Title: Magic Thief
Author: Tsubasa Kya
Disclaimer: no

Chapter One:
THIEF IN THE CASTLE?!

"Uwah!" Kagome beamed up at the city castle. She hugged her muddy satchel to her form as she was escorted by a rather scruffy looking man who looked far less than pleased. "Is this Corus?!" she demanded, her bare feet patting the pavement and the many bracelets on her ankles made of various kinds of metal jingling like a rather clumsy parade announcement.

"Yes," he grumbled. "Now, I brought you here! Where's my payment, girl, and I'm warning you… try messin' with me, and," Kagome turned hastily to face him, the jewelry jingling. The smile on her face spelled trouble, but it wasn't that which startled him and caused him to pause.

No, he'd forgotten why he hadn't just sold this girl to the slave drivers already. She was a hedge witch, or something entirely too close to that. Kagome ran a hand through her slightly ruffed raven hair, pulling fall leaves out of it as she did so.

A glance at herself told her she was worse for wear. She'd been given Tortallan clothes, something a common flower girl would wear, but they were littered with rips and tears. The skirt and petticoat had a giant rip that revealed one knee. The tunic and undershirt weren't much better being that her midriff showed openly to reveal her toned, flat stomach. One of the long sleeves of the white cotton undershirt had been ripped off, courtesy of a rather mean set of brambles, and scratches and scuffmarks marred her dark tan flesh wherever possible. Dirt and leaves were stuck in her hair from a long journey, matting it like a rats' nest.

She held the wool bag of her few belongings over her shoulder with one hand, bracelets just like those on her ankles jingling in multi-color and thickness there as well. A hand went to her hip as she pinned those deep blue eyes on her escort. "Hm," she said slowly, "I could have sworn I heard a threat in that!"

He gulped, instantly remembering her reaction to her when he'd first stumbled on her down by the southern coast. He'd had every intent to grab her and sell her to pirating slavers, but she'd shown him she was no one to mess with. After waking her rather boldly, sure the young chit would be no problem at all, she'd semi-consciously blasted him with what felt like fire and knocking him out for two days straight.

Instead of dealing with her again, he took off, deciding that to live another day would be better than being turned into a pile of goo by a hedge witch. With him gone, Kagome turned back to look up at the big castle gate. It was so early in the morning, there were few people around the city of Corus.

Her quick eyes picked up a straggling thief or two who was late at getting back from nightly raids, but that sort of activity was common no matter what country a person was from. Kagome grinned. The main gate to the castle wasn't open yet, and while she could get in any way she wanted, she figured the main gate was her best option.

Excitement burbled through her veins at the thought of where she was. She'd heard so much about this city and this castle. Apparently there was a university for magic somewhere in the large capital too. The university was her destination. She had all she needed for the entrance fee; her father was a pretty influential kind of guy, and that of course being before the mention that Thom Cooper, Headman of the newly built University in the Copper Isles, chose her to represent the Copper Isles as a foreign mage student.

With a bounce in her step and a smile upturning her lips, she grinned and started walking through the gates, intent on finding the Headman of the Corus University of Magic first thing. Headman Cooper had told her Harailt of Aili had passed away just recently, and so the high mage Numair Salmalin was temporarily filling in until someone new could be found.

Before she could get very far into the courtyard, she was grabbed by some soldiers who thought her up to no good. "Street rat!" one said and they turned her around and shoved her out toward the city again. "The likes of you don't belong in the castle!"

Her jaw dropped as she turned, her many bracelets jingling with every single move she made, and she stared at them in disbelief. Due to the rather rough handling, her wool bag of belongings had spilled out, revealing a small wooden lock-box, a small sack with a draw string pulled tight, a bent up dagger, a small flask, and some hard bread and jerky.

"Hey! That's not fair!" Kagome yelled at them stamping her foot hard on the ground. "You can't treat me like that, you over-grown lout!" She saw them bristling in irritation, but she was more annoyed than them. Headman Cooper told her a proper escort would be waiting for her when she arrived in Pearlmouth harbor. But of course some idiot Scanran pirates too far from home had decided their small vessel was a perfect target.

