Connections

Chapter 13: Stealth is a virtue

Let's summarize my problem:

*I was a sixteen year old girl who had to get past a total of four guards that had about a hundred pounds and a foot on me

*Shapeshifting might have helped, but wizards developed the technology to sense when a shifter was about long before the Great War

*I had no idea where Ric might have been, and therefore lacked his side of things. The side that generally fine-tuned my crazy plans, mind you

*It was getting dark, and even though it was the middle of the summer, global warming had pretty much turned every night winter and every day summer, so it was getting cold quickly.

*Shapeshifters aren't warm blooded. 

I know. "What? What do you mean you aren't warm blooded?" I got that all the time. It was a fact generally kept quiet before and during the War because it only gave people more reason to believe we were inhuman. Then it was just nobody's business. 

It was when I began shivering that I decided I couldn't just wait around. It might not have been colder than 70 or 60 degrees, but it might as well have been 20 or 30 as far as I was concerned. Even from where I stood, I could tell the guards were trolls, as most of the guards were. The high class trolls, of course, with nice hair and the ability to smell nice, not the kind that lived under bridges and ate children. Trolls were warm blooded. I had no doubt they could be there all night if they wanted to, without even letting out a twitch, much less the many shivers I was.

 In the end, I did the only think I could. I walked right up to them. Really surprised them too. I don't think they expected anyone to even be there. During the hour I watched them it became obvious that they were getting bored and thought the rule was unnecessary. Who in their right mind would want to go to the Penz? Me. Though whether or no I was in my right mind is questionable.

What made it crazier was that I knew those guards. They were the same guards who threatened to kill Bones for going out with me. I was surprised they hadn't tracked Chris down by then, though trolls weren't known for their reading ability.

"Miss Dubatch?" one of them said questioningly. If I remember right, I think his name was Bill. Actually, I lied. Trolls weren't very good at picking names. Most rhymed with troll or Bill. Now I'm positive his name was Bill because I don't know many trolls.

"Hey Bill." I said conversationally. 

"What are you doing here, princess?" the other, Hill, asked. No matter how many times I told him, Hill never stopped calling me princess. I should have appreciated him more. But that's another story.

"Just came to visit my Assignment. I wanted to brief her on what I will be expecting of her tomorrow." I said simply, as if that really was all I wanted. I'd like to remind you that I'm a terrible liar. And they noticed.

"Princess, please." Hill said in his gruff, grumbly voice. "You know you can't lie."

"Alright." I said dramaticaly. "You've got me. I've fallen in love with an Animal. We ere supposed to meet up tonight and ride off into the moonlight."

As soon as I finished everyone, including me, burst out laughing. "Good one, Miss Dubatch." Bill said, clutching his sides as he doubled over in laughter.

"Yeah." Hill siad as he also laughed. "We all know that if you wanted to get into the Penz you wouldn't come here. You'd climb through the skylight on the roof!" I did say that trolls weren't known for their smarts, right?

"Of course!" I said, laughing along with them. 

Once the laughter died down, Bill asked, "So what did you really need, Miss Dubatch?"