escaping peace, escaping quiet-- {{Skell}}

[kalin]

A purse. A watch. A simple candy bar slipped into his own handy-dandy messenger bag. This was too fun.

It was so easy. It was almost ridiculous how incredibly effortlessly Kalin could slip his hand into the pocket of a grown man, taking his wallet, or into the purse of a woman, pulling out some expensive looking ring. These people were a lot easier to steal from than most, and Kalin had his theories as to why. They were way too trusting.

All well. More for him.

Kalin was in a small segment of a train that would go to and from a quaint and humble location called Twilight Town. Why was he there in Twilight Town? Why was he even in a train to begin with? Nothing much—he was trying to find some adequate jobs, but they were scarce here. These people were too kind and gentle (Except that asshole Seifer he’d seen parading around), so the chances of finding “taboo” jobs was almost zilch.

Kalin contemplated simply moving on to the next world, hoping to find one as dangerous and ugly as his own home world so he could rake in the munny. A world like his own homeland created so much crime it would drive most Twilight Town-goers into insanity. Contemplating, Kalin stopped his stealing spree, rummaging half heartedly through a small change purse, lifting some pieces of munny out for examination, hearing the loud tinkle of metal hitting metal. Pretty and gold, little spheres. They weren’t exactly the most efficient, what with their inconvenient and troublesome design and the materials they were made out of, but Kalin liked them. He loved them, actually.

The boy was a traveling con artist, a nomad simply trying to make his way up the ladder of wealth and prosperity. Nothing wrong with that, right? Kalin didn’t think so, and he allowed this string of excuses to roll around in his head until he caught sight of the rolling hills beyond the train tracks. This place was prettier than most, but Kalin could hardly appreciate it. He’d seen better after all. He continued to stare out the window, hands in pockets, thinking about how what he did wasn’t wrong. He was entitled to fight and thrive.

--And nobody should prevent this right.

[Skell]

Chhchhchuggachuggachhhchhhhh—chuggachuggachuggachugga – wooWOO~

The working of the wheels of the train Skell sat within was relaxing to say the least. It seemed that with every chug that resounded, a puff of stress left her body and cleared her mind. She hadn’t intended on getting on the train anytime soon, but that little run in she had back at the mansion with that redhead. Axel. She’d never forget that name, nor the man.

”Man oh man, oh man…” spoken under her breath as she released a rather loud huff, staring out the window watching the scenery darken as they neared someplace she knows she’s never been to before. She just wanted to get away. Get out. A break would be good.

Nearly getting killed can do that to you.

Her whole body was sore from her efforts to get away from that mansion. That psycho was sure good at getting her to flee and squirm. Scariest experience she had ever been through, hands down. The will to live was an interesting thing – she just wanted closure with her studies, really. Just that, and she’d be good.

She closed her eyes and turned away from the window, stretching up in the cushioned bench seat she sat in. Her pack sat beside her on the cushion, more or less empty since her sketchbook sat on the table in front of her. The pages it was open to were a couple of countless sketches she had drawn to relay her experience in that mansion, near-like a story-board. A few questions were scribbled on the side that came to her as she drew them. She wrinkled her nose at the roughs and stretched a corner of her mouth.

If a stranger had inquired or stumbled about her sketchbook, they’d probably view her as obsessed.

”Ugh…” she leaned with an elbow on the table, palm supporting her cheek as the other hand closed the sketchbook promptly. Her eyes moved away from the table to the aisle, where she saw a man gracefully walking up with a soothed look on his face. He looked rather pleased with himself, if she could point that out. But he was just some random stranger.

Turning her head, she was willed to look back out the windo –

Wait, what?[/i]

Eyes shot back to the aisle as she thought she caught a sparkle into the aisle for only a second. But as soon as she tried to find it, the sparkle just wasn’t there anymore. It wouldn’t be from anyone in the stalls in front of her, because she couldn’t really see them, and the benches diagonal from her were empty. Was she paranoid?

The man standing soon chose to occupy one of the stalls within her view.

Maybe drawing a random stranger would ease her nerves…

Flipping open her sketchbook again past the pages and pages of tension, she found a blank one and readied her pen to it.

Cling – ching – clink-clack…

Eyes narrowed over toward him as he played with a munny sack so proudly. That wasn’t typical behavior of someone… And that sparkle from before…

She could have fun with this.

Flipping to a filled page in her sketchbook, she took her paintbrush out and hovered it about until it found something to run across. Hiding the materialization a bit with her arm, she leaned in to whisper to the creature. It jumped beneath the table and scurried out into the aisle, revealing itself as a small fox cub. Nothing slyer than a fox, right?

It scurried over to the man’s foot and ran its fur past his shins, jumping up onto the seat beside him and then his lap, looking up at him before reaching up and biting at the munny sack. Meanwhile, Skell went back to sketching the man’s face.

Expression was something she needed to study.

[kalin]

Kalin bit his lip for a moment, deciding, before releasing an exasperated sigh. Yes—It was definitely time to leave this place… for good. Pick pocketing could only keep him entertained for so long, and he preferred something a tad more challenging. With a soft ploft, Kalin settled into the cushioned seat, leaning back comfortably and easily. Worry about being stolen from, about even being caught with stolen items, didn’t factor in to his mind, and so was in complete ease.

Now he just needed to make it back to his Gummi Ship… and it was a long distance off. It was hidden in the bushes on some big hill, a good landmark that was hard to forget. Of course, it was tough using the thing unless no one was around… and usually there were quite a few admirers of the rich-with-color sunset.

