TW: Sort of a rape mention, but no rape occurs

The hand tugs hard, and I nearly lose my balance, but manage to stay on my feet somehow.  I turn to face the man attached to it.  He’s big.  And, based on the strong smell of alcohol coming from him, pretty drunk.  I go to tug my arm away gently, but he holds fast.  I’m not going to be intimidated yet, though.

“Do you need anything, Mister…?”

He ignores my request for his name.

“You look lost, little mouse,” he says in a deep voice.

What’s with the “little mouse” thing?  Every damn time someone wants to be a creep, that’s what they call me.  Is it a cultural trend?  Is that what Sungians call all mammalian races?  The lack of originality amongst creeps is invariably disappointing.

“I’m not lost,” I say, “I’m meeting my friends at this bench.  They’ll be here any minute.”

He gives me a sickening grin.  “Will they now?  That’s too bad.  They’ll be disappointed when they can’t find you here.  You’ll be coming with me instead.”

He tugs on my arm again and starts pulling me away from the bench, sticking close to the wall.

My mind kicks into overdrive.  Okay.  I know I won’t be able to get away from him right now.  He’s expecting me to put up a fight, so he’ll be prepared for it.  If I try to struggle now, all that will do is give him information on the amount of force necessary to restrain me.  Not struggling might raise some red flags, though, so I put only a fraction of my strength into getting away, making sure not to tip my hand.  If he underestimates me, it will be easier to find a window of escape.  And I know enough about the superiority complexes of Sungian creeps to know that he will definitely underestimate me.

He’s big, and he’s drunk, which means he’ll likely be slower than me and definitely more clumsy.  The arm he has a hold on now is on the same side of my body that my knife is on, so it will be hard to draw it right now.  If I try, he would probably notice and put me in a more troubling hold.  Best to let him lead me wherever he’s going.  I know better than to shout for help, too.  In a crowd this size, it would just be drowned out immediately and have no other effect than to agitate this man more.  There’s a chance someone would hear and come to my rescue, but that chance is very small.

There’s one thing that really worries me, and that is the fact that he has claws, and I don’t.  This puts me at a significant disadvantage.  The likelihood of me getting out of this situation unharmed is slim to none.  If I’m careful about how I take him on, I can hopefully manage to mitigate some of the damage.  I’m praying I get out of this with only a few scratches.

He leads me along the side of the room, behind vendors and stacks of crates, sticking to the shadows.  I’m sad to notice that the direction he’s taking me in is opposite to the way back to Khysmet’s private box.  That’s sub-optimal.

I’m extra sad when he pulls me into what I’m sure is our destination – an opening along the wall leading into a hallway, modestly sized, but not too narrow to move around – and there are two other men waiting for us.

That complicates things.

At least I can tell from the way they're swaying on their feet that they’re both drunk, too, more so even than my captor.  I’m not super jazzed that it’s three on one now, but being completely sober tips the scale somewhat in my favor.

“Look what I found,” creep number one says, dragging my arm so that I’m in front of him and changing holds so that he’s got his arm around my throat.

The moron is leaving my right arm, my knife arm, totally free.  I whimper pitifully and use it to feebly grab at his arm as though trying to prise it away from my neck, pretending that an effort in futility is the only thing I’m going to attempt with it.  He doesn’t bother to restrain me further.

“A human?” asks creep number two.  “Where did you find one of those?”

Creep One chuckles.  “She was just wandering around lost.  I don’t know how she found her way here.”

“Kinda cute,” says creep number three, “in that funny-looking way that humans have.  Pretty dress.”  He reaches down and tugs at my skirt.  I hear fabric tear, caught on his claw.

I whimper and kick out a little, hoping to deter him from pulling my dress up too far and revealing my knife.

Creep Three pulls back and laughs.  “Feisty little creature.  Don’t be scared, little one, we’re not going to hurt you.  Much.”

Internally, I’m grinning.  You think this is feisty?  You haven’t seen anything yet, pal.

They start talking amongst themselves, discussing what to do with me.  One of them rifles through the bag fastened around my waist, but there's nothing of any real value in it.  I'm deemed "too strange-looking" to fuck.  They seem to agree that I'm someone of consequence based on the way I'm dressed, but they don't really know what to do with that.

Eventually, during their conversation, when I feel that they've all gotten complacent enough, I feel Creep One's hold loosen on me slightly and take the opportunity to strike.

Quickly, praying Sungian physiology shares some of the same weak spots with humans, I jab my right arm back directly into where Creep One's solar plexus should be.  Based on the choked groan and the way that he doubles over, I'd say I lucked out – serpent folk are vulnerable there, too.

Then I stomp down hard onto his instep.  Sungian feet are shaped a bit different, so I don't know if it will collapse his arch in the same way it would for a human, but he's at least wearing sandals, so it should hurt anyway.  When my foot comes down hard, he certainly howls like it does.

