Chapter 52: Please Stop Following the White Rabbit

-Rosie-

I ran, stumbling more than I ran, really. Away from the alley, away from Liana. Every part of me wanted to go back, to save her, do something, anything. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t strong enough, I knew that. And so did Liana.

Her words echoed through my mind again as I stumbled around another corner, following the lights.

“ROSIE, GET MOM AND MOM!”

“But… I can’t just leave you!”

“ROSIE RUN! GO! RUN!”

There were still steps behind me, still people running after me. Just after the three thugs had cut us off, more people emerged from the surrounding rooftops, circling us in.

It looked completely hopeless for a moment, hadn’t a sudden magical explosion shattered the three thugs in the alleyway apart.

That was when Liana told me to run. To get help.

I still had not idea where I even was, and even less of an idea where our moms could possibly be, but all that mattered then was getting away. Some of the rooftop people immediately set after me, while the others dropped down to Liana.

When I exited the alley, the street lanterns all suddenly went out everywhere except for one street and something told me that I needed to follow the lights. Not some part of my mind, but an actual voice. It was ethereal, far away, but still so close. But whatever it was – whoever it was – they were helping me, I thought.

Or they were leading me into a trap.

But it was the only option I had. It really didn’t make any difference whether I got captured by my pursuers or by whoever it was that was guiding me.

At least with the latter one I still had a chance they would actually lead me to safety.

I stumbled around another corner, my ankles beginning to hurt from all the sharp turns and constant running, and the lights before me led further away from the city centre. Into the outer edges of Khibili.

One of the pursuers got closer and closer, their steps sounding louder and louder and after another turn into a thin and long alleyway, they grasped my cloak, pulling me back with it.

Both of us went tumbling, but I quickly got back up again with one fluid motion – say what you will about getting unconsensually bunnified, it did make me a lot more agile and flexible, even now that I was turned human again. Doubly so, since I was already pretty agile and flexible as a human kid and now it was actually kind of a supernatural level of agility.

The one who caught me took only a moment longer to get back up and for the first time I could get a look at the people who were after me.

It was a thin, lanky figure, clad in black leather. They wore a dark blue hood attached to a cloak and their face was hid behind another piece of cloth, the only thing piercing through being the two dark smoky eyes with pitch black eyeshadow.

By the time both of us got our bearings again, the other pursuers managed to catch up. So there were four of them total. This was looking worse by the minute. I had to get moving again!

But before I turned, a thought came up. Having a sudden epiphany, I started running again, but not nearly as fast as before – I couldn’t afford stumbling right now. As I ran, I fumbled around in my bag, pulling out bottle after bottle, searching for the right one.

Red? Nope not this one. Pink? Cute, but not useful right now. Black? Probably overkill. Violet! Yes, finally!

I quickly plopped open the dexterity potion and began chugging down the bitter liquid as I ran. My pursuers were catching up quickly, since I couldn’t give it my all just yet, but I only needed a moment and I would be off!

As the last drop of the potion was gone, I felt the first bits of magic surge within me. I quickly threw away the potion – yes, I know, littering is bad, but this is life or death right here so shut the fuck up, nobody asked your opinion!

The alley opened up before me and the lights were urging me to turn right. Another surge of magic went through me, just as I hit the end of the alley. I felt more and more momentum push me along with every move I made. I felt so strong, so quick, like I could do anything!

I shot out of the alley and dashed down the larger street to the right, following the red lights that flared up before me as I went.

It quickly dawned on me in just what part of the city I was getting myself into as I noticed all the drapery, signs and even people around here. Red and violet colours, provocative advertisements, very scantly clad people, who were looking after me in confusion. I was lucky Liana wasn’t with me, or she’d want to desperately try out every single shop.

Honestly, I couldn’t possibly imagine how much trouble she’d be once she actually grew up a little! She feels like she’d be such a womaniser! I mean she already gets my heart racing all the time and I am pretty sure that she’s doing it completely unconsciously! Now imagine her consciously flirting with people?

She’d be unstoppable!

Just as I grinned to myself about that very rosy thought about my bestest of friends, I crashed head-first into a lantern post and landed sprawled out on the floor.

Whoops. Didn’t hurt nearly as much as I thought it would, though!

Only downside was that my pursuers immediately caught up to me.

