bathtub. Nylaaβs hair stuck to her lower back in wild curls that mimicked the twisting of octopus tentacles.Β
The knife that had recently been very well acquainted with her insides was now held before her as she twisted it in the dim light of her washroom. It was long and slender, a hunting knife maybe. Maybe something from Gastonβs personal store. The handle was a worn blue colour, maybe navy, and scratched from the scuffle with Nylaa.Β
She thought of that moment bitterly. It was rare that she slipped up or was even surprised by the fighting back of her victim. She had grown too cocky, too sure of her own intimidation factor.Β
Nylaa had been so sure the woman would have simply given her what she wanted without a fight. A twinge of pain in her side reminded her of how foolish that expectation was.













