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Author Topic: Magic of Love [A Lisabete Story][One-Shot][Solo]  (Read 325 times)

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Paladienne

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Magic of Love [A Lisabete Story][One-Shot][Solo]
« on: April 03, 2018, 12:22:51 pm »
There's nothing you can see. Darkness becomes me.

She whispered the words over and over to herself, a steady mantra that allowed her to keep her body still, blending with the shadows as best as she could. Her world was shaded darkly as well, her goggles pulled down over her eyes so that the blue of her eyes wouldn't be easily noticed. Her entire body thrummed with energy, wanting to move, to do something, but she held it back, which was a challenge for her. Sticks and stones, she hated sitting still. Hated not being able to even make the slightest twitch, even when some part of her body itched to move. Had she not been working, she probably would've been swaying slightly back and forth, or moving her hips, or tapping her feet, or something to ease the urge. But since she was working, and this job required stillness, that was what she made herself do, whether she liked or not.

Lisabete continued her mantra, allowing only her eyes to roam around, waiting for the last of the lights to turn off and for the last of the employees to leave. She didn't want to end up confronting someone - or having someone confront her - because nothing soured a business arrangement more than a screw up. The last time she'd managed to royally suck at a job, she'd been much younger and much more inexperienced than she was now. She'd escaped through sheer luck and perhaps a little natural skill, but that experience had burned itself into her mind and her bones and, as scatter-brained as she could be sometimes, she refused to screw up ever again while on a job.

There.

The last of the lights flickered out, and Lisabete watched the final person leave the floor she wanted.

She counted to ten, sang a single stanza of the song she'd been learning because why not, and then pushed her goggles up into her tightly braided black-hole colored hair. After a deep breath to quell the excitement bubbling inside her, Lis slunk out of her hiding hole and headed for the building she'd been scoping out for the past few days. She kept to the shadows, blending in as well as only a Horizon could, and silently lamenting to herself her inability to ghost-teleport like her partner in crime could. That single ability would make all her jobs easier, albeit less fun. Sneaking around like a skulking feline was always the fun part of jobs like these, and anyway, she had no idea where her partner was now. They were both (relatively) adults; they could take care of themselves and didn't need a babysitter.

Of course, that depended upon who was asked, because the two of them together were like fire and accelerant. They got into trouble together, got out of trouble together, and all around annoyed everyone together. But Lis loved it and wouldn't give it up for anything.

She hadn't even known him for all that long, either. A handful of years, as elves tell time. She had been raised to believe she was an only child, the offspring of an out of Resonance pair that did in fact love each other and their little girl, but were doomed from the very outset of their relationship. That had been the hardest, cruelest thing Lis had ever seen in her tender young life, watching her bibi and her opo slowly fade out of her life. Her entire existence had depended upon them, but there had been plenty of days when their existences had depended on her. The little girl she'd been had had to grow up quickly, and quicker still, once her parents had gone to sleep and hadn't woken up again. She'd fought to live from that moment on, often taken toward flights of fancy because she wanted to experience all she could before her end, whenever that would be. And it would come, one day. She knew that. She wasn't foolish enough to believe she could be the exception, that she could somehow buck a system that had been in place for eons, a system so ingrained into the being of her race, of her very person. But until that day, Lis wanted to live as she wanted, free from whatever rules might govern her, and free from the fear that quietly ate away at her every time she settled her eyes on someone she'd never seen before.

She'd turned to thievery first, her quick fingers and strength giving her the alacrity she needed to be a pickpocket. It was easy and exciting, and no one could catch her, and even of they did, she could wriggle out of anything they could do to her. Escape handcuffs? No problem. Zipties? A little more difficult but not impossible. Prison? That was a little time consuming but could be fun if she did it right. And she kept moving, never staying in one place for long, because something would always catch her attention and then she'd be off as the hummingbird flies, following whatever scheme seemed to be the most fun to her. Oh, she'd held a few 'normal' jobs here and there, mostly while her parents were still with her and her bibi's Stare of Disappointment was the only thing she feared, but as soon as they were gone, she'd had nothing to hold her.

So she had plenty of skills and was nominally good at few of them, but it wasn't like she was inept at any of them, either. Whatever she put her mind to she tended to accomplish with varying degrees of success. But when she took a job, or she was doing something for someone else, nothing would stop Lis from getting it done and getting it done right.

