Dante's nose caught the scent long before Lirssa heard the rustle from the garbage bin. She hated the garbage bin finds, and was grateful they had gotten so very rare.

Her furry friend, almost step-brother, found her after her run with other classmates during their RASG adventure. There was no sense in missing out on the opportunity to take flights and observe accomplished pilots techniques — and grill them with questions.

The flight had been fantastic, and the pilot who had flown Lirssa up for a quick orbit had laughed more than gotten irritated at Lirssa's enthusiastic questions. There was a lightness to her step matched in Dante's playful, bouncy lope at her side. Their aspect was cheerful enough to keep the grumpy at bay and the mutually happy laughing and waving as they passed by on the streets.

A wandering path took them across byways and through alleyways. It was in this alleyway that Dante perked up and approached a large bin outside the backdoor of a tailor shop. The sun was past the crack of sky splitting the buildings above. A full shadow was setting an early chill of evening on the bin.

The Lirssa heard it. A mewling whimper. Confusion, fear, hunger, desperation. Instantly, she threw open the top and clambered up the bin. With a foot on a side and front of the bin, she balanced and searched through the layers of cloth remnants. Her heart pounded, shouting in her head and pressuring her eyes. "Just keep crying, sweets." She murmured. A cry was life. A cry was the sign she was not too late.

It was easy, of course, to miss it. The remnants tossed by busy helpers not looking and not listening; minds elsewhere and not open to the possibility that some desperate or depraved being left a fresh new soul in their garbage bin.

A slender leg poked out from beneath a bunch of stained crinoline. The baby had squirmed free of the rough wool bindings it had been left in. "Oh, shusha, shusha, shusha," Lirssa crooned lifting the frightened, tiny body out and holding her, for the exposed body had revealed the child's gender, close. "Lirssa is here now."

The baby still cried, but the panic was gone. The tremblings continued but the sharp edge of the screams had lessened into a frustrated cry of discomfort. With a twist and turn, Lirssa hopped down from the bin and took off at a run.

Dante was running just ahead, nosing people out of the way. He knew instinctively where she wanted to go — the nearest care center. It was not one of the clinics, but Lirssa knew it and the reputation was good. She rushed inside and the prim but pleasant elven woman behind the desk stood instantly to claim the child.

"We have her." Of course the elven woman would know instantly. She did not wait, but took the child past the doors and into the depths of the clinic.

Lirssa stood unable to steady her feelings; all manner of hope, relief, and loss. Why she felt sad she could not reason out. Yet, it drove her to the window where a new staff person, an old man with spotted skin and black eyes sat. "May I come back and check on the baby later?"

He seemed puzzled by the question. Lirssa wondered if he did not understand what she asked and started to ask again when the man answered. "If you like. We will be looking for her family. Can you tell me the details of how you found her?"

Lirssa told her story and the man took it all down. "We are going to get her fed and checked over. Come back tomorrow."

Tomorrow seemed like too far away, but Lirssa nodded. With a hand on Dante's back, she left the clinic and felt a renewed sense of self. The night had crossed above and she looked up at the stars, ships, and stations. They looked back, and she felt very small. Small and mighty.

Halo Effect

It was a simple text. I saw her. She's alive. Going north. Get her. Please. Melicin The fact that Melicin had broken the house rules to use the communication set up to get in touch with Lirssa meant it was serious. It was true. She wasn't playing around. Melicin feared breaking the rules as much as she feared the clink of metal reminiscent of chains.

The seasons were changing. Putting cooler air on top of sun warmed streets. Mist was faint, whispers of what was to come. It crept out of corners and scurried away from the halos of lamplight. Lirssa walked past the Inn, her destination altered.

North was a big place. North was wooded. North was where her ship was. If a member of Melicin's family was still alive, held in a caravan with the chains binding her, Lirssa was going to get her. Alone.

Every time she had tried to work with someone — with the exception of Crispin — someone had gotten shot or skewered. It was better. Alone was always better.

Text quick to Summerlane. Melicin. I hear you. Get some sleep. She could imagine the girl anxious at the com waiting to hear something, anything, but in case it was one of the staff of her house parents, Lirssa left the response vague. Another text to Aric simply stated she would not be seeing him that night.

And then she ran. Moxie was silent, tickled underneath by the mist, against the old walls that ran around the city. The search parameters were set in the computer with one hand while the other started the ignition sequence. It was going to take time, but a little piggyback on some other sensors scattered about the sky and city — there.

***

Lirssa held the bokken in hand, creeping along the outskirts of the caravan. The animals pawed earth up as she passed them by, but no one seemed to take note of their warning.

Until a hand came out from the back of a tent, the slit well concealed in the pattern drawn on the canvas, and grabbed her. A twist of shoulder, she rolled into the tent, but free of the hand. Up in a crouch, she aimed directly for the exit. It didn't matter what was there, being in a confined space with unknown assailants was the best way to get herself killed. She needed space. Places to run, jump, and get her feet caught up by a whip cracking around her ankles to trip her up and send her head long into the wheel of a wagon.

Pain bloomed pretty, pretty stars around her vision. In that vision was a wan face with fangs bared in a grimace of sorrow and pain. The eyes, their feline vertical pupil wide to a near circle in the shadows of low fires and absent torches. If Melicin were twenty years older, that would be her face. Her mother.

The guards had been paying attention to the animals. They circled Lirssa, one with a net, the others with cudgels. Apparently they preferred capture instead of chase away or kill. That was in Lirssa's favor. Barely.

With the bokken up, Lirssa took a run at the man in the center, last minute jumping up to punch her feet at his chest, knocking him back. It reversed her momentum as well, getting her out of the way of the net that came swinging down from the left. The back handspring brought her into the round house swing of the right hand guard. New pain blossomed, a crack, and Lirssa felt her jaw become a numb useless hinge.

The spatter of blood colored her cheek and dribbled from her bottom lip with the saliva. Soon, unable to close her mouth, it would be dry. A spin kick to the guard's arm cleared the cudgel from the field. In the twist around, she saw the flash of the keys. Handspringing up towards the man, he was stunned to see her on the attack instead of running. Her legs gripped around his neck as she twisted forward and around, grabbing the keys on the swing and pulling the man down to crack his head against the edge of their banked fire stones.

One down.

The other two had finally freed of the net, and Lirssa took up cudgel and bokken, aiming for joints, kicking at kneecaps. Each blow they landed on her in counter, she spun away from lessening the impact and altering her own course of action. It was a dance. It was a routine. And each wrong turn had a painful correction. She was reminded of her childhood.

If her jaw had been working, she would have smiled. But only more pain answered that in a tsk-tsk of growing numbness that followed.

The rest of the camp was stirring. Lirssa kicked the last guard standing back and took the time to set the key in the lock. Melicin's mother would have to do the rest. Lirssa kicked out, felt her foot trapped in a lock and leg twisted. Tucking in her arms, she spun with the twist to keep from having her ankle, knee, and hip wrenched out of place.

Catching her balance when she unfolded, the leg he held was pulled in towards her. The guard came with it, and she swung a fist up from her hip to his chin. His teeth smashed against each other, eyes rolling back, and body loose with loss of consciousness.

Sparing a glance to the cage — empty — Lirssa ran. And she tried not to think of the others she left behind.

She was going to be a pretty picture for practice and rehearsals.