After that attack (a ship full of mages escorting a young apprentice mage obviously won) the ship ended up sinking and Kagome had no idea if anyone but herself had survived, since they all washed in different directions. She never made it to Pearlmouth harbor, but then again, she was actually supposed to be just getting to Corus now, even if she did get to Pearlmouth…

Once she'd washed up on shore, she'd been rather rudely awakened by a scruffy faced bandit. She ordered the bandit to take her to Corus and he agreed only because she'd given him a rather painful shock upon awakening… She was not a morning person, and it was not her fault he woke her up. She would do that to her own father if he was stupid enough to try waking her in the morning.

"Now, see here, filthy wretch!" said a second guard, and Kagome couldn't help but wonder if all Tortallans were as rude. "The castle is not a playground. Go find the woman that whelped you and tell her to keep a better eye on her brat!"

Kagome picked up her things, shoving them in the wool bag before bursting past the guards, ducking low so their grabbing arms wouldn't catch her. They hollered after her, telling her to stop, but she belonged here, and here she was staying. Before she knew what was going on, she had ten full grown guards chasing after her.

She ran past a curious group of boys who were holding staffs in their hands, and a shout from the guards chasing her was all it took before the boys were also running after her. "Hey! Lord William! A thief is in the castle!"

She managed to make it inside a kitchen area and unfortunately didn't see the cook standing just within the doorway. She shrieked and tried stopping, but her momentum kept her going at a steady rate in a crash course for a plump man. "Uwah!" she cried.

The cooks, not having anticipated the sudden appearance of the ragged scrap of humanity that Kagome currently was, were sent in a flurry as the man tumbled into a large pot filled with several gallons of red sauce. The pot tilted and sent the red sauce flowing like a river across the floor. A second cook, who had been carrying a large dish of mixed spices, slipped on the sauce.

"Aiyee!" the woman screamed noisily as the powders that were various spices flew up into the air and while the wooden bowl clattered to the floor, the spices went over everything.

Of course, the pages and guards would come in at that moment, slipping and sliding on spilled sauce, and over half of them (and the cooks in the room who ended up being taken down with them) were drenched in the mess.

Kagome crawled out from beneath two dazed pages and shot toward the door, trailing sauce-related footprints.

It resulted in Kagome being even dirtier, and not only did she have guards and (she assumed) pages chasing after her, but a handful of kitchen cooks drenched in sauce as well, only instead of brandishing staffs or swords, the cooks had cleavers or some other form of kitchen utensil. Now, fearing for her very life—she knew common cooks to be more dangerous than a guard or page—she kept running despite the stitch forming in her side.

After several moments of running, the her feet seemed clean enough not to leave a foot print, although this actually only worked in her favor after knocking down a servant, accidentally walking across them as she hastened to escape. They didn't appear too happy at that, from the shouting that followed her escape.

"You stupid wench! I'll show you your place!" he yelled as he joined the throng chasing her.

"I'm sorry!" she yelled back, but she wouldn't stop. She couldn't, even if she wanted to. Angry cooks with cleavers, pages who sought to be the one to 'catch the thief', and guards with very sharp looking swords chased her, yelling loudly and generally causing a raucous.

She managed to slip into a niche behind a statue just after turning a corner and all those people chasing her barreled by. Across the hall was a door, so she quickly went to it and sighed in relief that it was unlocked. A young page had held back from the others, and he shouted, "She's back here!"

Kagome sent a wide-eyed look of disbelief in the page's direction—this seemed to amuse him greatly—before throwing the door open and dashing inside. She was very lucky it wasn't a dead-end. It was a laundry room, filled with giant wooden vats doused in soap. The floors were wet and soap bars were plentiful. On the other side of the steamy room was a door. The guards, cooks, and pages were crowding into the room as she raced toward that door. She slipped on a bar of soap on the floor and went tumbling into a basket of clean, yet wet laundry that three maids had been working on for the past hour, and the red sauce that drenched Kagome ended up on the clean white sheets.

"Haha," she said nervously as the three young maids bore down on her, and the cooks, guards, and pages carefully maneuvered the room so they didn't slip on soap. "I'm sorry," Kagome told the maids, who clearly would have none of it. She grabbed her bag and took off running again, now with three murderous maids following.

"You stupid witch!" the maids snapped, holding laundry oars in their hands and looking incredibly menacing. 'Oh goodness,' Kagome thought, panic swelling in her breast at the thought of the mess she was in. Still, guards, cooks, pages, and that one servant were all sliding toward her.

"It's not my fault!" she called back to the maids and cooks. She figured there had to be forty people following her now. She needed to hide. She raced through a room filled with drying laundry, and any piece of laundry that she, or her saucy followers, touched became soiled. More maids were added to those following her.