They said something in Riza – which I couldn’t understand, fuck language barriers I swear – and quickly encircled me.

“Uh… hey, how about we make a deal, yeah? You guys let me go on my way and in return I’ll tell my moms how nice you were? How about that? Like it?”

They all gave me a look like I was somehow the strange one in this situation and then one of them pulled out a knife.

“Okay, is that a no? Probably can’t even understand me, who am I even kidding at this point…”

In a flash of movement, I surged forward – to one of the guys who hadn’t yet brought a knife to a… fistfight – and tried to somehow weasel past them, but they swiftly repositioned themselves and tried to grab me.

I ducked down, underneath their grabby hands, slid over a little and made it behind them, but the other three circled around the two of us throughout the whole ordeal and I was now once again trapped in between four people.

Suddenly, the one with the knife shot forward and stabbed at me, missing me just barely as I dodged to the side. Not knowing what else to do, I used the opening they left and dealt a quick punch to their outstretched arm. A move that was apparently much more devastating than I thought, when I heard a sudden crack and the knife dropped from his hands.

Actually, was it just me or was that punch a lot quicker than I anticipated?

The other three seemed pretty shocked by this sudden escalation of violence as well, but were quick to decide that I had apparently overstayed my welcome in existence and also pulled out knifes.

At this point, I realised things were going to get really bad really fucking fast if I let things continue this way. Winning this fight would be neigh impossible, escape was… difficult at best and from the very passive onlookers on the street, it didn’t seem like any of them would help out anytime soon.

Really, I was just simply fucked here. But maybe maybe I could somehow fight them off for just a moment, to then slip through and then make like a tree and leave.

Having a plan – okay, a skeleton of a plan – in place, I took a defensive position, which really just meant copying Lorelei’s stance whenever there was a fight, just without all the weapons, and awaited my first opponent.

The three of them rushed forward at the same time – which I felt like was a little unfair, but also kind of expected – and began attacking me from three sides.

I quickly dodged the first knife, somehow managed to slip underneath the second one and was then promptly stabbed in the waist by the third one.

Just as by brain started to process the concept of pain, another surge of magic washed over me and suddenly I didn’t feel all that bad at all. I felt… better, actually. Somehow.

Maybe getting stabbed as a bunny is good actually? Nope, Rosie, that was a stupid thought, getting stabbed was definitely bad as a bunny, very very bad. I also didn’t really have the time to get philosophical with myself, right now. Not if I wanted to capitalise on whateverthefuck my body was going through right now.

Swiftly, I shot both my hands out and pushed the guy who stabbed me away from me, feeling the knife slip out of my body as he stumbled backwards, and then rushed around, trying to slip away.

Sadly, the other two were right on my tail and cut off any possible way out, so I dashed towards the more wussy looking one, who immediately tried to stab me as I got close. Unluckily for them, I was a lot more agile right now and simply grabbed his arm and shoved it away from me before the knife could even get close to touching me. Then I whirled around and threw them up and over me, dropping them to the ground in one fluid motion.

One of the onlookers said something about me knowing my judo well and then promptly vanished with a “Ta-Ta.”

With the one attacker on the ground, my way to the open street was clear for a single moment and I began running again, following the red lights further down the road.

As I ran, my vision started swimming more and more and it felt like I could actually hear my heartbeat, which wasn’t completely unusual – I did have pretty great hearing – but it was weird because my brain usually tuned that sort of constant noise out.

But right now, it felt like a massive alarm bell, slowly clanging away to warn from some kind of impending doom- Oh whatever, it can wait until I get to my moms.

I continued running, as fast as I could, completely zoning out the ever slowing gong of my heartbeat. When the edges of my vision started to darken and everything just sort of became this narrow tunnel of focus right at the centre of my vision and I started to feel sort of wet around my stomach, I still continued running. Okay, saying I zoned out all the warning signs was complete bullshit. I mean, who am I kidding, here? Myself?

Something’s going badly right now, but if I actually stopped to, what, investigate? I’d definitely never make it.

I couldn’t possibly be far now, anyways.

Turns out, I was right. The lights only turned one more corner and then stopped at one of the slightly less “no-children-allowed” kind of place in this part of town. One last lantern continued glowing right above the entranceway. Luckily, my full-on sprint seemed to have created some distance between me and my pursuers, so allowed myself to pause for a small moment.

