The Cat and The Bear [Closed to Puck/John]

Puck Epsion, though no one really knew her last name, was feeling quite sorry for herself at the moment.

It didn’t happen often, but there were times when she was vulnerable to being caught by those that wanted to hunt her down for whatever reason; theft, usually. But the blonde hadn’t me a cell she couldn’t break out of yet, so she mostly looked at going to jail as more of a small vacation. A rest stop, if you will, for her to sleep in her normal half-elf form rather than her kitten form that she favored when gong to sleep by herself. The cell she was in now wasn’t any more impressive than any other, except this one was form fitted into a carriage that was bring pulled by a horse. So…a portable cell, no big deal. The bars were still far apart enough that a minute later she could slip on through if she wanted.

She could, really! Honest! It’s just…

Well, the thief stared stubbornly at the cuffs that adorned her wrists and blew a puff of air up into her bangs. She didn’t know what, but…maybe it was the cuffs that kept the transformation from happening? The cage wasn’t all that roomy and she felt scrunched up in it. She couldn’t even imagine how anyone much bigger would feel trapped inside. With a frustrated growl the woman thrashed around a bit in a miniature tantrum before she lay still, then hopped to her feet and went back to the only entertainment she had; bugging the guy that had managed to catch her.

To be fair he was rather fast on his feet for being built like a castle on legs and his agility caught the thief by surprise. That wasn’t something she simply thought to sooth her own bruised ego; it was something she noted for later when her escape became a bit easier than it was now. ’Don’t underestimate big guys…or at least this bug buy,” was the lesson she’d learned from this encounter. Bending down the half-elf picked up a small twig from the bottom of the portable cell cage thing and threw it at the big guy’s head that was walking alongside the horse.

“Come on man…” Puck whined when she got no response, lagging on the bars as if she were crippled. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, wishing she really did have the capacity to seduce men in some fashion. “Look, we got off on the wrong foot, I get that. I also get that maybe you wanna blame me for our little chase earlier and hey, that’s fine. I accept that. But you’re roughly the size of a mountain and when I saw you coming…well!! How was I supposed to know there was a bounty on me? And for indecent exposure of all things? That, see…that was just a misunderstanding. See, I was with this woman, and her husband came home a day earlier than expected so I had to rush out. And I remembered damn near everything, but my pants…yeah…”

Puck scratched the back of her head, looking rather sheepish. Yeah, that had been a rough time. And after almost three whole days of wooing a single woman. Such a vision!! Dark skin and legs for days. Puck looked off into the distance and smiled at the memory of their days in bed together before forcibly closing them and shaking her head to clear it. No, now was not the time to reminisce. Now was the time to find a chink in this meathead’s armor so she could find a way to escape…and find out why she couldn’t transform into her kitten form.

“Can’t really be my fault, you know,” Puck continued, turning her back on the big guy and leaning on the cage again. “So, sure. You got me for the indecent exposure, and I’m sure the husband has it out for me as well. I mean, isn’t it a crime to leave a woman like that alone for weeks on end just so you can go out hunting with your buddies? Or, you know, whatever he did, I’m not really sure. His wife told me but I wasn’t paying attention. She was wearing this low cut blouse, you see, and…” A beat. “Okay, off topic. But, you had to have seen her, right? I mean, you’d go after that given half the chance, right? You’re big, the girls have got to love you…”

The question went unanswered and Puck hung her head and slid back down the cell bars and onto the floor. Something would come up, she was certain of it. Something always did. The blonde wasn’t sure where this confidence came from but she quirked her lips and resigned herself to the fact that no, there was no way she was going back to her. She’d be guarded around the clock anyways, the thief was sure of it. Though she was also doubly sure she could bust her out if she wanted to, fate somehow deemed this path to be the one she took.

“Could at least talk to me!!” Puck shouted indignantly before throwing another miniature tantrum on the bottom of the portable cage floor. “You strong silent type aren’t as cool as you think you are!!”

