Octavius found himself in a deserted industrial street, panting hard. The smell of smoke reached his nose and he wanted to gag, scream, and cry all at once. His legs ached and his chest burned. Octavius started walking, unable to run anymore. The dirt road was barely wide enough for two carts to pass side-by-side. Bordered on either side by four to six story high unpainted brick buildings. The dust kicked up by animal hooves hung heavy in the air, doing nothing for Octavius's labored breathing. Though machinery hummed inside the buildings, not a living thing moved outside, save for a donkey tied next to a trough of straw. Sudden anxiety shook Octavius, he was a fugitive, an escapee. Even though he had no idea what his crime even was, or who put him in this situation. But he would be caught again, soon guards would be barrelling down the streets, sweeping every alleyway and the buildings in between. Hell a guard didn't need to find him, a civilian did. He'd be reported the second he was seen, no one hears distant alarm bells and sees a tired, dirty man in a cheap tunic and minds their own business. The sun was high in the sky, someone would walk out of a building any second now, or hell, a guard could already be on the way because someone looked out a window and saw Octavius. Escaping detainment was punishable by death, and they wouldn't give him a warning, they'd jam a cutlass into his stomach as soon as he was seen. Or maybe Octavius wouldn't even know he'd been seen, he'd catch a bullet in the back of his head from a standard issue flintlock.
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Octavius spun around, looking for the guard who was going to kill him. Octavius did not want to die. He did not want to die wearing only a threadbare tunic. He did not want to die in a dirty street. He did not want to die near that donkey that shit on the ground as he passed by. He did not want to die at the hands of some self-important guard who'd be awarded a promotion. He did not want to die without knowing what was going on. He did not want to die-
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"Fancypants!" A not so distant shout startled Octavius into ducking under a parked handcart, staring wide-eyed into the direction of the voice. He couldn't see anyone, so it had to be someone yelling at a friend in the next block over or something. Octavius wasn't even wearing pants, of course they weren't talking about him.
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"You idiot!" The same voice, a woman's, screamed. Octavius cowered, they hadn't spotted him yet, and they wouldn't just by walking past the street. But if they came down this road the handcart would not be enough to hide his entire body. Octavius looked around desperately. Nothing around was nearly large enough to hide him, and the damned donkey wouldn't stop staring at him as it chewed. He'd have to make a mad dash into the nearest alleyway over a hundred feet away and pray the person didn't turn into the street to see him. Octavius pushed himself up to crouch on his wobbling feet, wondering if he'd just pass out as soon as he stood up. He'd been prone to fainting spells as a child.
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A hand grabbed his shoulder. With a yelp befitting a high-ranking man, Octavius spun around, promptly tripping himself in the process. He didn't bother stopping himself as he fell. It was just the girl. Thank-every-god.
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"See why we didn't go to the woods, Fancypants?", she said in an artificially high voice. Octavius stared up at her. She was in every ounce of danger he was, and yet she slouched casually with her arms crossed. With a nod she spoke, "Let's get out of here." And she walked towards the alleyway, Octavius following loyally behind.
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They entered the alleyway, which looked the same as the rest of the street only with more trash and a wall on one end. The space was claustrophobic, if Octavius were a buff dude (or even an averagely wide dude, if he were being honest) his shoulders would scrape the walls on either side. Before reaching the end of the alley, the girl seemed to have a thought and turned to him.
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“You can climb this, right?” She said, Octavius checked behind her, expecting a ladder or something. But there was nothing, only sheer brick on three sides. “Gods you are useless.” She knew his thoughts before he had to say a word. “Switch sides with me.” She pushed her back against the wall and motioned for him to move. Octavius went against his nature and blindly obeyed. She’d gotten him this far and Octavius just wanted to get everything, whatever everything was, overwith.
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Octavius shimmied past her, even in his predicament he found himself annoyed at her stench before remembering that he must smell offensive as well. He watched her as she wordlessly wedged her arms and legs against the wall, holding herself aloft. One limb at a time, she unwedged and moved up. Octavius felt like crying, but did his best to copy her technique and climb up. His muscles screamed as he pushed against the wall and the brick cut into him at every point of contact. She made it look simple even with one less wall than Octavius. Octavius made it ten feet up and remembered he was afraid of heights, but he had at least three more stories to go, so he locked his eyes on the girl beside him and continued. Despite his weak, shaky muscles he was relatively secure, the uneven brick gave footholds and friction. The girl had to carefully maneuver around a few windows, but Octavius’s side had nothing. He had been watching the foot he was currently moving so closely he hit his head on one of the building’s decorative overhangs. The girl was quicker and more graceful getting on to the roof, and she held on to Octavius’s torso as he wiggled up. Though Octavius probably weighed a lot more than her, and she wouldn’t be able to save him if he fell, Octavius still appreciated the sentiment.
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Finally they were on the lip of a gently sloping mansard roof, the two other walls of the alleyway ending at slightly taller heights with much steeper gables. The two scrambled up the slope onto a small flat top, shielded by surrounding buildings with taller roofs, and there were no windows, balconies, or decks in view. Very lucky. Or maybe-
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“Is this where you were?” Octavius’s voice sounded raspier than he expected.
“Pretty much, I saw this spot when I was hopping around looking for supplies and watching to see if you came around. “ She panted, motioning at the items from the guard and a few coins sitting in the corner.
“Do.. we have to get down the way we came?”
“No”, she chuckled,” A couple buildings away there's a few that go down in like eight feet increments, why it took me a bit to get down to you.” She paused, “Nice hiding by the way.” Octavius chose to graciously ignore her slight dig.
“Ok, well, we can’t stay up here forever, they’ll be looking for us,” he said, with what little adrenaline left in his veins making itself known,”they’re gonna find us soon.” Octavius registered the smell of smoke in his nose, billows of smoke rose from the forest in the distance.
“We’ll be fine fancypants, we’ll stay up here ‘till dark, then we move, we’ll be miles clear by morning, and halfway to Pitchfort by the time those slugs print flyers with shitty depictions of our faces from some idiot guard who saw us in passing.” She said, reclining in the shade of an adjacent building.
“Maybe for you, but I’m a Grimvalt,” the girl snorted, Octavius continued,”And a portrait of me will be in last years Aris Standings publication,” Octavius drew his knees to his chest, “My face will be plastering the streets in the amount of time it takes them to start up the printer.” The girl's face was expressionless. Octavius continued, “I should just surrender.” The girl raised an eyebrow.
“We were in Death’s Row, and escaped execution. They kill you on sight for that shit– surrendering or not. And your face won’t be up ‘till they can guarantee you aren’t already dead, and that will be hard to do with half of the corpses barbequed,” she shrugged toward the pillar of smoke, “And they won’t print everyone's faces, and probably will lie to the public about the extent of the escape, it’s a huge shame to the bigwigs’ ego, you should know that as well as anyone.”
Octavius opened his mouth to argue on instinct, but closed it when he found himself agreeing with her logic. They wouldn’t put up wanted posters until they knew who got away, and then the family would claim those were the only escapees and downplay the event. Pitchfort wasn’t large enough for a Death’s Row, but Octavius could infer enough from his own family's rule and his studies to know the girl was right about how this would be handled. And Octavius had to admit, despite somehow making it onDeath’s Row, he was no criminal.
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