Pied Piper Comes to Town (The Heroines Fairytales Book #1) (2nd Version)

Payment

The next morning Anelie woke up energized and ready for a new day. She sat up and stretched and washed her face and was about to leave the inn with the magic pipe she always carried with her, when she heard the innkeeper talking.  She paused attempting to eavesdrop on their conversation.

"Guess what I saw today. No rats scurrying around. The food hasn't been messed with and I haven't been constantly almost tripping over them. It's been a blessing from above." The innkeeper raised her arms over her head and looked towards the ceiling.

"Really?!" The man who she was talking to put one hand down on the table and stood up quickly. He sounded excited from this news. He had blond hair cut short with a balding middle on top of his head. He wore a green shirt and tights and had dark blue eyes. The woman had long dark brown hair that it almost looked black pulled up in a high ponytail. She had beautiful hazel eyes. She had skin the color of apricots and wore a brown dress. The man continued, "That's great news! Are you sure about this?! We've been waiting for this for quite a while. Maybe now, I can actually eat some decent food, and drink enough water that I won't have to worry about dying of starvation and thirst. Not to mention the plague that's been terrorizing us lately."

Anelie smiled and left, not hearing the rest of their conversation, carrying herself and her magic pipe through the door and went to visit the mayor to claim her payment.

Anelie walked through the maze of streets and enjoyed the feel of sun on her face. She came to the building in ten minutes and entered to meet the mayor. He was at his desk looking over a pile of work he needed to complete. It looked like important stuff to Anelie but she decided his work could wait while she couldn't.

I'm more important anyway, she thought, and walked right up to him and banged her hand down on his desk, demanding his attention. She waited until he looked up at her before talking. "I'm here for my payment. I've done what I've promised to do, now it's your turn to hold up your end of the bargain." She waited for his reply which he took a minute to think over. He bent down and brought out a bag full of something in it and set it down on his desk in front of both of them, the bag making a loud clank as it landed.  Finally!  She thought and quickly began to dig through the bag.

Inside the bag of appeared to be guilders, and as she was counting them up, he said, "Here's your payment for taking care of our rat problem. Here take it," he said waving towards it as she continued counting up the guilders. He just wanted her to leave as he felt disgusted with her. You obviously created the rat epidemic so you could extort this town for guilders, he thought.

Anelie continued to dig through the bag and realized she came up short, "Hang on a minute. There's no way this is the agreed upon 1,000 guilders." She looked up at him with her hands still holding the bag open. "You cut me off short!  I even took care of all the zombies in your town!" She shouted.

He folded his arms across his chest and leaned back in his chair, straightening his legs out in front of him. "You obviously, set the rat epidemic on our town yourself. How else would you describe being able to get rid of the rats all in one night and ask for an absurd amount of 1,000 guilders in return as payment for your services? It's obvious you did all this just to extort 1,000 guilders from us." He had a menacing look in his eyes. "Now, off with you. Go! I never want to see your face again." He turned away from looking at her and waved his hand in a shooing motion, as if trying to blow her away.

She squinted her eyes and held out a hand in front of her demanding in an authoritative voice, "I didn't extort you and you only gave me 50 guilders. Give me the other 950 guilders."

He looked into her eyes and saw that she meant business. But so did he. "No," his voice clipped out, and rang a bell setting right next to him on his desk. "Guards, come here!" He yelled. She turned around as he was calling out for his guards.

The guards were quick and came in about a minute after he began ringing the bell. She saw the guards entering the building and got ready to run.

"You called Mr. Mayor?" One of the guards asked. The mayor nodded.

He nodded towards Anelie and told them, "Capture, Pied Piper here and send her to the prison cell."

Anelie started to panic. How was she supposed to get past these guards with their big, broad, well conditioned bodies, to freedom, even though there were only two of them?

Oh, screw it, she thought. And so she just went for it and ran for her life.

"After her!" The mayor yelled, jumping up and pointing at her. The guards went into action, and caught her easily.

She writhed and fought, "You'll pay for this!" She writhed and fought some more but still couldn't break free. I tried and I failed. And then she gave up, and they left with Mr. Mayor watching their backs and the villagers watching, and whispering as the guards dragged her to the prison cell.