Chapter Text
Sircus likes to think that the reason he’d made it thus far in the Wasteland is because the living threats knew that, despite his potentially intimidating height, he had little to nothing on his bones. Additionally, his skin is much too leathery to enjoy much anyways.
Logically, however, he knows that this is just wishful thinking, a weak attempt to amuse himself. He knows he’s survived this long because he can hit his shots, because he can steal and get away with it, and because his god favors him.
Granted, it may not help that he wears a cloak that is close to, if not the exact same color of his pitch black skin, that it’s highlighted by bright red, or that he wears a checkered white and grey scarf that he wears over his mouth. He has always told himself he wears them to protect his eyes and nose, but his hood barely pokes over his ibex-like horns, leaving them and his off-black bangs visible to those up close, so maybe he actually doesn’t wear them for that.
Recently, he’s found a firehound puppy, which he finds to be odd. Firehounds always travel in groups, and they rarely cast out one of their own. He figures it must be because the puppy is much too small and weak for them to care for, and they didn’t see him lasting very long. Maybe he’ll keep it, considering he has no one out here but himself. Father Ebus said to survive on his own, so having a firehound would throw a wrench into that, wouldn’t it? Well, do pets even count, actually? Surely Father Ebus would understand because he didn’t say anything about pets. But he also didn’t specify if he could. He’ll look to Mask for guidance.
Until then, he calls the puppy Oscar. The damn thing becomes his most prized possession, his best friend, and after 2 years, he never gains the ability to just leave him somewhere. He feels Mask would be okay with the small thing, but one of Father Ebus’s most important and recurring lessons was how mortal judgement may cloud the judgement Mask provides. That doesn’t matter right now, however, because Sircus is busy planning one of his bigger survival heists of his time out in the Wasteland.
He, for all his life, has survived in the Recanar Wasteland, where there are three Oases: Xid, Aretus, and Hamareda. They’re all centered on their Life Tree (well, they’re technically called the Blooming Trees, but he’s only ever heard scholars and teachers actually refer to them as such), but each Oasis has their own. They were placed in those three spots millennia ago when the Water Deities came from the Water’s Edge and flooded the land. With the Life Trees providing water and shade for each Oasis (and supposedly some damn good fruit, the main source of the Wasteland’s economy), the people living there have set up their trades up around them. Hamereda has the busiest port, being the closest to the Gulf, so logically, he decides to go to Xid — and that was probably his first mistake, if honesty was something he valued. Hamareda has the Gulf, where he can easily make an escape as a stowaway, and Aretus has the Cracked Colorbasin, where he can hide in the dusty canyons; Xid, however, is based in the sandy dunes of the continent, providing very little for escape or hiding — and that would lead to his second mistake.
Sircus stands out in the busy crowds of Xid. There aren’t very many other tieflings within the Oases. Usually, they travel with the caravans as either members of the given religion or as hired mercanaries — he guesses he’s no different, being a traveller on the sands. He doesn’t like standing out, because of that, but he doesn’t know any other thieves who like standing out, anyway. Being a head taller than most helps him keep his ibex-like horns away from hitting people (or being grabbed by grubby children), at least, though it doesn’t help anywhere else.
He hears Oscar huff behind him, and he can feel the smoke of his breath tumble out of his nose. “I know we’re too far into town, but we’ll make more profit this way,” he reasons. Maybe he should have stayed back. Wait a minute, are those gloves? Leather gloves? The kind for caravan scouts and travellers? He has needed a new pair, with how beaten up his pair (an heirloom of which he got from his mother, who got them from her mother, the works).
The leatherworker — a satyr woman whose face, in his opinion, is a bit too happy, and makes him want to gag — looks to him when he approaches. “Hello, sir!” she chirps.
“Hey there,” he replies.
As he picks up a pair of gloves, she goes into detail about them. “I made those about a week ago. They haven’t been used, still need to be broken in as you can see h —”
“Here,” he finishes as he motions down the seam as she does.
“Yes! I’m guessing you know you know your leather?” she asks.
With a so-so motion of his hand, he shrugs. “I know some about gloves, but not much, really. How much did you say these go for?”
“The leather is recently imported, and the gloves themselves even more recently made,” the satyr states, “so I’d take anywhere from 15 to 20 gold.” Yikes, that is most of his gold. Now he remembers why he stays in the outskirts of the Oases.
“Can I strike you for a discount?” he asks with as charming of a smile as he can muster. “I haven’t been able to get much lately for my trade.”
She leans forward on her hands and squints her eyes up at him. “And what’s that?”
“What’s what?”
She’s looking up. Away from the tabletop.
“Your trade?”
“Carpentry,” he lies. “ ‘S why I need new gloves.” He holds them up as demonstration. “Protect my hands and all.”
“I’m not going lower,” she hums. “It’s either 20 gold or none at all. Besides,” she looks down at his own gloves, “those aren’t carpentry gloves.” He sighs and looks behind at Oscar, whose big, dumb eyes stare up at him, and he clicks his tongue.
Oscar begins sniffing around the stand as he places the gloves down. “Ah, oh well. Sorry for wasting your time then. First time I’ve been inside Xid properly.” That’s a lie.
The woman smiles toothily. “Oh! Really?”
He nods, eyeing Oscar in his peripheral. “Yeah, born and raised around Aretus.” Half-truth. “Oscar!” he exclaims as the firehound goes behind the stand. When the satyr turns to look at him, Sircus slides the gloves off the table and begins running, whistling loudly over the crowd. He faintly hears the woman yell for the Guardians – the milita-force of the Oases.
What if he gets caught? Oscar doesn’t know how to live on his own, and he knows no caravan scouts will spare him. What’ll happen if he gets caught? Crime doesn’t really occur around the Life Trees, only really in the outskirts where Guardians don’t have to deal with it as much or as thoroughly. Knife, scabbard; crossbow, wrist.
Then something — or someone? — grabs one of his horns, which hurts a lot. Doesn’t this person know common tiefling etiquette? He grabs his knife from the scabbard on his belt and slashes upward at where they grabbed. Hearing a leathery slice and a pained hiss, he fully spins to make a shot but is stopped by a force behind him grabbing his upper arms and lifting him up. How strong are Guardians again? Is he that light? Not the time, Sircus! Focus! Dropping his knife — Mask, his knife! — he raises his hand as close he can to the Guardian holding him.
Shocking Grasp is a spell that comes naturally and instinctively to him. Lighting wraps his fingers before reaching — yes! It’s in range! — to the Guardian’s metal armor. However, that only stops one of them; the others surround him still as bystanders back away.
Then, they’re in a circle around him, but none of them make a step towards him. Sircus looks down at the Guardian who he shocked. A fair-skinned aasimar boy (around his own age maybe), covered head to toe in the notable gold and blue armor of the Guardians, still writhing. When he looks back up, an elvic man, equipped with a shield now (it’s considerably smaller than the one in Teacher Frigga’s books, how odd), is coming at him — quickly. Before he has the chance to cast Fire Bolt, a Guardian tackles him from behind.
A woman’s voice yells, “I got him,” as the elvic man pins his cheek to the sandstone brick, using his horns. Hands begin pinning him down before the gloves are taken from his hand. The woman who had yelled got off the top of him and grabbed a potion from her belt. She forces him to take some before a crippling pain shoots through his abdomen.