I'm not sure if Sungians have external genitals, so the usual groin punch might not be effective here.  Instead, when I bring my leg up to step on his foot, I hike my skirt up, modesty be damned, take my knife out with my right hand, plant my foot, and with a big wind-up swing of my arm, stab him right where I think his dick should be and twist.

He folds like a cheap suit and crumples to the floor, screaming like a banshee.  I step to the side to make sure he doesn’t knock me off balance on his way down.

Creep Three recovers from shock first and lunges for me, telegraphing his moves with a degree of transparency that only alcohol can engender.  I sidestep easily and sweep his legs.  He trips and falls face-first into the corridor wall.  I’d love to make sure he doesn’t get up, but Creep Two comes at me right after him, claws outstretched.

I can’t react fast enough to sidestep his swipe.  Instead I let him sink his claws into my shoulder, and when he pulls towards himself to complete his slashing motion, I go with it and use the momentum to plunge my knife straight into his lower abdomen.  With all my might, I slice into his belly – straight across, turn, then upwards.  His scales part like butter around the blade.  Sungian skin might be thinner than I anticipated, I think – at least on their stomachs anyway.

His guts start spilling out of the incision.  He falls forward onto me and I turn such that he slides off my back onto the floor.  I feel bad for Creep Two.  It’ll be a slow, painful death.

I turn back around to face the remaining Creep, adjusting my knife in my hand so I have a better grip and crouching into a more stable ready stance.  He’s just now recovering from falling into the wall.  Blood drips down his snout from his nose and mouth.  I hope his encounter with the wall knocked some teeth loose.

He looks at me with white hot rage in his eyes, face a mask of hate.

“You little BITCH!” he snarls, then gets ready to come at me again.

I lick my lips in anticipation.  He’s drunk, in pain, and angry – the perfect cocktail for making incredibly obvious and stupid moves.  He’s practically begging me to take him down, and I’m happy to give into his demands.

That’s when the cavalry arrives.

Shadows appear against the light coming from the corridor entrance.  It’s a couple of castle guards, one of them being Omagh, who rushes forward and plunges his sword straight through Creep Three, then pulls it back out and knocks the quickly dying man off his feet.

And just like that, it’s over.  I stand down, chest heaving and body shaking as I begin to come down from my adrenaline spike.  I look down at my handiwork, one man curled into a ball mewling pitifully and clutching his groin, and another in the process of dying, trying to push his intestines back into his body.  Some strange, bloodthirsty part of me is disappointed that the third kill was stolen from me.  I think that’s the adrenaline talking.

Omagh starts walking toward me, asking if I’m okay, but before he can reach me, Khysmet pushes him aside brusquely and strides past him.  He steps over bodies like they're not even there and comes right up in front of me, his motions rigid and jerky.

I look up to meet his eyes.  His face is white as a sheet, and it looks like he’s in great pain, but other than that, I can't tell what he's thinking from his expression.  When he thought Vespyn might have hurt me, he was clearly concerned, but he's not speaking now.  Is he mad?

He gently stretches his hands out and places them on my face, turning my head like he did before to check for injuries.  Gradually, he repeats this motion over my whole body, investigating in particular everywhere he sees blood.  There's a lot of blood.  On the front of me, at least, most of it isn't my own, but I let him do his thing, figuring he needs it more than I do.  I'm a little embarrassed when he gets down on his knees and examines my legs, partially lifting my skirt and running his hands up my legs in front of the guards that are still here waiting for instruction.  I still don't say anything though.

When he stands up again and touches my shoulder to get me to turn around, he grazes the claw marks there, and I wince and hiss air through my teeth.  His already colorless face pales further still somehow and his body goes rigid as a board.  I turn to give him a better look.  It doesn’t feel like a grievous wound or anything, but I’d still like for him to check it out and reassure me.

That’s not what happens.  He stares at the wounds on my back and says nothing, just breathes raggedly and touches me on my other shoulder, maybe to check for somewhere else he sees blood.  I can feel his hand shake against my skin.  Maybe it looks really bad, and he's worried that I'm seriously hurt.  I need to reassure him that I'm okay.

“Hey, it’s not as bad as it looks.  I promise,” I say.  I smile back over my wounded shoulder, wincing a little.  “You should see the other guys.”

He meets my eyes, but still doesn’t say anything, just looks from my face down to my shoulder and back a couple times, eyes filled with a desperate sadness and fear that breaks my heart.  Eventually he opens his mouth, but when he does, it’s not to talk to me.

“Please take Miss Catarina back to the castle as soon as possible,” he says in a monotone voice.  “Take her straight to a healer.”

“Yes sir,” one of the guards says, and he comes forward to take me by the arm and lead me out of the corridor.

I turn my head to watch him on my way out, but he doesn’t look at me again.  Instead, I see him take the sword out of Omagh’s hand and walk up to the man whose genitals I mutilated.  Right before I round the corner, I see him raise it high, then I hear rather than see the schlick, schlick, schlick of metal cleaving flesh, over, and over, and over again as I am led out of the corridor and back to the castle.