Locked in a Cage (with GaiusGermanicusBloodsoak)

Yanaike

Yanaike

Edgenoble
Original poster
FOLKLORE MEMBER
Invitation Status
Posting Speed
  1. 1-3 posts per day
  2. One post per day
  3. 1-3 posts per week
Writing Levels
  1. Elementary
  2. Intermediate
  3. Adept
Preferred Character Gender
  1. Male
  2. Female
  3. Primarily Prefer Female
Genres
Urban Fantasy, Low-Fantasy, Modern, Adventure, Quests, Modern-Fantasy, Post-apocalyptic, Romance, Drama
The streets and alleyways in Midinga were narrow and the layout of the streets was like a maze for anyone not familiar with them. It was the perfect setting for someone like Yanaike. When she needed something to eat she just snatched it away from one of the thousand market stalls placed all over Midinga, usually the stall owner would angrily try to follow her only to find out that it was impossible to keep up to her pace in the huge maze.
But one day things changed. It was a day like all other. Yanaike just had gathered her breakfast at the market and she had fled into the 'maze' with the stall owner angrily chasing her. She ran as fast as she could, quickly making left and right-turns along the way. She jumped on little balconies and over fences which made it completely impossible to track her route. Just as she thought she'd lost the stall owner and when she was about to start her breakfast. She heard a voice.
"Hey! Get here!" A man came running to her. It wasn't the stall owner from today, nor did she remember him to be a stall owner she previously stole something from. However she didn't plan finding out what he wanted to do with her. So she started running, and finally she outsmarted him as well, just like she did with the stall owner.
However he returned the next day, this time bringing a couple of friends. It became clear to Yanaike that they didn't want to take revenge on her for stealing goods from the market. No, they had something different in mind for her. Again she outsmarted the guys, however it was a bit more difficult to outsmart a couple of man, than just one.
He kept returning, wherever Yanaike was hidden, he would find him. And each and every day he brought more friends. The last day Yanaike spend in the streets of Midinga, she'd found herself completely outnumbered. As usual, she tried running away, escaping from the men. However, whatever she did. Whether she turned left or right, whether she did something completely random, everywhere she went, another man popped up trying to catch her. In the end she was surrounded by those men. They came closer and closer and there was no way to go. One of them started punching her, knocking her out.
When she woke up again, she found herself in some kind of storage room, locked in a cage. The room and everything around her was gently swinging back and forth, of which Yanaike concluded they'd left the ground and she was aboard a vehicle in the air. She didn't intend to stay long however. A simple cage was nothing for her. She tried using magic, but it seemed the cage was enchanted such that her spells didn't work. Her backpack and weapons were on the other side of the room and Yanaike was unable to get to them.
Yanaike sighed, curled up like a hedgehog and started crying quietly. Suddenly, her ears twitched as she heard someone approaching. She quickly swept away her tears as she didn't want the stranger to notice how she had cried, and waited who would come in.
 
A confident smirk on his face, Reginald strode into the room that housed the girl that they had captured. They had called her "little light-foot" on account of her being impossibly light and fast. They were a few thousand feet in the air aboard the airship "aurora australis", or "Southern Dawn". "Alright, you." he began to call out to the girl, "Stand up, we need to get some measurements." The members of the ship had every intention of selling the girl to the highest bidder, on account of how she had quite a few unusual traits and features, one of them being a tail. In all honesty, she really was a pitiable thing, snatched up for purely mercenary reasons. Then again, Reginald was not usually one to let pity get in the way of making money.
From out of the satchel that hung at his side, he pulled out the keys to her cage and a tape measure so that they could more appropriately measure her market value. "All you have to do is cooperate and you won't get hurt. Hell, we didn't want to have to hurt you in the first place, but it was pretty apparent that you weren't going to come peacefully." Poor girl, she must be awfully scared. She didn't seem to be all that old, relatively young in fact. Shame things had to turn out this way, but oh well."
 