The door suddenly flung open and an angelic woman looked outside, curious about all the noise on the street and her eyes went wide upon seeing me, then, Lorelei and Marion rushed outside from behind her and Marion took me in her arms.

My legs immediately gave out and I could hear how they were saying something, but it was sort of muffled by some high pitched sound. They looked so… worried, constantly staring down at my belly and… I think Marion was assuring me, or something? My belly… Wait...

I made the very grizzly mistake of looking down and-

Yeah, I guess that made kind of sense. Probably explained the whole tunnel vision and feeling faint and oh damn that’s a very slow heartbeat. I should probably scream in terror at the sight of the very bad looking stab wound in my waist. My clothes were completely soaked through with blood, which was dropping down on the ground and had left a pretty thick trail behind me.

That was really bad, right?

*****

-Marion-

“Hey, hey, Rosie! It’s going to be fine, okay? It’ll be fine! Lolo knows some healing magic, she’ll patch you right up, just keep looking at me okay? No don’t look down, look at me. Yea, that’s right.”

Lorelei quickly grabbed some things from her bag as I gently laid Rosie down on the ground in a secure position. I wasn’t an expert, but I did know some basics, some stuff that Sephie told me about.

I kept on drawing Rosie’s attention, brushing through her long silky hair, holding her hand tight, doing anything I could to keep her with us. She had such a panicked look on her face, which was understandable, considering the amount of blood she’d lost, let alone Liana not being here with her.

Shit. Liana! Okay, can’t think about that right now, I have to be here in this moment, not think of eventualities.

Meanwhile, Lorelei had gotten out whatever supplies she needed and began casting a spell, her hands laying right over the wound and pressing some herbs into it. After her chant was finished, Rosie was suddenly filled with abjuration and transmutation magic, closing up the cut and reforming whatever internal organs were damaged.

Slowly, Rosie’s breathing steadied, her heartbeat picked up again and her eyes looked a lot clearer.

“I-”

“Shh, Rosie. Take a moment. It’s okay now.”

We were drawing quite the crowd by now, I’d noticed and Lorelei got up next to me and walked somewhere behind me.

“M-mom. T-They… They’ve got Liana,” Rosie forced out, her voice barely above a whisper.

“W-What? Who?”

“Marion we’ve got company,” Lorelei’s stern voice sounded from behind me.

“T-They took her. Near t-the… near the... n-night market,” Rosie managed to whisper, before her eyes closed shut.

I heard some voices in Riza from behind me, then Lorelei replying in the same language.

“Okay. You’re okay Rosie, and Lolo and I are going to find Liana and bring her back, okay?”

I heard the signature sound of people drawing blades, then a sudden blast of magic as the entire area filled with an aura of evocation. A short clash of blades echoed through the screams of fleeing townsfolk until the clanging suddenly stopped.

“Two of them got away,” Lorelei stated from behind me, dragging a person clad in black after her and dropping them to the ground next to us. “One’s dead, I left this one breathing.”

She glanced over to me with a stern look that didn’t quite make it all the way to her eyes. She was trying so hard to be strong right now, but I saw how close she really was to breaking in this moment.

“How is Rosie holding up?” she asked softly.

“She’ll live. She’s passed out. Exhausted, but okay.” More than okay, actually. If you ignored the blood on her she looked even healthier than before… Was she always so toned…? Nope, concentrate. “She said these people took Liana, near the night market.”

Immediately, Lorelei was put on full alert.

She whirled around to the person on the floor and grabbed their throat. She shouted something that sounded threatening and kind of questioning, nearly choking the poor soul – no wait these people nearly killed my daught- I mean Rosie.

Finally, after the figure managed to gurgle out some words in between chokes, Lorelei knocked them out cold and turned to me.

“They’ve got a hideout in the sewers below the night market. Liana will be there.”

“What about Rosie?” I asked, cautiously. There was no way we could bring her with us, but leaving her alone after all of this wouldn’t be okay. We needed to be there for her, but we also needed to be there for Liana.

“Take her back to the inn and stay with her,” Lorelei commanded.

“But-”

“No buts! I’ll take Kamir with me, don’t worry. Now go!”

And with that, Lorelei disappeared to a nearby rooftop and vanished into the night.