She paused in her reflections to size up her choice of entry into the building. As she'd been scoping this place out for a couple of days, Lis had noticed that the nighttime janitor always left a window open, whether to let out the fumes of his cleaning products or to let in fresh air. Either way, she didn't care, and so long as it was open, she was confident she could get inside. All it took was a little bit of speed and coordination to land just right against the building's wall and free run up the wall until she could hook her fingers around the windowsill and haul herself up the rest of the way. With her strength it was easy enough to do, and she tumbled over the sill in a somersault before landing in a crouch inside the building.

There's nothing you can see. Darkness becomes me.

She repeated that mantra again, crouched in the shadows the window cast. She didn't really know if there was internal security, like cameras or a guard or something of the sort, so Lis remained still and listened and waited until her body verily vibrated from being restrained as it was. When she was satisfied that there was nothing waiting to jump out at her, Lisabete finally moved, slinking along the shadows until she was out of sight of the window where she'd entered.

That she was on the wrong floor didn't bother her. She would find her way to her destination soon enough. All she had to do was avoid being caught during the time it took her to find what she was after and get out.

So as she moved, so too did her thoughts move back to the past.

She couldn't remember really how long it had been that she'd been on her own, flitting from place to place and job to job, struggling to survive in a world that went on without a care. A long time. Long enough to know that if her bibi heard the things that came out of her mouth, she'd be too sore to sit and there would be a bar of soap in her mouth. The Stare of Disappointment would become the Stare of Severe Disappointment, and there'd probably be a lecture or two from her opo. And, no, they wouldn't care that she was an adult. To them, Lis would always be their baby girl. At least, that was what her opo had always told her when he'd tucked her in at night. Even when it became apparent that she was taller than he and he could no longer call her 'little' and believe it, she was always his little girl.

His only little girl.

Bibi had never really talked about her life before she'd met Opo, but Lis had always seen some sadness, some hidden regret, enter Bibi's eyes from time to time, especially when she looked at Lis playing with the other children. But Opo had told Lis that Bibi had had another life before she and Opo had met and had fallen in love. So Lis had always wondered about Bibi's life Before but had never gained the courage to ask. And by the time she had, it had become too late. So she'd set off, the only one left, and never gave her Bibi's past another thought because Lisabete became focused on her own future.

But Bibi's past found her.

It was a chance meeting, that one in a million, billion, trillion, quadrillion. She hadn't seen him, hadn't even really known he was there, watching her with wide, shocked eyes. As if he himself couldn't believe what he was seeing and it had to be his imagination. How long they'd played their strange game of hide and seek was anyone's guess, circling around each other like two binary stars, until finally he'd just shown up in front of her and grabbed onto her shoulders like she was the most precious gemstone that could ever be stolen. Lis hadn't even really known how to react to that, save to try and knee him where it would do the most damage - she didn't know which was worse, the fact she'd missed at that close range or the fact he hadn't quite seemed perturbed by her attempt - and she hadn't even really a clue how to act when he told her who he was.

Meztli. Mezzo. Her big brother. Half-brother, technically, but still her big brother. Family neither had known existed until fate brought their paths together.

Somewhere, deep in her hearts, Lis knew Mezzo was telling the truth. Because she could see her Bibi in his features. Because she wanted to believe him. He had no reason to lie to her, and even if he was, she'd believe him anyway because she'd always wanted a sibling, and here one was! And, she admitted to herself, being alone actually scared her. She could take care of herself, yes, and she wouldn't give up her freedom for anything, yes, but she wanted contact. Wanted to know there was someone - someone who wasn't The One, because that terrified her more than being alone - waiting for her at the end of a long haul and someone was there to watch her back and someone who knew she was there to watch theirs. Mezzo gave her that. He gave her a family and she gave him one, too. The family he'd never known.

So there had been a lot of catching up to do, in between jobs of transporting highly illegal things, stealing things, intimidating things, and otherwise causing mischief and mayhem and pranking new coworkers and the new boss. And when they'd met their contact, suddenly they'd acquired a bigger family and a nephew. And Lis had seen in action the new Stare of Disappointment and never wanted it turned on her. Because that look still made her feel small and naughty. She was definitely still naughty, of course, so she couldn't complain when she deserved that look, but Lis did everything to ensure her darling nephew would never, ever know about her unsavory escapades.

