"'ey, berk!" The shout drew the young man's eyes away from the strange woman in black with the flaming thatch of hair sitting at the corner table, and back to the grubby dwarf barkeep. "Gonna buy somethin', or jes set there like an addle-cove...?" He trailed off as he caught sight of where the boy had been staring. "Ach, you don want none of her, lad. That cutter's Tigerlily, and a man'd have to be dancing with slaadi to make a play on her. She's a dangerous one, she is." Noting the quieter tone of the dwarf's voice, the young man glanced back over to this Tigerlily, only to find her eyes meeting his. The green orbs seemed to pierce deep into his soul, and he got the sensation of a hunting cat eyeing its prey. Shaken, he turned back to the bar, his hand a bit unsteady as he took the mug the dwarf offered him. "She didn't seem threatening, but those eyes..." "Don' let yerself get all jangled up there. She's a real rounder, an' fair in 'er dealings. I doubt ye'd find yerself in the Lady's shadow merely fer eyein' the goods, else half the town would be in the dead-book," the dwarf said with a chuckle, scratching his beard a moment. The man glanced back again as he took a swig from his mug, but the booth was empty, and he saw no sign of the woman anywhere. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Catlike eyes watched from the shadows as the human left the tavern, glancing left and right idly, his eyes sliding right past her hiding place without spotting her. Evidently not seeing anything to catch his attention, he turned and meandered off down the street. /Good, no threat./ Satisfied, Tigerlily turned and slipped away through the alleyway, one of many connecting throughout Sigil. /Only one more day, and I'll be out of this blasted place,/ She thought as she slipped through the growing darkness towards where she had been staying. As she passed through a darker patch of shadow, her form blurred, then re-solidified, revealing the pun hidden in her callname. The clothes were the same; a tight-fitting sleeveless leather top hugging her upper body, with a matching set of breeches taking care of her lower half, disappearing into a pair of knee-high leather boots. The shape of her body was identical as well, from her curvaceous torso and medium-sized breasts, to her sleekly muscled rump and legs. Her dark red hair, blowing slightly in the small wind, even matched. However, there the similarities ended. Where before fair skin had shown, instead orange fur striped through with black was visible instead. In place of the graceful, almost elven face her hair had framed, was a tiger's head. Curved ears poked out from the wavy locks, swiveling slightly to orient on various sounds as she moved quickly and quietly along empty paths. Even her eyes had changed, become more catlike, yet still the same green shown in them. The now black-clad rakshasi, or female rakshasa, ducked through a crumbling arch, then used her claws to climb partway up an abandoned and boarded-up building before slipping in through an open window where the boards had obviously rotted away. /I don't know where I do belong, but it's certainly not in this... Cage. They certainly aren't wrong with that nickname./ Catching sight of herself in the mirror as she crossed the room, she paused, absentmindedly fingering the crimson tresses which normal rakshasi should not have. /As if I belong anywhere. But then again,/ She grinned ferally into the mirror, sharp teeth glinting in the dim light. /I do rather like how this looks./ She dropped into a half-motheaten chair, relaxing in the relative safety of the place she had been calling home the past few months. /They never did appreciate it back in Descar./ She snorted softly at that thought. /Like anything about me was appreciated there. Toe the line or else, and I never followed that from the moment I was born./ As she relaxed, the rakshasi felt tiredness from her long day start to overcome her. Levering herself back up, she made her way to the bed in the corner. After stripping down and tossing her clothes aside, she slipped under the covers and snuggled down into the soft mattress, letting sleep overtake her and refresh her for the busy day tomorrow. ------------------------------------------------------ The last thought of hers was more right than she knew. Her mother, Kaori, was the favored wife of a influential rakshasa merchant named Abdul t'Derant. She was a dutiful wife, but this meant she sometimes found herself less than satisfied, so she used the servants for her pleasure. She always made sure they were of a lesser race, so that she would not beget a child by her indiscretions and thus allow them to be overlooked. However, this backfired on her, or perhaps it worked too well. After all, even gods have a sense of humor, and one goddess in particular has both pleasure and humor in her portfolio. Whether it was by Aasternian's intervention, or some other strange occurrence, she did find herself pregnant after one of those indiscretions. The timing was right however, so she assumed that her husband had gotten her with child. After all, that was why she had chosen her lovers as she had. Several months later however, when she held her newborn kitten in her arms and noticed the small shock of russet hair, she realized the truth. There was nothing she could do though, without bringing her "playtime" into public view, which was quite plainly out of the question. Thus her new child became Trishna, meaning "desire," to remind Kaori what had beget her, and to be even more careful from now on. At first, the abnormality was scarcely noticeable as Trish's fur grew in, and