John regretted his decision to take this bounty. It was a small one, but it was close to Radasanth, and the offer came soon after he'd seen the scantily-clad half elf dash down the street. He decided quickly that he could make a bit of coin, but now wondered if a couple hundred gold pieces was worth the grief he'd gone through while capturing the girl. She evaded him twice by squeezing through places he simply couldn't get into, which frustrated him; only compounded by her incessant babbling on about the excusability of her offenses.

No matter, soon I'll be rid of her, claim my sovereigns, and never take a small-time bounty like this again.

She threw another fit, hanging on the horizontal bars of the cage as the half-giant sighed heavily, trying not to give the girl the satisfaction. He turned his attention to the shadows cast by the trees in the late-morning sunlight, disturbed slightly whenever a breeze passed through the wooded path. The road back to town lazily wandered with serpentine tendencies, passing only through the path of least resistance. It would still be one or two hours before they would be back in town. John briefly cursed his huge size, as the half-elf had lost him between and within groups of trees a few times. She interrupted his thoughts with more complaining. This time, he answered her.

"Quiet. If you're lucky you'll only spend a few months in jail," he said simply, his gaze staying on the road. "That's if you're lucky and this husband who caught you is more angry with his wife than her choice of partner."

The girl, tall and lithe, had a certain waif-like beauty to her, but her looks were far too young and girlish, considering John's taste in women. Even since she was a half-elf, and he could not rightly determine her age, he still felt as if he was babysitting a mischievous child.

He patted his horse, snatching a piece of dried meat out of a bag slung over its back. He frowned, tossing the girl a piece. He would collect her bounty, but wouldn't let her go hungry.

Hm, feed the girl while taking her to jail. Hopefully she wouldn't be a leech on his food and time after too long.

Puck caught the piece of meat and brought it to her mouth without hesitation. Sure, The Mountain over there could have laced it with poison but, really, he could have killed her a long time ago had he really wanted to. Puck found herself, and not for the first time since Xeo had mentioned it so long ago, if Lady Luck really was watching out over her. She didn’t mull it over long as such line of thinking would bring memories of her former lover to the forefront of her mind, so instead so chewed as loudly as she possibly could for no other reason than to annoy her huge captor.

Then, over the next hour or so, she decided that the giant just absolutely needed to hear about most of her recent conquests and how she managed to get each one into bed. The list was rather long, if Puck did say so herself, and she left out no detail in her campaign. She even trailed off sometimes, letting the man know just why she took a certain course of action over another or her reasoning on why taking on three women in bed is probably a bad idea. She was rambling, really, because she didn’t like the silence and maybe, just maybe, her stories would get he stick out of the giant’s ass and ease up a bit. Or, you know, make him angrier. Whichever was more entertaining.

“It’s not that hard, really,” Puck continued, now going into hour two of her dialogue. “I mean, you’d honestly be surprised just how many frustrated women are out there. Guy like you? You could really rack up the notches. I mean, even though you got that metal all over your arms…what’s up with that anyways? Some kinda accident?”

Puck was lying on the floor of the cage, her legs propped up on the cell bars. She had her hands linked behind her head as a form of pillow, her mismatched eyes staring up into the sky. She really didn’t expect an answer from the man but decided to shut up for a moment anyways. Her mouth was rather dry and she was hurting for some water. It was only after about a minute of silence that Puck’s mind caught up with her and she sighed heavily before standing up, her gaze resting on the big man.

“Hey, don’t mind me here Gigantor. Trying to fill the silence, ya know? You ain’t much of a talker.” A pause. “But, yeah, it kinda occurs to me that maybe all that metal is something of a personal thing you dun wanna talk about. But hey, I’m all ears if you do.” The woman held both pointer fingers to aid ears and gave them both a little flick. “Well…not pointy enough to be all ears, but I’m sure you’re pickin’ up what I’m throwing down.”

The girl's monologue continued, only briefly interrupted by his proffered food. Her words continued, making effort every few minutes to expound on his own physical appearance, saying repeatedly that he could likely have any woman he desired.

