Smooth Operator

Here's another flash fiction piece from the message board invasion of what the artists are doing. This time the story is based on this picture

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Miesha clung to the ivy along the wall and waited for the light to leave the window. She sidled along the wall on the ledge and crossed the eight feet to the window then wedged the dagger under the frame to pop it up before she could work her fingers underneath and open it. She slid into the gap, closed the window behind her, and moved to the door. As the footsteps moved away into the distance she slowly opened the door and entered the hallway. The servant was three doors down and only halfway down the hall as Miesha tucked herself along the wall and slowly followed along behind him. Eventually he checked all the rooms and made his way down the stairs.

Finally alone Miesha made her way to the master bedroom of the mansion and found the doors locked. An obstacle, but not an insurmountable one. She slipped her picks out of her pouch and slowly worked at the tumblers of the lock until it gave way and she pushed the door open. The moon was shining brightly into the room and all the reflections off polished wood and the shiny metal lying around confirmed that she was in the right room. A vanity held the middle position against one of the walls and Miesha made her way over there and started opening the drawers. The first drawer she opened had a bunch of letters and envelops that she sorted through and found nothing of interest. The second drawer had more letters, but on top was a necklace with a large ruby hung on it. She pushed her hood back and slid it over her neck and lifted her hair up to let the gold chain fall against her neck. Always nice when the haul offered a way to carry it out.

The third drawer was a larger one and when she pulled it open their was a jewelry box inside of it. Miesha lifted it up and a bell started ringing in the distance. She looked down and saw a metal plate under where the box had been. She opened a pouch and quickly dumped drawers of jewelry into it then closed it up and tied it.

The door of the room opened and a man burst in with a sword in his hand. Miesha spun toward him as she drew her dagger and released it as she squared up with him. The blade slid into his neck and blood bubbled around there as he released a soundless scream. She hooked the pouch onto her belt and went over to the man to retrieve her dagger, but it wouldn't come out, apparently lodged into the spine somehow. She took the sword from the ground and opened the window and as she knew from how she planned her entrance there was no easy way to the ground. Miesha could hear a bunch of feet stomping on the stairs as people made her way up so she took a deep breath and jumped out of the window and hit the ground twenty feet below and immediately went into a forward roll, but she definitely felt something tweak in her right ankle.

She got up to her feet and felt the pain in her foot, but kept going and didn't let the pain slow her down, there was enough adrenaline pumping that the pain wasn't too bad, for now. A bunch of people started screaming from the window, but none of them were willing to take the leap, but the noise would attract the city guards. Miesha angled to the left toward the wall and jumped off her left foot and grabbed the rope she had left there. She pulled herself up and levered herself over the wall for another drop although this one was only about eight feet, but her right ankle gave out again and she rolled along the ground before getting to her feet again.

She was reduced to a limping run down the street with the gas lights providing little more illumination than the moon. She was halfway over the first bridge when a pair of guards showed up behind her yelling for her to stop. Miesha ignored them and started going faster trying to ignore the pain in her ankle as she ran. The guards were closing in, but she still had a good amount of distance when she reached the town proper instead of all the rich people houses. She ducked down the first alley she found and clambered up the crumbling bricks to the roof and started moving along the tops of the buildings. The guards started shouting from ground level flummoxed by her disappearance. The city wall to her left was only a couple of buildings away so she ran and made a leap to cross the first gap. Her ankle held up so she kept going and jumped the next, then jumped again and landed on the catwalk of the city wall then jumped again and once again landed hard with a somersault.

Miesha kept up her limp run and made it a good way into the thick forest and was confident she had lost her pursuit and stopped running. She grabbed the pouch of stolen goods and saw a good amount of reflection from the moonlight that trickled through the overgrowth although nothing compared to the ruby on her chest.