“What do you think the punishment is for stealing food in Hawkethorne?”
You… can’t say that you know.
“Well, good news is, neither do I, because I didn’t get caught stealing.” Despite the misdirection, there’s no humor in her voice, nor is there mirth in her expression. “Made it two steps – well, ‘steps’ – past the border before men started whoopin’ and kids started screaming and crying. Moms put themselves in front of me and their kids; some shithead teens start reaching for rocks; the town guard is called, and suddenly, I got people in full armor coming at me with their swords drawn.”
You don’t want to disparage Raizel and her story, but that doesn’t sound like the Hawkethorne you know.
“You’re also a native,” she answers simply. “People know you[pc.ra chimera||. And, more importantly, you’re… uniform. You don’t look like me]. They know you’re not a monster[pc.ra chimera||, and even if they didn’t, they’d first give you the benefit of the doubt]. Those men, and women, and moms, and shithead teens, and town guardsmen, they didn’t see a woman that got unlucky with genetics; they saw a monster. I begged, not for food, but for them to stop, and they kept coming at me anyway. They saw a monstrous freak and they responded like they saw a monstrous freak.”[pc.cl thief|
You recognize that this is a difficult story for her to tell, and all… but she had the sense to try and make her heist at night, right?
“Oh, shit, why didn’t I think of that?” she asks, her eyes widening with surprise. She bashes her palm against her own skull loudly enough that the crack echoes off the walls. “Damn, see, this is why you’re who you are, [pc.name], and this is why I’m at where I’m at. I’m just too much of a fucking idiot to think of something like ‘trying to steal stuff when people can’t see me as easily’.”
Okay, okay, you get it.
Raizel lets a wash of hot air leave her nose as the furrow in her brow eases. “That said,” she continues lowly, “no, it wasn’t during the night. I wanted to try and wait until night, for obvious reasons, but I couldn’t. I was too hungry. I was so hungry, I was about to pass out, and I was scared that that was a sleep I wasn’t going to wake up from. So, I went during the day.”]