Kaori let out a mental sigh of relief as everyone chalked it up to some of her fur having tried to come in early. Just to be safe, she dismissed the servant she thought was responsible for her pregnancy, and made a deal to get him shipped off to one of the other cubes controlled by the rakshasa clans. As the years passed, the kitten grew. Kaori got a servant she trusted in on the nursery staff, whose job was to keep the strange hair trimmed down to the length of Trish's fur, which worked, for a time. When she was joined by a little brother though, they could no longer hide the additional time spent on grooming her. Within a few weeks, she had a scarlet mop of hair covering the top of her head. Abdul hired physicians to look at it, but all they could do was shrug and say it seemed fully natural. When Kaori was questioned about this, she shrugged her shoulders and claimed ignorance as to how it could be. Whispered questions and rumors made their way around the estate, but all the kitten knew was she was getting more attention than before. Eventually things calmed back down. Trishna was moved out of the nursery into the girl's section of the regular children's quarters, shared with her older sister. She started her tutoring sessions, and training in the proper conduct of a rakshasi. Not that she went quietly. She seemed to have a knack for disappearing when it was time for the lessons she liked least, and when she was found and dragged, kicking and screaming, to the tutors she would just sit there and not respond until it was over. It was when she was hiding from one such session that she stumbled onto a hidden network of tunnels through the estate. Exploring them, she discovered they were old servant's passages that had been closed off the last time the estate had been remodeled. During the next several days she explored their length and breadth, finding among other things an abandoned storeroom that she decided to claim as her hideout. After the fourth or fifth time she retreated there to avoid lessons, she discovered something else about her hideout. The same time that she was supposed to be tutored on theology, her two older brothers had their weapons practice, and the training room just happened to be on the other side of the back wall. She gigglepurred to herself as she heard the instructor berate them for their lack of progress and their own sullen responses. Seems that she wasn't the only one to have to go through lessons she hated. Finding a small hole that had rusted out, she watched the rest of the lesson curiously, noting the fluidity the old rakshasa arms instructor moved with. Now this looked interesting... She started attending her other tutoring sessions to keep herself occupied until it was time for her brothers' lessons again, and they congratulated each other on finally getting her to pay attention to her studies. About a year after she started her secret lessons though, her body decided it was time and started to grow and fill out. She seemed to be knocking things over half the time and tripping over own feet the other half. She cursed it, but refused to give up on her swordplay. It seemed to help, and as time grew, she became more aware of her changing body and how it moved. This seemed to carry over into everything else too, and despite her strange hair, she started drawing the eyes of several rakshasa males with the grace she carried herself with. Noticing the looks she was starting to draw, she found she liked the attention, and even went so far as consulting the servants on what to do with her hair. It proved to be the right touch, as afterwards she was courted by several rakshasa who found it lent an air of exoticness to her. However, each courtship ended about the same way. Things would get better and better, then inevitably the courter would grow too demanding and tempers would flare. Fairly quickly she developed a reputation for being willful, and despite the pleas of her mother and anger of her father she still refused to bow down to every little whim of theirs. Though her brothers' lessons had finally ended, she still practiced in that storeroom, and despite lacking a blade, at times she could almost swear she felt one in her hands as she moved. As gifted as she was in grace and charm however, she lacked a similar amount in control of her magic. Innate things such as shapeshifting she managed fairly quickly, perhaps helped by her hyperawareness of herself. On the other hand manipulation of the energies outside herself seemed to fail usually, sometimes spectacularly. She also found herself paying more attention to what was going on around her. Her older sister had finally gotten married to secure an alliance with a merchant family in a nearby cube, and Trish was liking less and less what she was hearing about married life. Her other option, staying and helping with the business, wasn't looking too appealing either. While she liked money, she hated dealing with the numbers and bookkeeping directly. On top of that her father was making noises about making her choose one or the other soon, either of which would cost her the freedom to do what she wanted. It was about that time that fate decided to step in. To escape the stronger and stronger hints being sent her way on choosing her path, lately she had taken again to exploring like she hadn't since she was 70. That day, she had had a particularly loud argument, and was making her way through the old tunnels trying to work off her anger when a deafening clang rang throughout the cube, the entire tunnel vibrating around her. That was enough to snap her out of her fugue, and suddenly words that