"This is just not my day," Kagome groaned. She just needed to find Numair Salmalin. If she could do that, surely this could be cleared up as just a misunderstanding… She managed to find a stairway going up, and took it with the hope that she wouldn't run into more trouble. Her father would be laughing his rear right off if he knew of her trouble; it didn't help that she knew he had 'ways' of finding such things out.

She managed to worm her way into a tiny niche and her chasers barreled past again. Fully intent on staying hidden there until she was sure they were gone this time, she found a secret door behind her and slipped inside. The secret passageway was too small to stand up in, so she had to crawl, dragging her bag of belongings behind her. The passageway was dark, and she shouldn't have been able to see anything, but adjusting her eyes to darkness was no new trick.

After all, she thought with a grin, she worked better at night anyway. Darkness was her friend.

She came to a fork in the passage and only a moment of indecision was regarded before she went right. "The right way is always right!" she muttered softly, although her father always chastised her for such thinking, saying it was a fool's logic. She knew better: it was an optimist's logic, not a fool's!

Again after crawling around in the dusty, spider-web filled hole for what felt hours, she found another fork in the passage. She took the right passage once more, and the passage began to incline slowly. She ran into a door, and pulled it open, peering down to try finding out where she was. She brushed her hands over her eyes, adjusting them to bright light. Really, if those followers knew she was a mage, they'd probably not act like they did.

She looked out of the hole she was in. She was about thirty feet up, looking down on a library. She figured in the passage she must have doubled around and above this library. A few people were milling about the library. Most were wearing common gray robes, like the color of apprentice mages. A couple of them were wearing journeyman robes in varying colors. None were wearing the white of mastery.

Figuring it to be safe by now, she crawled forward and pushed herself out of the hole. Kagome would surely be able to ask one of these mages where to find the high mage Numair Salmalin, and all her troubles would be solved! She landed with a thud on a bookshelf top three feet down from the hole, and sat up to close the door. None of the mages noticed her, even though she'd made a fairly loud noise.

Kagome began climbing down the very tall twenty-five foot shelf, but unfortunately it wasn't bolted to the wall. She could feel the thin shelf falling away from the wall, and with a rather ungodly noise, the shelves were tilting one into another, like wooden blocks for a child's amusement.

"Ow, ow, ow," she muttered as she pulled herself and her wool bag out from beneath the triangle the shelf made. Book-shaped bruises littered her dirty flesh now. But that, she realized very quickly, was not her immediate problem. Seriously ticked off mages were now staring down at her. "Eh hehe," she laughed nervously as she stood, wringing the neck of the bag in her hands. "I'm… sorry…" she told them.

They didn't look like they were about to forgive her, if the glowing of their hands were any indication. She could see the various colors ready to harm her. She ducked as the spells were flung at her, and they soared over her head, crashing into a shelf and causing an effect much like a catapulted rock…

She took off, spells following her. "Not good, not good!" she yelled. They followed her. So much for her plan of asking a mage where Numair Salmalin was…

Six hallways and two staircases later, Kagome ran into her first group of searchers. Trapped between fifty maids, pages, guards, and cooks, and at least fifteen mages of varying power levels, she dashed to the first door she saw and blasted it off its hinges. As many of her followers that could, crowded into the room. She was trapped by the open window, but a glance out told her she was three stories up.

The guards from the gate were first in the room. She had nowhere else to run to… but she would not be turned away. She climbed onto the ledge of the window. "Now, girl, we're three stories up. You don't want to do that. Just leave the castle nicely, that's all. No need for this…"

Kagome glared at the guard, holding her bag of belongings tight in one hand. She stuck her tongue out at him. "If I were you," she told him, "I'd have your eyes checked. All this is your fault to begin with, and I'm gonna make sure people know you turned me away!" She let herself fall back out the window, and he dashed for her.

She caught the window ledge beneath the one she fell out just barely with her free hand and struggled to climb in. "She's climbing into the room below here!" the guard shouted, having stuck his head out the window. This would be so much easier, she thought, if she didn't have slippery hands, and if she didn't have her things to carry around.

She slumped on the floor for a moment, holding her stomach, before looking around for an escape. She nearly screamed as she realized this was definitely not the right room to have fallen into. A snoozing dragon, as tall as her waist at the shoulders, was not even ten feet away from her.

