Ikenvul grunts as his back slams against the wall. He sputters and coughs. One punch would mean nothing, while numerous have taken him out of any fighting position. Once more, after many, many times of holding his hands up in defense, he protests to the smaller folk whom corner him, holding knives and threatening to skewer him should he fight back, “Lads...can’t we talk?” Another cough escapes him, “I don’t have anything else.”
One of the back alley thugs smiles sadistically at him then, holding his knife parallel to the horizon, “C’mon nae.” He says, “Your kind always got summit hidden away!”
Ikenvul blinks a few times, clearing the blood from the fresh cut above his right eye from his vision, but sparsely so. He shakes his head as he speaks to his own assaulter, “No, sir. I don’t. I’ve been nothing but cooperative to you fine folk.”
A second masked brigand steps forward and looks up at Ikenvul, “Tha’s why we’s is so suspicious a’ you, mister! Yer built like uh grizzly bear! You coulda taken half o’ us out if yous wanted to. So why you bein’ so courteous?”
Ikenvul, pushed up against a wall, leans on it for support with both hands, “You uh...wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
The first robber pokes Icks with his knife gently enough not to hurt him, “Try us.”
Ikenvul shrugs softly and turns around as the thunder rumbles in the background, “I believe that the...that the world would be a better place if we were all just better in it. I believe everyone has good and bad, and that we fight one side or the other every day, and that it’s not always our choice, especially if it’s not repetitive.”
The three ‘pocket bandits’ search one another for emotion before the first one just shrugs at the nonsense and lays his fist back into Ikenvul’s face, causing a shivering shatter from Icks’ nose to erupt into the air as droplets begin to pour. A few more punches fly, and Ikenvul’s vision starts to blur and darken. The third voice finally speaks up, and Icks barely catches it as she says, “That’s enough, Sael. We don’t have to kill him to take his things.”
The first assailant, now named but in fleeting memory, allows Ikenvul to slump to the ground as he addresses the last voice, “C’mon Naura, this is Beggar’s alley...It’s not like anyone’s gonna noti-...”
The voice had begun to fade out until everything was dark, the only dream infected in the still living mind of the gentle giant is of the scent of iron.