A large man came in. He looked kind of old, with gray-shaded hair and a grumpy nose. Yanaike stood up, pressed her nose through the iron bars of her cage. She sniffed for a moment. She could use the scent of a certain person to identify him or her later. Sometimes she could even tell by the scent of someone, what kind of person he or she was. However it proved to be a pretty difficult task with this person.
"You smell like oil" Yanaike concluded. "Or coal… or something else from a large fabric…" She wanted to come closer to the man to smell him from close-by, however the iron bars prevented her from moving closer. She sighed.
"Why did you guys lock me up?" she asked, slightly annoyed, but also curious to whatever reasons they had.
 
Before Reginald answered her, he held the tape to her to get the measurements he needed, which he wrote down on a piece of paper. "You're locked up for the same reason any other cargo is locked up, to prevent escape. Wouldn't want you to run off before we got to the auction house now would we?" The question was obviously rhetorical, but he figured that the girl might come up with some sort of amusing answer.

In all honesty, this girl was the first time that the Southern Dawn had this kind of cargo aboard, and Reggie was growing to not like it. "Tell me little misses, why do you have that tail? Be you human or something else entirely?"
 
So that was where this was all about? They wanted to sell her, because she had a tail? Yanaike nodded her head. Her tail had brought her in trouble more than enough. When she was a little child, she was often bullied because of her tail. And wherever she went people were always coming up with prejudices and acting weird to her, because of her tail. Long ago she'd wished lots and lots of times that the tail would be gone, that this experiment would have never happened. However, as Yanaike aged, Yanaike started to accept it. After all, her tail did make her kind of unique. She learned using it in daily life.
It was just a shame how some people disrespected her because of her tail. Those were people that could only see Yanaike as an animal or as a trading-product, and just because of that, they thought they had the right to take her freedom? Pathetic!
Yanaike turned around, turning with her back towards the old man and folded her arms together to show her angriness.
Suddenly she felt a light pressure building up at her stomach. She couldn't control it and the next moment her tail lifted a few inches, a soft farting sound could be heard and a large moss green smoke cloud left her body. Even Yanaike herself had always wondered how such a small girl could produce such smelly farts. Especially at moments when she didn't felt comfortable her farts had made some people faint. Some of her friend had even, jokingly, called her 'skunky' because of the awful scent.
 
Reginald almost laughed at what the girl did, but the laugh was replaced by a gag. "Geez woman." he coughed out. "You could choke a dung beetle with that" Forgetting about the question he had asked her, he waved away the stench and the cloud, then waited until the air was at least somewhat tolerable. "Ahem, moving on." he said as he cleared his throat, "I'm going to be completely honest with you, I'm not a huge fan of what we're doing to you." For heaven's sake, he was a merchant, not a slave trader. For all he knew, that's what she would be sold into, that or kept on exhibit in some sort of zoo. "Here's the thing, I don't want to have to be doing this to you, so cooperate with me and maybe we can figure something out.

If Reginald was going to do what he was thinking about doing, he would get in a hell of a lot of trouble with his other crew members. He would have to run away, and find some way to avoid them. Although, there was an escape craft that he could use. "Girl" he said, addressing her, "Please tell me your name."
 
"Hmm" Yanaike said at the proposal of co-operating. In Yanaike's mind a picture appeared, she'd seen in a book a while ago. A picture of a philosophist, picking his beard, while he was thinking about an important decision. Yanaike slowly moved her hand to her chin, only to find out that she didn't have a beard.
She turned back around, staring in the eyes of the still unknown man.
"I've read of people like you" she mentioned. Merchants were known to be selfish. You'd to be careful with any of their proposals, as you never knew what was really on their minds.
"So what's in this for you?" she asked. "What do I have to do for you in return?" She ignored his second question. Why did she have to give him her name? It looked more fair to her that the old man would introduce himself first.
 
He rolled his eyes slightly, why did she have to think that he wanted something in return? Couldn't he just be carrying out an act of kindness and let it rest at that? Oh well. "Nothing is in this for me, for in doing this, I loose my job, and potentially my life if my crew mates catch us. All I ask from you is to at least cooperate and keep quiet for now." He reached his hand down into his pocket and pulled out a ring of keys, flipping through them until he found the one that unlocked her cage. "Come quietly now." he said whispered to her as he opened the door to her cage. "There's a hatch that leads to an escape craft on the far side of this room. "You better appreciate this."
 