Fat chance, he thought, momentarily distracted from her speech by the loss of his wife. It had broken him in ways he hadn't thought possible. His thoughts briefly lingered on Jamie, briefly thinking that she'd be the only notch on his he wanted, before the dark ghost of his wife drove the thought from his mind again. Deep in thought, the comment on his metal-clad arms caught him off guard.

He quickly focused, drawing it from his arms toward his torso, the metal now covering his chest and back, barely visible through the few holes in his shirt. Continuing in thought, he wondered how long he would be cursed to be a strange object to be gawked at, and not a real person. An accident, indeed.

He shook the thoughts from his head. Sometimes his thoughts swam too deep, and if he didn't catch them in time, he would drown in the gulf of his sorrow. No matter, I will be done with the girl soon enough. I need more iron while I'm in town. He patted the horse he walked beside, hearing it breathe deep as it plodded along, as happy and simple as could be.

Sometimes he wished for that kind of simplicity.

“Neat trick,” Puck commented, watching the man’s body with an odd sort of fascination. “Bet yer a terror on the battlefield.”

Yeah, he wasn’t someone the half-elf would like to meet in a dark alley, which ironic because she did happen to meet him in an alley, but it was well let due to it being daytime. Was that ironic? The thief pursed her lips and tapped her chin as if in deep thought before dismissing the thought altogether. Her mind was wandering, which was a good indication that her boredom was overcoming any sense of rational thought and she was about to the point where she was going to do just about anything to alleviate said boredom. Picking a fight was probably unwise as the walking castle could probably stop her with nothing but a stare if he wanted to.

And so she mulled as they trudged on, her ramblings now going to just how comfortable jail cells really were, especially in Radasanth. Having been thrown in them a few times she was now something of a regular. Marked ‘harmless but a roaming degenerate’ by most of the guards, having Puck in jail usually meant at east a few days of entertainment and tall tales, usually involving some daring escape and often illicit details of her conquests. Not all of the guards were friendly but most of them didn’t really pay Puck much attention outside of making sure their purses were still on their belts.

“I think the secret is my sparking personality,” Puck was hanging from the bars now, her arms dangling on the outside as her face pressed between the gaps. “Easy to talk to. I mean, when you talk to the Puckster, you know she’s listening, dig? I mean, just letting you know. Cause, as a wise man once said, ‘you strong silent types aren’t as cool as you think you are’. I’m not really sure who said that but I’m sure they were pretty damn wise, you know? Seems like something someone super laden with wisdom would say. Like…maybe someone that could use to talk more, right? Yeah.”

The blonde waited for almost a minute before letting out a huge sigh. So, no, her obvious bait to get her captor to talk about himself in any form was a wash. And truly, Puck meant what she said; the strong silent type was boring. If someone was into that sorta thing Puck wasn’t going to deny them their pleasure, of course. But it was in her experience that dealing with someone who wouldn’t open up was more a frustrating experience than anything else. And so, for the next hour, Puck devoted all her time to sighing just as loudly as she possibly could, each one louder than the last until her dry throat felt like it was going to crack. And, just when she was going to tear her hair out from boredom and an uncommunicative companion, a sound caught her attention. She stopped her antics for a moment and narrowed her eyes as if such an action could help her pinpoint the source of the noise.

“Hey, stop.” Puck said, offhandedly waving a hand towards her mountainous escort. “No, seriously…you hear that? Like…I dunno, something’s off.” A beat. “Hey, come on, I’m being serious. I hear something and…” The half-elf stopped for a moment, a hand going up to her forearm and rubbed it up and down. “And I’m not getting’ a good feeling. It’s familiar and not in that ‘hey, I haven’t seen you in a long time let’s drink alcohol until we wake up next week’ kinda familiar. It’s coming from over there…” She pointed to the right from their current location, ahead of them. “Not far that way. Hey, I haven’t been paying attention…we’re by a village, right? Town? Something? Didn’t think we were that close though…”