had went in one ear and out the other snapped clear in her mind. "There's going to be a collision later today, so don't go anywhere." There was always a couple day warning on the cube collisions, but not even rakshasa magic could prevent them, even if they could hide the cubes they ruled from the rest of Acheron. Now she was stuck in tunnels that could collapse at any moment.. correction, were collapsing! She ran for the storeroom, her dress snagging and tearing on the crumbling metal around her as she tried to keep ahead of the destruction. Her hide was a lot tougher, resisting the scratches, but even a rakshasa could get killed by being crushed under a couple tons of metal. Her goal in sight, she gathered herself and leaped for what she thought was safety, and found out there was a reason the storeroom had been abandoned. She saw too late the cracks the dying vibrations had opened, and as she landed on it, it groaned and gave way, the bare metal edges of the breaks scraping against her as she fell into the darkness, then knew nothing more. When she came to, she had no idea how much time had passed. Raising her head, she looked around, barely making out the walls of a large chamber. She tried to stand, a yowl of pain slipping out as she tried to put her weight on her left leg. dropping back to a sitting position, she gingerly prodded it. Definitely broken. Appraising her other injuries, she had several cuts and scrapes that had managed to break through her hide, but nothing else serious. Tearing off strips of the tattered remains of her dress, she bound the cuts as best she could, then started making her slow way across the chamber, whimpering a little each time she dragger her broken leg behind her. She'd never paid much attention to her healing classes, but she knew she needed to get some sort of splint set up before she could do much more, and there had to be something... aha! As luck would have it, one of the shelves above had fallen with her, and smashed into the ground not too far away. Making her way to it, she searched through the remains, and pulled out part of a beam which seemed about the right length and looked sturdy enough. Gritting her teeth, she pressed her leg bones into place, the pain causing stars to flare behind her eyes as she tore more scraps off her dress and bound her leg to the wood. Finally, giving it one last tug to make sure that it would hold, she let the pain overtake her and blacked out for the second time that... day? Even to this day she had no idea how long she was out both times, not that it mattered much. When she finally drifted back to consciousness nothing had changed. She tried calling, then yelling. Nothing.. she must be too far down for anyone to hear. Feeling a shiver, she looked again at the wood. If she started a fire, she might choke on the smoke, but someone might investigate it and find her. As she shivered again, she realized a chill was starting to set in, and she needed to get warm. Now. Luckily, fire was something she could do, even if only just barely. A concentrated thought, a few passes with her hand and mumbled words, and a spark flew from her clawtips to ignite the wood. As the fire slowly grew, she basked in the warmth, and took a good look around at what the flickering flame was revealing. The room itself seems to be a circle shape, with the walls stretching up to form a huge dome over her. If she squinted she could see the hole she had fallen through, but there was no way she could make it up there without help. Turning her attention back to the ground, she noted it seemed to be bare of pretty much anything apart from her and the remains of the shelves. A thick pantina of dust covered the floor, as if no one had been here in ages. Looking back at where she had landed, things looked the same that direction too... except... Brushing away more dust from the path she'd cleared by dragging herself along it, she found a faintly purple glyph seemingly embedded into the floor, and a curving line of some sort. Curious, and needing something to distract her form the mild throbbing pain of her leg, she brushed more dust away, uncovering a circle embedded deep into the floor, yet visible through the metal. She couldn't be sure, but from what she could tell, the center corresponded with the top of the dome, and it was surrounded by a ring of strange glyphs she didn't recognize. Gingerly, she brushed a fingertip over one and snatched her hand back in shock as it flared to life. Feeling a growing sense of dread, she watched the symbols start to writhe, like living things. Faintly, under the dust, lines and arcs began to glow with a faint purple light, laying out a design surrounding her, and she felt as if she was sinking into the floor. She opened her mouth to try crying for help, but no sound would come out. A deep thrumming filled her ears as more and more of her was quickly swallowed by the metal of the floor. Finally, her head was the last to go, and all she could feel in the rest of her body was a strange numbness. Closing her eyes as she felt the strange feeling climb up her neck, she cursed her father for trying to force her into his idea of a rakshasi, and herself for not forcing herself to just up and leave. Even trying to make her way elsewhere with no rank would have been better than this... \*POP\* -------------------------------------------------- Trish awoke with a start. Reaching up to brush the hair out of her eyes, she let out a sigh of relief. /Whew... it was just a... dream?