The prompt used: a tongue sharper than a dagger’s blade.
“Y’know, we’re all ragged. We smell worse than elks and everyone except Evilliam and Lasiaku have darker hair than normally, while only Lasiaku won’t look significantly whiter once we do actually get to wash all this dirt off ourselves,” a female voice said. “And after considerin’ all of this and that I’ve been travelin’ with you folks for two years, I’ll say that this gal we met is lookin’ even worse than us. At least we have the sense to wear shoes in the forest, whatever good these worn-out hole-y pieces of leather do at this point.”
“Very well, you have a point, Natalina,” sighed a familiar male voice. Edicia did not dare to open her eyes, so she just listened to the conversation.
“Is she ill?” asked another male voice.
“Not that I could tell. Exhausted, sure, but not feverish or anythin’,” the female voice answered. “Judgin’ from her clothes, she’s some runaway from a better-off area.”
“Fugitive?” the same unfamiliar male voice asked.
“The hell I would know?” the female voice blurted. “She’s been sleepin’ most of the time she’s been here. We don’t even know her name.”
“If she was a fugitive, enforcers would already be here,” a third male voice chimed in. “A girl like that with gear like that can’t lose the hounds even if she could somehow outrun them, which I doubt.”
“Yeah, and her soles definitely didn’t look like they’d been walkin’ forests long enough to be able to run barefoot,” the female voice noted. “A sheltered runaway from somewhere nearby, I say.”
There was a brief silence before the familiar male voice spoke up again. “We’ll ask her some questions when she is awake. Then we’ll know where we’ll stand with her.”
Edicia tensed at this. In response, yet another new voice spoke up, this time from next to her. “I think she already is.”
Edicia opened her eyes and was met with a rather confusing face. It looked rather feminine, but she could not help noticing the unmistakable stubble on the chin. A hand came on her shoulder to keep her from escaping.
“Let me go,” Edicia said and tried to struggle against it, but the person next to her kept their hold.
“Calm down. We won’t hurt you,” the person said. Their voice was a strange mixture of masculine and feminine.
“Let me go!” Edicia cried out and fought harder. Footsteps came towards her, and just as she managed to break free and sit up, someone got to her back and wrapped their arms around her, pressing her back against someone.
Despite struggling, she could not break free from the rather thin yet strong arms, so she took a look around herself. Three men and one that she could not tell which gender they were.
“Relax, kid. We won’t hurt you,” the female voice said behind her ear. “We don’t want any trouble, so could you please stop fightin’ and answer a few questions?”
Edicia looked at the people around her, helpless. She was definitely getting killed now, regardless of whether she answered the questions or not.
The biggest man, the one she had woken up to before, sat down and gestured the others still standing to do the same. Then he locked his eyes with Edicia’s and asked, “So, who are you?”
WindySilver 