Rose ran with incredible speed through the alleys of the city. She may not be run fast, but she moved through the dark, junk piled corridors like a moon cat. Not slowing down for fences, which were very common to slow down escaping human slaves. She simply jumped wall to wall to soar over the blockade, and never missing a step in her landing.

She had to find the Wingly with the stranger. He was her ticket out of here. For a whole week since she had escaped the eyes of her master, she had been clinging to the shadows, creeping at night to look for a way out. However, she never found one. But this man had broken in, and he could surely break out too.

"Why had I hesitated?" she thought. "I should have killed that Wingly when I had the chance."

Once again, compassion had possibly ruined her life. She had felt for the man so she waited till he found his family. Now she was running frantically to find him again.

"Why am I so sweet?" she said to herself, vexed out of her mind. "Feelings got me in here, feelings got me betrayed, and feelings got everyone in my life killed."

She could not help herself. Her mother had given her her name and raised her to live up to it. Everyone in her village thought she truly was a rose. But anymore of these heartbreaking events and she just might crush that little rose.

Suddenly hearing the ring of a Wingly, Rose stopped behind some trash containers. Searching, she found her destination. The man was floating across the alley, followed by his captor. Certainly they were heading for the jailhouse.

Quickly, she jumped up the wall and grabbed the support rafter to swing herself on the rooftop. Once on top she jumped to the next rooftop, and the next, and the next, placing her three alleyways ahead of her target. No doubt the Wingly had looked where she had been, but Rose learned to keep moving so you are never where they first saw you.

She had learned that from her older brother, always getting into trouble when they were younger. He had raised her after their parents were taken from the Winglies. Learning to be stealthy to stay alive had saved them for nearly a whole year. Then the two of them were finally caught, but they both had retained their skills. Her brother had escaped, only to be found a week later when he thought he found a way out of the city. She had begged for her brother's life, and that had killed him. Supposedly, he wouldn't have died, but when the head security Wingly Yemarin had found out they were siblings, he killed him. Simply killed him because he wanted it to be her fault, saying she didn't need feelings.

He succeeded, she no longer dwelled on feelings.

Sitting in the shadows, the captor-captive pair floated closer. Drawing her rapier, she waited until they passed. Moving suddenly, she ran behind the pair and along the shadowed wall to their left. As she expected, the Wingly heard the noise behind them, but not beside them and swung around to shine her magic light behind her. Jumping from the shadows, Rose quickly sliced downward on the Wingly's head. But suddenly, the Wingly turned back and Rose's blade shaved the side of the Wingly hair, taking a right ear with it.

Grunting and grabbing her head with her right hand, the Wingly pushed her left hand forward, sending Rose flying against the wall, pinned with invisible flows. The Wingly's hand then began to glow red, and reared back to deliver a fatal blow to Rose. Wisping through the air, the Wingly charged forward and thrust the glowing hand to deliver the final blow.

Rose closed her eyes, thinking about how her life had come to an end by the two inches that would have killed the Wingly. Surely she was not that cursed.

Rose felt the weight of the Wingly hit her, and just stayed. As if the Wingly was laying on her on the ground, it was laying on her on the wall. Confused, Rose opened her left eye, then her right eye and saw the Wingly's head lying on her shoulder, lifeless.

A long spear protruded from the back of the neck of the Wingly, pinning her against the wall. Rose slipped out from under the dead corpse and moved away. It was a rather interesting sight to say the least. The Wingly was just pinned there, a well aimed throw had gone through the back of the neck and somehow missed Rose's head at the same.She hoped he was that skilled, or lucky. She hoped skilled, it made her feel better.

"Are you okay?" the young man said as he walked to retrieve his spear.

"Fine, thanks" she responded, "What happened?"

"She never bothered taking my spear from me," he said pointing to the Wingly corpse, "and when you struck her, the bonds released me and I got to finally use this."

He notioned to the spear he had pulled out of the wall. He must be well fit to have thrown that hard to hold the Wingly up, and also pull it back out without straining. He was not that bad looking, but that was not on her mind right now.

"Look, we got to move. Someone must have heard that." she said quickly, "and if you got in, you can get us out."

He looked for a second and nodded. "Well my name is Syuveil. Nice introduction we had, huh?"

Humor, it had been a while since she smiled. "Peculiar indeed." she agreed, "My name's Rose."

He nodded again, "Well yeah, let's get going. I would say keep up, but moving in the shadows like you did..." he shook his head, "I'm sure I don't have to."

"You lead and I will keep up," she said.

He gave a slight nod and immediately took off running. He was fast and moved through corridors much like her. She kept up the whole time. Stopping when he stopped, stayed when his hand went up as he crept forward, and going when he motioned. It was no time before they were at the wall and moving silently. They stopped after about an hour since they began. Syuveil crouched and spoke quietly.

"Ok," he began, "here's what's going to happen. I got this little buddy here that is going to help us a lot." He pulled a pouch out of his pocket, about the size of hand and tightly packed. "It's going to explode pretty big when I stick it in one of these cracks, and when it does you need to run with me as fast as you can and don't stop until I do."

All she did was nod, even though she didn't think something that small would be too big. He felt around until he found a crack that he liked and placed in the pouch. He unrolled some wire and took out two rocks. She got ready to run as he started striking.

After about the third strike, he took off running as fast and she was with him. And just like that, they both stopped. She felt the accursed bonds around her and Syuveil was stunned.

The sound of ringing came close, and with it, voices.

"Well it looks like we got a pair of slaves to add to our collection, brother." said one.

"Oh yeah, I get the woman, she's a pretty one." responded the other.

Once again it came to end. She actually had hope on this run, but not anymore. She looked at Syuveil and he didn't look scared. He was actually smiling. What an idiot! How could he smile when the plan went downhill and they were about...

BOOOOM!!!

An earsplitting explosion sounded as the pouch she had totally forgotten about went off. She bonds released and the heat of the eruption pushed her forward. She looked up and Syuveil was already at full sprint. Quickly trying to keep up, he moved with suprising speed. Possibly the fastest she had ever seen. She kept pushing herself as he was starting to pull ahead.

Thankfully, he slowed and turned to a doorway, quickly opening it and rushing through. This gave her time to catch up and follow. Without even looking for patrols, he took off across the field. Doing the same the two ran all the way to the field, through the woods and good ways, and hoped into a small ravine beside a creek. No bonds had stopped them, they were out of Arvinen...safe.