She still didn't trust the man. However he did open her cage and Yanaike was kind of thankful for that. She smiled at his remark of being quiet. She was so light and her boots were shaped in such a way, that wherever she went, her footsteps were never to be heard. Before Yanaike followed the man, she quickly ran to the nearby wall of the room and grabbed her backpack and her weapons: two identical daggers and a crossbow. When she had collected the few items she possessed, she followed the unknown man to the other side of the room.
 
The fact that the girl was now armed made Reginald more than a little nervous. He had no idea whether or not she would just up and kill him when they got to the craft or not. "If you stab me with those, we're going to have some problems." Okay, so maybe there was a bit of humor to the man, and he had a small grin on his face from his stupid remark.

Making his way to the far wall, he opened a circular hatch that was on the floor which led to a ladder and a small craft that looked like it could hold about six people. Reginald motioned for her to go down the ladder first. "Hurry along now, we don't have much time before the others get suspicious."
 
She stabbing him? The daggers and crossbow were more a kind of self-protection. It wouldn't surprise her if the man would suddenly pull another dagger or a hand-size gun. He opened the circular hatch, and when he mentioned they should hurry, Yanaike jumped in. She didn't use the ladder, as a free fall would be faster. Just as she was a few inches above the floor, she quickly casted one of her air spells that would break her fall. The landing was perfect, she reached the floor with both legs simultaneously, without making any sound.
"You better hurry" she said to the old man, still above. She figured it would probably take some time before old gramps would be down below. Yanaike seated herself in the driving seat of the escape pod and waited there.
 
"Oh hush you." he said crossly as he made his way down the ladder. It had been quiet a sight to behold of the girl just jumping down instead of using the ladder, but there wasn't time to ponder that.
Finally getting into the craft, he furrowed his brow when he saw her in the driver's seat. "Just what do you think you're doing? I'm the one that's going to be driving, girl." Without much strain, he put his hands under her arms and lifted her out of the seat, placing himself in it. Starting up the engine, the two propellers on either side of the craft started to spin and quickly reached the speed needed to get going. With the pull of a lever, the clamps attaching the craft to the ship let go and the small craft started to drop before eventually leveling out.
 
Yanaike struggled a bit when the old man lifted her from the driver's seat. Why did everyone always had the urge to lift her up. Jus beacuse she was so light, that didn't mean other people should just abuse that. Yanaike had two legs and two arms, she was pretty capable of moving herself.
Why couldn't she dirve the escape vehicle anyway? Okay, Yanaike had never driven anything like it before, but she had to start doing it sometime? There was just one way of learning to drive a vehicle and that was actually driving a vehicle.
But as much as she wanted to fly this thing, in the end she decided just to let the old man do his thing. Yanaike felt how the smaller space craft let go of the bigger space vehicle and a couple of seconds later they'd reached the speed to succesfully flee from the group of merchant. Yanaike carefully studied how the old man steered the ship, maybe she could learn something from him. However everything he did seemed pretty obvious to Yanaike: accelerating, steering there wasn't really much more to it.
"So" she mumbled out of curiosity. "What's your name, old man?"
 
He turned his head to her with an arched eyebrow, "Old? I'll have you know that I'm only 37 years old, I've still got some steam left in me! As for my name, I am Reginald Wingate. Although, should you feel so inclined, you may call me Reggie." He now looked back to see how far away they had gotten from the main ship and he let out a sight of relief as he leaned back in his chair. "I think we're safe for now." He looked towards the girl again. "Now, will you extend me the courtesy of granting me your name? You've been a bit obstinate in allowing me that piece of information. Surely an odd girl would have an odd name, right?