/ Her thought came to a screeching halt as she realized that wasn't her ceiling above her. Sitting up, she glanced around the room. She was lying on some sort of old, ratty bed. The walls were old and faded, but the place looked abandoned. But someone had to have brought her here. And removed what was left of her dress, she noted with slight embarrassment as she glanced down. Pulling the covers down farther, she examined her leg. Like the rest of her wounds, it looked to have healed, though when she prodded it she still winced slightly, letting out a soft mewl of pain. A quiet cough made her snap her head up to find a strange man standing in the doorway. No, a tiefling, part of her mind noted, while the rest of her only noticed his leering grin. Letting out a growl, she quickly pulled her sheet up enough to cover herself, holding it over her breasts with one arm while her other fumbled around for any weapon within reach. "Whoa there, take it easy," he quickly said, holding out his hands to show he meant no harm. "If I'd wanted to.. er.. sample the wares, I sodding well coulda done it while you were sleeping." "Some preferrr theirrrr victims awake and awarrrrrre," the rakshasi growled, calming down a little as the she heard the ring of truth in his words. "Now, wherre am I?" "Relax, kitty. I found you in the alleyway and looked like you'd gotten the blek beat outta ya. Now bein' a right ol' cutter, I couldn' leave ya to the berks who wander 'round out there, so I figured I'd bring ya to my case and see about a healer. Seems he's done a bang-up job, though he said he'd never seen a basher like you before around here." She blinked at the unfamiliar words, her anger fading. "Cutter? Berk?" She almost started to let the blanket drop in her confusion, then caught herself. Raising his hand to his face, he shook his head a little in disbelief. "What a rube." Letting out a sigh, he reached around into the other room, and tossed a bundle at her. "Here. Don't need you raising the flag walking around like that, especially," he let out a laugh, "not my own, so to speak." As he closed the rickety door behind him, Trish let the blanket drop and looked at the clothes he had given her. The shirt was obviously sized to fit him, and she doubted she could get it on, but the leather vest would work if she laced it tight enough. The pants looked like they'd fit also, though they might need a little... creative tailoring. When she stepped out a few minutes later, the old tiefling couldn't help but give a whistle of appreciation. While it'd been the only stuff he'd had that he'd thought would fit, it did do flattering things to her figure. "Now you look a right ol' basher." Giving him a disapproving look, she dropped into the only other chair in the room, sending up a small cloud of dust that made her cough. "Call me Trish, not 'basher' or whatever. Now just where am I, specifically? And I don't mean your place," she added as he opened his mouth to answer. He paused a second, then continued. "First time visiting the Cage, eh? I take it ye lost track o' where ye were and got peeled by a coney-catcher?" She frowned in confusion and he chuckled. "What's the term you rubes use.... mugged by thieves?" "I sorta.. er.. fell, and activated something, and I was sinking into this floor, then next thing I know I'm lying in that bed." "Ah." He nodded. "Sounds like you got tunneljacked. Well, welcome to Sigil then. Whatever portal you came through must've closed behind you, otherwise I shoulda sniffed something. You're just lucky I came along else you'd likely be counting worms by now." The rakshasi seemed to deflate a bit. "So I'm stuck here?" The tiefling reached out to pat one furred shoulder. "Now, now, don't worry yer pretty lil' head. Ol' Tark will see right by ya. It may be climbing the spire to try and find the other end of the portal, but I can get ya settled in here at the least." She looked at him, her eyes starting to glisten a little with unshed tears as she realized how completely cut off now she was from everything she had ever known. "Buck up, lass. Tain't the end of the world. There's always the Paths." He nodded softly, giving her shoulder a squeeze. "'Sides, I'm sure there's plenty ye're glad to 'ave left behind, eh?" Trish felt herself calming as she remembered the arguments, and the issues that had led her to running around the tunnels again in the first place. "I- I suppose..." "That's the spirit!" He gave her a slap on the back, then leaned back against his chair as she glared at him. 'Now, lass, I don't mean to pry but jes' what are ye? I'd guess rakshasa, 'cept none o' them have hair like that." "And you'd guess right." He raised an eyebrow and she shook her head a little at his expression of disbelief. "It's true. I'm rakshasi and these," she curled a lock around a finger, "are all mine. No one knows why, but I've had it since birth." "Well lass, might I suggest you make use of those shapeshifting powers of yours? You're top-shelf an' all as you are, but the berks out there might not take too well to ya... or take too well, if ya scan my chant." He said the last bit with a playful leer and a wink, and though she tried to appear indignant, she couldn't help smiling a little at this strange tiefling's antics. Closing her eyes, she concentrated, her form blurring then reforming under the clothes. Within moments across from him was sitting a light-skinned, red-haired elf. She'd kept her body generally the same, but if not for the clothes she was wearing, he would have sworn that he'd never seen her before. "Well, swab me bob..." he muttered, giving her the once-over. "Cor, that's a handy trick, I'll betcha. You'll need a good tag, too. Trish is a jinkskirt name, and with those looks, sure as Sigil you'd have nothing but trouble." "I can defend myself. I may not look it but I know how to use a blade." "And just where would ye find one?" "Ummm..." She had to admit he had her there. "Then what do you suggest... Tark, wasn't it?" The tiefling grinned. "So the lass HAS been paying attention! Aye, ye have it right, Tark be me tag. As fer you..." he trailed off in thought a moment, then grinned. "Best way to hide the dark is in the light. 