"So what'll it be, you gonna hand over some cash or is yer neck gonna be smilin'?"

Her heart quivers in her chest like it might explode any minute; she doesn't want to breathe; breathing pushes her throat out and throat out goes into the knife and oh god. Smoke still swallows her senses and she chokes on the contents of her own lungs, barely standing upright against the pounding urge to retch. She wobbles and the thief pulls on her arm.

"Hey, hey! I'm not seeing any gold here. You wanna be in trouble or you wanna walk away? Because don't think I won't do it," she stops when Taya almost pitches into the knife. She moves a hand from Taya’s mouth to her opposite shoulder. "Where's your money, sweetheart?"

"I don't..." Taya squinches her eyes shut and thinks hard about her pockets. Lint, paper scraps, keys and a hairpin. Her money waits in a bag abandoned on the dresser back at the hotel. She thinks until her brain hurts - which isn't very hard - if she has anything at all of any value. "I'm sorry, but I--"

"Don't you fuckin’ kid me, honey." She feels her skin bruise and the thief shakes her shoulder so hard that she knocks against the alley wall. Her fingers cling to the pendent for dear life, her nails dig tiny ridges in its back. "Nice clothes like these, you've got money. Now spill before I spill you myself."

Shaking her head furiously, trying not to squeak as the knife edge sinks in her skin and leaves a shallow red mark. Eyes clenched clenched clenched shut like maybe this'll go away if she can't see it. "N-no, I really don't. I left it."

Foreign fingers knot in her hair and yank her head back. She sees sky, almost starless, light gone out. "What about that necklace you're holdin? Hands off it. Now."

Her fingers tremble and her arms sink limply to her sides. Her necklace? No. It's the only thing she has and it's not even hers.

Air exhales through the thief's teeth. "This can't be fuckin’ real. Where in hell?"

"You might want to let her go."

The third voice surprises them both; Taya gasps out breath as the hand clenches tighter in her hair. She doesn't try to look, doesn't strain against the pressure of her head, doesn't want to breathe with her neck stretched out and bleeding. Eventually the hand drops her head, the knife leaves her throat, and she falls to the ground like a stringless puppet.

"Che. God damned waste of my time," the thief mutters. Taya's too exhausted to look up. She breathes and she pushes a hand to her neck to feel the blood. Boxes thud under unexpected weight and boots plunk against fire escape metal.

Footsteps move toward her, dusty shuffles against a grungy ground. Warm hands press against her shoulders. She blushes instantly. Sage was planning to visit, wasn't he? Did he find her again? Did he save her again, because maybe she...

"Taya? It was Taya, wasn't it?"

No. Deeper than Sage's voice. She looks up and blinks her eyes into focus. The pale man from the restaurant, the performer? Possibly - no, definitely the last person on earth she would expect to come to her rescue.

"You remembered my name?" She couldn't remember his.

"It would appear so." He grins and nudges her upright by the elbows. She wobbles and he steadies her with his arms. Deceptively strong arms for someone who drinks tea and reads fortunes. "Are you all right?"

"I um, think so?" Maybe it's the adrenaline or maybe it's the strong arms wrapped firmly around her but she can't imagine feeling any pain. She feels tipsy.

"Relieving to hear." He’s worried about her? Not even Sage worried about her. "You were lucky, the thieves around here can be rather cutthroat, if you'll pardon the pun."

She smiles and she thinks maybe he smiled back and this would have been a moment if she didn't lean forward coughing. He quirks an eyebrow and rubs a hand against her back.

"And that qualifies as all right, does it?"

Taya waves to him with spaghetti limp arms to signal that yes, yes it does qualify as all right, if she could have a minute to catch her breath and keep it in. When her lungs remember how to breathe again, "I'm fine. I will be. Um. Why are you?"

Her skin tingles as his palm presses against her neck. Warm hands. Warm and faintly calloused, neither of which she expected from his skin. Not that she has expectations for his skin! Or any other experience with someone else's skin on her body, not that she was thinking of his skin on-

Oh. His hand pulls away. Did she not handle that right?

"You're bleeding."

She um-hms noncommittally.

"It looks pretty shallow. I think you'll be all right."

"Uh. Good?"

"Yes." He chuckles and steadies her terminally wobbly shoulders. "That would be a good thing."

"Thanks. Um. Thank you."

"No. I'm just glad that I found you. I shudder to think if I hadn't."

Taya stops to think about it. She does, in fact, shudder. He mistakes the shudder for a shiver and drapes his jacket across her shoulders. It smells of him. "I think, perhaps, I should take you home."

"It's, it's not too much trouble, is it? Because I probably won't be mugged again in the same day, at least not so soon as the walk home and I don't live very far so I should be fine really I promise, so it'll be okay and you can keep the jacket because I'm not cold, um, well maybe a little, but why aren't you interrupting me because I'm babbling?"

"Hm?" His eyes trace the horizon line, all blocked as it is by buildings and people. She knows the look, the certain distance of the eyes, it's a she's-talking-too-much-and-he's-too-polite-to-say-it look. He gradually notices the uncomfortable silence and flicks his eyes back in her direction. "Because you're not babbling. Clearly."

Her cheeks turn a more radiant shade of pink. She must be a pink blushy light in the darkness, like this. "Anyway. You don't h-have to. I don't want to bother you."

"You bring to mind many things, Taya, but bother is not one of them. Now which way is your house?"

Silence.

"You do recall where it is, don't you?"

"I, um, I'll know it if I see it?"