She saw a door, hoping it led out, and went to leave, only to be crudely stopped by a footstool so conveniently placed to trip her. Her many bracelets and anklets jangled and she yelped noisily. Her things went sprawling out of her bag and clattered on the floor. The dragon's head came up curiously and she decided, better alive than fried. She left her things and left the room through an extra-large door, very unhappy to find a dragon following her.

Kagome managed to find her way to a deserted hall, being chased the entire time by mages, maids, cooks, pages, guards, and a dragon. The pages seemed to fall back when seeing where she was headed, but everyone else continued on. Her only reprieve was that the dragon seemed to think chasing her was a game and it wasn't chucking flaming fireballs at her. She sent a blast of magic at the doors and they shot open, their hinges cracking. Inside this room was pretty close to nothing. There were a few benches, a strange room within the room with an iron gate door, a gold sun disk with a lamp in front of it.

Knowing she would be caught anyway, she dashed for the iron gate's darkened interior. If they followed her in, she could sneak out as they were washed in darkness. Everyone called to her, telling her not to enter the Chamber. She threw the door open and went in anyway.

-

Toga grinned at the mortal King Jonathan. "You're late." He told the mortal, and Jonathan sighed heavily. In the room were a few others; Daine the Wildmage, Numair Salmalin, the Queen Thayet, Alanna the Lioness, and Raoul of Goldenlake and Malorie's Peak. The meeting wasn't an official one, but there in the corner was a scribe who quivered in fear of Toga.

Jonathan didn't blame the young scribe a single bit for his fear. Toga was an imposing presence that Jonathan didn't even compare to in his prime. He had long silver hair held up in a high-tie, but that thick hair still reached down behind his knees. His clothes were like what the Yamani wore, and over it was armor made of some sort of bone. He wore a white fur cloak and had three swords, two at his waist and one strapped to his back. He was dangerously tall, and sharp claws glinted on each finger rather than normal dull nails. Each time he grinned, he revealed sharp fangs and his eyes were piercing and an unnatural sun-gold.

Not many could be in the man's presence for very long. They were too afraid. It was the reason why Jonathan couldn't have a real official meeting with Toga. His council was too afraid to convene. The conservatives, those who were still alive, stayed brooding in their lands throughout the realm. Gareth of Naxen, cousin to Jonathan, took a spot beside Alanna.

"Where are George and Myles?" Jonathan asked, his question directed at Alanna. If anyone knew, he figured her, being wife and daughter, would know.

She glared at him. "Pearlmouth. Aly and Thom asked George to be part of the escort bringing that new mage in. Aly would not trust anyone but George and his people, though do not ask me why. Myles went with." Alanna was not pleased.

Jonathan frowned at his purple-eyed friend. She was probably the only person in the world who would tell him exactly how she felt, but Toga's presence made her bite her tongue. That meant that when it did come out, it would be ten times worse. He'd have to make sure to catch her alone sometime later on, so he wasn't embarrassed publicly.

Toga cleared his throat. They were not there for pleasantries, and Toga had news in regards to the very issue they were talking about. "It has been verified that the ship escorting the mage was sunk by rogue Scanran pirates." Toga said.

"How do you know?" Numair asked. The ship should have pulled into port at Pearlmouth almost a month earlier, and no matter how many detours the escort made, or what direction they traveled, they should have made it to Corus already. And yet, George reported no ship had come carrying a young mage apprentice.

Toga's lips pressed slightly together. "Southern members of my clan have confirmed finding the mage escort, but not the young apprentice. The escort believes the apprentice may have drowned. We have shipped the mages back to the Copper Isles."

Jonathan felt like being childish and slapping his forehead multiple times but managed to stop himself. He was nearing fifty years old, and his once stark black hair was littered with liberal amounts of gray. Toga claimed to be several hundred years old, and yet he looked no older than twenty-five.

Raoul, of course being one who easily got along with Toga despite the fact that the latter was an immortal, said with a grin, "Next time, before you ship them back where they came from, we mortals like questioning people."

Toga placed his palms flat to his sides and bowed in what appeared to be an apology. "Ah, I shall keep that in mind."

They didn't get to say any more. A sharp knock on the door preceded the entrance of Lord William of Applegrove fief, a conservative and the training master for the pages and squires. "We have a… situation, my Lord," he said quietly though everyone heard.

"What is it?" Jonathan asked.