'ow 'bout Tigerlily, for such a dangerous lil' flower as yerself?" Trish... no, Tigerlily found herself giggling a little despite herself. "Works for me, I suppose." The old tiefling grinned, and nodded once. "Well then, me new Adam, why don't you tell me what you know how to do, an' then I can figure out a way t' get us some jink to get ye some proper clothes, not that" he gave her another leering grin "those ain't bad on ya." By now she just shrugged it off and grinned back, knowing he was mostly joking with her. Mostly. But it was as good a place to start her new life as any, and there were far worse ways she could have ended up. -------------------------------------------------------- It felt weird at first not having a defined place in the scheme of things, as she had always had someone above or below her, but she quickly found she enjoyed the freedom that this gave her to be who she wanted to be. While Tark helped her expand on her natural stealthiness, it turned out she had a thing or three to teach him in the ways of using a sword. Once he felt she was ready, He started hiring out for jobs again, and she quickly made a bit of a name for herself in the cross-trade, as the Sigilians called it. She first got herself some clothes, among them a snug sleeveless top equally suitable for sneaking or show, a pair of breeches intended for going into tight places, and a short skirt of the same material. The leather would also help turn blows that her hide didn't. Her first purchase after that was a pair of short swords, and though she still practiced by herself wielding nothing but air, she could swear that she felt their hilts in her hands the entire time. Her first jobs were with Tark's aid, but once both of them felt confident of her capabilities, she started taking her own commissions. They were mostly of the nature of retrieving some small object of value. She had one client who had tried to contract her for an assassination, but she simply shook her head and pointed him to one of the assassin guilds. It wasn't that she disliked killing, just unnecessary killing, and the client's reasons were too trivial for her to see it as worthwhile. As time wore on though she found herself less and less satisfied with staying in Sigil. Though with mixed feelings she'd written off going back home, she found herself feeling restless whenever she passed a portal. Like other planars, once Tark had shown her how she was able to recognize them within a certain distance of her, though she had no way of knowing the key. As luck would have it, she found a portal a short ways from where she had first been dumped into Sigil, and using some of the money she had saved, had a wizard examine it. While he had been able to figure the key out, he was unable to confirm a destination. She shrugged at that; she didn't particularly feel a need to return home, but it was time to move on, and he had been able to tell her that it was relatively safe on the other side. She spent the next couple days gathering some supplies and saying goodbye to her friends as she prepared for the challenge ahead. Wherever she ended up, there was bound to be interesting things going on, and perhaps a profit to be made. Then finally, the day had come. ---------------------------------------------------------- Tigerlily awoke with a toothy yawn. Tossing the covers back, she stretched lithely, then padded over to the mirror, grabbing the brush she had left sitting out. As she brushed the snarls out of her hair, she went through her mental checklist for the day ahead. /Packed, packed, packed, and -ow- packed. I swear, sometimes I wish I didn't have to deal with this,/ she grumbled mentally as she worked out the large tangle. /There./ Packing it away in her pack, she hoisted it on one shoulder, looking around one last time at the place she had lived the past few months. It was a bit shabby, but it had been all hers. /Well, that's enough of that./ Shaking herself free of the self-reflection, she hopped out through the window, dropping into a crouch to cushion her landing. Padding softly down the alleyway, her form shifted and blurred, entering a shadow a tigress and leaving it a human woman. It was still early morning, and she encountered no one else on the way to her portal. As she came within sight of it, she shrugged a little. /Much as I would have liked to stay in my natural form, better safe than sorry./ Rummaging in her pack, she pulled out the strange gold coin that she had located based on the wizard's description. She didn't recognize the symbols on either side, but it supposedly came from a nation on the far side of the portal. /Now to activate it./ Narrowing her eyes, she examined the doorway's arch for the one out-of-place brick. It took a few minutes of searching, and in the end she found it not by sight, but by touch as her fingers passed through the illusion. As the coin passed through the false brick, she felt it disappear form her grasp, and the entire doorway seemed to take on a soft orange light. A thin film appeared over the doorway, and looking through it was like trying to look through a soap bubble. Without hesitation, she hoisted her pack, and stepped through, into the unknown.