[closed] felt it in my fist, in my feet

[venturer]

who: anne bonny and john wick
what: the beginning of a beautiful friendship
when: before the Butterfly Effect event
where: a random alley
warnings: Violence. Foul language.



[Anne's opinions of this place change about as often as the weather - for the first half of the first week she'd hated it, wanted to go home; last half of the first week and through most of the second, and she'd been getting used to it, started to think this place might be better'n back home, might be a place she could try to bring Jack to, so they can have a better life. Right now, she's starting to reconsider that.

Somehow, her look had gotten it into some idiots' heads that she was backwards because she was from the 'past' and couldn't protect herself, something about whether she had pieces of eight in her pockets. It had turned into a half-hearted attempt at a mugging but now it's a bloody mess. What the muggers and jeerers hadn't realized was that Anne had a cutlass in her jacket, and what she hadn't realized was just how bad her chest and sides and gut were still aching after that fight back home. Normally, she'd have cleared these fucks out with a few clean swipes, but as it is, she's barely keeping her feet after one of them slammed a fist into the most broken parts of her ribs.

Grunting with pain, she refuses to give up, teeth grit and eyes wild as she swings the cutlass again, staggering a little as she charges the toughest of them, some fuck with lizard skin that's harder to get through than leather, cutlass held at the ready. As she moves, stomping toward the guy with fire in her eyes and a sneer on her lips, she lets out a guttural battle cry.]

Comments

[adiuvio]

[ She won't see John. He's just one more shadow amongst shadows. She'll only see his knife. The work it does, and the quick death that follows.

The man in direct path of her cutlass falls to the ground, spitting and spilling blood as he falls. John steps out from behind him, away and to the side, so if she goes over with the sword it won't be into him.

They're dead, all of them, except him and her, and she's much closer than he is. John can see it looming over her, creeping closer as she staggers, struggling to breathe through the thick of it.

He holds up his knife, the dark blade wet with blood, in a display of non-aggression. ]

I was just passing by.

[venturer]

[It's all over before she can even finish her charge. Some beast comes out of the shadows, dark and tall and silent and deadly, and takes all of them out, one by one, before her blade would've pierced flesh. She manages to get herself stopped, gasping for breath with lungs that feel like they're full of liquid, with ribs that feel like they're on fire.

Silent for a moment aside from her breathing, she looks up at him with fierce pale eyes, and when he holds up his knife to show her he doesn't intend to use it on her, she holds up her own cutlass, then sheathes it. Eyes narrowed, she keeps her gaze on him, stares him down, even though she knows he could kill her in an instant if he got it into his head to do it.]

How'd you do that?

[adiuvio]

Practice, and the element of surprise.

[John flicks the blood off his knife, and bending down slowly, maintaining eye contact, sheaths it in the holster at his ankle. He stands again, just as slowly, and allows his hands to hang loose at his sides.]

You're hurt.