The nearly empty whiskey bottle tipped over, clattering against the stones as the young woman rolled over in her sleep. The noise was enough to rouse her from the exhausted stupor and she reached out, groping to right the bottle before it spilled any more of it's precious contents.
Annaliesa pushed herself up on her elbow, her tangled mousey brown hair falling in her face as she pulled the bottle towards her. She smacked her lips, they were dry and her mouth felt like it was full of filthy wool. Grimacing, she ignored the pounding in her head as she lifted the bottle to her lips and took a drink of the remains of the whiskey. Swishing it in her mouth, Annaliesa slowly opened her eyes, slate blue and glazed over. Under her body lay a dagger, keen edged and broad with an ornate hilt. She picked it up, looking closer at it and the broken memories of the last night started to fall together. A brash woman called Haritha, a dwarf, a man who wore a mask and hood indoors, and a crimson Crow.
She lay still for a moment, closing one eye to focus on the blade. It was dwarven craft, that much she could tell and worth more than all the scraps she owned put together. It was at the boar fountain she had taken it once the dark haired woman ran off and the dwarf fell from his perch towards the man that had dared him to climb it before tossing apples at him. With the distraction, Anna had seized the moment and snatched one of the daggers, leaving the heavier axes behind. They would have been worth more but the dwarf was more likely to want those back she assumed. It was just a momentary decision, influenced by whiskey and the sense of mischief the man called Crow had brought with him.
She had walked calmly away, running would have only drawn attention but the man in the hood must have seen her. Annaliesa recalled him following her in and around the alley, all the way up to the scholar stair where she hid behind the bookcase. The hooded man made promises of not telling the Watch and offering her obscene amounts of money for the dagger. She doubted he carried that sort of coin on him though it made her tempted to find out and to test her new dagger's lethality, but that would bring more trouble. When she refused to emerge, he had switched to flattery then to criticism. Then the one in red showed up, and they got into a lengthy discussion of who might have truly been the thief. After squatting in her hiding place long enough to get cramps, she grew tired of listening to them and made a run for it. In her haze of adrenaline and alcohol she had managed to bolt past them and out the door, daring a broken leg by vaulting over the wall.
Sitting up, she pushed her wild hair out of her face and took another sip. Hair of the dog, her father called it and it would have to suit for breakfast as she never did find any food. The dagger could be sold but she would need to find a fence, someone willing to risk buying obviously stolen goods. Someone like that could be found among the denizens of the Alley but she had to be wary, some were informants of the Watch. Rats scurried in Beggar's Alley on four legs and two.
