Thief and Spy

[Asri]

"Please, don't..." she thought. Asri put her palm on her face when Nera pointed to her, she made her stand out, some people had turned to look at her. "I don't need more attention than this." Great, now she didn't know how she would apply her first rule. She, they, supposed to keep low profile and tried not to draw attention. Even Bale was looking at her now, and they just locked eyes for a second.

When Asri was busy cursing Nera, Bale turned to look at his subordinate. Something was actually troubling him, it was that the woman with red hair looked somewhat ready to kill her partner anytime. "I am boring?" he asked, trying to clarify this with his subordinate. Well, the word "boring" hurt him a little. He tried to inspire these people, giving them some moral booster before they would go to join the rebel in their secret base, but then someone took it as boring. Looking disappointed, Bale closed his eyes and said, "Was I? Don't worry, I have finished." He wasn't angry, he couldn't anyway. Showing anger at his subordinate for a simple reason like this could ruin his image. No matter what, he was a central figure who was going to lead these people in near future, he needed to show himself as a compassionate and wise leader. "Maybe next time I will write shorter version so it won't be boring," he joked, chuckling. The crowd laughed, even some of his guards too. It seemed he was trying to make this situation less serious.

Bale then looked at Asri again, she still stared at him with those green eyes. Really, he wondered what he had done wrong to this woman. Her eyes showed some anger and...intent to kill. Well, Asri was clearly annoyed by all this ruckuss but it was not anything personal with Bale.

He clasped his hand and said, "I apologize for what he did, miss. I hope you would not take it personally and forget this little misunderstanding." He smiled to Nera as he spoke. Bale then gave the man a pat on his shoulder and went to the center of the room. "Alright, I think it's time to move on. We have to reach our base before sunset." His voice got everyone attention, stopping their chuckles. Bale gave his men a signal, some guards then went to a knight statue in the west corner of the room. The others formed a line to cover one guard who seemed to do something to the statue.

Soon, Asri felt the ground shaking, it felt like a small earthquake. Left to the statue, the wall opened and revealed the secret tunnel which was left here by whoever built this mansion. "So, it's how they plan to move all these people without raising suspicion." Asri had noted this, but she still needed to find the "switch". It could be an important information and Gray would like it. Anyway, the fact that they hid how to open the secret passage showed that they still couldn't trust their new recruits.

The thief turned to her annoying partner, she looked angry. "This is the reason why I always worked alone," she remarked. "But yeah, at least you were clever enough to divert the attention to him. If not..." She glared at Nera with a smirk, she had made it clear with her murderous glare. They were not friends so she wouldn't hesitate to kill Nera if necessary, and if she wanted.

[Nera]

Nera took her place next to Asri, ignoring Bale's apology to her. She doubted it was sincere--it had some undertone similar to the one in her apology, she had noticed. So by that logic, the apology was only for show. In the act of ignoring Bale, and curious to look past the wall of soldiers to see how the secret tunnel was opened, Nera had ended up ignoring Asri as well. "This is definitely quite interesting..." She said over the chatter amongst the people who had seen the tunnel open for the first time.

A strage feeling had then made itself aparent. It was as if someone wanted to kill her; not in anger, but to relieve some other emotion. It was strange in that it was a somewhat familiar feeling to her, and she looked to her side, believing she knew what the source was. Asri was smirking at her, but she could not return it this time. It was too sudden of a discovery--if Nera were to shoot a smile back, it would make her look and feel stupid.

She stepped backwards, once, twice, closer to the middle of the crowd of recruits, but kept her eyes fixed on Asri. As crowd was being herded into the tunnel, Nera began to walk with them, albeit backwards. Along with the feeling that Asri wanted to kill her, Nera did not doubt that a death threat had accompanied it. She just had not been listening. Finally a distance away from Asri where Nera decided she could react if a knife were to be thrusted at her, she began to slow her backward walk. "Are you trying to kill someone with that look, Asri? Me, perhaps?" Nera did not ease up with this insult. Although she doubted she could defeat Asri in a physical fight, she could do anything but ease up. "I assume you were as curious about the switch to this tunnel as I was?" Nera said, with the majority of the recruits now past her. "Would you care to join me in examining it?"