Boredom was setting in again. Shit. With a sideways peer, Kalin glanced up the narrow aisle and saw all the languid travelers, frowning at their comfortable dispositions, their closed eyes slowly being dominated by a hazy sleep. So easy. It would take just a few minutes to steal all these idiots blind. Still… Kalin wanted a break. He’d been pick-pocketing his whole stay here, and it was starting to lose its charm.

With a begrudging sigh, Kalin yet again pulled out that pouch full of tinkling munny he’d taken. Taking one out again, he rolled it around in his palm, mesmerized by its sparkle. So nice—wonder how many more he could get…

A brush of something soft and gentle brushed against his leg, and Kalin couldn’t help but let a small, shocked gasp escape, peering down instinctively to see who was crawling around on the floor with a faux fur… But nothing. He saw nothing. Kalin pressed his lips together, eyes narrowing, before sighing and leaving that feeling alone. God. Maybe it was his own pants? “What the hell…?”

“Hm?” Kalin finally turned toward the open space right next to him. A fox! Kalin could only sigh. “What’s a fox doing here?” And then the thing bit his munny bag. Took it! And with it being untied, all of the glittering balls, all of his hard earned (stolen) munny came sprinkling the ground, rolling away and out of sight to be picked up by anxious kids unattended by their parents. Getting them back, getting stared at all the while, would be too much exposure.

Oh shit. Dammit. “You’ve got to be kidding…” The boy muttered upon seeing his lost goods. Fucking fox made him lose his munny. “You’re dead—“ With a sudden lunge, Kalin grabbed the creature by the skin of his neck, letting it hang there, “No one messes with me and gets away with it!” Well, minus a certain someone, but that was a different story…

Kill it. Killing the damn thing was his plan… but not now, not when he was on a loaded train. Kalin couldn’t help but shake the thing once or twice, hoping it got the point of what kind of trouble it was in. And then he saw her. A girl on the opposite booth, staring and writing something. Unnerving. Was this thing her pet? –She looked awfully interested in the fox… and him.

His want to kill the fox was suddenly outweighed by the instant need to see what the girl was writing. So with that, he crossed the aisle confidently, and said with a bright, uncharacteristic tone, “This animal yours? It’s causing some trouble… and someone might get a little too mad.” A friendly nod. Kalin was acting, his features morphed into a friendly and warming demeanor, a demeanor that simply didn’t belong to him, “Don’t want somebody taking and hurting this fox. It looks too sweet and innocent.” Psht.

And Kalin saw his chance. With a quick glance, Kalin looked down at the book, saw that it wasn’t writing… but a drawing. Of him. “Ngh… Anyway—“ Well that took him off guard. “Here it is. I’ll just put it down here.” Kalin dropped the fox on the booth, not caring if it was hers or not, and moved back to his seat. “Weird…” Kalin breathed, but did nothing more… there was no reason to at the moment. A young woman sketching his face? That shouldn’t be such a shocker. Maybe she just liked his face.

He needed to steal, to pick-pocket. Do something that would move him away from this woman’s probing eyes, examining eyes that bothered him no matter the reasoning behind their look. So he moved once again from his seat, away from the gaze of the woman…

… And started pick-pocketing.

[Skell]

A soft whimper was heard and it nearly made Skell’s heart rip in two. Her gaze snapped up to the grasp that the boy had on her creation, and loathing toward him immediately followed. She took notice of him taking notice of her, and would she dare look away after having witnessed that?

Of course not.

As he strut up to her table, she dropped her gaze smoothly back to her sketchbook and brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. Well… he goes nothing.

”Aah… yes, he would be mine…” she ducked her head a bit and reached her hands out to receive the animal, acting oblivious to his glance at her sketchbook. If he looked closely enough, he would have caught the ridiculous expression that crossed that mug when he first felt the brush against his leg. Oh, priceless.

But then he dropped the fox, and she was barely able to scramble him into her arms before he hit the table harshly. Holding the fox close to her, she pet him behind the ears before looking back at the well-dressed.

”Really… sorry if he gave you any trouble. Usually he’s so good about things… unless he gets a bad vibe. But you seem like quite the gentleman.”

Save for holding my fox like that.

“I’ll try to keep him busy…” and she watched him as he turned to leave, and return to sitting. Blinking a few times before looking down inquiringly to her fox, she nuzzled up close to its ear before muttering, ”At least those people got their things back, yeah? Honestly, though… who does he think he is just robbing innocent people like that? And then he comes all the way over here trying to get the innocent act on himself.”

A pause.

”You think he’s a klepto?” Setting the fox down on the seat beside her closest to the window, she then gave another stretch to relieve herself of the knot in there. The fox kept close to her while keeping its gaze out the window, obviously slightly shocked from the rude grasp to the neck earlier. Absent-mindedly, Skell scratched at its neck before running her paintbrush down its spine and watching it disappear.

A wrinkle of her nose, and she looked back without meaning to to where the boy had sat earlier – only to find that he wasn’t there. A quick shift of her eyes locked on him down the isle, a sly grab toward another item that of course didn’t belong to him.

”Definitely no klepto…” And with a slightly annoyed look on her face, she quickly swirled her paintbrush along the wood of the table before her and watched as her channeled thoughts materialized the swirls into something that slithered and hissed. And as it spun out from the bristles of the brush, it made its way down the side of the table and into the isle.

Without so much as a word from Skell, it had its own mischievous plans in mind. The snake slid in its smooth ‘S’ down the line and headed for the opening of Kalin’s pant leg. Whether it made it in or not, this would surely be interesting to see…