Reggie knew that the ship wouldn't keep them away for very long, it was simply an escape craft, nothing more, nothing less. Eventually, he would have to buy a new ship and make a new name for himself. Maybe start his own merchant company, or maybe...even become a pirate! That sure as hell sounded fun!
 
Yanaike nodded as the old man gave some personal information about himself. Apparently he didn't think himself that he was old. He was called Reginald Wingate, but he allowed Yanaike to call him Reggie as well. Howver Yanaike wasn't sure if the name 'Reggie' would really fit to the personality he had. "Is it okay if I call you 'Winnie'?" she asked slightly amused. "Or 'Gatie'? Or just 'old man'?" She ignored the part where he wanted personal information about her. Yanaike decided that she was the only one allowed to ask questions at this point.
"So tell me Reggie? Do you have children? Grand children maybe? Do you even have a wife? Are you married? Or are you still single? And what does your wife think about you kidnapping little girls? What exactly did you do by the way? What kind of job do you have? And what kind of jobs did you do in the past? Where did you live in the past? Do you like cabbage?" Yanaike paused as she realised she might have asked a bit to much questions at once and that she didn't really gave Reggie a chance to respond.
"I'm Yanaike by the way" she added, before she waited Reggie's response.
 
"By no means shall you call me Winnie! Old man is just fine!" He figured that just to humor her he would pick and choose from her questions to answer. " Well Yanaike, I have no children and am not married. All I did was help corral you off from escape. I hate cabbage, and the job I just fired myself from was my first and only job. My father taught me everything about the merchant trade and as a result, that was what I was most apt to do. Enough questions now, we can't simply fly around forever, we need to find a way to make money so that we can at least eat. I really don't want to have to resort to thievery for my sustenance." Reggie now lowered the craft some more until he was a couple hundred feet away from the ground, where he started to look for suitable places to land. "Ah, here we go." he zeroed in on an empty field and began to bring the craft in for a landing.
 
Thieving? What was wrong with thieving? Yanaike had stolen a lot of things in her life. She'd found it was better to steal some stuff than having to rely on the system called 'money'. But even without money and thieving, Yanaike still had things she could eat. She had a spell for that. Well... the result was not always perfect and it worked only for one person, however she was able to survive with that spell.
"Look" she said as she grabbed one of the dice out of her pocket and she threw it triumphanticly on the floor, while whispering the magic spell. "Anna minulle ruokaa!" Her spell could summon a meal for one person, but only once a day. The better the result of the die, the better the meal. The dice landed on the floor, the result was just a one. Just a few seconds later the dice had disappeared and on the floor now lay a simple but good looking crop of cabbage.
"Uhm... right" Yanaike mumbled. "I eh... Are you sure you don't like cabbage?"
 
Reggie looked at Yanaike with a "Are you serious" look for a moment before glancing over at the cabbage. "Yes, I'm sure. I hate the damn stuff. Look, once I land this hunk of junk, We'll go out into town and I'll buy us some food. I still have some money in my wallet." That being said, Reginald brought the craft down into the field then hopped out of it. "Come on you. After we eat, we can go our separate ways. Of course, that is if you want to." He had no idea if she had anywhere to go, so he figured he would be nice and allow her to come with him.
 
Yanaike hopped out of the space craft as well.
"Reggie?" she said before she followed him to the nearby city. "Not that I'm not thankful to you, but why are you doing this?" Yanaike paused for a moment. "I mean you just quited your job, cut of your only source of income, help a prisoner escape and endangered yourself." Yanaike figured that if his mates would find what he did to them, they would chase him and they wouldn't be very happy when they would find him again. "I'm not dumb Reggie. I know there has to be a reason why you did this, and I feel I have the right to know what it is?"
 
As he walked on, he turned his head to partially look at her. "I might work with a bunch of assholes, but I still have some sort of conscience. You are still a living, breathing, somewhat human being, and you're just as entitled to freedom as I am." That was his reason, nothing more, nothing less. He had done plenty of unsavory deeds in the past, and he suppose that this was part of how he would make up for it. Although he had more than an inclination that many more unpleasantries, both in action and occurrences were to come.
 
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