[Asri]

Asri gave Nera another threatening glare. "I am not sure whether having you here helping me to smooth the process or hinder my job," she spoke with sarsastic tone, which almost sounded like a joke for them who were less sensitive. She wasn't in mood to explain to Nera about what annoyed her the most. The thief wanted her to figure it out herself with that little brain of hers.

Despite the urge to kill, she had done a good job to keep control of herself so far, trying to conceal her emotion. This was because the contract, even a sly and evil thief wanted to accomplish her mission perfectly, or almost perfectly, which couldn't be done if she killed her partner right here in the middle of crowd. Was she angry? Yes. Because now some people might have realized "she was here" and remembered her face. Although she might have enough fighting skill to survive, Asri was the type who always preferred to work in stealth which required her to keep the public attention at minimum.

"Go yourself. I am not staying here to grope a statue. And if you think you could convince me that these people are very patient to wait us finished with the statue, just try it. You have my support," she said, looking down at the girl who was walking backward. Asri was hoping Nera would stumble and fall, but then she hoped she wouldn't because that would make another scene. "But no, we follow our shepherd for now. Just believe I know some other ways to find the switch we needed," she said, talking to her with uninterested tone in her voice. All of these had gotten her tired, not physically but mentally.

And then, everything went as she expected. The group was led by some soldiers and that Bale himself, some soldiers waited in the entrance to close the secret passage after all of them moved in. Three soldiers stood firmly near the statue, to protect the secret hidden in it. "Still not trust, uh? I wonder if we'll get some initiation later," Asri muttered. She then turned to Nera and gestured to the statue, "Go now. Strip your clothes in front of the guards and I will take the chance to check on the statue, just as you suggested." That was an insult to Nera's suggestion from earlier, which Asri never approved.

[Nera]

"Oh my, well that was a rather predictable response..." Nera shook her head, expecting Asri to have been a bit more sarcastic. To Nera, it seemed as though Asri was getting tired of the insults. So she decided to do the reverse for a while. To be honest she had begun to become a little bored herself. "However, wonderful comebacks as always." Nera stopped walking backwards, finally deciding to turn the correct way.

"Alright then, I've had my fun. I'll return to loosely following your orders." Nera walked to the statue, finally deciding that she had not prepared enough to examine the statue as she had hoped. Strip to catch the attention of the guards? If anything, Asri was going to do that, not her. Nearing the statue, she casually walked by the guards with a bored expression on her face. Her eyes scanned what she could on the statue, but nothing stood out. "Come now Ms.Scarlet, we cannot keep them waiting forever." She said, walking down the passage.

[Asri]

Asri didn't forget to examine the tunnel as they walked through it, this secret passage looked old. Asri wasn't an expert with stones or architecture but she could tell that this place was made a long time ago. She then remembered about a story about this mansion, it once belonged to a rich noble family who lived her for generation, but one day, something destroyed their glory and forced them to desert this mansion. "The family probably built this tunnel as an escape route or something." Looking at the wall, some old cracks were left in the wall. The rebel probably had repaired the bigger cracks after they started to use this tunnel, they also had put the torches in the wall to light the path.

Because they had made some scene back in the mansion, some people sometimes stared at the two girls. Their whispering was heard by Asri but she could do nothing with this situation. She only put poker face as she walked. She snarled when she noticed that some soldiers sometimes talked while looking at them too. Of course she couldn't know what those soldiers were whispering about, but if it was because she and Nera were labeled as suspicious, it would be very risky to continue this mission. Forget the mission, maybe she even wouldn't be able to come out alive.

"Nera," she called Nera after a long silence between them. The thief moved closer and whispered, "Don't drop your guard, it seems we stand out a little too much. Not a good trait to have in our current situation, huh?" Asri emphasized the last phrase, it seemed she was still annoyed with what happened.

OoC : Should we move to a new thread and do a little timekip after your post?