Lord William frowned deeply before saying, "Apparently early this morning a thief came into the castle. She caused quite a bit of damage before making her way to the Chamber… She did come out, and we have arrested her, but she is insisting to talk to Master Numair…"

Jonathan and those gathered all shared confused glances. He looked at his Queen, and she frowned thoughtfully. "Damage in what way?" It was common knowledge that thieves who came into the castle eventually ended up at the Chamber, but usually the Chamber opened on their corpse.

Lord William held out a handful of small wooden scraps for the gathering to examine. "She is a hedge witch, majesty. It is why we agreed to request Master Numair's presence. Two guards are unconscious, and three pages have been injured in her apprehension." Lord William glanced at Toga. "Lord Toga's son managed to subdue her, where the rest of us could not."

Numair stood up, and Daine moved to follow. He waved at her to remain seated. "Continue this discussion. Lord William, lead the way." He was admittedly curious. He saw Toga's proud smirk just before leaving.

-

"You won't get that open," Kagome told the guards who were attempting to pick the lock. "Only I can open it, and I'll be sure as hell damned if I open it for idiots like you." They had gone and gotten her things from the dragon's room and were currently trying to pick the lock on her lock box.

She was rather uncomfortable, being pinned against a wall by a very strong boy with silver hair, and the strangest eyes the color of honey. He did not match the clothes he wore, or perhaps the clothes didn't match him.

She guessed they were just the clothes worn by pages, but he looked a couple years too old to be a page. A red tunic with gold trim, and brown breeches. His hair was kept cropped to the tips of ears that were pointed and slightly angled. His skin was very pale, but his cheeks were slightly flushed.

Well, she hadn't gone easy on him. She was a bit more worse for wear herself, breathing heavily before he managed to pin her against the wall with her hands behind her back. She thought he might have been doing some sort of magic, because she couldn't access the ball of power inside her. If she wanted, she could have gotten away, but she was making an attempt at demure. Attempt being a major factor, since she just wanted to go rampant on the guards for causing so much trouble for her.

"Stupid, filthy street rat," the guard mumbled in a small voice she wasn't supposed to hear. He didn't know she had sensitive hearing, obviously. She stuck her tongue out at him, and the boy pushed her against the wall again.

"Enough, girl." He said in warning. "Master Numair has been called. Silence your lip!"

"You don't tell me what to do," Kagome told him, only to be shoved rougher into the stone. "I'm going to rejoice when you idiots are put in your place, as is just bound to happen. This street rat doesn't like being manhandled!"

The guard she'd talked to that morning smirked at her. "Trouble with brats like you," he said, leering at Kagome as he unsheathed his sword, "is that you don't know your place." He raised his sword above his head, prepared to slice her wooden lock box in half.

"I wouldn't," she pointed out, but too late, the sword came down and shattered on the wooden box as if it were nothing more than a champagne glass breaking on stone. "I told you," she sang merrily, and he glanced at the hilt of his sword in astonishment. "As if my papa would give me something just any idiot could break!" she grinned.

"You may release her," said an older man who had just entered the room they were in. Kagome observed the man as the grip the boy had on her tightened for a second.

He hissed, "No funny business."

"Funny?" she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye before turning back to look at the newcomer. He'd come with that Lord William person, who seemed to be in charge of the pages. "I am always serious!" he snorted lightly and released her and she stood up straight, massaging sore wrists.

The newcomer looked exactly like the description Headman Cooper had given her, except with grayer hair. If this was indeed Numair Salmalin, she would finally have a break in her terrible day. The old man frowned at her. "And you are?"

She clapped her hands together, slapping a big grin on her face. "I'm Kagome! Kagome Higurashi!" she moved over to her lock box and banged a few times on the top of it. "Open up you stupid box!" she told it, and it popped open. She raised the lid, and reached in. A soggy piece of paper was what she pulled out. "Oh no… Headman Cooper's letter got wet. Papa, you dummy, you said this lock box was water proof!" she shook her hand at the sky… and the others really didn't know what to make of her.

"Did you say Headman Cooper?" the man asked her, a shocked look on his face. "Are you the apprentice mage?"

Kagome groaned. "Well, here," she said, handing the wet, inky piece of parchment to Numair. "Yeah, I'm the apprentice mage." She turned a glare on the two guards. "And those guys chased me all over this place, landed me in a hot pot in the kitchens, drenched me in soapy laundry water, made me land in a library and knock over all the shelves, and got a dragon chasing after me, then chased me into some chamber thingy that was filled with bugs!!"