Like this one.

Sure, she was here for a legitimate reason, but something else had caught her eye and she knew it would make a perfect present, so long as she never told her nephew where it came from or how she'd acquired it. Lisabete's skill lay in sleight of hand, which would, hopefully, mesmerize the boy into forgetting his questions of how, where, when, and would leave him in awe with a huge smile on his cherubic face. Lis loved seeing him happy. Children deserved to be happy. There would be time enough for sadness when they were adults.

Lis paused by a staircase that led upward, her eyes drifting left and right while sought her next course of action. She pulled her thoughts from the past and focused on the here and now. She needed to hurry up and get what she came for before her brother came looking for her. Because he would. And, for once, she didn't want to cause a scene.

She padded up the stairs, lithe and silent. She paused at the corner and looked both ways down the hall, up toward the ceiling to see if there were any cameras. She didn't need to advertise, after all. Once satisfied her way was clear, Lis skulked along the leftmost wall heading toward the laboratories, seeking her mark first. Once she had that in hand, then she could go get the other thing and get out. It was a thrill, though, to pit herself against fate and tempt it to do its worst, so Lisabete didn't mind taking a little extra time to do what needed to be done.

It was a quick jaunt to the lab where the prototypes were being held. The lights were off, allowing her to blend into the shadows and creep along until she found the correct console. Then it was just a matter of pressing the correct buttons in the correct sequences and keeping an ear out for unwelcome sounds while she did her thieving thing. She didn't know why someone would pay top dollar for schematics on toys, but it wasn't her place to question, and so long as she got her cut what did it really matter? Besides, 'toy' was likely a misnomer for whatever she was looking at, considering it resembled some kind of weapon, and probably was a weapon of some sort. Weapons were popular in the black market business, and honestly, Lusabete couldn't think of a better way to keep weapon manufacturing on the down low than by producing them in what was, reputably, a toy store.

She hummed quietly to herself as she pressed the thumb drive into the correct slot and waited for everything to download. Lis glanced up from the screen to check her surroundings, giving the door through which she'd entered a cursory look. When there was a content little chime from the console, Lis freed the thumb drive and stuffed it in a small case that she then shoved into her jacket pocket and zipped up tight. Two minutes was all it took to erase her presence and skedaddle out of the lab, whereupon she trotted toward her other destination. This was downstairs, first floor, where the actual toy store was. She'd wandered around this part a couple of times, just to get a feel for the place and have a backup exit just in case things went south. It was there she'd spotted it and knew she had to get it, one way or another.

Granted, she had enough credit to her name to buy the adorable thing, but buying wasn't what professional thieves did. Buying it probably would've been better, Lis admitted to herself, if only so she could prove she didn't steal all the time. But what fun was that? And as long as her nephew never found out the truth, what harm was it, really?

She hit the last stair and paused, listening. Hearing nothing, she proceeded, and emerged into the store proper. It took her a minute to find what she was looking for, but find it she did. Lis picked up the toy and held it in both hands, arms' length from her, turning it over as she inspected it.

It was a small green carnivorous-looking lizard with sharp teeth displayed in a perpetual grin, two tiny arms protruding from its chest, two much larger hind legs, all of them complete with claws. A stubby tail stuck out stiffly from the lizard's rear. And along the lizard's sides, wriggly tentacles in the same shade of green grew. It even had two strange wriggly tentacles coming out of its head like an ant's feelers. It was odious, and she really hoped her nephew would like it. She tucked it safely into her jacket, making sure it was snuggled against her chest and couldn't fall out or come loose. Then Lis hurried back the way she came, stepping lightly and almost gaily, pleased at her success. Up the stairs, down the hall, down the stairs, and back to her point of entry. She pulled herself up onto the window's ledge and balanced there as she looked for a safe place to land. She jumped, let her knees buckle when she hit the ground and rolled to absorb the impact. Lis popped back up to her feet and skittered away, keeping to the shadows, hurrying back to the meeting place she and Mezzo had decided on.

She couldn't wait to show him what she'd acquired.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2018, 12:38:18 pm by Paladienne »

 

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