"We told you not to go into the Chamber," the guard muttered. "Brat doesn't listen."

Kagome spun around to glare at the guard. Each step she took toward him, her jewelry made musical noise, almost like a dangerous cadence. "If you had not turned me away to begin with, none of it would have happened! But no, you believed me a street rat just because I'm a little dirty!"

"A little dirty?" the boy snorted, "You look like something the cat drug in."

"And you!" Kagome rounded on the boy. "I recognize you as the boy who hung back and pointed out that I was hiding! Did you find my situation humorous?"

The guard pointed out logically, "You never once mentioned you were a noble apprentice mage."

Once more, Kagome's eyes found and pinned the guard with a glare. "I was born a street rat, and I'll die a street rat, you dung barrel!"

Numair sighed deeply and rubbed his temples before turning to Lord William. "Lord William, please excuse Page Fushiro for the morning lessons." Lord William nodded and Numair turned back to the page and Kagome. "Page Fushiro, show Apprentice Higurashi to the baths and ask a servant to retrieve clothes for her. Apprentice Higurashi, when you have cleaned yourself up, Page Fushiro can show you to the mess hall and I will come find you after you have eaten."

Kagome slammed the lid of her lock box shut, jamming it, her bent up knife, and her entrance fee money back into her wool sack. The page looked stone-faced at her before turning around and walking away. She had to quickly thank Numair before leaving him to stare at the soaked and useless letter in his hand. What if something important had been in there?

-

After a long bath had soaked away not only dirt, grime, and dried sea weed but also the sauce, laundry soap, and cob webs, Kagome found a shiny comb in her lock box that she used to attempt to detangle her hair. It took several minutes to do, but beautiful hair took effort.

A maid who seemed incredibly prone to giggling entered the room and gave her a new set of clothes, gauging her new outfit by what her old outfit was. She was rewarded with a pink tunic and a short-sleeve white undershirt. Her skirt and petticoats were a similar pink to the tunic. The soft pink did contrast nicely with her dark tan skin, although a glance at herself told her the cutesy-pie pink did not match the many bruises and scrapes on her visible flesh.

She'd washed her bracelets and ankles free of dirt, so the copper, gold, silver, and bronze metal rings shone brightly and their jingling sound was far noisier with each step and move she made. She really enjoyed listening to the musical sounds with each step. Each ring was a different metal and a different thickness, so none of them had a duplicate sound.

When she was done combing her hair and had just loaded her stuff back into her wool sack, the maid stepped forward. "Mistress, let me take that for you. By the time you've eaten lunch, I shall have your room prepared in the Apprentice Mage wing."

Kagome blinked at the girl. She had upside-down eyes, Kagome noticed. They were almond shaped, but they were almond vertically, and her pupils were slits. This fact made her face look very long and thin. She wore a common maid uniform of a black skirt to her ankles and a white blouse, but she just… looked so weird.

Not to mention the itty-bitty fact that there was some sort of long…tail-like thing, wrapped around her waist. She bowed and, in a puff of smoke, vanished. Kagome sighed and looked at her empty, but scratched up hands. "This place is weirder by the minute," she muttered before looking back at her cleaned up reflection.

She didn't look terribly bad, but just as before, she felt almost stifled by the clothing. Her jewelry jangled as she raised a hand to brush her fingers through her hair. Her mirror image mimicked her. "Papa, was this what you wanted?" she muttered to herself before deciding she didn't really want to know.

Whatever was in store for her, she would find out. She tapped her fist in her palm twice, decisively, before walking toward the exit to the baths. The boy from earlier, Page Fushiro, leaned casually against the opposing wall to the bathroom door, his eyes closed as though he were just milling about and not actually following orders. He'd crossed his arms over his chest, and she noticed he seemed to have claws instead of nails.

Sharp…claws…

"Thank you for waiting, Page Fushiro!" she chirped, completely ignoring his abnormal (and certainly not human) features. "Even if you did get me in trouble earlier!" Again, she said it with a smile, but this time her voice was laced with thoughts of payback.

He didn't look at her, but rather he pushed himself away from the wall. "Hn." He snorted. He began walking away from her and she hastened to follow, disbelief the only sure thing she felt at the moment. Surely such a strange creature as him would have a larger vocabulary than 'hn'!

And he proved it two seconds later. "I am merely following orders." Okay, so he apparently did not have that much larger of a vocabulary?